There's a persistent, fast-paced tapping that echoes in the quiet of the hall. Clint hopes he's far away enough so that Natasha and Thor won't hear the nervous thumping of his foot against the floor. He feels high strung to all hell, it reminds him of the time he hadn't made it to the hospital before Laura gave birth, he'd been away on a mission, and his body had been jittering like a squirrel on coffee.
He didn't like this, he didn't like this at all, it'd been hours since Natasha had gone into Thor's room, he'd heard the faraway voices for a while and some singing too? Maybe he'd imagined that part to be honest. It had lasted a long time but that had been hours ago and now it is all quiet.
Clint trusts Natasha, with his life and the life of all those he loves and despite how much sense her words had made to him about Thor's trustworthiness, there is nothing that could ever make him okay with a decision like this.
No, that was a lie. He had come to terms with it, once he had calmed down after he and Tasha had fought. But now, it all seems like a vain thing to him, an unnecessary risk, and the fear is tearing him to little shreds from the inside out.
He'd sat down in the hallway that leads to Thor's room as soon as Natasha had gone inside, he'd meant to make himself as unobtrusive as possible, and placed himself where he wouldn't hear any private conversations his friend and Thor might have. Now, he has his head in between his legs as he holds his hair with a rage filled grip; he's trying his best to stay in place and stay calm.
He takes in a shaky breath and practices grounding exercises as the memories of his time under Loki's spell make themselves at home at the forefront of his mind. Everything will be fine, he tells himself once again. Everything will be just fine.
Natasha wakes up softly from a deep, deep sleep. The room she's in is quietly comfortable and despite having slept on the floor for a long while, she feels more rested than she's felt in ages. She sits up, there's a light sheet over her and it slides down off her; she stretches her arms and back, her muscles feel pleasantly relaxed and her senses alert.
"Evening." Chuckles a voice to her right.
She turns to look at him and feels the last bits of softness disappearing from her senses, Thor is sitting by the table, he's got a little booklet open where he's taking notes with a fancy pen. He looks up at her and smiles.
"Hi." She replies a little dumbly, she looks at the goldening, clear sky outside, at the day coming to an end "I thought it was raining." She feels a sense of deja-vu, but she'll think about that later, for now she picks up her discarded top and puts it back on.
The blond hums as he writes some more and then closes the booklet, giving her his full attention.
"It was." He says and stands up, going to the wall where the base of the bed and mattress lean, he takes hold of the latter and pulls it to the ground, dragging it a bit closer to where Natasha sits. "But not here." He gestures vaguely to the city outside.
The redhead has a flash of a faraway memory, something almost dreamlike.
"Here?" She asks quietly and touches her chest with the tips of her fingers. She can see the blue of his eyes twinkling.
"And here." He pounds at his own muscled chest once with his closed fist. He lets himself flop down on the mattress with a huff "Come, I imagine you're quite tired of the floor."
Despite how good her sleep was a bed does sound nice. She crawls over to the softness and curls there for a moment in the comfortable silence, wondering at this strange sort of trust that they have formed between them to be like this so casually. She looks up at the table after a while.
"I didn't know you were a journal kind of guy." She comments and smirks a little when Thor scoffs.
"Hardly. But the healers back home like to bother me about this stuff. If I do something different they want to know, how, why, the plants that I used, the reactions, every single little thing they want me to write down and report to them so they can muse over their theories about how things work in the universe and how they can apply them elsewhere."
"Not your cup of tea?" She jokes.
"And as if it wasn't enough already that I write these things down, they always look sort of disappointed. 'Well, you could have been more detailed, but I suppose this will have to suffice.'" He mimics quite a terrible imitation of a feminine voice, which she suspects he's heard a thousand times over. Natasha laughs lightly at this and a different kind of silence falls between them. Thor sits up and faces her.
"How do you feel my lady?" He asks, not quite serious, but a far off cry from his playful demeanor of before.
The redhead takes a moment to think about the question. Her stomach feels… oddly full, like there's more than there used to be inside her, and it makes sense. After her operation in the Red Room, once the pain had subsided, she'd felt light and like there was something missing inside her, because there had been. She had said bye-bye to most of her reproductive system that day.
It's a weird feeling, but not really unpleasant, and she's not in any pain, which is good, amazing even. Somewhere in the back of her head she had expected it, some sort of awful aftereffect of the enchantment, but she feels fine.
Natasha sits up and leans back on her arms.
"I think… I'm alright." She concludes "It feels… a bit weird to be honest. But I'm okay."
"That is quite good!" He smiles brightly "I have done these sorts of spells a lot of times before but it is always wise to be vigilant. I do think it went well, but if you have doubts of any kind, please tell me, I would be happy to assist."
"I know you would." She says fondly and believes her words. She's… she's so glad to have him for a friend.
The emotion wells up in her chest and after a second her eyes tear a little. She freezes cold.
"What." The assassin chokes out confused at the random loss of control. She hunches forward and places her fingers beneath her eyes, "What?" She repeats weirded out at her own reaction.
"Ah, that happens sometimes," Thor rumbles "it is completely natural, do not worry."
"People cry after you do spells on them?" She asks incredulous and a little more strongly than she meant, but seriously, what?
"Not always, no. But you are unused to being in contact with so much magic at once. It tends to open up a lot of things in us and it ah… destabilize our emotions. A lot of people do cry, but I've had others try and throw punches at me, some have awakened to lust and some other variety of emotions. But aye, crying is the most common, it will pass soon."
She doesn't cry, her eyes tear a little, but she doesn't cry. She's too good at managing her emotions to cry over fondness, thank you very much.
A tear slides down her cheek and she brushes it away.
"You might want to go to Barton now." The blond says and she raises her head up inquiring "he's been waiting down the hall I suspect since we started."
Natasha huffs softly, she's not really surprised.
Clint's breathing exercises are doing very little for him at this point in time. He's been sitting out here for ages and his body is painfully stiff and his mind is working a mile a minute on things he really doesn't want to think about and it's infuriating, and it makes him scared, and-
"Well?"
Clint's head shots up at the sound of her voice, her skirt brushes against his legs, she looks fine, she's fine, she's perfectly alright. What in the world is she wearing?
"I wasn't spying on you," He's quick to say "Look, I sat far away so I wouldn't hear anything, I was just waiting for you, I wasn't trying to hover or anything-"
"I believe you." She cuts him off and offers him her hand.
Clint takes it without really thinking about it and she pulls him up.
"Come on," she nods down the corridor.
"What, to Thor's room?" He asks, uncomfortable all of a sudden, guilty too, cause he's been thinking a lot of awful things as of late about a guy who's supposedly his friend.
"Yeah, I'm still tired," she lies "and the guy just gave me my whole uterus back, I'm not going to just ditch him like that." She smirks and Clint's a little dumbfounded.
"Okay." He answers without really knowing what he's saying okay too.
They walk back into the god's room. And they just chat. They chat.
They sit on his soft mattress on the floor with the fading light of day caressing the walls of the room and they just talk and it's nice.
It's really nice.
The next day Clint comes by Thor's room, a very sad looking plant in a pot in his hands that he used to really love because his children gave it to him; it's not dead, but it's got an unhappy color to it.
He asks forgiveness with a sheepish smile and a look at the poor burnt leaves, it makes Thor laugh deeply like he always does. And the archer makes peace with himself as Thor takes the pot from his hands and blows a gentle breath over the plant, not knowing this is an apology nor that he's just offered forgiveness. Clint is so close he can see a shimmer of gold peppering the exhaled air. 'He's the magic man,' he thinks again in wonder.
"Thank you, man; really, you're great." He says, still amazed at the rich colors and perked up flowers like they have never been before. His heart does not race with fear, inside of him there's just that child-like wonder he'd first had when he'd walked in on Thor performing wonders on a lonely room of Stark Tower.
The god chuckles and thumps the shorter man's back heartily.
"It is nothing friend, I am glad to be of service," he pulls him close in a one armed hug and closes his door behind him, guiding the archer down the hall. "Let us go find Lady Natasha, I am quite eager to experience this 'movie at the park' you guys talked about, I've not watched many and none of them have been outdoors," Thor says with curiosity in his voice, glad since yesterday at dawn to have been invited to spend more time with the mortals.
"It's really nice, and I think you'll like the movie, and if not at least you'll get a good laugh out of it," Clint grins, it feels good to trust again.
Clint does not know it yet, but the plant in his hands will never wilt.
Abril: And so, it is done. I am sorry for the lateness of it. There isn't much more I can say to that, I am terrible I hope you enjoyed this XD
The movie Natasha, Clint, and Thor will watch is Lord of the Rings btw, the first one.
A big huge thanks and a hug to Shadow-ying for being the beta of this whole story and putting up with him. Much love and appreciation to you friend.