Thanks so much to those of you who've read so far! I hope you're all enjoying :-)
There are a total of 7 parts to this, if you were curious! If you've a moment, I'd love to hear what you think!
She'd been expecting him to call, yet she still managed to be surprised when her phone buzzed that night around ten. It read as an unlisted number, but she knew it was him; no one else would call her this late.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Nat," he said, his voice cutting into her like an icepick. It had been a long time since she'd talked to him, a long time since she'd kissed him to throw off a tail and ended up throwing herself off instead, and it was good to hear his voice. She hadn't realized until that moment just how much she'd missed him.
"Hey," she said, already feeling like an idiot or a broken record. Maybe both.
"So, uh, I got the warehouse job," he said after a pregnant silence. Neither one of them were especially good at small talk, not when they were being themselves, and even though he was probably her best friend in the world, it was hard to readjust to talking after so long a break.
"Figured you might," she said. "When do you start?"
She heard the telltale sounds of paper being shuffled in the background, and she'd be willing to bet he was nervously fiddling with paperwork. It was a bad habit of his, and one she'd picked up from him.
"Day after tomorrow. They asked for tomorrow, but I didn't want to seem too eager."
"Good," she replied.
There really wasn't much else to say; Coulson would have briefed him on his tasks as well as given him a run down of the operation so far, so there was no need for her to be redundant. Still, she was reluctant to say the words that would end the call, wanting to stay on the line with him for just a few minutes longer, even if it was to just hear him breathe.
She shook her head as if to rid itself of the thought. Sometimes, she could be a real fucking idiot.
"So, anything else, or . . .?" she asked.
"No!" he said too loudly, and then in a calmer voice, he added, "No, I just . . ." She could hear him swallow, could hear him hesitate over his next words. She waited him out rather than startle him out of saying whatever it was he wanted to say.
At length, he said, "How are you, Nat?"
She smiled, despite herself. "I'm . . . good," she said thoughtfully, and she was only a little shocked to realize that she meant it. For the first time in a long time, yeah, she was good.
"You?" she asked.
He chuckled. "Yeah, good. Couple of rough jobs here and there, but . . . I heard you were shot? A while ago, someone got lucky?"
She nodded, her hand unconsciously moving to the spot where she'd been winged. It had healed quickly and well under SHIELD medical supervision, but it still sometimes twinged on rainy days. "Yeah, a lucky shot. I'm okay, though. All stitched up."
"That's good," he said, and she wondered idly if he felt as awkward as she did. "Hey, listen, do you maybe want . . . Do you want to get a drink or something? I mean, we're going to be on this op together and I thought it might be helpful if we coordinated our efforts."
"Um," she said, biting her lip.
She wanted to say yes, every part of her was screaming it, but she had an early day tomorrow, and she really needed to get some sleep. Besides, they couldn't go out anywhere for that drink and risk being spotted together. He'd have to come here, and she didn't trust herself alone with him, much less alone with him and the half a bottle of rum next to the fridge.
She couldn't say any of that, though, so she went with, "I'd really like to, but I can't tonight. Rain check?"
"Oh, sure, definitely," he said too quickly, almost as if he were trying to cover something up. She had half a mind to call him on it, except that she was pretty sure he would throw it right back at her.
"Well, um, okay," she said. Christ, what was it about this man that made her act like such an idiot, anyway?
"I'll talk to you later, then?" he said.
"Yeah."
"Okay."
"Right."
"Goodnight," he said at last, and was she imagining it, or did he sound kind of wistful?
"Goodnight," she said, and she forced herself to pull the phone away from her ear, to hang up and put the damn thing down instead of waiting to hear him end the call.
She groaned, falling backwards onto the bed. The delicious rasp of his voice still rang in her ears, thrumming through her body, and she could tell that she was going to end up drinking and masturbating to thoughts of Clint tonight.
Asshole.
She figured out that everything had gone according to plan when Sally, the fifty-something office manager with two kids and frizzy hair wandered over to her desk with an excited expression on her face.
"Hi, Rose! How are you!"
Sally was the type of woman who spoke in exclamations. Natasha liked her; it took a lot to raise two kids alone and still have a sunny outlook on life.
And besides, Sally brought her an extra brownie most Mondays. With walnuts, even.
"Have you heard the news?" Sally asked her, looking nearly beside herself.
Sally was also a notorious gossip, which was one of the reasons that Natasha tried to hang around her. They went for lunch at least twice a week, giving Natasha yet another line of information about the company they both worked for.
Natasha smiled genuinely. She might be playing a part, but Sally was her friend. Try as she might, she just couldn't pretend about that sort of thing.
"What's up?" she asked, rolling away from her keyboard and focusing entirely on Sally.
The older woman glanced around the office once before saying, "There's a new guy in the warehouse!"
Clint, of course, but why was that . . .?
"You know Beth who works down there, right?" Sally didn't wait for Natasha's nod before proceeding. "Well, she says the new guy is H-O-T-T, and she invited us down for our break."
Natasha glanced at the clock, then grinned at Sally. "Let me grab my lunch."
She let Sally lead the way downstairs, and she just spoke enough to keep the other woman talking about whatever new gossip had come her way. Beth ushered them into the warehouse break room when they go there, and it didn't take long before they got down to business.
"So where's this new stud muffin?" Sally asked, waggling her eyebrows. Natasha covered her chuckle by taking a sip from her water bottle. These two used all kinds of words she'd never heard before outside of books and old tv shows. She'd half-thought that they were made up, that no one talked like that. Sally and Beth, however, had proved her wrong about a number of things.
Beth looked over her shoulder before answering. "He's been all over the place this morning. JT has been showing him the ropes. Guy knows how to work with his hands, if you know what I mean."
Sally laughed. "Nice hands?"
"Nice everything," Beth said, spreading her hands wide and gesturing inarticulately. Carefully swallowing a spoonful of yogurt, she added, "Too bad it's not summer, is all I'm saying."
Natasha frowned even as the older women exchanged knowing smirks. "Summer?" she asked.
"Oh, honey," Sally said, touching her hand. "You haven't lived until you've been in the warehouse during the summer."
She must have still looked confused because Beth said, "That's when the guys down here start losing their shirts."
"That's a good thing?" she asked.
"Oh, some of them hide it well, but they really deliver the goods," Sally grinned, clearly proud of her pun.
"Rosie-girl, come summer, you are going to need to bring extra panties to work," Beth nodded seriously.
Natasha snorted. Too bad this was a mission because she was really starting to like it here.
She was just starting to relax into the conversation when JT, the warehouse manager walked in with Clint trailing behind him.
He looked good.
Really good.
Good enough that she had a hard time focusing on the task at hand, namely that this was supposed to be the first time she'd met him. But, shit, she'd forgotten that crooked smile of his and the way his eyes twinkled when he was happy, and she hadn't seen him in ages, not since that mission in Belgium and . . .
" . . . Rose Nelson, one of our secretaries," JT was saying, and Natasha forced herself to pay attention.
Clint extended his hand to her. "Hi, Frank Thompson," he said in that dangerously sexy rasp of his, and she gripped his hand, squeezing tightly as he met her gaze coolly. Fuck, it was good to see him.
"Rose," she said, and was it just her or did her voice sound choked?
"Hi, Rose."
His eyes slid away from her as JT introduced him to Sally, and Natasha felt something nudge her under the table. She turned away from Clint to find Beth raising her eyebrows at her, a funny little look on her face.
Beth barely waited until the door shut behind JT and Clint to say, "Told you so."
Natasha blushed while they teased her good naturedly for the rest of lunch.
"Hey, Nat," he said when he called her later that night. She was wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping when she picked up.
"Hey," she said.
"So, uh, today went well."
"Yes," she agreed, swallowing hard to cover for the feeling that she was losing control.
"Didn't notice anything out of the ordinary," he said.
"Yeah."
The line grew silent, and she wished she were able to pretend around him, that she could slip into another persona and wear it like a second skin. Life would be so much easier if she really were Rose Nelson, secretary.
"So, what about that rain check?" he asked.
He must have surprised her because she didn't have a good excuse ready.
"Okay."
"Okay?" he asked incredulously. Hell, she was surprised, too, but then she found herself giving him directions over to her place and he was offering to bring something to drink. Before she knew it she telling him which store to stop at on his way and then they were off the phone and he was on his way over, no going back.
It took her a solid minute to catch her breath.
After that, it was a mad dash as she raced to put on clothes and dry her hair. The knock came sooner than she expected, and she hurried to the door only to slow by the mirror and check her appearance. Her reflection rolled its eyes at her idiocy. This was Clint, not her date to senior prom.
She drew her weapon, holding it behind out of sight as she pulled the door open. She really had to talk to Coulson about renting places without peep holes.
Clint was there, though, looking as nervous as she felt. He smiled widely and held up a bottle of what looked to be like a good vintage of wine.
"I come bearing gifts," he said.
She uncocked her gun and opened the door wider. "Well, in that case, I guess you can come in."
He followed her into her apartment, and she could feel his presence thick around her while she grabbed two glasses and the corkscrew. She'd been in town for a while, but she didn't invite people over (too risky), and while he wasn't unwelcome (just the opposite), he was like an itch under her clothes, something she couldn't ignore.
She let him open the wine and pour her a glass while they talked. It was nice, better than nice really, to talk to him. She'd been here for a while, and she'd almost forgotten what it was like to talk to someone as herself rather than Rose Nelson.
He told her about what happened in Argentina and Taiwan after that, and she offered her version of events from Uzbekistan. If they didn't quite find the same ease of conversation that she remembered, the wine certainly helped things along.
An hour later, she was feeling pleasantly buzzed. So buzzed, in fact, that instead of continuing on with the conversation about the latest in the continuing saga of Coulson and his Captain America cards, she blurted, "I missed you."
Clint stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth. He set his glass back down on the table without drinking.
"Yeah," he said with entirely too much honesty in his eyes. "Missed you, too."
They had inched closer on the couch as they drank, and she'd been noticing his presence all night, but now she was hyper-aware of him, here in her apartment, sitting next to her while they shot the shit.
"Glad you're okay," he murmured, and she wasn't sure what the pressure in her stomach meant, but she sure as hell recognized the feeling between her legs, and was it getting hot in here?
He leaned in, and she knew what he was doing, just like she knew it was a damn stupid idea.
She was going to let him anyway.
He got closer, so close she could feel his breath on her face, could count his eyelashes if she wanted to, but she didn't. She just wanted to know what it felt like to kiss him, the real him, without other people around. She wanted to know what his mouth tasted like, what his tongue felt like against hers.
He touched one finger to her face then, and she leaned into him, tamping the part of her down that was wary of such contact. Closer then, and closer still, and she could practically taste him now that they were breathing the same air. She felt the heat of his lips, so very, very close to hers and he leaned just a little more to close the distance and then . . .
The motherfucking phone rang.
She pulled away from him sharply, grabbing for her phone like a lifeline because Clint was her best friend, the person who knew her best, and she trusted him but he scared her to death.
"Romanoff," she barked into the mouthpiece.
"You're late with your report."
It was Coulson, and he'd saved her from what was certain to have turned awkward.
So why didn't she feel relieved?