Natasha, oddly, is terrified of spiders, and masterfully manages to stifle her grimace whenever she sees one scurrying across the floor, and Clint, upon first discovering this earth shaking secret, quickly stored it away in his mind for later convenience. Natasha-afraid of spiders. Contradicting her name as a renowned spy, and just plain contradicting her, he thinks it a nice thought of use, and knows that he could use it to blackmail her or set her up for something or get her into a stressing situation.
Hawkeye knows this, and yet does nothing to throw her into misfortune, even when Tony comes home with a glass jar that glints in the light overhead, filled with a single giant tarantula, the fuzzy kind that have eyes so big you'd think they could see your soul. He barely catches Natasha's slight involuntary shiver, so hardly noticeable that he only feels it as she leans close to him on the couch, watching a new movie in the flickering glow of the TV before them. Tony seems so proud, and the team remains unaware of their comrade's fear, gathering around the billionaire as he holds the container aloft for all to see. He sets it on the counter, and from then on the tarantula goes by many names, one being 'Webster', and remains in his prison, gazing up at the lid riddled with small holes.
Tony slowly figures out what to feed it, and how to properly take care of it, and buys an aquarium, all for his one lone spider.
Everything's all well and good for about a week-a week burdened with Natasha's fretful sideways glances at the spider every ten seconds-until there is no spider.
An empty space inside the aquarium, and a wide eyed Tony, and a few uneasy Avengers, and a scared Natasha. Clint himself is a bit concerned, mainly because he doesn't want to wake up with a tarantula skittering over his face, and makes it his mission to track the arachnid down.
On the day that he does finally find it, 46 hours later, Natasha is showering, and he sneaks into her room to see it lounging on her pillow, with not a care in the world.
The decision to take it back to its aquarium or scare the living shit out of Black Widow tears at him, and he frowns in thought.
Take it back, or throw it in her shower?
The quandary takes Clint around five minutes to debate inside his head, and when he finally makes his choice, he grimaces, and scoops up the spider in his palms, hands outstretched as far as possible in discomfort as he jogs hurriedly over to its home, and plops it down carelessly.
He slinks back to Natasha's room to hear the shower clicking off, and the soft sound of her bare feet touching the cold floor is like music to his ears, and he sends the bathroom door a lazy, cheeky grin.
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