Years at his side mean that Natasha can read Clint's expressions as well as she can read her own so she knows that he isn't in a good place the second she steps into his space. It terrifies her to see the haunted look in his eye, the look that she remembers all too well from the days after she broke Loki's hold on his mind.
Although he looks up when she steps inside, he makes no effort to move from his position on the sofa. Where usually he would be up and moving, offering her coffee or something stronger, he just doesn't seem to have the strength. She can almost see him bracing himself for whatever she has to tell him. The tightening of his shoulder muscles alone is enough to tell her that he's been waiting for someone to come and tell him the worst.
"No news," she tells him softly, closing the door behind her. He slumps back against the cushions and she watches some of the tension leave his body, leaving all the signs of a man who is existing way beyond the limits of his endurance. The long exhalation that escapes him is as soft as breath and says more than words can about his state of mind.
Not sure what else to say, she lifts the bag of food from his favourite burger place so that he can see it. She knows that he won't have eaten anything, that he's probably so caught up in his own inner turmoil that he won't be thinking about himself at all. This is what they do; when one of them is too caught up in their own head, the other makes sure that they eat and sleep and remember how to breathe until the worst of the storm passes.
He catches the bag when she tosses it to him with a murmured thanks but makes no attempt to look inside, simply gesturing to the empty seat next to him. Natasha doesn't wait for words but takes it as an invitation and curls up on the cushion at his side, pulling her knees up to her chest. "You need to eat," she tells him quietly.
Shaking his head, he stares across the room. "Not hungry," he tells her.
Reaching out, she takes his hand in hers, giving it a brief squeeze. "You haven't eaten in hours; you must be starving." She extracts the bag from his hands and opens it up, knowing that his favourites are inside and hoping that the smell will tempt him to eat. Her own burger is at the top of the bag, bought because she knows him well enough to know that he won't eat anything unless she does.
He manages four bites of his burger and a handful of fries before he stops eating and puts the rest of his food back into the bag. He chews slowly, lowering his head slightly as if searching for the right words. Natasha waits patiently. It will do no good to push him; Clint will open up when he's ready, all she has to do is wait it out and he'll tell her what's on his mind.
"Y'know it's crazy," he begins, voice choked with everything he hasn't been saying in the hours since they got back, "Bishop is in surgery and all I can think about is the smiley notes that Coulson sent us after that mission went awry in Kiev, remember?"
Natasha nods to show that she does remember. It had been a bitch of a mission and Coulson had torn them both a new one when he finally got them back to base camp, berating them about responsibility and taking care of themselves, shipping them off to medical with angry words only to soften the sting with handwritten smiley notes when they were recovering in the infirmary. It was the first of many times they would find those notes, always offering them some kind of support that they hadn't even known they needed until it was given.
It doesn't surprise her at all that their former handler is in his thoughts, this is the first time either of them have faced the possibility of losing another colleague since his death. Given the circumstances it's inevitable that Coulson should be the ghost in the room with them.
"It's just, who's going to write smiley notes for her while she's recuperating?" Clint's lip trembles, face crumpling beneath the weight of his emotions. He tries to regulate his breathing with a couple of shallow puffs and then turns his face to look at her. The pain in his eyes rocks her, a maelström of emotion that is threatening to pull him under at any moment. She meets his gaze but doesn't speak, letting her eyes talk for her. He doesn't need words from her, right now he just needs her to be there.
Without warning he leans toward her and she moves without conscious thought to make room for him. The bag of food is discarded as he folds his upper body into her lap, crawling into her embrace like a child seeking comfort after a nightmare, eyes fixed on the wall opposite them. Clint's legs curl around her own, his bigger body surrounding hers and he falls silent apart from the slight hitch in his breathing. She holds him without judgement, understanding what it costs him to make himself so vulnerable to another.
Lowering her face closer to his ear she gives him what he needs and admits, "I miss him too."
Neither of them speaks for what feels like hours, Natasha idly petting the hair and shoulder of her partner while Clint lies silently in her lap. She doesn't know what paths Clint's thoughts travel but her own think about how Coulson brought them together as partners. They are well-known now, notorious even; Barton and Romanoff, Black Widow and Hawkeye, their names are always linked to one another but it hasn't always been the case.
In the beginning each of them had been half a person, broken and thrashing around in the world of espionage and assassination just looking for a connection, trying to find themselves in a way that all but guaranteed they would always be alone.
In pairing them together Coulson had changed their lives and formed the best STRIKE team that SHIELD had ever put into the field, six persons shy of the usual requirement and far more efficient. He created a unit out of two of the most damaged people he had ever met and gave them a connection that they would lay down and die for. Phil Coulson: handler, facilitator, friend, father figure. He had been family and then one day, completely without warning, he was gone.
It takes a while but eventually Clint sleeps, his mind and body too exhausted to fight the pull any longer. She thinks on the path that has brought them to this moment, the wreckage of an apparently simple mission in which Natasha is the only thing standing between her partner and a potential emotional break. Moments like this, when one of them is hanging by a thread, are the ones in which Natasha misses Phil the most.
Time passes and Natasha's legs begin to go numb from being in the same position too long. The old adage suggests that no news is good news but the Black Widow has seen more suffering than joy. She understands that nothing is permanent; no regime, no empire, no friendships and no life. Nothing lasts forever; nobody is invulnerable.
It's past dawn when the sound of booted feet in the hallway rouse her attention. There is purpose in the movement and for a second the weight of the unknown crashes in on her. Clint wakes at the knock to the door, pushing himself upright so that he won't be found lying in her lap when the door opens, already prepared for the worst. His face is pale, the strain showing in his features.
The announcement is short and to the point, Bishop has survived the surgery and is in recovery, they can visit her whenever they like. His relief at this news is conveyed in the tightening of his fingers around hers. Natasha watches their supervising agent and knows that it has been a long night for Maria Hill, just as it has been for her, that while Natasha has sat with Clint through the hours Maria has likely passed the night in the infirmary, pacing while she waited for news. Blue eyes meet Natasha's own and they each acknowledge the role that the other has played without words.
Later, after grabbing some sleep and a much needed shower, Natasha makes the trip to the infirmary. Kate Bishop isn't one of them, not really, not yet, but her skill with a bow means that Clint takes an interest in her training. His involvement is encouraged because in the months since the Loki incident a great many of his relationships within SHIELD have hit the wall at high speed and some people are still trying to figure out whether he can be trusted. Bishop is his chance to show them all that he's not the monster the Asgardian made him.
The girl is unconscious when she arrives, probably still sleeping of the anaesthesia from the surgery. The staff inform her that Agent Barton has already visited and that he had spent a couple of hours with their patient before leaving to debrief Agent Hill. It isn't a surprise, he was probably on his way here as soon as she left him.
Natasha takes in the chest drain that is still connected and the bulk of surgical dressings beneath the blankets. Bishop's face is pale but not alarmingly so, there is an oxygen tube running beneath her nose and an IV line delivering fluids into a vein at her elbow. She has been lucky, this time. Pulling up a chair, she opens the book she brought with her and begins to read. Comforting wounded colleagues is not part of her skill set, she never knows what to say, so she settles for being a silent presence instead.
Before she leaves, she has a mission that is all her own to complete. Natasha glances around to make sure that no-one is watching, finding that she is alone in the infirmary and Kate is still sleeping. Her secret will be safe. She steps closer to the bed, giving all indication she is merely saying goodbye to her partner's sleeping protegé and then slides the sticky note from her pocket. She attaches it to the side of the cabinet by the bed where it will be seen, wondering whether the words she has written on it will be helpful or whether only Barton will recognise their significance.
"This will seem a little strange to you but it's a tradition," she explains quietly even though she doesn't know whether Kate can hear her. "Someone did this for us when things got tough so it seems only fair that we should do it for you, everyone needs a support system."
Patting Kate on the back of the hand lightly, she turns and walks away. As she leaves the infirmary and heads back toward her quarters, she allows herself a slight smile because Coulson's legacy lives on. Clint asked her who would leave sticky notes for Bishop and now she knows the answer, less surprising to her than it will be to the archer himself. Her sticky note is one of two that are waiting to be read when Kate Bishop opens her eyes.