Natasha couldn't believe that Clint had sung to her in front of the whole sports field - the martial arts club, the soccer team, the marching band, and all the other students milling around there. And it was all for her.
It was the kind of thing that only happened in films.
And now Natasha was on her way to rescue Clint from detention.
She peeked through the glass window on the detention room door. Heimdall was taking the detention, stood like a gigantic statue at the front of the class, daring any of his charges to move a muscle.
Darcy Lewis had a seat at the front, staring wide eyed at the wall; Natasha wondered what she had done to land herself in detention. Pyro was there too, probably for setting fire to the bins again. Juggernaut and Wolverine were both in for fighting. And then there was Clint with his head on his desk at the back of the room.
Nat pushed the door open and strode towards Heimdall, ignoring everyone's stares. Clint raised his head from the desk to watch her.
"Mr Heimdall, can I talk to you for a second?" She reached the front of the class and stood in front of the muscle-bound wrestling coach.
Heimdall tilted his head ever so slightly towards her. "How may I help you, Romanoff?"
His deep bass-like voice gave Nat shivers, even after being coached by him for the past two years. "Sir, I've got some ideas on how to improve the girl's wrestling team."
"Excellent. I look forward to hearing your ideas later." He took a step away and began pacing in front of the class.
Nat met Clint's eyes and jerked her head towards the open window at the side of the classroom. The idiot just smiled at her.
"The window," she mouthed. He shook his head, not understanding. "The window!" she hissed.
Heimdall stopped pacing and looked at her. "Excuse me?"
"We've got that big meet against Octavius High," she began, putting a hand on his bicep and gently steering him towards her, away from the window. "Oh! Your bicep is huge!"
The size of his muscles was obvious without Nat touching them, but she was improvising, and Clint had taken his chance so it was too late to stop now. Nat seized the other bicep while Clint shimmied around Wolverine's desk and towards the window.
"Oh my God, the other one's even bigger!" Nat let out a simpering laugh, highly doubting that flattery would be enough to distract Heimdall from his detention master duties. She was right. He remained impassive, ignoring her hands on his thick arms. "You don't take steroids do you? Because I've heard that steroids can severely disintegrate your package."
Oh great, now she was thinking about his junk. The students in detention let out a few chuckles.
"Not that I'm thinking about your package, of course," she clarified. "But that's not the point."
"I sincerely hope not."
The window creaked as Clint pushed it wide enough for him to slip out. Heimdall turned his head towards the sound but Nat grabbed his arm again and pulled him back to face her.
"The point is: the Octavius team kicks our butts every year and I think I've devised a plan that will enable us to finally defeat them," Nat nodded earnestly.
"Very well," Heimdall sighed. "What is this plan?"
Clint dropped his bag out of the window with a loud thud.
"That thing that you taught us!" Nat said loudly.
"Which was?"
Clint had one leg out of the window. Nat struggled to think of one thing that Heimdall had actually taught them. Mostly their wrestling practice consisted of Nat taking down whoever she went up against and then giving them pointers. Heimdall was really there for adult supervision and to give him the extra-curricular activity that he needed to keep working at Xavier's.
"Misdirection?" she ventured, hoping he wouldn't remember not teaching them that. "Think about it, we make them look left and we grab them from the right - BAM! We take them down, we win!"
Heimdall nodded. "But how do we make them look left?"
Clint's other leg hit the window frame with a clang, Heimdall's eyes narrowed and he turned to look - Clint paused, perfectly still, one leg out of the window, the other in the air.
"Like this!" Nat panicked, grabbing the hem of her tank top and pulling it up, flashing her wrestling coach.
The class burst into applause and catcalls. Heimdall froze, wide eyed; being flashed by students wasn't expected as part of covering detention. "I'm not sure that's allowed in the rules."
Nat's eyes flickered to the window - Clint had gone. She put on her broadest smile and lowered her top.
"That's a shame. Well now that you've seen... the plan, I'm going to go and show... I'm just going to go."
Red faced, Nat spun around and walked determinedly out of the class, ignoring the applause she was still getting from the others in detention. She just hoped her father wouldn't find out about that. He would have a fit.
"I can't thank you enough for helping me sneak out of detention," Clint smiled as they took a pedal-boat out onto the water. "It was very cool."
"No problem," she chuckled. "But now you owe me a debt, you know that right?"
He laughed. "I thought for sure I was busted climbing out that window. How did you keep him distracted?"
"I dazzled him with my wits," she lied, trying to hide the blush creeping up her neck. She glanced at Clint and found him looking straight at her.
"So what's your excuse for acting the way we do?" he asked, his eyes crinkling as he squinted in the sun.
Nat frowned. "I don't like to do what people expect. Why should I live up to other people's expectations instead of my own." She didn't mention who it was who had made her think like that.
"So you're disappointed from the start and then you're covered, right?"
"Something like that," Nat shrugged.
"Then you screwed up," Clint smirked, flashing a cheeky grin. "You never disappointed me."
Nat smiled, looking away. On the other side of the bay she spotted a sign for a paintballing game. She pointed, "Are you up for it?"
The spent the rest of the day lobbing paintballs at each other, covering each other in green and yellow and red smears, making out in a stack of hay, and then throwing some more paint. They got ice cream and drove back to Nat's in Clint's van, playing a game of Fact or Fiction to get to know each other a bit better.
"State trooper?" Nat asked, recalling the rumour that Clint and Johnny Storm had set a guy on fire.
"Fallacy. Johnny only threatened to light the guy up if he tried to arrest us," Clint answered. "Dead guy in the parking lot?"
"Rumour," Nat rolled her eyes, thinking of what a stupid rumour it was that she had found a dead guy in the school parking lot. "The duck?"
"Hearsay, I've never eaten a duck, and if I did I still wouldn't eat the beak or feet. Remy LeBeau's balls?"
"Fact," Nat grinned. Clint groaned. "But he deserved it - he tried to grope me in the lunchline."
"Fair enough," Clint agreed, still wincing.
"The liver for a recurve bow?" They climbed the steps to Nat's porch and followed the decking around the house.
"Fiction, but I would sell it if it was a really nice bow."
Nat laughed. "Where were you last year? Someone said you were in Blackgate, and I know the porn career is a lie."
"Do you?" Clint raised an eyebrow. Nat snorted.
They settled down on the steps around the side of the house. Nat brushed a few green and yellow paint-matted strands of her red hair from her face. Clint's hair was a rainbow of colours too, and he had a splodge of green beside his ear. The paint was really tough to get off.
"Tell me something true," Nat asked, leaning close.
Clint thought for a moment. "I hate peas."
Nat shook her head. "No, something real. Something no one else knows."
Clint leaned forward and kissed her neck gently. "You're sweet, and sexy," he moved across to kiss the other side of her neck. "And completely hot for me."
Nat scoffed. "You are amazingly self-assured, has anyone ever told you that?"
"I tell myself that everyday actually." He grinned, kissing her firmly on the lips. He was a surprisingly good kisser, Nat thought; for all his rough exterior, his lips were quite soft. "Go to the prom with me."
Nat pulled away from him, feeling the moment fading. "Is that a request or a command?"
"Come on, go with me," Clint pressured.
"No," Nat told him. "I don't want to. It's a stupid tradition."
"People won't expect you to go," Clint pointed out. Something about the way he was insisting was setting off alarm bells in Nat's head.
"Why are you pushing this? What's in it for you?"
His hesitation was all she needed. "Oh, so now I need a motive to want to be with you?"
"You tell me."
"You need therapy, you know that?" he scowled.
Nat couldn't believe how he had changed. Well, she could, she had seen the same thing with Loki - all charm and smiles until she didn't want to do what he wanted, but that time she had waited too long to get out of that relationship. She wasn't making that mistake again.
"Just answer the question, Barton."
"Nothing!" he said loudly. "There is nothing in it for me, just the pleasure of your company. Okay?" He slipped a cigarette from his pocket and put it to his lips. Nat was appalled. She snatched the cigarette from his lips and threw it to the ground, stomping on it before she stalked into the house, slamming the door behind her.
