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A Gift From: franztastisch
Title: Something Good
A Gift For: bettybackintheday
Rating: Teen and Up
Warnings/Choose Not To Warn: No warnings apply; mild sexy times
Summary/Prompt Used: A combination of 'old school Clintasha, nobody knows but them, can they keep their relationship a secret?' and 'anything you'd like to write'
Author's Note: Thank you to my go-to beta for being awesome as always <3

Something Good

Natasha should be used to the fact that schmoozing is exhausting by now, but somehow it always takes her by surprise. She can pretend to be literally thousands of different people – it’s part of her job after all – and yet the energy it takes to network with rich assholes always seems to be exponentially more than what’s required for any other job. It’s not worse, it’s just… urgh.

She kicks off her heels and falls back onto the obscenely large bed. The silk sheets are cool against her skin and she can stretch out in all directions and not find the edge of the mattress. How the other half live, eh? She’s not sure she could cope with it for more than short missions – somehow all this gilt and marble and crystal feels lonely, the space too big for the numbers it’s ostensibly for.

La Mamounia is exclusive and, for all that the ground level is a tourist trap, pretty private. Churchill apparently stayed here, along with a load of other worthies Natasha hasn’t bothered to remember. What’s important now is that it’s where Farid bin Shakaran al-Hayyari will be arriving tomorrow, supposedly for meetings with Marrakech city officials but SHIELD suspects that he’s involved with the GICM and affiliated with a slew of North African terrorist organisations.

To that end, SHIELD has sent their best North African specialists to dig a little deeper and they’ve sent Natasha (and Clint) to verify the other connection they suspect Mr al-Hayyari of having, namely people smuggling from West Africa, possiblyconnected to Boko Haram, more probably just because Mr al-Hayyari isn’t a very nice person.

At the time, Clint seemed surplus to requirements – it’s not an especially hard mission after all – but contingency planning is SHIELD’s forte and it’s a good job too because two days ago both Agent Laal and Agent Qadir fell ill. Natasha would suspect foul play if it she hadn’t had relayed back to her, in excruciatingdetail by Agent Triplet, how Laal and Qadir had scarfed down roadside chicken skewers and snail soup like the entire stall wasn’ta health hazard just waiting to reveal itself.

But that, of course, left them with a problem. Natasha already has a job to do, May’s blatantly Chinese features means she can’t pass as a local even if she wanted to and, while Agent Triplet can do someundercover work in Morocco, the country’s racial makeup being what it is means that there’s a limit to where and how he can pass unnoticed. Plus, his Arabic is atrocious.

So Hill and Coulson have nabbed Natasha's arm candy. Considering how rarely Natasha gets to see Clint – dressed up or otherwise – she’s kind of pissed about the whole thing.

She sighs and wriggles until she lies more squarely in the middle of the bed. It’s just so large. She’s sure four people could sleep comfortably in it, minimum. She strips out of her dress and takes out her Rich White Lady earrings – pearl and gold; discreet, boring– and idly wonders if she should have a bath, just to try it out. The tub could probably fit four people in it too.

Thoughts of the bath, somewhat inevitably, lead back to Clint. He’d had to dye his hair for this and last night Natasha had scrubbed away a ring of dark brown dye from the expensive porcelain of the hotel sink before the housekeepers could find it. Dark hair makes Clint eyes somehow bluer, but she’s not sure she likes it. She once heard Clint’s hair being described as dirty blond, an English phrase she’d never heard up until that point. Her lizard brain had immediately latched onto it: dirty blond. Clint is a dirty blond.

She places her hand on her bare stomach, but refuses to go any further. Dirty blond though; damn right he is.

Clint’s the obvious answer to their problem though, because otherwise they would’ve to postpone, call someone new from the Cairo or Istanbul offices or maybe Agent Hussain from London, though they’d need a guy as well. And helpfully, Moroccan dress plays into their hands here; djellaba cover basically everything, and hoods, hats, and even Berber turbans are not uncommon. With strategic dressing, the most people will see of Clint will be his hands and his face. He’s even got a reasonable tan thanks to a mission in Venezuela not two weeks ago. Plus, he can speak fluent French and reasonable Arabic, and has an uncanny ability to communicate with people without words and across language barriers.

But. Schmoozing rich assholes is more bearable with Clint pulling faces behind their backs. Lounging by the pool eavesdropping is more fun when Clint’s beside her in horrible, cover-appropriate swim trunks.

And the bed wouldn’t feel so fucking large.

She’s messing up her carefully styled hair. If she was wearing more than waterproof mascara, she’d probably be messing that up too. It’s unprofessional really, but it’s only tourists downstairs. There’s no good intel to be had until the business guys come back for dinner. She’ll have sorted herself out by then.

She strokes her hand over her bare stomach, presses the fingers of her other hand against her lips, and briefly pictures Clint grinning at her, a towel around his shoulders and unfamiliar dark brown hair sticking up in wet clumps.

She’d had been talking to a Parisian couple when she’d suddenly hit her limit, excusing herself with a polite murmur about the heat and an oncoming headache. She’d meant to use the time somewhat productively, but instead she’s here, on this unnecessarily massive bed, daydreaming about her partner because all the men in this hotel are so unutterably boringand safe.

Natasha runs her hands over her skin again, this time brushing the underside of her breasts through her bra, before sighing and folding her hands over her stomach.

Clint’d left early this morning, leaving Natasha to wake up alone in the bed and make excuses all breakfast – work emergency, had to fly back to New York, such a shame. It’s probably useful, in a way; now she can play the part of rich, bored wife whose husband is too busyand too self-absorbed to properly attend to her needs. It’s catnip to assholes, and boy do they talk when there’s a pretty, potentially available lady to impress. But still, Clint’s probably somewhere in the souks and bazaars now – not the tourist ones, the ones the locals go to – conning unsuspecting locals into giving him what he wants, which is far more fun. He picks up accents and mannerisms easy as breathing. No one would suspect he’s American and they probably wouldn’t believe him if even he told them outright. Natasha's a little jealous of that ease, if she’s honest. She’s far more methodical.

Natasha glances over at her phone – or, more accurately, Magdalena Arden’s phone. Dinner will be served in about forty-five minutes, which means she’s been lying on this bed, drifting and thinking about Clint, for one and a half hours and she hasn’t even checked in with Hill yet. So much for being productive.

She sighs and levers herself into sitting position. Shower. She needs a shower and a new dress and make-up that gives her fucking cow eyes, and then she can spend an entire meal making Hamid Youssef al-Malik trip over himself until he agrees to – or even better, suggests– introducing her to al-Hayyari tomorrow.

But first: check in.

“This is Widow, checking in,” Natasha says as soon as she’s worked her way through all the encryption and security protocols.

“Widow, this is Everest. Continue.”

“Everything proceeding as expected,” Natasha replies, because it is, even if what was expected for this mission was for it to be boring as fuck. “Going to try and organise a trip to the High Atlas for tomorrow.”

“Good luck, I heard it can be a long journey.”

Natasha shrugs, even though Hill can’t see her. “Long, but not difficult.”

Long because al-Hayyari is a hard man to pin down. Not difficult because Hamid Youssef al-Malik is an idiot, eager to please but lacking the brains to fill an egg cup, making him about the easiest guy to manipulate using make-up and a push-up bra.

“And how’s the food?”

Hill is asking if Natasha thinks she’ll need backup. She’d be offended if she didn’t know all check ins contain a variation of this question.

“The food is good.” Don’t worry about me. “The chicken’s kinda dry though.” But you stole my partner and now the bed is way too big.

The thing is, whatever this is between her and Clint is relatively new and the first rule they made was that they’d be utterly professional on missions. It’s worked well so far, though to be fair they’ve only had a handful of missions together as Strike Team Delta recently. Clint’s mostly been in Venezuela while Natasha's been in New Hampshire, Cologne, and Lagos. They went to Hong Kong together though, and Budapest.

They’d slipped up in Budapest, but they’d also agreed that Budapest didn’t count. At this point, Natasha's close to wishing that Marrakech didn’t count either.

“Order something else then,” Hill replies dryly and Natasha has the sudden fear that Hill knows.

The second rule they made was that no one can know about them until they’re sure of what this is, and that means everyone from the Parisian couple downstairs to Director Fury. Hill knowing, or even suspecting, would be very bad. For one, it would probably mean the end of Strike Tea Delta because, while SHIELD’s fraternisation rules aren’t draconian they definitely draw the line at romantic entanglements with close associates, which Clint and Natasha definitely are. Plus, technically Clint is still her superior, which is also a big no-no.

“Anything else?” Hill asks.

Natasha hates that reading people’s voices is sohard.

“No,” she replies. “Widow out.”

Natasha stares at her burner for a little while before getting up abruptly, discarding her bra and panties on the way to the shower. She’s going to wash the chlorine off her skin, she’s going to wear a tight dress and on point make-up, she’s going to give an Oscar-worthy performance in the role of Neglected Wife, and she’s going to play al-Malik like a fucking fiddle, because she’s restless and bored and angry at nothing, and being slightly cruel in her manipulations is literally all the fun she’s going to have tonight so she’s going to make it count.

Clint had better buy her something cool from the souks, she thinks resentfully as she heads for the bathroom.

Dinner had been just as Natasha had predicted, though the Parisians had been interesting enough conversationalists that she’d been slightly put out when her dress had the desired effect and al-Malik made his way over to her during dessert, a tacky one-liner and the smell of whiskey on his breath. She’d garnered a promise of an introduction to al-Hayyari for tomorrow night with minimal effort on her part, only some light simpering and well-placed comments about her absentee husband required. It was so easy it was boring.

It’s sort of sad, Natasha thinks as she opens the door to her ridiculously large suite, that the most interesting part of her night was talking to a data analyst and a teacher from Montmartre. Isn’t being a spy supposed to be exciting?

“I hope,” comes a voice from the direction of the absurdly large bed, hidden from view by a row of elegant arches, “that you charged very expensive wine to the SHIELD account.”

Natasha is on guard with her knife out before she even registers that she recognises that teasing tone.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she hisses as Clint rounds the corner, hands up and an insufferable grin on his face.

He shrugs. “Testing security.” His grin widens. “It’s shit, in case you were wondering.”

“Fuck’s sake, Barton.”

They stare at each other for a moment before Natasha moves to put away her knife, prompting Clint to lower his hands.

“Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else?” Natasha asks pointedly, but Clint ignores her.

“I got you something,” he says, holding up something small. It’s a tiny tagine in blue and purple and red, the type that can be found in literally any stall anywhere in Morocco. So ubiquitous as to become invisible.

Natasha shouldn’t be touched, but she is.

He places it on a table that stands just to his right, which is currently holding Natasha's myriad Boring Rich White Lady jewellery. It looks out of place.

Just like Clint.

“Productive evening?” Clint – who really should not be here – asks.

“Yeah, reasonably,” she replies. Having him here seems to settle something within her that she wasn’t even fully aware was restless to begin with. “You?”

Clint shrugs. “SHIELD was right.”

So al-Hayyari isconnected to West African terrorist organisations. Depressingly, the information is so unsurprising all she can feel is annoyance. Natasha dumps her Rich White Lady handbag and sits on the nearest available chair to start removing her heels, which veer more towards Neglected Wife than Rich White Lady in height. Natasha had to strike a very delicate balance, and no one will ever accuse her of not having a versatile wardrobe.

“How’d you discover that?”

Clint shrugs again and sits on the bed. “Didn’t. Word from on high; the nerds did good.”

So Cyber managed to uncover something then. That must have happened after Natasha checked in, else Hill would have told her too.

“I’m going to the High Atlas tomorrow,” she offers in return, because having as much information as possible is preferable to the alternative, though her ‘date’ with al-Hayyari may prove pointless now. Nevertheless, until Hill tells her different, she’s going to carry on as planned.

She slumps in her seat, pointing her toes. God, those shoes are a unique level of uncomfortable.

“Dress for the weather,” Clint says, eying her feet with a little smirk that means he’s being a shit. “I heard the wind up there can find its way through most clothing.”

She has no idea why they’re still speaking in quasi-code. In fact, she’s not even sure why they’re still talking about the mission at all. They’d checked the suite for bugs when they arrived and she re-checks every morning. They’ve played their parts, Hill hasn’t called with updates, and Clint has turned up in her room unannounced with hours to go before her wakeup call tomorrow morning. They could be doing farmore interesting things.

“So you’re saying I shouldn’twear my royal purple silk lingerie and six inch Louboutins?” she shoots back, because she can be a shit too.

Natasha bought that lingerie set on a whim two years ago while in Milan and the first – and only – time she surprised Clint with them caused perhaps the longest stunned silence she’s ever got out of a man. She’s saving them for special occasions now, or maybe for when Clint is reallygood.

“Um.” Clint is now wide-eyed, thrown, which is exactly what she was aiming for. “You’d make an impression, that’s for sure.”

He looks puppyishly hopeful but he’s not being good enough yet. He’s not supposed to be here, after all.

“Well,” she says, unconcerned and dismissive, “I didn’t bring either so it’s a moot point.”

Clint exhales raggedly. “Shit, girl,” he says, rubbing a hand over his mouth and clearly demonstrating that he’s been hanging out with Agent Triplet too much. “Don’t do that to me.”

Natasha shrugs, only half faking unconcern. She’d resigned herself to doing the rest of this alone and she’s honestly kind of annoyed that Clint’s turned up to make all her earlier moping – she can admit it was moping now– seem incredibly pointless and self-indulgent.

“Unzip me.”

She turns, putting her back to Clint and lifting her hair out of the way. Her dress is a knee-length, long-sleeved, figure hugging, forest-green number with a low, square neckline. Next to Clint, in his Generic American Tourist get-up, they’re a study in contrasts. As Clint reaches for her zip – the heat of his hands sinking through her dress and into her skin – she imagines al-Malik or the Parisian couple seeing this, what it would look like; the high society lady being undressed by her holiday Bit of Rough. They’d be surprised, shocked perhaps. Maybe even offended. The imaginary ruckus alone is more exciting than her entire evening up to this moment.

The vague fantasy dissolves, though, when Clint doesn’t stand back after finally – slowly – pulling the zip down and instead smooths his hands over her hips. He’s close enough for his breath to fan out over the nape of her neck and while Natasha’s always been aware of where other people are in a room it’s never been like this; like she’s a flower desperate to turn towards the sun.

They shouldn’t be doing this. Clint shouldn’t be here. For all her wishful thinking about making Marrakech not count either, they shouldn’t fuck on the job. Someone has to stop this.

She just doesn’t want it to be her.

“Why are you here, Clint?”

Her voice is quiet and she doesn’t turn around. Clint exhales shakily against her neck.

“Clint?”

He takes a step back, letting go of her waist. Somehow, it feels like the worst kind of loss.

“We were gonna get a week, after this,” Clint says, low. “But we’re not now, are we?”

She turns to face him. The question is rhetorical; they’re not going to get a week after this. Natasha will leave the day after al-Hayyari leaves, as originally planned, but Clint will stay on with May, Triplet, Laal, and Qadir, wrapping up that end of the operation. Natasha will get her week but, by the time Clint gets his she’ll have moved on to Moscow, providing further intelligence for the ongoing investigation into the remainder of the Red Room.

“I’ll miss you,” he says like a punch, and Natasha sucks in a shuddering breath. His fingers trace lightly across the top of her left breast before dropping away again. “I missed you.”

Their first rule was that they wouldn’t fuck on missions and she’d thought that would be so easyto keep. She’s a professional, she can compartmentalise. But Clint Barton is an emotional wrecking ball with the ability to steamroll through all her defences. Apart from he doesn’t steamroll, he doesn’t beat against them with balled fists; he sidles up sideways, crooked smile in place and says terrible words like, “I’ll miss you,” and it feels like everything in her just crumbles.

Budapest was the rush of survival. Marrakech… Marrakech may well end up being something completely different.

Her restraint snaps, gunshot-loud, and she’s kissing him hungrily before she even realises she’s made the decision.

Clint’s only briefly surprised before his arms come up to wrap around her waist and he kisses back with equal enthusiasm. She can feel her dress sliding from her shoulders, limiting the movement of her arms, and Clint’s still wearing shoes, but these things seem so distant, so irrelevant when weighed up against the taste of Clint’s mouth and the feel of Clint’s body and the sound of Clint’s muffled gasps.

“Oh my God,” he gasps into her mouth. And then, “Off, off,” as he pulls at her dress, hampered only by Natasha's attempts at removing his t-shirt.

And then it’s just Clint, shirtless and decidedly ruffled, looking at her in delighted wonder.

“Oh my God, Natasha.”

And she knows what she looks like, dress puddled at her feet. She’d had to wear the most ridiculous push-up bra to tip her dress from Business Appropriate to Neglected Wife, and it’s completely at odds with her cotton panties covered in cartoon kittens. Her dress wasn’t so form fitting that she needed to hide a VPL and they’re fucking comfortable, okay?

She looks like a stripper who lost interest halfway through.

Clint laughs.

“You’re fucking amazing,” he says as he toes off his sneakers and pulls off his jeans. “Fuck. You’re just so fucking – ”

He slides one hand into her hair and pulls her back up to his mouth, all while guiding her towards the bed.

It’s still too big, even with Clint next to her, but now its size is ripe with possibility. She’s trapped within the cage of his body, but she wriggles and pushes until Clint gets the hint and rolls onto his back, spread out on the red silk of the bed. Unlike her, his boxer briefs are a utilitarian dark blue. He buys all his basics in multipacks from Target and briefly she wonders if it’s odd that she knows that before dismissing the thought and straddling his waist. There are more interesting things to contend with; namely, what to do with Clint Barton when he’s spread out under her like a feast.

So of course he ruins it by groping her breast. It feels really strange with all that padding.

“God, this thing is ridiculous,” he says with a laugh. “Why did you even bring it?”

“Because,” she says, leaning over to make her cleavage even more pronounced and smirking as Clint’s eyes are inevitably drawn downwards, “men are predictable and easily distracted.”

Natasha never leaves for a mission without a padded push-up bra and she has never regretted that decision.

Clint looks up and away, grinning slightly but with an embarrassed flush spreading across his face. Clint is probably the best man Natasha knows and he still falls for it, but instead of being annoyed by that fact, she finds is endearing, somehow. That he’s still fallible, human. Still just a man.

It’s ridiculous, really, how happy he makes her.

She kisses his cheek.

“What was that for?” Clint asks, his blush fading and his smile turning more bashful.

“You.”

He walks his fingers up her back and towards the clasp of her bra. “Gettin’ a lil’ sappy there, Ms Romanov,” he says, failing to hide how pleased his is.

The bra falls away and is replaced by Clint’s hands and Natasha marvels once again at the man beneath her. He’s so gentle. Attuned to her wants and needs without compromising himself, kind and forgiving without being naïve or gullible, unthreatened by her abilities in all the ways that matter. Sexy without trying and a dirty blond, even if right now it’s hidden through necessity.

She rolls her hips, sharp and sudden, and gasps reflexively when Clint’s hands tighten on her tits, his gaze turning dark and predatory in a way that makes her nerve endings sing.

The blondmight be hidden, but Clint Barton will always be dirty.

He rolls her nipples between her fingers, causing her to gasp once again, and she’s sufficiently distracted by this move for it to come as a surprise when Clint bucks and rolls, easily switching their positions in a move that would have any other man in an immediate headlock.

Clint grins down at her, where she’s once again caged within his arms.

“What do you think housekeeping will say,” he asks, his voice low and intimate and teasing, “when it becomes clear Magdalena Arden got fucked a mere twenty-four hours after her husband left for New York?”

A hotel like La Mamounia doesn’t get to where it is without having extremelydiscrete staff, and whatever qualms she may have had regarding professionalism and SHIELD fraternisation rules have been replaced by the heat and weight of Clint Barton above her.

So Natasha grins, and rolls her hips against Clint’s erection, and says, “Let’s find out, shall we?”

“What are we doing?” she asks quietly, sometime later.

The obscenely large bed is in disarray; the comforter mostly on the floor along with the majority of the pillows. The last remaining, tenacious, bedsheet is caught about their waists, and a thin slice of moonlight cuts a knifelike line across Clint’s back from hip to shoulder.

Clint turns to face her, eyes glittering in the low light, and something complicated and open and honest steals its way across his expression. It makes her gut clench and there’s a pull, somewhere behind her ribs, as if some vital part of her is straining towards him.

She thinks she should be scared of it – of this feeling – but the darkness is too close, too soft and warm, for her to feel anything other than safe.

“Something good, I think,” he answers eventually.

“You think?”

She utterly fails to hide the tremble in her voice. An overwhelming, formless terror grips her. If she’s going to fall into this – this feeling she’s teetering on the edge of, this feeling she knows of intellectually but has no experiences of personally – she cannot face it alone. It’s a vulnerability she has no idea how to face, or to deal with, in any way. She is ill-equipped, for the first time that she can remember.

Her rushing downward spiral is halted in its tracks by gentle fingers brushing against her cheekbone and the tender expression on Clint’s face, as if he knows exactly what she’s thinking and doesn’t think any less of her.

“No,” he says, whisper soft. “I know.”

She smiles at that, and breathes out a slow, measured, breath, and tucks herself into Clint’s side, eventually falling asleep to the quiet sound of him breathing.

When she wakes again it’s morning, with bright sunlight streaming through hastily fastened shutters. Once again she’s alone, but this time the little tagine Clint had bought her has been placed on his now-cold pillow, the colours even more vibrant in daylight, and when she lifts the lid she finds a tiny bronze camel figurine nestled inside.

Natasha grins to herself and stares at the ceiling, the little camel held tight in her fist and pressed up against her smile.

Something good, she thinks.

Yeah, okay.