Disclaimer: I do not own Clint Barton, Phil Coulson, Natasha Romanoff, or any of the Marvel Universe/its affiliations.

Woah, two stories in one day? That's got to be a personal record or something.

What can I say, I love these little one shots. Sometimes it's nice to write something that doesn't end in blood and tears. And if you only follow me for the angst, I hope this content is enough too hold you over until it comes. I am working on Fallujah diligently and it should (hopefully) be out soon.

Shout out to Melfice13 who left a very sweet comment that made me all warm and fuzzy inside. I agree hands down that MCU Clint doesn't get the attention he deserves and I think Fraction does a super awesome job of capturing his character. Thanks for reading!

Also, shout out to Story5 who requested this particular prompt. I loved writing it, so thank you.

I'll stop rambling now and move on to this one shot. The prompt was "Spider"


December 15th, 2010

Granada, Nicaragua


"Would you get down from there? You're being ridiculous," Natasha scolded, folding her arms over her chest. Clint shook his head from on top of the wardrobe, pushing himself farther against the wall.

"No way, Tasha. That thing is huge," he insisted, staring down at the floor, his eyes wide. Natasha had never seen Clint show even a glimpse of fear in the almost three years she had known him, but right now it was consuming his expression. She could have laughed, it was so comical.

"Please, Clint, its much more afraid of you than you are of it," she said, moving between him and the large wolf spider that had found its way into their motel room.

"Oh, did it tell you that?" Clint asked, brandishing his favorite knife as if the spider could somehow jump all the way up to where he was and somehow attack him.

"No, but look at it," Natasha persisted, gesturing down at the spider behind her. "It's so much smaller than you."

"So is a hand grenade but you can be damn sure I'd run from that too," Clint said, never once pulling his eyes from the spider. Of all the things she expected her partner to have a phobia of - closed spaces, crowded places, failure, and so on - spiders was near the bottom of the list. It was such a lame thing to be afraid of, especially for someone like Clint.

Natasha opened her mouth to argue back when her cell phone rang. She rolled her eyes, pulling her gaze away from a terrified Clint as she fished her phone out of her pocket. She didn't bother to look at the number on the screen before answering.

"Romanoff," she said simply.

"Widow, it's Coulson. Checking to make sure you two got settled in," their handler answered. She nodded even though Phil couldn't see her.

"Yeah, we made it here just fine. But there was an… unwanted visitor in our motel room that spooked Clint," Natasha said, the hint of a smirk on her face.

"I am not spooked. This is a tactical retreat," Clint said in defense, but she wasn't listening.

"What kind of visitor?" Phil asked, the worry undertone to his voice not unnoticed by the master assassin. She had gotten to know Phil more recently, and would never claim to know him as well as Clint did, but one thing she did know was that he was prone to worry, especially when it came to his oldest recruit.

"An eight legged kind," Natasha answered, looking down at the spider. It had started moving up the wall and Clint had tensed, his eyes never leaving the small creature.

Natasha heard Phil laugh. "Is this about his spider thing?"

"Yeah, I didn't know he was-"

"Terrified of them. Completely harrowed," Phil said, the worry gone and replaced with a shred of humor. When he wasn't busy worrying about Clint, Phil had no problem antagonizing him. The two had a very unique relationship she hadn't seen in anyone before in her life. One minute the were throwing deadly sarcasm at each other and the next they were taking bullets for each other.

It was strange, to say the least.

"Aw, that's so sad. Poor Barton," Natasha said, laughing at the middle finger Clint shot in her direction. He hadn't moved from him perch on the wardrobe, but he had lowered his knife. It seemed getting teased by both his partner and his handler was something that he wasn't going to take lightly.

"I've got it, Romanoff. Put me on speaker," Phil said.

"Yeah, hold on," Natasha said, pulling the phone away from her ear and hitting the speaker button. "You're on."

"Clinton Francis Barton, stop being such a baby and get your ass off whatever piece of furniture you jumped on. It's a spider. Not a threat, or a target, or a damn hand grenade," he said, and Natasha had to stifle a laugh.

"First of all, shut the fuck up Philip. Second of all, stop patronizing me," Clint said with a very pointed look on his face that Natasha knew would have made Phil roll his eyes.

"Clint, you've been shot multiple times and constantly put yourself in danger for the sake of your job. You're a trained assassin, for Christ's sake. Act like it."

"All this coming from the guy who's afraid of ducks," Clint shot back without hesitating. Natasha couldn't hold back her laugh the second time.

"You're afraid of ducks, Coulson?" she asked and she heard Phil sigh.

"You're going to pay for that, Barton," he said, sounding much more exasperated now. That was about what Natasha expected. The two could go back and forth like this for hours. She had, unfortunately, had to witness that on several occasions. As entertaining as it was when it started, it got a bit annoying to all the bystanders after the first hour. The two would throw sarcasm for a while then Clint would get irritated and take out his hearing aides and Phil would start angrily signing in response. It was a sight to see. "Romanoff, can you get rid of the damn spider?"

Lucky for her, however, it seemed Phil was eager to cut this particular conversation short. "Of course, Coulson," Natasha said, making no attempt to mask the amusement in her voice. She may not fit in between the duo that was Agent Coulson and Hawkeye, but that didn't mean she didn't know how to push both of their buttons separately. That was part of her job after all.

"Thank you. Check in after you run surveillance. Leave the line open."

"Yes sir," Natasha said, smiling up at Clint who was still glaring at the spider on the wall. "Stand by for report."

"Standing by. Watch your six out there," Phil said, his voice falling into his even professionalism Natasha was so familiar with.

"Yes sir," she said in agreement. Both her and Phil knew that when he told her to watch her six, what he really meant was to watch Barton's six. The archer had a nasty habit of getting himself into nasty situations that he would later need to be dragged out of. Usually it was Phil pulling him out of the fire, but these days he trusted Natasha more and more to take his place. She would die for him just as quickly as Phil would, if not faster.

Budapest had proved that seven months ago.

"Take care, Romanoff. Don't let him do anything stupid," Phil said, and was hanging up before Natasha had the chance to respond. She was grateful, though, because even she knew she didn't have the ability to stop Clint from doing something stupid. Once he set his mind on something, he usually went through with it, no matter how stupid it was.

That was one of the many perks of being his partner.

Natasha returned her phone to her pocket, turning around to the spider that had crawled eye lever with her. She scooped up the creature, gently cupping it between her hands and moving to the window.

She glanced back at Clint, who was looking at her like she had grown two heads. He may have been a master assassin, but it turns out that sometimes he was more like normal people than he would admit. Clint Barton was one of the biggest contradictions Natasha had ever met in her life, and it only made Natasha want to know more about him. Even though she knew a lot already, she felt like there was a lot she was missing out on.

Clint was the first book she had found trouble reading. And it only made her want to read it more. She had gotten snippets in the three years of their partnership, but never all of it.

Maybe, one day, she'd be lucky enough to get the full story.

"Relax, Barton. It's just a spider."


This one was a bit longer and hopefully just as cute as the last one. This is the first thing I've published with Natasha and I really enjoyed writing her character. This is obviously a ways in to her and Clint's partnership, but no worries. I will expand on them meeting and growing as partners in later stories. But I love their domestic relationship almost as much as I love the angst between them.

And aah! Deaf!Clint, I know! I realize he didn't start off deaf in my series, but it will be explained in a future story. To me, it was important to include his deafness because that's part of who he is. Given, you can hardly tell sometimes because of his hearing aides and ability to read lips. It will be more prevalent in future stories, so look out for that.

Like I said, I really enjoyed writing this, so if there are any specific prompts you want to see, drop me a review and I'll definitely do it. They don't have to be single words either - if there are any snapshots of Clint/Phil/Natasha/anyone else's life you want to see, let me know. I love doing commissions.

See you soon!

Ciao