metaphor
Clint flopped back on the couch, laughing hard enough to hurt himself and more than a little drunk. (What? Have you ever tried to drink with a Russian? They drink vodka like it’s water. And, you know, most alcohol is water. Or has lots of water in it. But vodka? To get vodka, they boil the water out. Over and over and over.) But he doesn’t care at this moment. At this moment, the haze of some seriously hardcore vodka (Jesus Nat, are you sure this is only 120 proof?) and a hilarious story about the fat Saudi mark Nat’d told in a too serious voice sent him over the edge. He laughed so hard his sides hurt. He laughed so hard he was momentarily scared he’s suffocate himself.
He laughed until he started hiccuping and then laughed some more when he saw the Black Widow’s face: her eyebrows a cross between “You are such an idiot, why do I put up with you?” with a little bit of “I am pleased that I have entertained you,” mixed in.
A month ago, he’d been trying to kill her. Now he could read her eyebrows. Shit, he was in such trouble. Clint prayed to God he could get her to actually come in. Actually become a member of SHIELD. Because, if not, well… he’d definitely leave for her. She needed someone, anyone, in her corner more than SHIELD needed him to kill people for them.
But it would suck to have SHIELD come after them.
Eventually, after what felt like an hour of laughing, though he was pretty sure Nat would have called some kind of emergency services if he’d laughed for an hour, he was able to speak. “Shit, Nat. You’ll be the death of me.”
The faint traces of humor vanished from her face, and she became as still and serious as a marble statue.
“Fuck,” Clint cursed as he realized what he’d said. “Fuck, no. Nat, it’s a metaphor. A metaphor.”
She was marble distant for a few more seconds before she moved a little. Just enough to say, “It will probably be true.”
She didn’t have a Russian accent, not unless she wanted to have a Russian accent, but Clint still thought she spoke English like she ought to have one. Like whoever trained her made her work harder to get rid of her accent than to actually speak like a real person. She spoke his mother tongue like someone who learned English out of a book. She probably had.
Clint tried to relax. “Naw. Are you kidding? I’m the reckless one. If we’re talking in a non-metaphorical sense, I’m gonna be the death of myself. Phil, my handler, he’s always getting on my case about it.” He grinned at her. “He’s kind of a nag.”
“He wants to keep you safe?” Nat asked, and she sounded genuinely curious, like it was strange a handler would want to keep their assets alive. It made him want to find the nearest shady, Russian government dude and pound his head into the wall.
But there weren't any shady, Russian government dudes nearby, so Clint just nodded. “Yeah. He wouldn’t be considered a very good handler if he didn’t at least try.” He grinned at her. “Doesn’t do much good, though. When I’m in the field, all he can really do is natter at me. ‘Don’t jump off buildings without a chute, Hawkeye’ ‘wait for backup before going into that war zone, Hawkeye,’ ‘don’t try to defuse that bomb until I’ve got a tech on the line, Hawkeye.’”
She tilted her head to the side and considered him for a moment. “Do not try to befriend the Black Widow, Hawkeye,” she said after a moment, the faintest trace of humor tucked into the corner of her mouth. Self-depreciating humor, Clint supposed, but he was still counting it as a win.
He tilted his head to the side, considering. “I think, as far as my ideas go, he’d probably think this went pretty well.” He gestured down at himself. “Look. No broken bones.”
Nat was still considering him. “... If you brought me in, to SHIELD, this is who you would take me to? This Phil?”
Clint’s heart leapt with hope, and he didn’t even bother trying to hide it from her. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Though he’ll probably like you better than he likes me. Try to trade up.”
She frowned, and shook her head. “No. No trading. I will simply join you.” His eyes may have bugged out of his head. “I have never had a partner before, and you are an idiot, but, at the very least, I can keep you from… being the death of yourself.”
“Really?” Clint asked, grinning like this was the happiest day of his life. It might even be, though he was way too drunk to be sure. His grin shifted into a challenge. “You’re that good, are you?”
“Easily,” she said, taking another sip of vodka.
They stared at each other for several moments. Nat was smiling. Only with the very corners of her mouth and Clint wouldn’t even have noticed it if he hadn’t spent basically an entire month in this crappy apartment trying to convince her that she could have a better life than this one. But it was a smile. Anyway, Clint, grinning to show all his teeth, was smiling more than enough for the both of them. The silence between them was more than comfortable or companionable. It was hopeful. It was triumphant.
After several moments of the best silence of Clint’s life, Nat spoke. “I do not think it is actually a metaphor,” she said.
He blinked. “What?”
“'You’ll be the death of me.' Isn’t it more of an idiom?”
He had no fucking clue. “When we get out of Budapest, we can ask Phil.”