Dripping Ledger - Where I write something that was a one-shot... Until I went to the movies and watched Avengers for the... Oh, I lost the count.


Red streams away with the flow of water; what was once bright and thick, now pale, flowing thin till it disappears down the drain. The same red colors her ghost-white skin, her already aglow hair and poisons her mouth with the taste of metal. It lingers sweetly, fulfilling her need for that vice; the need that go as far in her life as her memory allows her to remember. One that came from the habit, from seeing to much of it. She presses her lips tightly, trying to keep the relish away. When she can still feel it, she lets the warm water from the shower fall in her mouth. The wide gash in her mouth burns, and he enters the bathroom just when she's spiting the liquid on the floor.

It's not the pain or the blood that bothers her, but the fact that she can no longer like them.

"How the hell did you got this?" He points to her mouth, indicating her bloody lips.

"It's not of your goddamned business." She wipes the red out, helped by the water, but it comes again, stronger. It's not only her lips. Her hands, her legs, her chest, her back. The cuts cover her body, some deep and terrible, some shallow, almost closing themselves. All of them covered in ruby. All of her covered in it. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He draws a sigh, and, undoing his tie, opens the glass doors that separate them. She curls herself a little more on the corner of the floor, subconsciously rejecting his approximation.

"I'm pretty sure you know what I'm doing here."

"Barton, I don't nee-"

"Yes. Yes you do." He reaches out for her hand, and is ignored. "Or did you already forgot who just saved your life?"

Those exact words were the last she wanted to hear. Anger builds in her faster than gasoline catching on fire.

"You did not save my life, you're hearing me? I could've done it without you." She says, calmly, deadly, slowly directing her gaze at him. Her eyes are cold, determined. But he doesn't back down. His hand is still there. Waiting for her to just take it. Her throat, already bruised from the torture burns even more. "I've done it without anyone for a long time!" She finally yells, losing control.

He just rolls his eye, almost bored.

She opens her mouth to say something, but she can't. There is no such a thing as a set of words to make him go away. Maybe if she just shut up... But he knells by her side and puts his arms around her, lifting her in his arms. An exclamation leaves her mouth, but not a complaint. She's too surprised to even look at his face, so she just accept the gesture in the coldest way she can.

She just ignores it.

"C'mom, you won't be able to stop the bleeding underwater." He says. "Let's take care of it, shall we?"


His hands are softer than she thought. In her head, handling the arrows should made them rougher, colder, instead. It is not like silk, of course, but pleasant, still. The Hawkeye hands are warm and soft. While his fingers brushes her skin lightly, with the careful making of her bandages, she thinks that she don't know a thing about that men.

"You really got yourself like crap, huh, Romanoff?"

"I've been worse." She tells him a truth. "And you can call me Natasha."

"Well, Natasha, you can't go on like this anymore, girl."

She drops her head, genuinely confused by the phrase, when he gestures her to do it. Like this what? His hands continue to move above her, now placing something over an ugly scratch in her neck. He has a weird sense of precision, an accuracy that's strange for her. Most man that laid a hand in her were reckless, unable to cause that sensation she was feeling now, one of longing, of firm delicacy. Being honest with herself for one time in her life, she muses that the reasons why men had hands in her were rarely a motive for delicacy. In an other line of thought, she can't help but smile, with a light laugh: spending a night with him must be at least interesting.

"What?" He's curious by her sudden amusement. Both of his hands rest around her neck, thumbs in her hairline, the other four fingers in the side, feeling the pulse in her veins. The two of them know that he could easily kill her. The two of them have a life where this is the first thought that crosses their minds. But she doesn't flinch. He doesn't move away. They've come to an agreement.

Assassins that came to the one thing impossible in their lives.

Trust.

"Why are you doing this?" She says, looking at the mirror again. The image is nothing but uncommon.

"Killers gotta stay together, right?" He jokes.

She has no idea why this is a time for joking.

"Why didn't you kill me? Why don't you do it right now?"

She has no idea what is going on with her life right now, or for the past three weeks.

"For the same reason you didn't kill me."

She has no idea who she is anymore.

"Oh, using me as a trade leverage won't work. The russians are not that protective to their people as the americans."

Still, she cracks a joke. A terrible one. And both of them laugh.

He uses her distraction to caress the bandages one more time, making sure everything is staying there for a while.

"We're going back to the US later tonight, you should get some sleep."

She nods, in agreement. She has no idea what will happen next week.

He steps away, heading to the door.

"Barton..."

He stops and looks at her. Her eyes meet his.

Thank you. She answers, silently. For everything.

"I owe you one."

"Yes you do." He replies with an amused look in his face. "Now get the hell out of the bathroom, I need to change."