Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Clint watches Natasha’s profile in the low lights from the dashboard. The miles go by, and he wants to tell her he’s a fucked-up mess right now, that she should be running for the hills. If there’s one thing he knows, though, it’s that Natasha Romanoff doesn’t pretend things aren’t what they are. If anyone understands how much Loki screwed him over, Nat does.

“You’re staring at me, Barton.” Natasha doesn’t take her eyes off the road but Clint knows she’s got him covered with her peripheral vision.

“Yeah,” Clint answers.

“And?”

“You’re gorgeous.” Clint shrugs when she shoots him a sharp look; he’s never claimed to be all that deep. They’re coming up on another small town; when Natasha slows and stops for the single stop-light, he holds out his hand and smiles when she reaches for it. That’s how it is between them: one sharp look, followed by a hand out of whatever pit they might have fallen into at the time. “I want this--” Clint brushes a kiss across her knuckles--”you, so bad I don’t trust any reason I can come up with that says it’s okay to go for it, even before I start trying to figure out how much of me is left after Loki, but...”

“But what?”

“But… I figure you know me, for real, and it wouldn’t be the first time I jumped in blind when you told me it was okay.”

Natasha’s hand tightens on his, and her voice isn’t quite even when she says, “Given your talent for ridiculous situations, it probably won’t be the last time either.”

“No.” Clint laughs--from relief, from gratitude, from the sheer fucking amazement that he maybe hasn’t fucked things up already. “It probably won’t.” He drops another kiss on her hand.

“Find us someplace to stop for the night,” Natasha says, and he obediently pulls out his phone with the hand not holding hers.

“Ruffles or not?” he asks, just because he can’t not run his mouth.

“Clint.” Natasha tugs her hand free and, without taking her eyes off the road, traces her thumb over his lower lip. Clint’s mouth goes dry. “I don’t care. Do you?”

Clint catches her hand and holds it steady so he can bite quick and sharp at the pad of her thumb, and he will take the sudden break in her breathing to his fucking grave. “What do you think?”

“Find us someplace,” Natasha grits out in a tone that Clint isn’t sure he’s ever heard from her, want and need laced through with an unguarded desperation. He stops fucking around and reaches for the calm he uses when he needs his hands rock-steady and gets the map up and running.

“We’re coming up on the interstate.” He’s kinda proud that his voice is steady, because under the layer of professional calm, the rest of him is so keyed up he’s not sure how he’s not shaking apart. “Five miles.”

“Good.” Natasha’s found her own calm, too, but Clint knows what’s under it. He makes himself keep still, not reach for her hair or where the low lights from the dashboard silhouette the perfect arch of her cheekbone. He starts a list, though: everywhere he wants to touch, everything he wants to do.

The first place they come to is a ten-room, independently-owned motor court. Clint is all for supporting the little guy, but right now, since he’s not really planning on them getting out of bed for at least a couple of days, he’d like a shot at someplace that’s gotten new mattresses and sheets sometime in the last decad,e and this place isn’t looking like it’s up to the challenge. Nat doesn’t even slow down; clearly, the hive mind Sitwell is always whining about hasn’t been affected by the prospect of sex.

The next place is nothing but a mid-level chain, but the rooms open to the interior hallway, which means there’s a tiny bit more of a chance he and Nat might sleep at the same time. Also of the good, there’s a coffee shop attached; even if there isn’t room service, they can call in an order and flip for who has to get dressed to go pick it up. It’s how they always operate, except this time Clint’s brain is doing metaphorical cartwheels over the whole having-to-get-dressed part. He gets the door open and himself headed to check in almost before Natasha has the car stopped. He doesn’t actually think she’ll change her mind, but he doesn’t see any need to take his time either.

Natasha doesn’t bother waiting for him, just shows up carrying their duffels before the clerk even gets his card swiped. She doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t even stand close to him, but Clint is so hyper-aware of her presence that he can barely remember the license plate number on the GTO. She notices him fumbling it, of course, and she gives him an arch of an eyebrow that’s trying hard for amusement, but not quite making it, not when he factors in the way her eyes are following every move he makes.

He nods absently at the girl behind the front desk as she gives him the standard welcoming spiel and just barely manages not to snatch the key card from her hand. Natasha is smirking at him now, but all that’s doing is making him want her more. He’s sick to death of seeing her with her eyes tight with worry--if all it takes to make her happy is him being an idiot at the thought of having her all to himself, then he’s good with being the clown.

“Nice,” he mutters as they walk away from the front desk, because he’s not actually going to admit that he’s okay with it. She knows it, of course, but she’d probably start looking for Loki if Clint didn’t give her some kind of grief.

“I was planning on making it up to you,” Natasha says.

“Promises, promises,” Clint sighs--or tries to. He ends up more choking than breathing when she takes his hand and runs her thumb nail across his palm and down to the inside of his wrist. “Nat,” he grits out, and she smiles and takes the key card out of his hand.

“Clint,” she answers, and then they’re there, the lock going green and letting Clint slam the door open and into the wall behind it. Natasha laughs for real, wild and free, like Clint’s only heard once or twice and has never forgotten. She drags Clint’s head down to her own, and Clint can kiss her, finally, her mouth hot and lush against his, her hands somehow already under his shirt. “Clint,” she murmurs again. Clint holds it together long enough that he can cup her face in both hands and lick into her mouth, long and slow and wanting, but then she’s biting at his lower lip, and there’s no real way he can keep it like that.

“Last night--” Clint breaks off as she drags her nails the length of his spine, a fast, sharp trail that makes him hiss and push into it at the same time. She pulls his shirt off and claws at him again, and then one more time so his whole back is lit up and his dick is aching for some of its own.

“Last night,” Natasha prompts, backing them into the room and shedding clothes at the same time, as though more skin and proximity to the king-sized bed is going to get Clint’s brain back on-line. Clint bites his way down her neck and over her collarbone, stopping there long enough for her to deal with her bra because he doesn’t want anything in the way when he gets to the good part.

And it is the good part--as soon as he gets his mouth on her nipple, she arches up into him with a noise that would be a whine from anyone else. From her, though, it’s more like a growl, desperate and ragged and better than almost anything Clint’s heard, ever. He sucks at her and bites down, and she snarls at him in Russian, warnings and curses and threats. He does it again and her voice breaks like he’s never heard it before. He could make her come from this, Clint thinks, and fuck if that doesn’t punch buttons he never knew he had, but it’ll have to be later, not now, because, now, now, he wants her hard and fast and crazy.

They’re at the bed, finally--they might have actually been there for a while, Clint isn’t sure, and he doesn’t think anyone could blame him for not paying attention to anything but the woman in his arms--and he makes himself pull back, just enough to lay Natasha down on the mattress--he’s not thinking about how she’s just letting him put her where he wants her, he’s not, he’ll save that for later, probably for forever. She blinks up at him, her eyes almost all dark pupil and her mouth swollen, her hair wild around her. Clint made himself stop having dreams like this years ago, but even at his most self-indulgent, he never got anything this good. Natasha smiles up at him--slow and happy, and Clint might lose a couple brain cells at that, but who’s counting-- and lets go of him to start working on getting rid of the rest of her clothes.

“Last night--” Clint says again, as he follows her lead and yanks at his belt.

“You said that already,” Natasha says, kicking one boot halfway across the room and reaching for the zipper on the other. She’s still smiling at him, and he’s still loving it, so he doesn’t do anything stupid like going for the sensitive spot under her ribs--the Black Widow is not, of course, ticklish, but Clint knows how to make her squirm if he needs to--instead getting his jeans undone and then doing the same for her.

“Yeah,” he says, leaning down to bite along the curve of her waist. She hums something wordless but approving that goes straight to his dick. “That was--last night was me, figuring I was probably only gonna have one shot at it, this--” you, he means-- “so I better make it last.”

Natasha shifts under him; when he finds the nerve to look up at her, she’s leaning up on both elbows, eying him thoughtfully.

“Not that I’m complaining about last night,” Natasha says, reaching out to touch him, his mouth, the corner of his eyes, his cheekbone. Clint holds himself very, very still. “You’re over that, though?”

“Maybe,” he says honestly, because there’s a lot of years behind everything in his head and it isn’t just going to disappear. He adds,. “Probably not, but… Don’t think slow is gonna do it tonight in any case.”

“I can work with that.” Natasha’s smile is knowing and wicked this time, inviting him and daring him and telling him she’s right there with him. So, basically, their partnership, and Clint can do that. He grins back at her and shoves his hand into her jeans to finger her fast and hard and rough. In the split-second before she reacts, his brain red-lines with the slickhotwet he’s finding, but then she’s yanking him closer and reaching for his dick and it is on, Clint clawing and dragging at her jeans at the same time he’s fighting to get out of his own.

“Come on, come on,” Natasha hisses at him, her nails doing another number on his back, but it’s worth it, it’s all worth it the second he finally, finally drives into her and she sinks her teeth into his shoulder and comes.

“‘S good,” Clint grits out. “Fuck, Nat, so good, so good.” He’s not going to last long, not with how she’s gasping and shaking against him, so fucking tight around his dick, but he wants it to, wants to keep going like this, deep and fast and hard enough that he can barely drag enough air into his lungs. He hangs on the edge for longer than he thought possible, everything coiled low in his belly and thighs and balls, desperate to let go of it all, desperate not to, but then Natasha is saying his name again and again in a low keening sob, arching up into him and coming again, her legs tightening around him, drawing him down into her, and he can’t not follow and let his world go white with pleasure.

Sex, Natasha decides as she watches Clint navigate the crowded floor of the small bar they’re in, both does and doesn’t change things. There’s very little different in this scenario; they have spent more than a few nights together in places just like this. Clint runs the same game with the dartboards, where he throws with his right hand and still wins every time. Natasha rolls her eyes at his taste in music; Clint smirks and calls her a snob. They fall asleep in the same bed and wake each other when the dreams are bad. None of this is different from how it has always been with them, until, of course, it’s all different.

They touch each other frequently now, small and often-times absentminded touches that by rights should also be meaningless but are nothing of the sort. It surprises them both that Natasha is often the instigator, but it pleases her to see Clint lean into her touch, especially when, like now, as he hands her a bottle of water, he doesn’t seem conscious of doing it. If Natasha’s smile is slightly more self-satisfied than a simple thank you might warrant, she is not going to concern herself about it.

“So, we’ve got maybe another day before we run out of road,” Clint says, turning the chair around to straddle it. Natasha allows herself to be distracted by the sight; when she does finally make herself answer with a wordless murmur, there’s the slightest of flushes high across his cheekbones. Her smile is definitely self-satisfied now, and she is not at all concerned about it. Getting that much of a reaction out of someone so closely guarded is gratifying on so very many levels. Natasha knows she should examine it more closely, but not in the middle of what Clint has assured her is a genuine honky-tonk. “Last time I mentioned that you said we could turn around and do it in reverse, but --”

“Or we can pick another road,” Natasha says.

“Okay,” Clint says slowly, looking at her as though she’s grown an extra head. “I figured you were just babying me along the whole recovery process--”

“I wasn’t.” Natasha sips at the water he brought her and then offers it to him. “Fury knows how to get in touch with us--do you actually think he’d hesitate if he needed either one of us?”

“No, but--” Clint puts the bottle down and chews thoughtfully on his bottom lip.

“But?” Natasha would very much like to be distracted again--a part of her brain, after all, knows how that lip tastes and feels and how easily he will give it to her--but the cold, rational thought that Clint might be the one with objections to continuing has presented itself, and she needs to pay proper attention to the conversation.

“But this--” Clint waves vaguely around the room, the cramped bar and the tiny stage surrounded by uneven tables and a few neon signs gone foggy from age, “--really isn’t your thing.”

“It’s not,” Natasha agrees, watching him carefully because what he says is often less important than what he’s not saying. “But I’m fine.” Clint is clearly expecting her to say more. Natasha finally offers, “If you don’t want me--”

“Nat,” Clint says in that patient tone that he uses on baby agents after their first close call, when they don’t exactly know how they’ve survived and he’s walking them through all the things they did right. “I’m just saying that it’s your turn to pick.”

“I--” Natasha looks at him through narrowed eyes. “Are you playing mother hen with me, Barton?”

“Yes,” he answers in that same patient tone. “I mean, I know I’m not in the best shape, but yeah, that’s what I’m doing.” The undercurrents in his voice are dark, but not hopeless, and his smile is real when he adds, “You gonna let me?”

Natasha thinks about the first weeks and months after she’d come in with him, when even the good days were shot through with doubt and mistrust and uncertainty and how he never missed one. He was sharper then, all rough edges and a screaming need to prove himself, but still centered enough to sit with her while she found her way through everything she’d feared from the second she understood what the Red Room had done. He’s watching her now like he had then, like he’ll take whatever she decides to give him. Then, she hadn’t known the depths of that promise, but now she does.

“Yes,” she answers simply, and lets him take her hand.

Clint always forgets how many stars you can see when you’re out in the middle of nowhere with no lights from the city to wash out the night sky. He leans against the windshield of the car and loses himself in the thousands and thousands of lights scattered above him. Even after Natasha comes out to see if he’s been eaten by coyotes he doesn’t really look away, just tugs her up on the hood with him and tucks her up against his side.

“Are we staying here all night?” Natasha doesn’t sound annoyed, only vaguely curious. It’s 60 miles to the nearest town and the dry Arizona air makes it clear enough that they can watch the Milky Way rise. She’s watching just as closely as he is; he feels her breath catch every time there’s a shooting star.

“Nah,” Clint answers. “I was just thinking, though--”

“I’ll alert the media,” Natasha says dryly, and he’s just quick enough that he can dig his fingers into the sensitive spot at her waist. She lets him get away with it, by which Clint deduces that she’s feeling sentimental. She’ll never admit that, of course, but he knows what he knows. “Yes?” Natasha prompts. “You were thinking?”

“We kinda saved the world,” Clint says, his eyes still on the millions of stars.

“We did,” Natasha agrees, and he can feel her smiling against his shoulder.