What happens when I get interested in a culture? Why, I begin comparing it to the Avengers, of course... Inspired by part of a quote from the movie.
Disclaimer: It's 1 in the morning, I'm not going to try battling you for copyrights.
you're a spy, not a soldier.
"What are you doing?"
Clint flinches as he slams down the laptop. Natasha is lounging against the doorway to the helicarrier's rec room, arms crossed as she looks at him. "Agent Romanoff- you can't just- why?"
"Why what?" She hoists herself up onto the leather sofa, legs swinging as she regards him with a curious expression.
"How long have you been sitting there?" he demands.
"Long enough to know that your ninja is going to somehow get revived. That's what they all do in the comics, you know. It's like some sort of comic book necessity." She rolls her eyes. "He's not going to stay dead for long-" And then she peers at him. "Are you crying?"
"No," he grumbles, pushing the laptop away from him.
Natasha's been involved with Psych long enough to know that his pushing away of the computer signifies some sort of deep-seated embarrassment involving whatever he was reading. She inwardly rolls her eyes when she finishes that thought, because excuse me, she could do without the psychobabble that she's treated to every time she comes back from a mission.
"It could be a lot worse," she says lightly, still swinging her legs. "You could be looking up pornography or something."
"You wouldn't catch me if that's what I was doing." Clint stands up and begins heading for the fridge.
"Wouldn't I?"
He turns to give her The Look before turning back and opening the fridge with a little more force than necessary. "Don't you have a mission to be on?"
"I finished it." She examines her fingernails.
"You-" He chokes on his pint of milk.
"Surprised?" She suppresses a smirk.
"You surprise me every day," he says dryly. "I've only been partnered with you for five months."
"Have I really been saddled with you for that long?"
He makes a sound that she takes as him laughing into the carton of milk. "Whatever, sweetheart," he drawls when he swallows. "Now get out of here so I can finish reading about my next mission in peace."
She only rolls her eyes as she hops off the sofa and turns to go. "Don't call me sweetheart. And don't think that I can't see you opening up your laptop to continue reading whatever ninja comic you're reading."
"Manga," he yells at her as she leaves the room.
"I don't care," she calls back, letting the door slam.
…
"Samurai."
He looks up from where he's sitting behind a desk. "Sorry?"
"Your comic."
"Manga. What about it?"
"The main character isn't a true ninja. He's a samurai in disguise." Natasha reaches over and pops a chip into her mouth. "How's desk duty going?"
"It's… going." Clint snatches the bowl away when Natasha makes to reach for another one. "Get your own chips, Romanoff."
She only rolls her eyes and leans back in her chair, kicking her feet up so that they're resting on the desk top. "How much longer till you're off the desk duty and back on the field?"
"Couple more days. Might get off early if Coulson decides I'm being good." Clint scowls as his fingers flex, and she recognizes the fact that he's itching to get his fingers on a bow and arrow.
"And are you being good?" she asks serenely, eyeing the bowl.
"Only the best," he says sarcastically. "I've not caused any trouble, haven't shot any computers-"
"-or anybody-"
"I still say that the intern shouldn't have walked through the archery field when I was practicing," Clint declares. "It's not my fault."
"It was enough to get you kicked into desk duty," Natasha drawls. "Clearly the head honcho doesn't like you shooting innocent employees."
"How's the field without my sparkling personality?"
She snorts at that one. "You're more tolerable compared to your stand-in. All he does is talk about cars and sports. I do not care about baseball, nor do I care about what model of car SHIELD is getting next month."
He grins wickedly. "You miss me."
"I said you're more tolerable, not that I miss you."
"Technicalities." He offers her the bowl and she pounces on it like a starved cat. "How'd you know the character was a samurai?"
"He mentions bushido a lot." At Clint's confused stare, Natasha sighs and swallows her chip. "Bushido. You know, the samurai honor code?"
"I missed the day in Japanese culture 101."
"You missed a lot of days," she counters.
"That's true." Clint takes a chip and pops it into his mouth. "But how'd you know? Did you read it?"
She stops with her chip halfway to her mouth, her cheeks coloring the slightest red. At this, Clint's grin reappears and spreads even wider. "Oho, you did!"
"Shut up-"
"The great Natasha Romanoff actually read manga!"
"Shut up, Clint."
"Like I said. You surprise me every day."
She is on her feet, swiping his bowl as she strides from his desk. "I'll tell Fury to keep you on a few more days of desk duty," she shoots over her shoulder. "On second thought, cars and baseball sound a lot more appealing than you crowing over me."
"You read a comic book!" he shouts gleefully after her.
"It's called a manga!" And the door slams.
Clint is put on two more weeks of desk duty, but it's dreadfully worth it to have seen the expression on Natasha Romanoff's face.
…
"Happy birthday," he says grumpily, tossing her a small box.
She catches it deftly. "A birthday present?"
"No, a ticking time bomb." He slouches to the sofa in the rec room and buries his face in his hands. "Who assigns missions at four a.m. in the morning?"
"You're only grumpy because the coffee machine isn't fixed yet," she says, shaking the box cautiously. "Relax, Bird-brain, we'll stop by Starbucks or something."
He scoffs at that one. "I'm sure they'll appreciate a jet landing on their outlet."
"It'll be a great story for their kids someday." Natasha puts the box down. "How did you know today was my birthday?"
"Why, when is your birthday?" When she hesitates, Clint shrugs. "Exactly. I figure you didn't have one, your childhood being robbed by the KGB and all. So happy birthday."
Her mouth twitches despite herself. "You just randomly decided today that it's my birthday?"
"Oh, you don't remember. And I thought women remembered these things." Clint goes to the fridge in desperate hope that somebody- anybody- has left something worth eating behind. He's not particularly keen on landing on a McDonalds and traumatizing them in addition to the Starbucks employees. "A year ago, today was the day that I took pity on you on a darkened rooftop and offered you a chance at a new life. Freedom and all that. Welcome to America." He lets out a grunt of approval when he sees that there is bread in the fridge (forget the why, there's food and right now that's all Clint wants). "If you don't want that then let me know and I'm sure we can hack into SHIELD records."
"Again?" Natasha actually grins at that one. "After the last time we did that, I'm not sure Fury wants us near the computer room anymore." She fingers the box almost thoughtfully. "Thanks, though. Think I'll take you up on that offer."
He turns to face her, already munching on a piece of bread. "You're welcome," he gets out around a mouthful. He knows that she's suppressing the urge to be snarky, to fight against him and say no that's stupid and sentimental and who gave you the right to determine my birthday anyway?. So he appreciates that she's trying to be polite. For once. They've only been partners for close to a year anyway, they could afford to take baby steps.
She sits there and just looks at it and he rolls his eyes, swallowing his bread and reaching for another. "Well, open it. It's not a bomb."
"I-" She clears her throat. "I have to open it? Right now?"
"You've never done this before, have you."
"We don't really celebrate birthdays in the Black Widow program. Or celebrate, for that matter," she adds lamely and though it's not funny he cracks a smile to make her feel better.
"You can open it later," he offers. "When we get back from the mission." She doesn't say it but he doesn't think she needs to because he knows the feeling of savoring your first gift. It's the feeling of feeling special enough to receive something from someone else and for a moment- just for a flicker of a second, he feels sorry for this woman, who has lost such a huge part of her childhood.
Well, he did say that she surprised him every day.
Then it's over, and he pushes himself away from the counter, back to being the businesslike sniper. "Alright. Let's go. We have a Starbucks to terrorize."
"And a mission in Australia," she tacks on.
"Oh, well, that too, but that can come later. Coffee first!"
…
"Happy birthday," she says to him several years later, after Budapest, after Rome, after Sao Paolo, after Loki. The box she hands him is small and gift wrapped in red paper and hey wait a minute, he recognizes the paper.
"That's my wrapping paper," he says indignantly.
"Is it?" She looks genuinely puzzled, but Clint knows better because this is his partner and he can see through her. "How coincidental."
He decides not to continue calling her out on it (he's tried that before and goodness that got exhausting after several hours). "What is it?" he asks as he shakes the present.
"I think you have to open it to find out," she says dryly.
"Oh, so you're the expert in birthday presents now, are you?" He makes to tear the wrapping paper but catches himself before he does so. Instead, he reaches for a penknife and begins cutting at the edges slowly, painstakingly, making sure he doesn't tear a hole in the wrapping paper.
Finally, Natasha reaches over, takes the penknife and neatly slices the paper open. "You were getting impatient," she says in response to Clint's noise of surprise. "The vein in your head was beginning to throb and-"
"I hate it when you read me," he grumbles, but his voice dies away when he opens the box to find a small miniature doll in it. "Why, that's…"
"The samurai from your manga," she says gently.
He laughs, though out of surprise from anything else. "You… I can't believe you remembered my favorite manga from years ago."
"Well," she smiles, "I do still have the ninja miniature you gave me the first birthday I had."
"You do?" He is really surprised now. "I'd figured you'd tossed it."
"Just because you didn't see it in my room doesn't mean that I've thrown it away," she says somewhat indignantly. "I have a heart!"
He visibly flinches at the word and she sighs inwardly, remembering the circumstances associated with that word and Loki. "Anyway. The samurai reminded me of you and I saw it the last solo mission I was on so…"
"The last solo mission you had was a year ago." He tilts his head. "What were you doing holding on to a present for that long?"
"Saving it for a rainy day." Her tone is neutral, carefully innocent to the average listener, but both Clint and Natasha know what it really means.
It means, I was saving it for if I ever needed to remind you of who you really are. If you ever lost yourself. If I ever lost you.
"So," he says at last when the silence has stretched itself, "why the samurai?"
Natasha raises an eyebrow. "Why the ninja?"
"Answer my question first."
She lets the coffee machine finish beeping (a little too noisily in the six a.m. silence of the Stark Tower) before she answers. "I don't know. The samurai… well. Remember how I told you about bushido?"
"The way of the warrior?" When Natasha only stares at him, Clint grins. "I did a little bit of research after you mentioned it that one time."
She eyes him as she gets up to make herself a cup of coffee. "Well then, you know this. The samurai utilized bushido in their practices, their fighting style, their values. Stresses loyalty, honor, conduct of oneself with fairness, compassion and what have you." The machine seems to rumble contentedly as she wraps her hand around the handle and pours herself a cup of coffee. "And I… well, the part about compassion just reminded me of you."
She sees it then, sees him see the flashback of him firing the arrow that probably helped kill several people. Thirty seven people was the unofficial number of deaths on the helicarrier- and though Hill and Fury hadn't put it on the report (and no one else did because it was either going to be Fury, Hill or Natasha who would kill them), the phrase because of Agent Barton was always going to be mentally tacked on.
"Right." His tone barely breaks, but it's there. "Compassion."
"Don't." She brings him his coffee- two sugars, three teaspoons of milk, just the way he likes it. "Don't do this to yourself. And me. We've been through this. We've all been through this. We outmaneuvered Psych and they've finally stopped leaving me messages asking me to come in, so don't pull yourself back into that spiral."
Clint grins with some difficulty, but he tries. It's a start, a change from the Clint five months ago who would have walked away with a tightened jaw and several sleepless nights to come. "So you see me as a samurai- a soldier."
"A soldier who took pity on someone he was supposed to kill once." Natasha pours herself another cup of coffee. "If that's not compassion, I don't know what is. And loyalty? No one questions it."
The word 'anymore' hangs in the air, but Clint doesn't question it. He knows. He knows, of course, that there are still people whispering about him. That people resigned from their jobs because of him. That Fury fired people because they refused to accept Clint's return. But he also knows that the loyalty Natasha speaks of isn't loyalty to SHIELD, or loyalty to the law.
It's the loyalty to his friends- to the Avengers, to the director, to Natasha herself- that keeps him an honorable person.
She's sitting down opposite him now, the box lying open between them. "So why the ninja?" she asks semi-playfully, changing the subject.
Because she almost broke all the rules trying to get him back. Because Natasha Romanoff doesn't like playing by the rules. She's flexible, fluid like water, doing better in disguise than in a battlefield.
Clint says none of these things.
"Oh. Um." He scratches his head. "I just thought that you're the spy, so you'd be a ninja. Changeable, adaptable, skilled in all sorts of weapons." He chooses to ignore the fact that he just made it up on the spot (he really just gave her a ninja at the time to continue making fun of her), and instead perks up at the last mention of weapons. "Can you throw a shuriken?"
"Haven't tried in a couple years, but probably."
"Twenty bucks says you can't hit a target more than fifty yards away."
"You're on."
"I'll be there in a few minutes," Clint says as Natasha gets up to go, her coffee forgotten. "I'm going to put this away, and then I'm going to earn myself twenty bucks."
"Deal." Natasha smirks. "As for the twenty bucks I'm going to get from you, I might just buy the new issue of the manga coming out next month."
"Only if you share."
Clint only gets a scoff in reply.
…
Natasha wins the twenty bucks- handily- and true to her word, does order the newest issue.
Tony strolls in one day, waving the small book around. "I say, who ordered a comic book?"
"'I say'?" Bruce looks up from his papers. "What are you now, British?"
"That would be mine," Natasha says breezily as she strolls by and snatches it from Tony's hand.
"For future reference, it's called a manga," Clint adds.
"Wha-" Tony stares at the both of them as though they've finally gone insane. "You two are full blown assassins and you mean to tell me that you're reading a comic book?"
"Manga," Natasha and Clint say simultaneously.
Tony opens his mouth to say something- something snarky, no doubt- but Bruce, sensing that a storm might brew between Natasha and Tony again, takes his chance to steer Tony away from the kitchen into the corridor leading to the lab area. "Better don't say anything," he advises. "You do sleep in this tower, after all."
"A comic book, though, Banner-"
"Yes I know." Bruce steers Tony into a room where a huge machine is looming, ready to be tinkered and worked on. "What they do is their own business. And this is ours."
"Who knew Natasha read comic books?" Bruce sighs inwardly at Tony's question because he can almost see the devious, mischievous gears turning in Tony's head; he makes a note to tell Pepper so she can do damage control. "I mean, Banner- think of the possibilities-"
"They surprise us every day, Tony, but let's not surprise them… they're rather trigger happy…" There's just no sense talking to him, Bruce decides, and promptly gives up.
Tony shows up the next morning with a bruise on his wrist and an unusually docile air around him.
Bruce can't help but chuckle when he hears Tony refer to it as a 'manga' after that, and he never does it in the vicinity of either Clint or Natasha. He does wonder, however, why Clint is the only one allowed to call Natasha a ninja and get away with it.
The ending's a bit choppy, I got super tired at 1.30 a.m. in the morning... as always, reviews are appreciated.
Much love,
ohlookrandom