crossing the line

kiss or swear

Clint bounds up the stairs, his usually feather-light assassin's feet landing heavily on every other step on the way to Natasha's room. He's really bloody hoping she's in there, 'cause he's just sprinted up three flights of stairs. His head's spinning, and it's not just the rush of adrenaline.

Natasha and Steve. Steve and Natasha. It has a nice ring to it, but perhaps that's just due to the years of platonism it used to encompass, the intimate amity that became a constant thrumming, the backing beat to life at the compound. No one considered that there might be more planes to the shape, that the square could become a cube, or might already be, might have been for years.

The thought doesn't feel weird. It feels natural. Like sunrise after the moon's descent, or the rainbow after a storm. Like it was inevitable, and they were all waiting unwittingly for the other shoe to drop. But they might as well have killed three people rather than kissed. They're acting as if it's a crime, for god's sake. All that hiding and skittishness, Clint's half expecting to find a body in the bathtub.

Alas, after several insistent raps on her door, FRIDAY calmly notifies him that Agent Romanoff is not behind the door.
"Then where the hell is she?" He says, mostly to himself.
"Agent Romanoff is in the Studio."
"Thanks FRIDAY." And with that he makes for the lift. There's no way he's running all the way to the basement. These joints are too old for that.

The lift doors finally open and Clint hurries to the window. Mist acts as a complete obscurant, but Tchaikovksy murmurs through the crack between door and frame, muffled. He teases it open softly, and keeps to the shadows as he steps inside, immediately overwhelmed by the heat and volume of the music. He can almost feel it vibrating through him, see the room shaking. The mirrors to the front are steamed too, evidence of hard work and pain and sweat.

She stands in the centre, head down. Her short hair is tied back from her face, though a few strands tickle her eyelids. They are not enough however to eclipse how drawn, haggard, her face is. Clint could swear she's trembling a little. Then her foot sets in fourth and she turns in time with the music, fouette after fouette, double pirouettes inserted every so often to keep balance and momentum.
Until the music picks up the pace and she struggles to keep up, quick turns lagging behind the gradually forming crescendo, until one turn sends her off balance and she falls out of it, walking into a lazy fifth position. Her arms fall from first to her sides, fists clenching, eyes screwing shut as she bites her lip.

Clint feels his heart go out to her then. Natasha looks...like he's never seen her. He's seen her terrified, furious, ecstatic, devastated...But never like this. Never so...so lost, so ashamed, riddled with such self-hatred. He can see her nails, though bitten to the quick, digging into her palms.

Pain is her lifeline in this moment. Physical pain, it's the only thing anchoring her to the real world, keeping her from curling back into her own head, that where she desperately wishes to escape.

The music has stopped and her head twitches suddenly in the silence, as if she's heard something, someone talking in her ear. For a moment Clint thinks he's been revealed, but no.

"Я сделан из мрамора." I am made of marble. He barely hears the whisper fall from her lips. "опять таки." Again. And so she goes back to fourth, resorting now to consecutive pirouettes. He watches and can't help marvel at the six she executes seemingly perfectly. At least to Clint, but she pushes the heels of her palms to her eyes, muttering harshly.
"нет." No. "снова." Again. He gets the feeling this is not the first reiteration. Only this time she falls out of the third, muffling a frustrated scream by clamping a hand over her mouth, stumbling to the mirror and slamming a fist and her forehead against it, breathing heavily. He feels a pain in his heart along with hers. His best friend, his partner, his sister, is hurting.