A/N: Started as a song fic (Within Temptation - What Have You Done).
I'm so, so sorry.
"Hawk. Look at me."
One second. Two.
"Come on!"
Three. Four.
"Barton, I swear to god..."
Five. Six.
"Dammit! Open. Your. Eyes."
Seven.
"Date didn't go as planned?"
"Fuck you." She spits it at him without looking up. "What are you doing here?"
"You called me."
"Didn't mean I wanted to talk to you."
"I brought a friend." He pulls the bottle out of his coat and heads into the kitchen. He knows right where the highball glasses are and he doesn't bother with the ice.
"All right. Now I'm happy to see you."
He puts the drink in her hand and she swallows half of it, wincing as it makes its way down. He notices the runs in her stockings, the cut on her bicep, the red mark above her collarbone that's making its best effort to turn purple. There was a time when this would have bothered him. All of it. None of it does anymore. He's seen worse and he knows better than to ask.
She drains the rest of the glass, tipping her head back to force it down. When she does it, it's beautiful. That's what he thinks.
He gets up and refills it but puts the glass on the table and offers his hand instead. She looks at him like he's out of his mind and well, maybe he is.
"Come here. Up." He helps her to her feet and notices she's not using him for leverage as much as he thought she would. It's not that bad. This time.
She stands, mechanically, and laces her fingers into his.
He drops one hand to her hip and warps the other around her waist and they stand there, like that, too long.
When she lays her chin on his shoulder and puts her arms around his neck, he links his fingers behind her back. And rocks her. Comforting at first, then rhythmic. She looks up at him and wrinkles her brow because Clint Barton is as cuddly as your average cactus.
"We've never danced. Do you realize that?"
"You want me to dance with you? There isn't even any music." She chuckles and it's a little cynical, a little disbelieving. "And we're in my living room."
He kisses her on the top of the head.
"You're not going soft on me, are you Barton?"
"Shush."
It starts with a comment about him hiding behind his bow. She doesn't even know if she's angry or not
It ends in the gym with no pads, which isn't unusual. He isn't afraid to hit a girl. At least not this girl. That girl. [His girl.] But there's fire and spite in his eyes this time. And it's beautiful. That's what she thinks.
He tries to take her legs out and she flips him. A little more force and she would break his arm. He curses at her, calls her a bitch, and in that moment and that moment alone, he means it. He means it with everything he is, everything he was, and everything he ever will be.
"Little out of practice, aren't you?" She leans a little harder and it hurts, dear god it hurts, he can feel the tendons stretching and she wouldn't really... would she? Of course she would, and that's why he respects her.
So he bites her because he plays dirty as hell and she wouldn't have it any other way. She can channel the pain, release into it, ride it out and roll with it but it distracts her long enough for him to get a knee across her hips before she even knows it, knocking the breath out of her with his fingers hooked under her ribs.
"You're dead, Romanov. I just sliced your descending aorta like a Thanksgiving turkey. You'd bleed out in 10 seconds."
"Bullshit. You-"
He digs his fingers in harder, makes sure she feels it, makes sure it leaves a mark for her to remember him by, to be glad it was him and noboby else, no other time. She sees white and he lets up right before she passes out.
"You feel too much. That's your problem. It's like dancing, Nat. You just have to remember the steps. Nothing more."
He kneels over her hips until she can breathe again, helps her up.
"You can't dance for shit."
When he touches her, she forgets his hands are the hands of a killer.
She feels the calluses on his fingers, sees the scars on his arm where the flesh has been flayed away, over and over again but it doesn't matter because he's gentle with her. Except when she doesn't want him to be, doesn't need him to be. She's dressed his wounds, all but bathed in his blood, even stitched him back together once or twice but she can forget that because now, he's only Clint.
She likes the feel and the sound of his name on her lips, his first name which she says too rarely because she wants to save it for when she needs it.
For when it means something.
His name is all the words she can't say.
In the end, he finds her.
Just like he always does.
She sees him on the catwalk before he sees her and that reminds her. Of everything.
Of the shot he didn't take.
She holsters her gun.
He tries to take her legs out and she flips him. Grabs for any part of him she can.
Whatever part of him that is still Clint.
She thinks it should hurt more.
It always has before.
But it wasn't his hand any other time than this.
This time, it doesn't hurt at all.
She's never been closer to him.
The blood runs fast and thick. Black.
She turns the hilt of the knife over, reverses it. No use now, nothing for it.
She feels it too, in both of their bodies at once, and the pain is perfect.
At least she can save him from this.
"Hawk. Look at me."
One second. Two.
"Come on!"
Three. Four.
"Barton, I swear to god..."
Five. Six.
"Dammit! Open. Your. Eyes."
Seven.
"Clint!"
His eyes flash from blue, through black, back to green.
Eight.
"Clint. Clint, don't be sorry. Don't you dare say you're sorry."
Nine.
He's Clint. And then he's gone.
Ten.
His hands are on her hips. The hands of a killer.
"You never could dance for shit."
He's gentle this time, because she needs him to be.
This time, she can hear the music and she closes her eyes, safe in his arms.
Free.