Trigger warning: Mention of rape

The moment Clint entered his home, he immediately realised that he was not the only one in it. He flipped on the light switch and there she was. Natasha Romanoff, standing in the corner of the room. Her hair had been straightened and she looked more tired than he had ever seen her. He ran into her and hugged her as tight as he possibly could. 'Hey,' she murmured, gently encircling her arms around him. 'I was so scared,' he thought. 'When I first heard about what happened at the Triskelion, when I first heard about what you'd done during that face- off against Hydra. I was so worried when no one could locate you for four goddamn months. But it's okay now. You're here now.' He knew that he was rambling, that he was probably being a bit too up front and that might have frightened her, made her want to distance herself from him. But at that point, he couldn't care less.

She looked up at her then, with those clear green eyes of hers, always filled with emotions that one could never quite understand. And then she kissed him.

He pulled her into his bedroom, looking at her questioningly as he placed his hand on the doorknob. She nodded and so he closed the door.

Natasha pushed Clint onto the bed. She would have been lying if she were to say that she hadn't missed him, that she hadn't worried over how her SHIELD hack had distributed his information on the internet, information including his cover as a gangster in a certain vicious gang for the mission he was originally in. Thank god he had made it out more or less intact.

He trailed a line of kisses from her forehead to her nose to the crook of her neck and as she tilted her head slightly in response, he deftly flipped over so that he was on top. 'Feisty,' Natasha murmured against his mouth as they closed the distance between their lips once again. Clint chuckled as he pulled her tee over her head. She reached out, unbuttoning his shirt swiftly and pulling it off. He slowly began to make his way down, and when he was there, his mouth just inches away from her navel, a shiver ran through Natasha and she pushed him away. He looked up, surprised. She was crying. 'Nat?' he asked, concerned, careful to give her the space she needed. 'Sorry,' The sobbing intensified as she gathered the sheets around her. 'Sorry, I just can't do this, not right now.'

'Hey, hey, its all right. You don't have to be sorry for anything. I'll go sleep on the couch,' he told her.

Sleep did not come easy for Natasha Romanoff that night. The flashback that had stopped her from letting the only man she loved to truly be with her was seared behind her eyelids, the details clear as day.

The Red Room had very unique ways of training their recruits and making them good in the arts of men. One of the many ways was practice. Natasha had always been repulsed by the thought of sex, and having some Red Room bodyguard in her made the idea even more disgusting. Yet she had never found anything inherently wrong with it. It was painful, yes. Non- consensual, definitely. But sex, to her, was a weapon. Just like her entire existence. It did not belong to her. It belonged to them.

So maybe that was why she got so scared, because this time, what she was just doing with Clint actually meant something. She was no longer faking gasps and moans for some sweaty, flabby stranger, but actually doing it with someone who held her world in his hands. Someone who loved her despite how much she despised herself. Who loved her and was willing to have her despite how she had been through so many people beforehand. She would never be able to comprehend Clint's choice, yet she would simply have to live with it. Not that she minded it.

And so eventually, she floated off to a peaceful sleep, understanding that her past would always come back to haunt her, that this would not be the last time she'd be hearing from it. Yet there would always be Clint by her side, and he would always be willing to assist her in any way he could on her quest to piecing herself together, to wiping every single trace of red there was off her ledger. And for her, that was good enough.