Title: By Your Side
Author: CharmingPromise
Rating: M (for safety's sake… might drop if it never gets there)
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters and am simply borrowing them a brief period of time. Thank you Marvel for inspiring my imagination. The song is 'Memory' and it's by Sugarcult. I'm not sure these will always totally fit the chapters perfectly in every circumstance but it's a revenant from my days of fanfic past and I'm kinda attached to the format.
Part: 2/?
AN: I am just proofing this myself so I sincerely apologize for grammatical and spelling mistakes! I hope they aren't so bad that they detract from the story.
AN2: Thank you so very much to everyone reading and reviewing! I love the support!
AN3: CA2- The Winter Soldier….. SO GOOD.
Chapter 2
So get back, back, back to where we lasted
Just like I imagined
I could never feel this way
So get back, back, back to the disaster
My heart's beating faster
Holding on to feel the same
This may never start
I'll tear us apart
Sugarcult- Memory
Natasha was still shaking her head and marveling over her crass partner, and how much she had changed that he could get away with saying the things he did without violent retribution, as she descended the stairs to her apartment and waiting shower.
She heard footsteps thudding up the flight below and gave Steve a warm grin when they crossed paths on the landing of her floor.
"Morning Cap'" she greeted. She was not unused to seeing him running the stairs prior to his twice daily trips to the gym.
"Natasha," he said, pausing in his upward progress, which was not part of the typical routine, "Did you have a nice workout?"
"Pretty typical," she replied, caught off guard by his sudden desire for small talk. Steve was a fiend for exercise and he wasn't often one to stop and chat mid-workout. She could swear he looked nervous too, though to be fair that was not much out of the norm for Steve when they found themselves alone together. Natasha wasn't sure if it was her specifically that made him edgy, or if that was just his native state around women. She was pretty sure it was the latter.
"Are you excited for this weekend?" he pressed on.
Natasha pursed her lips to consider this for a minute. Excited wasn't really an emotion she identified with, though she did anticipate she would enjoy the upcoming trip with her teammates cum roommates cum friends-in-training.
"I'm very fair, beaches really aren't really ideal for me," she answered honestly.
Steve stared at her for an open mouthed second, clearly at a loss for what to say. For some reason he had apparently rehearsed this conversation ahead of time and she was obviously going off script.
"I foresee it being worth the sunburn though," she quickly added.
Steve nodded, the conversation having caught back up to where he clearly intended it.
Not even Tony Stark could plummet from space to his, however momentary, death, and not have some self-actualizing realizations. One being that this Avengers Initiative mattered and he was in 100% and the other was the obvious acknowledgement that Pepper was one of the greatest things to ever happen to him. While he might think marriage was an outdated and silly institution he owed it to her to hang up his mantle as 'playboy' and acknowledge to the world his better half. It was nearly two years since Manhattan had been partially destroyed, but the plans were finally in place and the wedding was set for the impending weekend on an island in the Caribbean that Tony had purchased for specifically this purpose.
It made Natasha squirm to turn on the TV and see rampant speculation on the "wedding of the year", complete with a superhero bridal party. Being an Avenger was very different than being a spy or assassin and she would never be happy with some stick insect on the evening news speculating whether she would wear black to a wedding, while a candid picture of her was superimposed in the corner of the screen. Fury had been right to declare her useless for undercover work, as infuriating as that had been for her to hear. At least Clint could still effectively prowl the roofs above and feel useful.
"Do you have an escort?" Steve asked in a rush, drawing her out of her contemplation of the weekend ahead.
"Am I supposed to?" she asked, startled, and immediately saw she had once again said the wrong thing as a flash of near panic crossed the Captain's handsome face.
"I just assumed Clint and I would go," she elaborated, "I guess we normally partner up for these sorts of 'missions' as well."
"Tony told me he invited one of the new SHIELD recruits," Steve said nervously.
"Who?" Natasha snorted, ticking through the new batch of female recruits in her head.
"I'm not sure- he didn't say…" he began but Natasha interrupted.
"Probably Scarlett," she mused, thinking of the young gymnast who had so impressed on the obstacle course they supervised together a few months ago. "He likes them blonde and flexible." She was a little uncomfortable with the sudden irrational distaste she felt for the tiny blonde agent and was afraid it was written plainly across her face.
"Maybe," Steve said, "I just thought-," he stopped and began again. "I figured since we're the only two without a date we could maybe just go together."
"Only if you wanted to of course!" he added hurriedly.
Natasha stared at him blankly, "Are you asking me out Captain?"
"It can be whatever you want," he assured her, ever the courteous gentleman.
Natasha tried to ignore the nagging sting she felt that Clint hadn't clued her in to his plans. He didn't have any obligation to her of course, but he spent most of every day with her in some capacity and she thought he would have mentioned it.
Clint had never been one to date over the years she had known him, and it was true that when events that required a date arose they typically just went together, but she had never really considered that this lack of romantic conquests might be a consequence of their job rather than personal choice.
Their identities splashed across the news and local gossip rags, meant that their work with SHIELD was mostly limited to teaching positions now, and crises of a magnitude that required the attention of the Avengers were not a daily occurrence, so the two spies definitely found themselves with more time to just…..be, than they'd ever had before. She shouldn't be surprised that while she used the time to catch up on her reading and practice some new fighting skills, Clint might be finally taking part in the human activity of dating.
Natasha was fairly certain that despite whatever feelings, she might be finding herself capable of recently, she would never be one for a practice as conventional as dating. She was only now realizing how much that might put her out of synch with the others.
Thor had been living in the tower since a battle with the dark elf Malekith put him back on the same plane as Jane and he decided he no longer wanted to be away from the pretty astrophysicist. While they hadn't officially moved in together yet, they were clearly devoted to each other and it went without saying that she would accompany him to the wedding.
Tony had finally pestered Bruce into acknowledging burgeoning feelings for Amy, the biochemistry grad student at nearby NYU where Bruce would occasionally guest lecture, and he made sure that the entire house was made aware when Dr. Banner broke down and invited her this weekend.
Now with Clint bringing some way-too-young-for-him recruit, she and Steve would be the only two Avengers attending solo. While it was of no concern to her that she did not have a date, she had seen the wistful side of Captain America that smiled fondly as their friends paired off and got misty during 'Shakespeare in Love' when they watched their way through 'Best Pictures' for a month worth of movie nights.
"Sure," she finally said, offering Steve a cautious smile, "We can go together."
The tension visibly drained from Steve's large frame and he returned the small smile with a beaming grin of his own, "That's great. Thank you Natasha," he said and she thought for half a second he was going to try and hug her before he settled for a friendly shoulder squeeze instead, which was shocking enough itself. She wasn't entirely sure Steve had ever actually touched her outside of actual combat.
"We can work out the logistics when we get there," he said, "I'll see you later."
Natasha could only manage a weak wave as he thanked her again and resumed his sprint up the stairwell. She finally opened the door and stepped out onto her floor of Avenger's Tower.
An entire floor would be excessive for each of their living quarters, so instead they each shared a floor with some other extravagant amenity Tony had chosen specifically with each of them in mind.
Banner had the predictable satellite lab in case he needed privacy not available on the 3 floors of R&D below him.
Tony had somehow anticipated Thor taking a liking for American cinema and gifted him with a movie theater from which he could often be heard laughing uproariously as he binge watched decades worth of terrible films.
Steve had a billiards room right out of 'Clue' with a pool table and darts and the small addition of two regulation size bowling lanes.
Clint was lucky enough to share space with a beautiful infinity pool overlooking NYC on his top floor. Natasha imagined the pool was more convenient placement than homage to Clint's tastes, though he was second only to Pepper when it came to frequency of use. Anything to get in some cardio without resorting to the treadmill she knew to be his policy.
Natasha bypassed a massive library on her way into the apartment, resplendent with fully stocked shelves that were broken up only by an ornate fireplace on one wall.
She closed the door behind her and shed her workout clothes on the floor of her bedroom while the shower warmed. She wondered if she had just made a terrible mistake accepting Steve's clumsy invitation in the hall.
She was fairly certain Steve Rogers felt more timid appreciation of her skills than he did romantic fervor. He toed a line of genuine respect for her abilities and utter incomprehension for her brand of overt sexuality. She enjoyed discussing books with him and the most effective way to take out an opponent using birthday streamers and a stapler among other challenging hypotheticals, but he would squirm uncomfortably and flush a deep red when she strode into the kitchen in a sports bra for a post-workout bottle of water. He liked her as a person but someone as virtuous as Captain America was never going to be truly comfortable with the things she had done and likely still would, so she was fairly confident this was just a harmless gesture of chivalry to save her the stigma of the singles table.
Natasha of course could care less about such social constructs but there was something about Steve's earnestness that made him a hard person to disappoint. Almost as much as his sincere gallantry, she had been possessed by some destructive need to throw caution to the wind upon hearing about Clint's 'date'.
She knew that Steve was attractive. Every one of the men that claimed membership in the Avengers was objectively handsome and she was not unwilling to admit as much. In the past all she required of her sexual partners was an attractive face and a willing participation but she sensed that this was a line better not crossed with this particular group.
She enjoyed sex enough and had needs that an attractive co-worker could at least begin to fulfill. The visuals were enjoyable enough, and she was always back in her own room shortly after the panting conclusion to finish their job half-done under the warm spray of her shower. Natasha leaned back into that selfsame shower spray to rinse her hair as she considered for the second time this morning just how much she was evolving.
It wasn't just that most of them were in committed relationships with women for whom she had a great deal of respect, though that was part of it. It was also that she simply had too much respect and affection for these new friendships to tarnish them simply in order to scratch that particular itch. It was a new breed of relationship that she had only come to understand through years of platonic partnership with Clint. A parallel she was no longer comfortable with since she was starkly aware of how recently she had nearly crossed those firmly established boundaries with that particular teammate and to whom she found her mind wandering now.
She had always been attracted to Clint Barton. His face might lack the symmetrical perfection of some but she had always found his brand of rugged handsomeness more alluring. Each scar or imperfection gave his face and form character. Below the neck wasn't grounds for being tossed out of bed either. His ass in a pair of jeans made her consider worship at the altar of Levi Denim and she was of the opinion that his toned archer's arms were the epitome of what arms should look like. Even her most concentrated efforts could not ignore the heat uncurling deep in her abdomen at the sight of his muscular forearms when he snapped his bow into commission.
Attraction was something she could handle. It was chemicals and hormones; synapses firing in a predictable and familiar way. It was the unaccustomed reactions she was having to seemingly innocuous behavior that caused an increased alarm.
It was the spreading warmth in her chest at the open smile he gave her whenever she entered the room. It was the tightness in her diaphragm when he'd nudge her in the middle of a briefing to snicker over one of the inside jokes on their ever-expanding list. It was when she realized she had stopped reading in the middle of a page and drifted into the memory of a recent joke or story he'd told. This was all new in her repertoire of human interaction and emotion and she could no longer deny that Clint Barton had become a distraction for her.
From his well-muscled torso to his blue-grey eyes, she was completely at a loss as to how to handle this frightening dynamic with the one person she didn't think she could live without.
She had propositioned him over a year ago now, before Loki, before things had even gotten truly scary and confusing. She thought that if she could just get it out of her system things would right themselves in her head. If she could wrap her legs around his hips and ride him until they screamed, he would revert back to 'just another man' on par with all the others. She could eat breakfast next to him as she did with anyone else and not notice that he rubbed the back of his neck when he was deep in thought and that he chewed his thumb nail while he read.
She was both surprised and not when he had declined the invitation. Surprised because so few men did, and not because he was Clint.
And then Loki happened. And those three words: 'Barton's been compromised'.
Natasha didn't believe in souls but she imagined that's what people were referring to. That bottoming out of everything that she knew and was. She was far more down this path than she had been willing to realize and she realized she wasn't finding her way out simply by getting him naked.
Natasha Romanoff was exactly as strong as she was reported to be, but in this one respect she was wretchedly unprepared to deal. So she did the only thing she could think to do and deliberately ignored each small betrayal by her body and mind in his presence. It was only when she was forced to address feelings of any sort for anyone, such as Steve had just necessitated, that her traitorous mind ended up falling on Clint.
She was always prone to warm showers, hot nearly to the point of scalding if you asked a lesser person, but for the next few minutes Natasha twisted the knob to ice cold in an attempt to shock herself out of such an unsettling headspace.
For once, she was the one late to breakfast.
TBC… Each and every review is appreciated! Thank you so much!