Apologies for the time that's gone by since last update - as some of you know I've just gone back to work so my time will be limited for the next couple of weeks at least. Updates will happen but they'll be coming slower - thanks in advance for your patience!
Okay, it was time for a little bit of fluff and some emotion I felt ... hope you enjoy it.
He was gone when she woke up, the sheets already cool when she reached out in search of him. Opening her eyes fully, Natasha blinked against the sunlight that flooded through the window, warming her skin and casting the room in golden hues that made everything that had transpired between them feel like a dream.
She stretched, cataloguing the delicious aches that lingered in her muscles and bones. Two weeks had passed since that first time and they had found that being lovers came as easily to them as breathing, just a natural extension of their existing partnership. Though they had shared a dozen nights wrapped around one another, bodies lit up from the inside and crying one another's names into the darkness, she still struggled to believe that it was possible for her to trust someone entirely. Out of one of the worst experiences of her life had come one of the best. All that pain and rage had only served to make her open up her eyes and realise that what she wanted had been right in front of her the entire time.
Closing her eyes again she allowed herself to remember the feel of his hands, the reverent way in which he had looked at her, the feel of his teeth on her skin as he had driven her ever higher. Though she had tried to be brave about what their many kisses and caresses had been building up to, deep down she had been afraid that his touch would trigger all kinds of land mines. She never wanted anything to do with New Mexico to be in the space between them. For one brief moment she had been sure that she wouldn't get through it, her body tensing up despite the fact that her brain was entirely on board with what was unfolding, but the consideration that he showed her and the fire that his touch stoked in her made it easy to submit to him when the time came. As he had in all other ways, he had just known how to overcome her barriers and make her trust him. One night in Clint's arms had burned away the touch of every other man she had ever shared a bed with and every night since had chipped away at the hold that the past had always had on her.
Rolling over she found the note, written in his familiar and unusually neat script, that he had left for her on the pillow. In typical fashion he hadn't wanted to wake her when he had headed out hunting at sunrise so he had left her to sleep a while longer, promising that he would make her breakfast upon his return and informing her that he was looking forward to seeing her when he got back. It was the last three words of his brief note that made her smile, a declaration of feelings that he had yet to make verbally written with flourish at the bottom of the page.
She slipped from the bed and padded through to the bathroom without bothering to grab clothing from the dresser. Starting the shower, she turned to look at herself in the mirror, eyes absorbing the familiar features and the unmistakable glint of satisfaction in her eyes. She was like a new woman, even the scars that she bore ceasing to be imperfections and becoming reminders of all that she survived to have this chance at happiness with Clint.
He was home when she emerged from her shower. He appeared in the bedroom doorway as she was dressing, leaning casually against the frame while his eyes took in every inch of her from bare feet to wet hair and everything in between. For a woman who had spent much of her adult life feigning passion as part of missions, she found herself once again drunk on the tide of her body's response to him. All she could think about was what it had felt like to have his body on top of her, inside of her, the way that her body had wept and sang for him. The mere proximity of his body to hers seemed to call to her, her blood warming, slumbering, in her veins beneath his gaze, her body his for the taking.
Clint smiled, "miss me Natasha?"
The question was loaded with unspoken meaning and they both knew it. Unable to form words, she nodded, staring at him wide-eyed and wanting. His skin was flushed, a fine sheen of perspiration making his bronzed skin glow and a shiver of desire played along her spine. This wasn't just lust, no it went far beyond that and into a territory where the fire of her body paled in the face of the connection they had to one another.
"Y' know I like that shirt on you," he told her, moving closer. Natasha held her ground. She knew that he liked to see her in his shirts, that to him it was a sign that she was comfortable in his space, as well as a declaration that she was his. The look in his eyes, the caged heat that burned there, was enough to tell her that they were on exactly the same page and that they were probably headed for the bed behind her.
She smiled, enticing him, wrapping herself in the warmth of his arms as he came to her. "Just shut up and kiss me," she told him, lifting her face to his own. She wasn't thinking about how bossy she might have sounded as he wound himself around her, wasn't thinking about the fact that it would be the third day that week that they had wasted in bed. She wasn't thinking about all of the things that needed doing when his hands tangled in her hair, making sure that she knew he wanted her to stay put. She wasn't thinking about dinner or hunting or that run into town that they'd planned to make as he sighed into her mouth. And she wasn't thinking at all when he picked her up and carried her back to bed.
Afterwards she left him to shower, throwing on yoga sweats and a vest to wander out onto the porch with a beer from the fridge. She had declined to join him in the shower, knowing that they would probably lose another hour and knowing that the rumbling of her stomach was a distraction that she could only ignore for so long. He would join her when he was done. Without conscious thought she wandered to the far edge of the structure, crouching down beside the post upon which he had carved their initials months ago. Once again she traced her fingertips over the lettering and considered the way that their lives were entwined, for better or worse they were a part of one another and she had no inclination to change that. Idly she wondered whether there had been more to the carving than she had realised at the time, whether Clint's feelings, which seemed so recent a development to her, had been simmering for longer than she appreciated.
"It's not going to disappear you know," he told her, the sound of his voice startling her more than she would usually admit to. It was rare that he managed to sneak up on her, letting down her guard entirely with him had given him an advantage. "It'll still be there as long as this place is standing."
"When you carved this you told me that it was a family tradition, that the initials represent the person who means most to you?" she exclaimed.
Clint inclined his head, a nod that acknowledged what she had said for truth. "I did," he confirmed.
"Why my initials?" she asked. "You could have any woman you want so why me?"
For a long moment he just looked at her, weighing her expression and his own words carefully. She waited, hoping that he would understand that she wasn't asking because she felt that she didn't deserve him but that she was genuinely curious. Clint was a good man and he deserved someone softer than herself, someone nurturing who could live a quiet life with him without worrying about the horrors of her past. She would be at his side for as long as he would have her, she knew that was a certainty that defied all the logic for which she was famed, but she wasn't sure that he wouldn't eventually want something else.
"Why wouldn't I want you?" he asked genuinely puzzled. "You're the only person I can be myself with Nat, the only person who sees the real me. You're beautiful and strong and fierce and gentle all at the same time. You look at me and I see everything that I want to fight for and everything that I can't live without. Who else would understand this life I lead better than you, why would I want anyone but you?"
Thrown by the simplicity of the statement and the thought that he had obviously put into the answer, she didn't think before she spoke. "Don't you want something normal?" she asked desperately.
He pulled her into his arms, lips pressing a kiss to the skin at her temple as he held her. The warmth of his skin seeped into her, his skin still damp beneath his shirt from the shower. She could feel his heart against her ear as he pulled her into his chest, steady and sure. It was her favourite rhythm, the most reassuring sound that she knew. "Our lives are never going to be normal but that's okay." His voice rumbled through her, the words washing away any insecurity and giving her the ability to relax into him. " I knew it then and I know it now, Nat all I want is you, however that comes."