#clint barton fluff

“Don’t get touchy. I was just asking,” she insisted as she moved closer.

Clint crossed his arms on the desk and rested his chin on top of them to look at her. “You remember when everybody hated me because I never got to see my girl and I turned into an asshole?”

“Technically you didn’t get to see her because you broke up with her, but yes.”

He just stared at her for a beat. “Really?”

She simply gave him a sweet smile in response.

He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Yeah, well, I’m about to become an asshole again. I’ve barely had any time to spend with her.”

Natasha grimaced before smoothing her features.

“What?” Clint asked, instantly suspicious.

“You have a meeting in forty-five minutes.”

This could not be happening. He was going to scream. He thought he might have actually been able to get out of here on time for once. “How important?”

“Very. One of the investors Fury wants on board is in town only for the night. Wants to meet with you,” she said. At least she looked mildly apologetic about it.

Clint stood and grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair where he’d draped it earlier. “Where?”

“His hotel. Dinner in his suite. I already gave the details to Scott and I’ll send the room number to your phone.” She walked with him to the elevator.

“Great. Fantastic. So looking forward to this,” he said as they waited. “I’m going to need to buy out half the flower shop for my girl at this rate.”

“As if you wouldn’t do that anyway.” Natasha gave him a wave as the elevator doors closed between them.

Clint arrived at the hotel early but didn’t particularly care. Hopefully it just meant he could finish early as well. He made his way to the presidential suite on the top floor. When he arrived, he found the door open with a note that instructed him to come on in. He took the note off the door and stepped inside.

A table was set for dinner near the large window that showcased the city. A room service cart sat nearby and…was that champagne chilling on the table? The lights were dimmed and candles illuminated the room. This seemed very intimate for an investor meeting. After double checking the information Natasha had sent him, Clint called out a timid, “Hello?”

He heard the click of a lock and spun back to the door to find you smiling at him. “You’re early,” you said with a smile.

His gaze ran the length of you, taking in the dress he’d never seen before. You were wearing the necklace he’d bought you for your first event together and your feet were bare. “And you’re stunning.”

Your smile widened as you closed the distance between you. “Hi,” you said when you came to a stop in front of him, hands finding the lapels of his jacket.

His smile mirrored your own. “Hi.” His hands settled on your hips as he gave you a quick kiss. “What is this?”

“This is me conspiring with your best friend to get you all to myself for 36 hours or so.”

“Is that so?” His grip shifted as he wrapped you in his arms and pulled you into him. His lips traced a trail starting just beneath your ear and running the length of your neck.

You hummed in agreement as your arms looped around his neck. “Happy?”

The training room smelled faintly of rubber mats and polished wood, a quiet hum of the Avengers facility settling around you like a second skin. You adjusted your grip on the bow again, fingers tightening, loosening, tightening - overthinking it.

"Hey," Clint's voice came from behind you, warm and amused. "You planning to shoot the target, or intimidate it into surrender?"

You huffed a laugh, lowering the bow slightly. "I'm trying not to embarrass myself in front of the world's best archer, thanks."

A pair of hands gently covered yours, steadying them. Clint stepped closer behind you, his presence grounding, familiar. "First rule," he murmured near your ear. "stop calling me that when you're holding a bow. Makes you nervous."

"Well, you are," you muttered.

"Yeah," he said easily, "but right now? I'm just your coach."

His chin briefly brushed your shoulder as he adjusted your stance, nudging your elbow up a fraction. "There. Relax your shoulders. You're not fighting the bow - it's not a wrestling match."

"It feels like one," you said under your breath.

"That's because you're trying to control everything." His fingers slid down your arm, slow and deliberate, until they reached your wrist. "Archery's more about letting go than holding on."

You swallowed, acutely aware of how close he was. "You're saying that like it's easy."

Clint chuckled softly. "It is. You just don't believe me yet."

He stepped back just enough to give you space, though his hand lingered at your waist for a second longer than necessary. "Alright. Nock the arrow."

You did, trying to ignore the flutter in your chest.

"Draw."

The string pulled back smoother this time, less shaky.

"Good," he said, and you could hear the smile in his voice. "Now breathe."

You inhaled slowly.

"Don't aim with your eyes," he added. "Aim with your body. Trust it."

"That sounds fake," you said.

"It works," he shot back. "Now - loose."

You released.

The arrow flew with a sharp thunk, embedding itself just outside the center ring.

Your eyes widened. "Oh my- did you see that?!"

Clint grinned, folding his arms. "Yeah. I did."

"I actually hit it!" You turned to him, beaming, all earlier nerves forgotten. "Not the middle, but-"

"Hey." He stepped forward again, stopping you mid-ramble. "That was a solid shot. First real one."

Your excitement softened into something warmer as you met his eyes. "You're a good teacher."

"Don't sound so surprised."

"I wasn't," you teased. "I just didn't expect you to be... patient."

He scoffed. "I'm always patient."

You raised an eyebrow.

"Okay," he admitted, "I'm patient with you."

That did something to your chest - something soft and a little overwhelming.

You nudged him lightly. "Sap."

"Careful," he said, leaning in just slightly. "I might take that personally."

"Oh yeah? What are you gonna do, Barton? Shoot me?"

He smirked. "Nah. Wouldn't waste an arrow."

Before you could respond, he reached out, tugging you gently closer by your sleeve. His expression softened, the teasing giving way to something quieter.

"I'd just do this."

He kissed you - soft, familiar, and a little distracting in the best way.

When he pulled back, you blinked, trying to remember what you were doing before your brain melted.

"...I'm supposed to be training," you said weakly.

"Mm," Clint hummed. "You are."

"So maybe stop distracting me?"

He grinned, completely unapologetic. "You started it."

"I did not!"

"You called me a sap," he pointed out.

You tried to look serious, but it didn't last. "Fine. Maybe I did."

"Thought so." He stepped back, gesturing toward the target. "Again. Let's see if that wasn't a fluke."

"Oh, it definitely wasn't," you said, picking up another arrow.

"Confident now, huh?"

"Blame the coach."

Clint leaned against the wall, watching you with a quiet, proud smile as you set your stance again.

"Alright," he said. "Show me what you've got."

Natasha kept one hand on the wheel. Her other rested loose against the gear shift. She drove like she did most things – smoothly, with the kind of confidence that came from having already considered five worst-case scenario and dismissed them all.

He stared out the passenger window and watched the trees slide by.

“You’re quieter than usual,” Natasha said.

He let out a breath through his nose. “Didn’t know that was possible.”

“It is.”

That almost drew a smile out of him. Almost.

The SUV climbed higher. Gravel crackled beneath the tires for a stretch before the road turned back to old asphalt. Clint shifted his elbow against the door and told himself to pay attention to the road, the weather, the smell of damp earth that slipped in through the vents. Ordinary things. Present things.

It never lasted.

A hand turning to ash in front of him. A phone ringing in an empty house. The scream that never fully left his chest.

He shut his eyes for half a second.

Five years had done strange things to memory. The big moments did not stay whole. They shattered. They came back in jagged pieces that cut in different places each time.

A sword in his hand, heavier than a bow and easier to blame. Rain on black rooftops somewhere foreign. Blood drying under his nails while men begged in languages he understood just enough to ignore. Natasha standing in the wreckage of the compound kitchen years later, looking at him like she could still see the man he used to be if she squinted hard enough.

“Still time to turn around,” he said, not because he meant it.

“No, there isn’t.”

He glanced at her. She did not look at him.

There was no accusation in her voice, no amusement either. Just certainty.

He looked back to the trees.

He had known this drive was coming the moment she offered it. Maybe before that. Maybe the second she showed up at the bare rental house where he had been living with two duffel bags and a coffee maker he barely used, leaned against the doorframe, and said she knew a place.

Natasha never just knew a place.

She knew people. She knew fault lines. She knew where broken things could be set down without being immediately asked to become useful again.

That should have warned him.

Instead, he had packed.

A bend in the road threw a shaft of pale light across the windshield. Natasha adjusted her grip.

“You remember what I told you?” she asked.

He gave a low, humorless laugh. “Which part?”

“The part where this would only work if you didn’t show up acting like you were there to save anyone.”

He rubbed his thumb against the seam of his jeans. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good.”

The trees blurred again.

Natasha had hidden Sasha for years.

That alone told Clint most of what he needed to know.

Natasha trusted very few people, loved even fewer, and did both with the sort of ferocity that made lying feel, to her, like a practical extension of loyalty. Clint had known about safe houses, ghost accounts, back channels, old favors called in over secure lines. He had not known about a girl – no, a woman, though the first time he saw her, she carried something in her face that still felt too young – pulled out of the Red Room before they got to finish what they had started.

Natasha had never told him everything. He had never expected her to. But when the first Snap came and half the world tore loose in a breath, secrets had started falling open whether anyone wanted them to or not.

He remembered the first mention of Sasha more as a shape than a conversation.

There’s someone else, Natasha had said, standing across from Steve in the dim light of the compound briefing room. She can help.

He had been leaving again. Or had already decided to. The days after his family vanished lived in his mind like a fever; timelines slipped. He remembered fury. He remembered movement. He remembered the feeling of his own skin not fitting right.

He remembered Natasha blocking his path once, fingers bruising around his wrist.

Don’t do this.

He had looked at her and seen nothing in the world he wanted to stay for.

By the time Sasha arrived, Clint had already gone too far to come back.

So he knew her first in fragments.

A braid over one shoulder in a surveillance photo. A file left half-open on a conference table. Steve saying her name once, too casually. Natasha not looking at Steve at all when she answered.

He had come back to the compound only in bursts then – supplies, intel, a new wound stitched badly enough that Bruce had sworn at him for a full minute. He had seen Sasha twice before the time he actually spoke to her.

The first time, she had been coming out of the gym with a towel around her neck and blood on her knuckles that was probably not hers. Small, compact, built like a blade. The kind of body the Red Room made on purpose – efficient, deceptive, graceful only because grace conserved energy. She had slowed when she saw him, eyes flicking once over the sword at his hip, the bruises along his jaw, the part of him that had already stopped pretending to be anyone decent.

No fear. No awe. Just assessment.

The second time, he had seen Steve in the corridor outside the med bay, standing too close to a wall Sasha leaned against. Not touching. Not even looking like he wanted to be seen not touching. But the air between them had carried that unmistakable charged stillness people got when they had already crossed some line in private and now had to pretend the ground beneath their feet remained unchanged.

Steve looked up first. Sasha straightened. Clint kept walking.

He had not thought about it again then. There had been too much blood in the world for one more secret to matter.

Now the road narrowed, then widened again.

Natasha reached for the indicator. “She didn’t want anyone at first,” she said. “After everything.”

Clint watched the mountain shoulder rise beside them. “And now?”

“She still doesn’t.”

“Then why am I going?”

Natasha was quiet for a beat. “Because you need somewhere to go,” she said. “And because she’s better at taking care of other people than she is at taking care of herself.”

He turned his head and studied her profile. “That sounded rehearsed.”

“It’s true.”

“With you those two things usually overlap.”

That drew the corner of her mouth upward, brief and tired.

He looked away again before the sight could hurt.

Vormir came back the way it always did: not as a sequence but as a sensation.

Thin air in his lungs. Stone under his boots. The impossible red of a sky that looked flayed. Natasha’s hand in his. Both of them lying to each other with every word.

The memory never stayed long because his mind refused to let it. It tore out in pieces and left him breathless in the space after.

He remembered falling to his knees with the Soul Stone burning cold in his hand.

He remembered not understanding the shape of the silence beside him.

He remembered, much later, Sasha’s face when she realized Natasha was not coming back with the rest of them.

He had not known grief could look so much like murder.

She had hit him before Steve or Rhodey could get between them. Fast, precise, trained for damage. The first blow split his lip. The second nearly took his feet out from under him. Then her control had gone with the rest of her. She had become all fury and shattered breath, and Clint had let her. Maybe because he deserved it. Maybe because if he had stopped her he would have had to defend the fact of being alive.

You let her go.

He had not answered because every answer sounded like a lie.

Later had come the battle.

The ground had shaken. The sky had burned. Clint had run with the gauntlet in his hands and death at his back, and somewhere in the chaos Sasha had ended up beside him, both of them cut off from the others in a collapsed stretch of ruin swarming with those awful, skittering things that moved too fast and screamed like metal tearing.

He remembered her shoulder slamming into his as they ducked behind broken concrete. Her knife flashing once, twice, three times. His last explosive arrow taking two of the creatures out and dropping dust over both of them. The smell of scorched flesh. Her hair stuck to her temple with sweat and blood. The look she gave him when he tossed her one of his backup sidearms – still angry, still raw, but practical enough to catch it.

They had fought back to back because dying offended them both.

And then… Light.

Thor.

A scream punched out of a throat made for thunder and split the battlefield open.

Clint remembered turning in time to see Thor on one knee, gauntlet blazing on his hand, lightning crawling over his body like it wanted to peel him apart from the inside. He remembered Steve shouting. He remembered Bruce moving toward him and getting thrown back by the force of it. He remembered the smell – burnt metal, ozone, skin.

Thor had roared like a god and a wounded animal both.

When the light collapsed in on itself, he was still alive.

His arm was not.

After that everything blurred again – dust, sobbing, impossible reunions, medics, names shouted across ruined ground.

And then Natasha.

Not falling from a cliff. Not lying dead in Clint’s hands in a place the universe did not deserve to exist. Standing. Breathing. Shocked into stillness among the wreckage like someone had torn her out of another story and dropped her back into this one.

Vision too. Pale and disoriented and somehow gentler than the battlefield had any right to be.

The Soul Stone had been returned later. Steve had gone, and he had come back with the strange, hollow look of a man who had brushed too close to cosmic rules.

And Natasha was alive.

Alive.

Alive did not mean forgiven.

Sasha had slapped her hard enough to turn her face.

Natasha had taken it without flinching.

Clint had watched from across the room and thought, not for the first time, that love and violence had always lived side by side in the lives of people like them, each pretending to be the cleaner wound.

The SUV slowed.

He straightened and realized the road had changed. Smaller now. Less maintained. Gravel again, thicker this time, the tires crunching through it as they turned onto a narrow lane cut between dense stands of pine and fir. The trees pressed close enough to blot out most of the sky. Somewhere unseen, water moved over stone.

“How far?” he asked.

“Five minutes.”

He nodded once.

His family came back to him then, as they sometimes did when he least wanted them to – brightly, painfully, without mercy.

Lila’s laugh from the yard. Nate running full tilt into his legs hard enough to nearly knock him over. Cooper taller than he should have been because five years had still happened to him somewhere Clint had not been allowed to see. Laura’s face, stricken and joyous and already understanding too much.

He had held them.

God, he had held them.

For one stupid, impossible moment he had believed love might be enough to bridge the gap.

Then the days had started.

The sounds of an ordinary house had become landmines under his skin. Cabinet doors. Running water at night. The television too loud in another room. Laura touching his shoulder from behind and his body reacting before his mind could catch up. He hid it as best he could. She noticed anyway.

Of course she noticed.

Laura had always known how to read the places he tried hardest to guard.

At first they had both tried to call it an adjustment.

At first there had still been hope buried under the exhaustion.

He fixed things around the farm because hands liked work better than stillness. He split wood. Cleaned gutters. Repaired a fence that had not needed repairing. He taught Nate how to restring a practice bow, then had to lock himself in the bathroom afterward because the sight of his son’s small fingers on the string had brought back a flash of another child’s hand dissolving into ash.

At night Laura would find him sitting on the porch long after the rest of the house had gone quiet.

“You can come inside,” she said once, wrapping a blanket around both their shoulders against the cold.

He stared out over the dark field. “I know.”

“You don’t have to make yourself stay awake.”

He had laughed then, a low broken sound. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

She had gone still beside him. After a while, she said, “No. I know.”

They did not fight.

That was the worst part.

It would have been easier if there had been anger. Betrayal. Some clean fracture to point at. Instead there was only grief changing shape every week and the steady, devastating realization that the man Laura had loved before the Snap had not died exactly, but he had not come back intact either.

He told her things slowly. Not the full catalog. Not every body. Not every city. But enough. Enough for the silence between them to become honesty instead of performance.

“I kept thinking,” he said one night in the kitchen after the kids had gone to bed, “that if I made myself into something ugly enough, maybe the universe would notice. Maybe it would give them back and take me instead.”

Laura stood across from him with both hands wrapped around a mug gone cold. Tears stood in her eyes but did not fall.

“That wasn’t a trade you ever got to make,” she said.

“No.”

“You still tried.”

He looked down at the table because he could not bear the kindness in her face.

A week later Natasha came by.

She found Clint splitting wood behind the barn and waited until he had buried the axe head in the stump before speaking.

“How’s domestic life?” she asked.

He leaned his forearms on the handle and looked at her. “Cruel.”

She nodded like that was the answer she expected.

They sat on the back steps after, watching the sun lower over the field. He told her more than he had meant to. Maybe because she had seen the ugliest version of him and stayed anyway. Maybe because she was one of the only people alive who understood that being given back what you lost did not erase the shape of the loss.

“I don’t fit here anymore,” he said.

Natasha folded her arms over her knees. “Maybe not the way you used to.”

“That supposed to make me feel better?”

“No.”

He let the quiet sit.

Then, without turning to look at him, she said, “There’s a difference between loving them and belonging in the life you had before.”

He swallowed.

“She deserves better than me half here.”

Natasha looked out across the field. “Laura deserves the truth. So do you.”

In the end it had been Laura who said the word first.

Divorce.

Softly. Like she was afraid it might bruise them if she set it down too hard.

He had expected devastation. Instead what he felt first was grief laced with relief so sharp it made him ashamed.

They talked for hours that night while the house slept around them. About the children. About dignity. About not turning the next twenty years into a slow punishment for failing to become what either of them needed. Laura cried. Clint did too, though less cleanly. More like something leaking through old cracks.

When they finally agreed, it felt less like a decision than an admission.

They still loved each other.

Love just was not always the same thing as a future.

He moved out a month later.

He did not go back to the Avengers. Not really. He visited. Helped when he was asked. Repaired gear. Left before night whenever he could. The compound felt too full of ghosts and too bright with people trying very hard to call survival victory.

Natasha found him a rental after that. Temporary, she said.

Now she was finding him this.

The cabin appeared almost abruptly between the trees as the lane curved one last time. Small. Dark wood. Deep porch. A pitched roof with moss creeping along one side. Smoke rose in a thin line from the chimney into the cold air. A truck sat off to the side under a rough lean-to. Beyond the house the mountain dropped away into forest.

Clint felt the old instinctive scan move through him before he could stop it. Sight lines. Cover. Two windows in front, one on the side, probably more in back. Good distance from neighbors. Easy to defend. Easier to disappear in.

Natasha parked and killed the engine.

Silence rushed in, thick and immediate.

For a moment neither of them moved.

Then Natasha said, “Try not to look like you’re checking for exits.”

“I always check for exits.”

“Yes. But you usually hide it better.”

He opened the door. Cold air hit his face, sharp with pine and woodsmoke.

The gravel shifted under his boots as he got out. The mountain quiet was not true quiet – there was the faint chatter of water somewhere downhill, the creak of trees moving in the wind, a bird calling once and then again farther off – but it felt deep enough to swallow a man whole.

Natasha came around the hood and led the way to the porch.

The boards gave a low complaint beneath their weight. Clint noticed a pair of work gloves set neatly on the rail, a stack of cut wood, a ceramic planter with nothing growing in it yet. Signs of life. Sparse, controlled.

Natasha knocked once and opened the door without waiting.

Warmth met them first. Coffee, cedar, old books, the faint clean tang of wood polish. The main room was small but not cramped. A couch facing a stone hearth. Shelves built into one wall. A narrow kitchen visible through an open archway. No clutter. No softness either beyond what function required.

Sasha stood near the table by the window.

She had changed since the battle. He saw that immediately, before she even spoke.

Not in the obvious ways. There was no dramatic ruin to her, no collapse. She still held herself with that Red Room economy, every motion efficient, every inch of her balanced and deliberate. Her hair was tied back loosely. A dark sweater covered the lean lines of her frame, sleeves pushed to her forearms. She looked healthy enough. Uninjured.

But some internal light had gone out and taken warmth with it.

When Clint had first seen her months ago she had seemed sharpened by anger, by discipline, by that hard-banked intensity some survivors carried like a second spine. The woman in front of him now looked quieter, yes, but not peaceful. More like ash after fire. Still dangerous if stirred. Mostly cold.

Her gaze landed on him and stayed there.

No surprise.

Natasha must have told her.

Still, Clint got the feeling the reality of him on her porch was something else entirely.

“Hi,” Natasha said, softer than she used with almost anyone.

Something shifted in Sasha’s face at the sound of her voice. Not ease. Something more complicated, threaded through with old hurt and older loyalty.

“You found it,” Sasha said.

Her eyes never left Clint.

“I had GPS,” Natasha replied.

That got the faintest ghost of expression from Sasha, not quite a smile.

Then she looked back at Natasha fully and, after a beat, stepped forward.

Natasha met her halfway.

The hug was quick, close, familiar. Not showy. The kind of embrace built from history instead of sentiment. Clint watched the way Sasha’s fingers curled briefly into the back of Natasha’s jacket before she let go.

When she stepped back, her attention flicked to Clint again.

“Nat said you needed somewhere to stay,” she said.

There was no welcome in the words. There was not exactly refusal either. Just fact, laid flat between them.

“That’s what she said,” Clint answered.

One eyebrow moved a fraction.

He had the absurd thought that she looked more tired than angry, and somehow that was harder to stand.

Natasha shrugged out of her jacket. “I also said he could chop wood and fix hinges.”

“I don’t have any broken hinges.”

“Then he can brood decoratively on the porch.”

Clint snorted despite himself.

Sasha looked at him for one unreadable second longer, then turned toward the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Please,” Natasha said.

Clint nodded. “Yeah.”

Sasha disappeared through the archway.

Clint followed her with his eyes without meaning to.

She moved lightly. Too lightly. Like the floorboards had never once had the chance to creak under her. The training lived in her body the way his own lived in his – too deep to leave, too old to fully name. Natasha had dragged her out before the final violation, before the sterilization, before the Red Room finished claiming every part of her it wanted. But it had still had years. Years were enough.

He looked around the room again, slower this time.

Books, mostly practical. A few spy novels shoved in crooked like a joke only one person knew. A blanket folded over the arm of the couch with military precision. A ceramic bowl on the table holding keys, matches, a knife. On the mantel above the fireplace stood exactly one framed photograph turned slightly away from the room.

He did not step closer to see it.

Natasha slid him a look.

There it was again – that old sense of being maneuvered into position by someone who knew precisely how little pressure to apply.

From the kitchen came the sound of cupboard doors, water pouring, a spoon against ceramic.

Natasha crossed to the window and looked out over the trees as if she had not orchestrated this exact arrangement down to the hour. Clint stayed by the door because he was not sure where else to put himself.

When Sasha returned with three mugs balanced easily between both hands, the room seemed to contract around the ordinary domesticity of it. Coffee in a safe house. Coffee in a mountain cabin. Coffee like they were people built for this kind of silence.

She handed Natasha the first mug, then Clint the second.

Their fingers did not touch.

Up close he could see the exhaustion etched fine around her eyes. Not from lack of sleep. Something older than that. The kind of tiredness that settled into the bones when grief stopped being an event and became architecture.

“Thanks,” he said.

She gave one curt nod and kept hers for herself.

They sat because standing made the tension too obvious. Natasha took the armchair. Sasha claimed the far end of the couch. Clint chose the chair nearest the hearth, more from reflex than comfort. The fire had burned low, mostly embers with the occasional blue-orange flicker licking through the logs.

For a while no one spoke.

Coffee steamed between their hands. Outside, wind moved through the trees.

Clint took a sip. It was strong and slightly bitter and better than he expected.

Sasha noticed the way his shoulders loosened by half an inch.

“It’s not poisoned,” she said.

Natasha lifted her gaze over the rim of her mug. “She only poisons special occasions.”

The words were light.

The air beneath them was not.

Sasha looked down into her coffee. “You’d know.”

Clint felt the sentence land.

There it was – the sleeping draught, the choice Natasha had made for her.

He had heard the story in pieces after the fact. Bruce finding Sasha unconscious. Steve swearing. Natasha not apologizing because there had been no time and because apologies, from Natasha, tended to come later and at angles you had to notice to understand.

Sasha had woken too late to stop any of it.

Too late to follow them into the past. Too late to stand on Vormir. Too late to be there when Natasha chose death.

The mug sat warm in Clint’s hands and still he felt cold.

Sasha rose after a minute, suddenly, as if the room had shrunk too small around her. “I’m making more,” she said, though no one had asked.

She took her mug and went back into the kitchen.

Clint watched her go.

When he looked back, Natasha was already watching him.

Then she tilted her head, almost imperceptibly, toward the kitchen doorway.

A question. An answer waiting.

Clint’s brow drew together.

Natasha’s expression did not change. She only mouthed one word.

Steve.

Clint felt something in him still.

Not surprise, exactly. More like recognition catching up with an old instinct.

He had seen enough. Months ago in hallways. In the way Steve had gone too still when Sasha entered a room. In the way Sasha had learned to keep her face blank a beat too late.

Clint’s gaze flicked toward the kitchen.

Natasha shook her head once.

Later.

The soft scrape of ceramic on counter reached them from the next room.

Clint leaned back and said nothing.

By the time Sasha returned, both spies were wearing faces empty enough to pass inspection.

Natasha stayed another twenty minutes.

She asked about the generator. The roof. The nearest town. Sasha answered with short, competent replies. Clint added little. He watched the two women move around each other carefully, the shape of old intimacy altered by betrayal but not erased by it. Natasha touched Sasha’s wrist once when she stood to leave. Sasha did not pull away.

At the door, Natasha turned and drew Sasha into another brief embrace. This time Sasha let herself lean for one heartbeat longer before stepping back.

“Call me if you need anything,” Natasha said.

Sasha’s mouth twisted faintly. “That broad enough to include chloroform?”

Natasha’s eyes softened with something like guilt, something like fondness. “No,” she said. “I’m fresh out.”

The answer was so painfully Natasha that Clint almost laughed.

Almost.

Sasha looked at her for a long second, then nodded once. “Drive safe.”

Natasha pulled her jacket on and glanced at Clint. “Walk me out?”

He set his mug down and followed her.

Cold met them again on the porch. The wind had picked up, carrying the resin smell of the pines and the faint wet scent of the creek below. Gravel crunched under their boots as they crossed to the car. Clint shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and waited until they were out of Sasha’s hearing range.

Natasha leaned against the driver’s door but did not open it.

For a moment she just looked at him.

“What happened with Steve?” Clint asked.

No preamble. No point.

Natasha’s mouth flattened.

The trees hissed softly around them.

“He leaned on her,” she said at last. “When Bucky was gone.”

Clint kept his face still.

Barnes had disappeared like half the world after the first Snap. Steve had held together what he could of the compound and the world around it. Clint had not been there for most of it, but he knew what loneliness could do to a good man. Knew too well what grief made people reach for when they needed warmth and did not believe they were allowed to ask honestly.

“How bad?”

Natasha looked past him, toward the cabin. Her voice stayed low. “Bad enough.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the one I’m giving you.”

He inhaled slowly, held it, let it go.

She rubbed her thumb over the car key in her hand. “It started because they were both lonely,” she said. “It continued because Steve needed someone and Sasha had spent her whole life being useful when people were breaking. Hidden relationship. Quiet. Compartmentalized. He cared about her, Clint. I’m not saying he didn’t.”

“But.”

“But when the past got changed and the first Snap was undone, it stopped being a contained disaster. Bucky came back. The missing came back. Everyone started trying to put themselves back where they thought they belonged.” Her gaze shifted to him again. “Steve didn’t handle that well.”

Clint thought of the corridor years ago, of the charged silence between them, of Steve’s particular talent for carrying guilt like it made him noble.

“He cut her loose.”

Natasha’s jaw tightened. “Not cleanly.”

That told him enough.

A use first. An affection maybe real enough to confuse the wound. Then retreat. Hesitation. Duty dressed up as kindness. The sort of mess decent men made when they wanted to do the right thing without admitting they had already done the damage.

“She isolated herself after,” Natasha said. “Came up here. I already had set the place up for her before the Snap, and she decided the mountain suited her. I let her.”

“You let her.”

Now Natasha did smile, though it held no humor. “Don’t start.”

He huffed a breath.

She straightened from the car. “You need a place to put your feet. She needs somebody who understands what it is to come out the other side of the end of the world and find out survival solved nothing. You can help each other.”

“There it is.”

“What?”

“The part where you pretend this wasn’t the plan all along.”

Natasha’s eyes met his and stayed there. “Of course it was the plan.”

He barked a quiet laugh and looked away at the trees.

“I’m not asking you to fix her,” she said.

“No. Just babysit a grieving assassin while I figure out how to be a divorced has-been in a cabin.”

“Yes.”

He turned back to her. “You’re unbelievable.”

“And yet,” she said, opening the car door at last, “you came.”

He could not argue with that.

Natasha paused before getting in. For a moment the cool mask slipped and something more vulnerable moved beneath it.

“She loved me,” she said quietly. “Enough to hate me for surviving me.”

Clint said nothing.

Natasha glanced toward the house again. “She won’t say much at first. Don’t push. Don’t ask about Steve unless she brings him to you. And Clint–”

He waited.

“Don’t lie to her. She’s had enough of that.”

The words landed in him heavier than they should have.

He nodded once.

Natasha got into the SUV. The engine turned over, loud in the mountain quiet. She rolled the window down before pulling away.

“One more thing,” she said.

He lifted a brow.

“She really does need that porch step fixed.”

Then she drove off.

Clint stood in the gravel and watched the taillights disappear between the trees until the red glow vanished completely and there was nothing left but cold air and the sound of wind moving through the forest.

She had done it again.

Set the board. Moved the pieces. Walked away before anyone could accuse her of playing.

He looked at the cabin.

Warm light glowed in the front window. Through the glass he could see only part of the room – the edge of the couch, a slice of the fireplace stone, the shadow of movement passing once and gone.

Somewhere inside, Sasha was alone.

Not alone, he corrected himself. Not anymore.

He had no idea whether that was a comfort or a threat.

The mountain stretched silent around him. No city noise. No sirens. No quinjet engines overhead. Just trees and distance and the kind of isolation that invited either healing or ruin and did not particularly care which one a man chose.

Clint drew a slow breath.

He had not wanted to go back to the compound. He had not wanted Laura’s house once it stopped being theirs. He had not wanted the rental with its blank walls and rented loneliness. He had not wanted much of anything except fewer memories and a way to sleep without feeling like he owed the universe something for still being alive.

Now he had a cabin in the mountains, a broken porch step, and a woman inside who had once tried to beat him bloody because Natasha died where he came back.

That felt, in some grim and familiar way, about right.

He climbed the porch steps.

The boards creaked under his weight this time. Deliberately. A warning offered as courtesy.

When he opened the door, warmth spilled over him again.

Sasha was in the kitchen with her back half-turned, rinsing out one of the mugs. She glanced over her shoulder at him, then at the empty road beyond.

“Natasha gone?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She dried her hands on a dish towel and set it aside.

For a second neither of them moved.

Then she nodded toward the table.

“Coffee’s getting cold.”

Clint closed the door behind him.

Outside, the mountain kept its silence.

Inside, he crossed the room and sat down.

GENERAL taglist: @mellowfurynight | @castielscaplan | @whatisanniedoin | @barewithme02 | @mathcat345 | @overwintering-soldier

CLINT taglist: @allthingswickedpodcast | @kneelforloki

But you stayed calm, ordering a strong whiskey from the handsome bartender and drank it in one breath, wasting no time in ordering for another drink.

“What’s a new face like yours during in some dingy little bar like mine?” The bartender asked, voice low as he placed his palms down in front of you. He held a warmth to him that made you want to speak to him instead of backing away.

“I moved here not too long ago,” you admitted as you gestured for a refill, slapping a few bills on the bartop. “Promotion at work from my old town.”

“Ah,” the man smiled, leaning down to grab the tap before refilling your glass. “Name’s Sam Wilson.”

“I’m Y/N,” you nodded, feeling at ease with the man.

“What do you know about this city, kid?” He asked, suddenly leaning down low to whisper to you.

“Not too much, why?” You answered.

“You’ll see shortly, actually,” he suddenly smirked and walked to the other side of the bar as the bar door had opened and in came two more intimidating men. You began to shrink in on yourself as the two men walked over to Sam. The man pointed casually in your direction and the two men immediately walked over to you.

“So, I heard you’re new in town,” the sandy haired man spoke as he smiled, his pearly white teeth shining brightly as he sat on your left. The man accompanying him sat on your right, making you feel trapped.

“Yes,” you spoke cautiously, wondering if you could escape this bar without getting harmed.

“Hey, Steve?” The man glanced over at the blond. “What do we do with newcomers on our terf?”

“Why, we show them exactly how the city runs, Clint,” Steve, you assumed, had spoken.

“What do you say we take you on a small tour of the city, love?” Clint propositioned in a manner that you knew you’d be a fool to deny.

“Right now?” You asked preplexed.

“Well, we can start tomorrow morning if you’d like?” Clint offered as Sam brought over three bottles of his finest liquor.

“And if I refuse?” You asked.

“Try one time with me, doll,” he flashed a smile. “I promise, I’ll be worth it. If not, well, I’ll leave you alone.”

You accepted finally, thinking he was attractive and you knew needed someone to show you around the town anyway, if you wanted to make a living here.

You spent the rest of the night with Clint and this man Steve, getting to know the both of them thinking they were both incredible gentleman until it was nearing two in the morning and you knew you had to go home and prepare for the day ahead of you.

Clint and Steve had offered you a ride home, but you had declined the offer, thinking that it was odd that these two gentlemen were so willing to help you out. The thoughts were gone nearly just as soon as they had popped into your head as you rode in the back of the taxi.

The next morning found yourself preparing for the day ahead. You picked your favorite outfit and shoes before nearly forgetting that you hadn’t exchanged numbers with the man from the night before. You thought to yourself how you would be able to contact the man as you prepared breakfast for yourself.

Just as you had finished washing the dishes, a knock came to your door, startling you. You couldn’t be too sure who the mysterious arrival had been until you had opened your door and stepped back. Standing on your doorstep was Clint, a small bouquet of flowers in his hand.

“I’d appreciate it if you offered me your phone number since I had to run around the city looking for your house.”

“How’d you-?”

“That’s not your concern, now, is it?” He smiled mysteriously, just as he had done the night previously.

“It kind of is, really,” you answered back as you stepped out of your apartment and walked beside him and to the curb where his car was parked out front, Steve holding the passenger door open for you.

“Never you mind, dollface,” he smiled he offered you the passenger seat before Steve closed the door and sat in the backseat.

The three of you spent nearly the entire day together. You found out he was easy to talk with. He sung songs as well whenever a favorite of his had come on the radio as it played softly in the front seat. But no matter how happy he seemed around you, you felt as though he were hiding something. Another life, perhaps? A girlfriend back at home, maybe?

You tried not to pry in his business, even weeks after your first meeting had long been done and over with. He seemed so kind hearted. But whenever the pair if you weren’t accompanied by Clint’s shadow man Steve, he always seemed a little shifty. He’d ignore his phone vibrating in his pocket for hours until he finally had to excuse himself out of impatience.

A few times you thought he had another woman on the side, or a family that he was keeping a secret. But what business of it was yours? You were merely hanging out with someone you were starting to consider a friend. He had shown you all over the city; his favorite restuarants, his favorite movie theaters, his favorite clothing stores. He seemed so innocent and precious.

Until one day, you’d walk outside of your house and noticed him sitting in his car on the other side of the street. He was on his phone. He looked absolutely murderous as he seemed to be in a yelling match with whomever he was speaking with.

He threw his phone on the seat behind him and stormed out of the car, stopping short once he noticed you standing outside of your house.

“Y/N,” he spoke softly, a dark contrast to the vision you had just witnessed with him. Should you be scared of this man? This man, who seemed so gentle and quiet? Who you had just witnessed nearly punching his windshield.

“What are you doing, Clint?” you asked, approaching him slowly.

“I-I came-” he scrubbed a calloused hand down his face. “I just got some bad news, it’s nothing. I’d come to ask if you’d like to go grab some coffee with me?”

“Tell me something first,” you bargained.

He sighed and dropped his head for a minute before locking gazes with you again. “I have a feeling what you’re going to ask me; but go on.”

“Where’s your wife?” You asked. “You always seem to get phone calls nonstop whenever we hang out and it’s been a constant thought in my head.”

To your surprise, he burst out in laughter. “You think- you think I have a wife?” He bent low for a minute before he regained his composure. “Sweetheart, if I had a wife, do you really think I’d waste any time in some seedy little bar? Even if a great friend of mine owned the joint?”

“Then you’re a workaholic, then.” You deadpanned.

“Something like that, yeah.” He agreed, a twinkle appearing in his eye.

“What is it, Clint?” you pressed on, not moving from where you stood in the street. “What’s going on between you and Steve? You’re not a homosexual, are you?”

A distressed emotion passed on his face for a moment before he shook his head. “No, he’s just a good friend to me, Y/N. Will you stop the questioning?”

“Tell me, Clint, or I’m not getting in that car with you.”

“My family runs this city,” he revealed, dropping his shoulders. “I didn’t want to tell you.”

“What do you mean?” You asked, not having a damn clue what he was saying.

“I’m the king of these streets, doll face.” He sighed, dropping his face down. “Mobster King of Brooklyn and all.”

“What?” You nearly screeched. You couldn’t believe it. No, there’s no fucking way this sweet, kind gentleman ran this city. You’d heard of the famed King of Brooklyn for months before you moved here. But to find out Clint was the famed gangster? That was news to you. He couldn’t be. He was surely pulling your leg. Maybe he was testing you, to see if you’d believe him or not.

“Think about it, Y/N,” he breathed out. “You’ve never been to my home. I have expensive cars that you’d only dreamed of owning. Steve is almost always flanking my side. Secret phone calls? Lavish gifts I give you. All those secret places I displayed for you. I own this city, every penny of it is because of my family.”

“Can we go get that coffee now?” you spoke, feeling your shoulders drop at the news. You still couldn’t believe it. He was kidding around, right?

“What’s going to make you believe me?” He asked, long minutes after the two of you had sat in his car and drove off into the city.

“Coffee,” you repeated, causing him to sigh and pull over onto the side of the street and turn around in his seat and lean his back against the car door.

“I’m sorry, okay?” He spoke. “This is exactly why I couldn’t tell you, Y/N. I was enjoying our time together, without the worry of putting your life in danger if it got twisted up with mine.”

“I’ll forgive you if you give me that damned coffee I keep asking for,” you smiled, forgiveness on your tongue.

“Promise?”

How he ended up here with you, after everything he had been through... Clint wasn't sure. Somedays with you drove him absolutely insane, but then other days... where you and him could just relax like this. In the back of your truck, cuddled in blankets under the stars, watching some cheesy horror movie. Yeah, it was the nights like this he loved.

That's not to say that Clint didn't also love your spitfire energy. You were younger than him, so you had plenty of it. But Clint much preferred the relaxed moments between the two of you. When the chaos finally stilled. Even just for the night to allow the two of you to breathe.

The cool fall air seemed to almost kiss your cheeks, making you shiver and lean in closer to Clint. He looked down at you and smiled softly, bringing you in closer to his side. Doing his best to keep you warm. He always did his best for you.

"Mmm... baby?" Your eyes drifted up to Clint and he met them with a soft gaze. Giving you a gentle nod of encouragement to continue," do straws have one hole or two?" The serious, but oh so tired voice in which you asked the question made Clint pause. A smirk threatening to tug at the corners of his lips.

"What?" He chuckled, turning to face you a little more.

"I think it's one hole, but I don't know," you murmured. Looking to him for answers. Clint just stared at you, dumbfounded by the pure randomness of the question. Leave it to you to think about straws while watching a horror movie.

"It's-" he was going to say one and confirm it. But then his brows furrowed, actually thinking about it. Was it one or two? "I- don't actually know," he replied. Looking more and more bewildered the more he thought about it.

"Right? It's confusing," your voice was so sleepy, he was sure this question was a result of your tiredness.

Clint brushed some of your hair out of your face, gently cupping your cheek as he gazed into your eyes. Simply admiring you," I think you might need some sleep." The archer couldn't help but tease.

To which you whined and gave him a playful pout that he leaned in and kissed away. Lingering for a moment longer than necessary, resting his forehead to yours.

"Don't start whining, you need it."

You rolled your eyes at Clint and he scoffed, laying down back against your side again.

"Sleep," Clint insisted. Planting a soothing kiss to your cheek.

"You're such an old man..." you teased, he simply laughed and shook his head. God, what was he going to do with you?