Just a quick Clintasha one-shot that was in my head. Enjoy!

He was curious as to her motive of action. He was curious what Loki had said—done—to her that would make her sound so horrible when she told him she was compromised. So he went into the S.H.I.E.L.D. mainframe and accessed the security camera footage.

"Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man?"

"Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that. I'm Russian…or I was."

"And what are you now?"

"It's really not that complicated. I've got red in my ledger…I'd like to wipe it out."

"Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Drakov's daughter? Sao Paulo? The hospital fire? Yes, Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red, and you think that saving one man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer…PATHETIC! You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away! …No, I won't touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you. Slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear! And when he wakes, he'll have just enough time to see his good work. When he screams, I'll split his skull! This is my bargain, you mewling quim!"

A hand reached forward and stopped the footage. He jumped in surprise, not realizing he'd been so focused that someone had actually snuck up on him. He was less surprised when he saw that it was Natasha. She looked just as frightened now as she had in the footage. He stood and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. He expected her to fight him, to push away from him, but she buried her face in his chest. He could feel her entire body quivering. It was so unlike her to show her actual feelings like this, but he was used to her baring her feelings to him and him only.

"I was…scared," she mumbled. "I was scared that if we didn't get you back to normal soon that he would actually…keep his word."

"He would have," Clint answered darkly, glaring at the far wall and tightening his arms around her.

"I would have accepted it," she said, her tone flat. He stiffened, but she ignored it and continued. "Yeah, I would be out of my mind with fear, but what's the point in prolonging the inevitable?"

"Strange, you fought pretty hard when—"

"Loki wasn't there to command you at that point. I figured I had a fighting chance right then."

"So you're saying if Loki had been there to command me, to control my actions, you would have just given up?" He stepped away from her then, leaving her trying hard to mask the hurt in her green eyes.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Why?" She opened her mouth to answer, but then shut it again. That was a very, very good question. She stared at him as she tried to think it over before opening her mouth to try to answer again. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she uncharacteristically let them slide down her cheeks.

"Because it would have been you," she finally managed. "And if I really was to die in the way Loki promised…I would rather it be you than anyone else."

"Nat—"

"Not to mention if everyone else knew how I fear most to die—"

"Natasha."

"—I wouldn't be much of an assassin, w—mm!" He cut her off by pulling her to him and kissing her, hard. It wasn't slow and sweet like most first kisses…but then again, this wasn't exactly the first time they'd kissed. Her arms went around his neck and her fingers tangled in his hair. One arm wrapped around her waist and the other up around her back. His hand slid from her back down to her leg, pulling it up so her thigh rested on his hip.

They were so wrapped up in their heated kiss, in each other, that neither one of them noticed when the door to the small room they were in opened and Tony walked in. He raised his eyebrows in surprise and whistled, startling the two.

"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" Tony asked, chuckling when they both responded with death glares. He held up his hands defensively. "All right, all right, don't kill me! I'm just grabbing a quick file off the computer is all," he said, pulling out a USB port and plugging it into the computer. He was gone within a matter of minutes, an amused smile on his face the entire time.

The two detangled themselves from each other, but neither felt awkward about what had happened between the two of them. The first time they kissed had been years ago, just a simple, sweet kiss to test out what it would be like. Neither had said anything afterwards, but they hadn't felt it wrong. There was only one kiss after that one, and that was when they were going undercover as a married couple. That one, too, had not felt strange in any way. But it wasn't until this most recent kiss that they realized just how much they cared for one another.

They walked into the main room together, their only physical contact being the brushing of their hands as they walked. The rest of the team looked up briefly at their entrance, nodding at them and suspecting nothing. Tony sat a few feet away from Steve on his laptop. He grinned evilly when they looked at him.

He said loudly, in front of everyone in the room, "So how was your make-out session?"

Thought I'd end it on a humorous note. This is a one-shot, so I'm afraid you'll have to imagine how the conversation that follows went. ;)
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