(no subject)
Wrapped in Flannel
Avengers: Clint/Natasha
Vaguely post-Winter Soldier, but really, it could be at any point in the timeline. AoU doesn't really exist in my worldview.
Thanks to the darling Sus for the review and fixes.
He picks her up at the one and only bus stop in town and they head out to his farm, the one last refuge for them both. As his truck rumbles along the single lane highway, she relaxes back into the seat and reaches out to cover his hand in a silent gesture of thanks. He glances over and offers her a small smile.
This is them. Partners, friends, steadfast pillars of strength for one another.
She doesn't need anything else right now.
---
It's a few days after she arrives that Clint announces they should start chopping wood for the stove. It's still warm during the day, but the nights are getting cooler and fall, then winter, will be upon them sooner than they think.
She raises an eyebrow at him and says, "I will weed gardens and feed chickens. I will assist in repairing that rotted building you call a barn. But I draw the line at chopping wood."
He chuckles and picks up the ax to get started on the haphazard pile of wood next to the porch.
---
Clint takes to chopping wood almost daily, and while she may have gone out on the porch that first morning just to bug him by calling out pointers from time to time, she ends up watching him each and every time.
Not overtly, that's not her style. But she'll spy on him from the kitchen window, or one of the upstairs bedrooms, and she'll stay there, transfixed by the play of muscle beneath the rolled up sleeves of his plaid flannel shirts.
She is fascinated by his arms. Those arms, that have killed and maimed. Those arms, that hold a bow a gently as a lover. Those arms, that could probably hold her steady against the wall while she wraps her legs tight around his hips and...
She shakes her head to clear it. This is Clint. She is not fantasizing about him in this way. She is not.
She can't.
Except that she can and she does, imagining all kinds of things he could be doing to her as she brings herself to climax at night.
---
One afternoon, she runs into him as he's exiting the bathroom after a shower, wearing only a towel knotted around his waist. Very low around his waist. With droplets of water clinging to his muscular chest and taut stomach. She imagines licking those droplets, her tongue and lips moving ever closer to the edge of the towel and what lies beneath...
Assassins? Demigods? Aliens? No problem. Living on this farm is going to be what kills her.
"Nat? You ok?"
He's looking at her with mild concern, and she realizes that while she's been wrapped up in lustful thoughts yet again, he's been talking.
"Yes," she lies smoothly. But inwardly… Fuck.
---
Early the next day, she pulls on a pair of bright red bikini bottoms, then one of the flannel shirts she's stolen from Clint, and heads toward the private lake at the edge of the farm. The morning air is still cool and the water is going to be icy this late in the season, but after the very vivid and intense dreams she had last night, she could use some cooling down.
Once she reaches the wooden dock, she strips off the shirt and plunges in. She dives deep, again and again, pushing her lungs to their limits. She hopes that the exertion will help ease her overheated imagination as well as the unfulfilled ache in her body.
She only partially succeeds.
---
She climbs onto the dock, stretching her overworked limbs, before reaching for the flannel shirt she left in a heap.
As she straightens, she notices Clint, standing at the edge of the woods, staring at her with hooded eyes. Even at this distance, she can see the movement of his throat as he swallows hard. He nods curtly and then heads back into the woods, quickly hidden from view by a copse of trees.
She shrugs on the flannel and begins buttoning it as she rushes to follow, but she stops after going only a few steps. For all that they've fought together and shared beds together and tended to each other in any number of intimate ways over the years, she's never been as physically aware of Clint in a non-combative way as she has been these past few weeks.
She begins to think maybe she's not the only one on the farm feeling like this.
---
The next week is spent mostly apart. Clint heads out to the fields each morning to practice long range shooting and stays gone most of the day. Natasha tests her endurance with marathon length runs.
When they are together, they are quieter than normal, neither one of them offering much in the way of conversation. It's not uncomfortable, per se, because they're used to lengthy periods of silence, but the tension that simmers beneath their silence this time is something new.
They carefully avoid touching one another in any way.
---
On Friday, after a subdued dinner, Clint disappears outside to the barn and Natasha prowls around the house, restless and stewing over how to end this strange, sexual impasse they're at. She's spent most of her life using her sexuality as a weapon, every detail of how to act and when to act planned out to the tiniest detail. Why then, now when there is something of actual value on the line, is she unable to come up with any ideas?
Because this is not a mission or a job. This is them. The stakes are much higher.
---
She goes to bed in yet another stolen flannel shirt, but the dull and muffled thunks of his arrows hitting their target fill her with restlessness. She tosses and turns, slamming the pillow over her head to drown out the noise.
It doesn't help.
The rhythmic sounds make her think of pounding heartbeats and labored breathing, how Clint would feel thrusting inside her. She lowers a hand between her legs, but it's not enough. Not anymore. The only thing that will ease this ache is him.
Fuck it, she decides. She gets up, heads downstairs, and strides out of the house towards the barn. She isn't an innocent schoolgirl with a crush; she's the Black Widow and this has to end. Tonight.
---
She drags open the heavy barn door and stands very still, knowing exactly what his immediate reaction will be. She isn't wrong; there's an arrow nocked and aimed straight at her head in less than a second. His body immediately relaxes as he recognizes her and she chuckles. "Feels like old times."
His look of wariness is instantly replaced by one of annoyance. "Nat. What are you doing out here? I could've hit you."
She shrugs. There was never any real chance of that happening.
He frowns at her before turning back to the target, nocking another arrow and aiming for dead center. The shot is just the slightest fraction off.
"Fuck!"
"Yes. I think that might be an excellent solution to our current situation," she deadpans, before taking a running leap and launching herself at him.
He lets her topple him, but uses the momentum of her jump to roll them until he's above her. She barely gives him a second to catch his breath before she pulls his face down to hers and kisses him deeply, devouring him with her mouth.
He responds in kind but she can feel the moment rational thought starts to take over. Before he has the chance to pull away, she locks her legs around his waist and flips them again until she's straddling his hips.
"Tasha…" he breathes, and it's a strangled sound, full of longing and questions.
"Yes, I want this. Yes, this is more than a quick roll in the hay." She's gratified to see the smile in his eyes at that. "Yes."
It's an answer to all his unspoken questions and all the things she cannot seem to say with words.
"Tasha," he breathes again, but this time he's pulling her down to him, one of his hand snaking beneath the shirt she's wearing to slide against her skin.
She leans into him and everything else melts away.
---
She awakes to pale sunlight shining in a different window than usual and heavy limbs tangled up with hers.
"Mornin'." His deep voice rumbles against her ear, and she smiles.
"Good morning," she replies, burrowing her nose against his chest as his arms tighten around her.
Living on the farm hasn't killed her after all. It just may have saved her, in more ways than one.
-End-
Avengers: Clint/Natasha
Vaguely post-Winter Soldier, but really, it could be at any point in the timeline. AoU doesn't really exist in my worldview.
Thanks to the darling Sus for the review and fixes.
He picks her up at the one and only bus stop in town and they head out to his farm, the one last refuge for them both. As his truck rumbles along the single lane highway, she relaxes back into the seat and reaches out to cover his hand in a silent gesture of thanks. He glances over and offers her a small smile.
This is them. Partners, friends, steadfast pillars of strength for one another.
She doesn't need anything else right now.
---
It's a few days after she arrives that Clint announces they should start chopping wood for the stove. It's still warm during the day, but the nights are getting cooler and fall, then winter, will be upon them sooner than they think.
She raises an eyebrow at him and says, "I will weed gardens and feed chickens. I will assist in repairing that rotted building you call a barn. But I draw the line at chopping wood."
He chuckles and picks up the ax to get started on the haphazard pile of wood next to the porch.
---
Clint takes to chopping wood almost daily, and while she may have gone out on the porch that first morning just to bug him by calling out pointers from time to time, she ends up watching him each and every time.
Not overtly, that's not her style. But she'll spy on him from the kitchen window, or one of the upstairs bedrooms, and she'll stay there, transfixed by the play of muscle beneath the rolled up sleeves of his plaid flannel shirts.
She is fascinated by his arms. Those arms, that have killed and maimed. Those arms, that hold a bow a gently as a lover. Those arms, that could probably hold her steady against the wall while she wraps her legs tight around his hips and...
She shakes her head to clear it. This is Clint. She is not fantasizing about him in this way. She is not.
She can't.
Except that she can and she does, imagining all kinds of things he could be doing to her as she brings herself to climax at night.
---
One afternoon, she runs into him as he's exiting the bathroom after a shower, wearing only a towel knotted around his waist. Very low around his waist. With droplets of water clinging to his muscular chest and taut stomach. She imagines licking those droplets, her tongue and lips moving ever closer to the edge of the towel and what lies beneath...
Assassins? Demigods? Aliens? No problem. Living on this farm is going to be what kills her.
"Nat? You ok?"
He's looking at her with mild concern, and she realizes that while she's been wrapped up in lustful thoughts yet again, he's been talking.
"Yes," she lies smoothly. But inwardly… Fuck.
---
Early the next day, she pulls on a pair of bright red bikini bottoms, then one of the flannel shirts she's stolen from Clint, and heads toward the private lake at the edge of the farm. The morning air is still cool and the water is going to be icy this late in the season, but after the very vivid and intense dreams she had last night, she could use some cooling down.
Once she reaches the wooden dock, she strips off the shirt and plunges in. She dives deep, again and again, pushing her lungs to their limits. She hopes that the exertion will help ease her overheated imagination as well as the unfulfilled ache in her body.
She only partially succeeds.
---
She climbs onto the dock, stretching her overworked limbs, before reaching for the flannel shirt she left in a heap.
As she straightens, she notices Clint, standing at the edge of the woods, staring at her with hooded eyes. Even at this distance, she can see the movement of his throat as he swallows hard. He nods curtly and then heads back into the woods, quickly hidden from view by a copse of trees.
She shrugs on the flannel and begins buttoning it as she rushes to follow, but she stops after going only a few steps. For all that they've fought together and shared beds together and tended to each other in any number of intimate ways over the years, she's never been as physically aware of Clint in a non-combative way as she has been these past few weeks.
She begins to think maybe she's not the only one on the farm feeling like this.
---
The next week is spent mostly apart. Clint heads out to the fields each morning to practice long range shooting and stays gone most of the day. Natasha tests her endurance with marathon length runs.
When they are together, they are quieter than normal, neither one of them offering much in the way of conversation. It's not uncomfortable, per se, because they're used to lengthy periods of silence, but the tension that simmers beneath their silence this time is something new.
They carefully avoid touching one another in any way.
---
On Friday, after a subdued dinner, Clint disappears outside to the barn and Natasha prowls around the house, restless and stewing over how to end this strange, sexual impasse they're at. She's spent most of her life using her sexuality as a weapon, every detail of how to act and when to act planned out to the tiniest detail. Why then, now when there is something of actual value on the line, is she unable to come up with any ideas?
Because this is not a mission or a job. This is them. The stakes are much higher.
---
She goes to bed in yet another stolen flannel shirt, but the dull and muffled thunks of his arrows hitting their target fill her with restlessness. She tosses and turns, slamming the pillow over her head to drown out the noise.
It doesn't help.
The rhythmic sounds make her think of pounding heartbeats and labored breathing, how Clint would feel thrusting inside her. She lowers a hand between her legs, but it's not enough. Not anymore. The only thing that will ease this ache is him.
Fuck it, she decides. She gets up, heads downstairs, and strides out of the house towards the barn. She isn't an innocent schoolgirl with a crush; she's the Black Widow and this has to end. Tonight.
---
She drags open the heavy barn door and stands very still, knowing exactly what his immediate reaction will be. She isn't wrong; there's an arrow nocked and aimed straight at her head in less than a second. His body immediately relaxes as he recognizes her and she chuckles. "Feels like old times."
His look of wariness is instantly replaced by one of annoyance. "Nat. What are you doing out here? I could've hit you."
She shrugs. There was never any real chance of that happening.
He frowns at her before turning back to the target, nocking another arrow and aiming for dead center. The shot is just the slightest fraction off.
"Fuck!"
"Yes. I think that might be an excellent solution to our current situation," she deadpans, before taking a running leap and launching herself at him.
He lets her topple him, but uses the momentum of her jump to roll them until he's above her. She barely gives him a second to catch his breath before she pulls his face down to hers and kisses him deeply, devouring him with her mouth.
He responds in kind but she can feel the moment rational thought starts to take over. Before he has the chance to pull away, she locks her legs around his waist and flips them again until she's straddling his hips.
"Tasha…" he breathes, and it's a strangled sound, full of longing and questions.
"Yes, I want this. Yes, this is more than a quick roll in the hay." She's gratified to see the smile in his eyes at that. "Yes."
It's an answer to all his unspoken questions and all the things she cannot seem to say with words.
"Tasha," he breathes again, but this time he's pulling her down to him, one of his hand snaking beneath the shirt she's wearing to slide against her skin.
She leans into him and everything else melts away.
---
She awakes to pale sunlight shining in a different window than usual and heavy limbs tangled up with hers.
"Mornin'." His deep voice rumbles against her ear, and she smiles.
"Good morning," she replies, burrowing her nose against his chest as his arms tighten around her.
Living on the farm hasn't killed her after all. It just may have saved her, in more ways than one.
-End-