#clintasha advent day fifteen

[fandom-took-my-sanity]

Natasha Romanov’s Guide to Traditions

“But it’s tradition,” Clint whined, looking at Natasha with puppy dog eyes, “We do it every year!”

“No we don’t,” She shot back, “Name one time we’ve done that.”

“We did it just last year,” Clint exclaimed triumphantly, “Remember? You were in the hospital and I came to visit you, and I brought you your gift.”

“Yeah, well that was hardly normal circumstances, I was in the hospital for heaven's sake.” Natasha sighed, “But if you really want to, I guess we can do it.”

Clint smiled and jumped up and down so much that you would think he was a little kid who was just given a puppy. He rushed over to the tree to pick out the presents that they would open. Natasha thought that opening a gift on the morning of Christmas Eve was ridiculous, but it made Clint so unbelievably happy that she let it slide. This isn’t a tradition though; it’s a one-time thing, she assured herself.

She sat down on the couch as Clint returned with the presents, he had picked out. They never gave each other much, surprisingly you don’t make a lot of money being an Avenger. But they never wanted that many things anyways, they were good with keeping it small.

The gift Clint had picked out for her was in a small square-shaped box. The wrapping paper was covered with snowmen and hot cocoa mugs, it was one they had picked out on a shopping trip early in the season. The present Clint had chosen for himself was one Nat knew he was going to love, she smiled, and told him to unwrap it first.

“Is it a...dog?” Clint guessed.

“Nope!” Natasha chuckled.

“How about a new car?” She shook her head.

“A new bow?”

“Now you’re getting closer. Why don’t you just open it and find out though!” Natasha smiled.

Clint unwrapped the bag and pulled out the box inside. He spent a minute looking at it, reading what the outside said, before moving to open it. He gasped once he looked inside.

“Nat, how did you- I thought that- woah,” He stuttered, shocked.

“Well, I remembered what Kate told us a few months ago about boomerang arrows, and how that would make things a lot simpler. I know you didn’t think it was a great idea, but then I talked to Tony, and we were able to figure out a way to make it work through technology.” Natasha explained, as Clint took out the devices and examined them. “They clip on to any arrow you want, and they are programmed to return to a specific marking in your holder. That way they won’t come back and hit you!”

Natasha finished with a huge smile on her face, and Clint was slowly moving away from shock to delight of his own.

“I love this so much, thank you,” He leaned over and kissed her, both of them smiling into the kiss.

“Now open yours!” Clint exclaimed once they had broken apart. Natasha carefully undid the wrapping paper and placed the small box on her lap. She examined it, trying to figure out what it was. It was definitely jewelry, the box had the logo of a local jeweler, but what kind of jewelry? She would just have to open it to find out.

She shimmed the lid off and lifted the box up to her face to look at what was inside. She gasped and looked up at Clint with sparkling eyes.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, looking down at the necklace. It was silver with a little charm on it.

An arrow.

Nathasa thought that it was perfect. She moved her hair back so Clint could fasten it around her neck. It fit perfectly against her collarbone, all beautiful and shiny. She turned around to kiss him, and they stood there in the living room, pressed together for several minutes.

It’s hard to say who made the move to deepen the kiss first, but soon enough they were making their way to the bedroom, giggling like little kids. They jumped onto the bed; all the excitement of presents long forgotten.

A while later, they were laying on the bed, collapsed on each other, and pretty damn exhausted. Natasha turned over to look at Clint and smiled.

“What?” he asked, looking at her affectionately.

“Oh, nothing,” Natasha responded, “I was just thinking that we should make that a new tradition.”

Clint rolled over to kiss her, which she took to mean yes. This was definitely a tradition that Natasha would be looking forward to.

(Read on AO3)

[natasha-romanoff-deserved-better]

Clintasha Advent 2021

Day Five: Time

Slight CW for concussions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clint’s phone buzzes with a text message, the four quick vibrations signaling it was Tony.

He ignores it. He’s exhausted, having been driving for several hours at this point through the night, and he’s not confident in his ability to drive in the total darkness and read a text while being so tired.

A ringtone fills the car a minute later, and Clint groans. He lets it ring to the final ringtone out of spite before accepting the call.

“Tony, if you’re calling me at almost 3am because you blew up another lab I swear--”

Tony cuts him off. “How far away are you? We need you here, now.”

Clint frowns and glances at the clock. “I’m only like.. An hour away. What’s going on?” He’s almost afraid to ask.

“Natasha just rocked up from her mission with a concussion.”

Clint waits for him to continue. He doesn’t. “...Is she okay?”

“No. I mean, yes, she doesn’t have any other injuries, if that’s what you’re asking. But this situation is absolutely not okay because she has a concussion and you’re not here to deal with her. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she doesn’t exactly listen to anyone else.”

Clint puts more pressure on the gas pedal, watches as the speedometer goes up. Tony starts to say something else to him, but Natasha’s voice cuts him off from further away, and he interrupts himself to mumble at her for a moment before returning. “Seriously though. She’s asking for you.”

There’s fumbling on the phone, and then Natasha is speaking.

“Clint?”

He smiles, suppressing a laugh at Tony in the background who is cussing at her for stealing his phone. “Hey Nat. What happened to ya?”

“Uh,”

“It’s okay if you don’t remember right now.” He tells her.

“Where are you?”

He glances at the clock on the dashboard. “I’m 40 minutes away. I’ll be there soon, okay?” The roads are empty - he doesn’t feel guilt as he presses the car to go faster upon hearing the frown in her voice.

More fumbling, and Tony is back on the line. “What am I supposed to do with her?”

Clint rolls his eyes. “You’ve dealt with concussions before, Tony. If she’s not being combative, just wait with her. I’ll be there soon. Put on a movie or something to keep her distracted. She likes Bond. Just no disney or cartoons or anything like that.”

“Yeah, got it, Okay.” Tony says something to Natasha, and the phone clicks off.

Clint laughs and turns the radio volume higher, returning his focus back to the road. Tony likes to act like an idiot, but Clint was also well aware of how close Tony and Natasha actually were. He was thankful to have someone he didn’t have to worry about Natasha being around while she was not in her right mind.

.

His phone is ringing again.

“Are you here yet?” It’s Natasha, even though it’s Tony’s phone.

“Tasha. It’s only been like… ten minutes.”

There’s a pause as she tries to process his words. “...But are you here yet?”

“Goddammit, Natasha.” Tony is there then, taking his phone back. “I go to the bathroom for one second and she finds the phone again.”

“Where is her own phone?” Clint asks.

“I confiscated it. I don’t trust her near any technology while she’s concussed. No way. Next thing we know she’d probably accidentally leak CIA documents while trying to open Spotify.”

Clint snorts. He doesn’t blame Tony for taking it. “Tell her I’ll be there at 3:20.”

There’s a thump, sounding suspiciously like the small body of his partner hitting the ground, and Tony disconnects the call, but not before Clint catches an exasperated “I thought you were supposed to have good balance?!”

Fifteen minutes later, It’s Steve’s phone calling. Clint’s stomach drops as he immediately assumes the worst- that she was becoming resistant and Tony had had to get Steve, the only other person on the team besides Clint who was capable of restraining her. It wasn't uncommon for her to forget where she was or who she was with while concussed.

Instead, It’s just Natasha again. “Tony is being mean to me,” She tells him, and he has to stifle a laugh at the pout he can practically hear on her face.

“I am not!” Tony’s protest comes from across the room. “I was just trying to get her to drink some water!”

“Drink some water, Nat.”

She ignores him. “Where are you?”

“I’ll be there soon. Tony told you at 3:20, remember?”

“That’s going to take hours.”

“No, Nat. Look at the time. It’s 3:00 right now. It’s only twenty minutes.”

“Hours.” She repeats, a whine in her voice.

“How did you get Steve’s phone, anyways?”

“He gave it to me.”

Clint isn’t sure how much he believes that, but he isn’t going to argue with her. There’s a noise, reminiscent of the phone slipping out her hand, a string of cuss words from her, and then silence as the call gets cut off.

He’s making good time, pushing the car despite the almost empty gas tank. He’s only five minutes away when the next call comes, this time patched through from JARVIS.

“Okay, seriously, how far out are you now?” Tony asks, and Clint can hear the hint of desperation. “Can you speed it up? Because now she is starting to be combative. She’s confused about why you’re not here. Thinks something happened to you that we aren’t telling her.”

Clint can hear Natasha arguing with Steve in the background as he tries to reason with her, explaining why he couldn’t let her leave the tower.

“Can she hear me now?”

“Yeah.”

Clint talks to her, then, letting her know he was only a few minutes out, that he was okay. He keeps up a constant string of random dialogue for her, updating her each time he gets a minute closer, until finally he is pulling up into the tower. He barely has time to get out of his car before the elevator to the garage is opening, and his arms are filled with a red haired figure crashing into him.

Clint presses a kiss into her hair before glancing up to fist pump at Tony. “Four minutes early!”

[natasha-romanoff-deserved-better]

Clintasha Advent 2020 

Day four- AU.  

Soulmate AU, where on your tenth birthday, any injuries or marks on your soulmate begin to appear as marks on you as well. (TW: mentions of red room abuse.) 

Waverly, Iowa. 1992.

Clint stirred restlessly in his bed, eyes having adjusted to the dark over an hour ago. On his nightstand, his clock blinks red with the time- 10:40pm. Not even two more hours to go until his tenth birthday.

There would be no birthday party, like the other kids in his school often got. Probably no presents as well, unless Barney or his mom had managed to sneak some money from his father, but he highly doubted that. It was fine. He didn’t need presents or a party or anything like that, because he knew he had something better than anything his family could have gotten for him waiting for him in the morning.  

Soulmate marks.

He wouldn’t ever admit it, but he had been looking forward to his tenth birthday for three years now. He dreamt of the marks he would find. Possibly scarped knees from running down grassy hills, or rough hands from climbing trees. Anything was welcome, he didn’t care what it was. Just the thought of having something physical, something he would be able to look down and know that yes, there really was someone out there for him, someone who would love all of him and was meant just for him. No one could take that away from him, not even his father.

That morning, the second he wakes up he runs into the bathroom and chucks his pajamas off. He expects to have to search for new marks. Instead, he is horrified to find himself littered with bruises, a faint mark of a large scar resembling a burn on his leg, and several cut marks going up and down his arms. Covering his back, there are red crisscrosses, reminiscent of the whip marks he saw sometimes in movies he was too young to be watching. Wide eyed and shaking, he slowly dawns a long sleeve sweater and jeans, praying no one would catch a glimpse.

.

Undisclosed, Russia. 1994.

Natasha stared in the mirror as the other girls bustled around her in the communal bathroom, frantically getting ready for another long day of training. She had been in the middle of braiding her hair when she noticed it- the two new bruises, one on her left wrist and the other blooming over her jawline. She frowns at them, trying to think of when she had gotten them, but draws a blank. The wrist bruise was on the wrong side- it was her right wrist they handcuffed to the bed every night, and she hadn’t been hit in the jaw in several days that she could remember.

Several times before, when Natasha had been eavesdropping in places she shouldn’t, she had caught whispers from the older girl’s conversations. Hushed talks about new marks and partners. Stupid, she always thought when she overheard them. Everyone knew Red Room girls were meant to be alone.

.

Budapest, Hungary. 2009.

She had been ready for him, so the moment she senses him silently sneak in through the window of the dusty apartment she had been camping out in while he thinks she’s sleeping, she flips over and fires her gun.

He somehow manages to dodge the bullet, and within a second has his own gun trained right back at her. They stare each other down for several seconds.

“Natalia. I don’t want to kill you but I will if you force me.” He speaks in choppy Russian. Which is dumb, If he had actually done his research on her, he should know she speaks almost fifteen languages. Maybe he thinks the Russian will make him seem more trustworthy.

She doesn’t respond, just keeps her gun raised at him. He is first to engage, rapidly grabbing her arm and knocking her gun away. She fights back, swiftly elbowing him in the ribs and twisting away. The fight drags on, the back and forth to win dominance prolonged by their similar skill set.

Several minutes pass before Natasha is finally able to grab ahold of his arm, and she lashes out with one of her many hidden knives, slicing through his flesh. Blood promptly begins to spill from the gash, but that isn’t what makes her drop his arm and stumble away, shell shocked. It’s the matching bright red mark that she witnesses appear on her arm in real time.

.

SHIELD safehouse, Maine. 2015.

It’s snowing outside, the clouds darkening the sky despite it being 10am. They lay curled together on the double bed, legs tangled together as her head rests on his chest. A pile of blankets lay on top of them, acting half as blankets, half as a barrier to the physical world around them. She had awoken from a nightmare only an hour before. It had been a bad one. Clint knows this because of the pleading in Russian she had been crying out before he shook her awake.

He softly traces a several inch scar on her forearm. He remembers this one. She had gotten it when he was fourteen.

“I looked for you, you know.”

“What?”

They don’t talk about this. Though they had never expressly said it, it had become an unspoken rule between the two not to mention their childhoods or their pasts. Those years were dark and far behind them. There was no sense in spending time looking at the past, only the future, where the light was.

“I tried to find you. I...” He pauses, hoping he isn’t crossing a line by telling her this. But he needs her to know. He needs her to know she had been loved. “Every time there was a new major mark. I would get online and search and search for news articles of accidents, or any reported injuries matching yours. Every time there was a new child abuse case in the news, I tried to match it and see if it was you. I don’t know what I was thinking. But I didn’t know what else to do. I guess, I thought if I could find you, somehow, that I could save you.”

He continues. “When I was fifteen, I actually reached out to a hotline. It was made for this kind of stuff- helping find soulmates who might be in trouble. Nothing really came of it. But god, Nat, I promise I really did try.”

He gently squeezes her closer to him, so that he could feel more of her warm body. She is quiet, processing so much new information, but he can see the slight parting of her lips as she measures her breathing carefully, trying not to give too much away about her thoughts.

After several minutes of silence from her, she squeezes her eyes closed and a small tear slips down her cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away. She looks up to him. “Thank you.” She whispers, voice slightly raspy. “Thank you.”

[natasha-romanoff-deserved-better]

Clintasha Advent 2020 

Day Fifteen- Children 

. 

Tony Stark was one of the richest men in the world. So when he had been blessed with a beautiful baby girl, he had expected to be the person to spoil her the most. You know, her actual father who had more money than he knew what to do with. He hadn’t been prepared for the storm that was Clint and Natasha.

Sure, he had seen the two of them interact with children before. On the streets when young children recognized them as heroes, or on missions where children were rescued from an unspeakable horror. They were always sweet and careful with the kids, but he hadn’t seen anything to give him any clues that Clint and Natasha were going to react to Morgan in the way that they did.

They hadn’t been around much during the pregnancy. Tony was pretty sure they took up random extra missions specifically to avoid them. Tony didn’t push it. He’d read Natasha’s file. He knew what the Red Room had done to her. But when the day of the birth had come, Clint and Natasha had suddenly appeared at the hospital. They didn’t go in the room and they kept a safe distance, but Tony and Pepper knew that at that moment, that hospital room was most likely the safest place in the world.

They’d had a harder time keeping their distance once Morgan was here. It started out with small souvenir gifts- any time they went on a mission to a new city, new state, new country, they always made sure to come back with a toy keepsake for her. Then it had turned into random gifts for no reason, just because they saw it in the store and “couldn’t resist.”

It gets worse when Morgan grows up, because then she can actually start requesting Uncle Clint or Auntie Nat. And they don’t disappoint. It gets to the point where at certain times, Tony has a hard time getting his own daughter back.

They’re not always the best role models. Things such as “Nat, you can’t just give a four-year-old a knife. No, it doesn’t matter that it’s miniature.” and “Please stop encouraging her to climb the bookshelves.” are common things Tony and Pepper both find themselves saying.

But they’re the best he and Pepper could have asked for. When Morgan started to get scared of the dark, Natasha would tell her stories of brave little girls from a far-off land who could conquer any kind of monster that came their way, no matter how scary they seemed at first. When Morgan begins having trouble with the other children in the park and her preschool, Clint teaches her all about how to stand up to bullies, even if they’re older and bigger.

He never argues, never denies them time with Morgan. She adores them, just the same as they adore her. Sometimes, when Morgan is distracted, Tony will accidently catch a glimpse of sadness and longing in Natasha’s eyes. And he doesn’t have to look hard to see the fierce protectiveness in Clint’s. It’s not hard to figure out they see Morgan not only as daughter of their own, but also as a chance to right pervious wrongs. They couldn’t go back and heal their own childhood selves, but they could make sure that Morgan would never, ever feel the way they had as children.

[natasha-romanoff-deserved-better]

Clintasha Advent 2020 

Day Nineteen - Domestic 

. . .

“Oh god. I am the worst person in the world.”

“Clint—”

“They’re never going to forgive me.”

“You know that’s not true,”

“I’m never going to forgive me.”

“It was a mistake, Clint. I promise they’re going to be fine.”

“I can’t believe I let this happen.”

Natasha rubs a hand over her face, giving up on convincing Clint. She leans back in her seat, glancing through the window at the city flying past. Clint was going almost fifteen miles over the speed limit, weaving through the other cars as he sped back towards their apartment. Anyone else driving so recklessly would have made her nervous, but she had been in enough car chases with Clint driving to be completely confident in his speeding ability.

Clint was still moaning to himself by the time they arrived back, speed walking up the steps and hurriedly unlocking their seven locks. As soon as the door swings open, Lucky is there, tail wagging as he hops up on Clint with his two front feet and licks at him.

“See? They literally don’t care.” Natasha points out.

Clint doesn’t listen, just gives Lucky a few pats and a kiss before pushing into the kitchen, where he pulls down a bag of dog food and can of cat food. He rips them open and dumps an absurd amount into both bowls.

“I thought it was your turn to feed them this morning.”

“You know Tuesdays are your day, though.”

“I thought today was Wednesday!” Clint exclaims. He sets both overflowing bowls on the floor, Lucky running over to chow down and Liho hoping onto the floor from her perch on top of the fridge to eat. They had  implemented taking turns to feed them every other day, after several incidents in which Clint and Natasha had both fed them either breakfast or dinner. It had been funny until Liho had started demanding two meals every time.

Clint isn’t finished, he reaches into the pantry and produces the treat boxes.

“Clint, no. You’re going to make our pets fat,”

Clint ignores her and goes about dumping several treats into their bowls as well.

Natasha watches with a raised eyebrow. “You good now?”

Clint smiles and nods, not taking his eyes off the two animals happily munching at his feet.

“Good. Can we go finish getting our groceries then? Because I’m pretty sure you left the shopping cart in the middle of the produce aisle when you randomly decided to bolt.”