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From there, Natasha’s memory ran in fits and starts. She didn’t remember Clint holding her, comforting her, so much as she remembered the safety of it. It had the lingering feeling of a dream upon waking. She remembered more the moments of separation from him: the evac, the doctors, times in the hospital room when she had to be so quiet and calm and just ask where he was instead of screaming. He’d gone to be debriefed; he didn’t know how much she wanted him there.

But he knew something, which was more than most could claim. He came about after the debrief was finished and sat with her in intensive care, stubbornly seeming to meditate on her recovery, just pure concentrated concern over her that Natasha drank in like the sun after years in the shadows.

She stayed quiet, convalescent, centering herself while he watched over her. She supposed it was sadistic, letting him worry about her, gauging his anguish like it was some kind of test, but no one had ever accused her of being cruel or not being cruel. Just efficient.

This wasn’t efficient. She had a longing that she could resist, but not shake. While the emotion wasn’t overwhelming, the curiosity was. She actually missed being wounded, teetering on the brink of death, simply because it had excused so much. It’d let Clint hold her. It’d let her be held.

Apparently, the furious concentration under her eyelids had become too much for even Clint not to notice. “There she is.”

Natasha took a page from his book: a short, noncommittal burst of communication. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Natasha didn’t try to move, but cast eyes down to her bandaged torso. “How bad is it?” She already knew—she was good at knowing how far her body had been pushed—but Clint would tell her of any complications, no bullshit.

“I think you’re gonna miss the spring formal,” he informed her gravely.

“And I already picked my dress out,” Natasha pouted. She’d be grounded for months, recuperating, then recertifying herself—God help her, psych evals. This was why she didn’t like getting shot. Even after they took the bullet out, it was still such a big deal with people.

“I’ll be taking a couple of weeks’ vacation time,” Clint said. He shrugged. “Better that than breaking in a new partner. You’re welcome at the apartment, if you can go without sponge baths.”

Natasha smiled to herself. She had her own place, and appreciated the privacy of it. Some wounds she liked to suffer in silence with. But Clint always offered—sometimes she’d taken him up on it to pacify him. Guy seemed to get a kick out of reaching out to her, and since a lot of the time he was banged up worse than she was, she let him have it.

But here he was, with just a scratch, and the offer stood, and she felt herself smile and she felt herself nod. Just while she healed, rested up. The doctors would only release her if she was out of intensive care, so at any point, she could declare herself cured and go back to her own little safehouse.

She wondered if Clint had given it some clever name, like ‘the Widow’s Web’. Probably. She’d ask him, but it would hurt to laugh.

“Okay,” Clint said, trying to act like her agreeing wasn’t some big deal. “I’ll tell Laura to make up the guest room.” It was a walk-in closet neither of them used. Laura had the least shoes of any woman Natasha had ever known. No wonder he’d married her.

“You need to buy that farm already,” Natasha told him.

“Fury needs to give me a raise.”

“I agree to one sleepover at your place and you start believing in miracles…”