A Gift From: firlalaith
Title: A Lunch Date with the Woman Formerly Known as Natasha Romanoff
A Gift For: sgteam14283
Rating: G
Warnings/Choose Not To Warn: Not Age of Ultron Compliant, Not Endgame Compliant, References to Past Relationships, Mentions of Cheating, Fluff
Summary/Prompt Used: Natasha lends a hand while Clint is in New York to deal with the Track Suit Mafia and helps mentor Kate” and "Having been in your position, my first reaction is to tell you everything gets better. However, I may or may not have keyed someone’s car while I was in this position."


A Lunch Date with the Woman Formerly Known as Natasha Romanoff

Natasha had come to New York to spend Christmas with Clint, not babysit a young woman who’d stumbled into being a target for the Track Suit Mafia.
But here she was, infiltrating a security firm solely to keep an eye on Clint’s latest stray. She was supposed to be retired, presumed dead by the rest of the world. Not working as a temporary receptionist under an alias for Bishop Security.
She’d only been there an hour and she was already considering just getting up and walking out, never to return to this place. The people Bishop employed were borderline terrible at their jobs for the most part, especially when it came to vetting their own people. They should have flagged that Nichelle Richardson did not exist—Natasha hadn’t had enough time yet to cultivate any of her new post-retirement aliases.
By the time lunchtime rolled around, she couldn’t resist being in a bit of a rush to leave. It turned out to be a useful move at least, as apparently Kate was trying to sneak out of the building in the lunch rush.
Natasha effortlessly caught up to her, earning a brief surprised look from the younger woman.
“Aren’t you…?” Kate began to ask, then trailed off as the thought occurred to her that maybe she shouldn’t say the name she’d been about to say in public.
Natasha idly wondered which of her names it would have been, Natasha or Black Widow.
“Nichelle Richardson, yes,” the former assassin replied, smoothly supplying the young woman with her alias. “Come with me, I know a nice café near here where we can talk.”

~*~

As soon as the pair was seated at a table in the café with their food, Kate immediately peppered Natasha with questions, one after the other.
“Does Clint know you’re alive? Your widow bites are so cool, can I try them? Does Clint have a trick arrow that works like your bites? What’s it like to be an Avenger? Why are you following me?”
Natasha chuckled. Clint hadn’t told her that Kate was a fan of his.
“Yes. Thank you. No, you won’t be able to use them without shocking yourself. Yes, he does. Exciting and terrifying all at once when the world is falling apart but extremely dull and tedious the rest of the time. Clint asked me to keep an eye on you,” Natasha replied.
“Why fake your death? Have you ever let Clint use them? How much do you know about what’s going on?” Kate kept up her interrogation of Natasha, though she had fewer questions this round.
Natasha did not mind, Kate was the most pleasant interrogator she had ever had.
“It was the easiest way to retire and not have any past enemies come after me. Yes, he insisted on learning how to use them. I know everything Clint was willing to tell me, which is just about everything he knows about what’s going on,” the former assassin answered, “But he seems to have deliberately omit some minor details.”
“Minor details?” Kate questioned.
“Like the fact that I presume you were inspired to even take up archery in the first place because of him.”
“I definitely did tell him about him being such an inspiration to me. But how did you figure that out for yourself?”
“Your first question was to ask if Clint knew I was alive. That alone indicated to me that you already care about him in a way that indicated you already had some kind of feelings about him before he got involved in your mess. Your body language is also very easy to read, you’re like an open book.”
“Can you teach me how to read people?” Kate immediately asked.
“I can try. You won’t be as good as I am, that comes after years of practice, but you might at least pick it up enough to know if someone has an obvious tell.”
“Does Clint have a tell?”
“Yes, but I’m not telling you what it is,” Natasha replied with a smile. “Let’s start with something simple. See the couple two tables away behind me? The women in blue and black sweaters?”
“Yes.” Kate didn’t question how Natasha knew about the couple who’d sat down after them or what they were wearing. She was the Black Widow after all.
“Can you tell what they are talking about?”
“No, they’re too far away to eavesdrop on and I can’t read lips.”
“The woman in black is about to break up with the woman in blue, they’ve been arguing the entire time they’ve been here, if you look closely at how stiff and stilted their shoulders are, especially the woman in black,” Natasha said, double checking the reflection she was watching as she spoke.
True to Natasha’s prediction, the woman in black stood up abruptly, so abruptly she knocked over her chair. Stiff with anger and hurt, she yelled something at the other woman and stormed out of the café.
Kate was quick to turn her focus back to Natasha after the dramatic display of emotion.
“So it’s just a matter of paying closer attention to body language than normal?” she asked.
“Basically, yes. Stronger emotions are easier to see and harder to hide.”
“I see what you mean about it taking years of practice to get as good as you,” Kate realized aloud. “It’s like archery—the basics are simple, easy to pick up, but to really good at it, like Olympic level good, takes years of dedicated practice.”
“Exactly,” Natasha nodded. “And most people don’t go beyond the basics.”
“I wish I knew this a few months ago when my boyfriend broke up with me,” Kate remarked. “Maybe I could have avoided how messy it was if I had known he wasn’t over his ex.”
“Having been in your position, my first reaction is to tell you everything gets better. However, I may or may not have keyed someone’s car while I was in this position."
Kate giggled.
“You? Keyed someone’s car?”
“Yeah, not one of my best moments,” Natasha admitted. “But she deserved it.”
“That just makes it even more interesting, come on, Na-Nichelle, spill,” Kate encouraged her.
Natasha felt in a mood to share with Kate.
“This happened a few months after Clint and I met,” she said, “Clint was in a relationship with another agent. I discovered that she was cheating on him with her handler.”
“So you keyed Clint’s girlfriend’s car?” Kate guessed.
“Not yet. I confronted her about the cheating first. When she refused to break it off with either Clint or her handler, then I keyed her car.”
“What happened then?” Kate was on the edge of her seat with anticipation.
“Clint found out I’d keyed Agent Morse’s car and was quite upset with me,” Natasha replied. “In his defense, he hadn’t found out about Morse cheating on him yet.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No, before I could, our handler did. He’d figured it out on his own that something more was going on between Morse and her handler. Clint immediately realized that I’d keyed his now ex girlfriend’s car because I’d figured that out too.”
“How was he the last to realize that? Wasn’t he a top Shield agent back in the day too?”
“He was, but this happened when we were all much younger. But even back then he was pretty talented, I’m sure he saw how close Morse and Winchester were at the time and was just in denial about it.”
Kate’s phone buzzed.
“Oh, we probably should be getting back,” she said, glancing at it.
“Yeah, suppose we should,” Natasha nodded. “This was surprisingly nice though, perhaps after your mess is sorted, we can have another lunch together.”
“Oh I don’t think—“ Kate began with a frown.
“Don’t let Clint fool you, you are exactly what he needs in a partner now that I’ve retired,” Natasha said firmly.
Kate beamed at her.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Natasha replied. “Now let’s go before we’re late getting back from lunch.”