pray the Lord my soul to keep
characters: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff, Phil Coulson
warnings: mentions of canon-level violence
summary: Now I lay me down to sleep... A prayer that asks for angels, and Clint as the one being held.
author's note: Written for a drabble challenge on the LJ be_compromised community. Each of the first three drabbles is 100 words long.
pray the Lord my soul to keep
He's strong. Fuck, he's smart and fast and can crawl down a ventilation shaft in fifteen seconds, over a barbed wire fence in three. He knew how to withstand torture long before SHIELD got their claws in him, dragged him into a world where he does the hunting instead of being hunted. Broken bones, broken promises, broken people; in the dark nights he makes them, shapes them them, shakes them. His fingers have taken lives, blows, counts of corpses on the floors. And Clint's strong, he can do that, but living with it – living with it is another thing entirely.
.
The light pours over his shoulders into the cramped bedroom, lighting up the tiny space with fluorescent blatancy, and Coulson wonders what he'll find this time, if the bleeding hasn't stopped or the nightmares have begun again.
But the cheap duvet is unstained, draped neatly over the bed, and Natasha lifts her head, looking at him with knowing gray eyes.
He nods to her, shutting the door with gentle fingers, and stands there for a heartbeat before turning. In moments he ghosts through the battered apartment, setting the locks behind him, and begins the long, lonely walk back to HQ.
.
In the quiet bedroom Natasha returns her attention to her partner, settling her chest against his back, her face against his bent neck. He sleeps like a dead man, his head bowed and the lines of his face drawn with exhaustion, his body tucked into her embrace as though she is a shield against the world's evils.
If only it was that simple; if only it was an outside threat she could protect him from.
Natasha holds onto him, holds him together, murmuring Russian lullabies into the sweaty curls of his hair, and through the long, endless night stands guard.
.
Clint sleeps, weary and broken and drained, and if he dreams, he does not remember it when the sunlight wakes him.
end