Content Warning: Part ‘FOUR’ is the whump scene, with injury and non-specific talk of assisted dying.

Two cakes for this prompt 😊


The Privilege is Mine

ONE

The Black Widow looks him up and down.

Clint shifts his weight, feeling the mat give a little beneath the soles of his bare feet. He already knows he’s not as good at hand-to-hand as his new partner, but this spar isn’t about winning. Like all of their training this week, it’s about testing each other out and starting to learn how they can best work together.

“Bring it.” He crooks a finger at her and grins, ignoring the way it makes his split lip sting.

Natasha considers him for a moment longer. Then she… changes. She doesn’t move, but it’s like whoever she was before has left the room and a whole other person is now standing in front of him. Her posture, facial expression, body language; everything about her is telling him that this is someone else and, even though Clint hasn’t looked away and knows it’s still Natasha, his brain is still tripping over itself.

“Well that’s a mindfuck,” he says, admiring.

It’s one thing to have heard that this is something Widows can do and another thing entirely to experience it in person.

“Thanks,” Natasha tells him, with a cute little smile.

She ducks her head, then glances at him again from under her lashes and flashes him another smile when their eyes meet.

Clint knows that she isn’t interested in him - her outright telling him, ‘I’m not interested in you’, was a huge hint there - but everything about her insists that this isn’t the same person he’s been training with and she very much is interested in him, actually.

Since he wasn’t born yesterday, he keeps his guard up as she saunters towards him.

“Clint?” she says, just loud enough to fill the space between them.

“Yeah?”

She comes to a stop, well within his reach, but he hesitates. Sometimes it’s about the shots you don’t take.

“If you had to kill me,” Natasha says with a sharp grin, “how would you do it?”

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