While Anders had proved a challenge to pin down, the two remaining targets seemed more interested in leading them on a merry dance through the southern states. The moment they hit the New Mexico border, Natasha had known where they were headed and when she had voiced her opinion to him it had taken all of his self-control not to encourage her to leave the mission behind and let him finish things on her behalf.
If ever he had needed definitive proof that the guys they were hunting were sadistic bastards, the fact that they were luring her back to the site where she had been held confirmed it.
Nursing bruises and one or two minor injuries from a skirmish with one of their targets over the last few days, he had found them a place to stay in Alamogordo and convinced her that she needed to rest and give her body a chance to recuperate before they went charging into what would most probably be an ambush situation. Barton had never been a fool when it came to seeing a strategic advantage and he knew that by bringing them to familiar territory Jack Sawyer and William Brady had all of the cards in their pocket. Their former base was, of course, a place that they knew well and their ability to spring a trap there was considerably higher than it would have been on neutral ground.
"How's your leg?" Natasha asked as he emerged from the bathroom. The previous night he had taken a nasty blow to his right thigh and the bruising was now fully evident around the wound. It ached, sometimes fiercely when he tried to move at speed, but he was pretty sure that nothing was broken. Sometimes the small victories, the day-to-day events that turned out to be not quite as bad as expected, were the only ones that could be focussed on. These days, Clint was all about the small victories.
Curled up in the armchair at the far side of the room beside the ancient TV set, book in hand, Natasha looked tired. The urge to try to force her to rest more would only earn him a scathing look and a couple of hours of female disapproval, it was far safer to let her come to the realisation that she needed sleep on her own terms. Since they were sharing a room, and therefore the double bed inside it, for security, he was sure that he could convince her to have an early night if he did the same.
"I'll live," he replied, offering her a smile. "Pretty sure there's nothing broken so it's just a case of resting it and stretching it out."
"Let me see," she exclaimed, beckoning him closer. Barton knew better than to argue. Moving slowly, he crossed the distance between the area directly outside the bathroom door and the chair in which his partner sat and turned so that the injured leg faced her. He felt no awkwardness standing in front of her in nothing but a pair of boxers and he seriously doubted that Natasha was feeling anything of that nature either, they'd treated one another's wounds often enough to have lost the inherent modesty that they'd started out with in such situations.
He watched her as she traced her fingers around the edges of the bruising, assessing its location and the way that the wound was healing in much the same way as he had done. He saw the concern that flickered through her green eyes as she came to the area directly over the muscle which was worst affected. "If we were on base you'd be visiting the physio for this," she told him, "if this muscle stiffens up it will seriously affect your movement, let me massage the tightness out of it before you sleep."
Clint noticed that she didn't phrase her words as a request or as an instruction but somewhere in-between the two. "It'll be fine," he told her, shrugging off the discomfort. He did not want her to think that he was carrying an injury that would slow them down, knowledge like that would make her far more likely to go out into the desert without him and try to take down Sawyer and Brady single handedly. "Barely hurts."
"Really?" she asked, twisting her fist against the surface of his skin. She didn't put any pressure behind the movement and ordinarily it wouldn't have registered as anything close to pain but ordinarily he wasn't bruised to the bone. Clint's entire leg caught fire, his knee threatening to buckle as he twisted away from the contact. On instinct his hand shot out and closed around her wrist, preventing her from touching him again. As he hissed in a breath and glared down at her, Natasha met his gaze calmly but with the irritating expression of someone proved right. "You're not fine," she announced pointedly, "you're in pain and you're going to let me help you. Lie down on the bed while I grab the medical supplies."
He released her wrist as she rose from the chair, padding barefoot into the bathroom to collect the field medical kit that they almost always carried with them during missions. He wasn't worried about her ability to ease the wound, Natasha had an uncanny knack for being able to read an injury and every agent had some training in how to massage out tightened muscles. It wasn't her ability that worried him in this situation, but his. Letting down his partner was the thing that he feared most, particularly in a situation where so much was on the line and the stakes were so personal. Carefully, he moved to the bed and eased himself onto the mattress to wait for her.
"It's a good thing you're neat when you stitch yourself up," she murmured as she emerged from the bathroom with a bottle of lotion and some towels. "That wound could have been nasty if it had been left open. Here, take a couple of these to help with your temperature."
He hadn't realised that he had a temperature but he trusted her judgement so he took the pills without comment. Perhaps a slight fever explained why he had found the motel room so stuffy all day. Without comment, she dropped the towels on the end of the bed and flipped the switch to turn on the ceiling fan. Warm air moved around the room as the blades circulated and Clint sighed, easing back onto the pillows. Natasha's hands were steady and sure as she positioned his leg where she wanted it, every sweep of her palms easing the tightness that made his thigh throb in time with his heartbeat.
She talked while she worked, telling him what she was doing and why, reciting facts that she had learned about the workings of the human body and how to quicken healing in muscle injuries. Although she didn't tell him where she had learned such lessons, he knew enough from his own forays into sports massage to know that what she was saying was correct. The touch of her fingers as she kneaded the muscle was soothing, any pain numbed by tiredness and whatever medication she had given him. Barton felt his eyes growing heavy and fought the growing tide of sleep.
He woke some time later to find the room lit by the soft buttery glow of a table lamp. A pillow was propped between his knees, providing support for his injured leg and the ceiling fan was still swirling lazily. He lifted his head, searching the room for his partner, terrified that he would find she had taken off but Natasha was on the balcony, staring silently out into the night. The mattress squeaked as he moved and she turned to look in his direction. She was on her feet and inside the room a moment later.
"Thought you took off," he exclaimed, watching as she locked the door and double checked it before she came back to the bed. Hitching up her nightgown, she climbed onto the mattress and crawled toward him, reaching for a glass of water on the nightstand and offering it to him. He sipped it gratefully and tried to adjust his position. Her hand on his shoulder made him think better of it.
"Try to keep that leg supported, it'll heal faster." She smiled at him, resettling the glass on the table and testing his temperature by laying her palm against his forehead. Wordlessly, she shook another couple of pills from the bottle and handed them to him. "We need to be at our best if we're going out into the desert. We know where they are and we know that they aren't going anywhere, a couple of days won't make a difference..."
Barton didn't speak, relieved and surprised that she had stayed when she knew just where to look for her revenge. Come to think of it, something had changed in her since the night they killed Thomas Anders, her anger had turned colder, her thinking no longer clouded by rage.
"I'm slowing you down," he said finally, offering her the chance to walk away without feeling bad about what she needed to do. He hated the idea of her being out there alone with men who had already caused her more pain than almost anyone she had ever met, but he trusted her judgement and he loved her enough to let her go if that was what she wanted. He didn't want to be the man standing in her way.
"You aren't slowing me down," she told him firmly, grasping his chin and forcing him to meet her gaze. No lies. No barriers. There was nothing between them in that moment. She was choosing to let him see her without the walls that she kept up at all times. "If I had to make this choice a hundred times over, to go out there alone or to do this with anyone but you at my side, I'd do the same thing every time. I will always choose you Barton. Always."
Choked, he didn't know what to say to that admission. He wasn't sure what it meant, not really. He was sure that she was pledging her devotion to him as a partner and nothing more, but the words made something inside him soar. That she, a woman so notoriously guarded with her emotions, would give him that much... She astounded him. "Nat..."
"I don't care how long it takes," she told him, settling on the mattress beside him, gaze still holding his, every word a pledge. "We finish this together."
For a long time, Barton lay awake, aware of her presence at his back but forced to face the wall because he couldn't put pressure on his injured leg by rolling over. She was right there when the fever reached its worst point and he shivered, the mattress shaking beneath him. His leg ached as he trembled, the muscles protesting the rapid movement that rushed through them. Surprising him, Natasha pressed her body in close to his back, her arms snaking around him and holding him close. Her words were soft, soothing, as she encouraged him to sleep, to let the medicine and a few hours sleep help him recover.
For the first time he fell asleep in her arms and not with her body in his own.