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Natasha doesn’t normally aimlessly wander, but today has found her doing just that. Okay, so it didn’t quite start out as aimless (she had some quiet notion of finding either Clint or Steve to spar with) but with the rest of the Avengers nowhere to be found, she’s found herself doing just that. It should be disconcerting - not knowing where everyone is, but perhaps the more disconcerting thing is the fact that she doesn’t seem to mind.
But the thought doesn’t sit in her head for long as shouts echo down the corridor she just turned down.
Curious, Natasha follows the noise, which seems to be emanating from Thor’s quarters. Last thing Natasha knew is he and Jane were visiting Asguard - but then again, the god has a habit of showing up for a day at a time without any forewarning, so it’s hardly surprising.
Natasha enters the room without knocking, but stops abruptly at the scene before her.
Thor and Tony are both on either side of a coffee table. Tony’s face is calm, but the pitch of his voice suggests otherwise. Thor, meanwhile, is red in the face, his booming voice echoing over Tony’s insistent certainty, and never has the height difference between the two been more apparent. Clint, the subject of said debate, is sitting on a couch behind the coffee table, directly between them. His gaze flicks between the two of them with something halfway between amusement and defiance in his eyes. Bruce sits further back in an armchair next to Steve. Steve stares intently at Tony, arms braced on the arms of the chair as though waiting for the moment when he has to stand up and get between Tony and Thor. Bruce, meanwhile, is watching the pair with amusement over the top of a book he’s clearly long since abandoned.
A book, which, on closer inspection, looks remarkably like -
‘Lady Natasha!’ Thor breaks off abruptly when Natasha enters, and he takes an easy step towards her (and, importantly, away from Tony) to pull her into a tight hug which she happily returns. She pulls back, giving him a smile, keeping half an eye on Tony the entire time.
‘It’s good to see you,’ she says warmly. At that second, Tony yells at Thor-
‘Hey! You’re not getting off that easily!’ To Natasha, he adds, ‘He just read Harry Potter, so we’re sorting everyone into Hogwarts houses.’
‘Of course...’ Natasha murmurs. Far be it for her to act surprised at any of their actions. Sometimes she feels as though she’s living in a frat house, and this is hardly the worst thing she’s walked in on. ‘So you’re arguing over what exactly?’
‘Well,’ Tony begins, but he hardly gets a word in before Thor cuts him off.
‘Tony believes that Clint is a Hufflepuff, while I have the more favourable view that he is of mighty strength and courage, so rightly is a Gryffindor.’
‘You think everyone belongs in Gryffindor!’ Tony shouts, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation.
Natasha looks at Clint, who only shrugs in her direction. ‘Don’t look at me, I haven’t read them.’
‘Yeah, we’re getting to that,’ Tony says sharply, eyes still trained on Thor.
‘So,’ she begins slowly, ‘Bruce is doing...?’
‘Research,’ Bruce pipes up, indicating to the copy of Philosopher’s Stone in his hand.
‘Ravenclaw!’ Tony coughs.
Natasha gives a small laugh as Bruce smiles in bashful agreement.
‘But the Hulk is a Gryffindor,’ Thor protests.
‘No disagreement there,’ Tony says quickly, then continues, voice dripping with sarcasm, ‘But so is Steve, and so are you, and so am I, and so is Clint - what are the odds?’
‘Hang on,’ Natasha interjects, and the rooms falls silent as everyone turns to look at her. ‘Thor, you think Tony’s a Gryffindor?’
‘But of course! Iron Man is of red and gold, he’s always first to rush into a fight and-’
‘Woah, woah, hold it right there. Iron Man in Gryffindor? Maybe, maybe. But me, I’m pure-’
‘Slytherin,’ Natasha finishes for him. Tony’s whole face lights up and he extends his hand to her for a fist bump. When she doesn’t return it, he shrugs and bumps it with his other fist.
‘See,’ he says pointedly to Thor, ‘I told you. Now, if only there was a way to settle this whole Barton thing...’ He trails off, not taking his eyes of Natasha.
‘Oh no, do not drag me into this, Stark,’ Natasha protests, wishing she hadn’t said anything at all. But Steve is already standing up, Clint looks apprehensively hopeful, and Thor looks like all his Christmasses have come at once.
‘No,’ she says, one more time, just as Steve announces to the room -
‘Natasha’s acting sorting hat.’ Tony claps his hands together once with decisive glee and falls back onto the couch to Clint’s left. Clint attempts to scoot over, just as Thor does the same to his right, and Natasha can’t help but give him a only-partially sympathetic smile.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Tony pushes into Clint’s personal space, leaving Clint trapped between the two men. His face isn’t as concerned as Natasha would expect, so she gives him a half shrug and meets Steve’s pleading eye.
‘Fine. But what I say is final. No arguments?’
Tony opens his mouth to argue, but Steve cuts him off sharply. ‘No arguments.’
Natasha crosses her arms, looking at Clint inquisitively for a moment. His eyes search hers as she pretends to make up her mind - she knew the minute she walked into the room what house he was in, but she can’t pretend she doesn’t enjoy the way Tony is looking at her, face full of expectant rapture. So she lets a wolfish smile spread over her face, and, looking Clint directly in the eye and says, as though it’s the easiest thing in the world, ‘Gryffindor.’
The reaction is immediate - Tony lets out a great cry of disappointment. Thor’s face has split into an enormous grin, and he claps Clint so hard on the back that Clint falls forward. Despite this, Clint’s looking pretty pleased with himself (mostly, Natasha guesses, due to Tony’s disappointment, which is increasing by the second).
‘So, can someone tell me what a Hufflepuff is now?’
Tony throws his arms up in the air in defeat. ‘You’re all impossible!’
The rest of the afternoon was spent explaining to Clint what all the houses actually meant. Natasha couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t done it sooner, but she was soon distracted when Bruce dragged her into a discussion about the merits of sorting in the first place - and whether Hogwarts indeed sorts too young (‘look at me, look at all of us. Can you honestly say that you’ve always been in a specific house? That you at eleven shares the same goals and desires as you at today? Is there anything gained by cordoning off children on the basis of personality traits?’). By the time it all finishes, Clint’s even happier with his sorting than he was before, and when they disperse into their quarters before dinner, he’s still grinning.
As Natasha leaves she trails her hand behind her. No one notices, except Clint, who interlocks her extended fingers with his own. She loosely leads him down the corridor, pulling him around the corner into her bedroom. He’s still smiling as she turns around, pulling the door shut behind them and kissing him full on the lips.
She pulls back as he leans forward, following her mouth with his, but there’s something playful in his eyes and she sighs somewhat defiantly.
‘Don’t let it go to you head. Besides, it’s hardly a compliment.’
Clint pulls back and scoffs at this. ‘How else am I supposed to take it? You heard Thor - all the cool guys are in Gryffindor.’
‘Typical Gryffindor.’ She snorts gently in derision, and continues, voice teasing, ‘Your emotions cloud your judgement, you rush into things without thinking - rash decisions all over the place - you mistake hot-headedness for bravery and expect people to look up to you for it?’
Clint just shakes his head. ‘Well, I don’t recall you having a problem with rash decisions when it was you at the other end of my arrow,’ he teases back, bumping her shoulder with his as he passes her to lean against the dresser on the edge of the room.
Natasha turns to follow him, smiling sideways at him. ‘Will you ever stop using that as leverage?’
Clint just smirks. ‘Don’t count on it.’
In an instant she’s in front of him, her hands on his shoulders as she spins him around and pushes him backwards onto the bed. He lands hard on his back, Natasha’s hands encircling his wrists above his head, her thighs pinning his legs together. Her hair falls around her face, a challenging smile at the the corner of her mouth.
‘Now who’s letting their emotions cloud their judgement?’
‘Oh, shut it, Barton.’
She leans down and takes his mouth in hers in a lingering kiss. Clint arches up underneath her, but she keeps him pressed down, plundering his mouth with hers as she deepens the kiss, tongue sweeping over his bottom lip before she bites down gently on it, eliciting a groan from the man underneath her.
A loud shout breaks them apart, and Natasha instantly rolls off him, pulling herself up into a sitting position at the edge of the bed as Thor bursts through the door.
‘Stark wanted me to inform you that dinner is served,’ he says loudly, perhaps in an attempt to dispel the awkwardness that seems to be sewn into the very fabric of the air around them.
Natasha’s on her feet before Clint is, and she offers a hand to his lying figure. He takes it, and lets her pull him to his feet at her side. They cross the room, hands still entwined, and as they reach the doorway, Natasha squeezes it tightly before letting go. She looks up at him, cheerful glint in her eye.
‘Oh, and Thor? Total Hufflepuff.’