Marvel Cinematic, "Decompression" (Clint+/Natasha)

[sincere]

She's steel and pragmatism during the day, and when she needs to let all of that go, that's when she comes to him, and tells him they should get a drink.
Contains Clint/Natasha flavored goodness. Happy birthday to temples yesterday! This was a prompt inspired by something on the avengerkink meme, where Red Room trained a scruff instinct into Natasha.


.decompression.
Most of them were a wreck. Filthy, bloody, injured; clothes torn, weapons depleted, bodies exhausted. But Clint couldn't help thinking that Natasha looked like hell. There was a tension to her that would not go away, even as they say in silence, among allies, chewing dutifully at shawarma that they mostly seemed to find unappetizing.

Clint lifted a leg and casually draped it over the seat of her chair behind her hips. Natasha darted him a sidelong glance, and their eyes met for a moment before she returned her attention wordlessly to the food, a tacit approval.

He knew what she liked, and what she didn't like. Since he knew not many did, he enjoyed doing little things for her.

And that was why he knew she would have a problem with Thor clapping a companionable hand at the nape of her neck when he bid them goodbye. Clint stepped up quickly when he saw it, intercepting so that he was right there, half-between them, and the giant blond aborted the gesture.

"Wanted to thank you for all you've done," he said frankly.

At the sound of his voice, Natasha glanced back at him, at Thor's lowering hand. Her expression didn't change. She never gave anything away.

"If you hadn't come, we might not have been able to stop Loki in time. You've been a great help. I appreciate that."

Thor's features contorted. Now, he wore his thoughts on his sleeve for all the world to see. "If not for us, he would never have come here to begin with. And perhaps his allies would never have had reason to turn their eyes upon your realm. A great price was paid to summon me here, but -- it was not one we could refuse to pay."

Natasha turned to face them, as if just happening to overhear. She said smoothly, "In the future, hopefully you'll be able to visit with less urgency. I think I know someone who would like to see you."

A surprised beat, and then Thor said, "You do?"

"I escorted her to Tromso," she explained, smiling readily.

Thor returned the smile, his tinged with sentiment. "...Good. I should like that as well. If you see her again, please tell her... Tell her that I think of her, and that I will return." And then his hand descended again, clapping Clint on the shoulder this time. There was enough unintended force in the gesture that he had to tighten his jaw against pain. "And on that day, we will all gather, and drink, and celebrate our reunion and our peace! I eagerly await it, my friends."

As he turned, Clint murmured to Natasha, "I don't know if that girl is gonna make it."

Her smile shifted, and she shrugged. "We'll worry about it when he gets back," she excused.

Some of her tension had faded, but not by any means all of it. Clint was still aware of it. And after they had returned to SHIELD headquarters and Natasha said, "You look like you need to relax. Want to have a drink back at my place?" he knew that what she meant was, I need to relax.

"Yeah. You might be right," Clint said. He wanted to do this for her.

Maybe it was a form of gratitude, he thought when she brought him back to her apartment and offered him the wine. She had helped him, after all. And as much as he wanted to indulge in his own private thoughts -- brood over a beer in a darkened room and relive every moment of the last few days -- Natasha was the one who had saved him from it. She'd made the call that he'd once made for her.

This time the red was on his ledger.

It didn't feel like it, though, because after the wine and the talk she changed into her nightgown, a thin slip of a thing that he suspected was as much for his benefit as any of the acts she put on in front of the others. She tugged him into her bedroom and then guided him to lie face-down on her bed, and then slid above him, settling astride his back.

Then she started the massage, rubbing the tension from his muscles. Her hands were small and warm, but powerful, effortlessly gripping tight and working away the knots under the skin. It was hard to remember that he was doing this for her. Doing this to pay her back. She was rather effectively banishing the memory of his own frustrations.

He mumbled, "Damn, you've got good hands."

"I told you. You need to relax," she said steadily. "Let me."

He did. He let her work his muscles, melting into the bed until he was all but boneless and his mind all but empty. She was talented, her hands traveling his neck, his shoulders, his back.

She literally had his life in her hands. She could have broken his neck in a split second -- wrenched his shoulders out of their sockets -- paralyzed him with just a single sharp motion. He held nothing back.

And then, when she was satisfied with his offering, Natasha slid off his back. Clint groggily shifted, pushing himself up on his arms, and then his knees, and he managed, "Your turn?"

Because this was what she needed. The ritual. Once he had submitted himself to her, then she could let herself submit to him. Natasha's green eyes settled on him, serene and solemn, as she eased onto her belly, arms loose at her sides.

Then Clint shifted above her, and he settled his hand at the back of her neck.

The first time he'd done it had been an accident. The deadly Black Widow went from subtle spider to vicious viper when cornered, and she'd fought like a thing possessed, relentless and unyielding and cold. He had closed in with her because he'd wanted to talk, and then found himself at a disadvantage, more than he had expected with her young age and slight size.

But when he grabbed the back of her neck, trying to pull her away, her eyes had gone wide, and the tension had fled from her body.

The way it did now, the coiled readiness and the steel control. It drained away under Clint's hand so easily, and her breath eased out of her in a little sigh, lips parting.

It was that easy. That easily, he could do anything to her and she would allow it -- tell her anything, and she would believe it.

Clint liked to do it right, so he returned the favor, bringing his other hand up slowly to rub her shoulders where the tension had been gathered. He smoothed them both over her back, dragging firmly down, and then up, lingering again at the nape of her neck. She felt delicate under his hands, warm through the fabric of her nightgown.

There were no concerns left in her to be dispelled by the massage, but he went for it anyway. Clint was decent with his hands, but it wouldn't have mattered: he didn't need any talent when she was like molding clay beneath his touch.

Into the silence, he asked quietly, "This helping?"

Natasha murmured, "Yes."

It was part of her programming, an aftereffect of the way they'd trained her in the Red Room. She processed her surroundings completely, absorbing every stimulus to keep her reactions sharp and retaining it long after for later analysis. It was why she stuck to small scale missions, it was why an out-and-out battlefield had been no place for her. She could go into shock when overloaded, and hold onto stress even after there was need to be so tightly-wound.

She needed someone to release her from the tension. She couldn't do it to herself.

Clint was the only one she turned to.

"I like that," she added dreamily after a moment.

Clint paused. She rarely volunteered to speak in this state. "This?" he asked, repeating the gesture, digging his knuckles into her back.

"No..." Natasha breathed out, and then chuckled softly. "When you're tired -- or focused. You lose syllables... sometimes whole words. I like that."

He felt his lips twitch up, reluctant. "You noticed that, huh?" He slowly resumed the massage, stroking her back.

"That's when it sounds like you say 'Tasha." Her eyes slipped shut. "...And I like that, too."

This was a dangerous turn of events, Clint suddenly thought. He was always careful not to say anything to influence her, never to try to take advantage of her programming in any way. She was suggestible in this state -- lenient, and vulnerable in a way she never would be ordinarily. Saying things she never ordinarily would.

But that didn't mean that when the haze cleared, she wouldn't regret saying them.

"I'm glad," was all he said, not encouraging or discouraging. Hoping the lack of response would be enough to stop her.

It wasn't. "Better than when you call me Nat," she said. "I know that -- you just do it in combat, for a quick nickname, but... I hate that name."

"Hey," he interceded, gentle. "Now is about making you feel good, Natasha." He was careful to enunciate her whole name. "Relax. Just... let me."

It was a tiny manipulation, and she sighed again, the words melting away along with the tension. She didn't even look up when he finally eased down onto the bed alongside her; when he guided her around to lie on her back and tucked the covers around her, still dressed in her nightgown; when he settled down next to her above the bed-covers with his ankles crossed lazily and fingers knotted over his stomach.

In the morning when he bothered to get up, she was already out of the bed, wearing a bathrobe belted over her nightgown and watching him with her usual composure.

"Eggs?" Natasha asked.

"Two," he said, swinging his feet down to the floor. "You got toast?"

She lifted her eyebrows. "Who doesn't have bread and a frying pan, Clint?" she asked, and turned away.

"I think people usually make toast in a toaster," he offered.

"Toasters are for amateurs. Trust me. Frying pan beats toaster every time. You'll love it."

Clint knew that cooking was her way of thanking him, since she didn't ordinarily do it unless she needed to. After she brought him the plate he conceded dutifully that her toast was better than his -- better than anything he'd had outside a real diner -- and they talked about the media coverage of the attack on Midtown, and what would probably happen back at SHIELD HQ, and laughed together about what Loki might face back in Asgard.

It felt farther away now than it had yesterday, less real. Clint wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not, but he preferred it, either way.

He wiped his mouth with a napkin when he was finished eating, and asked casually, "So... should I try to avoid calling you Nat in the future?"

The smile that crossed Natasha's lips was one of her rare, genuine smiles. "Nah," she said. "I guess after all of that -- I kind of like it."

Clint knew what she liked, and what she didn't like. So he knew that what she really meant was, I liked that you waited until now to ask me.