Chapter Text
Clint had his knife out of its sheath, poised to throw or attack before he recognized the figure sitting cross-legged on the bed. "Natasha," he said as he exhaled, tension slipping out of his muscles as his brain recataloged the invader as friendly. "If I had my bow, I'd have shot you already."
Natasha shrugged, looking for all the world like she didn't care if Clint shot her or not. "I knew you would recognize me."
"I almost didn't." Clint slipped his knife back into the sheath and secured the door behind him. Neither would provide much protection in the event someone was determined to get in, but he felt a little better for both. As better as he could feel at the moment, anyway.
"But you did." Natasha slid off the bed, padded across the room, and put her hands on Clint's shoulders as she looked him in the eyes. "I trust you not to hurt me." That made one of them, but Clint didn't argue with her. It was nice to know after the cluster fuck of the past several days, someone still trusted him. "Why don't you have your bow?" Natasha asked as she stepped back. "I thought you slept with it."
It was an old joke between them, but after the looks he'd gotten when he'd stepped onto the range, his bow held loosely in his hand, Clint couldn't smile. "You're the only one who trusts me not to hurt them." Not that he blamed the other agents. He had attacked the Helicarrier just three days ago, disabling two of the engines with well-placed shots and taking down more agents than he cared to think about. Even helping save the world didn't get him a pass on that.
Natasha snorted indelicately. "Idiots."
"They have reasons." Clint didn't meet Natasha's eyes as he stepped around her. She didn't agree—he could tell just from the tension in her frame—and he wasn't in the mood to argue. He deserved censure after what he'd done.
"Clint." Natasha caught his arm, holding it loosely in a hold he could easily break without hurting either of them. "It's not your fault."
"Feels like it."
"You said yourself Loki unmade you. Pushed you out and put something else in. It was him. Not you."
That was the same thing Clint had been told countless times since leading the attack that had given Loki free reign on the Helicarrier—the attack that had left Phil dead—then helping defeat him, but he still couldn't believe it, not even from Natasha. "I guess." He pulled his hand from Natasha's grip and stepped farther into the room, wondering what he was going to do now that he couldn't pass another sleepless night on the range. "Why are you here, anyway?"
Natasha crossed back to the bed and settled in a lotus position. "I'm sleeping here."
"But—" Clint stopped himself before he admitted he had no plans to sleep. Natasha didn't need to know about the nightmares that kept him up all night. "Why?"
"They're doing repairs near my quarters. It's too loud to sleep." Natasha shrugged. "It won't be the first time we've shared a bed."
The repairs couldn't be louder than some other things they'd both slept through before, but Clint was neither stupid nor self-destructive enough to call the Black Widow a liar. "Fine," he said, sighing as he resigned himself to a night staring into the darkness while Natasha slept pressed against his back.
"Thanks."
The smile she sent him was grateful enough Clint felt guilty for doubting her, and he managed to force his lips to curl up as he exchanged his uniform for boxers and a t-shirt. Natasha was already dressed for bed in yoga pants and a tank top, and she scooted toward the wall to make room for him as he approached. It was such a display of trust that Clint froze, his brain refusing to process what his eyes were seeing. Natasha was even more paranoid than he was, and she would never let anyone trap her against the wall like that unless it was part of a cover.
Except apparently she would, because she stretched out on her back and patted the mattress of the small bed. "Come on. I'm tired. We've only got a few hours before we have to be up again."
Clint flicked off the light and climbed onto the bed, lying on his side with his back to Natasha. He fully expected her to turn toward the wall—back-to-back was how they always slept on missions—but she rolled the other way, pressing her chest against his back and slipping her arm around his waist.
"Relax," she whispered, her lips so close to his ear she was practically nuzzling his neck. "You're too tense."
"Hard not to be."
"It doesn't matter what they think," she said, knowing without being told his tension had nothing to do with how she was curled around him, despite what it would have done to anyone else familiar with her particular skill set.
"Easy for you to say. No one is looking at you like they expect you to kill them," Clint muttered, as he shifted slightly. It was surprisingly comfortable to have Natasha wrapped around him like this. His muscles started relaxing despite his resolve to stay up all night to keep the nightmares at bay.
"Screw them." Natasha curled her fingers loosely around Clint's wrist again. "It's not your fault."
"I know." He did, really, though it was hard to believe when the agents he passed in the halls looked at him like that.
"They know too." Natasha slid her leg between Clint's in a way that should have felt restrictive but instead relaxed him further. "They've got no right to make you feel bad."
"It's...." Clint sighed, too tired to explain that Fury clearing him didn't mean the people he'd attacked were going to feel better about seeing him around. "Yeah. Doesn't stop them, though."
Natasha sighed behind him, and their breathing fell into an easy pattern as they lay together in the darkness. Clint's eyelids slowly started to droop as the steady rise and fall of Natasha's chest against his relaxed the last of the tension from his body and the exhaustion that came from avoiding sleep since Loki crept over him.
"We could take Stark up on his offer," Natasha said just as Clint's eyes slipped fully closed. "Move in with him."
Clint huffed in amusement without opening his eyes. He hadn't taken the idea seriously when Stark had tossed it out over schawarma, but at the time he hadn't been able to think past wondering if SHIELD would forgive him for the things he'd done while under Loki's control. When he'd moved past that, he'd only been able to wonder if he'd ever be able to forgive himself, particularly once he'd learned about Phil. "Fury won't like it."
"Fury's got no way to stop us, and no right either." Natasha lifted her head from where it was nuzzled against Clint's neck, presumably to peer down at him in the darkness. "No one will look at you funny there."
"Yes, they will." Clint's lips curled up into a fond smile as he thought about the looks he would likely encounter in Stark's tower. "They won't look at me like that though."
Natasha huffed in amusement as she laid her head back down. "True." She shifted closer, wrapping Clint in her warmth. "So are we moving?"
It wasn't much of a decision. With Natasha soft and secure against his back and the idea of living somewhere they still trusted him in his head, Clint felt right for the first time since waking up in the infirmary. "Yeah."
"Good." Natasha sighed into the back of his neck and let her body relax around Clint's. "I'll tell Tony in the morning. Sleep now."
Briefly, Clint wondered when Stark had become Tony to Natasha, but it was too much effort to ask. Instead, he hummed his agreement and nuzzled down into the pillows as he gave into the long-resisted lure of sleep.