#clintasha advent day thirteen

[fandom-took-my-sanity]

The Note on the Tea Box

It all started with an apple.

That was the first thing Natasha Romanoff gave to Clint Barton. An apple.

They were in the cafeteria of a SHIELD base, having lunch on a random Friday afternoon. Natasha was sitting with Hill, going over some basic protocols for fire drills. They were going to have one later that day, and Natasha wanted to be prepared. She had just joined SHIELD a few months earlier, so she didn’t know all the procedures yet. Maria assured her that she had nothing to worry about. An alarm would go off, and they would walk calmly to the concealed outdoor waiting area. It all made sense to Natasha, and she thanked Maria for her help.

She decided to pick up a quick snack on her way out of the cafeteria. She spotted a bag of chips and went over to grab it. The woman at the counter looked appalled that she was just taking chips, and insisted on giving her an apple as well. Natasha took it, but she wasn’t really in the mood for fruit at the moment. She started walking towards the stairs to the basement level, deciding she would just throw the apple away when she got the chance. But then she saw Clint.

He was standing at the top of the stairs, deep in conversation with an agent Nat didn’t recognize. Right as she was about to pass him, she got an idea.

Natasha walked by him quickly and transferred the apple into his hand. He turned to look at her, but she was already rushing down the stairs.

“What am I supposed to do with this?!” He called, exasperated.

“I don’t know, that’s your problem now!” Natasha replied, smirking. And with that, she turned the corner on the staircase and was out of sight.

>>>

A few hours later, the fire alarm went off. Natasha had been cleaning up her room because there was nothing better to do. The world had been particularly boring lately. No one needed saving, nothing was corrupt, and the majority of the population seemed to be healthy. Not that any of this was a problem, it was great actually. But for SHIELD agents, it meant that there wasn’t much to do. Which is why the fire drill was a welcome distraction.

Natasha joined the slew of people in the hallway, all making their way to the waiting area. She looked around for a familiar face, but she didn’t spot any. She decided that walking alone would be fine too.

When everyone got outside, Director Fury made an announcement over the loudspeaker.

“Hello agents, glad you could all join us in this mandated bi-annual pain in my ass.” That received a few chuckles.

“In the event of an actual fire,” Fury continued, “You are to remain in this waiting area until the all-clear is given by the SHIELD firefighters. This means no going back to your rooms or elsewhere until we are given the all-clear. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes sir.” Came the response from the gathered agents.

“Good, now that that’s over, you can all return to whatever you were doing before. Unless that whatever is throwing arrows in the ceiling in which case you may not continue doing that. Thank you.” Fury walked off the stage to join Hill on their walk back inside.

Natasha chuckled at his jab at Clint and started her walk back as well. Speaking of Clint, she now spotted him, about twenty feet away. She sprinted to catch up.

“Hey,” She said, catching her breath, “How did you like Fury’s speech.”

He chuckled, “I deserve it, the plaster people are getting very concerned as to why they have to patch my ceiling up every month.”

Natasha laughed and was about to say something, but Clint beat her to it.

“What was that apple for earlier?” He asked.

“Ohhh, the apple,” Natasha smirked, “I don’t know, I just didn’t want it, so I thought I would give it to you.”

“Hmm, it seems like I might have to get you back for that because I don’t like apples very much.” It was Clint’s turn to smirk.

They had reached Natasha’s room at this point, and she paused in the doorway before going in.

“Don’t be so overconfident, Barton. We’ll see what you come up with.”

Then she shut the door, leaving Clint standing there, wondering what the hell just happened.

Was Natasha flirting with him?

>>>

Natasha didn’t open her door until the next morning, and she almost tripped over what was on the ground right outside her room.

A bottle of Coke.

She laughed, picking it up. She wasn’t a very big fan of coke, and she knew for a fact that Clint was aware of this. She set it down on her counter and left to go have breakfast.

>>>

Clint was sitting at a tall table in the corner of the cafeteria, and Natasha went over to join him, after grabbing herself something to eat.

“Good morning,” she said, sliding into the chair across the table from him. “Did you do anything interesting last night?”

“Well, let's see,” Clint pretended to think, “I remember taking a late-night walk through the halls, but I believe I left my beverage outside of someone’s door. I can’t for the life of me remember who though.”

“That’s very interesting,” Natasha commented, taking a sip of her tea. Along with coke, she also hated the taste of coffee. She didn’t care if it was bitter or so sweet her teeth hurt, it all tasted horrible to her.

“Interesting indeed.”

They talked as they finished eating and then went their separate ways. As Natasha left to go to the weight room, something dawned on her. Clint had been teasing her a lot lately and trying to do things he thought were impressive whenever she was on a mission with him.

Was that his way of flirting? She wondered. Was Clint flirting with her?

>>>

They finally had another mission, but this one was easy. They just had to knock out a third-party operative who was otherwise going to deliver false information that would damage the reputation of a non-profit start-up.

It was over pretty quickly, and they were able to get the information out of his hands and secure. They went back to the motel they were staying at for the night. They said goodbye in the hallway, and both went into their rooms.

Clint closed and locked his door, flicking on the lights. Then he gasped. There on his bed were at least twenty rolls of smarties. Clint hated smarties, they always tasted like chalk, and they had no other flavor besides that. This had to be Natasha's doing. He smiled, brushing the candy away and climbing into bed.

He knew just how he was going to get her back.

>>>

The next day, when they were back at the base, Natasha was taking her daily afternoon walk through the corridors. She found that when you can’t go outside much, feeling like you’re moving around and getting somewhere is very important.

She was enjoying her stroll, when she heard, “Natasha!”

She turned around and looked down the hallway. She squinted, but she still couldn’t see anything.

“Up here,” The voice called again, and she looked up to see Clint, in the grates of the air duct on the ceiling.

“Clint, what are you doing up there?” Natasha asked, laughing. What could he possibly be up to?

“I wanted to give you something,” He replied and swung open the trap door of the vent. Natasha braced herself for what was undoubtedly going to be another gag food gift. And she wasn’t exactly wrong.

Clint dropped something from the ceiling and it landed on the floor in front of Natasha's feet. She picked it up to discover that it was a box of teabags. They were ginger spice, her favorite. What was Clint up to?

She looked up to ask him, but it looked like he had crawled away. There was a sticky note attached to the box though, and she peeled it off to read it.

Nat-

I know you’re not big on coffee, so maybe you would like to get a cup of tea with me sometime?

-Clint

Natasha looked up again, even though she knew Clint wasn’t there anymore. She was smiling like an idiot, but she didn’t care.

She was too busy thinking about all the ways she could say yes through food.

She was going to need another apple.

(Read on AO3)