OK, I'll start things off then. I won't have time to do a ficlet tonight but hope to do one over the weekend. So I'll default to one rec and one self-rec, both entirely consistent with my head canon that Clint & Natasha, thanks to their assassin-y ways, met loooong before they became partners at SHIELD via that botched kill order/different call thing.

Not mine:
Come for the Espionage, Stay for the Sex by andacus (who used to be a member of this bar - wonder what happened to her?? I love her stuff. Go check it out!!)

Mine:
Red Wedding

Red Wedding is one of my faves <3

I'm on a train again so thank you for the (re)reading recs :)

I've had this São Paulo snippet floating around that I've never quite figured out how to finish, but I think it fits the bill here, so:

fire in my bones (pretty PG)

“Some fire, huh?” Clint asks, one foot propped up against the surveillance van’s black paneled doors. Above them, flames claw at the pinprick stars. “Not that I’m a pyro or anything, but man, don’t you ever just get the urge, seeing something like that?”

Natasha watches the line of Clint’s throat as he gulps from a water bottle and thinks, not for the first time and probably not for the last, that he is a fucking idiot. “You’re a moron, Barton,” she says. “Fires never end well.”

Take this mission, for example, where they’ve been flushed out of a Naples warehouse by some bottom-tier mafia lackey’s shitty idea of an extraction plan. Now the mafioso they’re here for has escaped and Coulson is scrambling to locate all the SHIELD teams on the assignment. The beautiful glow of the blaze doesn’t do much to mitigate the havoc it has wreaked.

“Oh, c’mon.” Clint nudges an elbow into her side. “Tell me you haven’t ever set something on fire.”

Natasha blinks and the inferno in front of her is replaced by one from her memories. This is São Paulo, and this is four years ago, and this is the fire she couldn’t control. She’d poured her accelerant across the research lab, careful to drench the lab assistants, careful to keep herself dry. She’d been careful, careful, careful, but that hadn’t stopped the fire from spreading. Caution, Natalia, patience, but the flames leapt from the research wing to the hospital proper, engulfed the ER and the surgery unit and--and--

“We can’t find STRIKE Beta,” Melinda May reports to Coulson in the present, tension pulling her voice urgent and tight. “They were last seen entering the warehouse via the south corridor, but there’s no response. I think we may need to call it--”

“I’ll find them,” Natasha volunteers, pushing away from the van and ignoring Clint’s sputters of protest. “Alone. I don’t need Barton.”

“I’ll never get Fury to sign off on this,” Coulson argues. “It’s far too risky.”

Natasha looks at the climbing flames. In São Paulo, she watched a hospital burn, heard the shrieking screams of dying children, and did nothing. In São Paulo, her handler clamped an approving hand on her shoulder and commended her ruthlessness, her dedication. In São Paulo, she held the matches in her shaking hands and formed her own rational thought for the first time in a decade: They are innocent. I should be saving them.

She didn’t save those innocents, but she can save these. “Just tell Fury you couldn’t stop me.” In the time it takes for Coulson to form an objection and Clint to grab uselessly at her arm, Natasha ducks, snatches up Clint’s discarded infrared goggles, and zips around the warehouse corner. The south corridor is farthest from the growing conflagration, so if she’s quick, they’ll be out before it all goes to hell.

This is absolute perfection as a snippet. Don't add another word. I love it!!

Brilliant! Love that we get off the cuff insensitive/unintentional atagonistic Clint in the face of the reveal of Natasha backstory. Somehow makes it more real and heightens the yowch factor.

I feel that when they're both with SHIELD, HR eventually comes up with a 'Strike Team Delta' form that includes boxes like 'Were arrows used? Y/N'
'If checked 'Yes' list how many (aprox). If checked 'No' skip to question 24.

and
'Describe level of destruction'

(these are always Clint questions)

Ha, excellent Clint questions :D They need to know arrows so they can restock *nods*. (Although considering how accurate Clint is and that we've seen him reuse arrows/collect arrows to reuse of there's a time he uses A LOT the supply team must be like, "Shit.")

I feel like the R&D department has their own 'Clint Barton' area where they just try and come up with the most ridiculous things to put into arrows. But jokes on them, Clint likes most of the gags and is more than willing to field test them.

(the paperwork's a nightmare though)

Well, I took that as a prompt... *coughs* It went a bit sideways though ...



Keeping Tabs


“I’m sorry, Barton. You what?”

Clint shrugs. He considers himself to be a pretty smart guy, several IQ points beyond the seven or so grades he managed to scrape together during his train wreck of a childhood, but there is one thing he’ll never understand: Bureaucracy. That thing where the untalented demand the unspecified from the unwilling to achieve the unnecessary.

“I flatly refuse,” he says, politely but firmly, “to tick off these boxes, Commander Hill. The only thing I’m prepared to tick off is the establishment.”

“And you are doing a glorious job with that, Hawkeye. In fact, you’re over-achieving, as usual.”

Despite the snappy comeback Hill does not look amused. She puts on her best corporate face and declaims, “The World Security Council has determined that SHIELD needs to operate on the principles of results-based management, if we want to keep our budget at the same level as last fiscal year. And that means we need metrics by which to determine the effectiveness of our work. Including your work, Agent Barton.”

“In other words, you need me to start a body count?”

Hill’s lips purse in distaste; her eyes shift slightly to the side and focus on Clint’s Archers do it with a Recurve mug. She exhales slowly, almost as if she were counting to ten.

“That’s a crude way of putting it, but, yes. I mean, no. Not … in so many words.”

Of course not. The press would have a field day if that showed up in a Freedom of Information release: Killed so far this fiscal year? 29. Collateral damage? Zero. Minion count: 57, not including the ones …

Clint pulls his legs off his desk, reaches for the top form on his little stack, folds it into a miniature Quinjet and launches it in Hill’s direction.

“Please explain to me then what the hell Records does want, with boxes like To what extent did the Outcome meet expectations? Or Was the Outcome consistent with relevant Planning Commitments? Please check off the relevant Commitment. Hell, least they can do is send me this crap electronically, so I can attach the virus Grigoriy Kuznetsov was ready to unleash when he accidentally interfaced with one of my arrows.”

Hill perks up.

“You got Kuznetsov? I thought Fury sent you after Ryabkin.”

Clint shrugs.

“Well, yeah. They had a sale on. Two for the price of one, if you pick from the same bin.”

Hill does the okay, then thing with her mouth, and gingerly picks the little plane out from where it has lodged in the loose part of her SHIELD badge.

“Fine, let me show you. It’s not as hard as it looks the first time.”

She flattens the paper out on the table and grabs the pen Clint would have sent after the plane but didn’t, because it looks suspiciously like the curare-tipped one he’s supposed to take on his next mission.

“See here?” Hill says, pointing. ”Outcome. Three boxes: ‘Did not meet expectations,’ ‘Expectations met,’ ‘Succeeded,’ and, ‘Surpassed.’ All you have to do is pick the one you think applies. And yes, this is where you get to brag. Bureaucracy is all about those little dopamine hits.”

She ticks ‘succeeded’ and moves to the next column before Clint can protest. Apparently the pen isn’t the poisoned one, phew. ‘Coz which box would you tick for ‘accidentally offed the boss’?

Alas, said boss is still very much in the game.

“Multiplier effect – yes or no?”

Hill looks at him expectantly, like she wants Clint to actually participate in this farce.

“What the hell does that even mean?” he complains. “Whether I knocked off more than one? I thought we’d already settled that under Outcome.”

Hill steadies her breath.

“No, this is about impact beyond the actual …” she hesitates, coughs delicately, and continues, “…mission.”

“I see.”

Clint does, he actually does. Maybe this isn’t a bad way to let those ass hats on the Council see that their pet asset is more than just a hit man with a pension plan? That he can see the big picture, and send that up in smoke, too?

“The place kind of blew up after I left. Might have been the exploding arrow. Anyway, bye-bye, troll farm. For the next couple of months or so, anyway.”

Hill frowns.

“So that’s why the comment section in the Washington Post has gotten so civilized all of a sudden.”

She nods decisively and ticks off the ‘yes’ box, then goes back to the Outcome section, scratches out ‘succeeded’ and ticks ‘surpassed’. Credit where credit is due, apparently. Clint finds himself going from pissed off to mildly smug, but suppresses the feeling as quickly as it arises.

“So we can count minions under Outcome? I thought that was just for principals.”

Hill shakes her head.

“The term of art is co-conspirators, Barton. And yes, they do count if the end result is to neutralize an entire operation, like you apparently did.”

She pauses the pen over the paper for a second, to make sure he’s still with her. Clint does his best to feign engagement.

“Organizational Commitments?” Hill says, tapping the paper with the pen. It spritzes a little – green, not blue now, and Clint scrambles to snatch it from her fingers. FitzSimmons are into dual use gadgets now, it appears. Who knew?

“Here, let me give you another one,” he says, hoping his sudden solicitousness won’t raise suspicion. “This one leaks. Mustn’t give Records a spoiled form now, eh?”

He carefully dabs at the green splotch with a balled-up Kleenex, careful to avoid touching the damp spot when he throws it in the bin, and slides the form back over to Hill, who has been watching him with arched eyebrows. She clears her throat.

“Like I said, Organizational Commitments. That’s an easy one – ‘planetary security’. Should always be your go-to, since you’re not into R&D or, heaven forbid, corporate governance.”

The tick mark is pure blue this time, phew. The hand with the pen glides over to the next section and hovers there. Hill is bound to make him part of this, isn’t she?

“And Divisional Planning Commitment? I hate to say it, but just take your pick here, whatever sounds plausible. I’d go for Reduce Cyber Threat on this one.”

He nods in agreement, as if he actually cares, and she hands him the paper with a triumphant flourish. Mission accomplished – expectations met but not surpassed.

“Not rocket science, Barton. Four boxes to tick. Easy-peasy, especially for a guy who never misses.”

Clint looks at the stack of forms remaining on his desk with a baleful eye.

“Fine,” he says. “You made your point, Hill. Just one more thing, then. How do I score the Black Widow op?”

Bwahaha :D I love when you gleefully mock beaucracy with Avengers. Thank you for this!

How do I score the Black Widow op? I'm remembering that bit near the beginning of Star Trek into Darkness where Kirk and Spock submit very different reports following the volcano incident and... Maria submits the form. Just in case. Just to make sure there aren't any...isuess. But then Natasha finds out about the form and she submits one and it's... kinda different. Meanwhile Clibt is submitting one every year, because, damn, that multiplier effect keeps on growing and, well, he likes to remind SHIELD just how good Nat is and how lucky they are to have her because her reviews have this tenancy towards suspiciom rather than praise. And besides, what else is he supposed to get her for their Glad We Didn't Kill Each Other (Yet) Anniversary?

Edited 2019-01-28 12:32 am (UTC)

this is the best! :D

Aggie2011 over on ff.net has this really well written Clint & Natasha & Phil (no slash) series about their relationship as operative(s)/handler. It starts with Clint and how he used a bow & arrow when he "freelanced" so that's how SHIELD tracked him (and it was Phil who recruited him).

I like the idea that when Clint was (possibly) Ronin the first time around he still kept with his signature weapon that became his trademark. (maybe even a selling point when he was a hit man "They'll never believe someone was killed with a bow and arrow!")

I feel maybe Master Assassins maybe have had a conversation along these lines at some point about various political or bad guy figures:

"You can't hire yourself, Clint, that's really not how this works."

And

"Clint, we're broke. You can't afford to hire yourself."

And

"Clint, you're not Robin Hood, damn it."

Edited 2019-01-27 10:25 pm (UTC)

I have the feeling that Clint would not be adverse to the occasional spot of pro bono assassinating.

"Have you looked at this turd? And he's running for President? That guy is so mobbed up, it ain't funny. Let's save the taxpayers a bazilion bucks in special counsel investigations NOW, and ..."

"No, Clint. This is a democracy. If the people want to elect a pig-faced, corrupt and incompetent buffoon, then that is their prerogative. Now PUT THAT BOW DOWN."

Edited 2019-01-28 10:48 pm (UTC)

And at some point someone else in SHIELD overhears one of these conversations - I'm thinking in Natasha's fairly early days at SHIELD - and is somewhat confused to hear the Black Widow telling Clint not to kill someone instead of the other way around.