Work Text:
Natasha Romanoff isn't afraid of anything. She's not.
When Clint laughs softly in her ear as he holds her too close, trying to catch his balance after their kitchen ticklefest, her breath shortens and her stomach starts twisting into a tight, hot knot. It's just the proximity, she tells herself, even as she wrangles herself loose and he lets her.
When she finds the arrow necklace in his drawer in a little box marked for her, her palms start to shake and sweat pools in the small of her back. It means nothing. Her smile is tight as she clasps it around her neck.
When she turns to him at the end of a long day (or long mission or just a too f—ing long year) and sees that nameless emotion burning in his eyes, her tongue stutters to a halt and something panicky and fluttery makes all her nerve endings tense and her muscles shift into readiness for combat. (Fight or flight has always meant blood when it comes to Natasha.) Clint knows how to read her. He doesn't say it.
It's attraction. It's caring and maybe even lust, and she's simply decided not to act on it. But it isn't fear.
It's not.