A/N: I, sadly, own nothing of Marvel's. I apologize in advance for any typos or mistakes. Enjoy!
"You should have killed me when you had the chance," Nat called over the sound of blood and guts spattering through the air. It was nice to be taking a breather after the long hours of fighting, but there were more incoming men.
"Not on your life," Clint called back. "You're way too pretty to get rid of." He fired a few arrows, picking off a few of the men.
"Oh, you're going to pay for that." Nat performed a neat aerial, her second foot slamming the first man in the face. Someone grabbed her from behind. She stomped on his foot, slapped her hair in his face, flipped over his head, and, bracing her hands on his shoulders, kicked him in the back so hard she heard a crack. It wasn't his ribs.
"Nat, we're not fighting to maim, we're fighting to kill," Clint shouted. He was almost overwhelmed by the soldiers, but got a few arrows in and seemed to get better. "This is HYDRA, after all."
"HYDRA," Nat muttered, putting a bullet in the broken-backed man's skull. "Right. You know, I wonder sometimes why you got me on shield—" she shot a few more men and went back to hand-to-hand combat "—to stop killing people, only to have me start killing all over again."
"HYDRA isn't people," Clint reminded her, viciously shooting one of the men through the eye.
She shot the man sneaking up on him. "They look like people."
"No sarcasm," he protested. "I hate sarcasm."
"That wasn't sarcasm, genius," Nat replied, kicking a knee and elbowing a nose. "That was sass."
"The 'genius' was sarcasm."
"Yeah, but what I said before that wasn't."
Then there were no enclosing HYDRA men, and they collapsed behind a wall, panting.
"You know," Clint said, turning his head to look at her, "I hate it when you win arguments."
She turned her head and was nearly startled by his proximity. "Who said I won this argument?" She shifted a little closer, feeling her eyelids flutter—
They both heard it. A whistling sound, drawing nearer and nearer.
His eyes were reflecting the panic that was surely in hers. And then they were up, running hunched low across the line of fire, his arm around her waist to hurry her on. This was so much like a Red Room training exercise . . .
"None of that," Clint snapped, recognizing the terrified glaze that crossed her green eyes whenever she thought of the Red Room. "Eyes on me, Romanoff."
She fixed them on him, staring at his face, and he flipped her around so that her back was pressed to his chest. Then he dove, just as the shell hit the wall they'd been sheltering behind. He skidded across his back, thankful that none of his exploding arrows detonated beneath him. He flipped Nat around again. "Eyes. On. Me."
She braced her hands on his collarbone, staring at him.
Clint started going through the Anti-Red-Room drill they'd devised a few months back. "Favorite—"
She dropped down, pressing her face right in the dip of his clavicle (which technically was his manubrium, why was that going through his head right now?), and burst into tears.
"Whoa," Clint murmured, scanning the area. "Nat, look, I understand this, but you really need to move, we have to get going . . ."
She shook her head.
Clint somehow managed to get to his feet without dislodging her from her place and started carrying her across to the Quinjet they'd taken here. He adjusted his grip on Nat and tapped his com. "This is Agent Barton, requesting immediate assistance. My location: Budapest. I repeat, this is Agent Barton, requesting immediate assistance from Budapest."
He'd just turned off his com when something sank into his shoulder, sending first a wave of pain and then cold, which meant two things: he'd gotten shot, and he was going into shock.
"Nat," he grunted, staggering a few more paces before succumbing and dropping to the ground. "Nat, I really need you to help me."
Nothing.
"Damn it, Nat, I'm shot," he growled at her.
She bolted upright, emerald eyes growing to the size of dinner plates. "Wh—what?"
"I'm shot," he repeated, glad she'd finally heard.
"Oh, no," she murmured. "Oh, no, no, no no no no no—"
"Get me to the Quinjet," he interrupted. Of course this was when she finally broke down. "Just get me to the Quinjet, okay?"
She seemed to come back to herself. "Damn, Barton, you're always getting shot." She wiped away some tears. "Quinjet. Right. Going." She gripped the collar of his uniform and started dragging him across the rubble, firing at the HYDRA men who were enclosing on them. Clint tried to help by shooting a little with the extra pistol he kept on his thigh, but he couldn't really aim properly.
He glazed out after that, but he woke up when Nat was prying the bullet out of his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and imagined he was a surfer, riding out the wave of pain. But the agony didn't ever dissipate like a real wave.
Nat sat him up in one of the seats and told him to hold this piece of gauze to the wound until she got back. She piloted the plane up and to the correct altitude, cloaked it, and set it on autopilot. Then she came back and wrapped up his arm.
"Hey," Clint croaked. "You know how back at the wall . . ."
She raised an eyebrow, knowledge showing in her eyes. She remembered.
"In case I don't make it . . . ?" he asked, grinning cheekily at his insolence.
"I hate you," she murmured, leaning in. She started out kissing him softly, but realized how long she'd been waiting for this moment and just kissed him. He pulled back, started kissing her teasingly, just light pecks.
She moaned with pleasure and would have said something coherent, were she able.
BOOM.
They were thrown across the belly of the plane as the jet started spiraling. "We're hit," Nat yelled, running for the cockpit.
Clint readied the parachutes, shouting over the roar of the flaming engine. "Just another day in Budapest!"
"Just another day," she agreed, slapping the "open hatch" button. He clipped her parachute on. "Ready?"
She jumped.
A/N: First off, thanks for reading this, and second off, please review it because I love hearing what others think of my work. For those of you who tried to read this earlier but found it was all code, I apologize for not fixing it earlier: I had to go over to a friend's house, and then I had to sleep.