Stealing Away
In which a small town in Tennessee will never be the same.
I got a lot of requests to mingle Clint & Natasha with Thor & Jane, and this silly interlude is the result. It was supposed to be short and silly. It is turning out to be LONG and silly. Here is part one, because it has entirely gotten away from me. I'm exploring a new tactic in that the story is told from EVERYONE'S point of view. There will be smut and kink, so read at your own risk!
Jane
The work she's doing is fascinating. It's so exciting to work with her colleagues. She's always known Erik's was a keen mind, and has loved working with him for years, but adding Tony Stark and Bruce Banner to the mix has been like rubbing elbows with Edison on many levels. Some days, she can still hardly believe it's real. Every day is a new adventure. Every night kind of is too, for entirely different reasons, but that's beside the point.
She loves her work. She does. She loves being here, being part of this amazing team of people, who somehow manage not to make her feel ordinary and dull. And yet, there is a small part of her that chafes at the restriction of having this building be her whole world now. It's a big building. There is a lot to see and do and explore inside it. And she's reasonably sure that now that he's discovered the internet, life with Thor is *never* gonna get old. The liquid latex had been…interesting. She'd drawn the line at horsetail butt plugs. She doesn't know what happened to it. Doesn't want to know. She's so happy it almost makes her stupid with it sometimes. And yet…
And yet sometimes she wishes, just a little bit, to just go out and do something completely normal with him. Wishes that seemed a little less impossible. Who and what he is makes it pretty impossible. He doesn't know how to stop being those things. Hell, she doesn't *want* him to stop being those things. But if she learned anything from their trip to Wal Mart (well, aside from the fact that Thor can eat an entire box of chocolate chip cookies in about 15 seconds flat, how to butcher an ox correctly, that red sheets don't show bloodstains as badly as white, not to buy the last dinette set on the end of the aisle, and that they can come hard enough to take out not just a dressing room but an entire supercenter…) it is that Thor and the general public just don't mix very well. So she's happy, and her work is wonderful, but now and then, she wishes.
She dares to say something about it to Natasha, who came home from a trip to Russia with Hawkeye a few weeks ago and who has, since then, become a lot less saturnine. One might even venture sociable. If one didn't mind risking being disemboweled with a soup spoon.
"Do you ever wish you could go out and do something just…totally mundane and normal?" she asks. They're eating croissants and drinking coffee in what has become their favorite eatery to hang out, since hardly anyone else comes here. Jane doesn't think Natasha would sit and come so close to chatting with her if other people spent a lot of time here.
"You mean…like go shopping or something?" Natasha asks guardedly. From her expression it is clear that if the answer is yes, Natasha would prefer having several teeth pulled without novicaine to shopping of any kind.
"No…" says Jane, quick to reassure her that shopping threats are not what she has in mind. "I mean you and Hawkeye. You know, like a regular date."
"Do I still get to bone him upside down in a bondage swing afterwards?" asks Natasha shrewdly. Jane wonders why she ever even tries to ask the Black Widow any goddamn thing.
"If you promise not to tell me about it…yes," she says faintly.
"Excellent. I'm telling him the bondage swing was your idea after I have it installed," she says snarkily. Jane chokes on her coffee.
"You're a horrible friend," gasps Jane. Natasha smacks her helpfully on the back.
"Serves you right for letting him borrow Thor's floggers," she says smugly. "But to answer your question, I don't suppose I ever thought about it before. Now that you mention it, I don't guess it would be terrible to go do something normal people do, that doesn't involve killing anybody or risking our own deaths or breaking international laws. Why, what did you have in mind?"
"Oh. Um. I don't guess I had anything in mind really. I mean, Thor's not exactly 'normal' date material. The last time we went out in public, every law enforcement organization in several states and half the federal government showed up to clean up the mess. I just wondered if you ever missed doing normal stuff. I kind of do, even though being here is amazing and all. I know we can't go out for pizza or to a movie or anything, I just…well, every now and then I wish we could."
"Why can't you?" says Natasha practically. "Is anyone stopping you?"
"I…well you've heard about what happened when we tried to go shopping," protests Jane.
"Um hm. Serves you right for trying to force shopping on anyone, let alone an ancient warrior god. What does that have to do with going on a date?"
"I don't think Fury would let us," says Jane glumly. "Besides, Thor would probably set the restaurant on fire by accident when he decided to show the cook how to roast an ox, or flood the movie theater."
"Well….yes…if you couldn't somehow manage to prevent yourselves from fucking in the back of the theater," agrees Natasha, who does these things just to mortify her. She is a very mean person. But when she gets up to leave, laughing at Jane's mortified expression, she looks thoughtful.
Natasha
"Do you ever think we ought to be going out and doing normal stuff like dating?" she asks casually. Hawkeye freezes in the process of putting on his pants, which, since he has one leg partway in, causes him to fall over. He looks at her from the floor with a wary expression on his face.
"Is this a trick question?" he asks.
"No."
"You say that now, but if I answer it wrong, are you going to tear out my throat with your pinkie?" he demands, rolling to his feet and taking a defensive stance, which, she thinks, is ridiculously cute when he's only wearing half his pants.
"There's no right or wrong answer, Barton. It's just a question."
"Why? Why would you ask me this? I don't know, Tash. I like things pretty damn well just the way they are. Or were. Now I'm going to be asking myself if I'm not supposed to be buying you flowers, or taking you for fucking canoe rides in Central Park, or buying tickets to Wicked. Jesus."
"God. No. Do you even know how to canoe?"
"Yes."
"Huh. Who knew. Anyway, stop acting like I'm going to tear you limb from limb. I only asked because Jane said she wished they could go out on a normal date sometime, and they can't."
"Why can't they?" he asks, mystified.
"That's what I said! She doesn't think Fury would let them. And she doesn't think it would be safe anyway. Thor can be kind of…"
"Literal?"
"There's a word." God, she's glad he gets her.
"Natasha…oh my god, you're having friend thoughts!" he cries triumphantly, at which she is forced to hit him, which causes him to fall down again, only this time he manages to take her with him, and since he's already only partly wearing pants anyway, it's a foregone conclusion what happens next. While he's hammering away at her like he's made of springs, he makes sure he has her hands trapped tightly above her head before he pants,
"Where are we taking them?"
"Haven't decided yet," she gasps, and leans up and bites him on the nipple. He groans, and drops the subject entirely.
Thor
They're sitting in one of the common rooms watching a baseball game, the rules of which he has grasped much more easily than he's able to grasp such concepts as unemployment and American Idol. Clint and Natasha have joined them once again this evening. This pleases him. He likes both of them very much, especially Hawkeye (who he has long since learned to stop calling Eye of Hawk, thank you very much) because they seem to like a great many of the same things. He's not stupid. He knows he's not in touch with the way a lot of things work on this planet. Some of the others tend to make him feel ridiculous about it. Especially Stark, who he thinks really does this because he's jealous. He believes that Hawkeye sees past his immortal and rather powerful physique to the man he is underneath. He thinks this is because of all of the other Avengers, only Hawkeye has ever seen him when he was weak and mortal and devastated by loss. He thinks also that Hawkeye likes the fact that he is the only one of them who truly knows what it is like to be a victim of one of Loki's terrible whims. There was much turmoil in the smaller man, following the Battle of New York (this is what the reporters are calling it on the television). He knows that in some way, Natasha resolved this for him, and that since that time they have been lovers. He approves of this. They are well suited for one another. Jane likes them both too. He's glad, because he thinks she misses having regular friends. He has completely uprooted her life, since he fell out of the sky and she hit him with her camper. He tries not to feel guilty about this, but he knows there are some things she misses. He is pulled from his reverie by a commercial. The concept of commercials was another which was not easy to grasp. He can't understand why people feel such a need to misrepresent things, to in fact outright lie, in order to make a profit. This commercial fascinates him though. In it, several people wearing almost no clothing at all, and of ages running the gamut from barely out of infancy to mature adulthood, are hurling themselves with seeming enjoyment down brightly colored tubes filled with rushing water. At the terminus of these tubes, they are ejected with great force into a large pool of some sort. As the commercial continues, the people ride on strange large pillows atop heaving waves. They are laughing rather than screaming, so he assumes they are enjoying themselves as opposed to drowning. Later the people eat what looks to be a sumptuous banquet. Then they whack at small brightly colored spheres with silver sticks, and laugh when the spheres fall into holes in the ground, lost to them. Then there are pictures of mountains so ancient and lovely they take his breath away.
"What is that place?" he asks. The others, who have been talking during this astonishing commercial, glance at the screen.
"I think it's somewhere in Tennesee," says Barton, frowning.
"Gatlinburg," says Natasha. "Isn't that some kind of tourist town?"
"It's in the Smoky Mountains," supplies Jane.
"This is a real place, not another misrepresentation like so many other of your commercials?" he asks guardedly.
"It's a real place," agrees Clint. "I don't know how accurate the commercial is. I've never been there."
"Neither have I," says Jane. "But it looked like fun."
"Fascinating," he says. "I shall go there someday, and find out."
"Fascinating," agrees Natasha, and looks thoughtfully at Hawkeye, who looks thoughtfully back at her.
Clint
"How did you get cleared to do this?" He asks her curiously as he crams a pair of jeans into a duffle bag. Not that he's not looking forward to it, he just wonders.
"You doubt my powers of persuasion?" The look she slants him is narrow and calculating. Jesus, he adores her. Ridiculously.
"In the interest of keeping all the extraneous bits of my anatomy intact, not at all," he assures her quickly. "But since I don't think you tortured Fury or Coulson, nor did you suck either of them off, I just wondered."
"How do you know I didn't suck one of them off? Or both of them. I've done it in the interest of completing a mission before," she says shrewdly. She's baiting him. He drops the duffle bag, does a forward roll over the bed to where she's standing, watching him pack, and shoves her up against the opposite wall. Her pupils dilate.
"Trying to make me jealous, Romanoff?" he asks softly, his mouth inches from hers, smiling. "Want me to tell you that if you ever even thought of it, I would chain you to my bed and beat you so hard you'd spend two weeks eating your meals standing up and sleeping on your stomach? That I'd give that traitorous mouth of yours something else to do besides work on another man? That if you shared that sweet pussy with anybody else…outside mission necessity of course….that I would spank it so hard you'd cry when I fucked you for a week afterwards…and that I would fuck you…every day….over and over….until you learned who you were screwing with?" He's now given himself a raging hard-on talking to her like this, and somewhere during his diatribe, her lips have parted slightly and her heart pounds so hard he can feel it, and her breath shudders in and out.
"I was just trying to get a rise out of you," she gasps. "But now…fuck yes."
He leans in close to her ear, pressing his body against hers, letting her feel how hard she makes him. Shit, it's like a drug, what they do to each other. He doesn't know if they'll ever get tired of it or not. He doesn't think so. He thinks she's in his skin, in his blood and his guts and buried to the fucking hilt in his heart like a blade he can't ever remove. He doesn't want to. He thinks the wanting is terminal, and that as long as he breathes, he'll be doing so for her. That as long as he breathes, he'll crave her like an addict.
"I'll make sure to bring the toy bag," he whispers. "Did you happen to request soundproofing when you booked the place?"
"It wasn't one of the options," she says, pressing herself back against him too.
"Mm. Too bad. Guess Jane and Thor get to enjoy listening to you scream," he says, nipping her ear and then reversing the roll back across the bed to finish packing. She shoots him a dirty look.
"Fine. You get the first night. We'll see what they say about listening to you begging for mercy the second night," she says with a smirk.
"I'll make sure to make it loud," he says agreeably. He doesn't care. Let her broadcast it on fucking YouTube if she wants. There's no shame for him in anything they do. He hopes she's not ashamed either. He knows what they have together, the things they like, are unconventional. That a lot of people would call them sick, say they needed help, that their relationship was abusive at worst and just deviant at best. Those people can fuck themselves. They'll never see that there's nothing wrong with him or Tasha because a little violence and pain does it for them. They'll never understand that he can adore her and brutalize her at the same time, or that when she hurts him it makes him feel more alive. They won't see the respect and caring underneath the violence. They'll never understand that no matter what does occur in their bedrooms (and bathrooms and living rooms and kitchens and hallways and gyms and dojos and that one time in the control room at 3 a.m. when Fury was asleep and they told the tech on duty to take a break for half an hour…) is ONLY ever consensual and that though they may push each other's limits, they will never violate them. Fuck 'em all. She's his princess, his filthy slut, his Mistress, his tormentor, his fucking salvation too. He pulls the black bag where they keep all the fun stuff out from under the bed, checks it to make sure everything's there. Good to be prepared.
"To answer your earlier question though," she says, and he's gratified to hear that her voice is still just a little bit breathless, "I told Fury we were going to take Thor to White Sands where there's enough room, and see if we can actually clock him, and see if he can outfly an F22, also test some of Mjolnir's capabilities in a controlled setting in one of the test towns out there they have set up for ordnance testing. Maybe shoot a couple of rockets at him if he's up for it."
"You lied to Nick Fury?!"
"I lie to Fury all the time," she says coolly. "He keeps asking me where I'm getting the bruises. Next time though, I'll tell him. In detail."
"Next time I'll make sure they're all where he can't see them," he says cheerfully. She snorts, and leaves the room to go warm up the helijet. He throws the rest of his stuff in the duffel and follows her.
Jane and Thor are already on the roof. Jane looks adorable in pink capris and a sleeveless white blouse and a goofy big hat. She's almost bouncing she's so excited, though he can see lines of worry on her forehead. Thor's looking at her indulgently, holding both their bags and her laptop and a camera case and Mjolnir (he's not wearing his armor so it doesn't have a place to hang on his black jeans) and two camp chairs and a cooler (that may or may not be empty) and a picnic basket and an umbrella and Jane's purse like they all weigh nothing. Clint hides his smile and slides on his gargoyle shades so they won't see the amusement in his eyes. Thor is occasionally touchy about being laughed at, though he's made leaps and bounds in understanding the difference between ridicule and friendly banter. Natasha's already in the pilot's seat. God, spy chicks are hot. The flight better not be too long.
"Where are we going?" asks Jane, for about the thousandth time since Natasha told them they were taking a weekend trip together. Natasha doesn't hear her, as she's started the helijet and is immersed in preflight check. He leans over and flicks the tip of her nose, pretending he doesn't hear Thor's low growl of possessiveness. God, the dude would have made an excellent caveman!
"You'll see," he says, and climbs in beside Tash, ignoring Jane's protests.
"How far is it? What if I didn't pack the right clothes? How long will we be gone again? What if something comes up? Do we really have permission to take one of the SHIELD jets? How am I mmpppggnn…"
He looks over his shoulder at the strangled noise and sees that Thor has picked Jane up in one arm (the one NOT carrying everything else) and is currently devouring her mouth with his own, while striding towards the jet. He tosses her in and hops in behind her while she picks herself up off the floor and takes a seat, huffing indignantly at him. He looks completely unrepentant.
Then the helijet's rotors are too loud for conversation, and they're airborne.
Jane
She could hardly believe it when Natasha told them she'd gotten permission for the four of them to go on a little trip over the weekend, and to pack for casual with maybe one nice outfit, and meet them on the helipad at 8 the next morning. She'd pestered her for information until Nastasha threatened to call the whole thing off. Now they're actually in the air and she can hardly believe it. Thor sits beside her, looking almost normal in snug black jeans and a white t-shirt. He wears street clothes around the tower every day unless he's on a mission or has an official briefing or they want to throw heavy things at him or shoot at him to try once again to measure his capabilities, but outside the confines of SHIELD, the street clothes actually seem normal. He's still so gorgeous she wonders briefly if Clint and Natasha would notice if she just took a teensy bite of him.
The countryside flashes by underneath them like a blur. She has no idea how far they've come, just that they're sticking roughly to the Eastern seaboard and heading South. She thinks she sees Washington DC blink past, but she isn't sure. They've veered a little bit inland by then, and she catches glimpses of green, and hills as they helijet screams south. She's not sure how long they've been flying. It's probably been less than two hours when Natasha's voice comes over her headset. She realizes Natasha has had them on mute because she's seen her and Clint's mouths move but hasn't heard either of them until now. His ears are a little red. She doesn't want to know what they've been talking about.
"Secure all stations for landing," says Natasha. Jane isn't sure exactly what that means, but checks her safety harness and their luggage anyway. They swoop down out of the sky towards a scattering of buildings and a parking lot. There's a four lane road, and quite a few cars. She sees a couple of billboards, but they're moving too fast for her to make out what's on them. She can't suppress a small shriek when they nosedive directly towards the ground. The helijet levels out, and then drops smoothly to the ground like a drifting feather.
"That was mean," she pouts, while she puts her hat back on and unbuckles her harness. Thor is laughing. He's no help at all.
The billboards are advertisements for some kind of dinner theater with the Mandrell sisters, and a troupe of Chinese acrobats. The parking lot appears to be a rental car place, as an employee in a plaid shirt with a nametag which says Enterprise has exited the small building and is coming towards them with a big smile on his face.
"Ms. Richards? I'm Tom Fielding. We spoke on the phone?" He's holding his hand out at he draws closer, still smiling. Natasha smiles back.
"Hi Tom. Call me Natalie. Is our vehicle ready?"
"Sure is. Just take a sec to handle the paperwork, if you'll follow me. And may I be the first to welcome you to Pigeon Forge?"
Natasha thanks him and follows him into the office. Pigeon Forge, thinks Jane, mentally going over her long-ago Geography lessons. Doesn't ring a bell. She pulls out her phone and Googles it.
"Oh my god," she gasps. "Thor! Natasha brought us to Gatlinburg!"
He turns and looks at her, puzzled.
"I thought the man said this was a Forge that makes…." He turns to Barton, who is grinning at them. "Clint…how does one forge a pigeon, exactly? Please explain."
"No, no, no," she says excitedly. "It's the name of this town. It's right at the bottom of the mountains, and Gatlinburg is only about half an hour from here. I guess there's not really anywhere good for landing the helijet. I read about Gatlinburg after you said you'd like to go there sometime. It's kind of small, and there aren't any big parking lots. Or rental car places."
His puzzlement turns quickly to delight. He strides over to Clint and seizes the smaller man up in a huge bear hug. Clint makes gargling sounds and pounds on Thor's shoulder.
"Put me down, you barbarian," he chokes. "I'm never taking you anywhere else if you crush my ribs." Thor laughs at this, and sets him down, turning to Jane excitedly.
"We are on a vacation, Jane!"
"Looks like we are," she agrees. "I don't know how Natasha got the Director to agree to this!"
"What he doesn't know won't hurt him," says Natasha smoothly, returning with a set of keys. "Ready to get moving? It's going to take about an hour to get to the cabin." She leads them towards a big gleaming black Hummer parked up in front of the building. They throw their luggage in the back and pile in. Natasha programs something into the GPS unit attached to the dashboard and backs the big truck up smoothly. "Everybody ready?" she asks, with one of her rare smiles. Jane thinks she's lovely when she smiles. The drive is made short by Thor's absolute delight with everything he sees. Pigeon Forge is several miles of pure carnival midway. It is tacky, and crammed with touristy crap, and big signs advertising endless adventure and fun, and jammed with restaurants and hotels and candy shops. It would be impossible to see it all, if you had a month. When they leave it behind and head up the parkway towards Gatlinburg, they are surrounded by cool green forest. His delight is no less, just quieter. His eyes sparkle as they drink in the trees and the mountain stream tumbling down its rock-strewn bed between the divided highway. She thinks Asgard must have forests like this, because some tiny ache of homesickness she has sensed in him from time to time seems to find balm in the views of these ancient woods. Their cabin, Natasha tells them, is on the other side of Gatlinburg, at the very top of one of the mountains which overlook it. They wheel slowly through the tiny mountain town. It is just as touristy as Pigeon Forge, but less than a fourth its size, made up of one main street. It's less tacky and more charming, most of the storefronts sport an alpine theme that remind her of some Bavarian village. Thor is enchanted. Clint seems equally so. She catches Natasha's eye in the rearview mirror and they share a look of indulgent female understanding as Clint explains go-karts to Thor and they share their intentions to be a million times better at handling one than the other man.
The road that takes them out of town and up into the mountains twists like a snake's death-throes, with curves and switchbacks so tight she can't imagine how two cars could even dream of passing abreast. The trees are thick, but as they climb, they pass a few breaks which allow momentary flashes of a view that's quickly becoming breathtaking. Thor is holding her hand, and she has to periodically bang on his arm to make him let up on the grip a little. He's almost beside himself he's so fucking excited. If nothing else happens and they get called away for some global emergency right now, she's still going to owe Natasha for the rest of her life, just for the pleasure the simple journey has brought him. He greets every new experience with excitement, but this seems somehow even more special to him. Though she can hardly wait to have fun, part of her is really looking forward to tonight. As happy as he is at this moment, it's bound to be something really special, having vacation sex with him. Oh god, she hopes they aren't all sharing a bedroom! Natasha did say it was a cabin….
Natasha
It takes nearly all her willpower not to take the hairpin turns of the mountain ascent at breakneck speed. She'd really REALLY like to know if the H2 has the traction to make things interesting or not. Pity for Jane is the only thing holding her back. Dammit, having friends sure complicates shit! She sighs as she holds the big muscular SUV to a more sedate pace. The conversation with Hawkeye on the flight down from New York has her edgy. Damn the man. He loves getting her riled, knowing he can. She could refuse to let him. It's part of her training. As she thinks this, the aching torment of being refused release on the tip of his talented tongue, the sting of pain between her legs, returns to her in a memory that is as cherished as it is frustrating. She's let him in. Recognizes it would be self-defeating to block him out now. And fuck it, it would hurt him too. Which, really, did she ask for him to care that much? Did she ask to matter? Oh hell. Did she ask to care this much herself? Aren't they the pair. Fucked, down to the ground, both of them. And enjoying every last sick moment of it too. Oh well. Anticipation makes it sweeter.
The cabin is the topmost of an ascending series of rental properties that decorate the side of the mountains all around Gatlinburg. They run the gamut from old, spare and tacky to decadent luxury. She'd gone for the latter, of course. Plus, the name seemed like an omen, and pictures of the place on the management company's website only drew her in further. She sees out of the corner of her eye when Clint notices the wood-burned sign posted at the end of the driveway they turn down: "The Hawk's Nest." His smile, though fleeting, is so sweet it makes her heart clench. The place is three stories of split-log elegance. Hardwood decks completely surround the upper two stories. The front of the place is almost entirely glass, and its decks soar out over the edge of the mountainside. A hot tub big enough for six graces the topmost deck. A grill, picnic table, porch swing, and enormous hammock are scattered across the lower deck. Underneath the lower deck, on the ground floor, there is covered parking and the main entrance at the back of the cabin. Exclaiming over the view and the rustic elegance of the cabin, they pile out of the Hummer and she unlocks the door. Inside the cabin is cool and inviting. Spanish tile floors and black granite countertops complement a kitchen any chef would envy. A subzero refrigerator, wine cooler, and interior gas grill have Jane clearly planning meals already. This is no bad thing. Natasha doesn't think any of the rest of them can cook anything much more complicated than plain pasta.
The living room sports a huge mushy sectional sofa and several inviting armchairs. There's a bose sound system and a 48 inch flat screen television with a blu ray disk player. A connected game room contains pool and foosball tables, as well as a game system and dart board. It surprises exactly no one that Barton can't pass it by without plucking out the darts and nailing one, two, three bullseyes from all the way across the room. A half bath completes the ground floor. The second and third floors are both bedrooms. There are four, which is more than they need, but none of the smaller cabins appealed to her as much as this one. A center spiral stair allows one to access each floor without actually intruding into the personal spaces on either. Thor, with a look at Hawkeye, claims the larger of the two bedrooms on the second floor by dropping his and Jane's luggage inside the door. The room contains a king-sized four poster log bed with a hand-made red, yellow and blue quilt. Braided rugs and knot rugs scatter the floor, while a squashy futon sprawls in front of a fireplace. Through an open doorway she can see a sunken Jacuzzi tub and walk-in shower stall. Thor takes Jane's hand and leads her out the sliding glass door to take in the view. She sees him lay his cheek on the top of Jane's silky brown head and stare out over the trees. He sighs, and his broad shoulders seem to visibly relax. Jane leans back into his arms. She smiles, and continues on up the stairs with Clint behind her. He cops a feel on the way up, and she can't help but laugh.
Her laughter stills in a gasp, and behind her he makes a humming sound of deep approval when they step into the third floor suite. There is one small bedroom up here, and then the one they'll be using. It takes up more than half the upper story. Gleaming hardwood floors are cushioned by more of the handmade rugs seen throughout the cabin. The room is surrounded on three sides by glass, creating a panoramic view to rival anything she's seen in her life. The bed here is covered by a quilt done in royal blue, deep forest green, and bright jewel-like topaz. It is an iron canopy bed, its rails slung with wisps of blue and white sheers. It looks like there are at least a dozen big fluffy pillows strewn at the head of the bed. Thick jewel-toned pillar candles dot every surface in the room, from the two bedside tables, to the small book case next to a comfortable rocking chair, to the mantelpiece of the fireplace. A hand crafted chandelier of sanded vines as big around as her wrist hangs from the center peak of the ceiling, hand blown glass shrouds of the same jewel colors casting a warm multi-hued glow when she flips the switch. It's on a dimmer, so it can go from brilliant to sultry with a simple twist. The bathroom is as nice as the one on the second floor. There's plenty of room for two in the big Jacuzzi tub, and the shower stall with its blue and topaz tiles has not one but three shower heads.
"I think we should live here," says Clint, coming up behind her where she stands gazing out at the blue-grey mist that gives these mountains their name. His strong arms steal around her waist and he kisses her on the side of her neck, with just a tiny graze of teeth and a brush of his warm and clever tongue. She shivers a little. They open the sliding doors and step out onto the deck. The huge hot tub is covered, but she can smell chlorine and steam. Can hardly wait til dark and finding out how long he can hold his breath. The thought of the bubbling warmth caressing her skin and his tongue, cooler than the heated water, stroking between her legs while her fingers tangle in his wet hair…ok, that doesn't sound like it's gonna suck. Her heart lurches when he leaps like a goat onto the deck rail, and she wonders wildly whether it's even sturdy enough to support him. She mentally kicks herself for being so soft on the bastard that her brains aren't working. The man knows structural integrity like she knows hundreds of ways to kill a man without leaving any evidence behind. The sight of him, standing there, nothing between him and a three hundred foot drop (or more) to the ground below both tantalizes and annoys her.
"If you fall, I'm not scraping your ass up off the ground. I'm just leaving you for the bears," she sneers. Hell if she's going to let him know she fears for him. He looks over his shoulder at her and grins.
"Tonight," he says casually, "After I make you come with my mouth in the hot tub…" Fuck, is the man a Christing mind-reader? Sometimes she thinks so. "…I'm going to bend you over this balcony rail when I fuck you. There'll be nothing but us and the trees and the stars. We'll fly together, Tash."
"If you're lucky," she grumbles, turning her back on him to go inside, but she's grinning and he knows it.
"I don't have to be lucky," he says, suddenly in her ear. She hadn't heard him jump down and follow her, but she's too used to being surprised by him to jump. "I mean to take you."
"Hm. And if I fight you?" she asks, intrigued now. He shrugs easily.
"Then we'll both be bruised and bleeding, but I'll still take you. Hard and brutal and so fucking good, Tasha."
"It always is, you moron," she says affectionately. He laughs, and spends the next few minutes kissing her breathless. God, if they don't fuck each other soon, the anticipation they've been building since morning is likely to kill them both. But it's only about 11 a.m. and there's a tourist trap waiting. Seeing what Thor makes of Gatlinburg is worth a little sexual tension.
When they meet back up on the ground floor, it's clear Jane and Thor are enjoying their own little bit of tension. Her hair is slightly mussed, and both their mouths are a little swollen. His beard has reddened her throat and what Natasha can see of the swell of her breasts above the scooped neck of her white blouse. They're both breathing a little harder than climbing one flight of stairs would warrant, and unless she's mistaken (and she's not), the god of thunder is sporting one truly impressive erection.
"That looks painful," she murmurs wickedly. "Would you guys rather take a few minutes? We can go back into town later."
Jane blushes crimson but Thor laughs heartily.
"What I have in mind will take much longer than a few minutes, my friend," he says happily. "And likely leave Jane in no condition for enjoying adventures afoot in yon village below. I am given to understand that Gatlinburg is best enjoyed afoot, so nay, I am content to wait."
Well really. It's no wonder Jane can't resist the big guy. Clint laughs at the expression on Jane's face, and it is only the friend code and many years of training that keeps Natasha from laughing too. She shakes her head and leads the way out the door. Thor wants to drive the Hummer, but Natasha was witness to the first of his driving lessons with Tony in one of Tony's multitude of cars, and has no desire to pay for that kind of damage. It was Tony's own fault for putting an alien prince behind the wheel of a Ferrari his first time out though. Served him right to have to replace it AND the garage door AND half the hazard barrels and signs on the test track. Rather than hurt his feelings though, she explains to him that since the H2 is a rental, only the person whose name is on the paperwork is allowed to drive the vehicle. They're here to have fun, not to drive it home to Thor that he's an alien to this place and still doesn't quite fit in. She figures with three of them here to ride herd on him, they should be able to keep the incidents to a minimum.