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quietlyimplode · 7 months

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the language of flowers and silent things.

Whumptober 2023: Day 1 - How many fingers am I holding up

Warnings: perceived death (no death I promise), panic

Word Count: 2.3k (gif not mine)

Summary: The marriage of Clint and Natasha.

A/N: there are people that stand with you in darkness, brave the shadows and not shy away, if you have friends like that hold them tight. This is for you @broken--bow .

Friend, without you there would be no whumptober, there are no words for the consistency of friendship you have supported over the last month, and thank you doesn’t seem enough. I wish it were more, but thank you all the same.

Masterlist

Whumptober Masterlist

KASHMIR

2011

“It’s cold,” Natasha grumbles.

“Yep,” Clint replies, popping the p, and trudging on through the snow.

“How far?”

The snow is white and endless, and Natasha is sure they aren’t going the right way. Her rifle, slung across her shoulder, rubs and feels heavy, as it hits the back of her thighs; even though likely it’s her backpack that has the weight.

Clint glances at the gps, a small look of surprise on his face.

Natasha stops.

“What?”

“It’s less that two hundred metres,” he says, pointing to the left.

He adjusts his pack and trudges forward, giving Natasha places to put her feet as she grumbled again.

“You’re Russian!” he says, exasperated as the safe house comes into sight.

She throws him a look a rolls her eyes.

“I don’t like the cold,” she deadpans.

Approaching the house, they both split up, covering the front and back and simultaneously breach the door way.

Covering the rooms in a pattern, Natasha is first to call all clear, followed by Clint, as she beelines for the generator and sets up the heater.

The white noise of the generator infuriates Clint as he keeps the first watch; more snow falling. He

wonders if it will ever stop.

The cold that penetrates is icy, even though they’ve used spare blankets under the doorways and old newspapers on the window.

Natasha was finally asleep.

He knows by the soft breaths, slow and even.

She doesn’t like sleeping in the cold, and he knows why, it reminds her too much of the barracks of the Red Room.

She berates herself about becoming too soft, even as she makes their apartment and their rooms a constant temperature.

Less nightmares.

He tells her it’s not a bad thing to protect yourself from bad dreams, but it never seems to stick.

She sighs audibly and he wonders what she’s dreaming.

If the snow continues to fall at this rate, they’ll be snowed in. The trek here all uphill, and he hates Maria a little for directing them to this one.

“Hydra,” she’d said, “they’ve taken advantage of the political climate, and infiltrated the region.”

It’s a shame; he think idly, Kashmir is beautiful, but the evil that has infiltrated made it unsightly.

The man that they had killed was wanted by Interpol, crimes against humanity and all that.

Natasha’s kill shot hitting him between the eyes, as Clint had done the calculations quickly around wind speed and elevation.

One shot, one kill.

They made it look easy; isn’t that why Fury sent them?

Now, stuck in the snow, in a quaint house, Clint has too much time to reflect and worry about the repercussions of not being extracted until the snow stops.

His grip tightens on the gun, and he adjusts his position.

Natasha focuses on the landscape, the parts she can see anyway. Snow covers the door, just reaching the window and she feels vulnerable at not being able to see all the ways around them.

She knows if she looks at Clint, she won’t be able to hide her disappointment.

He won’t be able to hide his fear.

The satcom phone lays inert, as they await the next call.

Any way out.

Any opportunities for exfil.

Not likely for the next twenty four hours anyway.

The tension in the room is palpable. The generator has enough petrol for the next five hours, and the temperature is far below zero.

Clint focuses on the bowl of cereal, the snow still around them.

This was supposed to be easy.

He suppresses a shiver and pulls his coat around him trying to gain any heat he can.

The one room they’d kept heated, now growing colder.

He knows they both feel it.

Natasha pushes away her bowl, half eaten.

“You gotta eat, Nat,” he murmurs.

“We need to leave,” she argues, “the generator is done, the food almost gone, and the pipes are frozen. We have no water apart from what we have in that bucket.”

He shakes his head.

“It’s cold outside, no one is coming here in that weather; plus where are we gonna go? We have to wait for them to come.”

She’s knows he’s right. Standing and staring out the window, she shivers.

It’s not a good sign.

“Clint.”

The seriousness in her tone has him on edge as he joins her.

“It’s stopped snowing.”

They both know, when the temperature drops the snow stops, the sun, or what was left of it, hides behind the dark as the black starts to descend, night approaching; though the hour not late.

“What are we going to do?” she whispers.

They move to the smallest room, a tiny broom closet, big enough for the both of them. No windows, blankets piled in.

“I hate the cold,” she gristles, her teeth gnashing.

Clint pulls her closer, trying to stay warm, even though he’s sure it’s not helping.

“Talk,” he asks, “take my mind off this.”

The request isn’t lost on Natasha, the beginning of the third day had begun and they still had no way out, the sat phone silent, stood next to the door.

“Mmmm,” she says; trying to stop her teeth chattering.

“If you changed around this house, what would you do to make it better?”

It’s an old game, one they used to play when nightmares would keep either of them awake and neither wanted sleep.

Clint bites, he wants nothing more than the deep dread that fills his body to go away.

“Thicker windows,” he starts, “and for there to be a better security system.”

Natasha grunts in agreement.

“Insulation,” she continues, “the bedroom, I’d move to the back of the house, maybe another bathroom.”

Clint snorts.

“Like our house?”

She laughs, shivers hard and suppresses another.

“What’s that like again?”

He sits up a little straighter, and starts talking about the blueprints he’s sketched out when they’d first started dating.

“You know, you’ll have a library, and I’ll have a target room, the kitchen will be big, and the bathroom always warm.”

“The house is always warm,” she corrects.

“Heated floors?”

He nods, “definitely heated floors.”

She rests her head on his shoulder.

“”It sounds nice.”

The night passes slowly.

Both in and of consciousness, eating where they can and bodies shivering hard against the cold.

“My lungs hurt,” she grunts, forcing herself to take a breath.

Clint can’t answer, he agrees, but can’t do anything but nod his head.

She’s terrified; not because she’s going to die, but because he is.

“Talk to me,” she says, her teeth chattering.

She remembers Russia, the coldness of the room and the lack of heat in their dormitory rooms. The blankets thread bare.

She felt it then, but had no context about how warm the world could be.

“You think the world is warm?”

Natasha hadn’t realised she was talking out loud.

“It’s different, here, don’t you think?”

He swallows, trying to readjust his position but finds his limbs uncooperative.

She’s not making sense and he’s worried. He can’t think straight though and maybe she can’t either.

They won’t die here.

Someone will come.

“When we get married,” she starts.

They both laugh.

But it’s the silence that hangs.

“What are we going to do, Clint?”

She can see their breath, and movement is getting harder. Natasha knows this cold, Russian winters this biting, freezing kind of bitter. If they die….

If they die it’s not a bad way to go, here, safe with someone she loves and a life she curated for herself.

If she dies…

“What kind of wedding will it be?”

Clint stops her train of thought.

Desperate to change the subject to anything apart from their imminent death, he hugs her closer, trying to not be unnerved by how cold her skin is.

“Small,” she considers, indulging him.

“I’ll wear white, you’ll wear a tux, but it’ll only be our closest friends.”

He nods.

“Who are we inviting?”

“Maria.”

“Coulson.”

They take turns naming their friends.

“Pepper.”

Clint frowns, “really?”

“Yeah, why?”

The shiver stops him from answering, and she tries to pull the blankets more around him.

“If you invite Pepper, we’d have to invite Tony,” he says grumpily, disliking the fact that someone who heavily objectified Natasha would be invited.

Natasha’s head rolls over to him, a smile on her cracked lips.

“We’d make him sign a NDA,” she almost laughs.

“He wouldn’t be able to talk about it, and it would destroy him.”

Clint laughs, a cough bubbling as he sucks in too much cold air.

“He’d probably get a good present anyway.”

“Fury?” Natasha asks, and Clint nods.

“Yeah I think so.”

He sighs.

“Is it sad it’s such a short list?”

She shrugs.

“Who else would you invite?”

Clint knows.

Family. Isn’t that who you’re supposed to invite for your wedding? For you brother to be your best man? Or for your mother and father to sit in the front row and cry?

“Who’d walk you down the aisle?”

She ignores the question.

“I’d invite Yelena,” she decides, looking wistful.

Clint rubs her leg.

“Yeah. I’d invite Barney,” he agrees. Even though it’s likely his brother and her sister as long since dead, it’s a nice thought to have.

“Your mom,” she opens the thought.

Natasha stops but continues after a moment.

“I think I would have liked our mothers to come, even if mine abandoned me.”

Clint doesn’t know what to say.

“I would have liked that too,” he breathes.

“I think you’d walk me down the aisle,” she whispers, coughing into her gloves.

“Where?”

He knows where, he just wants her to say it.

“Okinawa,” she smiles, knowing he loves the shores of the tiny island as much as she does.

“Of course,” he smiles back.

They sit in silence

“We can find them, I think.”

Clint says it with conviction.

Natasha looks at him intensely, breath white, nose red.

They’re going to die here, he thinks idly. Why not give them another mission, even if it only gives them hope.

“Our parents?”

He shakes his head.

“Our siblings.”

Natasha sees Yelena standing at the door, sad eyes, hands waving goodbye.

Her eyes open and close languidly.

“Okay.”

She knows what he’s doing.

Offering hope when there isn’t any.

Gloved hand reaches out under the blankets and takes his.

“If we survive this, and if we find Barney and Yelena, we will get married. You just have to ask,” she proposes.

Clint nods, his movement slow, his voice quiet and somber.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Natasha? Will you marry me?”

Head against his, she kisses him slowly, purposefully; like it’s the last draw of breath she’ll ever take.

“Yeah, Clint, of course I’ll marry you.”

Maria panics at the empty house, wondering where her friends are.

If they thought she wasn’t coming, maybe they left to find safety; it would have been a death sentence.

Temperatures outside so cold it had taken far too long to trek anywhere for safety, the snow too deep.

As it was, it had taken too long for the helicopter to land anywhere safely.

Maria looks around.

Two people that already have so much trust issues, she’s not sure what they would have done.

She’s sure they would have thought no one was coming.

In the instant, Maria feels panic.

She clears the first room and the medic clears two more rooms; then — Maria finds them.

Huddled together, Natasha’s head on Clint’s shoulders their faces pale and they look half dead.

She calls the medic over, unwrapping them from the blankets.

“Thready,” the man tells her, assessing Clint, then Natasha.

They drag them out, laying them down on stretchers as they both call it in on the sat phone.

Maria places the warmers over their chests, as the medic works on placing an IV for both of them.

They work quickly and efficiently; slowly working to warm their friends, hoping against all hopes that the hypothermia has no permanent effects.

Natasha hears before she sees, the whir of the plane, the pain in all her muscles as life starts flowing back into her.

“Clint,” she tries.

Voice cracking, not loud enough, she can’t see him or hear him, her heart hurts and her thoughts race.

They’re going to get married.

They’re going to find Yelena and Barney.

They’re going to…

Breath comes fast, alarms blare and she panics; sitting up, eyes now open she finds herself connected to machines and monitors.

Clint lays next to her.

Laying back, doctors surround her.

“Clint,” she says again.

Maria appears in her field of vision, a stoic face.

“He’s okay too,” she clarifies.

Panicked eyes greet her.

“Natasha,” Maria says, “look at me.”

Wild eyes look her.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

She sticks two fingers in Natasha’s face, and predictably, her friend rolls her eyes.

“Two.”

Maria puts three more.

“Three.”

She nods.

“He’s okay,” she assures.

Closing her eyes, Natasha grunts and sinks back into a deep sleep.

“God you’re both so predictable,” Maria grunts, half holding him down.

“She’s fine, look, okay?”

Clint gives her a goofy smile, clearly still delirious.

He sees Natasha, oxygen mask on, eyes closed.

“She’sgonnamarryme,” he tells her, words mumbled.

“What?”

Maria thinks she misheard, because neither Clint or Natasha feel like the marrying type.

He nods, “jus’ gotta find Yelena and Barney.”

Clint’s eyes slip closed.

“She’sgonnamarryme,” he says again, falling back into a drugged sleep.

#whumptober2023 #no. 1 #how many fingers am i holding up?#marvel fic #natasha romanoff #clintasha #black widow #clint barton #my fic #hawkeye #natasha romanoff fic #clintasha fanfiction #clintasha fanfic #clint barton fic #clint barton x natasha romanoff #Natasha Romanoff x Clint barton #the language of flowers

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sixminutestoriesblog · 2 months

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violets

February is the smallest month and often the least favorite of some people. In the Northern hemisphere it balances the line between the grey winter months and the raucous spring ones that will follow. But being a little month caught between louder ones does not mean February isn't hiding its own sparkles of magic with a holiday dedicated to emotion and an extra day up its sleeve every four years. So its only fitting that one of the birth flowers for this month is the indomitable violet.

How long has the violet's magic been around? Well - we could ask Sappho, the ancient Greek poet whos work was so well-known and admired that she was sometimes called 'the tenth Muse'. She mentions her lover wearing wreaths of violets and in a different poem a crown of them. Sappho's poems often speak of her romantic love for other women and so the violet often does too. In 1926, one of the first modern plays to depict the love between two lesbians, La Prisonnière, used a bouquet of violets to signal their relationship.

Most violets are edible and so they were (and still are) added to an array of foods and drinks. Modern France is known for its violet syrup. Eating this flower goes back to antiquity in fact. Ancient Persians thought violets were calming and could sooth away headaches. The Greeks, and therefor the Romans, believed violets were good for fertility and made love potions with them. In fact, Athens was known as the 'City of Violets' for its abundance of them.

The idea of violets and love carried over too. The very same Saint Valentine, who happens to have a holiday named for him in this month, is said to have ground up violet petals in order to make the ink he wrote his letters with.

In medieval European art, the violet is often shown in paintings with the Virgin Mary. Because it grows close to the ground with a lowered flower head despite its royal color, it represents modesty and humility.

In Victorian times, the purple violet represented modesty, faithfulness and fortune. Folklore said wearing violets in your hair could help you combat inebriation. Carrying violets could ward off evil spirits too (perhaps because sickness was still thought to be caused by evil smells and many violets are very fragrant). Make sure you carry a lot of violets when you do carry them however. Another English superstition said that carrying less than a full handful of the flowers in to the house lead to bad luck and a single violet would be the death of all the ducklings and chicks on the farm! If violets bloomed in the autumn, whoever owned the land they bloomed on would experience a death in the family (there are flowers in the violet family that do this often however so fear no harm on this account).

These days the sweet violet is the symbol for consistency in the UK. In Australia and New Zealand, violets were sold on 'Violet Day' (the date of which varied from year to year) to help raise money to commemorate the dead soldiers from World War I. The violet is the state flower of New Jersey, Illinois, Wisconsin and Rhode Island. The humble little flower is also being tested for medicinal uses in modern medicine.

So you see, like February and February babies, this little flower packs quite a punch.

#violet #herbology #the language of flowers #february #birth flower #st valentine #cottagecore #folklore #superstition #herbalism #love potion #victorian

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