"How do you feel about Maine? I like Maine."

"What's in Maine?"

"I don't know," Clint Barton said. "Let's find out."

"It's probably just a lot of lobster," Natasha Romanov said, eyeing him.

"I like lobster," he said, a corner of his mouth turning up as he tossed his car keys back and forth between his hands.

"You like all food," Natasha observed.

"True," Barton said.

"Okay," she finally agreed.

Director Fury had given the Avengers team as much time as they needed to recoup, however they wanted to do that. And since she and Clint were actually on SHIELD payroll, SHIELD was picking up the tab for however they wanted to relax after what was being called The Battle for Manhattan and the massive cleanup that followed.

The way Natasha recharged and recovered after major stress and trauma was by sleeping. Clint preferred to drive.

It was a win-win situation.

She got in his car and reclined the passenger seat all the way down, putting her ipod on a track that would give her some white noise, since she knew Clint preferred silence while driving. She set it on repeat and figured she had at least a couple hours before her ipod died. Ten minutes after he pulled out onto a highway, she was out.

She woke up at dusk. Clint was still driving. She knew he hadn't stopped yet, or she would have felt it and woken up.

Tilting her seat back upright, she asked, "Where are we?"

"No idea," Clint said.

When he drove to decompress and think things through, he usually got lost, but this looked a little more lost than usual. She glanced at him, and she knew he was doing that thing with his jaw, where he just worked it and worked it.

"Let it go, Clint," she said. "We got him."

"That's not what I'm thinking about," he said.

She eyed him.

"That stuff Loki got in your head about. I told him, didn't I?"

"We don't know that. And even if you did, it wasn't your fault," she said. He hadn't meant to. She had only told him about her past in the last year, and he had promised to never talk about it with anyone. And he took his promises seriously, which was why he was beating himself up over this.

He wasn't a man to beat himself up over much. Natasha decided to take it as a compliment.

"But I promised, Nat."

"I know. I forgive you."

"It's not just that. It's…" he trailed off.

"I told you not to do that," Natasha snapped. "It wasn't you."

"But it was," he said, meeting her eyes.

She knew… knew what he was going through. The horror of not being in your own mind, of being controlled by another… and then waking up and realizing all that had been done by your body while your mind was somewhere else.

"I know," she whispered.

His right hand left the steering wheel to rest lightly on her knee.

If it had been anyone else, the hand would have been gone in two seconds, and it would be doubtful whether or not it would still be attached.

But this was Clint. And Clint was different. She put her own hand on top of his.

"Are we going to drive all night?" she said, after a few minutes.

"I like driving," Clint said.

"Yeah, well, I like peeing. So find me a rest stop before your car starts to smell, Hawkeye."

"You know, I could just pull over and let you –"

"Don't even go there, Barton." Her Widow's bite was back in her voice.

He laughed and squeezed her hand. "I saw a sign for a town up ahead."

"Good. And while you're at it, you can buy me a drink."

"SHIELD can buy you a drink."

"SHIELD isn't as personable as you."

"A compliment," he said, seeing the exit sign and going off down the ramp. "That's new."

"Hush, you."