[far from here we are all right], by Feather (lalaietha)

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Fandom Category: Avengers (also see The Hulk and Iron Man)
Pairing: Bruce Banner/Betty Ross, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Fic Title: [far from here we are all right]
Author: Feather (lalaietha)
Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/412017
Rating/Warning(s): teen
Genre: post-avengers movie
WIP?: no

Why This Must Be Read: Because this does a ridiculously good job at painting what the dynamics of the three ships here could be. The characterization of the women, especially, is wonderful. I didn't think I would get much of a balanced fic with so many characters and ships traipsing through, but this did an admirable job with doing justice to all. A post-Avengers fic, where Natasha determines after watching some footage that the key to "neutralizing" the Hulk was one Dr. Elizabeth Ross.

Also, some really great one-liners in the narration.

---

Nat's parked in front of her computer screens, mug in hand and frown-line between eyebrows, watching some kind of recording on one of the monitors while the others run the surveillance cameras. Clint pours himself coffee and looks through drawers until he remembers where the Cliff bars are so as to make some vague gestures towards nutrition, and then goes to look over her shoulder.

The big green guy rampages his way across the screen again, but it's old footage, not new: it's Virginia and Harlem, which to be fair are no less impressive even after having seen the Hulk swat Chitauri out of the air and stop evil demon space-whales from hell with one hand. Tasha's got different windows open for different angles and is playing them all at once; Clint watches the video for a while, mug in hand. Then he thoughtfully takes in the tension in Tasha's shoulders and the frown-line itself and her absolutely intent expression and makes an assumption that is anything but a shot in the dark.

"That why you were favouring your leg when you kicked my ass?" he asks, keeping his tone light. After all, it is kind of funny that of all the last few days, he remembers that most clearly.

"Yes," Tasha replies, in the voice that says not now, Barton. The line between her eyebrows gets deeper and she starts selecting specific areas of each window, zooming in on them and cutting out the rest of the view. Some of them pixelate, some don't, depending on the quality of the footage; she closes a couple of the windows and then pulls three of the better ones into the center. "Look at this," she says, before he can ask. "Tell me if you're seeing what I see."

He decides they're both too edgy for him to point out that this would be easier if she told him what she sees first, and as the videos loop he turns his attention on each one in turn.

And he does see what she sees by the second video, and sees the point. "Is that Dr Ross?" he asks, gesturing to the dark-haired woman on screen who seems to either have a death-wish or a seriously inflated sense of invulnerability.

"I didn't know you read the file," Tasha says absently, opening another document that spreads itself across one of the other monitors.

"Of course I read the file," Clint says, slightly affronted. "Since when have I not read files? And if you say Kabul I'm not talking to you for the rest of the day."

The corner of Tasha's mouth twitches, but she finally leans back and stops acting like she's trying to stare through the plasma screens. "Yes," she says. "It's Dr Ross."

"And now you want to go find her and recruit her," Clint says, just to get it out in the air. You have to admire Natasha, really. No matter what or who she runs into, she will obsessively hunt until she finds a way to neutralize them. And she's good at thinking outside the box and knowing that "neutralize" doesn't necessarily mean "kill, concuss or capture."