AN I really like this chapter. I tweaked it at the last moment, thanks to some comments from the lovelies at TheBetaBranch, and it just comes together as a very nice, cohesive chapter :D


Clint jerked awake when his phone screen kicked on and lit the room with an obnoxious, very bright light. He stared at it for a long moment, then flopped back into his pillow. He didn't have to answer it. He could just roll back over and ignore it and deal with it later after he went back to sleep. He could do it. He was totally within his rights to.

He heaved a mental groan, and slapped his hand down on his nightstand until he found his phone. He squinted at the screen, trying to make it stumble into words. It was from Natasha.

Did you get my voicemail?

Normally, he would have just ignored it and gone about his merry way back to sleep, but one, this was Natasha, and two, she had already left a voicemail, so clearly she wanted to talk to him. He vaguely remembered seeing the alert earlier in the day, but then things had happened and he had completely neglected to get to it. Clint pressed his face into his pillow, groaned out loud, then unlocked his phone and turned the damn screen's brightness way down.

This wasn't the first time Natasha had sent him texts in the middle of the night. At first, it appeared to be because she was just bored while working an all-nighter. He, in turn, had been blurry-eyed and half asleep when the first one had shown up, but he had responded, and she sent another text, and he responded, and on until she finally informed him that her work was done, and that she wished him a good night. After that first time, she had texted him because she couldn't sleep, the messages appearing late into the night. Clint had to admit that he kind of loved the covert texts. They were typically short but sincere, full of Natasha's tiny, self-satisfied smiles. Her texts were always concise and weirdly philosophical, but she didn't seem to mind his semi-conscious, brief, and sometimes senseless responses.

It had only happened a couple of times, but whenever it did, he felt exceptionally privileged. Clint had once stayed up all night just to keep texting with her, which he felt was a pretty serious sign of his commitment, because he hated missing his sleep. Natasha, if she ever found out, should feel very honored at his level of sacrifice.

This did not feel quite like any of those other midnight text sessions.

Not yet, he thumbed in, and sent it to Natasha.

A new text came in, almost casual in its brevity.

It's fine, you can just delete it.

Clint frowned at the screen. Now he wanted to know what the voicemail had been about. He would have expected her to give an explanation, or at least not text him at—oh hell was he committed—two in the morning. He heaved a sigh, and pawed around his nightstand until he found the case for his hearing aids. He put one in, and worked his way to her voicemail.

"Can you come over? I…I'd like…it'd be nice."

She sounded small and uncertain, if not scared. He frowned. Clint had heard Natasha sound irritated, and maybe even a little worried, but nothing like this.

Do you need me over there?

It took almost a minute for Natasha to respond back.

If you want to.

Clint was already out of bed and pulling on his pants when her message made his phone buzz.

Little under a half hour later, Clint knocked on Natasha's door. She opened it and let him in, smile thin and not quite up to the lie she was trying to sell.

"What is it?" he asked, voice still rough from sleep. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. The apartment felt weirdly bright, after the muted street lamps and dim subway station.

"I don't really—I'm not sure how to—do you want something to drink?" Natasha asked, looking at him in a way that begged that he give her time, because she didn't know how to handle this. He frowned at her.

"Whatever you have, is fine," he said, and she nodded, whirling away to the fridge. Clint glanced around her apartment. Things looked alright, at least, nothing was broken or out of place, but there was this ugly tension hanging in the air that he didn't like. Her voicemail had been made in the late afternoon. He hoped things hadn't felt like this since then.

Natasha set his glass in front of him on the counter, then she leaned back and fidgeted with her hands. He watched her a moment, because this was her time, he was only there because she had asked. Natasha stared at his hands as he picked up his glass, and then gestured at the couch with the same sort of strained edge as when she had spoken.

"Would you like to sit?"

"Yeah, sure," Clint said, and carried his water to the living room. He sat down heavily, and set the cup down on the glass top of the coffee table. Natasha came to sit beside him, but she remained stiff, hands held in her lap as she stared straight ahead.

"I woke you up," she said, pursing her lips at a potted plant.

"Yeah."

"It was two in the morning."

"And now it's almost three."

"Why're you here?" She turned to face him, expression dark and confused and maybe even a bit hopeful. Clint shrugged, and leaned back against the cushions.

"I dunno. You asked?"

"That's not—" Natasha looked away, clearly on the verge of saying it wasn't a good enough reason, but he was there and that was all he had and she knew it. She was sitting very close to him, their sides brushing against each other. Clint didn't shift away.

"I'm sorry for waking you up, Clint. I…don't know how to do this, this isn't—I'm not really sure what to—please just give me time," she said, and he knew she was asking it off herself, more than him. He wondered if her anxiety was more over whatever had happened, or wanting to tell him and not knowing how.

Clint gave her a smile. It wasn't exactly like his time was a hot commodity. Natasha took a deep breath, glaring at her hands and trying to get the right words to come out. She was still wearing lipstick. It was three in the morning, and she was still wearing lipstick. Clint wondered if she had even considered going to bed.

"I really want—I just—there is something bothering me," she began, eyes closed as she forced the words out. "There is something that has just come up, and it is…very troublesome."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"No," she laughed, looking at him now. "I don't think there's anything anyone can do, not reasonably, at least."

"Then don't be reasonable," he laughed, because it was weird, thinking of Natasha, the former con artist, being bound by bizarre laws like reason.

Natasha smiled at him, again whacking him in the face with that earnest, open expression. He was convinced that look would be the death of him, someday. She would look at him like that, and then he would give in and do whatever she wanted and it would probably end horribly for him, but he really wouldn't care.

Natasha seemed to have puttered out of words to say, and he was suddenly hit with the realization that he really, really, really wanted to kiss her. He was pretty much officially her boyfriend, he could do that, right?

Clint kissed her like he was asking the question. He knew Natasha could feel it on his lips, because she smiled, kissing the word 'yes' onto his mouth.

He kissed her a little harder, one hand finding her hip, the other pressing against her back. Natasha hooked her thumbs into his belt loops, and all he could think was that they had never kissed like this before. They had given little pecks here and there, and a few times Clint had decided to push his limits a little bit and sneak a few not-suitable-for-children ones, but this was Clint kissing Natasha and Natasha kissing back and her setting her knee between his legs and them losing balance so that they fell back on the couch.

Basically, it was a pretty okay development that he wasn't about to question.

Natasha was laughing into his mouth, and he would have called it giggling, if it wasn't a little hysteric and if he could cram the concept of Natasha giggling into his brain. Clint kissed her neck, and ran his hand through her hair. It was all over, smelling like the girl shampoo that was a mix of flowers and something deliciously warm like vanilla. He listened to her breathe as he moved to the hollow of her throat, undoing a couple of the buttons on her shirt as he went.

Natasha had her hands under his shirt so that she was holding his sides. Her hips were pressed hard into his, and their legs were wrapped around each other, and his hands were pressed against the small of her back. Clint pushed his hands under her shirt, and ran his hands over the skin of her back. In one motion, he had grabbed it up and pulled it over her head.

He reveled in the feeling of their bare stomachs against each other, and while he was seriously enjoying her kissing his jaw, he thought that Natasha had maybe ten seconds to do the same to his shirt before he yanked it off himself.

"Clint."

He kissed her collarbones, then trailed to her sternum. The edge of her bra brushed against his lips, and he had the zipper of her skirt in his hand—

"Clint, stop, please, Clint."

Natasha pushed herself away from him, sitting up. He stared at her, hoping his expression as more 'Natasha, what is it?', and less 'what the hell?'

She wasn't looking at him. Her shoulders were hunched, and her hands clasped between her knees. His stomach twisted with how embarrassed she looked.

He shifted his leg from behind her back, and sat up beside her.

"Uhm, Natasha? What…what's wrong?"

She shook her head, and when she laughed, he couldn't help but think how wild it sounded.

"Nothing, I just—I just—can we take it slow, here? I don't really…I'm not…" She cleared her throat, and looked at him. "I'm not sure this is…I'm not sure I'm ready."

He nodded at her, heart in his throat. Looking at her, with her hair a mess, and her lipstick smeared to hell and back, and her shirt barely hanging onto the back of the sofa, it all made Clint feel ashamed. He knew that he hadn't really done anything wrong, but still.

He dropped his gaze, and noticed that his pants had been undone. He didn't how it had happened, or who had even done it. He didn't dare face the shame of zipping them back up, because he wasn't that guy.

Holy crap, Barton. Are you really that eager to get in her pants?

"Here," he said, handing back her shirt. Natasha gave him a brief smile, and took it back. He didn't watch her put it back on.

"I'm sorry," she said in a huff. "I didn't mean to—I don't—"

"It's fine," he said quickly, hoping to brush away any reason she might have to feel like she was at fault. "I shouldn't have…I didn't really…this is on me."

They were quiet for a moment, both of them just sitting there. Clint was itching to leap up and run away and get himself away from her, because he had screwed up, he had let her see just how much of an animal he was and he didn't want her to know. But he also just wanted to wrap his arms around her and hug her until he couldn't breathe, because she had seen all of that, she had seen how ugly parts of him were, and yet she hadn't kicked him off the couch and out the door, she was sitting next to him and letting their thighs touch and their shoulders brush against each other, because she…trusted him?

"It's not because of you," Natasha said suddenly. "It's just…every time that I…most often—the last time I did this, it was for the job."

Clint glanced at her. Natasha took a breath, smoothing her hands across her lap.

"A distraction," she clarified. Her smile looked sickly. "We would need someone out of the way, and…there I was."

"Natasha…"

"No, it's fine, it was a choice I made. But now…I don't really…it's still a little too fresh in my head."

He stared at her, wishing that he could say or do something to make her feel better. He wanted to take all of that shame and fear and self-reproach in his hands and rip it away from her, so that she could just be happy.

He wrapped his arm around her, and squeezed her shoulders.

"You're fine," he said, and kissed her hair.

Natasha leaned her head against his chest, and Clint dragged his breaths in, then out, then in again, because she was about as damn close to setting her soul in his hands as she was likely to get, and he was so, so very aware of how easy it was to break it. He couldn't help but chase the scene around in his head. She had asked him over there to help. She was upset enough to be unable to properly explain. He kissed her and tried to take her clothes off.

What was wrong with him?

He closed his eyes, because he could do this, he could do this, he could take three steps with her on his back and not drop her, he could do this. It would just be as terrifying as hell until she got down again.

"Tell me something," Natasha whispered, shaking Clint out of his thoughts. He glanced at her, frowning.

"What?"

"Tell me something. Anything. Just…I'm not sure my thoughts are the right place for me, just now."

Clint gave a slow nod, swallowed, then scraped his brain for a story. He had plenty of stories, some of which were even amusing, but nothing that would really fit. He didn't have any parables or anything, he just had his life, and it was frankly depressing when it wasn't weird or even pathetic. But this was it, this was one of those painfully wonderful moments where she spoke to him and he spoke to her and it was just truth in the air between them. She had given him pieces of her story, and now she was setting up the stage for him to do the same. He had to do the same, he wanted to, he just had to find the words.

Clint held his breath for a moment, hoping inspiration would strike him, and when he exhaled, the words that filled the air were, "I never really learned how to do this."

"Hm?" Natasha was looking at him, now, frowning as she tried to understand what he meant. Clint sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He chewed on his cheek, trying to find the words to thoughts he couldn't predict.

"I…when I was a kid, there wasn't much room for…I didn't really do comfort. I didn't give it, I didn't get it. There was just a blank space where it was supposed to be. So I'm, uh, I'm probably not the best at whatever it is you want, here. But then again, you probably already guessed that, given…what just happened."

"I didn't ask you here because you were the best," Natasha said, a bit of her usual attitude slipping back into her words. He could practically hear her eye roll.

"I know, I just…I'm letting you know. When things went bad, I tried to make them feel good. And that…well, you know how that ends. Again."

"Clint."

"I know, I know, I just…my mom tried," he confessed, the words almost nonexistent in the air. Natasha was frozen against his side, listening so hard it nearly hurt. "She really, really tried, but, uh, my dad…he saw hugs, and kissin' booboos better, and crap, he saw that as stupid, girly stuff. Not meant for his boys. So my ma…she didn't really get a chance to teach me. Barney did, though, kind of. He didn't know much more about it than me, but he wasn't always bein' watched by Dad, so he could show that he cared more often. It was rough stuff, a 'rub some dirt on it' and a pat on the back, and him comin' over to wreck anybody that tried to hurt me, so there was that. He did great, considering."

"He sounds like a good man," Natasha said, nodding against his shoulder. Clint laughed, a soft, breathless thing, then nodded.

"Yeah, pretty good. Not always the best guy, but a good man. One time, I remember one time, after Dad had…after me an' Dad had had it out, Barney came and found me at the back of the house. He crouched down beside him, told me to clean my face, to get up and get on with it. And I told him I couldn't. I was, I dunno, maybe nine at the time, eight, he was twelve, and he just looked at me when I said that I couldn't, 'cause Dad would just come and make things bad again. And you know what he said?"

"Hm?"

"'Screw him. Screw Dad, 'cause you're gonna be all the things he ain't.' I never forgot that. My brother told me that I wasn't gonna be anything like our dad, and he had never lied about something so important yet. That's kinda why I joined the circus."

"Because Barney told you not to be like your father?" He could feel the disbelief in Natasha's voice, because it was the circus.

"Sort of. The circus was fun, exciting, different. It was...mine. I left high school, did the first thing I wanted to for the first time. 'Course, Dad hated it, and I never really asked Ma about what she thought, but Barney came to see the show. Anytime it was in town, or nearby, he'd come see me, say hi. He never told me I was doin' a dumb thing, he just asked if I was alright. Then, the last time, he said I should probably go to college, and after some thinkin', I did."

"And all of that because of your dad?"

"Yep. He really helped me, that way. Showed me exactly what I didn't want to be."

"I wish I could have—my uncle, he…he wasn't…he hung on a lot longer. He wouldn't let me just leave, he had to have me right there, right where he could see…"

She cut herself off, holding her breath for a long moment. Then she hissed it out, slow and offering no real release. She reached over and squeezed his and, offering him a smile that was a little bit less tight than before.

"I appreciate you coming here. I know it's not…I'm sorry for doing this to you. Dragging you out here, then making…asking you about all of that this, I'm sure it wasn't really, er, what you wanted to do with your night."

"Stop," he said, because he couldn't stand her being so decent when he—when he was just him. "Natasha, you needed help, you still need it for all I know, and I came. That's my job, that's what I'm here for. You'd do the same."

Natasha looked at him, then, still frowning, but not upset like before. There was a question in her eyes that seemed uncomfortably like 'would I really?' And then she nodded, responding to both of them.

"Yeah, I just—I'm not really used to it. I promise I will explain, I just don't...know how."

"Well, when you figure it out, you can talk to me," he said, giving her a smile. He yawned, and ran a hand over his face. "D'you need anything else?"

"You're going home?"

"Uhm, maybe?" he hedged, uncertain how to explain without dragging up the terrible events from moments before. It was like Natasha hadn't noticed how bad it was, how selfish and reckless he had been to kiss her that way, and any mention would finally draw it to her attention. "I mean, if you want to hear more about me, as a distraction from whatever it is you've got going on, but, uhm like I said I'm not…the best at this. It's all up to you, really."

"No," Natasha said, straightening. "No, I can't just yank you out here and then send you away."

"You did also give me a glass of water," he reminded, which only made her purse her lips at him.

"No, you'll sleep here. Unless you want to go all the way back to your apartment?"

"Not really?"

"Okay. Then I have a spare bedroom."

"Uhm, thanks?"

Natasha nodded and stood up, clearly working her way back into territory she could command. She guided Clint into the spare bedroom, which was neat and had an already made bed. From what he could see in the dark, the room had minimal furnishings, but a nice window with a seat built into the wall. There was a painting on the wall, but it was too dark for him to make out its subject.

"The linen closet is right here," Natasha said, pointing at a small door in the hallway. "Extra pillows and blankets are in there."

"Thanks," he repeated, because he wasn't quite sure what he was doing or where he was supposed to go from there. He felt like there was something else he should say, something that pushed away all of the discomfort from his screw up, and the anxiety she was feeling over her mystery problem, and the heavy allusions toward his wretched childhood. But all he could think was that he kind of wanted to go back to sitting on the couch, feeling that strange, and possibly misplaced amount of trust flowing out of Natasha and into his skin (also that he wasn't exactly certain how he felt about the idea of her tucking him into bed, but he certainly wasn't opposed to it).

Natasha nodded, lingering in his doorway for a few moments, then gave a small shrug as if to remind herself what she was doing.

"Well, uhm, if you need me…my room is right next door," she said, voice trailing away. She clearly didn't want to be alone, but he had the intense feeling that she needed breathing room, before one of them did something stupid.

Natasha turned to leave, but Clint called after her, reaching out as if to catch her hand. She paused, glancing back at him.

"I'm sorry, about…what happened. I really didn't mean to push you, I'm just…I'm a lot simpler than you might like. I'm—I'm sorry."

Natasha didn't say anything at first, but she did nod, and smile in a way that said she understood.

"Good night, Clint. And…thank you for coming." He smiled at her, and watched her walk back to her room.


AN I loved writing Clint's story. There an awkward layer to it all, because he still feels this huge disparity between him and Natasha, but I feel like he's more comfortable with her. He definitely trusts her, but he's starting to pick up on the fact that her life isn't as luxurious and amazing as he used to think.