Clint was silent as they ate the shawarma. They all were. Not for lack of things to say, more due to the fact that no one wished to voice what they were thinking. Either it was something about what had just happened earlier that day, which none of them were ready to think about, or it just seemed far too trivial to bring up. What really matters when you all could have died that day? When people did die? No. Silence was preferable.
His eyes flickered around the table and came to rest on Natasha. Bruised, battered and a little bloody, she still looked beautiful to Clint – just not in the way that everyone assumed. He doesn't have romantic feelings for Natasha, nor she for him. He just cares very strongly for her; she is his only true friend in this whole world, the only person he trusts completely. Both of them laugh about it behind closed doors, because everyone is so sure that he is fucking her that there's not even a question of whether or not it's happening.
Finishing his meal, Clint leant back in his chair and brushed the crumbs off his chest. Natasha looked at him and smirked – he'd always been a messy eater. Clint smirked back and brought his hands up to fold behind his head. He felt the muscles in his upper arms tweak a little and he thought to himself that before he went to bed that night, he should stretch them or else he'd be sore tomorrow.
Three weeks after the Chitauri attack, and two weeks and six days after Loki left, Clint felt himself starting to get back into his normal routine. Stark Tower had become The Avengers Tower and Tony had set aside entire floors for each Avenger. Thor's, of course, was unused and not likely to be filled very often, but Dr Banner had not spent his time anywhere else. He was rarely found on his floor, however, because he preferred to stay in Tony's main lab. Steve's floor was almost equally as unused as Thor's, because he liked to spend his time at his apartment (which had been far enough away that it had survived the destruction) where there wasn't so much technology and he could ease himself into it. He helped out a lot with the clean-up of the city, though a lot of people didn't recognise him sans costume and mask. Tony also helped out with the rebuilding of the city, just in a less get-your-hands-dirty way. Tony was not averse to getting his hands dirty – he is Iron Man, after all – he just preferred to donate $500 million of his money to help out. Natasha split her time between staying in Avengers Tower and staying at the temporary SHIELD base until they could rebuild the old one. She hit Clint in the shoulder every time he suggested that perhaps she liked to spend time at Avengers Tower was because she had a crush on Stark, and a small smile danced across her face that Clint couldn't decipher. Clint, like Natasha, was still heavily involved with SHIELD, except he preferred to stay permanently at the SHIELD base.
The next time they were all together was two months later when Thor came back to tell them of Loki's punishment and to see Jane. They gathered at Avengers Tower and had a big dinner organised mostly by Pepper, although Tony claimed to have had some part in it. Clint didn't miss the fact that Natasha arrived in the kitchen beside Bruce, rather than alone, but figured that she had gone to fetch him from the lab. He certainly looked like he had forgotten to change for the party, still in a rumpled blue shirt and dark jeans. Clint also noted that Bruce's hand was resting on her upper back, but swiftly slipped away when they came into view of everyone else. Thoughts turning over in his mind, he figured that they were just better friends than he had assumed.
As the food ran out and conversation ran dry, Steve announced that he should probably be going, that it was past midnight after all. Tony booed him, but then Thor realised that Jane was asleep on his shoulder and nearly impossible to wake, so they too left. Tony, meanwhile, was jumping up and down trying to get people to stay, but Clint clapped him on the shoulder and smirked as he told him that he'd be off as well. Tony grumbled about how everyone could have just slept in the Tower, that there was room for everyone, but Clint just smirked and pressed the button for the elevator.
Just as the doors were closing, he caught sight of Natasha walking down the hallway, Bruce beside her. In the last moment before the two doors met, he watched Bruce grab Natasha's hand and then they were out of sight.
Clint's first mission with Natasha since the invasion was to Germany to try and weed out a very prominent Colombian drug lord who had thought that he could escape capture by relocating himself. On the jet over, Natasha was fiddling with her phone and Clint tried to get a look at what she was doing. Clipping him across the ear, she told him to mind his own business. He asked who she was texting in a teasing voice, but she just scowled…and blushed? Clint couldn't be sure, but he had a very good idea that Bruce was on the receiving end of those texts.
Clint smiled and turned back to face the window.
Having promised at the last dinner that they would all get together at Christmas, Clint stood in the newly erected SHIELD base trying to choose between a red shirt and a purple shirt. He hadn't brought up the fact that he'd seen Natasha and Bruce holding hands with her, genuinely fearing that she might attack him for assuming things about her personal life. Throwing on the red shirt, he walked out of his room and to the carpark underneath the facility.
When he arrived at the Tower, he looked up at the skyscraper and wondered when Natasha and Bruce would just announce that they were a couple. Surely Clint couldn't be the only one who thought they were! They were so obvious about it! Natasha had been spending less time at the SHIELD base, and even when she wasn't at Avengers Tower, she seemed to be nowhere to be found. When Clint came around to the Tower sometimes, they always turned up together, making sure to drop their hands to their sides when they thought they were still out of sight. Then again, Clint had always been exceptionally good at spotting things that others couldn't.
When he walked up the elevator and punched the 'up' button, he started humming softly. Not particularly any recognisable tune, he just liked the sound sometimes. When the elevator dinged and the doors opened, he moved inside and pressed the button for the forty-fifth floor. Tony's elevator music of choice was ACDC, and Clint nodded his head along to the music. Eyes flicking up to the camera, he thought 'ah, what the hell' and started air-guitaring all around the small lift. Stopping just before the doors opened, he smirked to himself and stepped out. Moving silently down the corridor out of habit, he turned into the main room and Pepper greeted him. Looking around, Clint was impressed by the sight of the biggest Christmas tree he had ever seen standing in one corner and decorations adorning the rest of the room. There was even mistletoe hanging from the roof at random intervals.
Clint complimented Pepper on the décor, knowing that it would have nothing to do with Tony, and she laughed as she thanked him and ushered him into the dining room. The table was laden with Christmas snacks and finger food and Clint whistled in appreciation. Hearing someone behind him, he turned around to see Tony walking towards him, his arms outstretched. Clapping Clint on the back, Tony tried to hold in his laughter as he said, 'Sweet dance moves'. Clint only blushed a little as he laughed along with Tony. He knew that that footage was saved somewhere in Tony's files and would definitely come back to haunt him. Heavy footsteps alerted them to Thor's presence and sure enough when they turned around he was walking into the room, Jane at his side.
Clint vaguely wondered how it was possible that Bruce and Natasha were the last to arrive as Steve followed Thor and Jane into the room. They were, after all, the two that were currently living in Avengers Tower. Then again, if his suspicions were correct, and they usually were, then they were probably making good use of the beds that Tony provided them with.
Finally they make an appearance – together, as Clint expected – and he smirked as he saw that they dropped their hands just before they entered the room, again. Tony immediately stole Bruce away from Natasha asking loudly about some experiment that Bruce had been working on, and Pepper and Jane swooped down on Natasha so that she could see Pepper's new engagement ring. Clint saw them both glance back at each other and give a small smile, but then they returned to their respective conversations. No one else seemed to notice.
When everyone sat down to dinner, Natasha and Bruce were sitting almost as far away from each other as the table could put them. Natasha was at one end and Bruce was to the right of the other end. Clint didn't miss the way their eyes occasionally flicked to each other before returning to their food or to whomever happened to be talking to them. He was sitting at the edge of the table to the right of Natasha and he nearly asked her what was going on. But there was obviously some reason that she hadn't told him, and so he just left it.
After dinner when they had moved into the living room once more, Clint smirked as he saw that Natasha and Bruce were standing directly below some hanging mistletoe. When he pointed it out they both laughed but didn't kiss. 'It's in the rules! You have to!' Tony protested, but Natasha narrowed her eyes at him and just said, 'Shut it, Stark.' Valuing his life, Tony wisely didn't press the issue, and turned to follow the others into the home cinema. As Clint turned to follow, almost out of the room, he saw a reflection in a window of Bruce leaning over and stealing a chaste kiss off Natasha before he walked past it, losing sight of them.
The next two Christmases went fairly similarly, the main difference being that Tony and Pepper were married. The wedding had been beautiful, all white and flowery and love-filled.
At each Christmas Natasha and Bruce shared small glances and occasionally smiles and Clint was sure that they were deeply in love. They never spent much time in each other's company but Clint supposed they just didn't want to tip people off that they were in a relationship. Perhaps they enjoyed sharing this secret only between them, and unknowingly with Clint. She no longer spent any time at SHIELD for anything other than work, choosing instead to live at Avengers Tower. The others figured she preferred having access to Stark's technology and not having to deal with the agents at SHIELD, most of whom she found completely insufferable. Only Clint knew the truth.
The fourth Christmas they spent as a group, Clint was the last to arrive and as soon as he walked in, his eyes zeroed in on the ring adorning Natasha's left ring finger even though she was trying to hide it with her jumper sleeve. Without saying a word to anyone, he walked straight up to her and hugged her, then turned around and shook Bruce's hand saying 'Congratulations'. Bruce and Natasha looked equally as shocked before Bruce regained his composure and smiled, 'I suppose we haven't been hiding it as well as we thought'. He then slipped his arm around Natasha's waist as Tony asked loudly 'Hiding what?'
Natasha slipped her hand fully out of the sleeve and everyone's eyes locked onto the ring. Every single person in the room, bar Clint, Natasha and Bruce, assumed almost identical expressions of shock. 'When did this…how long have you been together?' Pepper gasped. Bruce looked over at Natasha and smiled as she replied, 'About one a half months after the Chitauri,' and Bruce nodded in conformation before adding, 'Now we've got Christmas dinner to get to. I'm starving!'
A/N There will be one more in this series, possibly two, when I get around to writing them. At the moment I just do them on the train home from uni. Hope you enjoyed that, and I hope it wasn't too confusing or rushed. Let me know what you liked and what you didn't like and I'll work on it :)