9188/Lets Talk

Lets Talk
Date of Scene:	20 December 2021
Location:	Avengers Mansion - Kitchen
Synopsis:	Nat needs to talk, and Clint - despite sandwiches - listens.
Cast of Characters:	Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff

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Clint Barton has posed:
Clint Barton was in the Avengers Mansion today. No SHIELD missions, no Avengers missions. Honestly? He's been trying to keep an eye on Natasha. She hasn't been quite right since the incident with the Red Room recruits and the resulting Moscow mission. So he's here, not quite babysitting, but just enjoying the peace and quiet. The 'big' Avengers were missing, like Thor and Cap, from the building and likely doing their own thing.

So Clint was making a sandwich.

What? Even Avenging Archers need a good sandwich, but while he does so he sends an encrypted text to Nat:

"Hey,

I'm in the kitchen if you want to talk.

- C"

WHether or not Natasha actually -feels- like talking is entirely up to her, but Clint hasn't let her down yet so far.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Generally speaking, it's understood that if Natasha has locked herself away someplace, she's probably busy. This is also the case when she's out and about! It's a subtle system. And while Natasha has certainly kept herself occupied with work, and her elective to manage security for Nadia's team at GIRL, the reality is that an unusual amount of Natasha's down time has been spent just... sort of...

... staring.

Dutifully, she reads her text immediately. She spends a good long moment arching an eyebrow at it.

She's courteous enough to let Clint actually hear her approaching the kitchen, wheeling around the corner and into the doorway, holding the phone in one hand as if bearing evidence. "... If you're not looking to poison someone with that sandwich..." she says, affecting a tone of dry humor and a faintly amused look, "... then I'll have to write you up for misusing Shield assets."

She's being nice, 'performing' her mood so that people can actually read it. But for people who know that she can be any kind of person she wants to be, usually the most polite thing she can do for them is... not pretend. To be as unreadable and emotionless as she was trained to be. She's not doing that right now.

Clint Barton has posed:
Helps that he might even know that she was there if she was being uncourteous! But all the same, Clint hasn't dared to burst into Natasha's space. He understands what she might be going through and even if heh asn't specifically gone through the same thing, there's many things they -have- been through together. He can sympathize. It's a possibility.

Clint hears Natasha's footsteps (and he's memorized everyone by their footsteps. Hearing aid R&D is something to behold). and he turns his attention to her when she appears, a small smile touching his face at the sight of her. Almost like...

"Hey Nat. For the record, if I wanted to poison someone with it, I wouldn't be bothering with mayonnaise. There's some poisons that taste exactly like it, you know." Clint returns the humor with further humor, as if attempting to make her laugh. "I outrank you." He winks at her. "But, I wouldn't want you to write me up anyway."

But he's known her long enough. "I know you, Nat. You don't have to act with me." He tells her with a more neutral expression. "How've you been doing?"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha smirks lightly at Clint's response, noting "Some would say that's sufficiently poisonous by itself."

She doesn't look surprised when Clint calls her out - of course, it's difficult to get anything involuntary out of her - but a moment later her expression falls away to a perfectly neutral look, and her voice becomes perfectly even. Not monotone, just... hard to read. "... Right." is all she says after a moment, and one might get the impression that she's a bit embarrassed. She's never needed to be reminded before. It's a sign of her being 'on guard', and she hasn't been on guard around Clint sincer shortly after he dragged her to the states.

"I'm all right." She lies, folding her arms. "Keeping busy."

Clint Barton has posed:
"True." Clint smirks back at Natasha, though when he calls her out, he watches the facade fade away to reveal the true Natasha Romanoff underneath. She never had to pretend with him, except for when he first found and recruited her through all that mischief and mayhem. She's guarded, a telltale sign. She's embarassed, and though her voice and face are neutral...Clint's learned to read the eyes.

The eyes tell more than the face ever could.

"So its a first from you, Nat. A first that's slightly alarming, actually." He reaches for a towel to wipe off his hands of crumbs and spilled sauce, before he nudges the plate towards Natasha with a free hand. "Here, snack on that. What've you been busy with?" Clint asks simple questions while looking for the deep answers.

THe -way- he looks at her suggests the deeper question he's attempting to ask without making her feel like she's under the surgery light, as it were.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
"Don't make me self-conscious," she says with a soft sigh, "If I start having to pretend not to pretend, it'll get too confusing even for me." She's joking. Mostly.

"Thanks." She says blandly to the offered sandwich. She'd sound unappreciative if Clint didn't know better, which is part of why she spends most of her time acting. She sits down and even takes a bite out of it; which is a miracle considering she's A) a spy, and B) has discussed poison in recent memory.

"Mmm." She makes a thoughtful noise mid-chew, and swallows before answering Clint. "'GIRL', mostly. When Shield doesn't need my attention. Watching young women build modern wonders, and then..." she shrugs, "... throwing glitter on them." She subtly looks oddly wistful. She's unusually fond of Nadia, despite being *extremely* insistent to her superiors that they should shoot the young woman as soon as they knew she was in any way associated with the Red Room.

That wistfulness fades a bit, and Natasha looks faintly troubled, "and... keeping an eye on Yelena." The troubled young fully-fledged Black Widow that Natasha ALSO neglected to kill, instead bringing her back in Shield 'protective custody' after convincing the girl to... rather aggressively... kill the woman who shaped them both. "... She still hasn't been all right since the Red Room base."

Clint Barton has posed:
"Sorry." Clint tells Nat with a bit of a smirk to accompany it. "Unless you were pretending that you were pretending not to pretend, which would be pretentious." Clint laughs a little bit as he teases her. Clint watches her take a bite of the sandwich.

"How's the food? I'm really excited about it. Might be my sandwich masterpiece." Clint smirks at Natasha, though he listens to what she's been up to. "Hm." He continues to listen as she talks about Yelena. "Think she might try and make a move on me." Clint is decently aware of Yelena's hatred. "Maybe I can try to help two Widows."

"Though if you ask me, you haven't been quite right either." Clint tells her. "How long were you mulling over it? I know it was severely traumatizing for you. Didn't think they'd try to clone you."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha makes sure her mock-glare at Clint's antics is fully readable, but doesn't feed into the loop, lest it dominate the conversation. "It's pretty good." She says of the sandwich. "I think I'll survive it, anyway." She notes, and takes another bite.

Concerning Yelena, Natasha leans back a bit in her seat. "... You pushed your luck with just one." She notes softly. "... But Yelena's young. She's less of a gamble than I was." Hell, some people are still waiting for the other shoe to drop on Natasha, and most of them don't even know how LONG Nat's life was devoted to spycraft. How long she could wait. "It's just... I wasn't *confused* when I left. I'd had time to process that they were using me. Yelena was still..." Natasha shrugs, and, for lack of a better word, settles on: "... patriotic." Natasha shakes her head. "If she goes after you, I'll shoot her. Let me know."

She means it, too. Just as much as she's sincere about her concern. Natasha *will* kill that girl if it doesn't work out. That's one thing she hasn't clued Yelena in on.

Natasha actually looks a little surprised, though, when Clint brings the matter back to her. "I'm fine." She insists again, but she looks away slightly and closes her eyes as Clint goes on. "... Yeah. Ludmilla finally got lazy, I guess." She says, addressing Mother by name. "Easier just to copy the one they got right then to gamble on a new group of kids every few years." Natasha sighs softly. "That's not a problem though. Killing a bunch of pretty red heads is..." Natasha hesitates and shakes her head slightly, "... not the problem." She finishes. Implying there is *A* problem.

Clint Barton has posed:
"Don't blaspheme in my sandwich church." Clint suggests with a smirk at her. "I was hoping it was the best ever." Clint smirks at her and it grows into a wide smile. Though, he nods regarding Yelena. "Yeah, she's still fresh. Seems like there's no bad blood between you two, but the math adds up. But don't worry, if I can't get through to her, you won't have to pull the trigger. O have an arrow for it." Clint takes a deep breath.

"My best shot was the one I never took." He looks Nat in the eyes then. He remembers, he had the shot. Clean, no gore. Simple. But he dragged her to the states instead. He couldn't change her, that was her choice. But he takes a deep breath as she speaks to him.

"Yeah. So then, what was the problem? What's the skeleton in the closet? Though I do agree with you, pretty red heads can be rough." Clint flirts mildly, trying to break through her programming and make her laugh.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha gives a small huff that shakes her shoulders once, which is... CLOSE to a laugh. It's laugh-adjacent. At any rate, it seems to be enough to get her to not just leave without an answer. Slowly she looks towards Clint again, staring at him with cold blue eyes, and after a long moment, she finally says, "... This doesn't leave this room." Before she'll go into anything.

Clint Barton has posed:
Close is good!

Laughs are better, but robberies are cool all the same. Though Clint's eyes don't avoid her, they don't leave hers. He's faced her darkness and she his. "Sealed shut." Clint confirms with a nod. He waits for her to resume talking, even as he moves around the table closer to her, crossing his arms as he looks her in the eyes.

He's here.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha is silent a little longer, but she slowly leans back in her chair, arms folded. It takes a moment. Sincerity is easy to fake, but difficult to actually muster. "... Not all of the clones were against me." She finally says, and lets out a sharp breath, that she spends another moment recollecting.

Mother had this... 'psychic' or something in tow. Told him I'd rescue him. Somehow he was copying and pasting the bits that she wanted to transfer from me to the duplicates. The useful stuff. Usually just skills and... convenient memories."

Natasha's lips press tightly together for a moment, before she wrestles them back into a more neutral position. "... When things were looking bad down there, he... copied me into a handful of the clones to act as backup. All of me." She lets that sit for a moment, and gradually looks away. "They were... they were me. You know? They were... *exactly* me. Memories, experiences, and... just... everything."

"... and they all died. They all looked the same, so I'm not... I'm not actually sure that some of the ones I killed weren't..." Natasha swallows hard and just... stops talking for a moment. "It's stupid. You know? We all know we can die at any point. Got that drilled into me young. But it's, uh... it's..." Natasha shakes her head, eyes distracted, "... it's surprisingly... different when it... literally happens. I guess."

Clint Barton has posed:
Clint had maintained his listening posture. He kept his arms crossed, palms open rather than closed to present someone listening, not someone getting a lecture that they're gonna hate in the next 10-30 seconds. He keeps his attention on Natasha. He hears her words about her clones and how not all of them were against her...yet they died anyway. Maybe they died a death worth remembering or maybe they didn't...all he remembers is finding Natasha in a pile of other Natasha's, and it took him a minute to question if she was the 'actual' Natasha.

She was, in his opinion.

And he knows few things shake her like this did. "Exact replicas? Hard to do, if you ask the science types." Like Tony and Banner. Genetics were a bitch though, and if they could make an exact copy of Natasha...thank god they tore that facility down.

"It's not stupid, Nat." Clint draws closer to Natasha if she lets him, reaching for her shoulders. "Death can show up at any time. We know that in our line of work. Got drilled into me too...and we've both watched people we care about, or even people we just...-knew- die." Clint frowns a little bit. "I can't imagine how watching yourself die, by your own hand or others, can shake you to your core."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha sighs slowly without opening her mouth, looking at nothing in particular with half-lidded eyes; seeming distant with the memory. She didn't doubt that Clint would sympathize - anyone would, and that's part of what she wanted to avoid - but... she's not as invested in being... 'strong' around Clint as she is with everyone else. And Clint's the only person around here who operates on the same level she does, even if not with the same mindset.

"... Yeah. I know that. We all know that. We all... *think* we know that. It's just..." Natasha shakes her head, "It's different when it *literally* happens to you. When the *actual person* that you are, *actually* dies, and you... keep living somehow."

Natasha makes an exasperated gesture with her hands, then lets her arms drop on the table in front of her, clasping the back of her wrist with the other hand. "... This kind of crap can only happen to us."

Clint Barton has posed:
Clint somehow operates on a more optimistic level. If he didn't...it'd be the end of him before it even started. Tragedy and horror were not out of reach for Clint, and it's something that both of these agents are used to. It's how they bonded and have bonded. They can be weak and vulnerable around each other, and there have been many days where Nat has gone to Clint and vice versa because no one else would understand.

This is one of those moments.

"Yeah...it sucks, because there's other ways and there should be other ways, but it's sucks even more that there wasn't another way. You did what you had to do." He tries to comfort her. Tried to be there for her.

"And to think were the lucky ones." Clint adds in morbid humor as if to try and spark laughter from her. Even as he reaches to try and settle his hand on top of hers. "You're the strongest in the world, Nat. I can't imagine what you're going through, and the only way we push forward is to keep moving forward. Mother is gone, and the one that takes her place is gonna get taken out too. This won't happen to anyone again, I swear it. I'm here, Nat."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha gives a soft huff approximating a laugh, with a little tug at the corner of her lip. Considering Nat's poker face, that's pretty good! Getting her to full on laugh is hard. Not impossible! It's been done! But pretty hard.

Natasha closes her eyes for a moment, raising her eyebrows, and just seem to... reflect for a moment, before she looks up at Clint properly; choosing to broadcast a little smile as she says, softly, and sincerely, "Thanks, Barton." where she would tell almost anyone else that that's not necessary and basically try to weasel out of their sympathy.

Clint Barton has posed:
Laughter!

Clint is mentally high giving himself right now. Natasha was like a brick wall, but Clint had the unique talent of owning a key to the door, so to speak. Whether or not he was actually of any meaningful help is up for debate, but Clint thinks he's been of service to Natasha. Though he smiles a little bit as she seems to reflect on her feelings and what was discussed.

Then she thanks him.

"You'd do the same for me." Clint smiles at her with a bit of a wink starched to it as he taps the table. "Now eat something, you look too thin." He says in his best Russian old lady voice,a mother attempt to make her laugh. "I'll always be here for you Nat, and I like to think I do a good job of looking over your shoulder."

Literally and figuratively.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha's silent for a long moment, silently squirming a little under the weight of her own unusual sentimentality, and allows herself to smile a little saying: "... Yeah. Yeah, you do."