Disclaimer:I clearly don't owe the characters, they all belong to Marvel etc etc etc. No copyright infringement intended- please don't sue - you know the drill.
Imperfect.
oooOoooOooo
oooOoooOooo
She watched him as he swung the bat backwards, getting into position. His feet moved rapidly on the ground, creating barely visible clouds of dust and sand. If she squinted her eyes, she could see his face contorting in concentration; lips pursed into a paper-thin line, eyes focused on his opponent, muscles tensed. She imagined she could hear his heartbeat beating faster with anticipation, readying himself for the imminent attack.
When the pitcher threw he hit it with the force of typhoon; the ball making a dead sound against the wooden bat before flying over. She followed its speedy trajectory as the ball flew ever higher. She felt her body shiver with anticipation, and was surprised she was actually hoping the ball will continue flying.
It was a homerun; she saw him run the bases screaming in joy.
A small smile appeared on her cherry colored lips which, with the years, had lost some of their fullness. She clapped even though she knew he couldn't hear her- but that play deserved recognition, she told herself. The only way to describe it was 'perfection,' and Natasha was a sucker for perfectly done jobs.
She wasn't a master assassin for nothing.
Soft footsteps echoed in the empty roof, camouflaged slightly by the strong southern wind. To the untrained ear, they would have been impossible to discern, between the roar of the players and the soft murmurs of summer. To Natasha, they stood out as much as if an elephant had walked into the pitch that very second. She briefly wondered if he had seen the play; it would have been a pity if he had missed it.
"He's a fantastic batter," she said when she knew he was but one step behind her. He surreptitious companion moved forward to stand right beside her. She fought the urge to turn around and look at him.
"You should see him throw," he said, his voice laced with a mixture of pride and mistrust. "The kid has amazing aim."
She didn't doubt him. "Like his father." Natasha saw him lean against the wall of the roof, putting his weight on his forearms. He kept his face straight, engaged in the game and away from her. "I suppose you saw me from your place in the bleachers?
He didn't answer, but the question had been half-rhetorical, half-conversational. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Natasha?" he asked, turning his head so he could stare at her. Natasha took a deep breath, before facing him.
Time had been kind to Clint. The dimples on his cheeks were a little more pronounced from smiling more than he used to, she supposed. Deeper wrinkles lined up his cobalt blue eyes, giving him the impression of a child who had grown too fast, and yet had never truly giving up hope of innocence. She avoided his eyes, not wanting to see the glitters of happiness in them – or the remaining shadows of sorrows.
Natasha wasn't quite sure which one would unnerve her more.
"Just a friendly visit."
He arched an eyebrow. "We both know that the Black Widow doesn't just do social visits, Natasha," Clint stood up to his full height, a good couple of inches taller than her even with her heeled boots. The late summer sun created a haze around him making him look blurred in her vision, like a half-dreamt dream. "Who are you here to kill?"
Only years of training kept her from flinching at his tone. Natasha turned her eyes back to the field. "No one."
"I don't believe you."
She sighed. "I didn't expect you to."
Silence fell as one assassin took in their ex-partner. Natasha knew his eyes were fixed solely on her, not the children's game that went on below. It unnerved her, that even after all these years (a good decade and a half) he could stare at her with the same focus he had the night he had been sent to kill her. Suddenly, this didn't seem like that good of an idea, the warm and inviting summer heat felt oppressive, constrictive.
Natasha hated summer.
"I needed to see you," she said after a while. Clint sighed, but leaned against the half-wall, his posture mimicking hers.
He licked his lips candidly. "Why?"
Her eyes found his, and Natasha began to truly regret coming. Or leaving. She wasn't quite sure where one regret ended- and the other began.
"I-I needed to," her hand darted towards the side pocket of her pants; she felt the soft leather, warm to the touch, and felt her heart skip a beat. "I've been working on cleaning my ledger."
It seemed that Clint had been expecting anything but that. "Is that what you have been doing these past years?" his tone was soft, but Natasha felt the accusation as pungently as a paper cut.
"Yes."
Her heart was doing cartwheels in her throat; Clint seemed unfazed, and it bothered Natasha to no end. "Did you manage to?"
She nodded. "All of it?" she didn't miss the surprise in his voice; instead, she withdrew the little red book from her pocket and presented it to him. Clint looked at it before staring back at her, but she urged him to take with a look.
Gingerly, Clint grabbed the book from her hand, briefly making contact with her exposed skin. Natasha felt a jolt of electricity run through her body, but she ignored it.
This was, after all, just another job and she would behave like a damn professional even if it killed her.
She wanted to burst out into bitter laugher at the irony.
He opened the book to a random page and began flipping through it, his eyes were narrowed and his tongue stuck out stupidly from his mouth. Natasha decided she really didn't want to look at him as he stared at her crimes, and pathetic attempts for redemption. She focused on the game. The kid was resting now, it was the other team's time to bat.
"Where did you get the idea that Coulson's death was your fault?" Clint's question brought her back. She bit the inside of her lower lip, having known all along that he would jump at that particular point.
"I don't think it was precisely my fault," she said slowly, choosing her words carefully. Remnants of arguments past whirled through her brain, hurting her all over again. Despite common belief, the Black Widow wasn't a cold-hearted bitch. She just had less emotional attachments than most. "I just had a few things I wanted cleared with him."
He nodded, but she knew he wasn't satisfied. "So what did you do?"
Natasha figured Clint had never truly forgiven himself, and it made her sick.
"I got Steve to sign one of those stupid collective cards, and then dug a small hole on his grave and buried it in," she paused to see his reaction, and wasn't surprised to see none. A decade and a half of being a civilian hadn't done much to eliminate the agent in him, it seemed. "And then I told him he was right about Sofia – you remember that mission don't you?"
He nodded, the ends of his lips moving upwards despite his best efforts not to. She smiled a little too. Sofia had been a fun little city – much better than Budapest for sure. "I told him that I was just a stubborn bitch – and that I should have listened."
"Why did you have to apologize to Maria for?"
She shrugged. "I gave her a permanent scar when I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D., remember?" how could he not remember? she thought, he was the one who had restrained her when she threw the lava-hot knife at Maria's shoulder when the agent had tried to get Natasha to cooperate. She had ended up with a second-degree burn – and the inability to ever wear a strapless dress unless she wanted to answer awkward questions.
"I remember all of our time together, Nat." The sound of him calling her nickname, not her name or her codename, made Natasha feel as warm as a recently dried towel, straight out of the drying machine.
Me too.
"I still don't understand why you re here, I don't see anything about me in your morbid little book," he said, extending his arm so as to give her the book. Natasha gave him a side glance, before focusing back on the game.
It had ended already. Clint would have to climb back down soon.
"What is his name?"
He snorted. "Like you don't know everything about him." A small sigh escaped her lips.
"I don't, actually. Fury kept all files concerning you private after-" she said slowly, for once not sure how to phrase things.
Clint seemed to notice. "After I what Natasha? Killed a bunch of his good men? Defected? Betrayed everyone?"
Each word cut through her like a badly sharpened knife, and Natasha couldn't help herself from wincing. Silently, she kicked her own ass – she should have expected this from him. He was always the emotional one. "I was going to say, after I left you."
A look of pure surprise crossed Clint's face. His body tensed, before relaxing again into a posture that reeked of defeat.
"What is his name?" she repeated.
When he spoke, his voice was low but spiked with a droplet of pride. "Francis."
"Like your middle name."
He nodded. "Bobbi wanted to call him Marcos but that is just a hideous name. I wanted to call him Nathan – I still don't know how we ended up with Francis."
"I didn't see her in the crowds, Barbara, I mean" Natasha pointed out with her head, red curls bouncing around her face.
Clint chuckled and weaved his hand on his hair. "I thought you said you didn't have access to my files?" Fury might have kept her away from Clint's files – but she could still threaten Stark to castrate him with a stiletto.
She shrugged. "Not all of them."
"Bobbi was – busy; she couldn't make it to the game." She sensed something in the way he spoke and, although she was itching to push it, she also knew it was not her place to pry. She hadn't come here to see how Clint's marriage was doing; she hadn't come here to meet his son, and get an understanding of what his life was like as a civilian.
She had come here with a mission, and she would stick with her plan.
But, she was only human. "Do you ever regret the past?" she asked softly, turning around so her body was leaning on the half-wall, but still facing him.
His eyes were unreadable and for the first time, Natasha wondered if the man standing before her was still her partner. "Every day," he croaked, his voice breaking with every incriminating word. "But I can't allow myself to dwell, Natasha. I have a family now, a son, and a new life."
She wished she could understand, but she couldn't. When Clint had refused to come back as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent after the whole Loki incident, Natasha had thought it was just a phase – he'll reconsider once he got himself to a shooting range full of cardboard targets.
But he hadn't.
Instead, he'd been adamant about not returning. She wasn't sure if it was guilt that was eating him up, or whether he truly had had enough. He had asked her to come with him, to start a new life together and clean their ledgers. Together. But she'd refused. Natasha needed her ledger cleaned, but running away was simply not her style.
She was masochistic by nature.
Clint had waited for her at the train station in London for hours but when the train came and she wasn't there, he climbed in it. She hadn't seen him since.
"So tell me, Nat, do you regret the past?"
Do you regret leaving me?
She could see the unasked question in his longing eyes, and it made her a little happy to know she could still read them even after all this time.
"Always. But I too cannot dwell on it," her broken voice surprised even herself. She was unaware that her eyes had been pooling with tears until he leaned forward to clean them with a strong, calloused hand. She thought she felt him linger, his finger caressing her skin for the briefest and most glorious of moments. But then it was over.
And she felt suddenly and completely- empty.
"You made your choice, I made mine." She nodded, knowing his words were true, if disheartening. "Why are you here then, all of a sudden?"
"I've told you – I just needed to see you."
"Why?" he whispered as if it were a secret meant only for her ears.
A monsoon of thoughts took over Natasha's mind. There was so much she wanted to tell him, so much to apologize for: Budapest, Loki, London… but she couldn't bring herself to confess any of her sins. Doing so would only add more blood to her ledger – and she had worked too hard to have it clean enough for her tastes to burden it again. She was no home wrecker.
Perhaps it was time she got used to the idea that her ledger would never be fully cleaned.
"I just needed to see you Clint; see how you were doing," she whispered to the wind. "No ulterior motive."
Clint leaned forward, blocking all emotion from his eyes except for the traitorous tears. She could feel his warm breath on her nose, her heart speeding up as the urge to close the gap between them increased exponentially. She was close enough, but then retreated, closing her eyes so as to compose herself.
She would not do this, no matter how much it killed her. This was her punishment, she thought ruefully. In order to clean her ledger she had to lose Clint.
He noticed her resolve, and withdrew backwards to take a step away from her. "I see you haven't quite changed your mind," his voice went from broken to angry quicker than she could fathom. "Tell me this, Nat, did you ever care for me at all?"
"Always."
"Cut the crap."
She sighed and massaged the back of her neck; the pressure was getting to her. She felt weak beneath the scorching sun and the burning accusations. "The game is over; I'm sure Francis is looking for you."
She watched as his chest rose and fell, knowing better than to interrupt his silent monologue. He took another step backwards, breaking her heart a little more when he turned around and began walking away from her. "Will I see you again, Nat?" he asked when he had reached the edge, where the emergency ladder was placed.
Will he? She thought, but instead of answering, she asked another question. "Are you happy?"
He seemed taken aback but offered her a sad, little smile. "I love my son, I wouldn't trade him for anything."
She nodded, and ignored the burning urge to continue the interrogation – or the fact that he didn't answer her question. This had all been prolonged for too long, she reminded herself; and she had failed her mission. There was time still, to make things right, but what was the point?
Life wasn't perfect.
oooOoooOooo
Natasha climbed back down when the sun had fallen and the moon had risen. She had watched with longing as Clint clapped his son on the back and congratulated him on a well played game. Francis seemed quite psyched, and she watched him as he retold his father the highlights. Clint laughed, and Natasha wished the wind would carry the sound to her ears – but it didn't. So she entertained herself for a few blissful moments, imagining the conversation father and son were having – and she even allowed herself to be there too, with them.
He never looked up at the roof of the elementary school, where she stood like a hawk, drinking in every detail.
Dreams are for children, she chanted inwardly.
With a heavy heart, and even heavier pocket, Natasha climbed back down and began walking the empty streets. It was still impossibly hot, and most people were inside. Those poor idiotic souls that had gone for an evening run paid her no mind. She was just a woman walking down an empty road; a small red leather book in one hand and a torn page in the other.
Without stopping her walk, Natasha unfolded the torn page to read its contents. A shadow of a bitter smile formed in her lips, as bile rose in her throat. She breathed deeply, mentally composing herself.
This had been her last mission, after this she would try to reconstruct a life for herself that didn't include ghosts or guns. And she had failed. She swallowed the caustic taste of failure and decided to accept it.
This was one mission that had no happy ending. There would be no more Sofia's, relaxing in Clint's arms; no more Budapest's, filled with anxious kisses and high pitched moans. Only London's oppressive and lonely fog, trains gone, too late to catch.
She made a circle around her writing, her personal code for an unfinished business and threw the paper into a nearby garbage bin. There was no point keeping record of a failed mission, not when her next job was to somehow, somewhere, start her life again.
She said what she had wanted to say before, like a prayer to the summer God.
And no one answered.
oooOoooOooo
The maintenance personnel was changing the bags of the garbage and recycling bins. With the middle-school game the night before, and the long summer days, they were overflowing with empty water bottles and ice-cream wrappers. The man went through his job relentlessly beneath the unbending heat.
When he had reached one of the last bins in the park, he noticed a piece of paper staring at him like a flashlight. Not at all bothered about picking through trash, he gripped it in his gloved hands and stared at it curiously before throwing it back in. He supposed some teenage girl had written it, and then regretted it, perhaps afraid someone would find out.
But for reasons he wasn't sure, the words kept circling in his head as he continued the day's work, like a hawk that had set its sights on a nearby prey.
"Tell Clint I love him –that I have always loved him."
Quite short. The idea just hit me while walking to work this week, and I think I wrote it in less than two hours. I'll probably do some more editing in the future. Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria. What happened in Sofia? Not even I know, it just sort of came to me. As for London, well, I've always found constant fog to be sufficiently dramatic and since my hair is curlier than Natasha's - I find humid very, very depressing.
I also have an idea for a sequel - but it is rather vague and bit cliché so it may or may not get written. I have a much longer piece on these two written already (with just as much angst), but it needs some serious editing before it is fit to be read -I'm feeling rather lukewarm about that one. *shrugs*
Please review :)