Archive of Our Own

"You're sure of this?" Clint asked as he and Natasha made their way up the steps to the ostentatious front door of the Stark mansion. Behind them, the traffic on Fifth Avenue was heavier than usual, the mix of automatons and steam-coaches filling the evening with hisses and squeaks as they trundled slowly along the street. The sidewalks were thronged with New Yorkers out to enjoy the early summer evening, and the Stark security team had their hands full keeping gawkers away from the gated entrance.

Natasha fixed the bracelets at her wrists (brass and crystals, filled with super-heated gases, as explosive and deadly as they were beautiful) and then reached up to smooth Clint's lapels and tweak the pin in his ascot that doubled as a very lethal arrowhead if needed. Not even in a friend's house would they allow themselves to be unarmed.

"Perfectly," she answered. "We're exactly who they need, even if they don't know it yet."

Clint didn't think he agreed, but what did he know? At his best--which he freely admitted was not now, not after Loki--he was the operational thinker, the pilot, the marksman. Natasha was long-range strategic, infiltration, and the public face of their partnership. It wouldn't be the first time she'd steered them in a direction he'd been skeptical of, and touch wood (he did, surreptitiously—the habits of the tinkers who'd raised him were hard to break) it wouldn't be the last.

The front door opened as they reached the top step and they were welcomed into Stark Mansion by the most excruciatingly correct and impressive of butlers. Most of the guests were as in awe of him as they were of Stark himself, but Clint knew better.

"Jarvis!" he said as he handed over his hat and overcoat to the footman hovering in the background. "Stark still hasn't driven you to Bedlam yet?"

"I fear my time is nearing," Jarvis answered, unbending so far as to offer a small smile to Clint. Clint and Jarvis, they went way back. Jarvis was the reason Clint was standing here in custom-tailored evening clothes, about to go into the mansion's ballroom for a night of entertainment fit for robber-barons and captains of industry, rather than dead in some back alley or rotting in prison. Jarvis insisted his role in the penny dreadful that had been Clint's life as a young man was quite minimal, but Clint knew better and since Jarvis refused any sort of monetary compensation, Clint made sure he and Natasha brought back the best brandies and cognacs whenever they were on a job in Europe. None of them made their way into Stark's cellars, Clint was happy to note. "Might I add that you look quite respectable this evening?"

"Eh," Clint answered, tugging on his cuffs in his usual fit of discomfort with the high-brow clothes. "You should probably send compliments to Natasha."

"Of course," Jarvis answered, his tone still polite, but unmistakably cooler. Clint sighed to himself. He and Nat had had a … complicated history, one that involved excursions on both sides of the law, and Jarvis didn't approve of their continued association, even though both of them had been flying the straight-and-narrow for a good ten years now. (Well, as straight-and-narrow as executing commissions for Nicholas Fury could be, but so far as any governmental entities were concerned, they were acceptable.)

Natasha returned Jarvis's chilly politeness as she allowed Clint to remove her cloak and hand it over for safekeeping. She claimed it wasn't anything that upset her (and Clint was inclined to believe her, as she had no issue with voicing her displeasure with anything that did not meet her satisfaction, sometimes in creative and entertaining ways) but it bothered him. He just wanted people he cared about to get along.

Natasha tapped his shoulder with her furled fan, bringing him out of his reverie. Jarvis had moved to greet the next arrivals, and the curiosities and diversions of a Stark gala awaited them.

"Shall we?" Natasha asked, her smile warming as he offered her his arm. At least having to wear the convoluted get-up that was required for an evening of this sort was counterbalanced by being able to escort Natasha in full Black Widow regalia. With her in a gown of green satin so dark as to be black, with flowers of heavy silk floss and jewels embroidered along the edges, her waist cinched to where he could span it with his hands, and her skin pale as pale as her hair was red, no one would actually look at him, but they'd know he was there in his usual place at her side.

The din from the ballroom increased as they made their way down the great hall toward the double doors until they stepped out onto the landing at the top of the grand staircase and the full-throated roar of a thousand of the world's wealthiest and most indulged citizens was full upon them.

Slowly, Natasha tapped in their private code, her fingers brushing quickly against the inside of Clint's arm, the touch all but electrifying even through the layers of wool and fine cotton he wore. With practiced ease, Clint tamped down the desire and slanted a easy smirk her way. He knew perfectly well that she was going to want them to take their time descending the staircase, the better to allow everyone in the room to see that the Black Widow and her partner had arrived.

She hadn't needed to explain the significance of showmanship to Clint; he'd lived by his talent and flair for far too long to discount the value of knowing every eye was upon you. It was even more beneficial if it didn't seem as though you cared, so he leaned his head close to hers and murmured random observations geared to make her laugh as they walked.

They were met at the floor by one of Stark's automatons, all shining brass and hissing vents as it tilted in its approximation of a bow and then led them off to the side to meet with Stark himself. If anyone had missed their entrance, they were sure to have spotted them being favored with an express invitation from their host.

"Natasha, Clint, how lovely of you to join us." Miss Potts greeted them warmly, but Clint didn't miss the swift once-over she gave him before she turned to clasp hands with Natasha. He didn't blame her for the scrutiny--it had been only a few hours since he'd crashed into the service entrance to the house, covered in what could best be described as slime and yelling for Dr. Banner to come analyze him so he could bathe himself clean.

They hadn't been invited over for him to talk to Miss Potts, though. He owed the ‘honor' of the invitation strictly to the conversation currently in progress between Natasha and their hostess. Since he'd done his duty and provided the escort, he was free to turn to where Stark was holding court and accept a tumbler of dark, smooth liquor.

Stark was in a somewhat subdued mood, which Clint knew was mostly due to the earlier slime incident, but which Stark was playing off as irritated genius. It was always amusing to Clint how easily everyone fell for that tired routine, but he guessed Stark had spent a lifetime building its foundation and now barely had to twitch to set the tongues wagging. Behind him, Natasha and Miss Potts continued what sounded like nothing but a discussion of their gowns. Despite looking nothing alike (Miss Potts was covered in gold with only a small bustle; Natasha had the dark green and elaborate embroidery and a more daring deviation from fashion with no bustle and a train), both had been created by the House of Worth (Clint knew more about dressmakers now than he'd ever believed possible and understood this as the triumph that it was), as an exclusive design for their respective owners. As the conversation turned to a more detailed analysis (the drape of satin as compared to velvet, and apparently, both ladies knew the seamstresses who plied their needles for Worth and had their favorites--Clint was entirely unsurprised) he allowed his attention to wander, instead planning out where he would have placed shooting blinds if he'd had the design of the ballroom.

"One waltz," Natasha said, startling him out of his reverie. She was almost the only person who could walk up to him without him noticing; he accepted her tiny smile of satisfaction without any irritation. As talented as she was, the only reason she could walk up to him without warning was that he trusted her, and therefore didn't bother to track her as a danger. She knew that, too; he thought she got more satisfaction from that than from proving her talents. Since they were playing by society rules this evening, she allowed him to lead her onto the dance floor and into the flow of dancers. "Very nice," she said after the first pass around the room.

"My self-worth would suffer far less if you didn't sound so surprised whenever I manage to do something proper," Clint answered, but it was mostly for show and they both knew it. He was never going to fit in with money, whether old or new, but mostly because he didn't care to. She knew that as well, too. What she didn't know was that he made a special exception for the waltz, because it was an acceptable way for him to be close to her. He never suggested they dance, but he never argued if she deemed it necessary. It was, perhaps, the act of a sad and desperate man, but he'd long known he had little pride when it came to Natasha.

"Around once more, and then we should make our way to Stark's library," Natasha said, all business. Clint could fake that, too, so he nodded once. "Miss Potts has arranged for us to meet with the client."

Clint wanted to know how they'd communicated that—all he had heard was discussions about dressmaking—but Natasha held strong opinions about sharing her methods, especially when it came to something she felt he should be able to know on his own. Clint, in turn, was not particularly in the mood for a protracted discussion as to whether or not that was true, so he didn't bother to try to wheedle the details out of her and instead kept his attention on the dance itself.

The small orchestra wrapped up the piece with decent enough timing, leaving Clint and Natasha on the far side of the ballroom, near to the hall that led to the more private part of the mansion. It was simple enough to slip out amid the rush of couples on and off the dance floor, and Stark's fleet of automatons allowed them to pass without incident. All was going well right up to the moment Clint followed Natasha into the library and discovered who was in need of their services.

"My lady Natasha," Thor said. Clint shot her a murderous glare, but she only arched her eyebrow at him and turned to extend her hand to be bowed over. Clint set his jaw and pulled the door closed behind them. True, his difficulty didn't lie exactly with this particular son of Odin, and their previous undertaking had been a success, but he still held no love for the family and Natasha knew that.

"Hawkeye," Thor greeted Clint, which at least meant he was playing along with Clint's issues and keeping things strictly professional. He didn't blink when Clint forced out a semi-appropriate, "Odinsson," in answer, though Clint thought he could see a hint of regret in the other man's eyes before he turned back to Natasha to set up the deal.

Clint normally paid close attention when the details of a commission were being communicated—he had long since lost count of how often he'd been able to tease out tell-tale twitches or words that were at odds with the supposed aim of the job. Sometimes that meant they refused the offer on the spot, while during others, they used the conflicting comments or gestures to see their way out of a trap. Now, though, he barely marked the conversation. There was a lady and her companion, he heard, in need of transport. She had no public ties to Thor; everyone wished it to continue that way.

"For her protection," Thor said. "You understand," and Clint did, better than most. No one needed Thor's brother on their trail, not in the best of times, and certainly not now, when he had sold his talents and skills to the mad Titan, Thanos.

"It would be our pleasure," Natasha said after one swift glare at Clint, daring him to make her a liar. He wouldn't, of course, but his trust in her was strained more than it had ever been. After that, it was merely a polite discussion over payment—Thor was offering an amount that was truly eye-opening.

"Half that," Clint said, tired of the genteel debate. "I'm not having it said that we took advantage of you, and I'm not taking this to bleed you for your brother's actions." Even half the proposed amount was too high for what was nothing more than an excursion across the Northern Lands, but Clint was at the edge of his self-control. After a long hesitation, Thor agreed, and Clint let Natasha finalize the discussions. He did manage to leave on a civilized note, clasping arms with Thor and acknowledging his thanks with an even nod, but once the door closed behind them, and he and Natasha were alone with no one but Stark's automatons as witnesses, it was another matter. Clint dropped Natasha's arm and strode off down the hall. His ascot nearly strangled him and the fine wool of his dinner jacket felt more like straitjacket.

"The two of you working together will go a long way toward quieting the rumors," Natasha said, her aim as precise and true with words as it was with her knives.

"We've already worked together," Clint bit out. He continued walking, not sure of what might happen if he stopped long enough for everything swirling inside him to boil over.

"In the heat of the moment, yes," Natasha answered, keeping pace with him. "Now, as a considered transaction, the fate of the world not hanging in the balance--that's the act of two reasonable individuals."

"Reasonable," Clint echoed. "Now, there's a word you don't often apply to me."

"Then try to live up to it," Natasha snapped. That almost broke Clint's stride, because it was seldom that she ever rose to his bait. He wanted to know why this was suddenly such an important task, this being seen as reasonable, but they had reached the front of the house, and the sounds of the ball grew louder.

"Fury has a place for us and the Echo on one of his big ships," Natasha said, catching Clint's arm in another rare display of impatience.

"Oh, Fury's involved," Clint muttered. "I should have known."

"Of course Fury's involved," Natasha hissed. "Who do you think needs to see that you haven't let yourself be trapped in everything left from Loki's magics?" Clint definitely should have known that without being told. He shook his head once at Natasha, half in apology, half to say he needed more breathing space than a Fifth Avenue ball was going to give him. Natasha turned with him toward the footman stationed to retrieve guests' outer garments, but they walked without their usual intimacy.

"Tell me where to bring the Echo," Clint said with less graciousness than the gesture should have commanded. Normally, on a retrieval operation, no one would bother to ferry one of the small, light airships like the one he owned across the ocean. The agents would be sent with the papers necessary to let one on the Continent. He and Natasha had done just that an untold number of times on commissions. For whatever reason, though, Natasha had forced the issue to transport the Echo. (Clint was aware that the possibility existed that Fury had a reason to fly Clint's airship across the Atlantic, but he judged there was a slightly greater chance of the sun exploding.)

"Brooklyn ‘Shipyard, docking bay 94," Natasha said. "They'll be ready to leave as soon as you're there."

"Then I guess I better go get her ready," Clint said, taking his hat and coat from the footman and leaving without further ado.

Clint kept the Echo primed for action, but it still took him the night and part of the next day to ready her to be ferried across the ocean. He did it all alone, on the principle that the busier he kept himself, the less likely he would end up needing to post bail in order to meet Natasha as scheduled. Still, it was only a little past the mid-day meal when he made his way back to the rooms he rented in an older townhouse and called for one of the ragged boys who roamed the city's pavements, ready for the odd job or errand.

"No letter, only a message," Clint told his pick of the lot, a sturdy, if small for his age, towhead. "‘Budapest' -- deliver it only to the Black Widow, mind." The boy's eyes widened a little at that, but he nodded vigorously. Ordinarily, Clint would have enjoyed the reaction--even the street urchins knew of her, definitely grounds for bedevilment during the more humdrum parts of a mission--but he was still off-balance from the confrontation at the ball. He sent the boy off with a copper and the promise of twice that upon his return.

All that was left was to choose his armaments. He'd left that for the end deliberately; it settled his mind to sort through what he knew about a mission, to review the briefings and decide the best match of his weaponry. Luck was with him: he'd only just finished when his messenger returned, the code word from Natasha verifying the signals he'd need to fly to gain entry to the shipyard and rendezvous with Fury's team.

"You don't got to pay me," the boy said when Clint reached for the promised coppers. "She already done it, and more."

"You didn't skip out on her," Clint answered, pushing the coins across the table. "You finished the job--"

"Ain't nobody dumb enough to stiff the Black Widow," the boy pointed out, but he swept the money off the table with a hand that was astonishingly clean for all that he clearly spent most of his time on the street.

"You'd be surprised," Clint told him. Natasha rarely interacted with the boys they used as messengers, leaving that to Clint. She must have seen something here. Clint eyed the boy consideringly. "Do live near here?"

"Maybe." The boy shrugged, wary at the extra interest, but somewhat willing to hear what Clint had to offer. Clint approved of both. "Got a auntie what lives not too far."

"Do you know Stark Mansion?"

"‘Course," sniffed the boy. "Everbody knows that swell."

"All right, then." Clint reached for an arrowhead, dull and blunted, but unmistakably Stark's custom work. "You watch my place for me. Every week, you go to the mansion, and you tell Mr. Jarvis--Jarvis--" He said the name slowly, so the boy would hear it clearly. "You tell him everything is good. Show him this, so he knows you're working for me. He'll make sure you get fair pay. Anything odd happens, even if it doesn't look bad, you go there straight off."

"Sure ‘nough," the boy said, taking the arrowhead and tucking it into his ragged--but also fairly clean--trousers. "Every week."

Clint nodded and the boy tipped him a cheeky salute before he disappeared into the alley. Clint thought he saw one last flicker of movement halfway up a drainpipe, but even that was quick. Whatever had caught Natasha's eye, Jarvis would nurture it, and at the very least, there'd be one less starving boy on the streets.

Clint set the locks and tossed his duffel, quiver and the bag on the front step. Even under the simmering resentment he was nursing over this assignment, he felt the stir of adventure as he flagged down a steam-hansom and directed the driver back to the shipyard where he berthed the Echo. It was a short flight to the Brooklyn Airship Yard, but the skylanes were crowded and Clint wasn't in a special hurry. He ran the flags Natasha had specified up the fore and aft lines and eased his way past the security at the ‘Yard.

At halfway to the supper whistle, the largest airship yard in the continental States was roaring with life. Great clouds of steam and smoke billowed to the sky as engineers fed coal to the fires under the boilers; and automatons screeched and bleated as they wove between the mooring lines, delivering small mountains of cargo to the stevedores on the ground. The Echo was barely a tenth of the size of the biggest of the airships; Clint kept her precisely in the transit lanes so as not to tempt the Fates. She wouldn't survive even the smallest of collisions here.

As he neared Bay 94, Fury's zeppelin dominated the view, filling the horizon as she rose slowly from her berthing to hover just high enough for Clint to guide the Echo to her groundside tow braces. As he got close, he could see the mechanicals clinging to her hull, waiting to drop down onto the Echo with their chains and secure the two ‘ships together. It could be tricky, ferry-rigging two ‘ships like this, with both boilers hot and running and the afternoon winds off the Basin ready to play havoc with the most seasoned of helmsmen, but whoever was on the wheel of the zeppelin held her solid and precise. Clint eased the Echo down and under, keeping her trim steady as the mechanicals thudded down onto her.

It took a fair bit to secure the ferry lines, but the pilot on the zepp never wavered. Clint knew of only one or two fliers who could do so well. He turned the thought over in his mind as the mechanicals linked the ‘ships together, effectively turning the the Echo into a small annex of the larger ‘ship, and while he doused the boiler fires and locked her down for transport. He ran up the flags for No assistance needed and allowed himself a short, sharp grin when someone topside kicked a rope ladder down to him. A zeppelin large enough to cross the Atlantic most likely had a fleet of yawls to ferry passengers onboard, but this was much more fun. He slung his duffel, quiver and bow bag over his back and scrambled up to meet his hosts for the first part of the voyage.

By the time he reached the helm, it wasn't much of a surprise to find Melinda May there. There weren't many others who fit into the intersection of a pilot good enough to ferry-rig a ‘ship in the middle of the Brooklyn ‘Yard and one who knew him well enough to dispense with the formalities of piping him aboard. She was already involved with taking them through the Basin and downriver to the sea, so he limited himself to basic courtesies.

"Didn't really expect to see you on this job," May said, eyeing him in the mirror over the helm. Clint managed to shrug casually. "Come back up when we clear the coast, see how the bigger half lives."

"Slow as an iceberg, you mean," Clint answered. "Takes a mile to turn. Sure, I'll come by soon as I need a nap."

May gestured rudely at him, but he would be up to watch how her zepp handled and they both knew it. Clint continued on his way, meeting up with the rest of May's crew. He knew most of them--or knew of them, in the case of the scientists--and made promises to stop and see everyone's domains while he was on board. Finally getting the chance to speak with Coulson, still recovering from the extensive surgeries and implants necessary after the invasion, was far less awkward than Clint had anticipated. Coulson's physical body body might not have been exactly as it had before the attack, but he still maintained his droll humor and faintly bemused appreciation of the absurd. Clint was smiling as he turned away from the man and saw Natasha watching them. Her expression was the carefully cultivated blank she presented to marks, and his good humor faded in the face of her hesitance, especially given his awareness that it was in reaction to his own churlishness.

He searched for the words to tell her that she'd been right (of course), that getting back into the world, no matter how difficult, was the right decision, but he took too long and she was past him with a stiff nod.

"Ah, hell," Clint sighed. He went and found his bunk, tossing his bags on the bed and started hoping the winds would be with them, or it was going to be an exceedingly long and awkward crossing.

Clint spent the better part of the first day up at the helm with May. It kept him out of Natasha's way and let him get a better look at the extras with which Fury had equipped the zeppelin. Most were not especially suitable for the Echo, but the cloaking device that turned the ‘ship virtually invisible was very, very nice. Clint was fairly certain Stark could take care of him there. May was a pilot after his own heart--so in tune with her ‘ship that the slightest touch was all it took to navigate the air currents with barely a tilt to the deck. Of course, Clint had been with her when subtlety was not at all the order of the day, so he knew she could storm with the best of them, but just now he was gaining a greater appreciation for the discipline it took to steer an even, smooth course. The day passed with more serenity than Clint could remember having in a very long time, and he slept well in his tiny bunk.

The zeppelin was making good time, so Clint decided he should spend a little more time during the second day out with the rest of the crew. Natasha was treating him with more of the excruciatingly polite distance, which was not at all his favorite thing, but which could have been worse. He roamed around for a while, making a point to visit Coulson's office, just to prove (mostly to himself) that he was not carrying irredeemable guilt for causing the man's injuries, but then ended up down in Mack's workshop, where his request for a fire hot enough to soften metal was met with a gesture toward protective gear and Mack shifting over to give Clint space at the forge. Clint suited up and laid out the arrowheads he wanted to amend. Mack kept an eye on Clint's form and offered an educated, metallurgical opinion occasionally, but otherwise didn't really speak. It was almost as calming as watching the endless, unpopulated sky and ocean had been the day before.

Clint had just finished modifying the last of his copper-tipped arrowheads when Natasha walked in. Mack pushed his goggles up on his forehead and nodded a greeting, one that Natasha returned in kind before fixing her gaze on Clint.

"We'll be docking by morning," she said. "We should spar a little now, before we—"

"No," Clint said. He turned away from her and began to pack his quiver. He moved carefully; his hands weren't shaking but they felt like they should be.

"Yes." Natasha leaned against the bulkhead, arms crossed over her chest, her expression implacable. She had changed her flying leathers for a loose, woven tunic and pants in her signature black, and had drawn her hair back and clasped it neatly at her neck. "We both need it."

"I doubt that," Clint answered as evenly as possible. "You almost never need the practice, and I don't tr--"

"I do." For all that the words had been snapped out, Natasha was still and composed when Clint forced himself to meet her eyes. "You don't trust yourself, but I do." Clint shook his head helplessly, but whatever Natasha saw when she looked at him must have met with some kind of approval. She nodded once and turned away. "The lower cargo area, five minutes." She was gone before Clint could speak another word.

The workshop was silent for a long few minutes, but finally Clint finished packing away his work and dropped down to sit on a bench, his head in his hands.

"Determined woman," Mack said, breaking the quiet. "Good quality in a partnership."

"Sometimes." Clint's voice was stuck somewhere in his chest. His heart was pounding at what she was asking from him and all the ways in which it could end in disaster.

"Smart, too."

"Too damn smart for her own good," Clint muttered. Mack was stripping off his heavy, protective gear and reaching for the shirt that hung by the hatch. Clearly, he expected Clint to follow Natasha's lead, and just as clearly, he was coming along to watch, which could work to Clint's advantage.

"Take this," Clint pulled his throwing knife out of his boot and flipped it to Mack. He and Clint had worked together more than once; Clint had no qualms about what he was about to ask. "If she needs help putting me down, use it."

Mack didn't say anything, which was fine by Clint. He hung the heavy leather apron back neatly on its peg and started unbuttoning his shirt while he walked. Mack followed him, and they made their way to the cargo hold in the same silence in which they'd worked. Natasha was down on the floor and stretching when they arrived; Clint unlaced his boots and tossed them and his shirt into a corner. The metal of the floor was cool against his feet.

Natasha smiled at him as she stood up, bouncing lightly on her toes, and Clint tried one last time. "Nat, neither one of us has any idea how my mind is going to react if it's you coming at me again--"

"We need to know before we're in a situation," she answered, her voice almost gentle. "Now is better than later, and no, I do not want to put this off any longer."

"Fine," Clint growled. He turned and looked directly at Mack, who nodded his head once, and then waved Natasha on. "Come on, then--"

She didn't wait, but attacked immediately, smooth and controlled, each kick blurring into the next, and Clint found himself parrying and retreating almost without thinking about it. She was only playing with him, though. None of her strikes carried any serious intent, and as rapid as they might seem to the outsiders hugging the walls to watch, Clint knew they were barely more than an introduction to the Black Widow's talents.

It suited his purposes, though, so he moved with her and didn't call her out on it. He caught the tight set to her mouth and knew she hadn't missed his passive reaction, but he was here only at her insistence; he had no intention of heightening the conflict, even going so far as to ignore the increasingly blatant openings she was leaving for him. He couldn't help but smile at her frustration, which was ill-mannered and petty, but that seemed to be all he could muster these days.

"I'll not take them," Clint told her, his voice low so that only she would hear him. "I told you I wouldn't fight you."

"You did," Natasha agreed. Her foot connected with his ribs, a solid enough hit that Clint felt all his breath leaving in an explosive rush. She followed it with one meant for his head; his reflexes pulled him back enough that he took it on his shoulder instead, hard enough to numb his arm for a second. Had it connected with his head, he would have been lucky to have only been rendered unconscious.

Evidently, she had reached her limit for play.

"дурак," Natasha snarled, coming at him without pause. Fool. "Do you think I can't take care of myself with you?" He blocked her as best he could, his body moving without thought, still not taking the attack, but she wouldn't relent. "идиот," she hissed. "придурок, слабоумный." Idiot, moron, imbecile. Clint managed to keep his feet through it all, but it was a near thing, and when she came for his throat, he was too near the edge to react with anything but a counter to her irruption. Even after his punch landed, he thought to pull back, at least until she smiled, wiping the blood off her mouth with the back of her hand and purred, still in Russian, "Lover."

It didn't say anything commendable about Clint that he accepted the overt aspersions but lost his resolve to not fight at being named something more complimentary, but it felt more like a taunt than the actual insults had. He turned his shift in momentum into a backward flip and managed to land a kick before he righted himself and spun into an attack. Natasha's smile grew even brighter as his control boiled away and he did exactly as she'd wanted, but he wasn't her lover, not now at least, and he found that was the bit of manipulation he couldn't bear.

Natasha lost her smile as they fought in earnest, but Clint knew she was still happy that he'd capitulated. She fought with an ease that bespoke a certain joy; Clint would ordinarily have taken great pleasure in observing it, but his blood was well and truly up and his world narrowed to the path from one strike to the next and the one after that. Natasha was fast and strong and ruthless; Clint was almost as fast, stronger, and, he thought on this day, equally as ruthless. They each knew the others favorite attacks and defenses; even more, both knew the others shortcomings and how best to exploit them. When the rest of the world crashed down around him again, he was flat on his back, blinking blood out of his eyes and gasping for air through ribs that ached with every breath. His hand was at Natasha's throat, and the stiletto at his heart was the only thing keeping him from crushing her windpipe.

They were still locked in the stalemate, neither one refusing to give ground, when Mack crossed the deck and crouched down to sit on his heels next to them.

"You're scaring the young ones," he said. "Game's over." He wrapped one big hand around Clint's wrist, and the other around Natasha's. His fingers tightened in a clear warning that he'd be happy to snap bones if necessary. "Go kill each other somewhere that isn't my home."

Mack's eyes were clear and serious; Clint read the resolve in them easily. He nodded once and relaxed his hand. Mack kept his grip tight even as the edge of Natasha's knife eased away from Clint's skin. He brought both of their hands down and away from their killing positions, and then stood and walked away without a backward glance. Clint tilted his head and watched as he herded the crew out of the hold. Several of the younger ones did look a little distressed; Clint supposed they hadn't really expected a blood feud to play out in front of them.

Natasha groaned and rolled to her hands and knees, and then used the momentum to push to her feet and stagger across the hold to a bucket of water. Clint knew her well enough to know she wanted to duck her whole head under the water, but she settled for splashing her face and scrubbing the blood from her split lip off her skin. Clint took her keeping the water in bucket as clean as possible as an invitation to get himself across the room and cleaned up, too.

"They are never going to let us on this ‘ship again," Clint said, looking around at the general destruction they'd wrought, crates toppled and broken and pipes embedded in the walls. They'd somehow managed not to shatter any of the glass covering the portholes, but that had more to do with how small and out of the way they were rather than any care he and Natasha had taken.

"They will as soon as there's something only we can do," Natasha said as she slid down the wall and rested her head against it. Clint laid down next to her. "You know that as well as I do."

Clint made a wordless sound of agreement. Fury might be irritated, but in the end, if this was the fastest way to get Delta Team anywhere, a wrecked cargo hold wasn't going to hold them back.

"Even if they did ban us, I wouldn't care," Natasha said. "Working through this--" she nudged Clint with one toe, "--without a problem--"

Clint reached up and poked her side, right where he'd landed one of the best kicks he'd ever gotten off against her. She didn't wince, but Clint knew he'd made his point.

"Fine," Natasha sighed. "There was a small problem."

Clint snorted at the understatement.

"But it was our problem." Natasha nudged at Clint again. To her credit, she didn't aim for any of places she'd gouged, punched, kicked, clawed or bitten. There weren't many clear spots, but she found one. She was good like that. "You were--"

"Angry," Clint supplied. It wasn't quite right--he was more hurt and betrayed--but it was the easier emotion to name. Natasha looked at him for a few seconds, and he wondered if she would press him on it, but finally, she nodded.

"I've been… frustrated." She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "But that's all it was. Just us, our tempers and feelings, no extra magics or wills not of our own."

It was as good of an opening as Clint was going to get to tell her what had set him off, but he let it pass, as he always did. She did have a point. He'd seen red, but it had been him clear through his heart and brain and hands.

"May is still going to put us out as soon as she can," Clint said with a groan. "We'll be lucky if Mack doesn't throw us and our baggage over the side while we sleep."

"Well, then," Natasha said, pushing herself up the wall and to her feet. She held down a hand to Clint. "I suppose we should sleep in shifts then."

"Great," Clint answered, wincing as he stood. "I had nothing to do with any of this, so you take first watch."

They crossed over England during the night. Natasha woke Clint as the beams from the Cornish lighthouses faded into the fog, and Clint sat and watched as the French coast appeared with the sunrise. As they came up over Flanders, May sounded the horns in warning for the start of the decouple process. Despite being stiff and sore, Clint eschewed the dory launch that Coulson had standing ready and threw a line over the side to slide down to the Echo. Natasha came down right after him, and together they started the boilers and readied their ‘ship to fly on her own.

"You want me to divert some of the steam to warm up the cabin?" Clint asked as Natasha spent any time not occupied with flying chores wrapped up in her giant fur cloak, the one he called the tzarina cape when he wanted to annoy her. The zeppelin flew at higher altitudes than the Echo; they'd warm up as soon as Clint could drop down to their usual flight path. That might be a while, though, and since he was in his own heavy leather overcoat, with gloves and scarves and fur-lined hat and still feeling the cold, he wouldn't argue if she wanted a little more warmth.

"No, it's fine, let's be out on our own," Natasha sighed. She burrowed further down, though, and looked very unhappy.

"Sure thing, princess." Clint knew he'd pay for that at some later date, but it felt good to be back in a frame of mind where it didn't really matter.

As the mechanicals unhooked the mooring lines and Clint guided the Echo on a flight path next to the zeppelin taking advantage of her draft to let the engines build up a little more gradually, he saw the crew plastered at the portholes of the lounge. He supposed he and Natasha had just added another story to the anthology of the Black Widow and Hawkeye--the time they tried to kill each other on Fury's zeppelin--but at least this one would be somewhat true. May saluted from the helm; Mack came out on deck and watched with arms crossed. Clint touched his fingers to his brow, part thanks, part apology. Mack grinned and drew his arm back; Clint ducked low as his own throwing knife thudded into the wood of the cabin.

Mack saluted as Clint stepped outside to be sure his answering gesture was seen, and then stayed keeping watch until Clint put the Echo into a graceful arc to drop down, down, down, and into a bank of clouds.

Clint ordinarily disliked the damp and chill of flying through clouds and would go leagues out of his way to avoid it if possible, but it did make for excellent cover. No one but Thor knew their destination, and while Clint trusted May and Fury in general, he was far too cynical for that to mean much. He followed the cloud bank for an hour then took the ‘ship out to find the sun.

"At last," Natasha murmured, shedding her furs and stretching for the warmth. The clouds were a billowing floor beneath them, the sky a dazzling, pure blue above, and Natasha, with her hair down and streaming in the rush of air, could have been a creature of myth, a sylph or nymph. Clint wasn't sure how an orphan raised by tinkers had done to deserve this life, but he resolved not to let it go unappreciated.

The day unfolded in the same, unhurried way. The clouds finally blew away and Clint verified his magnetic navigation with sightings off the coastline below. Natasha settled herself with a map and compass in the corner and determined that they should make landfall across the North Sea in time to dock for the night. May would have flown them across the last bit of open ocean, too, but dropping over Flanders left the entire continent as an open possibility for their destination. As well, it wasn't a hardship to pilot his ‘ship an extra day.

Along the Northern Lands, even small towns on the coast had airship yards to rival those of larger cities elsewhere. Clint had his pick and even with his overprotective streak regarding his ‘ship, finally brought the Echo down in a yard big enough not to really notice them, but small enough that they could find their way into a nicer part of town without having to hire a hansom. The public house they found brewed their own mead and served food that was hearty and fresh and plentiful. After the rough-and-ready flight rations on the crossing, neither of them minded the lack of refinement. The only down-side to the evening was that Natasha pulled her hair into a semi-sedate knot, so as not to draw any more attention to it than was necessary. Neither one of them thought they might be tracked, but the instincts of a lifetime were hard to overcome. Clint still mourned--privately, of course--the loss of the curls she'd allowed to tangle in the breeze.

They slept on board that night, the boiler keeping their berths warm and snug, and cast off the next morning with the sunrise. The town Thor had marked on their map was farther north than Clint had ever been. Natasha thought she might have reached a little past it in the time before she freed herself from her childhood masters, but that would have been much further east, along the edges of the power wielded by the tsars.

"Nothing like this," she told Clint as they sat and watched the deep valleys and jagged coastline unfold beneath them. Clint thought it would be beautiful even in winter, but now, in the summer, with the sun strengthening in the sky daily, the view was spectacular. They didn't usually have time to appreciate the little things when they were on a commission, but this one was different all around.

They made it to the small university town Thor had sent them to as the sun slanted low in the sky on the second day. Clint proposed that Natasha go and find their lady and her party while he stayed to safeguard the ‘ship, but his plan, as expected, was rejected. He, in turn, vetoed the proposal that he dress to match his bank account, and stayed with his flying leathers and boots. He did, however, shave, on the principle that partnership was about compromise. Natasha rolled her eyes at his ‘magnanimous' gesture, but otherwise didn't harass him about anything else, so it was a victory on all fronts.

The address Thor sent them to didn't seem to exist at first, but finally, after several wrong turns and a rambling, treacherous path along a fjord, they came to a small cluster of wooden buildings that were little more than shacks, set beneath a quadrangle of imposing towers strung with a webbing of copper wires. As they approached, the door to the middle building opened and a youngish woman came out to survey them. She was dressed in sturdy canvas and wool like most of the villagers, but her boots were well-made and expensive, and her sweater was intricately patterned.

"I hate to break the news to you," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, "but you two do not look like the locals."

"That'd be because we're not," Clint called back to her. He exchanged glances with Natasha--given the suspicious examination the girl was giving them, perhaps they'd been wise to not advertise their presence.

"Oh, huzzah, this time they speak English," the girl muttered. She fumbled a device of some sort out of the pocket of her split skirt and waved it at them. "Look, I know it's got to look like a real swell set-up here, just me and the crazy lady professor, but please stop and think about all the things said crazy lady works with and then imagine them all contained in this little curiosity here."

"What's it do?" Clint asked. He really did want to know, but right as Natasha's elbow connected with his (still aching from their fight) ribs, he realized he probably didn't want to actually experience its powers.

"Please ignore my partner," Natasha said. "I do actually have a letter of introduction from a mutual acquaintance, and I believe he was going to communicate with the professor about our arrival…?"

After a bit of dancing about, the letter was presented and read, at which point the girl threw her arms up in the air and danced a jig. Clint couldn't suppress a smile; it wasn't often that happiness and excitement greeted his and Natasha's arrival anywhere.

"Sorry, sorry," the girl said. "I'm Darcy--officially I'm Jane's companion--" She rolled her eyes at the title. "Except for how Jane doesn't like that term, so I'm the one who trails around after her and makes sure she eats. Thor did say somebody would be coming but his blessed Bifrost isn't the most reliable of communications and we didn't actually know who was coming or when." She stepped back into the door and invited them in. "Two foreign women living up here alone has started all kinds of gossip; we've had some interesting visitors."

Clint exchanged another look with Natasha, this one a little more serious. No one had mentioned any actual dangers to the professor, which meant Darcy's explanation was a correct assessment, or things had started heating up after they'd left New York. Clint hadn't seen any indication of the latter, but he hadn't kept himself alive for as long as he had without developing an exceedingly fine tolerance for danger.

"Jane," Darcy was calling. "Jane! Your Asgardian sweetheart really did send someone for us--"

Another young woman wandered into the room, her eyes on a bit of machinery in her hands. Her clothes were not even as fine as Darcy's and her hair was carelessly pinned up, more, Clint judged, to keep it out of her face than for any sort of style. Her fingers were marked with blots of ink that bespoke long hours with pen and paper and she was trailed by a small automaton carrying other assorted devices. If Clint had had to pick the woman he least expected to be retrieving when sent off to collect a prince's betrothed, she would fit the bill.

"Oh," she said, startling a bit at the sight of Clint and Natasha. Her eyes narrowed a bit in suspicion and Clint saw a keen intellect assessing them. His estimation of the lady rose, and he was happy to admit his error to himself.

"It's fine," Darcy called from where she was hastily gathering books and papers off a desk. "I'm not a total idiot, you know. They know the secret passwords and they have Thor's token and we can finally get out of heeeeere."

"Oh," the professor said again. The automaton chirruped sadly, and she frowned. "Oh, but tonight--"

"Jane," Darcy said. "The nice people who look used to dealing with trouble are here to take us away before we have to see just how well this infernal device--" She waggled the mechanical bit from her pocket again. "Works. Or if it works. We do not need another night of readings."

"Darcy--"

"Jane." Darcy sighed. "I know it's all very amazing, but pretty dancing lights in the aether are not worth your life. Or mine."

The two women stared at each other, but then Professor Foster nodded. "You're right," she said. "I'll go collect my notes--"

"How much equipment do you have?" Natasha said. It was only years of partnering with her and rolling with the unexpected that kept Clint from slewing around and staring at her and the unexpected interruption. Natasha lived to run lightly; her asking for more to carry was the last thing Clint ever expected. "Can you transport what you need for your readings tonight?"

"I--yes? For the most part," the professor answered. "I can bring the devices that produce the most consistent readings..." Her voice faded away as she walked out of the room.

"Sorry," Darcy said. "There are things to be discovered--when she's like that, she forgets where she is half of the time." She turned to the little automaton, which was turning in forlorn circles. "Tik-Tok! She didn't mean to leave you. Go help!"

It cheeped twice and then zipped out of the room with a happy-sounding hiss of steam, and Darcy turned back to the table that was serving as her desk. She seemed engaged enough with her packing that Clint felt comfortable in breaking his and Natasha's long-held rule of not questioning the other in front of outsiders.

"Should I send for a doctor?" Clint murmured to Natasha. "You voluntarily added baggage to an extraction--did the night air cause an augue?"

"So droll," Natasha answered. Clint wasn't distracted. "We have the entire cargo hold on the Echo. It seems a waste to leave the professor's work here for who knows what to happen to it." She eyed Clint with an assessing gleam, one that Clint quite honestly had no idea how to interpret. "If it's not a danger, you can fly her higher than she can reach now and we can add an extra bit of goodwill to the ledger without much effort."

It all seemed very logical, but there was something about Natasha that didn't seem quite right. Clint turned the thought over and over in his mind while he helped Darcy with the trunks holding her and the professor's personal effects. It could have been that he himself was uncertain, that he had yet free himself of the feelings of betrayal that had overtaken him with this brevet. That was true, Clint decided, but he thought that was only the reason he noticed the oddness, not the oddness itself. Natasha always had a reason for her actions, but this one seemed glib and facile, and if there was one thing Natasha Romanov was not, it was shallow.

The professor returned, with the automaton trailing behind her and loaded down with a precarious stack of devices. Darcy tsked and then called, in a voice loud enough to have crossed the continent, "Captain Fyter! Mr. Split!" A duo of tall, sturdy-looking automatons jostled themselves into the room and began to relieve Tik-Tok of his burdens. Darcy grinned at Clint's raised eyebrow. "It got boring up here, so yes, I named all the mechanicals."

Once the equipment and the trunks were divided between the mechanicals, they set off for the 'shipyard, a long straggling procession of people and automatons. Clint worried at how very unobtrusive they weren't, but once they came upon the university, they stood out far less than he'd anticipated. Every second or third figure on the streets was a mechanical of some form, and most of the people wore distracted expressions very similar to the professor's. In the deepening twilight, no one gave their group so much as a second glance.

Natasha was right: the equipment fit neatly into the small cargo hold on the Echo, and Professor Foster was ecstatic at the possibility of making observations while aloft. Clint still didn't see why they needed to curry so much favor, but he told himself that he'd always let Natasha handle the relationship with clients and now was probably not the time to stop.

Clint launched the 'ship as the long Northern evening turned to night, and had barely even reached the low cruising altitude he wanted before the first of the aether lights appeared, an attenuated, slow ripple of green-white that flowed across the sky. Clint kept watch on his gauges, but the lights didn't seem to affect anything necessary to keep his 'ship in the air, so he held her steady and called back to the professor that she could go take her readings.

Among the tinkers who had taken Clint in as a boy, there had been a strongman and his family who came from the Northern Lands. The wife had never accustomed herself to the flat plains of the Americas and told stories of her homeland to anyone who would listen. Clint had been enthralled by her tales of trolls and castles made of ice, and especially her descriptions of the sheets of light that danced across the long night skies of winter. The boy he'd been could never have dreamed he'd see them one day.

"Quite the display." Natasha leaned against the bulkhead, her arms crossed over her chest and a small smile curving her mouth. "You should engage the self-steerage Stark put in for you and go watch from the deck."

Clint was tempted, but he hadn't really gotten the chance to vet the latest convoluted enhancement Stark had installed on the Echo. Not that they'd ever failed before, but the superstitions of the tinkers were deeply ingrained in him and he didn't really trust anything until he understood it. "Nah, I'm fine—you know how I am with the auto-mechanical stuff."

"Well, then, let me take the helm," Natasha said.

Clint still hesitated—they never let their guard down during a mission--but Natasha added, "I doubt we'll run into trouble and it's something you've wanted to see since you were a child."

She was calm and relaxed on the surface, but Clint could see an edge under it all, one that he couldn't sort out. On its own, it was probably nothing, but the small drops of 'probably nothing' kept adding up and he was going to have to find out the something they were a part of soon.

"All right," Clint said, finally, edging aside so Natasha could slide in next to him and put her hands on the 'shipwheel. "There's a little bit of an updraft off those mountains; watch for the turbulence." Natasha nodded, and then jerked her head toward the hatch, arching an eyebrow until Clint took her directive. He left the hatch open—they weren't high enough to need to watch for pressure fluctuations and if something went wrong, the extra few seconds he'd save by being able to go straight in could be enough to make a difference, or possibly just because he didn't want to interrupt the connection they seemed to be reforging—and leaned against the deck rail.

He didn't know if how the lights were moving, or if how long the display was lasting was normal or something special, but he took his cues from how Darcy and the professor called back and forth to each other. The green-white was worth a comment or two, at least until the ripples started moving faster. That got a little more excitement, but then a pink sheet flowed down and Darcy whooped with glee. The professor ran aft to peer at the gauge on Darcy's equipment, smacking it twice before agreeing that yes, the readings were unprecedented.

"Hey, Nat," Clint called. If it was all that exciting, he didn't want Natasha to miss it either. "Put on Stark's auto-mechanical pilot and come see whatever this is."

"You don't trust it," Natasha answered, but he could see her initiating the process.

"Eh, sometimes I'm an idiot."

"Not answering that," Natasha said. There was a little bump in the Echo's smooth glide, but it evened out almost immediately. Natasha waited for a few more minutes, but all remained well, and so she came out to join Clint.

While the aether flared and glowed above him, the Echo was solid and familiar beneath Clint's feet. Something about the combination of old and new made it possible for him to ask, "What are we doing here? They didn't need us for this trip—anyone could have come and gotten the professor."

Perhaps the same combination of familiar and extraordinary motivated Natasha as well, because she didn't deflect or deny, only tilted her head in acknowledgement. Before she could answer, though, Darcy called up to them, "Jane wants to know how much time she can have here."

"We're not expected at any set time," Natasha answered, and then turned to Clint. "How long can we fly here?"

"All night." Clint shrugged. "We have to stop for refueling at some point, regardless, so we can stay as long as you want."

"Bricky," Darcy said. "I'll try to keep her from going on all night, but a happy Jane is a peaceful Jane." She darted away, leaving Clint and Natasha alone again. Clint assumed that the answer to his question was lost, but Natasha leaned closer to him and said, "After we done with this, we can talk."

It wasn't an actual answer, but she wasn't pretending there wasn't anything going on, so Clint made himself nod and accept her words for the moment. He turned back to the lights, but when the pink faded and the more common white-green returned, he went back to take the helm. They did have enough coal to keep the 'ship flying all night, but the lights dissipated not long after midnight and Darcy came in to tell him that even the professor was finished for the night, so he spun the wheel and set course for the capital city.

In keeping with the rest of the mission, the flight ridiculously simple. Clint kept a course along the coastline, crossing over the mountains at the southernmost point and coming up on the capital from the west. Natasha relieved him twice, so he could catch a few naps, but they otherwise didn't speak. It was, for the most part, not an uneasy silence, but there was still the matter of Clint's question and Natasha's promise hanging over them, so it wasn't what they were used to.

As the smoke from the coal furnaces and engines of the capital city appeared on the horizon, Natasha emerged from her cabin dressed in the divided skirt, boots and short jacket she favored when she needed to be formal, yet still unmistakably the Black Widow.

"Our meeting is at Court," she told Clint, which was never going to be something he wanted to hear. She took the helm while he went to assume his own version of her attire. Being presented to a royal family, no matter the nation, while obviously armed was frowned on, so Clint left his quiver and bow in his trunk. His throwing knife, darts, and assorted other weaponry did get tucked away inside boots and in the many pockets of his greatcoat. Natasha would be similarly prepared, though she was far more adept at camouflaging her chosen armaments.

They made their way to the palace grounds in a closed auto-carriage, plain and serviceable, but large enough to carry them all, plus the baggage, automatons, and trunks of the professor's equipment, and were escorted to a receiving room in one of the many governmental antechambers. The efficient-looking secretary who'd guided them there had barely left their presence (another point in the odd column—on a normal mission of this type, they'd be met with at least a troop of armed guards, not a single man with calluses from the pen rather than the sword) when the air rippled with the unnerving affect from the Bifrost and the Lady Sif strode across the room. Not five minutes later, farewells had been said and Clint was somewhat bemusedly following Natasha to yet another private receiving room, this one occupied by the Crown Prince, the Prime Minister and several aides. They looked up with interest as Clint and Natasha were announced, and at least here, Clint understood his role—the Hawk to the Widow--and could play it in his sleep.

With what Clint knew was the barest exchange of pleasantries, Natasha presented several packets of information, the heavy envelopes closed with wax stamped with Fury's private seal. Without looking at the contents, the Prime Minister thanked them, a purse was exchanged, and they left, quite a bit more publicly than they'd arrived. At least having established a reason for being in the palace that didn't involve the escort of persons better left unknown meant that the trip back to the 'shipyard could be accomplished in an open carriage, which suited Clint's temperament far more than the cramped confines of a private one.

"Are we done now?" Clint asked as they moved through the avenues of the capital. Natasha nodded once, but otherwise kept silent during the trip. She turned to face him as soon as they boarded the Echo, though, her face resolute and solemn.

"It can't be that bad," Clint said, almost unnerved at her expression. "Can it?"

"I'm not sure," she answered, unpinning her hat and laying it on the small, bolted-down table where they'd taken more meals together than Clint could remember. "But you were right, before. Nearly anyone could have done this."

"But…?"

"I wanted it to be us."

Clint cast about for a reason that Natasha would think that would be a bad thing; it didn't take long for an idea to present itself. And yes, she was right: it could be bad. It wasn't going to magically disappear, though, so it was best to deal with it.

"That's not exactly true, is it?" he said. "It wasn't because of us, it was because of me, or what dregs were left after Loki."

"That's not why I took this," Natasha said, sharp and jagged. "I--"

"No, don't, Nat. Something like this, playing companion to a professor--you'd take it as an insult if they'd assigned it to you, as if it were all a woman might be capable of. But me, since Loki, well, I wouldn't blame you if you weren't sure if I could even do this."

Clint stripped off his gloves and tossed them on the table, unbuttoned his coat and threw it in the vague direction of a hook. He stood with his hands on his hips and tried to remember where he'd stashed the bottle of rotgut that had been his brother's parting gift.

"No," Natasha snapped. "I think you're confusing what you think about yourself with what I think."

"Then why did you take it? For the scenery?"

Natasha laughed, but it was short and unhappy. Clint hated hearing it, much less being the cause of it, but he needed to know the answer. More, he thought she needed him to know, so he clenched his jaw around the words that wanted to be spoken, words that would stop the conversation, and waited her out.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Natasha turned and paced the room, her back ramrod straight and her head held high. "Thor is very proud of Professor Foster and her work. He speaks of her often, so I knew she had stayed in the Northern Lands because of the regularity of the aether lights. When it was decided that her position was no longer as safe as it could be, and she would have to leave, I proffered our services because I--" She turned back to Clint, finally. "I remembered you telling me about the stories you heard as a child and I thought you might like to see them, the lights, for real."

"When did I--?" Clint stopped; what Natasha was telling him was so far afield from what he'd been expecting--fearing--to hear that it took his mind a few seconds to make the shift. When it did, and he slotted the memory into place, all he could say was, "I told you about that once."

"Yes."

"The night after we decided to work together for real."

"Yes."

"That was years ago--almost half a score." Clint shook his head. "I barely remember, but you...?"

"It is verging on the pathetic, but yes, I do."

Clint would be the first one to admit he had not been particularly aware of much of anything other than surface events recently, but this, he felt, was something more than just his struggle to regain his assurance after Loki. Judging from how still and pale Natasha was--a far cry from his usual dynamic and compelling partner--it was something more for her, too.

"Why is that pathetic?"

She half-turned away from him again, presenting him with her profile. If anything, she had grown even more pale, her hair flame-red against the near-marble of her skin, but her voice was measured and even and precise. "It is pathetic because that was also the night we became solely partners, and try as I might to forget everything we had been, my mind will not let go of a single second of that."

"I--" Clint started, remembering that night, the decisions that had been made, the alliance they'd forged, and the intimacies they'd left behind. He'd spent a decade thinking that he'd been the only one of them to mourn the loss, even while he'd found more than he could have imagined in their partnership. "You--" Natasha eyed him with a distant coldness that might have constrained him before, but now he could see so much behind it. He gathered his wits and his calm, and said, "I didn't want you to feel trapped, or caught up in something that left you no space without me."

"I think that you're once again imputing your thoughts to me," Natasha snapped, and for all that Clint knew he was a second away from a knife being thrown at him, he was near-ecstatic to see her alive once more.

"No, this time I'm not," Clint said. He wanted to say that she'd agreed with his suggestion readily, that he would have leapt eagerly at any sign that she'd wanted their relationship to continue on as it had been, but he settled for, "I was many things then, but daunted at the thought of having you in every aspect of my life was not one of them." He stayed as still and relaxed as he could. "It's still not something that weighs on my mind."

"идиот," Natasha breathed. Clint wasn't sure which one of them she was talking to, but he had no objection to being called an idiot, not when it came with her crossing the deck in a rush, filling his arms and pressing close against him. He'd contented himself with the occasional waltz over the years, or the times when they'd needed to sleep close to one another to keep from freezing to death, but even knowing those were poor substitutes for the real thing hadn't prepared him for the need that roared through him at the first touch of her mouth to his.

She kissed him wildly, unrestrained and almost frantic, and he answered in kind, greedy and impatient now that he let the bonds on his need slide free. Her hands were digging bruises on his shoulders and arms and back, and when he tore his mouth free to gasp in air, she marked him along his jaw and throat as well.

"Your hair," Clint managed to gasp, tangling his fingers around the waves. "Down," he groaned as she bit at the pulse under his jaw. "Take it down." He tugged at it, the pins catching and tangling around him, and she hissed in something that was not quite pain, not from how she arched into it. She slapped his hands away and snatched at the pins, sending them flying across the floor with a reckless disregard for the emeralds and sapphires and diamonds that decorated them. He watched, half-mad at just the thought of her loosening her hair for him, his own hands busy at the buttons of his shirt, tearing at the cuffs.

With a small smile, Natasha slowed her movements, turning so her back faced him, murmuring low in her throat as he swept her hair aside so he could get his mouth on the back of her neck. She shivered as he dragged his mouth along the curve of her neck and nipped at sensitive spot behind her ear. "Unlace me," she said, her voice barely audible. Clint nodded, but couldn't make himself stop kissing her for a long few moments. "Please," she groaned, her body a tight, taut bow against his.

Clint fumbled at the laces of her corset, his fingers stupid and shaking; after the third abortive attempt, Natasha magicked a knife from somewhere, a sleek, deadly stiletto that she pressed back into his hand. "Cut them," she said, in a voice that brooked no hesitation.

The knife was sharp enough that it sliced through the heavy laces as though they might be butter, the leather and satin and whalebone falling away from Natasha's body like a miracle, leaving only the fine linen of her shift between Clint and her skin.

"Yes," she hissed as he dropped his mouth to bite kisses along the line where her neck curved into her shoulder, pushing back into him as slid his hands under her shift, dragging his nails along the skin of her stomach and up to tease at her breasts. She pressed closer as he played with her nipples, her breath coming sharper and more harsh each time he rubbed across them, every pass a little harder, a little less gentle, until he was pinching them sharply, tugging at them more roughly than he intended; and she was writhing in his arms, her bottom pressed firmly against his cock.

"The table," Natasha gasped, and Clint managed to think long enough to stumble them the few steps in the proper direction. She steadied herself with one hand on the table top, and snaked the other under her to deal with the fastenings on her skirt, before reaching back blindly and tugging the buttons on Clint's trousers free, her hands clever and quick no matter that Clint had only stopped playing with her nipples so that he could move on to fingering her open, readying her for his cock.

"Now," she demanded, "Now, now, now," and Clint couldn't have denied her even if he'd wanted to. She was hot and slick around him, and he braced himself against the edge of the table and pushed into her again and again and again. He wasn't going to last long, but she reached back and caught his hand, dragging it over her hip and down to exactly where she wanted it. He teased her with short, hard strokes, moving his fingers so that his calluses added an extra edge to each touch. She arched back into him, and oh, fuck, he remembered this, remembered how she sounded when she was on the edge, a low, feral growl that snaked up his spine and made him half-crazy right in time for her body to tighten around him, long, fast waves that narrowed his world down to how deep he could push into her, how hard he could fuck her, how much longer he'd have to wait to do it again.

The sleeping cabins on the Echo were aft, as far away from the galley and main salon as was possible. This was the standard situation on a ‘ship of her class, but one that very nearly proved to be Clint's undoing. It wasn't that the distance was great (she was, after all, a small ‘ship) but rather that it took what felt like an eon to traverse it when neither party wanted to separate even to take a step. The first cabin was one they used for passengers and storage; their own cabins were only a few steps away, but they crashed through that first door and onto the berth, Clint sliding to his knees and shouldering Natasha's thighs apart. Deliberately, he hesitated, letting his eyes roam down the length of her body where she was sprawled out before him. Just as deliberately, Natasha smiled at him and smoothed her hands up along her sides to cup her own breasts. Her nipples were still reddened and swollen from his hands, but she flicked her nails across them sharply enough that she hissed with each touch.

Clint let the anticipation of watching her pleasure herself build for long, leisurely minutes. Only when her hips were arching toward him mindlessly did he lower his mouth and taste her. He took his time there as well, dragging his tongue over her unhurriedly, exploring and remembering until she flung a clawing hand toward him, fingers scrabbling and tightening in his hair. Even then, he didn't do more than pick up his pace a tiny bit, careful to apply only lightest of pressure where he knew she wanted it most. Natasha hissed threats and curses and promises of retribution, but spread her legs wider and opened herself to him. Clint took the invitation and pushed three fingers into her, curving them as he fucked them in and out of her. He worked her roughly with his mouth, too, sucking and biting her to climax, and then forcing another one on her again, so greedy to watch her come apart for him that he could only make himself stop when she pushed him away.

"Definitely not a problem being here with you," Clint murmured as he crawled back up over her, holding her as she shook, mouthing along skin damp and salty with sweat, sucking lightly at each nipple. He couldn't remember ever being so well-satisfied by a physical encounter, so much so that he couldn't be bothered to dodge as she batted at him in irritation. Neither one of them was much for cuddling, but it seemed to be a good time to make an exception, especially since they were both asleep before Clint could entertain the thought of moving.

It was just past dawn when he woke again. Natasha was settled at the head of the berth, but had obviously gone around the ship and returned. Her hair was half-smoothed from the wild, tangled mess it had been the night before, and she'd retrieved her shift, though she'd left it unlaced, so that it clung to her breasts and slipped off her shoulders with every movement. She glanced up as Clint stirred, but then went back to restringing the laces in her corset, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she focused. There were a fair number of topics Clint thought they were probably going to have to visit, but it was early, and he ached pleasantly, so he only rolled closer, and slowly, so she could warn him off if necessary, slid an arm across her lap and up under her shift.

"The hawk lives," she murmured, but she nudged her hip against his shoulder, so he took it as an endearment. Her skin was warm and soft against his; it was the most pleasant way to wake Clint could possibly imagine.

"Plans?" he asked after a bit. He meant anything post-morning sex, which he was certain would be happening sooner rather than later, but he and Natasha had been together for a long time. Even with this new complication, she understood and shook her head. "Good." He yawned and then settled back into the curve of her body. "Your choice, then."

"My choice for what?"

"You brought me here, which was someplace I didn't actually realize I wanted to be, so now it's your choice." It wasn't an exact exchange; Clint should be picking the place she secretly wanted to be, but he thought it was probably better to ask. "Someplace that's not the usual," he added. He wasn't sure he was quite ready to spend a week dancing attendance while she replenished her wardrobe in Paris, but then she moved her hips against him and he decided it didn't matter.

"The Silk Road," she finally said, and he lifted his head off the pillow to stare at her. She shrugged. "Definitely not the usual," she explained. "And with all the gold we made on this mission, think how long it will take Fury to find us there."

That was true, and Clint had asked, so he nodded and burrowed back into her to finish waking up properly.