Clint and Natasha's Annual Prank War (Clintasha)

Everyone in Stark Tower knew that the moment December 1st rolled around, it was time to hide. Natasha and Clint were about to start their annual prank war.

"Nat!" Clint howled on the morning of the first day. Natasha had taped saran wrap over the toilet. Clint was now standing in the bathroom with urine soaking into his pajama bottoms. Natasha popped her head in the doorway, a wolf-like grin playing on her lips.

"Yes?"

Clint narrowed his eyes. "You're so dead."

"Someone is ambitious today."

"Uh-huh. Come here. Let me spread some love."

"Uh, no. Back off, Edward Urine Hands."

"No, seriously, come here." Clint started walking towards Natasha, his hands outstretched. Natasha leapt out of his way.

"If you touch me, I will break your neck." She threatened. Both of them knew that she was bluffing.

Clint raced forward. Natasha swept his legs out from under him without thinking. As he dropped down to the floor in an inelegant heap, Natasha raced for the privacy of her own bathroom. She was certain that her leg had touched a damp patch at the bottom of Clint's pajama pants and she needed to bathe as soon as possible.

As she showered, she thought of the other pranks that she had set up. She had…

-swapped the salt and the sugar (a classic trick, but a good one)

-swapped the labels from Clint's peanut butter and Steve's gross protein spread

-changed JARVIS' language setting to Norman French

-stuck Mjolnir on top of the leftover pizza box in the fridge

-painted all of Clint's bedroom walls an obnoxious green that would glow in the dark and disrupt his daily afternoon nap.

Somehow, though, none of that felt like enough.

After showering, she crept out of the bathroom. She was wary of any possible pranks that Clint might have set up while she was in the bathroom. She was surprised and almost disappointed when she made it all the way to her bedroom without any abnormalities.

Until she went to put on her clothes, that is.

None of them fit. It was like she had walked into an eight year-old's room. She couldn't even get her feet into the jeans that she had worn just yesterday. She dug through all of her drawers, yanking out every article of clothing that she could find, anything that might fit. At the bottom of a drawer was a picture of Clint grinning from ear to ear and shooting the camera the finger guns.

Oh, she was going to kill him.

"Clint!" She stormed out of her room in just her underwear. She nearly collided with Steve and Bucky as she did so.

"Oh." Steve's face turned bright red. He averted his eyes. Bucky did not. He just smirked. "Ah, Nat, I don't think -"

"What the fuck?" Clint's voice came from the direction of the kitchen. Natasha didn't wait for Steve to finish his awkward rambling. She stormed into the kitchen, fully intending to beat the living shit out of her boyfriend until he told her where her clothes were.

In the kitchen, Clint was holding what he thought was his peanut butter and a spoon. He looked like he was either going to burst into tears or vomit. Despite the fact that she was undressed and frustrated about her loss of clothing, she couldn't help but smirk.

"Problem?" She asked.

Clint looked away from Steve's protein spread to Natasha. His offended glare immediately turned into a self-satisfied grin. He broke out laughing.

"Ohohoho. Don't you look beautiful this morning?"

Natasha smirked back. "Where are my clothes?"

"In your room. Like always. It's not my fault you didn't put them on."

"Very funny. Where are my real clothes?"

"Where's my real peanut butter?"

Natasha shrugged and smirked. She wasn't going to let Clint off the hook so easily. Clint let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head.

"Fine. I'll just cleanse my palate with some pizza."

"You are so refined."

Clint glared at her without much malice as he trudged towards the fridge. He opened the door and paused. Slowly, he turned to look at Natasha. There was murder in his eyes.

"My pizza." He had never sound so hurt.

"What's wrong?" Natasha asked in the most innocent tone she could manage.

"You." Clint turned around and glowered at her. "How did you do this? How did you even lift that thing?"

"What? Like it's hard?"

Clint frowned. "I'm going to get you for this."

"Really? Are you?" Natasha asked, arching an eyebrow. "The only thing that you've done so far is take my clothes."

"And we all thank you for that." Tony called from the living room. There was the sound of hands meeting - probably Tony and Bucky high fiving - and Steve's distinct voice grumbling "perverts". Natasha didn't take her eyes off of Clint.

"I don't think that's all I did." Clint responded smugly.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Yeah? What else did you do? Turn the water pressure to a slightly different setting? Sprinkle dirt near my shoes?"

"Have you looked in the mirror this morning?"

"No...why? What did you do?" Now Natasha was worried.

"Don't tell her, Clint. It's better this way!" Bucky called from the living room. Tony laughed.

"What did you do?" Natasha demanded a bit louder.

Clint handed over one of Tony's ridiculously shiny bowls. Natasha searched for her reflection. When she found it, she was horrified. Her hair was no longer red. It was the most disgusting shade green that she had ever seen.

"Oh my god." She touched her hair, unable to believe that it was real.

"Run, Clint." Bucky called.

For once in his life, Clint listened. He took off running before Natasha could finish processing what had happened. When she did process it, she sat down at the kitchen table and set to work.

While Clint was hiding in his room, she coated the outside of his door with saran wrap. When he tried to sneak out, he ran straight into it and found himself tangled up in the frustratingly sticky plastic. Struggling against it just made it worse. Natasha heard his frustrated noises and immediately leapt into action. She reinforced the wrapping with duct tape, stuck a strip on his mouth for good measure, and topped it off with a bow sitting at the top of his blond head. Clint glowered at her.

"Mmmf-mm." He said, his voice muffled and distorted by the duct tape.

Natasha smiled and stepped over his body into his bedroom. "Don't mind me. I'm just looking for something to wear. I can't find anything in my closet."

"Mmmm." Clint grumbled.

Natasha just smirked as she dug through his closet. Eventually she found an oversized button down that he usually wore on Thanksgiving - he called it his "eating shirt". She rolled up the sleeves and bunched it at the waist with a ribbon. It wasn't exactly couture, but it would do.

Next, Natasha took advantage of the fact that Clint was temporarily immobilized and grabbed every cup that she could find in the kitchen. She filled each of them with water and placed them outside of Clint's door. Clint was forced to watch as the entire hallway was filled with cups full of water. It took Natasha about two hours to trap Clint, but it was well worth it. It would take him much longer to get out of the hallway - if he ever did.

"Mmmm." Clint growled as she finished.

"Have a nice nap." Natasha grinned, turning on her heel and sauntering off in the direction of the living room. Clint wouldn't be able to prank her for another few hours and she had some wrapping to do.

It took about an hour and a half for Bruce to emerge from the lab and take pity on Clint. Everybody else had just passed by and laughed at him. Even Agent Coulson had just shaken his head and proceeded to the conference room for a meeting with Steve and Bucky.

"Ugh," Bruce had said when he noticed Clint's distress. "Are you two pranking each other again? Why do you keep doing this to yourself? Why do you keep doing this to me? It isn't good for my temper, you know."

"Don't help him, Bruce!" Natasha called out.

"How long has he been here?" Bruce asked in exasperation.

"Mmmm! Mmm!" Clint answered loudly.

"I don't know. An hour? Maybe two? I've been busy."

"Natasha." Bruce admonished. "You can't just leave people laying around the Tower bound and gagged. What if he had to use the bathroom?"

"Then he would have had to clean it up. Double score." Natasha replied with a grin.

"This is cruelty. I'm letting him go. Help me get rid of all of this water." Bruce sighed.

"I don't think so." Natasha answered thoughtfully. "I've got other stuff to do."

For once, Natasha was being honest. She did have other stuff to do. She slunk off before either Clint or Bruce could see where she was going. She was going to the kitchen. She was going to hide in the pantry and wait until Clint tried to look for his peanut butter, then she was going to jump out and scare the everloving shit out of him as her one last prank. She hoped that the surveillance cameras captured the stupid look on his face when she surprised him.

There was one problem with Natasha jumping out to scare Clint: Clint did not know that she was hiding and had decided to tuck himself away in the small space between the top of the fridge and the ceiling. He was planning on scaring Natasha when she came into the kitchen to grab a diet Coke. She couldn't go more than a few hours without a soda. The woman was an addict.

As it turned out, Natasha could go more than a few hours with soda. Clint stayed above the fridge for nearly five hours. He was growing progressively sore and progressively frustrated with the situation.

Where the hell was she? What was she up to? Clint began to run through worst-case scenarios. Maybe she was in his bedroom, finding more things to mess up. Maybe she was changing out his shampoo for revenge on her green hair. She did look pretty with green hair, though. Clint sighed and rolled her eyes. She would look pretty with any colored hair. She would look pretty bald. She was just intimidatingly gorgeous.

And she was a ruthless prankster.

Maybe she was setting his room on fire. Maybe she had paid Tony to wire everything in his room differently. Maybe she had paid Steve to turn every piece of furniture in his room upside down. Wait, that was a brilliant idea. If she hadn't done that, he would.

Wait.

There were footsteps in the kitchen. Natasha was finally coming to get her diet Coke.

Maybe not.

She walked right past the fridge to the sink. Clint couldn't see her, but he could hear her shuffling footsteps. The sink. Well, that wasn't the ideal location, but jumping out would still scare her. He waited until she had shuffled to the kitchen island to leap out from where he was standing.

"AH!"

Oh.

It was Bruce.

It was Bruce and Natasha had leapt out from the kitchen pantry.

She had been hiding, too.

They exchanged startled expressions that quickly altered into horrified ones.

They had startled Bruce.

"Ack!" Bruce groaned, kneeling to the ground. His skin was turning that all-too-familiar shade of green. Natasha and Clint stared at each other with wide eyes.

"Run." Natasha suggested. Clint nodded stupidly.

They both took off running, screaming at the top of their lungs that the Hulk had been unleashed. JARVIS was all but useless, as he was still programmed to speak Norman French. Admittedly, had the Hulk not been chasing after them, hearing JARVIS' frantic French warnings would have been funny. At present, they were terrifying.

"What did you do?" Steve demanded, emerging from his room.

"We fucked up. We fucked up." Clint responded breathlessly.

"Aw, shit." Steve grumbled, running a hand through his hair. "Tony. We've got another Code 14."

"So what did we learn today?" Tony demanded, pacing the length of the living room. Natasha and Clint were seated on the couch like two children being scolded by their mother. Both of them looked down at their shoes.

Steve materialized by Tony's side. "What were you guys thinking? You could have gotten us all killed! Bucky and I were - I mean - nobody was prepared to deal with the Hulk. Poor Bruce is still afraid to leave his room."

Natasha's mouth curved into a slight smirk. "What was it that you and Bucky were doing?"

Clint laughed. Catching the dark look that crossed Steve's face, he disguised it as a cough.

"The prank war ends today." Steve said decisively.

"Of course, Steve." Natasha lied.

"Completely over." Clint chimed in.

"Good." Tony said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and nodding. "I'm glad that's settled. Now that it is, I've got to show you guys the surveillance footage. I had JARVIS take a few screenshots of it. I think we should use the pictures for our Christmas card."

"Really? I've got to see the pictures. Where are they?" Clint asked, looking around eagerly.

"Tony." Steve chastised, shaking his head.

"Fine." Tony sighed. He redirected his attention to Clint and Natasha and tried to frown. "No more pranks. End of story."

"End of story." Clint and Natasha echoed. Tony glanced at Steve. Steve nodded. They both exited the room before Tony could encourage Clint and Natasha any further. Once they were out of sight, Clint and Natasha turned to face each other.

"Beginning of story, right?" Clint asked.

"Of course." Natasha replied. "I say we start with Steve, then move to Tony, then Thor. We could probably get Bucky to help us as long as we promise not to hurt Steve."

Clint grinned. "Let's get started."

Okay. I'm home from Christmas Eve with the family. I've got a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps, a cheesy Christmas playlist, and the ugliest Christmas sweater that you've ever seen. You know what that means: Avengers Christmas Oneshots. I'm going to be posting various oneshots tonight and tomorrow (maybe even after Christmas is over - who knows). Each one will have its pairings labelled so you can sift through whatever ones aren't your jam. Enjoy!