"This has been the most humiliating day of my life." Clint dramatically sighed as he took out the blanket and his prized inflatable pillow from his backpack. "All twenty of them. I lost in all twenty tic-tac-toe games."

Natasha teased him further. "If it will make you feel better, we can play another set of twenty games tomorrow, so that your losses will sum up to forty." She deadpanned, trying to sound as serious as possible.

Clint began to puff out his pillow. "Whatever Nat. Leave me alone. I need to process my grief."

"Sending you my condolences," Natasha was now unable to hide her laughter. "I'll take the first watch. Before you go to bed, I'd like to scour the perimeter once more. You can sleep once I get back."

"Copy that." Clint said absentmindedly, collapsing into the now inflated pillow.

Natasha went on to survey the vents, and after crawling through fifty meters worth of distance and making sure that the alarm detectors they planted earlier were still intact, she returned to where Clint was waiting for her. "All clear. You can now take your nap, oh sweet little one."

"Good night Nat," Clint replied without any more fuss. Within a few minutes, his breathing has evened out, falling into a deeper sleep than Natasha could have imagined.

She couldn't help but be amazed by the fact that he actually trusted her enough to be this vulnerable. They had spent the past few days together at her safehouse as they carefully planned out their mission on taking down Dreykov. They however, had slept in separate rooms with the doors locked. Now it's different. The vents do not provide enough room to maintain each of their own personal spaces, and thus have literally brought them closer together. She continued to ponder on what else would this strange partnership of theirs entail. To pass the time, she decided to tie up her hair into a simple French braid and clean off her weapons. While she was still lost in her thoughts, Clint began to wake up.

"Good morning," Clint yawned. "Now get over here. Your turn to say good night."

Natasha recalled what Clint said to her back at the safehouse. "You certainly won't know for sure if you can trust me or not. But you can choose to do it anyway." After everything they've been through, she had actually chosen to trust him on so many times without her realizing it. She trusted him when she agreed to let him stay at the safehouse. She trusted him when they teamed up to rig the bombs. She trusted him when he led them to the vents. She trusted him when she agreed to join SHIELD. As she laid her head onto the pillow, she knows that now, she's choosing to trust him too. "Good night, Clint," was all that she replied.

With Natasha finally asleep, Clint now had the time to process his own thoughts. Just like Natasha, he was also used to working alone, but teaming up with her over their time here in Budapest didn't feel unnatural at all. Sure, there were the typical banters and arguments here and there, but they were still able to pull off everything like they've been partners for a very long time. At first, he just thought that it was him who's changing Natasha's life, when in fact Natasha is also slowly changing his too. Then his mind wandered off to how Natasha's smile actually made him feel something. There's no denying that Natasha is breathtakingly beautiful, but Clint was more drawn to who she truly is as a person, as her own self. Not as the Black Widow, but as Natasha Romanoff. Natasha. Nat. He sighed as he watched her sleep peacefully, got himself a flask with coffee which was now lukewarm, and checked in with SHIELD to report their status and confirm their extraction plan. It took another hour or so before Natasha finally woke up.

"Hey." Clint said softly.

"Hi." Natasha replied, as she slowly got up.

"Sleep well? Extraction will be here in fourteen hours." Clint handed her the flask with half of the coffee remaining.

"Oh, I didn't realize our vacation is ending so soon, such a shame," she said yawningly as she accepted the flask and drank the remaining coffee without question.

"I know right. Of all the scenic places here in Budapest, the station air vents have been the absolute best choice," Clint replied, as he glanced up admiringly at the roofing and the giant fans. "Seriously though, I've always loved these small spaces ever since I was a kid. They make me feel safe."

Natasha looked at Clint thoughtfully. There's something about his tone that feels like there's something more to what he's saying. "What made the outside world unsafe?" She said carefully.

Clint turned his head to face Natasha. "Wow, she could actually see through me too," he thought to himself. "Oh um… well… my father wasn't exactly the definition of what a father is… he would beat the hell out of me and my brother. We were part of a travelling circus, and there's this stopover that we had which was also near a train station. When archery training got too much and he was about to beat us up for missing our targets, we ran off to the station where we discovered these air vents. That was the very start. As I grew up and became a marksman, vents all over the world also became my safe space."

They spent the next hours sharing bits and pieces of their past with more of Clint's planned out games and packed up meals in between. They were halfway through guessing a word in hangman when Clint received a message from Fury, saying that their extraction would be in five minutes, an hour earlier than expected.

"Well, I guess we better get ready. Oh, and heads up, SHIELD will need to evaluate you for a month in isolation. Medical, psych, and all that. They'll take us on different cars and different jets, as you would be brought to a separate facility. Meanwhile I get to go to the Triskelion, where Fury will probably punish me with a mountain of paperwork. Sorry if it seems rude, but you know, they want to be sure that they can fully trust you before putting you in the field with the other agents," Clint said as he closed up his backpack.

"Oh okay. Also, not a problem. I've had much worse," Natasha paused for a moment, then continued, "but it means I won't get to see you for a month huh."

"Aww you're going to miss me. I'm going to miss you too, Nat." Clint said, trying to sound cheerful. "I guess this is goodbye for now."

"Thank you, Clint…" Natasha started. Clint's phone alerted them that their car rides are a minute away.

"For what? For the strawberry donuts? For letting you beat me at tic-tac-toe? For—"

Clint didn't get to finish his sentences as Natasha suddenly grabbed on his shirt, then brushed her lips against his for what seemed like forever before fully closing them on into a kiss. It was so slow and so gentle, but Clint could feel the intensity of the past ten days in Budapest rush in to this single moment. He started to pull Natasha in closer when his phone blared again, cars now waiting above the subway. They touched their foreheads lightly before letting each other go.

Natasha began to slide open the floor of the air vent when she turned to Clint again, smiled then said, "I'll tell you what that was for after a month," before jumping down and rushing to her designated car.

-End-