A Gift From: poppetawoppet
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: (If It's Love) Hold On Tight
A Gift For: shenshen77
Rating: PG
Warnings: off screen violence
Summary/Prompt Used: Leverage Crossover - I keep thinking she'd be the most amazing grifter and he'd be a great thief and with Parker as the new mastermind, wouldn't the team need a new one of both? And if they were in an alternate universe where they discovered SHIELD's link to HYDRA, wouldn't they be looking for new employment?
Author's Note: I took the prompt into Natasha and Clint go to Portland, meet up with the Leverage crew. Slow burn. Exploration of declarations of love without saying 'I love you.' Title from Kris Allen's "Out Alive"


banner by scribble_myname


The first place Natasha goes after the cemetery is the farm.

There are about two dozen stops in between the cemetery and the farm, until she's completely certain she is alone. She has managed to anger the American government, so one of the three letter agencies is likely to be watching her movements.

She's not sure why she hasn't told Steve and Sam where she's going, except that the farm is the emergency stand by, the last resort, and they haven't reached farm level of trust.

Only three people know where it is.

It's also not her farm to let other people into, even though Clint keeps telling her that if she needed to, if she trusted someone, she could bring them there. She's never told him that she doesn't trust like that, she doesn't use the word trust with anyone. She's thought telling Clint (and everyone else) that love is for children implied everything they needed to know.

Natalia Romanova learned very early that trust was a form of love, and love was a thing that only children could afford to give.

She buys a second hand motorcycle somewhere in Kansas, and forged paperwork somewhere in Nebraska. She changes her disguise again after that without even thinking. While the face in the mirror is hers, she's not quite sure where Natasha is.

"Almost home," she says, as she crosses into Montana.

*

Clint hefts the ax again, letting muscle memory split the wood for him while he tried to calculate how much longer it would take Natasha to get there. He knew she was coming, because she had called him, weeks ago, right before SHIELD headquarters went down in flames, to warn him to get the hell out of where he was and go home.

So he did.

Clint knew he trusted people too much, too easily, so a lot of people could have made that call and he would have left. But he would have gone to his apartment in D. C., and he would likely be dead. Natasha is a different level of trust—she always has been, since he made that call against orders years ago.

Which is why he left five other agents asleep in their hotel rooms in the middle of the night, instead of telling them he had to go (he may have called the one he was absolutely sure of on a burner phone, because he couldn't leave them completely in the dark.)

It's not even really a farm this time. His original place had been, but after New York, he'd tried to go back home, but he never could sleep there. He kept waking up and was never sure it was real. So Nat and Nick set up this place, kept it completely off book. It was a cabin, really, but Natasha kept calling it the farm, so the farm it stayed.

Clint pauses when he hears the motorcycle in the distance. He grips the ax tighter, and puts his back to the shed door, so he can see the driveway. The motorcycle parks, and when the figure removes their helmet, the hair is blonde, but the walk—

"It's about time you got here, Nat," he says, rounding the corner.

He smiles when he sees her hand on her gun. He expected it drawn and pointed his way. She gives him a half smile, and pulls off the wig.

"Things got a little complicated," she says.

"I saw," he says.

He walks up to the motorcycle and takes one of her hands in his. It's enough to calm the nerves he's almost forgotten were there. She looks up at him, her face as calm as it had been during that hearing he'd watched through his fingers. He'd been afraid they were going to arrest her and he'd have to break her out—afraid they would arrest her and she'd break herself out, afraid of so many things for her, not necessarily because she was in danger physically, but because he knew what they could do to her with the right files and the right words and just enough time.

"I'll tell you about it over food. I don't suppose you've learned to cook anything better than grilled cheese since I last saw you?"

"I am now also adept at tuna casserole," Clint says.

"Grilled cheese sounds amazing then."

They stand in the driveway for a few minutes more and she squeezes his hand once. Twice. She's not okay, but she will be, it says, and Clint leads her into the house and closes the door.

"I'm glad you're home," he says.

*

Natasha is certain Nick knew where she was going when she left the cemetery. She tells Clint as much, who shrugs and nods and puts his feet on the chair next to him.

"You think he knew, or you know he knew?"

Natasha shrugs back. "I think. He asked me, right before we took down SHIELD, when I had called you. Not if."

"He knows us too well."

Natasha makes a noncommittal noise. Nick thinks he knows them. He hadn't asked he if she had told Clint, only told her if she was going to tell him, she better be absolutely sure of him. When she had said that Clint was the only person she was ever sure of, Nick had looked at her and said nothing.

People assumed a lot about her and Clint, and part of it was that she and Clint never really dissuaded the assumptions. It was easier for people to think what they wanted to than to explain their actual relationship.

(Truthfully, they had slept together. Twice. So letting people assume that they were lovers wasn't wrong, it just wasn't the complete truth. They both knew telling people that you had sex for reasons outside of actually having a relationship with someone wasn't easy to explain, even to people like them, so they didn't. Furthermore, Natasha knew that they were slowly circling the truth of the assumptions people made about them anyway, so for her it was a matter of letting people think ahead of where she actually was and not having to deal with anyone asking why they waited so long.)

"So what do we do now?"

Natasha looks at Clint and says, "I don't know. Nick asked for help weeding out the good guys from the bad, but I don't think—"

"That's probably not the best for us," Clint says. "I made one good call, doesn't mean I'll make it several times over."

"You could. I'd like to think I could. But we've been too visible for that sort of work, anyway."

"Well, we do have vacation time to spare."

Natasha laughs, "I'm not sitting around here and doing nothing. The only reason you haven't gone stir crazy is you have probably watched the news, cleaned house, chopped too much wood and resorted to shooting already broken glass jars in your backyard."

"You've been on vacation with me before, that's cheating," Clint says. "So—"

He pauses, and a smile spreads across his face.

"What is that smile, Clint Barton?"

"I just thought of someone I knew a long time ago. I spent some time looking them up in between breaking news reports from CNN and target practice."

"All right, Barton, I spent the last year with Steve Rogers, don't smile at me and dance around the point."

Clint laughs, "Okay, okay. I actually caught her face on another news report which led me to thinking of what she's been up to, and long story short, she may have work for us."

"What kind of work?"

"Well from the rumor mill, not far from what we've been doing anyway, except not for the government."

Natasha pushes the crust of her grilled cheese around her plate.

"Is it another one of your strays?"

"Yeah," Clint says.

"And how far away?"

"Portland."

Natasha looks around the room, and says, "Okay. Let's go take a trip to Portland."

*

They take the truck he keeps under the fake name the cabin is also under. He attaches a small trailer for their bags, and they spend an hour mapping a route that would take them around the most populated areas, and decide to let Clint interact with people if they have to at all. After all, he hasn't recently appeared on CSPAN. Natasha puts her blonde wig back on, and some brown contacts, and between them they make a fairly decent fake ID that names her as Clint's wife.

Natasha has her feet on the dash and a smile on her face he can't quite figure out, but he doesn't ask because she's told him as much as she can about the last year, and he knows when she's ready, she'll tell him the hard parts, because they can do that, tell each other the things no one else knows, because no one else knows the terror they have, the depths of the dark they've waded in.

Their route makes a two day trip a three day trip, so the first night they find a cheap motel and take turns sleeping. They don't sleep at the same time the first time in a strange place. It's an unspoken rule, and has saved their lives at least three times.

The second night they camp somewhere in Idaho, their sleeping bags piled into the bed of the truck. The sky is clear and full of stars, and sometime in the night, Natasha's hand creeps into his.

Clint doesn't think about it much, this thing they have. Not anymore. For a long time, he (foolishly) stayed as far as he could from what he thought he felt, because of this weird mix of obligation and guilt he felt because he brought her into SHIELD, she was his assignment soon after that, and his partner on more missions than he cared to count. It's probably why she made the first move (if sitting someone down and telling them to stop being stupid can be counted as a move, if not then he made the first move, kissing her right after that, then again, they'd already had sex at that point, which makes their relationship progress a little murky.)

After New York, when Natasha had found him and remade him back into himself, he stopped thinking so much. She's the only one who knows he remembers it all. She's the only one he wanted to tell. After—after he understands that this isn't about what hasn't happened between them yet, or telling anyone exactly what they are, but it's sitting in Tony's ruined tower, her arm across her shoulders as he stares blankly at the misshapen skyline and the place where the hole in the universe used to be. It's lying in a truck bed in Idaho, and holding her hand and knowing that if he asked, she would probably go anywhere with him, as long as he was sure it was safe.

When they arrive in Portland the next day, it's another cheap motel, enough to shower and have somewhere to sleep after scouting the area. They split up for a time, and meet in a local park, feeding ducks and discussing plans.

"Still a lot of hearsay about these people you've brought us to," Natasha says. "just a lot of 'if you need help, to go to that brewpub and ask.'"

"Yeah, that's what I've got too. I had a hard enough time tracing Parker back here, so she must have some sort of hacker working with her. Wasn't really her skill set when I knew her," Clint says.

"And what exactly did you know?"

Clint smiles. They aren't jealous of each other's past, but they've both had long enough careers that there's always a new story to disclose. They've never really made a pact for full disclosure, but they do it, anyway.

"She's a thief. She was also maybe all of fifteen when I met her, so…"

"A thief?"

"I was on assignment, and we happened to choose the same rooftop perch. Oddly enough, I think she sort of imprinted on me. Parker is…different than most people. She taught me how to pick a lock in under thirty seconds, and I taught her about rigging. She disappeared, along with a Dali, about two weeks later."

Natasha sits back on the park bench.

"A thief you knew for two weeks, who apparently is now helping people."

"A thief and hearsay," Clint says.

"Well, it is better intel than we had in Budapest," she says, smiling.

Clint sighs and puts his head in his hands. Budapest. One day he'll sit down and actually think about that time and make enough sense of it, make enough sense to know why Natasha always brings it up, especially when it's absolutely nothing like Budapest at all.

(Budapest is running for their life, four days without food, the second time they have sex, the third time he kisses her and means it, and the first time he looks at her and knows, sees for certain the path they’re headed down, the one where they kill each other or die trying, the one where they finally admit there's no one else in the world but each other, and when Natasha loads her last clip into her gun, a bruise on her eye and a limp in her step, he says as much. She nods and takes her shot.)

"So," he says. "Do we walk in or break in?"

*

They walk into the Bridgeport Brewpub at ten minutes until closing. Natasha has left her guns and her disguise at the hotel. She tells Clint she's hiding in plain sight, but the truth is she wants the guns, wants the disguise, wants to run and hide and be someone else. Instead she's choosing to be Natasha, and hopes that he understands what she's doing.

(She still has her knives, and if she had to lie, she was one of the best, and getting out of a small brewpub in Portland would be nothing for someone who escaped Hydra in a public mall.)

There's no one in the room except them and a waitress, who smiles as she approaches them.

"Hi, I'm Amy. We're just about to call last call, and—"

"It's okay," Clint says, "we're actually not customers."

"Oh. No one said there was a client."

"Not that either. I'm actually an old friend of Parker's. I was wondering if she was available to speak to."

Amy looks at him, then Natasha. She tilts her head, as if listening to someone else, then says,

"Wait here."

She goes behind the 'Employees Only' door, and Natasha takes time to look around. There's someone in the kitchen, and she tenses, just in case.

"I don't have old friends," a voice says from the doorway.

Natasha turns her attention to the door. The woman who spoke must be Parker. There's also a young black man in a t-shirt and jeans at her side. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the kitchen door open and close: probably whatever muscle the crew has.

"An old acquaintance then. Spain? Dali?" Clint says.

Parker tilts her head at him, and her eyes widen.

"Clint?"

"One and the same."

Natasha flinches when Parker runs across the room and throws herself into Clint's arms. She also notes the man at the door has a surprised look on his face.

"How did you find me? Are you still doing the secret spy stuff?"

Clint grins and gently lets Parker find her feet on the ground. "A lot of luck, my compliments to whoever is covering your tracks, and I'm currently unemployed, as it turns out that the people I worked for, weren't exactly who I thought they were."

"Parker doesn't hug people."

Natasha turns to the third person, to size them up, and almost laughs.

"I hug you," Parker says. "And Alec."

Natasha notes the look to the young black man, and mentally names him as Alec. She turns back to the third man, noting his stance was the same as hers: ready to fight with whatever objects he could grab his hands on.

"I also hug Nate. And Sophie and Tara. And Maggie. And Clint. Who's your friend Clint?"

Natasha is still looking the other way.

"Romanov," the third man says.

"Spencer," she replies.

"And I'm Alec Hardison, and I don't know anyone here, so why don't we start over," Alec says.

"Hardison," Parker says. "This is Clint. I've told you about him. He taught me about rigging."

"You told me, and I quote 'I went to Spain to steal a Dali and a hawk taught me to fly,' Parker."

"Oh. Sorry. Anyway, this is Clint Barton. Clint, this is my Alec Hardison and that's my Eliot Spencer."

"Please to meet you," Clint says. "This is Natasha, and we used to work for the same people. Apparently she knows your Eliot."

"We've, ah, crossed paths," Eliot says. "Last time I saw you, you were on TV, sassing a military tribunal, I believe."

"Last time I saw you," Natasha say, "was on TV, holding a puppy, in San Lorenzo."

Eliot grins, and Natasha blinks. She's never seen that expression on Spencer's face, not quite like that.

"That was one of our jobs," Eliot says. "Took down Moreau."

"I heard a rumor about that. Didn't realize you stopped working alone."

"Never again."

Natasha watches as something passes between the three others, and she looks at Clint, who gives a small nod.

"So," Parker says, "since you said you aren't really working right now, did you—"

"Pretty much," Clint says. "I'd heard some things about your crew, and Nat and I, well—"

"We're out of the spy game for awhile," Natasha says. "Not even sure we'll go back."

"I'll vouch for Clint," Parker says.

"I can do the same for Natasha," Eliot says.

Natasha looks at him. Their last meeting hadn't ended well and they had parted on less than friendly terms, the way she remembered it.

"As long as she promises not to stab me this time," he adds.

"You stabbed first," Natasha says.

"Story time later, and now we can add no stabbing Fridays as well as Wednesdays," Hardison says. "I guess that leaves me the deciding vote then?"

Parker and Eliot nod as once.

"I say we do one job. Trial run. Just so you know, Parker runs the show, but if any of us says it's time to pull out we pull out and try a different way."

"Deal," Clint says.

"I'm in," Natasha says.

Alec nods. "Neither one of you would happen to know sign language would you?"

Natasha looks at Clint, and they both say, "Sure."

*

The initial briefing is eerily similar to a SHIELD one, except there's more popcorn throwing and Clint is certain he's never heard 'damn it' used in quote so many inflections before, but it is thorough. Parker's set up isn't that unusual, but then again, he's fought aliens coming through a hold in the sky above New York, so unusual is not something that really registers anymore.

There's a moment when Hardison is handing out ear buds and Clint has to explain the hearing aids, and Hardison freaks out because oh yeah, Tony Stark had a hand in designing them, and Clint remembers he's associated with a billionaire, but Hardison tinkers with one for about five minutes before handing it back (a little reluctantly) and saying it should work find with their frequency now.

He's with Eliot most of the time, Eliot as the mark's bodyguard, Clint as the interpreter, and sometimes the mark takes meetings neither of them are invited to, so they sit in the mark's office and wait. Right before they had left the brewpub, Eliot has asked about him and Natasha.

"It's complicated," Clint says.

Eliot laughs, "I can understand that."

Clint doesn't miss the way Eliot's eyes look toward the 'Employees Only' door. He doesn't know Eliot (or any of them) to really ask, so he just sits.

"We were very different people when we knew each other," Eliot says, sitting next to Clint. "She went straight before I did. I was—the only reason I vouched for her was because we used to be similar people."

"You saying you don't trust her?"

Eliot smiles, "No, I'm sayin' that I'm glad she found her team."

"I see."

Eliot's not much for talking, and as someone who spends a lot of time on lookout, Clint appreciates it.

Towards the end of the con, Parker and he end up hanging from a roof, breaking into the mark's apartment. She had leapt off the building and he had followed.

"You know," she says as she twists and lands inside. "No one else likes to do that."

"Most people weren't meant to fly," Clint says.

Parker smiles at him, and heads for the safe.

"Natasha told me you helped her like me," Parker says.

"Not exactly," Clint says. "A little more complex than that."

"Pretzel stuff always is," she says.

Clint blinks at her before remembering that for some reason (that he hopes he will be filled in on later,) pretzel is Parker's relationship word.

"You seem to handle it just fine now."

Parker turns from the safe and shakes her head.

"It's easier when I just let it be what it is. But they make it easier to say the hard stuff. "

Clint lets her finish cracking the safe. He's already letting it be what it is.

Later, in the alleyway, when he's stepping over bodies, and taking Natasha's hand in his, he realizes what Parker meant: he has to let it be what it is, so it's easier for Natasha. (He also supposes that by letting it be what it is, Natasha makes it easier for him, and that yeah, he has a better time with the word love, but neither one of them is ever going to say it very freely.)

He helps her into the van, and climbs in behind her while Eliot does a sweep of the area. He looks at Parker, who nods once, types on the keyboard and shifts to the front of the van.

"Can't leave you alone for five minutes," he says.

"Please, I was only distracted because someone was talking in my ear," Natasha says.

He grins at her. If she's like this, she's fine, the bruise that's already on her cheek is just that, and the leg she's favoring may hurt, but it's certainly not broken.

"It's quiet now," he says.

"I noticed. You got something to say Barton?"

"Nat—" he stops.

"Clint, are you okay?"

She takes his hand, and he finds that here in this (slightly smelly) van, what they are is more than he really had thought about. And all the times he's taken her hand, all the times they've been right here, the middle of a job, just the two of them, that's all the declarations of love he's ever really needed anyway.

"Yeah," he says. "I'm good."

*

Natasha is in the van with Parker for the last part of the con, and watches as everything falls in place just so, even with the few bumps they'd run into. She shifts the ice pack on her cheek, more mad that the other person had gotten the hit in than that she had to miss the end of the con. It had been interesting to fight with Eliot again, and amusing to see Clint's resigned face when he saw the bruise on her face and the unconscious men on the floor.

"You know," Parker says, hitting some keys on the keyboard, "I think if I'd been old enough, Clint would have tried to get me to come be a spy. Well, also if I hadn't have run off."

"Probably," Natasha says. She notes that Parker's taken their comms briefly offline. "He has a tendency to take in strays."

"I'm glad he didn't. I wasn't ready for people then."

"I'm not sure you are now."

Parker grins at her, "No. But they make me better at it. That's what family is for, you know?"

She taps some more keys, and the comms are back.

"Okay boys, enough bragging, get back to the van so we can go home and give the client the good news."

She looks at Natasha, "One day, you'll meet Nate, and you'll understand why I have to say that."

"Nate would never take things too far," Hardison says.

There's a cough that sounds distinctly like 'bullshit' (and also sounds like Eliot.)

"Someday, I will get you in a room with Tony Stark, and then we'll talk about bragging," Natasha says.

"Tony doesn't brag, he just announces his superiority," Clint says as he opens the van door. "And you should have seen Hardison's face when you said his name. As if we haven't already mentioned we know him."

"Man is a genius," Hardison says.

The van ride home becomes a story swap, with Clint and Natasha telling the rest about the worst job ever (Berlin) and Hardison and Eliot arguing about what they thought the worst job was (Parker immediately overrides them and says one word-Chaos- and they immediately agree.)

After the client has their money, they head back to the apartment they've been using. They tell the others they'll see them tomorrow, no matter what they decide.

"So what do you think?"

She doesn't say anything. Clint's leaning in the doorway of the balcony, and she's rubbing her leg. It's like every other mission they've done, except—except she feels like they actually did something. She watches him watch her, and knows what she feels is love. Knows it and can't seem to ever say it to him, admit it except in these brief moments between. (Looking up the stars in Idaho, watching the sky in New York, watching him sleep on a plane home from Berlin.)

It's raining, and she thinks she may have sprained her ankle, and she hasn't eaten since breakfast and—

"Just like Budapest," Clint says.

"See, I knew we'd remember it the same eventually."

She remember that was the day she first knew for sure it was love she felt for him, when he stood in front of her while she reloaded her guns, and then didn't stand in her way when she went to make her shot. He'd told her then that they were going to kill each other or stay with each other forever, and she had simply nodded. She's tried to tell him more, and hoped he's understood, and she thinks they've told each other a million times, but they've never said it once.

She stands and takes his hand, and kisses him, a feather press of her lips to his, trying to press the words she can't seem to say against them, and when she pulls him inside and closes the balcony door, he presses his body against hers, and whispers in her ear,

"It doesn't matter you know."

"My answer?"

She pulls back and looks at him, and his hands lace through hers.

"Yeah. Whatever it is."

"What do you think? Of this?"

"You asking me to make the call?"

Natasha swallows.

"I trust you," she whispers.

Clint's eyes widen, and he pulls her close to him again.

"Good," he says. "Good."

"So?"

"We stay."

She looks at him, smiles, and kisses him again, and leads him down the hall.

Tomorrow they'll go back to the brewpub, and they'll do this for awhile, and maybe Nick will convince them to come back and maybe he won't, and nobody but them will know that today was the exact same place in a different year, that if Budapest was the day they both knew they began, than Portland was the day they really started.