#fic:mid

Of all the things that Natasha Romanoff had been asked to do for a mission, being a housewife had to be the weirdest. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind that she couldn’t, but her domestic skills had never really come into play in her work with S.H.I.E.L.D. In order to fit into her cover and the conservative gated community where she and Clint were headed, Natasha had to buy a new wardrobe. She wasn’t one for sweater sets, but from the intel in her mission folder, the women in this community did not do worn jeans and fitted t-shirts. There was now a considerable amount of beige and pastel in her closet. Natasha hated beige. Clint didn’t seemed thrilled about the polo shirt and chinos he was wearing either. Every couple of seconds, he fidgeted with the collar or shifted in his seat and Natasha tried not to laugh. Tactical gear was perfectly fine, but a pair of khaki pants and a collared shirt made him uncomfortable. She looked out the window at the desert thousands of miles below as she ran through her cover’s facts once again. ➳ Read more

Natasha strolled through the large ballroom, peering around each makeshift room she entered. Deep red drapery formed the walls and entryways. She had lost sight of their mark, Gaertner, after he disappeared into a back room with the two strippers that had been dancing on the stage downstairs. Her eyes scanned each room for any sign of the German, but she kept her demeanor relaxed and nonchalant. The heavy perfume of incense and sex hung in the air, making it thick. A slow, steady beat from hidden speakers around the room mixed with sighs and grunts and the occasional crack of a paddle or whip against flesh. Someone walked up behind her, trailing their hand down her exposed back. She fought the urge to twist the arm behind her back and spun around to face the person who was touching her so intimately. “Clint, don’t do that,” she said and leaned into his ear. “You know I can hurt you.” “Is that a promise?” he asked, grinning at her. ➳ Read more

In hindsight, it was ridiculously suspicious how easy things had become. Four guns to eleven, so to speak; the four belonging to Black Widow, Hawkeye, Captain America and Iron Man. It was a Sunday, and the job had been a last minute call in for intel interception, and Fury simply didn't want to wait until the intel had been passed and they had a more stable location. No, they were sent to the cliche warehouse in the middle of the meat-packing district and tasked with taking out both groups, securing the intel and bringing in the leaders of each group. Now, seven men lay on the ground with their arms above their heads as they waited for their back up team to arrive and transport them back to SHIELD base. Tony was standing over them, hands extended with repulsors glowing ready as a constant an very real threat that they could end up like one of their four dead buddies if they attempted to move. Beside him, Steve was there with his shoulders thrown back at full height, ever the leader, and though he wouldn't admit it, ever trying to remind Tony that in the field, he was in charge. ➳ Read more

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From where he stands, leaning against the tree, in the shadows, the bright gleam of the brass on the shiny, black coffin hurts his eyes. He would rather be up the tree, bow in hand, guarding them all, but Nat’s hand on his arm, the look in her eyes, stops him. They are the two odd birds in a team of circus freaks and weirdos. No crazy exo-skeleton powered by an internal arc reactor for them. No super serum or gamma radiation making them insanely stronger, nigh on invincible. And certainly no god like powers. Even if the Red Room had enhanced Tasha in some ways, over all, they are startlingly, achingly human. He knows, because he remembers the feeling of waking up the morning after that had taken chunky swaths out of Manhattan while saving the world to the feeling of at least two cracked ribs, splinters of glass, a strained back, and a shoulder he is pretty sure he re-located himself when he swung through that window. Of seeing her after, his hand unconsciously rising to wipe the tacky blood from her scalp. ➳ Read more

The irony tastes like copper in his mouth, like dust and ashes: if he only had his wings, he could fly out of this mess. But he can’t because he’s lost them, because they’ve been torn from his back and the scars have never quite healed; because for twenty years he’s only had bloody designs dripping down his back, had the mockery of reality, of the past. The car starts to tip farther over the edge even as Clint makes it to the window, makes it out from under the crumpled roof with hands slashed with glass and a heart lashed by fury. It’s still not going to be enough. The valley is wide below him, deep and welcoming and echoing, and he thinks almost absently of a sea he cannot cross over, of knowing at last he is sinking instead of swimming. Maybe he has been, all along. With a metal-tearing groan his car shifts again, rocking forward as its rear wheels scrape against the loose rocks. Those are sent tumbling down in a mockery of an advance guard, a demonstration of gravity, and still Clint refuses to close his eyes. He doesn’t want to see his life flash before them; he remembers it all, all too well. ➳ Read more

So many people look at Natasha and only see what she wants them to. They see the quirk of her hip, the swell of her breasts, the bow of her lips, and they assume that she is perfect. They assume that she is the paradigm she presents; they forget that she's actually, under all the fight and deadly grace, a human woman. Clint doesn't make that mistake. He knows about her faults; even the ones he hasn't seen firsthand, because she's told him about them in great detail. And Clint loves her for them, he loves the way she keeps score, like she has something to atone for. (She doesn't, not with him.) And he loves how real she is, solid and soft under his fingertips in a way that no one else in his life is. Real like a weapon, like his bow, and her knows her cracks and flaws in the same intimate way. ➳ Read more