code_blue | (no subject)

Downtime. The phrase seemed almost alien to Natasha, who spent most of her time working in some way or another. When she wasn’t on a job, she was usually preparing for another job, in what seemed like an endless cycle of work, work, and even more work. It was a cycle that had started when she was a child, and, when it came down to it, she liked it. What was it people did with their time off, anyway? Sit around idly, perfectly content to do absolutely nothing? It was a concept that she didn’t understand.

Every once in a while, though, it was nice, she supposed. She still wasn’t exactly sure what to do with herself, but the people around her always managed to come up with something, so it wasn’t a waste. It could actually be fun. As long as it didn’t last too long, anyway. And sometimes, after a mission, it really was good just to spend some time winding down with a friend before getting ready to go out and save the world again.

She’d never admit it out loud (for fear of feeding his ego), but Barton was her favorite person to spend time with outside of work. There was just something about him that managed to get her to loosen up every time, and, at times, that was something she sorely needed. This was why, after returning to base from a classified mission to a classified location, she found himself at his door, knocking.

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For Clint’s part, he wasn’t exactly the most social creature. Most of his missions were solo fare, sometimes only seeing whoever was relieving him from surveillance duty in the run of the day, so he was used to solitude. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t enjoy the company of others when he had downtime to spare, but when it came to working he preferred to do his own thing, go his own way.

Sometimes even he was still surprised that he had accepted the position as part of the Avengers Initiative. It wasn’t really his stye, but after everything that had happened he couldn’t quite bring himself to refuse. Somehow he hadn’t wanted to say no.

Sitting in his room, the chair half facing the wall where he had one foot propped, he was just doing some reading when he heard the knock at his door. The corner of his mouth slowly curving up in a smirk, he finished his paragraph before setting the book aside and getting up to answer. He knew who would be on the other side before he even opened it.

“Business or pleasure?” he quipped, grinning at Natasha as he opened the door. 

She rolled her eyes at his question, but couldn’t stop a smile from working its way on to her face. “Whatever happened to ‘Hi, Tasha, glad to see you made it back in one piece again’?”

She was teasing. If he ever answered the door and greeted her that way, she’d start to get suspicious that something was up. Besides, he knew exactly why she was at his door. There was no point in answering the question. “So, can I come in, or am I going to have to go visit someone else?”

It was always good to see her smile. When she was in business mode she was always so somber, so hard and serious; it really took a lot for her to loosen up.

“Hi, Tasha. Glad to see you made it back in one piece. Won’t you please come in,” Clint mimicked, opening the door further and standing aside so she could enter. In all honesty, every time she ‘made it back in one piece’, as she put it, it was a relief. He always worried about her when she was out on assignment. Quite often her missions required she be away for long periods of time and with hardly any contact. These were the times Clint most wanted to be working, jumping at any mission he was offered, anything to distract him.

Of course he would never let her know any of that; it was just easier to play aloof. This was their lot in life, the jobs they had chosen, no matter how they had gotten here.

“It’s been eerily quiet around here the past few days,” he said, crossing back over to his armchair and throwing himself haphazardly into it, one leg dangling over one arm of the chair and his back leaning against the other. “Not sure what to make of it.” 

The mimicking earns him a light smack on the arm as she passes him and enters the room. She makes herself comfortable right away, finding a place to sit and relax while the two of them talk.

“What do you mean by quiet?” Natasha only asks because ‘quiet’ could mean a few things, especially in their world. That, and she’d been gone for a decent stretch of time, so his answer could catch her up on what was happening while she was gone. “Hopefully it’s not a calm before the storm sort of thing.” She almost absently knocks on the closest piece of wood as she says it. Old habits and superstitions could be hard to shake sometimes.

Clint pulled a scowl even Natasha knocked on the table beside her. That had been exactly what he had been feeling for days, this strange uneasiness that all this quiet, relaxing time was just to make them complacent for the shit storm that was approaching. Of course he hadn’t actually said it, though, as if admitting it would make it true.

“Well, now that you’ve jinxed us, yeah,” he admitted. “That’s what it’s felt like.”

There was also the fact that he was still very much in adjustment mode. Being here in the newly minted “Avengers” tower was strange compared to the military feel of any SHIELD base. He often felt like he should be running drills or beefing up security or something rather than just sitting on his ass, reading.

“I think Tony is starting to go a bit stir crazy. There’s been a lack of parties and conferences and pretty much anything that’ll get his face on TV,” Clint continued conversationally. “He and Bruce have been in the lab almost non-stop, except when he feels the need to try to introduce Steve to something pop culture so he won’t miss a reference.”

“Well, it sounds like you’ve all been….finding ways to stay busy while I’ve been gone.” She’s a little amused, and it shows on her face. The way he was telling it, they almost sounded like a normal group of roommates or friends, rather than a group of people thrown together to save the world. It almost made her a little sad she’d been gone for a while. Almost, but not quite. That would be, well, weird. “What sort of pop culture has Steve been introduced to? All of the worst parts?” It was a logical guess, knowing Tony.

“And I knocked on wood. No jinx.” She smirked a little after she said it.

Staying busy was one way to put it, and it was really all Clint did for the first few weeks following the war. When he was idle he thought too much, and the last thing he wanted to do was think. When he thought then he remembered and memories were... those memories were ones he could do without remembering right now. Too fresh, too soon. Much better to keep busy.

“Of course. American Idol, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton... I think eventually he was just reading the tabloids and picking the most offensive things to show Steve, claiming that everyone loved it all,” Clint chuckled. “Though it wasn’t all bad. If he wanted to keep making references he had to show some of the good stuff. After introducing Cap to the Lord of the Rings and then being forced to sit through the entire trilogy in one night, though, might have cured him for a while.”

By the time the last movie had finished, it had been six in the morning and Tony had been passed out on the floor in a puddle of his own drool. Steve, on the contrary, looked like he could have gone another three rounds.

“You better hope that superstition works. If we get called out right now I’m blaming you.”