#clintashafic

The voices and the footsteps passed underneath them. The two of them listened, not moving, not breathing. The men came back, spread out, regrouped and spread out again.

Attention, please, came a tinny announcement. All trains are delayed due to an unexpected emergency. Barton cocked his head at her. His Hungarian was rusty. Natasha mouthed the message at him in English, not sure if there was enough light for him to see. He grimaced, so she figured he got the message.

Down the tunnel, one of the voices called. They’ve gone down the tunnel.

Another voice swore, and then came the crackle of a radio. We’ll get them at the other end. Let’s go.

Then, unbelievably, impossibly, the footsteps receded. Natasha waited, coiled, ready in case this was a trick of some kind. They waited, guns on the hatch, listening to the bustle of people moving up and down the platform.

Natasha wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she exhaled, and relaxed her grip slightly. Barton sank back against the wall of the vent. Neither of them lowered their weapons entirely. Natasha twisted her head slightly to get a glimpse of her partner’s watch. Just gone 5pm.

Attention, please. All trains are delayed due to an unexpected emergency.

People were crowding on the platform. Natasha tensed ever so slightly whenever someone shuffled underneath the hatch, but there were no shouts now, just the voices of disgruntled and confused commuters.

What’s going on? There was an explosion, didn’t you hear? Someone’s on the run, I saw soldiers in the street. They weren’t soldiers, they were cops. No, they were special forces. A whole building came down, did you see it? No, it’s on fire but I don’t think it came down. I don’t know, maybe a gas explosion. I heard gunfire. I think there was a tank. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. Normal services resuming from platform B.

It took just under an hour for the trains to empty the platform of people. Natasha finally let herself relax, holstering her weapon. She shifted, stretching her legs, and ever so slowly slid over until she was thigh-to-thigh with her partner.

“Hurt?” Her voice was barely a whisper. There was still a chance that Dreykov’s men or the authorities were somewhere nearby. Hell, even a passerby or a janitor overhearing them could be the end of them.

“Not badly,” he breathed. “You?”

She shook her head. There were various scrapes and bruises she hadn’t even begun to catalogue, but nothing was broken, not as far as she could tell. Footsteps passed underneath them and she froze, feeling Barton do the same beside her. She opened her mouth to say something else, but the fear that someone might hear her stopped her with her lips just parted. A train rattled into the station, opened its doors with a soft hiss, clunked them shut and rumbled away leaving silence behind it. Natasha ducked her head, letting out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

“Any word from SHIELD?” her partner whispered, after a while. She shook her head. They would get a signal when an extraction was ready, but there was no knowing how long that would take. It all depended on the political situation, or, more accurately, whether SHIELD could manoeuvre around said situation to retrieve their agents before Dreykov’s cronies could tear their hearts out.

They sat side by side in silence for a long time. There was no change in the light coming through the cracks around the vent hatch. The station would be lit all night. The only way to mark time was with Barton’s watch, and by the fifth hour tense anxiety gave way to lightly worried boredom. Her legs were cramped and she was hungry. The thrill of the chase had long since vanished, and now all she wanted was to be in a jet hurtling back towards the States.

Something poked her thigh. She looked down, and found Barton’s hand, offering her something. She took it, and brought it close to her face to see it in the dim light. It was an arrowhead, one of his less explosive ones. She frowned, confused, and gave it back to him. He smiled, and reached over to touch it to the wall of the vent. As Natasha watched, he began to scratch something. Natasha reached out and grabbed his wrist.

“Someone might hear,” she whispered. He looked at his watch pointedly. It was almost eleven at night. There were still people now and then, and an occasional train, but the station was largely silent. There was nothing else to do but wait for extraction. She sighed, and let go of him. He carved three vertical lines into the metal, then three horizontal lines to form a grid. He finished by scratching a circle into the top right square, and handed her the arrowhead. Natasha smiled, and scratched a cross. They paused as a train whooshed past, not stopping at the empty platform below them. It took her four moves to beat him, and he made a big show of shaking her hand. She smiled, and he drew them another grid.

Barton gave her his watch and took the first shift sleeping once midnight rolled around. Logically, Natasha knew that they were not likely to be found now, but she couldn’t quite relax enough to sleep just yet. Her partner had no such concerns, and was out like a light despite the cold metal of the vent. She kicked him whenever he breathed too loudly, but aside from that she just waited, marking time on his watch until it was 4 in the morning. She shook his shoulder, and he slid over and sat up, making room for her to lie down. She slept fitfully, and once the morning rush took over on the platform below her, she could no longer sleep. She opted to lie with her eye to the crack in the hatchway, watching as unsuspecting people passed under her. The scent of coffee and pastries was almost enough to tempt her out. Almost. As if he had read her mind, Barton reached into a pocket and produced a battered protein bar. She snapped it in half and they shared a miserable communion.

They played another few rounds of noughts and crosses. She slept again once the station quietened down, this time sitting up with her head on her partner’s shoulder. She didn't think too deeply about it - they were still very much in mission mode, boring as it might be for the time being. Barton woke her after a couple of hours, in the early afternoon. They made a game of stretching, trying to get out of each other’s way as they did. The early evening found her practising what basic ASL she had picked up. This proved much more engaging than noughts and crosses, and by the time twenty-four hours had passed, she had mastered the alphabet and could sign several rude words. It helped distract the both of them from the hunger, thirst and other bodily functions they couldn’t deal with in a train station vent.

It was his turn to sleep, and he managed - somehow, she wasn’t sure how - to get a few hours’ rest during the evening rush. Announcements rang out on the crackling speakers, trains groaned in and out of the station, hundreds of people went about their lives, and Barton slept right through it. She watched him, in awe of his ability to ignore the noise until she realised he had probably just turned his hearing aids down.

The dawn of the second day found them irritable, sore, starving and ready to drop out of the vents and just make a run for it. There had been no word from SHIELD, despite both of them checking that their various comms devices were still operational. Natasha practiced her ASL swearing and Barton augmented her vocabulary for a while.

“Two days,” she whispered, sometime around midday. “Maybe something’s gone wrong.”

“They’ll come,” he told her, quietly, simply. She hated him for it for an hour or so, until he carved a game of hangman into the wall and she got sucked into the game. He was good at taking her mind off things, she was starting to realise. It wasn’t something anyone had ever done for her before.

Night approached with all the speed of a glacier, but finally, just as Natasha opened her mouth to guess the word for their current round of hangman, Barton’s watch beeped twice. In one fluid motion, she pulled the hatch open and they dropped down onto the platform. There was no one there to see them, which Natasha assumed was part of the plan. She didn’t like flying blind, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She and her partner streaked up the escalator onto the dark streets of Budapest. A black SUV rolled up and Barton’s watch chirped once. The door opened and they threw themselves inside.

“Butterfly,” she said, once she’d caught her breath, revelling in the sound of her voice at normal volume after two days of quiet whispers.

When he finally sees a doctor emerge from the clinic, he rises. His thigh still aches where her bullet passed clean through it. It’ll heal. It’s not important.

“Any progress?” he asks.

“Better than last time,” the man says, gruffly. “No one needs stitches.”

Clint sighs, relieved. It’s not much, but it’s an improvement. The doctor shoulders past him to get to the offices down the hall. Clint is used to the hostility, now that it’s been a few weeks. He’s put everyone in a difficult situation, and he’s owning it as best he can. There doesn’t seem to be one person in the entire agency who isn’t furious with him.

Natasha emerges, looking about as happy as anyone might after being poked and prodded for the better part of an hour. She glares at him. He gives an awkward thumbs up accompanied by a questioning smile. She doesn’t laugh. He’s not sure what her laugh sounds like, but he’s determined to hear it one day.

“I can run on the treadmill,” she tells him. “The doctor will email you.”

“Great,” he says. It is. She’ll have an outlet for her anger aside from beating him to a pulp on a sparring mat.

They walk in silence through a maze of halls until they reach the high-security holding suites. For what is essentially a prison cell, the suites are surprisingly pleasant. Large windows face onto the lawns of the facility, and in the early evening light Clint can see the grey figures of cadets jogging around the thin perimeter track. The sound of the lock tumblers clunking into place behind them cuts through the quiet, and he yawns.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he announces. Natasha ignores him, and goes to her bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind her. The boundaries have never been in question, and Clint is tired, so he doesn’t bother asking her what she wants to eat. There’s leftover pasta, she can have some if she gets hungry during the night. He’s heard her sneaking around in the early hours of the morning. It doesn’t come as a surprise that she doesn’t sleep much.

His phone dings, and he pulls it out to find an email from the doctor waiting for him. Natasha has been cleared for light exercise, nothing strenuous that might rip stitches or cause undue injury. The tone is clipped. Clint can’t remember the last time someone ended a message to him with ‘best wishes’, or even ‘regards’. He’s out of favour with the entire agency, not to mention there are probably a few people in Russia who wouldn’t mind putting a bullet through his head. Clint Barton, though, is nothing if not a stubborn idiot, and he’ll wear this decision until he’s dead and buried. Of that, he is certain.

He showers quickly, and changes into comfortable sweats. It’s not late, so he goes through the ridiculous amount of security checks on the laptop that’s been left for him and starts on some of the grunt work Fury’s dumped on him as a small part of a punishment that looks set to last a few years at least. Clint doesn’t know why he has to enter five passcodes and provide his thumb print to get on the computer when Natasha could easily just take his phone, but he’s doing what he’s told these days.

Natasha emerges about an hour later, and goes into the bathroom. None of these doors have locks, and he wishes for her sake that they did. It can’t be fun knowing that someone could barge in on you at any moment. He’s tried to make it clear he’s not the barging type, but it hasn’t made a dent in her attitude towards him.

He listens to the sound of running water for a while, then shuts the laptop and goes to the kitchen. He heats up some pasta, and makes a cup of tea. He eats slowly, but when he’s done the water’s still running, so he gives up on any attempt at conversation and goes to bed. He misses his real apartment. The holding suite is plush, and there’s more than enough space for both of them, but there’s no place like home.

But if he went home, he reminds himself as he plugs in his phone, there would be no one standing between Natasha and the hundreds of people who don’t want her here. Who’s to say who would come knocking if they knew she was by herself? It would be risky, sure, but it could be done. Clint closes his eyes, and tries to stave off the paranoia. No one’s coming for her. He can make this work. People will forgive him eventually.

He wakes in the dark to the sound of quiet knocking. It takes him a few moments of rousing to realise that someone’s knocking on his door, and that the only person who could be knocking on his door right now is Natasha. He rolls out of bed, and opens the door.

Natasha is wearing the standard issue SHIELD pyjamas, and the image of her in sleepwear is so incongruous that he doesn’t hear what she says the first time she says it.

“What?” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes.

“I need help,” she says. Her voice has a tightness to it, but she sounds more tired than annoyed, which Clint takes as a win.

“What time is it?” he yawns, shambling after her into the kitchen.

“Three fifteen.” Natasha hands him a dressing and some clean gauze. “Dressing came off in the bath, and I can’t reach that far.”

He hides his surprise at the fact that she was in the bath. It gives him some satisfaction to know that she feels comfortable enough to relax. Asking him for help - well, that’s another milestone. He knows it’s technically his fault. It was his arrow that struck her in the shoulder, and it’s that injury that means she can’t reach far enough to fix the dressing on another wound that was also probably his fault.

Clint takes the supplies and motions for her to sit in front of him. She shifts a chair and sits down, pulling her top off in one motion. Clint tries to ignore that. She enjoys getting reactions from him.

“You’re bleeding,” he says, frowning. He presses the gauze gently to the wound, and holds her shoulder to apply a little pressure. Natasha says nothing, but she doesn’t pull away from him. In fact, she leans back a little into his hands. Clint brushes it off, and when he’s satisfied that the bleeding has pretty much stopped, he refolds the gauze and tapes it down properly. As he brushes her hair out of the way of the tape, she leans back again.

“Are you okay?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah,” she says. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

“Mmm.”

She pulls her shirt back on, and turns around to face him. It’s the first time he’s seen her look at him like this. There’s no anger, no distrust. Nervousness, yes. Like she’s trying to summon the courage to say something. Clint waits, not wanting to spook her.

“I haven’t…” she mumbles. Clint hesitantly touches her hand. She bites her lip, and she looks like she’s about to cry. Clint withdraws his fingers, but she catches them. He looks at her, lost.

“I haven’t been close to anyone,” she murmurs. “Not… not in a long time.”

“That sounds lonely,” he says. He doesn’t know what she’s trying to ask him, and he feels stupid for it.

“I…” She hesitates again, and he makes the bold move of squeezing her hand. Her eyes flick down to their hands, almost intertwined.

“No one’s touched me who hasn’t wanted to hurt me,” she says, after a long silence. She seems to be experiencing some sort of emotional catharsis, and Clint isn’t equipped to deal with that, but he knows when someone needs a hug.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he murmurs. “You know that, right?”

“I do,” she says, and he feels her squeeze his hand lightly. “It’s just going to take some getting used to.”

“Do… do you want…” Clint cuts himself off. He doesn’t know what he’s offering, only that he’ll give her anything she wants.

“I don’t know,” she says. She sounds so lost, and he can’t help himself. He reaches out, and she flinches, but he opens his arms and before he knows it she’s reaching out for him too, and they’re holding each other in a hug, and it’s awkward, but it’s warm, and he can feel her heart beating against his chest. Her head comes to rest on his shoulder, and he keeps holding her. She tightens her grip, and now he’s fairly sure she’s crying. He just strokes her back, and lets her shift herself onto him so she’s straddling his lap. There’s no part of him thinking about anything but comforting this woman he’s dragged into his world. She holds onto him like no one’s ever hugged her, and Clint’s throat starts to ache because he realises that’s probably true.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice muffled by his shoulder. Clint blinks. They’ve been sitting here so long that he can feel the stiffness in his neck. She pulls back abruptly, and the spot where she was resting against his shoulder feels suddenly cold.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he says. “None of this is your fault.”

She nods, and pulls away, clambering off him. She says nothing, and he watches her stumble to her room and close the door behind her. He goes back to bed, and sleeps.

In the morning, she’s made coffee for both of them. That’s new, he thinks, and he drinks it while trying to hide a smile. They go to the holding facility’s small gym, and he runs on the treadmill next to hers. He goes with her to her daily round of medical checks, and this time she’s gone for over an hour. They pass the day in silence, and when it comes to the evening, they eat together. Clint thinks the silence is almost amicable.

“If you need any help,” Clint says, while they’re washing the dishes, “you know, with… with bandages, or… anything…”

“I’ll come to you,” she says. He nods, satisfied, and they go their separate ways. Clint reads for a while, and then turns in.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep for when he hears his door opening. He barely has time to sit up before Natasha is standing at his bedside, shifting from foot to foot.

“N’tsha?” he mumbles groggily. She doesn’t say anything, and he sits up properly, blinking in the darkness.

“Can I sleep here?” she asks. It’s almost inaudible. He blinks again.

“With me?” he asks. She nods. He knows instinctively what is going on this time, and pulls back the comforter in invitation. She visibly relaxes, and climbs in, pressing herself up against him. Clint shifts so her head is resting on his chest, and she’s half on top of him. He makes sure she’s covered, and starts to stroke her back lightly.

“Thank you,” she whispers. She presses her nose into the hollow of his neck, and Clint wants to cry for her. She’s so starved of kind touches that she’ll climb into bed with the man who upended her life just to feel him hold her. How long has it been since she’s felt the touch of someone who hasn’t wanted to hurt her?

He falls asleep with Natasha in his arms, and when he wakes she’s still there, curled against him, still holding onto him as she wakes up. She says nothing, just shifts closer. Clint props himself up a little on his pillows, and cradles her gently. He starts to stroke her hair, and she pushes into his touch like a cat. Clint can see the tears gathering in her eyes when she looks up, and it breaks his heart.

“If we were normal, we never would have met. I’d probably be in Russia, doing God knows what. You… I don’t know. Maybe a traveling circus? Or a farmer. One or the other.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

She raises her head, looking down at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean if we were here, right now, but… normal. Normal people.”

Natasha smiles. “We probably wouldn’t be awake yet.”

Clint lets a hand trail through her loose curls. “Maybe we’d be one of those couples who go running together every morning.”

“Gross.”

“Or we could be brunch people,” he chuckles. “You know, the ones drinking mimosas at eleven by the park.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.”

Clint yawns, and wraps his arms around her, rolling slightly so she can curl into him. Dawn is still a while away, maybe they can still get back to sleep. He’s just as happy to hold her close, warm under their blankets.

“Imagine being a normal couple,” she says, after a while. “Maybe we’d come home after work and cook dinner together.”

“We do that,” he protests.

“Work that doesn’t involve espionage or assassination,” she says. Even those words sound lovely in this sleepy voice of hers, and Clint can’t help but marvel at that. Everything she does enchants him. He’d never say that out loud, for fear of a swift punch to the throat, but it’s true.

“I’d like that,” he says. He finds her hand, and laces their fingers together. “I like this, but that would be nice.”

She makes a little noise, and snuggles closer. “Maybe we’d be married.”

That’s a surprise. “Maybe,” he says. “Maybe we wouldn’t be the type.”

“Maybe normal versions of us would be the type,” she murmurs. “You know, doing all the normal things. Rings and stuff. Kids, even.”

He smiles. It’s fantasy, they know that. Normalcy is not something that’s ever been on the table, and even if it were, they’d be bored in a week.

“We could get married,” he says. It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it. A piece of paper and a ring doesn’t seem enough to signify what he feels for Natasha. She knows it, and she slithers up to press a warm kiss to his lips.

“We’d drive each other crazy,” she huffs.

“We already do,” he points out.

“Do you want to get married?” she asks.

“Are you proposing?” he counters.

She parries by kissing him, and he luxuriates in it, drinking her in. His hands find the small of her back under the blankets. He loves her so vastly he can’t fathom it in his own mind. How could wedding vows capture it?

“We don’t need to get married,” she says. It’s like she can read his mind.

“I love you,” he says. “I love you so much.”

She could run away. It would be so easy. She could refuse to capitulate to Fury. What’s he going to do? Suspend her? Yes, probably. She curses inwardly. She’s not getting out of this.

“Natasha?”

She blinks. “Sorry.”

Doctor Singh just keeps looking at her, not staring, not judging, just an even look. Natasha hates it. She hates feeling like this woman can see right through her.

“What were you thinking just now?” the psychiatrist asks.

“I…”

Natasha falters. She knows better than to lie, but telling the truth runs against every instinct she has.

“This session is mandatory,” Singh reminds her. It’s gentle, but firm. She can’t get out of it. She knows what will happen if she does.

“I know,” she manages, finally. “I’m… sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Singh flips a page in her notebook. “We were talking about Bosnia.”

“Wasn’t much left to tell. We were evacuated and spent the next three weeks recovering.” Natasha doesn’t want to talk about Bosnia. She doesn’t even want to think about it.

“Yes, I saw that in your medical history. It was a little more than three weeks for Clint, though, wasn’t it?”

She grits her teeth. “Yes.”

“I’m not trying to provoke a reaction in you, Natasha. I want you to tell me how you think it affected you in the weeks afterwards.”

“It was bad,” Natasha says, stiffly. Singh nods, but Natasha can tell she wants more. “Really bad.”

“Bad in what way?”

With a monumental effort, Natasha unclenches her jaw. “I blamed myself. Even… even after he recovered. I still dream about it sometimes.”

“Do you think Clint blamed you?”

“Of course not. He’s an idiot.”

Singh takes another infuriating pause to look at her. Natasha wills the second hand of the clock on the wall to move faster.

“You do that a lot, you know,” the doctor says. “You speak about yourself like you’re describing someone you hate, and about anyone who shows you any compassion like they’re worthy of contempt.”

It’s a bold statement. Natasha tries to fall into the rhythm of an interrogation, tries to shut out Singh’s words, but she can’t. This isn’t an interrogation. Singh already has the information, she’s trying to force it into Natasha’s head.

“Do you really believe you’re not worthy of positive relationships with anyone?” Singh asks. That cracks her. Natasha lowers her gaze, and tries not to feel the burning in her throat.

“I don’t want to believe that,” she says, horrified at the wavering in her voice.

“Then that’s something we need to work on,” Singh says. “We can do that next week, though. Let’s call it a little early.”

Natasha nods, and stands. She looks at Singh as if she’s about to thank her, but the psychiatrist just nods. Natasha takes it as permission to leave, and in moments she’s out in the hall, walking away from the office as quickly as she can. She doesn’t need anyone knowing what she’s been up to.

She doesn’t realise where she’s walking until she opens Clint’s door. His quarters are exactly the same as always - chaotically untidy. Clint, sitting on his couch, gets up when he sees her come through the door. She walks straight into him, allowing him to wrap his arms around her. She stays there as long as she can.

“What happened?” he asks, when she finally lets him go.

“Singh,” she mutters. He purses his lips in sympathy. Natasha breathes in through her nose. Singh’s words are still spinning around her head.

“What’s the diagnosis?” Clint asks, with only a shade of hesitation in his voice.

“PTSD,” she mumbles. “Depression. Severe.” The shame of it grips her, twisting her stomach into a painful knot. She doesn’t want him to know. She wants him to think she’s strong, even if it’s not true. He pulls her into another hug, and she wants to push him away, wants him to stop, but at the same time she is desperate to stay like this. If he lets her go now, she might never resurface.

“Meds?” Clint asks.

“Not yet,” she murmurs. “She knows I… have issues with drugs.”

She feels him nod.

“I hate this,” she says, so quietly she barely hears herself say it. Clint doesn’t answer, just holds her to his chest and lets her press her face into the warm fabric of his t-shirt.

“We talked about Bosnia,” she says, pulling back a little. She sees that crease of frustrated worry he gets between his brows when subjects like this come up.

“It was years ago, Nat,” he says. He doesn’t let go of her.

“I know, but…”

“But nothing. It was an accident.”

“That was my fault.”

“We both screwed up,” he says, his voice firmer now, “and then we survived.”

“You-”

“I’m here,” he says. “I’m here, right now. There’s no what ifs, I survived. It’s done. Just like everything else we’ve survived.”

He disappears back into the kitchen, and Natasha drops her bag in her bedroom and heads straight for the shower. Under the spray of hot water, she feels herself relax at last. She slept on the flight home, sure. But here, with him, she can finally come to a halt.

She stays there until her skin is flushed from the heat. When she’s towelled off, she dresses in the first comfortable clothes she’s been in for a week, and she goes to meet him in her kitchen.

“It’s my first try,” Clint says, turning from the stove. “So… you know, go easy.”

Natasha smiles a tired smile. “I’ll eat anything. I’ve been on rations for a week.”

She looks around the space of her apartment. From the little table by the window, she can see almost all of it. Small compared to a lot of places in the city. Palatial by the standards of a nameless girl from Stalingrad. These four walls are more than she ever could have allowed herself to imagine all those years ago. There’s food in the cupboards, running water, heat- and Clint, in the heart of it all, making sure she never comes home to a cold, dark, empty place. Her home is full of him.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, as he sets two bowls down on the table.

“Nothing, I…”

She stops. The bowl he’s just set in front of her is filled with little dumplings. The scent of pork and herbs reaches her, and the tang of vinegar, and fragrant garlic. The steam drifts up, and as she takes a breath she can hear the thump of her heart.

“-made the dough from scratch, if you can believe it,” Clint is saying. He is opposite her now, already picking up his fork. Natasha feels her throat close, and her eyes start to sting. Clint finally looks up, and his fork freezes midway to his mouth.

“Tasha?” he asks, hesitantly.

“You made me pelmeni?” she asks.

“I thought you’d like it,” Clint says. “I… I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

He trails off, bewildered, as Natasha puts a hand to her mouth. She feels tears on her cheeks, and as she tries to breathe, she feels Clint beside her, kneeling next to her.

“Natasha?” he says, again. He pulls her around in her chair. She looks at him through a haze of tears.

“I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you,” she says, breathless. Clint still looks confused, so she presses a kiss to his forehead. “Thank you.”

It’s all she can manage. She knows him more intimately than anyone on the planet, and yet he still has the same capacity for surprising her as the day they met.

“I love you too,” he says, finally. He returns her kiss with one on her cheek, and takes his seat again. Natasha spears a dumpling with her fork and raises it to her lips. She eats it, her senses in Russia and her heart in Clint’s hands.

“Good?” he asks. She wipes her eyes and smiles.

It’s been several weeks now, and she’s still no closer to having this conversation with herself, let alone with Clint. How is she supposed to tell him? She can’t even say it out loud. The Red Room didn’t design her with love in mind, and all her life she has been told she’s not fit for it, that relationships serve only as an exchange of things of value - information, loyalty, practically anything except love. She can’t deny that’s what it is, but even thinking it activates a deep resistance encoded by her formative years. She can’t be in love, by design. It’s not possible. And yet…

“What’s up with you?” Clint asks her, over coffee later in the day. They are at a cafe, as far as Clint is willing to move from his apartment to get coffee, and it’s only slightly less bitter than what he brews in his pot at home. Natasha needs neutral ground, though, so she insisted.

“Nothing’s up,” she lies.

“Liar.” God damn him. Clint is the only one who knows her well enough to know when she’s covering something up, and even he gets it wrong around sixty percent of the time.

“Fine,” he says, after a lengthy silence. “Can I at least know if it’s something I’ve done?”

“It’s not something you’ve done,” she says. “I don’t really know what it is myself.”

“Well, let me know when you figure it out.”

They fall into easier talk, tactical plans, predictions of future missions, debating what colour rug Clint should buy to cover up the burn mark on the floor from a recent pancake mishap. This easy conversation is one of the reasons she’s in this bind, and after a while she drifts off again and in her mind she’s back in front of the mirror.

“Nat. Nat?”

“Mm?”

Clint is staring at her across the table. “Did you even hear me?” he asks.

“Sorry,” she sighs.

They part ways amicably, and if Clint is annoyed or confused, he doesn’t let it show. He trusts her to come out with information when it’s important, and he’s never begrudged the secrets she’s had to keep from him, whether it was under instruction from Fury or of her own accord. It’s one of the reasons she loves- no, not- shit.

Later, when she’s lying in bed, she closes and opens her fingers on the comforter, scrunching the fabric over and over again as her brain goes through the same cycle it’s been going through for weeks now. She has analysed her emotional and physical responses to Clint from every angle, and everything points the same way. She lies there, awake, until the clock ticks past one in the morning and she suddenly can’t take it for another second. The only person she would want to talk to about this kind of thing is Clint, so that’s who she calls. He picks up on the second ring.

“Hey,” he mumbles, and to his credit he doesn’t complain about her waking him up. Then again, maybe he’s too groggy to be mad.

“Hi,” she says. She stops, alarmed by the hammering of her heart. The silence stretches taut over the phone line.

“Can I help you with something?” he asks, and she almost laughs. There’s another silence, and she claws at the comforter just to have something to hold on to.

“I love you,” she says.

Clint is silent for a moment. Then-

“I know.”

“Was that a fucking Star Wars reference?” Natasha demands through an already broad smile.

“I love you too.”

She knew that already, she realises. Everything sort of falls into place, and she takes a steadying breath.

“Is that all?” he yawns. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“This is a big moment. Don’t be an asshole.”

He laughs, and then she laughs, and she presses the phone harder to her ear just to hear the sound of him breathing.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says. “Night, Tasha.”