AN I don't own Marvel or any of its characters! Hinted Clintasha, other pairings to come later!
Natasha couldn't handle being a field agent after she finally got free of the KGB and hydra… but she was like a daughter to Coulson and his other baby Clint was struggling so he thought maybe just maybe it might work.
"Teach him control, teach him to hold onto his human side but still be effective." She was sent in when he returned from his latest assignment, which only ended after two weeks of torture and interrogation. He was on a hospital cot still and covered in bandages when she approached. Natasha had always had a gift for reading people, for seeing them through any disguise or shield they put up, and she'd spent years training to see people's needs and desires. She tailored herself to fit him.
He was broken, lying on that cot, and he shied away from her at even the slightest motion. In that moment, he needed love. He needed affection that he could trust didn't have any pain hiding in it. Even when she gave him a small smile, he looked terrified. She relaxed her posture and loosened her gait before sitting gently on the edge of the cot.
"Who the fuck are you?" He sounded angry but she heard the fear there, behind the words, not quite trusting that she wasn't going to rip him back to wherever he'd been assigned. But her only answer was to place a cool palm on his hot, clammy forehead. He closed his eyes at the touch, already faltering and starting to trust her. Slowly, she smoothed his hair.
"Who.. are you?" Better. His voice was gentler, softer, and more questioning than angry.
"Someone who can help." He scoffed but she had already set her mind on proving it. She saw how much Coulson cared about this man and it was the least she could do to help him. Besides, there was a familiarity in that fear. She stroked her finger down his cheek to his throat, ghosting over the ring of bruises there, and he flinched away from her but slowly got used to the touch. The longer she did it, just tracing any outline she could find, the more he relaxed.
"Why are you doing this?" His voice croaked, a bit, but she didn't comment on it. Coulson had mentioned he was an archer so, acting on instinct, she reached out and took his right forearm in her hands. Slowly, she massaged up and down and out into his hand and up to his shoulder. At first, he tensed and almost grimaced in pain but slowly-ever so slowly-he began to relax and then he actually seemed grateful. She just kept doing it.
"Why are you helping me?" So he wasn't the type to let things go… interesting. She moved to his other arm to distract him for a moment, wincing when he hissed with pain, but forced herself to answer him.
"Because we have a mutual friend. He asked me to teach you." That made his eyes open. She got the impression that Coulson was his only friend and he knew immediately who she was, even without noting the signature red hair. He shifted away from her and she let him.
"Widow." She nodded, keeping her eyes soft and her posture relaxed. "He doesn't trust you. He wouldn't send you to help me." She shrugged. He wasn't going to let her touch him anytime soon so she sat up straight again and busied herself by french braiding her hair. He stared at her, awed.
"He doesn't trust you." She just shrugged again and didn't argue-he was looking for an argument. "You're a murderer."
"So are you." He glared but she didn't move or flinch, even if she wanted to. Couldn't let him see that he had any effect on her whatsoever.
"You're out of control." She shrugged. "You're unhinged."
"Less so than I used to be." He tried to sit up, if only to put distance between them, but she just let him. She stood off the bed at his discomfort and moved to the chair beside it. He was watching her like she was a bomb.
"What, exactly, did he want you to teach me?"
"Control, mostly." That made the man hiss, but not with pain.
"I have more control than you do, spider." She couldn't help herself-she laughed. He looked so taken aback by the sound, by the mere idea that someone like her could even smile let alone laugh, that it only made the situation that much more hilarious. She stifled the sound, though, and continued to look at him.
"Of your training and your demons, maybe, but not of your humanity."
She spent hours each day with him. It wasn't like she had a day job, really, and Coulson hadn't given her any other instructions so she made Clint her number one priority. He hated it.
But, gradually, he let up a bit with the sass and the bitchiness. She suspected it was because he was in less and less pain and he was getting used to her but she was only guessing. Even if he seemed readable at first, he was surprisingly manipulative. It bothered her a little, actually, because she was at least upfront when she was emotionless and apathetic but he hid it behind every fake emotion he could muster to the point that it was exhausting just to figure him out. That was likely the plan, though.
She broke him down, little by little, simply by being there so often. She'd molded herself into his perfect companion, taking every little quirk or tick he let slip and adding that into her calculations, but after a while she just… forgot to. She forgot she was supposed to be something else and she just… was?
He noticed the change immediately. She saw it more in his demeanor than in her own but the second she slipped, even if she corrected it, he let down his walls a bit too. So that was the secret. She returned to pick him up after physical therapy again and she didn't put up any front or facade. She didn't lie, she didn't pretend, and she didn't carry herself differently. He noticed.
Immediately, he was more open with her. He told her where the pain was worst and welcomed her touch in the hot tub, even letting his head fall back and his eyes close. Somehow, he had some kind of magic radar that sensed if she was being fake. She'd been trained and she'd lived her life in a cloak of deception but even so she never managed to slip it past him. And, every time she relented, he rewarded her genuinity with more trust, more contact, more information. It got to the point where she couldn't tell who was conditioning who anymore.
He liked when she was genuine. He'd told her as much, when he was slightly drunk and coming down off an adrenaline rush, but she'd never forgotten it. It was the fastest way to make progress with him, so she did it more often. By the time Coulson came to check in on them, finding them in the rec center hot tub like always after physical therapy, they even had inside jokes. He was making progress faster than ever, even managing to walk without a limp.
She did more than ease the physical damage, though. Between the physical therapy sessions, the meals, the trainings, and the workouts she made them sit and she made him talk. At first, she threatened him into it. But, soon enough, he wasn't scared of her anymore and she had to coax it out of him a piece at a time. For weeks, they had a back and forth dynamic where he would only give as much information as she shared with him-a dynamic that she very much disliked. But she did it. And, after a while, it seemed like she earned some kind of report with him and he spoke freely, without any cost or information trade, whenever he felt like it. It was nice, honestly.
They did a lot of trust exercises-Coulson's idea. He said that Fury would need a reason to keep Natasha in agency housing and on the base if she wasn't an active agent, which was fair. He also wrote her job title down as "Agent Barton's Service Spider", though, which she protested vehemently.
And yet, Clint did trust her. She couldn't really understand why or how or when that dynamic had shifted but he did. Enough to show her the scars on his upper back. Enough to tell her the story behind them. Enough to admit to the panic attacks. Enough to tell her about the nightmares.
"I want you to come get me, no matter what, okay?" He nodded. "If I find out that you had a nightmare and didn't get me, Clint, I'm going to make you regret it." She wasn't sure how, yet, but she would find some way to hurt him for it. Maybe find his stash of girlscout cookies? He had some weakness, she was sure.
"I get it, Tash." She smiled, carding a hand playfully through his hair as she put their dishes away and cleaned up the leftovers from dinner. He was the only person she'd ever let call her that. Only because the alternative had been lady bug-because she needed an insect that was black and red, clearly, but spider was too scary-and she was not letting anyone call her lady bug. But it grew on her, even if she would never admit it.
He did actually come to her that night. He was pale and wearing just his sweats with his comforter wrapped tight around his shoulders, still shaking slightly, but she welcomed him in without a word. She already knew he liked physical contact and affection. It was a natural link, then, that the best comfort she could give was cuddling close to him on her bed and slowly tracing patterns on his skin until he could breathe.
"Thank you, Tash." She smiled, making sure he saw it, and nuzzled into the crook of his neck again. He liked when he could hold her, especially in his lap or against his chest, and she wondered sometimes if it was because he needed something to hold onto or if it was because he felt her relax whenever they did it. But she wasn't complaining. It helped Clint, clearly, which was her main goal and it made it easier to sleep through the night. Coulson, even, seemed to notice the change in them and nodded at her in approval.
"I'm proud of you, Natasha." She melted a bit internally at the praise, but didn't show it. "Would you be willing to start training with him?" It was an actual question, she knew, because Coulson never asked her rhetorical questions for fear of sounding too much like her Red Room trainers. He actually gave her a choice. Granted, saying no would be arguably a bad choice, but it was still her choice. And it was Coulson, so of course she said yes.
Training, actually, was a lot easier with Clint than she'd expected it to be. Maybe it was because they were already close and already had that trust there, but she found it almost natural to spar with him. It was slow, of course, because it'd taken years for them to drill it into her but she taught him. She showed him how to search deep within himself to find that shard of hate in his chest, to leave it there, to revel in that hatred for the people who made him this way. And she taught him how to slam it a little deeper into his flesh whenever he needed to fight.
"Use that anger to fuel you, but then let it be. Don't let it consume you. It's a power in need of an outlet but once you give it one, it can't control you." He was a bright student, and he learned quickly. Even after one lesson, he was already significantly improved and she caught him watching her with a little bit more respect and reverence than usual.
"What?" He smiled, having been caught.
"I think I understand you a little bit more." As much as that sentence was like dread in her stomach, it made her smile. She wasn't completely opposed to him understanding her, honestly, and it was the closest thing she'd gotten to a partner or a best friend in her entire life so she welcomed it. That was part of her own training, actually. She had to get better at forming attachments when she wasn't planning to kill the other person eventually.
"Aw, Clint, you're so cute. You think I'm that easy to solve." He just laughed with her, though. Because they could joke like that, without any consequences or repercussions. Because they were friends.
Thanks for reading! Please please please review! I hope to publish the next few chapters within the next few days!