study_in_scarlet | Dancing in the Dark (for farmboyhawk)

Natasha giggled a little with Clint suddenly pulled her down to lay with him, but she certainly put up no struggle. Settling back against him, she let her fingers drift lazily along his arm, relishing in the warmth and comfort his body offered.

“It is certainly interesting,” she replied. It was a place Clint would despise for the cold, and one Natasha didn’t see any draw to either. Being outside in the cold was one thing, and something she often enjoyed, but inside she found it less than desirable. “At least they found a vigorous activity to keep them warm.”

Much like she and Clint had gotten up to last night, actually...

"I can tell from experience, it works."

It came out more gentle and thankful than teasing, the memory of the last night's crisis still very present. Clint rested his chin on Natasha's shoulder and held her just a little closer to him, silently letting her know how glad he was that she had been there. They didn't often cuddle like that, mostly because he liked it better to watch her face, see what was going on in her eyes usually. She felt small and soft in his arms like that, swallowed by his broader frame, and still she was the one always so much stronger than him. He couldn't help but wonder if he would ever achieve such a firm mental balance. Somehow he doubted it.

He didn't let a treacherous sigh come past his lips but forced his mind on the evolving battle on the screen instead, chuckling from time to time at especially silly move. The fancy vehicles that couldn't be missing in any Bond movie were much more interesting.

"I want one", he commented, grinning, when Bond had his race against his villain with some kind of snow jet ski. "Could have used one of these in Greenland couple of years ago. It's a miracle I'm not missing certain body parts after a few weeks out there."

When Clint settled in and pulled her closer, Natasha threaded her fingers through his and held his arm around her. She didn’t do normal, didn’t know how to, or that’s what she had thought, but this felt natural and it felt good, just being with Clint like this. Just letting herself be. Maybe she could do normal if she let herself relax and just enjoy it.

“That would have been a terrible shame,” she replied, bringing his hand up to her lips and softly kissing his knuckles. “I like all your body parts right where they are.” Lowering his hand, she watched the movie a moment longer before speaking again. “We should take a jet ski excursion. I’m sure there will be some place that we can rent a couple.”

"Does that mean I get to see you do fancy backflips and stuff?"

Clint couldn't help but tease her a little. And maybe challenge. It was said, there was no woman on Earth who could physically do that particular stunt, but he was pretty sure, Natasha would prove everyone wrong.

"Pretty sure I'd have to rip your clothes off on the next lonely beach we get to after that", he murmured into her ear, one fingertip reaching out just to brush the underside of her breasts.

Natasha chuckled at the question. Jet skiing, unfortunately, was not among one of her skills, but she felt that if she practiced she could probably do tricks of some sort. She was excellent at operating a snowmobile; it had made it easier on missions during winter in Russia in her former life. That had to give her an advantage starting out. “I suppose we will have to try and see.”

Racing and showing off for each other over clear waters sounded wonderful, as did the picture he painted of what would happen afterwards. It didn’t take much to get her imagination going. “Mm, in that case I really hope I can pull off something fancy.”

"Knew I could persuade you."

Clint's tongue flickered over her earlobe quickly, then he leaned back a little again, pretending to be fully concentrating on the movie.

"You know, after seeing all this, I'm seriously convinced, we just need to leave country to find a better job."

He switched into a nearly flawless British accent effortlessly, trying his best to stay serious while his fingertips kept on stroking that certain sensitive area.

"Weather can't be worse on that island than here, really. You know, I could totally do that cool superspy thing. And you'd be the most badass Bond girl ever."

Natasha’s body twitched at Clint’s little teasing gesture, and she bit her lip to keep from grinning too wide. He settled back again, and she didn’t believe for a moment that he had his full attention on the screen, especially with his hand still stroking her, almost but not quite absently.

It took all of Natasha’s skills at keeping a straight face to not laugh when Clint started trying to emulate Bond, accent and all. It wasn’t that the accent was bad, it was actually really good, but the idea of him pulling off the cheesy lines like in this film was laughable.

“Da, comrade,” Natasha replied, slipping just as flawlessly back into the Russian accent she had been taught to banish almost two decades ago, though playing it up as they would in the film. A spy who couldn’t hide her true nationality was of little use to anyone. “I would put the rest to shame.”

God, he loved her accent. Natasha sometimes had understandable issues with her Nationality, due to her past, but when Clint thought of Russia, there weren't only death and violence on his mind. He wasn't a big fan of the weather but they had had many adventures there, shared many nights of comfort and getting closer and days in places of unspeakable beauty.

Russia, that still in a way was home, it was where her story had begun and through all the horrors that she had gone through, that he wished he could take away from her somehow, without all that... She wouldn't be here now. And without her, he wouldn't be either, for many reasons.

He locked away these much too serious thoughts carefully, glad that she didn't look at him right now, and gave her shoulder a quick light bite instead.

"Good thing about you doing that Bond girl thing? I certainly won't have to seduce you, we're already through that part..."

Russia was her homeland, it was where she had been born and where she had grown up, but it would never be home to Natasha. She had never had a home before, not truly, not in the most meaningful sense of the word. She had resided many places, and by the dictionary she had had many homes, but to Natasha a home was the place a person belonged, felt safe and comfortable, and could truly be themselves. By that definition this was home, right there in Clint’s arms.

That wasn’t to say that Russia wouldn’t always hold a small place in her heart. It had taken a long time to deprogram herself, but some things never entirely went away.

“Mm, that is a good thing. I would not be so easily seduced,” Natasha replied, still with the accent. “But if you were to try, just how would you seduce me, Agent Double-Oh Barton?”

She knew how he could seduce her and how very easily he could do so, but she wanted to know how he would do so in the role of Bond with all his cheesy lines and bravado.

"What, you mean it isn't enough if I come out of the water all wet and manly and smile at you? Seems I'm losing my touch."

Clint leaned back with a perfect pout and put one arm under his head while the other rested casually on Natasha's upper thigh.

"How about if I tell you I can do target-shooting on horseback in full gallop and long distance and trained pole-dancing as a teenager? That sexy enough for you?"

Turning her head to look back at him, Natasha kept a serious expression on her face but her eyes were dancing with amusement. He had a certain smile that had the ability to make her weak in the knees, but she was supposed to be the one Bond girl that didn’t fall for him right away.

She couldn’t help but laugh the picture he painted next, though. She wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it was. Although she had never seen him shoot from horseback, she had seen him hit an enemy with no problem from a moving vehicle, and knowing he grew up in the circus, who knew what sort of training they did there?

“Hmm, I am not sure,” she said. “I might need a... demonstration.”

"Noted. We'll ask Coulson to make our next extraction on horseback."

Still chuckling, Clint used his hand on her hip to pull her back against him gently so she was half lying on top of him now, and he had best access to certain favorite spots of her body. It was a little challenge, nudging aside the collar of her sweater enough with his teeth to reach her skin, but definitely worth it, once he could hide his face in her hair.

"Might just leave out that whole seducing part though", he mumbled. "Prefer to watch you all badass and kicking ass on your own. And if the Bond girl needs to let off some steam afterwards, you know where to find me."

Natasha noted that he didn’t offer to demonstrate the pole dancing and only smiled back at him. Not that it was something she particularly wanted to see. She could appreciate the strength and flexibility that went into such a craft, but the negative connotation that went along with it was hard to ignore, especially after seeing first hand on a mission how pole dancers were treated. She would prefer to see Clint on horseback, a picture of beauty and grace.

Letting him mold her body against his, she settled back again and let her eyes close, a soft smile on her face as his breath warmed her neck.

“Now that is a part I would gladly play,” she said, finally letting the accent go. In fact, it was much closer to their real lives than any movie. They fought and they fought hard, and afterwards the buildup of adrenaline sometimes needed an outlet. More than once she had used his body to release the pent up aggression left over. “Why don’t they do that in the movies? Or have the girl seduce Bond, not in the traditional sense, but by being so capable and deadly.”

"We should start doing movies on our own. Bet we'd make much more money than with all this secret agent stuff."

Clint chuckled against her neck and softly blew her hair out of the way to rest his lips on her skin. His hand moved from her thigh under her sweater, to her stomach, tracing harmless, idle lines over her skin.

"Not that it would take much for you to seduce me... I've wanted you since you threw me to the floor the day we met."

“I don’t think the world is ready for our kind of movies,” Natasha replied.

When Clint blew against her neck she squirmed a little, just barely holding back a giggle. Was this what the next few weeks would be like? Nowhere to be, no one to answer to but themselves and each other, able to just relax and enjoy each other in every possible way... it sounded wonderful, and feeling how content and relaxed Clint was only made it better.

“Really?” she replied, trying to look back at him but it was near impossible in their current position with his face buried against her neck. “Lust at first sight? You wouldn’t be the first,” she said, not bragging, just being truthful. Many men wanted her the moment they saw her, and while Natasha didn’t deal in forevers, didn’t bank on any future, she hoped that Clint would be the last to actually have her. “Or was it me throwing you down that made you want me?”

Clint pulled her a little closer, feeling that he had touched a sensitive subject without wanting it and placed another gentle kiss on her neck. Now she had asked, now he couldn't just leave the subject if he didn't want to make it worse.

"I'd rather call it attraction. Wouldn't want to take something like lust to a battle field. At that point you had outrun my arrows two times, I'd hunted you down through two continents and you had me half cut open before I even realized."

His free hand wandered to the long fainted scar along his abdomen, from the wound that had so barely missed a main artery. That one had been a bitch to recover from. But it had been more than worth it, every day, every single hour since then. Every pain, every heartache. With every day he had learned to appreciate and soon love the deep, scarred but yet so beautiful soul that lived in Natasha's deadly body, but the attraction... had always been there.

"Before I had met you, there was no one who could really put up a fight, you know. It was just shooting, training, killing every few weeks and all these dull rules and regulations. Fury told me a few details of your file before he sent me off, so I had troubles with this assignment from the start. I was never really sure I could make that shot. When you had me on the floor, I just knew, there was so much more in you than your past."

She had been partially joking, but now that he had brought it up she was curious. He had given her various reasons over the years for why he had spared her, but he had never admitted before that it had had anything to do with attraction.

She felt a twinge of deeply buried guilt when he spoke of how she had cut him, and felt his hand move between them to brush along his scar. She had been practically ready to gut him, the only man who had successfully managed to hunt her down. She had still been young, a teenager, when she had defected from the Red Room following Alexei’s death, but it hadn’t taken long for her to make herself infamous. In all her time on her own, though, the only men who caught up to her were the ones she had let catch her.

None of them had lived passed that meeting.

None of them had seen in her what Clint had, though. They had all seen her as a trophy, a way to make themselves famous. Covering the hand against her stomach with her own, she threaded their fingers together.

“I actually enjoyed our game of cat and mouse,” she admitted. “You were the first challenge I had come up against in years, and trying to evade you... it made me feel alive.” He made her feel alive at a time when nothing else did.

Clint bent his head a little more to run his lips over her chin and temple and pressed her hand for a long moment. Gentle, silent recognition of the things she didn't say, the horrors that once had been her life. He knew and it didn't matter to him. There was no reason bringing it up more than the subject already had.

"You were beautiful, like nothing I'd ever seen", he said instead. "Fighting always was kind of an art for me, and you made me look and feel like a child drawing stick figures. Probably would have asked for your photograph if I hadn't been so busy not dying."

He snorted at that ridiculous idiot S.H.I.E.L.D. had once collected from the army, both nothing but an alternative of living on the street at that time. They had both grown in their time as agents. As much trouble as there was right now between the council and him, he was still thankful for everything he had learned and become in the last fifteen years.

But the best thing he always took with him from all these long years, he held right here, in his arms. Just the confirmation that he would still have her, even if Fury's and his ways would have to part, had already given him back a little strength after all these months of self-pity.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me, you know... Guess I kind of always knew that."

This time it had been Natasha to turn their conversation in a more serious direction, but she found it almost freeing, saying these things they had kept to themselves for years. She had never been an honest person, her life was built upon dishonesty, but with Clint she didn’t want that, she didn’t want to be false with him ever again.

Fighting was an art, like the most complicated and deadly of dances. Fighting, killing, deception; those were the arts in which Natasha had been instructed from a young age. Clint had been more functional, a soldier, a sniper, not an assassin trained in more methods of fighting and killing than most people even knew existed. “You were pretty formidable yourself,” she said, pressing back against him just a little tighter.

In the end it was his following words that really rang true. He had taken her from a life that had barely been a life at all, had given her something worth living for, had taught her how to live. He had helped her discover who she truly was under all the layers of programming. He had certainly played no small part in helping her become the woman she was today.

“You’re the same for me,” she said. She never bothered to think about what her life would have been like had she never met him as there was no point. Ultimately she was sure it wouldn’t have lasted much longer. She had grown tired, and sooner or later she would have let someone catch up to her and they wouldn’t have shown her mercy. She wouldn’t have wanted them to.

There were so many things behind her words that she didn't say, that he didn't need to hear. They had talked about it, in the past, and these conversations had been painful enough, for both of them. Right now Clint wanted to remember the good things that had come out of the mess that had been her life. And his, too.

So instead of answering, he just nodded shortly, still close enough to her shoulder to let her feel it, and let his hand wander from her stomach up then, to take her chin softly between two knuckles and turn her head to him a little more. The kiss was short and a little sloppy thanks to the awkward position but nothing less tender. A promise in more than one way.

"Got you", he whispered, placing another open-mouthed kiss to her shoulder.

Natasha was grateful for the reprieve and kissed him gladly. He knew her demons, and he knew what he had saved her from; there was no point rehashing it all again. There was no point living in the past, not when their present had so much potential.

“You always do,” she said, raising her hand to card her fingers through his hair and turning her head to place a kiss on his temple.

The movie was wrapping up, though she had definitely lost track of what was going on. It hardly mattered, the ending was predictable enough: there would be a spectacular showdown, Bond would save the girl and defeat the bad guy, and all would be well until the next film.

Some shooting and explosions, followed by idle elevator music let Clint know, their movie was about to end and he turned his eyes to the screen shortly, followed by a quiet chuckle.

"Are they really rolling around in diamonds? Am I the only one who finds this horribly uncomfortable?"

His fingertips danced down her chest again, teasing, tickling a little to leave the last too heavy minutes behind, until one fingertip dipped into her navel, just where Bond just had put a diamond on his girl on screen.

"Not that it wouldn't look good on you..."

The tip of his tongue darted forward, drawing a little circle on her shoulder before he closed his lips around the very first spot.

"But I'd rather not have my stomach cut open when I want to sleep with you..."

Being with Clint was like a roller coaster; they both had so many issues that they often went from high to low quickly and without warning. It had gotten better over the years, though. The lows weren’t as low and they were able to get by them more easier, and Natasha liked to think that they had a lot more highs now than before. Either way, it was a ride she was very glad she’d gotten on.

“I can’t say I would find it enjoyable,” Natasha agreed. Diamonds are sharp and hard and could hardly feel good cutting into their skin.

Her stomach involuntarily flexed when he fingered her navel, and she drew her bottom lip between her teeth. His mouth was already working her shoulder, and if he had decided that maybe he would like to seduce her then he would probably find it a rather easy task.

“Perhaps we should leave the diamonds out of it and try out the sand and surf instead.” Hopefully they could find themselves a nice, private stretch of beach to frequent, or maybe a quiet little cove. Despite how not fun washing the sand out of everywhere it could get into would be, the idea of making love with her back pressed against the sun warmed sand was an appealing one.

"Definitely fine with me, red."

In fact, making out on a beach with this wonderful woman, maybe under a night sky with only the sound of the ocean in the background, sounded so perfect that a deep longing sigh came past Clint's lips. His hand on her belly pulled her down on him just a little closer while he closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift back to that place he had fled to a few times already today. Sand and blue skies. No blood. No looks of disgust when he entered the room.

And many wonderful nights of forbidden, exhilarating pleasure, with no pressure of time or dangerous surroundings. God, he loved her even more for that whole idea and the fact that they would actually go with it, no matter what.

His hand sneaked from where it was lodged under her shirt under her pants now instead, mostly without intentions, he just wanted to feel her a little for the moment, fingertips ghosting over her hipbones as he breathed against her neck.

When Clint sighed against her Natasha could practically hear the longing in it. She wished they could go tonight; she wished they could go right now, but they still had to make it through the night, the meeting with Fury tomorrow, and all the travel time getting there.

“Twenty-four hours from now we’ll be in bed in our little hideaway with nowhere to be and no one to answer to the next morning,” she said, closing her eyes and snuggling closer to him. His touch brought a happy sigh to her lips, and in turn she ran her fingertips lightly along his arm. “We can wake up with the sun, go find a little local place for breakfast, and spend the whole day relaxing on the beach.”

With her eyes closed she could almost picture it, and it was wonderful.

Dancing in the Dark (for farmboyhawk)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject