➸ compass rose ‘verse (series) by sweetwatersong
Warnings: none
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: alternate universe, hurt/comfort, romance | Smut: none
Word count: 3303 | Status: work in progress
My comment: A merman!Clint and pirate!Natasha AU! One of my favourites. Beautifully written.
“‘S that way,” Clint managed to say, blinking as he pointed towards a stretch of horizon almost no different from any other. The argument might have held more weight if his finger hadn’t drifted from side to side.
“I’m sure it’s not,” Natasha replied, lips curving in a faint smile despite herself. She let out an ‘oomph’ when he pulled abruptly on her shoulder, sagging down into the cold water.
“It is,” he countered with an annoyed curl of his lip. “‘m a merman, Tasha, I always know which way the poles are, ‘s part of being part shark.“ He tapped his very human nose with his free hand.
"I don’t think the sun sets in the north,” the pirate told him, leaning to the side to get a better grip under his dorsal fin. Clint blinked again, processing that.
“Oh.”
“I think that porpoise hit you harder than you realized. Even your skull has limits.” Curling her fingers around the smooth human skin of his arm, she braced her foot and heaved. The unresisting merman slid out of the ocean into her small craft, his long tail slithering into the bottom and curling around the mast.
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➸ Perilous Business by SidheRa
Warnings: none
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Bucky, Yelena Belova
Genres: alternate universe, romance | Smut: none
Word count: 12018 | Status: indefinite hiatus
My comment: A beautiful Clintasha Pacific Rim AU, I only wish the author finishes the story, at least the last chapter can still be called an ending, sort of.
“Widow, it’s behind us!” James shouted, even though he didn’t need to. He was brash, even for an American, and he’d never quite broken the habit of speaking out loud when they were drifting.
Not like Yelena. Natasha couldn’t remember if they’d ever said anything to each other when they were linked.
She rolled her eyes pointedly at James, knowing he could feel her reaction even if he couldn’t see it. They turned as one, moving the jaeger as smoothly as something the size of a building could move.
“I told you not to call me that, Barnes,” she said, and they raised their arm to grab hold of the kaiju by the neck.
He laughed.
“Just admit it already, Widow.” he said, emphasizing the nickname. “I know you like it. I’m in your head, remember?”
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➸ After The War by ashen_key
Warnings: none
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: alternate universe, romance, fluff, family | Smut: none
Word count: 487 | Status: complete
My comment: Clintasha WWII AU, it’s short, cute and fluffy.
Sergeant Clinton Barton had plans now that the war was over. To be honest, he’d been forming these plans since Bastogne, where he had spent far too long sitting in freezing foxholes waiting for the Germans to bomb the shit out of his company.
In no particular order, these plans were:
Move somewhere where it didn’t snow;
Get out the hell of the army, and;
Track down that genius redhead who worked for the British Foreign Office and see if she wanted to walk out again.
There’d been other girls, particularly in Austria once victory had been declared, but Natalia Romanoff? She’d been something, all right. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d found herself another man, but he’d be disappointed.
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➸ They Will Rock You by SneakyHufflepuff
Warnings: none
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Mcu!Avengers, Darcy Lewis, Kate Bishop, Loki, Fury
Genres: alternate universe, romance| Smut: none (brief mention)
Word count: 27081 | Status: complete
My comment: It’s a finished Clintasha medieval AU! How rare!
Sir Nicholas Fury, Slayer of Evil and Defender of the Realm, lay collapsed against a squat tree. Steve knelt in front of the wounded knight, squeezing water from a cloth into Fury’s mouth, but it was of no use. He was fading, and fading fast. A spear wound to his side had become infected. There was nothing either of his squires could do.
“Barton and Rogers. Listen up.” Fury’s voice was gruff and authoritative, even as he approached death. “This land is a shithole, and if you stay here much longer you’ll be the ones at the receiving end of a spear.” He coughed, flecks of blood landing on his armor.
“Tell me something I don’t already know, sir,” Clint said, hiding his grief at his master’s illness behind snark. Fury wouldn’t want tears.
“Shut it, Barton. I don’t have much time left.” Fury took a steadying breath, then winced at the pain. “When I came here I had hope of lands and a wife if I served long enough. You two don’t have that. You do have my armor and my horses. Take them, and go on the tourney. Make your money from the noble bastards and get out.”
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➸ Spare Me Over Another Year by CloudAtlas
Warnings: character death (but not really)
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Bobbi, Pepper
Genres: alternate universe, romance, hurt/comfort | Smut: none
Word count: 9324 | Status: complete
My comment: Clintasha AU, where Natasha is the Angel of Death. It’s heartbreaking, it’s brutal, it’s beautiful.
She remembers very little of her actual, human, life. Only flashes and sensations. She remembers the smell of the animals, and of fur pelts; the cold of the snow and the warmth of the fire.
Long ago, when she was a young woman, she was accused of practicing magic; a child she had been tending had fallen ill and died. It was not her fault, she had tried to save the girl, but she could not and she was cast out of her village.
She died in the snow in the forest where she grew up.
The Elders of her village told stories then, about the woman in the forest who killed and ate children. The lone woman became three, who became sisters, who became old and deformed, living in a walking house and flying through the sky in a bowl, helping or waylaying travellers depending on their whim. And eventually those three sisters were given a name – Baba Yaga.
The stories were never true, not really, but they became true in a way. She shifts – changes with the telling, because she was never really dead, see? She woke up in that same snow the next day. She dug herself out of the snow knowing that she could never go back, could never again show her face in the village in the forest where she grew up, because she was dead.
But not really.
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➸ для полета (For Flying) by CloudAtlas
Warnings: body horror
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Mcu!Avengers, Comic!Avengers, Darcy Lewis, Sam Wilson
Genres: alternate universe (ish), hurt/comfort, angst | Smut: none
Word count: 2098 | Status: complete
My comment: A sequel to my previous rec – ‘Strange Bird’. Trust me, you’ll want to read that first before reading this. This is going to break you, but you’ll be smiling (if not with a tear-stained face) in the end, and you’ll love (and hate) it.
She wondered if this would have been easier without so many witnesses. Their team had grown now; the original six from the Battle of New York expanding until it comprised of a rotating team of countless people, all different but all uncommon in some way.
Natasha was still not sure who they were fighting or why, of all places, they thought that New York was the place to have this little turf war. All she knew was that there was magic involved. That or some very advanced technology that even Tony didn’t understand. To be honest, past that she didn’t care, because Clint had been hit.
When she reached him, he was hardly recognisable; a tangled, grotesque bundle of once-man keening like she’d never heard. Natasha immediately called for an evacuation and, thankfully, it was Carol and Tony that replied, flying Natasha and the bundle of agony that was once Clint Barton to the Bruce-approved Hulk floor of Avengers Tower.
The fighting continued without them, though not for long.
When the team arrived back at the Tower, battle sore and tired, it was to find a baffled Tony and a shell shocked Carol witnessing a stoically petrified Natasha attempt to sooth a panicked mass of bone, ripped cloth and feathers.
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➸ طائر غريب (Strange Bird) by CloudAtlas
Warnings: none
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: alternate universe (ish), hurt/comfort, angst | Smut: none
Word count: 5919 | Status: complete
My comment: Clint was a hawk before he was human. Natasha was a little girl, before she was made into a weapon. A must read :’)
Natasha Romanov’s life was saved by a man who had once been a hawk, though she did not know this at the time.
She was finishing up a mission in Zagreb, an extraction-slash-assassination job with an oil tycoon and all round arsehole, when she turned around and he was just… there. No one had ever managed to sneak up on her before and it unsettled her more than she was willing to admit, even to herself. Her gun was up before she had time to process, but he just looked at her calmly, apparently unfazed by the .9mm pointed right between his eyes.
He had a bow in his hand and a gun at his hip, and, if he was anything like her (and she assumed he must be, because who else would be able to stand within two feet of her without her knowing?) he had more weapons hidden away where she couldn’t immediately see. But he didn’t use them. He just stared at her not blinking and then, telegraphing every move, raised his hand and covered the end of her pistol.
“I’m supposed to kill you,” he said, sounding as if he was coming to the realisation that this was not the most logical course of action. “But I think… I think you should come with me instead.”
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➸ In The Fire (series) byscribblemyname
Warnings: none
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: alternate universe, hurt/comfort | Smut: none
Word count: 1124 | Status: work in progress
My comment: This is a story of how a spider saved a hawk’s life. It’s beautifully mesmerising.
Neither of them remembers where it started. There is eternity and the earth tilting in the heavens, but there is no beginning. They are not human enough yet for beginnings.
A hawk flies over pristine forest, dropping from his mountain heights. A spider weaves her webs where water and hunting are good. The spider watches his flight and leaves her webs for him to find. She never attempts to take to the air herself.
The earth is young yet; there is no man in it—at first.
The hawk learns to read the glisten of her silken strands. It is little wonder, for he is intelligent with a keen eye. He too is wise. He never attempts to seek her out; he merely follows the webs like maps from one to another.
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➸ La Belle et La Bête by ShaiWinchester
Warnings: none
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Mcu!Avengers
Genres: alternate universe, romance, fluff (?) | Smut: none
Word count: 21469 | Status: indefinite hiatus
My comment: I can only hope that this fic ruins you just as much as it ruined me.
“I like to live away from others, so in my search for a home I was much selected. I needed solitude and a place to sleep, that was it,” Clint told her as they entered the door. He held onto her hand tightly and brought her inside with him. Her long white dress dragged on the floor and the pearls around her neck felt like ice.
Natasha’s eyes wandered around with curiosity. The floors were polished wood and the walls were stone, but decorated. There was the most lavish of furniture, but none of it looked very comfortable. It was very dark, except for candles and torches selectively placed. The castle seemed as if no one lived in it, but yet he did… all alone, until now.
“Don’t you freeze to death, Lord Barton?” she wondered aloud. A chill came through her body and she shivered. He chuckled and pulled her closer to him as they walked.
“I like the cold, but you shall be fine here,” he responded.
“What does that mean?” Her brow furrowed in confusion.
“You’ll see, my love,” Clint mused and kissed her on the forehead before they moved forward again. His affection for her seemed to heighten as they moved further into his home. At their wedding he barely touched her, but now he practically cradled her to him.
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➸ Broken Crown by Sassanova
Warnings: mentions of rape/non-con, child abuse
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Ivan Petrovitch
Genres: hurt/comfort, romance, alternate universe | Smut: none
Word count: 17863 | Status: indefinite hiatus
My comment: Honestly one of my favourite Clintasha medieval/fantasy AUs that will probably forever stay unfinished.
“Clint!” His mother’s impatient voice snapped the boy out of his thoughts, dragging him back to the day’s current events. “Meet Lord and Lady Romanov.”
They didn’t look any different than the usual stuffy nobles who visited his parents’ lands. With a huff, Clint sank lower into his father’s throne. Mother had promised this would be a special occasion when she’d refused to let him go with his brother and father yesterday to visit the Starks to the north. Why did Barney get to have all the fun? He was the oldest; he should be stuck at home, entertaining prissy lords and ladies and making alliances. It wasn’t like Clint ever had to worry about ruling.
A small movement from behind the extravagant couple caught the boy’s attention.
“This,” Lady Barton continued, “is their daughter, Natalia.”
He felt his mother watching him as he studied the girl. She was young, younger than he, scarlet curls cascading haphazardly down her back, fitted in a green velvet dress to match the hue of her eyes. And she looked just as happy to be here as the boy staring back at her.
Both Lord and Lady Romanov bowed courteously, but their daughter only crossed her arms, hardening her gaze stubbornly.
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