Black Hawk
"Thaaaat's a stupid name. And I mean really stupid. I thought we had moved past those, you just said we needed to get serious."
A glimmer of surprise resonated in Clint's eye as took a rough bite of his pizza, scoffing at his partner. "I was serious. What, you gonna tell me that it's not catchy?"
There was something pitying about the way Nat nodded, as if she felt sorry for Clint's genuine enthusiasm. "That's exactly what I'm gonna do. It's not catchy, it doesn't ring any bells—try again, and get above the obvious."
Now feeling thoroughly indignant, Clint pointed at the red-haired spy across from him with his half-eaten pizza. "I refuse to believe you can sit there with a straight face and tell me 'Black Hawk' wouldn't be the best name for our tag-team work."
"Need to see it to believe it, hm? Okay, watch me," and Nat leveled him with a face crafted of marble, emotionless and cold, reminiscent in all the ways to the kinds of looks she used to give Clint himself when he first found her all those years ago. Then, before Clint could begin to grow uncomfortable, her expression warmed and a smile split her cherry-red lips. "Believe me now?"
"I believe you're full of shit, that's what I believe. It's a great name, fact."
"It's unimaginative, better fact. C'mon, arrow-boy, you were in the circus once," she bargained, reaching out for what Clint noticed was her fourth slice of pizza. There was no denying Nat had a body capable of dropping jaws just as easily as it could break necks so he found her propensity to pack it away yet retain such a figure nothing short of unfair. "I'dda thought that as one of the carny folk, your imagination would be higher than… Black Hawk."
He grinned. "I can't help but notice that you're being mighty contrary for someone not even bothering to throw out a suggestion."
"Well, if you ask me," began Nat passively, and she lifted both legs, crossing them comfortably over the table, "I'd go with Black Eye instead. Keeps your elementary name scheme with the added benefit of sounding threatening. See? Miles better already."
There was something snidely victorious about the way she smirked at him and Clint rolled his eyes. "Miles violent, sure," he conceded, downing the crust of his pizza and wiping his hands over his chest. "But we're trying to come up with something more… super-hero-y. Something to inspire hope in the people."
"Ugh, pig. We have napkins right here, y'know," Nat reprimanded with an exaggerated face of disgust. "Maybe you should change your moniker to Grease-Eye instead."
Smirking, Hawkeye pushed himself to his feet with the help of the table. "You're on your sixth slice of pizza—yeah, I've been counting—and somehow I'm the pig?" he questioned incredulously, making his way around to her side. "Spy's must not dabble in logic, huh?"
"Spell logic," she shot back with an uncaring shrug before taking a painstakingly slow bite from her sixth slice, then she proceeded to pull back at the same vexingly leisured pace, causing strands of cheese to coat her bottom lip. "Mmmm… sooo cheesy." She'd all but gasped it out, using that skilled little pink tongue of hers to trace her lip.
As Clint stared down at his partner, there was little he could do in the face of her routine but offer a couple of lingering golf claps. "Ten outta ten, Nat, I'd definitely be surrendering all of my government's secrets if I was your mark," he told her with the utmost enthusiasm.
They both knew that Nat's famed charms had no effect whatsoever on Clint, especially given their past history, so his words did little more than cause Nat to giggle.
"Were you so easy," she mused with a snort.
"Were I," Clint agreed and he swiftly bent over, bringing his lips to her cheeks with enough force to ensure he left behind a very sloppy, very pinguid kiss mark, "but I'm not."
A groan of sincere aversion left Nat as she immediately sat upright, snatching a few napkins from the pile and swiping frantically at her cheek. "Oh, no you did not just—ew, ew, ew, you gross little… I'm so gonna get you back," she vowed, fixing him with a glare that was one part entirely Black Widow and one part playful. "You're such an ass."
"Of course," Clint agreed again, easily falling back into his chair and throwing his legs up with all the flair of a boss, "but I'm your ass."
After discarding her eighth napkin and double-checking that she had erased all trace of Clint's surprise kiss, Nat grunted, the smallest of smiles just barely visible in place of her disgusted scowl. "Hmph. Speaking of asses," she began casually, returning her legs to the tabletop as well, "did you ever get Laura to agree to do that?"
Something that resonated close to regret surfaced over Clint's features and he sighed, throwing his head back. "I brought it up, she quickly brought it down."
Nat sucked her teeth understandingly. "Swing and a miss. What a shame, it's not like you're suggesting something outrageous. A little butt-play is fun every now and again," she said with a supercilious little sniff.
The inclination was all too clear in Nat's tone and Clint tilted his head so as to meet her gaze, but he found her staring off to the side a little too intensively to be convincing. "Funnily enough, that's what I was thinking. I mean, you certainly didn't mind, right?"
If she did, Nat didn't show it, but she did huff out a sigh and further avoid Clint's smug leer by staring up at the ceiling. He could see she was using her tongue to prod around her bottom lip, a cute little tick of hers she reverted to when she was trying to be meticulous with her words. "It's not so much that I didn't mind, Clint," she said, filling his name with enough venom to match a real black widow, "it's that you didn't really give me much choice in the matter."
The last slice of pizza was calling Clint's name and he reached for it. "Right, like the Black Widow would let herself be taken in any way she didn't want."
"Tch, it was so rare that you actually took the reins that I'd be genuinely surprised, couldn't really do much about it," she said, catching his movements and retaliating by grasping the knife at her hip. When they met eyes, the air seemed to shimmer with their intensity, and Nat smirked. "You really wanna risk it all like this, arrow-boy?"
"I risk it all every day I step out with you, Nat." And while that much was wholly true, as just walking down the street with the Black Widow was taking your life into your own hands, it didn't stop Clint from snatching the last slice, which led to Nat quite earnestly trying to imbed her trusty knife in the back of his hand. She missed, and it sank into the table instead. "Ha, gotta be quicker than that."
"Oh, believe me, I was," his partner pointed out, wrenching her blade free, giving it a twirl, and sliding it back into the holder on her waist. "I just suddenly remembered you need your hands to do your whole archery thing."
"And other fingery things of equal renown," Clint said, tearing his slice in two and offering a portion to Nat. When she blinked at him, he edged it closer. "Go on, you know you want it."
"I swear you're too soft," she snapped, snatching the pizza all the same.
"You would've done the same for me—" Clint started.
"Not with pizza," Nat interrupted with a solemn expression, "especially not with extra cheese pizza."
"—and I don't think being soft is a problem I've ever had," Clint finished supremely, as though Nat had never spoken. "Straight as an arrow and twice as thick, isn't that what you used to say?"
Instead of answering, Nat focused entirely on her pizza, utilizing her tongue in a grandiose display that was both highly provocative and completely uncalled for. Still, even as she arched her back and let slip little teasing moans of pleasure, Clint had to marvel at the practiced skill. No one in their right mind could ever say that the Black Widow lacked in the art of seduction.
When you could make eating pizza look triple-x rated, skill spoke for itself.
"You're new little girlfriend is quite the unexpected prude, though, I must say," Nat commented offhandedly, holding her crust between two fingers and swiveling ever so slightly from side to side in her chair. "Missionary for the sole purpose of recreation and all that PG stuff… it's rather boring, isn't it?"
Polishing off his half and sucking on his fingers, Clint gave an apathetic shrug. "Depends on your definition of boring, yeah? She just needs to be shown other, um… opportunities—and that kinda thing takes time. You of all people oughta know how that goes," he said, grinning when Nat rolled her eyes. "In the meantime, the stability is there. The love, the care… it's nice, a little chunk of something I didn't know was missing or that I even wanted. And hey, she loves doing the naked-apron-while-cooking thing," he added almost dreamily.
"You wouldn't even like that if it weren't for me," Nat responded, jabbing a thumb at her chest, which was revealing its usual amount of tantalizing cleavage. It was such an everyday occurrence that Clint was more or less numb to seeing it. "I tried to tell you how awesome it was but you were all "noooo, that can't be, that sounds stupid"," she said in a mocking yet almost perfect rendition of Clint's mannerisms. "Then I do it and bam, you couldn't keep your hands off me."
"In my defense," the master archer began, lifting a finger, "you were so unnaturally sexy virtually anything you did led to me being unable to keep my hands off you."
"Were?" Nat noticed with all the quickness of a cheetah, and her eyes zeroed in on Clint before narrowing into threatening slits. "What're you trying to say there, pal? That I'm not sexy anymore?"
Beyond the ire that one could almost see manifesting itself into a black cloud around Nat, Clint was suddenly aware of the fact that their 'after work' pizza was finished. It was a long-standing tradition of theirs to grab some food after they were done with whatever mission or directive S.H.I.E.L.D had laid out for them to complete. It gave them time to unwind, to get some food in their system, and to just catch up; it was a moment that the two of them had more than once stated was the only saving grace where their jobs were concerned. A little slice of heaven to carve through the darkness and monotony.
"You are one of the sexiest women I've ever had the pleasure to meet, romance, and taste," said Clint with that blunt honesty of his, sharp as an arrow and twice as piercing, and the cloud of rage beginning to rumble above Nat seemingly evaporated. She looked taken aback by his claim, even perhaps a little pleased given the way she rolled her eyes. "You're just not the sexiest woman I've ever had the pleasure to meet, romance, and taste." He smirked when that self-satisfied expression of hers turned into a funny little scowl. "You're a firm number two."
"Fair enough," Nat said, automatically knowing who rightfully sat in his number one spot. Her eyes fell down to where their extra large supreme pizza had once sat, glorious and steamy, now reduced to a cold, greasy circle. She idly tapped the table with a few fingers, lost in thought, until finally uttering, "Next time… we gotta work harder on that name…."
That wasn't what she had originally planned on saying… she knew it, and so did Clint, who responded by slapping the table and bringing his legs down. "You're crazy, Black Hawk is marketable. You've even got top billing there, Nat, you should be happy."
"I don't want my name attached to such mediocrity, thanks, goofus."
Climbing to his feet was ridiculously harder the second time around. The adrenaline had yet to wear off earlier, he'd still been running on high-octane "yee-haw" energy. Now, as his knees wobbled with a desire to sink back into his chair, Clint could feel his muscles beginning to tighten, the bruises that his clothes hid were starting to throb without mercy….
"You'll come around," he got out with an affirming nod, "and hey, if you don't like it, you could always, I dunno, toss something up. Something besides Black Eye," he reiterated the moment Nat parted those beckoning lips. She crossed her arms looking pouty and he chuckled, patting her on the shoulder. "Don't do that, you're too cute for wrinkles, Natty."
It was never fun, when the pizza was gone, when the laughs were had, and the call to return to their normal lives—if such a term existed for either of them—could no longer be ignored. The only solace to be found was that there would be more meetings, more times to catch up… more opportunities to bask in the others calming presence.
Because despite the fact that Clint had a new girlfriend, one whom he loved more than he thought was possible, he knew his soulmate was the crimson-haired woman currently side-glancing at him through her lashes. It wasn't a secret by any means, the both of them already knew that if it weren't for their differing fields of work, the fission that drove them apart would have never occurred.
"But… some things just aren't meant to be," Nat muttered under her breath, reaching up to grip him tightly by the forearm.
"Hm? What's not?" Clint asked, confused.
"That name," she responded evenly, without a shred of hesitation. "I'm sorry, it just keeps the rounds in my mind, over and over like a broken record."
There was very little doubt that Nat was lying through her perfect teeth. Clint had known her long enough to be able to spot her lies and deflections with an accuracy that rivaled his skill with the bow. And because she was indeed trying to throw him off, it gave Clint all the clues he needed to parse what she had been thinking about.
"Sleep on it, we'll get there," he told her with verve, adding a reassuring squeeze before withdrawing his hand. The action was purposefully slow, slow enough so that his arm slid right through her grasp until they were hand-in-hand, their fingers interlocked. "Love ya, Nat."
She smirked, shaking her head. "Yeah, yeah…."
After wishing her luck on her next mission, Clint was halfway through stumbling out the door when he heard it, begrudgingly uttered but filled with enough emotion to let him know she meant it:
"Love you, too… you goofus."
A/N: #yearoftheoneshot