Trust
It had taken Natasha longer than she cares to think about to calm down after their latest episode. Encounter. Whatever it had been. The realization that, apparently, there is now some sort of competition between the two men (although thankfully it seems to be a friendly one with no real winner or loser), about who has reached what point with her.
James is obviously in the lead, but some part of her wonders, for how much longer?
She and Clint are getting married in less than three days. They just had to make it through the rest of today and the next day, and then the day after that is the wedding. And then, by that point, it will obviously be Clint who has won.
Will that create tension between the two of them again? Or, conversely, if she rushes things with James and he wins, how will Clint react? Up till now he has seemed very relaxed about the whole thing. Will that last though? Natasha has been a slave long enough to witness how fickle the nobility can be...
He's been almost too blase about the whole thing, because, really, the man can't possibly approve of her having relations with another man. What kind of person would?
Granted, she reminds herself, the 'other man' is the same man Clint himself is having relations with.
Perhaps that changes things?
But still, she will be married to Clint. Only Clint. Surely if it's his intention to share her bed, to maintain an actual, honest to God marriage, with everything that entails, then it's unlikely he would approve of her continuing any dalliances she may have with others. If he's like any other nobleman, he will need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that his wife is being faithful to him. That is if he really has decided he wants their marriage to be a genuine marriage rather than just a cover up.
But he did promise to look the other way to any lovers I wish to take…
Yes, back before you decided to set your sights on his lover. Smart move.
Oh, her thoughts are a mess now.
In her entire life before, she has never felt the way she feels about James. The trust and willingness to be vulnerable, the desire to be close to him, both physically as well as emotionally, the feeling she got when he touched her, when he kissed her…
Natasha has been with someone before, but it was a long time ago, and never anything more than hurried exploration with another slave who had been around her own age. When he had been taken out of the communal quarters that most of the slaves shared to be sent to work in other places around the estate, there hadn't been much opportunity for such things.
And she is willing to admit, if only to herself, that her own sullenness and refusal to forgive her situation had made her less than willing to seek any further company.
She regrets it a bit now. If she had had more experience by now, would she still feel so affected by James? Or Clint? She had just enough to know what she was doing, but should she be more desensitized to all of this? Is it wrong for her to react the way she has been?
Is that part of the draw?
Looking at the papers in her hand (the ones she has yet to set down after Clint had to remind her to grab them on her way out of his rooms once they had finished eating), she takes in a breath and carefully backtracks her thoughts. She thinks of the way James had gotten her to rein it all back in and does her best to emulate it on herself own now.
Breathing evenly and focusing on the papers in hand, she pulls herself away from the same spiral of mistrust that she is so tired of falling down. Natasha glances around her room, sees the chairs in the far corner and wanders over to sit in one. She really does need to read through the papers Clint had given her.
She has no desire to do so. The cynicism and bitterness has become easier to swallow down, to force away when she is faced with the proof of the goodness she can feel at the core of each man. But these papers…
What if there is something she disagrees with terribly? Or, a thought occurs to her, what if she finds no fault with it?
Which would be worse?
On the one hand, she doesn't believe Clint would take issue with any dispute she could possibly bring to him. But on the other hand…
One thing Natasha is relatively sure of is that she doesn't want to know what her future husband thinks she's worth. Doesn't want to see the numbers, the amount of what he settles in her name; she doesn't want that familiar dream of freedom, so close, now, to being hers, to ruin what she had finally allowed herself to have with these two men.
Even if the entire thing is confusing as hell and more than just a little bit the source of all the stress that is causing her terrible lack of sleep at night, she isn't willing to trade that in for digging through a contract or two, trying to find exactly where Clint screwed her over, if he screwed her over. She doesn't want this to be the moment he yanks the prize back from right in front of her nose, like she had anticipated him doing from the beginning. She no longer believes he will do so, but what will she do if she discovers otherwise in these papers?
She has already managed to read through the first page while her thoughts go round and round in her mind. Reaching for the corner of the first page, she finds she cannot make her fingers flip any further.
It all comes down to one question.
Does she trust Clint?
The only answer she can find is yes. She does trust him.
She trusts him enough to share the same space with him physically. To work towards having a functional relationship with him. To have a physical relationship, at least for a while, with him. With his lover too, if possible, and that's a huge leap of faith for her.
So does she trust him enough to trust him with this? With her entire future?
Yes. The answer was evident before she had even thought through the questions. She trusts him.
She is going to marry Clint, she is going to have some sort of life with him. And with James, as well. At least, while she remains here. When she leaves, if she leaves, she isn't sure what will happen. She had made it abundantly clear that escape was what she wanted most out of this arrangement.
So why is she now looking on that date, that far away in the future date, with something akin to dread?
Putting the papers down on the table tucked between the two chairs, she makes herself relax back into her seat. It's very comfortable and she needs to ease some of the tension she has been steadily accumulating in her limbs and neck over the past several weeks. It's like one source of stress had entirely abated only to be replaced with another; worse, even, because she is still unaccustomed to this new one.
Head falling to the side, cheek resting on the back of the chair, she ends up staring absently out the window. It's a beautiful view. The whole estate, really, is gorgeous. Now that she has the proper perspective to be able to enjoy it, she finds it all very beautiful in a way she had been missing for years.
One of the other wings is clearly visible from where Natasha sits. Her room is the one closest to the corner one must turn to get to Clint's rooms. Before today, she wasn't aware of which room exactly was his room. She realizes now that he has more than just the one, which means that the several windows located on the top level of the wing are all his.
There is movement in one of the windows that catches her eye. She sits up a bit straighter, focusing closely on what she can make out through the curtains. It's quite a bit, given the firelight casting their shadows around for her to follow.
She recognizes the shapes of James and Clint, still in Clint's rooms. Where else they would be, she isn't sure. Somehow it had never occurred to her that they were right there. Or that James would still be with Clint even after she took leave of them each night.
It's foolish. Of course he would stay with Clint. Even to the public eye, James has always been his servant. That is reason enough for them to always be together. It's why no one had ever seemed to guess at the true nature of their relationship.
Now as Natasha watches them, even from afar, she notices things. There is an undeniable intimacy when she sees them together, in public or in private. Any time they are all three in one room together, whether anyone else is around or not, they are very careful to maintain proper distances and appropriate behavior. But it is evident all the same.
In Clint's own rooms, it had been somewhat different. Natasha had watched as James finally allowed himself to meet Clint as equals. He had spared her the briefest of glances before leaning in to kiss Clint on the cheek. It was the first bit of real intimacy she had seen between them; the first bit of intimacy between the two that they were aware she was witnessing at least.
Her stint in the hallway while they were behind a closed door hardly counted.
Still, it had bothered her a bit that he looked at her as if expecting her to be disgusted, or to turn and run at the sight. She understands, of course, that there is good reason for that caution, but she would like to think they are all beyond such things by now. It is, after all, less than three days until the wedding.
Thinking over their interactions, she realizes she had never truly seen the dynamics of their relationship at play. The most she had witnessed was James placing a comforting hand on Clint's shoulder, or Clint eyeing James in a teasing way, mimicking the way a man was meant to leer after a woman, but with no hint of seriousness.
It was all so carefully constructed, their movements so precise and careful that she had barely even noticed until now.
Natasha feels a moment of panic that someone else might see, but the shadows are faint enough she feels confident that it's only her close proximity that allows her to make out their shapes. Still, she can practically see the redness take over her cheeks as she understands exactly what it means that suddenly she can only make out one form in the window.
Sitting forward in the chair again and determined to turn around, maybe even get into bed, since it is rather late and she has been getting little to no restful sleep, Natasha adjusts the angle of her seat.
It goes completely against everything she had consciously decided, because now she is facing directly at the window, making turning her head unnecessary.
She sees the single shadow break apart, back into two separate forms that become clear now that there is a bit of distance between them. She can tell which one is James, his hair falling around his face as he bends to pick something up off the table, extra shadow falling around his form in a way she recognizes from her own struggles with taming her hair. She wonders idly if it bothers him as much as hers sometimes bothers her.
As if in answer, he raises a hand to brush it behind his ear again. Natasha's hand comes up to tuck her own hair more securely behind her ear, mirroring his movement subconsciously, showing just how entranced she is by watching them.
Clint, the taller of the two shadows, has moved out of view, away from the window for a moment, coming back with something large held out between his hands. She imagines it's a blanket, from the way it's somehow both balled up yet still dangling, but for what reason, she cannot fathom.
The lights are beginning to dim all around the manor, the lower floors on Clint's wing having been long extinguished for the night. James finishes whatever it was he was doing, presumably clearing away their things from dinner and anything he and Clint had used since she had left them in her haze of disconnecting from reality.
The figures merge again, embracing this time, as she can just barely make out Clint's head, higher up than James who appears to have his head resting against Clint's shoulder, tucked in close to him. Natasha can practically see their expressions, all fond smiles with James' forehead probably fitting perfectly under Clint's chin.
Natasha feels a pang of envy in her gut. She isn't sure who it's for, though. James, for fitting in someone's arms so well, or Clint, for having someone so close to him that they would feel safe doing so.
True, she had decided she is going to trust them, but that doesn't mean she suddenly knows where that leaves them. Her placing her trust in them does not guarantee them doing the same with her. They had entrusted her with their secret, but she can see why they may not be willing to trust her with any more than that.
Pulling herself back from those thoughts once again, she realizes she has been squeezing her arms where they cross over her chest, fingers digging into her tense muscles. She looks again at the papers on the table beside her.
No, she had decided to trust him. And they had decided to trust her with their relationship and invite her into their lives, even if it was only as Clint's public wife. She could trust them to not do her wrong. They had already shown her that much. Who knows, maybe they will eventually trust her in the same way she feels she's able to trust them.
When she looks back up, the light is dimming in their window. She expects to see another window lighting up, having moved from the sitting room to the bedroom, but it never does. Instead, after a few moments of seeing nothing and waiting for more (and debating if she shouldn't just take this as a sign and turn in for the evening herself), she sees a door open at the far end of Clint's wing of the manor.
And out sneak two figures. They are running, one with a blanket around their shoulders, the other with hair flying in the breeze behind him. Had she not been watching them in their window for so long, she might have dismissed it.
Looking more closely, she realizes, yes, it is them. It must be. Clint has a blanket over his head, probably to disguise that it was him sneaking out of his own manor, at too late in the evening, with his own servant, while his servant is being tugged along behind him, looking more carefree than Natasha has ever seen, including while they had been eating together in Clint's room earlier.
Their hands are held tightly too. She can see it clearly as they come closer to her window, before turning and heading straight for the line of trees.
Natasha stands abruptly, her feet itching to follow them. She can't, though. She isn't that familiar with either of them yet, and her marriage to Clint isn't exactly permission to join them on their little romantic evening in the moonlight. Quite possibly their last, now that she thinks about it, before they will have to factor her into the whole thing. She feels quite excited at the prospect of being factored in and wonders wildly if one of them will ever steal her away for a night in the open air under the stars.
Would either of them think her worthy of such a thing? She certainly hopes so. Even if it is just for the thrill of it for them, whichever might decide to risk it.
No, she decides, settling back into her chair, turning it once again, this time in the direction she was watching them run in. She has to stay.
Part of her knowing about them, now and until they tire of her, will include making sure others remain in the dark about their private relationship. She decides it would be more useful to them if she sits here and watches to make sure that nobody tries to go after them and that they get back into the manor safely unseen. Perhaps she can interfere if anyone comes close to discovering their secret tryst.
Maybe that will help build their trust in her. Maybe, if they ever discover she has done it, or that she had even seen them. Or how much she had actually wanted to follow them. It's unlikely, but it is nice to dream.
It had been a couple hours, she would guess, when they finally returned to the manor. Clint, still with the blanket draped over his head and wrapped around his shoulders, and James, still following behind him, holding his hand just as tightly as when they had left.
The only noticeable difference is how wild his hair is now. It tells Natasha all she needs to know about what they had gotten up to during their little escape. As if she had any doubts before.
Yet, she still wants to know more, she finds.
She had sat up, reading while she awaited their return. A book, not the papers still taunting her less than a foot away. The story is making little sense, as she rarely got more than a paragraph read at a time before her eyes had turned upward to check out the window for any movement signaling their return.
She isn't sure what exactly she was expecting, but her little watch shift had been entirely uneventful. There had been no one moving around outside, nobody sneaking off to try and follow them. The closest anyone had come to that was her, standing very suddenly several different times, only to nip it in the bud as soon as she realized what she was doing.
Now they are back and she can't even pretend to look away. Their hands are still wrapped together intimately. They aren't hurrying inside, they aren't even being particularly quick about it. They stop right next to a stone pillar on one end of the garden and stay there for a moment, Clint leaning back against it, wrapping James in his arms in front of him. She is at just the right angle, none of their movements are hidden from her.
She wonders if that might have been a choice. Natasha already knows so there is no need to hide it from her. They don't have to worry about her seeing. Maybe Clint is even counting on her to see it, as some form of staking his claim over James without actually having to address it.
Unlikely, she thinks, but always a possibility. Clint does seem to enjoy his little games…
Watching as they embrace, as it turns into a kiss, and then several, she feels a thrill at being able to witness this. Goodness knows if she will ever be given this particular view again, of them so carefree and obviously in love, so she is going to take full advantage of it while she can.
There isn't anything particularly special about this kiss. It's slow, gentle. How one would imagine a kiss between two people in love, just returning from a romantic, moonlight tryst. Watching it doesn't make her heart race like it had the day she listened to them from outside the door of the study.
No, this? It calms her. It reassures her, it warms her, it steadies her nerves. Nerves she hadn't even realized needed calmed. Watching them kiss, she feels something. Almost like she's being included.
As the two men finally break their kiss, Clint pushes up from the pillar. His hand comes up to stroke over James' cheek one last time, before turning towards the door they had left from.
James is in the lead this time, still refusing to let go of Clint's hand, bringing him along just behind. Clint, who right outside the door, stops. James is already hidden behind the door when he does it. Natasha had already stood up, preparing to actually go to bed, like she should have hours ago.
She freezes as he looks up, directly at her. His eyes don't hesitate in finding her window for a second. It's like he knew, somehow, that she had been watching. She can barely see the smile form on his face, but it's made all the more clear by her knowledge of how it looks up close.
He responds to something James must have said and shakes his head, laughing, sparing one last glance up at her, before disappearing through the door.
All the calm she had felt moments ago from watching the tender embrace is gone. Now, she's worked up in a way she knows will lead to another sleepless night. She dresses for bed in a haze, laying down and trying to put everything from her mind.
She nearly succeeds, too. But one image remains: the look Clint had given her window right before disappearing behind the door for the evening.
It was that smirk that she knows means trouble, confirmed by the irregular beating of her heart, every single time she sees it.