Chapter Text
Clint grips the cool metal and checks his positioning again. He shifts his fingers slightly, and then pulls the trigger. The staple gun clicks once. He shifts it. Twice. Three, four times. He pulls back to look at his handiwork. Large room with ensuite. Cohabit with homeowner and dog. Contact Clint.
“How’s that?” he asks.
“Looks great.” Phil’s thinking about something else. Clint tries not to notice that.
“Because I wasn’t sure about cohabit,” he says. Phil opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. Clint knows what he’s wrestling with.
“If you’re not sure-”
“I’ve got a mortgage to pay, Phil.”
His friend sighs. “Alright.”
Clint puts the staple gun back on the table, and retrieves his coffee.
“There’s a new teacher who was talking about needing accommodation,” says Phil. “Russian, I think.”
“We teach Russian here?” Clint asks. Phil laughs.
“She is Russian. She teaches Spanish and French. I think I saw on her CV that she also speaks Mandarin.”
“Sounds worldly,” Clint sighs. “I’ll get her email.”
He goes to leave, but Phil is hovering awkwardly between him and the door of the staffroom.
“Phil,” he protests. “Come on, I’m fine.”
“Just let me know if you need anything,” says Phil, as if he doesn’t have seven hundred things to be doing right now that are more important than looking after a mopey friend.
“I will,” Clint lies. Phil skewers him with an accusing gaze that says everything the man is too polite to say, and Clint does his best not to flip him off as he turns and walks away. Phil is too clever by half. If he wasn’t one of Clint’s closest friends, he’d hate the guy.
At the door to the admin office, Clint steels himself. It’ll either be Sandra or Duncan. He grits his teeth, and pushes open the door.
“Oh hi, Clint!” It’s Sandra. Fuck.
“Hey, Sandra,” he says. Before he can ask for anything, Sandra is up and bustling around her counter so she can give him a hug. He knows she’s a hugger, so he tries his best to forgive her almost wilful oversight of how uncomfortable hugs make him right now. He pats her back awkwardly.
“I need to get someone’s email,” he attempts.
“We’ve all been thinking of you,” Sandra simpers into his shoulder. “It’s so dreadful.”
“I’m fine.” He tries not to sound mad about it. He pats her again, and she finally lets him go, only to grab his cheeks like he’s two.
“Oh but you must be so sad,” Sandra steamrolls. “It’s terrible, this whole business-”
“It’s all very sad,” he agrees, and extricates himself from her grip. “If I could just get the contact for-”
“Have you heard from her?”
“Bobbi? No.” He clenches his teeth, and she finally twigs that he’s not going to fall sobbing onto the carpet of her office, and damn, if she doesn’t look a tiny bit disappointed. She rubs his back comfortingly. He tries his absolute best not to hate her.
“Could you get me the email of the new Spanish teacher?” he asks. “Phil said she was looking for somewhere to live.”
“Of course,” says Sandra, her tone still dripping with sympathy. “God, having to get a tenant, you poor thing-”
“Should be on the staff list,” Clint cuts in. Sandra types for a moment and then grabs a piece of paper to scribble down the address. She hands it over, and Clint turns to go.
“Look after yourself, honey,” she calls after him.
“Thanks,” he calls back, already out the door.
When his front door finally shuts behind him, he rests against it for a long moment. He walks down the hall to the lounge. His footsteps echo off the bare boards and bounce around empty walls. He needs to buy some fucking furniture, he thinks, as he opens the door to the yard. Lucky comes bounding out of nowhere and nearly bowls him over.
“Hey, buddy,” Clint says, and despite the day he’s had, he grins as he ruffles Lucky’s fur. There’s leftover noodles in the fridge from yesterday, maybe the day before. They look fine, so he heats them up on the stove - he needs to buy a microwave, it keeps slipping his mind. He eats standing at the counter. He feeds Lucky. He lights the fire. Eventually he finds himself sitting on the one piece of furniture in the lounge (an old beanbag chair) with his laptop and a contented dog asleep on the rug beside him. He pulls the paper out of his pocket. Natasha Romanoff. Spanish and French teacher.
Ms. Romanoff, he taps out.
I hope you don’t mind me getting your contact details from the office. My name is Clint. I’m one of the social sciences teachers. Phil Coulson mentioned you were looking for a place to stay, and the first floor of my house is available. My place is about twenty minutes’ drive from the school, it’s not furnished but it has an ensuite and a little balcony. Let me know if you’d like to come and see it.
Best,
Clint Barton.
He reads it over a couple of times, considers just selling the house to avoid having to do this, then hits send before he can talk himself out of it. He loves this house, and he loves his job. He’s not moving again. He answers a few other emails, and is partway through reading something from Maria about volcanoes when he falls asleep.
He wakes when his screen lights up. There’s a ping from his inbox, and he looks around to find the dog still sleeping, the fire burned down to coals, and his back aching from lying in a beanbag chair. He looks at the clock on his screen. Nine. God, he feels old.
Clint finally drags his attention to his inbox. There is a reply from Natasha.
Mr. Barton,
Thank you for your email. If it suits you, I would like to see the room. I will find you tomorrow and we can talk in person.
Regards,
Natasha Romanoff.
It’s hardly impassioned, but it makes Clint feel a little less terrible knowing that someone might want to live here. He looks around at the empty room. He shoves down a nauseating wave of sadness and puts his laptop on to charge on the bench, then whistles for the dog. Lucky leads the way back down the hall to the bedroom Clint has commandeered. He can’t sleep up in the master bedroom. He hasn’t even been upstairs since he dragged the mattress down into the guest room by the front door. It’s childish, he knows, and this is his house, he should be able to do whatever he wants, but that doesn’t seem to be the way things are working out. Even on his own, he can’t do what he wants. The fact that he doesn’t know what he wants just makes everything more frustrating.
Clint strips off his clothes and finds his sweats in the dark. He collapses onto the mattress, and Lucky settles down next to him. Clint falls asleep trying to ignore his own feelings. As with so many things recently, it doesn’t go so well.
In the morning, as he’s pouring coffee in the staffroom and wondering if everyone can tell he doesn’t own an iron, the door opens and a stranger walks in. Her hair catches his attention first. It’s a deep red, worn up in an elegant twist. He blinks, and returns his attention to his coffee. Then he realises who she is, and turns back to her. She’s already walked up to him, and he fights the sudden, confusing urge to run away.
“Hi,” he says. “You must be Natasha.”
“Nice to meet you,” she replies. “Clint, I presume?”
He nods. Wait, didn’t Phil say she was Russian? She sounds like she’s lived in the States all her life.
“Would you mind if I came and looked at the room tonight?” she asks. “I’m staying in a motel at the moment, and I’m looking forward to showering somewhere where I don’t have to wear shoes.”
He chuckles at the unexpected humour. Okay. This is okay. He can do this. “Sure. If you like, I can drive you when I go home.”
“That works,” she says. She’s friendly, but direct.
“Uh… I guess I’ll see you after homeroom then,” he says. “I take group seven in the East building.”
“See you then,” she smiles, and breezes away. Every move she makes is deliberate and elegant, and Clint has to force himself to look away. He fills the pit in his stomach with coffee, and heads to class.
His students give him cause for suspicion throughout the day - they don’t give him nearly as much grief as they usually do. His ninth grade History kids follow his instructions to the letter, which is so weird that he asks them if they’re okay. Their shifting glances and whispers confirm his fears.
“I swear,” he grumbles to Phil as they patrol the tennis courts at lunchtime. “Sandra could talk underwater with her mouth full of marbles.”
“She means well.” Phil’s tone is mild, but it betrays the fact - to Clint, at least - that he doesn’t believe his own bullshit. Clint laughs, and they don’t talk about it for the rest of their duty, for which Clint is absurdly grateful.
The final bell eventually rings, and his homeroom students rush to get bags from lockers and catch their friends on their way out. Clint weaves his way between them, saying goodbye here and there as he scans the crowd. Natasha waves to him from across the walkway, and he waves awkwardly back.
He gestures with his satchel. “This way.”
They walk together towards the staff carpark, neither of them saying anything as students stream around them.
“Who’s the lady in the window?” Natasha asks, as he unlocks the car. Clint’s head snaps up, and he sees a face glued to the window, beaming.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he groans. “That’s Sandra. We’d better go.”
Natasha raises an eyebrow, but gets into the passenger side of his car. Clint’s already dreading what Sandra will say to anyone and everyone about Clint taking home the new teacher. Fucking Sandra.
“She’s a lot, huh?” Natasha murmurs, and her tone reminds him of Phil’s. Diplomatic, with just a hint of a smile.
“She means well,” he says, echoing his friend’s empty platitude. It sounds just as ridiculous as it sounded coming out of Phil’s mouth. He catches Natasha’s smile out of the corner of his eye, and it relaxes him a little. That relaxation shrinks, though, the closer they get to his house. He suddenly finds himself wishing he’d gone and bought some furniture, or at least a few chairs or something.
“Here we are,” he announces, as he pulls into the driveway. At least the outside of the house is a nice sight. It’s barely been six months since it was on the market, and he’s done his best to keep the garden neat.
He leads the way inside. He can do this. This is fine. He almost offers her some tea, but he remembers he doesn’t have a kettle. Fuck. He really needs to get to a… whatever shop sells kettles, and chairs, and everything else he doesn’t have, which is pretty much everything.
“The garden’s lovely,” says Natasha, peering through the sliding door. Lucky bounds up to the door, wagging his tail madly.
“You can let him in, if you don’t mind him begging for pats the whole time you’re here.”
Natasha smiles that same reserved smile. She opens the door, and Lucky whines excitedly, practically curling himself around her legs as she pets him.
“What’s his name?” Natasha asks.
“Lucky,” Clint replies. It’s ironic, he supposes. He wishes he at least had beer to offer.
“So the bedroom’s upstairs?” she prompts. Clint realises he’s been hovering in the kitchen, reluctant to go anywhere. He nods, and forces a friendly smile. She follows him up the stairs, and he opens the door for her, gesturing for her to enter. He stops on the threshold. The afternoon light is hitting the carpet in the familiar silhouette of the panes of the sliding door, and even that is enough to make his chest ache. The carpet is clean, as are the walls. The curtains are gone, along with the bed frame. The room gapes, empty. There’s so much more than just furniture missing.
“Are you okay?” She’s looking at him, and he realises how long he’s been standing on the spot.
Clint swallows. “Sorry. Yeah. So, the bathroom’s through there, and the balcony’s here.” He steps into the room, keeping to the edges as much as he can, a child trying not to step on the cracks in the pavement for fear of terrible things. The fresh air on the balcony is a relief. Natasha comes out to have a look.
“This is great,” she says. Clint gives a thin smile as she admires the view of the garden below. They walk back through the room, and Clint waits on the landing while she looks at the bathroom. It’s nice, he knows that. It was a big selling point for him.
“Have you just moved in?” she asks, startling him back into the real world.
“About six months ago.”
She waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t, and they walk down the stairs. He gets the feeling she already knows - or at least suspects - what happened.
“Well, I was planning on buying furniture anyway,” she says, smoothly.
“I can take you,” he offers. She smiles.
“What do you need in the way of checks?” she asks. “Do you want a credit score, do you need me to sign something?”
He blinks. “So… you want to move in?”
“On Saturday, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” he replies. He’s a bit stunned by the swiftness of it all, and he reminds himself that this is a good thing. “Um… yeah, I guess… you can give me any checks you have, but you work at the school so… um…”
“I’ll drop them in your office,” she prompts. Clint nods, and she leads the way to the front door. As he opens it, he sees a cab waiting outside. She must have called one. He walks her down the path to the curb, and opens the door for her.
“Oh, by the way,” she says, holding the door open, “does Lucky get along with cats?”
“I’m not sure.”
She smiles. “I guess we’ll find out.”
The door closes, and the cab rolls away. Clint watches it until it turns a corner and is out of sight, then he slowly makes his way back inside.