Title: All That's Said and Done
Description: There's a hell of a cleanup after the Chitauri, and Clint requires just a little more than the others. Platonic Natasha/Clint, one-shot. T for language.
Pairing(s): Natasha & Clint
Word Count: 1,403
Notes: Written as per an anonymous request for borderline romantic Clint and Natasha. I don't know Clint's character as well as I know the others, so bear with me while I try to figure it out!
I might change the ending to this hmm I dunno yet
When all the chaos is done, when the streets are being cleaned up and New York is still trying to stomach what exactly just happened, Clint sits at the top of one building or another—he didn't bother to figure out which one exactly—and watches. Captain's down there ordering men on clean up, basically being the model citizen for the rest of them. Bruce is probably back in Stark Towers, figuring stuff out to help him. God knows where Tony is. He'd be damned if he had to do the clean up himself.
And Clint…well, Clint watches. He always does. His bow is beside him, just within reach even though he knows he won't need it. It doesn't seem right not to anymore. Natasha had told him not to think about everything that had happened, about all the men whose deaths he was responsible for, because it hadn't been his fault.
He can't help it, though. Even though he knows she's right.
There's the familiar sound of repulsors, and Clint looks up to see Tony shooting across the sky in his suit. So the guy was helping out a bit. He guesses there's a first for everything.
Twirling an arrow between his thumb and forefinger, he lets his mind briefly wander. What might have been had he not let Loki control him? He preferred not to think about it, but oftentimes one didn't quite have control over what they thought.
"I thought I told you not to think about that shit," a familiar voice interrupts his poisonous thoughts, earning a faint smile from him.
"Nat," he says, still looking at the streets below him as she slips beside him. He can see from the corner of his eye she's still wearing her stoic expression, and hasn't yet washed the blood from her face.
"I'm serious. You're not gaining by mulling over what happened."
He could retort, calling her out for accusing him of reminiscing over the past when that's basically all she does, but he does not. "What makes you think that's what I'm doing?"
When he finally looks over at her, she's giving him the class 'are-you-fucking-kidding-me' look and Clint can't help but to exhale once sharply in substitution for a laugh. "You're really going to try this with me?"
With a shrug, Clint looks back out to where Tony's joined Captain on the ground with his helmet up to talk. "It was worth a shot."
"I'm serious."
"You always are."
If she has something to retaliate with, she keeps it to herself. Because it's true—no one has as little humour as she does. Clint thinks that sometimes she takes a little pride in it, but he isn't too sure.
So they just sit there for a bit, watching the world move on around them. Hundreds of people dead in less than a week, billions of dollars in damage to the city, and yet it's still just moving on and continuing as if it never happened. It's a way for the people to cope, albeit a poor one, and Clint is in no position to judge.
"I can't believe Stark's down there, helping with cleanup," Natasha finally says. "It seems a little below him, don't you think?"
Clint lets a small bark of laughter escape his lips as he looks down. He knows Natasha means it as a fact, not a joke, but he can't help but to take it as such. "One might assume so." Turning to her again, he reaches back to replace the arrow in his quiver. "Though I guess you know him the best, having worked for him and stuff."
"Please," she scoffs. "The only one who knows their way around that head of his is Pepper. The rest of us don't even try." She snorts. "And they call Loki's brain a bag full of cats."
Letting out a small groan, Clint reaches up to touch his head. "Don't even start with him," he warns her. "He can't be compared to anyone."
He doesn't quite flinch, but starts visibly when Natasha rests a hand on his shoulder. Rarely is she ever tender, ever compassionate, and Clint knows this is most likely the closest she's going to come to being so.
"Don't let it slow you down," she tells him. "He's just one…being. One encounter gone wrong. It's not your fault."
"Stop telling me that."
"Then start actually believing it."
They glare at each other, evenly matched in stubbornness and the lack of will to back down. Both know that their argument could last hours before something happens to break it up.
And in this case, Natasha is the one that's right. Because argue as Clint might, she has the advantage of proper reasoning, and he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell against her.
So instead he sighs, leaning back and reaching for the arrow again. He'd love more than anything to sink it deep into the god's face, but with he and Thor returned to Asgard (and the fact that he's a fucking god) it won't be on his agenda anytime soon.
Natasha's right, he'll have to deal with it himself.
Though he's gotten over the initial withdrawal—if one can call it that—of Loki's control, he still has the odd effect from it. He's lucky he didn't get a concussion from Natasha's "cognitive recalibration" technique; it's bad enough recovering from this…whatever it is.
"We should help," Natasha breaks the silence.
Clint nods. "Probably."
"Will we?"
"Probably not."
Natasha rolls her eyes with a slight shake of her head. "Figures."
Setting his hands behind him so he can prop himself up, leaning backwards, Clint looks up. "Steve's got it," he assures himself more than her. "I can't speak for you, but I know I'd probably mess something up."
Natasha hits him on the arm, hard, and Clint retaliates with a bewildered glare.
"Ouch! What the hell?"
Pointing a finger at him, Natasha's mouth curves down into a frown. "Stop it."
"Stop what?"
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself! Clint, seriously, how many times do you have to be told it wasn't your goddamn fault until you actually believe it?"
Clint glares. "If you keep hitting me, a long fucking time," he growls back at her.
"Then rest assured I will keep doing just that," Natasha quips back. He knows she's right, too. "Come on. It could have been any of us. Can you imagine what would have happened if he gained control of Bruce?"
With a small shudder, Clint risks a glance back towards Stark Tower. The single "A"—how ironic that letter was the only one left standing—flickers every few seconds. "I don't want to," he murmurs. And he doesn't. If Loki had the Hulk on his side, they'd all be dead.
"So just…leave it alone, okay?" She sighs, looking away from him. She's never one to break eye contact, though, and she looks back as quickly as she's looked away. "We're all here for you, and we're all okay. With time, everything will be okay again."
Clint's about to open his mouth to respond when she rests her hand on his, quirking half her mouth into as close to a smile as she can muster.
And so instead, he just smiles back. "Okay."
Off in the distance, Tony rolls his eyes at Steve. "Hawk I can understand, but Natasha? Come on, she's a spy. Certainly she knows the low-down about the spy equipment."
Steve shrugs. "You're asking the wrong person."
With a shudder, Tony glares at the building he knows they're hiding out on. "Even Thor learned how to use his communicator. Before he left for Asgard and stuff."
"I don't even know how to use it."
"Yeah, but you're seventy years old. If there's one rule about the world today, it's don't give technology to old people."
Steve gives a good-natured laugh and Tony sets his helmet back on, his microphone automatically turning on again. "For god's sake, you two, turn your damn communicators off. And get down here and help us; we've got an entire city to help clean up and it was just as much your fault as ours. Emotional, conflicted conversations can wait until later."
Despite himself, Steve bursts into laughter. Tony gives him a shrug of his own.
Clint and Natasha join them minutes later, and Tony doesn't miss the looks on their faces for the world.