"You should really take it easy with the training you know, it's going to take a while before your body is ready for the kind of punishment you inflict on it in your workout sessions."
Turning his head, Clint grinned at the doctor where she stood on the porch. For the last ten minutes or so she had been watching as he and Natasha sparred in the meadow, making the most of the dry weather to get outside. Although she offered words of caution, Carter had nothing to worry about, she and Natasha were in perfect agreement as to how his rehabilitation should be handled. Gentle exercise was the order of the day even though he could feel his strength returning with each day that passed. "Feels good to be active again Doc," he told her, ducking to avoid an incoming blow from his partner, "but my body is being pretty up front with me about its limitations."
Carter watched the pair of them like she was measuring their vital signs without the benefit of the necessary equipment, her gaze assessing the healing that had taken place and that which was still to be completed as they moved. She studied him with a scrutiny that he took no offence at because he knew that she was just doing her job. Without the medical instincts of that woman, there was a strong possibility that he could have died. She was the reason that he was alive, as well as being the reason that Natasha had survived the events in New Mexico. As far as he was concerned she had earned the right to look at him as a medical project. She had earned her place as their medic when she had brought Natasha back from the dead in front of his very eyes and she had earned her place as one of them when she had come out to the cabin and saved him.
"As long as you're listening to what it's telling you," she remarked, leaning over the rail and sipping coffee from the mug in her hand. "I know how hard you guys push yourselves when you're trying to get back on your feet. I remember a certain other agent who drove me crazy with her insistence on being up and out of bed before she was fully healed."
At the pointed look in her direction, Natasha laughed. Her entire posture shifted, moving from a loose fighting stance to complete relaxation as she came to stand at his side. As she tilted her face up toward the woman above her on the porch, Clint had never found her lovelier. "Lucky for me I had a great doctor to get me back on my feet."
That afternoon they packed up all of Emma's belongings and loaded them into the truck. After more than a week at the cabin with them she was returning to New York and would see out the rest of her leave with friends and family before returning to active duty with SHIELD. Natasha drove, navigating the roads from the cabin, through town and out toward the airport while they talked. Clint watched the familiar scenery pass by the windows and thought about the risk that the doctor had taken in coming to them when they were on suspension.
The goodbyes were easy, Carter parting company with them as an old friend rather than a colleague. As he watched the doctor and Natasha share a hug, he realised that the two were growing increasingly close and that his partner had at long last forged a meaningful relationship with another female. He was glad, he wanted her to have friends other than himself and though she had never voiced the thought, he knew that she had always felt like an outsider. Following his partner's lead he too gave the doctor a brief hug at the departure gate. "Don't think I thanked you for coming out here and fixing me Doc," he exclaimed quietly.
"No thanks needed," she replied. "I'm your assigned medic remember, even if you guys aren't at SHIELD right now I'm taking my duty seriously."
He couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up from inside him and judging by the amusement in her eyes when he pulled back from him, she was more than happy to take risks on their behalf. In another life he was almost sure that Dr Emma Carter would have made a formidable agent in her own right. "You're okay Doc, you know that?" he chuckled.
Emma stepped back, turning her face so that she could see them both clearly. "Take care of yourselves you two," she told them. "I won't be around to patch you up for a while if you keep living dangerously but … " she stepped back, toward the departure gate, smile still on her face, " … I have a feeling that I'll be seeing you both very soon."
"What do you think she meant by she'll be seeing us soon?" Natasha asked as she drove them home. She'd been mostly silent since they left the airport, focussed on getting them back to the cabin before the predicted rain began to fall. Weather reports on the radio were warning of a cold front with heavy rain that was expected to last through the next few days so it would be best if they were back at the cabin before the rain began.
"Maybe she knows something that we don't about the investigation," he suggested, lacing his fingers with hers when she removed her right hand from the wheel. "They could be about to call us back."
He could tell from the expression on her face that she had mixed feelings about the thought of returning to base and the life and death assignments that had always been their forte. He couldn't blame her for feeling that way, not when he was torn between wanting to return to the life they had known and wanting to explore the new one that they had built. "Well they certainly took their time about it," she remarked, glancing at him and offering him a small smile before turning her attention back to the familiar curves of the road. She didn't speak again until they pulled to a stop at the side of the cabin. "I think that we need to make the most of whatever time we have left here," she announced, "because when we go back there things are going to be very different."
The rain had started as they approached the meadow and by the time they made it from the truck to the porch Natasha's hair was hanging in wet waves around her face. Her laughter hung on the air as she turned into the circle of his arms and watched the rain fall over the clearing. The weather report hadn't lied, and the rain drumming on the roof provided a soothing accompaniment to the beating of his pulse as he held her to him. Lightning flashed, tearing across the sky in a spectacular display, the air charged with electricity.
"Quite a show huh?" he remarked, dropping a kiss on the back of her neck. Without warning Natasha twisted in his arms and crashed her lips to his own, catching him off guard and unprepared. Her kiss was as violent as it was sweet and a welcome substitute to conversation. There was no easing into their embrace, not when Natasha was right up against him, the scent of her burrowing into his brain. Her presence and the knowledge that they were entirely alone put him on edge and put him on fire.
"I've seen far more breathtaking sights than this," she chuckled. As her hands traced the features of his face and wound into his hair, she fixed him with a look that made him feel ten feet tall. There was desire in her eyes, dark and sinful, and it called to him.
"Keep on looking at me like that and I might just wind up seeing Carter again sooner than we anticipated," he told her, doing nothing at all to push her away.
Natasha moved in close and smiled against his lips, her fingers slipping under the hem of his sweater and hooking into the belt loops of his jeans to pull his lower body in close against hers. Leaning into him, she kissed him again and he responded, tenderly at first, but then the passion that had always been there between them reared up and their kiss deepened, desperation driving them toward one another. "We should probably stop," she whispered, kissing along his jaw and up to the corner of his mouth.
Her eyes were glazed, slightly unfocussed as she looked up at him and knowing that he was able to pull that kind of response from her was enough to override any doubts that he had about where the night was headed. He was the only thing in her world in that moment and it thrilled him. "I can't," he replied breathlessly, a slight edge of laughter in his voice as he claimed her lips once again, "you know I can't."
"Good," she murmured, tugging him toward the door, "because I don't ever want you to."