Far Away
I've spent a lot of time in hot, dry environments like I describe in this story, but I've never been to Budapest, so other than what Wikipedia tells me, I don't really know if what I've written is accurate. Feel free to tell me if it isn't!
Natasha Romanov, trained killer, is walking alone through the desert scrub. It's hot enough that it feels like she's wearing a blanket over her face, and her water has long since turned tepid.
Distances are hard to judge out here, so when she first sees the cabin, she knows it could either be twenty minutes or two hours away. By the way the sun is hanging low over the mountains in the distance, she hopes it's the former.
She's been here before, but Natasha takes a new approach to the cabin whenever she's able, though after so many years of use, she's starting to run out of options. It's beautiful country, though, and she likes the way the same terrain can look completely different when you stand in a different spot.
Natasha adjusts her backpack and continues picking her way through the scrub at the same pace she's used for the past hour. She'll get there before the sun goes down or she won't.
She can see a wisp of smoke rising from the cabin now, and with no one out here to see her, she lets herself smile.
He's there already, then, waiting for her.
They have several places just like this one, tucked near (but not too near) most of SHEILD's bases, or, at least, most of the ones that the two of them frequent. When Natasha first discovered this habit of Clint's, she'd laughed, finding it ridiculous.
Budapest changed her mind.
They'd spent the better part of a month off the radar after that particular disaster, holed up in Clint's tiny, two-room flat on the edge of the city, only going out for coffee and condoms.
When they'd cleared their heads and reported in, Fury had been, well, furious. She's pretty sure that he didn't mind that they took the time away, just that they didn't clear it with him first. Fury likes to pretend that he's got them on a leash.
Still, they've learned to check in before disappearing for any length of time. This, though, was the first time she'd left a note for Fury and not Coulson.
She doesn't bother coming up with an excuse for the lump that forms in her throat.
Natasha needs this break and she's grateful for the time off after the Loki . . . incident. Barring Thor, she's not sure where the rest of the team wandered off to, but neither does she really care.
All she cares about is making it to that cabin, where she can finally relax, maybe even get some sleep.
Before she knows it, the sun is casting its last rays over the red earth and she's at that cabin, finally.
"You could drive out here, you know," Clint notes when she walks through the door. "There is a road." He doesn't look up from where he's stirring a pot on a camp stove. It's an old, familiar argument, and she slides into it easily.
"I like the exercise."
She knows that Clint knows the truth. That she needs the walk to clear her mind of death and blood. That she needs the time alone in her own head before she's ready to be alone in the cabin with him.
She drops her boots next to his on the little mat that lies next to the door.
"Besides, then I get to have you cook for me. Well, if you can call it that." She sits down on the floor next to him.
"I'll have you know I spent a good 20 minutes throwing together this fine repast, young lady," he mutters. He continues to stir the pot. Despite her comments, it smells good.
He turns his head a little, quirks his lips. "You stink, Romanov."
She laughs and pushes his shoulder. "You stink, Barton. I smell."
She leans her head on his shoulder, watching him stir the pot.
It's shchi, an old Russian standby that she taught him to make on a quiet day long ago. Her mother (her real mother, not the Red Room handler who told Natasha she was her mother) used to make it when she was a child, and it's one of the few memories she has of a time before everything was taken from her, back when she had a chance at a normal life.
She's very comfortable here on the floor, tucked up against Clint's side, and she's almost asleep when she feels him shift, then kiss the top of her head.
"Come on, Tash. I think it's done."
He helps her to her feet, then leads her over to the small table in one corner of the room.
They don't talk while they eat, preferring the silence. That they both can sit in a room without nattering is probably the main reason that they work so well together. That they both want to is probably the reason why she fought so hard to get him back.
Natasha finishes before he does. She's a quick eater. Clint likes to savor things (though he would say that it's because he actually likes to taste the food before he swallows), but then, he's always been far more patient than she'll ever be.
She washes her bowl out in the bucket that serves as their sink and leaves it to dry. It's arid here, so she knows it won't take long.
She's tired from her hike (and the funeral and the fighting and her life and all this damn thinking), so instead of sitting back down at the table with Clint, she walks over to where he's laid out their sleeping bags on top of two old army cots. The cots are pushed together, and she would make a crack about his assumptions except that he's right and she doesn't want to break the comfortable silence.
Instead, Natasha just smiles and pulls off her clothes, stripping down to her underwear. Her nose wrinkles as she catches a whiff of her shirt, but she tosses them toward her pack and lies down. There will be plenty of time to clean up tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next week. Whatever.
Clint joins her a few minutes later, and when he pulls her to him, she goes unresisting. With her head on his shoulder and her arm across his stomach, she just breathes him in.
The tension slips out of her, and she sleeps.
A special thank you to all the reviews, favorites, and general encouragement for my last story, Fearless! I appreciate it so much! Reviews (of all sorts) make my day!
Next chapter up hopefully tonight, when the story will earn it's rating :)