Ha, with this particular challenge, I had to be very careful that my prompt isn't longer than the actual resulting fic ;)

So here's a prompt for setting:
- any historical D.C. monument

i know, right?? i'm having the same problem myself.

How about:
- weapons and their meaning to them

There was always a knife strapped to his leg but she knew that it wasn't standard issue. After watching him draw and throw it, she knew it had different origins and felt compelled to ask him about it.

The tips of his ears grew red as he replied, "I've never told you what I did when I was a kid, have I?"

Don't taunt the dinosaurs.

MARCH MADNESS.

"How on earth did she win when I know for a fact that her selection process was closing her eyes and throwing knives at a list of teams?" Tony asked, grumbling as he forked over Natasha's winnings.

Clint shrugged. If the team didn't know about a) Natasha's love of basketball, b) Natasha's uncanny head for math or, c) that he'd taught her to throw knives with her eyes closed years before, that was their problem, not his.

Edited 2013-03-29 04:35 pm (UTC)

Leave the bunny at home.

The bunny looked at Natasha. Natasha looked at Clint.

"Fine - but if it chews on my bowstring, I'm going to use it as target practice!"

Meet me at the docks.

with just a glance at the newspaper

I dunno, I thought I'd give it a go.

She knew it was him within two sentences; the article describing him perfectly without really saying anything at all. Fury and SHIELD had given him up for dead after the accident but she knew otherwise - knew as certainly as she knew her own quarters on the Helicarrier - and now here was her proof, printed as clear as day to anyone who knew what to look for. So she closed the paper and opened her phone, and when the call connected she simply said I've found Agent Barton and allowed a small spark of hope to catch fire in her heart.

Edited 2013-03-29 03:37 pm (UTC)

a stack of books

Natasha walked into the den, took one look at her partner, and said, "For the love of—Clint, we have a ladder."

"But this works just fine," Clint said, only wobbling a little as he reached to get his backup quiver, "and it was right there."

Natasha sighed in disgust and walked away, muttering something about circuses and acrobats that Clint couldn't quite make out.

Edited 2013-03-29 02:55 pm (UTC)

Imaginary Friends.

Sometimes she thinks about a Natalia Alianovna that got to grow up normal, a young woman whose mother carefully walked her through how to use makeup at an appropriate age, who fought with her father over curfew and spoke at his retirement dinner, a girl with friends and boyfriends who smiled and joked and argued. She thinks long and hard about this imaginary woman and her imaginary friends, but every time, she thinks that maybe she would not want to be that woman.

Clint Barton would never smile at that woman the way he smiles at her.

Highwire.

“You could have mentioned that there would be tight-rope walking on this mission—I’d have brought my other acrobat shoes.”

“As ever, Clint Barton, you are the one person I know that has two pairs of shoes dedicated solely to tight-rope walking.”

“Just like to keep you on your toes, babe.”

Sunset

The light was fading; she pressed her hands against the wound but there wasn't enough time.

He smiled, that cocksure sideways grin she loved, fingers coming to trace her cheek as he wiped the tears away.

"Don't cry, Red--I'll find you again; I always do."



Edited 2013-03-29 05:27 pm (UTC)

a phone call away

" - he's so fucking insufferable and God knows I've dealt with annoying pricks before but he's the worst and if he propositions me one more time I am going to break his fingers, which he knows I could do because I accidentally thigh-choked his chauffeur yesterday because he surprised me and Stark made me get in a boxing ring with him, and lets be fucking honest I could have killed him because he's ridiculously out of shape for a guy trying to teach Stark self defence but God I got so close and if it weren't for Potts I would have seriously begun to doubt Stark Industries as a viable company because Stark sure as hell has no idea what's going on 90% of the time and I really, really just want to shoot something."

There was a pause on the other end of the line and then Clint said, "feel better now?"

"Yes, thank you."

Edited 2013-03-29 06:07 pm (UTC)

If I told you, I'd have to kill you.

"Was there ever a time you actually missed a target?" She says with a small grin as she looks onto him shooting.

Clint lets out a small smile and chuckles.

"I'd tell you," He teases, "but then I'd have to kill you."

the info on the folder is wrong

The folder said highly trained in espionage, said proficient in most known weapons, said this woman is dangerous and a threat and must be eliminated; the folder gave him a wealth of information about a woman trained to kill before she could walk.

The folder didn't say scared, didn't say trying to be better. He found that out for himself.

I'll have what she's having.

The waitress walked over to their table, " Can I start you off with some drinks?"

Natasha ordered, and when the waitress got to Clint, he said, "I'll have what the redhead's having."

Tony laughed as the waitress walked away, "Robin Hood, you are so pussy-whipped."

Open your eyes.

"Tasha, I'm gonna need you to open your eyes for me because we need to get out of here but I can't even begin to think about it until I know you're conscious and I'm doubtful about it at the moment."

The rambling panic in Clint's voice was every bit as comforting as his death grip on her shoulders. As much as she knew she should do as he requested and open her eyes, she wanted to stay in this between existence where all that mattered was that he was nearby.

A short history of nearly everything.

"They're assassins. What more do you need to know?"

Later, Maria wished she'd pushed a little harder for a more in-depth history on Clint and Natasha as she found herself often in the dark about what they were capable of and what she should be expecting of them.

Budapest.

(it had to be done.)

She's right; the whistling of ammunition around their heads, the adrenaline rush of picking off hostiles like a bloody game of whack-a-mole, the rubble and smoke and the panicking civilians -- in all those ways, it really is like Budapest all over again.

What she seems to have forgotten entirely, though, is that they were fighting on opposite sides then.

He hopes that when this is all over, they will both have the chance to re-learn the difference.

Stargazing.

"...and that's Alan... the cowboy."

Tony was sniggering into his fist but Steve was looking at the night's sky with utter concentration.

Natasha's fist came down on Clint's arm with an audible thump, and her loud "Stop quoting the Simpsons, dumbass," was immediately followed by Tony dissolving into fits of loud laughter.


(I'm sorry, I'm sorry, this just immediately made me think of Homer trying to name constellations in the Simpsons and I couldn't get it out of my head.)

Edited 2013-03-29 06:12 pm (UTC)

A god, an American icon and an assassin walk into a bar.

Edited 2013-03-29 06:35 pm (UTC)

“So a god, an American icon, and an assassin walk into a bar—”

“Wait, wait, wait, this joke is misleading—we have two assassins, and the jury’s still out on whether Thor actually qualifies for god status, and can a man still be considered an icon when I know for a fact he’ll eat fried bologna sandwiches with every meal if you let him—”

“—and then an idiot in a mechanized tin can followed them into the bar and ruined the joke.”

Edited 2013-03-29 07:30 pm (UTC)

There's a first time for everything.

There's a first time for everything. Yet Clint and Natasha's first time they slept together was terrifying, for they breached a new territory.

Yet when their bodies intertwined, it was no longer awkward....for they were one.

Flannel sheets.

He's always had a thing for redheads.

The first time he kisses her they're on a job, in a bar that fronts for a human trafficking ring; he's playing the piano and she's writhing on top, wearing a black-bob wig like that "All that Jazz" chick from Chicago -- kind of fitting, really, as she'll be killing the owner and his mistress later that evening.

The second time she's a bottle blonde in a crowded state ballroom in Moscow; she devours his mouth with hers, leaving nothing to the imagination and a data chip under his tongue.

It is in a cheap, un-airconditioned motel in Texas, though -- as he is kissing his way down her sweat-drenched body to the soft whispers of his name on her lips -- that she finally lets him see her true colours; he should have known that there never was anything for him but red.

Edited 2013-03-29 09:17 pm (UTC)

Twenty things an assassin can do with paper clips

So Coulson left this box of coloured paper clips on his desk with a note, "Twenty Things An Asssassin Can Do With Paperclips"; obviously it's a hint to use the fucking things to finally put the twenty mission reports he owes the bureaucracy into some semblance of order, maybe even submit them.

But the more Clint stares at those clips, the more their cheery colours turn into a swirling rainbow of resentment and so he starts making a list of twenty ways they could be used to kill the guy who audited his last expense report (twenty-one missions ago); he starts with dip in kurare, moves on to clamp over oxygen tube while scuba-diving and ends with straighten, sharpen, bundle together and turn into an arrowhead with twenty little pointy bits.

Okay, so that last one was a bit lame, but he folds the list into a little origami QuinJet anyway, hooks the clips into two strings which turn into colourful contrails as he fires the thing into Coulson's office, where it lands with a really satisfying thud.

sensitive

Six months after she’d been cleared by S.H.I.E.L.D, she was still watched with suspicion, with fear.

Natasha didn’t particularly mind...she reveled in it a little, in fact; she enjoyed the side-long glances, the uneasy whispers her presence inspired.

But, when muttered conversations about Barton reached her ears, she always leveled the culprits with her darkest glare, and before long, the whispers about "The Hawk" and "The Widow" turned into something else entirely.

Edited 2013-03-29 11:16 pm (UTC)