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The rain seemed to be coming down in an endless vertical sheet as Clint once again glanced out the window at the restaurant dive he had now settled into. It was a place called Zip’s, playing host to the local food tastes of Hawai’i. He sipped his overly strong coffee and turned back to look at his partner, seated quietly across from him. At least he had two things to not complain about: one being that he and Black Widow were on assignment in the middle of Honolulu, lush with its greenery and flowers at this time of year. They were assigned by SHIELD to assist some of Nick Fury’s newer team members with halting a drug ring that was rapidly spreading from island to island. Clint growled inwardly, thinking of how young punks were using more and more methods to create lethal forms of meth, and now it had spread to one of the best vacation spots he had ever been able to enjoy in his rare down time on missions.
Then, there was another plus, as he looked across his table. Natasha didn’t meet his eyes, seemingly intrigued by her food, but he might as well have been reading a book the way he stared at her. Both of them were on a day off, as they had broken up most of the small ring of crooks yesterday. Fury’s administrators had flown in to take care of the booking and punishments, much to the pair’s dismay. Clint knew that Natasha could live up to her code name, as he had heard the horror stories of how she took down men more than twice her size, whether through the old-fashioned martial arts or bullet to the skull, or through more “interesting” methods. Taking one more long draw on his hot drink, he lightened his gaze, surprised that someone with the talents of being lethally focused on a target could be so easily distracted by the beautiful Russian woman.
He took his knife and fork and went back to dissecting his chicken katsu, enjoying the noodles mixed in on the side with it. He liked it extra spicy as well, and no doubt that the green onions added to the plate would give him breath worthy of the Widow’s complaints later on. Scooping some of the meat in his mouth, he decided he had had enough of the silence.
“So what exactly IS that again, Tash?” Clint pointed at her plate between mouthfuls, and she lifted her gaze to look at him, while at the same time, slipping a sliver of the medium well hamburger meat passed her painted lips, noticeably much slower then when they had sat down with their meals about 20 minutes before. His eyebrows rose as she narrowed her own gaze at him, but then crooked her mouth into a half smile after she had chewed thoroughly.
“I told you, Hawk. It’s called loco moco. Apparently, the idea came up many years ago by some young surfers who came into a restaurant hoping to get a filling meal that could be done up quickly and cheaply.” She looked back at the plate and stuck her fork precisely into the middle of one of the fried eggs laying atop the hamburger and rice mixture, all decked out with a gravy sauce. She huffed for a moment, looking back at him as she stirred the fork into the yellow trail of egg yolk now spreading across the plate’s contents. “And frankly, done up with whatever crap the chefs could find.”
Clint smirked as he polished off more of his plate. “Yeah, you mentioned they called it a garbage plate.” He tried to make a joke, but then found he involuntarily growled as he raised his mug again for another sip. Natasha was still looking at him as she seemed to move her hands automatically, as if without thinking. She cut the egg up delicately into thin slices, using the utensils to roll the rice into small, sticky white balls of filling goodness into the mixture. Every few seconds, she slipped some of the mess into her mouth, never spilling a drop, though a tiny glint of yellow caught at her lip from the egg, mesmerizing Hawkeye. The meal seemed like it was more suited for chopsticks that would be at some sushi bar, and she treated it like some snake charmer working with a deadly king cobra, with precision, as if taking her time with overpowering it, ready to move in for the kill.
Speaking of snakes, Hawkeye suddenly developed a feeling of heat in the pit of his stomach, as if blood was rushing there to digest his meal. The blood obviously wasn’t traveling to just his stomach, and he felt a blush coming on. Silently thanking whatever gods might be watching the pair now that the table blocked the lower half of his body, he shifted and went back to trying to sop up the final pieces of his chicken with the tiny bits of sauce left on his plate. All the pieces were coming up dry.
“Here, Clint.” He was suddenly caught off guard again as he looked up, and Natasha leaned forward, her food luckily not catching on the white hooded shirt she was wearing. She was holding her fork out to him, almost like a mom wanting to feed a stubborn child, but this was much more. Her eyes again met his and her pupils were dilated, and her smile was in its full glory. The fork held a large piece of the fried egg, the yolk amazingly unbroken.
“This will moisten that up for you.”
He thought he would choke on the meat already in his mouth, and he swallowed uncomfortably.
“Dammit, Tash! How are you doing that?”
She leaned back, acting innocent.
“Doing what?”
“How can you make eating at a dive so sexy?” He blurted out before he could censor himself. Damn, he sounded like a teenager.
“You forget. I’m good at wearing down a target. I thought you would have known thatafter how I talked to that head dealer at last night’s events."
Clint quickly replayed how she had easily sidled up to the drug dealer at a private club, dragging Clint along to be one of the man’s potential “customers.” She whispered in the large man’s ear and the kiss she gave him nearly made Clint boil over in rage.
Back to reality, Clint snorted, but then used his knife and fork to grip the egg from her and slide it down to his own plate. Cutting a slice, the yolk poured out and bathed what was left of his meal. He felt his blush lighten as he looked at the sight, then back up to her, but she wasn’t at her seat.
A hot flash of breath quickly caught his ear and he turned his head to the right, and she caught his lips before he could even inhale. It was chaste enough for the restaurant, but she took a moment to drag her tongue lightly over his own. He tasted the robustness of the hamburger and the sweetness of the eggs, but then she pulled back suddenly, furrowing her features as she rose up and went back to her seat a mere feet away.
“What?” He asked.
“You taste like onions.” She sneered at him as she cleaned up her meal and finally patted her lips with a napkin.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure dessert will clear that up.” He smiled as he rubbed the chicken into the egg sauce.
“I’m too full already.” She replied.
“I never said I was eating that HERE. We’re heading back to the hotel after this.” Hawkeye and Black Widow finally hooked into their final stare for the night. No sleep for the wicked, it would seem.