Chapter title from Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.
Coulson's there when he steps off the jet and onto the landing strip. The Helicarrier's on the water again and there's a mist of salty spray in the air as Clint walks across the deck and grins when he sees Coulson smile. He flings his good arm around him without any warning, and laughs when Coulson actually pats his back, careful not to jolt the arm that's in a sling.
"I didn't know you missed me that much," Coulson says when he pulls away, a wry smirk in place. Clint grins.
"What can I say? I've got a soft spot for you, Phil."
"Get inside, Barton," Coulson orders, but he's smiling. "Director Fury wants to see you immediately on the bridge."
"Of course he does," Clint sighs. "Where's Nat?" He already knows – there's only one reason why she wouldn't have turned up to welcome him back.
"On a mission," Coulson confirms. "She'll be back by the end of the week. You can surprise her."
"I'd like that," Clint smiles and runs his fingertips along the cool metal wall as they go inside. "It is good to be back."
When Natasha does get back, he waits on the deck for her the way Coulson had waited for him, and when she sees him she walks over as fast as she can without actually running, because Natasha's all about dignity and control. He thinks she's about to hug him a split second before he realises what she's actually going to do, and he doesn't have time to dodge or block the slap she delivers to his face with punishing force.
"Ow!" he shouts, staring at her and clutching his cheek like it'll lessen the sting. "What the hell? What was that for?"
"I hate surprises," she says, shrugging like it's obvious. "You should've called me on the plane."
"Damn!" he says, looking down at her and turning away slightly, ready to deflect another blow if it comes. "I'll warn you next time, jeez."
"You do that," she says, and then she hugs him, smiling into his shoulder and wrapping her arms tight around his middle. It's late, so they go straight to his new room (his old one has been given to someone else because he's been away for so long) and catch up. They talk for hours – Clint tells her all about the painful process of infiltrating AIM from the ground up, she tells him about the difference between the level five and level four security clearance and really carving a space for herself in SHIELD. He's impressed and proud, and for a while they just sit on his bed and breathe. He sighs and slides down the wall to lie down, and after a moment she lays half on top of him, her spine against the side of his chest. "I'm glad you're back," she says quietly, and he lifts his good hand to run through her hair.
"Ditto."
"I don't know if I've ever told you, but I'm glad you recruited me."
Clint smiles and massages her scalp gently with his fingertips. "I'm glad you came."
She pauses for a long moment before speaking again. "Why did you offer? You didn't do it to get into my pants."
Clint laughs and drags his fingers through her hair from root to tip, thinking for a moment. "I wasn't sure at the time, really," he says slowly, "I read up on you before I left, and I watched you while I was there, and you had…I don't know, potential? Something different, at least. You were better than anyone else I'd ever seen. Killing you would've been such a waste, I guess. I don't know how else to put it, really."
"A waste of what?" she asks after a moment. "Of my skills?"
Clint frowns. "No. I don't know, a waste of everything? Like killing the last tiger in the world for no reason."
"You had a reason. I was interfering with the Zodiac operation."
Clint shrugs, awkwardly with her weight on top of him. "Reason wasn't good enough."
She's silent for a long minute, and he just keeps running his hand through her hair. She turns suddenly on top of him and presses her lips to his. "Thank you," she says quietly, and pulls away. "See you tomorrow?"
"You'll knock me on my ass," he recovers and grins, sitting up as she gets off the bed and goes to the door. "I haven't been training properly for…well, the whole mission."
The smile that spreads across Natasha's face can only be described as evil, and he groans. "I'll go easy on you, agent," she smirks.
"You're such a liar!" he snorts. "And besides, your idea of easy does not equate with my idea of easy."
"That's because you're a soft baby," she grins, and he pulls a face at her. She leaves on a laugh and closes the door firmly behind her, and he touches his fingers to his lips and wonders what they're doing.
Natasha told him not to overthink anything after they kissed for the first time, and he tries not to, he really does, but it's difficult. Thinking situations through is something he just does, the same way he scrutinises people to understand what makes them tick. It's part of what makes him such an excellent assassin and marksman. He's a good judge of personality – that's even in his file. But Natasha's someone he's never been able to get a proper hold on, and that makes this part of their relationship an unsteady, uncertain thing in his mind. He trusts her with his life, and he's told her more about himself than anyone except Coulson, but he doesn't know what they're doing when they lie on his bed together and hold each other like lovers.
They don't take their clothes off. They don't leave marks. They're gentle with each other, the way they're never gentle with anyone else. She kisses him like she's drinking from a well, savouring every moment and letting him wash over her. He kisses her like she's the only thing in his world. He spreads his hands over her hips and back (never breasts, never anything below her waist) and learns what the curve of her spine feels like under his palm.
He doesn't know what any of that means.
He drops his head into his hands and pushes his fingers through his hair. He knows he won't talk to her about it. And this is one of the only things he can't talk to Coulson about. He sighs and gets to his feet to change out of his uniform. He's tired, and the kicking Natasha's going to give him tomorrow will feel even worse if he doesn't get any sleep.
x
For some reason, the New Year party becomes a huge occasion. Clint isn't sure why, but after his tenth drink he doesn't really care, and he destroys everyone else when they play beer pong. He ends up banished from the table, and he finds Coulson leaning against the wall with a glass in his hand and an amused smile on his face.
"What're you so smug about?" Clint asks, stumbling against the wall. Coulson gives him a once-over and raises an eyebrow. Clint straightens and tries to pretend that he didn't just fall against the wall because he would've fallen on his face otherwise.
"I'm not smug," Coulson says, looking back at the space they've cleared in the common room for dancing. "I'm just wondering how many knives Agent Romanoff has concealed on her person."
Clint leans forward and narrows his eyes. Natasha's swaying on the edge of the floor with a man he recognises from the bridge. "At least five," he decides finally.
"I can count seven." Coulson smiles at him, and Clint grins back.
"You're awesome. Did you know that?"
"I've been notified, yes."
"Who notified you?"
"Oh, a number of people. Director Fury has commented on occasion that I'm practically invaluable."
"Practically?"
Coulson shrugs. "No one's completely invaluable."
Clint narrows his eyes. "You are. You are very invallible. Invaluable. I'd watch out, Phil. Fury has laser vision. He could kill you."
Coulson looks like he's trying not to laugh. "Director Fury could kill anyone, I'm sure. I don't plan to make it onto his list though, so I think you can stop worrying."
"I wasn't worrying," Clint hastens to say, "I was just pointing out that your life could be in danger. You can handle yourself, we all know that. It's just that Fury's tricky. I can't get a lock on him, y'know? You, him, and Natasha. Only people I can't get a decent lock on."
"What does that mean?" Coulson sounds interested, so Clint comes a little closer so he won't have to speak so loudly to be heard over the music. He ends up having to put a hand on Coulson's shoulder to steady himself, but they both pretend not to notice that.
"Well see, I can read people pretty easily most times. Not that difficult. I can suss out what makes 'em tick, y'know? What makes 'em act like they do. 'M a good judge of character, says so in my file. I've seen my file."
"You've seen part of your file," Coulson corrects him. Clint pauses to take that in, momentarily scandalised.
"You mean there're secret things about me I'm not allowed to see?"
"You work for a shadowy government-funded organisation," Coulson says dryly, "what did you expect?"
Clint considers this. "Good point. Okay, one to you. But anyway, I'm good at reading people, and I can't read you guys so well. Natasha's like…got more layers than Shrek. Who has layers like an onion. Because, you know. Ogres. They're like onions. You seen that movie?"
"No."
"I'll make you watch it at some point. My point is, Natasha's got a billion layers. I don't know if she knows about all of them. Because of all the brain-fiddling they did to her in the Red Room, y'know?"
"Does 'classified information' mean anything to you, Barton?"
"Yes, sir," Clint grins and then goes on. "So Natasha's got all these layers, and Fury's just…tricky, like I said. He's running the most covert security operation on the planet, so he's…I don't know how to say it. Like, he can operate on loads of different levels and see how everything fits together and manip…manipulate the way it all goes. He's also old as balls and he doesn't look like he is, which puts me on edge, I'll be honest with you."
"How do you know he's older than he looks?" Coulson frowns.
Clint snorts. "Isn't everyone on this boat? Nah, it's the way he works and moves and talks. I can't explain it. And he's mentioned things that're too old for him to have been involved in significantly, but he talks about them like he was involved significantly. Tip-off. And then there's you, and I just can't get a lock on you at all. Like," he pulls back and gestures with his hands, "at all."
"Is my cool exterior that good?" Coulson smiles slightly, and Clint waves a hand at his face.
"See, that's what I'm talking about! You're so cool all the time. You're like the ehpee-tome of cool, and –"
"Epitome."
Clint pauses and sways slightly. They both pretend not to notice. "What?"
"Isn't that what you were trying to say? Epitome?"
Clint narrows his eyes. "Ee, pee, aye, tee, oh, em, ee?"
"That's the one."
"How'd you pronounce it?"
"Epitome."
Clint mouths it to himself slowly. Eh-pi-toh-me. "Shit. That sucks."
"Problem?"
"Well, I knew what it meant, but I've only ever seen it written down before. Jeez, I hope I've never done that in front of anyone else." He shakes his head and comes to lean heavily against the wall next to Coulson again. "That'd be awkward."
"One minute to midnight!" someone shrieks, and Clint peers out across the room.
"Shit. I wonder if I'm supposed to kiss Natasha."
Coulson looks at him. "Supposed to?"
Clint waves a hand and keeps staring. "We have this thing we do where we kiss, but it isn't exactly romantic, but it's not normal friendship either, and I have no idea what it is, but I kinda like it and Natasha told me not to overthink it, so I try not to."
Coulson seems to consider this, and then starts looking for Natasha as well through the crowd that is pairing off in preparation for the countdown. He finds her much faster than Clint. "There," he says, pointing.
Clint narrows his eyes and nods. "Nice. Ever considered going back into fieldwork?"
"Too messy."
Clint grins. "You would say that. Leave all the dirty work to us grunts, huh?"
"I think she's trying to catch your eye," Coulson nods to Natasha. Clint glances over and gives her a quizzical look, asking without words if she wants him to come over. She jerks her head at the guy she's dancing with, who's got a hand on her waist and a shy smile on his lips, and she smirks and shakes her head. Clint shrugs and salutes.
"She's snagged someone already."
"Twenty seconds!" someone yells.
"You staying here?" Clint looks at Coulson, who lifts his glass.
"I don't plan on going anywhere else."
"Good." Clint settles comfortably against the wall and smiles. "I'll keep you company then."
"I'm not kissing you, Barton."
"You wound me, sir."
People start counting down from ten, and as midnight strikes, Clint presses a button in his pocket that makes several devices he cobbled together earlier explode and shoot confetti and party popper streamers into the air. He laughs, and Coulson shakes his head with a small smile, and they lean against the wall and watch the other people kiss.
x
The good times end in exactly two weeks.
Clint's just out of a briefing for a mission that will involve tying up some of his loose ends from the AIM operation when his phone rings. "Yo," he says, flipping it open.
"Barton, bridge, now," says Coulson sharply, and hangs up before Clint can reply. He slides the phone back in his pocket and runs, because this is clearly an emergency. Natasha appears as he's going down the second flight of stairs, and they meet other agents on the way, all hurrying as much as they are.
Fury's standing on his little podium, a very grim expression on his face. He motions for everyone to stand around the large table. Coulson's in one of the trenches between the raised walkways, leaning over the shoulder of one of the surveillance guys.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Fury says, drawing Clint's attention back to him. "We are in a situation. This morning Tony Stark was in Afghanistan doing a weapon demonstration. He is, as of this moment, missing in action." There's a stir among the assembled agents and personnel, and Clint glances at Natasha, who gives nothing away in her face. "Mr Stark's convoy was attacked, and his body has not been discovered in the wreckage. Nobody has any idea where he is, or who took him. I need every available agent working on this right now. You will be assigned handlers, and briefed, and I want as many people on the ground working this job as possible. If you have contacts, use them. I don't care if they're legit or not. If they could yield any information at all, you have my permission to utilise any shady sources at your disposal. Stark needs to be found, and he needs to be found now. Dismissed." He turns away and beckons Coulson over.
Agent Hill walks up to the table and makes a sharp gesture. "Form a line," she barks, "I'll assign you to your handlers."
She starts calling out names, and Clint leans in close to Natasha to murmur in her ear, "Lot of fuss, huh?"
"You ever look at the name on the guns you fire?" she whispers back. "Stark Industries makes the most advanced weapons in the world, and they don't come from a team of engineers – they come from Tony Stark's brain. Without him, the company withers and the weapons with it. Fury uses a lot of Stark tech."
"Who do you think took him?"
"Afghanistan?" she shoots him a flat look. "Who do you think?"
He nods and stands to his attention as his name is called. He's assigned to Sitwell's group, and he looks around at the others as he goes over. Everyone has their game-faces on, blank and expressionless, professional to the death. There have been rumours for a while about the Ten Rings establishing advanced, organised cells in Afghanistan, and it's more than likely that this is their work. Clint doesn't fancy Stark's chances of getting out alive. The odds are good that he's dead already. Clint takes the folder that Sitwell hands him and shuts everything else out as he starts to learn about Tony Stark, CEO of Stark Industries and genius of the age, currently lost in a desert controlled by one of the most dangerous terrorist groups on SHIELD's radar.
x
"I am so over this guy," Clint grumbles to Natasha, three months after Stark's disappearance. She grunts in agreement and hands him a coffee from the machine in the hallway. They're both in the California base, collaborating with other specialists there. Neither of them have been heavily involved in the Ten Rings operations in the past (Clint's big-picture jobs have been on the Zodiac Cartel and AIM, Natasha's focus has been turned to HYDRA), so they're working in the offices for the time being, relaying sensitive information and crunching data. Even though this isn't their job usually, they're among the only ones qualified to handle the information being passed to them.
"He's dead for sure by now," Clint continues, taking a sip of his coffee and pulling a face – the machine's so old it only serves the drinks lukewarm now. "I mean, he was dead for sure the moment he was taken, but the way his people are stringing this out is just ridiculous."
"They're certainly more determined than anyone else," Natasha agrees, eyes narrowed on her computer screen. Clint scowls at his own and rubs his forehead.
"You hear that guy Rhodes has pulled in another favour and got himself a couple of choppers to patrol? He's going behind his superior's backs to negotiate for the airspace to fly the damn things. What the hell is with that? And that damn Potts woman is backing him up to the last gasp."
"She's going behind Stane to do it as well," Natasha says quietly. Clint frowns.
"Stane?"
"Obadiah Stane? Takes control of Stark Industries in Stark's absence? Were you awake in any of those briefings?"
"Briefings that don't come attached with a kill order send me to sleep, you know that."
"Stark doesn't have many friends, but he seems to have made a lasting impression on those two at least."
"Would you give up on me if I vanished into Ten Rings territory?" Clint asks, leaning back in his chair to smile at her. She looks away from her screen and thinks for a moment.
"I think I'd assume you were dead," she says thoughtfully, "but I'd rather have the confirmation of a body. If they didn't give one up, I'd assume you were alive."
"You're saying you think Stark's alive?"
"There are several key differences between you and Tony Stark," Natasha smirks.
"I'm not the kind of rich that lets me turn up late to a meeting with the president," Clint agrees. They all know far too much about Stark's life now. Clint doesn't know whether he admires the man's cocky assurance and bold disdain of everything that doesn't hold his interest, or dislikes him for being such an arrogant douchebag.
"You're also an agent of SHIELD," Natasha says, looking forward again, but not leaning forward to read whatever's on her screen. She frowns into the middle distance instead. "And a soldier before that. You know what it's like to be in a situation out of your control where you know you might not survive. You know what it feels like to be attacked, and you know how to attack back. You've killed people. Stark's may have a lot of military connections, but he's a businessman, not a soldier. You know how well businessmen like Stark hold up under life-threatening pressure like that?"
"Not well?"
"Most of the ones I've seen have turned into bawling wrecks who can't so much as string a sentence together." She only just manages to keep the disdain from her voice. "Stark's lived a sheltered life. Even if he is alive, he'll be a broken man if he's ever fished out of that desert. The only reason so many people care at all is because he's filthy rich and produces the best weapons in the world."
"And his PA and Rhodes care why?"
"Maybe they've both slept with him," Natasha shrugs. Clint makes a considering face. After reading about Stark's numerous conquests, it's not that far-fetched a conclusion to draw.
"Either way," Clint goes back to squinting at his screen, "I'll just be glad when someone finds his body. The paperwork this is generating makes me feel sorry for Coulson."
"Good to know you care," Coulson's voice comes from behind him, and Clint doesn't have time to turn around when Coulson leans over him and does something to make everything on the screen a little bigger. It's much easier to read, and Clint sighs when Coulson straightens up.
"You are the best person I have ever known. And I know I don't tell you that enough, but it's so true."
Coulson smiles and nods at Natasha when she turns around as well. "Anything new?"
"Rhodes has snagged himself a couple of choppers," Clint tells him, "and he keeps trying to negotiate for more airspace to patrol the area where Stark might be."
Coulson sighs and shakes his head. Natasha tilts her head. "Professional opinion, sir?"
"We're wasting our time," Coulson says simply. "There isn't a chance in hell that Stark is still alive. Our focus now is on why the Ten Rings feels the need to keep his body, and what they were planning with this kidnap in the first place."
"I thought we all agreed they wanted Stark to build shit for them," Clint glances at Natasha, who shrugs one-shouldered.
"Nothing's come out of the desert yet," Coulson shrugs, "and to be honest, I don't think a civilian like Stark would survive this long in a hostage situation with the Ten Rings. Barton, email me a report of Rhodes' latest moves. Natasha, go through the files from section A, subdivision 4G again. Let me know if anything new turns up."
They both murmur, "Yes, sir," and get back to work, drinking bitter coffee and straining their eyes at computer screens. They both know there isn't a single person in SHIELD who still believes Tony Stark is still breathing.
x
"He's alive!"
Clint jerks awake and makes an angry sound as his legs get caught in the duvet. "What the –"
"It's Tony Stark! They found him! Come on – we've got to get on this!" Clint recognises Jamie Low just as he leaves his room, the door still open.
"What the fuck?" Clint snarls, stumbling to his feet and stepping out into the corridor. Jamie's making his way down the line, waking everyone up. "Jamie! What the hell?"
"Tony Stark's alive," Jamie turns to him, too excited for this time of night. Clint leans back into his room to check the time on his alarm clock – it's just gone five am.
"Were you on the night shift?" he asks, rubbing his eyes.
"Yeah. Stark's alive – get dressed, Fury's issued a general alert."
Clint growls and moves past Jamie to Natasha's room. He knocks before trying the handle. It's locked, of course. "Nat? Natasha, wake up!"
There's a noise, and then the lock clicks and Natasha opens the door a crack, squinting up into Clint's face. He pretends not to notice the knife in her hand. "This had better be good," she hisses.
"Tony Stark's alive," he tells her bluntly. "Fury's got us all up for some reason."
"He's alive," she says in a flat voice. "Confirmed?"
Clint looks back up the hall. "Jamie?"
Jamie looks around and just avoids a shoe thrown at his head from the room he's just opened the door to. "Yeah?"
"This is confirmed?"
He grins and ducks as the first shoe's twin comes flying out to join it. "Oh yeah. Come on – we're needed in the main hall in five minutes."
Natasha curses in Russian and closes her door. Clint drags his hands through his hair and goes back to his room to get dressed. It's only as he pulls a shirt on that it really sinks in – Stark's actually alive. He's suddenly very glad he didn't join in on the betting pool that had formed around a week after he was first captured. He definitely wouldn't have put money on anything more than a corpse coming out of the desert.
It turns out that Tony Stark came out as much, much more than a corpse. Clint stands with the other agents in the California base, Natasha at his side, and listens to Fury over the speaker. According to Fury's sources, a massive explosion was sighted in the Hisar mountain range, and Rhodes was on the situation before anyone else. They located Stark, several miles away from the site of the explosion, wandering alone in the desert with nothing but the clothes on his back.
"What we know from that point on is nothing but speculation," Fury's voice was hard over the line, "your handlers will keep you up to date on what you all need to be doing, but my general order is to squeeze any contacts you have left to find out what exactly went down today. I want to know how the hell an unarmed civilian under guard by the Ten Rings managed to escape and blow up everyone who was anywhere near him in the process. Get to it, ladies and gentlemen!"
Clint exchanges a look with Natasha, who shrugs and goes off to join her handler. Clint sighs and searches for Sitwell in the crowd.
When Stark makes the announcement that he's shutting down the weapons division of Stark Industries in the press conference he calls as soon as he gets back on American soil, Clint nudges Natasha. "Maybe not broken," he says quietly, "but definitely cracked."
x
Clint's in Malibu a few months later, tying up the last of the loose ends from his AIM operations, when there's a massive explosion that wipes out the power in most of the city. Clint pulls over and calls Coulson immediately, because he knows Coulson's in Malibu on a job – they took the same plane out and Clint laughed when Coulson bitched about how Stark kept avoiding his attempts to debrief him. When Coulson doesn't pick up, Clint turns off the engine and has to pause for a moment to compose himself.
"Chill out, Clint," he mutters, dialling Natasha's number instead, "just because he isn't answering his phone doesn't mean he's in trouble. Just because he's always picked up before doesn't mean he's hurt. Okay. Calm down. Natasha?"
"What?" she sounds out of breath, and he frowns.
"Training?"
"I'm in the gym, yeah. What? Aren't you meant to be in Malibu?"
"I am. Turn on the news – there was just a massive explosion. Natasha, Coulson isn't picking up."
"How many times did you try calling him?"
"…once."
"Try again. If he doesn't pick up, call me back."
"Okay," he hangs up and tries Coulson again. Still nothing. He swallows and calls Natasha back. "No answer."
"The explosion was on Stark Industries campus," Natasha informs him, and he can hear other people around her, talking excitedly. "Looks like the arc reactor malfunctioned or overloaded or something."
"The what?"
"It's a clean energy source. Not in wide-spread effect because it isn't cost effective. And now it's up in flames. There was also an incident on the freeway nearby…some sort of giant robot battle?" she sounds puzzled, and Clint raises his eyebrows.
"Did someone call Optimus Prime yet? If this is a Decepticon attack, I don't think we're ready for it."
"Ha ha," she says distractedly. "Peters!" she calls someone over and Clint hangs up and tries Coulson again. There's still no answer, and he tries not to think of the explosion. Natasha calls him and barks down the line, "Coulson was at the campus."
Clint doesn't wait to hear her repeat it. He guns the engine and starts breaking traffic laws. "Fury?"
"Notified. Clean-up crew's already on their way, press jockeys in place trying to control the damage. Apparently Stark himself is involved."
"Surprise, surprise," Clint growls and cuts someone off as he screams round a corner and slams his foot down. "What the hell was Coulson doing there?"
"No idea, but he wasn't alone. Team of five behind him, so he's not without backup."
"He isn't answering his phone." Clint tries not to sound too panicked, but Natasha picks it up anyway.
"Clint, he'll be fine. Coulson's come through worse than this. Maybe his phone's broken."
"That thing is made of titanium or some shit, he never goes anywhere without it." There's no one guarding the gate to the Stark Industries campus, so Clint jerks to a stop and leaves the car running while he goes through the guard's booth. It isn't difficult to find the arc reactor building – the smoke coming off it is thick, black, and can probably be seen from space.
"You there?" Natasha asks.
"Yeah. I'll call you back."
"You'd better."
Clint tries calling Coulson one more time, but still doesn't get an answer. As he's running over, he meets the SHIELD clean-up crew coming from the opposite direction. "Report," he yells. The leader squints at him until he shows her his badge, and then she nods and directs her team with her hands as she speaks.
"Team of six agents accompanied Stark's PA to this site not long ago. They were attacked by some sort of robot, and a smaller robot took it out on the roof by overloading the arc reactor. We think. Four of our team survived, two of them have sustained injuries, non-fatal. Civilian Pepper Potts is unharmed; Tony Stark is on the roof."
A woman's voice screams, "Tony!" from above, and the clean-up leader barks an order at two of her subordinates, who quickly go to check it out.
"Someone call for a medical team for Stark," she snaps over her shoulder.
"The team, our agents," Clint says urgently, "where are they?"
"Round the corner," she says, and he tells himself he'll thank her later as he sprints away. Let Coulson be okay, he thinks. Let him be alive.
He almost falls on his face, he turns the corner at such a speed, and the relief that hits him nearly bowls him over anyway, because Coulson is there. He's rumpled, and his suit is covered in dust, but he's fine. He turns to see Clint and frowns. "Barton," he says, waving a hand at a paramedic trying to give him a shock blanket, "what are you doing here?"
Clint lets out a long breath and laughs. "Tying up loose ends, remember? Is your phone broken?"
Coulson scowls. "It's still inside the building."
Clint only just manages to stop himself from giggling like a breathless kid and pulls his own phone out to call Natasha. "He's here," he says right away, "he's fine."
"Put him on," she says in a hard voice. Clint grins and holds the phone out to Coulson, who takes it with a roll of his eyes.
"Yes," he says, "yes, I'm fine, no injuries, barely a bruise. Two of my team were killed; two more have sustained minor injuries. Stevens and Giannoni. Yes. I am aware of that. No, Stark's…really? I see. Thank you." He holds the phone out and Clint takes it.
"I think he knows we were worried about him," he says, grinning at Coulson, who shakes his head and turns away to talk to the medical team.
"Stark was the small robot," Natasha tells him quickly. "Stane was the big one. And they weren't actually robots – they're some kind of advanced suit."
"Stane?"
"Obadiah Stane, trying to muscle Stark out of his company?"
"Oh yeah."
"Keep up," she sighs. "That's how Stark escaped in Afghanistan – he built himself a suit and flew out."
"After blowing the place sky-high."
"Uh huh. And Stane was actually involved with that somehow, but he built his own copycat suit when Stark got back."
"And they decided to fight for the company or something?"
"No idea. Hang around and get back to me if you hear anything new. I'll call you if I get anything."
"Will do." Clint hangs up and looks over at Coulson. He'll care more about Stevens and Giannoni later, but for now he's still riding high on relief. Coulson's okay. Not a scratch on him. Clint lets out a huge sigh and goes over to see if they can use his help with anything. Coulson's okay. Everything will always be fine as long as Coulson's okay.
x
"Worst week of all time." Clint flops heavily into the couch in the Helicarrier common room and sighs. Natasha glares at him.
"Not compared to mine. You got the pretty Norse god who turned out to be a friendly. I got two Hulk attacks. And you had Coulson with you."
"Actually, Coulson had me. And my week was made especially irritating because the end of it was so boring, and I was called in from my first week off ever."
"Spare me," Natasha says witheringly. "I had to deal with Tony Stark the self-destructive billionaire, and the Hulk. I win." Clint opens his mouth to argue, and she lifts a threatening finger. "I got Fury to snap, and he yelled at me. He got me to sit in on one of his conferences with the World Security Council. I win."
He absorbs this and then slumps back into the couch. "Yeah, fine, you win."
"I am close to being a hundred percent sure that I will never have a more stressful week in my life," she says, closing her eyes. "How was New Mexico, by the way?"
"Dusty. Had more scientists than you might've imagined."
"Yeah?"
"One of them was actually called Dr Foster, not even kidding. And oh, aliens exist, and they're actually deities. Who knew?"
Natasha shrugs and closes her eyes. "No sparring tonight. Let's watch a movie."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Something soft. Something with animals."
"For a deadly assassin, you have the weirdest taste in movies."
"You have no taste in movies," she gives him a withering look. "How many times have you even been to the cinema?"
Clint pauses and thinks. "Fewer than ten," he admits after a while, and she snorts. He glares at her. "You've been more?"
"Of course," she stretches slowly and gets to her feet. "After I got out," she means the Red Room, Clint's heard her refer to her escape like that often enough to know, "I decided to catch up on what everyone else was doing. I've been to the cinema at least once in every country in Europe."
"Show off," he grunts, and holds out his hand for her to pull him to his feet. "Fine. Something with animals."
They end up watching The Rescuers, and if Clint finds himself enjoying it, well, no one but Natasha will know, and they spend most of the movie telling each other more about the worst week SHIELD's had in living memory in more detail.
"How did I not know the Hulk was green?" Clint throws his hands in the air. "I feel like that idiot at the party who's the last to know his crush is making out with his enemy."
Natasha raises an eyebrow. "Do you have a thing for giant green muscles that you've been keeping hidden?"
"No," Clint grumbles, "but I wish I'd known he was green. Sheesh. That's got to be really noticeable."
"To be honest, it was the last thing on my mind," Natasha admits dryly. She tells him about Mr Blue the mutated doctor, who has Banner's blood in him, and he tells her about Dr Foster's vendetta against the agents who'd returned her equipment.
"She's a slave driver," he says, half an eye on the laptop screen where the alligators were playing the organ. "Her assistant was nice though."
"Darcy, right?"
"Yeah. She bullied us about giving her iPod back though. And then teased me about not having one."
"Well your mp3 player is a little out of date."
"I can't replace it until it breaks," Clint argues. He can't stand unnecessary waste. "She was nice though. Once we gave all her equipment back, they both were. I think SHIELD's recruiting Selvig for something. Fury's putting me on some sort of surveillance mission soon concerning him."
"He's a threat?"
Clint shrugs. "No idea. Pretty sure it's something to do with the alien tech we got though."
"They'll try and weaponize it," Natasha points out.
"Who can blame them?" Clint looks at her. "That thing wiped out half the town in seconds. The firepower it generated was insane. It almost killed Coulson and the others when it landed."
"Ohhhh," Natasha smirks at him and he frowns.
"What?"
"Nothing," she looks back at the screen, smirk still in place, "just understanding your dislike of the – what did you call it? The Destroyer?"
"Yeah," Clint glares at her. "And hey, of course I'm pissed at it. Sitwell was seriously injured."
"As long as Coulson was alright," she breaks into a grin.
He flicks her head and then rubs his hand through her hair. "Shut up."
She hums and doesn't say another word, nudging his hand with her head to indicate to him to keep going. They end up falling asleep together on his bed, but it's comfortable, and she kisses him with a smile before she leaves the next morning.
x
Clint has no idea where Coulson finds the time to keep in shape as well as do everything else that he does, but every active SHIELD agent is required to be physically prepared for combat at all times, and Coulson logs the mandatory number of hours in the gym and training room (Clint's checked). Despite all the time he's spent on the Helicarrier and at various other bases with Coulson, he's never seen the man in anything but a suit. Occasionally he'll put a SHIELD vest on for a combat situation, but rarely more than that.
Clint's bored while Natasha's away on some mission or another, waiting for his next posting, so he makes it his temporary mission to see Coulson in action. It's much harder than it should be, but for once Clint hangs out in the training room more than the range (in which he spends at leastfour hours a day when he's not on a mission), and is eventually rewarded. A thrill goes through him when he sees Coulson walk in from the changing rooms, but he pretends not to see and keeps sparring with Agent Dobbs. He has to stay in there for another hour before Coulson takes off his sweatshirt, and Clint almost gets punched in the face because he's so busy recovering from the fact that Coulson keeps arms under his neat suit sleeves. Who knew?
He breaks off eventually, out of breath and sweating heavily. He's been working himself harder because of all the time he's been spending in the training room recently. Dobbs collapses on the chair next to him and whistles. "Good bout."
"Not bad," Clint agrees, trying to get his breath back.
"Told you…I could beat you," Dobbs grins and Clint shoves him with his shoulder.
"Whatever…how much do I…owe you?"
"Twenty bucks."
"Asshole."
"Whiner."
Clint wheezes a laugh and hangs his head, feelings his pulse beginning to slow down. "You off?"
"Aren't you?" Dobbs gets to his feet and starts stretching. "I need a shower, man."
Clint sighs and gets up to stretch as well. "In a bit. Might…say hi to Coulson."
They both look over to where Coulson is sparring gently with an agent Clint can't remember the name of, a middle-aged man with dark skin. "See you later then," Dobbs says, punching his shoulder before turning for the changing rooms. Clint keeps half an eye on Coulson as he continues to stretch. The ache in his muscles is deep, but good, the kind of pain that lets him know he's done well. He keeps at it until Coulson finishes his bout, pinning his opponent down for a couple of seconds and releasing him with a wide smile before helping him up. Clint takes the opportunity to go over and grin.
"I can't believe I've never seen you in here," he says, and Coulson sighs, slightly out of breath.
"Barton, you're not actually here all that often."
"Yeah," Clint shrugs, "but when I am here I don't do much but move back and forth between here and the range. Speaking of the range, and shooting, do you know if R&D is talking to me yet? I'm running low on special arrows."
"You broke into their labs and stole equipment," Coulson reminds him sternly. Clint grins, wide and unrepentant.
"They were going too slow – and hey, it's not like my flare arrows didn't work."
"It wasn't necessary to demonstrate it when they came looking for you," Coulson narrows his eyes, but Clint just laughs. The flares had worked as a perfect distraction so that he could get away.
"They're still not talking to me then?"
"They're busy working on the Destroyer," Coulson tells him.
Clint opens his mouth, but before he can speak Coulson's phone rings. "You keep that on you when you're training?"
"Of course," Coulson flicks his thumb across the screen. "Coulson." Clint frowns when he inhales sharply and goes to the side of the room where his sweatshirt is. He picks it up with one hand and beckons for Clint to follow him, which he does, slightly bemused and more than a little concerned.
His mind goes instantly to Natasha, and he swallows the questions in his throat down to wait for Coulson to finish. Natasha very rarely gets herself into bad situations, so when it does happen it sets Clint on edge more than almost anything else. "Okay," Coulson says into the phone, leading the way out of the training room, "I understand. Initiate a retrieval immediately, code delta. No. Whoever's closest. Go, now." He hangs up and quickens his pace. "It's Natasha," he tells Clint, whose stomach clenches. "She's injured, but she has the information she went for."
"She in the wind?"
"No. Ten Rings operatives are on her tail, close behind."
"Where is she?"
"Classified. But a team's on its way. Should get to her in under an hour."
"Anything we can do?"
"Coordinate the retrieval; get in contact with her if possible. Her radio's down."
Clint clenches his fists. "I can't do anything, can I?"
"No," Coulson says honestly, "but I thought you'd want to know."
"Thanks." They stop at the top of the flight of stairs that leads to the deck the bridge is on. "I'll be in the range."
"I'll keep you posted," Coulson promises, and they part ways. All of Clint's good feelings are gone – he's tense again, jittery and itching to lash out at something. Shooting will calm him down.
He hasn't booked a slot, but the supervisor likes him. She smiles when he approaches and waves him ahead into the quiet section, reserved for weapons that aren't firearms. There are two women there already, throwing knives, but they ignore him and he sets up his gear quickly, setting the course for archery. He keeps an ear out for his phone for an update from Coulson and loses himself in the steady motions of shooting. He's still tired out from sparring, so he starts out slow, but soon the tension is too much and he's firing faster and faster, starting to loose accuracy in the process. He's almost at the point of yelling in frustration when his phone rings.
"Coulson?"
"Radio contact established. She's hidden the data; she's backtracking to take out her pursuers."
Clint swears under his breath. "She authorised to do that?"
"Technically," Coulson admits, but he doesn't sound happy about it at all. "Intel says it's fewer than ten, but they're heavily armed."
"Of course they are," Clint screws his eyes shut.
"Barton?"
"Sir?"
"Don't spend too long down there."
"Sure." Clint slides his phone back into his pocket, stares at the targets peppered with his arrows, and collects them before activating the moving targets. He doesn't leave the range until Coulson tells him that Natasha's safe – headed for the nearest SHIELD base to go straight into medical, but safe. Clint almost collapses in the shower – five hours continuous sparring and working out and then two hard hours in the range takes its toll – and sleeps solidly for ten hours.
He goes with Coulson to the top deck when Natasha's plane comes in a week later. She exits the plane gingerly, but smirks when she sees them. She's wearing a scarf over her head, keeping her hair out of sight, and Clint grins when she kicks his ankle. "Good to see you too."
"Do I have any de-briefs?" she asks Coulson, ignoring him.
"Not until the day after tomorrow," he tells her, leading them back inside. "I figured you could use the time to recuperate."
"I'm fine," she gripes.
"You were stabbed," he reminds her.
"Barely," she waves it off, but her other hand drifts to her middle. Later on, in Clint's room, he pesters her to let him see. She still hasn't taken the scarf off for some reason. "You're disgusting," she says, and he grins.
"And? Come on, if it's longer than six inches, you beat me. Surely that's motivation?"
She rolls her eyes but obligingly rolls up her stomach. There are two lines next to each other to the left and up from her belly button, the longer one about two and a half inches long, the other only one. Clint's fingers hover over them, tracing the lines in the air. "How deep?"
"Deep enough," she sighs, rolling her top down. "I don't care about that."
"There's something else?" Clint frowns at her. "Coulson told me that was your only injury."
She pulls a face and touches the scarf round her head self-consciously. "It is."
Clint touches the edge of the scarf and tilts his head. "Natasha?"
She frowns unhappily and admits, "Some of my hair caught fire. I had to have it cut."
Clint only just stops himself from saying, "That's all?" because that would definitely earn him a punch to the face. Natasha isn't vain – she's aware of her beauty as much as she's aware of her ability to wield knives: it's just another tool she can utilise, nothing else – but she does like her hair. She always makes sure it's well taken care off, soft and sleek, the curls shining like bloody copper. So instead, Clint asks, "How short?"
She sighs and untucks the scarf, pulling it away. "Pretty short."
"Whoa." Clint stares. What used to be halfway down her upper arms now just reaches past her earlobes. It's a big change, and her mouth twists at his reaction.
"Need a blanket for your shock there?"
"You know," he lifts his hand and fingers the ends thoughtfully, "I actually kinda like it. I mean, yeah, it's different, but it looks good."
"You think so?" she sounds blank, but he can hear the uncertainty behind it, and he smiles.
"Yeah," he moves his fingers up and runs them through the strands. "It's nice. You look real pretty."
"I didn't before?" she smirks, amused, and he wrinkles his nose at her.
"Shut up, you know what I mean."
Her smirk turns into a proper smile, and she touches her fingers to the roots. "It's going to take a bit of getting used to," she says. "It feels so much lighter."
"Which makes sense," Clint nods, "what doesn't make sense is that it looks lighter. You noticed that?"
"Yeah," she frowns. "I don't know why."
"Eh," he shrugs, "it doesn't really matter though, right?"
"I suppose," she concedes, dropping her hand and letting it rest on his knee. He tilts his head and looks briefly at her lips, asking permission without words. She smiles, dips her head just a fraction, and he leans in to kiss her, careful not to touch her injured front. They're both slow and gentle, and when she slides a hand under his shirt to touch the skin of his back, it doesn't surprise him. It's fine, he thinks as she pulls his shirt off and lets him remove hers. They're fine. They don't need to define anything, and there's no pressure. It's fine.
He smiles with closed eyes against her neck, lying next to her on the bed, and kisses her hairline, her cheekbones, her eyelids. She's beautiful, he thinks, and doesn't say so because she's so much more than that, and in this case he thinks it's better to stay silent. They don't have sex, but they take off each other's clothes and explore each other slowly, until they've touched every inch of the other's body. She wraps a hand around his cock and jerks him off, but smiles and bats him away when he goes to try and return the favour. "Not now," she murmurs, and they avoid the wet patch between them and he kisses the skin above her breasts and below her collarbone instead, presses his forehead to the spot afterwards. He feels her drop a kiss on the top of his head and he knows she's smiling.
"I trust you," he whispers. It's not love. It is love. It's more and less than everything they think love is and isn't. "I trust you," he says again, and she strokes a hand through his hair.
"I trust you," she whispers back, and he closes his eyes and breathes out. The fact that he knows she's telling the truth means more to him than he would ever be able to say, so instead he kisses her and hopes she understands. She smiles slowly when they part and he thinks that she does.
x
With all the loose ends from the AIM mission finally tied up and the Iron Man, Hulk, and Asgardian incidents finally over, everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Clint's free to put himself back on the active duty roster, and he's pleased when he gets paired with Natasha for a mission in Quebec. "Just like old times, huh?" he grins at her when they board the plane, and she rolls her eyes but doesn't hide her smile. The mission almost goes perfectly, but one of the men in the Ten Rings cell they've been tracking escapes and flees. They contact Coulson, who tries to waylay him at the airport where he lands, but he evades the agents placed there and vanishes into Europe.
"I hate the Ten Rings," Natasha hisses as they land in Budapest. "Every bad mission I've had recently has been Ten Rings-related."
"Well let's keep calm, shall we?" Clint's tired and irritable.
"You keep calm," she snaps. "And keep an eye on the available exits next time."
"For the fourth time," he growls, "I didn't know that passage was there. It wasn't on the blueprints, and I don't have x-ray vision. Don't get your panties in a twist because you couldn't subdue the whole room."
"You bring up my panties again and I'll strangle you with them."
"Christ, Natasha," his patience snaps, "what the hell? Is it your time of the month or something?" he winces the second he says it and opens his mouth to try and take it back, but when he looks at her he stalls. Her face is utterly blank but for a slight narrowing of the eyes, and when she looks at him he feels it like a physical blow.
"If we weren't in public right now," she says very quietly, "I would beat you unconscious."
He pulls a pained expression. "Nat, I'm sorry –"
"You don't get to call me that right now," she tells him, and hails a taxi. Neither of them can speak openly in front of someone else, so the ride to the hotel is silent and tense. Clint wants to beat himself unconscious, or perhaps to death. He's known for years that Natasha and the other girls in the Red Room were sterilised before they even reached puberty. He knows that it's one of the things that Natasha resents them for the most, not because she particularly wants children, but because they took away the choice and just rammed home the fact that her body was their property and not her own.
"I'm an idiot," he says as soon as they get into their room. "I'm sorry."
"Let's just do this," she says, unpacking her gear and strapping her holster on. She pauses when she's done, and he watches her sigh and run a hand through her hair before she turns to him. "You're sorry?"
"Yeah," he meets her gaze evenly.
"You'd let me punch you in the face?" she asks calmly, "kick you to the floor? Break some of your bones?" He nods. She purses her lips. "Fine. I'll get on that as soon as this is over. Any problems?"
"No."
"Good," she nods and nods to his bag, where his collapsible bow is. "Let's get going."
The mission goes south quickly. It soon becomes apparent that their target ran to Budapest because he has friends there, and Clint climbs up the side of a building and turns on his earpiece, keeping an ear on the dial tone as he pulls arrows from his quiver, nocks them, and releases them in smooth continuous movements, aiming as he goes. Natasha's on the ground, outside the building opposite. The street has become a warzone, and Clint really hopes he doesn't run out of arrows. He fires a putty one at an enemy's face and already has another one nocked as it hits.
The dial tone in his ear finally clicks. "Hawkeye, report."
It's Lills, a female agent who's handled him in the past. "Black Widow trapped on the ground, multiple hostiles still incoming, civilians present. We need a little help here, if it's not too much trouble. You fucker," he swears as one of the men below throws a grenade at Natasha. She catches it and throws it back, but the explosion cloaks the street in smoke and dust and he loses sight of her. "Not you," he clarifies quickly for Lills, "enemy grenade, Black Widow out of sight."
"Connecting," Lills says quickly, and Clint breathes a sigh of relief when Natasha coughs over the line, all three of them on the same frequency now. "Black Widow, report," Lills orders.
"Shrapnel in my back and shoulders," she says in a hard voice. "Not serious, not deep. Barely breached my suit. No vision – too much dust. Hawkeye?"
"On your left," Clint says, and the man trying to sneak up close to Natasha's vantage point is gunned down in three shots.
"Backup en route, headed by Agent Coulson" Lills tells them, sounding distracted. "ETA twenty-five minutes."
"Great," Clint mutters, running his fingers over his remaining arrows. There are fewer than ten. "Okay, we –" there are two gunshots behind him, and he turns with an arrow nocked as the door to the roof slams open and four men run out. He downs one and rolls behind a ventilation pipe to avoid getting shot in return. "Lills?" he bites out, another arrow at his string. She should have visual by now.
"Two o'clock," she says quickly, and he shoots after peeking to confirm. "More coming up the stairs, Hawkeye, you need to get off the roof."
"On it," he grunts, grabbing two arrows from his quiver at the same time. He puts one between his teeth and fires the other. The tip explodes on impact with the door.
"Now," Lills orders, so he knows the remaining two are distracted. He grabs the arrow from between his teeth and slams it as hard as he can into the stone at the base of the short wall that runs around the edge of the building. It holds, and the shaft pulls away when he tugs it and throws himself over the edge as bullets hit the stone where he had been crouching. The cord unwinds quickly but steadily, and he prays as he drops that they don't manage to shoot the cord or the arrow that holds it.
"Got you covered," Natasha says in his ear.
"Thanks," he grunts. The cable goes slack – someone's cut it – and he drops the last eight metres or so. He rolls behind a car as soon as he hits the ground.
"Hawkeye, status," Lills barks.
"I'm good," he says, testing his weight on his ankles. "All fine. Widow, keep me covered – I'm coming to you."
"Ready," she says, and bullets fly as he dashes across the open street and into the still settling dust cloud opposite. He skids in next to her – she's behind what looks like a barricade of rubble.
"I don't like this war movie," he says, and she smirks.
"I got you a present," she pokes something with her foot, and he grins when he sees – a collection of his arrows, mostly reusable. She must have reclaimed them from the guys he shot from the roof.
"You always know what to get me," he scoops them up and slides them into his quiver. Their weight is very reassuring on his back. "Lills?"
"Men on the roof where you left," she says, "more incoming from both ends of the street. Five left, nine right. They're moving slow, being cautious."
"How many on the roof?"
"Ten at first count. Possibly more where I don't have eyes. Backup team ETA eighteen minutes."
"Thanks for the tip," an unfamiliar voice, deep and raspy, and Clint and Natasha both curse, him in English, her in Russian.
"Compromised channel," Clint spits, tapping his earpiece.
"Lills?" Natasha pokes her head over the rubble and fires several shots. "Fuck."
"Here," Lills sounds stressed. "Frequency scrambled."
"Great," Clint starts firing arrows. "You've warned the team?"
"I have."
"Keep us posted."
"Will do. Roof to your right, two enemies."
"Got it," Clint narrows his eyes, and releases. One goes down, the other ducks before he can get a fix on them. Clint focuses on one of the figures in the street – he can't afford to wait anyone out. He keeps his head in the game and doesn't think about Coulson, about to be ambushed by who the hell knows what. He shoots everything that moves beyond their barricade, and the noise of Natasha's guns so close is so loud he doesn't hear glass crunch underfoot behind him.
"Hawkeye, six o'clock!" Lills shouts suddenly. Clint ducks and bullets sail over his head. He throws himself backwards without looking.
"Hey!" he yells, getting Natasha's attention. She turns, fires a single shot, turns back to the main battle. Whoever he fell on goes limp, and he knows Natasha got a headshot. "I'm checking the back," he tells Natasha and Lills. Natasha nods, Lills says nothing, so he goes.
Two more men fall, and he blocks the back door of the coffee shop he didn't even realise they were outside of as best as he can and leaves it. "Keep an eye on that, Lills," he says.
"Negative, can't get a visual," she sounds frustrated, and then gasps. "Backup team is grounded, unable to reach you."
"Fine," Natasha says – she's comfortable working against the odds, and Clint covers her back as she shoots continuously. "Cover," she snaps, and he fires a smoke bomb arrow into the street, masking their position again. He realises as he fires it that it's his last arrow. He squats low and pulls out the knife strapped to his thigh, putting his bow down.
"No more ammo," he says, and Natasha nods, attention on the street and rooftops. "Lills?"
"Rooftop opposite, only two men left. Widow, three o'clock!"
As Natasha turns, Clint sees a dark shape move in the smoke, and he leaps forward and tackles Natasha to the ground a second before the building behind where she had been standing is peppered with bullet holes.
"Still one at your three," Lills tells them, "One at eleven, two more advancing from your left."
"I'll take three, you take eleven," Clint mutters – Natasha needs to cover their left because she's the one with the guns.
"Deal," she nods and gets to her feet, shifting slightly before launching herself over the rubble at their attacker. Clint runs at the one to their right, almost gets shot, and manages to take him out with a knife to his throat. He ducks behind a car and watches Natasha take out her eleven o'clock, the other two men coming from the left, and then the last two on the rooftop with Lills' guidance.
He checks behind him, straightens, and grins at her through the fading smoke. She smiles back, more relief than anything, and the change in her expression from pleased to horrified is all that warns him before someone grabs the knife from his hand and tries to ram it into his back. They try, but Clint turns and it slices across his arm instead, just above his elbow. He shouts and staggers back, and Natasha shoots the man between the eyes before he can try again. Clint slaps his hand over the cut and hisses – it's deep, and it hurts like hell.
"Report," Lills orders.
"Flesh wound, minor," Clint says as Natasha runs over to check him, her eyes huge. "No big deal. What's the word on our backup?"
"Still in combat with multiple enemies, no men down," Lills tells them, and Natasha hustles them off the street. There are sirens wailing, and Clint knows that SHIELD must have been running some serious interference to have kept them back for so long.
"Keep us posted," he says. Natasha rips an apron from the coffee shop behind their barricade into strips and binds the cut on his arm quickly. They grab their weapons and slip away from the scene, back to their hotel room. Halfway there, Lills tells them that the backup team subdued whoever attacked them, but won't be ready to get to them for another hour at least.
"That's fine," Natasha says, "we'll be ready. Out till then – we need to clean up."
"Confirmed," Lills says. "Report back in thirty minutes."
"Yes, ma'am," Natasha says, and cuts the connection. When they get into their room, bloodstained uniforms hidden under nondescript sweatshirts, Natasha cleans and bandages his wound properly and keeps her hands there for a moment. Clint frowns and touches her wrist with his good hand.
"Natasha? You alright?"
She looks up at him and opens her mouth slightly, then changes her mind and leans forward to kiss him. It's hot and insistent, and he opens to it instantly, hand going from her wrists to her hair. The adrenaline hasn't quite worn off yet, and she climbs into his lap on the bed where he's sitting and straddles him in an easy motion that makes him sigh into her mouth. He pulls her close and grinds up against her, and it's just what they want.
They undress themselves and each other quickly and she rolls him onto his back first, running her hands over every inch of him she can reach. He holds her in place and groans when she gets up on her knees and positions him at her entrance. She slides down slowly, and he tips his head back against the pillow and presses his fingers into her back. "Yes," he whispers, and she kisses him with too much tongue before starting to move, and when she starts to moan, eyes closed and breathing uneven, he shifts and rolls them. "Kay?" he asks, and she smiles.
"Yes."
It's a better angle, and they both gasp, her hands raking down his back and squeezing his ass as they rut into each other, Clint squeezing his eyes shut and losing his focus as he gets close. "Gonna –" he gasps, and she sucks his neck, not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough to make him cry out.
"S'fine," she sucks in a shuddering breath as he breaks and comes, rhythm coming undone as his hips stutter against hers. "Mmmm," she kisses his cheek and waits for him to finish properly before moving so that he slides out. "Fingers," she orders, and he rolls onto his side and presses his forehead against her shoulder.
"One moment," he pants, and she runs her hand through his hair while he recovers. "Okay," he whispers, and slides a finger into her without warning, following it with another almost immediately. She kisses him and then tilts her head back.
"There," she breathes, hips thrusting, and he ignores his protesting muscles, tired and sore from so much shooting, and pushes a third finger in before repeating the movement that makes her jerk against him, harder and faster when she urges him until she finally tightens around him and bites her lip hard.
They lie next to each other for a few long minutes afterwards, cooling down and getting their breath back. When they're both breathing normally again, Clint turns his head on the pillow and looks at Natasha, a bit of dust still on her face and grit still in her hair, and smiles. "I trust you, Natasha."
She closes her eyes for a second, then turns her head to look at him and give him a small, but genuine smile. "I trust you too."
They get up, and check in with Lills before sharing a shower. It's good, Clint thinks as they wipe each other clean gently, whatever this thing is between them. It's good, and right then, knowing that Natasha is safe and Coulson's on his way to get them, he feels happier than he has for years.