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Natasha doesn't know what Clint wants. She knows he wants something from her. Probably he wants her to love him, to want him, in the way that he wants her. But something about being fingered in an alley and left cold seems to preclude all of those things.
And the part she really doesn't know, the part she can't quite grasp, is what gives that idiot the idea that she'd ever be capable of doing any of that.
It's been two weeks since the night at the club, two weeks since she ended up confused and alone against the wall. They're avoiding each other, which is probably a good thing -- Clint seems to be preoccupied with some cute young thing in statistics, and Natasha has things to do that don't involve any asshole archers.
Still, his words hang in the air between them, the purr of his voice and the sear of his fingertips on her skin like a goddamn brand.
You're mine. You don't wanna be. You don't like it. But you fucking -- you want me, and you don't know why, yeah? Cause you're mine, and I'm under your skin, and I'm not leaving.
And then he turned around and left.
She's furious, she's confused, and she's prepared to hurt him back, just as soon as she figures out how.
Mostly, they avoid each other. Mostly, Natasha spends time with Morse and Drew and Carter, training and working. She learns what people do in their down time, learns about trashy TV and cooking for fun and shopping. It's all very strange to her, the idea of needing to fill hours, of needing to take rest days when you're training, but the others do it, and they invite her along. She goes, and she mostly enjoys it.
The whole team goes on an extraction to Perth, but she and Clint manage to barely speak to each other, manage to be civil when they have to coordinate, even though there's something heavy in Natasha's chest every time their eyes meet.
The order comes down to her on a Wednesday, six days after Perth and three weeks after Clint leaves her sweaty and furious in a dingy back alley.
Natasha Romanoff is no longer a Delta.
It smacks of unfairness (the world is unfair, little Natalia) and her anger burns hot at the sight of the email, the cool language informing her to report to May at 0900 for assignment to Strike Team Sigma.
Sigma?
It has to come from Clint -- it has to be an order from the leader of the team. And she'll admit, grudgingly, that things have been weird between them. But things have been weird for a while, since the first time they fucked in the gym. This is bullshit, and he has to know that. She hasn't asked for a transfer, and there's no reason to kick her off the team when they're still cohesive. She growls, an angry snarl curling her lip, and closes the email.
Clint is where he usually is -- firing his useless little toy arrows at his stupid targets, like he needs to drill himself on a skill that could be mastered by a 12-year-old. And had been. By him. When he was fucking twelve.
"Barton!" Natasha barks, as she enters the room, and she refrains from grinning to herself as his shot misses the center of the bullseye by a millimeter, the barest proof that she has, once again, unnerved him.
"Romanoff," he says, not turning to look at her as he draws another arrow from his ugly prehistoric quiver. "I take it you got the news today?"
It's all she can do not to march over and tear the bow out of his hands.
"Yeah," she snaps, and this time he does look at her, his eyes meeting hers as he looses, the arrow finding its mark beautifully. A few days ago, Natasha thinks, that would have been sexy. She would have had to cross her legs at the brilliance of this man, how he can look away and still fire through the heart.
"What the fuck?" she asks, taking a step towards him.
"You're not working out," he says, shrugging.
Natasha actually feels her jaw drop. It's infuriating, it's physically painful how angry this man makes her. And there's no reason for it, no sense to how he makes her blood boil. She's the Black Widow; she's faced down kings and gangsters with ice in her smile and death in her body, but a few words from an insolent soldier and she loses every drop of her cool.
"I'm not working out," she echoes, the disbelief echoing through the little room. "Cause you can't control me?"
Clint raises an eyebrow. Natasha wants to rip it off of his face. "You're not a soldier," he says. "And I never thought you were. But I can't work with you, and -- and you can't work with me. You'll mesh better with May."
"So this is for my own good?" she sneers, and she has no idea when she got so close to him, when she closed the gap so they're only an arms length apart. She's close enough that she can watch the clenched muscles in his arms, the throb of his pulse and the rise and fall of his chest, and she knows that he feels something. It could be arousal, or it could be loathing. Both seem equally likely.
"It's for the good of the team."
Natasha shakes her head. "Bullshit."
Clint turns his back, reaching behind him to draw another arrow, which must be his way of signalling that the conversation is over, that he's done with her. Something snaps inside of her, something low and dangerous. She grabs his shoulder and spins him around to look at her.
"Bullshit," she repeats.
Clint grabs her by the wrists, a grip she can easily break. But she stands there for a second, letting him touch her. "I can't work with you," he whispers, his face inches from hers.
Natasha closes the gap, kissing him hungrily.
She tells herself it's a plan, tells herself that all she has to do is fuck him into a stupor and she'll still be a Delta. She tells herself that he'll be malleable, that she can play him like every other man she's ever manipulated this way.
He drops her wrists and grips her face, entwining his fingers roughly in her hair to hold her close.
They're both panting for breath when they break apart, but there's something in Clint's eye, something dangerous and molten that Natasha pretends not to see.
"Why did you do it?" she asks, watching his tongue dart out to moisten his lips. "In the alley. Why?"
Clint is looking at her like he could devour her, like he wants nothing more than to eat her up and keep her close inside of him. "Because you needed to know."
"I don't," she says, the smell of sweat and skin hot in her nose.
"You had to know what it does," he says, his voice low. "To be left like that. To be left wanting."
Natasha feels the air slide from her lungs, the kind of blow that she thought she was immune to. She was left wanting, she thinks. That's the problem. She was left wanting and she can't stop wanting, and it's taking her apart inside.
"Is that what I do to you?" she asks, sliding a hand down his torso. "Leave you wanting?" She punctuates the sentence by cupping his dick, which is hard in his shorts, and squeezing slightly. It's menacing, she thinks. She wants it to be menacing.
But this is Clint, and Clint is not above taking an aggressive move as a come-on. He leans in and kisses her again, his hands still hot on her face.
"Wanna fuck?" she purrs, moving closer so her body is flush against him. "I mean, this is kinda our place, isn't it?"
"The gym," he says, like it's a revelation. Then he shakes his head and drops his hands to his sides. "I'm -- I can't fuck here, Natasha. I can't fuck you."
She swallows, trying to keep down the sudden surge of disappointment she feels, because why would she feel disappointed over Clint Barton? Instead she moves her hand slightly, offering faint friction against his cock.
"Feels like you can."
Clint takes a step back, his jaw tight and his shoulders slightly hunched -- he's panicking, she thinks, but he's panicking in his uniquely Clint way, quiet and reserved.
"What if I promised?" she asks, though she's not totally sure why she's even offering. "What if I said I wouldn't leave?"
He seems to think about that for a moment before nodding. "If you mean that --" he takes a steadying breath, and Natasha is surprised to find that this might mean something to both of them. "If you really mean it, show up at my place. 1900. And just -- just be yourself."
Natasha nods, and Clint turns on his heel, drawing an arrow and firing it into the target in one smooth motion, signalling the end of their talk.
This time she lets him, closes her eyes for a moment to hear the thwack of the arrow sinking home, and then heads for the door.
She shows up five minutes late, dressed in the kind of outfit that should bring a man like Barton to his knees in front of her -- for most of the men she's seduced in her life, it's been cocktail dresses and thigh-high stockings, garters that double as garrotes, and lipstick the color of blood. For Barton, it's jeans with a hole in the knee, and a t-shirt with a slogan on it for a movie she's never seen, messy hair and no makeup. The kind of mid-western fantasy he'd never have been able to get when he was a kid.
He opens the door to his apartment with a smile, never asking how she got the address -- that's what she likes about him, she thinks. He doesn't underestimate her.
"Hi," he says, standing aside so she can enter. The place is a mess, the same way Barton is: a collection of unrelated knick-knacks and clutter. "Nice place."
Clint laughs. "You're a terrible liar," he says. "Especially for someone who does it for a living."
She smiles, somehow charmed by the twinkle in his eye. "Well," she offers. "Not every day I get asked to my supervisor’s apartment to not fuck."
"Yeah," Clint says, shifting a pile of debris off the couch so she can sit. It strikes her, suddenly, that he hasn't cleaned up at all. "That's why I asked you here, actually."
"To not fuck?"
He shakes his head. "I put a stay on your orders. You're a Delta -- for now."
Natasha doesn't grin, doesn't give in and wrap her arms around his neck in thanks. Because it's not that big a deal. "Oh?" she says instead, the springs in his couch squeaking as she takes the offered seat.
"Tonight," Clint says, picking up a remote control off the table. "Tonight we play video games. We eat pizza. We talk."
Natasha raises an eyebrow. "And we're doing that because?"
"Because we don't gel. In the field," he says, handing her a controller. "And my kicking your ass at Mario Kart is going to fix that."
Natasha accepts the bit of plastic, still feeling unsure about all of this. "And if I let you win, I get to stay a Delta."
Clint laughs. "Sure. And if you tell me a painful story. About your past."
Her back stiffens, the idea that he has any right to pry into her past more than SHIELD already has making her feel downright attacked.
"No," she says softly.
"No?"
"No," her voice is stronger now. "I'll play the games. I'll eat the pizza. But I'm not -- No. You -- I'm not giving you that."
He frowns, the lines of his forehead stark and well-worn. "So you're okay with fucking in the gym, but you don't wanna tell me about yourself?"
"I don't have childhood stories," she offers, feeling oddly impotent at hearing the words out loud. "I didn't have a childhood. I had a training."
Clint nods as the tinny, synthesized music starts up. "I didn't -- it was meant to be a joke," he shrugs.
"I thought jokes were funny," she mutters, her whole body vibrating with a sense of tension. Half of it is him, for sure, the idea of being this close to Clint Barton and not touching him. But part of it is the precarious position of the whole relationship, the way that he holds all the cards, the way he wants something from her, and she's pretty sure that, even if she had it, she wouldn't give it to him.
"You know who tells terrible jokes?" he says, flipping through the avatars like it matters who he chooses.
"Who?"
"Bobbi," he says. "Downright -- Jess calls them dad jokes, but I never had a dad who told jokes, so I wouldn't know."
Natasha smiles thinly. "She does, yeah. You know the one about -- what is it -- what's brown and sticky?"
"A stick!" Clint exclaims, grinning. "I taught her that!"
She wrinkles her nose at him. "So you're to blame?"
He gestures toward the TV. "You know how to play?"
"Yeah," Natasha nods. "Jess showed me how. She called it hand-eye training, but I think mostly she was tired of getting hit in the solar plexus."
"So then you know about Rainbow Road?" he asks, watching her from the corner of his eye.
"Oh," she laughs. "Then you want your ass kicked?"
Clint shrugs. "Loser buys pizza?"
"Three out of five," Natasha offers, the tension still heavy in her shoulders. "If you can afford it."
Clint doesn't respond, he just presses start.
She wins one game, and he wins three. Clint claims he's not cheating, but Natasha has her doubts. "So," he says, sitting back against the couch. "You lose."
"Yeah," Natasha shrugs, setting the controller on the coffee table. "What now?"
Clint studies her for a long moment before picking up his cell phone. "We can order a pizza," he says. "Or Chinese. Or -- do you like curry?"
Natasha stares at him for a long moment and he holds her gaze, the air between them feeling fraught, heavy with things neither one of them is willing to say. She doesn't know what to do, doesn't stop to think, just reaches out and touches his cheek, his stubble rough under her fingertips. "Clint," she breathes. "What are we doing?"
"Ordering pizza," he says, softly, but he doesn't break the eye lock. "You know. Not --"
She kisses him, leaning in softly to brush her lips over his. "Not what?"
"Not doing that," he breathes, bringing one hand up to cup her cheek. "Being -- friends."
"No," Natasha whispers. "We were never friends."
Clint makes a soft noise in his throat and she pounces, pushing him back into the couch and kissing him fiercely. He moans, his hands resting on the small of her back as he hauls her close, her body flush against his. "Never friends?" he asks, when she breaks the kiss, his breath coming in shallow gasps. "What if I want to be friends?"
The words hang for a moment, his hands still warm through her t-shirt and his body muscled and hard under her.
"Do you think we can be friends?" she asks. "Even with -- with what we are?"
"What are we?" he asks.
"A serious mistake," she says, leaning in to kiss him again.
He lets her kiss him for a few seconds, though it feels longer, like maybe this is something good or right, before placing his hands on her shoulders and gently pushing her back.
"We can fuck," he says, meeting her eyes. "But if we do, you can't be a Delta. Or, you can be a Delta, but we won't be fucking. Which do you want?"
Natasha returns his gaze, her heart pounding in her chest as she considers what matters more to her -- her team, or her whatever-this-is with Clint.
"If I say Delta," she breathes, her lips still centimeters from his. "What do we do?"
Clint smiles and sits back, breaking the tension. "We order a pizza. Maybe we call Jess to come over and chaperone us. We drink beer, and we play games. We hang, as the kids say."
Natasha rolls her eyes, but lets him continue.
"We become -- friends. Colleagues. We get to know who we are, and what we, you know, what we are to each other. On and off the job."
"And then?" she asks. "Say we do all that, and we still feel -- all this? What do we do? Because honestly --" Natasha swallows around the lump in her throat. She doesn't know what it is about him, if she's just trying to pay him back for bringing her in, if they really do have some kind of mystical connection like a love story, or if it's just the way the skin around his eyes crinkles when he laughs. But whichever thing it is, whatever pulls her to him, makes her ache at the thought of walking away. "Honestly, I don't want to -- to give up."
The silence that follows is heavy, oppressive, and she can barely take it as Clint seems to scrutinize her, his eyes narrow and searching. The tension builds in her stomach, a different tension than before. She doesn't want to kiss him, she thinks. She wants to run. She feels open, compromised. Clint Barton is a job gone bad, and she needs her handlers to tell her how to proceed.
Except there aren't any handlers any more.
But she knows, in her heart, what the answer has to be. What she has to choose. Because there are only two things she actually likes about this life, about SHIELD and America and going straight. She likes Clint, and she likes being a Delta. And being a Delta isn't as likely to electrocute itself trying to use one of its idiot arrows.
"I choose Delta," says Natasha, finally dropping eye contact. She stands in the same movement, grabbing her phone and her wallet and shoving them into her pockets. "And I have to go. I can't -- we can be friends. But not right now, okay? Not -- not while I can still think -- later."
She doesn't wait for a reply, just turns crisply on her heel and leaves. Maybe he calls after her. Maybe he wants her to stop, to stay, to talk. Maybe he wants her to lie back and let him fuck her, like his filthy couch is another pile of gym mats or a rough alley wall.
Either way, she doesn't care. Her target has shifted, and all Natasha can do is run, is regain safety.
She spends the night pacing, working out in the open floor of her loft apartment, the one she keeps thinking maybe she should furnish. She's trying to get him out of her system, to work the Barton out of her mind and her soul and her bloodstream.
There is no sleep, only restless vigil, as the lights of the city cast shadows through her windows.
She still looks good in the morning -- takes a shower and does her hair, applies her cold cream and uses a brush to paint away the exhaustion under her eyes. She bounces into HQ, into the briefing Clint has called, as if nothing in the world could touch her.
"Barton," she says, as if they'd never moaned each other's names.
"Romanoff," he replies, nodding in greeting.
Natasha doesn't say anything else, just goes and sits at the table with Jess and Bobbi and waits. She thinks, sadly, that she'd better get used to waiting.