Written for a marvel_movieverse prompt on AO3. Crosspost from AO3.
Written to: The Stable Song - Gregory Alan Isakov
Clint knew it was going to happen eventually, that one day he would run out of words and he would no longer be able to entrance his little black widow with sentences and stories webbed with beauty. He'd known this from the very first moment when he had asked her to have dinner with him, alone, and she had agreed with a small smile dancing around the corners of her mouth.
He just hadn't thought it would happen so soon or that he would have gotten so attached. Perhaps he had always had some silly notion in the back of his mind that he would be able to keep her forever. The sweet nothings he whispered to her afterwards would take on some meaning as they basked in the heat of their cradled bodies. The declarations of want, need, affection would always easily spill from his mouth and be repeated from hers moments later.
He didn't anticipate those words to one day fall flat on the floor between them, the "I" and "you" no longer connected with love. He scrambled to pick them up, to try to attach them again, but Natasha, beautiful, soft, apologetic, stayed his hand.
"I cannot," she murmured apologetically. "I cannot. It is not enough."
Through the tears that threatened to cloud his eyes, he nodded as if he understood when they both saw that this was a lie. She reached out and touched his shoulder with the tips of long, elegant fingers that he had once twined with his own, fingers that wove delicate pictures into the air as she would tell stories, fingers that had once rested lightly against his bare chest as she slept.
When she turned to leave, Clint picked up the words again and pressed them carefully against his chest in the same places that her hands had once touched.
When Steve Rogers came to him in the living room of the tower with an apologetic look on his face, Clint knew already what he wanted to ask.
They sat in silence on the couch for a moment, Steve fiddling with his hands and trying to gather up the courage to speak.
"Tony told me that it would be in good form and my best interests if I asked you if it was okay to date Natasha," Steve said finally, avoiding Clint's gaze.
Clint had expected this - and yet, hearing the words "date" and "Natasha" in a context that did not include him squeezed his heart and pressed angry words into the corners of his mouth that he had to bite down on so they wouldn't escape.
When he didn't respond, Steve said hurriedly, "It's fine if you don't like that idea; Bruce said you might not be very open to it and that it would be better to court someone else."
Clint drew in a deep breath, trying to find the right words.
"And then Thor said that I should fight you to the death for Lady Natasha's hand, or some other Asgardian notions of chivalry, but I would rather not have to fight with you over this and he was quite possibly intoxicated while he was telling me this -"
"Steve, please shut up," Clint said, cutting him off. Steve snapped his mouth shut and looked at him with wide eyes.
"You're not going to get Natasha to love you that way, you see? You can't just babble on and on about things that don't mean anything. She likes it when you talk pretty to her, when you talk deep, you know what I mean?"
Steve nodded, though Clint saw the uncertainty in his eyes.
"I don't mean poetry or anything like that. It's like a game, you have to charm her and continuously keep doing that differently to make her happy."
Steve nodded eagerly again, and Clint wondered if he was going to start taking notes.
Clint sighed deeply and dropped his eyes to the ground. The iron hand around his heart wasn't letting up any, and the bitter words in his mouth were growing larger, more insistent, demanding to be let out.
He turned back to Steve, and as the fist squeezed tightly in his chest, he said, "Don't hurt her, Rogers."
"I would never -" Steve started to say, but Clint interrupted him again.
"I don't care if you're Captain America. I will hurt you. Do you understand?"
Before Steve could agree, Clint pushed himself off the couch and hastily left the room. It was only when he reached the safety of his bedroom and had firmly locked the door that he let the pounding in his chest squeeze the tears from his eyes and the words from his mouth.
The months pass, and Steve and Natasha seem to be happy. Clint watches from a distance, and wonders if the Golden Boy has stories and words and old-fashioned courtship that he could never hope to emulate. He wonders if he and Natasha have fondue'd yet, as the Captain so quaintly puts it, wonders if Natasha rakes her long nails across his back in throes of passion.
He wonders if Natasha sometimes wears Steve's old shirts to sleep, wonders if Steve buys lavender scented laundry detergent because he does their laundry together and because Natasha likes the smell.
He wonders if Natasha thinks about him on nights when she cannot fall asleep, and if she is truly happy with Steve.
Thor notices him watching one night, and with a nugget of Asgardian wisdom, tells him, "She will not be happy until you let her go."
He sits on the edge of his bed one night, and with shaking fingers pries the words from his chest. The "I," "love," and "you" fall in a broken heap on his comforter, and he idly strokes light fingers over the curves of the letters, imagining the silkiness of her skin.
He picks up the words, holds them carefully in the cradle of his palms, spears them delicately onto the points of his arrows.
He walks down to the training room, his bow at his side and his quiver slung over one shoulder. Natasha is in the training room when he enters, but he does not look at her.
Clint takes a deep breath, fires off three arrows in quick succession. The sawdust dummies jerk when the arrows pierce their hearts, perfect bullseyes, every one, as he sets her free.