It wasn't until they were back in their room after the boat had been docked and Adalia and Andres were in bed, far guards posted outside their doors, that Clint actually saw her again. He watched her mechanically make her way towards the bed and sit down, rubbing at her arms for a moment before a frustrated scowl crossed her face.

"Tasha," Clint sighed, walking the few steps he needed to take to close the distance. He saw her stiffen at his shortening of her name and sighed. Crouching down in front of her, the archer took her hands and pulled them away from their bruising grip on her own arms. "What are you doing?" he asked quietly. She ignored him and stared at her hands in disgust before wrenching them out of his grip. "Romanoff," he prompted, leaning back enough to give her space.

He was treating her like the wounded animals he dealt with in the circus.

"Him. His hands." She answered tightly. She could feel Barnes' hands on her skin, leaving a burning trail of dirt that left her feeling used all over again. And if she didn't get it off sooner rather than later-

"Romanoff, breathe dammit."

Her eyes flashed dangerously and almost desperately when they locked on his.

"Okay." Clint said easily, standing and therefore giving her no choice but to follow his lead due to the bone breaking and unrelenting grip he grabbed onto her hand with. She watched him guardedly as he led her across the floor and through the bathroom door. He felt her whole arm tense up, followed almost immediately by the rest of her body.

"What do you think you're doing?" she narrowed her eyes. Clint released her hand and motioned to the shower.

"Rubbing layers of skin off your body won't make it go away." He murmured, weighing the risks of reaching out and touching her face even as he did just that.

He watched the confusion and slight frustrated anger flash across the red head's face when she involuntarily leaned into his touch.

"I can leave or I can stay." He breathed, already pulling his hand away and turning to leave.

"Stay." She said quickly. The word was almost growled through her teeth, bleeding the reluctance that she felt so strongly. As much as she detested admitting it, she didn't want him to leave right now.

"Okay." He whispered, moving to sit down on the toilet seat, averting his eyes as she shed her business looking clothes, and stepped into the shower. His ever tuned hearing caught the slight exhale of air that left her lungs in preparation to say something.

He could almost hear her teeth clamp shut against the words she would never admit to wanting to say. Not ever. She had never needed to say it. But right now she did. He waited, body adopting an impossibly still posture.

When she spoke, she could barely be heard over the steady stream of water, and what he could hear carried borderline vulnerable inflection.

"Help me."

He was climbing in behind her in the next breath, staring her dead in the eye while she intentionally avoided his eyes and stared at his chest.

Clint squeezed soap into his hands and proceeded to scrub away all imagined traces of Barnes' touch from her skin, slowly but surely feeling the panicky tension ease out of her body.

Her hands slowly crept up to fist in the soaked white fabric of his button up dress shirt as he ran his hand over her arm in an attempt to rinse the soap off. His other hand ran up the other arm and hesitated at her neck when the redhead stiffened, only proceeding when she finally relaxed to her previously less rigid position. His breath caught when she let him guide her head back, exposing her neck to him. He worked the soap into her hair and then let the water run the foggy water down the drain. When her head lifted with her hair clinging to her alabaster skin, he stared at the way the soaked strands of hair looked like blood against her cheeks.

And damn it if she wasn't beautiful.

When she had been rinsed of all the soap, and with it that part of her ledger, Clint climbed out of the shower, as wordlessly as he had gotten in, toweled himself off like what had just happened hadn't happened.

But it had.

The Black Widow had let him see her as vulnerable as she could've been and hadn't broken his hand when he touched her.

His head, hell his world, was spinning.

"What was that?" Natasha hissed, towel tight around her body. Clint looked up from his copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkiban and arched an eyebrow as he pulled one of his ear buds out.

He took in her wildly angry countenance and sighed, closing the book with resignation bleeding from the heavy sigh he expelled.

"What was what?" he replied carefully, swinging his legs off the edge of the bed and tossing his iPod on top of the mess of sheets.

"You. Leaving."

She was angry as hell and he didn't know why.

"I didn't realize we weren't done." He responded, perhaps a little more sardonic then before. His patience was wearing thin.

"Was it your intention to make me owe you? Is that it Barton? Because I don't like owing people." She snapped, voice dangerously low. Clint just stared at her because frankly, he had no idea what in the hell she was talking about.

Until he did.

And then he had Natasha pinned to the wall, forearm across her chest and free arm braced against the wall over her head.

"Listen to me carefully, Romanoff." He seethed, head inclined close enough to hers that he was inhaling the air she was exhaling. "I want nothing from you in return for what I did. I did not do that in hopes of physical recompense. I don't want it. And that is a hell of a thing for you to suggest." He snarled, before shoving away from her and stalking across the room where Phil was standing in the doorway, brushing past him into his room.

Phil stared at Natasha as she rebuilt her walls, locking down her surprised expression and only when she turned to glare at him for spying on a spy did he close the door and turn to face Clint who was braced against the wall, chest heaving as he tried to check his anger.

"Deep breath to my counts, kid." Phil ordered, leaning against the wall with one hand wrapped around the back of his agent's neck. "Clint." He snapped when the twenty one year old ignored him. When Barton opened his mouth to suck air into his lungs, Phil tightened his grip on his neck and started counting back from ten. It took two breaths like that to get him calm enough to breathe properly. And when he was, Phil clapped him on the back and sighed. "Good. Take the couch, kid. I've got work to do anyway." He said before moving back to the small table littered with papers as Clint collapsed on the couch.

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