A/N - I don't own The Avengers.

Down the Rabbit Hole

"Hey, Nat, they ship us," Clint said, not looking up from the laptop he'd been messing around with for the better part of the afternoon. It had been a gift from Tony to keep him occupied while he recovered from injuries sustained on his last mission for SHIELD – a mission that had gone horribly wrong once his backup and handler revealed themselves to be HYDRA agents, leaving him stranded in the middle of nowhere.

"They what? And who is they?" Natasha asked, turning the page in a magazine she was only half-reading as she pretended she wasn't really keeping an eye on her sometimes-partner. They were in the common area in the newly christened Avengers Tower. The chair she was sitting in was like being enveloped in a marshmallow and sure beat the hell out of the hospital chairs she'd been stuck in for the better part of the week before they'd let Clint go home. He was sprawled out on the couch, clutter strewn all over the floor and coffee table. She was pretty sure Pepper was regretting the "make yourselves at home" part of her welcome speech when they moved in.

Still engrossed in his computer and a site Tony had told him about, Clint said, "Our fans. They think we're in a relationship."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course they do."

"Hey, I like our fans." Clint said

She shook her head and dropped the magazine, her attention now on him. "Where would they even get that idea from in the first place?"

His eyes fell on the necklace she was wearing and the arrow-shaped charm her fingers went to approximately every five minutes, give or take. "Oh, I don't know," he shrugged. "National TV. Arrow necklace. Yeah, doesn't make any sense why they'd think that."

"That was my signal to you that everything was okay. You'd lost communication even before everything at SHIELD went completely insane."

"Steve said you had it on long before the summit."

"Steve is going to pay for that."

"You ship us, too." He yawned and stretched, wincing as the movement pulled at various injuries that still hadn't healed completely. "It's okay to admit it, Nat. Admitting it is the first step to pure, unadulterated bliss."

She got up and moved over to the couch, motioning for him to sit up so she could sit next to him. "So this shipping thing, anything more I need to know?"

Clint rubbed the back of his neck, his face turning red beneath the bandage across his nose. "Well, we have a name."

"And …"

"It's a little weird." He hesitated, clearly embarrassed. "It's Clintasha."

"What?" she blurted out, suddenly very invested in this whole name shipping thing he'd stumbled upon. "Blackeye is staring them right in the face and they go with Clintasha?"

"Apparently lots of pictures of people with black eyes in that one."

"Blackhawk?"

"Helicopters."

"Widowhawk?"

"Sad birds."

She looked over his shoulder as he scrolled through the posts. She was going to kill Tony for showing Clint the site in the first place - now he was obsessed with it. A word jumped out at her and she narrowed her eyes. "Budapest?"

"Yeah, they're obsessed with 'What Happened in Budapest?' Apparently, there was a camera on you when you mentioned it during the New York battle and it went viral."

"Just what do they think happened?"

His grin was crooked and he raised an eyebrow. "Sex. Lots of lots of sex."

"You wish." She swatted his arm and he flinched. "I was busy dragging your unconscious ass out of there under heavy fire and we almost didn't make it. Sexy times indeed."

He kept scrolling and she kept reading. "Unbelievable," she muttered as more pictures of them appeared – both real and photoshopped – one thing was certain, people on the internet had very vivid imaginations. "Of course the only woman on the team has to put up with this crap. Shut off the computer, Clint."

"Oh, it's not just you," Clint said as he sat up a little straighter as he typed something on the keyboard.

She sighed. "Fine, you're a part of it, too."

"No, look." He turned the screen toward her and she leaned in. The highly detailed, beautifully drawn picture was not what she was expecting to see.

"Oh my god. Is that …?"

"Yep."

"And he's with …?"

"Yep."

Suddenly feeling like a kid in a candy store, she grinned, tucking her hair behind her ear. "What else can you find?"

"How much time you got?"

She leaned in, her shoulder brushing against Clint's as she pulled her legs up on the couch to get more comfortable, settling in. "Tony's going to regret showing you this site."

"Tony's going to regret a lot of things," Clint said as he turned the screen so she could see the picture he'd found. "High school. Class of '88 yearbook."

"Oh, Tony, that hair …"