The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Fourteen

Once Clint, Natasha, Bruce and I had gotten onto one of Tony's private jet planes to Russia, I began to notice things that I wouldn't necessarily have noticed before.

Number of times Bruce tried to persuade us to play cards with him: 12

Number of times we actually played cards with him: 1

Number of times Clint fell asleep on Natasha's shoulder: 4

Number of times I fell asleep on Natasha's shoulder: 3

Number of times Natasha threatened to throw us out of the airplane for sleeping on her shoulder: 7

Number of times I turned my locket over in my hands, trying to figure it out: 26

Number of times I got bored and put my locket away: 26

Number of times the plane dipped altitude: 23

Number of times Clint complained about his stomach ache: 14

Number of times I snuck into the private kitchen to raid the plane's secret stash of M&M's: 10

I tried to watch Stranger Things on my laptop, but usually about 5 minutes in I'd start to feel sick, so I'd put it away. Tony, being kind-of a jerk, hadn't installed TVs in this plane, which I had brought up with Bruce. He'd said that this plane wasn't for entertainment, it was used for flying into battle and/or space. I'd counter-argued that if this plane was used for flying into space, then the astronauts would get super bored without TVs, and Bruce and agreed to talk to Tony about it when we got back.

If we got back.

Natasha was sleeping in the seat next to me, still managing to look attractive even with drool on her chin and a piece of fiery red hair stuck in her gaping mouth. How she managed to pull off that look, I didn't know, but it was working. I sighed and turned to Clint, who was snoring away on the seat on the other side of Natasha. "Thumb wrestle?" I asked him softly. 

He gave me a little smile and said, "prepare to lose."

I didn't lose, actually. I won five times and he won four, which was kinda weird seeing as he was a grown man in his mid-forties with more muscle than a usual person and I was an undersized 15-year-old girl with skinny arms and legs who had about as much muscle as a chinchilla. "Bragging rights for a month," I told him, grinning, then saying in a sing-song voice, "I beat Hawkeye... in a thumb wrestle..."

He grumped, holding out his thumb. "Rematch?" he demanded.

I shook my head but didn't stop smiling. We talked for a while after that, until Natasha opened her eyes blearily and said loudly, "will you two shut up? I'm trying to sleep here!"

Bruce turned around from his space in the seat in front of us and told us to play a game of Rummy with him. Clint and I, having nothing better to do, agreed to play a few rounds.

I won them all.

As we were flying over Mongolia, I got super sleepy and passed out on Natasha's shoulder, knowing that she would probably throw me out of the airplane when she noticed I was doing so but too tired to do anything else.

Weirdly, she didn't, even when I felt her shift and open her eyes to look at me. I squinted at her face through my sleep-filled eyes and whispered blearily, "I can move off if you want..."

"No, it's OK," Natasha whispered back. Then I felt her hand in my hair, pulling me closer, and for a few blissful hours, everything was perfect.