The Jump: A Clintasha Fanfic
Buy me a ☕
Character Pairing: Clint Barton x Natasha Romanoff
Word Count: 841
Rating: E
Square filled: @clintbartonbingo – Clint/Nat
Warnings: Action, Anxiety
Synopsis: While Clint and Natasha are on a mission, Clint has to work himself up to make a dangerous leap.
A/N: Also for @until-theend-oftheline‘s Kari’s Marvelous 2K Challenge prompt; “On a scale of one to Australia. How dangerous are we talking?”
And I’m aware that the aesthetic and name of this prompt may look like this fic is Endgame angst. It’s not. It’s tomfoolery.
The Jump
Clint looked down the shaft he was supposed to be throwing himself down. “We’ve gotta go down there?”
It wasn’t so much the fact he had to go down into a ventilation shaft. Shit, he did that kind of thing all the time. They were basically a second home to him. It was the fact that this particular vent was a straight vertical drop for 18 floors, broken up by three different sets of fans and coming out over a floor that had a pressure activated alarm.
It would mean there was a careful balance between Stark who was hacking the system remotely timing the fans turning on and off perfectly, the gliding suit working how it was supposed to, his acrobatics training and shooting a grappling arrow after falling through the last vent but before he hit the ground and died.
“Sure do, birdbrain,” Nat said. She was currently crouched on the ground tying her hair back into a sloppy bun. He had a severe urge to go over and fix it. It was such a ridiculous thought considering the situation he was in.
He looked down the shaft again and fixated at the fans currently moving so fast they’d be able to hold him up above them or dice him into a million pieces if this suit didn’t work. “Okay, this looks, bad.”
“Calm down, Clint,” Nat said. “You’ve done this kind of thing before.”
He shook his head, breaking the hypnotic hold the fan held over him and started to stretch. “Yeah. Yeah. I got this.”
“You sure do, Legolas,” Tony said over coms. “Besides, I’ll catch you.”
“Why aren’t you doing this, Tones?” Clint asked as he did some squat lunges.
“Sure. I’m sure the Mark 45 will be very stealth. No one will have an idea that I’m there.” Tony teased.
Clint looked over the side again. “On a scale of one to Australia. How dangerous are we talking?”
Natasha started silently laughing she came over beside him, her arm pressed against his. She looked down the shaft her shoulder rising and falling as she tried very hard not to laugh out loud. “I’d say that’s a solid Australia with the addition of sky sharks.”
“Sky sharks?” Clint asked.
“Yeah, you know, they fly around, snatch up snacks.” She said.
“So as dangerous as the continent where everyone’s just like ‘Deadly spider? No big deal. Snake? Fine. Skin cancer? Who hasn’t had one of those? And with sharks in the sky that randomly eat you?”
Natasha stifled a laugh. “That sounds about right.”
Clint went back to stretching. “I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. It’s been really great working with you all. I’ve had a great time. Budapest, not as fun as you seem to remember it but hold on to that. Sky alien incident, very cool, would have liked to have told my kids about that one day when I had some. Not to worry. Tell Steve I think he has a nice ass. I don’t know why I never told him that but he does doesn’t he?”
Tony began cackling in his headset a completely out of control hysterical laughter that he couldn’t seem to get under control. He wheezed our random words… ‘oh my god’ and ‘Jesus’ and ‘Cap’s ass’. In contrast, Natasha was looking at him seriously.
She took a few steps toward him and put her hands on his shoulders. He couldn’t quite force himself to let his eyes meet hers. It was like he knew that as soon as they did, he’d be plunging down that vent on his way to certain death and feeling good about it, and he really didn’t want to be in that delusion yet.
When she tilted her head though, what else could he do?
“Clint, you’re the best of the best. You know that right?”
“I’m not…”
“You know that right?” She pushed, interrupting the immediate downplay of his abilities that he’d just attempted to do.
“Yeah, I guess.” He said.
“And I am too.”
“Of course.” He said with much more confidence. He knew she was the best of the best. There was no one else he’d rather be here with.
“And Stark… is adequate, you’d say?”
“Hey!” The offended voice of Tony interjected over comms.
“Yeah, I guess he’s alright.” Clint agreed.
“Hey!” Tony repeated. “You want me to turn those fans off or what?”
“Shh… Stark,” Nat said. She leaned forward and Clint rested his forehead against hers. “I love you, dummy. Now get out of your head. We fought literal aliens that spewed out of a hole in the sky. You don’t think this is gonna be the way we go.”
“But if it is, it’s doing what we love.” He said.
“I mean if I had to choose it would be a sex injury. But this is a close second.”
He chuckled and leaned in and kissed her, slowly and deeply. His tongue just teasing her lips. When he pulled back she smiled. “Ready?”
He nodded. “Ready.”
The two of them stepped up to the vent…
…counted to three…
…and jumped.
The Avengers Compound 