Started as a Tumblr prompt and now it looks like it'll have a few chapters so here it is...the tattoo parlor AU.

Natasha scowled down at the phone screen, the message that was the final nail in the coffin.

I'll be in Miami this weekend. You can box up your stuff.

She slammed the phone atop the stack of loan applications she was supposed to be sorting through. She had a savage impulse to deny them all.

Logan's words played through her head.

I need to know you're all in. I can't be with someone who isn't sure what they want.

She knew what she wanted now, all right. His dick in a panini press.

I think it makes more sense to focus on my career. Why don't you leave the bank? Open that cute little ballet studio you keep talking about?

Maybe she liked her career.

You're afraid of commitment, Natasha.

They'd only been dating eighteen months. Who bought a ring after eighteen months? What kind of asshole gave ultimatums?

She was well past the crying and watching Bridget Jones on loop. She could do better than Logan. Her focus drifted, she tapped her pen against the corner of her desk, casting her mind around for the perfect fuck-you gesture.

A slow smile stretched her lips. She'd show him commitment.

She closed her inbox, ignoring the thirty or so emails demanding her attention, and brought up Google instead. She spent the rest of the morning doing research, important research, until at last she was satisfied. She had found the most raved about tattoo studio in the city.

Ask for Clint, the reviews read.

Best shop in Manhattan.

Give that man his own reality show.

Clean. Professional.

Clint made my prison ink look like art.

10/10 would bang.

It sounded promising enough, and it was in walking distance, so she shot a quick email to Darcy telling her to reschedule the lunch conference and begged off the afternoon's team building seminar.

The tattoo studio, Hawk and Arrow, didn't have much of an online presence. She found a bare bones website with a few photos of the artists' work, and a contact us page that declared Clint Barton CEO/Head Artist/Coffee Manager.

No picture, though, and she was a little disappointed after someone had declared 10/10 would bang.

On a whim, she pulled up the bank's database and searched for Clint Barton. She got a hit, a small business loan set up to draft payments from a checking account on the first of each month. It seemed a little rude (and borderline unethical) to pry into his account balance without cause, but as manager of First American Bank's loan division, she felt well within her rights to take a quick peek at his payment history.

Spotty at best, and that was being generous. The collections staff could probably tell her more about him than Google.

Still, it took years to make an independent business profitable, so she decided to let his delinquency slide and give the studio a shot.

She gathered her bag and phone and slipped quietly from her office to the elevator banks. She had lied to Darcy, cancelled the lunch conference to work on a fictional emergency mortgage loan refinancing case. She had maybe an hour before anyone missed her.

She made it out of the building and into the crush of pedestrians without being caught, and made her way down the few blocks to the tattoo studio.

It was a small red brick building, wedged between a boutique and a dog bakery, with Hawk and Arrow splashed across the front window in purple graffiti-style letters. She hesitated, suddenly struck with doubt, but having a look inside couldn't hurt.

She pushed the door open; a soft mechanical tone announced her presence to an empty waiting area.

The interior was more coffee shop than tattoo studio. A polished wood counter ran the length of the wall across from the front window, with a stack of binders piled at the corner. A door behind the counter, currently closed, led to the rest of the building. There were two leather couches and a low table in front of each, magazines and newspapers stacked neatly. One of the couches held a big golden dog, who thumped his tail once against the pillows, then hopped down and trotted over to greet her.

"Lucky, huh?" she asked the dog, kneeling down to read his collar and ruffle the soft fur around his ears. The dog smiled at her and flopped over, exposing his belly.

"Hi."

She startled and turned to the counter.

A man leaned causally there, one elbow resting against the shiny wood. He had kind grey eyes and messy hair. He wore boots and tailored jeans and a blue button down shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow. The cotton strained against his biceps and chest as he shifted positions and crossed his arms.

Would bang, indeed.

"I'm looking for Clint," she said, although she was pretty sure she'd found him. She stood gracefully in her three inch heels. Lucky whined in protest.

The man watched her with a new wariness behind his eyes.

"Am I being served?" he asked suspiciously.

That was an odd thing to ask a stranger.

"Are you expecting to be?" she countered.

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"No."

"In that case, Clint Barton," he said with a grin, and stuck out his hand for her to shake.

She accepted and returned his smile.

"So, how can I-oh shit."

He jerked his hand free of her grasp and took a step back. His eyes dropped to fix firmly on her breasts. She followed his gaze, a scowl tugging her lips down, until she noticed she was still wearing the silver name tag with her title and the bank's logo.

"That's not why I'm here, either," she told him sardonically, and shoved the name tag in her pocket. He gave a wild, desperate little chuckle and scrubbed a hand through the already messy hair at the nape of his neck.

"It's been a really shit week," he offered in explanation. He stepped forward and gave Lucky a scratch behind the ears. "Why don't you tell me why you're here, 'stead of me guessing?"

"I want a tattoo," she told him slowly, as if he were very stupid. How did this place have such rave reviews? He pulled a skeptical expression.

"Can I ask why?"

"Clint?" A young woman stuck her head around the door to the back. "Do you know where the...oh." Her face fell as she caught sight of Natasha. "Are we being audited again?"

"She's a customer, Kate," Clint sighed, and shook his head. "I'll be back there in a minute."

Audited again? Natasha bit her lip to hide a smile. Kate shrugged and disappeared into the back room.

"Really shit week," Clint reiterated.

She should probably be concerned about his ability to keep up his loan payments, if he expected to be served with court papers and audited and was afraid of a visit from the bank, but she only felt a little sorry for him. Maybe it was the dog. Or the biceps.

"So?" he prompted, and she remembered that he had asked her a question. She wasn't prepared to put her reasoning into words, and she cast her eyes around the waiting area as she searched for an answer that wouldn't make her sound completely vindictive and desperate.

"Just wanted to make a change," she said at last. "Do something exciting."

Clint arched an eyebrow.

"Tattoos are a big commitment-"

"I'm not afraid of commitment," she snapped, then winced a little at her tone. Clint raised his hands in surrender.

"Okay, jeez. Did you have something in mind?"

Wasn't that his job, to suggest things? Shouldn't he know, somehow?

"Er...no," she admitted. Clint frowned.

"Budget?" he asked.

"The money doesn't matter," she said with a shrug. She pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped the screen. "I've got thirty-five minutes. What can you do with that much time?"

"Okay," he said with a slow, sly smile. "I know what this is. You got dumped."

"That's none of your busin-"

"Look, honey," he interrupted. He slung an arm around her shoulder and walked them toward the door. "Natasha. You don't want a tattoo. You want to call up some girlfriends, go down to Riley's and have a few drinks, spend a couple hours flirting."

"That's not what I want," she snarled, incensed by his audacity. She pushed his arm away. "Are you going to do the tattoo or not?"

"No," he said simply.

No?! What an asshole.

She pulled the name tag from her pocket and pinned it back to her shirt.

"I don't think you're in a position to be turning down business, Mr. Barton."

"Listen, lady," he began heatedly, squaring his shoulders.

Her phone buzzed in her hand, Logan's name and number displayed across the top of the screen. The details of the breakup came back to her, and despite the I'm-better-off-without-him front she'd been putting on, the memories still stung. Her inclination to argue with Clint Barton seeped away all at once.

"Just forget it," she muttered. She brushed past him and made her exit.

What a stupid, childish idea. At least her schedule was clear, so she could spend the rest of the afternoon sulking in her office.

"Hey, wait a minute!"

She spun to find Clint jogging to catch up to her, Lucky prancing along behind him. He drew even and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Let's compromise. What about a piercing instead? That way if you have second thoughts, you can take it out and pretend the whole thing never happened."

She wrinkled her nose - piercings weren't really her thing - but she supposed she could have Clint put a needle through her bellybutton and get a crop top to wear the next time she saw Logan. It would probably piss him off just as much as a tattoo. And Clint had a point, she could always take it out later.

"Sure, okay," she agreed. They began walking back to the tattoo shop.

"And when I'm done," Clint continued, "you can call up your girlfriends and tell them to meet you at Riley's later. Like around eight. And I might run into you. If that's something you wouldn't mind?"

He held open the door for her and gave her a devastating grin that was probably his go-to for getting in a girl's pants.

"Don't push it," she warned him, but she said it with a smile. Maybe she would set something up after all. And if Clint Barton showed up with his biceps and goofy smile, well, 10/10 would bang.