I can't do this anymore. Going and retrieving Nat when she's in a jam is one thing, but watching her like this is a complete other. I shouldn't have said it. Hell, I knew I shouldn't when I opened my mouth to do it. She can't expect me to watch her go through all this and not say anything. I had to. She didn't give me a choice! How dare she think she's just a burden to me? A responsibility that Fury stuck me with for bringing home the stray?
"I'm not going to apologize for telling you the truth." I say, feeling a bit tipsy, as we both stumble back to our apartment. I wait for the impending hit or punch or kick or knife stab she's bound to inflict on my face- or possibly balls, but nothing happens and my eyes come back up to see her, she just looking tired.
"Let's just get home." She replies a neutral tone that borders on professional. I look at my watch. Shit.
"You're ten minutes late for your pills." I say, feeling suddenly ashamed at not taking care of her right. How is she supposed to get better if I don't-
"It's fine." She interrupts forcefully as we get to the door and I lean forward for the retinal scanner to read my eyes and let us in.
As soon as we are, I head straight to where I keep her meds and start organizing things. It takes several minutes as there are several and a few of them have to be split and others I have to count out. I concentrate on making sure everything is just right and then double checking before turning to see her studying me, the anger erased from her features and a pensive look gracing her face.
"Clint, whatever you think about how I feel about you, I want you to know that you're the only person I've ever met that doesn't make me feel like I'm on autopilot. Like maybe I'm not just some robot." It's a rehearsed statement, but with Natasha that doesn't mean it isn't geniune. I give her a smile; it's small and sad but it will have to do as I bring the pills over the five feet or so to where she simply stands there and I hold them up to her in one hand and a glass of water in the other. She's completely ignoring the pills, but she's looking at at me and I know that look. She's trying for me.
After a long moment of both of us simply staying where we are and doing what we do best, speaking to each other without any of the talking, she sighs and reaches forward, holding her porcelain palm out to me and taking the handful of pills I gently pour into it. I watch her throw them all into her mouth at once and swallow with a big gulp of water.
"You're not." I soothe finally, taking her smooth cheeks into my hands and relief floods through my entire body when she subconsciously leans into my touch instead of dismissing it. I watch her emerald eyes a second too long and begin to get lost. Its a familiar problem for me, but one that I thoroughly enjoy.
Its that problem that gives me the feeling that maybe everything will be okay after all. She doesn't get sick again all night. She just reads. She sits leaned up against my side, nestled on the couch with my arm around her like we've done for years, and reads one of her long boring Russian novels that she enjoys so much...except when I look down at it the title isn't in Russian, but Turkish. When the hell had Nat learned Turkish?
"Eylül" I read aloud from my place. She grins.
"Since when can you read Turkish?" I ask, not even trying to hide the confusion from my face.
She grins. It's a genuine expression that I'll never get tired of seeing. The first time she had given me one was after we had nearly beat each other to death sparring in a training room six months after I brought her into S.H.I.E.L.D. and she figured out that she could actually let loose in fighting me. I could hold my own against her- barely, and mostly only because I had spent so much time prior to that observing how she moved when she fought other people. It had happened in a flash so quickly that I undoubtably would have missed it had I not been currently pinning her against the floor with only a couple inches between our faces. Her hair was plastered to her head with sweat and she was covered in sand that had spilt out from one of the punching bags she had hit earlier with a knife. The tiny yellow grains had gotten stuck to her sticky skin as we had rolled around on the floor. For that second her emerald eyes shined at me and the carefree grin that she quickly hid back behind the indifferent mask was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
"Three months." Comes her simple reply.
"Oh." I'll never get used to the way the woman can pick up languages like a damn computer downloading an app.
"That makes what, like seven?" I wonder aloud,
"Eight, if you count sign language." I chuckle and nod. Right. The sign language she had learned for me after an explosion had caused me to go almost completely deaf a few years ago. I'd gotten hearing aids, but didn't like wearing them except when I absolutely had to. Strangely, the prospect of me being permanently deaf upset her much more than it did me and I think learning sign language at her usual lightning speed was part of her way of coping with it. It didn't end up being totally necessary and I barely learned anything except for the essential phrases myself... "Are we out of beer?", "Where did you put my arrows?", "Sorry", "Please don't kill me Tasha", and the alphabet mostly. By the time I had picked those up she was completely fluent and doing her best to speak to me whenever I had my hearing aids out in a language that I didn't really understand myself.
It isn't an issue anymore as now I have cochlear implants that make the disability almost nonexistent, but during the period before I met Stark and he suggested them, Nat and I became experts at talking to each other in our own silent language. Our language is better than sign. It doesn't require any big sweeping hand motions or anything that would give our conversation away to onlookers.
A raised left eyebrow meant "Do you want to?" The right one-"It's okay with me if it is with you." A slight tug to the right of the lips- "make the move", to the left "wait". There were three different types of shrugs alone, which meant "I'm ready to get out of here", or "I'm hungry" or "I'm about to kick your ass if you don't stop that!" Usually the third type was used exclusively by Nat. A blink means "cover me"; a wink means "I've got the mark", a wink with the other eye means "I'm lost."
Then there was all the signs simply related to Natasha's hair that I couldn't even do back. Tucking it behind her right ear means "get over here and help me", the left ear meant "stay away". Holding it off her neck and fanning herself was to tell me the situation is too hot and we need to get out, or that they're onto us. Pulling it down or taking a pin out meant "someone is actively about to kill me". Running her fingers through it meant that she wanted to leave. She used that one a lot around the tower when the others just got to be much for her to deal with. Tony in particular. She wasn't used to simply hanging out with a group of people for the hell of it and generally preferred her solace.
Over the years that solace had somehow changed to include me...probably from all the unhealthy amounts of time we were forced to spend together in those first couple of years on missions. There are dozens of others, covering everything from "I need to use the restroom" to "wanna help me kill this idiot?" to Nat's "I need you to hold me but won't ever admit it" sign that I don't even think she knows she does.
We have our own little world we built around us, I realize. I'm not sure if it's a good thing, especially for her. She takes my antisocial tendencies to a whole other level of extreme and I know our way of communicating makes the other avengers feel alienated sometimes. They know they'll never know us like we know each other. They know that whatever it is between us they can't ever even touch. I worry for her sometimes if something were to ever happen to me. In our job it's almost a guarantee one of us will end up dead in some gory horrific way...or it was until I put in my paperwork to retire the other day. No one beside Coulson and Fury know it yet. It won't be finalized until Tuesday, but I'm not sticking around to get myself killed out in the field when Tasha needs me to take care of her at home. The funny thing is that Fury wasn't even surprised when I told him. He just sighed and handed me the already printed out paperwork.
"I figured you'd do something stupid like this. You gonna marry her now that there's no red tape?" He asked with an air of slight curiosity.
I had grinned at that. Even Fury himself didn't fully know what we were to each other. "I think she would beat me to death if I ever asked." I answered him simply.
The director had given me a genuine smile at that. "Just tell me one thing, Barton. If Stark or Banner comes up with some crazy assed way to fix it, should I expect you two back?" I lean backwards in my seat. I'm sure they're working on it. Banner didn't just show up from halfway across the world where we was doing charity medical work for no reason. I couldn't count on them to fix all our problems though, and I didn't want to get my hopes up. A person can only get lucky so many times before something brings them down and with a rap sheet like Natasha Romanoff's it's just a miracle she's made it this long.
"I go where she goes." I reply truthfully. I'll never work with anyone else, but neither will she. It's a package deal with us. It has been since the moment I tranquilized her and called Coulson to tell him he had a new agent.
I'm brought out of my thoughts when the Russian currently curled up into my side squirms ever so slightly and I'm reminded that I need to try to make her eat again. I know she's nauseous more often than not now, but she's starting to look like a toothpick and I can feel each of her ribs with my palm.
"Don't even think about it Barton. I already ate at Steve's." She insists before I even say a word. Damn, she's good.
"What did you eat?" I sigh, leaning back from her a little to look at her tiny frame and poke her in the ribs to help get my point across.
She gives me the it's none of your damned business glare, but still answers. "Crackers. Steve got me crackers."
I shoot her a skeptic look. "Am I going to have to crack into the video surveillance myself to check or are you going to admit you're a liar right now?"
She scoffs and I know I've won. "I've got soup."
She rolls her eyes and I know what she's thinking. No, you idiot. I hate soup. You know I hate soup.
"I've got applesauce." I try.
"I'm sick, Barton, not a toddler." I chuckle, wondering if she knows that I spoon fed her half a jar when she was under with Banner's serum. I should have found something more fattening, but it is damn hard to get an unconscious person to swallow and I was afraid of choking her.
"Eggs?" I try...getting a bit desperate.
The redhead sighs and slumps against me a bit more. "You know I still weigh more now than when you met me?" It's a terrible argument. She was half-starved when I met her and looked close to being emaciated all the under false bravado and layers of makeup she wore to disguise her real facial features.
I give her my best set of puppy-dog eyes that I reserve for only the most important of situations. "Please, Tasha?" I know she can never say no to this expression.
"Dammit, Clint! Fine! I hate you." I'm up and in the kitchenette before she's even finished cussing me. I break open half a dozen eggs, frying them just as I know she likes. "Боже мой, этот идиот собирается отвезти меня убить его еще" My God, this idiot is going to drive me to kill him yet. I hear her mutter under her breath. I smile. I'm a messed up man for thinking its sexy when she cusses me out in Russian, but what can I say? My relationship with her is proof that I'm a masochist.
"As long as you do it with your legs wrapped around my neck I'll die a happy man." I retort back only to hear her snort.
"In you're dreams, Clint."
"Yes ma'am. Every night." I jab back. I'm not being serious of course. Why would I have to dream about her anymore when I get to hold her to me now every night? I already have everything I want except for the consent from her.
The comment appears to throw her for a minute. "What exactly about me has you so hot and bothered anyway Barton? You know the filth that I've brought to bed with me."
A moment of honesty. That's rare for her. Of course, she's wasting it by beating herself up again. "Maybe all the perversion gets me hot." I joke, trying to keep the mood light as I cook her eggs and add a little pepper.
I turn to see her glaring at me. "No, it doesn't." By this point the eggs are finished cooking and I slide them onto a plate and begin to make my way back over to her with a fork and napkin.
"I've seen you at your worst, Tasha. I wish for you're sake you never had to do any of those things. But I don't care if you seduced Satan himself. Nothing you could have done will change how I look at you. I knew that stuff about you from the beginning. You can grow old and gray and wrinkled drag me straight to the gates of hell with you and I'll still look at you the same."
I'm hoping that it finally sinks in for her. I know that she knows it somewhere hidden down deep, just like I know she loves me as much as I love her. It's just harder for her to admit to it than it is for me. I had a messed up childhood, but I wasn't trained to be a robotic seductress killing machine from the time I could talk like she was. I know that there's a very real possibility that she'll never get to the place where she can love me without thinking about all that. I know that nothing I can do will ever erase what's been done to her. I just think it's worth trying anyway.
"You think we'll still be sitting around looking at each other when we're old?"
"No, I think we'll end up going down in a blaze of glory together before we ever get the chance." I smile, knowing she would like that. "Seriously, it'll be the stuff of legend. Agents will be telling the stories of our adventures for decades."
"You're delusional, Barton. S.H.I.E.L.D. will just cover it all up and erase our files like they do with everything else."
"Maybe not." I grin at her annoyed expression as she glares at me with her arms crossed on the couch.
"Maybe the abominable snowman is real."
"Maybe you'll eat your dammed eggs before I have to cut them into tiny pieces and shove them down your fucking throat." I threaten. She knows I'll do it too. I don't like the idea of using my knowledge of her new bodily weaknesses against her, but I will if that's what it takes to keep her from starving herself to death.
I hold my ground as she searches me for any hint of jesting and she must come to the same conclusion because the next thing I know she's promptly cutting the food into polite pieces and spearing them onto her fork…violently. It's like she's beating up some mortal enemy by stabbing it to death with the cutlery.
Later she's taking her bath in the only bathroom when I decide to brush my teeth. Before all this I wouldn't have just walked in on her like this, but in the last couple weeks I've seen her naked from changing her clothes and cleaning her up so many times that by now I know I can handle it without anything embarrassing happening. She's still gorgeous to me, of course, but I'd never take advantage of her condition.
Of course, the knife that she throws to purposely sink into the door frame two inches from my face upon me entering would suggest that she feels differently. I don't even bother to wonder where the hell it came from. Tasha always had a million knives stashed everywhere that only she knew about. There was probably fifty hidden- before she even moved in with me- in my apartment alone. "What are you doing?"
Crazy Russian. It's not like I can see anything anyway through the two inches of bubbles she has covering the entire surface of the water.
"Oh come on, Tasha. I just want to brush my teeth."
I advance into the bathroom towards the sink and away from her, though I turn around to shoot her a giant smile just to tick her off once I've found the toothpaste on the mess of a counter. The mess isn't hers, of course; everything of hers is always kept perfectly in place. Her room used to look absolutely sterile. I'm glad she's here instead of the other way around. I like my apartment better; it's more homey. I think she was always too afraid of putting any personal touches to hers lest she need to abandon it.
"Wait for your own turn in here Barton. You shouldn't walk in on people."
I start actually brushing my teeth at this, ignoring her completely.
"You realize that I don't actually have to get up to kill you right now?"
I walk over to her, taking my time to really get my back teeth extra thoroughly, and sit on the edge of the large bathtub, daring her. It's a stupid thing to do and I know it. She isn't one to fall through on her threats, but somehow I doubt she'd ever actually seriously injure me on purpose.
Quick as lightning her good arm dashes out from under the bubbles and jerks the toothbrush away from me and around to one of the pressure points on the back of my neck. I don't even feel it when she knocks me unconscious with the toothpaste covered brush end. The only thing that registers is the magnificent view of her walking across the tiled floor soaking wet and not wearing a thing from my awkward place halfway fallen into the tub when I come back into consciousness. My upper body is soaked right through my clothes and my legs are hanging out the side of the tub in a way that must be pretty comical, but all I can do is try to control my breathing and focus on the idea of Coulson in a speedo. Fury wearing a bikini. Dead puppies! Anything to stop what was already happening. For a moment, I mentally freak out at how mad she's going to be when she realizes that I'm staring at her like this and having this...reaction. Then she stops sauntering around and turns to send me an evil smile over her shoulder.
Oh. My. God. Holy...oh!
Quickly, I swing my previously dry pelvis and legs over the side to splash into the water and under the bubbles.
She did that on purpose! My God, my partner truly is evil. Forget what I thought earlier, that woman is legitimately trying to kill me. Water is still dripping down her body, running down each sumptuous curve of her perfect porcelain skin and her long wet hair clings to her back and shoulders. She doesn't even reach for a towel. She just stands there, staring at me with an amused expression on her face...like the type she gets right before she gets to kill a mark she's been looking forward to murdering. I know I look like an idiot. Like any of her stupid marks that she has putty in her hands. I know my jaw is hanging wide open. It's stupid. I've seen her naked a hundred times. I've seen her do this to other men who are currently dead just as often. Neither helped to prepare me for when she aims the routine at me though.
So this is how I'm going to die.
I know for sure this is the case when she begins making her way back over to me, hips swinging a little more than in her usual walk, her eyes smoldering. All in all, it's really not a bad way to go.
"I gave you your chance years ago, Barton." She tells me in a low seductress's voice. "I crawled into bed with you after you spared me in barely more than what I'm wearing now." Which is nothing. I gulp as she leans down over the side of the tub, her hips raised, looking like every porn director in America's dream.
"And You. Said. No."
I feel her lips brush the outside of my ear as she whispers the last little bit to me in almost a purr.
"I'm not one of your marks." I practically squeak at her wicked smirk.
"I was trying to pay back my debt, Clint. But no, instead you make me your partner and drag me around everywhere with you for over two years before I even get a chance to go on a solo mission."
"I didn't want your body used as currency." I finally find my firm voice and, before she can react, I swiftly pull her back into the tub with me by either side of her hips, landing her directly in my lap. "I wanted you."
"Dammit, Clint!" All hints of her former seductress tone is gone, replaced by her normal annoyed voice.
"I want you, Nat! I don't care about any of that other bullshit! You don't think I know how many men you've been with or how many ways you can kill me in the act? I don't care! I don't care if we live our whole lives together and we never even have sex! Can you get that through your thick Russian skull? I love you and I'd marry you tomorrow if you'd let me even if I never got to physically touch you once ever again!" Maybe that was a little bit of an exaggeration. I do care about whether or not we could have sex. I'm not gay. But I was telling the truth in general. I would marry her no matter what and after all these years of loving her with no physical benefits even she couldn't accuse me of that being my big motivation.
"What if I don't know how to do that?" The tone in her voice sounds lost and for a second I get a flash back of that young, scarred expression she wore when she thought no one was looking so long ago. I look her in the eyes to see the pure, unfiltered fear that I know is difficult for her to allow me to see.
"Then I'll love you anyway." I say firmly, finally lowering my voice back down to an acceptable inside level and pushing some wet strands of hair behind her ears. Up until now I've always settled for whatever I could get. It isn't easy being her friend, but I'll take it any day over nothing.
She nods almost imperceptibly and then the impossible happens.
She's kissing me.
She kissing me like she has a hundred times before when we're on missions and pretending to be Mr. and Mrs. happily ever after. It's exactly the same except for this time she's not kissing me as Mrs. whoever, she's kissing me, Clint Barton, her partner as herself, Natasha Romanoff. Instantly, I smile into the kiss before I deepen it. All this time she thinks she doesn't know how to be with me when she's already been doing it. She kisses me the same no matter who we're pretending to be. She's always done that and I know the difference too because I've seen her kiss marks. She does it differently when it's anyone who's not me. I wonder if she even realizes this until I feel her slip her tongue into my mouth and any reasonable conscious thought ceases.
My hands are already on either side of her hips under the water from when I pulled her down to me. I keep them there. I don't want to go too fast. I don't want do anything that could threaten stopping this. My lips travel to the pulse point on her neck and I suck on it lightly like I learned she liked a long time ago. This isn't a new dance. We've been doing this dance together for a long time, we just never finished it.
I feel her good arm rest on my shoulder and the hand connected to it running over the back of my scalp. I silently run one of mine up from her hip to find the other hand that she can't always control well anymore and grasp it, holding it in mine before I use the other to tighten my grip on her and pick her up with me as I carefully stand in the waterlogged tub and step out of it. Her legs wrap around my waist, one side tighter than the other as some of her muscles go involuntarily slack on her, and I carry her over to the bed with her hanging off of me like she was a few nights ago when I found her on the kitchen counter. This time is a little different though with her completely naked and me soaking wet and still in all of my clothes. This time when I get her onto the bed, soaking wet bodies and clothes be damned, she doesn't look away from me when I silently ask her for permission. This time it's me who backs away from her, not to dismiss her, but to begin removing all the soaking clothes sticking to my skin and getting in the way of me feeling her fully.
I crawl back onto the bed once I've stripped to her still simply laying there watching me, more passive than I could ever have imagined her to act in any situation. There's no way that can be an easy thing for her to do and the meaning of that act isn't lost on me. She's literally giving herself to me...not seducing me, not fucking me. She's giving me her trust and silently asking me to show her the meaning of what I'd said in Paris all those weeks ago.
I've slept with a lot of women earlier in my life. When she came into the picture they all suddenly ceased to hold my interest. It's been a while since I've brought a woman to bed with me (since just before I met Natasha to be exact), but I'm not an innocent man.
Still, it's with a trembling hand that I touch my partner for the first time. I'm literally more nervous now than I was the first time I ever had sex at sixteen and it's because I know the woman that I'm touching now will be the only woman I ever touch again for the rest of my life. This is it for me.
My hands explore her familiar body slowly. I already know it like the back of my hand. I know every mole, every freckle, every scar. Many of the scars I can even identify from being there when she got then. I worship them all with my hands and my lips and my tongue. I worship every ridiculously exquisite inch. I don't rush things and I don't say anything stupid like how magnificently beautiful she is. She's heard all that junk. I want to make damn sure that, whatever anyone's done to her before, this is completely different.
For a while she simply watches me with a nervous expression that actually border-lines confused and even a little bit afraid. But after a few moments I look up again to notice that lust had replaced the previously warring emotions in her eyes and I know she'll be okay. My hand finds her mostly limp one again and I keep hold of it during all of my ministrations, doing my best to reassure her. Finally, I allow myself to go to the place between her legs with my mouth and I almost jump when I hear her actually moan. It's a small, heady moan that causes me to freeze in place. I've never heard anything close to that coming out of her mouth. It's an intoxicating sound if there ever really was such a thing and I instantly become singly mindedly hooked on making her keep doing it.
Thank God that I know oral sex is something I'm really good at. After the fifth or sixth moan that I'm almost positive are involuntary because Natasha Romanoff would never willing make those sounds unless she's acting or just plain can't help it, I sneak a glance up to her face as I go.
Her eyes are open and she's staring at me in unmitigated shock. I'm hoping that it's just because she's impressed, but it still causes me to pause long enough to check with her "you okay?"
She uses the split second before I continue to take in a breath and nod at me helplessly. After this, whatever happens to me for the rest of my life now, I know I'm going to die a happy man.
I don't actually have sex with her.
In fact, I never even allow that part of my anatomy to come into direct contact with her. I simply use my hands and my tongue to make absolutely sure she's going to know the difference between me and anyone else who's ever touched her. When her orgasm comes she looks as though she's going through a whole other level of shock and, if I wasn't so caught up in watching her enraptured face a second later and reveling in feeling her tremble uncontrollably underneath me, I would be wondering how the hell a simple orgasm is so surprising to her. Has no one she's ever been with given her a real one at all?
I file the question away for later as I keep going, refusing to stop until either I know she can't handle any more or I pass out from exhaustion. The idea makes me smile inside. This could take a while. The first time it happens its as if she's flat out too shocked to say anything. The second time she's clinging to me and moaning my name the way I've fantasized her doing for the last eight years. The third time she's screaming my name loud enough for everyone in the entire tower to probably hear. The last time before I finally stop she's actually begging me for mercy in russian, all of her ability to speak english effectively forgotten.
I don't know Tasha's history, or possibly lack there of with the body's ability to orgasm, but I do know that I've just found my new favorite hobby.
I climb up to her level on the bed when I know she's had enough and lean forward to peck her on the forehead with a smirk that may be a permanent addition to my face. Her slightly unfocused eyes meet mine with an awe-struck look while she's still on her back panting and trying to catch her breath. I've never been more happy in my life.
"I told you it's different." I tell her simply, pulling her up to my side and holding onto her carefully. I pull the covers up on top of us and continue to smile like the idiot I am. Finally, she catches her breath and leans closer to me, hiding her strangely shy smile into my shoulder and actually giggling. I take another moment to process that one.
Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, one of the most deadly assassins in the world just hid her face in the crook of my neck and giggled. Eight years of being partners and she's still finding ways to surprise me.
Huh. Is four orgasms really all it takes to make her unwind enough to be happy?
I may never let her out of this bed again.