Agent Barton was sent to kill me. He made a different call.

Three months after bringing in the Black Widow, Agent Barton is staring deep into a glass of scotch and asking himself, "What the hell was I thinking?"

AKA what the rest of SHIELD, including Natasha, have been thinking for the last three months, bwahahaha :D

[Found this in an old, old backlog - it was never finished, and despite my best efforts I can't figure out where it was going to go. So have part of a fic, a year late!]

She is fire and ice and a thunderstorm in human form, and "a force of nature" meant nothing until he met her. Barton can't decide if he is glad of that, if the dark clouds and power that have swept across his horizons are welcome in exchange for the crisp, clean feel of the world after rain.

In the middle of his contemplation the door slides open and Natasha enters, her gait smooth and graceful, as if she belongs in this tucked-away office and he is the intruder, the interloper. Without a word she slides into the seat opposite him and puts a bottle of vodka on the table; probably something high quality, judging by the label, and no doubt from an off-beat and elite liquor store he's never heard of. After just three months in this city she seems to know it better than the back of her hand; to know it better than he does.

He doesn’t like that idea at all.

"Couldn't knock?" Clint asks with a cocked eyebrow, tipping his head at the door. A small roll of her shoulder brushes off the idea, eloquent and elegant, just like the rest of her. He takes a sip of the scotch and gives in to her presence without protest, just like the rest of SHIELD.

He wonders if he resents that, the way she has settled into the organization the same way she's settled into her chair: effortlessly, smoothly, belonging as easily as she breathes. He hasn't made up his mind when she speaks.

"It seems today is not a day to be alone."

Clint feels his eyebrows rise of their own accord. Valentine's Day is hard to miss, what with the decorations new agents inevitably strung around headquarters and the informal party thrown under Fury's amused eye, but he has spent plenty of February 14ths alone, or drunk. Usually both.

"You're thinking of Christmas. Or Thanksgiving."

Natasha dismisses this with a flick of her eyes but there's a shadow in them briefly, a hint of the troubled past even SHIELD can’t dig up, and he wonders if he'll ever hear the story behind that look. If he'll ever learn any of her stories. Three months in SHIELD and they all know exactly as much as she wants them to know - and there's never been a guarantee that any of it is the truth.

"Not interested in the party?"

"And make the lovers too nervous to enjoy it?" She glances at the wall and Clint finds in the purse of her lips the first sign that perhaps she is not as at home here as she appears; that perhaps it is as much an act any of her former roles.

It makes him like her a little more.

Oh, so cool!! And what an intriguing snippet it is. Make sure you put it on your LJ, because no one other than me will ever find it this way! :-)