It was a week before Christmas and Clint found himself standing in front of a Ducati dealership. He had been trying to think of a gift for Natasha when he remembered how wistful she had been when she mentioned motorcycles. He was well aware of how insane it was that he was standing here about to spend almost $30,000 on a motorcycle for a girl he'd known for less than four months. He still had a couple hundred thousand dollars he wasn't really doing anything with though, so the monetary amount didn't really matter to him. He had gotten the distinct impression that Nat had spent a lot of time riding bikes as a means to get away from what was bothering her. Clint went for long drives himself when he was feeling unsettled, so he got it. He wanted to be able to give her that escape again.
So he walked in and paid cash for a brand new 2002 Ducati 998R in black and red. He had taken a taxi to get here so that he'd be able to ride it back to the compound. It was cold, but hadn't snowed for a while and the streets were dry. He was experienced with motorcycles, but he still preferred his Challenger. Clint began to reconsider the gift somewhat the first time he opened it up on the highway when he twisted the throttle and it felt like he left his stomach behind. He briefly imagined how shitty he'd feel if Nat killed herself on this thing. He made it back to the compound in one piece and parked the bike next to the Challenger where she would be sure to spot it instantly.
"Hey Nat." he greeted her upon walking into their shared quarters. She was visiting with Laura when he left, so she had no idea where he'd gone. She was curled up on the couch reading a book when he came in and looked up at his voice.
"Hey Clint." she replied with a smile, "Where'd you go?"
"Had an errand to run." he said nonchalantly, "You should come with me, I have something to show you."
Her curiosity piqued, Nat put her boots on and stood up to follow him. Clint led her down to the parking garage, where, as predicted, she froze when she spotted the motorcycle parked there. She shot a questioning look at him and he just shrugged.
"Just bought it." he said casually.
"That's a gorgeous bike, Clint." she said almost enviously, "Can I ride it sometime?"
"I'd certainly hope so." he said with a sly smile, "...Since it's yours."
Nat went completely still for a few seconds, and then turned towards him with her jaw hanging open a little. She stayed that way for a good 20 seconds, just dumbfounded.
"You...bought me a motorcycle?!" Nat finally exclaimed in disbelief, "Why would you do that?!"
"Because you need your own transportation," Clint explained to her with a smirk, "I don't care how good a driver you are, you're not driving the Challenger when I'm not in it."
"But why a motorcycle and not a car?" she asked.
"It was cheaper than a car and I got the impression you'd prefer a bike. When you mentioned being more comfortable on one it sounded like you missed it."
"Yeah." she said, "I was working out of a safehouse 50 miles or so outside Paris the summer right before we met. They gave me a motorcycle to get around with and I enjoyed having it."
"Long rides with no destination to clear your head?" Clint asked knowingly. At Nat's silent nod he continued, "I like to do that with the Challenger sometimes."
"I can't believe you did this for me." Nat shook her head, "What did I ever do to deserve this?"
"It's okay to give someone a gift just because you like them and want to do something nice." he told her, "That's a normal thing."
"A motorcycle is an expensive gift." she said dubiously.
"Yeah, a little." Clint admitted, "I don't really care that much about money though, so the cost doesn't really mean anything to me. I wanted to do something nice for you."
Clint had learned that Nat's rare displays of affection tended to happen spontaneously and with little warning. So he should have been ready for it when the redhead launched herself in his direction to hug him, but he still wasn't and staggered backwards when she jumped on him and wrapped her legs around his waist to hold herself up.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she nearly shouted into his ear. Clint held the hug for a few moments before setting her back down. It was exactly the response he'd hoped for. She was appreciative of the things he did for her, but she hadn't gotten excited about anything until now.
"It's the nicest thing anyone has ever given me." Nat told him with her eyes suspiciously moist. Clint detected an undercurrent to her words and realized that he hadn't just given her a motorcycle. He had given her the ability to come and go as she pleased, with no one telling her where to go or what to do. That was the real gift. He had brought her home with him and gotten her out of the life she was trapped in, and now he had symbolically given her freedom.
He smiled at her with a knowing look when that all sank in for him, "Merry Christmas, Nat."
Since most of SHIELD was on break for Christmas there wasn't a whole lot going on at the compound that week and it was pretty empty. Sure, there were missions still going on and they had a lot of agents still in the field, but most of the nonessential personnel were given leave. May had gone to spend time with her husband. Coulson had gone somewhere too, but he was being a little evasive about exactly where so they didn't push. Clint didn't have any family or close friends outside SHIELD to spend the holidays with, so he stayed at the compound. Natasha didn't have anywhere to go either, so the two of them spent the week just hanging out.
As Clint had expected, Nat spent hours riding her new motorcycle more or less aimlessly. She'd leave around noon and come back around dinner time every day. It was cold as hell out, but with Nat having grown up in Russia it didn't really bother her. She had told him this weather was like summertime in Siberia. Fortunately, it still hadn't snowed again so the roads stayed dry. Clint had installed a tracker on her bike the day he bought it. He didn't really feel the need to know exactly where she was all the time, but he wanted to be able to find her quickly if she ever crashed. Nat had found a few winding roads nearby that she liked riding down at insane speeds, and Clint had stopped monitoring those trips when he saw that she consistently exceeded 100mph in stretches that he would be very cautious on himself. His guess about her being an adrenaline junkie had been dead on.
In the evening they would sit down and watch Christmas movies. Nat had never seen any of them, so Clint took it upon himself to educate her on the classics of holiday cinema. They both agreed that they could see where the Grinch was coming from, and Nat was particularly enamored with the original Miracle on 34th Street. The Home Alone series was Clint's personal favorite. He considered the first two to be the only "real" entries in the franchise, but Nat had liked the third one the best. Clint joked with her that the only reason she liked it was because the sister in it bore a striking resemblance to her, which she finally admitted might have had something to do with it after he gave her shit about it for an hour. Nat gave him an odd look when he confessed that the girl in the movie was the actress he had chosen her fake name for.
When Christmas Eve came, Clint did something he hadn't done since his parents had died. He pulled out his mom's cookbook and started planning Christmas dinner. He crosschecked the ingredients he'd need with what was on hand and settled on his mom's signature apricot-glazed ham, homemade stuffing, roasted potatoes with bacon, and a seasoned mixed vegetable dish.
"Nat!" he called out, "I'm making dinner here tonight instead of going to the cafeteria. And you're helping."
"I don't really know how to cook, Clint." Nat admitted when she came into the kitchen looking a little apprehensive.
"Me neither." he grinned, "But Christmas dinner should be homemade, so we're cooking."
Fortunately, Edith Barton had left detailed instructions with every recipe so it wasn't too hard to figure it out. He felt a pang of sadness when it occurred to him that the instructions were likely there because she'd been planning on giving him or Barney the cookbook someday. His father had been a piece of work and was the reason they ran away, but their mom had always been good to them.
He managed to burn the ham and the potatoes were undercooked, but everything else turned out okay. After they ate Clint brought out the bottle of high end vodka he'd picked up and plunked it on the table in front of Nat. She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Isn't that technically illegal for me to drink?" she asked with a wry expression.
"Do you actually care?" Clint shot back.
"Not really." Nat said with a shake of her head and a smile, "Just thought I'd point it out."
"So what are we drinking to?" Clint asked after he poured two drinks.
"I have no idea." she told him with a sad expression, "I never drank to things. I usually just drank to forget."
Clint had suspected as much, but he was a little surprised that she actually admitted it. He would not have been shocked to learn that she was an alcoholic, after all people had been driven to addiction by less trauma than she had. But he didn't think so based on the fact that she hadn't sought out alcohol since she'd been here.
"How about to good friends and new traditions?" he suggested.
"Works for me." she replied with a shrug, before raising her glass and emptying it in one go, "That's pretty good stuff. Didn't know you could get decent vodka outside Russia."
"I certainly hope so." Clint said, still working on his own glass, "The bottle was expensive enough."
"I thought you didn't care about money?" Nat snarked at him.
"I don't." he confirmed, "I just knew you'd never forgive me if I made you drink cheap vodka."
"True." Nat admitted, "You'll just have to find something else to offend me with I guess. Like your aftershave."
"What's wrong with my aftershave?" Clint demanded defensively.
"It smells like cedar chips soaked in cheap tequila." she informed him drily, "I have no idea how you can scrape your face raw and then douse it with pure alcohol. My skin hurts just thinking about it."
"Just used to it I guess." he replied, "I use an electric shaver now, so the worst part of aftershave isn't a problem anymore. It really sucks to get it in a cut."
"I'll take your word for it." Nat said with a smirk.
They did a gift exchange the next morning. Clint gave Natasha a gift card with no upper limit to a salon in the city so she could go get her hair done and generally just be pampered. He had arranged for her to get whatever service she wanted and they would run the credit card he'd left the information for to pay for it. She protested that it was too much on top of the motorcycle, and Clint just stared at her until she relented and thanked him sincerely for it.
Nat's first gift was meant more for her own amusement than anything. She had gotten him a toy bow with suction cup arrows and laughed at the expression on his face when he opened it. The laughter stopped abruptly when he stuck one of the arrows to her forehead from across the room. Without looking.
Her second gift was a lot more thoughtful, and she looked a little unsure of herself when she handed him the small box. She had scoured jewelry stores in the area on her daily rides to find it and had it customized to her specifications. It was a wide white gold ring with a tiny spider etched into it. The type of spider was apparent when he noted the two tiny red stones forming the shape of an hourglass. Somehow, she had gotten it sized perfectly for his middle finger.
"The stones are garnets." she explained, "It's your birthstone. It also signifies protection, friendship, trust, commitment, and..."
Clint noticed her trailing off and raised an eyebrow, wondering what the thing she didn't say was. He took one look at Nat and figured she wasn't going to tell him. He could look it up later if he wanted, but he wasn't really that concerned about it.
"This is...thank you, Nat." he told her with feeling. The symbolism of her giving him the ring was not lost on him. The spider obviously represented herself, and by making a point of explaining what the stones signified she was telling him how much he meant to her. Clint knew she had a hard time expressing herself when it came to emotions, so she had thoughtfully chosen a gift that would say what she wanted to tell him without words. He put the ring on immediately and pulled her into a hug, "Thank you. I love it."
Nat looked relieved both that he had appreciated the gift and that he had understood the message it was carrying.
"I know it's not much." she said, "But I wanted to get you something special because of everything you've done for me. I know you're going to say I don't owe you anything. Please don't. I owe you everything. If you hadn't come along and made the choices you did I'd be dead right now or worse. I actually have a chance to have a life, and it's because of you. I will never forget that. Everything I have now, or might have in the future, is because you saw the lost and damaged girl I was and decided to help her instead of turning your back. That means more to me than you'll ever understand."
"Nat, this ring is the most thoughtful gift anyone has ever given me." Clint told her sincerely, "I will treasure it and it will only leave my finger when we're on a mission. Because I don't want to take the chance of it getting lost or stolen."
Nat wiped a hand across her eyes aggressively, seemingly frustrated that her tear ducts were betraying her again. She despised crying, and hated it even more when it happened when she should be happy. Clint just looked at her with a soft smile and she let out a huff.
"I told myself I wouldn't start crying." she said sardonically and shaking her head at herself, "But here I am with the damn waterworks again. How the hell do you bring that out of me so easily?"
Clint just shrugged and didn't say anything. He didn't understand why either, but he appreciated the fact that she could be so open about it with him. Hell, with anyone, really. Since most of the programming had been removed Natasha had become reserved and a maybe a little cold around most people, but she let her guard down when it was just the two of them.
"You're the best friend I've ever had, Clint." Nat said quietly while looking at the floor, "Everything you've done for me, there's no way I can ever repay that. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try."
"Hey, we done with the emotional stuff for now?" Clint asked lightly, "Because we still have a movie to watch. It's a Christmas Day tradition to watch A Christmas Story at least once."
Natasha nodded with a quiet laugh and went to the kitchen to make popcorn while Clint rummaged through his box of DVDs. When the popcorn was ready and he had the movie set up he flopped on the couch to get comfortable. He glanced over to where Nat was sitting at the other end and held his arm open, "Hey, c'mere."
Nat debated it for a few moments before she scooted over to curl up next to him with his arm around her shoulders. She eventually ended up laying with her head and shoulders on his lap as they went through the last few movies Clint had insisted she see. Neither one of them mentioned it, but this was the best Christmas either of them had in a long time.
A/N: A nice fluffy chapter with some feels. I thought Christmas would be a good time for Natasha to finally admit how much Clint means to her.
Strike Force Delta missions will be starting soon. I'm going to be putting my own spin on some things from Nat's past that have been mentioned but never explained.