A.N: This was a challenge set by a friend who wanted to see how this would turn out. I hold that as a couple Clint and Natasha probably have their rougher, desperate, moments alongside their more tender ones - and also that Natasha as a very physical person would potentially want her reminders of him to be physical rather than emotional. Story alludes (vaguely) to rough sex, which isn't for everyone - don't like, don't read.
The day he leaves passes more quickly than she expects, despite having been awake since before dawn. She forgoes her shower so that she can preserve the smell of him on her skin. She indulges in a gentle workout so that she can feel the lingering aches that he leaves in her body when he goes away. As always she is careful to hide the evidence of their goodbyes from the others, no tank tops or low-rise jeans, that might lead to questions. The others won't understand, will think that there's something wrong with them, but she can't let him go without it. Their goodbyes are a ritual and when they both need the affirmation that they're alive, nothing makes them feel more alive than a bruising hour or two spent between the sheets before they part ways.
Days two and three are busy, there's a lot of work to be done in his absence. Natasha occupies herself with the field reports that have been neglected in recent weeks and spends some time sorting out the joke that Clint calls a filing system. She spends some time with Bruce, helping out with some of his experiments and she spars verbally with Tony. He doesn't call but she doesn't worry - the job is routine. She makes work for herself and when things are quiet she relishes the aches that remind her of him. Alone in their shared quarters, she wanders with the marks on show, clothing herself in only vest tops and simple underwear, so that when she catches a glimpse of herself she can almost believe he is still with her.
Ten days pass and she begins to miss him. The marks he leaves on her are always enough to help her through the first week or two. Before the mirror she traces the fading outline of his teeth in the curve of her shoulder and lifts her shirt to assess the hand prints left in purple bruising on her hips and the tops of her arms. It pleases her to see her own small white hands within the bruises he gifted her with. People wouldn't understand this tradition of theirs, they'd see bruises and assume that he is violent toward her, but it isn't the truth. She needs what he gives her, needs to know that when he is gone a part of him lingers. They can be brutal with one another when it's needed - understanding that in the moments that they need their connection most they both want it written into their skin.
The bruises are almost gone. Natasha paces, uneasy with the loss of his presence both physical and metaphorical in her space. She can't recreate his touch, her hands are too small, her fingers are not calloused and strong like his, and as the visual reminders of him fade so does her ability to push away the new ache that blossoms in her chest. This bond they share, their connection, it goes deeper than hot nights spent wrapped around one another, it isn't meant to be this close. At night she tosses restlessly between sheets that do not carry the scent of his skin and she waits. The mission was routine, that's what he told her, so why isn't he back?
Twelve weeks. She no longer sleeps. Her dreams are not kind to her. The soft scent of her perfume has overridden the echoes of him on the collection of shirts she wears to bed and she can no longer divert the paths that her mind takes in the dark. She wonders which warren of streets he is wandering, without her there to watch his back, wonders if he is hurt or bleeding or calling her name. The wondering doesn't help though, not knowing where he is only reinforces where he isn't. Forced to face facts, she realises that she is lonely whilst living in a building full of people and that she is struggling despite her attempts to remain busy. She realises again that nobody gets her the way Clint does, that no other person has ever been to her what he is, and that he is everything.
She tries to find things to stay busy with, learns a new language, takes up new skills but he's never far from her thoughts. The Avengers gather at the tower once every few weeks and she drags herself along to the communal areas on those nights, concerned that she is retreating into herself and needs to be more social. She sits among them, tries to take part in conversation, allows them to coax her into watching films that she would normally never contemplate sitting down to without her partner at her side. Pepper takes her out to lunch and tries to get to the bottom of what's happening between her and Clint but Natasha doesn't want to talk about it, none of the others know the truth about them anyway, not for definite. How can she possibly begin to explain what they have when she doesn't really understand it herself?
The lack of information, the not knowing, is killing her. Missing him is killing her. Every day without him it feels like another little piece of her is chipped off and drifts away. She loses weight, loses her appetite and her curves begin to disappear. Natasha looks at the woman reflected in her mirror and knows that if she can see the differences then the others can too. She dislikes the way her clothes hang from the bones of her hips and her face looks the way it did when she was in the grips of a disorder she never lets herself think about. Steve and Bruce take her aside one day and ask her whether everything is okay and she knows that their concern is well meant and sincere - it's enough to shock her into taking better care of herself. When he comes home he'll be mad at her for not taking care of herself while he was gone. He deserves more than just an echo of the woman he left behind.
Five months and still no word. She pushes herself hard, forcing away the lethargy and making herself prove to everyone around her that she is still there, still a force to be reckoned with. Natasha throws herself into anything physical, training with the other agents who haven't had a sparring partner in a while, offering to work with the newer recruits.
The distraction only goes so far, they aren't him.
Clint is a fast and inventive fighter, always thinking half a step ahead of her, he works hard for every blow that he lands on her body and she relishes every bruise that he gives her. Their fighting is like foreplay, a battle that is usually resolved in them aggressively seeking release in one another's bodies. They hurt one another and then kiss away the hurts. Nobody else can play their game the way that he does. If she stands in front of the mirror and squints at the bruises left on her body after a day on the mats taking on anyone who wants to try their luck, she can almost pretend that they are the kind he leaves on her. Almost.
Steve takes her out once a week under the guise of needing to come to grips with the modern world but they both know it's as much about her as it is about him. She finds her feet with him and they come to appreciate one another's boundaries. He doesn't offer to fight with her, he doesn't expect her to talk constantly the way Stark does and he doesn't ask about Clint. Natasha listens as he talks about how things used to be and tries to help him make sense of what has changed. They go to movies; they go for walks, occasionally she lets him take her out for drinks or dancing. It's all innocent and most of the time she enjoys it. He isn't Clint but he's good company and she comes to consider him a friend as well as a colleague. She finds that she thinks of her missing partner less when she isn't alone.
Six months and three weeks after he leaves she bolts awake from her usual three hours of restless slumber to the sound of the door opening. The apartment at Stark's tower has been her primary base, getting her out from under Fury's watchful eye and making sure that she isn't alone with the destructive impulses that take hold when she worries about where he is and whether he is okay. Clint stands in the doorway, drops his bag to the floor and just looks at her. Even in the half-light of dawn she can see the exhaustion, the tightness of his features beneath the layer of sweat and dust that clings to his skin. He's bruised, has dark circles under his eyes and at least a days growth of stubble on his chin. In her eyes he's never been more perfect.
In her mind their reunions almost always take place beneath the watchful gaze of the others, quiet and restrained as partners should be, except for those which take place on this floor and in their own space - these reunions have an entirely different tone. She's glad of the circumstances of this reunion because she isn't sure that she could show the necessary restraint. Their eyes lock, neither of them breathing for an impossibly long moment, just drinking one another in. She's out of bed and in his arms before she even makes the decision to move, climbing his body and wrapping herself around him like Christmas lights. A soft grunt is his only response to the bodily way she greets him. He supports her weight easily, his forehead coming to rest against her own. They breathe one another in, not needing words to communicate the relief of setting eyes on one another after almost seven months apart. As the smell of his skin fills her nose, Natasha feels a weight that she hasn't been aware of lifting from her shoulders.
"You've been gone too long," she remarks. There are questions but she doesn't need the details right now, they have time for all of that later. He's home, that's all that matters. "I even contemplated tearing Fury a new one over this supposed routine mission he sent you on …"
He snorts, "routine my ass!" It's all she needs to hear. Complications kept him away so long, and knowing him as she does, she understands he doesn't walk away from a job until it is finished. Clint does not leave loose ends. As he pulls back and looks at her properly, Natasha finds herself drunk on his gaze, iron-grey and penetrating. He sees through all the walls that she builds, straight to the woman only he knows and the things that no-one else can understand. Something hungry smoulders in those eyes, animal instinct in its purest form, and his gaze makes her burn. His hand moves to her hip, tracing the skin where his bruises lingered after he left. His palm sits directly over where he marked her and her breath catches at the memory of his fierce, possessive hold on her body. "You good, bruises heal up okay?"
"Months ago," she replies, locking her ankles together behind his back. He catches on quickly. Up close she can feel the urgency in his body, it's intoxicating and she can taste it on his breath when he kisses her. At the first brush of their tongues they feel it, that familiar call, something primitive and wild, echoes within them, reminding them why nobody else will ever be enough, why nobody else can ever fill the void that opens up when one of them is gone.
He knows the routine and he can read her like a book, he knows where they are headed, moving without her needing to tell him, legs eating up the space between the doorway where they stand and the bedroom. She leans up to whisper in his ear, closing her teeth on his earlobe. "You know that I always did prefer the way we say hello to the way we say goodbye … if you're feeling up to it that is?"
She's baiting him and he knows it. His grip tightens on her, hands digging into her hips and speeding her pulse as he growls a reply low in his throat, "after seven months away I'm up to it Nat, don't you worry about that."