Who:Clint Barton & Natasha Romanoff When: Today? Where: Random Gym What: First meeting of old friends and catch ups. Warnings: Mild language. Status: Complete.
By no means was Clint a fitness nut. He didn’t really have the time for it. Or the enthusiasm, actually. Clint was by no means lazy but… well, what exactly was the point? There wasn’t one, not that he could see. Before, the Army had kept him in suitable shape, he was fairly fit and prepared for his job.
Since the army, well, Clint liked to not do a hell of a lot and beyond his walks with Lucky and archery he didn’t really bother with much. But the gym wasn’t a bad idea, and Clint had taken to maybe twice a week going along, even if it was just for a basic workout.
Since the dreams kicked up and he’d started to show a little bit more athleticism, well, he’d been curious as to just how much of that translated over into his actual life. Hence the slightly longer visit to the gym this week. Funnily enough, he wasn’t hating it.
There were several secrets to Natasha's body. Aside from a good diet and exercise, there was the serum injected into her by the red room, and the slowed aging and improved healing factor that came with it. But even with that, she liked to exercise. It helped her deal with frustrations. It helped her deal with the dreams.
She tended to avoid the gyms nearest the Agency, and found one that was a good distance away. Her typical work out gear consisted of black shorts and a black tank top. Currently, she was beating a punching bag to within an inch of it's life, while listening to particularly empowering pop and rock music.
The punching bag didn't stand a chance.
Every once in a while, Clint was capable of slight dickishess, he occasionally let his brain just shut off from time to time and was an asshole. But he really did try to not be a sleazy asshole, because there were levels of asshole. One of those was staring at women, people in general really, while going about their daily lives.
But something was just striking him about the redhead currently kicking the ass of the punching bag just a few feet away that he could not, for the life of him, figure out. There was something weirdly familiar about her, but he really didn’t think they’d met or even crossed paths. He wasn’t sure if it was just that feeling of deja vu, or if this was some kind of bleed over from those really irritating dreams now too.
All he knew for sure was he had probably been staring for too long.
Natasha finished by kneeing the punching bag in what would have been it's groin. She stepped back, and looked in Clint's direction as though she'd known he was watching and that last bit of demonstration was setting an example. But then she did a double take. How had she missed that.
She gathered up her towel and wiped her arms and neck down as she walked towards him. She wasn't sure if he was deaf here, or not, but she made sure he could see her face when she spoke. "Enjoying the view?"
And the voice. Okay, Clint definitely knew her from somewhere. Muted and dulled as it was, he totally knew that voice. “You know, I really am.” Was she scary? Hell yes. Was that at all a turn off? Hell no. “Pretty sure that punching bag is gonna need replaced mind you.”
So, maybe it wasn’t just in the land of confusing dreams that...
Wait, the dreams. It was totally cliché and probably a little weird, but he was almost 80% sure he’d dreamed her. Or she was in the dreams. Or whatever. Okay, still really confusing. “Totally wasn’t leering though, you just... “ Clint shook his head, even as his pace slowed to a stop on the machine before he moved off, “You just look familiar.”
He earned the smirk she gave him as she started to unwrap her hands. "I'll take that as a compliment, but I know some people who'd have turned that bag into shredded canvas."
Oh, that was definitely Clint, and she wasn't sure how to process the information just yet. If he was dreaming, which world he dreamed of, or if it even was one of the ones she'd dreamed. "Usually I try to avoid being easily recognizeable. Unlike some people I don't run around in bright colors or a circus outfit."
“I think you’re shit outta luck in some cases.” Well that just answered those questions, because yeah, he was still wondering why he was hopping around in a damn bright purple outfit, but he was young and apparently very dumb.
Then again, he’d have been completely dumb for that woman back then too. “In my defence… I really have no defence, I’ve clearly lost my mind.” Considering he was playing criminal in a purple suit with a deadly assassin, he had totally lost his mind. “Is this likely to happen a lot? Meeting random people I’ve committed crimes with?” And he really just said that?
"If you've lost your mind, I'm in an asylum somewhere and none of this is actually happening." She gestured around, as if to indicate that 'this' referenced the whole of the world. Natasha sat down, and looked at him with a tilt of her head.
"More often than you'd like. But if it makes you feel better, eventually we change sides." More him than her. While she was an Avenger, a good guy, her methods hadn't actually changed. She didn't know what kind of person that made her.
“Huh,” See, it wasn’t really a massive issue, it just… didn’t feel right. In a way. Clint wasn’t sure if it was just how he himself lived or if it was a case that his dream counter-part would get to eventually. But not ending up dead or in prison was a good thing. “Something to look forward to.”
And it was, legitimately, something he would probably appreciate.
“I take it you’re a little further along in this magical, mystical dream land fun?” She had to be if she knew they weren’t going to carry on forever in the land of evil. Although she did make a very compelling argument for evil. “Fun as it is, I have no issues with spoilers.”
"Plenty to look forward to. Good and bad." She couldn't lie to him. Not about this, anyway. The ups and downs were many, and it was only going to get more and more insane the more he dreamed. Superheroes and spies and world spanning disasters. "I haven't dreamed anything new in a little while. At least not from the same place you've dreamed of. There are... alternate realities. I've been gifted with two sets of dreams."
And Natasha made a face, and it was a face of a woman who was 100% done with the idea of dreams, but also one who'd come to accept them. "You're going to be an Avenger. One of the good guys. One of the best."
A pause. Then master troll that she was, Natasha said, deadpan. "We both die a few times."
“Two sets?” Clint was more caught in the drag of two sets of this fuckery than the fact that eventually there was Avenger status at all -which really he hadn’t counted on because they had been pissing off Iron Man for a few weeks now it seemed. It was a lot to process really. “That does not sound like fun at all.” Honestly he didn’t exactly like this crap at all, but what could you do?
Of course the deadpan delivery of the death information just made him roll his eyes, taking up a seat himself, angled that he could still hear a little and read when he couldn’t. “Well I guess I did ask for spoilers.” Not entirely surprising, they were playing supervillain, and then apparently superhero against God knew what (God was possible at times from what he’d heard on the network too). “What do you do in this world? I mean, anything is probably a step down from superhero?”
"Two sets. Some familiar faces, but events play out very differently, and some people act a lot different. In one, Tony is actually less of an ass-hole." As if that was somehow possible. Natasha smiled lightly. "The way I distinguish them, is the first set I had, that's the crazy one. The one you're in. The second set, you're in there too, just a bit different. You're the one that turned me good, in that universe."
She wondered how much she should tell him, about what she did while awake. So she shrugged her shoulder, thinking he'd probably understand her meaning. "I'm in Human Resources."
It kind of made sense to be in the same universes, right? Like, repeats. So there were three different versions of it all. Two sets for her and just the one dream version for him. So far at least. He wondered if that would change. “Tony? Tony Stark? Less of an asshole?” Clint was only aware of this worlds Tony Stark and the dude wasn’t that bad. Apparently he’d decided that he and Clint were friends and that was just that. “I’ll need to wait and see.”
The remark about HR just made him raise an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure about the differences between Natasha as he knew her, and he probably didn’t know her as well as he thought he knew her, but he knew enough. HR sounded less than what he’d think for Natasha. “Really? Human Resources huh,” although really could he comment further on that? Probably not.
"Tony Stark is Iron Man," Natasha clarified, a helpful note in her voice. "In the dreams you and I share he's...a handful. In the dreams I share with this Tony, he's still a handful, just less objectively selfish." A beat. "Don't tell him I said that, he'd take that as a compliment."
"And yes, Human Resources. I'd tell you more but then I'd have to kill you." She unscrewed a bottle of water and took a swig, all casual like.
“Wait what?” Apparent Clint hadn’t gotten to that part of his dreaming because...wow, okay. “Tony? Tony Stark who made a hundred dollar bet with me about a dog? He’s Iron Man?” Okay, Clint needed to pay way more attention to his dreams, because apparently weird shit was going to get really weird and illogical.
“Huh.” And he knew he should’ve been way more disturbed by the fact that he took Natasha entirely seriously about the killing comment, but really, he wasn’t surprised at all. “Consider it dropped.” He didn’t want to know, at all. “I’m gonna have so much trouble taking Tony seriously now.”
Natasha nodded her head. “That Tony Stark, and he is that Iron Man. It’s still one of those things I have a hard time wrapping my head around, and yet, it seems to make sense.” She reached over, and rested a hand on his shoulder. “When you’ve dreamed more, we can revisit what exactly it is I do. There are things I’m not proud of. I’m not ready to talk about them.”
She pulled her hand back. “But since when could we take Tony seriously?”
Clint just shrugged his shoulder after she took her hand away, smiling softly, “Lots of things I’m not proud of so far,” like how he got to where he was with Natasha. But sometimes bad things had to happen before lives turned around. He wasn’t one to judge anyway.
“So, we’ll shelve the ‘what do you do’ for now,” if she didn’t want to mention it, he wasn’t going to push. Not just now. Technically they’d only just met. “How about how long’ve you been here?”
"A little over a year." She actually couldn't remember when she'd dropped her cover story or cover name. The dreams had messed up a lot of plans - and the FSB was still very, very unhappy with her. Something that was likely to be a problem sooner or later.
"I came in on some business. Then the dreams started and I've found it... difficult to leave. I have a better job now, at least.”
That seemed to be common around here, not really having that desire to leave. Clint didn’t exactly feel like it either, even with the dreams. It was strange for sure. But a whole year in one place, when it wasn’t a deployment, it felt weird for both him and even those residual dream contemplations.
He honestly couldn’t see his dream counterpart settling down anywhere.
“Better’s good.” If Natasha was doing what they had been doing before, which he could really see her doing, a different better job was definitely a good thing. “A job is probably good in general.”
Natasha had gone on “vacations” which had helped with the itchy feet, at least. And maybe she’d tell Clint about them once he’d had a few more dreams. It would probably make her seem less crazy. After all, she’d just helped someone steal a spaceship from the US government. That wasn’t something you do every day.
“It’s always nice working for someone who’s at least slightly more moral than your previous employer. Benefits are fantastic too.”
“Those help.” Benefit packages were kind of the draw point in a lot of things. Then again, they seemed to come in handy at times. “I mean, this seems like an okay place. Benefits probably make the weirdness bearable at times.”
His mind was pretty good at conjuring up all sorts of benefits that the Natasha he knew right then would appreciate. They weren’t exactly legal either. But the assumption of the moment, since apparently Natasha was further along than he currently was, he’d just go with something fairly adventurous but not entirely destructive. At least not yet.
“This your gym?” What would be the odds, really. She’d shown up in his dreams a little over a week ago, and in the time since then, well, the closeness built. And now here they were? He was a cynic at the best of times, but this place was really pushing ‘fate’ down his throat.
“They do.” She had some extra scars and injuries, and the medical was helpful. And then there were the more illegal things. Which were also helpful.
“There are a couple I come to. This is the one I come to the most often. It’s out of the way, which I like, and has most of the equipment I’d want. My employer has a gym, but I don’t want to show anyone up.” She flashed him a grin.
“Of course not, can’t have everyone’s egos being destroyed before they even get a head start.” Really, he could see why that would be an issue. It would either be a motivation for other to reach the same level or completely ruin someone’s self-esteem.
He’d had that problem after the explosion himself, before his aids, didn’t like being around people seeing too much talking and activity without being able to hear it. So finding somewhere else, it made sense, regardless of whatever joke she was making about it.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Or was she finished violently destroying property?
“It’s definitely not fair to others.” She was joking, probably, at least by the little smirk on her face. “Especially when you look so good doing it.”
Natasha shook her head. “I was mostly done. A few frustrations got worked out. I’d rather catch up with an old friend I just met for the first time.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure I’m gonna get used to that one either,” meeting people for the first time, the real first time, and already knowing some of their darkest secrets. How weird was that? Especially since he knew he barely glimpsed the tip of Natasha’s past.
“You wanna clean up, grab a coffee? We can actually do something relatively normal?” You know, something that didn’t come with several felonies and hitting the most wanted on several agencies. Not that Clint was at all proud of that. Not at all.
He'd learn more. She hoped he still respected her at the end of it. For all the teasing she and the others put Clint through, she still respected and cared about him. The world felt a little less lonely, today. She got to her feet and held her hand out. "Coffee sounds really good. I do have a question. Dream about Wolverine yet?"
Taking the hand in question, Clint frowned a little as he thought just who’d popped up since he and Black Widow had decided to be master villains in the world. “Um, possibly? I drank myself incoherent a little while ago. Was he the very bright, very yellow angry Canadian?” There were limits to just how much fuckery Clint could take in one night, and at some points he’d just decided fuck it and drank himself comatose in the hopes that even if he did dream, he’d be too hungover to think about them. “Why? Please don’t tell me that little shit is one of either of our deaths.”
"Very yellow, very short, very Canadian," Natasha said, laughing. "That's him, yes. While he is responsible for many deaths, I do not believe he was ever responsible for any of ours. We all become friends." And Logan had saved her life, a long time ago in the distant past. Before she was Black Widow. "He's around. You might run into him."
“Friend, huh?” Well, that was another one to meet in the near future then, he’d need to look that up at some point. Since apparently he had a lot to catch up on anyway. He’d deal with it all as it came, a few heads up on the important stuff -like dying, meant that he’d at least be equipped to deal when it came.
“Alright, lets get cleaned up and then we can grab that coffee.”