I love these two in an established committed relationship. I tend to think they don't put much stock into marriage as an official institution, but that they would do a small ceremony maybe to commit themselves to each other. That being said I love a good proposal or marriage story, I'm a romantic at heart, and I think there is a lot of leeway when it comes to these two regarding the issue.

I also agree that Clint is often portrayed as the one pushing for commitment, probably due to his image of being the stabler of the two. I think most of us have the image in our heads that when Clint brings Natasha in, he's in a much better place than she is. I subscribe to that belief to. I do think it would be fun to read a story where Clint is actually the one who doesn't do commitment, maybe because of what he saw with his parents.

I have to second If Ever Two Were One. That story is hilarious. I love the taxes session, it's so understated. I love the idea that Clint and Natasha don't make a big deal about them being married and don't really bother telling the rest of the group officially.

Re officially married and marriage as an institution and all of that - I'm tossing back and forth the idea of being deeply committed and knowing the other person, respecting them, knowing their good and bad sides - and how is that less worth without a ring. As in... how does a commitment form? And when do people really become married? When they give each other rings, in that one moment, or is it more of a gradual progression, learning what they like, what annoys them, learning what their different sounds mean.... that type of thing.

I don't think I've seen any stories where Clint was the one with bigger commitment issues, and I'm with you - I'd really like one!

And yes, If Ever the Two... is one of my all-time favorite marriage fics. :-)

*waves*

Soooo, I don't have brain for recs right now, but I do have few througths to share (and I love what you recced, yes!) Anyway, here goes.

I usually write them in a committed relationship by default, or how that relationship develops, but my point is (I guess - married or not, involved or not, if they're "just partners" or "just friends" I tend to look at it as a deeply committed relationship. But, there are different kinds of commitment, and married commitment is different from friendship or partnership. on the other hand, I tend to look at their type of commitment as deep and intense. Which, I suppose answers the first question. Once partnered I usually see them as two people choosing a committed relationship of some kind. Also, yes, I can see them committing to each other romantically.

Exclusive. Now, that's a catch 22 of sorts, mostly because of their jobs. Technically, they sometimes have to seduce other people, but my Clint and Natasha, they draw a line between "this is work" and "this is personal". Natasha in particular, because she slips on different personae like gloves and takes them off when the job is done, and I don't think Clint would be jealous of that. Upset maybe, if she came back from a mission upset, and supportive as well. but generally I don't see him as a short fuse impulsive type of guy who gets jealousy fits. (He strikes me more as someone who might be insecure about belonging - as a child who didn't have the right kind of love in his primnary family, as someone who went from one home to another, he probably longed for a place to belong. So he has more of "can I belong to you" thing; and I think he dealt with most of that, because he doesn't seem like unstable individual.)

Would they marry? Yes, I think, and it would be about belonging to each other, once Natasha deals with her own commitment issues and reaches the point where belonging with someone =/= being owned by someone. And Clint would never do that to her, at least not in my headcanon.

I have so many feels about Clint wondering if there is a spot for him with Natasha. I adore insecure Clint and I definitely think that due to his past he would feel that sense of wondering if he belongs.

I don't know where it is, but I read an excellent story once in which Clint explains to Steve that he's okay with Natasha's job, no matter what it requires, because her marks just get her body. Clint gets all of her, and he tells Steve that's what counts. Steve doesn't really understand, but he can tell that Natasha and Clint do. It was very well done. your comment made me think of it. :-)

Now how the job affects them ...I have this idea for a fic (I'm stuck at it actually) where they're undercover and have to make out? And for Natasha it's too close to home because she might play a part and kiss Clint who too is playing a part, but beyond that it's their bodies, she kisses him and tastes him and she realizes she wants more - but as Natasha, not some person she's briefly pretending to be. So she decides/wants to take all of that further and doesn't want to do that with him on missions, because kissing him is for her. She wants it to be private and stay far away from missions. So I think she might actually feel more comfortable seducing or pretending to seduce someone else, because it's easier to detach herself from that.

How it affects them in field? I think you could play that in two different ways - they connect, become involved and it's a liability because they're involved. (Which is often used and overused in different TV shows as an argument why certain couple shouldn't get together and I feel that theme has been beaten to death.) You can easily love and care about someone and not be involved and have all kinds of angsty/worried/regretful feelings about that and make yourself more of a liability because unresolved feelings can frak up judgment too. To me, the best way is to be honest about how you feel, at least to yourself, so River of Denial is never a smooth ride in these cases. If they love each other and are involved - of course it's going to affect them. Heck, you can see in the movie how it affects them. Natasha is about to rip the world apart for him. He is still Loki-ed but connection he has with her is strong enough to see and recognize her (and that's my interpretation, mind you).

Which one is more willing to commit? Clint, I think, since his life has been slightly closer to normal, but I think you can play this two ways as well. For Natasha, I think it's important what she chooses, and if she chooses to commit to him, she will be very committed - and I think she is. Regimes fall every day, I'm Russian or I used to be, I think those things she said to Loki were true (you don't lie to God of Lies without serving him a hefty dose of truth as a bait); but underneath everything she said to Loki her commitment to Clint is right there, heck Loki too sees and senses it, and we've been shown hints of it all through the film. So, commitment yes, even a married type of commitment, I think it only depends which angle you choose to play with. :)

Natasha is about to rip the world apart for him. Which I think is a wonderful summary of her actions in the film. :-)

if she chooses to commit to him, she will be very committed - I agree. I think that when Natasha does finally choose to commit, it's permanent. I also think committing like that is a once-in-a-lifetime thing for Natasha. If something happened to the other partner, Clint would never love like that again; Natasha would never love at all. Once they're together, they're done. Headcanon! :-)

Edited 2013-03-01 11:42 pm (UTC)

Thanks for the Naked Pantomime rec! I hadn't thought of it as a comittment issue, but you're totally right, as the tag says; "Clint Barton is made of sad feelings and hormones".

Personally, I think of both Clint and Natasha as the kind of people who, while they might love each other, they wouldn't want to attract the attention of the people who might come after them because of their relationships.

That said, some of my favorite fics are marriage/kidfics.

For starters, there is a trifecta of awesome here (http://be-compromised.livejournal.com/60569.html?thread=516761#t516761) from the first promptathon. Prompt: "I want to see bb!C/N at career day, or their child giving a report on what Mommy and Daddy do for a living." Rated g-PG, no warnings given.
(And I have to leave work now, so I will rec more when I get hoam.)

Excellent!

Of the many things that I love about "Naked Pantomime", one of them is the approach to Clint's background and its affect on him. While it's made commitment and trust difficult for him, it doesn't permanently cripple him. Very true to life. :-)

Committed relationship -- yes. They're in it already, as partners (viz the Heaven and Earth Natasha moves to get Clint back -- including shaking off her post-Hulk catatonia to make sure she's the one to take him down). Whether that's a sexual relationship or not is a matter of headcanon -- in mine, it becomes that, after Manhattan, and then no one really notices, because nothing really changes.

Do they marry? They don't need to. Commitment happens at a different stage; you don't need the papers. I read one lovely story (was it yours, JayCee, or Anuna's, or one by Bee?) where they got married without papers under some tribal African law. That I can see. Either way -- I don't think it matters. Marriage is a red herring.

Are they exclusive? To the extent the job permits, although I can see Natasha increasingly turning down those assignments. She doesn't need them, certainly not as an Avenger, and probably would only take them so far anymore, anyway.

Hey, that was me! Yay!!! :-) Yeah, I like the idea of them going, "Sure, let's belong to each other", but not feeling the need to follow Western society's (or anyone' else's) view of how it should be done. They would do whatever they felt would cement it in their own minds, and that would be the end of it.

And I like your take on Natasha and assignments. As an Avenger, she would have a lot more latitude over assignments than ever before. Also (and this is a whole different can of worms), after the Battle of Manhattan I don't know that she would be able to do undercover work anyway. Cell phone cameras are just too prevalent in today's society. So well said all around! :-)

Clint's level of commitment and fear/desire of or for it, depends on how much he is influenced by canon.
In the comics, while he was married for many years to Mockingbird, they spent more time estranged than happily married. His relationships are always kind of sabotaged by his own hand, he either picks women he has no future with or goes out of his way to screw up to avoid commitment. He is an average guy, and like most men, there is a fear of commitment hidden away inside.
The latest issue of Hawkeye has him kissing a woman in front of his girlfriend, ex-girlfriend and ex-wife and starting a brawl in a strip club as a tactic to avoid commitment. This was the Valentine's issue, and he cheats on his girlfriend with a stripper.
I think if you asked 616 comic universe Clint Barton who the greatest villain in his life was, it would be his dick, it ruins careers, relationships and lives, mostly his own because of his inability to keep it in his pants.
The Ultimate Barton, which also was a partial basis for the MCU version, had few real relationships. He had his wife and kids, his partner Black Widow and Fury, the closest thing to friend he really had. Widow killed his family, he killed Widow, so he is left with old buddy Nick Fury, who recruited him right out of jail and made him his red right hand who he can share killing and dirty jokes with, and the job. He didn't much get along with his Avengers teammates.
So we arrive at the MCU version, where with the background Marvel created to fill in the holes between the movies reveals him as something like Fury's attack/guard dog, while Romanoff is off following the Hulk and Thunderbolt Ross. This Barton is a guy who doesn't take time off from the job, and jumps when Nick gives the call to action, looking for something to shoot and annoyed when stuck with Coulson on a boring assignment in New Mexico, though Fury places him there because he trusts him and guarding the Cube is something Fury would only give to someone he really trusted.
As for Natasha, they don't seem to actually be partnered often, the two never interact outside of the movie, and so there are a few scenes that speak of an affection between them but nothing that would lead me to believe marriage or exclusive commitment was ever in the realm of discussion.
I read a lot of stories where Clint is essentially written as the normal guy and Natasha is the screwed up one, Clint has a bromance with Coulson and makes easy friends with the Avengers, which is kind of strange since Clint has always been an abrasive and confrontational personality in any universe, the guy used to pick fights with Captain America about not being a good enough leader. I think Clint is just as screwed up as Natasha, if not more, I'm not sure he would be friends with Coulson; work colleague, yes, friend, no. The Ultimate universe relationship between Fury and Barton seems more plausible than Coulson/Barton buddies, Fury trusts and likes him, and Barton seemingly feels the same way back, if that isn't an indication that this guy is messed up, I don't know what is. Clint Barton bromance with Nick Fury, just think about how frightening them sharing a beer would be.
Natasha strikes me as the type who could interact and make friends easier as well, if only superficially, due to her skill set.
Coulson seems more a Natasha buddy, very sedate and self contained people who could sit down and chat politely.
Taken together, I think Clint and Natasha far too emotionally stunted to actually survive something like marriage, sure I could see sex, (Clint Barton has never said no to a beautiful woman in any universe) but open emotion, commitment or anything that would compromise their jobs, no. These people strike me very pragmatic people who are about SHIELD first, everything else is a secondary consideration.
I mean working towards a place they could be people ready for an actual relationship, serious therapy and time. Also, Hawkeye is obviously more than a decade older than Widow (unless you are bringing the Soviet super serum thing into this universe) and I don't see him as the type of guy to actively chase a relationship with a woman much younger than him, she would have to push the issue, and I don't see Natasha as the type to push for that type of thing.

I read a lot of stories where Clint is essentially written as the normal guy and Natasha is the screwed up one, Clint has a bromance with Coulson and makes easy friends with the Avengers, which is kind of strange since Clint has always been an abrasive and confrontational personality in any universe, the guy used to pick fights with Captain America about not being a good enough leader. I think Clint is just as screwed up as Natasha, if not more

Dude this gives me life. I heart prickly, effed up Clint like whoa and I always love it when his characterization is given the same thoughtful treatment as Natasha's. And yes, in so many ways I think he's the more difficult one to deal with on a inter-personal level, the one less likely to make friends, the one far more likely to rub people the wrong way. And I kind of lvoe that about him.

Also very much digging the strange and wondrous possibility of a Clint/Fury friendship. Frightening indeed. I want that fic.

And then there is redefining the character and writing them differently/trying out different things.

I didn't read comics and really don't intend to - they're hard to get where I live, also, I tend to see MCU Clint and comic(s)!Clint as fundamentally different people - based on what you wrote here, they're very much different. Basis and some aspects might be the same, everything else is a variation of a theme.

My point is, there are lot of way to interpret something or someone. There are dark versions, light versions, silly versions. I prefer some more and some less, and I think it's great that fandom (at least this bit of it) offers room to explore all of those possibilities. I'm a type of person who will pretty much always advocate for messed up people working toward getting better (and having healthy things in their life and yes that includes relationships too; because that's what I like in my fictional things). I'm also aware that not everyone enjoys the same things I do.

There's a million universes out there and there is no way to figure out which one is "right". I've read comics and I've been up to date on the latest Hawkeye with Matt Fraction. In that one he is played as a normal guy who just goes about living his life. He's not completely screwed up and he has a healthy friendship with Kate Bishop. It's a lighter version of Hawkeye, so as far as I am concerned having Barton be a balanced person is no more AU than anything else.

Omg thanks so much for the rec! It was really fun to explore how their relationship might have developed. I did the secret marriage thing in Apophasis (http://workerbee73.livejournal.com/139095.html) and the equilibrists (http://bob5fic.livejournal.com/tag/the%20equilibrists) has turned out to be a really in-depth exploration of what their marriage might look like, especially with regard to their respective histories. Bob also wrote one of my favorite marriage fics with her I am the heart that you call home (http://bob5fic.livejournal.com/65330.html), which is a delicious take on Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and funny as hell to boot, but I think my favorite thing is how the marriage in that story feels so very real.

In short?

I love them being married.

It's weird b/c I don't think of myself as a schmoopy person, but (in the MCU at least) there's something incredibly solitary and isolated about both their characters. They're also both orphans with pretty horrific childhoods and not much family to speak of, literally or metaphorically. And idk, I really love the idea of them building something out of nothing with each other. I'm not even talking kids; just the two of them together. For the world, against the world--who cares? They build their own. :)


Edited 2013-03-02 02:33 am (UTC)

My favoritist moment in the Mr. & Mrs. Smith fic is when Coulson realizes he's just babbled on to a screenwriter. Heh! Because of course that's how it would go. :-)

And I definitely agree about them building something together. True partners have to be equally yoked, to believe that they're coming into a relationship on even footing. These two and their tragic backgrounds have that.

Love it!

I'm with you :) I'm not a particularly schmoopy person either, but then this isn't a schmoopy couple, and there's something just really interesting about taking an untraditional pair through something as traditional as marriage.

Regarding the trope of Natasha the commitment-phobe vs Clint being pro-commitment: Generally I like switching up tropes, just for the sake of doing things differently, but this piece of fanon is one I'm actually comfortable with. This isn't taking any of their comics history into account, because I think the last comic I owned involved Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, but just the way I've seen and enjoyed them being written and how I'm comfortable writing them myself. That said, I think it's easy to oversimplify, to make Clint the 'normal' one who wants to be part of the 2.5 WPF Club and Natasha the one who can't have a healthy relationship to save her life. They're both pretty screwed up people with screwed up pasts, after all.

I saw the Avengers as extremely ambiguous, so there is literally any possibility regarding them and commitment. The MCU is a completely new universe, and both characters have been written in a lot of different ways, so there is a whole world of options.

I see Natasha as capable of falling in love with multiple people, and them being the right people for her when she falls in love with them. In contrast, Clint's romantic relationships are more messed up. But in some universes the stars align, and they do have a fairly functional committed relationship. I chose to believe the MCU is one of those universes (and I wouldn't say no to secretly married, because that trope is so much fun).

Love the recs, especially If Ever the Two Were One. And Heavy, but that needs to be finished soon man, the wait is terrible.

Yes, I agree that all bets are off with the MCU. It picks and chooses the best -- read: most easily translated to film -- elements of all the characters. (It's not like the comics are consistent, based on what I know of them.) Like Jeremy Renner said, he worked his character based on the script he was given, without trying to import things external to it.

And based on that, you have two characters with an apparently solid history of past missions together (the Abidjan clip, the Budapest crack, Coulson knowing just what to say to get Natasha to abandon her "interrogation") not to mention all the info that passes between Loki and Widow and the easy dialogue in the medical bay.

Love? Love is for children; they're adults in an adult world. Trust? Absolutely. In battle and out. Attraction? Hell yeah. (You could strike a match off these guys.)

What all that makes them (in the movie) is a perfectly matched set, with endless possibilities. Marriage -- personally I don't see it, except in a "we might as well, since we're doing everything else together anyway" way. But doing everything else together? Absolutely.

So, considering the ancient history of Hawkeye and Black Widow, where she defected because he believed in her and went and brought her in, I think there's always been a connection between the two characters (even if they've gone through different storylines and relationships over the years--soap operas have nothing on the comic book arcs.) The movie certainly picks up that connection and leaves it open enough all kinds of interpretation.

My favorite Natasha is the one from The Name of the Rose, where she's a force to be reckoned with, one who is deadly and feared and yet still capable of great love and compassion and protectiveness, which I find pretty easy to carry over to the MCU. Hawkeye of the movie is older and less of a flake than a lot of how he's written in the comics and the two of them fit pretty seamlessly together. She lets him in; he's willing to be vulnerable and scared in front of her. That's more than enough of a jumping off point for me.

The great thing about these two in the MCU is just how ambiguous they are - they're equally believeable as platonic partners, partners-with-sexy-benefits, or a full-blown eternal love affair. I've even seen well-written and believable fics that have them married (and in one case, with a child) throughout the movie.

Natasha's missions? Hmm... I tend to think it isn't really an issue. Partly because he'd already know exactly how meaningless it is to Natasha outside of a real relationship (and in my head!canon, that's only with Clint. Might later include the Winter Soldier, depending on what they do with him in CA2), partly because he's every bit as much the professional as she is.
Also, it might be naive of me, maybe, but I think that Natasha using sex as part of her missions was something she left behind with the Red Room, mostly (not something she did in her freelance days unless it was simply something she felt like doing). I wouldn't say that using sex as part of a cover or persuasion techinique is something that SHIELD and it's operatives think of as 'below' them, at all. I just think that Nat's too bloody good at her job to bother with it. Look at how she played not only Loki, but that Russian General in her first scene. The first took all of ten minutes, the second maybe a day prep time (to get the General to buy her original persona) and two minutes conversation before he was spilling his guts! Hell, look at how she performed (in a workplace sort of way) in IM2. She doesn't need to use sex to get information (sex is NOT the same thing as seduction, it's just the most common result). As for undercover work, sex would only come up in a long-term assignment, and Natasha's too valuable to be stuck hidden away for long periods of time. I'd bet most of her missions don't last longer than a month, and several days is the norm.

With these two, I think it isn't so much marriage that matters, as the commitment.

Regardless of whether they were sleeping together beforehand, in my H-C, they only decided to embark on an actual romantic relationship once they were ready to commit to each other. Their partnership is too important to both of them to risk screwing up; once they decided to actually be together, it was for good. Their act of commitment already held all the weight of a marriage for them.

As for a wedding... yeah, I don't see them having a big fancy ceremony (not just because they shun such things as spies used to keeping their status secret). I think they'd be just as happy with no ceremony at all, because in their minds they're already married. They already belong to each other (although posession has nothing to do with it), so why bother?

I had a fic idea for a couple in another fandom, actually, where at the end they have easily-visible, full-of-hidden-meanings-to-them tattoos, because the woman concerned thinks that rings are for pussies; she's not going to have something as impermanent and easily-removed or stolen as a ring representing her marriage.

I do have a sort of running gag in my H!C, where they get married every couple of years or so, because they just really like getting married, much the same way Tony likes to throw huge parties! (one of these days, I'm going to write the fic where they get married in every continent) Whenever they're in a really good place personally (Or in a location that seems like a great honeymoon spot!) they get married, sort of like a way of celebrating that Life is Good!

Just quickly jumping in with my two cents :)

I am always ... very torn about the whole thing. Are they committed? In my head they always are, it being through friendship or romance. though I'm a sucker for romance like WOA, I certainly love and cherish a deep and loving platonical relationship between the two.

Do they need to be married though?! That is where I am torn.

On a more rational level, I would argue that no - they are smart, secure and strong enough in their opinions and believes (in each other) that they really don't need to have western society "approve" of them being together. Sure they have their issues, but those are their issues and no one elses and they are not naive enough to believe a ring on your finger will make it magically better.

On the other hand though, if well written, there is just something wonderful about the whole juxtaposition of being two people living utterly iregular lives but having that ONE small bit of normalicy.

I like to remeber Phoebe from Friends in moments like these. She was always the weird one, the different one and she loved it and she never wanted to change. She was who she was and screw the rest. But still, when she decided to marry, everyone GAPED at her in disbelieve. And she just said "Is it so wrong that I want this ONE thing that everyone else wants? That for ONCE I want the average shit and the normal and the boring?" (I am paraphrasing here, cannot remember her actual words).

So, yeah ... I am always on the fence about marriage. I think it just really depends on how it's written ^^

Edited 2013-03-02 06:16 pm (UTC)

Hi - Do you mind if we link to this at Metanews?