banner by enigma731

A Gift From: celeste9
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: wait on the edges in between
A Gift For: poppetawoppet
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU scenarios, canon-typical violence
Summary/Prompt Used: Five times Natasha encounters Clint and one time it actually works out.
Author's Note: I combined a few of your prompts (though admittedly not always in entirely recognizable ways, lol), really hope you like this! Happy holidays! Title is from The Gaslight Anthem.

1.

They told her he would trust her. You will remind him of his dead daughter, they said. He will come with you.

They were right. The task was almost too simple and when it was done, Natasha was bored at a circus with time to spare before extraction.

She had never been to a circus before. So many strange sights, the performers in their tents and along the streets, acrobats, jugglers, tightrope walkers; booths where children played games and tried to win prizes; the overwhelming smell of fried food and sweets mixed with human sweat and the animals used in some of the acts. It was crowded and loud, the best sort of place for her line of work, people milling around everywhere with too much to focus on to notice one thin girl or a hint of wrong-doing.

It was a good place for pick-pocketing, too, which a boy of about Natasha’s age, wearing a purple t-shirt, seemed to be taking advantage of. He was good, quick and light-footed, with clever, nimble fingers.

She thought she had seen him before, with the trick archers. A troupe of performers out to earn a few dollars whatever way they could, it would seem.

Natasha knew her handlers would disapprove but she couldn’t help herself. She followed the boy, slipping in and out between the throng of people, and slid her fingers into his pocket to steal a watch he had just swiped from a middle-aged father. She then watched him as he headed into a back area of the circus, where the trailers were set up, and cut around to meet him.

He was surprised as he skidded to a halt when he saw her ahead of him and even more surprised when she held up the watch.

“Missing something?” she asked.

The boy flushed. “I’ve never seen that before.”

“That’s funny, because I stole it out of your pocket.”

Gaze nervously darting around, he said, “No one will believe you, and anyway, they’ll all stick up for me, not you, you’re just a--”

Cutting him off, Natasha said, “Don’t worry. No one else noticed. They don’t know what they’re looking for.”

The boy was still eyeing her warily. “You aren’t gonna tell anyone?”

Natasha shrugged. “What do I care?” She tossed the watch at the boy and he caught it easily.

“Who are you?” He asked the question like Natasha was some strange, unfamiliar brand of person he had never encountered before. “My name’s Clint.”

Natasha knew she shouldn’t share her name, not with a stranger, not while she was working, but even so she heard herself say, “Natasha.”

“You’re not from here,” Clint said, and Natasha heard her teachers yet again, telling her to practice her English every day, all day, until she could speak without a trace of her Russian accent, until she could pass as an American if she wanted.

Clearly she had not practiced enough.

They would be disappointed. It was best not to be a disappointment.

“I’m on vacation,” Natasha lied easily. “I wanted to see the circus because I’ve never been before.”

But Clint was looking at her like he didn’t buy it. “You aren’t here with anyone.”

“My parents are buying me a soda.”

“Did your parents teach you to pick pockets?”

“Maybe they asked me to do it. Maybe we’re a family of thieves, just like you’re a circus full of criminals.”

Clint flushed. “You don’t know anything about us!”

“And you don’t know anything about me.” Natasha moved to walk past him. She had lingered long enough.

Except Clint grabbed her hand. “You could stay,” he offered, chewing on his lip. “We… Sometimes there’s sweets, if I do a good job.”

Natasha hesitated.

A circus, noisy and chaotic, where you earned your keep in measures of varying legality and where you got sweets when you were good. Where the worst they asked you to do was to pick an old lady’s pocket. Where you could belong, even if you didn’t have anybody.

A home, maybe.

“I have someone waiting for me,” Natasha said, and pulled out of Clint’s grasp.

She already had somewhere to be.

-

2.

Director Fury gave Natasha the missions he trusted to no one else. This often meant the sort that dirtied one’s hands the most. Her strengths tended towards the more questionable end of the moral scale and she had learned to make peace with that.

Her current mission focused on a man named Clint Barton. Her orders were to take him out.

He was an assassin, a sniper. They called him Hawkeye because he never missed. His list of attributed kills was in the dozens.

Natasha would have admired him if not for, you know. The kill list. She still sort of admired him.

Steve found her in the S.H.I.E.L.D. armory, stocking up. “Tried to get Fury to let me be your back-up on this one. Shot me down.”

“You gonna tell me how you even knew to ask?”

“I know everything,” Steve said with a small shrug of his shoulders.

“I thought that was my line.”

“What can I say? I learned from the best.”

“Aw, you’re so good to me, Steve,” Natasha said, smirking.

Serious now, Steve moved closer to her. “I’d be even better to you if I were coming on this thing.”

“I don’t think it’s your kind of op.”

“He’s dangerous, Nat.”

Natasha stroked her finger down the flat of a particularly fine-looking knife. “So am I.”

She found Hawkeye in an alley in Istanbul, lost a step on him, then pursued him across half the city. He was as good as a ghost, cleverly disappearing in amidst the crowds, but there was a reason Director Fury trusted Natasha.

When she found him again, she gave him no chance to make good on his name, on his reputation. In close quarters, Natasha was certain there was no one better than her.

He clocked her on the jaw; she kicked him in the face and pulled her knife.

“I think that’s cheating, Widow,” Hawkeye said, ducking under her swipe and knocking her onto her back.

Natasha jumped back to her feet and launched herself at his head, thighs like a vise around his neck. She didn’t bother asking how he knew her name.

Soon enough he wouldn’t know anything anymore and Natasha’s hands would be just a little bit dirtier.

But the world, she felt, would be a little bit cleaner without Hawkeye in it.

-

3.

Natasha had a very specific skill set. This meant that once she stopped killing people, her options for employment were limited.

Now she was in the business of finding people. The sort of people who reached out to her were generally less than savory and Natasha had no illusions about what likely happened to most of her targets once she passed along their information. She might no longer be pulling triggers or slicing throats but her hands were far from clean.

Mostly Natasha chose not to think about it. She needed to survive. She knew better than to let herself care.

Barton was the name of the next person on her list. Some crass Russian gangsters were looking for him. Natasha almost turned down the job but she didn’t have anything else lined up, so… Barton. Former circus performer, one-time petty thief, brief stint in the military. That was about all a cursory background search turned up.

Natasha reached out to an old acquaintance only to get an I don’t do that anymore in return.

A few minutes later, another encrypted email popped into her inbox. You shouldn’t do that anymore either.

And then, Why do you want Barton anyway? He definitely doesn’t deserve you as an enemy.

“God damn it, Spencer,” Natasha muttered and shut her phone off.

She tracked Barton to New York, from borough to borough, but he either was in the habit of moving around a lot or he knew someone was onto him. She found a girl, once, who was a close acquaintance according to Natasha’s research, but she was also a smartass who was good at playing dumb and Natasha was wary of spooking her by pushing too hard.

The last thing Natasha needed was for her to tell Barton a strange woman had been asking after him.

Eventually she tracked him to a shitty apartment complex in Bed Stuy, which was weird, because that was exactly where Barton was not supposed to be. It was the only place the Russians had known to look and he had skedaddled weeks ago.

Hiding in the ‘last place they would look’ only worked in the movies. Maybe Barton was a fucking dumbass.

But the apartment was empty and clearly had been for a while. Inside, on the kitchen counter, Natasha found a business card with a Seattle address on it.

She exhaled a stream of curses and then took out her phone.

You owe me a payday, Spencer, Natasha tapped out and then hit send.

-

4.

The sex was quick, rough, without finesse. Against the wall, her hands in his hair, his teeth against her neck.

Natasha didn’t make a habit of fucking on the job but the guy was hot, lean firm muscles beneath his expensive suit and laughing, teasing eyes. She had had time to kill and adrenaline to spare.

It was just a fun diversion before business. Natasha knew how good she looked in her dress; for a moment she had liked pretending she was only a woman out for a night at the opera.

She certainly wasn’t only a woman out for a night at the opera. She found the gun right where it was supposed to be; it was an excellent vantage point. She could see the mark in his private box clearly across the auditorium.

Natasha usually worked a bit closer, more hands-on, but she could do this, too. Quick, easy, in and out. Neat. She took aim.

It happened quickly enough that Natasha didn’t even have time to curse herself for being sloppy. She felt a sting in her neck and reflexively reached, her fingers closing around a tranq.

The last thing she remembered before darkness overtook her was the sight of a familiar figure in a nice suit and she muttered, “Well, this complicates things.”

When she woke, later, she was tied to a chair. What a cliché.

“Welcome back,” the guy in the suit said. Natasha had fucked him but she had never bothered to get his name. Probably would have lied anyway. “Jet’s on its way to pick us up.”

“To take us where?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Natasha groaned. He couldn’t be serious.

The guy was smiling faintly. “I see you’ve heard of us.”

“I’d rather you just killed me, honestly.”

Something flickered in his expression. “They’d rather I had, to tell you the truth.”

Oh, damn. This just got worse and worse. “I know we fucked, but don’t go getting any ideas.”

“It was a good fuck, don’t get me wrong,” he said, laughter in his voice, “but I’m not that soft. I just… I think you’re the kind of woman who would do well with a second chance.”

“I’m fine with my first chance, actually.”

“Yeah? I think that’s bullshit, but hey, what do I know? Consider it an opportunity, then. You’re definitely not one to pass up an opportunity.”

No, she wasn’t. Natasha carefully tested her bonds.

He had done a good job. But Natasha had never met a bondage situation she couldn’t get out of.

She allowed the man to keep talking, probably thinking he was getting through to her.

When her opportunity arose, she wouldn’t miss it.

-

5.

The man had been asleep on a bed in one of the labs since before Natasha had arrived at S.H.I.E.L.D. He had been an agent, they told her, who had the misfortune to stumble into something he couldn’t understand and which countless scientists since still failed to understand.

Magic, maybe. Sometimes it was hard to tell these days.

His name was Clint. Mostly people called him Sleeping Beauty. Sort of a joke, but painfully true.

Sometimes Natasha sat in the lab with him. It was quiet and secluded and the closest guarantee to privacy there was around HQ.

She found herself watching his face, wondering if he dreamed. She wondered if it was like being asleep forever, no true awareness of the world around him, or if he could sense them on some level, hear them. She wondered if he was tired, or bored, or frustrated, or angry.

He only looked peaceful.

Sometimes Natasha even spoke to him. Not to him, really, but she talked in his vicinity. It was comforting in a way and she felt able to say things she never said to anyone else. It wasn’t as though he could repeat them.

And he couldn’t judge her.

Most of S.H.I.E.L.D. thought Natasha didn’t have emotions. That wasn’t true.

She just didn’t want anyone to know she had them. Natasha knew how to cultivate an image. She knew how to play a role.

It was what she did. Natasha was good at what she did.

“Who were you?” Natasha said to the man in the bed. A good agent, that’s all she knew. He had used a bow, of all things. Weird.

He had been good at what he did, too. Unfortunately, sometimes being good at what you did only got you stuck in a lab, a victim to a problem with no solution.

“Did anyone ever try a kiss, Sleeping Beauty?” Natasha wondered aloud. “Did you have someone who loved you, someone who tried to wake you?”

She found her gaze settling on his mouth, on his soft lips. He looked like he would be easy to kiss.

It had been a long time since Natasha had had someone easy to kiss.

“Stupid,” Natasha muttered, standing up.

She left the room.

-

+1

She looked small in the bed, somehow, red hair fanned out on the pillow beneath her head, the white hospital gown hardly paler than her creamy skin. The binders around her wrists and ankles were the strongest S.H.I.E.L.D. had, though, Clint knew, because small and fragile as she might seem, Natasha Romanoff was anything but.

Clint’s bruises, broken nose, and bruised rib could attest to that.

She wasn’t supposed to even be there. Or at least, she wasn’t supposed to be still breathing.

Clint knew Fury had only just begun to berate him for it.

Still. Clint knew he had made a better call. This girl, this woman, this assassin, she wasn’t the sort of person you put down.

She was the sort of person you gave the means to rise up.

When she woke, she didn’t struggle.

“You’ll need to be deprogrammed,” Clint said.

He hated how that sounded. Like she was a machine.

She had been treated like a weapon, a tool, her entire life. Used and used up. Clint wanted to give her the opportunity to choose for herself, to be treated like the woman she was. Maybe that was sentimental.

He had always liked picking up strays.

Natasha only nodded. “And then?”

Clint hesitated, watching her. He couldn’t lie to her, wouldn’t lie to her.

He touched her hand. She didn’t flinch.

“And then we’ll see.”