#clintashafluff

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.”

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.”

Then came the team. Again, Natasha kept her secrets tight to her chest. She even pulled away from Clint for a time, terrified that he would somehow betray her. It has taken years for her to accept that this team is the only family she has ever known. Slowly, and without even realising it at first, she has come to trust them as fully and intimately as she trusts Clint.

Maybe that’s why she doesn’t think to contain herself. The team has been waiting for her return for six weeks, and she is surprised to realise, in the elevator up to the common floor of the complex, that she is excited to see them.

As the doors open, she can hear the chatter of voices. She steps out into the warmth of the plush lounge area where they have spent so many nights drinking and laughing, watching movies, or just talking until the small hours. She spies Steve first, sitting on the couch beside Bucky. Her vision is quickly blocked by Clint, who all but tackles her with a hug. Natasha folds into him, exhaling for what feels like the first time in a month and a half.

“Welcome home,” Clint says. Natasha feels the warmth of his chest, and there’s warmth in her own chest at the idea of home. Yes, this is home. Not the only home she’s ever known, but the safest and happiest place in her universe. She raises her head, and the glow of the place knocks any thought of discretion from her mind as she kisses him, right on the lips. She only stops when she feels his hands tense. Then, she remembers.

She pulls back sheepishly, hoping against hope that it was fast enough that no one saw. No such luck. Steve is frozen with a beer halfway to his lips. Bucky is staring. Tony, who Natasha has only just spotted, is leaning against the bench in the open kitchen, with Bruce standing opposite. Everyone is silent.

“Oops,” she mutters, and in her periphery she sees Clint trying to suppress a smile. Natasha untangles herself from Clint’s arms, and brushes herself off.

“Get me a beer?” she asks Clint. He nods, and does as he’s told. Without a word, Natasha drops her duffel bag by the door and heads for the couch opposite Steve and Bucky.

“How… uhm… how was the mission?” Steve asks. He’s blushing on her behalf, Natasha thinks. Her own cheeks remain their usual colour. She knows how to combat embarrassment.

“Good,” she says. “Textbook.”

Bucky opens his mouth, but is stopped by a quick elbow to the ribs from Steve. Clint returns from the kitchen with two beers, and hands her one. Natasha smiles politely.

“We were going to watch a movie,” Bruce says, hovering awkwardly in the kitchen.

“Sounds great,” she answers. She can tell Clint is barely suppressing laughter, and she resists the urge to kick him in the shins.

Bruce sets up the screens, and soon they are watching a light-hearted buddy cop film. Natasha can sense the eyes on her, and dutifully ignores them. About half an hour in, she rearranges herself so she’s leaning on Clint. He knows this routine, but they’ve never done it in front of anyone else. Nevertheless, he shifts so he can drape an arm around her. Aside from the accidental kiss earlier, this is the most intimate display they’ve ever made in front of the others, and it occurs to Natasha that maybe they didn’t know about the two of them. They’ve made jokes, sure, but she assumed from those jokes that they knew, or at least had their suspicions. It seems like they have surprised their team.

Natasha settles into Clint, and she is surprised to feel no embarrassment, no nerves. She feels content. She feels safe. Everyone knows now, and… it’s okay. She’s okay, and nothing much has changed.

Later, when they’re heading to bed, Natasha takes Clint’s hand. She knows Steve can see from behind her, and no doubt he’ll tell the others, but she doesn’t care anymore. These people are her family. She can be totally and unashamedly herself.

The rest of the party arrive as Clint and Laura lay out the picnic. Natasha settles gracefully onto the blanket, Nate tucked easily into the crook of her arm. Clint always marvels at how she looks so at ease carrying the baby. Natasha, who for so long said she didn’t want kids, didn’t need them - Natasha has ended up with three anyway, and the smile on her face as she looks down at the baby waving his pudgy little fists in the air makes Clint’s heart ache with happiness.

“Eat,” Laura says, nudging him with a bread roll. She is smiling the way she always smiles when she sees Clint gazing at his partner.

“Quit staring,” Natasha says, not taking her eyes off Nate. He is blowing spit bubbles and grasping at Natasha’s hair.

“Sorry,” Clint chuckles. He starts to assemble his sandwich, trying his hardest not to look at the beautiful tableau of Natasha cradling his baby boy. He can’t help but think of a time, years ago, when a thin, bruised Natasha had met his firstborn son. Cooper had been every bit as happy and beautiful as Nate is now, and Clint remembers the sight of Natasha, wrapped in a borrowed bathrobe, afraid even to touch the baby. Now, she touches her lips to Nate’s head, bouncing him gently as he gurgles.

Clint makes up the rolls. Cooper and Lila cram down their food, then head straight for the treehouse. Clint leans back on the soft blanket, watching Laura feed pieces of roll to Natasha, who doesn’t seem able to let go of the baby. It’s clumsy, and they laugh, and the sound is warm and it vibrates in Clint’s bones. He closes his eyes, and sighs happily.

He doesn’t realise he’s dozed until he opens his eyes and sees that the sky has changed colour. The light is golden now. He props himself up on his elbows, and is met by the sight of Natasha lying with her head in Laura’s lap, Nate nestled happily on her chest.

“I love you,” Clint says, to all of them.

“Restaurants are a classic first date.”

“But boring.”

“What’s boring about eating at a restaurant?”

Natasha rolls off the couch and fetches them both a beer. “Doesn’t matter anyway, you never get off your ass to get yourself a date.”

“When the perfect girl wants to date me, I’ll be right on it.”

“Please,” she scoffs. “There are dozens of women at SHIELD alone who’d be good for you. You need to be less picky.”

Clint doesn’t say what he wants to say, which is that there’s really only one woman for him, and she’s sitting across from him and mocking his opinions about dating. He almost says it, just for the fun of seeing what her reaction would be.

“What about Jen?” she asks, interrupting his thoughts. “From Ops. You know, the one who wears the flower earrings?”

They chat aimlessly for a long while, and once they part ways Clint mostly forgets about their conversation. He’s only reminded the next week, when Natasha texts him to tell him he’s got a date on Thursday with Jen from Ops. He wants to get out of it, but he knows if he cancels Natasha will find out and then she’ll ask him why he didn’t go out with her, and it will all come to light. He’s not ready to deal with that yet, so he goes on the date.

It’s a nice night. They eat, they chat, they drink. He kisses her on the cheek and they go their separate ways.

“So nothing happened?” Natasha demands, as they’re on their way back from their latest mission a week later. “Nothing at all?”

“I told you,” he sighs. “I just wasn’t feeling it.”

“You’re useless,” she groans. “Alright, alright. Ingrid. From Comms.”

He protests, but she sets it up anyway, and within the week he finds himself on another date. Ingrid is perfectly charming, but Clint’s mind is elsewhere, and she’s not entertained by the fact that he’s clearly not paying attention to her. Clint barely has time to recover from the date before Natasha sets him up with Romi. Then, the next week, Nadia.

“What about Ava?” Natasha asks, in the gym. Clint groans, and throws a towel at her.

“Just stop,” he pleads. “Enough. Stop it.”

“Stop what?” she asks. “Stop trying to help you find love?”

“I’m exhausted,” he tells her. “I can’t go on another date. I just can’t.”

“Is this your way of saying you’ve got a secret girlfriend?”

He throws his hands up in abject frustration. “Why are you doing this, Nat?” Why do I have to have a girlfriend? Why is this so important to you?”

She’s quiet for a long moment, and he realises he’s accidentally touched some nerve. He almost apologises, but he’s still annoyed at her, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“I just need you to be paired off, okay?” she asks.

“I’m not an odd sock,” he protests. “I’m fine without a partner.”

“Not for your sake,” she says. “For mine.”

“What?” he demands. “Why do you need me to be in a relationship?”

“Because when you’re single you’re a distraction for me, and I can’t have that.”

Clint tries to process what he’s just heard. “Hang on…”

“Clint, don’t misunderstand-”

“Wait a second,” he interrupts. “Is all of this because you… like me?”

She’s silent, but a faint flush rises to her cheeks.

“It is, isn’t it?” he pushes. She ducks her head, and it’s the first time he’s ever seen her look so embarrassed.

“I just need the temptation out of reach,” she says, her voice quiet.

“Nat,” he exhales, frustrated and relieved all at once. “I like you too.”

She looks at him as if she’s trying to work out the joke. “What?”

“I like you too,” he repeats. “Of course I do. Why do you think I’m not interested in dating other women?”

“You… like me?” she asks.

“Yes, you huge idiot,” he groans. Natasha’s small smile grows a little broader.

“Got any energy left for one more date?” she asks, almost shyly.

“With you?” he asks. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Natasha Romanoff does everything flawlessly. It’s at once the most entrancing and the most irritating thing about being her partner - Clint gets to witness this first hand. There are days when he forgets she’s not native to the country where he grew up, that her aliases aren’t as real as they seem.

The first time he ever hears a slip is after a night out. They are celebrating the end of a mission, and after way too much to drink he is staggering back towards his quarters, propping Natasha up while they both try not to keel over. He deposits her at her door, and she pats his shoulder in thanks.

“Sleep well, Romanoff,” he says.

“Night, Barton,” she replies, lingering too long on the ‘r’ in his name. Just in that word, he hears a trace of who she once was. Natasha doesn’t notice, or doesn’t want to address it, and closes her door behind her.

-

It’s another year or so before he hears it again. She storms into his room and throws herself on the bed.

“Fucking psychiatrists,” she growls. Clint pokes his head around the bathroom door.

“Evaluation?” he asks.

“Debrief. Fucking- fucks.”

He hears a tinge of that accent again. So it’s not just alcohol that brings it out. He goes to her, and sits beside where she’s sprawled over his covers.

“You wanna talk about it?”

She swears in what he assumes is Russian, and he smiles.

“Drink about it. Got it.”

-

The next time is a few months later. He tells a stupid joke over dinner, and she starts to laugh. They are both tired, and soon neither of them can stop the hysterics from taking over. She slaps the table, and tells him to shut up, even though he can barely breathe from laughing at her laughter, and he hears it again in those words. Again, she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s too busy shaking her head at his dumb sense of humour.

-

He can go a long while without hearing a slip from her. Natasha doesn’t need to be careful - she’s too good at what she does to slip up in any meaningful way. Anyone else, everyone who doesn’t spend almost every off-duty moment around her, might not even notice when she does let her accent colour a word here or there.

Clint notices, though, and each time he hears it he feels a surge of happiness. He’s mentioned it both to Fury and Phil, and neither of them know what he’s talking about. He’s the only one she lets go around.

This fact does nothing to dispel the feelings he has for her - feelings he’s starting to suspect she might reciprocate.

-

It takes another couple of years of struggling with and ignoring feelings, but eventually, and seemingly inevitably, he finds himself lying in bed as the sun goes down, watching the light play through the red curls of Natasha’s hair, wondering how he got so lucky. Life isn’t simple, nowhere near as easy as he sometimes wants it to be, but there are wonderful things in it anyway, and he’s always been good at enjoying the good stuff.