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Clint is in the process of licking the blood off his right hand when the doorbell rings.

He takes a quick look at the monitor to check who it might be, having previously made sure that the camera feed hasn't been tampered with. It's not really paranoia, when half the known cartels and a good portion of various dictatorships are actually out to kill you, is it? And this being Natasha’s apartment, the list of potential enemies is even more rich and diverse than in Bed-Stuy.

What he sees, though, is a blond braid and a pretty tongue sticking out at the camera. Confident that Yelena is no longer intent on murdering him on sight, Clint presses the buzzer.

"What are you doing here, Clint Barton?" she demands to know by way of greeting. "And why is your hand dripping blood?"

"Liho-sitting," he says. "Next time, I swear I'll just toss a hunk of protein through the mail slot and let that furry demon-spawn clean her own fucking litter box. And no more playtime, either. She clearly doesn't know where her toys end and the hand that feeds her begins."

Yelena nods vigorously and with a surprising amount of sympathy.

"I know how you feel," she says. "Where is Natasha?"

"Tashkent," Clint replies, putting the lie to his earlier statement and picking up Liho's feather wand from the kitchen table. He grins fondly as the cat whets her claws on the carpet in preparation for a game of kill-whatever-that-is.

"Oh, wait. Maybe it’s Bishkek? Or Almaty?" He shakes his head. "One of the 'Stans – never could tell 'em apart. Full of corruption, funky hats, and Russian thugs trying to make the Soviet Union great again."

Yelena snorts.

"Da," she says. "Just like America. I assume you have noticed?"

Clint lets Liho catch the feathery end of the wand and watches as she pummels it with all four feet.

"Don't I know it. Remind me to say Hail, Hydra next time Agent Orange shows up on TV." He sighs wearily. "So, what’d come for? I assume it's not to mourn the state of US politics?"

Yelena makes a show of turning her back and opening the fridge, presumably so she doesn't have to look at Clint.

"I need advice," she mutters. “And Natasha is my big sister.”

Clint tosses the wand into a small space between two books on a shelf, like an extra-long dart. Liho jumps at the feathers, now tantalizingly suspended three feet off the ground, and bats them into a frantic dance. Feline entertainment having been secured for the next few minutes, he turns to Yelena.

"Advice on what, exactly?" he asks. "And please don't say a good place to bury my latest assignment. Because I only do that for my oldest and bestest friends."

Her head still buried in the fridge, whatever Yelena says is muffled by whatever decaying vegetables Clint probably should have cleaned out a week ago.

"I didn't quite hear you," he says. "Did you actually say my love life, or was that last week’s broccoli talking?"

Yelena's shoulders slump a little. She takes two cans of beer from the fridge door, tosses one to Clint and pulls the tab off the other.

"Da," she says again. And in case he doesn’t get it, she repeats herself in English. “Yes. I did. Say that.”

"And what makes you think I can help?"

"I don't think that at all, Clint Barton," she says. "Remember I came to see Natasha, not you. You… you are hopeless. It took you how many years to tell my sister you were in love with her?"

"Touché," Clint says, splayed fingers acknowledging the direct hit. "But I did get my shit together eventually, and so did she. Been a while now and we’ve never even had a fight.”

He takes a swig of beer.

“Except that time on Vormir, of course. And when I crashed the helicarrier,” he adds judiciously. “But I plead extenuating circumstances for those. So now I am a certified expert in affairs of the heart. Especially the part where you pine unnecessarily."

He plonks himself down on a kitchen chair, opposite from the one Yelena has settled on, and gives her a lingering look. Something in her sad pout and disheveled hair causes a modicum of pity to well up from the black recesses of his killer’s soul. He reaches out and pats her hand; to his surprise, she does not retract it.

"Alright, babe,” Clint says, using his most reassuring voice. “I know I’m not what you were looking for, but I’m here and Nat is in Central Asia, eating plov and shooting inconvenient warlords. Maybe I can help. I promise won’t screw with you - assassin's honour."

Yelena lets out a sigh.

“Okay. Fine. I don’t know what to do. I want to ask someone I like on a date, but I don’t know how.”

For a moment Clint is tempted to say something snarky, like words might work, but even a human car crash with the emotional intelligence of a used tea bag knows better. Besides, he is many things; being a hypocrite is not among them.

“So what’s stopping you?” he asks instead. “Me, I just assumed that someone as amazing as Nat wouldn’t be interested in a shlep like me. Kept my mouth shut and said nothing rather than find out for sure.”

Yelena gives him a long, calculating look.

“You’re funny,” she declares and takes another swig of beer. “I mean, you don’t have PhDs like Banner, or money like Stark, and aren’t beautiful like Thor or Captain America…”

Clint waves her off. Yeah, no shit, Charlie.

“Thanks for making my point.”

Yelena continues undeterred.

“But you are good man, Clint Barton. I know that now. You care for people and are kind to animals. You have nice smile and make decent coffee. You are not bad killer, either. So you are good enough - even for my sister.”

“Thanks. I think.” Clint gives her a lopsided smile. “That’s kind of what Nat said when I finally got over myself and told her how I felt.”

“How did you do that?” Yelena tries very hard to hide her eagerness but fails miserably.

“Well, it kinda helped that I had a 105 degree fever at the time and she had just taken my clothes off. She’d done that to cool me down, but I was too far gone to figure that out. Accidental filter removal, you could say. So, what’s stopping you?”

Yelena slumps a little and starts twirling the beer can round and round.

“I don’t even know if she likes girls.”

Clint nods sagely.

“I can see how that could be an issue, yes.”

“Also, first time we met we fought. I won.”

Liho picks this moment to abandon her wand. She saunters over to the kitchen table, stands on her hind legs and starts kneading his jeans with her front paws. Clint takes the hint and picks her up, settling her on his lap; she licks his un-scratched hand with a pink, sandpaper-like tongue and starts to purr.

“Hear this now and learn, young padawan,” he says. “The lesson here is, one, don’t underestimate the extent by which someone may like you back. I sure did, and I was being an idiot – as was your sister, for the record. Two, you can be fucking awesome and cuddly and lovable even if you have claws and know how to use them.”

He scritches the cat’s ears; if anything, Liho’s purring is getting louder and rumblier. There’s an oddly soothing quality to the vibrations this small, soft body emits, just as good as the feeling of Lucky warming up your feet on a cold day.

“Just ask her to go to a movie with you. Something big and action-y, where some rich Bond villain type gets his ass handed to him by a multi-racial group of good-looking but eccentric loners that somehow come together as a team. Don’t ask me how I know about that. But I can guarantee you she’ll say yes to one of those.”

Clint pops a kiss on Liho’s head, which she returns with a head bump to his chin and a little mrrrp. He reaches for his phone and punches in a number.

“Watch this,” he says.

“Hey Katie-Kate?” he says when she picks up. “Your crush wants to know if you want to go on a date.”

Yelena’s eyes widen and she sucks in a shallow, panicky breath.

“How do you know…” she hisses. His grin widens as Kate asks the exact same question on the other end of the line. They’re already in synch? Booyah.

“Remember that fight you guys had, at that stupid party?” he says to the Kate side of the discussion. “You told me it turned you on, yes? Well, there ya go.”

He tosses the phone over to Yelena, slightly dislodging Liho from her perch on his lap. The cat takes a swipe at his hand, but he catches her paw and holds it, gently, between his thumb and forefinger.

“I’m changing my middle name to Yente,” he says, to both Yelena and the phone. “That’ll be two hundred bucks, or a Starbucks next time you show up at my place. Over to you two - you’ll figure it out, I’m sure. If Nat and I can do it, you can. And for the record, you’re both amazing.”

Yelena holds the phone as if it was on fire but she doesn’t let go of it, either.

“You swore you wouldn’t say anything, Clint Barton. Assassin’s honour, you said,” she says, but the reproach in her voice isn’t very convincing.

Clint picks Liho up and holds her against his chest, briefly burying his face in her fur.

“Assassins are apex predators,” he says. “The honour is in the quick kill, not in prolonging the suffering.”


Edited 2025-02-25 01:59 pm (UTC)

I can hear Yelena when you write her 😆 This was so fun, poking fun at heartbreak and other such depressing shit, heh, in a way that made me chuckle. Plus the ongoing cat metaphor/comparison, ha. 💜

Killer last line! Clint makes an excellent yente

I love this so much 😍