Clint lurches to the side suddenly, his body jolting beneath the covers of the bed. Natasha is already awake, disturbed by his restless movement and the change in his breathing. Lightning flashes outside and the breeze stirs the gauzy curtains that cover the full length windows, the promise of a summer storm heavy on the air. It's been quite a while since he last had one of his nightmares but stormy nights seem to bring them to the forefront of his mind.
"Shh," she whispers, moving her body through the covers to hug him from behind. She lets her fingers stroke the muscles of his arm, rigid with tension as he struggles with whatever it is that plagues him. His skin is clammy with sweat, cool to the touch. He whimpers low in his throat, flinching as thunder crashes outside the windows. "Clint ..."
His eyelids flicker but he doesn't wake. He twists onto his side and tightens his grip on the pillow, the muscles in his back and arms tightening beneath Natasha's soothing touch. Perspiration dots his forehead and one droplet slides, tear-like, over his cheek. His skin trembles beneath her palm and he shivers, breath hitching around what might be a sob.
"Clint? Clint!" she risks shaking him by the shoulder, propping herself up on one elbow so that she can look down at him. It's a risk, waking him when he's dreaming of something that troubles him, always a risk in case he comes up swinging. "Clint, wake up."
He bolts upright as he wakes, his fingers wrapped around the flick knife that he keeps beneath his pillow. He releases the blade with a well practised motion and blinks rapidly, trying to focus on his surroundings. Lightning flashes again, illuminating the room, and thunder rattles the windows. His erratic breathing is the only sound apart from the falling rain.
After what feels like an impossibly long time, he uncurls his fingers and drops the weapon to the floor beside the bed. The tension ebbs from his muscles and he curls in on himself, folding inwards around some inner wound that time has failed to heal. Natasha doesn't hesitate to wrap herself around him, letting her skin warm his, showing him with simple touch that she is there.
"It's okay," she tells him, rocking him gently in her arms. "It's okay."
But it's not okay, not even close. She knows by the way that he turns his face into the crook of her neck, the way that he shakes in her embrace. This isn't Clint, not the Clint that she knows at least, the partner who can chase away everything that has ever scared her with little more than the touch of his hand against her own. The man she holds is one that Clint buries deep, one whose scars are soul deep and still bleeding.
It takes a while before he speaks and when he straightens up and scrubs his hands over his face it's as if he has the weight of the whole world on his broad shoulders. His skin is a horrible shade of pale; he looks nauseous and heartsick and vulnerable. "There was a storm the night that they died," he says so quietly that the words are almost lost in the white noise of the storm. "Sometimes thunder takes me back to that night, to waiting on the porch for them to come home and realising that they never would."
Natasha doesn't need to ask who he's talking about. When he took her back to Waverly and walked her through his past he was strangely silent on the circumstances of his parents death. Most areas of his life were open to her, most of his secrets out in the open, but that one life changing event he kept closer than most. She'd found out the details on her own some time later, just so that she wouldn't go stepping on any emotional landmines. Stormy night, slippery road: two orphaned children.
She leans into him, resting her head on his shoulder, and links her fingers with his own. Lightning splits the sky again and he turns his face toward the windows, perhaps unwilling to let her see just how shaken he is, perhaps just lost in thought. She reaches out and turns his face towards hers with just the slight touch of her fingertips on his cheek, needing to let him see that there is no judgement, needing him to see that she is there and doesn't plan on going anywhere.
His eyes meet hers and she holds his gaze, letting her thumb stroke along his jaw. "We all have scars Clint."
It's so easy to forget sometimes that Clint, like her, has lived a dozen lives, each of them more horrific and blood stained than the last. It's a miracle that they aren't made entirely of scars, that there's anything left of their souls, that they're capable of any sort of connection with another human being. She sometimes forgets that beneath the easy way he moves, Clint can be stretched tauter than a rubber band pulled yards beyond snapping.
"Seems that I have more than most," he replies, "and they all have names. My parents were just the start of it. Barney. Coulson…"
She closes her eyes against the pain that she can hear in his words, against his certainty that somehow he is responsible in some way for the loss of people that once meant everything to him. When she opens them again, he is far away, lost in whatever thoughts circle in his head, picking the bones of his nightmares.
"You should get out while you still can Tasha," he tells her sadly, and it could be a joke if not for the tone or the way he looks at her, "nobody that I care about seems to make it out alive."
Instead, she takes his face between her hands and leans her forehead against his. Her chest aches at the words because the look in his eyes tells her that he believes what he's saying. She wants to tell him that she never wants to be any further away from him, emotionally or physically, than she is right at that moment, but words have never been her strength. Instead she turns her body toward him so that she faces him square on. "Kiss me," she says gently.
The words aren't quite a command but his eyes darken just a little when she says them. He likes it when she gives him direction, doesn't need it by any stretch of the imagination, but he takes direction so wonderfully well, and when he is lost she more often than not becomes the northern bearing on his compass. When he is lost he turns to her to guide him.
His lips are soft against hers, warm and perfect. Initially, the brush of their lips and the touch of her hands on his face are the only contact between them. She savours the feel of warm breath skating across her cheek when he exhales and then allows him to pull her closer to him when his hands find her waist.
"The only place I want to be is here," she tells him, tipping her head back to allow him access to her throat when he asks for it without words. "I love you."
Once again, he shudders in her grip, winding her body even closer to his until she all but sits in his lap. His voice comes out as a breathy groan, soft and unsure. "Say it again," he begs, lips hovering a fraction above the skin of her collarbone. "Please."
It startles her to realise that she so rarely says the words, and that they can still have such an effect on him. He knows that she loves him, of course he does, but words make her uncomfortable and he simply accepts that about her without comment. So she obliges him, lifts his head so that she can look him directly in the eye and repeats herself. "I love you."
He kisses her again, this time with the desperation of a man who has lost more than most. His body warms beneath hers, his muscles shifting beneath his skin as he moves her even closer to him. He kisses her as though he can draw life from her mouth, as if he wants to crawl inside of her body and stay there, safe and warm, protected from his past and all that the future might hold.
There's a bone thawing warmth in the way they hold one another, a primal state of serenity that comes from little more than being in one another's company. Natasha surrenders to it all, loses herself in him, the taste, the smell of him, the bone deep desire to ease his pain in any way that she can. She can barely suppress the faint little moan that bubbles up in her chest as she feels the way that his body responds to her proximity.
Tangled up in one another, skin set aglow by the moonlight, they wind their bodies together until they are breathing heavily, every inch of Natasha's body alive with anticipation. Strong fingers turn gentle as he strokes her, teases her, tastes every available inch of her. She sighs with pleasure and arches her back against the arm that supports her spine, leaning into him so that her pelvis aligns with his, giving wordless consent to all that will follow.
He puts her beneath him, lifting her so that he can lie her carefully down among the sheets and pillows, and then covers her body with his own. Natasha loves the weight of him, the way his skin feels pressing down into hers. She winds herself around him to emphasise this point, stroking hands over the muscular planes of his back and pulling him down so that his lower body rests flush against hers, their mouths still fused in a kiss that steals her breath and melts her insides.
When he pulls back an inch or two, propping himself up on his elbows so that he can look down at her, the warmth of his lips lingers on hers, spreading through her like something sweet and heavy.
"What?" she asks, wondering why he's looking down at her the way that he is, why he seems to be memorising her features. There's such tenderness in his eyes that she suddenly worries that he's studying her this way in case they never get to experience it again.
He offers her a smile, a slight quirk of his lips. "I think I like the sound of those words on your lips Nat."
Another boom of thunder rattles the apartment, just like he rattles her and Natasha edges her hands slowly down the meat of his back until she can grip the muscle of his backside. It's a less than subtle invitation but it makes him shift against her in a way that is quite promising. She lifts her head so that she can tug on his earlobe with her teeth and deliver her reply directly into his ear. "Play this situation right and you might just hear them again," she murmurs, "along with some other choice phrases, and possibly in any one of a dozen different languages."
She feels the shudder that goes through him at the words and relishes it, determined to drive away his demons through the reassurance of her body against and around his own. It isn't about completion, not tonight, it's something deeper that passes between them, something profound that fills the space in the room and blocks out the storm beyond the windows.
They fall into one another as he eases his way inside her, the strong, sure movements of his hips making her arch upward to meet him. Understanding flourishes, both of them giving in to the flow, to the allure of tangled sheets, tangled limbs, soft sounds of movement and even softer moans. Their movements are easy, languid, every stroke drawn out to better enhance the pleasure that they create. They roll and tussle, lazily trading dominance, keeping the pace slow, letting the slow glide and retreat of their bodies build into something beautiful.
The energy builds between them, crackling on the air like an unseen whip and they grow bolder with one another, greedier. Gentle, probing kisses give way to something more visceral involving the nip of teeth and the sweep of tongues, and yet the pace remains unchanged, unhurried. He pulls out of her, flips her over and comes at her from behind, still maintaining that torturously slow advance and retreat that is bringing them both ever closer to climax. They end with her beneath him, almost flat on her front, his hands pressing hers into the mattress, his weight solid and sure on top of her.
It's inevitable, the madness that descends on them both, the shimmering, shuddering sparks that build within, stealing logic, and reason, and awareness of the world outside the bed in which they move. Their breathing falls in time with one another and Natasha finds her hands tightening around his, her body moving of its own accord in search of a completion that is closing in quickly. She wonders if he can feel her heartbeat kicking in her chest, wonders if its rhythm matches Clint's, if the song of their hearts complements the dance of their bodies.
His breath comes heavy, a kiss is pressed against the spot where her neck and shoulder meet. "Can't hold out much longer Nat," he tells her, his voice the strangled whisper of a man right on the edge.
Natasha lifts her head, bowing upwards to that her head is almost level with his own, shifting her legs to wrap around his thighs from behind. The change in angle is delicious and she knows that it won't be long until he pushes her over the edge that she's so precariously balancing on. She turns her face and kisses him deeply, pulling back to catch his lip gently between her teeth. "Then don't."
She holds his gaze as he moves inside her, showing him everything, letting him see and feel the reactions he calls from her body. She holds nothing back, not the breathy moans that escape her mouth, not the wildfire that surely burns in her eyes, the way her body pulses around him, draining him of everything he has to give. His kiss as he shatters is of light and shadow, a burning brand that marks her down to the soul, inscribing their connection in this moment in shades of fire, sure as the lightning outside sears her retinas when it tears the sky.
He collapses against her back in the wake of their shared orgasm, his muscular chest warm against her, bringing back memories of many nights when he would sleep pressed up against to hold her own nightmares at bay. His fingers brush the back of her neck ever so gently and her breathing hitches. Her eyelids flutter as he leans in and kisses her softly, brushing his lips against the nape of her neck. Neither of them have any words but it doesn't matter, they are speaking without them, a wordless expression that reaffirms where they're at.
When they're finally ready to move, they don't go far. Wriggling around until they can curl up together, face to face, skin to skin. Natasha's head rests on Clint's arm where it is bent beneath the pillow, he lies against the pillow, fingers moving over her skin as if relearning the contours of her body. All is quiet, except for the sound of the two of them breathing, the rain that falls outside, and the soft rustle of sheets whenever one of them moves. Hours tick by but they barely notice, too lost in one another, trading soft kisses and idle touches.
Daylight chases the shadows, it's whispered threat growing closer with every tick of the clock. It isn't until the rain ebbs and the first pink hint of dawn touches the sky, that they allow themselves to sleep. Clint is the first to go, his breathing growing deeper, eyelashes flickering slightly against his cheeks as he falls, arm still wrapped around Natasha's waist.