proof, n.

definition: to make or declare something to be valid.

rating: k+

A/N: thank you to everyone who has followed/PMed/reviewed in the past several months! I get excited about every follow & favorite and I read every review and message. You guys really inspire me to write and I promise that I'm gonna update Distracted in Siberia soon! I have a ton of it written out in notebooks, it's just a matter of finding time to type it up, edit and post it. I'm in my senior year of high school so my life is pretty crazy. Anyways, here's a one shot I wrote a few days ago & I have another one lined up and ready to post so be on the lookout! :) Enjoy!

~Xx

White lights flashed before his eyes, and hot pain seared his chest.

"Barton."

So much pain. He craned his neck down, and saw nothing but warm, sticky red.

"Barton!"

So much blood. Someone had to clean it up. He shifted, and pain stabbed his chest again. He heard a cry like that of a wounded animal, then realized it was himself.

"Clint!"

This time, he focused on her. Her hair was like the blood that covered his chest, but shifting and moving and alive. There was a streak of blood next to her lips. He reached up to swipe it away and she caught his hand in hers.

"Stay still," she ordered, lowering his hand. Something tickled the back of his throat, and suddenly he couldn't stop coughing. His lungs burned and pain bloomed in his chest. When the coughing finally eased, he turned weakly to the side and spit out a gob of blood. He collapsed onto his back again and caught a look on Natasha's face, one he didn't see often, but was nonetheless familiar with.

"Hey, you don't gotta worry about me, Natasha," Clint said, his voice raspy. Natasha didn't respond, but pressed her lips together and frowned a little deeper as she grabbed his wrist to check his pulse for the hundredth time.

"Hey." Clint watched Natasha, waiting until he caught her eye. "Told you so."

Natasha froze.

"Told you I would take a bullet for you."

"Clint. Don't." She wasn't checking his pulse anymore; she was squeezing his hand so tightly he could feel his fingers turning blue. "Clint, taking a bullet for someone doesn't mean you have to die. Exfil's on the way. You just have to hang on a little longer."

Clint's lips felt heavy, and it took all his effort just to get out the words. "Dying is the point of taking a bullet for someone else."

"Clint-"

"Tasha, please." It was getting harder to breathe. He forced his eyes open just to see her. Blood was still stained beneath her lower lip, and he reached forward to wipe it from her face but left more of it streaking down to her jaw. "Let me do this for you."

####

Natasha sat with her head in her hands, elbows propped up on her knees. She sat that way a lot these days. Ever since Clint had taken a bullet for her. And since that day, her mind wouldn't keep still. Not that she wasn't always thinking, analyzing things, reading people. This was different. This was just noise. Why? Why? Why did he do it? Why would he? Why did he think she deserved it? It drowned out everything else, and she couldn't stop it.

"Hey."

Natasha's head snapped up, and for a moment everything stopped. Then her face contorted its features into an expression she hadn't had reason to use for a while: a smirk. "Barton, you're an idiot."

Clint, even in a hospital bed with all the wires and tubes and machines surrounding him, chuckled, and his blue eyes crinkled. Natasha's chest ached. She'd missed that sound and those eyes.

"How long has it been?" Clint asked, his voice low and scratchy with underuse.

"Six weeks plus a few days," Natasha responded simply. "Bullet wasn't the only thing that got you. You also received several HYDRA boots to the head before I got to you."

Clint grimaced. "Did you give 'em hell?"

"I did."

"Good."

There was a short pause, then Natasha couldn't hold it in any longer. All the thoughts from the past six weeks came pouring out in a flood of jumbled emotions. "Damn you Barton, why did you do it?"

Clint's smile faded, replaced by little frown lines on his forehead. "Why wouldn't I have? We work for SHIELD, and that means, plain and simple, that we are a shield. It's my job to be the last line of defense."

"So you're saying you would, what - throw your life away the first time a bad guy aims at a good guy and pulls the trigger?" Natasha felt herself growing angry. "That makes no sense, Barton. People die. That's the job. That's life."

"And I'm saying it's my job to make sure life's not always that way for everyone," Clint responded, the frown lines growing deeper. "Natasha, I won't always get the opportunity to take the bullet for someone, but if I can, then I sure as hell will."

"Why?" Natasha demanded. "That makes no sense, Barton. Why trade your life for a anyone else's?"

"Because it's my damn job, Nat," Clint responded sharply. "Doesn't mean it's easy. Doesn't mean I want to." He looked fiercely at her, almost daring her to argue with him again. It surprised her for some reason. Maybe she hadn't expected him to feel so strongly that he should die in place of someone else. Maybe she hadn't expected him to be so honest with her.

"You took one for me, though," Natasha murmured.

"So?"

"So… no one's ever done anything so stupid for me before. I want to know why."

Clint shrugged. "With you, it's not so hard. I guess you make me want to do stupid things."

And looking at him now, putting herself in his place, somehow Natasha understood. She would have done the same thing. And she wasn't sure why, because that one feeling went against everything she'd been trained for.