Title: Jump City
Author: enediyne
A Gift For: pixiesio
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some language
Pairings: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff
Summary/Prompt Used: Before New York, after New York, and an addendum. For the prompts "boredom", "tongue action", "texting" and "Avengers briefing".
Authors Notes: Merry Christmas everybody!


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If you asked Clint Barton what he did in his downtime, he would likely have described every secret agent's wet dream: sipping a piña colada on a beach somewhere, clad in nothing but sunglasses and a towel, surrounded by beautiful women who fawned over every syllable that left his mouth.

Right now, on his SHIELD-sponsored (or rather enforced) annual leave, he was doing exactly that.

He was bored out of his fucking mind.

He endured the mindless chatter a couple more minutes, then blew the girl off as politely as possible and headed back to the hotel. After months of murder and exploding shells and mind-numbing surveillance missions, he wasn't sure if anything could excite him any more.

In the midst of wondering just what civilians did for fun, he found himself standing in front of the information desk and asked on a whim, "What's a man gotta do for a little adrenaline rush around here?"

"Beg your pardon?" The concierge, barely a legal adult, gave him the cool once-over that he had long become accustomed to at these sorts of establishments.

"I'm looking to try, ah, a new high-intensity sport."

"Well, there's white-water rafting..." Clint hated getting wet for no good reason. "Archery?" He had to stifle a laugh at that. "Motorcross racing?" Reminded him of too many a car chase.

The concierge pinched the bridge of his nose in near-exasperation. "How about BASE jumping?"

This piqued Clint's interest immediately, mainly because he had never heard of it before. "What's that?" he asked.

"Um, the short story is that you climb a tall building and then parachute off it. Actually, you seem like just the sort of person who would enjoy it. I have to warn you, though; it's not exactly... legal."

"Where do I sign up?"

---

Clint indeed liked BASE jumping for the most part—well, without the jumping, he amended as he donned his tac vest and prepared to scale his second skyscraper. There had been a heart-stopping moment the night before when he thought his 'chute had jammed, and for the briefest of periods his life had proverbially flashed before his eyes.

No more 'chutes, he decided. He would climb the damn building, get in a couple high-altitude sniping drills, and then find some other expedient (and discreet) manner of descending. Perhaps the stairs, or, if he was lucky, an elevator.

He chalked up his hands and began the slow and arduous ascent.

---

Target practice was always fun when you were a thousand feet off the ground.

A large lily pad in a pond; a stray helium balloon. Clint picked them off methodically, using simple wooden bolts so he wouldn't have to waste arrows or risk injuring random civilians with them. He turned his attention to neighboring rooftops, scanning for refuse or debris that he could aim at, when he saw something that gave him pause.

She was young, vividly red-headed, absolutely beautiful—and she was cowering before a man with a handgun.

Clint didn't like sticking his nose where it didn't belong, but he also hated it when innocents had to be harmed. So he loaded up a tranq dart and deftly took the perp out, nice and quick and easy, good deed for the day done.

He certainly did not expect the would-be victim to immediately drop all pretense of being a damsel in distress.

Mesmerized, Clint watched as she systematically scoped out the rooftop, probably looking for where the anesthetic bolt had come from. When she failed to divine its origin, she went over to her attacker's unconscious body and dragged it into the nearest stairwell.

Though he couldn't quite make out her face from that far away, he could've sworn that her expression was positively predatory.

"The Black Widow," Fury explained later, almost respectfully, which meant that it was serious. "She's been on our shoot-on-sight list for awhile, but she dropped off the radar for a while." The director turned and fixed his good eye on Clint. "Yours was the first confirmed sighting in five years, so well done, Agent Barton. She's your problem now."

---

He stumbled into the safe house at 3 in the morning, muscles aching and gut churning. The mission had been a total and utter wash. Three months spent surveilling the Black Widow, and it all came down to a moment where the only thing left to do was to nock an arrow and let it fly. Instead, he'd sat there frozen with a weird unsettled feeling he couldn't shake—a feeling that despite all the important people she had assassinated, she didn't deserve what she had coming.

In the intervening time, she'd flicked an unreadable glance in his direction before melting into the crowd.

"Shit, shit, shit. Fuck!" He'd scrambled to gather his gear, palmed his mic roughly. "I need extraction ASAP; I've been compromised."

"Roger that," Coulson had said, neutral as always, but Clint knew the questions would come later. Why couldn't he take the shot?

No matter; pickup was in four hours. He washed his face and lay down on the narrow bed, willing sleep to come.

He awoke to the prescient sensation that somebody foreign had entered the room; he was fast but she was faster, and although he was probably stronger his sleep-dulled brain was simply no match. After a brief grappling match, he found himself with both arms twisted at a painful angle behind his back, the Black Widow kneeling on his chest.

"What do you want from me?" he gritted out.

"It's really quite simple," Natasha Romanoff said, her tone rather bored. "You saw me doing my thing, and I don't like loose ends."

Beneath the sneer, however, he saw her carefully-concealed confusion. And he knew then that she hadn't come to kill him; she could have easily slit his throat quickly and noiselessly.

She had come because he hadn't killed her. So he gambled.

"Come in with me, and SHIELD will give you a new life," he said evenly. "Resources, legitimacy, some measure of freedom."

"SHIELD?" she snorted, applying more pressure to his breastbone; the pain made him gasp. "Don't be patronizing; if I wanted those things I'd have them in an instant. Besides, you don't seem to be in a good position to bargain."

"Neither do you, actually," he wheezed. It was getting hard to breathe.

Those impossibly-green eyes of hers narrowed, almost imperceptibly. "What do you mean?"

He turned his head to reveal the earpiece that she had missed in the relative dark. "I mean that SHIELD is kicking down that door in half a minute, so you either kill me now or come with me."

A beat, then: "I don't believe in false dichotomies," she responded disdainfully, and everything went black.

When he came to with a splitting headache and blood in his mouth and a livid Coulson, he was nearly disappointed that he wasn't dead; that he'd been right about her, and he was about to face the consequences.

---

"You're going in."

Clint, ever the consummate professional, does not show dismay at Coulson's pronouncement. "And why is that, sir?"

Coulson says, very deliberately, "Natasha's not due to be extracted until Tuesday, but we need the SD card tonight. You're going make contact with her and pick it up."

Clint rubs a hand over his eyes. He hates being on the ground, prefers to stay out of sight where he can work at what he does best. "Pray tell, when and how is this going to happen?"

"There's a formal event tonight, black tie and all that. You will make contact with Agent Romanoff, and pick the card up."

"I'm sorry, but I don't see how I'm going to get in there without being noticed—"

Coulson is impatient now, the only physical giveaway the rapid tapping of his fingers. "It's a fricking dance, Barton, and you're her childhood sweetheart, or something. Make it believable."

And he's marginally terrified, standing in the ballroom of a grand old mansion in a goddamn tux, but Natasha calls his cover name with a smile, takes his arm and makes it look easy. It's always been easy with her.

They slip into a slow waltz, and he tries not to think about how low-cut her dress is and how it fits her like a glove. "So... you might have something of mine that you haven't returned."

"Do I now?" she replies, smiling. He twirls her gracefully, out-and-in, says, "You probably don't have it right now, but if it means that I'll get to see you again—"

"Oh, but it's always so good to see you," she says effusively, and with that she kisses him, slow and open-mouthed and dirty. Amid the sudden white noise in his brain, he belatedly realizes that she's doing some nifty maneuvering with her tongue. She presses a small rectangle of plastic into his mouth, and he remembers the mission with some difficulty.

They break apart and she smiles conspiratorially, a smile that says I didn't have to do it like that and I've always wanted to do that, and comprehension hits him like a bowling ball.

Coulson is waiting for him with the tiniest of smirks. "That was pretty believable, Barton," he remarks. Clint flips him off without looking and climbs into the waiting chopper. He will spend the rest of the night trying to forget the sensation of her lips against his, all the while wondering what it would feel like to have it happen again.

---

C: I saw the news. How's the Starkinator?
N: He's fine. He's used to people trying to kill him all the time now. How's NM
C: It blows. You heard about the whack job with the hammer?
N: Sure did. Speaking of whack jobs...this Vanko dude has some serious issues. His only friend is a fucking bird
C: Hey, don't hate on birds. I know a little one that would be happy to see you ;)
N: You fowl, fowl man.

---

Do you know what it's like to be unmade? You know I do.

But this really isn't about her understanding, Clint decides grimly as he trudges up the ruins of Broadway. He knows that she knows, knew it even before the words left his mouth. This is about his betrayals of her: the one that Loki threatened her with, and the one that happened the moment he told the god of mischief about the fire. And Coulson—oh god, the thought of Coulson nearly undoes him—

"Hey, Hawkboy. Need a ride?" It's Tony Stark, leaning out the window of his black Lamborghini.

"Thanks but no thanks," says Clint, not missing a beat.

"How about a place to stay?"

Clint stops walking, thinks about all the people he killed that will never get to go home again, breathes deeply. "I'm sorry, Stark, but I really can't."

"Aw, c'mon. Who else is going to be the butt of my hunger games jokes?" Tony says too quickly, steel beneath the false levity. Clint squares his shoulders and turns around to face him, a well-practiced retort ready, but the rejection dies quickly in his throat at the look—no, the comprehension in Tony's eyes.

Tony Stark, of all people, knows what it's like to have blood on his hands and not of his own volition.

Detenté achieved, Clint gets into Tony's car and they speed off towards what remains of Stark Tower.

---

Tony Stark doesn't stand a chance. She blazes into the his lobby—his personal lobby!—all righteous anger and relentless determination. "Where is he?"

Being the patron saint of questionable decision-making, Tony chooses exactly the right moment to play the asshole. "You mean the poor soul I took in under my auspices, right after you kicked him to the curb?"

"Agent Barton is on the 102nd floor," JARVIS supplies helpfully.

Natasha pushes past Tony, a little harder than is necessary, and Tony throws up his hands. "Well, you're welcome!"

She doesn't even spare him a withering glance as the elevator doors close behind her.

"If I may, sir, I do think that was a little unwarranted," JARVIS ventures.

"JARVIS, you are one helluva sexy machine, but I'm afraid that you may not." Tony decides that he deserves a drink, not only for saving the world but also for surviving both the master assassins, all within the span of twenty-four hours.

"Duly noted, sir."

---

He doesn't open the door for her, and she expects as much; she only knocked out of some misplaced semblance of courtesy that doesn't belong in their partnership anyway, even on a good day. Today is probably not a good day.

JARVIS lets her in instead, and she wanders through the expansive apartment, absently noting the abandoned recurve bow on the kitchen counter. She finds Clint perched on the balcony ledge, surveying the recovering city, nursing a bottle of something. "You shouldn't have come," he mutters, not looking at her, but his voice lacks conviction and she hauls herself up to sit next to him, shoulders not quite touching. After moving heaven and earth to get him back, how could she have stayed away?

"You saw the tape," Natasha finally states. Not an accusation; perhaps, an invitation.

Clint studies his hands for a long moment. "When I first laid eyes on you, I was flinging myself off buildings like this one," he says softly. "And then I stopped, because I had no reason to fall... anymore. Tasha, you have to understand—I told him everything. I'm so sorry—"

"Don't. Don't be sorry," Natasha says, low and fierce. "Clint—the things he made you do, that wasn't you, that wasn't your heart—"

"He told me that I had heart," Clint says, voice cracking a little. "And then he took it. For himself. He took everything."

"Not everything," Natasha whispers, the implications clear, and he finally meets her gaze, his expression so raw and open that she can't help but pull him in for a lingering kiss.

When they finally come up for air, he's looking at her with a trace of the presence and conscious hope that she saw in the recovery room, so she takes his hand and coaxes him gently off the ledge. He pads after her obediently to the opulent bathroom, where he sits on the toilet mutely as she runs a hot shower, then undresses him carefully, pressing kisses to every uncovered bruise and abrasion. He doesn't break until she pulls him under the scalding spray, methodically scrubbing away the dried blood and the the dirt and the red-in-her-ledger; he begins to weep, deep wracking sobs that are lost amid the torrent of the rushing water, and it is all she can do to hold him until it passes.

She dries them both off when he's sated and exhausted and leads him to the bed, where he curls himself around her and loses consciousness almost immediately. Lying there, legs entwined with his, Natasha lets out a long breath that she didn't know she'd been holding; she's lost so many things in her life, but she thanks the powers-that-be that she didn't have to lose Clint too, that his heart and hands are his own again and hers to hold.

She turns her face into his chest and lets the steady rise-and-fall lull her to sleep.

---

One: the nights following New York are long, and the bad dreams frequent, but Clint has Natasha and Natasha has Clint, and she will hold him for as long as it takes.

Two: he begins to smile again, laugh lines creasing the corners of his eyes; she considers it the highlight of her week when he laughs aloud in Central Park, on that day of all days.

Three: they return to work, and Clint slowly begins to realize that he needs his team. Steve, with his straight-arrow honesty and boundless strength. Thor's earnestness and confidence and courage. Bruce's steadiness and quiet brilliance. Tony's acerbic wit and shrewdness. And Natasha, always his Natasha.

They all file into a meeting room three months later, their first official gathering.

"Everybody's here? Awesome." Tony slaps the table in a sloppy approximation of a gavel, once, twice. "Order! Order in the assembly of the Avengers!"

THE END