She's tired. Worn out deep in her soul.
The mission was successful, of course. She's the Black Widow; her missions are always successful. It's what makes Natasha Romanov the best. It's what makes her driven and relentless and too hard on herself and lonely.
She's not supposed to be lonely. They tried to train that out of her in her childhood, in Russia. Killing all desire for attachments, teaching her how it made her weak, made her vulnerable, made her a liability. She's long ago learned to suppress the bile that rises in her throat when she remembers what she had to do to survive that training. What they forced her to do.
It was Clint who first showed her that human connection could be a lifeline, not a noose, but it took years and years of friendship with Clint before she found herself willing to let anyone else through her walls. Even now, she's not very close to the rest of the Avengers. She tolerates them. She supposes that she accepts them as her teammates, but as far as friends go? It's still just Clint who fills that role.
But Nat's never slotted Clint into the lover role. Too afraid of losing what they have, of ruining their bond. She'd die if she lost Clint, Nat thinks, and yes, that's a weakness - but it doesn't feel like one when Clint always, without fail, has her back the same way she has his. He's the one person that she knows without a doubt that she can count on.
Except …
Nat's starting to think that maybe, possibly, someone else has a chance at joining Clint in that solo line-up. She hasn't known her someone long enough to be sure, but - there's a steadiness inside of him. An inner compass that guides him, and while she hasn't quite figured out what defines the pull north, she's come to realize that he always, without fail, follows its tug.
It's reassuring. It'll be more reassuring when she understands the nuances of how his moral compass plays out against the rocky terrain that is the Black Widow, but for now? It's more trust than Nat is in the habit of handing out, to know that she trusts the Bat to always be true to himself, even if she isn't completely sure yet what 'himself' constitutes.
His house is well secured, of course, and unobtrusively at that. Sure, it's got the gaudier tech that one would expect a billionaire to have in place, but the quieter layers of security measures give Nat a connoisseur's enjoyment as she deftly works her way past them, onto the grounds, into his house, and finally, into his dark and empty bedroom.
Nat smiles to herself as she undresses and slips under the covers and sure, she could stay awake until he gets back from flapping around Gotham, but honestly? She doesn't feel the need to remain on guard here in his home. He's not going to hurt her. That's one thing she's already sure of.
The second thing she's quite sure of is that he wouldn't be able to even if he tried, so Nat rolls over and goes to sleep, feeling more relaxed than she has in months. It might have a little bit to do with how his pillow smells like him.
The lights flick on and Nat immediately wakes up, although of course she doesn't show it. It's a worrying sign of how secure he feels in his own home that it takes him a full three seconds to notice her in his bed.
She hears when his footsteps freeze and his breath inhales sharply.
"Quit pretending to be asleep, Tasha," he growls out in Russian a second later, and she starts laughing as she rolls over to look up at him.
"Your home security is appallingly poor," she says back in her mother tongue. "I'm going to give you a list of upgrades before I go."
He rumbles out an even lower growl, sounding downright cranky now.
"Typically," he says snarkily as he pulls his t-shirt off before shucking his sweatpants, "people of your skill set don't break into my house because they don't know I'm Batman," he glowers as he climbs into bed beside her, naked.
"If they don't know you're Batman, they're not actually of my skill set, are they?" Nat says lazily, crawling over to meet him, not stopping until she's laid out on top of him and giving him a long kiss. "I can leave if I've upset you too much," she smirks at him when she comes up for air and laughs in delight when his response is to flip her over onto her back and kiss her harder.
"I might be persuaded to forgive you," Bats says against her neck a few minutes later.
"Mm, such a shame I'm Russian and prefer a Cold War to forgiveness," she teases and he finally laughs, smoothing his hands through her hair before kissing her some more, slow and sweet and in a way that Nat never gets kissed on undercover missions or random fucks, neither of which she's felt inclined to use as options since meeting the Bat two months ago and hooking up with him as many more times since.
Never in his home, though, until now, but Nat was feeling low and craving something tonight that she wasn't supposed to want when she broke in earlier instead of looking for him among the gargoyles like she usually does.
'Usually' is not a word that she's ever had occasion to use with a lover before. Maybe that should concern her, given that she's well aware that Bruce uses sex as much as she does, and for the same reasons, but when he lifts his head from kissing her and his thumbs are still stroking smooth lines over her high Russian cheekbones, Bruce hesitates for the barest second before saying, "How would you feel about making whatever this is monogamous?"
"Yes," Nat says without hesitation, and she's definitely not used to how a genuine smile feels when it stretches across her face. One more thing they have in common, Nat thinks, as a mirroring smile appears on Bruce's face and his eyes soften in a way that he doesn't have wrinkle lines for.
"I haven't fucked anyone else since that first time with you," he says, and some tight, locked off place in Nat's heart begins to creak and sigh its way open.
"Me, neither," she admits, burying her face into his neck as he hums in pleasure.
When he fucks her tonight, their first time together in an actual bed, he's gentle and slow and it's achingly good. He's the only one who's ever called her Tasha, and she loves how it sounds coming out of his mouth mixed in with all the little Russian endearments that he mutters in her ear, and Tasha thinks that maybe, just maybe, the Bat might be the one lover who manages to survive the Black Widow.
She hopes he will be, because she's so tired of burying her heart.
"Let me scan your fingerprints and retinas into the security system before you go," he mumbles when they're all fucked out and sleepily spooning, and even though they both know (now) that she can easily break in, the offer still sends a warm thrill down Nat's insides.
"How long can you stay this time?" the Bat asks her. Nat hesitates.
"How long do you want me to?" she asks him.
"Forever," Bats growls with a sardonic chuckle in her ear, tightening his arm around her waist. "But I'll take as long as you can give me in the meantime."
Tasha smiles, squeezing her hands over his, and thinks that forever doesn't sound so bad.
"I should be able to stay through tomorrow night," she says, though, because work precedes forever. "I don't think Clint will mind us taking an extra twenty-four hours before we report back in," she says.
"Tell him he can stay in one of the guest rooms tomorrow," Bruce says, kissing her neck and Nat has to blink away some tears, because for the Bat to accept Clint so easily -
"Do you only like me and Clint because we're orphans?" she teases him, to keep those treacherous deeper feelings pushed away, and then Bruce is belting out a deep belly laugh.
"It doesn't hurt," he teases right back, pressing a trail of little kisses behind her ear, now. "Orphans are innately superior people, what can I say?" he chuckles.
"Well, I can't really argue with you," Nat says, tracing patterns over his forearms with a caressing fingertip.
"You'll be ok meeting my kids tomorrow?" Bruce asks. Nat swallows. She hadn't really considered that when Bruce asked her to stay.
"Um, if you're ok with me meeting them," she says slowly.
The Black Widow is not used to feeling nervous, but given that neither her nor Clint has a freakin' clue as to what constitutes a normal childhood, she has no idea how she's supposed to talk to normal children. Although, they're all vigilantes, she reminds herself, so they can't be that normal. But Bruce is reassuring her.
"Damian grew up like you, but in the League of Assassins," he says and Nat jerks slightly and says, "Oh!"
"His mom is Talia al Ghul," Bruce says, and Nat can hear the deep embarrassment in his voice. Understandably.
"You must have been pretty young…?" she ventures.
"And hopelessly naive," Bruce admits with shame. "She told me she had a miscarriage… I swear I never would have left him there, Tash."
"I know," she says, because she really does know.
One of the things she's learned in the short time she's known Bruce is that protecting children means everything to him. Hell, it's how they met, when he and Black Bat crossed paths with her and Hawkeye, both pairs going after the same child traffickers.
It's why she started falling for him, if she's being honest - his utter fury and ruthlessness towards the criminals, but his complete gentleness and kindness towards the children, the way he knew just how to talk to them and reassure them until Social Services showed up, and the deep misery in his eyes afterwards that had to have matched hers, because they found themselves falling into each other's arms for comfort without much need for conversation - except for the dark growl he'd given Clint who was leaning the same way towards David Cain's daughter, until the Black Bat had signed something at the bigger Bat that ended with him uttering a disapproving but relenting grunt for her.
Actually -
"I don't think Clint is gonna want to stay in a guest room," Nat says with a saucy grin and extra emphasis. Bruce growls low and grumpy and long.
"Is he here now?" he suddenly says, more awake.
"Don't ask, don't tell," Nat says breezily. "But he didn't come in with me, at least," she says. "They were going out on a date tonight."
What Nat also knows, but doesn't tell, is that Clint and Cass haven't had sex at all yet, but an adult child's sex life is none of their father's business, so Bats can assume what he wants, Nat thinks to herself.
"For what it's worth, they seem really happy together," she does tell him, though. "They actually text each other in between dates," she smirks in the dark, but Bruce hears it and playfully pinches her butt.
"I would text," he says, "if somebody would bother to give me her phone number."
"This time, I will," Nat promises, turning her head backwards to kiss him, and sighing with pleasure at the feeling of deep relaxation that uncurls its way from her chest to her stomach to her toes.
"I'm glad we crossed paths," Bruce rumbles in the dark, drawing her closer into his big spoon.
"Me, too," Tasha says, cuddling into him, and for once in her life, she means it.
The End
A/N - Thanks for reading! Comments are much appreciated.
You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!