A/N: This chapter is Natasha/Clint/Tony. There also isn't very much sex in this chapter; it's there, just not front and centre. Warnings in this chapter for nightmares, panic attacks and a slight mention of vomiting.

He's holding Natasha's head in his hands as she kneels in front of him. It would be so easy to snap her neck, end her life as simply as blowing out a match. Somewhere, vaguely, he recognized he shouldn't feel this indifferent.

"No," Natasha whispers, looking up at him. Her hair falls onto her shoulders like fire in the dark. "No, please, don't." There are tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, and she stares at him in desperation as she begs for her life.

He considers her for a moment, and then, easily, with no effort at all, he twists his hands violently to the side. Natasha slumps in his hands and he lets her lifeless body fall to the ground.

"No!" Clint sits up with a shout, chest heaving and face wet with tears. "No," he whispers again, raking his hands through his hair.

"Shh," Natasha croons softly, sitting up beside him in bed. Her eyes are sleep-soft, and her hair is down, but Clint feels his stomach turn as he looks at her.

Natasha slumps in his hands. Her eyes are still open, and she looks at him blankly as he drops her corpse carelessly on the floor.

"No, no, no no no no nonono," Clint repeats in a rising crescendo of horror. Feeling his stomach turn violently with the image still behind his eyes, he rips his covers off and bolts for the bathroom.

Vomiting doesn't help – it never does – and when he sits back, flushing the mess down the toilet, Natasha is beside him. "Which one is it this time?" she asks, knowing all too well the litany of horrors in his mind as well as her own.

Clint drops his head into his hands, still silently crying. "You," he whispers hoarsely.

Natasha swears softly in Russian, and then puts one hand on his shoulder. It's an open palm, a sign that she doesn't mean him harm, and Clint leans into her. He can hurt her, but Natasha would never do anything to him. She's safe.

They sit like that for a long moment, and then there's the sound of footsteps and a gentle knock on the door. "Everything okay in there?" Tony calls, his voice soft.

"Nightmares," Natasha answers shortly, and then Tony's in the bathroom with them, sitting beside Natasha.

"J, dim the lights," he orders, and the brightness drops significantly. "Better?" Tony asks, crossing his legs under him.

Clint nods slowly, realizing the barely noticeable pounding in his head has disappeared with the darkening of the room. Tony looks relieved. "Great. That always works for me." He's still wearing an old AC/DC t-shirt that's stained with oil and dirt and other things Clint isn't sure he wants to know the origin of.

"Were you in the workshop?" Natasha asks, her tone starting sharp but fading partway through. All of them understood the torment of nightmares, and they all had different ways of dealing with them.

Tony shrugged, his carefree mask in place. "I just had to do a little check-up on Dum-E, and then the alert went off for your room and I was already awake, you know?"

"Alert?" Clint asks.

"Yeah," Tony fidgets a little, almost nervously. "Jarvis monitors the health of everyone in the Tower anyway, so I told him to alert me if any of you were sick or hurt." He looks at Natasha and Clint, his face a blend of concern and kindness. "We're soulmates, after all."

"Thanks," Clint says. It's all he can say at the moment, the simple caring behind the act too difficult to unravel right now.

"No problem," Tony says easily.

"Let's go back to bed," Natasha says, her voice still soft. Her hand moves from his back to his arm and she helps him up. The bedroom is dark, but still easy to navigate and soon they make it to the bed, Tony trailing after them.

"Come join us," Clint offers, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"It's fine," Tony says, taking a step back. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay, that's all." He laughs a little, brushing off the offer, but it's a little too brittle and Clint's reminded of his nightmares again, and the reason he and Natasha always share a bed.

"Get in," Natasha says, ending the discussion with two words said and many more implied.

Soon, Tony's settled on one side of Clint with Natasha on the other. It's dark and quiet, and Clint closes his eyes with his soulmates on either side of him, keeping him safe.

It's light out when Clint wakes up again, his sleep entirely dreamless. He rolls over, and finds Tony still sleeping. His shirt has ridden up, and Clint can see his soulmark – an elegant arrow – curving over the engineer's hipbone. Ducking down, Clint kisses the mark lightly.

There's a dry chuckle from behind him, and Clint rolls over to see Natasha watching him. He smiles, unable to be embarrassed around her, and kisses her as well. It quickly turns heated, and soon he's practically sitting in her lap, one hand holding her head with her hair running over his fingers.

He's holding Natasha's head as she kneels in front of him, her hair like fire in the dark.

"Shit," he gasps, breaking the kiss. "Nat, I'm sorry, so so sorry." The memories of his dream flash through his mind and he shakes his head again. "So sorry."

Natasha stays where she is, holding out a hand. "Breathe," she says softly. "There's no nightmare. I'm here, I'm safe, you didn't do anything."

Clint recognizes her words, but he's on the verge of panic and they don't really mean anything to him. The sentences bounce off of him without impact and he kneels on the end of the bed, trying to get enough air into his lungs to say anything.

Suddenly, there's another person with Clint. Tony kneels in front of him, hair sticking up at odd angles. "Focus on me," he says, "and breathe. In," he says, exaggerating his breathing as much as possible with the arc reactor in his chest, "and out. In and out. In and out."

It takes a while, but Clint's finally able to calm down, his heartbeat no longer racing in his ears, drowning out everything around him. The textures of the blankets come back and he's able to relax his fingers from where they're clenching the sheets so tightly they're turning white "Th-thank you," he says, wrapping his arms around Natasha and Tony. They're solid and warm, and hot tears start to build behind his eyes again.

"No problem," Tony says with a small smile.

Natasha doesn't say anything, but she hugs Clint harder, her touch reassuring. "I'm here," she says. Not 'you're safe' or 'it won't happen again' or any other truths that sound like lies, only two words heavy with meaning.

Tony pulls away after a moment; he loves sex, but gentler touches are more difficult for him to accept and most of the time he'll only cuddle just before falling asleep. Natasha re-adjusts herself so Clint can lean against her, and interlocks their fingers. She's the closest thing to a girlfriend he'll ever have, even if he has four other soulmates, and he loves her for it.

"I love you both," Clint says, a little tired again.

"What time is it?" Tony asks, laying down in the bed again.

"It is currently a quarter past six in the morning, sir," Jarvis answers from the ceiling.

Natasha rolls her eyes, falling backwards into her pillow. "What time was sunrise, bloody midnight?" she snaps without much anger.

"Approximately five-thirty in the morning, Miss Romanov," the A.I. says.

Clint lays back down again, but even though he feels tired, he isn't sleepy, and he suspects the others feel the same. After a long few moments, he swears he can feel the sun even through the blinds, and, a few minutes after that, Tony rolls towards them with a smirk.

"Morning-after sex?"

Natasha props herself up on one elbow. "We didn't have sex last night."

Tony shrugs. "Yeah, but I highly doubt any of us are going back to bed," he points out, before leaning over and kissing Clint on the corner of his mouth.

It's oddly romantic, coming from Tony, and Clint wants it to continue. Putting one hand on the back of the engineer's neck, Clint brings him down for another kiss, on the lips this time. He makes it slow, breathing through his nose as much as possible, and running his hands through Tony's hair as he runs his tongue around his lips.

Beside them, there's a small gasp and Clint knows Natasha's watching. He breaks the kiss and turns his head to look at her. "Enjoying the show?"

She chuckles, leaning over him to kiss Tony. So much, her hand says as it edges lower on his waist.

"Damn," Tony says after a minute, his lips slightly puffy. Natasha leans back, looking pleased with herself. "So we're really doing this?" the engineer continues, one hand weaving through Clint's hair again – or possibly still, Clint's sort of lost track.

"We're all awake, it's an ungodly hour of the morning, and there's no immediate emergencies," Natasha says with a shrug.

Clint pushes himself to a sitting position and brings Natasha in for another kiss. Her hair brushes his cheek, and he flinches the smallest amount, ready for the terror to resurge.

"Okay?" Natasha murmurs, her breath warm against his ear when she turns her head.

"Okay," he responds, when he doesn't feel anything but aroused. He kisses a trail from her cheekbone down to the corner of her mouth. Her skin is soft, and even though delicate is the last word anyone in the world would use to describe Natasha Romanov, it fits the porcelain beauty of her face in this moment.

Natasha falls backwards, bringing Clint with her and they continue kissing, hands exploring each other's bodies, tracing every scar and imperfection precisely.

There's a moan from behind them and Clint looks over his shoulder to see Tony holding his cock in his hand. He smiles, giving them an encouraging nod that says keep going.

Following Clint's line of sight, Natasha reaches out one of her hands. "Come join us," she says. She isn't using her seductive voice, the one that promises pleasure and ends in pain. She's using her own voice that promises love and asks for nothing in return and Clint loves her for it.

Their love-making isn't fast. It isn't a rush of heady pleasure leaving them gasping and sore at the end. Their bodies move together and apart, in pairs and singly, and the sky outside lightens as they come together again and again.

It's like waking up to a song that becomes louder the longer it's listened to, and Clint buries his face in Natasha's shoulder, her hair flowing over him like water instead of the flame of his dreams. He breathes the scent of her in as Tony rides out his aftershocks from where he's buried inside the archer.

They move apart, Clint resting his head on Natasha's shoulder as he pulls out of her. "I love you," he whispers, not quite sure whether he's speaking to both of them or just one.

Natasha whispers back to him in Russian, and Tony reaffirms the sentiment as he eases out of Clint. They lay side-by-side, limbs and bodies overlapping as they listen to each other's breathing and heartbeats as the city comes alive beneath them.