banner by inkvoices

A Gift From: kiss_me_cassie
Title: One Goose A-laying (In Wait)
A Gift For: gsparkle
Rating: General
Warnings/Choose Not To Warn: Cruelty to supernatural fictional fowl
Summary/Prompt Used: goose-enforcing soulmates (listen I’m not usually about soulmate stories but this just cracks me up)
Author's Note: I really wanted to do the food prompt, but it wasn't really working the way I wanted it to. The soulmate goose kept calling and I realized sometimes you just have to lean into things and let them take over. Hence, an Angry Goose of Destiny fic. No, the irony of it is not lost on me.
Much thanks to Shen and Crazy4Orcas for the hand holding and betaing! You're the best, ladies!

One Goose A-laying (In Wait)

Natasha was making a cup of tea in the communal kitchen of Avenger Tower when Steve came trudging in, looking very un-Steve-like. His usually impeccable shirt was covered in what looked like feathers, with even more of them in his hair, which was sticking up in all directions.

Natasha paused mid-stir. "What happened to you?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he muttered, reaching into the fridge and pulling out a jug of Tony's vile protein smoothie. He took a healthy swig then grimaced. "What the hell does Tony put in these things?"

Natasha shrugged and resumed stirring her tea. "I'm afraid to ask. I tend to stick with his premium fresh roast coffee and fancy tea leaves, thank you very much."

Steve mumbled something she couldn't quite make out, stuck the smoothie back in the fridge and grabbed a water instead.

She eyed him critically. First the disheveled appearance and then the smoothie, which he never would have grabbed if he'd been thinking clearly. Something was definitely going on with him. Nothing too serious, or he would have already mentioned it, but something.

"Did you lose a bet with Sam?" she ventured, taking a sip of her tea.

"No."

"Get in a fight with a street pigeon?" she asked, plucking a grey feather from his shoulder.

He couldn't hide his sheepish smile. "Closer."

Intriguing.

She tried again. "Attacked by an angry bald eagle?"

Steve shook his head, his embarrassed smile getting even bigger. "Closer. It was an angry goose."

That got her attention. She set her tea down and raised a brow at him. "An angry goose? As in an Angry Goose of Destiny?"

He frowned. "I hate when people call them that. Not all soulmate geese are angry."

Natasha brushed another feather from his shirt. "Yours certainly appears to be."

"It's… frustrated. I am, apparently, not moving fast enough," he said with a sigh. "My goose has made its displeasure known."

"So your soulmate is a woman you already know?" She paused and cocked her head at him.
"I mean, assuming it's a woman."

She'd never been able to peg Steve down as straight, bi or gay. He refused to be stuck in a category, any category. It was one of the most infuriating things about him. So it didn't hurt to check and make sure.

"Yes, it's a woman. Someone I've known for a while now," Steve admitted. "But no, I am not telling you who she is."

Natasha shrugged. "You know I'll figure it out eventually. It's not like your social circle is huge. And if your goose has appeared to push you closer to her, I'm sure hers has appeared to push her closer to you, too."[1]

Steve leveled a stern look at her. "We're working through things slowly. And privately. Which is one of the reasons my goose is unhappy. I would appreciate it if you didn't try to get involved."

"I'll think about it," Natasha said with a mischievous smile.

"Do that," he said firmly. "Because this thing between me and my soulmate is too important to screw up."

It was hard to argue with that. "Fine. But as soon as you make your relationship public, you know I'm going to tease you both mercilessly about it."

Steve just chuckled and shook his head. "You wouldn't be you if you didn't. Just remember turnabout is fair play and I'm gonna give you hell when your own goose appears."

She immediately sobered. "I don't have a goose."

"You mean you don't have a goose yet," he corrected with obvious confusion.

"I mean I don't have one at all," she said, shrugging.

"Everyone has a goose."

"Not me," she repeated. He laughed nervously, not sure if she was joking or not, and she decided to give him an out. No need to make him uncomfortable about something even she wasn't 100% sure of. She winked at him. "At least not yet, like you said."

He still looked somewhat puzzled, but accepted her answer. "So… any chance there's enough tea to share? I need to get the vile taste of Tony's smoothie out of my mouth and water's not doing the trick."

She grinned and reached for the tea tin. "I think we can scrounge some up."

----

When Natasha walked into Maria's office, she found her frowning at her computer screen while a big, fat grey bird sat placidly on the corner of her desk.

"What is that?" Natasha said, although she knew full well exactly what it was and was amused beyond words that Maria had gotten it to just sit there, like a desk accessory.

"That," Maria replied, disdain dripping from her voice. "Is a goose, as you well know."

"An Angry Goose of Destiny?" Natasha asked with a smirk as she took a seat.

The goose flapped its wings and Maria leveled a withering stare at it until it settled back down. "A soulmate goose."

"You know it's interesting, because Steve's just showed up recently, too," she said, knowing it was more than just a coincidence, something that was confirmed when Maria raised her chin sharply and glared at her.

"Not. One. Word," Maria warned.

"I would never."

"Yes, you would."

"Yes, I would," Natasha agreed, chuckling. "But I'll make an exception in this case because you and Steve are clearly being idiots about the whole thing. Otherwise, you'd have already made a declaration to one other and your geese would be dust."

Maria's goose honked in agreement.

"No one was talking to you," Maria reprimanded it. She directed her attention back to Natasha. "So what brings you here to my office today?"

"An invitation to lunch, but now that I've seen your goose, my priorities have shifted."

"Spoken like one who will never have to endure the humiliation of their very own goose."

Natasha sat up a little straighter and narrowed her eyes. "Was that in my SHIELD file?"

Maria hesitated a moment. "Not yours specifically, no. But the files on the Red Room strongly suggested that their girls could lure in targets using their feminine wiles because - and I quote - there would be no interference from soulmate fowl of any sort."

Natasha nodded. She'd suspected as much, had even said it to Steve, but to hear Maria confirm it made her heart sink.

"You ok?" Maria asked, clearly concerned.

Was she? Maybe not, but there was nothing she could really do about the lack of goose. The Red Room had made the decision for her without her consent and there was nothing she could do to change it.

She shrugged. "Can't miss what you never had."

It was a blatant lie, but she was a spy and good at hiding her feelings. Unless, of course, she was trying to hide them from a coworker and friend. Sometimes it really sucked that everyone she knew and cared about was related to SHIELD in some way or another.

Maria was still studying her with that concerned look. "But I always thought…"

"Yes?"

She shook her head and offered Natasha a wry smile. "Never mind."

On the other hand, sometimes it really paid off when those same friends and coworkers could read her mind and knew exactly when to leave well enough alone.

"So about that invitation to lunch…"

----

They were trudging through the forest on their way back from a quick in and out mission to retrieve an encrypted thumb drive from a reclusive hacker, when Natasha saw it: a dark shadow in the trees above.

It could have been almost anything - an owl, an eagle, a falcon. They were out in the middle of nowhere after all. But on second look, she realized there was something off about the size and shape of the bird. It wasn't as squat as your basic owl or as tall as an eagle and the neck was longer and more defined...

Oh shit.

It couldn't be. Not here.

"Nat? Everything ok?" Clint called back to her as she started to lag behind.

"Yeah," she answered distractedly, hefting her pack and picking up the pace again. She looked back towards the stand of trees where she thought she'd seen the bird, but there was nothing there, just a dark grey shadow.

She shook her head. All the talk about soulmate geese was getting to her. It had been a shadow. Or a hawk. Something. But it hadn't been a goose. It couldn't have been.

"You ok?" Clint asked again when she caught up to him at the quinjet. "You didn't see bigfoot or anything, did you?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "No, but I better see your ass in the cockpit of this quinjet ASAP. I cannot wait to get back to civilization and a hot bath."

"Yes, ma'am," Clint said with a grin as he climbed in, Natasha following more slowly.

She paused at the entrance of the jet to take one last look around at the surrounding forest, but there wasn't anything to see but a bunch of trees.

No, she hadn't seen bigfoot. Or a goose. Whatever she thought she'd seen had been a figment of her imagination.

Because if it had been a goose, it wasn't hers. And if Clint had suddenly gotten a goose, that meant he had a soulmate out there somewhere, a soulmate that the goose was preparing to push him towards.

And it wasn't her.

And that was something she couldn't bear thinking about.

----

The PR department at Stark Industries must have worked overtime setting up this appearance at a local bookstore. Hundreds of children had shown up to hear various Avengers take turns reading their favorite childhood stories.

Steve had chosen to read a selection from Winnie the Pooh, Bruce had gone with Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and Tony was currently well into a rousing rendition of The Cat in the Hat.

(What? Tony had exclaimed when Clint had given him a doubtful look about that particular book being his favorite. The Cat is the very epitome of resourceful and imaginative! You think I came up with Dum-e entirely out of thin air? Take a look at that thingamajigger, Legolas. That's a prototype right there.)

Natasha had chosen not to share a story, preferring instead to hang back against the rear wall and just keep an eye on everything. Not because she couldn't have chosen a children's story, but because it felt disingenuous to do so. Still, it was a fun event and she was enjoying herself.

That is, until a goose suddenly popped up in the space between her and the row of chairs that Clint and Thor were sitting in.

She blinked, hoping it was just her imagination again. But when she opened her eyes, she couldn't deny what she was looking at. A large, grey goose, hunkered down behind Clint's chair.

But maybe it wasn't Clint's goose. Maybe it was Thor's. Did Asgardians have geese? Or was that solely a Midgardian thing?

Oh who was she kidding? Of course it wasn't Thor's. And the shadow she'd seen in the Canadian wilderness hadn't been an apparition either. It had been a goose. The same one she was looking at now.

As if sensing her gaze, the goose turned its head and focused its beady eyes on her for what seemed like forever. Then it turned back towards Clint, its beak opening wide as it prepared to bite him.

Natasha did the only thing she could think of: she brained the bird with the nearest book and it instantly disappeared, leaving an empty space and some downy grey feathers where it had been.

With a silent exhale, Natasha set the book down and quietly slid out of the room before anyone realized what had happened. Then she fled and took refuge in a small reading nook near the self-help books.

The irony was not lost on her.

Clint had a goose. An actual goose.

She'd known the bird in the woods hadn't been an illusion. But she'd convinced herself that it didn't matter, that even with a goose and a soulmate, she and Clint could continue as they were.

But she was an idiot.

A real, live soulmate - one who would be the love of Clint's life - changed everything.

----

"You will never believe what happened in Gramercy Park this afternoon," Tony announced as he strolled into the kitchen and started up the espresso machine.

Natasha looked up from the magazine she was flipping through at the spacious kitchen island and arched a brow at him. "A group of small school children was saved from imminent death at the hands of an out of control delivery truck by the mighty Iron Man?"

"Ha. Funny." Tony turned to shoot her a disapproving look before going back to fiddling with the machine. "Although that would make some great press. I should see if PR can set up some scenario which is dangerous but not life-threatening so I can swoop in and be a hero. But I digress. I ran into Clint."

She stopped flipping. Somehow, she didn't think what Tony was about to reveal was a benign little story about two buddies hanging out in the park. He was wearing that smug smirk that meant he was up to something. She steeled herself for whatever he was about to say while outwardly keeping her expression calm and even a bit bored.

"While somewhat unusual given the size of this city, it's not really that hard to believe two friends might bump into each other while out and about."

To punctuate her seemingly complete and utter disinterest, she picked up a delicate lady finger from the plate in front of her and nibbled at it. It tasted like ash in her mouth.

Tony finished steaming his milk then spun around to face her. He gestured towards her with his cup. "Exactly. That is exactly what I thought. Unusual, but not unbelievable. No, the unbelievable part was that he wasn't alone."

Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it, her heart screamed. She wasn't ready to hear about his soulmate. Not yet. Not ever, really, but in the past few days she had resigned herself to the inevitable. Still, she wasn't ready to hear it now, especially not from Tony.

But instead of voicing all that, what she actually said was a very bland, "Oh?"

"Nope. There was a big fat goose waddling behind him."

He watched her closely as he delivered that last bit and Natasha was barely able to keep her expression neutral.

"Almost herding him south towards the East Village or Little Italy," Tony continued. He squinted at her. "Hey, don't you live down there? That is, when you're not here, mooching off me and stealing my good tea and expensive cookies."

She rolled her eyes and ignored his pointed look, concentrating instead on calming her pounding heart. No way was she going to let Tony know how much his announcement had gotten to her. She gathered all of her bravado around her and picked up her mug.

"First of all, it's not mooching if you issued an open invitation. Second," she added, swallowing the last of the cookie down. "I do happen to have a place in lower Manhattan, along with about a million other people. It's not that uncommon of an area. And third, thanks for the tea and cookies. They really are delicious."

With that, she took one last sip from her mug and strolled from the kitchen.

----

It had been a week since Tony had dropped his bomb about the goose in Gramercy Park. A week in which Clint hadn't said a word to her about it, despite the multitude of opportunities he'd had.

It rankled and hurt at the same time. Why hadn't he said anything about his goose? Didn't he feel like he could share it with her?

And while Natasha certainly didn't want to hear about his soulmate, they were partners. Friends. Best friends. Didn't she deserve to hear from him directly about such a monumentally life changing thing?

That's why she was standing in front of his building now, trying to work up the courage to confront him about it.

And that rankled even more. She was a world class spy and professional assassin; she'd been in more dangerous and hair-raising situations than this far too many times to count. But this… this was proving nearly impossible for her to do.

She hated it. Hated everything about the whole situation.

Squaring her shoulders, she took a determined step towards the front door of the building when she heard a noise behind her.

She immediately whirled around, instantly on the defensive, only to find not a person but a….

Goose? Would she never be free of that thing?

She glared at the bird and it glared right back before spreading its wings wide and flapping at her. Not flapping at the door or flapping around in general, but at her specifically. The flapping was soon joined by a cacophony of angry honking that nearly drove Natasha mad.

Crouching, she pulled a small knife from her boot and threw it at the goose. The animal dissolved in a puff of dust and her knife clattered harmlessly to the pavement.

Natasha stared, wide-eyed, at the empty space where the goose had been, then looked up at Clint's building, the truth suddenly dawning.

The Red Room had lied. She did have a goose. And the one she'd just dispatched was her's.

She could barely breathe as the realization hit her.

She had a goose.

Her heart pounded and she felt a little dizzy.

The fact that Clint's goose and her goose had both arrived around the same time meant exactly two things: One, that Clint had feelings for her and had been avoiding those feelings. But two, and possibly even worse, it meant that it was time for her to finally pony up and admit her feelings for him.

Well, crap.

This whole goose mess had just gotten a whole lot messier.

----

The party hosted by the international financier who was their latest target was in full swing when Natasha's damned goose popped up again.

She tried to shoo it away, and it instantly snapped at her hand. Gritting her teeth, she smoothly repositioned herself to block Clint's view and nimbly herded the goose towards the huge, ostentatious fountain the host had installed in an alcove at the far end of the room.

"Hey, Nat? You may wanna move back into the main ballroom," Clint said over the comms. "My sight line to the fountain is shit."

She kept her voice calm and even a little flirtatious as she answered. "Sorry, no can do. The target wandered this way and you know how I can't resist a man in a tux with a vial full of poison tucked into his pocket."

Clint barked out a laugh, just like she'd hoped he would. "Copy. Just make sure if you need an assist that you move on back."

"Gotcha," she confirmed.

The goose honked loudly and she glared at it.

Damn this goose.

She wanted to strangle the darm thing.

Seriously, what was it thinking, popping up in the middle of a mission like this? She didn't have time to deal with its matchmaking right now.

She paused and gave the goose a considering look. Actually, strangulation wasn't such a bad idea.

The goose honked again, ruffling its feathers as it did so.

"Hey, Nat, it sounds a little noisy down there. What's going on?" Clint asked.

"Just some rowdy party goers," Natasha said, frantically trying to wave the goose away, to absolutely no avail. "Listen, I'm gonna turn off the comms for a sec, okay?"

"Do you think that's wise? Especially since I've lost all visual on you?" He didn't sound happy.

"I'll be fine," she said and immediately disconnected the device in her ear. She glared at the goose again. "Listen, I get it, I do. But it's not that simple. And until two days ago, I didn't even think I had a soulmate. So can you give me a break and let me finish this mission before you play matchmaker?"

The goose honked fiercely at her and stretched its neck out to snap at her wrist again.

"Guess not," she muttered, quickly turning her wrist and capturing the goose's long neck in her fist, twisting until she felt a satisfying snap. It dissolved into thin air and she breathed a sigh of relief.

There was a discreet cough from behind her.

"Excuse me. Was that a soulmate goose? And did you just kill it? Brava, my dear! Most don't have the bollocks to dispatch them like that."

Natasha spun away from the fountain to see a very tall, very British man standing before her. Her target. Oh, thank God. At least one thing was going right tonight.

She smiled seductively up at him and ran a fingertip down his chest. "Most aren't enjoying their carefree youth as much as I am."

He smiled back and she moved a little closer, running her other hand down his side and slipping it into his jacket pocket to palm the vial.

"Perhaps I can entice you into enjoying your evening with me?" the man asked, leaning down to whisper in her ear. "I have a private room upstairs that we might --"

He never got to finish the sentence. Sliding a hidden syringe from her bodice, Natasha stabbed the financier with it and pushed the plunger. He had enough time to shoot her a confused look before slumping unconsciously into her arms.

"What the hell happened down here?" Clint demanded skidding up to them as she staggered under the financier's weight. "I got worried when you didn't turn the comms back on."

"You really don't want to know," Natasha said, pushing the target's body onto the fountain's edge. She held out the vial of poison and smiled wearily. "But mission accomplished. Now help me make it look like he's dead drunk and not dead dead so we can get out of here and go home."

----

A few hours later, after they'd debriefed with Maria, showered, changed and shared a late take out dinner together on Clint's couch, he turned to her, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen between them.

"Listen, I didn't want to mention it earlier, but… well…"

Natasha sighed and tucked her feet up beneath her.

"The goose?" she asked. No point in putting off the inevitable. Not anymore. Tonight had already been awful. She couldn't imagine how bad it would get if they continued to dance around the elephant in the room. Goose. Whatever.

He refused to meet her eyes. "Yeah. About that. I'm really sorry my goose has been bugging you."

"Your goose? It's not --" She stopped short and stared at him. "Dammit, Barton, are you really that oblivious? It's a miracle both our geese haven't killed us."

His head snapped up. "Both?"

"Yes, you idiot," she said, affectionately cuffing him on the arm. "Both."

"But I thought…" He trailed off, his brow furrowing. "Your file said… I thought you didn't have one."

Natasha nodded and a lock of hair fell in her face. "Yeah. Neither did I, but it looks like the Red Room lied. Surprise."

He reached out and tenderly brushed her hair away, his fingers lingering along her cheek. The smallest hint of a smile played about his lips. "So you have a goose."

She nodded again and offered him a shy smile. "And so do you."

"Yeah," he breathed, his fingers sliding into her hair. His eyes crinkled up and her breath hitched the slightest bit at how happy he looked. All because of her. "You mind if I kiss you now?"

She couldn't have answered even if she tried. Luckily, Clint knew exactly how to read her and she didn't have to.

As their lips met, two grey geese nestled quietly together in the corner before slowly fading away.

THE END



End Note: The Angry Goose of Destiny™ is a thing. A very good thing. Might I suggest the following two stories?

Shooting the Goose (Steve/Maria) by scribblemyname
The Unlonely Goatherd (Bucky/Shuri) by tielan