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A Gift From: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mahenry424
Type Of Gift: (Fic)
Title: The Cohabitation Clause
A Gift For:crazy4orcas
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: None<
Summary/Prompt Used: Prompt: The trials and tribulations of combining two drastically different households, two weapons lockers, a dog, a cat, “we’re not taking your couch Barton”, and “good lord, Nat, I knew about your two closets, but you had clothes in storage too?” into one happy home. Bonus if the other Avengers help them move. AKA The one where Clint and Natasha
banner byohmydarlingdear
The Cohabitation Clause
“You want a what?” Clint asked, looking up from fletching an arrow to shoot Natasha a look filled with utter confusion.
Natasha shifted her weight microscopically from foot to foot, telegraphing her unease as she stood next to the couch. But she met Clint’s gaze unflinchingly, and her voice was steady when she repeated her last statement. “I want a cohabitation agreement.”
“What does that even mean?” Clint narrowed his eyes.
“It’s a document that lays out expectations for living together,” Natasha explained. “Who’s going to do what chores. How finances are going to be split. Just…some guidelines to make sure this doesn’t end up being a disaster. It’s usually recommended that you include a six month probation period too.”
“Nat. We’ve been doing this thing--” Clint gestured expressively between them “--for almost a year now. And we’ve known each other forever and a day on top of that. We don’t need some piece of paper to tell us how to be together.”
Natasha opened her mouth to respond, but Clint didn’t give her the chance.
“Especially,” he added derisively, “if it’s something that sounds like it comes out of freakin’ ‘Cosmo’!”
Natasha sighed, breaking Clint’s gaze to look around the room. “I just….It seems like it could be a good idea…Neither one of us has what you might call stellar track records with this kind of thing. And….I want more for us. I do. But….I don’t want to lose what we have trying to get it.” She trailed off, dropping her guarded posture, crossing her arms and sinking into herself.
Clint was struck by how unsure she sounded, how small she suddenly looked. She was scared, Clint realized in a sudden moment of clarity. Which, ironically, was kind of great news. He’d thought he was the only one.
Because, yes, they’d gone from a “them” to a “them” almost a year ago, in a transition so natural he was still boggling over why they ever waited so long.
And, yes, they spent most nights together, on either his floor of the Tower or hers. So it only made sense that they finally make it official, choose a floor, and stamp it ours.
Still, Natasha was right. Even with as great as things had been going, specters of failed relationships seemed to linger on the periphery. And this wasn’t just a relationship. This was a relationship with Natasha. And, more than ever before, Clint couldn’t bear the thought of all he might have to give up if it went south.
This was one mission that had to succeed.
And, just like that, Clint got it. He and Nat lived their lives like a series of missions. And what did you do when you were nervous about a high stakes mission?
You focused on creating an airtight action plan.
Clint could get on board with that. Of course, for Natasha, he could get on board with practically anything.
So he set his arrow aside, got up off of the couch, and moved to hold Natasha’s hands gently in his.
“Yeah, ok, Nat. You’re right. ‘S a good idea,” Clint yielded, squeezing her hands.
Natasha smiled, squeezing back.
Which was how, two weeks later, while surrounded by a mountain of packing boxes (and seriously, how did they get so much stuff? For most of their lives they’d been virtual nomads!) Clint found himself with a piece of paper shoved unceremoniously into his hands as Natasha passed by carrying another armful of clothes towards the closet (And really, how many different little black dresses did one woman need, even if she regularly pretended to be a dozen different women?)
Resigning himself to never understanding women, especially one like Natasha Romanoff, Clint shrugged and read what he’d been handed:
Cohabitation Agreement
1. We will split household chores evenly between us and make sure to keep the living space clean and inviting.
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
“What do you think?” Natasha asked as she re-entered the living room. “Anything you disagree with?”
“Uh…no,” Clint answered. “Not really. I mean…it all sounds do-able to me.”
“Okay, good,” Natasha exhaled, sounding relieved. “Do you want to add anything?”
Clint opened his mouth, a “no” ready to fall from his lips. But then:
“Well, actually…..” He grabbed a pen and scribbled another line below Rule # 5, handing the paper back to Natasha.
Natasha read his addition and huffed a laugh, eyebrow rising and a teasing smile quirking her lips.
“Really, Barton?” She asked, tone warmly mocking, “Isn’t that a little ‘Hallmark’ for you?”
“What can I say?” Clint responded with an answering smirk, “Guess I’m getting a little sentimental. Must be all the nesting.”
Natasha groaned and turned to leave again.
Clint laughed, only to have the wind suddenly knocked out of him as he was hit firmly in the head by an accent pillow. (And why exactly did the couch need 15 of them?)
Now it was Natasha’s turn to bark a laugh, smiling saccharinely at the look on Clint’s face as she continued on into the kitchen to hang the agreement front and center on the refrigerator.
“Clint…”
“I know.”
“The laundry is purple.”
“I know, Nat…”
“But you were running a load of whites.”
“I know! It just…It just happened.”
“Hey, Lucky! What’s up, boy?” Clint dropped his bag by the front door and bent to pet his mutt behind the ears.
As he straightened up, Clint’s attention was drawn to music drifting down the hallway from the living room.
Coming around the corner, Clint stopped in shock at the sight in front of him, an enormous grin erupting across his face.
Natasha was dusting the bookshelves. Wearing nothing but his boxers and bulls-eye tank top. That in itself wasn’t that unusual.
The dancing, on the other hand was. Stereo blaring, Natasha stood with her back to Clint, hips shimmying and Swiffer duster held as a microphone as she screamed lyrics towards where an unimpressed Liho sat lounging on the windowsill.
“But the monsters turned out to be just treeeeeeeeeeeeees
And when the sun came up, you were lookin' at me.
You were lookin' at me
You were lookin' at meeeeeeeeeeeeeee,
I remember, oh, I remember
Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the wooooooooooooooods?”
Natasha pirouetted, and Clint erupted into laughter at the look on her face when she spotted him in the doorway.
Socks sliding on the floor as she came to an abrupt halt, Natasha tried to regain her footing while composing her features to fix Clint with an unaffected stare. When Clint just kept laughing, it morphed into a pointed glare.
Despite the warning, Clint stepped closer.
“Nice moves there, Romanoff,” he chuckled. “Interesting music choice, though. Since when are you into Taylor Swift?”
A glint of triumph chased the chagrin out of Natasha’s eyes.
“Since when do you know Taylor Swift?” she countered.
Some of the cockiness left Clint’s face, and he rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “Well, I mean…it’s all over the radio these days….”
Now Natasha was the one smirking.
“What?” Clint added defensively. “It’s damn catchy, alright? Shut up!”
Natasha broke out into a brilliant laugh and Clint took another step towards her, swallowing the sound in a kiss.
When they broke for breath, Clint’s eyes were drawn to a pile of machinery lying in the middle of the floor.
“Um…Nat?” he questioned.
“Hmmm,” she sighed, fingers tracing lazy patterns across his back.
“What happened to the vacuum cleaner?”
Natasha turned to glare ferociously at the spare parts strewn haphazardly by the couch.
“Stupid Dyson piece of дерьмо,” she growled.
Clint’s smirk split his face once more. “Having trouble with our chores are we, sweetheart?”
The fury in the eyes boring into Clint now would have given a smarter man pause. Being Clint Barton, he merely broadened his smirk to shit-eating proportions.
After ten seconds of doing her level best to explode Clint’s head using only her mind, Natasha sighed, the anger leaving her in a rush as she deflated.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she sighed.
Before Clint could respond, another voice interrupted.
As I informed Agent Romanoff, the Tower is fully equipped with microbots to handle all its residents’ cleaning needs. And, if you still insist on undertaking such things yourself, the Tower is home to no fewer than two scientists capable of fixing your device should its pet hair attachment start acting like a—what did you call it?—Dustbuster reject pain in the ass. Of course, such repairs would be more difficult now, given Agent Romanoff’s rather aggressive attempt at troubleshooting.
Clint watched in amusement (and some alarm) as Natasha craned her neck to shout at the ceiling.
“And I especially don’t want to talk about it with you!”
With that, Natasha stormed off into the bedroom, leaving Clint (more or less) alone in the living room.
Shall I remove the programming excluding yours and Agent Romanoff’s floor from the Tower’s automated cleaning service, Agent Barton?
Clint took one more look at the vacuum carnage which, upon closer inspection, he now realized was sparking.
“Uh…yeah J.A.R.V.I.S. I think that’s a big ‘yes’”.
Very good, sir.
Cohabitation Agreement
1. We will split household chores evenly between us and make sure to keep the living space clean and inviting.
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
Natasha dropped her bag by the door with a sigh. She thought that interrogation was never going to end. And she was starving.
Grateful that it was Clint’s week to make dinner, she followed the smells of something cooking towards the kitchen.
Wait. Scratch that. It wasn’t so much the smell of something cooking as it was the smell of something burning.
Slightly worried now, Natasha quickened her step. She made it to the kitchen just in time to see a tower of flames erupt from the frying pan Clint had clenched in his hand.
With a loud expletive, Clint dropped the pan and leapt along the counter looking for something to smother the flames.
Are you sure you do not require assistance, Agent Barton? I heeded your request to disconnect the Tower’s fire response system after last month’s Meatloaf Incident. But I really think the events of this evening should give you cause to reconsider.
“Shut your trap, Moviephone! I’m dealing with it!” Clint roared. He grabbed the pan’s lid and smashed it on top of the flames, yelling victoriously when the flames died down, then moaning in dismay when he removed the lid to reveal the charred remains of what had once been something edible (Natasha assumed).
“Aw, Salmon, no!” Clint lamented.
(“Ah, Salmon,” a part of Natasha’s mind echoed.)
With a sigh, Clint moved to set the pan down again, finally noticing Natasha standing frozen in the doorway.
Clint looked at Natasha as she looked back. He followed her gaze, from him, to the failure of a dinner in his hands, to a traumatized Liho standing on the very top of the kitchen cabinets with her spine arched (and were those singe marks on her tail?), to Lucky happily rolling around in the contents of an entire bag of flour which had been dropped on the floor, back to Clint.
“Okay,” he started, eyes earnestly apologetic, “this looks bad.”
Natasha opened her mouth. Then she shook her head, closed it, turned around, and walked right back out of the apartment, stopping to grab her bag along the way.
She’d tell Fury she could follow that intel to Europe after all.
The sound of plates clinking together filled the silence as Clint and Natasha worked together to clear the dinner table.
Natasha tried not to focus too much on the nearly full plate Clint handed her. Just like she’d forced herself not to notice the hints of discontent on his face during dinner itself.
“’S real good, Nat,” Clint complimented as they stacked the dirty dishes by the kitchen sink.
“Really?” she asked, tone heavy with skepticism. “You didn’t seem to like it much.”
“No, no, I did. Really.” Clint was quick to protest. But in the face of Natasha’s ‘I’m not buying your bullshit, Barton’© look, he confessed: “I mean, it’s not exactly my style of grub. I guess I’m just never sure what to do with that frou-frou French cuisine.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, eyes asking Natasha to understand.
And she did. Sure, she enjoyed dusting off the skills she learned as part of her cover for that mission at “Mon Vieil Ami” in Paris. But, quail in wine sauce didn’t exactly scream Clint Barton. In fact, if she was being really honest, it didn’t really say Natasha Romanoff these days either.
Natasha’s attention was drawn back to Clint as he pushed off the counter and walked back towards the sink, turning on the faucet and reaching for a dirty plate.
“Hey,” she said softly, reaching out to rest her hand in the crook of his elbow. “I forgot to tell you. I picked up some more pizza bagels when I stopped for the ingredients for dinner tonight.”
Encouraged by the gleam of elation creeping back into Clint’s eyes, Natasha continued. “Those servings ended up being smaller than I remembered. Feel like heating up an extra snack?’
Clint’s answer was somewhat hesitant. “Ya sure? I mean, you cooked tonight. Means it’s my turn to do the dishes.”
“Yeah, well,” Natasha scoffed slightly, “I used the good dishes for this. So maybe it’s best that we skip the Amazing Clint Barton Dish Juggling Spectacular© just this once.”
Clint put a hand to his heart. “As if I’d ever drop one!” he proclaimed in his most offended voice.
With a laugh, Natasha nudged him out of the way, dunking the first plate under the running water as he headed off to fetch the pizza bagels.
“You know,” she called out, causing him to turn from rummaging in the freezer, “next week is going to be pretty hectic for both of us. And that new Thai place just opened up around the corner. Want to just plan on grabbing take out for our next dinner date?”
“I mean…would that be okay?” Clint asked, looking at her meaningfully.
“Yeah,” Natasha answered, voice tender. “I think that would be just fine.”
Cohabitation Agreement
1. We will split household chores evenly between us and make sure to keep the living space clean and inviting.
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
Natasha turned off the blow dryer, staring critically at her reflection in the mirror.
She plugged her flat iron in, then moved to clean up the clutter in the bathroom while it heated up.
She paused halfway through hanging up her towel, sniffing as an unusual smell filled the room.
She rotated her head, trying to locate the odd smell. She zeroed in on the flat iron. There it was. But it wasn’t the typical acrid smell sometimes associated with that device. Instead, it smelled more like cheese?
Unplugging the flat iron, Natasha pulled it closer for a better look. She spotted a blackened residue on the plates. Natasha yelled out into the rest of the apartment. “Clint?”
After a few seconds, Clint pushed the bathroom door open, leaning a hip against the frame and grinning at Natasha.
“Hey! What’s up?”
“Is this…Swiss Cheese on my flat iron?” Natasha asked, holding the appliance out to him.
Clint waved it away. “’Course not!”
“It’s mozzarella.”
Natasha stared blankly at Clint for a few seconds. When he didn’t continue, she prompted him.
“Oookay. Do you want to explain why there’s any kind of cheese on my flat iron?”
“I was making a Panini for lunch yesterday and our sandwich press is broken,” Clint answered matter-of-factly, as it that explained everything.
Natasha brought a hand to her forehead, brow creasing against a sudden headache. “So why didn’t you ask Stark to fix it? Or use the one in the communal kitchen.”
Clint shrugged indifferently. “Dunno. This was easier.”
Natasha glared. “Well, that’s nice for you. But, I kind of needed to use this.” She gestured to her hair with the now-worthless appliance.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Clint said unconcernedly. “I think your hair looks gouda!”
Clint was still grinning as Natasha pushed him out of the bathroom, slamming the door in his face.
Cohabitation Agreement
1. We will split household chores evenly between us and make sure to keep the living space clean and inviting.
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
“Natasha!” Clint’s voice bellowed across the apartment.
“I’m right here,” she answered from her spot on the chaise by the window.
“What is this?” Clint demanded, shaking a piece of paper in his hands.
Liho, curled up by Natasha’s legs, glared reproachfully at Clint’s volume, before yawning, stretching her legs primly, and settling back to sleep. Natasha herself only glanced up briefly from the mission brief she was reading, before quirking her lips and replying. “It appears to be a piece of paper.”
“Oh, ha ha! Such biting wit, Agent Romanoff! Seriously, Nat, there’s a charge on this Visa bill for $1400!”
“And?” Natasha challenged.
“And,” Clint pressed, “It’s $1400 for a collection of crystal animal figurines from QVC!”
That got Natasha’s attention.
“Oh,” she murmured somewhat sheepishly, shifting to face Clint more completely, causing Liho to abandon the chaise, shooting them both a look of contempt as she prowled away.
Clint raised an eyebrow in question, clearly waiting for an answer.
“I was having a little trouble sleeping after that thing in Kiev a few weeks ago,” Natasha admitted. “When you were still out of town for that training thing?”
Clint nodded his understanding.
“Anyway, I was just watching some late night TV and somehow ended up on QVC. And, at 3 a.m., running on 27 hours without sleep, those things looked really cute.” Natasha gave a self-conscious half-shrug as she finished her explanation.
“Ok,” Clint replied, aggravation long gone from his voice. “Well, where are they then. I certainly don’t see a collection of 25 crystal animals anywhere around here?”
“Oh,” Natasha answered flippantly, “turns out they were super ugly in the light of day after some decent sleep. I didn’t keep them.”
“Well, if you returned them, how come the charge is still on the card?” Clint wondered.
“I didn’t return them.” Natasha clarified.
Now Clint was fully perplexed. “If you didn’t return them and you didn’t keep them, what happened to them.”
“Well…” Natasha started, a smile playing around her lips. “I put the bald eagle in Steve’s locker. That was fun.” She and Clint shared a conspiratorial smirk at that.
“And then I gave the rest to Bruce,” she concluded.
Clint’s brow furrowed in incomprehension. “Why would Bruce want a bunch of crystal animals?”
Natasha laughed, turning back to her files and effectively ending the conversation.
“That is not my story to tell.”
Excuse me, Agent Romanoff.
Natasha looked up from her workout in the Tower gym at the sound of J.A.R.V.I.S’ voice.
There is a delivery for Agent Barton at the front door.Very well, madam.
Natasha took pause at J.A.R.V.I.S. tone. If she didn’t know better, she would swear he sounded amused.
Of course, she’d all but forgotten about that forty minutes later when, after showering and changing, she arrived back at the apartment and tried to open the door. She frowned when she realized it wouldn’t budge.
Putting more power behind her push, Natasha managed to shove the door open just enough to pass through. What she found on the other side made her not only remember J.A.R.V.I.S’ entertainment, but understand its source.
No fewer than fifteen boxes were clustered in their front hallway, taking up almost all of the available space.
Carefully, Natasha picked her way through the obstacle course, glancing at the labels on each one. Her sharp eyes quickly found the one which included a packing slip. As she was nimbly extracting it from the precarious tower of cardboard, she heard the sound of the door opening into the solid wall of boxes.
“What the hell?” Clint’s grunts and expletives as he forced himself through the door had Natasha nearly doubling over in laughter.
“Seriously,” Clint pressed as he finally came into view. “What is all this stuff?”
“I was going to ask you the same question. They’re all addressed to you. This should have some answers,” Natasha said as she held up the packing slip.
“Micro-circuit boards, smoke bombs, GPS chips, and plastic green army men?” Natasha read incredulously.
“Oh, awesome!” Clint exclaimed happily. “That got here really quickly.”
“What is all this stuff for?” Natasha demanded.
“Supplies for my new arrows,” Clint responded innocently as he began picking through the boxes.
“What kind of arrows are you going to make with all of that?”
“Dunno yet,” Clint grinned.
Natasha sighed. “And how much money did you spend on all of this junk that you don’t even have plans for?’
“Not that much. The army men were on sale!” Clint explained brightly, brandishing a package in Natasha’s face.
Natasha stared, unimpressed, then sighed. “Whatever, Clint. But you’re going to have to move it down to the storage area.” She turned to walk back towards the bedroom.
Clint’s plaintive voice followed her. “But…arrows, Nat!”
Cohabitation Agreement
1. We will split household chores evenly between us and make sure to keep the living space clean and inviting.
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
Clint yawned, scratching his chest before pulling an old t-shirt over his head. With a bleary look in the mirror, he decided that attempts to tame his hair could wait until after his firstcup pot of coffee.
Shambling down the hallway from the bedroom to the kitchen, Clint was fully in the living room before he registered the sounds of conversation.
Coming to a halt, Clint rubbed his eyes at the sight confronting him. Natasha was sitting curled up in a blanket on the couch, Liho sleeping in her lap and a cup of tea steaming in her hand. Stretched out next to her, legs propped up on the coffee table and smirk in place, was Maria Hill. Pepper sat cross-legged on the floor, cheerfully rubbing the belly of a blissful Lucky. And ensconced in the armchair, leaning towards Natasha as they shared a laugh, was…
“Bobbi?” Clint’s voice was sleep-roughened and unbelieving.
“Morning, Clint!” Bobbi chirped. “Looks like you slept well.”
Clint gaped at the assembly in front of him, turning a panicked look to Natasha.
“Right,” she clarified. “It’s my turn to host our book club. I guess I forgot to tell you. Sorry.” She half-shrugged an apology.
Clint’s brain struggled to catch up with the staggering amount of impossible information facing him, before settling on: “Book club?”
“Don’t get too impressed, Barton,” Maria commented drily. “We say book club. But, really, it’s just our monthly excuse to get together and commiserate over all the idiots we have to deal with on a daily basis.” This last was said with a pointed look in his direction.
Clint took one more look around the room. After a quick risk-benefit analysis, he decided the best option was to simply go back to bed and take a redo on the whole day.
With a small salute, he turned on his heel and walked back to the bedroom…where he found his pants still lying on the floor. Suddenly, Maria’s amusement and Pepper’s refusal to look at him made a lot more sense.
“Aw, pants!”
Cohabitation Agreement
1.We will split household chores evenly between us and make sure to keep the living space clean and inviting.
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
The blue light of the television cast a peaceful glow over Clint’s face where he lay sleeping in Natasha’s lap. Or, at least, it would if his face wasn’t scrunched up in admittedly adorable tension as he apparently fought his way through a nightmare.
Natasha frowned and threaded a hand gently through his hair. Suddenly, Clint sat solidly upright, eyes flying open. “Nat, no! Not the bow strings!”
Natasha shot Clint a look of amused concern. “Everything alright there?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he responded, voice somewhat shaken. “Just a really weird dream.”
Clint shifted back down the couch to settle next to Natasha, winding an arm around her shoulders and allowing her to settle firmly against his side.
“Nat?” he asked against the top of her head.
“Mmmm?” she acknowledged.
“If one of Stark and Banner’s experiments went bad, and you got turned into a cat…you wouldn’t play with my bow strings, would you?”
Natasha raised her head to stare incredulously at Clint. He stared back, distress evident in his eyes.
Natasha snorted, then buried her head into Clint’s neck as her body was wracked with hysterical laughter.
“Nat. Nat! C’mon, I’m serious!” Clint’s voice was affronted now.
She straightened, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry. That’s just…It’s such a you thing to worry about.” She placed her hands on either side of his face and stared deeply into his eyes. “Yes, Clinton Francis Barton, I solemnly promise that, in case of transformation to a feline or any other animal life form, I will leave your bow strings alone.”
Clint squinted, as if scanning her face for signs of insincerity. Then, he relaxed. “Well, okay then. Good.”
They rearranged themselves back into a comfortable position on the couch, and Clint noticed for the first time what Natasha was watching.
“The Santa Clause?” his voice was somewhat disbelieving.
Clint could feel Natasha shrug where her body rested comfortably against his. “’Tis the season and all that.”
Clint’s arm tightened around Natasha as he suddenly remembered something. “Hey! It’s December!”
Natasha cocked a sardonic eyebrow up at him. “Why, yes. That would be why there’s a Christmas tree standing in that corner and Tim Allen is insulting elves on the television.”
“No,” Clint shifted to stare excitedly at her. “I mean it’s December. As in, we’ve been living together for six months. Means we’re past the probation period of your cohabitation agreement, right?”
Natasha answered Clint’s broad smile with a radiant grin of her own. “Yeah. I guess so. Although, we didn’t exactly follow through on that precisely, did we?”
Clint shrugged. “I think we did pretty well. ‘Sides, I kinda like the way we never really follow all the rules.”
Natasha reached up to give him a tender kiss. “So do I.”
On the television, Bernard was explaining the rules of Santa Claus succession to one Scott Calvin:
“Did you or did you not read the card?”
“Yeah, I read the card.”
“Then you’re the new Santa. By putting on the hat and jacket, you accepted the contract.”
“What contract?”
“The card in the Santa suit, you said you read it, right? So when you put on the suit, you fell subject for the Santa Clause.”
“The Santa Claus? Oh, you mean the guy that fell off my roof?”
“No, no, not Santa Claus, the person. Santa Clause, the clause.
“What?”
“You’re a businessman, right? Okay, a clause as in the last line of a contract.”
The Cohabitation Agreement was still hanging on the refrigerator. But, over the past six months, it had been taken over by evidence of the rest of their lives. The menu for their favorite Chinese take-out spilled over the upper right corner. A drawing given to Natasha by a seven-year-old Black Widow at the Tower’s Halloween open house was now proudly displayed front and center, obscuring most of the left side. In fact, the only part of the agreement still clearly visible was the last line, the one Clint had hastily scrawled all those months ago.
We’ll remember that we chose each other, because of all the reasons we don’t fit the mold, not in spite of them.
mahenry424Type Of Gift: (Fic)
Title: The Cohabitation Clause
A Gift For:
crazy4orcasRating: General Audiences
Warnings: None<
Summary/Prompt Used: Prompt: The trials and tribulations of combining two drastically different households, two weapons lockers, a dog, a cat, “we’re not taking your couch Barton”, and “good lord, Nat, I knew about your two closets, but you had clothes in storage too?” into one happy home. Bonus if the other Avengers help them move. AKA The one where Clint and Natasha
banner by
ohmydarlingdear“You want a what?” Clint asked, looking up from fletching an arrow to shoot Natasha a look filled with utter confusion.
Natasha shifted her weight microscopically from foot to foot, telegraphing her unease as she stood next to the couch. But she met Clint’s gaze unflinchingly, and her voice was steady when she repeated her last statement. “I want a cohabitation agreement.”
“What does that even mean?” Clint narrowed his eyes.
“It’s a document that lays out expectations for living together,” Natasha explained. “Who’s going to do what chores. How finances are going to be split. Just…some guidelines to make sure this doesn’t end up being a disaster. It’s usually recommended that you include a six month probation period too.”
“Nat. We’ve been doing this thing--” Clint gestured expressively between them “--for almost a year now. And we’ve known each other forever and a day on top of that. We don’t need some piece of paper to tell us how to be together.”
Natasha opened her mouth to respond, but Clint didn’t give her the chance.
“Especially,” he added derisively, “if it’s something that sounds like it comes out of freakin’ ‘Cosmo’!”
Natasha sighed, breaking Clint’s gaze to look around the room. “I just….It seems like it could be a good idea…Neither one of us has what you might call stellar track records with this kind of thing. And….I want more for us. I do. But….I don’t want to lose what we have trying to get it.” She trailed off, dropping her guarded posture, crossing her arms and sinking into herself.
Clint was struck by how unsure she sounded, how small she suddenly looked. She was scared, Clint realized in a sudden moment of clarity. Which, ironically, was kind of great news. He’d thought he was the only one.
Because, yes, they’d gone from a “them” to a “them” almost a year ago, in a transition so natural he was still boggling over why they ever waited so long.
And, yes, they spent most nights together, on either his floor of the Tower or hers. So it only made sense that they finally make it official, choose a floor, and stamp it ours.
Still, Natasha was right. Even with as great as things had been going, specters of failed relationships seemed to linger on the periphery. And this wasn’t just a relationship. This was a relationship with Natasha. And, more than ever before, Clint couldn’t bear the thought of all he might have to give up if it went south.
This was one mission that had to succeed.
And, just like that, Clint got it. He and Nat lived their lives like a series of missions. And what did you do when you were nervous about a high stakes mission?
You focused on creating an airtight action plan.
Clint could get on board with that. Of course, for Natasha, he could get on board with practically anything.
So he set his arrow aside, got up off of the couch, and moved to hold Natasha’s hands gently in his.
“Yeah, ok, Nat. You’re right. ‘S a good idea,” Clint yielded, squeezing her hands.
Natasha smiled, squeezing back.
Which was how, two weeks later, while surrounded by a mountain of packing boxes (and seriously, how did they get so much stuff? For most of their lives they’d been virtual nomads!) Clint found himself with a piece of paper shoved unceremoniously into his hands as Natasha passed by carrying another armful of clothes towards the closet (And really, how many different little black dresses did one woman need, even if she regularly pretended to be a dozen different women?)
Resigning himself to never understanding women, especially one like Natasha Romanoff, Clint shrugged and read what he’d been handed:
1. We will split household chores evenly between us and make sure to keep the living space clean and inviting.
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
“What do you think?” Natasha asked as she re-entered the living room. “Anything you disagree with?”
“Uh…no,” Clint answered. “Not really. I mean…it all sounds do-able to me.”
“Okay, good,” Natasha exhaled, sounding relieved. “Do you want to add anything?”
Clint opened his mouth, a “no” ready to fall from his lips. But then:
“Well, actually…..” He grabbed a pen and scribbled another line below Rule # 5, handing the paper back to Natasha.
Natasha read his addition and huffed a laugh, eyebrow rising and a teasing smile quirking her lips.
“Really, Barton?” She asked, tone warmly mocking, “Isn’t that a little ‘Hallmark’ for you?”
“What can I say?” Clint responded with an answering smirk, “Guess I’m getting a little sentimental. Must be all the nesting.”
Natasha groaned and turned to leave again.
Clint laughed, only to have the wind suddenly knocked out of him as he was hit firmly in the head by an accent pillow. (And why exactly did the couch need 15 of them?)
Now it was Natasha’s turn to bark a laugh, smiling saccharinely at the look on Clint’s face as she continued on into the kitchen to hang the agreement front and center on the refrigerator.
“Clint…”
“I know.”
“The laundry is purple.”
“I know, Nat…”
“But you were running a load of whites.”
“I know! It just…It just happened.”
“Hey, Lucky! What’s up, boy?” Clint dropped his bag by the front door and bent to pet his mutt behind the ears.
As he straightened up, Clint’s attention was drawn to music drifting down the hallway from the living room.
Coming around the corner, Clint stopped in shock at the sight in front of him, an enormous grin erupting across his face.
Natasha was dusting the bookshelves. Wearing nothing but his boxers and bulls-eye tank top. That in itself wasn’t that unusual.
The dancing, on the other hand was. Stereo blaring, Natasha stood with her back to Clint, hips shimmying and Swiffer duster held as a microphone as she screamed lyrics towards where an unimpressed Liho sat lounging on the windowsill.
“But the monsters turned out to be just treeeeeeeeeeeeees
And when the sun came up, you were lookin' at me.
You were lookin' at me
You were lookin' at meeeeeeeeeeeeeee,
I remember, oh, I remember
Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the wooooooooooooooods?”
Natasha pirouetted, and Clint erupted into laughter at the look on her face when she spotted him in the doorway.
Socks sliding on the floor as she came to an abrupt halt, Natasha tried to regain her footing while composing her features to fix Clint with an unaffected stare. When Clint just kept laughing, it morphed into a pointed glare.
Despite the warning, Clint stepped closer.
“Nice moves there, Romanoff,” he chuckled. “Interesting music choice, though. Since when are you into Taylor Swift?”
A glint of triumph chased the chagrin out of Natasha’s eyes.
“Since when do you know Taylor Swift?” she countered.
Some of the cockiness left Clint’s face, and he rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “Well, I mean…it’s all over the radio these days….”
Now Natasha was the one smirking.
“What?” Clint added defensively. “It’s damn catchy, alright? Shut up!”
Natasha broke out into a brilliant laugh and Clint took another step towards her, swallowing the sound in a kiss.
When they broke for breath, Clint’s eyes were drawn to a pile of machinery lying in the middle of the floor.
“Um…Nat?” he questioned.
“Hmmm,” she sighed, fingers tracing lazy patterns across his back.
“What happened to the vacuum cleaner?”
Natasha turned to glare ferociously at the spare parts strewn haphazardly by the couch.
“Stupid Dyson piece of дерьмо,” she growled.
Clint’s smirk split his face once more. “Having trouble with our chores are we, sweetheart?”
The fury in the eyes boring into Clint now would have given a smarter man pause. Being Clint Barton, he merely broadened his smirk to shit-eating proportions.
After ten seconds of doing her level best to explode Clint’s head using only her mind, Natasha sighed, the anger leaving her in a rush as she deflated.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she sighed.
Before Clint could respond, another voice interrupted.
As I informed Agent Romanoff, the Tower is fully equipped with microbots to handle all its residents’ cleaning needs. And, if you still insist on undertaking such things yourself, the Tower is home to no fewer than two scientists capable of fixing your device should its pet hair attachment start acting like a—what did you call it?—Dustbuster reject pain in the ass. Of course, such repairs would be more difficult now, given Agent Romanoff’s rather aggressive attempt at troubleshooting.
Clint watched in amusement (and some alarm) as Natasha craned her neck to shout at the ceiling.
“And I especially don’t want to talk about it with you!”
With that, Natasha stormed off into the bedroom, leaving Clint (more or less) alone in the living room.
Shall I remove the programming excluding yours and Agent Romanoff’s floor from the Tower’s automated cleaning service, Agent Barton?
Clint took one more look at the vacuum carnage which, upon closer inspection, he now realized was sparking.
“Uh…yeah J.A.R.V.I.S. I think that’s a big ‘yes’”.
Very good, sir.
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
Natasha dropped her bag by the door with a sigh. She thought that interrogation was never going to end. And she was starving.
Grateful that it was Clint’s week to make dinner, she followed the smells of something cooking towards the kitchen.
Wait. Scratch that. It wasn’t so much the smell of something cooking as it was the smell of something burning.
Slightly worried now, Natasha quickened her step. She made it to the kitchen just in time to see a tower of flames erupt from the frying pan Clint had clenched in his hand.
With a loud expletive, Clint dropped the pan and leapt along the counter looking for something to smother the flames.
Are you sure you do not require assistance, Agent Barton? I heeded your request to disconnect the Tower’s fire response system after last month’s Meatloaf Incident. But I really think the events of this evening should give you cause to reconsider.
“Shut your trap, Moviephone! I’m dealing with it!” Clint roared. He grabbed the pan’s lid and smashed it on top of the flames, yelling victoriously when the flames died down, then moaning in dismay when he removed the lid to reveal the charred remains of what had once been something edible (Natasha assumed).
“Aw, Salmon, no!” Clint lamented.
(“Ah, Salmon,” a part of Natasha’s mind echoed.)
With a sigh, Clint moved to set the pan down again, finally noticing Natasha standing frozen in the doorway.
Clint looked at Natasha as she looked back. He followed her gaze, from him, to the failure of a dinner in his hands, to a traumatized Liho standing on the very top of the kitchen cabinets with her spine arched (and were those singe marks on her tail?), to Lucky happily rolling around in the contents of an entire bag of flour which had been dropped on the floor, back to Clint.
“Okay,” he started, eyes earnestly apologetic, “this looks bad.”
Natasha opened her mouth. Then she shook her head, closed it, turned around, and walked right back out of the apartment, stopping to grab her bag along the way.
She’d tell Fury she could follow that intel to Europe after all.
The sound of plates clinking together filled the silence as Clint and Natasha worked together to clear the dinner table.
Natasha tried not to focus too much on the nearly full plate Clint handed her. Just like she’d forced herself not to notice the hints of discontent on his face during dinner itself.
“’S real good, Nat,” Clint complimented as they stacked the dirty dishes by the kitchen sink.
“Really?” she asked, tone heavy with skepticism. “You didn’t seem to like it much.”
“No, no, I did. Really.” Clint was quick to protest. But in the face of Natasha’s ‘I’m not buying your bullshit, Barton’© look, he confessed: “I mean, it’s not exactly my style of grub. I guess I’m just never sure what to do with that frou-frou French cuisine.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, eyes asking Natasha to understand.
And she did. Sure, she enjoyed dusting off the skills she learned as part of her cover for that mission at “Mon Vieil Ami” in Paris. But, quail in wine sauce didn’t exactly scream Clint Barton. In fact, if she was being really honest, it didn’t really say Natasha Romanoff these days either.
Natasha’s attention was drawn back to Clint as he pushed off the counter and walked back towards the sink, turning on the faucet and reaching for a dirty plate.
“Hey,” she said softly, reaching out to rest her hand in the crook of his elbow. “I forgot to tell you. I picked up some more pizza bagels when I stopped for the ingredients for dinner tonight.”
Encouraged by the gleam of elation creeping back into Clint’s eyes, Natasha continued. “Those servings ended up being smaller than I remembered. Feel like heating up an extra snack?’
Clint’s answer was somewhat hesitant. “Ya sure? I mean, you cooked tonight. Means it’s my turn to do the dishes.”
“Yeah, well,” Natasha scoffed slightly, “I used the good dishes for this. So maybe it’s best that we skip the Amazing Clint Barton Dish Juggling Spectacular© just this once.”
Clint put a hand to his heart. “As if I’d ever drop one!” he proclaimed in his most offended voice.
With a laugh, Natasha nudged him out of the way, dunking the first plate under the running water as he headed off to fetch the pizza bagels.
“You know,” she called out, causing him to turn from rummaging in the freezer, “next week is going to be pretty hectic for both of us. And that new Thai place just opened up around the corner. Want to just plan on grabbing take out for our next dinner date?”
“I mean…would that be okay?” Clint asked, looking at her meaningfully.
“Yeah,” Natasha answered, voice tender. “I think that would be just fine.”
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
Natasha turned off the blow dryer, staring critically at her reflection in the mirror.
She plugged her flat iron in, then moved to clean up the clutter in the bathroom while it heated up.
She paused halfway through hanging up her towel, sniffing as an unusual smell filled the room.
She rotated her head, trying to locate the odd smell. She zeroed in on the flat iron. There it was. But it wasn’t the typical acrid smell sometimes associated with that device. Instead, it smelled more like cheese?
Unplugging the flat iron, Natasha pulled it closer for a better look. She spotted a blackened residue on the plates. Natasha yelled out into the rest of the apartment. “Clint?”
After a few seconds, Clint pushed the bathroom door open, leaning a hip against the frame and grinning at Natasha.
“Hey! What’s up?”
“Is this…Swiss Cheese on my flat iron?” Natasha asked, holding the appliance out to him.
Clint waved it away. “’Course not!”
“It’s mozzarella.”
Natasha stared blankly at Clint for a few seconds. When he didn’t continue, she prompted him.
“Oookay. Do you want to explain why there’s any kind of cheese on my flat iron?”
“I was making a Panini for lunch yesterday and our sandwich press is broken,” Clint answered matter-of-factly, as it that explained everything.
Natasha brought a hand to her forehead, brow creasing against a sudden headache. “So why didn’t you ask Stark to fix it? Or use the one in the communal kitchen.”
Clint shrugged indifferently. “Dunno. This was easier.”
Natasha glared. “Well, that’s nice for you. But, I kind of needed to use this.” She gestured to her hair with the now-worthless appliance.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Clint said unconcernedly. “I think your hair looks gouda!”
Clint was still grinning as Natasha pushed him out of the bathroom, slamming the door in his face.
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
“Natasha!” Clint’s voice bellowed across the apartment.
“I’m right here,” she answered from her spot on the chaise by the window.
“What is this?” Clint demanded, shaking a piece of paper in his hands.
Liho, curled up by Natasha’s legs, glared reproachfully at Clint’s volume, before yawning, stretching her legs primly, and settling back to sleep. Natasha herself only glanced up briefly from the mission brief she was reading, before quirking her lips and replying. “It appears to be a piece of paper.”
“Oh, ha ha! Such biting wit, Agent Romanoff! Seriously, Nat, there’s a charge on this Visa bill for $1400!”
“And?” Natasha challenged.
“And,” Clint pressed, “It’s $1400 for a collection of crystal animal figurines from QVC!”
That got Natasha’s attention.
“Oh,” she murmured somewhat sheepishly, shifting to face Clint more completely, causing Liho to abandon the chaise, shooting them both a look of contempt as she prowled away.
Clint raised an eyebrow in question, clearly waiting for an answer.
“I was having a little trouble sleeping after that thing in Kiev a few weeks ago,” Natasha admitted. “When you were still out of town for that training thing?”
Clint nodded his understanding.
“Anyway, I was just watching some late night TV and somehow ended up on QVC. And, at 3 a.m., running on 27 hours without sleep, those things looked really cute.” Natasha gave a self-conscious half-shrug as she finished her explanation.
“Ok,” Clint replied, aggravation long gone from his voice. “Well, where are they then. I certainly don’t see a collection of 25 crystal animals anywhere around here?”
“Oh,” Natasha answered flippantly, “turns out they were super ugly in the light of day after some decent sleep. I didn’t keep them.”
“Well, if you returned them, how come the charge is still on the card?” Clint wondered.
“I didn’t return them.” Natasha clarified.
Now Clint was fully perplexed. “If you didn’t return them and you didn’t keep them, what happened to them.”
“Well…” Natasha started, a smile playing around her lips. “I put the bald eagle in Steve’s locker. That was fun.” She and Clint shared a conspiratorial smirk at that.
“And then I gave the rest to Bruce,” she concluded.
Clint’s brow furrowed in incomprehension. “Why would Bruce want a bunch of crystal animals?”
Natasha laughed, turning back to her files and effectively ending the conversation.
“That is not my story to tell.”
Excuse me, Agent Romanoff.
Natasha looked up from her workout in the Tower gym at the sound of J.A.R.V.I.S’ voice.
There is a delivery for Agent Barton at the front door.Very well, madam.
Natasha took pause at J.A.R.V.I.S. tone. If she didn’t know better, she would swear he sounded amused.
Of course, she’d all but forgotten about that forty minutes later when, after showering and changing, she arrived back at the apartment and tried to open the door. She frowned when she realized it wouldn’t budge.
Putting more power behind her push, Natasha managed to shove the door open just enough to pass through. What she found on the other side made her not only remember J.A.R.V.I.S’ entertainment, but understand its source.
No fewer than fifteen boxes were clustered in their front hallway, taking up almost all of the available space.
Carefully, Natasha picked her way through the obstacle course, glancing at the labels on each one. Her sharp eyes quickly found the one which included a packing slip. As she was nimbly extracting it from the precarious tower of cardboard, she heard the sound of the door opening into the solid wall of boxes.
“What the hell?” Clint’s grunts and expletives as he forced himself through the door had Natasha nearly doubling over in laughter.
“Seriously,” Clint pressed as he finally came into view. “What is all this stuff?”
“I was going to ask you the same question. They’re all addressed to you. This should have some answers,” Natasha said as she held up the packing slip.
“Micro-circuit boards, smoke bombs, GPS chips, and plastic green army men?” Natasha read incredulously.
“Oh, awesome!” Clint exclaimed happily. “That got here really quickly.”
“What is all this stuff for?” Natasha demanded.
“Supplies for my new arrows,” Clint responded innocently as he began picking through the boxes.
“What kind of arrows are you going to make with all of that?”
“Dunno yet,” Clint grinned.
Natasha sighed. “And how much money did you spend on all of this junk that you don’t even have plans for?’
“Not that much. The army men were on sale!” Clint explained brightly, brandishing a package in Natasha’s face.
Natasha stared, unimpressed, then sighed. “Whatever, Clint. But you’re going to have to move it down to the storage area.” She turned to walk back towards the bedroom.
Clint’s plaintive voice followed her. “But…arrows, Nat!”
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
Clint yawned, scratching his chest before pulling an old t-shirt over his head. With a bleary look in the mirror, he decided that attempts to tame his hair could wait until after his first
Shambling down the hallway from the bedroom to the kitchen, Clint was fully in the living room before he registered the sounds of conversation.
Coming to a halt, Clint rubbed his eyes at the sight confronting him. Natasha was sitting curled up in a blanket on the couch, Liho sleeping in her lap and a cup of tea steaming in her hand. Stretched out next to her, legs propped up on the coffee table and smirk in place, was Maria Hill. Pepper sat cross-legged on the floor, cheerfully rubbing the belly of a blissful Lucky. And ensconced in the armchair, leaning towards Natasha as they shared a laugh, was…
“Bobbi?” Clint’s voice was sleep-roughened and unbelieving.
“Morning, Clint!” Bobbi chirped. “Looks like you slept well.”
Clint gaped at the assembly in front of him, turning a panicked look to Natasha.
“Right,” she clarified. “It’s my turn to host our book club. I guess I forgot to tell you. Sorry.” She half-shrugged an apology.
Clint’s brain struggled to catch up with the staggering amount of impossible information facing him, before settling on: “Book club?”
“Don’t get too impressed, Barton,” Maria commented drily. “We say book club. But, really, it’s just our monthly excuse to get together and commiserate over all the idiots we have to deal with on a daily basis.” This last was said with a pointed look in his direction.
Clint took one more look around the room. After a quick risk-benefit analysis, he decided the best option was to simply go back to bed and take a redo on the whole day.
With a small salute, he turned on his heel and walked back to the bedroom…where he found his pants still lying on the floor. Suddenly, Maria’s amusement and Pepper’s refusal to look at him made a lot more sense.
“Aw, pants!”
2. Every Thursday night, barring missions, we will share a home cooked dinner, with each of us taking turns preparing said meal.
3. We will respect one another’s bathroom routines.
4. We will share all financial information with one another and remain conscious of the household’s budget.
5. We will inform one another when we invite guests over.
The blue light of the television cast a peaceful glow over Clint’s face where he lay sleeping in Natasha’s lap. Or, at least, it would if his face wasn’t scrunched up in admittedly adorable tension as he apparently fought his way through a nightmare.
Natasha frowned and threaded a hand gently through his hair. Suddenly, Clint sat solidly upright, eyes flying open. “Nat, no! Not the bow strings!”
Natasha shot Clint a look of amused concern. “Everything alright there?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he responded, voice somewhat shaken. “Just a really weird dream.”
Clint shifted back down the couch to settle next to Natasha, winding an arm around her shoulders and allowing her to settle firmly against his side.
“Nat?” he asked against the top of her head.
“Mmmm?” she acknowledged.
“If one of Stark and Banner’s experiments went bad, and you got turned into a cat…you wouldn’t play with my bow strings, would you?”
Natasha raised her head to stare incredulously at Clint. He stared back, distress evident in his eyes.
Natasha snorted, then buried her head into Clint’s neck as her body was wracked with hysterical laughter.
“Nat. Nat! C’mon, I’m serious!” Clint’s voice was affronted now.
She straightened, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry. That’s just…It’s such a you thing to worry about.” She placed her hands on either side of his face and stared deeply into his eyes. “Yes, Clinton Francis Barton, I solemnly promise that, in case of transformation to a feline or any other animal life form, I will leave your bow strings alone.”
Clint squinted, as if scanning her face for signs of insincerity. Then, he relaxed. “Well, okay then. Good.”
They rearranged themselves back into a comfortable position on the couch, and Clint noticed for the first time what Natasha was watching.
“The Santa Clause?” his voice was somewhat disbelieving.
Clint could feel Natasha shrug where her body rested comfortably against his. “’Tis the season and all that.”
Clint’s arm tightened around Natasha as he suddenly remembered something. “Hey! It’s December!”
Natasha cocked a sardonic eyebrow up at him. “Why, yes. That would be why there’s a Christmas tree standing in that corner and Tim Allen is insulting elves on the television.”
“No,” Clint shifted to stare excitedly at her. “I mean it’s December. As in, we’ve been living together for six months. Means we’re past the probation period of your cohabitation agreement, right?”
Natasha answered Clint’s broad smile with a radiant grin of her own. “Yeah. I guess so. Although, we didn’t exactly follow through on that precisely, did we?”
Clint shrugged. “I think we did pretty well. ‘Sides, I kinda like the way we never really follow all the rules.”
Natasha reached up to give him a tender kiss. “So do I.”
On the television, Bernard was explaining the rules of Santa Claus succession to one Scott Calvin:
“Yeah, I read the card.”
“Then you’re the new Santa. By putting on the hat and jacket, you accepted the contract.”
“What contract?”
“The card in the Santa suit, you said you read it, right? So when you put on the suit, you fell subject for the Santa Clause.”
“The Santa Claus? Oh, you mean the guy that fell off my roof?”
“No, no, not Santa Claus, the person. Santa Clause, the clause.
“What?”
“You’re a businessman, right? Okay, a clause as in the last line of a contract.”
The Cohabitation Agreement was still hanging on the refrigerator. But, over the past six months, it had been taken over by evidence of the rest of their lives. The menu for their favorite Chinese take-out spilled over the upper right corner. A drawing given to Natasha by a seven-year-old Black Widow at the Tower’s Halloween open house was now proudly displayed front and center, obscuring most of the left side. In fact, the only part of the agreement still clearly visible was the last line, the one Clint had hastily scrawled all those months ago.
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