Crazy4Orcas had a bad day, and asked for a cuddle!fic. But assassins aren't particularly cuddly people, so this is the best I could do.
Chapter 4: Night Sounds
His forehead is bathed in sweat, and his breathing loud and uneven, as if he is running in his dream. His left hand - not the one on which he habitually rests his head while sleeping, but the one that's on top the light down comforter - are twitching as if he is trying to restrain himself from reaching for a weapon.
Another nightmare, then.
Loki.
Natasha studies the face of her partner (her friend, her lover) in the dim, grey morning light that has just started to seep into the small apartment. Those familiar features, so much younger-looking when his eyes aren't scanning the world like twin lasers, are twisted by whatever agonies his mind keeps putting on repeat whenever he sleeps.
She debates waking him, but she knows he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep and would head to the range instead, to exorcise the latest of his league of inner demons with his bow. Sleep deprivation was but one item on the long list of Loki's transgressions against Clint Barton, and remains one of his legacies – adding to that is the last thing Clint needs. Even if it means keeping him inside his nightmare until it finally wakes him.
She cares about him a great deal more (and a great deal differently) than she'd been willing to admit until that phone call from Coulson. But even before then, they've always done for each other, as partners, as friends. Whatever it took – stitches, a slap in the face, hours of silence or screaming.
Then how is this different, just because his head is on the pillow next to hears, and they're under the same blanket?
Natasha is momentarily at a loss. Uncertainty and doubt are not in her nature, and helplessness is not a feeling she cares to examine too closely.
She surprises herself by wanting to reach out, to touch, but she knows from experience that waking him that way can have rather predictable (or worse, unpredictable) results; that time in Kampala only her own quick reflexes had saved her from a broken jaw.
Natasha listens to the rapid staccato of his breath, so like her own when she was running from the Hulk – not Banner, no, the Hulk, the … Other, a snarling harbinger of rage and death now coming for her behind her wide-open eyes. Her heartbeat starts racing with the memories.
She watches Clint's hand ball into a fist, her own ability to return to sleep now held hostage to the same price his subconscious insists on exacting.
And then she hears it, a voice from so far away that it may itself be a dream. A memory of days erased again and again, blacked out by pain and ice and too much red, but still there.
Still hers to have – and to give.
Sssshhh.
Almost without thought she starts to copy the sound, shapes it from pursed lips - more a breath than anything, an exhalation, then a breeze caressing Clint's face. Her hand follows, not a touch, just warmth on his cheek, carried closer by the sound.
She suppresses a surprised smile as Clint twitches once more and begins to still.
Natasha allows her fingers to settle on his, butterfly-light, lets her hair brush across his face. He mutters something and she takes that as permission to move closer him and turn, until her back touches his chest. She molds her legs to follow the curve of his – he always sleeps with one pulled up - and puts her head under his chin. She pulls his arm across her waist, still over the covers but its weight an extra blanket in the retreating dark.
She smiles a little as his hand tightens briefly, and she can feel his lips in her hair and a breath that might be her name, or an echo of the sound she'd shaped for him.
'Tasha.'
Clint's breath and his heartbeat slow down; his hand relaxes and in the warm circle of her partner's arms Natasha's own mind starts drifting again, sinking into the silence.
Maybe she can do this after all?
Maybe they both can.
…..
I love steam punk; it's an aesthetic that is perfectly suited for the Avengers. (I mean, have you looked at Asgard?) So when I saw inkvoices' prompt for a "steam punk A/U," my own little gears started whirring. The title comes from a throwaway line in "Parade's End" that somehow stuck with me – and while WW1 may technically be on the outer edge of the steam punk era, they did have zeppelins, so.
5. Air Raids Permitting
"Sir, the air raid has started. And the Captain …"
"Not now, Jarvis, I'm busy." Sir Anthony Stark held the two glasses against the light. The amber liquid reflected the light beautifully as he swirled each in turn. "Yes, the one on the left, definitely."
He turned to his guest.
"See, Doctor Banner, it's all in the way the light refracts off the molecules. In the Ardbeg there is just the slightest deviation into the ochre spectrum, compared to the Glenfiddich. And it's that peculiar deviation …"
"Sir, Captain Rogers is quite insistent. He requires your authorization to deploy the Iron Man. Sir."
The sound of a zeppelin engine fractured the night, accompanied by the ack-ack-ack of the unit's Thompson guns and an ominous rumble. The rumble ended in a percussive shockwave that caused the tent walls to flutter for a moment, followed by the muffled sound of an explosion.
"I said, not now, Jarvis. I am conducting an important science experiment with our guest, and failure to conclude it properly would make him very angry. And believe me, you do not want to see Dr. Banner angry."
"I can wait," the Doctor said, with a sideways glance at Sir Anthony's batman. "Air raids are … important too. Aren't they?"
Sir Anthony sighed heavily.
"Nothing is more important than being able to identify the correct single malt on sight. Your life, or more precisely, your happiness might depend on it some day."
Another explosion shook the ground and the tent flap few open. A tall figure covered in mud stood at the entrance, breathing heavily.
"General," the Captain pressed out, gulping for air. "The Iron Man?"
The Doctor cast a questioning glance at his host, who gave a deprecating shrug and a little eyeroll.
"It's what we call our big artillery piece. Sort of like a gun. It takes a while to get warmed up, but once it does …"
He turned to the Captain. "Fine. Power it up. Don't forget to arm the repulsors this time. And in the meantime, tell that sniper of yours to earn his pay. Now, Doctor Banner, as for the Balvenie, you will see …"
Captain Rogers saluted sharply and stood still for a few seconds, catching his breath, before heading back to the outer trenches at a crisp trot.
The zeppelins had multiplied in the night; the lights of the single Thor biplane that Headquarters had allotted them illuminated the whale-shaped hulls at irregular intervals. The pilot was obviously looking for appropriate target points, but having to keep the rickety contraption in the air seemed to command most of his attention. At best, he served as a distraction to the enemy bombers that were increasingly finding their target.
Rogers reached the end of the trench – closest to the enemy dugouts - where the sniper's nest was located.
"Corporal Barton," he bellowed. "General's orders. Fire at will!"
Barton spat a curse that caused his companion to turn her head.
"Vat?" she asked, her Russian accent occasionally made stronger by the adrenaline coursing through both their veins. Barton liked it. In fact, he liked it a lot.
"Seems like our fearless leadership has decided, first of all, that we may shoot at the ships that are kicking our butts and second, that the thing to use against an aerial attack is … a bow and arrow."
"Well, that is what we'll use then."
The redheaded corporal nodded decisively. Women were still rare in the army, rarer still at the front, but this one had proven her mettle more than any of the men Barton had worked with combined. They had become quite a team over the last few months, ever since the battle of Budapest.
"I don't see how," he said. "I mean, I'm good, but …"
"What are zeppelins made of?" Romanoff asked him. "Skin around gas, right?"
"Pretty much. Or so Sergeant Coulson says."
"So – what do you know about gas?"
It burns.
"Flaming arrows?"
Romanoff smiled and started to take off her uniform jacket, cutting the fabric into thin strips. Barton felt his lips go dry at the sight of her …
Focus, Barton.
She dowsed the strips in the oil they used to keep the guns running in the mud and the rain, then lit a torch and held it high. Barton tried very hard to ignore the extent to which she resembled the Statue of Liberty at the moment.
"Ready?"
He nocked an arrow, touched the tip to the torch and let fly.
"Try and hit the ones that are over the enemy trenches," she reminded him, rather unnecessarily. Two birds, one stone had always been his specialty. It was truly amazing how they understood one another.
One by one, the air ships went down in a ball of fire; by the time the Iron Man was ready to deploy, none were left.
Barton turned to Romanoff, who had begun to shiver in the cool night.
"So who needs the big guns?" he said jovially as he gallantly (if somewhat regretfully) hung his own jacket over her shivering shoulders. "You want to get a drink, or something?"
She reached up to caress his cheeks with her oil-smudged hand.
"I could use a drink," she purred. "And 'something'. Air raids permitting."
…...
Promptathons is one of the things be_compromised does best.
6. The "All Things Friday" Post-Cap2 Three-Sentence Fic-a-thon
SneakyHufflepuff:
"Steve attempts to match-make for Natasha."
...
"Banner's a nice enough guy, don't you think, at least when he's not trying to crush your skull with a steel girder?"
"Or what about Sam - he can't run worth a damn, but he can sure sweep a woman off her feet."
"Oh, hey, I got it: If you went out with Barton, you'd already have a theme neckla ... oh."
…..
Not strictly post-Cap2, but an annoying thing that sometimes happens in post-movie discussions, apparently – also from SneakyHufflepuff:
"Natasha overhears people calling Hawkeye useless."
...
She thinks how close they came to losing the war against Loki and the Chitauri, how they might have if the so-called God hadn't lost access to Clint's mind by the grace of an iron railing.
She remembers the arrow that knocked Loki off his sled, and gave her and Selvig the tool to close the portal against an alien invasion.
And then she thinks of the look in his eyes when he told her that it was okay to be broken, but that you didn't need to stay that way - and she finds that she just doesn't give a shit what anyone else on the planet has to say about the man who saved her life.
…..
How could I resist this one? From Inkvoices:
"Straighteners"
...
Stark's inventions can be a menace, especially in the hands of less-than-competent SHIELD techs. Natasha recoils when she sees her reflection in the mirror, right after those rays emanating from the lab had made her head feel funny. Maybe the effects will wash out, but there's no time for that now; as she heads out to pick up Steve for their mission, she hopes this isn't a sign of how the rest of her week will go.
….
Also from Inkvoices:
"It's not flying; it's falling with style." (She loves Sam W., so.)
...
Sam digs himself out from the snowdrift for the umpteenth time, cursing and spitting out flakes; how's the stuff even getting into his crotch, through that uniform? If anyone had told him that before soaring like a falcon he'd be spending weeks flopping around like a penguin, he might have reconsidered enrolling in the program. But then he thinks about all the things he could do when he finally manages to get those wings under control, grits his teeth and takes off again.
….
Every fic-a-thon has to go there. I s'pose – and theladymore did:
"We've got plenty of time now...Let's go to Budapest."
...
"I suppose one advantage of no longer having a pay check coming in, is that no one expects you to show up for work on Monday, either."
Despite - or maybe because of - his shitty childhood and the betrayals that wind through his life like a strand of black pearls (and wasn't that last one a doozy?), Clint has always been in the business of chasing silver linings.
"So we could try and see whether those baths are any good for relaxing, not just for dodging goons with Kalashnikovs."
….
And then desertport said in a comment,
"Now I want fic with them dodging goons in a Budapest bath house!" So I wrote a sequel:
...
"I thought you said no goons, Barton - so what the hell are these guys doing here?!"
Natasha flicks the towel into her attacker's eye, causing him to scream in pain, and watches with grim satisfaction as he slips on the soap and cracks his skull on the granite fountain.
Satisfied that the man whose head he has been holding underwater has stopped breathing, Clint tut-tuts mildly and points out that for real goons, they'd have had to put their clothes back on.
….
Philstar22:
"If this man is just a job, then why does he seem so familiar?"
...
He is a void, a nothing, a whirl of blank thoughts - a canvas on which others draw their desires, then conceal them again with a blanket of white.
"I'll be with you to the end of the line."
A thought slows down: he catches it, tastes it – snow, turning to water.
….
Not strictly post-Cap2 either, but every Avengers writer has to commit one of these, right? Desertport tossed it out, and I'm glad I got to do my duty to this trope in just three sentences:
"In the middle of a mission, Clint and Natasha are both de-aged to preteen-hood."
...
"You know, how those bots, like, fired that ray thing at us, Mr. Stark?"
Clint would be telling the man in the funky red suit the story himself, but the words just won't come; he looks at the little red-headed girl with a plea in his eyes, hoping she won't tell him everything. 'Coz being hit by ray guns is embarrassing enough, but realizing he'd been kissing a girl when it happened - eww, gross.
…..
Last but not least (I think?): One of the LJ comms I hang out in (rennerobsession) has a regular "pic fic" contest. Fics are generally PWP-ish, rich in UST or RST and must be under 600 words. (I've putzed with it a bit since and it may be slightly over that now.)
Anyway, here it is. Expect no redeeming features... Rated M for some heavy innuendo - technically still a "T", but I'm being cautious here (not conservative, just ... cautious).
7. La Guardia, 6 p.m.
He emerges from the arrivals hall sooner than expected, one of the first passengers out, the benefit of carry-on and business class travel.
It should a bit obscene, she thinks, that a man returning home fresh from decimating not one, but two Mexican drug cartels – twenty-seven confirmed kills, not counting the minions that ended up shooting each other in the fallout - should look this relaxed.
The backpack on his shoulder has a familiar bulge on the outside, and Natasha briefly wonders what (if anything) airport security made of the oddly shaped pieces that make up his composite bow and collapsible arrows. Thanks to SHIELD's R&D Department, everything is made of carbon fiber and high-density resin rather than metal, which somehow allows Clint Barton to get away with sticking one of the deadliest instruments on Earth into the overhead luggage compartment.
He looks good, dammit, dressed in his favourite black jeans, shirt and baseball cap, like a grad student coming home from a field trip to the Mayan pyramids. She wonders how long she'll be able to keep her hands off him in the name of public decency; that new little bit of scruff on his face practically begs to be licked off.
His soft "Hey!" disrupts her thoughts. The glint in his eyes gets deeper and the grin threatens to split his face as he takes in the cut of the blouse she'd decided to wear to the airport.
"Hey yourself," she breathes, trying very hard (and failing) to ignore the sudden pooling of raw want that threatens to melt down her core at the sound of his voice. She finds herself moving alongside him, matching his stride towards the end of the barrier that separates passengers from those waiting.
"Didn't expect you to pick me up, darlin'," he drawls. "One would almost think you missed me."
She suppresses the sudden urge to smack him.
But then they're face to face, and her hands wrap around his neck seemingly of their own volition, just as his settle on her hips to pull her impossibly close. He smells of sun and coffee (no, that's coming from the backpack – his usual souvenir of Chiapas Dark Roast) and an underlay of cordite; the feel of his hard body against her breasts makes her head spin.
Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, reduced to a creature of base instinct and desire by her partner? She might consider killing him for that, if his tongue weren't currently exploring her mouth without any pretense at restraint, and if his fingers weren't kneading her ass in a way you just can't replicate on Skype.
She grinds into him a little harder, smirking in triumph as his roaming hands discover just why that tight skirt she's wearing has no visible panty line. His response is immediate and gratifying, and it's only the dim recollection that there are other passengers in the terminal that prevents her from reaching for him right then and there.
He buries his face in the crook of her neck, tasting her skin with his tongue and takes a deep, shuddering breath.
"Let's get out of here. Another minute and I won't be able to walk," he hisses.
She gives a quick return lick into his ear - over those headphones - before turning primly away, in the direction of the Parkade. She can feel the heat of his body behind her, in an excellent position to observe just what those stiletto sandals do for her gait.
"I guess you'll be glad to hear that I brought a van, then."
It's been a long month.