Chapter 9
Three Hours after Shawarma
Clint hurt in places he didn’t know he could hurt. He didn’t know when the last time he slept was because he lost several days to being mind controlled by an alien. His head felt like someone had slammed it against a metal railing. Someone had slammed it against a metal railing. The woman limping next to him and pretending she wasn’t hurt happened to have done that.
They were six blocks away from the shawarma restaurant and not yet out of the downtown destruction before Clint reached over and took her hand. She squeezed it in reply. It was five months since they had seen each other, since they had somewhat made up, and he had tried to kill her, and she had had to nearly kill him. A reversal of fortune, Coulson would call it. Clint’s heart seized up when he thought of Coulson.
“Don’t,” advised Natasha, in that uncanny way she used to have about the silent thoughts. He gave her a suspicious look about perhaps she hadn’t told them about the other part of her gift that was mind reading. She didn’t react, just kept limping and pulling him along toward a safe house they used to have on the Upper East Side. He did not want to think about how tired she was. Tony told him quietly that Natasha had been so exhausted by the time Coulson tracked her down and called her in that she managed only two jumps: one to India, and one to the helicarrier.
Clint hadn’t believed his ears. “She jumped the Hulk here?”
Tony had rolled his eyes. “No. She jumped Banner here. The Hulk’s just bonus.”
Natasha, out of jumps, too tired to use magic engrained in her DNA and her blood, had brought him back from the devil himself. Clint did not know how to hold his gratitude toward her and his fear and his guilt all at the same time. He remained silent as he didn’t know what to say. They rode the elevator to their floor, slumped against opposing walls, stealing looks at each other. Natasha shook keys free from her uniform while Clint tried not to stare. She gave him a thin smile at that. “Where do you think I kept the keys?”
He shrugged. “Magic.”
“If only,” she said, surprisingly good natured, but perhaps she was too tired to fight with him. He didn’t know. He didn’t understand anything. She nodded to the hallway off the living room as they stepped together into a musty apartment they hadn’t used in a long time. “You get first shower.”
He should have argued but he didn’t. He stripped in the bathroom, leaving the door open, like he always used to because he had a thing about closed doors, and he didn’t care if Natasha was looking. He kind of wanted her to look. Instead, he could hear her in the kitchen, cursing and clattering about. For a brief moment, this was them four years ago, bumbling about domestic life, colliding together like stars exploding in space, hot and angry and beautiful and destructive and utterly out of control. Just, their speed, tonight, was unusually slow.
Clint scrubbed himself nearly raw in the shower, trying to get all the glass and dust out of his skin. It seemed like a useless effort. He stepped out and found a towel that smelled fairly musty, but less musty than the other one that he figured he’d leave for Natasha. He dried himself off and limped into the bedroom. He had been considerably thinner, apparently, when they last lived here, but he managed to find a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that fit, mostly.
He squinted at Natasha when he walked back into the living room. “What are you doing?”
“Cooking,” she said, unable to keep the frustration out of her voice. “Cooking. I’m cooking.”
He stilled at the sound of her voice. She sounded…fuck, she sounded delicate. He could count on…yeah, one finger the time that Natasha allowed herself to sound delicate without the purpose of seducing anyone. He watched her peer into a pot. “Tasha.”
“I wanted to make something. Outside there’s,” she waved a hand and then lifted her eyes to him. His heart nearly broke in half at the tears in her blue eyes. She looked away and drew in a deep breath.
He understood. Outside, destruction. Inside, creation. He said quietly, “Go shower, Nat. I’ll finish it.”
“It’s just a can of soup but I think I’m burning it.”
“It’s okay,” he said. He didn’t tell her that they just ate. “Go shower. You’ll feel better. I promise.”
She put the spoon down on the counter. “Okay.”
When she passed him, she stopped, caught the tips of his fingers in her fingers, and then let them go. She shut the bathroom door behind her. She had a thing about shutting doors. He managed to add water and save the soup that she wanted to make, and found a bottle of wine. He poured them two glasses and took them out to the fire escape overlooking the avenue. People were finally leaving their houses, wandering around and hugging each other. Looked like a lot of people didn’t have power and they were exchanging batteries, candles, and flashlights. Kids ran in the streets, playing with balls and hula hoops. The sounds of sirens and helicopters were distant.
“Better,” she whispered, stepping out onto the metal grate, and settling down next to him. She accepted the wine he handed her and sipped it, closing her eyes. Her skin glistened, not completely dried off after the shower, and her curls clung to her skin, dark. They reminded him of her blood on the outside of her body and he looked away. She sank slightly against the wall, against him.
For a long time, they sat there and then Clint asked wonderingly, “What’s going to become of us?”
Natasha, to her credit, considered his question. “Us, as in you and me, or us as in that team?”
Clint glanced at her. “Both.”
Natasha was quiet for a long time, then she curled her toes against the top of his foot. They used to spend hours out here, nursing their wounds, drinking, laughing, flirting with each other. This felt so close to old times, and so incredibly far away from those times. Clint watched Natasha’s eyes focus and her lips purse outward in thought.
Finally, she said, “We’re going to be okay.”
He let his arm relax to rest against hers. “We as in you and I, or we as in the team?”
“Both,” she told him softly with a smile.
They stayed up there a long time