NOTES: Again, thanks to the fantastic KrisEleven for beta services. And thanks to all of you for reading this.
Once they were finished with medical checks, debriefs, and shawarma, Clint had followed her back to her quarters like a lost puppy. She wasn't surprised. Natasha was well-awarewell aware of Clint's damaged psyche; he only slept where he felt safe and those options were either in Natasha's bed or on Coulson's couch. He could rest well enough in his own quarters, but rarely bothered. Sleep was never something Clint spent a lot of time doing, and Natasha and Coulson didn't mind putting up with his snoring. They certainly weren't about to kick him out and deprive him of sleep or, even worse, leave him feeling rejected yet again.
Silently, they stripped off their gear and crept into bed too exhausted to mess with clean clothes or even a shower. They didn't talk to each other; they rarely had the need to do so. They'd known each other for so long that they could read the other from a couple of klicks out through a scope as easily as when they were inches apart.
Natasha felt him roll over onto his stomach—sore backside. He'd told her about crashing through a window and taking a hard hit on an office floor. Otherwise he would be sleeping on his back. She listened a few seconds more for other signs that he may be injured. The two of them were renowned for waving off medical attention but unlike her, he didn't have bio-enhancements helping his body out when it came to healing. Appeased enough with his physical state, Natasha settled into the mattress on her right side with her back to Barton. She was almost asleep moments later when she felt the fingers of his left hand reach out and take hold of the tips of her hair. Clint soothed himself with touch; when missions got tough, he would roll an arrow shaft between his calloused fingers or run his fingertips along the curve of his bow without really thinking about the actions.
She wondered if he was aware of what he was doing now. She never could get a straight answer out of him on why he was obsessed with playing with her hair; it was what he went for whenever one or both of them needing soothing. And he was the only she allowed to touch her in that way, with one exception.
Two years ago, Barton had gone missing on an op. Sitwell had done all he could to retrieve him on the scene, but was unsuccessful. Coulson had been pulled off the mission to extract Natasha from an eight-month deep cover op with HYDRA. Her relief at ending that particular mission was short-lived since shesince she and Coulson had barely stepped of the jet when Sitwell told them what happened. Natasha and Phil had immediately spun on their heels and reboarded the jet with Jasper right behind them. Fury and Hill had been smart enough to not only anticipate this reaction but allow it. By then Clint had been missing for six days. There were three leads that Sitwell had been able to put together pointing to Barton being held somewhere in the Middle East, none of them were solid.
Between the three agents, they spent the next four days talking to contacts, running down clues, and refusing to eat or sleep as they traveled between Jordan, Israel, and Syria. Finally, someone broke and they had the first solid clue in over a week: Egypt. A terrorist cell had grabbed Clint from his op and taken him to their headquarters. The reasons were unclear, but none of them cared. As quickly as possible, the three of them moved into a safehouse in Cairo. They refused to let Fury send anyone else in; they didn't want to attract any attention to themselves for fearing of Clint being moved again and having to start the process all over again.
They took shifts staking out the compound where Barton was held; it was well-guardedwell guarded, difficult to access, and full of extremely loyal operatives. These guys were serious business. As much as they hated to it, they would have to wait another four days before a rescue mission could be attempted with some reasonable margin of success. By then, Clint would have been missing for nineteen days. It wasn't his record, but that didn't make things any easier on any of them, especially when they spent every day staring down the compound where he was being held.
Sitwell was constantly apologizing. Coulson repeatedly told him it would be fine as long as they got him back. Had it been any other handler, Natasha imagined that Phil would not have such a generous reaction, but the two men had come up through SHIELD together and if Sitwell said he'd done everything he could on the mission to prevent this from happening, then everyone believed him.
Jasper was also the unlucky one to draw the duty of making Natasha and Phil eat and sleep. There were numerous threats of feeding tubes and tranquilizers. One night, her body-unable to handle the stress of a deep cover up followed immediately with the fear of losing the closest thing she had to a best friend-could not take any more. She abruptly rose from the table where she and Coulson were mindlessly consuming some local fare and moved off to the closet with a cot she'd been calling her bedroom. She curled herself up into a ball on the thin mattress with her face to the wall. It was a moment before she heard Phil's chair squeak on the floor and hesitant steps come her way. He stood over her for a moment before sitting on the floor beside her bed. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt his take hold of a lock of her hair and slowly twist it between the thumb and index finger of his right hand.
In her exhaustion, she allowed herself a single tear to streak her cheek and move down to the pillow. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pretended the hands were different, rougher. She pretended the man's breathing in the room was laced with a soft melody since Clint had the habit of singing to himself, especially when he occupied his hands with something to let his mind relax for a moment.
Natasha wasn't sure when Phil had picked up on this habit that she and Barton had with each other. But if anyone would know about it, it would be Philhim. He was the one she felt comfortable enough to not worry about when she fell asleep with her head on Clint's lap and his hands in her hair. Of course Coulson would pick up on the habit his agents had in soothing each other.
She awoke hours later. Phil's fingers were still in contact with her hair, but they were loose and relaxed. He'd fallen asleep with his head resting on his outstretched arm. It was then that Natasha realized that his actions weren't totally for her benefit. That he, too, ached for Clint's return and one of his motivations was to put himself in Barton's place as if that could somehow bring him closer for a moment to the missing asset.
She tried to remain as still as possible, but Coulson was too good at his job. He sensed her slight movement and change in breathing, and was soon stirring back to consciousness himself. She rolled over and their eyes met for a moment. The words 'thank you' were about to fall from her lips when Phil cleared his throat and muttered about getting a pot of coffee started.
They rescued Clint two days later. He had two broken ribs, a split lip, and bruises everywhere but no one cared too much about his physical experience because he was there, with them. Switching roles, Clint slept with his head in Natasha's lap while she ran her fingers gently through his short, brown hair. She and Coulson's eyes meet and they shared a brief, twitch of lips, which for them might as well have been laughs of joy.
She grabbed hold of the warmth associated with that image of Coulson and memorized it, fearful that things regarding her handler would start to slip from her memory soon. Giving her body one more, slight shuffle against the mattress, she focused on the slowing motions of Clint's fingers and sighed herself to sleep.
She awoke two hours later with a kick to the back of her legs. Her eyes flew open and her mind quickly reassured her that she was not in danger. Not from an enemy at least. Clint was thrashing wildly while moaning and muttering incoherently. Natasha got out of the bed quickly to put a safe distance between the two of them, but Clint's right hand chased her form across the mattress seeking out the loss of warmth.
He'd rolled over onto his back in the night, and Natasha was sure that was causing some of the lines of pain creased into his face. Humming one of his favorite songs softly, she managed to calm him down a moment and gently roll him back over on his stomach. She sat down next to him on the bed and ran her hands lightly through his hair. Her fingers encountered a couple of small pieces of glasses causing her to make sure that was all that was left on him so as not to add to the scrapes to his body.
Natasha turned to check the time on her phone which rested on the end table next to what was currently Clint's side of the bed. It was a little after four in the morning. She knew she could try and sleep some more, but her internal clock would have her up again within ninety minutes. She might as well not bother wasting her time.
Her email icon caught her attention. Opening her inbox she noted several notices added to her schedule: two more debriefings later in the day, another more thorough medical check, but there was one email that ripped her heart open all over again.
The message was from Maria Hill and had the subject line of "Funeral Arrangements for Agent Phil Coulson".