for scribble_myname: The Company You Keep
A Gift From: geckoholic
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: The Company You Keep
A Gift For: scribble_myname
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: References to spy work of the ugly and violent sort, but no graphic descriptions thereof.
Summary: The first time doesn't really count for either of them. They don't glorify it in hindsight or put more into it than what it was: playing with fire, slowly dragging your hand over a flame you know could burn you alive. - Or, the one where Clint and Natasha get to know each other in the biblical sense the first time they meet and don’t catch feelings until later.
Author's Note: So remember how, in your request, you mentioned that you're okay with sexual content? Yes. Well. My brain went and took that as a cue to add copious amounts of porn. I'm so sorry. XD Otherwise, it's originally based on your prompt #1 ("Natasha first followed Clint back to SHIELD like a stray alley cat, spitting at anyone who dared to stroke her except her chosen adoptee"), but it strayed a fair bit.
banner by ohmydarlingdear
A common error, later, will be the assumption that it was Clint who convinced her to come with him. That he found her and talked her out of leaving her previous life behind. That it was all him, as if he swept her up and carried her to safety despite her resistance. They both know that was never true. For better or worse, she has always made up her own mind. He's merely been in the right place at the right time, and said the right things on top of it.
He may have saved her, but only because she let him.
***
After arriving in Saint Petersburg, taking possession of his safe house and unpacking the bare necessities, the first thing Clint does is take a walk around town. It’s early December, the wind biting and cold, the windows of the shops downtown overflowing with seasonal decorations that are supposed to trap the tourists into bringing home little extra gifts from Mother Russia for all their loved ones. He doesn’t really expect to find her down here, hasn’t actually started tracking her yet. For now it’s about getting a sense for the city to help him blend in a little more easily and not look quite as much like a tourist. Then again, at this time of the year there may be more of those crowding the streets than actual Russians. It’s not like he’s going to stand out like a sore thumb among them.
His mission assignment is simple: find the Black Widow, take her out quickly and silently, don’t make a fuss. Beyond that, he hasn’t been given any instructions. How he’ll find her and when he hits is up to him. It’s one of the benefits of being a senior agent: do want you want, as long as you get the job done.
He wraps his jacket a bit closer around himself, considers settling into a restaurant that’s still open to have a bite before he goes back and tries to convince his body it’s not on New York time anymore, but he discards the thought. He never did sleep well with a full stomach. The safe house doesn’t have a TV set, but Clint’s got a thick folder full of research and intel that he might as well go over once more. He’ll find a way to pass the time, even if sleep won't come.
Hands in his pockets and teeth chattering, he retraces his steps to get back to the safe house. His lungs burn from the cold. Nothing quite prepares you for a Russian winter, no matter how cold it may get back home, and he’s always dumb enough to go for the lighter gear he arrived with the first time he steps out.
The only reason why he recognizes the scene that unfolds in front of him a few minutes later as an assassination is his own training. To anyone else, it might’ve looked like an unfortunate accident: a rich old man, a beautiful young woman, a heart attack in a cold and busy street. But being who he is - what he is - he doesn’t miss the calculated edge to her perfect smile, the slight of her hand when she injects her mark with something that surely won’t be traceable later. Masterful execution, he’ll give her that.
He sinks back into the shadows of a nearby side street, but nevertheless, when she exits the scene, dipping in and out of the light of a street lamp, she catches his eye. Another smile, pretty as a picture, a wink his way as she hurries away from the people hovering over the dying man on the sidewalk, and he's sure she's seen him.
***
Fate is not something to which either of them ever gave much thought. It could have been another agent in Saint Petersburg, someone who would have shot her right then and there. Clint could have taken another route through the city that night, never seen her up close and just sent an arrow through her heart from far away at the first available opportunity, like he was supposed to. Maybe, what if - it doesn’t matter. The story went the way it did, and it’s not in their nature to read a larger plan into that.
If anyone else wants to see divine intervention, that’s up to them.
***
Clint follows her. Of course he does. He'd be in the wrong business if he didn’t. She slows her pace once they're out of sight, doesn't seem particularly concerned that she's got company. It occurs to him that the reason she's not worried might be that she's leading him into a trap - it's her city, her country, her fucking continent, and she could be heading to a fail-safe for this exact occasion. Just as he's debating the likelihood of that scenario, she stops in the middle of a narrow alley at the back of the old shopping street and turns around on her heels.
“Are you here to kill me?” she asks in clear and accent-free English, her purse clutched in front of her. He has absolutely no doubt that there's at least one lethal item in there.
He catches up, stops only inches away; no use in playing cat and mouse anymore. “Maybe.”
Her eyes wander up and down his body in a way that could be checking him over for weapons and yet doesn't feel like it. She's sizing him up alright, but not for his deadliness or potential threat level. That realization, finally, makes his heart jump in his chest.
Even so, he holds her gaze when it finally arrives at his face. “Satisfied?”
She shrugs. “You'll do.”
There's a knife strapped to his ankle and a small pistol hidden in a holster underneath his jacket, and while they're both not his weapons of choice, there's a good enough chance he'll be successful using either at this range. And he should. It's what he's been sent here to do. Anything else would be foolish. She's got her codename from a spider that eats its partner after sex, for fuck's sake.
Then again, if he'd always made the smartest choice available, he probably wouldn't have ended up where he is, and so he goes willingly when she closes the distance between them and steers him toward one of the rough brick walls surrounding them, backs him up against it and pulls down the zipper of his too-thin jacket. Her movements are unceremonious and mechanical as she runs a hand down his side and up his back, like she's inspecting a product, and the fact that he's kinda turned on by that is not a reaction he wants to inspect too closely right now.
The alley doesn't have a street lamp of its own, only faint illumination from the nearby streets, and he can't quite make out the expression on her face. But her intent is clear enough when she steps back, reaches underneath her flimsy dress, shimmies out of her panties and disposes of them with a flick of her wrist right in his line of sight. This is happening. They're doing this. He's lost for a moment - he's had plenty of one night stands, a fair few of them improvised, but doing it with a wanted assassin he's tasked to kill is a first. They stand there, him pressed to the wall as if it's the only thing holding him up and her a mere couple inches away, in a sort of stalemate that's vastly different from the ones he's usually involved in.
She's the one who breaks it, closes with him again, works open the button of his jeans and pulls them down just beneath his ass. A small voice in his head still attempts to warn him, point out that he's about to literally get caught with his pants down by one of the deadliest women ever heard of in their line of work, but it dies the second her hand disappears past the waistband of his boxers. His head is swimming with a mixture of arousal and fear that's as intoxicating as it is paralyzing, and he sucks in a breath when she starts stroking him.
It doesn't take much to get him ready - his mind might have due reservations here, but she knows what she's doing and his body is very much on board with the proceedings. The pressure is a little more than he usually likes, hard and fast and without even spit to take the edge off, but he figures it fits right now. He shivers, more from the cold than anything else, even worse now with his jacket open and his back pressed to ice-cold stone.
He doesn't protest when she guides him in a half-circle that reverses their positions, her hand on the bare skin just above his hip, until she’s the one leaning on the wall and he stands in front of her, dick straining towards his belly. That's when she lets go of him to fish around in her purse, and he finally has the good sense to panic. A picture of himself flashes through his mind, shot or knifed or whatever, naked from the waist down, pants pooling around his ankles, slumped down and humiliated in his last moments for the world to see. He's about to pull said pants up and go for his gun when she presses a condom wrapper into the palm of his hands, her fingers brushing the sensitive flesh just above his wrist. Blinking at her, his mind swims from the whiplash of it all, and she balls his hand into a fist around the wrapper. Her stare is impatient, like she's dealing with an imbecile who wouldn't know what to do with a woman if she drew him a map, and she pouts. The normalcy of it, ordinary almost and definitely not looking threatening in the least, breaks him out of his stupor.
She gives a small gasp as he heaves her up, her arms flailing out to grasp at his shoulders. Her dress, barely covering her ass as it was, rides up easily, and he pushes her up against the stone wall, reaching down between her legs to slide his fingers through the wetness he finds there. It’s tangible evidence that she's enjoying this, that she might still play an angle, but not one that ends with one of them dead on the ground of this very alley in the immediate future, and it loosens something deep within him. Whatever they were until a few minutes ago, whatever they're going to be again tomorrow, it's on hold for now, suspended in time for as long as this encounter will last. He allows himself to take in what little of her he can actually make out in the near-dark, how she's rubbing at her breast through the fabric of her thin dress, her eyes half-closed, mouth open on a drawn-out groan. He strokes himself once, twice, then rolls the condom on.
The angle is awkward at first, but they find a rhythm easily enough. She all but clings to him, her manicured nails digging in hard enough that he can feel them even through three layers of clothing, and it only spurs him on, has him pushing in harder. The whole thing is far from the most elegant or skilled fuck he’s ever delivered, but it appears to work for her just fine; she's panting, meeting his thrusts as much as she can in her precarious position, her forehead pressed to the side of his neck, her breath hot on the skin just above his collar.
It's over way too quickly, and he loses track of his surroundings then and there, nothing quite as important as the way she contracts around him, his own orgasm hitting him almost as an afterthought. He's gasping for air as she relaxes against him, the cold and the burn in his muscles from the strain of holding her up coming back to him at once. Even so, he's frozen in place until she moves first, lowering herself down and wiggling out of his grasp.
She lays a finger to his lips, briefly, just the ghost of a touch, and he follows her like she's a magnet and he's her natural counterpart as she reverses their positions once more. Pulling the condom off and his boxers and jeans up without any kind of hurry, he watches as she turns, smooths out her dress, and walks away.
***
The first time doesn't really count for either of them. They don't glorify it in hindsight or put more into it than what it was: playing with fire, slowly dragging your hand over a flame you know could burn you alive. It wasn't about feeling, at least not about feeling something for each other.
It did, however, make their second meeting easier.
***
Funny thing is, Clint sleeps like a dead man that night, not at all worried that she might’ve followed him to eliminate the threat before it can eliminate her. He doesn’t think about her much at all until he opens that file again. When her picture stares back at him, a few years younger than she is now, her jaw set and her eyes defiant, he imagines the light in them fading out after he’s done his job and does his best to ignore the twinge in his gut at the thought.
After so many years, he’s not exactly shedding tears anymore over the kind of assignments he gets. He’s a sniper, of sorts. Shooting people and making sure they stay down is what he’s good at. As he takes a blank sheet of paper out of a notebook in his bag and jots down notes, his handwriting such a chicken scratch that he doesn’t have to bother coding it, he tells himself this mission won’t be any different. Why should it be? Because she’s young and pretty and has a sob story a few notches worse than most, or because she winked at him seductively over a dead body she just dropped when he was jet-lagged and wired? Because they fucked? Please. He’s a professional. She is, too. If it were the other way around and she had a file with his name in it, she wouldn't hesitate for a second, either. And there's a chance that's exactly what she intended; get him to think with his dick and back off.
The first two days, he combs through her known hideouts, talks to some people that might or might not know what she’s been up to recently. He’s always half a step behind, that aggravating game of tag between spies of evenly matched skill. On the third day, she finds him.
He hears the telltale click of a gun trigger the second he opens his eyes. He sits up, thick down-filled continental quilt wrapped around his t-shirt-clad torso, but freezes when she pushes the gun to his temple.
“Good morning,” she says from where she sits on the bed next to him wearing simple tac gear, back to the wall, posed just a little bit too tensely to appear casual. She’s likely been here for a while, waited until now to cock the gun for added dramatic effect. “Sleep well?”
“Yeah. Like a baby.” Despite the cold metal of the barrel pressing into his skin, he doesn’t panic. His heart rate doesn’t speed up. Still, when he sits up further, he signals his every move and tries to be as non-threatening as possible - he’s not entirely suicidal. “I’ve been looking for you. But I guess you know that.”
She raises her eyebrows, scrunches up her nose. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
“Wasn’t asking,” he says. “Merely stating a fact.”
Her eyes narrow, head listing to the side. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pull the trigger right now, then.”
His mind races through possible replies - quips, threats, innuendo, or nonchalantly playing at a death wish he doesn’t actually have. In the end, he crosses his arms in front of his chest, settles into the pillows a little more comfortably, and lies. “Because I’m here to offer you a job, and killing your interviewer leaves a bad impression.”
She huffs out a breath. “Bullshit.”
“Maybe it is,” he replies. It's a gamble on more than one account - even if she believes him, he'll still have to convince Fury it's a good idea - but it’s one that'd let both of them walk out of here alive. He didn't allow himself to wish for that until it became a possibility, but now that it might... he wants that. Or, more to the point, he doesn't want her dead. “But what if it's not?”
***
When they tell the story of how they met, they always embellish it. The truth - he told a lie that was just too convenient for her to pass up on - seems so ordinary in contrast to what people expect, and seeing how they both grew up as performers of sorts it'd be a crime not to give them a show. Depending on who the audience is it has more or less sex, they make it sound like a chance meeting or a date with destiny, stretch it to the end of believability and beyond.
The only people who know what really happened are Fury, Coulson, and Hill. Contrary to popular belief, Clint's always been truthful and meticulous in his mission reports.
***
Clint zones out halfway through the yelling that happens in Fury's office. They're not even yelling at him anymore, by then. They're yelling at each other and at the room in general to make their point and it keeps increasing in volume as each of them tries to drown out everyone else. From what he did listen to, he's already been fired three times over, Fury has threatened to downgrade Coulson to accounting at least twice because if you can't even handle your assets, Phil, then what the fuck are you good for and to his eternal surprise, Hill actually seems to be the one taking his side.
In the end, no one gets fired, and Coulson not only stays in charge of Clint but is also tasked with assessing whether or not Romanoff can be assimilated into SHIELD. As they walk down the hallway, away from where Fury and Hill continue to argue, Clint can't stop grinning. He's fully aware that it's inappropriate and not helping his case in the least, but it's impossible to wipe the broad and likely somewhat obnoxious grin off his face.
Eventually, Coulson stops and makes Clint do so as well by grabbing his arm. “What's so funny? Do you think this is a joke?”
“No,” Clint replies. And it's true, he doesn't. Not at all. He tries to school his face into professional indifference once more, fails again. They're standing in front of the holding cells, and he can see Romanoff from here, sitting cross-legged on a cot in the otherwise bare room and staring at her hands, and Clint all but bounces on his heels at the sight of her.
Coulson looks at him like he's lost it, and Clint half-expects to get dragged down to medical for a drug test or a screening for head injuries. “Then why are you grinning?”
“Can I tell her?” Clint asks in lieu of an answer, nodding at Romanoff's cell. “C'mon, let me tell her.”
Coulson's eyes shift from Clint to the cell and back. He sighs. “Well, whatever she's up to, I guess at this point we can at least assume that, if she'd wanted to bite your head off, she'd have done so by now. So it might be the safest option.”
Clint mumbles his thanks, already turning around halfway through it. When he enters the room and sits down next to her, Romanoff glances up at him, eyebrows raised and expectant.
“They're letting you stay,” he informs her, trying hard to keep his voice level and not sound like it's Christmas Eve and he just got the toy he wanted the most. “Nothing final yet, but for now, you're in.”
“You lied to get me here.” She says it as if it's a simple observation, or like she had been handed a math problem and that's the solution she calculated. He should hate to be so transparent, it's part of the job not to be, but he's too gleeful to care.
“I did.” Clint leans back, arms outstretched over his head, can practically hear Coulson's gasp from the hallway at the vulnerability of the position. “But it worked.”
She studies him for a long minute with an expression not unlike the one Coulson aimed at him minutes prior, then exhales. “Why?”
There are dark bags under her eyes - he doesn't think she let herself rest at all since they were extracted nearly 36 hours ago - and she's not wearing any make up, having been stripped of weapons and personal possessions and made to shower when they arrived. She's pale, looks thoroughly exhausted, and it's only then that he realizes he hasn't slept either, that he’s been running on adrenaline and inexplicable excitement for the last day and a half.
“I'm enjoying your company,” he simply says. He knows there are cameras recording what's happening in here from every angle, and he's not too keen on having the truth on tape for posterity. He's not even sure what the truth is.
Romanoff rolls her eyes. “You're weird.” Despite that assessment, she inches closer to make a space for herself by his side, all but curling into him, nudging him with her shoulder so that he lifts his arm.
“Oh,” he counters as he lets her. The adrenaline he's been running on until now flows out of him, leaving him tired and worn, making him yawn as he wraps his arm around her and gets comfortable. “You have no idea.”
***
Most people assume that their rapport is the result of a longstanding partnership. The silent language they use to communicate with each other hidden in plain sight, the way they anticipate the other's reactions in a fight. And that's not wrong, per se. It is, in part, the result of familiarity. But neither of them can remember a time when it wasn't the case. If you ask them, they'll tell you they started out that way. No painstaking process of trial and error as they developed a sense for the other. From pretty much the very start, they just were.
That doesn't mean they didn't have setbacks, though.
***
He squints against the bright sunlight and watches his breath come out in a small cloud. His hands are starting to go numb, fingerless gloves not doing much to keep them toasty - Stockholm in February has that effect. SHIELD really ought to send him someplace warmer next, Argentina or the Maldives maybe, he's not picky. But he is sick of the cold, each inhale sending icy air through his lungs that feels like hundreds of little pinpricks, numbing him from the inside out. He's a goddamn southern boy, he’s not built for this kind of weather.
Romanoff doesn't have that problem. She's been brought up in the cold, never so much as shivers not even when she walks through the snow in a flimsy silken ballgown. He's got her in his crosshairs, waiting for her to draw out their mark and lead him out into the open for easy picking. It's supposed to be a walk in the park for both of them, a barely concealed attempt at allowing them to ease into their blossoming partnership.
This is their second assignment. She's still on probation, but at least Fury has agreed to let her into the field. Maybe that's his little fuck-you for Clint's insubordination: making him freeze his ass off for the next couple of missions.
On second thought, he doesn't think Fury would be so subtle. If he were still pissed, Clint would know.
The comm crackles with Coulson's voice, asking for a sit rep, a tinge of annoyance that Clint only catches because they've worked together for so long. Unlike Fury, Coulson is still ticked off. Romanoff's been giving him a hard time, pushing back against his orders at every turn.
“No visual confirmation of the target yet,” Clint reports. “Got eyes on her.”
Despite her flirtations with insubordination, she's surely made herself an asset. The first mission was a resounding success, partly because of the liberties she took with the orders they were given, and that's probably the exact reason why she's in the field again and Coulson still seethes.
“Keep me updated,” Coulson growls, and Clint doesn't bother with a confirmation for something they both know he'd do anyway. He resists the urge to take the bow down for just a moment to massage the life back into his fingers. He held out longer in circumstances far worse.
Down on in the waiting area of the theater, nothing has changed. Romanoff is still singing her siren song to a reluctant mark. She poses, weaving her body back and forth to music too far away for Clint to hear, reaches out her hand and beckons. It's no use; the guy dips out from under the safety of the roof for seconds at a time, swaying himself, but never far enough. Careful old bastard. Which makes sense, given that he's been at it for decades, selling drugs and weapons and women to anyone who pays the right price. Paranoia is a good thing to have in that business.
The crowd begins to move back inside for act two, and Clint presses a breath out through his teeth in frustration. Another hour at least, until they'll re-emerge, and he gets to spend it in the freezing cold. At least he can take down the bow now, balls his hands into fists and opens them again, blowing into them until they trickle with warming blood.
“Coulson? They're going back inside. Gonna try again when the play's over.”
Coulson confirms, and for the next hour, all they can do is keep an eye out and wait until people start to file out. Taking aim once more, Clint watches for Romanoff's unmistakable form, bright red hair like a beacon. They take their time, don't exit until after most of the others have left. A car pulls up, two goons get out, and Clint can't suppress a mumbled curse when they open up a large old-fashioned umbrella despite the clear and cloudless sky.
Romanoff turns around, looking up to him for a brief moment, then bends down to take her gun out of a holster around her thigh. She's got two shots fired before Clint can react or tell her to stand down, their target dropping to the ground as she takes off running into an alleyway. One of the goons is on her heels, and the last thing Clint sees before he's on his feet and rushing down the fire escape by the side of the building is that goon faltering and falling down too, another shot echoing in his head.
He catches up with her a few minutes later, at a meeting point she gave when she finally remembered her comms. She swings around when he gets into view, gun trained, grins widely when she recognizes him.
Clint doesn't quite feel like grinning back. “What the fuck was that?”
Her grin fades, and she shrugs. “I got the job done.”
“Yeah, at the risk of getting yourself shot in the process,” he replies, running a hand through his hair. His heart is hammering in his chest, adrenaline pumping through his veins, and it's not all from sprinting after her. “We could've tried again some other time, we'd have gotten him eventually.”
“Well,” she says, frowning at him, like what he said doesn't make much sense to her. “I got him now.”
He doesn't have time to reply, a SHIELD-emblemed van pulling up to extract them, and the side door hasn't even slid shut when Coulson starts in on an angry tirade of his own.
***
The second time is an ending and a beginning, meaningful only in hindsight, and they never tell anyone about it. Not even the g-rated version makes it into their tales. It's not quite when everything changes, but it's close enough that they want it a secret.
The second time is theirs, and theirs alone. They keep it private, locked away, don't ever mention it, as if the memory might get sullied, wither and crumble and blacken in the light of day.
***
They've been back from Stockholm for a week, collected the due scolding from Fury and their share of icy stares from Coulson, but at least it seems no one considered to take Romanoff off active duty and stuff her back into a cell. She endured a few lectures on protocol and team work, although Clint has his doubts they took root. He understands it, to a point; she's used to solving any arising problems on her own, just like he did before he got recruited. She hasn't had anyone to cover her back in a while.
Nevertheless, he's angry. In part, probably, at himself: for caring, for worrying, for giving a shit if she's dead or alive.
That's the reason why he almost walks back out of the gym when he wanders down there past 2 AM and sees her raining punches at a training doll. He's not been sleeping well, hoped going a few rounds with a sandbag would tire him out enough to pass out. It seems like she had similar ideas.
She acknowledges his presence with a nod, doesn't miss a beat. Clint watches her for a minute, decides it'd be childish to turn around and walk back to his quarters.
Halfway through his warmup, she lets off the doll and saunters over to him, points towards the ring behind them. “Do you want to go a few rounds?”
He almost tells her no, but it's too tempting, the thought of going against another human being instead of a static training tool, having to anticipate someone else's moves and reactions. He nods.
The first few sequences are careful, hesitant, checking out the other's limits. He throws a hook, she dodges; she kicks, he halts. A couple more, going a little bit further, holding back a little less, and soon he's getting lost in it, forgets to dial his moves down. She responds in kind. It feels like a dance, action and reaction in quick succession, different styles but even skill. Romanoff is quicker than he is, fights with her full body weight. She tries to pull him off center every chance she gets, but she miscalculates his agility, earned during years in the circus and probably not what she expects from a male opponent.
He doesn't know how long they've been at it when she finally succeeds in compromising his balance, diving in after a series of quick punches he aimed at her torso. Before he knows it he finds himself flat on his back, laid out underneath her, arms pinned, one knee pressed into his crotch.
She's panting, smiling victoriously. “Got you now.”
“Pure luck,” Clint replies. He's breathing heavily too, pleasantly exhausted but not yet spent, and waits for her to get up and let him go so they can continue. But she doesn't. She keeps him in place, hovering inches over his body, tightens her grip when he attempts to wriggle free and throw her off. He can feel the heat that's coming off her, both of them worked up and sweaty. It's not long until he remembers the first time they were this close, and that, combined with the current proximity, causes his body to betray him. He closes his eyes, hopes she won't notice.
It's a vain hope, of course.
His breath catches in his throat when she starts to press her knee harder into his growing erection, leaning in as if to whisper into his ear. He never finds out what she intended to say, jerks his head away before she can get out the get out the first syllable, eyes flying back open.
“What, are you chickening out?” Her expression turns vicious as she sits up, her weight now resting on his thighs. “Isn't that why you recruited me, Barton? So you could fuck me at your convenience?”
“No,” he says, propping himself up on his elbows, a hard edge seeping into his voice that he can't quite swallow down. “It's not. And you shouldn't ask questions you already know the answer to.”
Slowly, she bends back down, running her hands up his arms until they reach his wrists, holding him still. He balls them into fists, but doesn't resist. He could throw her off and walk away. She's playing at this, wouldn't force him into anything. It's a game, and as she licks a stripe from his collarbone to his jaw, proceeds to nibble at his earlobe until his cock twitches in response, he realizes that he wants to play it just as badly as she does.
“If I thought you were after this and nothing more, I wouldn't have gone with you,” she says, her voice low, husky, every word weighted. “I wouldn't be here right now.”
He doesn't expect the kiss, slow and cautious and like a query for permission, and he also doesn't quite understand the way his body relaxes into it as if it knows something he doesn't. He kisses her back and she positions her hips above his crotch, begins to move, slow circular swirls to tease him. He stops straining, his hands unfurling, drawing up his legs to put her closer to where he wants her.
Romanoff breaks the kiss and smiles against his skin. “Got you now,” she repeats, smoothing a hand down is cheek. “Stay like this. Don't you dare move.”
And he doesn't. She slides off him, far enough to lift his ass up so she can pull the SHIELD-issued gym pants they're both wearing down his legs along with his boxers, and he doesn't move a muscle, watches as she stands to step out of her own pants and underwear. He goes with it when she runs a hand down his inner thigh to make him spread, kneels between his legs. He stays rigid when she reaches out and her fingers find the place below his balls, massaging the strip of skin there. Clint sucks in a breath, her unexpected gentleness unsettling him more than he wants to admit even to himself.
Her eyes find his, hold them until she seems satisfied that she's got his attention. “You're clean, right?”
She's referring to their standard, regular tests for all kinds of diseases, STDs included, the same ones she's getting now. He can't find his words, and so he just nods.
“Good,” she says. “Keep still.”
He leans back, letting her do as she pleases, looks up to stare at the ceiling. He keeps his mind purposefully blank as she moves on to cup his balls, rolling them in the palms of one hand, and finally begins to stroke him, her grip firm but not as rough as the first time, barely this side of too much. When she finally leans in for another brief kiss, grips the base of his cock to get them aligned just right as she sinks down, his breathing is ragged, raw pleasure shooting up his spine at the feeling of her all around him, warm and wet and perfect.
They move together for what feels like an eternity and no more than a few minutes at once, foreheads touching but not kissing anymore. Her mouth falls open on a moan that he feels more than her hears as she sets herself upright, riding him, bending back to put her hands on his thighs so her weight once more rests on him. The sight banishes all thoughts from his head, everything but her, right now, in this moment. To keep himself grounded he reciprocates by thrusting up as much as his position allows, grinning when she gasps and pushes back, his eyes pinned to her face as he moves in her with singular focus, his rhythm too shallow on purpose. She tries to spur him on, her movements clearly demanding more, faster, harder, but she still lets him set the pace, and he's neither cruel nor patient enough to keep playing with her for long.
He fucks up hard once, as much as he can lying flat on the ground, and she seems to see that as her cue to seize control, twisting her hips to get him in deeper, taking what she needs from him until she arches up. She bites her lips as she comes, like she's trying to keep from crying out; one more sharp thrust and he follows.
Romanoff falls forward, and he hisses when she pulls off, comes to lie down next to him, a hand on his stomach. “That was nice.”
He chuckles. “Not the word I'd use.”
“No, seriously, it was great,” she notes, conversationally. “We should keep doing that.”
Clint turns his head, studying her face. He's not sure what he's looking for. Malice, maybe, anything that hints at an agenda, but all he finds is an openly relaxed expression, unguarded, her eyebrows raised in question while she waits for his reply.
“Yeah,” he says, sitting up and halfheartedly groping around for his pants. “Yeah, I guess we should.”
***
Most couples chronicle their relationship by milestones: that's when we met, that's when we started dating, that's when we slept together, that's when we said I love you.
For them, it's a sliding scale. There's no dates, no certain days to remember, and for a long time neither of them consider what they have a relationship in the first place.
Their third time happens about a week after the second. The fourth time takes place just days later, and the fifth - right after a mission; Hill catches them, makes a face, and walks back out - is when they stop counting. Somewhere in there Romanoff becomes Natasha and Barton becomes Clint, and maybe that's as much of a milestone as any of the above.
***
In their line of work, some jobs are surgical, precise, in and out without being seen. Others are messy, a cacophony of screams and gunfire and blood. The one they just came from was the latter. They've been back on the helicarrier for all of ten minutes, both of them still thrumming with adrenaline and not sure what to do with themselves.
Clint looks over to Natasha, leaning on the railing next to him. They're both filthy, didn't have time for anything more than a cursory wash, dried blood still stuck under their fingernails. The expression she wears is equal parts haunted and feral, her makeup splotchy and smeared, her eyeliner running a little.
She's never been more beautiful.
He glances away. If he'd care to seek out a mirror right now, he'd probably see the same expression on his face, and he doesn't welcome the reminder. He'll feel bad for it tomorrow, he knows, but today this thing that runs in both their veins and makes them capable of taking another person's life on command saved their lives. They weren't born with it; Clint firmly believes no one is. Someone put it there, made it grow, groomed it into a weapon. And that's what they both are now: living, breathing weapons. Tools of destruction poured into human form.
“I don't want to go home,” she says, out of nowhere, her voice small and strained.
When Clint meets her eyes, the emotions burning in them have changed. The adrenaline-fueled excitement has been replaced by an edge of pain, the likes of which he's never seen in them before. But he knows what it means, although their experiences aren't anywhere near comparable. He's been through the same thing. She's got a choice now. She could walk away, but she doesn't, keeps doing what she does best. Now it's for the good of others instead of their ruin, but it remains the same thing. The blood on her hands is still that of another person whose life she took, and now she feels the weight of that choice.
It's been years for him, since he's made his peace with coming to a fork in the road and walking down the one path that led him here, but for her it's just beginning. She's at the start of a process that he knows will go on to hurt so much more before it gets easier.
It occurs to him that home, in her case, means a sparsely furnished quarter at SHIELD. They'll have a debrief to attend in a few hours, should use the interim to try and get some sleep, but he doubts that's in the cards for her right now. What she'll get instead will be lots of time to think. The last thing she needs, he's rather sure.
“Let me take you out. Dinner and a movie.”
Her eyes widen, then narrow. “It's 4:30 AM. I don't think we'll find restaurants still open at this time, or a theater playing movies.”
“So we'll aim a little lower,” he amends. “Find a diner downtown, and then a DVD back at my place.”
After a moment’s consideration, she nods. “Yes. I think I’d like that.”
“Good. I know just the place,” he says, takes her hand, and sets about getting them off this thing. An hour and a half later they’re showered and changed and have made their way to an old-school diner downtown, the kind that had a first life as a bus of some sort, with velour seats and pastel decor, a menu that offers pancakes and burgers and little else, country music from a jukebox and waitresses that will call you sugar. Natasha surveys it all with a wrinkled nose, but he thinks he can spot some curiosity mixed in with the disdain.
“You’ve never been to a place like this, have you?” Clint asks.
She takes the time to frown at the candy dispenser on the counter before she turns to him. “If I had, you’d probably know about it.”
“Probably.” Most of SHIELD still keeps its distance from the famous Black Widow outside of work, as if they’re afraid she’d wake like a sleeper in a bad 80’s movie and slit their throats while walking down the street or over a plate of food. They’re also still looking at him like he’s got a screw or five loose, but in all honesty that’s not a recent development.
Natasha reaches for a menu and studies it. Their waitress arrives to take their order, and Clint’s picked out something for her too in case she couldn’t decide, but she asks for blueberry pancakes and black coffee as if she comes here every week. He adds his own coffee and scrambled eggs, and then they’re alone. The place it all but deserted, too late for the night crowd and not late enough for the early workers to step by for breakfast or coffee to go, only a handful of patrons lingering. The music is on so low that he can’t make out the lyrics - not that he particularly cares for that kind of romanticism or weariness anyway - and he can hear the other waitress on duty chatter with the cook.
Their waitress brings them their coffee, and Clint gives her a quick smile as a silent thanks, his thoughts pivoting around Natasha. He’s groping for the right thing to say, and it’s harder than he expected. They’ve been partners for eight months, sleeping with each other for five of them, but this is new territory. Meanwhile, Natasha’s looking out of the window with a faraway expression, and his stomach turns itself into knots. He brought her here to distract her, not look at his fingers while he lets her get lost in her thoughts anyway.
“Li from accounting is getting married next month,” he says eventually, because he overheard it last week in the cafeteria and gossip seems like as good a topic for small talk as any.
She looks over, staring at him like he’s been replaced with a pod person and she’s worried he might be about to go Stepford on her any minute now. “Oh. Good for her?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Clint mutters, coming to the conclusion that small talk, in their case, is only going to make things more awkward. He clears his throat, makes sure he’s still got her attention. “Look, I know this part sucks. You’re not the same person you were anymore, and you’ve not yet figured out who you’re going to be. I’ve been there. It’s terrible. But I, uh. I’m here for you? We’ll get through this together and I, for one, can’t wait to find out what the new you will be like. She’ll be great, I know that much.”
Natasha takes a sip from her coffee, still staring at him, but this time with something like warmth and amusement woven into it, accompanied by a shy smile. “Thank you.”
Silence spreads between them once more but this time it’s comfortable, an echo of the silent understanding they’ve reached when it comes to the job. Their food arrives, they eat and pay, flag down a cab to his place. She nags at him for his taste in movies while she goes through his DVD collection, and they end up going out again to rent a movie he’s never heard of but that she says she wanted to watch since she saw a poster for it years ago on a job in Madrid. They raid a gas station for arms full of snack food, potato chips and ice cream and chocolate pralines, and settle on his couch with all of it spread out in front of them.
Halfway through the movie, Natasha leans over out of the blue, presses a brief kiss to his lips, and curls into him while reaching for another handful of chips. By the time Coulson calls them in for their debrief, she’s fallen asleep with her head on his chest.
***
The end of most of their stories is just that, diner and a movie, the spy version, but it's not quite accurate. While it acted as a railway switch, setting them off one track and onto another, the true turning point was much quieter and much less deliberate.
But the rest of the world doesn't need to know, neither would it understand. A big finale is much easier to explain.
***
Clint's got one of his hands resting on her hip, just above the bone, where he can feel every motion of her body as she writhes and arches, pushing down on the fingers of the other like she can't get enough of this, can't get them in deep enough. Natasha's own hands are gripping the sheets above her head, white-knuckled, twisting them up, he knows, and it's gratifying as hell, makes him want to indulge her, give her exactly what she needs and make her come apart just for him. His forehead pressed to the side of her neck, breathing her in, he adds a third finger, twists them just so. She cries out, simultaneously turning away and edging in closer. One of her arms all but flies up, gripping his biceps, her nails digging in as she claws at it to keep him in place, hard enough that he knows she might draw blood. He feels how her thigh strains where it lays against his hip, putting sweet pressure on where his erection is trapped between their bodies. It's all he can do not push into it, rub up against her leg like a hormone-addled teenager, but he swallows the urge down, willing himself to wait, to focus entirely on her. He dips his head to suck a bruise into the soft skin above her collarbone and savors the way she moans at that, filing the knowledge away.
They've been at this for a while now, taking turns, and the whole room smells like them, the air thick with the scent of sex. He can't even try to count the times they fucked anymore, but usually it's spur of the moment, we've got a few, let's get each other off, and not... this. Not lying in his bed, at his place, nowhere else to be for hours on end. Natasha's been coming here more and more for the past few weeks, and not just for an undisturbed lay. No, they've been spending time together, they joked around, have done small, mundane things. And they end up back here naked only half of the time, at this point.
He twists his fingers again, nudging her until she gets the message and turns her head so he can kiss her, hungrily, greedy, the kind that takes his breath away when it goes on too long. It makes him light-headed and yet he won't pull away, won't stop, would rather suffocate than let her go. This he knows, her body and the way it reacts to him, what he's got to do to make her feel good. It's familiar when everything else between them feels like it's in transit, unspoken rules discarded and rewritten.
She squirms against him, biting his lip, sweet retaliation for the hickey he's left on her neck. Her breathing is erratic, and the muscles in her hips work underneath his palm has he holds her down. He knows she's close, her body an open book to him by now, and he forces her to stay in the moment, to ride out the sensation. She breaks the kiss, sucks her lower lip into her mouth, her face contorting in pleasure, and he catalogues every second of it, every minute twitch in her expression, doesn't let up while her orgasm rolls through her. He only pulls his fingers out after he's sure she's done, waits until she stops twitching around him and finally lessens the stronghold on his arm.
Her head falls against his, her body following to fold itself into his side, and he stops her when she reaches between his legs. “Not now. Let's take a minute.”
“Your call,” she replies, stifling a yawn. Her fingertips dance over his arm, in the very spot she's left scratches, red little crescent moons from her nails. She swallows audibly, looks up, and her eyes seek out his in the dim light. “Is this okay?”
Clint knows that she doesn't mean the scratches - her marks etched into his body, however temporary - or the cuddling, but all of it. Being here, being what they are on the verge of becoming. He allows himself a moment's hesitation, not to make her wait but to think about everything that led them here, Saint Petersburg and Stockholm and breakfast a few blocks away. Her gun to his temple, the lie that saved them both. His fear at watching her being reckless with the life he was supposed to take from her anyway. Sitting in a clichéd old diner at the crack of dawn in a fumbling attempt at comfort that still somehow worked.
None of it should have happened, but they carved a place out for themselves, drawn to one another like moths to a flame and inevitable from the beginning. There's no reason to start fighting it now, and even if there was, he'd be too wrung out and flooded with pleasure to try.
“Yeah,” he says, nuzzling her cheek, enjoying how that makes her laugh. “Yeah, it's more than okay.”
It doesn't matter who or what they are, enemies or partners or lovers, whether or not they put a name to whatever it is that they share. It never really did. For better or for worse, come what may, they'll keep on saving each other.
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: The Company You Keep
A Gift For: scribble_myname
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: References to spy work of the ugly and violent sort, but no graphic descriptions thereof.
Summary: The first time doesn't really count for either of them. They don't glorify it in hindsight or put more into it than what it was: playing with fire, slowly dragging your hand over a flame you know could burn you alive. - Or, the one where Clint and Natasha get to know each other in the biblical sense the first time they meet and don’t catch feelings until later.
Author's Note: So remember how, in your request, you mentioned that you're okay with sexual content? Yes. Well. My brain went and took that as a cue to add copious amounts of porn. I'm so sorry. XD Otherwise, it's originally based on your prompt #1 ("Natasha first followed Clint back to SHIELD like a stray alley cat, spitting at anyone who dared to stroke her except her chosen adoptee"), but it strayed a fair bit.
banner by ohmydarlingdear
A common error, later, will be the assumption that it was Clint who convinced her to come with him. That he found her and talked her out of leaving her previous life behind. That it was all him, as if he swept her up and carried her to safety despite her resistance. They both know that was never true. For better or worse, she has always made up her own mind. He's merely been in the right place at the right time, and said the right things on top of it.
He may have saved her, but only because she let him.
***
After arriving in Saint Petersburg, taking possession of his safe house and unpacking the bare necessities, the first thing Clint does is take a walk around town. It’s early December, the wind biting and cold, the windows of the shops downtown overflowing with seasonal decorations that are supposed to trap the tourists into bringing home little extra gifts from Mother Russia for all their loved ones. He doesn’t really expect to find her down here, hasn’t actually started tracking her yet. For now it’s about getting a sense for the city to help him blend in a little more easily and not look quite as much like a tourist. Then again, at this time of the year there may be more of those crowding the streets than actual Russians. It’s not like he’s going to stand out like a sore thumb among them.
His mission assignment is simple: find the Black Widow, take her out quickly and silently, don’t make a fuss. Beyond that, he hasn’t been given any instructions. How he’ll find her and when he hits is up to him. It’s one of the benefits of being a senior agent: do want you want, as long as you get the job done.
He wraps his jacket a bit closer around himself, considers settling into a restaurant that’s still open to have a bite before he goes back and tries to convince his body it’s not on New York time anymore, but he discards the thought. He never did sleep well with a full stomach. The safe house doesn’t have a TV set, but Clint’s got a thick folder full of research and intel that he might as well go over once more. He’ll find a way to pass the time, even if sleep won't come.
Hands in his pockets and teeth chattering, he retraces his steps to get back to the safe house. His lungs burn from the cold. Nothing quite prepares you for a Russian winter, no matter how cold it may get back home, and he’s always dumb enough to go for the lighter gear he arrived with the first time he steps out.
The only reason why he recognizes the scene that unfolds in front of him a few minutes later as an assassination is his own training. To anyone else, it might’ve looked like an unfortunate accident: a rich old man, a beautiful young woman, a heart attack in a cold and busy street. But being who he is - what he is - he doesn’t miss the calculated edge to her perfect smile, the slight of her hand when she injects her mark with something that surely won’t be traceable later. Masterful execution, he’ll give her that.
He sinks back into the shadows of a nearby side street, but nevertheless, when she exits the scene, dipping in and out of the light of a street lamp, she catches his eye. Another smile, pretty as a picture, a wink his way as she hurries away from the people hovering over the dying man on the sidewalk, and he's sure she's seen him.
***
Fate is not something to which either of them ever gave much thought. It could have been another agent in Saint Petersburg, someone who would have shot her right then and there. Clint could have taken another route through the city that night, never seen her up close and just sent an arrow through her heart from far away at the first available opportunity, like he was supposed to. Maybe, what if - it doesn’t matter. The story went the way it did, and it’s not in their nature to read a larger plan into that.
If anyone else wants to see divine intervention, that’s up to them.
***
Clint follows her. Of course he does. He'd be in the wrong business if he didn’t. She slows her pace once they're out of sight, doesn't seem particularly concerned that she's got company. It occurs to him that the reason she's not worried might be that she's leading him into a trap - it's her city, her country, her fucking continent, and she could be heading to a fail-safe for this exact occasion. Just as he's debating the likelihood of that scenario, she stops in the middle of a narrow alley at the back of the old shopping street and turns around on her heels.
“Are you here to kill me?” she asks in clear and accent-free English, her purse clutched in front of her. He has absolutely no doubt that there's at least one lethal item in there.
He catches up, stops only inches away; no use in playing cat and mouse anymore. “Maybe.”
Her eyes wander up and down his body in a way that could be checking him over for weapons and yet doesn't feel like it. She's sizing him up alright, but not for his deadliness or potential threat level. That realization, finally, makes his heart jump in his chest.
Even so, he holds her gaze when it finally arrives at his face. “Satisfied?”
She shrugs. “You'll do.”
There's a knife strapped to his ankle and a small pistol hidden in a holster underneath his jacket, and while they're both not his weapons of choice, there's a good enough chance he'll be successful using either at this range. And he should. It's what he's been sent here to do. Anything else would be foolish. She's got her codename from a spider that eats its partner after sex, for fuck's sake.
Then again, if he'd always made the smartest choice available, he probably wouldn't have ended up where he is, and so he goes willingly when she closes the distance between them and steers him toward one of the rough brick walls surrounding them, backs him up against it and pulls down the zipper of his too-thin jacket. Her movements are unceremonious and mechanical as she runs a hand down his side and up his back, like she's inspecting a product, and the fact that he's kinda turned on by that is not a reaction he wants to inspect too closely right now.
The alley doesn't have a street lamp of its own, only faint illumination from the nearby streets, and he can't quite make out the expression on her face. But her intent is clear enough when she steps back, reaches underneath her flimsy dress, shimmies out of her panties and disposes of them with a flick of her wrist right in his line of sight. This is happening. They're doing this. He's lost for a moment - he's had plenty of one night stands, a fair few of them improvised, but doing it with a wanted assassin he's tasked to kill is a first. They stand there, him pressed to the wall as if it's the only thing holding him up and her a mere couple inches away, in a sort of stalemate that's vastly different from the ones he's usually involved in.
She's the one who breaks it, closes with him again, works open the button of his jeans and pulls them down just beneath his ass. A small voice in his head still attempts to warn him, point out that he's about to literally get caught with his pants down by one of the deadliest women ever heard of in their line of work, but it dies the second her hand disappears past the waistband of his boxers. His head is swimming with a mixture of arousal and fear that's as intoxicating as it is paralyzing, and he sucks in a breath when she starts stroking him.
It doesn't take much to get him ready - his mind might have due reservations here, but she knows what she's doing and his body is very much on board with the proceedings. The pressure is a little more than he usually likes, hard and fast and without even spit to take the edge off, but he figures it fits right now. He shivers, more from the cold than anything else, even worse now with his jacket open and his back pressed to ice-cold stone.
He doesn't protest when she guides him in a half-circle that reverses their positions, her hand on the bare skin just above his hip, until she’s the one leaning on the wall and he stands in front of her, dick straining towards his belly. That's when she lets go of him to fish around in her purse, and he finally has the good sense to panic. A picture of himself flashes through his mind, shot or knifed or whatever, naked from the waist down, pants pooling around his ankles, slumped down and humiliated in his last moments for the world to see. He's about to pull said pants up and go for his gun when she presses a condom wrapper into the palm of his hands, her fingers brushing the sensitive flesh just above his wrist. Blinking at her, his mind swims from the whiplash of it all, and she balls his hand into a fist around the wrapper. Her stare is impatient, like she's dealing with an imbecile who wouldn't know what to do with a woman if she drew him a map, and she pouts. The normalcy of it, ordinary almost and definitely not looking threatening in the least, breaks him out of his stupor.
She gives a small gasp as he heaves her up, her arms flailing out to grasp at his shoulders. Her dress, barely covering her ass as it was, rides up easily, and he pushes her up against the stone wall, reaching down between her legs to slide his fingers through the wetness he finds there. It’s tangible evidence that she's enjoying this, that she might still play an angle, but not one that ends with one of them dead on the ground of this very alley in the immediate future, and it loosens something deep within him. Whatever they were until a few minutes ago, whatever they're going to be again tomorrow, it's on hold for now, suspended in time for as long as this encounter will last. He allows himself to take in what little of her he can actually make out in the near-dark, how she's rubbing at her breast through the fabric of her thin dress, her eyes half-closed, mouth open on a drawn-out groan. He strokes himself once, twice, then rolls the condom on.
The angle is awkward at first, but they find a rhythm easily enough. She all but clings to him, her manicured nails digging in hard enough that he can feel them even through three layers of clothing, and it only spurs him on, has him pushing in harder. The whole thing is far from the most elegant or skilled fuck he’s ever delivered, but it appears to work for her just fine; she's panting, meeting his thrusts as much as she can in her precarious position, her forehead pressed to the side of his neck, her breath hot on the skin just above his collar.
It's over way too quickly, and he loses track of his surroundings then and there, nothing quite as important as the way she contracts around him, his own orgasm hitting him almost as an afterthought. He's gasping for air as she relaxes against him, the cold and the burn in his muscles from the strain of holding her up coming back to him at once. Even so, he's frozen in place until she moves first, lowering herself down and wiggling out of his grasp.
She lays a finger to his lips, briefly, just the ghost of a touch, and he follows her like she's a magnet and he's her natural counterpart as she reverses their positions once more. Pulling the condom off and his boxers and jeans up without any kind of hurry, he watches as she turns, smooths out her dress, and walks away.
***
The first time doesn't really count for either of them. They don't glorify it in hindsight or put more into it than what it was: playing with fire, slowly dragging your hand over a flame you know could burn you alive. It wasn't about feeling, at least not about feeling something for each other.
It did, however, make their second meeting easier.
***
Funny thing is, Clint sleeps like a dead man that night, not at all worried that she might’ve followed him to eliminate the threat before it can eliminate her. He doesn’t think about her much at all until he opens that file again. When her picture stares back at him, a few years younger than she is now, her jaw set and her eyes defiant, he imagines the light in them fading out after he’s done his job and does his best to ignore the twinge in his gut at the thought.
After so many years, he’s not exactly shedding tears anymore over the kind of assignments he gets. He’s a sniper, of sorts. Shooting people and making sure they stay down is what he’s good at. As he takes a blank sheet of paper out of a notebook in his bag and jots down notes, his handwriting such a chicken scratch that he doesn’t have to bother coding it, he tells himself this mission won’t be any different. Why should it be? Because she’s young and pretty and has a sob story a few notches worse than most, or because she winked at him seductively over a dead body she just dropped when he was jet-lagged and wired? Because they fucked? Please. He’s a professional. She is, too. If it were the other way around and she had a file with his name in it, she wouldn't hesitate for a second, either. And there's a chance that's exactly what she intended; get him to think with his dick and back off.
The first two days, he combs through her known hideouts, talks to some people that might or might not know what she’s been up to recently. He’s always half a step behind, that aggravating game of tag between spies of evenly matched skill. On the third day, she finds him.
He hears the telltale click of a gun trigger the second he opens his eyes. He sits up, thick down-filled continental quilt wrapped around his t-shirt-clad torso, but freezes when she pushes the gun to his temple.
“Good morning,” she says from where she sits on the bed next to him wearing simple tac gear, back to the wall, posed just a little bit too tensely to appear casual. She’s likely been here for a while, waited until now to cock the gun for added dramatic effect. “Sleep well?”
“Yeah. Like a baby.” Despite the cold metal of the barrel pressing into his skin, he doesn’t panic. His heart rate doesn’t speed up. Still, when he sits up further, he signals his every move and tries to be as non-threatening as possible - he’s not entirely suicidal. “I’ve been looking for you. But I guess you know that.”
She raises her eyebrows, scrunches up her nose. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
“Wasn’t asking,” he says. “Merely stating a fact.”
Her eyes narrow, head listing to the side. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pull the trigger right now, then.”
His mind races through possible replies - quips, threats, innuendo, or nonchalantly playing at a death wish he doesn’t actually have. In the end, he crosses his arms in front of his chest, settles into the pillows a little more comfortably, and lies. “Because I’m here to offer you a job, and killing your interviewer leaves a bad impression.”
She huffs out a breath. “Bullshit.”
“Maybe it is,” he replies. It's a gamble on more than one account - even if she believes him, he'll still have to convince Fury it's a good idea - but it’s one that'd let both of them walk out of here alive. He didn't allow himself to wish for that until it became a possibility, but now that it might... he wants that. Or, more to the point, he doesn't want her dead. “But what if it's not?”
***
When they tell the story of how they met, they always embellish it. The truth - he told a lie that was just too convenient for her to pass up on - seems so ordinary in contrast to what people expect, and seeing how they both grew up as performers of sorts it'd be a crime not to give them a show. Depending on who the audience is it has more or less sex, they make it sound like a chance meeting or a date with destiny, stretch it to the end of believability and beyond.
The only people who know what really happened are Fury, Coulson, and Hill. Contrary to popular belief, Clint's always been truthful and meticulous in his mission reports.
***
Clint zones out halfway through the yelling that happens in Fury's office. They're not even yelling at him anymore, by then. They're yelling at each other and at the room in general to make their point and it keeps increasing in volume as each of them tries to drown out everyone else. From what he did listen to, he's already been fired three times over, Fury has threatened to downgrade Coulson to accounting at least twice because if you can't even handle your assets, Phil, then what the fuck are you good for and to his eternal surprise, Hill actually seems to be the one taking his side.
In the end, no one gets fired, and Coulson not only stays in charge of Clint but is also tasked with assessing whether or not Romanoff can be assimilated into SHIELD. As they walk down the hallway, away from where Fury and Hill continue to argue, Clint can't stop grinning. He's fully aware that it's inappropriate and not helping his case in the least, but it's impossible to wipe the broad and likely somewhat obnoxious grin off his face.
Eventually, Coulson stops and makes Clint do so as well by grabbing his arm. “What's so funny? Do you think this is a joke?”
“No,” Clint replies. And it's true, he doesn't. Not at all. He tries to school his face into professional indifference once more, fails again. They're standing in front of the holding cells, and he can see Romanoff from here, sitting cross-legged on a cot in the otherwise bare room and staring at her hands, and Clint all but bounces on his heels at the sight of her.
Coulson looks at him like he's lost it, and Clint half-expects to get dragged down to medical for a drug test or a screening for head injuries. “Then why are you grinning?”
“Can I tell her?” Clint asks in lieu of an answer, nodding at Romanoff's cell. “C'mon, let me tell her.”
Coulson's eyes shift from Clint to the cell and back. He sighs. “Well, whatever she's up to, I guess at this point we can at least assume that, if she'd wanted to bite your head off, she'd have done so by now. So it might be the safest option.”
Clint mumbles his thanks, already turning around halfway through it. When he enters the room and sits down next to her, Romanoff glances up at him, eyebrows raised and expectant.
“They're letting you stay,” he informs her, trying hard to keep his voice level and not sound like it's Christmas Eve and he just got the toy he wanted the most. “Nothing final yet, but for now, you're in.”
“You lied to get me here.” She says it as if it's a simple observation, or like she had been handed a math problem and that's the solution she calculated. He should hate to be so transparent, it's part of the job not to be, but he's too gleeful to care.
“I did.” Clint leans back, arms outstretched over his head, can practically hear Coulson's gasp from the hallway at the vulnerability of the position. “But it worked.”
She studies him for a long minute with an expression not unlike the one Coulson aimed at him minutes prior, then exhales. “Why?”
There are dark bags under her eyes - he doesn't think she let herself rest at all since they were extracted nearly 36 hours ago - and she's not wearing any make up, having been stripped of weapons and personal possessions and made to shower when they arrived. She's pale, looks thoroughly exhausted, and it's only then that he realizes he hasn't slept either, that he’s been running on adrenaline and inexplicable excitement for the last day and a half.
“I'm enjoying your company,” he simply says. He knows there are cameras recording what's happening in here from every angle, and he's not too keen on having the truth on tape for posterity. He's not even sure what the truth is.
Romanoff rolls her eyes. “You're weird.” Despite that assessment, she inches closer to make a space for herself by his side, all but curling into him, nudging him with her shoulder so that he lifts his arm.
“Oh,” he counters as he lets her. The adrenaline he's been running on until now flows out of him, leaving him tired and worn, making him yawn as he wraps his arm around her and gets comfortable. “You have no idea.”
***
Most people assume that their rapport is the result of a longstanding partnership. The silent language they use to communicate with each other hidden in plain sight, the way they anticipate the other's reactions in a fight. And that's not wrong, per se. It is, in part, the result of familiarity. But neither of them can remember a time when it wasn't the case. If you ask them, they'll tell you they started out that way. No painstaking process of trial and error as they developed a sense for the other. From pretty much the very start, they just were.
That doesn't mean they didn't have setbacks, though.
***
He squints against the bright sunlight and watches his breath come out in a small cloud. His hands are starting to go numb, fingerless gloves not doing much to keep them toasty - Stockholm in February has that effect. SHIELD really ought to send him someplace warmer next, Argentina or the Maldives maybe, he's not picky. But he is sick of the cold, each inhale sending icy air through his lungs that feels like hundreds of little pinpricks, numbing him from the inside out. He's a goddamn southern boy, he’s not built for this kind of weather.
Romanoff doesn't have that problem. She's been brought up in the cold, never so much as shivers not even when she walks through the snow in a flimsy silken ballgown. He's got her in his crosshairs, waiting for her to draw out their mark and lead him out into the open for easy picking. It's supposed to be a walk in the park for both of them, a barely concealed attempt at allowing them to ease into their blossoming partnership.
This is their second assignment. She's still on probation, but at least Fury has agreed to let her into the field. Maybe that's his little fuck-you for Clint's insubordination: making him freeze his ass off for the next couple of missions.
On second thought, he doesn't think Fury would be so subtle. If he were still pissed, Clint would know.
The comm crackles with Coulson's voice, asking for a sit rep, a tinge of annoyance that Clint only catches because they've worked together for so long. Unlike Fury, Coulson is still ticked off. Romanoff's been giving him a hard time, pushing back against his orders at every turn.
“No visual confirmation of the target yet,” Clint reports. “Got eyes on her.”
Despite her flirtations with insubordination, she's surely made herself an asset. The first mission was a resounding success, partly because of the liberties she took with the orders they were given, and that's probably the exact reason why she's in the field again and Coulson still seethes.
“Keep me updated,” Coulson growls, and Clint doesn't bother with a confirmation for something they both know he'd do anyway. He resists the urge to take the bow down for just a moment to massage the life back into his fingers. He held out longer in circumstances far worse.
Down on in the waiting area of the theater, nothing has changed. Romanoff is still singing her siren song to a reluctant mark. She poses, weaving her body back and forth to music too far away for Clint to hear, reaches out her hand and beckons. It's no use; the guy dips out from under the safety of the roof for seconds at a time, swaying himself, but never far enough. Careful old bastard. Which makes sense, given that he's been at it for decades, selling drugs and weapons and women to anyone who pays the right price. Paranoia is a good thing to have in that business.
The crowd begins to move back inside for act two, and Clint presses a breath out through his teeth in frustration. Another hour at least, until they'll re-emerge, and he gets to spend it in the freezing cold. At least he can take down the bow now, balls his hands into fists and opens them again, blowing into them until they trickle with warming blood.
“Coulson? They're going back inside. Gonna try again when the play's over.”
Coulson confirms, and for the next hour, all they can do is keep an eye out and wait until people start to file out. Taking aim once more, Clint watches for Romanoff's unmistakable form, bright red hair like a beacon. They take their time, don't exit until after most of the others have left. A car pulls up, two goons get out, and Clint can't suppress a mumbled curse when they open up a large old-fashioned umbrella despite the clear and cloudless sky.
Romanoff turns around, looking up to him for a brief moment, then bends down to take her gun out of a holster around her thigh. She's got two shots fired before Clint can react or tell her to stand down, their target dropping to the ground as she takes off running into an alleyway. One of the goons is on her heels, and the last thing Clint sees before he's on his feet and rushing down the fire escape by the side of the building is that goon faltering and falling down too, another shot echoing in his head.
He catches up with her a few minutes later, at a meeting point she gave when she finally remembered her comms. She swings around when he gets into view, gun trained, grins widely when she recognizes him.
Clint doesn't quite feel like grinning back. “What the fuck was that?”
Her grin fades, and she shrugs. “I got the job done.”
“Yeah, at the risk of getting yourself shot in the process,” he replies, running a hand through his hair. His heart is hammering in his chest, adrenaline pumping through his veins, and it's not all from sprinting after her. “We could've tried again some other time, we'd have gotten him eventually.”
“Well,” she says, frowning at him, like what he said doesn't make much sense to her. “I got him now.”
He doesn't have time to reply, a SHIELD-emblemed van pulling up to extract them, and the side door hasn't even slid shut when Coulson starts in on an angry tirade of his own.
***
The second time is an ending and a beginning, meaningful only in hindsight, and they never tell anyone about it. Not even the g-rated version makes it into their tales. It's not quite when everything changes, but it's close enough that they want it a secret.
The second time is theirs, and theirs alone. They keep it private, locked away, don't ever mention it, as if the memory might get sullied, wither and crumble and blacken in the light of day.
***
They've been back from Stockholm for a week, collected the due scolding from Fury and their share of icy stares from Coulson, but at least it seems no one considered to take Romanoff off active duty and stuff her back into a cell. She endured a few lectures on protocol and team work, although Clint has his doubts they took root. He understands it, to a point; she's used to solving any arising problems on her own, just like he did before he got recruited. She hasn't had anyone to cover her back in a while.
Nevertheless, he's angry. In part, probably, at himself: for caring, for worrying, for giving a shit if she's dead or alive.
That's the reason why he almost walks back out of the gym when he wanders down there past 2 AM and sees her raining punches at a training doll. He's not been sleeping well, hoped going a few rounds with a sandbag would tire him out enough to pass out. It seems like she had similar ideas.
She acknowledges his presence with a nod, doesn't miss a beat. Clint watches her for a minute, decides it'd be childish to turn around and walk back to his quarters.
Halfway through his warmup, she lets off the doll and saunters over to him, points towards the ring behind them. “Do you want to go a few rounds?”
He almost tells her no, but it's too tempting, the thought of going against another human being instead of a static training tool, having to anticipate someone else's moves and reactions. He nods.
The first few sequences are careful, hesitant, checking out the other's limits. He throws a hook, she dodges; she kicks, he halts. A couple more, going a little bit further, holding back a little less, and soon he's getting lost in it, forgets to dial his moves down. She responds in kind. It feels like a dance, action and reaction in quick succession, different styles but even skill. Romanoff is quicker than he is, fights with her full body weight. She tries to pull him off center every chance she gets, but she miscalculates his agility, earned during years in the circus and probably not what she expects from a male opponent.
He doesn't know how long they've been at it when she finally succeeds in compromising his balance, diving in after a series of quick punches he aimed at her torso. Before he knows it he finds himself flat on his back, laid out underneath her, arms pinned, one knee pressed into his crotch.
She's panting, smiling victoriously. “Got you now.”
“Pure luck,” Clint replies. He's breathing heavily too, pleasantly exhausted but not yet spent, and waits for her to get up and let him go so they can continue. But she doesn't. She keeps him in place, hovering inches over his body, tightens her grip when he attempts to wriggle free and throw her off. He can feel the heat that's coming off her, both of them worked up and sweaty. It's not long until he remembers the first time they were this close, and that, combined with the current proximity, causes his body to betray him. He closes his eyes, hopes she won't notice.
It's a vain hope, of course.
His breath catches in his throat when she starts to press her knee harder into his growing erection, leaning in as if to whisper into his ear. He never finds out what she intended to say, jerks his head away before she can get out the get out the first syllable, eyes flying back open.
“What, are you chickening out?” Her expression turns vicious as she sits up, her weight now resting on his thighs. “Isn't that why you recruited me, Barton? So you could fuck me at your convenience?”
“No,” he says, propping himself up on his elbows, a hard edge seeping into his voice that he can't quite swallow down. “It's not. And you shouldn't ask questions you already know the answer to.”
Slowly, she bends back down, running her hands up his arms until they reach his wrists, holding him still. He balls them into fists, but doesn't resist. He could throw her off and walk away. She's playing at this, wouldn't force him into anything. It's a game, and as she licks a stripe from his collarbone to his jaw, proceeds to nibble at his earlobe until his cock twitches in response, he realizes that he wants to play it just as badly as she does.
“If I thought you were after this and nothing more, I wouldn't have gone with you,” she says, her voice low, husky, every word weighted. “I wouldn't be here right now.”
He doesn't expect the kiss, slow and cautious and like a query for permission, and he also doesn't quite understand the way his body relaxes into it as if it knows something he doesn't. He kisses her back and she positions her hips above his crotch, begins to move, slow circular swirls to tease him. He stops straining, his hands unfurling, drawing up his legs to put her closer to where he wants her.
Romanoff breaks the kiss and smiles against his skin. “Got you now,” she repeats, smoothing a hand down is cheek. “Stay like this. Don't you dare move.”
And he doesn't. She slides off him, far enough to lift his ass up so she can pull the SHIELD-issued gym pants they're both wearing down his legs along with his boxers, and he doesn't move a muscle, watches as she stands to step out of her own pants and underwear. He goes with it when she runs a hand down his inner thigh to make him spread, kneels between his legs. He stays rigid when she reaches out and her fingers find the place below his balls, massaging the strip of skin there. Clint sucks in a breath, her unexpected gentleness unsettling him more than he wants to admit even to himself.
Her eyes find his, hold them until she seems satisfied that she's got his attention. “You're clean, right?”
She's referring to their standard, regular tests for all kinds of diseases, STDs included, the same ones she's getting now. He can't find his words, and so he just nods.
“Good,” she says. “Keep still.”
He leans back, letting her do as she pleases, looks up to stare at the ceiling. He keeps his mind purposefully blank as she moves on to cup his balls, rolling them in the palms of one hand, and finally begins to stroke him, her grip firm but not as rough as the first time, barely this side of too much. When she finally leans in for another brief kiss, grips the base of his cock to get them aligned just right as she sinks down, his breathing is ragged, raw pleasure shooting up his spine at the feeling of her all around him, warm and wet and perfect.
They move together for what feels like an eternity and no more than a few minutes at once, foreheads touching but not kissing anymore. Her mouth falls open on a moan that he feels more than her hears as she sets herself upright, riding him, bending back to put her hands on his thighs so her weight once more rests on him. The sight banishes all thoughts from his head, everything but her, right now, in this moment. To keep himself grounded he reciprocates by thrusting up as much as his position allows, grinning when she gasps and pushes back, his eyes pinned to her face as he moves in her with singular focus, his rhythm too shallow on purpose. She tries to spur him on, her movements clearly demanding more, faster, harder, but she still lets him set the pace, and he's neither cruel nor patient enough to keep playing with her for long.
He fucks up hard once, as much as he can lying flat on the ground, and she seems to see that as her cue to seize control, twisting her hips to get him in deeper, taking what she needs from him until she arches up. She bites her lips as she comes, like she's trying to keep from crying out; one more sharp thrust and he follows.
Romanoff falls forward, and he hisses when she pulls off, comes to lie down next to him, a hand on his stomach. “That was nice.”
He chuckles. “Not the word I'd use.”
“No, seriously, it was great,” she notes, conversationally. “We should keep doing that.”
Clint turns his head, studying her face. He's not sure what he's looking for. Malice, maybe, anything that hints at an agenda, but all he finds is an openly relaxed expression, unguarded, her eyebrows raised in question while she waits for his reply.
“Yeah,” he says, sitting up and halfheartedly groping around for his pants. “Yeah, I guess we should.”
***
Most couples chronicle their relationship by milestones: that's when we met, that's when we started dating, that's when we slept together, that's when we said I love you.
For them, it's a sliding scale. There's no dates, no certain days to remember, and for a long time neither of them consider what they have a relationship in the first place.
Their third time happens about a week after the second. The fourth time takes place just days later, and the fifth - right after a mission; Hill catches them, makes a face, and walks back out - is when they stop counting. Somewhere in there Romanoff becomes Natasha and Barton becomes Clint, and maybe that's as much of a milestone as any of the above.
***
In their line of work, some jobs are surgical, precise, in and out without being seen. Others are messy, a cacophony of screams and gunfire and blood. The one they just came from was the latter. They've been back on the helicarrier for all of ten minutes, both of them still thrumming with adrenaline and not sure what to do with themselves.
Clint looks over to Natasha, leaning on the railing next to him. They're both filthy, didn't have time for anything more than a cursory wash, dried blood still stuck under their fingernails. The expression she wears is equal parts haunted and feral, her makeup splotchy and smeared, her eyeliner running a little.
She's never been more beautiful.
He glances away. If he'd care to seek out a mirror right now, he'd probably see the same expression on his face, and he doesn't welcome the reminder. He'll feel bad for it tomorrow, he knows, but today this thing that runs in both their veins and makes them capable of taking another person's life on command saved their lives. They weren't born with it; Clint firmly believes no one is. Someone put it there, made it grow, groomed it into a weapon. And that's what they both are now: living, breathing weapons. Tools of destruction poured into human form.
“I don't want to go home,” she says, out of nowhere, her voice small and strained.
When Clint meets her eyes, the emotions burning in them have changed. The adrenaline-fueled excitement has been replaced by an edge of pain, the likes of which he's never seen in them before. But he knows what it means, although their experiences aren't anywhere near comparable. He's been through the same thing. She's got a choice now. She could walk away, but she doesn't, keeps doing what she does best. Now it's for the good of others instead of their ruin, but it remains the same thing. The blood on her hands is still that of another person whose life she took, and now she feels the weight of that choice.
It's been years for him, since he's made his peace with coming to a fork in the road and walking down the one path that led him here, but for her it's just beginning. She's at the start of a process that he knows will go on to hurt so much more before it gets easier.
It occurs to him that home, in her case, means a sparsely furnished quarter at SHIELD. They'll have a debrief to attend in a few hours, should use the interim to try and get some sleep, but he doubts that's in the cards for her right now. What she'll get instead will be lots of time to think. The last thing she needs, he's rather sure.
“Let me take you out. Dinner and a movie.”
Her eyes widen, then narrow. “It's 4:30 AM. I don't think we'll find restaurants still open at this time, or a theater playing movies.”
“So we'll aim a little lower,” he amends. “Find a diner downtown, and then a DVD back at my place.”
After a moment’s consideration, she nods. “Yes. I think I’d like that.”
“Good. I know just the place,” he says, takes her hand, and sets about getting them off this thing. An hour and a half later they’re showered and changed and have made their way to an old-school diner downtown, the kind that had a first life as a bus of some sort, with velour seats and pastel decor, a menu that offers pancakes and burgers and little else, country music from a jukebox and waitresses that will call you sugar. Natasha surveys it all with a wrinkled nose, but he thinks he can spot some curiosity mixed in with the disdain.
“You’ve never been to a place like this, have you?” Clint asks.
She takes the time to frown at the candy dispenser on the counter before she turns to him. “If I had, you’d probably know about it.”
“Probably.” Most of SHIELD still keeps its distance from the famous Black Widow outside of work, as if they’re afraid she’d wake like a sleeper in a bad 80’s movie and slit their throats while walking down the street or over a plate of food. They’re also still looking at him like he’s got a screw or five loose, but in all honesty that’s not a recent development.
Natasha reaches for a menu and studies it. Their waitress arrives to take their order, and Clint’s picked out something for her too in case she couldn’t decide, but she asks for blueberry pancakes and black coffee as if she comes here every week. He adds his own coffee and scrambled eggs, and then they’re alone. The place it all but deserted, too late for the night crowd and not late enough for the early workers to step by for breakfast or coffee to go, only a handful of patrons lingering. The music is on so low that he can’t make out the lyrics - not that he particularly cares for that kind of romanticism or weariness anyway - and he can hear the other waitress on duty chatter with the cook.
Their waitress brings them their coffee, and Clint gives her a quick smile as a silent thanks, his thoughts pivoting around Natasha. He’s groping for the right thing to say, and it’s harder than he expected. They’ve been partners for eight months, sleeping with each other for five of them, but this is new territory. Meanwhile, Natasha’s looking out of the window with a faraway expression, and his stomach turns itself into knots. He brought her here to distract her, not look at his fingers while he lets her get lost in her thoughts anyway.
“Li from accounting is getting married next month,” he says eventually, because he overheard it last week in the cafeteria and gossip seems like as good a topic for small talk as any.
She looks over, staring at him like he’s been replaced with a pod person and she’s worried he might be about to go Stepford on her any minute now. “Oh. Good for her?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Clint mutters, coming to the conclusion that small talk, in their case, is only going to make things more awkward. He clears his throat, makes sure he’s still got her attention. “Look, I know this part sucks. You’re not the same person you were anymore, and you’ve not yet figured out who you’re going to be. I’ve been there. It’s terrible. But I, uh. I’m here for you? We’ll get through this together and I, for one, can’t wait to find out what the new you will be like. She’ll be great, I know that much.”
Natasha takes a sip from her coffee, still staring at him, but this time with something like warmth and amusement woven into it, accompanied by a shy smile. “Thank you.”
Silence spreads between them once more but this time it’s comfortable, an echo of the silent understanding they’ve reached when it comes to the job. Their food arrives, they eat and pay, flag down a cab to his place. She nags at him for his taste in movies while she goes through his DVD collection, and they end up going out again to rent a movie he’s never heard of but that she says she wanted to watch since she saw a poster for it years ago on a job in Madrid. They raid a gas station for arms full of snack food, potato chips and ice cream and chocolate pralines, and settle on his couch with all of it spread out in front of them.
Halfway through the movie, Natasha leans over out of the blue, presses a brief kiss to his lips, and curls into him while reaching for another handful of chips. By the time Coulson calls them in for their debrief, she’s fallen asleep with her head on his chest.
***
The end of most of their stories is just that, diner and a movie, the spy version, but it's not quite accurate. While it acted as a railway switch, setting them off one track and onto another, the true turning point was much quieter and much less deliberate.
But the rest of the world doesn't need to know, neither would it understand. A big finale is much easier to explain.
***
Clint's got one of his hands resting on her hip, just above the bone, where he can feel every motion of her body as she writhes and arches, pushing down on the fingers of the other like she can't get enough of this, can't get them in deep enough. Natasha's own hands are gripping the sheets above her head, white-knuckled, twisting them up, he knows, and it's gratifying as hell, makes him want to indulge her, give her exactly what she needs and make her come apart just for him. His forehead pressed to the side of her neck, breathing her in, he adds a third finger, twists them just so. She cries out, simultaneously turning away and edging in closer. One of her arms all but flies up, gripping his biceps, her nails digging in as she claws at it to keep him in place, hard enough that he knows she might draw blood. He feels how her thigh strains where it lays against his hip, putting sweet pressure on where his erection is trapped between their bodies. It's all he can do not push into it, rub up against her leg like a hormone-addled teenager, but he swallows the urge down, willing himself to wait, to focus entirely on her. He dips his head to suck a bruise into the soft skin above her collarbone and savors the way she moans at that, filing the knowledge away.
They've been at this for a while now, taking turns, and the whole room smells like them, the air thick with the scent of sex. He can't even try to count the times they fucked anymore, but usually it's spur of the moment, we've got a few, let's get each other off, and not... this. Not lying in his bed, at his place, nowhere else to be for hours on end. Natasha's been coming here more and more for the past few weeks, and not just for an undisturbed lay. No, they've been spending time together, they joked around, have done small, mundane things. And they end up back here naked only half of the time, at this point.
He twists his fingers again, nudging her until she gets the message and turns her head so he can kiss her, hungrily, greedy, the kind that takes his breath away when it goes on too long. It makes him light-headed and yet he won't pull away, won't stop, would rather suffocate than let her go. This he knows, her body and the way it reacts to him, what he's got to do to make her feel good. It's familiar when everything else between them feels like it's in transit, unspoken rules discarded and rewritten.
She squirms against him, biting his lip, sweet retaliation for the hickey he's left on her neck. Her breathing is erratic, and the muscles in her hips work underneath his palm has he holds her down. He knows she's close, her body an open book to him by now, and he forces her to stay in the moment, to ride out the sensation. She breaks the kiss, sucks her lower lip into her mouth, her face contorting in pleasure, and he catalogues every second of it, every minute twitch in her expression, doesn't let up while her orgasm rolls through her. He only pulls his fingers out after he's sure she's done, waits until she stops twitching around him and finally lessens the stronghold on his arm.
Her head falls against his, her body following to fold itself into his side, and he stops her when she reaches between his legs. “Not now. Let's take a minute.”
“Your call,” she replies, stifling a yawn. Her fingertips dance over his arm, in the very spot she's left scratches, red little crescent moons from her nails. She swallows audibly, looks up, and her eyes seek out his in the dim light. “Is this okay?”
Clint knows that she doesn't mean the scratches - her marks etched into his body, however temporary - or the cuddling, but all of it. Being here, being what they are on the verge of becoming. He allows himself a moment's hesitation, not to make her wait but to think about everything that led them here, Saint Petersburg and Stockholm and breakfast a few blocks away. Her gun to his temple, the lie that saved them both. His fear at watching her being reckless with the life he was supposed to take from her anyway. Sitting in a clichéd old diner at the crack of dawn in a fumbling attempt at comfort that still somehow worked.
None of it should have happened, but they carved a place out for themselves, drawn to one another like moths to a flame and inevitable from the beginning. There's no reason to start fighting it now, and even if there was, he'd be too wrung out and flooded with pleasure to try.
“Yeah,” he says, nuzzling her cheek, enjoying how that makes her laugh. “Yeah, it's more than okay.”
It doesn't matter who or what they are, enemies or partners or lovers, whether or not they put a name to whatever it is that they share. It never really did. For better or for worse, come what may, they'll keep on saving each other.