For the first three months when they all lived together in the Stark tower no one questioned it's presence. There was no need to, it was perfectly normal to see a discarded rucksack by the doors to the elevator; it looked like someone just walked in and shed it after a hard days work. It was only after Tony had stumbled over it three time did he hold it up and irritably demand to know who's it was and what was in it.
He saw Clint's warning face a second too late before the bag was snatched out his hands by an angry red haired assassin who walked away muttering what he was sure was insults in Russian. He decided he didn't really want to know what was in the bag after all.
~o~o~o~
Clint watched Natasha stalk out of the room warily. He knew she wasn't used to living with other people and he had been sure that the bag had been bound to come up at some point, but he knew that wouldn't stop her from being angry. He decided to give her five minutes before going after her.
In the end he only gave her three before he was striding purposefully to where he knew she'd be, sharpening her knives in her room with a face that promised a bloody and untimely end to any and all who disturbed her. It was a good thing he never heeded warnings. He knocked on her door and took it as a sign to enter when no knife was thrown in his general direction.
"Hey," he said softly, trying his best to sound soothing "it's not his fault, he doesn't know what's in there." He came to rest on the bed beside her and looked at her. His only answer was a glower. "Do you really think he'd have waved it about if he knew what it was?" He asked with an eyebrow raised.
"Probably not, but there's no telling with him." Clint had to restrain a smile when he received an answer, surly though it was. The women next to him still looked angry but at least she had stopped sharpening her knives with quite so much vigour.
"Course he wouldn't." He said easily as he watched his friend from the corner of his eye as some of the tension slowly left her body. Subtly, he catalogued the black rucksack that sat at the end of her bed. Even he didn't know what was really in it but he had a better idea than most.
Inside that single black bag was everything Natasha could possibly need. The idea behind such a thing was to pack everything in it that she could possibly use to execute a quick get away. The items ranged from rolls of currency, to a spare and inconspicuous outfit to a set of army survival rations. Ideally, it was meant to be left at the point of exit so that if need be she could grab it at a moments notice and have everything she needed to survive until she regrouped with SHIELD. It wouldn't always be of use, for instance if she was taken while not at the tower the bag would be useless but the simple provision of having set aside preparations had saved her life more times than she could count. But that wasn't the problem.
If that was all the bag had contained Natasha wouldn't have minded anyone looking through it, but somewhere along the line the bag had become about packing things she couldn't bear to lose; not just what she needed to keep.
It stood to reason that if she ever left a place in such a hurry that she would grab the bag it meant that she would not be coming back. Clint wasn't entirely sure what was in there but he did know that sewn into the lining was her last remaining picture of her parents before they died and if he wasn't very much mistaken an age worn Christmas card from Coulson (if he had to take a guess at why she kept it he would speculate that it was the first card she had ever received and that in some way she saw it as a form of acceptance, and no matter what she did to hide it he knew she had liked Coulson). There weren't a great many material objects that Agent Romanoff couldn't live without but that only made the few she had more precious to her.
The only thing that actually still puzzled Clint at all was why she saw the need to keep it. They had been living with the Avengers for three months in arguably the most secure building in the country; if there was anywhere she should feel safe it was here.
He had said as much to her but her only reply had been another sharp glare that would have quelled a lesser man.
He walked from her room that night understanding that she didn't trust the team enough yet to not have a flight plan but wishing that she could feel safe at least in her own home.
~o~o~o~
Over the next few weeks the black rucksack never made it's way to the elevator doors again but Clint knew that it sat by the only door to her room, ready to grab at a moments notice.
Eventually, the bag slipped from his mind and he found himself enjoying his new life with his friends and team-mates. It felt nice to belong completely and, even though she was incredibly hard to read, he would guess that Natasha was happy too. Or as happy as she ever was, he never really could tell. He did worry for her sometimes, not that he would ever voice it.
He worried that she still felt the need to have an escape plan. He knew her life had been hard and that she had only got where she was today by trusting a very select few, and he was one of the privileged. But he just wished that she could trust the people that had come together to form the most dysfunctional family to ever have existed, not to betray her as countless others had done before.
~o~o~o~
He got the reassurance that he so needed one night when he sat alone in what Tony had dubbed his 'nest'. He sat high in the room rendered invisible by the shadows when he had spotted movement beneath him. Silently, he had shifted to get a better look. What he saw surprised him to no end.
On the floor below Natasha crept with silence and grace until she had reached the bar. For a few seconds she had angled her body so he couldn't see what she doing but it became apparent once she had left and a empty photo frame sat left behind her. Before she had emptied it that frame had held an entire team photo. It was taken when they had all got back from a relatively tiring mission only to find themselves too wired to fall asleep. Instead, they had ordered pizza and drank beer and watched crappy television. They hadn't even realised the photo had been taken until Pepper had laughed and shown them all. It was a simple team moment with Thor and the Captain both looking mildly confused as they tried to work out the premise of the show on the television, Tony with his hands thrown in the air and his face alight with enthusiasm as he told one of his exaggerated stories while Bruce looked on patiently with an amused quirk to his lips and in corner of the photo was Clint and Natasha both quietly watching the antics unfold. They sat closely together, leaning on one another with what could only be described as co-dependency.
All in all, it was just another typical day in the Stark tower and Clint couldn't see why his partner would want such a thing. In the end his curiosity got the better of him. He waited until the next day when Natasha was sent on a solo mission and carefully he walked into her room. He couldn't see the picture anywhere obvious such as hanging up or in the bedside table but just as he turned to leave he caught sight of the black bag leaning conspicuously against the door frame. His curiosity fought his sense of privacy for a minute before he gave in and carefully unzipped the bag. He was sure to note where everything had been so he could put it back in exactly the right place so that she need never know what he had done.
Slowly, he rifled thought the bags contents only to find normal emergency provisions (though he was slightly confused as to how she make all of these items fit into one small bag), he was just about to leave when a splash of colour caught his attention. It was the edge of the photo poking out of the corner of the lining which had been badly sewn back into place. He didn't pull it out, instead he only smiled and put everything back where he found it and made sure that he left everything looking undisturbed, and walked out feeling better than when he had walked in.
He still hoped that one day she might trust the team enough to not have to watch her back within the safety of her own home, but mostly he was glad.
The photo in her bag told him that the team meant more to her than she was comfortable showing, and while it wasn't an open declaration of trust, it was a step in the right direction.
It would have to do. For now.
….
A/N- Thank you for reading and I hoped you enjoyed it! If you did, or even if you didn't, leave a review and let me know what you think!
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