Another one from the nsfw Tumblr prompt list: Moaning each other's name.


"...Clint?"

It's a pitiful sound even to her own ears, her voice low and tinged with a desperate note of confusion, and she's pretty sure the soft little moan is lost amid the muffled throb of klaxon alarms.

"Don't move, Tash."

He sounds far away, but he enunciates each word strong and clear, and she catches on. She breathes instead, cloying air that tastes hot and cold all at once and burns her throat. Smoke, and jet fuel, and snow.

She drags herself up from the black depths of unconsciousness and forces her eyes open. It's an action she immediately regrets. She's looking down, down on the dark points of pine trees dusted in white, and a bare length of grey rock, and then dark nothing shrouded in twilight. She startles, and the trees sway, and it takes her a long moment to realize the trees aren't actually moving, it's the Quinjet rocking softly forward and back. She swallows down a little swell of nausea.

Clint isn't in the pilot seat beside her, where he belongs. The interior of the jet is hazy with smoke. The alarms whine in an off-key sort of way, control panels flashing urgent messages with lights that become steadily dimmer as she watches.

"They shot us down," she snarls indignantly, and Clint gives a humorless little laugh.

"Hail Hydra," he confirms wryly, and when she glances back to find him he's got two middle fingers raised. "Don't move," he warns again. "Not until you're steady."

"What's our play?" she asks to kill time, because she's pretty certain she'd stumble and send the Quinjet pitching into the ravine if she attempted to stand. She directs her eyes away from the view out the window, wills her mind to stray back toward their mission and not how unpleasant the hundreds-feet drop would be.

"Grappling arrow, if we can get the emergency hatch open. Have yours ready as a backup."

She checks her gauntlets, but the grappling hook and thin cord hidden inside were designed specifically for her. They weren't made to support two, and Clint knows it, and she doesn't like his sacrifice-myself-for-Tasha contingency plan.

"We lost the team," he adds. "Comms are still patched through the Quinjet's communication system, and I can't get our earpieces to work."

The information doesn't bother her, and she knows Clint isn't telling her because he's concerned. He's briefing her, giving her the updated mission parameters. A crashed jet and no backup is cake compared to some of their other experiences.

Slowly, painfully slowly, she flips open the compartment in the console to her right and draws out a flare gun; J.A.R.V.I.S. can track the beacon in the nose of the jet to approximate their location, and they'll need a way to signal Tony in the dark. Then she starts on the harness: squeeze the buckle and hold, slide one arm free and hold, other arm free but don't stand, not yet.

"Come over the side," Clint says, and the tremor in his voice gives her nervous butterflies. She swings her legs over the armrest, braces one hand on the back of the seat, and glides fluidly to her feet.

The Quinjet groans and scrapes against the ice, but doesn't slide off the cliff. She holds her breath, and Clint swears under his.

"Easy," he says at last, and she shuffles forward. "The edge is just in front of the wing."

Only one wing, she remembers now. Hydra would have blasted the Quinjet in two if not for Clint's barrel roll.

She passes into the section of the cabin that rests on solid ground, and the low grinding and creak of metal stops. The Quinjet settles with a final crunch of snow.

Natasha takes a moment to observe the back of the cabin, just in case Clint's overlooked something. He keeps quiet and gives her time for the assessment, and despite all Steve's preaching about teamwork and cooperation, she knows none of the others would tolerate second-guessing if they'd already decided on an escape plan.

The back ramp is tilted open a few inches but obviously jammed, and there's a breach in the hull near the blasted-off wing. The emergency hatch in the ceiling is still their best option. Clint can't fit through either of the other spaces, and she'd have to lose the utility belt and gun holsters to squeeze through herself.

"Let's go," she says.

"You're up."

Clint crouches under the escape hatch, so very close to the half of the jet hanging over the cliff. She throws her legs over his shoulders and balances carefully as he rises, not quite standing straight to prevent her banging her head on the ceiling. Tony's latest design is stupid, ceiling too high for one person to open the emergency hatch alone but too low for a stand-on-the-shoulders solution. She's glad the jet's probably going to end up at the bottom of the cliff.

She pops the latch and pushes the little door away, and at least Tony installed it with a breakaway option instead of hinges. Clint lifts her the rest of way through, she maneuvers and reaches back inside to grip his hands, and then they're sitting together on the roof of the Quinjet, breathing hard more out of nerves than exertion.

"We've already gone over one cliff," she observes, and looks up the sheer rock face behind them.

"Just a little one. Barely even counts."

He's right, and the drop is comparatively tiny considering what waits in front of them. Twenty feet, maybe, and they're standing on the jet, so they really only have to climb ten.

Clint nocks his arrow and aims at the ledge above them. He hits some unseen target and the cord snaps taut, and she's practical enough to loop her arms around his neck and hook her legs around his hips so he can haul them up to safety.

That doesn't mean she can't feel indignant about being relegated to the useless damsel role. She directs her energy into winding Clint up, because that always makes her feel better.

"Join the Avengers," she mutters in his ear with a slow little smile, "live on the edge, reach new heights-"

"Natasha," Clint moans in disgust. "One more and I'll drop you, I swear."