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There are times, on nights like this, where Clint stares up at the ceiling and thinks that maybe he should've fallen in love with the girl who feels like winter.
Of course, Natasha doesn't feel like winter because she's cold.
Maybe it's because she's uncomfortable. Or at least, in Clint’s life she is.
She disappears for days on end, trying to complete missions given to her by Fury, just to come back suddenly like a whirlwind of snow, showering Tony and Bruce with gifts of odd Russian alcohol, but giving Barton nothing but blood on her hands. It's unsettling, if he was honest with himself.
But Clint has known Natasha forever, even before Shield and before the Avengers. And nothing is changing that. Their first meeting was between a Swiss army knife to his jaw and a half broken arrow to her gut and murder in both of their eyes, and that automatically makes them best friends forever. There's always the downside though. Nat is unpredictable, in everything she does. She's hooked up with Rogers and Banner both already, and yes, Clint is married but also jealous and possessive. And she's always running; running from Russia, from the Red Room, from Shield, and then she shuts down. And Clint can't take the shutting down. He needs people to talk to, to vent to, and Natasha is so quiet in her own head and it makes him insane.
They are both natural born killers, trained assassins, and it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. Kill or be killed, and he can't be in love with someone like that.
And then there's Laura. And Laura feels like springtime. They met when they were both young and still bright and before Director Fury had pounded his front door down and talked to him about the Avenger Initiative.
They met before Natasha.
And they got married so fast, because Laura was everything happy and new and when the bad things started coming into Clint’s life, she was there; she was the bright stuff. And what would he do without Laura around?
He'd probably go crazy. He needs Laura, and her springtime and the vegetable garden in the backyard and the kids. He needs to know that he's the one that Lila will depend on to bring broken-winged birds to, and the one Cooper will need to help build Lego towers with, he needs to know that he's important in people’s lives.
He needs assurance that people need him and Nat needs none of that in her life, she only needs herself and maybe a gun or a box cutter, and she's good for a few days.
But they've gone through the same shit together. Natasha and Clint and hell, even Steve and Tony and Maria; they've all done it together. They all know loss, they know hurt. Laura knows none of it, she just knows loneliness when Clint isn't at home for weeks on end, but at least she's never woken up screaming in a cold sweat. She doesn't know the nightmares and the dead bodies. Laura might be eternally thankful to have Clint at home after Sokovia but she'll never have the image of Pietro's body permanently imprinted behind her eyelids.
Nat has that in her. And after the wars, after the fighting and the blood, after the long journey back home to the Avenger tower, it's not the others who call everyone down for popcorn and Netflix all night like normal people on Friday nights. It's Natasha.
Because Natasha knows torture, and the Red Room, and she knows how to cope and she knows Clint, and she knows that sometime down the line she's going to need him (but she's never going to admit that out loud.)
Clint is crisp autumn in Nat's eyes, and October was always her favorite month.
~
There are times, on nights like this, where Clint holds Natasha in his arms while she cries, because he's knows that if he doesn't do this, no one else will (because Nat cries around no one else, Clint is the only one she trusts and crying is a sign of weakness) and he thinks that maybe her nightmares will settle down and maybe she'll settle down, and yeah, sure, they'd never be able to have the farm house and three children, but that wouldn't have mattered in the long run. He loves Laura and her springtime, but Clint should've really fallen in love with the girl who feels like winter.