banner by inkvoices

A Gift From: gsparkle
Title: well it says so in this book of love
A Gift For: franztastich
Rating: T
Warnings/Choose Not To Warn: no warnings apply
Summary/Prompt Used: "Natasha is a book editor. Clint is a writer and his plots are spectacular but Christ the grammar is a mess. And who the fuck taught you punctuation, Barton? That's not what semi colons are for."
Author's Note: I managed to squeeze a blanket fort reference in there, too :) also, super late so super unbeta'd--sorry for any mistakes!

well it says so in this book of love

FROM: Natasha Romanoff <nromanoff@shieldpress.com>
TO: Clint Barton <cfbarton@getmail.com>
SUBJECT: Introduction and Your Manuscript

Mr. Barton,

As you may know, Phil Coulson has left the non-fiction department here at SHIELD Press to manage the newly created Department of Anthologies and Collected Works in White Plains. As such, I’ve been appointed to fill his shoes, including editing your upcoming book.

I’ve taken a first pass at Carny Kid and have attached my edits to this email. Generally, the narrative is tight and flows well; however, your punctuation style makes it difficult for the reader to understand where topics shift. See my notes for more details.

Greatly looking forward to working with you!

Natasha Romanoff
Non-fiction Editor, SHIELD Press

---

“What do you mean, ‘she’s right?’” Clint demands. “Phil, you have never once mentioned even a comma out of place. I have great grammar! I do grammar so good!”

“You do grammar so well,” Phil corrects, beleaguered.

“Whatever.” As Phil’s in White Plains, Clint has no other option but to glare at the phone speaker and hope it translates across the phone line. “If I’m so bad at writing, why haven’t you ever said anything?”

“I mean, you’re reacting so rationally now,” Phil says, studiously bland. “Honestly, though? I made notes on your last manuscript and you either ignored them or didn’t seem to get what I meant, so I just decided to make the changes myself.”

It takes a few seconds to digest that. “So what you’re saying,” Clint says at last, “is that I should just ignore the punctuation notes, and eventually this Romanoff lady will do them herself?”

“That is not what I’m saying,” Phil says, an edge of panic in his voice that Clint cheerfully ignores. “That’s the opposite of what I’m saying, Barton. Barton! Don’t hang up--”

***

FROM: Clint Barton <cfbarton@getmail.com>
TO: Natasha Romanoff <nromanoff@shieldpress.com>
SUBJECT: RE: Introduction and Your Manuscript

ms romanoff--

thanks for your email, looking forward to our new partnership :) as i’m sure phil’s told you i’m fairly easygoing so i’m sure we’ll get along great!!!

i looked at your edits and revised my manuscript. new draft attached!

stay gold,
cb

FUN FACT: the plastic tips of shoelaces are called aglets!

---

The most frustrating thing about modern publishing, Natasha thinks, is that it’s now considered a waste of paper to print out a two-hundred-page manuscript and correct it in red pen. Think of the trees! cries the sign posted over the printer, even though the trees are already dead and pulverized into copy paper whether Natasha prints something or not. And if anyone deserves two hundred pages of red-inked fury, it’s Clint Barton.

“He didn’t capitalize one single sentence,” Natasha rails to Maria, their shared office making her a captive audience. “Not one. He signed the email ‘stay gold.’ He included a fun fact.”

Maria edits books about nature, which is why her screen is filled with diagrams of bird wings instead of the same sea of word soup that swims across Natasha’s. “He sounds cool to me,” she says, kicking her feet up onto Natasha’s desk and grinning when Natasha narrows her eyes. “The Outsiders,” she says appreciatively. “Classic. I approve. And besides,” Maria points out, scowling at the swarm of pigeons on her screen, “at least you’re not looking at birds. These aren’t even the cool kind.”

“Then you edit his shit.” Which is unfair, really: his research is thorough, and yet he manages to keep the tone light and balanced. She’s read too many narratives bogged down by pedantry or forced attempts at humor. Barton might treat commas and apostrophes like confetti, but he can at least tell an interesting story. Even if he’s ignored every mechanics-related suggestion she’s noted.

Still. It could be worse.

***

FROM: Natasha Romanoff <nromanoff@shieldpress.com>
TO: Clint Barton <cfbarton@getmail.com>
SUBJECT: New Edits

Mr. Barton,

I do actually know what aglets are, but thank you for the information.

Regarding your manuscript, I see that you’ve taken my suggestion to expand the sections about how children are incorporated into circus acts from a young age, which I hope you agree boosts the section and prevents it from getting too research-heavy. I still think you could go further in your discussion of “Trickshot” and “The Swordsman” to flesh them out and make them slightly more three-dimensional--see the notes I added to that section for more details.

I also notice that you haven’t addressed the various mechanical changes I indicated in the previous edit. Please know that making these changes is absolutely crucial to your work getting published. I’ve marked them again in this round of edits--please do let me know if you need any assistance on this front, and I’d be happy to point you to some resources.

Best,

Natasha Romanoff
Non-fiction Editor, SHIELD Press

---

“You know there should be a comma here, right?” Kate says, draped over his shoulder like an annoying cat. “That’s a complex sentence”--she illustrates this by breaking all laws of human decency and poking Clint’s screen--“and since it begins with an AAAWWUUBBIS word, you need a comma there.”

Clint bats her hand away as she attempts to put another smudgy fingerprint on his otherwise pristine screen. “Yeah, but does the paragraph make sense?” he asks, then squints at her. “Also, let’s circle back to whatever sound just came out of your mouth.”

Kate sighs, noisily, as if it’s Clint who’s making up utter nonsense and passing it off as a word. “AAAWWUUBBIS,” she repeats, stretching out the U sounds before launching into a recitation straight out of her prep school youth: “After, although, as, when or whenever, while, until, unless--”

Clint shoves his desk chair back, which has the bonus effect of dislodging Kate. “I didn’t mean that I actually wanted to learn anything,” he tells her, stretching his way out of the chair and sniffing cautiously at his cold cup of coffee before shuffling to the kitchen for a new one. “All I need is for you to tell me if there’s enough detail about the Swordsman so I can send this back to my editor and be done with it.”

Kate’s lips pull tight at one corner, skeptical. “Yeah, but what about all the other stuff? I mean, jeez, Clint, I don’t think you capitalized Iowa a single time in these whole twenty pages.”

“I’m an artist, Katie,” Clint proclaims dramatically, mostly to irritate her into wrinkling her nose, since most days he has trouble even identifying himself as a functional adult, let alone writer. “I don’t have time for minutiae like punctuation.”

“Yeah, and your editor’s not going to have time for you if you keep this up,” Kate shoots back. “Didn’t you say she already hates you?”

“That’s just because she hasn’t actually met me yet,” Clint reasons, shoving down something vaguely, amorphously guilty rising in his gut. “Maybe Phil just didn’t put a note in my file about how we worked together.”

Kate’s lips cinch to one corner again, and her straight black eyebrows arch, but she doesn’t say anything, not even when he asks her for a good fun fact for his email.

***

FROM: Clint Barton <cfbarton@getmail.com>
TO: Natasha Romanoff <nromanoff@shieldpress.com>
SUBJECT: RE: New Edits

romanoff--

changes attached. i think you’re right about the swordsman and trickshot so i went back through my notes and added another section for each that i think will better illustrate their characters. let me know what you think but it definitely seems to flow better for me.

re: commas and shit: i hate them. phil always did that sort of thing for me so i could focus on the writing and all so…………. yeah!

gotta blast,
cb

FUN FACT: pteronophobia is the fear of being tickled by feathers

---

Another thing about modernity: the decline of letter writing. Again, not because she’s against saving the trees, but because when she gets emails from Clint Barton, she wants to tear them into confetti and mail them back to him.

“You could print it out,” Maria suggests, which isn’t the point. Not that she can figure out how to articulate, professionally, what exactly the point is: that she wants to be as purposefully annoying as he is. It's probably--no, it's definitely petty to feel this way, especially when it's her literal job to help him get his book published, no matter how arduous the task.

It’s just--okay, look, Natasha’s done her research. When she found out Coulson was getting promoted, and that she’d likely end up with some of his clients, she’d researched them all. This meant reading their bestsellers, even Bruce Banner’s horrifyingly boring Applying the Principles of Gamma Radiation Research to Your Life and Dr. Stephen Strange’s incomprehensible and altogether pretentious Eat Pray Love knockoff about unblocking his chakras or something equally terrible. On the whole, though, Phil edited some good stuff: the compilation of Karen Page’s Daily Bugle articles exposing Wilson Fisk, not to mention the Sokovian refugee narrative told by a pair of twins that’s flying off the shelves right now.

But Clint Barton was absolutely the crown jewel. His books were well-researched, thoughtful, brilliantly written. His Twitter feed was nothing but charming, dominated by dorky jokes and pictures of his sweetheart of a dog peering into a variety of Brooklyn coffee shops. By all accounts, working with Clint Barton should have been a walk in the park.

Instead, It’s been two excruciating months of back and forth emails, wherein Natasha’s learned that May 29th is the official “put your pillow in the fridge” day and that honeybees can recognize human faces, but has yet to receive any indication that Clint even knows what a semicolon looks like.

“And honestly,” she concludes her rant to Phil, who’s probably holding the phone a foot away from his face from the force of her exasperation, “I’ve got half a mind to go over there and hold him at gunpoint until he shows me where the comma key is on the keyboard.”
“I mean,” hedges Phil. “I wouldn’t say I recommend that course of action.” But he says it so mildly, so utterly devoid of condemnation, that Natasha rather thinks he does.

***

FROM: Natasha Romanoff <nromanoff@shieldpress.com>
TO: Clint Barton <cfbarton@getmail.com>
SUBJECT: Last chance

Barton:

If I do not, within the next 24 hours, receive a draft so laden with commas that it adds an extra 1000 KB to your file, please know the consequences will be dire.

Romanoff

---

Kate’s a sore loser, so when Clint’s this close to lapping her on Mario Kart 64, he’s not fazed when she tells him there’s someone on the fire escape. “Yeah, and I’m the Pope,” he retorts as Princess Peach swerves around Bowser’s circle of green shells and zips over the finish line.

“No, really,” Kate says, dropping her controller in disgust and turning her attention to the row of tall loft windows. “Regulation hottie, straight ahead.”

It’s only because he’s rolling his eyes that he sees her--or, at least, her edges: swoops of deep red hair, slouched pockets of a lovingly worn leather jacket. “Holy shit,” Clint says, belatedly. “Katie, there’s actually someone out there.” Kate doesn’t answer, only sighs and flicks his ear before rounding the couch and making a beeline for the window. “What--you can’t--don’t go out there,” Clint sputter-shouts. “How’d she even get up here? We don’t even know what she wants! What if she’s going to kill us--”

But it’s too late; Kate’s already climbed through the window without much more than a smirk in his direction. The woman on the fire escape steps back, even helps Kate through the window. He holds his breath as Kate straightens up, waits until they shake hands and smile at each other before he takes another look at the mystery woman leaning against the ladder of his fire escape like it belongs to her.

And then he takes another look, and maybe, sorta, another, because it turns out that Mystery Fire Escape Woman is, like, movie star hot. Like, the best legs he’s seen in a calendar year. Like, the brightest, greenest, sharpest eyes, crinkling under the force of her brilliant smile. Like, red velvet hair, and he’s not entirely sure whether he means the fabric or the cake (and weirdly, it might actually be the cake).

All this to say: no, he doesn’t read the lips of the conversation taking place in the early December breeze of his fire escape. And no, he doesn’t stop and think about what he’s done recently that would drive an otherwise apparently sane woman to secretly climb to the top of his eighth-floor building. And no, he definitely, definitely doesn’t think about what he’s going to say once Kate eventually brings this woman inside, beyond the fact that it better charm her fucking socks off, because she doesn’t look like one to suffer fools.

Which is why--when Kate holds the window open and the woman climbs in; when Kate says, “Clint, you didn’t tell me your editor was coming to visit!”; when the no-longer-mysterious Natasha’s doe eyes narrow; when that dazzling smile becomes absolutely predatory--Clint can’t do anything besides gape like a particularly unintelligent fish. Not the best first impression.

“Mr. Barton,” Natasha says, shark-like, grinning. “How nice to finally make your acquaintance.” He shakes her hand and adjusts his thinking under her tight grip: right, not the best--how many emails have there been?--fifteenth impression. She gestures to the television, where the results of the race are still blaring, forgotten. “Are you busy, or do you have time to conference about this draft?”

“Very busy,” Clint says, stumbling in his effort to get the words out as soon as he can.

“Not busy at all,” Kate says at the same time, swiftly dodging his elbow with a merry smile. Kate’s about two-thirds black magic, Clint suspects, because she manages to swoop around his apartment, kicking dirty socks out of sight and collecting her various detritus and hooking Lucky into his leash, talking all the while. “Here’s my number, by the way,” she tells Natasha, presenting a post-it note as she shrugs into her coat. “For help, I mean. With the Clint-wrangling.” Kate winks and mouths, she's hot behind Natasha's back. Clint flips her off behind Natasha’s back and gets only a cheerful, toothy grin in response. “You two have fun, now, okay?” she chirps, then vanishes.

With Kate gone, and Lucky no longer sprawled across the couch, the loft should feel empty; but Natasha, with that killer queen jacket and those wolfish eyes, takes up all the air in the room, like her hair is flame itself. “So, Barton,” she says, all that sharp, glittering intelligence scraping the edges of her voice. “Let’s talk about your book.”

***

FROM: Clint Barton <cfbarton@getmail.com>
TO: Phil Coulson <pcoulson@shieldpress.com>
SUBJECT: OH MY GOD

YOU GAVE HER MY ADDRESS??????????

you are officially uninvited to my christmas party

FROM: Phil Coulson <pcoulson@shieldpress.com>
TO: Clint Barton <cfbarton@getmail.com>
SUBJECT: Please

It's on your file. Obviously.

Also, you have never in your LIFE hosted a Christmas party. Unless you count the time you called me to meet you out and then it turns out that “out” actually meant “at Kate's so we can steal Lucky for a holiday photo shoot,” which I don't, because I don't consider nearly getting arrested the week before Christmas a party of any sort.

Phil
PS: She’s cool, right?

FROM: Clint Barton <cfbarton@getmail.com>
TO: Phil Coulson <pcoulson@shieldpress.com>
SUBJECT: RE: Please

i VERY CLEARLY told you to wear all black. it’s not my fault you decided to wear the ugliest gaudiest sweater ever to blight this earth

ps: obviously. that’s beside the point.

---

Friday afternoons in December are not designed for working, so Natasha and Maria walk through a Christkindlmarkt that’s popped up in East Village. It’s getting dark already, and Natasha’s had probably four oversized mugs of brandy-spiked mulled wine, which means that when Maria asks how the Barton manuscript is going, Natasha says, brightly, “Oh, I paid him a threatening visit,” and takes another sip of wine.

Naturally, Maria chokes on her eggnog. “Threatening a client,” she says with approval, once she’s finally cleared her throat. “That’s a new one.”

Natasha shrugs. “I didn’t really do anything,” she protests. “Just climbed up his fire escape--”

“You what?”

“--It’s fine, the girl who walks his dog let me in, and then left to, well, walk the dog, so I told him that I know where he lives and I want this manuscript done by Christmas and that I expect to see an updated draft by”--she peers at one of the fifty accurately set cuckoo clocks for sale in a nearby stall--“Hm. By the end of today, which is in five minutes.” She checks her phone: no new emails.

“Was--” Maria finally formulates; and it’s important to note that she’s matched Natasha drink for drink, because normally Maria would ask something far more thoughtful and nuanced than, “Was he as hot as he looks on the book jacket?”

Natasha sips her wine again and considers how exactly to answer, because even slightly drunk, she thinks it's probably not a great idea to start gushing about the way his blond hair collects afternoon sunlight or how he has the most perfectly crooked smile. Not professional, and also she definitely hates him. For sure. “He was fine.”

“Fine?” Eggnog splashes as Maria makes a sort of beckoning gesture. “No. You can’t break into a client’s house and describe it as fine.”

“Excuse me, I did not break in,” Natasha protests, checking her phone again. 4:58, it reads. No new messages. She looks back up, finds Maria patiently scrutinizing her, and relents. “Fine, okay, yes, he’s very hot in person,” which is really the most neutral understatement she can make. Clint Barton looks bookstore hot on his book jacket: flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, perfectly imperfect hair, sly smile, piercing direct gaze. But Clint Barton in person is a real kind of hot, sleep-mussed hair and shirtless, a sheepish smile as he pulls on a bleach-dotted tank that hides exactly zero percent of his broad, tanned shoulders and freckled, muscled arms.

Also, book jacket’s don’t have voices, and she’s never spoken to him over the phone, which means she’d walked onto his fire escape unaware that Clint Barton’s voice is like woodsmoke, a product of and always drawing from the warm fire of his laugh. And listening to him talk about his book with passion and intelligence and charm?

Well. It’s just such a shame that he’s the most annoying man on the planet; otherwise, she’d probably already be half in love with him.

Fortunately, Maria breaks into this deeply concerning thought. “Very hot gives me literally no information,” she complains. “Is he single? What’s his apartment like? What about his ass?”

“I didn’t look,” Natasha lies (she did; it’s nice). “Also, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to date clients.”

“I’m not supposed to date my clients,” Maria corrects. “Yours are a different story. And who said anything about dating? All I need--”

“You are not sleeping with my client,” Natasha protests, likely at a louder volume than she intended, since the young family browsing nutcrackers next to them quickly hurries away. There’s probably a good reason why the idea of Maria sleeping with Clint makes her stomach twist: maybe this fourth mug of mulled wine was ill-advised. She pulls out her phone to show Maria that she absolutely cannot sleep with someone who sends the emails he does, but there’s a notification:

FROM: Clint Barton, SUBJECT: here’s the thing.

“You’re not sleeping with Clint Barton,” Natasha repeats, decisively shoving her phone back into her pocket, “because I’m going to kill him.”

***

FROM: Natasha <nat.romanoff@getmail.com>
TO: Clint Barton <cfbarton@getmail.com>
SUBJECT: YOU ARE THE WORST

Clint,

I’m using my personal email to inform you that

FUN FACT: I’m going to murder you!!!

Sincerely,
Natasha

---

“Clint, you can’t just make a blanket fort everytime things get difficult,” Kate sighs; or maybe she doesn’t actually sigh, and it’s just that her voice is muffled by her position outside said blanket fort.

“Actually, I think I can,” Clint calls back. Here in the blanket fort, there aren’t massive edits to make to his manuscript. Here in the blanket fort, Past Clint’s idiotic decisions cannot make Current Clint’s life miserable. “Hey, are you sure you don’t want to make these edits for me?”

“Very sure.” He hears Kate move away, Lucky’s collar jingling faintly as he trots behind her. Well, fine. Clint pushes on his headphones and cranks up the volume. He’s going to make every single one of Natasha’s edits, and not just because he doesn’t doubt her sincerity when she says she’s going to murder him. Really, he’s going to do it. Right after he checks his email… and his Facebook… and his fantasy football team--

Kate yanks the headphones off his head. “You’re kidding me, right?” she asks; only, the voice is deeper than Kate’s, smokier. Clint looks up and gulps, because instead of Kate, it’s Natasha who’s pushed her way into the blanket fort, and who is now the definition of the phrase glaring daggers.

“Um, hi, listen,” Clint stammers. “I can totally explain--” Except it’s difficult to find the words, because Natasha smells like cinnamon and nutmeg, and her cheeks are flushed, and it’s all just a lot when they’re about two feet apart. “How did you even get in here?”

Natasha unrolls that dangerous smile that he really wishes he didn’t like. “Kate let me in,” she says. “Also, she told me to tell you that she’s taking Lucky to America’s for the night, whatever that means.” This is what it means: that Kate’s left him defenseless against the wolf for the night, and that he’s going to be filling her toothpaste tube with mayo the next time he’s at her apartment. Her gaze sharpens on him again. “So. About that manuscript you promised me.”

“About that,” Clint says weakly. Natasha’s eyes flash dangerously and he quickly continues, “I’m sorry! I’m really bad with time management! And I’m also kind of an oppositional asshole! It’s not personal!”

He closes his eyes and winces away, entirely prepared for Natasha to… stab him, probably; but all she does is laugh, a soft puff of air across his cheek. “Yeah, no shit,” she says, part of her dangerous smile going wry. “You couldn’t have mentioned that earlier? Or, like, asked for help?”

Clint squints at her. “Help? What’s that?”

Natasha rolls her eyes and shakes her head, all the danger in her smile evaporating. “You want a beer?” she asks, scooting backwards out of the blanket fort when Clint nods. She comes back minus the leather jacket and scarf, but plus beer for both of them. “Shove over, then,” she says, pushing at Clint until he makes room for her. Her twisting scarlet hair spills over her shoulder and onto his as she settles next to him, but she doesn’t seem to notice, and even leans farther into his space to point at his open manuscript. “Okay, look: when a sentence starts with an AAAWWUUBBIS word--”

“Not this again,” Clint grumbles, but shuts up when Natasha cuts a razor-edged glare at him and dutifully listens instead, figuring it’s a better alternative to the murder she’d promised to visit upon him. And, anyway, Natasha’s got a nice voice, and she’s a more patient teacher than he has any right to, all things considered. “Listen, uh. Thanks. I’m sure you have better things to do on a Friday night than this.”

“Oh no,” Natasha says cheerfully, sipping her beer. “I spend every Friday night in a blanket fort; just, I’m usually alone.” Her eyes sparkle in the light of the single desk lamp Clint’s dragged under the blankets. “Kidding, Barton.”

“You’re under my blankets,” Clint points out. “You can call me Clint.” Belatedly, he realizes the varying implications of what he’s said and chances a glance at Natasha under his eyelashes, but she’s studying his screen, and he decides with a sigh of relief that she must not have read into it. Which is good, because he thinks he actually sort of likes her, especially now that he’s somehow managed to convince her not to kill him. And, on that subject: “Hey, uh. Thanks for not killing me even though I definitely deserved it.”

Natasha taps her bottle against his and grins a little, dangerous in a different, magnetic sort of way. “You’re too cute to kill,” she says before her eyes widen momentarily and she turns intently back to his laptop screen. “Okay, so this is a great scene, but it doesn’t make any sense unless you put a semicolon here, see--”

After a while, Clint finds that he doesn’t need as much help as he did previously. Which isn’t to say there’s not a lot to do--he’s on page 20 of probably 300 or so--but he doesn’t really want Natasha to leave. As the hours have peeled off the clock, she’s grown more comfortable, curled up with her knees pressed against his, her head periodically drooping to his shoulder; but she’s not asleep, because every time he thinks he sees her dark eyelashes settling against her pale cheek, she points out a mistake he’s about to scroll past. When she wiggles out of the tent without fanfare, Clint thinks she’s leaving, but then he smells coffee and thinks, briefly but fervently, that he might be in love.

“Tell me about yourself,” she says when he asks how he can repay her. “Not the book jacket blurb, I mean,” so Clint tells her about the corn farm in Iowa he grew up on, with the archery targets in the barn and the books he hid under the bed. College and grad school aren’t all that interesting, really, except for his adventures in bartending through them, like how many times he caught Kate trying to use her fake to get in, and how once he got a thousand dollar tip for discreetly pouring Tony Stark into a cab. His first book was about coffee, so he talks about how he worked on a coffee farm for three months and why he doesn’t ever drink at Starbucks; and his second book was about archery’s rise in popularity, so he’s talking about training with Olympians when he realizes that Natasha’s fallen asleep, right there on his shoulder.

It’s late; he’s not offended. Asleep, she’s more sweet than tart, lashes fluttering delicately, pink lips slightly parted as she snores faintly. As he watches, she curls closer into him, one arm snaking across his midsection and curling around his hip. It’s tempting, so tempting, to put his laptop aside and wrap a matching arm around her, but Clint forges on with his edits until his eyes cross.

It’s even later by the time he throws in the towel, nearly three in the morning. Natasha doesn’t wake when he nudges her, and since he doesn’t want her to go, anyway, Clint doesn’t try again. Instead, he pulls down part of the blanket fort to cover them both, scrounges around for a few couch pillows to tuck under her head, and tells himself that he’s only curling around her back to keep her warm.

***

FROM: Clint Barton <cfbarton@getmail.com>
TO: Natasha Romanoff <nromanoff@shieldpress.com>
SUBJECT: Manuscript done!

Ms. Romanoff,

I can’t thank you enough for your help in finishing my manuscript edits. There is no way I would have gotten it done without you. I look forward to working with you in the future, and hope this correctly formatted email is just one small way I can express my deepest gratitude.

Warmest wishes this holiday season!

Clint Barton

---

Natasha likes to be punctual, likes to have order in her life. She’d woken up on Clint’s floor, wrapped in his big, warm arms, and been disturbed by how entirely comfortable and nice it had felt. Obviously, she’d snuck out rather than have an awkward morning-after conversation, but arriving home and climbing into her own bed had been somehow dissatisfying. Ridiculous, and yet it had been disappointing to receive no further snarky emails for a week, just a reassurance that the work was being done, and then finally the manuscript itself in all its comma-filled glory. And then--nothing, which should be an absolute relief, but instead she’s just out of sorts, irritable, grumpy.

“And I don’t know why,” she complains to Maria. It’s the Friday before the holiday break and they’re tucked in a corner of the company party, counting how many times Fury’s new intern, Steve, touches the elbow of Bucky, the World War II specialist in the historical fiction department. “Shouldn’t I be glad to be done with him? That’s seven, by the way.”

“Eight,” Maria corrects. “And the reason you’re so grumpy is because you have a mega crush on him. It’s embarrassing.”

“I do not,” Natasha insists, her cheeks heating--because, shit, shit, she does. “I don’t even know him.”

“Please,” Maria says, rolling her eyes. “Literally anyone who’s heard you talk about him--nine, ten, oh my god, Steve, be more obvious--for more than ten seconds could tell you that.”

“But--”

Maria stops watching Steve and Bucky and turns to Natasha, setting a hand on her shoulder. “Instead of arguing with me about it, why don’t you go get to know him better?” She tilts her head towards the window. “Look, it’s starting to snow; it’ll be hella romantic. I’m good at this shit; you should listen to me.”

“I--but--” Maria’s brows flatten into a stern line and Natasha caves. “Okay, fine. But I need to talk to Phil first.”

Natasha is a list person. Commiserating conversation with Phil, check; subway ride in her cocktail dress, check; catch a cab because it’s too cold to walk, check; hiking up the eight flights of stairs to Clint’s apartment with her heels tucked under her arm, check.

Clint opening the door shirtless isn’t on her list, though it should’ve been, all things considered. “Hi, uh--” He blinks and his blue eyes widen as he takes in her dress. “Hi.” Another pause, another gratifying stare. “Did we have something planned?”

Natasha shakes her head. “No, I--” She clears her throat. “I have good news and bad news.”

“That you came all the way to Bed-Stuy to tell me on a Friday night?” Clint asks, suspicious. “Dressed like that?”

She really hates when he makes sensible points. “Can I just come in?” she asks, stepping past without waiting for permission. Inside, she drops her coat on the couch and waits for Clint to follow slowly behind her, clearly still skeptical. “Bad news or good news first?”

Clint looks askance. “Bad, obviously,” he says.

“Oh, good,” Natasha sighs. “It sounds a lot better that way. Okay, the bad news is that I’m not your editor anymore. Phil’s gotten permission from Fury, the head of the press, to keep you on as his client even though he’s moved to Anthologies.”

For the first time of the evening, Clint takes her seriously, spine snapping straight as he unslouches from the wall. “What? Why? Is it because I took too long with the edits? Natasha--” He drags a hand over his face. “Natasha, I’m really sorry.”

Hm. Maybe she hasn’t quite thought this through. “No, it’s okay,” Natasha says, pulling his hand from his face as gently as possible. “See, ‘cause, the good news is also that I’m not your editor anymore.”

Clint’s mouth pulls, if possible, even farther downward. “Shit, Natasha, I know I was a terrible client, but--”

“No, no, no,” Natasha says, wrapping her hands around his. “It’s good--because, I mean, then--” If she can’t get the words right, she can at least set one hand at the nape of his neck and pull his lips to hers, can kiss the surprise from his mouth while scraping her fingers through his already messy hair. He tastes like coffee, of course, and his big hands wrap around her waist, lifting her off the ground as if she’s lighter than the snow that drifts outside the window. She kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him, until her back’s pressed against the wall and she’s forgotten there was ever a time when they weren’t tangled up in each other like Christmas lights, bright and beautiful and happily mixed up.

“So what I was trying to say,” Natasha says at last, once she’s gotten her breath back, “Is that I couldn’t have done that if I was still your editor.”

“Ah.” Clint grins, more roguish and charming than anyone has right to be. “You maybe should have led with that part.”

“Maybe,” Natasha says, grinning back as she pulls him down for another kiss. “But if I’ve learned anything from you, it’s that the fun fact should always come last.”