Title: Another String To Her Bow
Rating: PG/K
Originally posted: 24th August 2024
Originally written for: mayaaa – 'Clint learns Natasha can shoot a bow.'
Characters/Pairings: Clint/Nat
Notes: for Be_Compromised Summer Promptathon 2024
When they got pinned down, if it was him that was incapacitated, he always had great faith in her to get them out of a jam, just as he knew she believed the same thing. Unlike some others Clint could name, he and Natasha were actually as good as they seemed on paper, perhaps even better than the rumours suggested. Of course, he probably ought to have realised that, as well as he had come to know the Black Widow, she would always, always have one more trick up her sleeve that he couldn't possibly have anticipated.
Her guns were out of ammo, no way to get to any more, at least not until they picked off the sniper on the next roof. Clint would have happily obliged, but his shoulder popped out of joint on the landing, meaning there was no way to launch his arrows successfully, maybe even at all.
When he saw Natasha with the bow in her hands, he probably shouldn't have felt as shocked or nervous as he did. Before he could find the time or strength to mutter one word of apprehension or even advice, she had taken aim and fired. The arrow made a perfect arc, struck her target in the temple, and he was gone.
"How did...?" Clint sputtered, breath taken as much by the strong wind blowing by and the pain in his shoulder and knee, than by the shock of what he just saw happen. "You never told me you could...?"
"You never asked." Natasha shook her head, no proud smile on her lips as she threw his weapon over her shoulder, then reached to help him to his feet.
However she had learned to shoot a bow, whatever havoc she had wreaked with such a weapon before, he didn't ask, because Clint already knew she didn't want to tell him. Maybe someday, but not now.
"Come on, we need to get out of here," she insisted, checking left and right, up and down, before they began to make their escape.
"At some point...?"
"I'll tell you," she promised, before he could even finish the question. "But don't go getting any ideas, Barton," she warned, the usual smirk back on her lips that he loved so much. "I like my own weapons better. I'm not about to become Maid Marian to your Robin Hood."
"'Tonight, we dine with my father in Nottingham,'" he told her, in the most appalling accent, which was fairly in-keeping with the movie he was quoting, if she recalled correctly.
"Tonight, you'll be lucky if you can stay conscious long enough to eat dinner at all," she said, sighing as she lent him support on the way down from the roof.
He said nothing after that, finding that, once again, she was right, and the edges of his vision were beginning to blur from the agony that the descent brought on, even with her help.
Still, there would be other nights, another time when she could tell him the story of her bow-shooting prowess; one more occasion when he would find one more reason to fall a little bit more in love with her. As if he needed any help with that.
