Chapter Text
Clint did not want to do Thanksgiving that year. Or any year. Maybe no holidays ever again. When he suggested that idea to Natasha, she shot it down the way he took Chitauri out of the sky six months ago, and the way Loki shot him down nightly in his dreams. She told him that it’d be good for him and if she had to drag him downstairs, she would. He didn’t doubt that she’d follow through on her threat. In the months after New York, she had embraced the Avengers idea. They lived in the Tower now, after all. He lived there because Natasha lived there. It had not been a mutual decision. He, however, was still a little lukewarm on the idea. Neither the Avengers nor SHIELD had put him back into the field yet. He felt useless, weak, and the idea of a holiday that reminded him of the people he killed—“You weren’t your own person, Clint.”—made him want to vomit.
“I’m going to vomit,” he said in the elevator.
Natasha’s mouth tightened. “You’re not going to vomit.”
He wanted to be petulant but couldn’t find it in him. They were the first ones into the kitchen because Natasha had volunteered them to do the turkey. That had always been Coulson’s job and Clint strongly suspected that Natasha found this to be some sort of demented therapy.
Clint squinted at the bird in the fridge. “JARVIS, first step.”
“Put the bird in the sink, sir.” It was annoying how much nicer Stark’s AI was than Stark himself.
Clint put the bird in the sink while Natasha pulled out a food processor. Naturally, she got the fun part with knives. Clint glanced over at her. “You know that we could just order it in and JARVIS would probably lie for us.”
“It seems wrong to ask artificial intelligence to lie for us,” Natasha answered, frowning at a cookbook.
“On the contrary, Agent Romanov,” said JARVIS. “Mr. Stark asks me to lie for him on a daily basis.”
Clint snorted and a ghost of a smile crossed Natasha’s lips. They worked around each other in a comfortable silence and though Clint’s heart seized every time he thought about the upcoming dinner, he found that cooking quieted his thoughts and he fell into the rhythm of preparing the meal side by side with a woman who clearly knew how to handle a knife. They bumped into each other, rarely spoke, and when they did, it was always about games and puns and jokes told on missions or at previous Thanksgiving.
The others trickled down, one by one. Jane and Thor, with Darcy inserting commentary about Jane’s Thanksgiving story. Steve staring at Darcy. Bruce squinting at the turkey doubtfully while Clint scowled at him. Tony and Pepper arguing about table settings and whether or not a robot should set the table. It was loud and calm, disorganized and tidy, perfectly normal. It was like a magnified version of the normal Tower meals.
At some point, they all went up to their rooms in waves to change for supper. Natasha stood in the bathroom, trying to hook a pearl necklace Clint had given her for Christmas a few years ago. He stepped up behind her and hooked it for her, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck.
“Hi, you,” she said to his mirror reflection.
“Hey,” he said.
She ruffled his hair. “Think you’ll be okay?”
He said yes, even though he wasn’t sure. She gave him a knowing look and went over to her bedside table, pulling open the drawer. She handed him a present and he tilted his head, taking it slowly. “It’s your birthday, Natasha. Not mine.”
“It’s Thanksgiving. Maybe we should always be giving presents for words we don’t know how to say,” she said carefully, sitting on the edge of the bed. She pinned up the rest of her hair, avoiding his eyes.
He turned over the package in his hand. “Should I open it now?”
“If you want.”
“Then you get yours now.” He fetched her wrapped book from his side of the bed and they sat side by side on the mattress, unwrapping presents like it was Christmas and not a holiday about religious freedom, smallpox, and whatever else Darcy was trying to explain to Thor downstairs. Clint ran his hands across the cover of the book she had given him. “The Wind in the Willows.”
“It was one of the first books Phil gave me,” she said, reaching over to open the inside cover where in simple green pen, Coulson had scrawled, one of my favorites for one of my favorites, -P.C. “I thought you’d like it now.”
He couldn’t stop staring at it. At the inscription. At wanting to lay in bed with Natasha and read it all day. She lifted the book in her hand a little. “Gone Girl.”
“Psych thriller thing,” he murmured absentmindedly. “I read her previous books. She’s twisted.”
“Like me?”
He looked at her and grinned. “Scarier than you.”
Natasha made a disbelieving noise and shook her head, putting her book on the table and taking Clint’s from his hands and setting it on top of hers. “Time to go downstairs.”
Downstairs, the party was starting up in earnest. In that Stark was a little tipsy and there was a dart board with a sign that said, EVERYONE BUT HAWKEYE. Clint rolled his eyes. Darts weren’t fun because they weren’t a challenge anymore. Stark’s dart board was safe.
“I invited a few people,” Natasha said, stirring the spiced apple cider in the pot. She didn’t look up, though Clint knew that she must know that all of their eyes, including his, were staring at her. “I hope that’s okay.”
Stark looked at Clint who shrugged. He didn’t know that Natasha had invited anyone. Whatever she did, it was on her accord. And shortly after Stark told Natasha, doubtfully, that it was fine, and he went back to explaining Thanksgiving turkey pardons to Steve who apparently hadn’t heard of them, the doorbell rang. Pepper and Jane both excused themselves to answer the door. Clint stuck a thermometer in the turkey.
“You invited SHIELD?” Stark shouted, and the sound of chairs being pushed back filled the dining room space. “What in the name of all that is our binding contract is---“
“We all used to do Thanksgiving at Coulson’s,” Natasha said, not turning around. “I figured they’d need a place to come too.”
Clint’s throat closed at Coulson’s name but he put down the thermometer and moved behind Natasha to press another kiss to the back of her bare neck. She smiled, lifted a hand to touch his cheek, accepting his wordless gratitude. Then he went to greet his friends.
Later, Clint stood in the doorway, watching the whole crowd interact. He didn’t deserve any of this, and he didn’t want to leave it either. Natasha caught his eye across the room and made her way toward him, leaving her champagne on a countertop so she could slip both arms around him and hold him for one moment. He closed his eyes, her red hair caressing his face.
She turned a bit in the circle of his arms, still leaning into him. He liked this now. Where they were out in the open with each other. He needed her then, in these spaces of loneliness and grief, where he couldn’t hold onto anyone else. She said softly, “Ever put together a puzzle without the flat edged pieces?”
He couldn’t speak. He just shook his head against hers. Her fingers tightened against his where his hands settled on her stomach, keeping her from walking away. “I used to try. All the time, just for fun.”
He loved her.
She jutted her chin at the people in front of them. “Even without all the flat-edged pieces, you can still make a pretty picture.”
They stayed on the periphery of the party for most of the night. Natasha was always meant to be in the center. It’s where she felt most comfortable, changing faces as fast as she changed places, her eyes always moving to all of the exits. But he was always on the outside, silent and watchful, and it’s where he wanted to be tonight. Watching over this haphazard, broken, montage of people who were never meant to be whole but together, were.