Author's note: My first Avengers fanfic. (I haven't even seen the movie yet, but this idea was a bit too tantalizing to lose.) Please tell me if everyone is in character, and enjoy!
Misleading Packaging
He wasn't eavesdropping. Not at all.
He just couldn't help but overhear.
Clint Barton grinned as he listened to the sounds from the gym. Shamelessly, he grabbed the iPod from his pocket and recorded the dialogue. Wouldn't Lonsley and Hill just love this.
"No, Natasha, you need to—ow!" It wasn't a cry of pain. More like an outraged protest.
Swearing in Russian coming from inside the gym. Clint's grin grew. Then Natasha streaked by him, followed more slowly by Steven Rogers.
"Barton, she kicked me," said Steve. As if Clint could actually control the Black Widow. Clint shrugged.
"So?"
"Your partner kicked me," Steve repeated. "In the shin." Clint didn't mean to burst out laughing. He couldn't help it. Steve's aggreiviated tone was just too much. Steve gave him a look—some help you are!—and went off after Natasha. Clint followed, grinning like a March hare. He had to see the rest of this.
"Natasha," Steve said patiently, as he caught up with the wiry Russian, who had fled to the main room on that particular floor and was sitting in the rafters. "Calm down. I didn't mean to upset you or anything." Natasha threw out a few choice epithets in Russian. Steve gauged the distance and cleared most of it in a single smooth leap. Natasha scowled at him.
"Speak English, Romanoff, I know you can." Steve sat down on the girder with an ease that almost made Clint envious. "Now. We're going to talk about what happened back there." All business. The aggreiviated tone from mere moments before was gone. "We need to work on our teamwork." Captain America took a deep breath. "I think the best way to do that would be for you to instruct me in something first. Then we can continue with the original lesson." Natasha smirked and flipped lightly down from the rafter to land by Clint, smirking. Steve dropped, surprisingly lightly, to the floor.
"Have you ever picked a lock, Cap?" the assassin/spy asked. Steve shook his head.
"Only a couple of times. Normally, I would just kick the door down." Clint snorted.
"Yeah, like that's not obvious."
"Doing subtle is hard when you're fighting Hydra, which doesn't do understated," Steve retorted.
"You have a point," Clint admitted.
"Mis-labeled packaging," Steve said under his breath. Natasha looked at him, genuinely confused.
"I'm sorry?" she asked, curiously.
"Misleading packaging," Steve repeated, louder this time. "Both form and function dictate that nothing can be pretentious. Everything has to be relevant to purpose." Natasha shrugged.
"People don't come from button molds, you know," she said.
"Still, you could give the rest of us fair warning," Cap argued. Natasha grinned, ferally.
"Where's the fun in that?"
"Guys," Clint said. "I don't think it's exactly that the packaging is misleading. I think sometimes people don't see what's there."
"That doesn't mean we should use their blindness for our own benefit," Steve countered.
"All of us are a little misleading," Natasha said. She nodded to Clint. "No matter how curmudgeonly he acts, he's got a heart." Clint grinned mischievously.
"Aw, you've revealed my secret," he said, staggering dramatically. Steve rolled his eyes.
"And don't tell me no one was surprised when you turned out a superhero," Natasha said, pointing the blunt end of a pen at Steve.
"I suppose that's true," Steve admitted. "Still, that spark is there in everyone. It just takes someone special to see it." The three of them were silent, thinking of their mentors. A scientist and a secret agent, both willing to fight the system for their less-than-promising protégés.
"Hooray for mentors," Steve said, softly.
"And for people who aren't exactly what it says on the packaging," added Natasha.