#bwfest2023

[quietlyimplode]

Black Widow Fest - Day Five

Wild Geese (cruelty is easy)

Warnings: death of widows, implied (not graphic) torture, Natasha in the Red Room.

Word Count: 2154

Pairing: Black Widows, Widows, Natasha-centric (Clint/Nat implied)

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. - Mary Oliver. Wild Geese.

Head warnings. This is not a happy fic, words in their essence are something that can be so benign but can have ripple effects. Words said in grief, anger, pain, can have lasting impacts in ways we don’t know. Be careful with your words, you’ll never know how they may ricochet. Take care friends. <3

Cruelty is easy. You’re not special for choosing it.

1/

Chains around her wrists, toes barely touching the floor, the woman spits at the Widow.

“Why do you hold your secrets, when you could so easily just tell me? Where is your husband?”

Blood on her chin, still the woman snarls.

Like a rabid dog, she drools and snaps when the Widow comes close.

“You’re going to die here anyway, why not make your last hours easier?”

The woman, dehydrated, delirious, laughs.

“Cruelty is easy. You’re not special for choosing it.”

It give the widow pause.

The woman laughs again.

“You’re not special at all. Just a cog in the machine. Doing someone else’s bidding. How does it feel to be the puppet?”

She sighs, spits, and leans heavily on the chains.

“So kill me, because I don’t know what you want to hear. My husband is nowhere. He’s everywhere. He’s in Malta, Dubrovnik. He’s in the Maldives, in Sri Lanka or…”

The gun shot to her head silences her and the body falls heavily against the chains, it’s weight now dead as there’s steady blood flow from the the wound.

.

2/

Natasha watches the older widow as she instructs the anatomy class.

Blood flow, large veins, nerves. It’s fascinating the way that the human body works. Out of all the things that Natasha learns, she finds this the most interesting.

The Red Room teaches them these things for the use of information extraction, for field medicine and to show them that they are not immortal.

Even though they think that they are.

They’re drilled daily, and it becomes Natasha’s favourite.

The older widow seems to see it, her love of learning and how she absorbs the information.

After class, she asks the Widow to teach her about cranial nerves, how they can bring pain. How it can impact on thinking.

The widow pauses and takes Natasha’s hand.

Touch is always a strange sensation.

She craves it and strays away from it.

This time, the touch is insistent.

The words are said urgently, whispered as though a secret in shame.

“Cruelty is easy, Natasha. You are not special for choosing it. Kindness, grace and patience, sometimes those are things that matter more in the moment.”

Abruptly, she lets her hand go, and stands.

“We will learn more on the cranial nerves over the next week.”

She hands Natasha a book.

“Read this. And write me a essay on how you would provide the field medicine in case study, 600 words by tomorrow.”

The book is heavy, but it’s the words that were spoken in secret that run in repetition in Natasha’s head.

‘Cruelty is easy.”

She wonders if it’s a challenge, if she’s suppose to learn to extract information in other ways. Through words rather than pain.

She walks out of the room, wondering just how that would work.

.

3/

Georgia stares at Natasha.

“So what, like the whores of Odessa, you want to go in me what? Ask them for the information?”

Natasha feels the fear flow through her.

She stands straighter, hardens her face and nods.

“They’re going to invite us in graciously. They’re going to tell us everything we want to know and we’ll be done in less than 2 hours.”

She pauses.

“Unless you want to follow the mission parameter, take the man and his daughter and torture them both to see who breaks first.”

She knows Georgia is not smart enough to understand what she is going for. That she can show them that she can do things in a creative way.

She doesn’t like torture. It’s messy and gives her a feeling in her gut that doesn’t go away for days. The images replay in her mind.

But she can’t tell anyone that.

Georgia shrugs.

“Okay. But if we die for this Natalia, I’m going to kill your in the afterlife.”

Natasha bristles at the nickname and passes an easy smile.

“I’ll get the blame, just follow my lead, okay?”

Natasha stands, folds money in her hand and smiles.

The door knock is met with a crack of an opening and a girl, no older than twelve peeks around the corner.

“Hello?”

“Hi hun, I’m Irina and this is Svetlana, we are here to see your mum, is she home?”

The girls eyes widen, and sadness fills them.

“Um. No, she’s not.”

Natasha knows well that the woman is dead.

“Oh, okay, can you leave a message for us?”

The door opens wider.

The girl more trusting now.

“My dadda’s home,” she starts, “I can get him, if you want?”

Natasha smiles, “oh sure, that would be great.”

The girl leaves them standing at the door and Georgia moves nervously from foot to foot.

“Are you sure about this, Natalia?”

Natasha reaches behind her and squeezes her hand in reassurance.

“Hello?”

The bearded man appears, his face drawn and tired.

“Hello!” Natasha says brightly.

“Alina gave us this address when we last met up, she said to come visit if ever we were in Vladivostok.”

The man frowns.

“We went to school together.”

Natasha is betting hard that the man will remember his wife’s ramblings of her childhood friends, but not their faces.

“Oh,” he nods.

“Irina and Svetlana,” the girl says, helpfully, as though she knows.

“Oh,” the man says again.

“She’s dead.”

The words are heavy and the girl retreats behind her father as if the words won’t find her there.

Natasha schools her face into one of grief, like the woman wasn’t killed at the hands of the KGB in partnership of the Red Room.

“Oh,” she echos, “how? When?”

The man opens the door wider, and invites them in.

The follow the couple into the kitchen, where the girl starts to make some tea, taking the role that her mother must have left.

The man sits, offering chairs to the Widows as they’re offered tea.

“It is perhaps a long story,” he opens, looking to his daughter.

Natasha is quick.

“And I want no pain in reopening a wound.”

She pauses.

“She was my friend. She was kind and honest and dear to us.”

She sighs dramatically, and rests her head in her hands, Georgia taking the cue to offer comfort.

“Is there anything we can do?”

The girl sets down the tea, and they wrap their hands around it.

She looks small amongst the big table, and squeaks a response.

“What was my mother like when she was young?”

Natasha lies with the truth.

The words woven and soon the man is drunk.

The little girl tired and secrets spilled without his knowledge.

They help the girl put her father to bed, and she gratefully thanks them, offering them her meagre stash of lollies.

Natasha declines, but Georgia takes four, then closes the girl’s hand around the rest.

“Thank you,” the little girl says, spontaneously hugging them both.

They hug her back, and leave the way they came, no one worse for the meeting.

“That was more exhausting, Nat.”

Georgia tells her, getting into their car.

“But no bad dreams,” Natasha sighs, leaning back.

Georgia snorts.

“No, no bad dreams.”

The getaway is smooth and smell of sweets emanate.

“Do you think they’ll punish us for going off mission?”

Natasha shakes her head.

“Given the information we just gathered, and the relationships we made, no, I don’t think they will.”

“You tell them then.”

“Mm,” Natasha nods, non committal to the instruction.

“Why?”

Georgia hands over two hard lollies and Natasha takes them both, wrapping them and revelling in the sweetness.

“Cruelty is easy, we aren’t special for choosing it.”

Georgia doesn’t say anything but seems to ruminate on her words.

“Where’d you learn that?”

“Madam Simzar,” Natasha chooses to disclose.

Georgia smiles.

“I miss her.”

Natasha ducks her head, unable to keep the pain off her face.

“Me too.”

.

4/

Natasha exits Fury’s office.

Making a bee line for the door, she brushes quickly past Clint and disappears.

Clearly not good news then.

He follows her to find her gone, disappeared in a matter of seconds.

He wonders where she could have gone, and walks quickly to the library hoping to catch a glimpse of her hair.

She’s not there, and she doesn’t appear to be anywhere. He swears under his breath before returning back to Fury’s office, hoping for some insight into what made her run.

He thought they might have been passed this, but, he supposes, Natasha’s go to self preservation will always be to hide her feelings, conceal her grief, hurt and sadness.

He feels that’s what this is, judging the way she wouldn’t even make eye contact as she brushed past.

“What happened?”

He’s not usually so abrupt with his boss, but he needs to know whether in this moment, Natasha needs help.

No time for pleasantries.

“A widow Natasha defected, overdosed.”

Fury’s words are flat.

The pictures he passes over shows the graphic image of a woman overdosed.

Clint feels sick.

The could be Natasha.

He knows at once where she’s gone, and leaves the room without another word.

.

The park is quiet.

Big dark clouds ruminate overhead, and he wraps his jacket around himself tighter against the cold.

The playground is dead, just as he assumed it would be, the children home and getting ready for night time routines.

He’s glad.

They used to come here and swing on the swings when Natasha needed to get away from herself. The rocking motion seemingly soothing.

Clint finds her exactly where he expects to.

The swing next to her inviting for him as he sits down and says nothing.

They stay in stasis, swinging slowly.

“Her name was Georgia.”

Natasha rests her head on the swing lengths, and swallows.

She wants to tell him about her, but the grief is too much. A tear slips out, and she hastily wipes it away.

“Cruelty to yourself is easy, Clint,” she says tiredly.

Clint looks at her, really looks and notices the slip of blood in her hand, clutching the small pairing knife.

“I’m not special for choosing it,” the words said in a whisper.

She hands him the knife, unwrapping her hand from around it.

“It’s harder to be kind.”

He pauses, the knife gone as soon as he touches it.

“I’ve heard you say it before.”

He didn’t feel how dangerous losing a widow might be for her. Certainly didn’t expect the knife.

He wants to know how safe she is, how she won’t be the dead girl, overdosed.

“Is it a reminder?”

She looks at him, shrugs, nods.

“Cruelty is easy,” she whispers.

Natasha pauses at the statement, aware she’s just repeating herself, the words though; they seem important.

The mission they went on, replaying in her mind, with Georgia smiling in the car.

“Georgia was a friend,” she looks to Clint. “One of a select few, and her passing feels personal.”

“She was a widow?”

Clint knows but asks anyway.

“Yes.”

Natasha starts swinging, slow movements, dragging her feet on the ground.

“Was she…”

Clint doesn’t really know what he’s asking.

“Free?”

She finishes the thought anyway.

“Yes. No. Are any of us ever free of that place?”

Clint doesn’t know how to answer.

“Drugs.”

Natasha pauses.

“She wasn’t kind to herself.”

“She felt the need to be cruel.”

Clint starts swinging too, feeling the heaviness of the night pressing down. He wonders just how much and how close Natasha was to this girl when they were young.

“To herself?” he wonders.

“Yes.”

She’s hastily wipes at her face again.

“But you aren’t.”

He says it as a statement and hopes that it’s true.

“Sometimes I am.”

Natasha pauses. Thinks.

“I beat myself up with my thoughts. But I’m better at recognising it. Stopping it when it comes.”

The introspection is not lost on Clint. It’s taken years for them both to realize when their thinking patterns have not been… optimal.

“She was not.”

He cringes at the past tense, the death fresh.

“No.”

She drags her feet.

“She was not.”

Clint’s not really sure what to say. He wants to hug her but knows it’s not appropriate.

“I’m sorry she let you down,” he opts for, pushing back and forward on his toes.

Natasha shrugs, slowing her movements.

“She didn’t let me down, her actions have nothing to do with me.”

There’s a pause, as Clint is at a loss for words, not used to Natasha’s nonchalance at the death of her friend, or wonders if she’s just masking her grief.

“It’s a reminder,” she continues.

“I choose to be kind.”

She says it with a strength, even as her voice wobbles.

“Cruelty is easy, to others, to yourself.”

Clint nods, pushes off a little more heavily.

“Yeah. It is,” he agrees.

He slows with his feet and then repeats the process.

“You are kind, Natasha,” he tells her.

But it’s met with silence as night covers them in darkness.

.

[adorationamy]

Coming soon- “When You Least Expect It”

In celebration of the 2 year anniversary of Black Widow, and to celebrate Black Widow Fest 2023 with @quietlyimplode, I am pleased to present to you my next WIP. I’m not sure when I’ll actually start writing, but hopefully this will get you intrigued.  

Summary: Efficient. One less thing to worry about. The one thing that might matter more than a mission. Makes everything easier. Even killing.

Natasha V.O. They have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you. I can’t have children.

We get a glimpse of a young Natasha lying on table in a hospital gown. Hands gently move her leg against a metal rail as another picks up a scalpel.

Madame B. V.O. The ceremony is necessary for you to take your place in the world.

CUT: Natasha and Coulson are attempting to escape a building after being ambushed.  Natasha is not her usual self. Coulson offers to help her, but she declines. Gunshots are heard in the background.

Guard: (shouting in a foreign language) Stop right there!

CUT: Natasha and Coulson turn around, guns drawn, however the latter is shaking.

CUT: a fight breaks out, but Natasha is taking longer than normal. In her distraction, a guard has her in a headlock. She struggles to break free, but a pain that she has been hiding for about a month is getting worse. Gritting her teeth, she finally manages to break free and take him down using her thighs.

Coulson: You OK?

Natasha leans against the wall, unable to stay standing.

Natasha: Coulson, I…

Coulson catches her before she can hit the ground. He brings her out and into the quinjet.

CUT: Natasha and Coulson are in the infirmary, but Natasha is declining medical attention.

Natasha: I want Clint!

Coulson: He’s coming, Natasha. He’s coming.

Natasha: (crying) It hurts!

Coulson tries to comfort her. Occasionally a medic comes in, but Natasha keeps refusing and desperately calls out for Clint. Clint finally arrives and goes right to her.

Clint: I’m here, Nat. I’m here.

Natasha: Please make it stop!

CUT: a medic prepares a syringe. Cut to someone picking up a phone, an open file with Natasha’s name is on their desk.

CUT: Natasha is lying down as a table moves forward. Clint and a doctor are watching.

Doctor: I’m sorry Natasha, but you are going to need surgery.

Cut to Natasha, who is locked in trance. Clint is trying to reach through to her.

Natasha V.O. I don’t want to. Please don’t make me.

Clint V.O. Natasha, focus on my voice. You’re not there.

CUT: Natasha is sitting on a rooftop, knees pulled to her chest. Clint comes to sit beside her and he drapes a blanket around her and gathers her into his arms.

Clint: I’ll be right there with you.

CUT: we see Clint helping Natasha change into a hospital gown. Cut to Clint by her bedside as she is prepped for surgery. She is trying to be strong, but fear is evident on her face.

Clint: I promise I’ll be here when you wake up.

CUT: an operating room with a table prepared with tools. A doctor is instructing Natasha on what is going to happen. She is put under.

We cut to Natasha lying in bed at Laura’s house; a stuffed animal is sitting in her lap.

Clint V.O.  It’ll be OK. We’ll get through this.

CUT: Laura tending to Natasha’s wound as Clint holds her. Tears are on her face.

Natasha: I don’t want to go back there!

[quietlyimplode]

Black Widow Fest 2023 - Day Seven

Mirror, Mirror.

Warnings: dead dove. child abuse, child death (red room)

Word count: 2694

Pairing: nil. Natasha Centric.

A/N: truthfully, this has been a hard one to write but as it got going it got easier. Borne of beautiful artwork by @lightmotifs and a conversation about Natasha looking at herself in the mirror, spawned.. well, this. A five parter of times Natasha looked at herself in the mirror. So please heed the warnings. <3 (also this was supposed to be the last fic of the years bwf but I had to add in Kiss the Dread) As always your comments and support gives these fics life. <3

The scariest thing I had to encounter,

Wasn’t a ghost, or a scary monster.

It was the reflection, I saw as I looked in the mirror.

The moment I had to face,

All the dark parts, I tried hard to erase

Yet as I looked a bit closely, at the eyes staring back at me,

I realised they were still there,

Untouched and unfazed.

Waiting for the day to be let out of their cage.

- Reflection (S.S.W)

1/ Ohio

Touching the bruise softly, Natasha watches her face wince in the mirror. It doesn’t hurt, it stings, maybe that’s the sensation she’s feeling.

She’s old enough to know that she won’t be going to school tomorrow, because they ask questions about those sorts of of things.

Melina had promised to show her how to put make up on bruises, but she’d left in the hours of the morning with Yelena, leaving Natasha and Alexei together.

“Let me teach you something new,” he’d laughed, grabbing her wrist and pulling her away from her book.

“Don’t let the American language corrupt your mind.”

She’d tried to pull her wrist away, but he’d held on, and it was only when she trailed behind him, did she smell the vodka on his breath.

Whatever he had planned to show her, he wouldn’t remember, not being as drunk as what he was.

“Sambo is a man’s sport, but you will learn,” he’d said.

Natasha knows the bruise on her face isn’t the only visible one, but if she thought about what really hurt, her back would be top priority.

She takes her tshirt off to see if it has the same coloured hue as her eye. She takes the chair and puts it under the door so that Alexei does not wander in, and then twisting in the mirror, she catches a glance at her back.

It’s as she suspected, bruises mottling down her spine from where he’d picked her up and crashed her down.

His laugher had made her smile, even as she winced in hurt.

“Come on Natasha, show me how the Red Room girls defend themselves.”

She didn’t really know how to react, and so had thrown a half hearted punch, before he picked her up and threw her again.

Natasha wasn’t sure when it had turned, his laughter turned serious and she’d missed the cue for his anger. Suddenly, his attempt at playing, mutated and as she’d got up again, he pushed her down.

“I win,” he said conversationally.

She missed the warning in his voice as she stood back up.

Natasha tried not to cry when he open hand slapped her in the face, the sound shocking her more than the hit, and she’d stayed down.

He stood over her, grabbing the nearby bottle and taking a swig.

“I win,” he snarled, “I will always win.”

And then stalked off to find a corner to drink some more.

She’d only moved when she’d heard his loud snores coming from the bedroom, and had risen on shaking legs, making her way to the bathroom to assess the damage.

The mirror doesn’t lie, she thinks as she stares at herself, poking softly at the swelling, wishing quietly for a way to swap places with the mirror version of herself.

2/ Location Unknown. Russia.

They’re lined up like they always are, and take their places on the bar. The distance between them is measured and they’ve done this often enough to know exactly what to do.

Madam strikes her switch and the music starts.

Natasha follows the movement and lets her mind wander. It comes with such ease that she no longer even has to think about it.

Today feels different, but she can’t figure out why.

Madam, perhaps looks more strict, but she hasn’t said anything, hasn’t corrected anything, has let them follow the music without yelling or hitting them with switch to correct movement.

The longer it goes on, the more it feels wrong.

There’s no talking.

They breathe hard as training continues longer than it should.

She shares a glance with the other girls, and she knows everyone is feeling the strangeness.

Legs shaking they’re lined up again, and at last; Natasha thinks, they can go into the lunch hall and eat.

Except they don’t.

They’re sat, facing the mirror in the hall, and Natasha takes the opportunity to look at the other girls in the reflection.

Something she rarely does.

They all look as tired as she does.

They all look nervous at the change in routine.

Even those that know how to mask their faces, have shifting eyes and clenched fists.

She stares at herself, and takes her demeanour in, focusing first at relaxing her face, making her features become stoic and straight faced. Next she relaxes her shoulders, keeping her breathing even.

Her legs give nothing away, so she puts her hands flat on her knees and keeps her back straight.

No slouching.

Dreykov enters.

Immediately, her hands tighten on her knees but she sees it in the mirror.

Natasha knows now this is going to be a lesson.

And not a good one.

She stares stoically at the mirror.

Reasoning, that she can see everything in the room, and she can focus on herself.

It becomes more important when Anabelle is dragged in by her hair.

Natasha’s heart sinks.

They knew she was missing in the morning and had gossiped about her whereabouts. They’d concluded that she was in medical.

Because no one would be stupid enough to do what they assumed she had done.

As Dreykov starts to talk, Natasha’s heart sinks further.

She’d tried to escape.

They’d caught her at the border of the forest.

Glancing quickly at her, Anabelle seems to know her fate, her clothes ripped by what Natasha assumes is handiwork of Dreykov’s dogs.

She turns back to the mirror.

If she watches the mirror, she can make it seem like she’s watching an American movie.

She’s not here.

It’s not happening in front of her.

The mirror shows all the horrors, the monologue from a villain.

It’s just a movie, Natasha tells herself, nails digging into her knees.

Nails pieces her skin as the gunshot goes off.

She doesn’t want to look.

Dreykov’s voice is nothing in the back of her head as she watches the blood spread on the floor.

Staring stoically forward, she watches the others stand, numbly; she does the same.

She takes one last look in the mirror, and the scene of horror, and knows the truth that it holds.

3/ Location Unknown. America.

The interrogation room in Shield is simple.

Table.

Chairs.

Handcuffs holding her wrists on the table.

Two way mirror.

She wonders idly how many people sit behind that mirror, how many are evaluating her, if Clint Barton is watching too.

Maria Hill, the SIC of Shield, crosses her legs again and waits.

“We can make this more uncomfortable,” she states.

Natasha doesn’t doubt it.

“But Barton has assured us that you would cooperate, and abide by the rules of your surrender.”

Natasha nods.

Stares at the two way mirror.

“I will,” she speaks to it.

She has no interest in Maria, and is willing to talk, but there’s a certain anxiety that comes with divulging her country’s secrets.

If they find her, she’s dead, but she was already dead anyway.

She wishes she could see him through the mirror.

Instead, she just sees her own face, dead eyes staring back to her.

“Tell us about Bali, and your role in the assassination of American diplomat,” Maria repeats.

Natasha frowns.

“How do you know that was me?”

Maria bristles.

“Was it?”

Natasha doesn’t have enough information to know how much they know. If she lies, or tells less than they truth, and they know more than she tells them, there’s not telling what they’ll do.

It’s not a winnable game unless she answers their questions with more questions and gauge her response from that, she could perhaps play it that way.

It seems too hard though.

And she’ll let Clint down.

After all he went through to get her out.

She looks to the mirror again, and finds her eyes pleading.

Turning back to Maria and sighing, she uses the mirror as an anchor.

“No one ever assumes that the woman in a dress is a threat.”

The tiniest of smiles crosses Maria’s face, and it’s more like a softening of features than anything else.

“I passed him twice, once to slit his femoral artery and the second to make sure he’s dead.”

The clanking of the handcuffs make her brain short out alongside the anxiety, the fact that she’s in America, talking about missions, is tantamount to death.

Dreykov’s face appears in the mirror and her eyes go wide.

“He’s dead,” she says out loud, and the image fades.

Maria nods.

“Yes, he died, as you’ve stated.”

She’s thankful her fuck up isn’t noticed, despite the fact her heart is beating hard against her chest.

“Do you need a break?” Maria’s asks, the words kind, even if the delivery is not.

Natasha shakes her head, calming herself, as she grounds herself by looking back to the mirror.

If nothing else is real, at least she is.

She knows this by the way she raises her head and her mirror image copies the action.

The way she talks and the image opens and closes her mouth in time.

There’s no delay like in dreams.

Hours they continue, and she grows tired of the constant questions, the interrogation that occurs when her story doesn’t line up with her timelines of events.

It’s just, it’s how she remembers it’s happening.

It’s not like she has the mission reports in front of her.

She’s not even trying to hide lies in the truth anymore.

What would be the point?

They’ll either take her in and help protect her from the last standing Red Room members or they’ll kill her.

In the back of her mind, she doesn’t care about whatever way they go.

She’s dead either way, and being alive never seemed to help anyone.

“Tell me about Ohio,” Maria asks.

But it’s too much.

“No,” Natasha states, staring hard at her.

“No.”

“No.”

“We’ve been at this for hours, days, handcuffed, toileted like a child, made to wait, been asked the same questions, about the same missions over and over to see if my story varies. It doesn’t, and still you ask.”

Sick of the handcuffs, she slips out of them, and rubs her wrists, a familiar action that feels grounding in the moment, allowing her to continue her rant.

Her mouth speaks, her mind wanders.

They know about Ohio.

They might know about Yelena.

“Either kill me or agree to the terms of my defection.”

She stares at the mirror.

“I don’t care,” she finishes, “I don’t care.”

Despondent eyes look back to her as she hastens a glance.

The door opens and Clint strides in.

There’s a sense of dread and relief simultaneously.

“You’re the one they send to kill me?”

He stands next to her, argues, for her, not against her.

He tells Maria off for keeping her in cuffs, for not bringing in food or water and keeping Natasha in longer than she should.

He sighs and she hastens a look up to the mirror finding their images standing together.

Maybe shes not alone in this.

4/ The Avengers Tower, New York.

The mirrors in the lift are usually easily ignored.

Sometimes she’ll even take the stairs.

This time Natasha looks forward to it.

She wants to see how she looks, wants to see how feral she is.

Blood in her hairline, bruises on her face, she smiles at herself.

For once she feels like the outside matches the inside.

The doors close and it ascends upwards without her having to press a button, and she can’t stop looking at herself.

She did good.

Her body, her mind, her training, for once, paid off.

She got Tony out, and he’s safe because of her.

Getting closer to the mirror, she eyes the way her hair is unkempt, flyaway bits adorn her face, almost lining it, even though it’s all tied up in a tight bun. Not red, but brown this week. Clint had commented and pouted that he missed her hair, Steve reported that he was going to go blonde and Tony called her chameleon. She likes her brown hair, so different to her natural colour.

Next, she looks at her eyes.

Green watches her.

The speckled brown seemingly more, when contrasted with her brown hair.

She likes the way her pupils are wide as she changes her expression with the move of an eyebrow.

Natasha used to do this in the Red Room, practice facial expressions so she could school her face, remember how to look angry, sad, happy.

She touches the scar on her lip softly.

No make up.

She didn’t need it for the fight she fought.

Pale skin, blemish on her chin.

The bruises from the fight coming through slowly.

Since when did she stop wearing makeup daily just to hide who she was? She thinks it’s been months. Only wearing it when needed, when meeting with higher ups.

Here though; she doesn’t need it.

She’s Natasha. Not made up, not fake.

She touches her lips again, swollen, cut.

Pushes it into a smile, a frown, playing with pushing them in and out, watching how the cut expands and shrinks depending on her how she curls it.

The elevator stops, the doors don’t open.

Turning and glancing at doors, she realises Jarvis has recognised she’s entranced.

They’d call it vanity, she’d call it a luxury.

“Thanks,” she whispers, and turns her attention back to herself.

Eyebrows, up and down.

Frown, practicing facial expressions; she feels like a marionette.

Eyes big, eyes small. Sad. Happy.

It’s what it looks like on other people anyway.

She can fake any emotion.

She can pretend.

She’s been doing it all her life.

It doesn’t take much practice.

Being unmasked does.

Years of it.

Sometimes she feels like she’ll never be able to fully unmask and be herself.

Natasha knows the lengths she’s gone to, to hide who she is. Being vulnerable is too hard, rarely worth it.

The select few that know her know her like this, feral, unkempt, truthful.

The more she stares, the more she likes this version of herself.

“Thanks,” she tells empty space around her, “we can go now.”

The elevator starts, and delivers her to the floor with her room.

Natasha takes one last look at herself, smiles, and leaves.

5/ Norway

Natasha feels the artificial lighting; her head hurting due to the lack of sleep and constant vigilance.

The phone, now sans the SIM card, sits on the sink, and she stares heavily, taking in every part of her.

So tired of running, missing the stability she’s had.

Weak, she calls herself.

How could she forget the trials and lessons of her childhood?

She should have known that it would inevitably fall apart.

It was always going to end like this, with her alone, and being tracked by people she once considered allies.

“Once a traitor, always a traitor,” Rumlow had once whispered in her ear, and she’d tried to not take it to heart.

The thing is, she’d always known, she only needed to stay true to herself.

Her own morals.

She’d once told Clint that that only person she could trust was herself.

He’s told her that he wished she’d change her mind on that.

Perhaps for a time she did.

Maybe at the tower; maybe for that short period of her life where Tony showed her tech, Steve showed her how to draw and Bruce taught her how to cook. Times that seemed much simpler.

Now.

That’s gone.

The only person you can trust is yourself, she scalds herself, frowning in the mirror.

The mirror doesn’t lie.

The mirror holds truth.

Reaching out for herself she touches it gently.

She is real and not alone.

She has herself, and she knows the power of that.

.

[quietlyimplode]

Black Widow Fest - Day Six

Stay Alive.

Warnings: broken bones and car chases, swearing?

Word Count: 2047

Pairing: Clint/Nat

@broken--bow asked - and I should have replied to the ask box rather than making a post, but we’ve come too far now - for a fic where (as in the hunger games with Peeta and Katniss) a simple thing is asked, to stay alive, even though it turns out to be one of the harder things to do. Ty for sending in solid asks, my friend, they are ⭐️.

“How is this the first time you’ve ever broken your collar bone?”

Clint shrugs, regrets it and pouts.

“Do broken collarbones always need surgery?” Natasha asks the doctor.

The doctor looks to her clipboard and then back to Clint.

“No, not always, but if you leave these things for a week and keep…”

She looks back down and quirks her eyebrows

“Keep shooting arrows and guns?”

Clint smiles, easily.

Natasha stands in front of him, knowing his fake smile hides the worry of questions he won’t ask.

“He’ll be able to shoot again, right? No problem?”

He peeks out from behind her to watch the doctor nod.

“Yes, of course, but he needs to let this heal, 4 weeks in a sling. And physiotherapy - the you need to follow - otherwise, you’ll always have pain and it will always not feel straight.”

Natasha smirks, sharing a look with Clint.

“Guess I won’t be coming with you then,” he says, holding her hand with his good one.

“Surgery is scheduled for around 1.30pm, don’t have any more to eat or drink.”

She turns to Natasha, “you’ll be here to pick him up?”

Natasha’s face turns sour.

“Uh, no actually. Maria will be here, um a friend. I’ll leave my number and her number here though, in case you need anything, or if he’s not being cooperative.”

“Hey,” Clint pipes up, “drugged me is delightful.”

The doctor puts her clipboard away, and nods.

“I’m sure Mr Barton. No food, no drink until we come and get you. Ms Romanoff, you can stay until he goes in if you want.”

Natasha nods, sighing softly as she sits down next to him

“You’ll be okay here without me?” she asks, guilt on her face.

“Of course,” he tells her, “it’s a simple operation, no gunshot wounds, no knife wounds, no complex broken bones or head injury. It’s easy in and out.”

Natasha smirks again, “that’s what she said.”

Clint laughs and winces.

“Where are they sending you?” he asks, knowing she’s now going alone.

“Vladivostok.”

“You’re not.”

His stomach drops.

“Nat, you’re going into Russia, alone?”

She swallows and nods with a small smile. More of a grimace, he thinks.

He wants nothing more than to talk this through with her, tell her not to go, and hug her tight.

“I’m the only one that knows the dialect.”

He hates this.

He also hates that if he hadn’t asked, she wouldn’t have said anything, not complained, just gone.. Whilst he was under and couldn’t do anything.

He still can’t. He’s going into surgery, and she’s going to Russia alone.

The laughter from seconds ago is now abject fear for her.

The small peninsula town.

Anyone could spot her.

Know her.

Take her.

“It’s only for a day, not even. More like hours. In and out,” she tries.

He tries too.

“That’s what she said.”

Except this time, they both don’t laugh.

He moves over in the single bed and motions for her to sit.

Hesitating slightly, she crawls next to him.

Using his good arm he encircles her and kisses the top of her head.

“You’ll be okay?” he whispers.

The nurse comes in and cocks her head at the way they’re curled.

“I need to put the drip in, Mr Barton,” she tells him.

Natasha starts to move away, the nurse stops her, tells her to stay.

“I can move around you, don’t move, hun.”

Clint looks away as his vein is pierced.

“All done,” she says, moving away.

“They’ll be back in fifteen minutes to take you up, okay?”

She turns to Natasha, “you can stay in the waiting room, but it may be a while.”

Natasha looks at her watch.

“No, it’s okay I need to leave soon anyway.”

The nurse nods and leaves the room.

He continues to hold her, bring her head down so that it’s touching his.

“I have to go,” she sighs, not moving a muscle.

“When exactly will you be home?”

“Tuesday 11.20pm, the flight should land.”

She really is counting down the time.

“Stay Alive,” Clint tells her, looking at her directly in the eyes.

Slowly she manoeuvres her body out, kisses him softly and breathes him in.

“Maria will be here when you wake up, and I’ll be fine, I promise.”

He growls, the sound low and guttural.

“Promise me again.”

“I promise.”

One last kiss and she finally stands.

“Stay alive, Natasha,” his voice commanding.

Head butting him again, and one last peck, she waves off his worry and leaves the hospital room as the nurse returns.

She says something to the nurse that he can’t hear but he lays back in his worry and prays the next two days go quickly.

.

Vladivostok is not what she expected, or remembered.

Slightly removed from the mainland, Natasha sighs and pushes down the apprehension.

The last time she was here, she has visited a widow and his daughter, made them give her information. It had been a pleasant trip, ending with some candy.

The hire car is slow, white and generic and the gps guides her to the meet with the man Fury had deemed worthy of her time.

Clint would be out of surgery now, she hopes anyway. She wants to message Maria and make sure they’re all okay, but her cloned phone doesn’t have the level of security and her own phone is in the locker at the airport.

She was now Rosa Tuttle for all intents and purposes, and so she acted as such.

Blonde wig.

Long nails.

Make up to change the structure of her face.

She was not Natasha Romanoff.

And she was not worried about her partner.

The café is a small hole in the wall.

Posters line the walls, maybe to cover some holes, the corners peeling and old. The old woman approaches her, scarf covering her hair as she shuffled around.

Natasha orders the strongest coffee she can think and the woman nods with a gentle smile.

She faces the door, eyes on the two exits and waits.

The man that enters afterwards is dishevelled; her mark clearly.

“Hello,” she smiles.

He hands her an envelope and looks around in vigilance.

Natasha has seen this before, the skittishness of man who is too stupid to follow the basic instructions. They think they’re smarter and can be better at basic espionage than the people they’re informing on.

“You didn’t follow the rules, did you Igor?”

He looks behind him, and the car he’s parked haphazardly out the front.

“It’s fine. We do this quickly. This is the information. Where is my money?”

Natasha shakes her head.

“No, it is not fine. You think you weren’t being watched? That the Komutet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, don’t have eyes everywhere, even here in Vladivostok?”

He looks guilty, shocked and scared, and knows she’s right. Especially when a large black car pulls up next to his blue one.

Natasha sighs heavily, looks to the back exit and pushes him towards it.

She apologizes to the woman and tells her to tell them which way they’ve gone. She doesn’t want the elderly woman’s blood on her hands.

Natasha’s car is old, but the fact that everyone here has a similar one, she’s confident of losing the tail they’ll surely have.

“Get in.”

The words are said harshly as he moves slowly, fear locking him up and making him move slow.

He does eventually and she drives away carefully.

The KGB knows though.

She sometimes forgets how much autocracy it is here, and how closely the citizens are watched.

“Igor. How long have they been watching you for?”

“They aren’t. They’re not, they..” he stutters, looking back around at the cars that surround him.

There’s two options Natasha can think of.

Run and hide.

Fight.

Neither are good options.

If they hide, she’s not making her flight.

Not going home to Clint and spending another day in a country she feels least safe in.

Fight.

Well there’s an option that she’s not getting out alive if she does that.

“Igor, you’re not helping yourself.”

The first shot ricochets off the car, and Natasha’s mind is made up.

Fight it is.

Calling quickly off the sat com phone, she puts the distress through, finding Fury on the other end.

Whilst not strange in itself, she knows there are others who could be on the night phone for this.

“Ah, we are coming in hot, the idiot didn’t follow procedures, and we have the KGB on our tail. Any exit plan?”

Fury’s silent and considering as she hears him typing and then..

“There’s a boat, the contact will meet you in 15 minutes if you can get there.”

Natasha looks down and nods.

“Affirmative, we’ll be there.”

Igor looks terrified.

There’s cars around them and although there’s still bullets flying, Natasha’s mind is clear.

“What did he say?” Igor asks.

She ignores him.

The side street she turns down is narrow enough that only one car can follow and she tells Igor to get ready to move.

He doesn’t need to, the car is hit on the side at full speed and it flips into the nearby building. Natasha is held by her seatbelt, but Igor, who never wore his, is thrown out of the car through the windshield.

Natasha assumes he’s dead on impact, not moving, his body brokenly laying on the asphalt.

She has bigger issues.

Held by a seatbelt that didn’t release, upside down and a dripping blood nose, she works at wiggling out.

Clint’s voice echoes in her head.

Her knife finally cuts through the seatbelt and she’s dumped upside down onto the ceiling of the car.

Pain pulses through the her left arm.

Ignoring it, she crawls out, grabbing the files she came for.

She needs to disappear, get out of here and get to the rendezvous point in less than ten minutes.

Natasha wipes her face.

Her wig now askew.

If she takes it off, there’s a greater chance of being recognised for who she is.

If she doesn’t, they’ll find her quick.

If only she had time to go back to the airport.

Natasha rolls her eyes, remembering. Her phone and her jacket.

Fuck.

Wiping the blood from her nose, she hopes Fury can send someone for them.

She hates starting a new phone again. In reality she shouldn’t have taken it but she was worried about Clint being in surgery. It feels stupid now. It was just resetting the bone.

Deciding on removing the wig and tying her hair up, she changes her appearance quickly.

Her arm hurts.

Quickly checking, she finds the quickest way to the port, and moves.

7 minutes.

At 3 minutes she finds the boat.

At two minutes, she’s on the boat.

And as time is up, they’re moving out of the port and she’s in the cabin, with the captain by the name of Ned steering her away.

.

“Broken collarbone? You’re kidding me.”

Clint laughs, arm in a sling.

“She what?”

The doctor points to the break and tells them again.

“When you landed, you must have landed on your shoulder because it looks like it’s a kind of green stick fracture. Unlike his, which needed surgery, it’s likely yours will just heal with immobilization and a sling.”

Clint laughs again, gleefully.

“Matching slings!”

Natasha rolls her eyes.

“How long am I benched for?”

The doctor looks to Clint, and then back to Natasha.

“You’ll probably be going back at the same time.”

“Six weeks?!” Natasha exclaims incredulously.

The doctor nods.

“If you both immobilize it, do the rehab and take care of it.”

Clint smiles.

“Don’t worry, Doc. She has a good right hand and I have a good left one. We’ll be a good team.”

The doctor remains straight faced, then can’t hide her smile as Clint helps Natasha back up.

She sets Natasha up with a sling and teaches her how to strap it.

Watching the two spies leave, the doctor watches as Clint readjusts their positions so he can half hug her.

Even though she hopes to never see them, she knows it’s likely they’ll be back before she knows it.

.

[quietlyimplode]

Welcome to Black Widow Fest 2023.

Usually I’ve been posting this a bit earlier but it’s been a bit of a scramble to get this ready given all that’s been going on. This year has had an intense start with hospitals, follow ups, and family stuff. I wasn’t sure it was a feasible thing- but I’m glad it’s going ahead <3

For those who are new, Black Widow Fest runs for the 5-7 days before (or after) the 9th when Black Widow aired in 2021. It’s a week of fic centred around Natasha.

You are 100% welcome to join in (just tag #bwfest2023) and I’ll try and reblog all I can. Otherwise it’s just me and the following (links will be added as we go):

2nd July - Ask Game - Send in the first line of a story (and a pairing) and I’ll finish it off with a short drabble/fic

anguish, regret, sorrow and woe (Natasha and Yelena)

Thunderstorms (Clint/Nat)

safe. guard. (Natasha and Tony / Clint/Nat)

nightmares (Clint/Nat)

Achates (Pepper and Nat)

broken pieces floating by (og avengers / Clint/Nat)

swing and a miss (og avengers/Clint/Nat)

hide and seek (Clint/Nat, Yelena)

Debrief (Tony and Nat)

Siblings (Wanda and Natasha)

3rd July - The Aquarium (Clint/Nat)

4th July - Leave Everything but Your Bones Behind (mini sequel to this fic)

5th July - Solemn - Pepper and Nat

6th July - Wild Geese - Black Widows (cruelty is easy)

7th July - Some Advice (Clint/Nat)

8th July - Mirror Mirror (Natasha)

9th July - Kiss The Dread Update - chapter 7 now up (story here if you want to catch up before the update)

Black Widow Fest 2021

Black Widow Fest 2022

It will be cross posted to ao3 at some point.

Lastly; as always, your words and encouragement and community always means so much. <3

[quietlyimplode]

So glad I logged in today to see you are doing this cool event! For the ask game (apologies if I'm early but it should already be 2 July in your timezone right?) of course I'd take platonic Nat & Tony with "That cut isn't gonna stitch itself back together, is it?" Feeling slightly malancholic post-battle comrady if that remotely makes sense (but feel free to take it and run with it whether it takes you <3)

Oh my dear friend, yay for joining in. Thanks for the ask, I hope I did it justice, would be very willing to do a part two on this as I wanted to do more just ran out of time. <3

Black Widow Fest 2023 -Ask Game

Warnings: mission gone wrong fic (nothing graphic)

Word count: 737

Pairing: Clint/Nat, Tony and Nat

safe. guard.

Clint’s unconscious body is underneath Natasha’s, and although she’s moving slowly, Jarvis tells him she’s conscious and alive.

Tony focuses and lands softly next to her, quickly motioning for his suit to disarm and appear as unassuming as possible.

“Sentry mode,” he tells the suit.

It scans the area, and faces away from them; guarding his friends as he assesses them both and calls it in.

“I’ve found them,” he tells Steve as Natasha focusses on him and covers Clint in her haze.

“It’s okay Natasha, it’s me.”

A deep frown meets his eyes, and recognition seems to spawn.

“They found us, we ran, Tony, and they chased after us,” she says in a rush, “they’re close, I’m sure; they can’t..”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he assures.

He wants to touch her, the bullet graze in her hairline, and the gravel rash over her left side, speaks of more than just run and hide.

“Clint,” she tries to rouse him, but he doesn’t wake.

“Help him, Tony, please?”

He doesn’t think he’s ever heard her sound so worried, so tired and concerned for Clint. But to be fair, he’s never seen Clint unconscious.

“Steve’s coming with the jet, okay? He’ll be here…”

The jet lands close to the explosion site, and the sound drowns out his voice.

“Now.”

It’s how they’d known where she was. The flare that had been set beforehand seemed like it was set just for him.

The explosion that followed overloaded the output and he’d had to take time before flying across; his friends lost in the debris.

“Okay Nat, can you stand?”

“Help him?”

Steve’s by his side and tending to Clint, as Tony focuses on Natasha, still trying to get her to focus.

“Come on, follow me.”

When she doesn’t move, he motions for Steve to pick up Clint and carry him to the jet.

“Follow him,” he tells her, and walks behind her as she gingerly follows after them, limping and holding her left arm.

Tony watches her carefully. Assessing her as she so often assesses him.

The limp.

The graze.

The gravel.

It had taken them only two hours to find them, but still the wounds feel big. It doesn’t even take into account Clint’s unconsciousness.

She stumbles and immediately he’s by her side, steadying her as she tries to move as quickly as Steve does.

“I got you,” he mutters.

Steve lays Clint flat on the stretcher, and straps him in.

Tony’s left with both Natasha’s panic and Clint’s prone body, as he moves to the front of the plane to take off.

He’s glad Steve knows what to do, without having to talk about it.

He checks on Clint, telling his unconscious friend to wake up, before he rechecks the straps and hopes it’s just a bump on the head.

“Natasha, come here,” he says gently, assessing that Clint looks relatively stable, but Natasha, shivering and hyper vigilant, needs.. More.

“That cut isn't gonna stitch itself back together, is it?"

She meets his eyes, and the panic abates as she slowly nods.

“He got hit on the head,” she tells him honestly.

“The debris from the explosion, it hit him. I think it killed the hydra team.”

She gives him a dead stare.

He offers her a blanket, gently placing it next to her as she doesn’t move to touch it.

“Nat?”

He shows her the stitching kit and she takes a deep breath before cocking her head.

“Tony.”

She offers her arm, the gravel embedded deep.

“We can wait for the hospital,” he tells her, suddenly feeling not up to the task, of helping her alongside protecting her mental health.

At this point, he’s sure the latter is more important.

“Tony,” she repeats, “it’s okay. I can do it.”

She takes the tweezers from him, and slowly starts removing the gravel.

“Stop,” he tells her, her hands shaking from the adrenaline dump.

“I can help.”

Carefully, he grabs his water bottle and washes the wound, watching her carefully as he does so.

Next, he removes the bigger pieces, slowly, carefully washing blood away.

He’s as gentle as he can be, worried about the bullet graze, wondering if he should have prioritized that over the gravel rash.

Natasha’s face doesn’t show pain, just concern, as she doesn’t take her eyes off Clint.

“He’ll be okay, Nat, promise,” he tells her.

“Yeah,” she replies, tiredly, “I know.”

.

[quietlyimplode]

Black Widow Fest 2023 - Day Three

in the book of being, life promised to be a moving thing

Warnings: dissociation, grief of life

Word count: 1065

Pairing: Clint/Nat

leave everything but your bones behind was a fic of last whumptober, to be clear this can be read as a stand alone, or it can be read together with Clint’s pov here (or you can read all 50000 words of the fic to see how this fits in too). Thanks @adorationamy for the prompt on this one, it was nice to revisit the fic for a little bit. <3

She tries to hide the worst of the fallout from Clint. And for the most part, she can.

He knows her so well, that there’s obvious tells that she’s not okay, and sometimes she hates that he knows her that well.

Natasha has dreams, he wakes her when they get bad.

She forgets to eat, he makes her dinner.

She doesn’t go outside and he shows her a rainbow.

She forgets that living isn’t all grand missions and doing things.

Sometimes it’s a quiet life of noticing the world around her.

It’s making sure that she recognises in herself that her life has not always been ruled by others, that she has some power in how it goes forward; even if that was not true of the past.

It’s having the insight to ask when she needs some outside help.

But it’s hard.

It doesn’t come naturally.

It requires forethought; insight.

Trust.

And she forgets, often.

She can count the people on one hand who she trusts with this, and only one is living with her.

It means that the onus for her living and moving forward, falls to him, and it’s a horrible feeling of debt.

She doesn’t want to make his living life harder.

Though she knows she does.

Natasha sighs.

The sunrise breaks through the window, and she revels in the warmth.

Small things. Small joys.

Clint keeps saying it, and now the small voice in her head agrees, and holds her accountable.

Small joys.

She focuses on the sounds of the coffee machine, hoping it wafts to wake Clint. Opening the door, the sounds of the waves brings the smallest of smiles to her face.

Good things.

She remembers having a conversation with Tony that when he doesn’t feel good, Dummy puts all the good things of the world on his screen.

Every time he unlocks or looks at a screen, there’s something else that makes him think that the world isn’t so bad.

She’d taken it on as a core memory, and tried to factor it in. When the world seemed bleak, when she couldn’t find reasons to get out of bed, when there seemed to be so much bad happening, it was something she always thought about.

She sips the ready made coffee, and swallows the fire heat down. Still trying to find pleasures in eating and drinking, she knows coffee is one way in.

The warm drink hits her stomach, and she realises that she hasn’t really had much in her the last day. It brings a nauseousness. The feeling, disorienting as she sits.

The day had started well but she feels the deterioration, the growth of despair clouding her mind as the feeling gives her a flash to the start of her sickness.

The emotions gives way to a sense memory, ugly in its feeling.

The moment she’d entered her apartment and seen Liho, feeling generally unwell, nauseous, dizzy and headachy.

She sits, waiting for the feeling to pass, breathing deeply, heavily.

‘I’m okay.’

The words whispered as she tries to ground herself. The sea. The warmth of the mug.

The pain in her head.

The bile in her throat.

The ocean waves.

The salt of the air.

Vomit.

The grip of her hands on the fabric of the couch.

She needs to find Clint.

Embarrassment at the sick on the bench, she’s furthered into fear that she’s not okay.

Tony, the red room, Jace, it was all for nothing.

There’s an existential dread that pulls at her.

And now Dreykov is dead, no one can save her.

Furiously, she cleans the small pile of vomit, and tries not to throw up again.

What if, her days are numbered? What can she do with her days?

The thought makes her numb.

She has too much red in her ledger.

Clint.

Stumbling, she moves back to their bedroom, crawls into bed and tightens her eyes closed, silent tears on her face as Clint, oblivious to the pain in her stomach and thoughts in her head, hugs her back and pulls her close.

He asks her questions when he wakes.

Tears dried on her face, she can’t shake the fear of being sick still. Her answers are short, the look on his face, worrying.

She needs a day or so; she’d already grieved this life the first time round, so it’s admittedly self indulgent, but it’s something she can’t shake.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers to the room he’s not in.

There’s a loss of time.

Fingers dig into her palm.

She’s not ready to die.

She doesn’t want to die.

The television plays and she watches it without discrimination.

She can hear Clint on the phone.

What if?

She’s dying.

It doesn’t matter that she’s feeling better, doesn’t feel the same as she did hours ago.

Her mind has convinced her that it didn’t work.

Clint returns, and announces he has Tony on the phone.

If she tells them together, maybe the confession won’t be as hard. Two of the people she loves and trusts. Maybe the only two who might understand.

They fought so hard to save her.

Clint speaks.

Slowly, softly, turns the television down so there’s just pictures moving on the screen.

Good things.

He tells her good things.

The oryx.

Germany.

Immunotherapy advances.

Jace.

Widows.

Licking her lips, she starts to come back to equilibrium.

Clint and Tony are right.

Small joys, good things.

If she’s dying she wants to know what they are.

“I think I’m dying,” she whispers to Clint.

He touches her face gently.

“No,” he says softly, “my solnyshko, it’s done, it’s finished.”

He makes her look at him.

“All the tests say you’re doing well. Trust me, trust them.”

Sad eyes look to him.

“Solnyshko?”

He smiles.

“I’ve been practicing. It means..”

“Little sun, I know.”

He nods, “of course.”

She rests her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

He kisses the top of her head.

“It’ll get better, Nat, I promise. It always does.”

She hopes so, she doesn’t want to have to rely on him for everything. It makes her feel less than, and a burden.

The television continues and he hugs her close.

“It’s okay,” he repeats.

Natasha nods.

“Thank you, golubka.”

She looks up to him and smiles shallowly.

“Little pigeon?”

She kisses him and presses her forehead against his head.

“Little pigeon.”

.

[quietlyimplode]

Black Widow Fest 2023 - Day Two

The Aquarium

Warnings: a visit to the aquarium is cut short :(

Word count: 1212

Pairing: Clint/Nat

This fic is thanks to @broken--bow ‘s amazing art (for my eyes only) and borne of a conversation for Clint and Nat having a place to meet, that only they knew about, and meant something to them. The penguins of Kyoto Aquarium are famous for having their relationships recorded. A fluffy piece before we get into the real angst of the week. As always, your likes, comments and reblogs are always so appreciated. Welcome to day two of bwfest2023.

Clint rubs his arm, the scratch from the katana not deep, but itchy as it heals. He nods and smiles to the straight faced Japanese man sitting across from him.

The man nods and stares back.

Clint forgets that, as an American, his mannerisms are not universal. He wonders how Natasha is getting on.

He sends a quick text and stands to get off at the station he has no hope in pronouncing.

His phone vibrates and he smiles.

She’s almost there too. He opts to wait for her train, and sits on the bench.

He loves the Japanese train system.

It says the next train arrives in 4 minutes.

And it will. He loves the fact that if it’s even if a minute late, they apologise.

The train system in America is horrible.

Natasha steps off the newly arrived train, the announcement permeating the station.

Clint waves low and smiles big.

“Hey,” he grins, giving her a hug and kiss into her hair.

“Hey,” she grins back.

“How long do you think before they realise we aren’t on the plane right now?”

He laughs.

“Soon I think.”

“Shall we?”

He takes her hand, and rubs his thumb over her knuckles.

“You’re doing okay?”

She nods.

“I’m wearing like a pound of makeup. And the stupid rib wrapping is making me sweat in all the wrong places.”

She lifts her top slightly to show that she’s actually strapped her broken ribs.

“Well done,” he tells her, slightly proud that she’s taking care of herself.

“You?” she asks.

He shrugs, lifting his sleeve to show his bandage wrapping, then slightly lifts his t-shirt to show the bruising on his hip.

Natasha nods, taking his hand and squeezing it.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

Clint smiles as they ascend the stairs, squinting in the bright August light.

To anyone, they look like tourists, not international spies, one back from a mission in Sapporo and the other from a mission in Singapore.

Kyoto was a midway point, somewhere to meet, reset and have a much needed date.

“This felt like a shorter walk last time,” she huffs.

He squeezes her hand and lets go, the sweat on his palms making it uncomfortable.

He agrees but doesn’t want to tell her that it’s likely because the injuries she’s carrying are taking it out of her.

They round on the Aquarium, Natasha seamlessly buying tickets and leading him to the entry.

The Giant Salamander is the first thing they see, and they stop to see them piled on top of each other.

“They’re so large.”

They stop and stay still with the salamanders, before Clint is distracted by the seal. It swims fast and he migrates over to follow it’s movement.

Natasha grabs his hand again, and points to the sign for the penguins.

“How long do we have?” she asks, looking to the sign and then the café.

“Food, then penguins? Or penguins, then food?”

“Mostly I just want to see the penguins,” he laughs.

Natasha loves this side of Clint, the one where he seems so playful and carefree. He just enjoys life and what’s in front of him.

They guide each other until the large board of the penguin relationships greets them, and she can’t help but laugh too.

“There’s been some changes since we’ve been here,” she tells him, pointing to the board.

“Oh no! Sen and Maru are not together.”

“What about Barney?”

“Clint, just because you can’t read Japanese, doesn’t mean you can make up names for the penguins,” she chastises.

“I can, it’s consistent. Barney, the one that starts with the hiragana ば, then ど for Doris.”

“You know some hiragana, and you’ve just generalised that?”

Clint continues to the tell her the hiragana he knows, and Natasha doesn’t have it in her to correct his poor pronunciation.

It’s like when she tries to teach him the Cyrillic alphabet.

He’ll get there. It just takes time.

He often gets sad about how quickly she picks up languages and how long it takes him.

“Barney and Doris aren’t together anymore.”

He points to the broken love heart and traces it with his finger to the two penguins.

His pout makes her laugh again, and she points out a few more changes before moving onto the actual penguins.

“They’re just cool,” she breathes, staring at them as they play and move around the keepers.

Clint looks to her and then to the small animals, playing and squeezes her hand.

“They are, aren’t they?”

He feels his phone buzzing in his pocket, as he takes a step towards the window.

He knows it’s Phil.

They’ve both missed their check ins.

Natasha’s phone is next.

“Don’t answer,” he implores, with his best puppy dog look.

She sighs and shakes her head, unlocks the phone and says hello.

“Yeah, we’re together.”

He laughs at her rolling her eyes, as they move along, sidestepping children until they find a quieter spot.

“Medical won’t miss me. Yes they’re strapped. Umm. I don’t know. Fine. 8pm.”

Natasha hands him the phone.

“He wants to talk to you.”

He growls low.

She smiles in revenge.

“He called you first,” she whispers, pressing the phone into his hand.

“Hello?”

���Clint? You missed check in.”

“Yeah.”

The keeper moves into the cage with food, and they sit together next to everyone else.

“You’re both okay?”

He starts to feel bad, not telling Phil their plan to meet up.

“Yeah, we just needed… time. After Suriname, and the girls. I think. Even though we had separate missions, we just needed a break.”

Natasha’s head pops up at the mention of Suriname.

He shakes his head, hoping to convey that it’s all okay.

“Understood. You have til 8pm. Then, I can’t keep it from Fury, and he’ll probably have disciplinary actions. If you miss the plane, I can’t help, okay? You have four hours to get to Kansai.”

“Yeah, yeah okay, okay.”

Phil pauses.

“She said she strapped her ribs, did she?”

Clint glances at Natasha.

“Yeah, she did.”

“And you, you took care of your wounds? Including the stab wound?”

Clint nods, “yeah, it’s fine.”

Phil’s huff, and pause conveys nothing but patience for his charges.

“8pm Clint.”

And he hangs up the phone.

The penguins are eating.

Natasha smiles and takes his hand.

He passes the phone back to her.

“You just had to answer, didn’t you?”

“8pm, the curfew?”

Clint sighs, looking out as they waddle along then dive.

“More like 6 for check in, and an hour and a half to get from here to the airport. Which means…”

“We have to leave now?”

He stares out.

“Yeah. I think so.”

They take the long route out, passing the dolphins, then the sharks and jellyfish. They’re both quiet as they approach the end, and even quieter as they exit.

Silence on the train, each lost in their own thoughts.

“We’ll come back here,” she promises, “just like we always do.”

“Yeah,” he replies quietly, “maybe Doris and Barney will be back together.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

It’s clear that both of them don’t want to go. That the brief interlude of normalcy, whilst gave them pause, is not their lives.

Clint glances to her.

Kisses the top of her head.

“We’ll be back,” he promises.

“We’ll be back.”

.

[quietlyimplode]

Tony/Nat

“Can you do it? My hands are shaky”

Thanks Anon. Can be read as either pairing/friendship o think your choice. I love their dynamic so much -<3

Black Widow Fest 2023 -Ask Game

Warnings: discuss of past nightmares

Word count: 496

Pairing: Tony and Nat

Debrief

“Can you do it? My hands are shaky.”

Tony lays bare chested, the cut on his shoulder weeping and bloody.

“How would you even do it, even if they weren’t?”

Natasha wipes the blood away, trying to be gentle even as he flinches away.

“Stop being a baby,” she admonishes, “it’s four stitches max. Or maybe glue.”

She wipes it again.

“Ow,” he complains.

“Glue?”

Tony looks back at his shoulder and groans.

“You changed the arc reactor, by yourself, for over 6 months and this creeps you out?”

He shrugs, groans again, and pouts.

“That was different, that was, ow. Give me some warning.”

He feels the gentle hands touch it again, and shuts up.

“Thanks,” he says softly.

“Tony, where’s Pepper?”

He doesn’t want to talk about it.

He gives her a half smile and looks down.

“She. She uhh, had to go away for a bit. I… I accidentally set one of the suits on her in my sleep.”

Natasha frowns.

“What? How?”

“She’s okay,” Tony clarifies quickly.

“I.. I shut it down and there’s a fail safe where they break apart. But. Yeah. She… uhh. I didn’t feel safe until I’ve reprogrammed them. But. Yeah. She just needs some time.”

She hands him back his shirt, and shaky hands do up the buttons.

“I once strangled Clint in my sleep,” she confesses, sitting next to him.

“What?”

“Yeah, I uhh, had a nightmare and he tried to wake me. Turns out I didn’t realize it was him, until I fully woke up. I didn’t go back over to his apartment for a month, and even then I worried about falling asleep near him.”

She hands him the bloody cloth, and bumps his shoulder.

“It happens. Apparently. To people like us.”

He makes himself small on the couch, and Natasha feels sorry for him. They clearly haven’t had all the talks that she and Clint have had around nightmares and strategies to wake each other up.

“People like us?”

She shrugs.

“People prone to nightmares.”

He can’t help but smile at the oversimplification.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe have a talk to her, don’t let it fester.”

Tony stands and moves to the kitchen and offers her a bottle of water, then throws it when she nods.

“Okay.”

“She’ll be back Tony, I promise. You guys are like magnets, always pulling and pushing.”

He shrugs and winces again.

“Either that or because we run a business.”

Natasha laughs and takes a sip.

“Yeah or that.”

He holds his hand out.

“No more shaking.”

“Adrenaline’s gone huh?”

“Yeah,” he nods.

“Feeling tired?”

He sometimes hates Natasha’s spider senses.

“Yeah, but we gotta go back to Fury and report on what we found.”

Natasha stands.

“Rest Tony, I’ll do it. It’s the least I can do.”

Tony sighs. “Nah I’ll come with you. Otherwise I’m left here alone with my thoughts and a workbench. And nobody wants that.”

He throws her the keys.

“You drive though yeah?”

.

[quietlyimplode]

If not too late for the ask game: “I had a sister, once.” (Natasha & Wanda post AoU?)

Oh my friend, what a fic to end the ask game on. I rather like the dynamics of this one and the thought behind it. Wanda and Nat are two that I feel would struggle to reach equilibrium, but because of who they are, would always try. Ty for the prompts.

Black Widow Fest 2023 -Ask Game

Warnings: discussion of death

Word count: 504

Pairing: Natasha and Wanda

Siblings

“I had a sister once,” she tells Wanda.

Pietro’s memorial was a quiet affair. The Avengers and their new members all in attendance as words were spoken and Clint guided the grief.

The young man’s life summarized into love for his family and a loyalty to those he cared for. A playful spirit that moved fast and cared deeply.

Natasha had offered to drive Wanda home, or back to the compound afterwards.

She was silent anyway.

Uncomfortably so.

The trust they’d built was tentative, slow; but fighting alongside someone just did that.

Natasha’s statement was met with a look of curiousness, though no words followed it up.

“Her name was Yelena,” she says carefully, “she had blonde hair and liked to do cartwheels.”

Wanda nods and looks out the window.

Natasha underestimated how painful talking about Yelena would be. Especially off the back of a memorial where the sibling had died.

“My last words to her were in anguish, we held hands and were ripped apart.”

Natasha isn’t sure why she said that. It’s not where she was going with this story.

She had just wanted to Wanda to know that she wasn’t alone in grief for a sibling.

That it never goes away, the feeling of loss.

“Some part of me will always be ripped apart.”

Wanda looks at her intensely, Natasha’s words clearly hitting vulnerable places.

Her breathing quicker, as red swirls play on her fingertips.

“You’re not alone in your grief,” Natasha continues, “to know what it feels like to lose a sibling. Clint too. He knows.”

Barney’s death was something Clint never talked about. She can count the number of times he’d talked about his brother on one hand.

Remembers the exact day that Fury came to take him to tell him they’d found his body.

She’d been new to shield then, still finding her own feet, she hadn’t known all the history behind Clint, and had asked stupid questions about him.

The age difference, what his brother did, how tall he was. In hindsight, those innocent questions, had allowed Clint to talk about his sibling in ways he wanted to.

“It hurts,” Wanda whispers, the red glowing and fading.

Natasha nods, knowingly.

“It always hurts,” she replies, “but the hurt sometimes feels different. It grows. Changes. Hurts in new ways, feels less in others.”

Natasha pauses. Knows she’s fucking this up.

“He’ll always be your brother. Just like she’ll always be my sister.”

Wanda wipes her face and stares out the window.

“I miss him,” she whispers, “I miss him so much.”

Pulling the car into the driveway, Natasha holds back her own grief and parks the car.

“I know,” she mumbles, “I know.”

Visions of Yelena cartwheeling are imbued in her mind, and she opens the car door.

She opens Wanda’s too and helps her out.

Offering Wanda a hand tentatively, she touches her skin to skin, briefly scared at the red that glows.

Instead, she pushes it down and pulls her into a hug.

“I know.”

.

[quietlyimplode]

"Hey, you're probably working right now, but if not..."

Clint and Nat have crashed at a safe house after a rough mission. It's 4 am and Nat can feel herself starting to spiral. She needs a friend/distraction but knows Clint needs rest so hesitantly reaches out to Pepper instead.

Yesssss. I love Pepper and Nat dynamics. This one was so fun. <3 tyyy .

Black Widow Fest 2023 -Ask Game

Warnings: panic attack build up

Word count: 529

Pairing: Pepper and Nat (Clint/Nat implied)

Achates

Natasha watches over him, the redness of his skin could be indicative of the sustained burn or temperature or something different.

The panic rises.

What if starts ruminating in her head.

She starts to pace, hoping her distressed movement doesn’t wake him. The pain killers she gave him should keep him asleep.

What if she needs to wake him?

Did she give him too much?

She shakes her hands and makes herself take a breath.

Her chest hurts.

She needs to sleep too.

4am.

It’s been almost 36 hours since she closed her eyes and she knows it’s contributing to dread thoughts.

They’re safe, she thinks, no one knows of the safe house.

She checks the doors again.

Checks the windows.

Sits.

Stands.

Rubs her chest.

Drinks water.

She watches the rise and fall of Clint’s chest and counts his breathing.

She doesn’t feel well.

It’s not..

Her phone in hand, she dials a number she’s never dialed when she feels like this.

It’s a leap of faith.

She can’t wake Clint.

She needs someone.

The line connects and she’s quick to clarify.

“Hey, I know you’re probably working now, but if not..”

Her words are cut off.

“Nat?”

Pepper’s worry cuts through her tangent.

“Nat, are you okay?”

It gives Natasha pause.

“I’m not working,” Pepper lies.

“It’s almost 6pm here.”

Natasha doesn’t know what to say. Just feels stupid that in her panic she called a friend.

“Nat? Where are you?”

It’s a question she’s not sure how to respond.

“Belgium.”

“Oh. Is it nice there?”

Natasha almost smiles at the question in it’s innocence.

“Some parts.”

She feels her breath slow.

“Tony wanted me to ask you if you and Clint wanted to come over at the end of the month? You know if you’re around. He wants to show Clint an arrow he’s been working on.”

Natasha checks on Clint again, at the mention of his name. Counts his breaths and finds no difference to the moment before.

“Yeah,” she whispers, “that sounds nice.”

“Are you..”

The question is met with hesitation.

“Tony calls me or has called me when he’s ready to do something stupid, like throw a rocket into a wormhole. You’re not doing anything stupid right? This isn’t a goodbye call?”

Natasha’s heart drops.

“No, no not at all. I’m in a safe house,” she clarifies.

“I just… needed a friend.”

She can almost feel Pepper nodding at the phone.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She’s not sure she does, even though the years of therapy tell her she should.

“Maybe when I see you?”

“Deal.”

There’s a slight silence as Natasha feels uncertain how to extend the conversation, liking that it’s lowered her heart rate and the pain in her chest is less. Just a little more and it will be morning.

Things feel better when there’s daylight and the oppression of this night leaves.

“How.. How was your day?”

Pepper seems to know that she’s not ready to finish the conversation, and launches into a story about the new hire in accounting.

Natasha settles into the kitchen chair, eyes on Clint and listens to her friend complain.

.

[quietlyimplode]

Clint/Nat

"How the hell are you still conscious right now?"

Thanks Anon <3

Black Widow Fest 2023 -Ask Game

Warnings: being knocked out

Word count: 388

Pairing: OG Avengers

swing and a miss

“How the hell are you still conscious, right now?”

Clint forgets sometimes that he’s amongst superhero’s but watching Steve take three blows to the head, he’d been sure that that he’d find his friend unconscious.

Tony lands next to him and pulls him up off the ground.

“Just lucky I guess?” Steve says ruefully.

They all laugh, knowing it’s likely not luck.

It becomes an in-joke when they’re fighting.

Someone gets hit in the head and everyone asks how they’re still conscious.

They all laugh and shake it off and get on with the fight.

Until Natasha.

The back hand and follow up pistol whip sends her to the floor, unmoving and oblivious to the fight around her.

Panic strengthens all of them as they rush to get to her.

Clint is first, followed by Tony, then Steve.

He coordinates the action, directing Tony to take her and move her to safety, whilst he and Steve finish the rest of the Hydra goons.

The quinjet, isn’t far, and he almost wants to tell Steve to go on ahead. Make sure Nat is okay, and leave him here and let him catch up.

He knows what concussion looks like and he knows how dangerous it can be.

The memory loss, the headaches, the feeling that your brain is scrambled. He thinks they’re lucky to have gone this long without someone being injured.

He hates that it’s Natasha.

They’re only human.

He’s met by Tony, his helmet removed at the foot of the ramp.

“Is she okay?”

Tony nods.

“She’s asking about you.”

Clint’s heart stutters and he heads inside, finding Natasha sitting on the edge of a seat in the belly of the jet.

“Oh thank god.”

Steve wanders in after and finds her sitting.

“How are you still conscious right now?” he deadpans.

Clint musters a smile, and asks how she is; there’s already a bruise forming on half her face and Steve cringes.

“Had to be one of us, I suppose,” she says slowly.

Clint sits next to her and the others make use of themselves by readying the jet.

“Tell me,” he asks, “it’s just us.”

“Nothing I haven’t had before,” she whispers.

He touches her face gently, wincing at her upcoming bruise.

He knocks heads with her and sighs.

“Don’t do that again yeah?”

.

[quietlyimplode]

Black Widow Fest 2023 - Day Four

Solemn

Warnings: I’m not sure. None I think. Angst?

Word count: 980

Pairing: Natasha and Pepper

This was written for a friend, going through something I couldn’t and can’t understand but hope that they know that even though friends can’t always know how we are feeling, there’s a solace in them being there for us when they can. <3 shared with permission, as it was written for them.

Pepper finds her sitting by herself, legs dangling, hands holding onto the mug.

“Hey,” she announces her presence as to not to startle her.

She should know, that Natasha already knew she was coming. She doesn’t even flinch at her voice.

“Hey,” the quiet voice comes back.

Pepper feels a bit lost in what to do next, but continues to move forward, though uninvited.

“Can I sit?” she asks, motioning to the space next to Natasha, even though there’s seats all around the library.

The almost imperceptible nod grants Pepper access.

She moves forward again, and plants herself next to her friend.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she offers.

Pepper almost hears Natasha swallow her grief as the predictable shaking of her head comes soon after.

“Okay,” she says.

They sit together as Natasha takes a tentative sip.

Pepper smells the chocolate and remembers that Natasha doesn’t drink caffeine.

She has no idea how, but the woman seems to always be able to be alert and responsive, whereas she requires a full 8 hours and caffeine drip to be functional.

“There was this coffee shop once,” she starts, “and the only thing I got there was this Italian hot chocolate.”

Natasha is listening, always listening, but doesn’t respond.

“I used to think I’d get it for special occasions, not indulge, but it was the most delicious drink I’d ever had. Almost like pure hot chocolate with creamy milk and the right amount of sugar.”

She kicks her feet out, finding them dangling like Natasha’s, enjoying the movement.

“I’d been away, and it was all I wanted. I was gleeful on the plane, wanting to just have the smooth aroma, the sugar hit, and the sweet taste of chocolate.”

Pepper feels the sadness hit, as she always does when she thinks of the hot chocolate.

“But the shop had shut down when I finally arrived back. No forwarding address, no note, just.. Gone.”

She stops her movement and looks to Natasha.

“Silly I know, in the grand scheme of things, but it was something I wanted. Something that I looked forward to. And then, it was something I couldn’t have anymore.”

Natasha nods.

In that moment, Pepper feels like she knows the feeling. It’s not anything big, but it’s a loss all the same.

She feels self conscious in the moment, wondering why she chose to disclose it. It feels strangely personal but not all the same. It’s not like the silence was uncomfortable, but, she supposes, isn’t that what friendship is? Sharing parts of yourself and hoping the other person values it and protects it for you?

“I…” Natasha starts, clears her voice and nods again.

“It’s an anniversary today.”

Pepper is quiet.

“I don’t want to forget it, and someday I feel I will.”

The room is quiet.

“Today I just want to mark it, with my own thoughts and feelings. No one can fix it, no one can feel it for me, it’s my own, and I just…”

She lets the thought hang.

Pepper is silent, her body tense and still. It’s like a magic hold, if she moves, Natasha will stop talking.

“Clint doesn’t understand. I want him to get it, but he can’t and won’t ever. Things come easily for him.”

She stops herself and Pepper sees the slight pain that passes her face.

Pepper let’s the breath go, slowly, inaudibly.

She’s torn between asking about the anniversary and wanting to assure her friend that it’s going to be okay and whilst not everything everyone can understand, being able to talk about things is a positive.

It’s taken them both a while to build up to this, but she wants to assure her… of what she’s not sure. Maybe that whatever she’s feeling is valid.

But sometimes there are no words.

In her mind she marks the date, to be around if Natasha needs her.

Holding thoughts and feelings and keeping them safe. She can do that for her friend.

“I’m sorry about your hot chocolate shop,” Natasha finishes.

Pepper smiles, the tension in her body easing.

“Me too.”

She gently nudges Natasha’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry too, that you have to go through this alone. That he doesn’t get it, even if he can’t.”

Natasha shrugs.

“You ever feel like you were meant for one thing but you achieved something totally different? And whilst you’re proud of your achievements, you just sometimes think… what if?”

Pepper can’t help but scoff and nod.

“You’ve met Tony right? I have that thought frequently.”

“Yeah.”

Pepper opens her mouth to talk, but closes it as Natasha continues.

“Sometimes I wish things were easier, different. But they’re not.”

Pepper nods taking on her words.

“They’re not,” she repeats.

She waits this time, the quietness filling in the spaces.

“It’s not always going to be like this,” she decides.

“Some things will be easier, and some harder.”

There’s a light laugh and she knows she’s touched a nerve.

“That’s reassuring.”

Pepper nods. Of all the things she knows to be true, the fact that life has it’s difficulties is one of them.

“I think so. No status quo. Today this is hard. It’s okay that it is. Tomorrow might be the same but might be lighter. Things I think, ebb and flow.”

Natasha shrugs again.

“Maybe.”

The noncommittal way she responds, Pepper backs off. No one wants a lecture.

“I’m here, if you want to talk though? I don’t care what it’s about. I just want you to know.”

They catch eyes and Natasha nods.

“Thanks.”

Pepper bumps her shoulder again.

“What else are friends for?”

She knows it doesn’t fix anything. Words rarely do. But she hopes that Natasha knows she’s loved and supported.

Sighing lightly she appreciates the quiet, knowing as soon as she steps out, the loudness of the world will come back full force.

.

[quietlyimplode]

Clint/Nat

“This nightmare will never end, will it?”

Thanks Anon, I don’t think this is where you thought this one would go, but honestly? If you remind me, I may be persuaded to do more on it <3

Black Widow Fest 2023 -Ask Game

Warnings: mention of Red Room

Word count: 319

Pairing: Clint/Nat, Yelena

Hide and Seek

“The nightmare will never end, will it?”

He hears the grief in her tone, but there’s nothing for it.

Still they have no leads on where Yelena is.

The missing Widow now gone for months.

Having not checked in, Natasha’s worry had grown.

Rumors of the Red Room being started again had only deepened the concern.

The gentle chugging of the train pulling them along.

He wants to offer words of reassurance but realistically there are none.

Yelena has either gone to ground in fear, or someone has her.

Natasha isn’t wrong.

The nightmare of the Red Room seems to have no end.

He calls through to Steve and gives an update of the lack of evidence and information they found. He tells them to come home and be safe.

Reiterating the information to Natasha, she nods and looks sadly at the picture of Yelena she took at Christmas.

“We’ll find her,” he promises, “or she’ll find us.”

Natasha rests her head on his shoulder, and nods.

“She was happy at Christmas, wasn’t she? You don’t think… you don’t think she’s avoiding us on purpose?”

Clint kisses the top of her head.

“She was, yeah.”

He thinks on her words.

“I don’t think she’s avoiding us on purpose.”

She straightens up.

“I’ve left the breadcrumbs at the old safe houses, if they… if she’s not.. “

Clint nods.

“She’ll make contact.”

The train ride is a little over an hour, and for most of that they sit in silence.

“The planes at 4,” she clarifies, looking at the time.

Clint nods.

He feels his phone buzz and looks down at the unknown number.

“Nat?”

He answers and puts it on speaker phone.

Yelena’s voices comes through in a crackle.

“Manchester, bridgewater path, 3pm.”

The phone hangs up.

Natasha’s face is indescribable.

The small smile he’s sure is a surge of adrenaline.

“Guess we won’t be making that flight.”

.

[quietlyimplode]

Clint/Nat

I like that you're broken, broken like me

Maybe that makes me a fool

I like that you're lonely, lonely like me

I could be lonely with you

Always love a new song rec - and you’re right this is such a Clint/Nat song. <3 ty for the prompt!

Black Widow Fest 2023 -Ask Game

Warnings: none (socialisation??)

Word count: 345

Pairing: Clint/Nat (early avengers/og avengers)

broken pieces floating by

Tony’s flat in Brooklyn is more like a loft. Clint feels out of place and he doesn’t understand why Natasha said yes to this in the first place.

He hates the forced socialisation of meeting people, and had only agreed because Natasha had said to Pepper that they would.

He never knows what to do with himself when she’s occupied except pour himself a drink and find a place out of the way to drink it. It’s exactly what he does.

He spots Natasha chatting to another, and she catches his eye. Unbeknownst to the woman she’s talking to, she signs that she’ll be with him soon.

Clint steps onto the balcony, the cold night air refreshing against the fake heat of the loft. He looks back to find Natasha making her way to him.

“It’s funny, isn’t it,” she greets him, taking his drink and sipping it, “how in a room so full of people that you can feel so alone. That no one in there thinks like us, or has even remotely the same life experience.”

He takes his drink back and nods.

“I don’t know why you like coming to these things, wouldn’t you prefer to be at home with Lucky and Liho, watching a movie?”

Natasha shrugs.

“Sometimes it’s nice to pretend that we could fit in.”

Clint doesn’t quite feel the same but knows what she means.

“What? That we aren’t broken?”

She looks to him harshly.

“Just because we prefer each others company, and likes to stay home, doesn’t mean we’re broken Clint.”

He sips his drink and raises his eyebrows.

“It just means that we value time together over that in a crowd.”

“Mmm.”

His nonchalance seems to irritate her.

“We aren’t broken, Clint.”

She laughs.

“Well. Not because of this anyway.”

He hands her the drink and sits.

They’re met by Tony, who raises his glass.

Then by Pepper.

Steve follows next.

Bruce shortly after.

Maria joins in, and lastly Phil.

The conversation becomes easier and Natasha nudges him.

“See,” she says under her breath. “Not broken.”

.

[quietlyimplode]

More a concept for a snippet rather than lines: Nat is annoyed she can't sleep through thunderstorms like Clint

For you, dear friend, may the thunderstorms stick to daytime hours.

Black Widow Fest 2023 -Ask Game

Warnings: nil

Word count: 271

Pairing: Clint/Nat

Thunderstorms

The thunder claps again and Natasha sighs.

The concept of sleep feels like just that. A concept.

Especially when Clint is snoring next to her. If she was cruel, she’d wake him up, keep him awake for the night, just like she is, but she’s not.

Doesn’t mean that she’s not tempted though.

Frustration at the inability to sleep, she rolls onto her side, opens her phone and scrolls.

Seeing the time though, makes it worse.

Rain seems to hit harder when she’s concentrating on it, but knowing the time almost feels worse.

The countenance of the realisation that she has to be up in three hours when she hasn’t had any sleep up until this point makes her angry. Frustrated. Annoyed.

Her thoughts punctuated by a particularly heavy snore from the right, and she pulls the covers across uncovering him.

Maybe if she can think of boring things.

Tomorrow’s schedule.

The weekend.

Lunch menus.

Dinner ideas.

Nothing overrides the constant patter and plummet of the rain and the storm.

Clint moves again.

Still asleep and oblivious to her annoyance, only minutes have passed since she stole the covers.

Frustration bubbles and she almost groans out loud.

The safe house’s windows are thin and the tin roof does nothing to block the sounds.

She wants to sleep but her brain is not cooperating.

Clint rolls, his knee covering her legs effectively trapping her in place. Now unable to move, unable to sleep, Natasha feels pinned down and infuriated.

The storms seems to agree with the feeling, thunder breaking hard in the distance and lightening making the room glow.

She sighs.

Sleep isn’t coming.

.