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I'll do Trick 5 and Treat 4!

A combination trick and treat - prompts "haunted" and "crunchy leaves"

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“For something to be called a ‘Boneyard’, shouldn’t it have at least some skeletons in it?”

Clint looks over the scrapyard with a critical eye. There are vehicles as far as the eye can see, some all but submerged in tall weeds and shrubbery that grows both around and through them. The one closest to them has a bird’s nest on the steering wheel, covered with frost that sparkles in the light of the full moon like a thousand tiny diamonds.

“I mean, these cars are definitely dead, but where are the bones?”

Natasha sighs. They’ve been working together for six months now, but her partner’s sense of humour (or whatever you might call it) is still a mystery to her.

“You don’t strike me as the literal type. Why now, suddenly?”

Clint shrugs.

“It’s Hallowe’en,” he says with a grin. “Skeletons are pretty mandatory.”

“Well,” Natasha replies, not trying to conceal her exasperation, “since we’re supposed to spend the night here you may get lucky yet!”

The night air is chilly; each word they speak forms a brief, misty cloud. The sound of crunching leaves, made more brittle by the frost, accompanies each step they take like some kind of autumnal metronome as they pass one hulking, rusting shape after the other. Moonlight glints across panes of glass rendered blind by years of exposure to the elements; many are cracked or shot through with hairline fractures.

Several of those cracks have central impact points. Bullet holes? No way to tell whether they were the reason the vehicles in question ended up here or were inflicted after they’d been dumped, possibly by local teenagers taking pot shots. The overall effect is of a place of casual violence – what once may have been someone’s pride and joy, brought down by indifference and worse.

“You sure this is an actual SHIELD mission and not one of Sitwell’s idiotic pranks?” Clint wants to know. He gestures vaguely at an old DeSoto, whose moldy upholstery is emitting a phosphorescent glow. “I mean, ‘investigate potential paranormal activity at the Boneyard’ doesn’t exactly sound like a matter of national security…”

His soliloquy is interrupted by a long, inhuman howl.

“What the fuck was that?”

Natasha frowns and draws her Glock.

“Do they have coyotes here?”

“No idea.” Clint nocks an arrow and backs up towards a vintage Ford, whose passenger door is missing. “But it’s just rural enough out here that…”

Again, he finds himself cut off before the words can leave his mouth – this time by the sound of a thousand leathery wings, punctuated by barely audible squeaks. A stream of bats leaves the Ford like a trail of dark smoke, heading into the night to feast on whatever bugs remain this late into the year.

“Jesus Murphy,” he mutters. “Can this place get any more cliché? What’s next, owls? A herd of black cats? Flying fucking pumpkins?”

Natasha waves him off with a sharp flick of her Glock-heavy hand. Over by the edge of the woods, right where a pair of ancient Dodge vans are drowning in the man-high weeds, a mist is starting to rise. Her pre-mission briefings (which, unlike Clint, she had reviewed in some detail) had set nothing about a body of water on the site. So where is the mist coming from?

And why is it taking the shape of a person?

She points to the apparition, unable for some reason to articulate any of the multiple thoughts suddenly crowding her mind.

Clint, as usual, has no such issues.

“What the fuck?” he says and lets fly the arrow still poised on his bow.

Before Natasha can question the logic of firing at a patch of damp air, the arrow penetrates the mist and temporarily leaves a dark hole, clearly defined by a swirling eddy on the outer edges. Just as quickly it closes up again and what happens next is not something Natasha is very proud of: The apparition heads their way at a stately pace, and she lets out an involuntary yelp.

Clint curses again and suddenly they find themselves side by side, arms touching. The warm solidity of his body next to hers is oddly reassuring; despite the fact that her personal space is normally a mile around, she makes no move to distance herself from him.

The mist continues to move towards them at a steady pace.

“I am not getting in that car,” Clint says, even though she hasn’t asked. “I draw the line at batshit.”

Standing their ground seems to be the best option and so Natasha braces herself for … what? Impact?

The mist is upon them now and she can feel the prickles of a thousand beads of frost on her skin, and a sudden chill so deep she can feel it in her bones. The moment stretches to what seems like an eternity and she finds herself unable to breathe. She can hear her blood first drumming in her ears, then starting to ring with everything from gunshots to screams to strangled gurgling – every way in which she has seen life departing a body, until…nothing remains.

Nothing but death. So much death.

There is no malevolence in the feeling the frost settles on her shoulders and in her mind, just a sad and empty reckoning that leaves her hollowed out and empty - like those rusted old shells strewn about in the field around them.

Instinctively she steps even closer to Clint, not surprised to find him meeting her halfway as he does the same. His arm closes around her shoulder and he pulls her yet tighter; she buries her head against his chest and closes her eyes. A second, a minute, an eternity later, the chill leaves her and she hears him in turn take a gulping breath.

Neither of them makes a move to end their embrace.

Clint is the first to find his voice - not, as she now knows, because he is less affected by what just happened, but because words are to him what silence is to her.

“Well, that was pretty creepy,” he scratches out. “If this was a movie, we’d be going to hide in the shed with the chainsaws now, but I’d suggest that we go find our car - the one that works - and get the fuck outta here.”

Natasha nods.

“And if Sitwell says something about abandoning the mission, we’ll tie him up and shove him in the trunk of that white Cadillac over there,” she says. “The tail fins are a good match for his bowtie.”

They’re mostly silent on their way back to the nearest motel, even Clint. By tacit agreement, they don’t argue about who gets to spend the night in the single bed; in fact, they won’t argue about that ever again. Emptiness, it turns out, is a space to be filled.

And when a small black cat shows up a couple of days later on Natasha’s little balcony, its eyes silent pools of green, she opens the window and lets it in.



Edited 2022-11-01 03:32 am (UTC)

I'll do Trick 8 & Treat 9.

Trick #8 - Strawman
Treat #9 - Blended Magic

I'll do Trick 3

I love your icon!!!

thanks :D

Natasha closed the door behind her just as Liho stepped out from the shadows, rubbed against her ankles, and let out a clearly dissatisfied yowl. She crouched down and managed to get a few scritchies in before the cat took off for parts unknown. Shrugging off her jacket, she hung it on the hook by the door and toed off her shoes. Something was up. It was too quiet in the apartment.

When she'd left that morning, Clint had been in bed, huddled under the covers; Lucky curled up beside him. James had already finished his morning workout and was headed into the shower just as she was stepping out for a quick errand. Unless Clint was still in bed, it shouldn't have been this quiet with the two of them home.

In the living room, she found James lying on the sofa, book in hand, and Alpine a fluffy white puffball on his chest. He was obviously only pretending to read. His attention was focused on the floor where Clint sat with his hands cuffed behind his back. Natasha shook her head. "Did you boys get bored and start without me?"

"I've almost got it," Clint muttered.

James looked up, his lips twitching in that barely perceptible way of his that told her that he was deeply amused but didn't want anyone to know it.

"How long has this been going on?" She asked.

"Twenty-one minutes and forty-two seconds," Bucky said without glancing at a clock.

Clint stood up in one smooth movement, the cuffs dangling in his hand. "Ta-da."

"Impressive." And dramatic. Natasha was almost positive he'd had them unlocked before she'd even stepped into their apartment. She pulled him close and kissed him.

"Bucky bet me I couldn't get out of these new handcuffs he picked up," Clint said.

James put his book down, moved Alpine to the arm of the sofa, and stood. "Should we order food now, or..."

Natasha cupped James's cheek with her hand and brushed her lips against his. "I think you two should meet me in the bedroom, while I slide into something more comfortable." She let her fingers trail along his skin as moved stepped back. "Oh, and bring the cuffs."

YES PLEASE! *g*

:D

Nice! Mmm, Clint trying to be good and determind to crack the puzzle while James watches... Sure, Clint, it's all just about a bet lol.

Trick #6

Treat #2

(I have now looked at the prompt and don't know what a conker is. Conked in the head doesn't seem like a treat???)
((and now I've looked it up and wow, this is gonna be weird. hehehe))

Edited 2022-10-02 04:55 pm (UTC)

Standing by to find out if this is gonna be conkers the game, conckers the not edible edition, or something else :D

(Thanks, Caiti, for the inspiration :))

"Explain how this works again? Banner asked, looking skeptically at the items Tony had assembled on the table in front of him.

"You thread the string through the chestnuts - like this - and then -" Tony stopped and looked around at the group around him. "None of you ever played conkers before? Really?

Steve shrugged. "Not a lot of chestnut trees in 1930s Brooklyn."

"Same," Bucky said with a slight tip of his chin.

"Asgard."

"Russian spy program."

"You do know I'm from the south, right?" Sam said with a raised eyebrow. "Plenty of crawfish and Spanish moss, but not a lot of chestnuts."

"So none of you know how to play?" Tony asked again in frustration.

"I do," Clint said, straightening up from where he'd been slouched against the wall. He picked up a nut and tossed it up in the air a few times, testing its weight. "But you're not gonna like how I play."

"Why?"

Clint tossed the chestnut up in the air one more time then flicked it at Tony's playing piece, which shattered into half a dozen pieces on contact. "Because I never miss."

Oh, I like this! Would love to see Clint destroying everyone at conkers, ha.

I know, right???

♥

thanks!

poor Tony... :D

I feel bad no one knew his game, I feel less bad about Clint beating him ;)

lol yes, clint would be the best at conkers since he never misses <3

Exactly! HAHA! :)

Trick 7

Treat 4

I'll do Trick #2

Summary: They danced with the the specter of death long before they greeted it. Fifteen moments in Natasha's life (and the lives of those she loves) shared with Death.

Warnings: language, canonical character death, descriptions of death

A03 link

Okay, let's see if I can do one... Trick 5

Title: Haunted
Rating/Warnings: Teen & Up; off-screen muder, some murder may be open to interpretation
Pairings/Characters: Gen; Natasha, Yelena, Clint, Barney
Word Count: 1600]
Summary: “Don’t scream,” Natasha says, holding onto Yelena’s shoulders with both hands and leaning down to look her in the eyes.

Here on AO3