Clint x Natasha FanFic's

A distraction and an Eyeball by fifthofnovember

A Distraction and an Eyeball

fifthofnovember

Summary:

"Seems your boyfriend lacks conviction." The words and their significance aren't lost on her.

"He could have killed you too."

Post movie, Tony and Clint try to decompress at a bar. Clint clearly has something on his mind and eventually tells Tony about his confrontation with Loki. There are weapons and threats with them, so.

Notes:

Special thanks to my Livejournal friend, Thom, who watched me slip back and forth between two realities in the process of writing this, and never called me crazy, mainly because he probably is too.

This started as flash!comment!fic and grew from there. And then next thing you know, you're sitting in an out of the way townie bar with a master assassin, and he wants to tell you something.

Post movie, took a few creative liberties with the order of things, tweaked a couple of scenes... you know how it is. Hope you enjoy.

Work Text:

"Why didn't you do it?" Tony asks, turning himself sideways in the booth, stretching his legs in front of him and resting his head against the brick wall. Clint is trying to pretend he isn't nervous, but he's already subconsciously refused to sit with his back to the door, and he's spinning his coaster in front of him while his drink sweats a ring into the wooden table that might have been painted once, a long time ago. They're sitting upstairs because where else would they be, and Clint is watching two men downstairs play pool because they're terrible and that bow isn't the only thing he's good with. They look like locals, like the kind of guys who know something and who Tony and Clint probably don't want to know. Not that either of them has anything to worry about, but still. They're trying to decompress.

Tony watches Clint watching because he's interesting when he's like this, but he's so obviously staring and he doesn't even know it, probably.

"Hey." Tony kicks him softly under the table and Clint jumps, because he realizes somebody could have snuck up on him. There aren't many who can do that, and not many times he'd allow it. "Welcome back. Another drink?"

"Yeah. Sure. Why not?"

The waitress comes over because this is exactly the kind of bar that has waitresses and not servers. Waitresses who wear slightly outmoded jeans and cheap costume jewelry and manage to make it look good. She returns shortly after because the place isn't crowded - places like this are never crowded - with their drinks and some baguettes and cheese that Tony thinks is remarkably upscale for a place like this. Not that he minds.

By now, Clint is twitchy as hell because he's twitchy in anywhere.

"Actually..." He picks up his glass and finishes his drink in one swallow. "Let's get out of here." He stands up, grabs a baguette for the road between his teeth and shrugs his jacket on, an old, black leather bomber and Tony wonders what that jacket has seen because old leather like that always has a story. He walks up to the bar, pays for their drinks and then strolls right past Tony, tapping him on the shoulder like maybe Tony hadn't heard him.

"Where?"

"I don't know. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just... walk. I'm thinking too much."

Then they're on the street, their shadows walking shoulder to shoulder in the near dark, Clint with his hands stuffed in his pockets looking like a regular guy and Tony dressed like he came out here to extort money. Now Tony's the twitchy one, although only just, because even though he doesn't really know it, he absolutely does know that Clint has a knife, somewhere, not because he thought he'd need to use it. He just has it because he can use it.