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It starts out slowly, something that’s noticeable, but not something any of the Avengers can call the press out on. The other Avengers get questions about their development as a team. Natasha gets questions about diet, about her wardrobe, about her relationships. The boys get asked about what it’s like to be a role model, how their experiences have shaped them. Natasha gets asked who her style icons are and what beauty item she can’t leave the house without.
The Black Widow isn’t in-your-face, as a rule. She might be primarily a close quarters fighter for the Avengers, but her specialty is espionage. Having her face, her name, plastered all over the media is uncomfortable enough without waging a battle over some silly questions. The questions the media asks her teammates aren't questions she wants to answer any more than she wants to discuss lipstick choices. So she leaves it alone. She smiles for the camera, and is charming, and giggles at the questions just often enough to look soft without appearing ditzy.
Then an interviewer asks Natasha if she wears underwear under the Black Widow costume.
It’s not something that anyone else would have seen, but Clint catches a glint of murder in her eyes. He panics, and words come out of his mouth unbidden.
“I can’t even handle sleeves when I’m suited up, and you’re worried about underwear?”
Everything stops for a moment. The glint in Natasha’s eye sparks a little brighter, directed towards him this time, and Clint can’t decide if it’s still murder or if it’s appreciation now. But. Too late to turn back now.
“I mean, if we’re talking about underwear, you have to think about the Hulk first, really. Can we talk about the Hulk not wearing underwear? Because my sexy little number at least has support, if we’re talking about no underwear you should really be concerned about his –“
The interviewer cuts Clint off. That’s okay. He got used to that by his third press conference, to be honest.
Natasha doesn't mention the interview again, but she lays her hand on his shoulder as they’re leaving the studio, and lets it linger just a second too long as she makes eye contact.
So it was an appreciation glint. Clint’s getting better at this game.
(The glint in Bruce’s eyes when they get back to the tower? Is not appreciative. Oh, well. Worth it.)
The Public Relations people already know better than to send Natasha and Tony on interviews together. Bruce doesn’t go on many press functions at all, unless Tony is there. Thor is there for all team engagements but the Prince of Asgard has other demands on his time. Steve is generally great for public image, but every so often he’ll take a question and run in the opposite direction of where PR would like him to go. (If Steve had been with Natasha for the underwear question? Clint doesn't know what would have happened but it probably wouldn’t gone over smoothly. Impassioned speeches might have been made. Natasha might have cut a bitch.)
Tony does a decent job of keeping the worst of the reporters off the front door of the Avengers Tower, but outside of the suit his press circuit is less focused on superheroes, and more about clean energy and the ongoing efforts to repair the damage from the Battle of New York.
So that leaves Clint and Natasha.
Because that’s not a disaster waiting to happen, or anything.
Nothing blows up, but the terrible questions keep coming. Natasha wears makeup like war paint. It’s a tool in her arsenal, same as her Widow’s Bite. So when the talk show hostess says, “I’m sure all the women in our audience would love to know how to get the Black Widow’s look! Do you have any expert makeup tips you can demonstrate for us,” Clint decides that she was actually talking to him. His brief undercover time as a makeup artist isn't well known, but he’d argue that he is the most expert of the two of them. Natasha can make up her own face, but she frequently makes Clint do it anyway, so really, the Black Widow look is totally his ballgame.
He stands up and gestures backstage for supplies and picks out an audience member.
“Now the important thing is to frame the face…”
Two days after Clint’s impromptu tutorial, the bottom of Natasha’s hair gets singed in a tussle with Doombots in Central Park. It’s fixed before the next Press Adventure, but that doesn't stop the direction of the interview. They want to know how Natasha feels about her new look, if she resents it, if she's going to change to color to match the new cut.
Clint does the rest of his interview while french braiding the hair of an intern who was fetching coffee on set.
After that, Clint stops looking for the murder-glint and starts intercepting the questions regularly.
It’s pretty much his favorite thing ever.
“Should I be like, worried about the state of my ass? I’ve never had so many people try to talk to me about salads before.”
“This blonde doesn't come out of a bottle, c’mon! Although I was thinking of going red. Natasha, we could be twins! Natasha? Natasha why are you walking off set, come back.”
“Well, I mean, I try to ignore the tabloids but I’m pretty sure I’d know if I had a thing going on with Captain America. The internet would be screaming about me corrupting a national icon at the very least.”
“Again with the rabbit food thing? Seriously if you are lying to me about my ass I will be not pleased. Seriously. Are you trying to fit into one of our cat suits or something? It’s just not worth it, buddy, lemme tell you.”
Natasha may have even smiled a bit at that last one. He's definitely getting better at this game.