redintheledger | OOM: Milliways; April Fools; Upstairs

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OOM: Milliways; April Fools; Upstairs

after this:

The room they walk into is...a hotel room.

Nicer than a lot, though. A queen-sized bed (the quilt and pillows a deep imperial purple), a small couch in front a decent-size television, a small table with a couple of chairs. Wide windows overlooking the forest, a nice redwood wardrobe, and a closed door to what presumably is the en suite.

Natasha has lived in smaller, and worse, so beyond slanting Clint an amused look once she catches sight of the colour of the bed, she heads straight to the couch. She's going to have to ask him to unbutton her, but first?

She's sitting down out of gratitude that she didn't break her neck on the stairs.

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Clint'll take that earlier thought back; this is a really nice room for the price.

"You don't think they were charging hourly, do you?" He's amused, but also kind of concerned, rolling his shoulders slightly as he sets down the plastic bow on the table.

Her laugh is a breathy thing as she slips off her shoes (not glass, fortunately) and takes the loaned knife out of her cleavage.

"I'll got hunting on Wall Street to pay you back if they do."

Not that she has the habits of a thief, or any such thing.

"Yeah?" He grins. "Dressed like a princess? I'd like to see that."

He drags out one of the chairs and sits in it sideways to face her, left arm resting on the back of it. "Apparently the Captain comes here," he tells her, after a moment. "But X says he's kind of a jerk. You know, for a nice tightlaced American hero guy."

Her mouth twitches.

"He always seemed like that from the cartoons. I think I prefer my heroes more unlaced. Less self-righteous. Way more fun."

"You're going to break Phil's heart, baby girl."

Clint rests his arms on his knees, glances down at his hands thoughtfully, before looking back to her. "Think we should tell him?"

Coulson doesn't already know, because if Coulson already knew, the delight would've been impossible to hide. At least, Clint's pretty sure that's how it'd go down.

Natasha smiles at him at the endearment, and then tilts her head thoughtfully.

"It might sting less coming from a friend," she says, solemnly.

"Which in this case probably means you, not cynical ex-Soviet me." She flutters her hand to her heart, her eyes going wide as she looks the picture of innocence.

(It's the dress. It's hard not to pull off innocence when one is blonde and sitting the middle of acres of light blue dress with puffy sleeves).

Clint laughs, quiet. "Okay. I'll wait and see if I run into the guy. X seems pretty observant, but I don't want to ruin his dreams on second-hand intel."

"What's cynical ex-Soviet you been up to?"

"Paperwork, mostly. I'll need to head off into the field for a bit, and you know how much paperwork that causes."

Beat.

"Still not as much as the KGB."

She smiles, a bit. "Did you get my postcard?"

"Yeah." Clint grins. "I'm holding you to that."

He's talking about Sea World.

It's payback.

"Oh, no.

What a terrible threat."

She huffs a laugh, and rubs her mouth, not exactly hiding her smile.

"You up to getting me out of this thing?"

There are roughly two dozen buttons down the back of that dress. Clint gives her a considering look.

"I could do that," he says, turning to drag out another chair with his foot so she can sit in front of him. "I reserve the right to break out my pocket knife if it gets too irritating."

"...only practical," she says with a sigh, and then hauls herself to her feet to shuffle over to the chair.

"When I was a little girl, I thought it'd be sexy being cut out of a dress. I've never actually run into this."

And today is not that day, judging from the resignation.

"This is the most ridiculous dress I have ever worn, in my life."

Clint laughs, low and quiet, as he starts on the buttons from the top. He has pretty nimble fingers for a guy his age and size, but he's over 40 and the buttons are pretty tiny.

"It can be," he promises. "But you've got to be a little less familiar with knives than you are."

She raises an eyebrow (even though he can't see it), and then snorts faintly.

"Civilians," she mutters.

They are very, very strange creatures.

"Hey," he says, mild (and totally amused). "Don't knock it. I get a lot of good trade on being a Ranger."

Natasha laughs quietly.

"Because jumping out of helicopters translates to being good in bed?"

As she said, civilians.

"How are your hands?"

Clint pauses what he's doing, and runs his thumb down the back of the remaining buttons to check how many he has left.

Seventeen buttons is a lot of buttons.

"Okay for right now, but I'm going to have to start cutting pretty soon."

"If you are going to have to start cutting soon, you might as well start now," she says, considering it for a moment.

"I'll just...lounge around here until my clothes turn up."

Thankfully, the costume change left his knife in the pocket of his tunic. He pulls it out with his left hand, levering it open as he pulls the back of the dress straight and away from her back with his right hand.

He cuts down through the remaining fastenings quick and practical, before snapping the knife shut and pocketing it again. Still, once it's pocketed, he runs his hands around over the soft layer of her slip. He presses a kiss lightly to her spine, just below her shoulder-blades, before letting her go.

"There're worse places to lounge."

"There are," she agrees, and then slips her arms out of the sleeves with a quiet groan.

"I think the dress was designed for someone with a bit less bust," Natasha mutters, shoving the bodice as far away from her as possible. She'll need to stand to get the dress off fully, but that can wait a moment.

"Thanks."

"Don't worry about it," he says, tugging a lock of her hair lightly between his fingers before levering himself up.

He saw a water boiler on the counter on their way in.

"I'm going to make instant coffee. You want some?"

"Oooh, coffee," she muses, hauling herself up to shove the rest of the dress off. It's more complicated than she'd like, but eventually the acres of fabric and the light frame underneath are on the ground, and she's back on the couch. White slip, white stockings, white garter belt; she wears such things of her own according, but rarely white.

(Colour, she loves colour)

"-it'd probably do me good to just have some water," Natasha admits at last.

Clint nods, and drops down to check the minifridge stored under the counter. The water boiler's already heating up, but he lets out a pleased breath when he finds an already full ice-cube tray in the minifridge's freezer.

He pulls it out, and sets it on the counter next to the glasses, before turning around to lean against the counter's edge. Nat can decide how much ice she wants in her own water.

Clint's gaze drops down the length of her body, and back up, brow furrowing. "You look like you just got married."

That's weird.

Natasha goes still, and then looks down her body.

"I do look oddly maidenly," she admits, at last.

Clint's lip twitches slightly.

He dissolves into laughter.

Natasha slants him a disdainful look, all ruffled dignity like a cat.

"He who is wearing tights has no room to laugh," she says, primly.

"What's wrong with tights?" Clint asks, professionally offended. His legs look hot in these, thanks.

Even if they're a pretty cheap quality. At least his tunic is long enough to allow some basic dignity in public.

"Only an ex-stage performer would ask that."

Although, to be fair, his legs do look hot in those tights.

"Ah, I see," Clint says, straightening as the water boiler beeps. "You're jealous of my physique. Very sneaky, Ro- mmel."

She didn't catch that. No. Uh.

Clint makes discreet instant coffee.

"You caught me. I'm so jealous."

Nope, no giggling here.

"You should join me on the couch," she announces.

Clint glances over at her, and breathes a laugh. "Okay, fine." He sets down the hot water, and breaks some ice cubes into a glass before filling it from the sink. He sees you making him do your work, Romanoff.

He hands the glass to her, before sitting down with his mug of coffee.

She smiles at him, and once he's settled, she curls herself at his side, resting her head against his shoulder.

"Can you imagine the geeks down in R&D trying to work out where our clothes went? Where these costumes appeared?"

"Pretty sure they'd think it was something I thought up to cover losing their schematics," Clint says, tone dry. "I'd borrowed some for that stupid USB arrow Sitwell wants."

He takes a drink of his coffee; he doesn't lean into her, but he's careful not to jostle her.

Natasha's expression turns enchanted.

"USB arrow?"

Geeks. Clint laughs, quietly.

"Yeah. It has a tripod-ed targeting system so it'll align for rotational drift as long as the hit's within a 3 millimeter window."

AKA: across the room, at farthest.

"That," she says, "is one of the coolest things I've ever heard of."

Clint smirks, and presses a kiss into her hair briefly.

"And now," he says, drawing back, "it's a plastic longbow."

At least the coffee is some consolation.

"...if it doesn't turn back, I'll bake some triple-chocolate fudge brownies. I'll throw them at R&D while you run," she says, her expression perfectly solemn.

Edited 2013-04-05 10:32 (UTC)

"Eh," Clint says, "it'd buy me long enough to get Phil's protection, at least."

Coulson is a terror beyond those known to R&D-kind.

And Clint already owes him too many favors for Coulson to let him die without repaying at least some of them.

She snorts.

"Oh, the mental images," she says, taking a drink with a smirk and then resettling her head against her friend's shoulder.

She might even admit to herself, just for a moment, that she's missed him a ridiculous amount.

Clint glances sideways to her.

Once he finishes his coffee (pretty soon), he sets the mug down gently on the table with his left hand. He slips his right hand behind her back at the same time, sliding easily over the silk of her slip.

When he straightens, he slips his hand down to her far hip, fingers splayed across the border between silk and skin. "So," he says, far too amused to be anything approaching smooth. "Lounging, huh? That going well for you?"

Edited 2013-04-06 23:33 (UTC)

She's not even trying to hide her smile.

"Pretty well, actually. Getting a bit bored of it, though."

"Yeah?" He presses an open mouth kissed to her neck, breath shaking slightly with nearly-silent laughter. "That sounds like something you might want to fix."

Natasha laughs.

"Fortunately, I know exactly how to do that," she says, and twists around to kiss him properly.

Natasha doesn't really want to wake up. It's a comfortable bed, and her body is telling her rather distinctly that it'd be awesome to just stay here. Sleep some more. Get more cuddles from-

The other side of the bed is cold, and she dimly remembers Clint saying something about heading downstairs. Grumbling a little, Natasha opens her eyes and tries to scan as much of the room as is possible without moving any further.

"Clint?"

Clint's sitting on the couch, legs propped up on the coffee table, reading a book. He's only a couple pages into it; he came back from the bar maybe five minutes ago. Next to his legs are a thermos and a paper bag (which probably contains baked goods of some variety).

"Hey," he says, pulling his legs off of the table and setting the book down. "Did I wake you up?"

"Mmm, not that I'm aware," she says, rolling over to peer at him. This involves tangling the sheets even further.

"...is that awesome food I smell?"

Clint grins. "Tomato soup and cheese rolls."

He rolls his shoulders back, rubbing at the back of his head with one hand. "You going to come get it, princess? Because I'm pretty sure your fairy godmother would be kind of pissed if she had to clean soup off the sheets."

Cinderella's the one with the fairy godmother, right? Cool.

"She had a wand, I'm pretty sure laundry was included," she says, drily, but she untangles herself to get up anyway. She finds the slip, pulls it on, and then strolls over.

"I'm still," she points out with a sigh as she takes a seat, "blonde."

Edited 2013-04-14 09:56 (UTC)

"Oh no," Clint intones, as he unclips the bowls from the thermos. "What a horrible tragedy."

He grins and bumps his shoulder lightly into hers.

The soup is good, the cheese rolls better; that Milliways has a copy of the original The Evil Dead -- well.

Let's just say the next few hours aren't exactly tortuous.

(Until they find a copy of 2013 remake.)

Edited 2013-04-17 07:27 (UTC)

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OOM: Milliways; April Fools; Upstairs

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