"Time for your afternoon nursing session," Natasha announced with forced cheeriness as she entered the bedroom with the refilled first aid kit.
"You enjoy this more than you should," Clint mumbled as he dutifully threw the sheet off.
"Patching each other up has always been part of the deal," she reminded him as she sat on the bed. More softly, she said. "You taught me that."
Several years earlier in Kiev...
The streets of the city whizzed by Natasha's window as she marveled at her current situation. The adrenaline was draining out of her veins, leaving behind the pain of all her cuts and bruises in addition to her sore shoulder. She glanced over at this Clint, who had transformed from an executioner to a savior for reasons she couldn't begin to comprehend. He glanced back, and their eyes met for a split-second. He took one hand off the wheel and reached over to squeeze hers. Too stunned to react, she blinked. "It'll be okay," he assured her. "You can trust me."
But how do you know you can trust me? she wondered. She dared not voice the thought.
Then he turned the car down a dark alley and drove up to what looked like a loading dock.
"Here we are." He hopped out and popped the trunk, taking out a messenger bag. He seemed surprised she was still in the passenger seat, and opened the door for her. "Come on. There's no safer place in Kiev for you right now." Natasha put her foot down on the loose gravel, and a stone drove a piece of glass deeper into her foot. She thought she had held her hiss of pain in, but Clint frowned. He picked up her foot and examined the shredded sole. "Holy shit, Natasha. You shouldn't walk anymore until we get all this crap out."
"Well, what do you propose? I'm hardly going to crawl."
He crouched down in front of her. "Come on. Up on my back."
"You can't be serious." Was this guy insane? She was an assassin, and he turned his back on her and offered her a piggyback ride?
He glanced over his shoulder at her. "The more you drive that glass into your feet, the harder it will be to run away from me if the opportunity presents itself. Letting me carry you is the sensible choice." Fair, Natasha nodded. Simple, unassailable logic. She climbed onto his back.
The room was sparse. Clint deposited her on the queen size bed. "I'll get the first aid kit out of the bathroom closet." With quick, deliberate movements, he assembled his supplies and sat down by her feet. "Slide up on the bed and turn on the bedside lamp." His strong hands picked up her left ankle and rested it on a towel in his lap. Her skin reacted positively to the warmth of his touch, and she nearly yanked her foot away.
"I can do it myself," Natasha protested hastily. He raised an eyebrow at her. "I can," she repeated more firmly.
"I have no doubt you can, busted shoulder and all," he murmured as he leaned over with the tweezers and plucked the first shard of glass from her skin. "But I can do it more easily." The Russian spy sat speechless as this strange American man held her leg in his steel grip and cleaned the grit, glass, and nylon shreds from her foot. She knew she could extricate her legs from his grasp but she was stunned to discover she didn't want to. The foreign experience of someone else taking care of her struck her dumb. She placated her Red Room trained brain by convincing herself she was gathering necessary intelligence on her captor. The truth that frightened her was that she liked the way this strange man made her feel.
The only sounds in the room were the air conditioner and the periodic clink of Clint dropping gravel and glass into the soap dish he had brought from the bathroom. His eyes flicked up to hers periodically. She wondered what he was thinking.
"Ok, this is going to sting," he warned her, as he sloshed the rubbing alcohol onto the soles of her feet. This time, she wasn't able to completely suppress her reaction, and a hiss of pain escaped her lips. "I'm-"
She cut him off. "Don't apologize. It wouldn't have hurt any less if I did it."
The corner of his mouth quirked up, and she saw the hint of a smile. "Knees are next." He moved up the bed and began excavating the nylon fibers, gravel, and glass fragments from her right knee and then her left. Natasha was aware of every square inch of her skin in contact with his. He was warm and solid, and she liked it far more than she should. His efforts were sure but gentle. "We're just about done except for the alcohol." He suddenly reached over and grabbed her left hand with his. "Squeeze as hard as you need to. Once more, with feeling," he said, dribbling the alcohol over her cuts with his right. The pain washed over her again, and she was again dumbfounded to find that the steadiness of his hand as she clenched it in her pain helped. What the hell was going on? He dropped her hand and swung his legs out from under hers. "I'm going to get a shower, and then you can hop in."
Twenty minutes later, Natasha emerged from the bathroom clad in the tank top and shorts that Clint had left out for her, still working a comb through the tangles in her hair. Clint was sitting cross-legged on the bed, clad only in a pair of gray boxer briefs, the open first aid kit in front of him. "Hey," he greeted her. She felt his eyes trace her form from toes to scalp. "Could you do me a favor?"
Well, so much for this man being different. She knew what men wanted after they gave her slender, fit body a once-over. "That would depend on what it is," she answered evenly, bracing herself for a proposition and disgusted with herself for feeling a stab of disappointment.
He turned away, pointing with his right thumb at his left shoulder blade. "One of the bullets nicked me, and I can't reach the wound. Could you clean it, and make sure there's nothing else I missed back there?"
Natasha's eyes widened in surprise. "Of course." After she cleaned and bandaged the wound, her eyes and fingers searched his back, tracing the irregular lines that cut across the otherwise smooth skin. "You have a lot of scars."
"I do," he agreed, and she realized she had spoken out loud.
After a slight hesitation, she decided to respond. "So do I."
"Comes with the territory," he agreed. They both sat in silence, her staring at the pattern of pain etched into his skin and thinking of her own. "So, our ticket out of here is at 0500 hours. We should get some sleep. I'll take the armchair. You can have the bed." Clint offered as he shifted to stand.
Natasha spoke without thinking. "That's not necessary. The bed is big enough for both of us."
Natasha opened her eyes to a dark room. Where am I? She listened to the AC unit run, and realized that she was lying in a bed with scratchy sheets. There was another body in front of her, and she was huddled against its back. Who am I with? The other person shifted and rolled over in their sleep, and she could just make out a man's rugged features in the dim light. Clint. She was in a queen size bed with the crazy American spy who had aimed an arrow at her head and chosen not to release. Not only that, but she had snuggled up to him until he moved. She got up to use the restroom, splash some water on her face, and clear her head. She laid back down in the bed, and heard a low, sleepy voice.
"You okay, 'Tasha?"
Tasha. She understood intellectually that nicknames could serve multiple purposes, but this one seemed to be borne of the strange familiarity that was growing inexplicably between herself and this man. "I'm okay." she confirmed.
"Good," he mumbled, throwing an arm over her and giving her almost a hug. "I like to keep my promises."
"Sorry I couldn't come up with anything better for you to wear," Clint apologized as he slung the duffel bag onto his shoulder. "I'm sure Coulson will be able to come up with something." Natasha shrugged. The baggy t-shirt and track suit would keep her warm and the slipper socks were better than her damaged, bare feet. He stopped at the door.
"One more thing. I didn't really tell my boss much other than I had decided to bring in an asset. There might be some...yelling. Possibly even swearing." Clint informed her nonchalantly.
"Wait," Natasha blurted. "I just want to know one thing."
"What's that?" Clint asked as he opened the door and scanned the hallway.
She mulled over how to ask the question a dozen different ways, and then simply used one word. "Why?"
His back still to her, Barton spoke slowly and thoughtfully. "I've seen eyes like yours before. Eyes that were...resigned to fate, but with a sliver of hope that there might still be redemption."
"Where?"
He looked back at her with those penetrating eyes. "My mirror."