I AM SO LATE.

Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won’t. This is what love is. [Welcome to Night Vale]

Oh that's good :D

Note: I had to do this one, I just had to. Night Vale is a favorite of mine and Iaways thought of these two when I hear that quote.


They tell each other secrets in the dead of night. Big secrets that will destroy them one day and smaller, more intimate ones that, when put them together, would unravel who they ware.

They tell each other stories that no one else has heard, favorite things that no one else knows. They tell each other all the little things they keep close to their hearts and reveal the tiny secrets that are engraved on their bones.

Yes, they know the deep dark secrets too, they know the things that will be able to shatter them but they know other things as well. Smaller and more delicate that can break so much more easily.

This is how they show their love, how they tell each other that they matter. It's not in the big revelations but in the quiet whispers in the late night. It's in the minuscule details that make them up, it's in the tiny truths that are a part of them.

A kiss says 'I love you' A touch says 'You're mine' but a secret, no matter how small says 'I trust you with everything I am'.

Love the lyrical nature of this. So lovely.

That is beautiful.

Beautifully done!

A kiss says 'I love you' A touch says 'You're mine' but a secret, no matter how small says 'I trust you with everything I am'. -- guh!

Wee! I like this. :D

I love how it's the small secrets that are emphasized here. Usually I think of the big ones when I imagine Clint, Natasha, and secrets... but this works so wonderfully. <3

Lovely!

Clint makes it a rule to avoid Medical whenever possible. The place makes his skin crawl, makes the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, reminds him of all the many ways he is fragile and human and fated to die someday.

He realizes, halfway down the hall leading to the high security ward, that this is the first time he’s ever come here willingly, on a visit.

“Here to see Romanoff?” asks the young agent serving as security guard outside her door--Tom, Clint thinks, or maybe Tim. The look on his face is a mix of curiosity and incredulity, which always seem to be defining characteristics of the S.H.I.E.L.D. rumor mill.

“Yes,” Clint says simply, setting down the takeout cup he’s carrying before taking off his jacket and making a show of turning out his pockets for the security check.

Tom raises an eyebrow. “You come to rubberneck or you actually believe her story?”

“Open the damn door,” Clint says tiredly, retrieving the cup but leaving his jacket where it is for the moment. If he has one regret about bringing in the Black Widow, it’s the fact that people won’t stop asking him questions about it. “You did your job.”

Tom shrugs and turns to the security controls to the room, punching in a code before scanning his thumb print. “When she eats you, I won’t be the one cleaning up the mess.”

(Read the rest on AO3 (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1179878))

COMMENT AGAIN BECAUSE OF FABULOUSNESS. <3

This is great! Also, Tom is a jerk. :P

<3

SO MUCH LOVE FOR THIS!

My heart hurt for Natasha. And a little for Clint too.

And the whole scene in Central Park -- GUH -- MY FEELS!

Off to read this again!

AN: I know this has been filled twice already, but I've been mulling this over and when I came back with fic I think we've all done something a bit different anyway. Which is interesting :) So here's my twopence worth.


Love Is

Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won’t. This is what love is.

It’s a game that children play, spilling secrets until they find a trustworthy soul who can embrace them, contain them, hold them cupped inside their hands without letting them overflow into someone else’s hearing. It’s a game for children, who give things away without hesitation far too often, without a thought for the consequences. It’s a game that inevitably hurts.

You can kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince. You can love a lot of people before you find one who loves you back. You can collect the shattered pieces of yourself as you are destroyed over and over. It’s how the fairytales go; you can never have what you want the very first time.

Better never to try than to fail.

Especially when your secrets are so sharp and your fault lines are becoming clearer every day. Especially not with people who already have power over you, more than you have allowed anyone to hold over you since you were too young to know any better. Especially when you want (which is the most dangerous secret of all).

Better never to try, but when he whispers into your ear, voice sex-rough and love-soft; when he tells you the name of his brother, the reasons his marriage failed, his worst nightmares; when he holds out his pieces to you, broken but still precious… When he whispers his secrets to you, he makes you believe in mutually assured destruction.

This is what love is.

Edited 2014-02-14 11:31 pm (UTC)

Awww, Natasha. This really rings comics-Natasha to me (especially the new ones).

The new comics are definitely influencing my thinky thoughts! Glad you enjoyed the fic :)

Damn. *sniffles* I have so many feelings right now. Damn you. This was beautiful.

Um, oops? *hands you a tissue* Thank you :D

Oh, oh, oh. ...mutually assured destruction. I've never connected that phrase to them, but it makes a perfect and powerful touchstone. And I love how you link it back to 'love is for children', how you frame it in the context of fairy tales. Stories, wistful bits of imagination, with a moral and a lesson and a happy ending... when she knows so much better, so much more, and wishes (perhaps) still.

Loved it! Especially the mutually assured destruction. Clint and Nat as the perfect personification of the Cold War... Awesome!

I think this is what I was thinking of, in the back of my head, when I prompted this. There's a Night Vale slant to this that it excellent (though I don't know if it was intentional) and a sort of... vivid fantastical sheen as well. It's sort of... oil slick coloured. But like... material.

That makes no sense. Anyway. LOVE this.

I love you. All the feels.

[lots of people have been posting to this prompt, so I hope you don't mind one more gift.]

Natalia Romanova learns about love when she’s five years old, when her father is reading bedtime stories of Russian princesses and smoothing back red (but not too red) hair from her heavy eyes and telling her, “spat, Natal'ya. Sna moy krasivuyu devushku.”

Sleep, Natalia. Sleep, my beautiful girl.

His hands against her skin are a comfort against a child’s world of big and bad and she falls asleep dreaming of golden haired maidens, white unicorns and prima donna ballerinas, she never tells anyone that those are her last real memories of a life before becoming unmade, memories that - when she lets herself think about them - seem too beautiful to even be real.

Read the rest on AO3 (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1190604)

Edited 2014-02-16 05:33 am (UTC)

Oh, Natasha.