Clint-and-Natasha Part 1
The next people that Darcy took on as a mission had to be done as a pair. The Black Widow and Hawkeye were like two halves of the same coin. Hawkeye covered his own pain with wisecracks and loud laughter. Widow covered hers in icy silence and intimidation.
Darcy learned this the first time she woke up early and baked coffee cake for the team several months ago. Her nightmares should end with something good for someone.
Today, Stark was the first one up and blearily leaned against her shoulder as he put a pot of coffee on, silently lending his support in a way he didn’t have to acknowledge. Jane was the next to come upstairs, as she had been up all night on a bender of her own. She put on a kettle of water and fixed Darcy a caramel black tea. She handed it to her and gave her a shoulder squeeze. Darcy had fallen asleep in the lab, and Jane sent her up to bake after she woke herself with a scream. Jane had learned from long experience that this was the best way to help Darcy.
The rest of the team came in by ones and twos, led by their noses. Captain Call-Me-Steve America was next, fresh from a shower after his morning run. Then Bruce of the incandescent rage came in and thanked Jane for leaving the kettle on for him.
Hawkeye dropped silently from a vent to land beside her. She jumped and froze as her hands started to shake at the sudden invasion of her private space. Dayyum his arms but also DAMN! his spysassin stealth! Hawkeye appeared not to notice, but he had migrated to the other side of the kitchen to raid the fridge for milk. However she caught the Widow eying her speculatively where she had entered simultaneously to Hawkeye but from the doorway. And wasn’t that a neat trick! Hawkeye and Widow had yet to introduce themselves, and they were around less than the other Avengers. They only seemed to hang around after they had particularly difficult missions.
This time seemed no different as they both had visible cuts and bruises. Natasha moved toward the bar stools all lithe grace that gave away no hint of soreness of course, and the rest of the Avengers scattered around her. It was almost as if she had an invisible force field that extended about three feet out from her body.
“Good morning,” Widow offered quietly to Tony on her way past. In the last month or so, she seemed to be making more of an effort to bond with the team, as if they had passed some kind of test. However, this did not seem to be going well.
His eyes got wide, “Whatever it is I didn’t do it,” he exclaimed brightly, “or at least you’ll never prove it!” He cackled madly and backed away. Widow sat beside Bruce and he subtly shifted away from her, moving so naturally that Darcy didn’t quite know how he did it but he had put a foot of space at least between them.
Hawkeye wandered over to that side of the counter, Darcy had been painfully aware of his movement around the kitchen, and leaned on Widow’s shoulder. He put her coffee in front of her after taking a small sip where she could see him. Even once the beverage was on the counter, he maintained contact. He leaned at her side while he sipped his own heavily sweetened brew.
Darcy’s attention was pulled back to the oven by a timer going off, and she busied herself swapping batches and arranging cooling racks. By the time she turned back around, Bruce was gone, Hawkeye and Tony were bantering, Steve was attempting to referee, and her hands were steady. Although she couldn’t pinpoint the exact difference, Widow seemed to have slouched imperceptibly into a more relaxed position as Hawkeye continued to lean on her. Darcy was sick, even in her own mind, of continuously referring to two fellow human beings by code names.
She leaned against the cool marble countertop in front of the superheroes, sipping her own tea. Jane had of course made it just the way she liked it. Just to amuse herself, and get a little adrenaline buzz from courting danger, she steadily stared at Hawkeye and the Widow. After a few seconds Widow was staring back. Darcy could read nothing in her eyes, but a bit of weariness was apparent around them. She wondered what the Widow could read in hers. Gradually conversation around them puttered to a stop. She noticed that Tony had moved to stand protectively at her shoulder. Hawkeye was looking between the two of them like it was a tennis match.
“Problem?” Steve asked in his Cap voice.
“Nope!” she exclaimed cheerily, “I was just hoping someone would remember their manners and introduce me to my two other sometimes Tower-mates. I baked A LOT of scones, and I have a policy about my baked goods. Namely that I don’t share them with strangers.”
“I already ate one,” Hawkeye admitted with a grin, ignoring her indignant squawk. She had been very aware of where he was. There was no way he could’ve snuck one! “But in the interest of a voluntary offer my name’s Clint.” He offered her a calloused hand to shake. He didn’t even have sticky fingers! That was a conundrum to contemplate. The widow had tilted her head consideringly.
“Natasha.” the Widow offered plainly. Darcy took the gift for what it was and scooped up an orange and a chocolate chip scone to deposit in front of Natasha and Clint respectively. Clint made sure to take a quick nibble from Natasha`s scone and that was that. Darcy's observations seemed to support her thoughts on the spysassin twins, and had thoroughly distracted her from her own nightmare.
Despite their awkward meeting, Darcy persisted in trying to include Natasha and Clint whenever they were in the Tower. To that end, they were definitely Natasha-and-Clint. Although Clint fit in more easily with the other Avengers, he seemed to hold himself back. His level of engagement was determined entirely by Natasha’s level of engagement as far as she could tell. That meant if she was to help Clint-and-Natasha, she would need to start with Natasha.
The team unconsciously made a point of respecting Natasha’s formidable skill set either with joking fear or with legitimate avoidance. As Darcy had witnessed at the breakfast where she learned their names, even when the team spoke with Natasha, it was like she had an invisible barrier around her. Other than sparring, the team never touched her.
The team all had different levels of touchiness. Tony’s depended on how wound up he was and how much sleep he had gotten. However, he was likely to lean, pat a shoulder, or smack a head in mock reprimand. When he was tired he could get clingy to the point of becoming a limpet. Steve was fond of the shoulder clap for encouragement, and was a secret snuggle bug. Whenever he realized someone was a hugger, he would gladly pass them out at every opportunity. She had also caught him casually tangling his feet with whoever he shared couches with, or leaning against the legs of people on the couches if he sat on the floor during movie night. Bruce didn’t touch anyone. However, he was touched most often by Tony, who made a point of slinging a companionable arm around him, nudging, etc. in a show of camaraderie with his Science Bro. Clint was willing to participate in all of the above, but he was the only one who extended his touches to Natasha.
Natasha was too good at what she did to give anything away with her face or tone, but Darcy had an idea of her history. Given what she had gone through, she must be awfully lonely. As far as Darcy could tell, Natasha had a small circle of support. It had extended to two men-Clint and Agent Ipod Thief. And now Agent Ipod Thief was gone. Although Darcy had no illusions that the Avengers were the only group of extraordinary people around, there certainly wasn’t an abundance of places with this level of power. There were fewer where this level of power was being used towards good ends. The Avengers had to be a rare opportunity for Natasha. This was a group of people for whom Natasha didn’t have to worry for how they could be hurt through association with her. They could protect themselves from harm from her enemies, and they had formidable opponents of their own. This was a group that Natasha could interact with as an equal.
Here was a chance for Natasha to open up, and they did not seem to want to give her that chance. Darcy wanted to help. However, she was unsure if Natasha would accept help from someone like her. Darcy was not a superhero. She didn’t have a green rage monster ready to jump out and defend her at the hint of a threat. She didn’t have a crazy stockpile of cash or a metal suit. She was not a literal God with a legendary hammer. (She did have a taser that a Man of Iron may or may not have built as an extra powered version of the usual kind. )
Darcy did not want to insult Natasha, and she did not want to be rejected by someone she admired so deeply. Natasha was a kick ass spysassin. She shed her persona as easily as others breathed and wove webs around her enemies that they could not decipher until it was too late. She had looked the God of Lies in the eye and outdone him. Most of all what Darcy admired was that despite what had been done to Natasha, she was nobody's victim.
She had never seen Natasha intentionally manipulate anyone else in the Tower in a malicious way in the time she had been there. If anything, Natasha existed like a ghost. She occasionally offered bland pleasantries to her teammates. She was fierce and fiery when she sparred. But otherwise, she seemed to sit quietly on the outskirts of any gatherings.
In the end, Darcy decided to do what she had always done in the face of uncertainty. She would make her best guess, and she would ask. For as much as the Avengers were Earth’s mightiest heroes, none of them had gotten a lot of choice about a lot of things. Enthusiastic consent was important to Darcy, but she had a feeling it was a foreign concept to most of them, especially the spysassins. As empathetic as she was, you could never truly read another person’s mind. She would always rather ask permission to do something for them, and gauge how interested they were in receiving it than just force it on them and hope it was something they wanted. Most people thought of enthusiastic consent as something only related to sex, but she was pretty sure it could and should be applied more broadly. The golden rule was fine, but she lived by the platinum rule: Do unto others as THEY would have you do unto them. What she wanted for herself was not what everyone wanted for themselves, and everyone’s desires about and boundaries for their bodies should be respected.
Darcy started her plan at the next movie night. The team all had habitual seats at this point. There was a circle of couches and loveseats around the TV in the common area. Pepper and Tony normally shared a loveseat. Thor and Jane normally shared a couch. Bruce normally had a loveseat to himself nearest the kitchen. Darcy and Steve normally traded off sharing the couch with Thor and Jane, leaning against Tony and Pepper’s love seat, or sharing a couch between them if Natasha and Clint were away. Natasha and Clint always shared the couch closest to both the exit and the vent in the common area.
Darcy made sure that she volunteered to make popcorn so she could fiddle in the kitchen until everyone was seated. Then she wandered in and handed out bowls amidst the typical bickering over what to watch.
She gave Clint and Natasha a bowl last. “Is it okay if I sit with you guys?” she asked as naturally as she could. Clint was perching on the arm of the couch with his arm along the back of the cough behind Natasha. He stuck his tongue out at Jane who was looking confused.
“Sure, Darce,” Clint gave her permission. Thor who was beside Jane looked on knowingly. Nobody gave her lightning-bro enough credit. He may not grasp some of their Earth culture or technology, but he wasn’t stupid. Darcy made eye contact with Natasha and waited.
Natasha shrugged, “sure.” Darcy didn’t want to pressure Natasha, but this was meant to give her a chance at touching, so Darcy sat in the middle. Thor chucked her favorite pillow-pet (the unicorn) to her. She wrapped her arms around it and waited for the lights to dim and the movie to start. Tonight’s choice was apparently The Hobbit.
“Is it okay if I lean on you?” Darcy whispered to Natasha. She could see the glint of Clint’s eyes watching her with uncharacteristic seriousness from over Natasha’s head. A slight furrowing between Natasha’s eyes was the only indication Darcy got of Natasha’s astonishment. Darcy waited carefully for her to think it over. This was the moment where Natasha could lash out if she really was someone who did not like to be touched.
“You have that whole side of the couch,” Natasha pointed out drily.
“Yes, but you guys are both over here, and I like a side of cuddles with my popcorn and a movie,” Darcy said truthfully. Natasha snorted in what could have been derision or disbelief that someone would use the word cuddle to the face of the fearsome Black Widow. Darcy let the silence hang between them awkwardly for a moment.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I am the renowned Champion of the Cuddles,” Darcy cajoled. Natasha looked at Clint and they had one of their wordless conversations that involved minute facial twitches and probably a smattering of telepathy. Then she did the spysassin version of a magic trick. Contemplating the logistics made Darcy’s head hurt at the same level as Jane’s longer equations did, but Natasha produced 3 knives of varying sizes and a not tiny gun from the right side of her person. She then made them disappear distributing them evenly between her left side and Clint. She was wearing pajama bottoms and a long sleeve shirt. She had no visible pockets. Well at least Darcy wouldn’t accidentally stick herself on anything if Natasha gave her permission to lean. Natasha looked back at her and gave her a short nod. Well okay, that was apparently what that was about.
Natasha was sitting with her left leg curled under herself and her right leg flat on the floor. Her left arm was tucked beside Clint’s thigh and her right was resting along her lap. There was not exactly an easy route to cuddle her. Darcy would not be daunted however, so she swung her legs up onto the couch and scooted backwards until she was leaning into Natasha’s side and she could slouch down to lean her head on her shoulder. Natasha was a little extra warm, kind of like Steve but not as much of a space heater as Thor. Darcy sighed and hugged Doctor Hermione to her. She quietly settled in and focused on the movie. The longer she sat against Natasha, the less Natasha felt like living stone.
When Darcy had first leaned up against her, Natasha stayed so still she could have been part of the furniture but for her heat and heartbeat. Darcy could feel Clint’s fingers faintly above her head rubbing small circles into Natasha’s shoulder. When it seemed clear that Darcy was not going to budge over, Natasha seemed to sink into the couch more and her limbs went softer. Darcy tried to keep herself focused on the movie, but she was always cold. As typically happened when she and Steve sat together, the body heat radiating against her made her sleepier and sleepier.
When Darcy blinked her eyes open, she was laying on her side with her head cradled on Natasha’s thigh. Her elbow was resting on Herm and her hand was tucked under her cheek. Her feet were wedged under someone’s (she would bet the resident Hawk’s) thighs. Natasha was gently running her fingers through Darcy’s hair. Not wanting to ruin her progress, but also knowing there was no way the spysassins didn’t know she was awake, Darcy simply closed her eyes again and enjoyed the petting.
Darcy must have dozed off again, because when she next opened her eyes the TV was off and the common room was dimmer. Darcy`s head was on Doctor H. And someone had covered her with a fleece blanket. Jane and Thor were snuggled together on a couch and Jane was lightly snoring into Thor’s bicep but otherwise the room had emptied. Darcy gave herself a mental pat on the back and wandered back to her apartment to contemplate her next step. It turned out that her next steps were not that hard, just awkward. Darcy was a pretty tactile person to begin with, even if she didn’t show it often.
The awkward part was making sure she always asked for permission. Unfortunately, in her opinion, they lived in a culture where it was assumed people had certain rights for touching people, even more so if you were a woman. For example, since a hug was a “good” touch, most people thought it was ok to hug anyone anytime and the receiver of the hug should be happy to get one. This was not true for everyone. Although explicit consent might not be necessary for someone you had more experience with, even then it was important to pay attention to body language and other cues.
Darcy did not want to call attention to her quest with Natasha, so she tried to only approach her when they were on their own or when no one else was paying attention. This had an unintended result on Natasha`s interpretation of her behavior.
One morning Darcy was in the kitchen early because Jane had been up all night chasing the mysteries of the universe. Natasha was sitting on a loveseat in the common area quietly reading something that was probably written in Russian. Darcy fixed herself a lavender vanilla tea and wandered over.
“Can I sit with you like we did for movie night?” Darcy asked. Natasha didn't look up from her book but made a welcoming gesture. Darcy flopped down and gratefully leaned into Natasha`s shoulder while she sipped her tea. When she hit the bottom of her cup she clambered to her feet and slumped to the kitchen to put her mug away. “Thanks, Red!” was her parting shot to Natasha.
“Does that make Clint my Woodsman?” Natasha shot back with what could have been a sly smirk,”He does enjoy his medieval weapons. “
That night Darcy was back in the lab, tiredly transcribing notes while Jane manically ran around muttering and tinkering. Her exhaustion was the only reason she didn't jump higher than she did when a wrapped brownie from her favorite coffee shop landed on her desk. “J?” she asked tentatively.
“I believe that is a gift from Mr. Barton, Ms. Darcy, “ Jarvis told her.
Understanding, Darcy looked up towards the nearest vent grinned, “Thanks, Hawk dude!” She got no response but happily unwrapped her treat to munch on while she worked.
Darcy gradually increased her repertoire from cuddles in the common space to also include hugs in the hallways. She always made sure to ask first.
Then came the day Clint was sent off on a mission without Natasha. Darcy was in the kitchen fixing herself and Jane some of Tony`s jet engine fuel coffee. They had been awake for two nights in a row and Jane had promised her no more than one more night even if they still hadn't made the progress she was hoping for.
Natasha materialized at the end of the kitchen counter. Her face was dangerously blank but her eyes were intense. This was more Widow than Natasha.
“Are you trying to seduce me, “ Natasha asked lowly.
“ Whoa whoa whoa, lady, while I feel like that would be mind blowing, not what I was going for. At all,” Darcy blurted, “I hope that doesn't insult you though. “
“What is it that you want from me?” Natasha was still not appeased. Darcy felt like she had stumbled into dangerous territory but was not especially surprised. She actually wasn't really sure how to answer.
“I would like to be your friend,” Darcy went with what seemed like the simplest response.
“Why do you always ask before you touch me?” and now Natasha certainly looked frustrated.
“I never want to touch someone in a way that would make them uncomfortable, especially when it comes to my friends. I wasn't sure what kind of touching you like and if there are things that would make you uncomfortable so I asked. None of the other members of the super secret not quite boy band touch you, so I wasn't sure if you were a touchy person or not,” Darcy was pretty sure that was the longest conversation she had ever had with Natasha.
“I would prefer you stop asking and I will say so if I don't want touched. Can I give you a hug?” Darcy discovered that Natasha hugs were a revelation. Her arms were just the right amount of firmly supportive and reassuring. Her front was soft and her shoulder was just the right height for Darcy`s head.
“Damnit woman, do I have to give up my Champion Cuddler title to you?” Darcy grumbled. Natasha looked pleased with herself and when Darcy turned around from fixing her coffee the redhead was gone.