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In These Small Spaces

Summary:

It started in the underground air vents of Budapest. But it definitely did not end there.

Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“You okay?” Clint asked the moment he had finally caught his breath.

Natasha looked at him intently, still trying to process the fact that she had just literally burned down her past. “Why wouldn’t I be?” She replied, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “Dreykov’s dead. I’m finally free. I couldn’t be any happier.” As she trailed off her sentence, she slowly lifted her gaze away from him. As much as she prides herself for being an excellent liar, she somehow knows that her lies won’t get past Clint Barton. Even though they have only known each other for eight days, Clint could already recognize the fear, guilt, sadness, and confusion beneath the intensity of her gaze.

He saw them as soon as he aimed those arrows at her in her safehouse, once his stormy blue-gray eyes locked with her emerald ones.  With the first shot, he thought that the arrow missed her because she had just dodged it effortlessly. With the second, he realized that she was not even trying to avoid it at all. With the third, it dawned on him that he was subconsciously trying not to get her killed. He saw in her eyes, what he once had felt himself. Without wasting another second, he lowered down his bow, and silently cursed himself before walking forward towards her.

“Your eyes tell me otherwise...” Clint replied, watching her carefully. “But it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. Just know that I’m here if you need anything, Miss Romanoff.”

Natasha’s lips curved into a small smile. “Anything?” She teased.

Clint felt his face flush when he saw her smile for the first time. Their proximity in the small space they were at wasn’t helping at all. Internally panicking, he hastily answered, “Yeah anything. I brought with me a whole trove of sandwiches, potato chips, coffee, donuts—,”

“Wait, you’re telling me that huge-ass backpack of yours actually contains food and not ammo and guns?” Natasha interrupted.

“Not just food! I also brought a first aid kit, a basic hygiene set, a blanket, and an inflatable pillow.” He beamed.

“An inflatable pillow? Seriously Barton? You prepared not for a shootout, but for a camp? How long are you planning for us to stay here?” Natasha exclaimed, unable to hide her disbelief.

“Well… SHIELD will be extracting us from here in two days… Might as well get comfy.” He replied, now a grin plastered on his face.

“What the hell. I thought we’d only be here for an hour or so to plan out how we’re going to get past the rest of the Hungarian special forces, then return to the safehouse, where it’s actually comfy.”

“Well, I don’t want to kill any more people than we already have, Romanoff. They’re just men who are doing their job to keep the peace in this city. Dreykov’s agents are on the hunt, too.  And I don’t think we’ve accurately sized up the rest of them. It’s too dangerous. I say we just wait it out.”

Natasha couldn’t think of any argument. Clint actually has a logical and valid point. She just stared at him, trying to come into terms with how different they really are despite of their similarly red ledgers. She always fights head on, finishing the job as quickly as possible, regardless of the collateral damage she may cause. He on the other hand, deals with his battles patiently, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, and sometimes even forgoes striking altogether, like what he did, or rather didn’t do, with her.

“You know, judging someone of your skillset, you could have finished me off with your first shot.” Natasha stated as the archer slowly approached her. 

"And someone of your skillset could have turned the tables on me before I even let that arrow fly. Why didn’t you?” Clint replied. 

"Why didn’t you?” Natasha shot back.

Clint has gradually closed the distance between them, and he’s now within her arms reach. He stopped walking, dropped his bow on the floor, and grinned cheekily before saying, “I’d like to make a different call.”

“Okay.” She just said simply, breaking the silence between them.

“Great! We can take turns keeping watch. And you don’t need to worry about bathroom breaks, as that left turn over there actually leads to the roof of the station lavatories. I also have an assortment of donut flavors here since I don’t know yet what you would like…”

Natasha smiled softly as Clint kept on talking excitedly about their stay in these air vents. But suddenly, the memory of what they just did flooded her thoughts. Her smile disappeared as she turned pale and as her breathing got faster, and Clint immediately stopped his ramblings upon seeing her.

“Hey what’s wrong?” He asked. Natasha remained silent, lost in her own mind. Clint held her arms, trying to get her back. “Hey. Romanoff.”

Upon hearing her name, Natasha came to. Her gaze met that of Clint’s, and being unable to keep it to herself any longer, her words shakily came out. “His daughter… I killed her. I killed her.” Tears rolled off her cheeks as she continued, “she was so young, she was innocent... And I just blasted her off like she’s as guilty as her father, but she’s not.”

Clint understood her pain, and just took all of her frustrations in silently, knowing that no words are enough to justify what happened. Natasha went on, “I’m off to get a clean slate, but shit I started it off by staining my hands with a child’s blood. I’m never going to get a second chance. I’ll always be the killer they made me to be. I--”

Clint cut her off by pulling her into his arms. He hugged her tightly, still without saying any word.  Natasha was surprised at first, but then felt the tension in her body fade away. Slowly, she moved her arms to hug him back, leaning her head against his shoulder. The safety she felt in his arms made it hard to let go, but after a while, she started to pull away. She sat in front of Clint, who was now handing her a handkerchief, and she suddenly felt embarrassed for showing such vulnerability. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly, as she accepted the handkerchief and started to wipe the tears from her face.

“I’m going to make a different call.” He repeated. “I would like to offer you a job at SHIELD.”

Natasha, looked at him with utter confusion. “What?” It was all that she could say. 

"I’m giving you a chance to wipe off the red from your ledger. I was also given that chance before, and I can’t explain why but I actually see what I once was in you. So I think, no, I know, that you also would want it.”

Clint replied with such honesty that Natasha actually started to consider his offer. “How will I know if I can trust you? Also, you probably know this already but a lifetime of atonement could not possibly wipe off my ledger clean.”

Clint took one step further towards her. “Nope, you certainly won’t know for sure if you can trust me or not. But you can choose to do it anyway. And I’m not promising you a clean slate, because we can never actually erase the blood from our hands. What you can change however, is who and what you are fighting for.”

Natasha paused for a moment. She started to walk away from him, then said, “you know, if you just kill me now, you’d spare yourself a whole lot of trouble. My mistakes make me deserving of death and not a second chance at life.”

Clint put on his cheeky grin again as he replied, “oh I bet I’d be more trouble for you than you would be for me. Besides, I don’t judge people on their worst mistakes.”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t sit well with me, too. I'll probably have nightmares for at least a year. But it wasn’t exactly because we wanted to do it, you know? That’s why it took us three failed attempts in locating Dreykov because we hesitated about involving his daughter at first…” Clint replied, attempting to ground Natasha back to reality. “And it’s not just on you. It’s on both of us, Romanoff.”

Natasha didn’t know what to say back. Everything that has happened has been just too much, but after realizing that she was no longer alone in carrying her burdens, she started to feel more at ease. “Natasha.” She suddenly blurted out.

Clint was taken aback. “What?”

“Stop calling me Romanoff,” she continued. “You called me Natasha on the comms.  What, you afraid that I’d beat you up if you did that in front of me?”

“Oh. Oh okay.” Clint laughed, finally realizing what she meant. “But nope, sorry I’m not actually going to continue calling you Natasha. It’s unfair because you’d only get to call me Clint, which is two syllables less. So it’s going to be Nat from here on out.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Okay Clint, are you always this big of a baby when it comes to being fair?”

“I told you that I’d be more trouble for you than you would be for me.” He said, stifling his laughter. “And nope, this is not yet the most baby you’d get to see me. We’d be spending two days here Nat. We’re going to do fun things!”

“Fun things,” Natasha repeated. “Like what, Russian roulette?”

“You’ll see!” Clint almost shouted with excitement. “But first, I think I should patch up your forehead. It’s starting to bleed again.”

Notes:

Fun fact: the title was directly lifted from one of Scarlett Johansson's interviews, wherein the part of the Black Widow movie script that got her the most excited was "the safehouse and the time Clint Barton and Natasha spent together in these small spaces and what actually happened in Budapest." :)