Torn Paperback Novel

Natasha was feeling slightly desperate, and that wasn't a state she did well in. It wasn't a state that she was used to feeling, truth be told, and hence she didn't deal as well as she might normally. But when your partner and lover was just flung off a fifty-story building, desperate might be an understatement to how someone was supposed to feel.

"CLINT!" It burst out of her throat before she could stop it. "Clint!" Her voice was raw and shrill and not hers at all.

"Widow, WIDOW! I got him!" Stark's voice cut across her consciousness, and she finally processed what he was saying. "I got him, ok? I got him." She was hearing Stark but wasn't really believing what he was saying. She'd seen it, right? She'd watched Clint get knocked backward, seized by the other guy he'd been fighting, seen the grappling and had known what was coming. Her throat had closed, her body had taken a mind of its own, and she'd stopped caring if she killed the goons she was currently taking down, one rooftop over. All she'd been able to process was movemovemovegettherehelpohgo dclint!.

"I'm good," his voice came, sounding a bit strangled. "Iron Man's got me, a bit too tight, Stark!" She was at the edge of her own roof, silently strewn bodies not even twitching, foot poised on the edge. Her eyes finally saw the two men rising up, Iron Man with an arm around Hawkeye's chest. The archer was glaring up at the metal face, his bow clutched in one hand.

Her eyes were drawn by the two remaining guys on the other roof, and before she could blink, she'd drawn her guns and shot them both. Drilled them in the center of the forehead.

"Geeze, you couldn't let me have one?" she heard her partner complain. "After all, they threw ME off the roof."

As Iron Man touched down, both men's feet meeting the rooftop, Natasha's chest seemed to unseize. She turned and made for the rooftop access door. She'd deal with all of it later. All her panic, her desperation, her blindness, she'd deal with that later. For now she shoved everything but the mission back down into a little box in the corner of her mind. And then sealed the box with duct tape, cement and put a mental granite block on top of it. Later.

Later came after clearing her building, one tedious floor at a time. Thank heavens Rogers was working his way up from the bottom, or she'd have been at it another few hours. There'd been a lot of scared office workers, a couple dozen goons, and she'd gotten the prize: the psycho-madman world-ruler-wannabee. He'd been a bit of a pest, what with his laser gun and trained attack pigeons. Honestly. Pigeons? The guy clearly had a Hitchcock issue. Even she knew that movie.

Later came after the five of them met up, sweaty, dirty and a little bloody outside the skyscrapers only to find Agent Hill there with the back-up teams already setting up the perimeter and containment section. Later came after they'd been debriefed, forced through Medical, after they'd escaped the white-coated doctors and gotten back on Stark's jet and landed back at the tower.

Later came when Natasha was standing in her shower, hot water beating down on her face, completely naked and with soap in her hair. That box burst open with a vengeance. All of that fear, that panic, it exploded out of her and she found herself all of a sudden sobbing. Tears poured down her face to mix with the hot water of the shower, and her legs shook and trembled until she just let herself slide down to sit on the floor of the shower stall.

She wasn't sure how long she was down there, but the water was still lukewarm when she finally got to her feet again. Natasha rinsed her hair, stepped out and dried off. Mechanically, she pulled on the black t-shirt and sweats she'd set out before she'd gotten in the shower. Without letting herself look in the mirror, she pulled a comb through her hair and went through her normal beauty routine. Her skin, her looks, they were part of her weapons. She applied lotions and powders without thought.

When she finally opened the bathroom door, it was with a blessedly blank mind. There were no thoughts left, just emptiness. Right up until she saw Clint lying on her bed, bare-chested and in sweats like herself, reading some paperback. Every muscle in her body seized up again and she was right back on that rooftop, watching him fly over the edge.

Clint must not have been too into his book, because when the door had clicked open, he'd looked up with a smile. The warmth in his eyes faded to concern as he took in her expression. "Tasha?" he said, sitting up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His book was still in his hand. "What's wrong?"

"I..." Was that her voice? Since when was her throat this tight? "I can't do this. I can't do this."

Her archer's eyes sharpened, and he set the book down. "Can't do what, Tasha?" he said.

"I can't do THIS!" she burst out. She was nearly without control, nearly unmade in the worst way she'd ever felt. All those sessions in the psych rooms back in Russia as a child... all the drugs, the brainwashing attempts... This was worse. This mattered. "I can't watch you fly off a rooftop and not know if you're going to be a splatter on the sidewalk! I can't... I can't feel like this!"

Clint didn't move. His eyes were sharp and steady, watchful. His sniper's body focused on her, on his target. She'd been his target once before, years ago. She was back there for a second, in that dirty alleyway with an arrow pointed at her chest.

"Natasha," he said. Voice calm, steady. Eyes laser sharp on her. "Did you complete the mission?"

"Yes," she said.

"Were you impeded in your ability to complete the mission by my accident?" He was watching her. Very carefully.

She let the silence hang. "... I don't know." And perhaps that was the worst thing. She didn't know.

He cocked his head at her, eyes still steady and sharp. His hands were folded in front of him now. "Were you unable at any point to complete the mission? Were you prevented by my accident and your reaction to it from carrying out the tenants laid out in the mission assignments?" She slowly shook her head. His eyes finally gentled. "Then Tasha," he said softly. "You can do this. Just like I can."

"But..." her breath was struggling to come again. Just like in the shower. "But I... I watched you fall off... and I didn't... I didn't know..." To her humiliation and horror, she felt the tears gathering behind her eyes again and she clenched her fists hard in reaction.

"Oh, baby," Clint was in front of her now, arms sliding around her, those strong arms that she never could get out of. Her face was pressed to his bare chest, his heartbeat thumping strong and sure. "Sweetheart." He was rocking her a little, holding her there. Her arms were still stiff, her fists clenched. "Tasha, it's ok to feel that way. I'm scared out of my fucking mind for you a million times a day."

She shuddered. "I don't..." She didn't have words, she'd didn't know how to do this, dammit. She didn't know how to explain what was churning inside of her.

"You're my best friend," Clint was saying, soft into her hair. "My very best friend. And you're the one person in the world I have left to love." She shuddered again at that word. Love. Love was for... "And it's ok to feel that way, Tasha. You're not in the Red Room anymore. And you're not going to suddenly feel any different if we weren't together, and the same thing happened tomorrow. There'd still be a sick, scared feeling in your stomach when I'm in danger, you'd still have that moment of panic when you don't know what's happened to me, and you'd still get knocked over with the relief afterward. And it's ok."

Natasha didn't have the words he did. Maybe it was something else the Red Room had taken from her with all their mind games. She might not have words, but she could show him what she was feeling. Her fists unclenched, her hands lifted to slide around his waist and clutch at his bare back. Her face turned to bury itself in his shoulder. Her arms tightened around his torso. She hugged him to her, as if she'd never let him go.

She felt his arms tighten in response and he pressed his lips against the crown of her head. They stood that way for a long, long moment, wrapped in each other.

Natasha was the one who finally moved. She lifted her head, looking up at him. "Stay safe," she told him seriously, looking straight up into his eyes. "I don't think I can handle it if you don't."

Clint smiled a little, looking right back at her. "Same goes, you know. I loose a little life every time someone lands a hit on you." She held his eyes for another long moment, then nodded slowly. It made it better, somehow, that she wasn't the only one feeling this. She didn't understand why, it wasn't something that made sense. But there it was.

The knot in her chest had finally loosened, and with a exhale of breath, she reached up to kiss him. Their lips met and clung, the sensation going from cherishing to wildly hungry in an instant. Fire was suddenly burning through her, and it was going to burn her up if she didn't get his body joined with hers.

Those strong arms were suddenly bands of steel, hers were snaking up tight around his neck and with a little leap her legs were locked around his waist. The hot, wet kiss was short-circuiting her brain as she ground against him and they went stumbling backwards, falling to the bed and rolling. Clint's hands were greedy and grasping in the best kind of way, roving and claiming. Hers were clutching and taking and claiming, demanding what he had to give her.

She heard a rip, and realized dimly that her shirt was now in two pieces as his mouth came down hard on her bare breast. He sucked and she cried out in shocked pleasure, nails digging into his buttocks. She heard the hiss of his breath against her skin, and then they were rolling and tearing and clutching as clothes somehow were pulled away. When his body plunged into hers, she cried out with the glad relief, legs wrapped around his waist to pull him closer and deeper. His breath was harsh against her neck, her fingers tight in his hair. It was a mad, crazy, brutal dance and she rode the whole glorious wave of it, giving as good as she got right until the end when they went crashing over the edge together.

Afterward she lay there, limp and exhausted in a way that she'd never felt after sex. She had a feeling if she asked Clint, he'd smile and tell her she was tired from all the 'feeling' stuff, too. He lay like the dead, body still joined to hers, face buried in her neck and body pinning hers to the bed.

Natasha finally felt him breathe in a deep sigh, and make to move off her. Her fingers instinctively clutched at him, unwilling to loose that connection. She felt his lips against her collarbone, and then he rolled them, splaying her over his chest. She sighed, hearing the still-rapid thump of his heart beneath her ear. Clint shifted, and reached down to pull the now battered paperback out from underneath him. He tossed it to the floor without even looking, and dropped his arm back around her waist.

"Sleep," he murmured. "We'll deal with it all later."

Natasha sighed again, and slipped her right hand up to lay against his neck, feeling his pulse under her fingers. "Ok," she said, closing her eyes. Later. She could do later.

AN - For Lena Liz Carter. Whew! A little warm in here now, anyone? Sorry that took so long... :-)

Next Chapter - Broadsword