It was Barney’s fault. Clint felt that most of what went wrong in his life could be summed up with those four words: It was Barney’s fault.

“So let me get this straight,” Clint said, because, okay, maybe he was just being slow. “I’m out of our little Soprano family business or whatever, but now you want a bodyguard to follow me around? What part of ‘I’m out’ wasn’t clear to you?”

“It’s not forever,” Barney said again, like that made it all fine. “Just for a little while, until I get things sorted.”

“Sorted?”

“You’re still my little brother, and clean or not, people will use you to get to me. Let me be the good brother for once, okay? Let me try to take care of you.”

Clint sighed. He just had to play the family card. “Fuck, Barney.”

Barney’s mouth widened into a grin. “I know exactly who to call.”

-

New York had never felt like home, even if Clint had lived there for upwards of a decade now. Maybe he would always be a Midwestern boy at heart. Barney had adapted much better, but then, moving out here had been Barney’s idea in the first place.

Even though doing Barney’s dirty work had provided Clint with the ability to live as luxuriously as his brother did, he had never felt comfortable doing so. It felt like... like blood money, dirty money, money that shouldn’t be his. He kept just a small apartment in Bed-Stuy, filled with furniture you could buy in Ikea. Or find abandoned on a street corner, to be honest.

It worked for him. Even if Barney thought he was being ridiculous. “We struggled long enough,” he would say. “Time to enjoy what we’ve earned.”

It didn’t matter to Barney what they’d done to get here; it never had. It didn’t weigh on his conscience like it did Clint’s. He was free now, though. He could leave whenever he wanted, now that he was committed to living his own life rather than the one Barney had chosen for him. He could start over, somewhere else, somewhere new. Make a real home.

Maybe he wouldn’t even need a bodyguard there.

The knock startled him out of his thoughts and he went to let Barney in. Barney and whoever his perfect bodyguard turned out to be.

“Hey,” Barney said in greeting, stepping through the door with a woman following him. “Clint, meet Natasha Romanoff. Natasha, meet my little brother Clint.”

Clint took the opportunity to stare. She was petite and gorgeous, with red hair and so many curves a guy almost wouldn’t know what to do with them. Almost.

“You’re shorter than I expected,” Clint said, inwardly wincing as soon as the words came out. Way to sound like an asshole, Barton.

Natasha looked completely unfazed, however, and Barney just said, “That’s because you haven’t seen her moves yet. She’s the best in the business, trust me.”

“Never left a customer unsatisfied,” Natasha agreed, and then the tiniest of smirks touched her lips. “Does this mean I get to call you Princess Leia?”

“What?” Clint was momentarily confused but when Barney started laughing, he said, “Oh, okay, I get it. Haha, very funny. Does the snark cost extra?”

“Your face is payment enough.”

Clint rubbed the back of his neck. This was going to go great, he could tell.

By ‘great’ he actually meant ‘awful’. Just to clarify.

Thankfully, Natasha did professionalism as well as she did snark. “All right, boys, let’s talk business. We don’t want to draw any attention to my presence, so it’s best no one else knows why I’m really here. I’ve already prepared a cover that should be simple enough. Natalie Rushman, a cousin of yours, a few times removed. I’m here visiting from out of state, thinking about moving here permanently, and Clint has been kind enough not only to let me stay in his apartment, but to take me around and show me the sights.”

“Cousin? Not my girlfriend?”

“If you want me to kiss you, Barton, you’re gonna have to try harder than that.”

“Oh, you’ll be sorry you said that,” Barney warned. “This guy? He loves a challenge. The more impossible, the better.”

Sadly, that was all too true.

-

It was weird, having Natasha around. All of a sudden she was just there. All the time. It wasn’t like Clint hadn’t realized that was what would happen; he knew what bodyguards did. Still. It was weird.

She claimed the rarely used guest bedroom and her toiletries appeared in Clint’s bathroom. It was like having a girlfriend who didn’t sleep in your bed. Which wasn’t like any girlfriend Clint had had since he was, like, sixteen, but regardless.

Then there was the whole part where she went with wherever Clint did, whenever he left the apartment. Even if he was only going down the block to buy milk. She smiled and waved and made friends with Clint’s neighbors, introducing herself as Clint’s cousin Natalie, looking utterly harmless. Bubbly, even. She was a good actor.

“Don’t you think it’ll be weird if you follow me everywhere like a lost puppy?” Clint asked her. “Even visiting relatives have to draw the line somewhere.”

“I can tail you if the need arises,” Natasha told him.

That was vaguely creepy. Clint was sorry he’d asked.

Clint worked as a bartender at a halfway reputable bar in the neighborhood. Natasha came with him there, too. She made friends with his colleagues the same way she’d done with his neighbors, learning their names and the names of their significant others and children and pets and everything else. Hell, she was probably storing more facts about them than Clint himself was.

She usually ended up seated by herself, at a table or at the end of the bar, watching Clint out of the corner of her eye while she fended off so many drunken, amorous advances you wouldn’t believe it. Well. You’d believe it if you saw her.

Sometimes Clint had to pinch himself to stop from going over to her, reminding himself that she surely knew how to take care of herself and wouldn’t thank him for attempting to play the white knight. Not that that stopped him all the time. She was his fake cousin, after all. He had to keep up appearances. Couldn’t have horndogs hanging all over his cousin.

On a busy Thursday night, Clint hid a smile as he watched a slender brunette wearing one designer label too many for this place come through the door and deposit herself in a recently vacated seat at the bar. Ah, Kate. Looking to be in a swell mood, just swell.

“Vodka sour. Make it a double,” she said.

“Can I see some ID, miss?”

Kate stuck up her middle finger, giving him that patented glare of hers.

Clint mock gasped. “I’m shocked, Miss Bishop, just shocked.”

“Pour me a damn drink, Barton. It’s been a day.”

“All right, all right.” Clint scooped some ice into a glass, grabbed a can from behind the counter, and poured out a healthy measure. He slid the glass across the counter to Kate.

She eyed it with disappointment, then sipped anyway. “This is club soda, Clint.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t serve alcohol to minors, no matter how annoying they are.”

“I’m twenty-one!”

“And you look like you’re twelve, so even if I meet you halfway that’s still too young.”

“You’re such a dick,” Kate complained, but she drank the club soda anyway. “Who’s the redhead you were talking to? Did you pick her up on the street or in here?”

Clint made a face at Kate’s sly smile. “I’m gonna have to ask you not to cast aspersions on my cousin.”

“Your cousin, huh?”

“Distant cousin.”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay, I get your implication and I resent it.” Not that Clint wouldn’t have sex with Natasha if it was on the table, but only if she wasn’t his fake cousin. Or whatever. This was too complicated; he told her she should have just posed as his girlfriend.

“You know, in some states you can marry your cousin.”

“I’m not gonna marry my cousin!”

That outburst earned Clint quite a few odd looks and raised eyebrows from the bar’s patrons. Natasha was feigning a scandalized look from her perch at the other end of the bar but Clint could see the amusement in her eyes. Or at least, he imagined he could.

“If you say so,” Kate said, shrugging, as Natasha stood up and walked in their direction.

She leaned up against the corner, smiling at Kate and then addressing Clint. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Natasha and Kate in the same room, let alone interacting with each other, seemed like a horrible idea to Clint, frankly, but Kate was already introducing herself. “Kate.”

“Natalie. It’s so nice to meet one of Clint’s friends; so far it’s just been neighbors and coworkers.”

“That’s because I’m his only friend.”

“Hey,” Clint protested, even if it was sort of true. He had friends, obviously, he wasn’t a hermit, but… Kate was special.

Not that she wasn’t also spoiled, bossy, and frequently irritating, but she put up with his crap so he figured he could put up with hers.

“If you’re a ‘distant’ cousin, then I guess that means you probably don’t have any good dirt on Clint to share.”

“Sadly, no,” Natasha said, a mischievous glint in her eyes that Clint knew he shouldn’t find as appealing as he did. “But considering I’m staying with him for a while, I can probably come up with some for you soon.”

Kate grinned and Natasha grinned back and it was frankly terrifying.

Clint was so screwed.

-

Having a conversation with Natasha was like pulling teeth. It wasn’t that she didn’t talk. She talked plenty. She just didn’t talk about anything that mattered.

Clint had known her for nearly two weeks but he couldn’t have said the first thing about her, beyond that she preferred tea to coffee, enjoyed trashy novels and even trashier TV, and took the quickest showers known to man yet still came out looking stunning. All right, so maybe he knew some things. But he wanted to know everything.

He wanted to know Natasha, not the bodyguard. He wanted to know what made her tick. He wanted to know where she’d come from and where she wanted to end up, where she’d gone to school and what she looked for in a friend. Her favorite color, favorite movie, favorite food.

He wanted to know if she’d take his calls after all this was over.

One morning they walked to this hole in the wall coffee shop that Clint liked, that had the absolute best blueberry muffins he’d ever had in his life. He and Natasha shared a table by the window, Clint with a coffee and Natasha with her tea, people-watching as they had their muffins.

Of course, people-watching wasn’t nearly as interesting as trying to get underneath Natasha’s skin. “How’d you get into this business? Bodyguard-ing?”

Natasha licked a crumb off the end of her finger. “Long story.”

“Try me.”

“That was code for ‘none of your business’.”

“Ah.”

“Does it matter? Really? I’m good at it.”

“Just trying to make conversation.” And somehow get to the person underneath, Natasha the woman, as opposed to the untouchable professional she presented herself as.

“Maybe you should have stuck to the weather.”

“Well, that’s boring.”

Betraying the smallest crack in her veneer, Natasha sounded a little bit frustrated. “Okay, then, why don’t we talk about you? I’ll ask you personal questions and we’ll see if you want to divulge your life’s history to me.”

“Actually, that’s kind of how people get to know one another. A back and forth, question and answer. For instance, you could say, where are you from? And I’d say, Iowa. See? Easy.”

“Has anyone ever told you how irritating you are?”

Clint barely stopped himself from smirking. “Frequently. Now you can tell me where you’re from, see how that works?”

“Russia.”

That was entirely unexpected. Clint half-thought she was pulling his leg. “Russia? But your English… And you don’t even have an accent.”

“I can sound Russian if you want me to,” Natasha said, with an accent reminiscent of movies about the Cold War.

“Why did you come here?”

“Why does anyone come to America? To start over.”

That was more revealing than Clint had expected Natasha to be, but he pushed anyway. “Did it work?”

Natasha gifted him with a half-smile. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

-

To keep up the pretense of Natasha being his cousin, in case anyone was paying attention, Clint did actually take her out to do tourist-y things on occasion. They saw the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building; they went to museums and out to Coney Island; they saw a play on Broadway and went to a Yankees game. To be honest Clint had probably seen more of New York in these past few weeks with Natasha than he had in years of living there. Natasha wasn’t a bad person to hang out with and it was kind of nice, felt almost like having a girlfriend. Or at least a friend.

Except she was his bodyguard, pretending to be his cousin, and none of it was real. So, you know. Not that much like having a girlfriend, actually, when you thought about it.

They ate out a decent amount, too. If there was one thing Clint did pride himself on knowing about New York, it was all the best places to eat.

One night over pizza, Clint asked, “Did you know Barney? Before?”

Natasha finished chewing before she spoke. One of the most refreshing things about her was that she clearly enjoyed food and didn’t try to hide it. None of that annoying pecking at bowls of lettuce like Clint had witnessed on too many first dates. “Sure. I’d done some work for him in the past, little things.”

“So you know who he is.”

“Everyone knows who Barney Barton is. Or everyone in my line of work does, at least.”

“It doesn’t bother you? Working for him?”

“Should it?”

“I just mean… Wouldn’t you rather be protecting some bigshot celebrity or whatever? Someone who isn’t…” Someone who hasn’t done the things I’ve done. “Someone who isn’t a criminal,” he said in a low voice.

“A criminal’s money is just as good as anyone else’s. What, you want someone else? Am I not performing adequately for you?” Natasha managed to fit enough innuendo into that to make it sound almost inappropriate.

Not that Clint would let himself be distracted by such tactics. “That’s not the point.”

“I’m not sure what the point is.”

“Just… Better people than me could use your help.”

“I’m not here to judge.” Natasha stayed silent for a long moment before adding, “Even if I were, there’s no shame in a person stumbling a little before finding their way to something better.”

“I did more than stumble.”

“And?”

“And I hurt people, for fuck’s sake,” Clint hissed, apprehensively checking to see who might be listening.

“Everyone hurts someone, sooner or later. It’s what you do after that matters.”

“You think that’s possible? A person can just… tip the scales the other way?”

Natasha shrugged. “It’s a nice thought. You get some red in your ledger, so you try to wipe it out. If it keeps you moving forward, well, what’s the harm?”

Clint had a sudden thought that perhaps Natasha had some red in her own ledger, but he knew she’d never tell him so if she did.

He wondered how she thought working for the Bartons would ever help her tip those scales back in the right direction.

-

“Oh my God,” Natasha said, her voice resonating from just behind Clint where he was lying sprawled on the couch. “Should I call someone? Should I call Kate? Do you need help?”

“What? No.”

Natasha walked around to the front of the couch, pushing Clint’s feet out of the way so she could sit next to him. Her gaze was serious and sympathetic. “You’re watching Pride and Prejudice.”

“So?”

“Let me repeat my question. Do you need help?”

“No! Fuck’s sake, I just like it. Loads of people like it.”

“Yeah, loads of women who have imprinted on Mr. Darcy and then can’t find anyone in real life to measure up.”

“Whatever, I like it,” Clint said, knowing he sounded like a sulky teenager. Like Natasha had the right to insult his taste after the paperback he’d seen sticking out of her cross body bag. The guy in the cover illustration could give Fabio a run for his money.

Natasha slumped against the cushions, for all appearances looking to settle in to watch some P&P herself. “Pass the popcorn,” she said, and Clint hid a smile as he handed the bowl over.

Mr. Darcy was proposing to Elizabeth, about to be rejected, when Clint said, “I had a girl, once.”

Shit. Pride and Prejudice always made him so maudlin.

“Just once?”

“No, not… That’s not what I meant.”

Natasha was laughing, soft and genuinely amused.

“Oh, I get it. Snark again. Nice. I meant, there was one girl who really was mine. She was something to me. Everything. Back in Iowa.”

“What was her name?”

“Laura.” Laura. Clint still thought about her sometimes. He thought about what might have been, if he had stayed, if he hadn’t followed Barney into trouble. She must be married now. Kids, probably. She’d be a great mom.

“What happened?”

“I left.” That was the simple version, but it was the only part that mattered.

“I’m sorry.” Natasha sounded sorry, too, but she was probably good at sounding a lot of things that she wasn’t really.

“Doesn’t matter now.” Clint stayed quiet for a few moments before letting himself ask the question he knew wasn’t any of his business. But, hey, they were sharing, right? “Were you ever someone’s girl?”

“I’m not property to be owned.”

“No, but you could be someone’s, and they could be yours.”

Natasha was quiet for so long that Clint had given up on hearing the answer, except then she said, “Maybe once, a long time ago.”

“And?”

“And now I’m just me.”

“Well,” Clint said, tilting his head so he could see her better. “I guess that means we do have something in common.”

-

Clint worked a double at the bar on Saturday, filling in for his (supposedly ill) manager. He’d had four drinks spilled on him, dealt with two disorderly drunks, and had one narrowly avoided brawl. Understandably, he felt, he was wiped as he closed up.

Natasha was sitting at a table in the corner, watching, having come in after last call. She’d been spending the night as his tail rather than his cousin. ‘Natalie’ was meant to be on a date or something, Clint was fairly certain. He was sure her story would be far more fun than Clint’s actual night had been.

“You could help, you know,” Clint said.

Natasha blinked at him. “I’m sorry?”

“Instead of just sitting there, you could have helped.”

“Help you do what, exactly? Count the money I’m certain it would be illegal for me to even be near?”

Clint knew he was being unreasonable, deep down. The problem was that he was so tired and aggravated and drained that he didn’t even care. “The faster I leave, the faster you get to leave, too. Unless you want to let me walk home by myself, of course.”

“The more you talk, the longer this takes.”

“Oh, right, I forgot. You don’t like conversation, unless you’re the one steering it. Away from anything remotely related to yourself, if I’m remembering correctly.”

“I’m not here to be your friend. I’m here to stop you from getting killed.”

“Great, I’m glad this is so easy for you. I’m glad you’re basically a fucking robot that can just turn its feelings off with a switch. That is, if you have any feelings to begin with, because I’m not sure.”

If Natasha was angry, she didn’t show it. Impassive as ever, she said, “My feelings are irrelevant. If I hired someone to keep me safe I would certainly hope they didn’t allow their personal feelings to affect their work. That might get me killed.”

Clint was too worked up now to admit that she had a point. He had a point, too. It shouldn’t be that easy to compartmentalize your life and your emotions. It shouldn’t be that easy to train yourself not to care.

If he could feel this way about her, why couldn’t she feel the same for him?

“I just want... I just want to feel like I’m more than a job for you!”

There might have been a small hitch in Natasha’s breathing before she replied, but it also may have only been in Clint’s imagination. “If you’re looking for companionship, you should have hired an escort instead of a bodyguard. I hear they’ll talk to you and fuck you after, as long as you’ve got the cash for it.”

“Get out,” Clint growled. “Get the fuck out.”

Natasha gazed at him for what felt like an eternity before coolly getting to her feet and walking out the door, gliding off into the darkness of the night. Early morning. Whatever it was.

Clint stared after her before walking into the back and grabbing a beer. He’d pay for it on his next shift; he just needed a fucking drink and couldn’t wait until he got home.

He had one more, too, before locking up and going out into the street, hands in his pockets. He wondered if Barney would insist on hiring someone else to take Natasha’s place, or if he’d give up on the whole thing entirely.

“Mr. Barton,” came a man’s voice. “We’ve been waiting for you to show.”

“Seriously?” Clint said, gazing around at the men forming a ring around him. “You know what, no, I’m not even surprised. It’s me, why would I be surprised? Murphy’s law my ass, should be Barton’s law.”

“Fuck, you talk a lot,” one of the men said, stepping closer.

Clint had no illusions about how this was going to end up, but that didn’t mean he was planning on going down without a fight. He swung, fist landing squarely against the man’s jaw.

As the ring of thugs tightened, Clint tried to assess his best option. He could fight okay but this was a lot of people. He had no weapons on him and he doubted that was true of his attackers. He could shout, but the likelihood of that getting him any real help in time seemed tiny. His phone was in his back pocket where it wasn’t doing him any good.

The dude he had hit spat out a mouthful of blood only to raise a gun to Clint’s head. “The boss prefers you alive, but it’s not a requirement.”

Well, it kind of was a requirement for Clint, honestly. He raised up his arms in submission and then let them drag him off.

Because Clint’s life had turned into a cliché B-movie, they blindfolded him, gagged him, and threw him in the trunk of a car. He tried to keep a bearing on where they were headed, left or right or over a bridge, but he’d never been kidnapped before and it was harder than the movies made it out to be. Then he remembered that it wasn’t like he was going to get a phone call so he could explain to whoever was coming to rescue him how to get there, so he gave up.

Fuck, he really should have waited until tomorrow to blow up at Natasha.

He hoped Barney would realize he was missing soon.

Their destination turned out to be a warehouse, because of course it was. They left Clint gagged and tied to a chair, after bestowing him with some threats to cut off fingers and send them to Barney.

Yeah, a cliché B-movie all around.

After an hour or so of sitting in the dark and giving himself rope-burn from attempting to get out of his bonds, Clint fervently began regretting the two beers he’d downed after Natasha left. He so did not want to piss himself this early on.

In the movies people were always dislocating their thumbs to get out of handcuffs. He wondered if that would work in this situation.

Not that he wanted to dislocate his thumbs. Clint’s favorite hobby was archery and as a result, he would prefer to keep his hands whole and undamaged. Of course, if it came down to a choice between staying kidnapped or getting out, his thumbs were probably a small price to pay. Dislocated bones could be fixed, right?

Clint started to hear noise in the distance. He concentrated, trying to assess what was going on. It almost sounded like a fight. Were the thugs fighting with each other? That could help; maybe he should get on with the thumb dislocating thing.

The door opened. Clint braced himself.

“Good, you’re still in one piece,” Natasha said, hurrying over and slicing through Clint’s bonds with a knife.

“Natasha?” Clint said in disbelief. She looked like the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. “You came for me?”

“You’re my assignment. You shouting at me wasn’t going to make me forget that.”

Her assignment. Right. It was a good thing Clint was so relieved to be getting out of this hole with all his bits still attached because it distracted him from the gnawing feeling in his gut Natasha’s words produced.

“Let’s just get out of here,” he muttered, and let Natasha take him home.

-

“For fuck’s sake, Barney, I’m fine,” Clint said into the phone for about the hundredth time. “All I want is to sleep. For an entire day, preferably.”

“Right, sleep, you should sleep,” Barney agreed. “I’m going to get them for this, Clint, I swear I will.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Clint said, because he just honestly did not give a shit right now. He ended the call and sighed, leaning back against the couch cushions.

He wasn’t going to make it to the bed, he knew he wasn’t. Right here was great.

“Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?” Natasha asked, ruining Clint’s peace.

“All they did was threaten me and push me around a little. I guess the violence would have come later.”

“What about your wrists?”

Clint looked down, noting the raw, red rings around his wrists. Actually, yeah, that was sore. He must have forgotten to notice. Adrenaline or something. “That’ll heal.”

Natasha moved off and Clint sighed, closing his eyes. He might sleep for two days, come to think of it.

A shifting pressure on the cushions beside him made Clint crack his eyes open again. Natasha had returned with a bowl of water and a first aid kit Clint hadn’t even known he had. Maybe it was hers.

She dipped a hand towel in the water and wrung it out. Without asking, she took hold of Clint’s right hand and, gentler than he might have expected, starting cleaning the damaged skin.

Clint was tired and Natasha’s soothing ministrations felt nice, really, so he just let her do it. She applied some antibacterial cream and then wrapped a thin piece of gauze around Clint’s wrist before moving on to his other arm. The whole process took only a couple of minutes.

“Why did you come back for me?” Clint asked when she tried to pull away.

“I never left,” Natasha admitted. “I saw the men but I knew I couldn’t stop them all, so I followed you.”

“But why?”

“I told you. I was doing my job.”

“But I fired you. I insulted you. Why didn’t you just leave me?”

This time Clint was certain Natasha’s hesitation was real. She was nervous and trying to hide it. “Because I’m very good at my job,” she said, and then met Clint’s eyes. “And because I knew I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you. You might just be the most annoying man I’ve ever met, but... I guess I kind of like you anyway.”

Clint felt himself grinning, so widely his cheeks almost hurt. “That’s funny, I was gonna say the same thing about you.”

Natasha’s smile wasn’t as big, but it was real. “I guess that makes us a pair of idiots then.”

“A matched set,” Clint agreed, and reached for Natasha’s hand.

End