A Gift From: [Bad username or site: “poppetawoppet” @ livejournal.com]
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: Right on Target
A Gift For: sgteam14283
Rating:
Warnings:
Summary/Prompt Used:Two impossible shots that Clint Barton made, one he didn’t, and one that was sort of both.
Author's Note: I, uh, included a crossover? Sort of?


Right on Target



Boston

“You don’t really think Fury wants to recruit them, do you?” Clint leans on his pool cue, watching the group at the bar.

Natasha makes her shot, and runs her hand along the edge of the table.

“No. But he might want a favor from them. They took out Moreau, after all.”

Clint tilts his head in agreement. He’s not sure their disguise is even necessary. He’s certain they were made the moment they walked in the door. But protocol is protocol and Nat does make a good blonde.

He lines up the shot, managing to get three balls in one pocket, and a fourth at the corner.

“I don’t know why I even play you, when you make impossible shots like that.”

“Because it gives the impression we’re doing something besides spying.”

Natasha sighs. “You know very well Spencer recognized us already. He’s been signing at you for the past half hour.”

“Maybe I just like to show off,” Clint says.

“Maybe you are a show off.”

Clint shrugs. “Someone has to be the center of attention, might as well be me. “

“You are a terrible spy.”

Nat is grinning when she says it, and Clint grins back.

“So, darts next?”

She laughs, and shakes her head. “Next you buy me a drink and we get on with our assignment.”

“Fun ruiner.”

“Responsible.”

Clint takes another shot, sinking the rest of the balls. There’s a smattering of applause, and he realizes they were being watched by the group they were supposed to be watching.

“I am a terrible spy,” he mutters, and puts the pool cue down to get to work.


New York

Natasha wakes with her phone in hand.

“Hey, Clint,” she says.

He mumbles against her shoulder, and she sighs.

“You need to get up. Concussion, remember?”

“Can’t find my cat.”

“If you wake up, I’ll help you find it.”

He opens his eyes, blinking up at her. “Oh.”

“Hey.”

She rubs his shoulder, resisting the urge to hold him tighter. She had argued with a SHIELD doctor about watching over him, but since the concussion was on her, so is the making sure he didn’t sleep too long.

“Hey. Gotta stay awake for a bit now. You said you lost your cat.”

Clint’s face scrunches up. “I used to. We stayed at a farm once, me and some others. There was a cat we took in, but it kept running away. I always wanted a farm.”

“Why?”

“Somewhere to go where no one could bother you, but also have useful land.”

Nat thought about it for awhile, and nods.

“Have to be registered under an air-tight alias. Would have to lose the SHIELD tails.”

“Like that’s hard for you.”

Clint picks up her free hand in his, lacing their fingers together, and apart again, then tracing the inside of her palm with one finger.

“Who would cook? You only know how to order pizza, and I prefer to order out.”

“We’d pay someone a startling amount of money to run the farm, and keep our secret.”

Nat laughs, “Well, you can keep on dreaming, on our salary.”

“Can’t dream. Don’t get to sleep long enough.”

Nat pulls her hand away and grabs a piece of paper from the table next to her. She crumples it one handed, and passes it to Clint.

“If you can get this in the trash can from here, I’ll let you sleep the rest of the night.”

Clint cradles the paper in his hand, calculating whatever he does to work his magic. He tosses it, and misses.

“So,” Nat says, “tell me more about this farm.”

Somewhere in Eastern Europe

Agent Barton has been following the target for three weeks now.

He writes angles, wind speeds, and trajectories in his notebook, along with the routine she seems to keep.

She knows she is being watched. Barton can tell by the way her eyes shift as she walks, the tense line of her shoulders, the bend of her knee, ready to sprint at any moment.

Clint also knows he could have taken the shot at least ten times by now, but he continues to observe. There’s an itch in his shoulder, a voice in his head that is telling him to wait. So he waits.

And watches.

*

Natasha forms a routine the day she realizes she is being watched.

It takes her four days to see him, but she knows that first day. She spent years being watched, she grew up in a glass bowl, so she knows.

He’s American. The haircut doesn’t say CIA, so probably SHIELD. It’s the only radar she would be on these days, most of her work fell in their arena.

He’s good, if a little obvious. She sees him everyday, which is his first mistake. The second is that he doesn’t even write in his journal in code. The third is that he does not kill Natasha the first time she gives him the opportunity.

Yet—she is alone in her room, and an arrow embeds itself into the headboard, brushing her hair, and making her jump.

He’s nowhere to be seen, but her phone is ringing. There’s nowhere for him to have made the shot from. Natasha runs her fingers along the shaft, to make sure it’s real. She picks up the phone.

“My name is Clint Barton, and I have a proposal for you.”

“You have my attention,” she says.

Portland

Clint never thought he would face the end of the world. He probably should have died at least four missions ago. He’d already survived aliens, mind control, his sister’s meatloaf…

His arms are aching, and he doesn’t know what time it is. It’s aliens again, but this time he’s fighting with a clear head.

“You know, for a state that is well known for rain, I could do with some right now,” he says, wiping his knife on his pants. He can’t quite get rid of the sticky ichor of whatever bodily fluid keeps the aliens alive, and there’s a smell he’s not sure he’s going to be able to forget.

“I’ll make sure to bring up the shower facilities with the manager,” Nat yells, reloading and shooting without stopping.

Clint grins and turns back to his side of the fighting. He’s exhausted, but he’s found the weak spot in their eye, which makes the killing quicker.

For him at least.

He picks up the bow again, aiming just to the left of the nosepiece of the helmet and shoots.
And shoots.

“They’re probably going to redesign their whole armor because of you,” Nat slips beside him during a lull.

“We’ll probably be dead by the time that comes around.”

“Yeah, but at least you’ll be in their history books. The small puny human who revealed the flaw in our previously untouchable armor.”

“Thanks.”

Nat squeezes his hand, and kisses his cheek. “Well, it’s been real.”

“It has not been fun.”

“But let’s make this real fun. Whoever kills the most aliens before dying gets to design the other’s halo.”

Clint laughs. “Deal.”

He stretches his arms, when the reinforcements break through on the left. He looks at Nat.

“Guess we’ll have to hold that thought. About time you got here. Do you have a radio?”

One of the soldiers nods, and Clint begins to describe the weakness in the armor, when a young recruit snorts.

“No one can make that shot.”

“Oh no,” Natasha murmurs.

Clint puts the handset to the radio down. “Excuse me?”

He picks up the bow and a single arrow, drawing as he walks. He fires the minute the tension is right.

He makes the shot.

The recruit swallows.

Clint turns, smiles, and takes a bow.

“Don’t worry kid, he’s a show off. He was always going to do that. You just made it easy for him.”

Natasha walks up to Clint, and takes his arm. “Time for us old folks to take a break now.”

“Aw, come on, Nat, I wanted to rub it in a little.”

“Leave the kid alone, and you might have a shot of making it through the night alive,” she says without any heat.

“I’ve got a shot I can show you,” Clint says.

She shakes her head and smiles. They reach their room, and she doubts they’ll even take off their shoes before they sleep. She looks at him, tired, slumped, and years away from the agent who purposely didn’t kill her.

“I’m sure you do.”