NA I don't own Marvel or any of the characters! Super short clintasha oneshot fluff.
Natasha had been taken back by the Red Room.
That rumor circulated through Shield like a winter draft, shutting down nearly every operation that wasn't maximum priority level. She was trapped, living through hell, and Clint just knew that she was being brutally tortured. It was over a week before they could find her.
When they did, they broke down the door as they raided the compound but she was just sitting there in the chair, not tied or restrained or anything. They asked her if there was a pressure plate but she didn't respond. She just stared blankly at the wall in front of her, as if she couldn't really see them. Until one of the soldiers touched her. In an instant, she was up and he was on the ground and she was fighting them. She was fighting the people who were trying to rescue her. Three more went down before they backed off into the hallway and barred the door. Inside, it was silent.
When Coulson finally reached them, having gotten the call that she'd been found, he asked exasperatedly why they hadn't rescued her. Until they told him that she'd fought them, that she'd taken down five of their men in under two minutes, that she wouldn't listen and couldn't be reasoned with. They were waiting for his okay to restrain and tranq her. But Coulson tried to go in, talking softly to her and paging Clint every few seconds to hurry up.
When he opened the door, the room was empty. He took a cautious step in but then hands were on his back, shoving him down to the ground so hard he chipped a tooth on the cement. Natasha straddled him, at least ten guns trained on her. But honestly he couldn't tell if she knew they wouldn't shoot without the command from him or if she just didn't care. But regardless she straddled him, pressing down on his windpipe just a little too hard, and cocked her head at him. She wasn't confident, wasn't cocky or sarcastic, she just stared at him. Like he was her prey. She didn't even seem to recognize him, even when he tried to coax her down with a shaky voice. It was so jarring, so disconcerting, to see not even the slightest hint of recognition in her face when she looked at him that he almost faltered.
"Natasha, you don't want to do this." But she didn't answer him, especially not in English, even though he knew she could understand him. God he didn't want to have to give the order. She pressed harder on his windpipe and for the first time since he'd met her he felt truly scared of her. There had always been an unspoken rule that she was deadly, she was vicious, but she was loyal and she would hurt others, but not him. Not him or Clint, never him or Clint. But looking into those hard, cat-like green eyes, there was not even a hint of loyalty. He meant nothing to this Natasha.
"I can get you what you want." She didn't react, and he felt the dull sting of a knife nudging between his ribs, threatening to break the skin. For a second, Coulson actually thought he was going to die like that, on the floor beneath one of the only agents he'd ever considered family, until a yell startled her away from him and back into the shadows.
"Tash!" But Clint stepped into the room and took one look at Coulson, on the floor and red in the face, and stopped. Instantly, his entire posture shifted into the defensive side of hesitant. He stepped into the room but didn't look for her. Coulson didn't even have to jerk his head in the direction she'd disappeared for Clint's eyes to lock onto her at the fringes of the room.
"Come and get me, Coward." Coulson jolted at the sudden, fluent Russian from Clint's mouth. Had he always been able to speak Russian? It didn't matter to Natasha, though, because she stepped out of the shadows and traded Coulson as her prey for Clint in his place. He scrambled away, trying to get out from under their feet, as she made the first attack. They fought for the knife and for general control but it wasn't until Clint had her pinned to the cement that they seemed to pause and take a beat of silence. He stared down at her and kicked the knife away.
"You are mine, Tash. Not theirs." Natasha snarled at him and lunged for his throat but he held her until she stilled. Coulson thought he was going to stick her with the sedative or handcuffs but he didn't, he just sat back to straddle her hips and let go. In an instant, she'd flipped them and pinned him to the ground with a knife at his throat but Clint barely blinked. He held up his hands rather than struggling for the knife and locked his eyes with hers as he did. Clearly surrendering, almost submitting to the crazed Red Room assassin.
"You are mine," Clint repeated softly, the Russian tumbling over his lips like it was his first language. "And I am yours." He relaxed beneath her, despite the knife she dug into his skin, but he just breathed and looked at her. There was something powerful in his surrender, it seemed, because Natasha hesitated for the first time since she'd been taken. There was so much trust in Clint's eyes, so much wide, childlike, innocent faith as he submitted to her. He knew she could kill him, and likely would.
But he trusted that she wouldn't.
And through all the Red Room training that had snapped back to her consciousness and all the bad memories and the fear that made her fight everything with a pulse, that resonated. Deep in her chest, until she was back in that motel room in Kyamar and he lay beneath her on the couch and she grabbed his wrists to stop him from playing with her hair while she was so focused on him. And he froze, stiff with fear, for a second before she slowly felt him relax in her grip and then raise his hands gently above his head, never letting his eyes shift from hers. Letting her hold him down, letting her control him.
That was intoxicating, even now, when there was so much more attached to it than lust. Now it was trust and the kind of connection Natasha couldn't have ever imagined letting herself have as an agent but it made her hesitate. He didn't look scared. His face was flushed from fighting her and he was still catching his breath but he wasn't scared of her.
Suddenly, she saw the knife at his throat and recoiled in panic. Only after she flung it away did she realize she'd been the one holding it there, threatening his life so easily. As it clattered across the cement, Clint's eyes softened and he slowly eased himself up into a sitting position, even as she straddled his hips. But he didn't touch her. Until, just staring at him, she shattered.
She collapsed forward into his arms and he caught her before she could even begin to slip to the floor. Silent tears slipped out and into his clothes but he tangled one hand in her hair and wrapped the other around her waist to hold her against him and she was overwhelmed, suddenly, by the realization that she was safe.
It was Clint. He'd come for her, she was safe. She wanted to cry and to throw up and to hit something all at the same time when she realized she'd been the one holding a knife to his throat. She'd almost killed the one person she loved more than anything.
And he almost let her.
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