A/N: Introducing head-canon! Not sure how confusing this is if you aren't in my mind, so here's the quick explanation. Clint and Natasha were together, back before SHIELD got hold of them both, but broke it off because it was just too complicated, wasn't working out well, etc etc etc. Timeskip. Clint gets drunk pretty stinkin' quick. Stays fairly lucid, but gets talkative, uninhibited, generally a little depressed… and doesn't remember a single thing in the mornings. Natasha discovered this on a case they were working together; one thing led to another, and he ended up admitting he was still in love with her. Since he wouldn't remember a thing in the morning, she admitted to feeling the same. By morning she'd disappeared and never told him about it. Timeskip again, and you're all caught up. Hurray for head-canon!

The sunlight through the window seemed too bright and there was a dull throbbing in her temples - not bad, but enough to remind her that she should keep some kind of control over how much she drank. Natasha was a very light sleeper, but it took a moment for her to realize what it was that had forced her awake again - something was touching her face. She opened her eyes once more, annoyed that it took a moment for her to focus them correctly. Black. Something black and blurry - it was too close to her eyes and she wasn't completely awake yet. But it was very familiar, whatever it was. She raised her eyes a bit higher and felt herself freeze.

Clint.

She was in bed with Clint. What the…? She stared at his face a moment longer, taking in the all-too-familiar features.

Suddenly everything clicked back into place. They were on a job - one of those obscure ones Fury sent them in on from time to time. They were working it from extremely different angles and so far had barely seen each other in passing, much less actually done any work together. They weren't even staying in the same hotel - hell if she knew where Clint was actually staying. She was staying in the same hotel as their target, and that was where she'd found Clint - at the bar, staring into his fourth or fifth glass of scotch - and she'd dropped beside him and ordered herself a vodka. He'd given her a rather morose look, which had been her indicator that he was already past the point of initial inebriation.

"How many are you on?" He shrugged.

"Too many. Gonna tell me not to drink on the job?" She chuckled and tossed back her first shot.

"Nope. You gonna remember any of this in the morning?" He shook his head after a moment of apparently deep thought.

"Doubt it." She let her eyes close for a moment. You're an idiot, Romanoff. She took the in.

She'd gotten him upstairs before he'd actually lost consciousness. He'd been fairly incoherent by that point, still softly muttering melancholy apologies between kisses.

"I'm sorry, Tasha. Sorry you have to remember all this. Sorry I won't be…" She'd let him mutter. He never had gotten his contacts out, but he seemed to have forgotten their irritation by the time they dropped down onto the bed. She'd been a bit tipsy herself, and completely content to cling to him until he fell asleep. She'd figured it would be easy enough to slip away once he was out. She'd done it before. But it had been so right, lying there, fully clothed and simply content to be there with his arms around her, her head against his chest, his heartbeat in her ear - she'd kept promising herself she'd leave after just a minute longer… That minute had apparently never come. She didn't remember falling asleep, but she must have, because here she was now, waking up in Clint Barton's arms for the first time in… hell, how many years had it been? It was his hand that had awakened her, his fingers gently tracing her nose and eyebrows. His eyes were still closed.

"Dammit." She wanted to stay there forever, but that was an utter impossibility. Her voice startled his eyes open though. Blue eyes met green and for the briefest of moments he looked perfectly, naturally content. And then his eyes narrowed and she felt his entire body tense before he shoved himself up on his elbow. She was already on the move, rolling out of his arms, catching her balance the moment her feet hit the floor and backing a few steps away from the bed.

"What the hell is going on, Nat?" Clint's voice was still rough from sleep, lower than it usually was. His hands were already searching for his bow and quiver while his eyes remained locked on her face.

"How's your head?" Colourful words in five different languages swam in a tangle through her mind. Clint's hands closed around his weapon and Natasha's entire body tensed on the edge of an intense fight-or-flight instinct.

"My head?" She took a couple more quick steps backward and felt the glass door to the room's balcony at her back. Her fingers found the handle. "I wake up with you beside me and you ask how my head is? Damn you, what happened last night?" Natasha didn't so much as blink.

"Obviously you drank too much." He lurched to his feet and swayed for a moment. His head must be killing him. He'd been in bed hungover for six straight hours after the last time. He snorted, hands fumbling with the straps as he situated his quiver in its usual position between his shoulder-blades.

"I was drunk so you thought it was a good idea to crawl into bed with me?"

"I think it was your idea." This conversation wasn't really going the way she'd expected it to. And what the hell did you expect? She hadn't expected - there was the truth of it. The first time around it had all been completely unexpected. Completely new. And heartrending. Clint, drunk, admitting he'd remember absolutely nothing in the morning, admitting that he missed her... And she'd admitted the same - what could it hurt? He wouldn't remember it. She hadn't expected it to happen again at all. But he'd been already drunk when she'd found him, and… And she'd been stupid. "Look, you were drunk -"

"What, you're allowed to have me as long as I'm drunk?" Natasha refused to let her face show just how much that one hit home. Yeah. I'd take a lot more if I could get it though. It was one thing to end a relationship because things weren't working. It was another thing to find out a few years later that he'd never moved on any more than she had, and for him to only ever admit it when he was too smashed to remember in the morning. That was why this wasn't supposed to ever have happened again. It was more than she cared to deal with.

"I like you drunk," she answered, backing up a few more steps. The railing pressed against her lower back and she chanced a glance over her shoulder at the ground some three storeys below her feet.

"You like me - the hell you do." He was in the doorway with a few quick steps. Damn he was sure on his feet for a man who'd been passed out from too much alcohol just a few minutes ago.

"Look, I was going to be gone by the time you woke up. It wasn't like I planned for this to happen again." She was shooting for some kind of conciliatory tone. She wasn't sure how it came out, but whatever it was apparently wasn't working. She'd seen Clint angry before. It was always a fairly intimidating sight, but she couldn't actually remember that anger having ever been directed at her before. It wasn't something she thought she wanted to experience again - hell, it wasn't something she wanted to experience now.

"You were going to be -" His voice broke off and she barely saw the flicker of motion as his hand leapt to the quiver. The arrow had barely time to hit the bowstring before she'd flung her legs up over her head and flipped backward over the balcony rail. She might be something of a fool for the man, but hell if she was going to let him shoot her in a hungover rage. Her momentum tossed her far enough inward to land in a roll on the next balcony down. Not perfect. Her shoulder throbbed from a bad landing and the vestiges of last night's little binge at the bar left her head spinning for a moment too long as she surged to her feet again. She sprinted and leapt along the balconies the entire length of the building, dropped down a level at the corner, and leapt to the ground from there.

She had excellent cardio - it was her job, more or less - but she dropped her sprint to a quick jog. There was an empty construction site a few blocks over - some kind of new office building with an exoskeleton of scaffolding still surrounding it. Natasha had absolutely no qualms about starting up the scaffolding. The highest level she could reach wasn't quite the level of the building's roof, but it was pretty damn close. She paused for a moment at the top and glanced around to the ground so far below. Nothing. Cars, some pedestrians, one dog… She dropped into the cold metal and drew her knees up to her chin. The wind was chilly up here. It whipped at the damp spots on her cheeks - hell. Crying was something Natasha Romanoff didn't do. She had a lot of tricks in her arsenal, but crying wasn't one of them.

"It's gonna be...hell," he'd said that first time. "Think it'd be harder to wake up knowing all this than to just… I won't even remember, Nat." He'd been right, of course. He'd woken up entirely oblivious to the things he'd admitted the night before. "You'd better be pretty damn convincing," he'd said after his seventh shot. And she had been… She rubbed the back of her hand irritably against her cheeks, trying to scrub away the salty wetness.

"What the hell were you thinking, Nat?" She leapt to her feet and the scaffolding swayed dangerously. A car's horn blared far below as she spun on the ball of one foot to face Clint. She hadn't even noticed him climbing up to reach her, but then she'd been a bit distracted, and it was in the job description for both of them to be good at sneaking around. His bow wasn't aimed in her direction anymore, at least. "You said… 'again' - this isn't the first time?" Hell no.

"It's not like it's a regular occurrence. This was twice, Clint - just twice - and the first time was … kind of an accident." She could almost see the thoughts flying behind his still-narrowed eyes.

"The first time - Tash, the last time I woke up with a headache and you around you told me I didn't say a single interesting thing while I was drunk. The time before that you told me I killed a lot of innocent people for a psychotic, power-hungry extra-terrestrial invader. What is it this time?" She hesitated.

"...you didn't kill anyone at least," she managed after a moment, her voice trailing off into the wind as he took a step toward her.

"I was asleep with you." He still looked like he might knock her off the edge of the platform.

"You didn't mind last night."

"I was out of my mind last night." Good point. Out of his mind - that had been exactly why she could be so honest with him - admit that she still missed him like hell, that little in the world would make her happier than to curl up against him again without fearing the morning… And then she'd fallen asleep. Brilliant move.

Clint abruptly let out a deep sigh. His shoulders dropped a little and he took another step closer, one hand reaching toward her. She stiffened as his thumb brushed under her eye. "You're crying." She glared at him.

"I don't cry. It's windy up here; makes my eyes water." He raised one eyebrow skeptically and then sighed again.

"Fine. Whatever happened… happened." Nice. Deep. Truly profound. She held his gaze a bit longer before taking a few steps away from him. She crossed her arms, hugging her ribcage and staring out over the waking city, trying to force herself to forget about the man standing behind her. The scaffolding creaked as she felt him approach. He stopped beside her, but she didn't turn her head toward him. "I get talkative drunk." Talkative, yeah. Depressed. Nostalgic. Grouchy. Irresistible.

"Yep." She swallowed hard and tried to focus on the cars moving down below rather than on the body heat she could feel radiating off Clint from this close.

"So, really, what did I say?" All the same things you said the last time. Only you didn't know you'd said them before. She hadn't told him. It hadn't seemed important for him to know that he'd already gone over it all. She didn't mind hearing it again.

"Tried to send yourself on a few unnecessary guilt trips." He knew that much. Last time she'd told him he had talked about Loki, his brother, and a few old jobs that had gotten to him. She took a deep breath. "Said something that sounded a little like 'I love you'. Nothing much." There was a long silence. She heard the brush of his clothes as he turned toward her.

"I do anything stupid?" She finally turned her head and met his eyes.

"Kissed me." It was an eternity to her before he blinked and muttered,

"Damn contacts," under his breath. She felt a tiny smile tugging at her lips at that. That was a Clint she knew how to handle.

"That's what you get for being too drunk to take them out," she murmured, not sure whether she really meant for him to hear it or not. He made a sudden grab for her - she honestly wasn't sure whether it was in play or whether she'd annoyed him, but her reaction was instinctual and immediate. She had him on his back on the metal platform within three seconds. He grimaced.

"Dammit, Tasha, there's a quiver back there," he growled, and she shot a quick look at the quiver digging into his back before she pulled her knee back up out of his chest, standing and offering a hand to help him up. His fingers closed around hers. He was perhaps halfway up when he gave an abrupt tug. She took a step to compensate for the sudden change in balance and suddenly everything was off balance as her world narrowed to focus intensely on his mouth against hers. She realized her eyes were closed and pulled away to glare at him.

"You did that on purpose." A familiar smirk played around his lips.

"Yeah… did it work?" His eyes held hers for a fraction of forever before she smiled grudgingly.

"I think so." It was the space of a half step to close the distance between them, and Natasha wasted no time. Clint's arms around her were strong and secure. She got the impression he wouldn't be letting go any time soon.

"I'm not forgetting this time." His voice was more a low vibration she felt through his chest than an actual sound. "You're not getting off so easily." She felt him press a kiss to the top of her head and her eyes slid closed again.

"If you say so." He chuckled.

"Damn I've missed you. Tell me again what I said when I was drunk?" She leaned back in his arms far enough to look up and meet his eyes again.

"'I love the hell out of you'." He smiled and she discovered that he still kissed just as well sober as he did drunk.