Prompt 7: Muffins (Provided by Hanna)
So it's been a while! So much for updating every day, right? That got sorta stressful, actually, so I'm cutting it back a bit...
There's a lot we don't know about Clint and Natasha's characters in the movie-verse, so I sort of went with what I know about the characters from other continuities and from what was hinted at. I hope I did the two of them justice...
Enjoy!
Clint was in Stark's living room. The entire team had spent the night in the building after the battle for New York. Clint woke early, as he often does, so he got dressed and found his way to the mostly demolished living room. The couch seemed suitably non-destroyed, and a cool breeze came in through the broken windows as he sat on it.
Clint wondered if the rest of the team was up yet, but he realized he didn't really want to find out. Even if they were, he had no desire to see them. He often decided that he just needed time alone, and this was one of those times.
So he sat, brooding, for who knows how long before Natasha silently appeared next to him. She had a muffin in either hand, and without saying a word, she forcefully shoved one towards him.
Clint laughed. "So was making muffins a part of your SHIELD training, or did you learn it back in Mother Russia?" he asked, putting on his best (still horrible) Russian accent at the end.
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Pepper made them," she explained as she sat next to him on the sofa.
"I feel like that takes some of the symbolism out of the moment," he said, but he took the muffin from her anyway. "Thanks."
"This isn't about symbolism, Clint. It's about you."
"Oh yeah? What'd I do to deserve a non-symbolic muffin?" he asked, biting off a chunk of his muffin while Natasha refused to even unwrap hers.
"Tell me what's wrong," she demanded.
"Is that your way of telling me you're here for me or some crap, Tasha? "
"No, it's my way of telling you that you're going to tell me what's under your skin."
"So the muffin was to butter me up, eh? S'alright; it's a damn good muffin." He took another bite out of his. "Aren't you going to eat yours?"
"Clint," she insisted.
There was a pause, a long one. Clint stared at his muffin for a minute, not eating anymore of it, then said quietly, "It was so easy."
"What was?" Natasha prompted.
Clint thought it was funny, the way Natasha played therapist. It was always more like an interrogation than a conversation with a friend, but hell, he always felt better after talking to her in the past. "It was so easy for him to turn me against SHIELD. Tasha, you know who I am, and you know what I've done, and I finally…" He stopped, took a deep breath, and turned to look at Natasha. She wore the same poker face she always did, and to anybody else, her expression (lack of expression) might have been discouraging when it came to spilling their guts. But Clint knew Tasha. And he knew that the only reason she was sitting there at all was because she cared. Whether or not he could 'feel the love' was irrelevant. "I was finally doing some good, y'know. I was finally a part of something. And it was so easy for him to turn me against that."
"Not entirely," she argued. Clint raised an eyebrow at her, so she continued, "I saw the incident report from the base collapse. Loki told you to take down Fury, and you shot him in the chest, when we both know you should've gotten him between the eyes."
"Thanks. It's good to know that even my aim was off, too."
"Your aim wasn't off. Your aim is never off. You shot him in the chest on purpose. Everyone knows Fury wears a vest twenty-four seven. You refused to kill him for the same reason Selvig put a failsafe on the portal machine: You were in there. You'll always be in there, somewhere." She put poked his chest over his heart, and he laughed a little. "Besides, you're back now, so there's really no point in brooding over it. So get over yourself and eat your muffin," she said, as she finally took the first bite out of hers.
He smiled at her, bit his muffin, and through the food in his mouth said, "If you insist, Tasha."
They sat there and ate their muffins in silence for a few moments. Natasha finally broke it.
"We deserve a vacation."
I always thought it was weird at the end of The Avengers that Fury and Hill both say that all the Avengers are gone. Weren't two of them agents? Did they not go back to work? So that last line is my means of explanation.
Anyway, I don't know if I did the two of them well. I tried to get Clint's sort of dry, cynical humor and Natasha's sort of 'no I don't have feelings' when she totally does.
I never know whether or not I ship these two, but either way, I believe they have a very deep understanding of each other and whether or not they love each other, their relationship is very profound. I sort of tried to put that into this, but I don't know if it came across...
Thank you everyone who follows, favorites, and reviews, and special thanks today for Hanna for today's prompt! She's reviewed for almost every chapter thus far! Either that or I have a lot of guest reviewers named Hanna... (Also, Hanna, if you're reading this, Muffins as a prompt was totally not too random at all!)
Please review with prompts! It's nice to have a lot of options when it comes time to pick one :)
Ok, enough rambling! Until next time!
