They expect her to wear black.

She's Black Widow, after all; they say her epitaph and think assassin, and all assassins must obviously wear black. And it's true, she's killed while wearing black. She's killed while wearing slinky black cocktail dresses and she's killed while wearing plain black suits and, once, she killed while wearing black at a funeral.

Mostly, she wears black because that's the office-wear code. Hell if she knows why, it's not like turning up to work is like going to a funeral (although sometimes she does have to work at funerals, but that's a separate issue).

(She wonders, though, when they're going to notice that her catsuits are never actually black. They are blue, they are grey, they are colours that actually blur into shadow.

Which black does not.)

She's a spy before she's a secret agent, and right now she's a secret agent before she's an assassin. But before all of these she is Natasha, and Natasha is not someone who walks through life wearing the black of death, grief, and nine-to-five. She wears purple heels to the office, she wears turquoise blouses under her fitted jacket (although not at once, not as Natasha); she paints red over her lips not because she intends to seduce, but because she's announcing that she's alive.

Clothes are performative; the Red Room taught her that, and she has always been a good student. She separates her personal clothes from the garments that help create her personae, but both wardrobes are created with the same lessons in mind. Her teachers said, clothes are both reflections and projections. Clothes are made up of codes; even the ones chosen purely for comfort, for that in itself is a message. Clothes are a statement, and frankly wearing all black clothing can code one as a waiter or a sales assistant (which admittedly can be useful).

Into her wardrobe go colourful, artistic shoes, and above them hang a-line skirts and dresses made of both solid colours and solid geometric patterns. She has blouses, cardigans, and jackets arranged like an artist's row of paints, and there is black, of course. Black shoes, black pants, black skirts, black jackets, black blouses; she doesn't avoid the colour, she just prefers to counter it with the rest of the rainbow.

She wears pink to her wedding. It's a childish colour, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to be childish and marry your best friend while giggling, even if Elvis is in attendance. It's a bold colour, because no one who's uncomfortable in their own skin would wear it, and it's such a glorious shade of fuck-off pink that she wears her wedding dress to Monaco for the Stark job.

She wears it because she's in a bad mood at having to be PA to a narcissistic womaniser who undresses her with his eyes and doesn't recognise the danger when Romanoff reacts instead of Rushman. She wears it because she was woken up at two in the morning with a promotion, and had to leave Clint alone in her bed when he wasn't supposed to be there to begin with. She wears the dress as a lucky charm because a little luck would be nice; she wears it because only a woman who knows what she wants would wear that shade, and she needs to borrow that certainty for a while. She wears it as an act of rebellion against all of the neutral-toned bullshit she's had to put up with for months, and she's fairly certain that Stark just sees it as an attempt to get his attention.

She's a fan of pink, in general. She's a fan of red and orange, and she's very much a fan of yellow. Yellow is the colour of the sundress she wears after Stark and Banner are other peoples' problems. She has bruises on her arms from rubble, but she lets her hair dry as it pleases, pulls on a dress the colour of daffodils at full bloom, and threads her fingers with Clint’s as they stroll through the San Diego Zoo as though they don't have a care in the world.

She wears yellow after defeating the Chitauri, too. Yellow and brown and orange with her blue jeans. The jeans are (casual, off-duty, no need to impress) jeans, but her yellow jacket says something, too. It's a cheerful colour, marigolds and sunbursts after a storm. It's subtler than the red she was tempted to wear, because a statement of I am alive written in the hue of blood might have been too much of a dare.

Colours, after all, are codes that a prince like Loki would be able to read.

She escapes to New Zealand with Clint, and she buys an off-season dress that is all the shades of the rainbow. It's a pretty thing, long with an uneven, layered hem that flutters against her legs; it's colourful and sleeveless and a bit too summer for the autumn beach where they are recovering. Her solution is to pull on her red knee-high boots and steal Clint's hoodie (purple, faded with age and wear), and then challenge him to race to keep warm.

In a few weeks, they'll go back and she will pull on the black uniform of an office-worker, and she'll break out her burgundy platforms and the matching blouse. There will be funerals, and out of respect for the dead she will wear the blacks, navys, and mauves.

But for now she's running in a rainbow dress, and her heart is beating.

Edited 2012-08-03 05:58 am (UTC)

This is perfect and heartbreaking and breathtaking in turns and I love every bit of it. Every single bit. I love all the colors and all the Natasha and how she's totally and completely free in all her bright colors and how Clint is just another part of that, another part of the colors in her life, not overwhelming her and part of her wardrobe and she wears his hoodie with the dress that is completely her and omg I DON'T EVEN THINK I'M MAKING SENSE ANYMORE BUT I LOVE THIS A LOT OKAY IF I COULD ART I WOULD MAKE YOU MILLIONS OF DRAWINGS MILLIONS OF NATASHA IN ALL HER COLORS asfdhlkhasd

In sum:


This is lovely, thank you.

Oh, thank you for such an amazing prompt! It's been bouncing around my skull since I read, I'm just happy to have done it justice (and the source poem, too, is just yes; I had it up in another window and would go and reread it as I was writing this).

I have so many Natasha-and-colours-and-clothing feels now (and most of the clothes I've mentioned in fic actually exist, including her fabulous burgundy shoes - they are Fluevogs, for the record - and her rainbow dress) and really, thank you for letting me write this and get a lot of them down into fic-form. And I'm really, really glad that Clint in this came across as...part of her, but not, but never overwhelming her. I was a bit worried he was in it a bit too much for something that was about Natasha, so, :D am really glad that worked.

AND YOU ARE MAKING PERFECT SENSE, I PROMISE :DDDD

My utter pleasure, and I'm so glad you like it ♥

The poem is one of my favorite war poems for sure and possibly one of my all-time favorite poems and I'm glad someone else likes it too!

I would love to pick your brain over all those Natasha-and-colors feels sometime! I don't know how to fanart but this fic really makes me want to learn, just so I can draw Natasha in all those colors. If I come back here in five years with pictures, I'm sorry. <3!

I adore it.

And I'd absolutely love to babble about nat and colours and clothes sometime! (sadly not right now, as I've got RSI flaring up in my wrist, and fics to write), but. Soooo many thoughts and feelings.

And :DDDDD if you come back in five years with pictures, don't even think about apologizing.

She wears pink to her wedding. It's a childish colour, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to be childish and marry your best friend while giggling, even if Elvis is in attendance. It's a bold colour, because no one who's uncomfortable in their own skin would wear it, and it's such a glorious shade of fuck-off pink that she wears her wedding dress to Monaco for the Stark job.

**flails all the happy flails**

Loved this fic. Love all the commentary and the thought behind it. Perfect. :)

*BEAMS* Thank you!

YES! This! I just want to tackle hug you. Love how you explore Natasha here. One of my favourite fics from the promptathon :)

Eeeeee, thank you so much!

I don't get clothes and colours, but I get this! So much beautiful thought behind all the choices, and you explained it so clearly. Such a colourful fic :D

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, that makes me so happy. I'm not a fashion-person, but I have feelings about colours and clothing styles, and Natasha would be so involved in her personae and assessing what messages she sends (Natalie Rushman's clothes are not always Natasha Romanoff, for example). And part of her reclaiming, as it were, is using this for herself, not just her work At least, in my head it is.

:D! Thank you so much.