Vivid - Part 2
Masterlist - Series Masterpage
Summary: Have you ever met someone who completely embodies a color? Not an aura, not synesthesia. Just… They walk into the room and when you spot them, you think to yourself, “Wow. That is a walking hurricane.” When Clint Barton serendipitously meets a free-spirited stranger, he sees red. Chapter: Clint never expected to see you again, but today he does. Can he convince you to see him again? Maybe on purpose next time?
Warnings: Sailor Mee and the curse of the lip, back at it again. (Swearing. There’s plenty of swearing.)
Word Count: 2503
A/N: Oooh boy. I’m on the fence about this one. I like parts of it, but I’m always leery about including side relationships and fleeting characters. In this case, I think it gives character insight? So I kept it? Again, fair warning, this “you” is practically an OFC.
The next time Clint saw you was as unexpected as the first.
He hated these events. Everyone did. Of course he knew it was important, a good cause, part of his responsibilities, and on, and on, and on. Having a few Avengers listed on the invitation always brought bigger donations. Clint knew this. But it was still a headache and he wasn’t great at pretending.
He’d shaken a few hands, smiled, simpered, and promptly grew bored. By the time Natasha found him observing from the corner, the speeches had nearly concluded. He’d slouched into a deeply uncomfortable rental sofa, spinning a long slender breadstick in his fingers.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with your food?” Natasha teased as she handed him a whiskey neat. He quickly dumped it into his half empty coffee and took a gulp. Almost an Irish coffee. Rougher and not quite according to direction, like him.
“Convince me these are actually edible and I’ll stop.”
She yanked the slender stick from her fingers and crunched down on it. He laughed when she yelped and handed it back rubbing her jaw.
“Think one of these penguin suits is a decent dentist?” she groaned, scanning the room of tuxedos and glittering evening gowns.
“I think if you ask you’ll never hear yourself talk again,” he grumbled, taking another gulp of his drink. “I’m bored.”
Natasha hummed her agreement and took a sip of her cocktail while she scanned the room. “Well the band’s about to start. Take bets on the playlist? I’ll take $100 we get two Journey songs.”
“You think I’ve got $100 to flush down the toilet?”
Natasha laughed and shrugged. “Works on the dentists.”
He laughed, watching her scan the room, looking for a target for the night.
“Big red over there is pretty,” she nodded toward the stage.
Clint perked up, turning to look over his shoulder at the singer in the bright red dress.
“What d’you think her drink is?” Natasha asked, eyes too busy reading a million silent clues to see her friend’s slack jaw and wide, eager eyes. “I’m guessing… Gin martini with lemon. Definitely goes for a twist.”
“Coke,” Clint answered quietly beside her, as shocked as he was mesmerized. The band had begun to play, and of course she was a front-woman. It was so obvious it hurt. Or was that the pounding in his chest.
“What did you say?”
“She likes coke,” he answered, a smile slowly curling his lips. “I’m going rum and coke.”
Thoughtlessly, effortlessly, he was on his feet, moving toward the stage. He suddenly had that feeling again. Red. You wore it and you lived it. You came alive on that stage. With smiles and winks, a little dance and a few songs, you’d drawn every guest into motion.
They tapped of fingers modestly against their glasses mid-conversation. Or they swayed shoulders, skirting the dance-floor hoping to be asked. The more exuberant guests allowed themselves to be swept into the current.
You were a red neon light, glowing, burning. Energy itself innervating the room. He felt it on his skin and in the center of his chest.
“Do you know her?” Natasha turned to him, somewhere between an amused smile and a confused frown distorting her smooth features.
“We danced once…”
“You?”
“In a bodega.” He chuckled at the memory, at the promise it held.
“That makes more sense,” she smirked and scanned the room again. “Well, I guess I’ll have to try again for a dance partner then?”
“Uh-huh.” He hadn’t really heard. He’d stopped paying attention a long time ago. He was drawn like a moth to a bright red flame.
He waited, enjoying the rest of the party, for once. For once, he had something else to think about.
“You guys have been great,” you smiled wide into the microphone. “We’re gonna take a little break. Just enough time to have another look at the silent auction items.” A wink and the spotlight cut off the stage just as you turned to leave it in a swirl of red dress, blue light, and humming voices.
Clint weaved his way through the crowd as you and your band-mates cleared the stage. He had no idea what he was doing or what he might say, but… it seemed like fate. Like the wind had blown a lucky red balloon just within reach.
“No, fuck being friends!” he heard your whisper-shout when he finally spotted you down the hall. With eyes scrunched closed, your hands pushed out in front of you, toward the man across the hall. “This has never been just friends. Not for me. And it’s not for you either; you just can’t… You want to play around but my heart isn’t a toy. I can’t do this hot and cold thing.”
“Baby, don’t be like that,” the man urged, taking your hand. He stepped close. Very close. “I came to see you.”
You shoved the man’s hand away abruptly. “To see me.” A bitter laugh cut through the air. “It’s like you have some kind of special shit-stirrer’s radar. Every time I start doing okay without you, you turn up and make damn sure I’m not.”
“So don’t be without me,” he cooed, stroking his hands down your arms. “Not tonight.”
“This is what I mean. You want me ‘til you don’t. Doesn’t seem like that’s changed, has it?”
He merely sighed and looked at his feet, shaking his head, unwilling to answer. Always unwilling to risk anything but you. He was guarded while you stood, as ever, with a heart open and alive, red and beating, straining to feel it all. As ever, you were tired of breaking yourself against someone else’s walls.
You shook your head and pushed the man away gently. “Just go,” you said softly, hardly more than a whisper.
Having realized, too late, exactly what he’d stumbled upon, Clint turned to slip away in the shadows, unnoticed. Except Clint Barton, SHIELD spy, Avengers sharpshooter was shockingly prone to accidents. The clatter of glass drew your attention down the half-lit hallway. He’d tripped over a cocktail glass some wandering guest had left behind.
“The fundraiser’s the next door on your left,” you called, assuming he was a lost patron.
“Don’t do that,” the man across from you cooed, resuming your argument and reaching for you again. This time you moved out of reach. “We’re good as friends. Come with me, just for the night, for old time’s sake. No strings. We both know what it is this time; no one gets hurt..”
Clint didn’t like pushy people. He didn’t like anyone who manipulated their way into places they weren’t invited. He’d known a few.
“Um actually… I’m uh with the event” Clint stumbled with a sheepish grin that appealed to you immediately. It beamed a signal: gentle and safe, and… familiar. “I was hoping to talk to you.” He was giving you an out and you were grateful.
“I have to go,” you told the man you’d been arguing with. “So do you.”
With that you patted his shoulder and turned down the hall towards the event. Towards Clint.
“Hey honey, what can I help you with?” you asked with a customer service smile glued to your face, eyes shimmering with struggle.
“I was…” Clint stopped and shook his head, changing course. “Are you alright?”
“Of course.” In the momentary pause Clint raised his eyebrows, ever skeptical, and you , you released a heavy sigh. A bittersweet smile tilted your lips. “Or I will be. ”
“He seems like a jerk. You should go have a drink and dance til your feet are numb and buy yourself something weird and awesome and forget all about him,” he held out his elbow for you and you took it, looping your arm around his with a watery laugh. As if you could afford a single thing on the auction block.
You turned to him as he led you back to the party, with your fingers curled around his rigid bicep. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Oh, no. Nevermind.”
“No, come on!” You bumped him with your shoulder. “What was it?”
He turned to face you but shook his head, looking at his feet and yours, swept by that red-as-red-could-be red dress.
“I recognized you, is all,” he admitted. “When you guys started playing... I think the bodega performance was maybe, a cut above, but,” he shrugged with a huge grin on his face.
You burst into laughter at the memory.
“The bodega!” you smacked your palm onto your forehead. “Oh my god, I was… not myself that night.” You tipped your head with a wink to be sure he understood.
This time it was Clint who laughed. And you enjoyed every bit of it. The shocked rise of his eyebrows, the glint in his wide eyes, and the huge grin on his lips… It brightened your heavy heart. He was good at that, apparently.
“I should have known,” he laughed, “Sober people don’t sing to coke bottles.”
“Oh no, I absolutely do that sober.”
“Oh,” he laughed. “You’re that kind of person.”
“And you’re lucky to have witnessed it.”
“I am,” he agreed, with something warm and soft in his eyes.
“That was another ex-boyfriend special. Ending a night to forget with junk food and a hangover on the horizon,” you sighed, shaking your head. “I’m a jump in with both feet sort of girl, ya know?” He did know. In his mind you were bright red, full of risks. And if you were lucky, he assumed, gleaming rewards. It made perfect sense that you felt strongly and acted rashly. Red. “When I see something I like I’m all in. And he was a… a…”
“An idiot?” Clint offered. “An asshat? Blind?”
Your laughter was infectious to him. He didn’t even care if it was at his expense. He just wanted to hear it.
“That too, I like to think,” you agreed through a giggle. “Truth is: I’m the idiot. I feel too much and I get my heart broken too often. Can’t turn it off.”
“No,” Clint argued, dropping your hand from his arm so he could turn to face you. “Definitely not an idiot.”
“No?”
“Brave.”
People like you were a complete mystery to Clint. He could barely bring himself to say things like ‘I love you’ to people he well and truly loved. They knew it. People like Nat, and the others: his family. They shared traumas and challenges that understood why. Yet here you were, brimming with it, ready to share it so easily. This was what he had been drawn to that day in the bodega, and this was what had pulled him down the hallway looking for you this night like a moth to the bright red heat of a flame.
You chuckled softly, turning embarrassed eyes to your feet. “You do know there are real live Avengers in this room, right?”
“WHAT?!” he shrieked, feigning shock and looking wide-eyed about the room.
This time your laugh was deep and full. He was so light and fun, this stranger. Time with him was weightless, light as a feather. It cheered you up moment by tiny moment.
“I don’t know if I qualify as brave in this crowd,” you explained.
“Well,” he turned back to you. “Would I qualify if I danced around like a preschooler on Kool-Aid?”
“Oh, definitely,” you grinned, nodding.
“Bravest of them all.”
“Look out, Lancelot!”
By the time you glanced up to the stage, your band was already gearing up to finish the set. One grateful squeeze to your new yet old friend’s arm and you were off. Clint tried not to read too much into it, but it felt like a whole conversation. A ‘thanks,’ a ‘see you,’ a silent ‘I like this.’ Wishful thinking, he told himself.
You didn’t want to leave Clint’s side, but the show must go on. Especially one paid for by the biggest name in New York City.
It was the worst set of your life. Your band mates were furious. You were completely blowing an important gig, but damn it all, you couldn’t stop laughing.
Clint had planted himself at the center of the dance floor and held true to what you had thought was a joke. He flailed and jerked like a madman. He slid behind unsuspecting dancers making faces and wild gestures. He dragged a confused and reluctant Tony onto the floor for a waltz during your most lively song. It made no sense and it was exactly what you needed.
He spun and lunged and dipped, taking stealthy sips through straws of drinks held behind intimately held partner’s backs. Partner pairs he was absolutely not a part of.
What finally, finally got you to step away from the mike, cover your face, and double over laughing was the chicken dance in the middle of a slow mushy ballad.
The pianist glared at you before looking to your lead guitarist for help. They turned it into a lovely instrumental on the fly and you ended the show early.
“Thank you all, you’ve been a wonderful audience,” you managed through giggles. “And a generous one by the look of it! Give yourselves a hand! A beautiful evening for a beautiful cause.”
You paused for the soft applause that filled the room as the dancing stopped. Clint grinned up at you, fanning himself in mock exhaustion. Though, you didn’t doubt he probably had worn his dress shoes to blistering.
“And a special round of applause for my personal hero down here on the dance floor! Mr. Lancelot!”
This time it was Clint who turned red. He tried to duck into the crowd, shaking his head with a sheepish laugh.
“What the hell are you up to?” Tony asked in a discrete, tight lipped murmur as he, slung an arm over Clint’s shoulder, saving him from the limelight.
“Oh damn,” he sighed, high and long. Exhausted. “I have no idea.”
“If uh,” you stammered on the stage, the first time all night Clint had seen you look unsure. “If he wanted to hang around for a bit I’m gonna go get some pizza because this fancy fundraiser food is served on a toothpick and I’m starving.”
Clint’s entire face lit up. It was the most lovely thing you’d ever seen. It started in his eyes: they looked up into the light of the stage and glittered, narrowing as the smile pushed at his cheeks, rounding them and wrinkling the soft skin near his clear blue eyes. Lopsided, his lips drew over grinning white teeth, as he glanced at his feet, blushing.
He was cute as hell.
He laughed under Tony’s arm and nodded. A matching smile erupted across your own face, for the first time in weeks, excited to be greeting the early morning hours.
“You’re kidding me,” Tony scoffed from beside Clint. “Those moves actually worked?”
Part 3 >>