"You're really okay?" she asks, holding his face between her palms so that she can look him directly in the eye. She isn't one to fuss, not really, but there was so much blood and he had been so still on the ground that she had seriously thought for a second that he wasn't going to get up again.
"I'm fine," he replies, allowing her the time she needs to realise that he is telling her the truth. He really is okay. He isn't going anywhere.
Resting her head against his shoulder she slips one hand inside the loose fabric of his half open shirt, stroking the skin of his chest until her palm comes to rest over the reassuringly strong thud of his heart. "Doc says I'll be just perfect in a ..."
She cuts him off, closing the distance between their mouths, pressing her lips against his own, chaste at first – a reassurance- until the fire inside her takes hold, fear and relief and desire mixing as his heart beats faster against her palm. She doesn't wait for a reaction, or a confirmation that her actions are acceptable, just crushes her mouth to his and takes permission from what she finds there. She tastes the need and desperation that comes off them in waves and she knows from the way that his grip tightens on her that he can taste it too. She kisses him until she tastes blood, her anger and desperation shifting and becoming something equally dangerous to them both, something they are powerless to deny. It's enough to make him move. They move in tandem, working together to shed their clothing with gentle fingers and harnessed impatience, ending in a tangle of limbs atop the bed.
Moonlight paints the walls of the apartment with silver as they work together to forget the horrors of the day in the way that works best for them. The contact and the warmth of his skin make her shiver, chasing away the cold that she didn't even realise she felt. His arm closes around her, his free hand twining his fingers with hers as he covers her body with his own. Natasha rocks her hips in time with his own, desperation replaced by something calmer, something reassuring as their eyes meet. Friction and pressure and the slow glide of his skin against hers, the gentle advance and retreat of his mouth and hips, reassure her that he is there, that he is safe. In this moment, when nothing can come between them, they still have each other in spite of all the world throws at them.
What begins as gentle reassurance soon pushes the limits of their injuries but they are careful not to push too far; there is no room for pain in the bed with them. They take things slowly, savouring the sensations that they are so good at calling from one another, losing themselves in one another. The past has taught them that they can ignore the strain in their muscles because a few aches are worth knowing that they are both alive and breathing. Discomfort from an injury is merely a reminder that they are alive and Natasha never feels more alive than in these moments with him. In these stolen moments between midnight and morning, every policy that SHIELD has can go to hell, Clint is all she needs.
Skin glistening with every push and pull, their bodies work instinctively to satisfy the need that takes hold in them when they are alone together. There is something beautiful in the way he looks at her, the way that when they are together they can seemingly touch the foundations of one another so easily. She belongs to him, has done since almost the first moment they met, just as he has always belonged to her.
Their affair has been one of secrets and silence and Clint is a quiet man by nature, a man of depths that few can claim to know, so the sound of her name on his lips at that crucial moment is the sweetest sound Natasha can hear. When he murmurs her name like a man who has found his religion, she knows that she is home. It is this moment, as stars explode behind her eyelids and he steals her breath away with another kiss, that she finally understands what is happening between them and realises that a time will come when she wants more than this, that one day she will want him to be more than her lover in the shadows.
One day, Natasha Romanoff might well want to stand in the light with this man at her side but for today she will take what she can get safe in the knowledge that it is not meaningless after all.