The view from their hotel room is spectacular. All of Paris spread out beneath them; its lights sparkling enticingly in the dark of the night. The view more than the luxury of the room (though it is considerable with a jacuzzi big enough to fit two in the marble and gold bathroom, and a vast bed with ridiculously high thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets) was the reason for Natasha picking it in the first place. Here, on the top floor of the tallest hotel she could find, with huge panorama windows making up the better part of one wall, Clint can get the perspective he needs to settle him. And god knows he needs settling.
Natasha loves Clint with all of her heart. No matter how much it pains her to use that word so explicitly. But, ever since she came back from the dead -- after he'd spent two weeks grieving her -- he's been driving her up the goddamn wall. It's not that she doesn't understand his need to know where she is at all times (preferably having her within his line of sight), because she understand just fine. It's that he is smothering her; choking her with his affection. And either they settle this, or she's going to bolt. She can already feel her body tensing for flight.
So, there is Paris and an astounding view and it isn't enough. Which is why they start working with the blindfold. It's also how they find out that Clint likes being blindfolded about as much as Natasha likes being tied down without escape. Which is to say, not at all. But they keep working at it.
Now, Natasha cinches the cuffs tight around Clint's wrists behind his back. She trails a hand absently along the length of his left arm feeling the way his muscles sing with tension beneath her fingertips. They're both on the bed and she's sitting in his lap, eyes meeting his. The simple sleep-mask (pilfered from the plane) that they're using for a blindfold is pressed against his throat beneath her hand. "Are you ready?"
A month ago Clint had thought he had experienced the worst pain of his life. Knowing he was responsible for the death of twenty-seven of his friends and fellow agents and very nearly the death of his handler. A year later and he man still had weekly physical therapy sessions. That was before he'd gotten a phone-call from a sinking boat on what was supposed to be a routine security mission. That was before he listened to Nat die in his ear and forgot what it felt like to be human.
But then, by some miracle--though the miracle had a name and a price tag he knew it would hurt to pay--she'd been given back to him. They'd been given a second chance. They hadn't lost everything they had barely won.
He was terrified though that he might lose her again. Sometime in the realization he had her back, the seed of the idea that she could be just as easily taken a second time had settled in his mind and began to fester and grow. It took a while for it to settle in, for the roots to sink properly into their dark corners, but once they did, all it took was her going into another room of their flat where he couldn't see her for him to nearly lose it.
The thing is, he knows he's smothering her. He knows his actions are irrational and nearly insane and driving her up a wall, but he can't seem to stop. Can't help the fact his heart jumps into his throat when he can't see her, and his body breaks into a cold sweat if she doesn't answer when he calls out for her. He's shaken from his core, and badly, and he knows he needs to level out but isn't at all sure where to begin.
So Nat had suggested Paris, and to Paris they'd come. He'd thought, maybe, she was right about the windows. That if he spent long enough staring down at the world glittering below them he might be able to settle the part of his brain that needs to watch, needs to see, needs to be distant and observing. And then Nat had gone down to get them pastries, and he'd been right back where he was after the dead phone had been pried from his hands. Panicked and lost and broken without her.
They have to get over this. Not only is it smothering her, but he can't do his damn job, can't settle into anything and can't calm down enough to hold onto anything with any sense of normalcy. And then they'd introduced the blindfold. The first time they'd tried the blindfold with his hands cuffed he'd nearly torn a muscle trying to get out before he remembered the safeword and used it. It had lasted a total of a minute.
So they'd backed off the handcuffs, worked on just the blindfold. Allowing him to keep his hands free to touch her, to reassure himself that she was near him and there, all while he couldn't see. And now they were back to where they'd tried to start, hands cuffed behind his back, muscles tense, sweat already evident on his body. He looks up at Nat though an nods after a moment's hesitation. He can do this. He knows he can.
Underneath the annoyance, there's a cold pit of fear buried deep within Natasha. Clint can't function without her. Some girls might find that shit romantic; Natasha finds it terrifying. It's more responsibility than she ever asked for. But, what's more, he's a broken shadow of the man he used to be. This clingy, lost man is not at all who she fell for and the thought that she might never get her mouthy, confident Clint back scares her more than anything.
If she loved him a little less, if she wasn't so selfish, then she'd go. Disappear off the face of the Earth and let him sort himself out. Like tossing someone in the deep end of the pool and letting them sink or swim. Sometimes, in the dead of night with his arms tight like a vice around her, she thinks that'd probably be more healthy for them. A clean break. Maybe then he can remember the agent he is supposed to be.
She will never voice those fears though. It's the one secret she has deliberately kept from Clint. When they talk about it, it's arguments about him smothering her with his need, of her needing space and him trapping her, but never of his loss of independence scaring the fuck out of her. Either way, they both know that it can't go on like this. Hence the blindfold.
Natasha shifts a little in his lap, straddling him steadily so that her knees dig against his hips and her ankles rest against the sides of his knees, feet hooking lightly around them. "Remember, I'm right here," she tells him softly and patiently. She rubs her hand reassuringly over his upper arm. "And we'll stop whenever you need it. All you have to do is say the word and we'll stop." Gently, she fits the blindfold over his eyes, tugging it into place so that he can't see a thing around the edges of it.
"I'm here," she promises softly, thumbs brushing along the arch of each cheekbone, hands cradling his face gently. To start with, they just need to get him comfortable with being blindfolded and unable to touch her. They'll work their way up from there. "Right here."
He's skittering right on the edge of being fired, if he's honest with himself. It's purely the fact that Phil likes him an Fury still owes him a debt and that the public sees him as one of the Avengers that's keeping him employed in SHIELD, because right now--hell, for the past month, he's been mostly useless. And it grates on him, because there is nothing he hates more than being useless, helpless to do anything but listen to the demands of an addled and unstable brain. This is their Hail Mary. Their last hope. If this doesn't work, he doesn't know what will.
His throat works absently as she shifts against him, and his eyes, right before she slips the blindfold over them are impossibly thankful, desperately affectionate. And then his world is swathed in blackness.
As far as senses go, Clint relies most heavily on his sight. He is well aware of his others, of touch and taste and scent an sound, and he uses them all to his full advantage, but he uses his sight for everything. And he can see far better than most. So he's never been comfortable with blindfolds that block him off from that sensory input. Never liked it when he couldn't see. Immediately, he searches for cracks in the armor of the blindfold, trying to catch bits of light at the edges, spots where it might not be as thick as others--but this is Nat he's working with and she's done it well. He is well and truly blind. His heart hammers in his chest.
Her voice steadies him. He tilts his head slightly so he can hear her better, shivering under the touch of her hands, but this time it's not entirely unpleasant. Of course, he tries to twist his hands, tries to break out of the cuffs, but they're solid and steady, and his heart ratchets right back up to where it was. But he wants to do this, to find some sort of balance, to free them both from these impossible restraints his mind has put on them, because he knows it can't last and something important is going to break under the strain.
The muscles in his shoulders are quivering they're so tense, but he doesn't say the word, simply ducks his head further into her touch even as he nods. "I'm okay--"
There's one more thing keeping Clint firmly employed by SHIELD despite his complete breakdown. If he's out, then Natasha will follow. When she joined the ranks of SHIELD, the prison sentence she no doubt would've gotten for her crimes if she'd been tried in court was commuted to ten years of service to the government. Those ten years are up and if she wants to go, there is nothing stopping her. Without Clint, there's nothing to keep her there and for all that Fury trusts her now, he doesn't want her going back to freelancing.
Of course, she's been as useless as Clint for the past month. Two weeks of captivity followed by half a week of sick leave followed in turn of a week and a half of having to turn down missions because Clint can't stand the thought of being away from her. This really does have to work or they're out of options. They can't live like this. Even if Tony'll let them stay rent-free, the money they both have stockpiled isn't going to last forever. And unless he snaps out of this, neither one of them will be able to earn a living. Though, frankly, Natasha will probably bolt before it ever comes to that.
The look in his eyes before she covers them with the dark fabric of the blindfold makes her breath catch painfully in her throat though. A warm sort of ache spreads through her limbs, settling in her chest where it's anchored by her heart. Fuck, but she loves him. More than she ever thought possible.
Clint's body is drawn taut like the string of his bow, muscles singing with tension and she can see beads of sweat forming on his forehead. In the face of the overwhelming evidence, his assurance that he's okay comes out sounding like a lie. Never letting her hands break contact with his skin, she skims one down to cover his madly pounding heart and the other down his shoulder, skimming down the line of his arm to touch his restraints lightly before touching and gripping his fingers lightly. Her mouth finds his in a light but desperately fond kiss.
"You can do this," she tells him when she breaks for air, her lips still brushing against his. "I'm right here with you. Settle down." Her fingers rap a light rhythm just above his heart, first following its quickened pace, but then slowing ever so slightly.
Because he's lost the use of his sight, every other sense he has is working on overdrive, so when her hands settle on his bare chest he sucks in a shuddering breath and tries to center all of his focus on the touch of her hands. Each muscle she moves over shudders in the wake of her passing, and he groans, lightly, into the kiss, seeking out more once she pulls away, kissing her chaste and gentle and sweet as he can manage.
But his attention is still on her fingers, and he can tell what she's doing and is thankful for it. He draws a breath and then exhales, slowly, trying to match the rabbit-fast beat of his heart to her slow, steady beats. It takes him a while, nearly five minutes if anyone is counting, but with the feel of her skin against his and the slow steady tap of her fingers he can assure himself that she's there, right against him, he hasn't lost her even if he can't see her, and he's settling, slowly but surely, against the touch of her hand.
His muscles are steadier under her, posture slightly more relaxed and he nods, breathing out again. "Okay--" He doesn't really know what comes next, but he thinks he might be able to hold this tentative calm steady.
Clint is gorgeous like this. Every inch of his body so beautifully responsive to her touch. If she wanted to, she could play him like an instrument. He'd be a violin under her fingertips, his muscles stretched so tight, and she could draw noises from him with the touch of her hands, as if she was plucking the strings with gentle care. If the success of this wasn't so important, she might've allowed herself a little time to play.
Patience is a virtue that every good spy learns and it never came as easy for Natasha as it does with Clint. The minutes drag on between them, but she keeps the rhythm of her fingers steady over his heart as she waits for him to match it. Though she doesn't kiss him again, she keeps her forehead pressed against his, so their breaths are mingling.
It takes longer than it strictly speaking ought to, but soon she can feel his body relaxing beneath hers, tension easing out of his muscles. Considering his reaction last time she blindfolded him with his hands behind his back, this is definite progress.
"Good," she mumbles. "You're doing great." Her hand settles against his heart, pressing flush over his skin. Her other hand skims all the way back up his arm to curve against the back of his neck. She gives him a light kiss in reward, and before she pulls away, she withdraws the hand from the nape of his neck and lets it rest against one of her own thighs. "Tell me about the circus. About when you first learned to shoot a bow."
He would prefer that, if she were to just play with him. There's comfort there, because they've done games like this before, when they're fucking. He's tied her down before and they'd gotten through that. If he knew there was going to be good sex at the end of all of this, he might be doing a little bit better.
The question startles him though and he tilts his head at it, and if the blindfold was gone, she could see the speculative look in his gaze. But, well, she's calling the shots here, and he can manage that without slipping back into the panic from before. This is just reciting facts about himself.
"I'd been working with the Swordsman for about a year, maybe a year and a half. Learning how to throw the knives. When, ah, Trickshot--that was the guy who did the bows--noticed me. Offered to teach me how to shoot. So he handed me a bow and I hit a bullseye on my first shot--" he pauses for a moment, and then admits something he's never admitted to anyone before. "It was the first time I actually felt like I had control of my life. The first time I knew I could beat someone who was trying to force me to do something."
They push each other during sex. Always finding new limits and seeing how far they'll stretch. But, this unfortunately isn't about sex. Of course, that doesn't mean that they won't have absolutely amazing sex before the night is over. Natasha doesn't think that she can be noble enough to ignore the steady thrum of want pulsating through her body from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. This is all about control and trust and letting go and nothing gets her going quicker than that.
Her hand slips away from the now-steady beat of his heart and she paints swirling patterns across his bare chest with her fingertips as he speaks. She doesn't know if he knows it, but talking about his bow always settles him a little. She supposes the reminder of it pushes him into the sniper-mindset. There's a steadiness there that they can take advantage of. If she can only get him there completely.
Of course, Natasha has heard the story about how Clint moved from knives to arrows, but she's never heard the last bit, and she tilts her head at it. "That's why you favor the bow. For the control of it." The fact resonates with her and her own need for control. "Try to remember the feeling of the bow in your hands that day. The way the ground felt beneath your feet. The way it smelled there." Her hand slips down to his hip, resting loosely against the soft material of his underwear. "Call it back to your mind's eye. As detailed as you can."
He wants to settle his hands on her hips--their standard place when they're sitting like this, and he pulls at the cuffs again, breath stuttering as they don't come loose. But he catches himself, breathes, and focuses on the touch of her hand against his chest.
As she instructs him to remember the first time he held his bow, his eyes slip shut behind the blindfold, breath coming out in a shuddering exhale, hands wrapping together around the cuffs, stabilizing. He does what he can to pull up the memory.
It was early morning, and they'd set up in somewhere North, he can't remember the exact city now but he knows it was north because he could smell pine trees and they'd had to stop and get scarves to keep warm during the night and there had been more fires than usual, as people used them for warmth instead of just cooking.
He'd been standing in the sideshow tent, under the blue and white canopy, ill-fitting shoes on feet that were too big for them, already outgrowing the clothes one of the women had given him when her son outgrew them, but neither he nor Barney had any money to replace them. At least his costumes fit--
--ill-fitting shoes standing on sawdust that they used to keep the dirt down, but ended up kicking up twice as much dust and always smelled of horses and barns no matter how fresh they got it and he'd looked over Trickshot's bows and picked up the smallest one. She was black wood and sleek and barely used, but she curved in his hand like she was made to be there. He'd swallowed, lifted her up as he fitted an arrow on her notch and aimed at the target.
Thumb against his neck. Draw of breath. The twang of string snapping free against his ear and the steady 'thunk' of an arrow-point hitting a target.
He can't tell, lost in the memory as he is, but as he pictures the shot, he's settled almost completely against her, breath and heartbeat slow and steady and strong, muscles tense in a completely different way, but not singing with strain, and the lines in his face have smoothed out, hands loose against his back.
"I'd never been able to do anything without someone teaching me first--" The 'until then' is obviously implied. "First five arrows I put in the air all hit center."
Something inside Natasha loosens as Clint relaxes beneath her. There's a moment when the cuffs rattle and his heart-rate shoots straight back up again when she thinks that maybe this is doomed to fail. But then he settles and oh so slowly his body loosens and settles into what she's come to think of as his sniper-stance. He doesn't even have to be in position, sometimes, she'll just see it settling over him like a coat, this eerie sort of calm patience. The mouthy brat he can be falls away to something far more professional, and that he's finding that calm here and now is impressive.
Something like hope blossoms in Natasha's chest. This is the most relaxed she's gotten him in the blindfold and that is with the handcuffs. For the first time, it feels as if they're making actual progress. Her hands have settled on her own thighs in the silence, so she's not touching him beyond the fact that she's basically sitting on him. They're taking this nice and slow and she's giving him plenty of time to adjust to each new change.
"You were a natural," Natasha says and has to curl her hands into fists to resist the urge to touch his face and feel the lack of tension there. "Like you were made to use that bow. It wasn't a tool or a weapon, it was an extension of you." She steals another soft and sweet kiss. "Hold on to that feeling of seeing each of your arrows hit their marks."
"Yeah, like that," He agrees, because that was what it was. The first time he picked up a bow it felt like he was coming into himself. That he had finally found a place to shine, where no one could take his power away from him. It wasn't given or earned, it was just something he had. He'd named her Evangeline, and they were inseparable after that.
There's a moment when he comes out of the memory, leaning into her kiss, trying to reach for her again and finding his hands still cuffed. He frowns, forehead wrinkling. "Nat--"
But then she's talking again and he settles, tries to sink back into that space he'd found, the place where he'd found the steady thrum of his bow under his hand, her soft wood warmed by his hands, and the sound of each of his arrows finding home. And he has enough of that sound to last him a lifetime, the solid thunk, the bite of metal into whatever surface he wants it to land into.
Natasha presses a kiss against Clint's furrowed brow and she can feel it smoothing out beneath her lips as he falls back into the memory. "You always hit your mark." She leans back and watches him, her own brow creasing lightly. She should've known to bring up the bow earlier. Nothing she's said or done has settled him as much as the thought of it. "Like you're one with the bow and the target both."
She waits until he's fully in the sniper headspace again, and then she braces a hand against one of his shoulders, and smoothly moves to sit beside him rather than on top of him. The length of her closest thigh is pressed against his, and she settles a hand just above his knee. He can still feel her presence, only she's not touching him quite so much now.
"What about the first time you performed? Did you hit all your marks then?"
She is doing an amazing job of distraction, because it's been years since he thought about the first time he picked up a bow and he's settled so into that memory that he has yet to notice she's shifted off of his lap.
There's a laugh though at her question, a shake of his head.
"Stage fright? You? I have a hard time picturing that." Natasha's smile is fully audible in her voice, warming her tone. The truth is, she can all too easily picture a young version of Clint, lanky and awkward, still growing into all of his limbs, shoulders fraught with tension as he tries to show off for the crowd. The mental image strikes a chord deep within her, reverberates through her heart and chest and she nudges her shoulder lightly against his.
"But they let you back up again. The next night?" Reluctantly, she shifts her hand away from his thigh so now they're only touching from a hip down to a knee. And he's still calm as can be. This is really, really good.
He was that awkward teenager, all long arms and legs and graceful only when he was throwing things away from himself. Nothing like the man he was once he grew into his shoulders. And he was so nervous you could have bounced coins off his muscles, all tense and tangled and unsure of himself. He didn't know how to lose himself in the action of shooting, then. He was just some kid with a talent for shooting.
But they had let him back out. "Not the next night, too likely that it was the same crowd. But the next week, yeah. And I spent almost every hour in between my two performances practicing. So--I hit them all, the second time around."
And there had been thunderous applause. It had been the first time he'd learned how to bask, and for an affection-starved awkward teenager, finally stepping out of the shadows was like a cold drink of water on an Iowa summer day. He thinks that might have been why Barney hated him so much. He was that starved in his own way, but he never found where he fit.
Natasha loves Clint with all of her heart. No matter how much it pains her to use that word so explicitly. But, ever since she came back from the dead -- after he'd spent two weeks grieving her -- he's been driving her up the goddamn wall. It's not that she doesn't understand his need to know where she is at all times (preferably having her within his line of sight), because she understand just fine. It's that he is smothering her; choking her with his affection. And either they settle this, or she's going to bolt. She can already feel her body tensing for flight.
So, there is Paris and an astounding view and it isn't enough. Which is why they start working with the blindfold. It's also how they find out that Clint likes being blindfolded about as much as Natasha likes being tied down without escape. Which is to say, not at all. But they keep working at it.
Now, Natasha cinches the cuffs tight around Clint's wrists behind his back. She trails a hand absently along the length of his left arm feeling the way his muscles sing with tension beneath her fingertips. They're both on the bed and she's sitting in his lap, eyes meeting his. The simple sleep-mask (pilfered from the plane) that they're using for a blindfold is pressed against his throat beneath her hand. "Are you ready?"
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But then, by some miracle--though the miracle had a name and a price tag he knew it would hurt to pay--she'd been given back to him. They'd been given a second chance. They hadn't lost everything they had barely won.
He was terrified though that he might lose her again. Sometime in the realization he had her back, the seed of the idea that she could be just as easily taken a second time had settled in his mind and began to fester and grow. It took a while for it to settle in, for the roots to sink properly into their dark corners, but once they did, all it took was her going into another room of their flat where he couldn't see her for him to nearly lose it.
The thing is, he knows he's smothering her. He knows his actions are irrational and nearly insane and driving her up a wall, but he can't seem to stop. Can't help the fact his heart jumps into his throat when he can't see her, and his body breaks into a cold sweat if she doesn't answer when he calls out for her. He's shaken from his core, and badly, and he knows he needs to level out but isn't at all sure where to begin.
So Nat had suggested Paris, and to Paris they'd come. He'd thought, maybe, she was right about the windows. That if he spent long enough staring down at the world glittering below them he might be able to settle the part of his brain that needs to watch, needs to see, needs to be distant and observing. And then Nat had gone down to get them pastries, and he'd been right back where he was after the dead phone had been pried from his hands. Panicked and lost and broken without her.
They have to get over this. Not only is it smothering her, but he can't do his damn job, can't settle into anything and can't calm down enough to hold onto anything with any sense of normalcy. And then they'd introduced the blindfold. The first time they'd tried the blindfold with his hands cuffed he'd nearly torn a muscle trying to get out before he remembered the safeword and used it. It had lasted a total of a minute.
So they'd backed off the handcuffs, worked on just the blindfold. Allowing him to keep his hands free to touch her, to reassure himself that she was near him and there, all while he couldn't see. And now they were back to where they'd tried to start, hands cuffed behind his back, muscles tense, sweat already evident on his body. He looks up at Nat though an nods after a moment's hesitation. He can do this. He knows he can.
"Yeah. Yeah--I am."
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If she loved him a little less, if she wasn't so selfish, then she'd go. Disappear off the face of the Earth and let him sort himself out. Like tossing someone in the deep end of the pool and letting them sink or swim. Sometimes, in the dead of night with his arms tight like a vice around her, she thinks that'd probably be more healthy for them. A clean break. Maybe then he can remember the agent he is supposed to be.
She will never voice those fears though. It's the one secret she has deliberately kept from Clint. When they talk about it, it's arguments about him smothering her with his need, of her needing space and him trapping her, but never of his loss of independence scaring the fuck out of her. Either way, they both know that it can't go on like this. Hence the blindfold.
Natasha shifts a little in his lap, straddling him steadily so that her knees dig against his hips and her ankles rest against the sides of his knees, feet hooking lightly around them. "Remember, I'm right here," she tells him softly and patiently. She rubs her hand reassuringly over his upper arm. "And we'll stop whenever you need it. All you have to do is say the word and we'll stop." Gently, she fits the blindfold over his eyes, tugging it into place so that he can't see a thing around the edges of it.
"I'm here," she promises softly, thumbs brushing along the arch of each cheekbone, hands cradling his face gently. To start with, they just need to get him comfortable with being blindfolded and unable to touch her. They'll work their way up from there. "Right here."
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His throat works absently as she shifts against him, and his eyes, right before she slips the blindfold over them are impossibly thankful, desperately affectionate. And then his world is swathed in blackness.
As far as senses go, Clint relies most heavily on his sight. He is well aware of his others, of touch and taste and scent an sound, and he uses them all to his full advantage, but he uses his sight for everything. And he can see far better than most. So he's never been comfortable with blindfolds that block him off from that sensory input. Never liked it when he couldn't see. Immediately, he searches for cracks in the armor of the blindfold, trying to catch bits of light at the edges, spots where it might not be as thick as others--but this is Nat he's working with and she's done it well. He is well and truly blind. His heart hammers in his chest.
Her voice steadies him. He tilts his head slightly so he can hear her better, shivering under the touch of her hands, but this time it's not entirely unpleasant. Of course, he tries to twist his hands, tries to break out of the cuffs, but they're solid and steady, and his heart ratchets right back up to where it was. But he wants to do this, to find some sort of balance, to free them both from these impossible restraints his mind has put on them, because he knows it can't last and something important is going to break under the strain.
The muscles in his shoulders are quivering they're so tense, but he doesn't say the word, simply ducks his head further into her touch even as he nods. "I'm okay--"
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Of course, she's been as useless as Clint for the past month. Two weeks of captivity followed by half a week of sick leave followed in turn of a week and a half of having to turn down missions because Clint can't stand the thought of being away from her. This really does have to work or they're out of options. They can't live like this. Even if Tony'll let them stay rent-free, the money they both have stockpiled isn't going to last forever. And unless he snaps out of this, neither one of them will be able to earn a living. Though, frankly, Natasha will probably bolt before it ever comes to that.
The look in his eyes before she covers them with the dark fabric of the blindfold makes her breath catch painfully in her throat though. A warm sort of ache spreads through her limbs, settling in her chest where it's anchored by her heart. Fuck, but she loves him. More than she ever thought possible.
Clint's body is drawn taut like the string of his bow, muscles singing with tension and she can see beads of sweat forming on his forehead. In the face of the overwhelming evidence, his assurance that he's okay comes out sounding like a lie. Never letting her hands break contact with his skin, she skims one down to cover his madly pounding heart and the other down his shoulder, skimming down the line of his arm to touch his restraints lightly before touching and gripping his fingers lightly. Her mouth finds his in a light but desperately fond kiss.
"You can do this," she tells him when she breaks for air, her lips still brushing against his. "I'm right here with you. Settle down." Her fingers rap a light rhythm just above his heart, first following its quickened pace, but then slowing ever so slightly.
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But his attention is still on her fingers, and he can tell what she's doing and is thankful for it. He draws a breath and then exhales, slowly, trying to match the rabbit-fast beat of his heart to her slow, steady beats. It takes him a while, nearly five minutes if anyone is counting, but with the feel of her skin against his and the slow steady tap of her fingers he can assure himself that she's there, right against him, he hasn't lost her even if he can't see her, and he's settling, slowly but surely, against the touch of her hand.
His muscles are steadier under her, posture slightly more relaxed and he nods, breathing out again. "Okay--" He doesn't really know what comes next, but he thinks he might be able to hold this tentative calm steady.
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Patience is a virtue that every good spy learns and it never came as easy for Natasha as it does with Clint. The minutes drag on between them, but she keeps the rhythm of her fingers steady over his heart as she waits for him to match it. Though she doesn't kiss him again, she keeps her forehead pressed against his, so their breaths are mingling.
It takes longer than it strictly speaking ought to, but soon she can feel his body relaxing beneath hers, tension easing out of his muscles. Considering his reaction last time she blindfolded him with his hands behind his back, this is definite progress.
"Good," she mumbles. "You're doing great." Her hand settles against his heart, pressing flush over his skin. Her other hand skims all the way back up his arm to curve against the back of his neck. She gives him a light kiss in reward, and before she pulls away, she withdraws the hand from the nape of his neck and lets it rest against one of her own thighs. "Tell me about the circus. About when you first learned to shoot a bow."
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The question startles him though and he tilts his head at it, and if the blindfold was gone, she could see the speculative look in his gaze. But, well, she's calling the shots here, and he can manage that without slipping back into the panic from before. This is just reciting facts about himself.
"I'd been working with the Swordsman for about a year, maybe a year and a half. Learning how to throw the knives. When, ah, Trickshot--that was the guy who did the bows--noticed me. Offered to teach me how to shoot. So he handed me a bow and I hit a bullseye on my first shot--" he pauses for a moment, and then admits something he's never admitted to anyone before. "It was the first time I actually felt like I had control of my life. The first time I knew I could beat someone who was trying to force me to do something."
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Her hand slips away from the now-steady beat of his heart and she paints swirling patterns across his bare chest with her fingertips as he speaks. She doesn't know if he knows it, but talking about his bow always settles him a little. She supposes the reminder of it pushes him into the sniper-mindset. There's a steadiness there that they can take advantage of. If she can only get him there completely.
Of course, Natasha has heard the story about how Clint moved from knives to arrows, but she's never heard the last bit, and she tilts her head at it. "That's why you favor the bow. For the control of it." The fact resonates with her and her own need for control. "Try to remember the feeling of the bow in your hands that day. The way the ground felt beneath your feet. The way it smelled there." Her hand slips down to his hip, resting loosely against the soft material of his underwear. "Call it back to your mind's eye. As detailed as you can."
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As she instructs him to remember the first time he held his bow, his eyes slip shut behind the blindfold, breath coming out in a shuddering exhale, hands wrapping together around the cuffs, stabilizing. He does what he can to pull up the memory.
It was early morning, and they'd set up in somewhere North, he can't remember the exact city now but he knows it was north because he could smell pine trees and they'd had to stop and get scarves to keep warm during the night and there had been more fires than usual, as people used them for warmth instead of just cooking.
He'd been standing in the sideshow tent, under the blue and white canopy, ill-fitting shoes on feet that were too big for them, already outgrowing the clothes one of the women had given him when her son outgrew them, but neither he nor Barney had any money to replace them. At least his costumes fit--
--ill-fitting shoes standing on sawdust that they used to keep the dirt down, but ended up kicking up twice as much dust and always smelled of horses and barns no matter how fresh they got it and he'd looked over Trickshot's bows and picked up the smallest one. She was black wood and sleek and barely used, but she curved in his hand like she was made to be there. He'd swallowed, lifted her up as he fitted an arrow on her notch and aimed at the target.
Thumb against his neck. Draw of breath. The twang of string snapping free against his ear and the steady 'thunk' of an arrow-point hitting a target.
He can't tell, lost in the memory as he is, but as he pictures the shot, he's settled almost completely against her, breath and heartbeat slow and steady and strong, muscles tense in a completely different way, but not singing with strain, and the lines in his face have smoothed out, hands loose against his back.
"I'd never been able to do anything without someone teaching me first--" The 'until then' is obviously implied. "First five arrows I put in the air all hit center."
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Something like hope blossoms in Natasha's chest. This is the most relaxed she's gotten him in the blindfold and that is with the handcuffs. For the first time, it feels as if they're making actual progress. Her hands have settled on her own thighs in the silence, so she's not touching him beyond the fact that she's basically sitting on him. They're taking this nice and slow and she's giving him plenty of time to adjust to each new change.
"You were a natural," Natasha says and has to curl her hands into fists to resist the urge to touch his face and feel the lack of tension there. "Like you were made to use that bow. It wasn't a tool or a weapon, it was an extension of you." She steals another soft and sweet kiss. "Hold on to that feeling of seeing each of your arrows hit their marks."
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There's a moment when he comes out of the memory, leaning into her kiss, trying to reach for her again and finding his hands still cuffed. He frowns, forehead wrinkling. "Nat--"
But then she's talking again and he settles, tries to sink back into that space he'd found, the place where he'd found the steady thrum of his bow under his hand, her soft wood warmed by his hands, and the sound of each of his arrows finding home. And he has enough of that sound to last him a lifetime, the solid thunk, the bite of metal into whatever surface he wants it to land into.
"It's--always been like that. Natural."
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She waits until he's fully in the sniper headspace again, and then she braces a hand against one of his shoulders, and smoothly moves to sit beside him rather than on top of him. The length of her closest thigh is pressed against his, and she settles a hand just above his knee. He can still feel her presence, only she's not touching him quite so much now.
"What about the first time you performed? Did you hit all your marks then?"
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There's a laugh though at her question, a shake of his head.
"I got stage fright. Missed almost half of them."
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"But they let you back up again. The next night?" Reluctantly, she shifts her hand away from his thigh so now they're only touching from a hip down to a knee. And he's still calm as can be. This is really, really good.
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But they had let him back out. "Not the next night, too likely that it was the same crowd. But the next week, yeah. And I spent almost every hour in between my two performances practicing. So--I hit them all, the second time around."
And there had been thunderous applause. It had been the first time he'd learned how to bask, and for an affection-starved awkward teenager, finally stepping out of the shadows was like a cold drink of water on an Iowa summer day. He thinks that might have been why Barney hated him so much. He was that starved in his own way, but he never found where he fit.
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