A one-shot set in the current Age of Ultron au. Normally I might tag this as comics, but given that most clintasha fic seems to post here, I went with this. Do let me know if this breaks some rule!
In any case, if you aren't familiar with AU, the setting is post-robot apocalypse. I mention a few comics characters that aren't in the movie, but my beta hasn't read the series, and she didn't have trouble following. Hopefully the same will be true for you!
As ever, many thanks are owed to eiluned for looking over this! I hope you guys here enjoy, and I'd love to hear what you think!
If the circumstances were any different, she would say no. She would put her hands on his chest, push him away, and tell him that this was a stupid idea.
It still was a stupid idea, of course.
The end of the world didn't change the fact that emotional entanglement made a person weak and stupid, and it didn't change the fact that weak and stupid were two things neither one of them could afford.
Especially not if they were going to save what was left of this god forsaken planet.
But she was tired and lonely and missing all of the people she never thought she would miss and he was alive, dammit, and she'd forgotten just how much she'd loved him once (still) until she saw him standing there at the back of the crowd in the jungle, staring right back at her as if he'd seen a ghost.
Maybe she was a ghost.
But since she was not inclined to metaphor, she had to admit that she was still alive, and that she should be doing any number of things, none of which included fucking Clint Barton on the ass end of the earth.
Thus, she should tell him to back off. She should remind him that they worked better as friends and colleagues. She should push back and find somewhere else to sleep, but . . .
But then he'd touched her face like she wasn't broken, and he'd kissed her like she was the person she used to be before all of this, and he might not be seeing clearly, but then neither was she.
So . . . but. Just . . . but.
His embrace felt dangerously close to coming home, something that she would never have admitted before, not even to herself, especially not to herself because this was Clint and he was an idiot and she was no better and they would just fuck it all up again. All of the things she'd been saying about him for years really were true, after all - he was a walking, breathing trainwreck.
It was the breathing part that was turning out to be her current problem.
Tonight, here and now, they were clinging desperately to whatever crazy, last ditch plan that Fury had concocted over cigars and scotch years before. Tonight, all that mattered was her best friend was alive (alive!), and she could feel his heart racing underneath her palms pressed flat on his chest and she'd thought he was dead (not buried) and she hadn't realized what a goddamn relief he was until she found herself shoved up against a tree and kissed like she hadn't been in years (ever).
So, yes, she recognized that she should push away, but instead she was leaning into him, twining her arms around his neck and running her tongue restlessly against his, and it was just so damn nice to kiss somebody and pretend like everything was still normal that she locked up all of her excuses and threw away the key.
Because fuck those excuses. Fuck killer robots and fuck Hank Pym. Fuck the end of the goddamn world and fuck not having a good time just because her stupid brain wouldn't shut up.
Fuck all of it.
She grabbed onto Clint tighter because she could, because he was alive, because he was there, because he was the last damn person she ever expected to see again, and because she finally, just this once, got lucky. She grabbed onto Clint tighter because she needed something,anything, to break the monotony and the exhaustion and the depression that had permeated her life since the day the world fell. She grabbed onto Clint because he was grabbing onto her and she didn't need to say anything.
Besides, his eyes said more than she should (would) be comfortable with, but then, her eyes were probably doing the same thing, and even as he helped her out of her sneakers and tugged her pants down over her hips, he was looking at her like he used to back when they were a they.
He didn't bother with a condom, just shoved right up inside of her, clasping her underneath her knees and bracing her against the tree. On a normal day (not today), she would worry about any number of things (she did not fuck bareback, not ever), but today, the world was over and Clint was alive and they'd be lucky to last the rest of the week, so what the hell.
He felt good.
Really good.
Good enough that he'd barely touched her and she was already close, already panting far too loudly for their relative position to the camp. She could feel her insides twist, could feel his cock twitch inside of her, and she wanted to scream with the sheer pleasure of not giving a single fuck about anything other than herself and the man here with her because it had been so long, too long, insanely long.
So she did. Scream, that is. Loud and throaty and uninhibited, and it was fun and hell if she could remember the last time she'd had any of that.
His legs gave out at some point, and they fell in a heap to the ground, but that sure as hell didn't stop her anymore than it was going to stop him. They were in the middle of kissing when it happened, sucking on each other's lips, and he bit down hard when they fell, the rusty tang of blood filling her mouth. Her spy brain, the one crafted decades ago in Russia went off, warning her that wounds could get infected, that she needed to be more careful.
Her spy brain needed to learn when to shut the fuck up.
She was on top of him now, and they were rutting like cats in heat. She'd forgotten this part of herself entirely. She'd put it away with all the trappings of her former life that had exploded when the machines dropped from the sky.
She wasn't going to think about that, though, not right now because the only thing that mattered in her world was the way Clint's pelvis felt every time she thrust and swiveled her hips, grinding her clit against him. His hands had worked themselves up under her shirt, too, and he was pinching her nipples the way she liked and fuck, she was going to come if he kept that up.
She did.
Coming on Clint's cock was kind of a revelation, and a forgotten one at that. She'd been with a number of people since him, had a lot of good fucks in her day, but there was something different about this time here and now, though whether it was the circumstances or the person, she didn't really know (care). All she knew was she hadn't felt good in a damn long time, and coming apart on top of him while he thrust up into her and palmed her tits released a lot of the pent up rage she'd had about being forced to keep Marc fucking Spector's ass sane in an insane world.
Coming felt so good, in fact, that she let Clint roll them afterward, and she groaned appreciatively when he began to pump in her artlessly, sweat beading on his brow as the urgency increased. She hitched her legs higher, let him drag one all the way up, up over his arm. She let him pose her, and she never did that, not with anyone because she was the Black Widow and word couldn't get around that she let men be in control of her, not when she was herself rather than one of her covers.
Fucking Clint like this definitely wasn't a cover.
In fact, she'd forgotten how much she liked this sort of thing, the loss of control. She'd been in control of everything lately, far, far too much lately. Those people (all dead), Marc (barely clinging to his sanity), and herself (she wouldn't even touch that can of worms) - she was tired of being the responsible one. She was tired of everything coming down to her and the things she had to do. She was tired of people looking to her for answers. She was tired of the fate of the world hanging on her.
She was tired.
Clint's mouth moved down her jaw then, down to her neck, sucking on one of her sensitive spots, and finally, finally, finally her goddamn brain shut up and she relaxed. She arched into him, pressing her belly against his abs, she dug her fingernails along his shoulders, and she relaxed.
Afterward, he slumped onto her, his warm body holding her fast to the earth. She knew at least six ways to get out of the position, and her muscles twitched for action. She ached to tense up, to flip him off her, to stand up and grab her pants (where the fuck were they anyway?) and walk away.
She clasped her arms more tightly around his shoulders.
He pulled back eventually, growing soft inside of her. Even if he pulled out, he didn't pull away, and they lay in silence for a long time, listening to the birds and monkeys (or, whatever passed for such in the Savage Land) chirp in the trees above them. If they were other people, she would call what they were doing cuddling.
They weren't other people, though, and they weren't cuddlers, either one of them, not before and probably not now either, except for the fact that they were, for all intents and purposes, cuddling.
She shrugged the discomfort off. Maybe post-apocalyptic orgasms made her loopy.
He was still curled into her side and playing with the ends of her hair when he spoke, breaking the silence that had grown pleasantly enough between them.
"I thought you were dead," he said. He wasn't looking at her. That was probably for the best.
"Yeah," she said quietly (and when did her hand tangle itself in his hair? She released her grip). "I thought I was, too."
He chuckled, but there was no humor in the noise.
"I . . .," he started. She felt him swallow against her sternum.
"When it happened," he tried again, but he trailed off. "When it happened, I think I stopped. I think I just shut off and went along for the ride."
She got that. She had, too.
"I'm just . . ." His arms tightened around her, and he drew his leg across her body. She supposed she ought to feel suffocated by the gesture, but instead she just felt safe. Safe. Her. Now. Here. With him.
Safe.
"I'm just so fucking glad you're alive."
His voice cracked at the end, and she thought she heard a sob in there. Maybe it was just a hitch in his breathing, but it hurt her either way, made her feel sorrow and happiness and arousal all at once. She was stymied by the mixture of emotions, by the suddenness of them as much as anything else, and, god, she knew how he felt.
She grabbed his head forcefully, taking both sides of his face between her palms, and she turned his face up to look at her.
There were a thousand things she could say to him now, a thousand ways she could try to express whatever the fuck it was she was feeling at the moment. Words were failing though, were clogging up somewhere between her brain and her mouth, so she did the next best thing - she kissed him.
Later, when she was shooting at smooth-faced robots and dodging laser blasts (how was this her life, exactly?), she ran her tongue over the wound in her mouth, the flesh that Clint tore with his teeth when they were together in the jungle.
She tasted blood and smiled.