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Natasha has always liked Clint's eyes. She likes the way they light up when he laughs, the way they narrow in focus when he draws an arrow, and the way they can express what he's feeling when he tries to feel nothing at all. She especially likes the color: a deep blue that's deeper than the bluest ocean and one that she willingly gets lost in. She's heard it said that the eyes are the windows to the soul and when it comes to Clint, she believes it.
Before Loki's attack on the hellicarrier, Natasha had always loved Clint's eyes. Now she can't even look at them.
It's not Clint's fault and she tells him that every day, though he never believes her. He never says so out loud, but she knows him well enough that she can tell by the way his shoulders slump forward and his expression shifts from neutral to defeat. When she goes to comfort him, reaching out to run a soothing hand over the top of his head, he looks up, meets her gaze, and Natasha sees blue. But she doesn't see the calm, deep blue she's used to, so expressive and warm. The blue she sees is bright and cold like ice; the only thing she sees in those eyes is Loki.
The man in front of her has the appearance of Clint Barton; the same build, the same posture, the same face. But Natasha knows that this man isn't Clint, she can tell by looking into his eyes. There's no recognition there, no warmth. His eyes are void of emotion, completely blank, like a clean slate. He keeps staring with those cold eyes and Natasha wants him to stop.
They fight. Careful, precise movements that are met with equally careful, precise movements which eventually morph into rough, sloppy maneuvers. He pulls her hair, she bites his arm, they grunt and groan. He isn't fighting at full strength, in fact, he's barely fighting at all. He has the opportunities to take her down, but the briefest of hesitations catches her attention and she moves quickly, launching him so roughly against the railing that his head making contact with the metal causes an echo throughout the room.
The man who looks like Clint Barton groans, falls back on the metal grating, and stares up at her with those eyes, dazed as a deep blue begins to bleed into the bright irises. He's confused, but the recognition is there and as the familiar ocean blue becomes more obvious, realization sinks in as well.
"Tasha..." The man who looks like Clint Barton speaks her name, breathlessly, though his tone is pained, desperate and pleading. Natasha knows this man is Clint Barton now, she can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. He's begging her, begging her to help him, to stop Loki's control, to stop him.
This is Clint, but it isn't Clint. She has to help him, to protect him, save him, because she can't lose him to this. He's all she has left and with one word, he's asking her for something that she can't bring herself to do.
Tasha?
"Tasha?" Natasha stares hard at Clint for a long time, her hand still hovering over his head. He stares back, searching her eyes for some sign of what was making her act the way she was and why she was staring at him with a fear he'd never seen before. "Tasha, why are you looking at me like that?"
"Your eyes..." Natasha finds herself saying, because this isn't Clint, not with those eyes, and when Clint's expression changes immediately from wholesome concern to something she just can't place, she feels the guilt settle in her stomach.
"What about my eyes?" Clint asks as he turns his gaze from her at last, staring off to the side for a moment before looking back. He knows what she means, but he wants her to say it. He wants her to admit that he'd done something wrong and maybe, just maybe, he was still being affected by Loki's control. She regrets saying anything at all at this point, because she was supposed to protect him, but here she was reminding him of something that he'd had no control of.
Natasha sees blue, not the light blue of the tesseract, but the deep blue she was so familiar with and she feels the tension seep from her shoulders, her hand which had been hovering over his head finally coming to rest in his hair. "Nothing." She's lying and he knows it, but he tilts his head into her touch like it's a lifeline. "I just really, really like them."
His lips curl at the corners and he bends forward to press his face into her stomach, winding his arms around her waist. "They're just eyes, Tasha." He says simply and she continues to run her hand over his head, her other arm draping over his shoulders to keep him close and safe.
"Yes, but they're your eyes." She replies and she feels his shoulders tremble under her touch, with quiet laughter or with silent sobs, she just doesn't know. She knows that those were words he needed to hear though; his eyes, not tesseract eyes, not Loki's eyes. Because she also knows that Clint is haunted by that day on the hellicarrier by the way he jerks awake in the middle of the night on the rare occasions he sleeps at all and asks her what color his eyes are. "It's alright, Clint. They're your eyes."
It may take time, of course, so she does what she can. At night, they lay together and she curls around him, snug and secure. She wakes him from nightmares, offers words of comfort that his eyes are his own and that Loki isn't there anymore.
It's the best she can do, but it's all he needs and when he settles again in her arms, falling back into a restless sleep, she stays awake to watch over him.
It's all she can do, but this is how she protects him.