A/N: Prompted by iwakunirose. I added more tender sexual tension than they meant, however. I think. Oops~

Edit: Now typo-free! c':

She stirs in her given bed and fusses with the covers, sweat on her lower back, threatening to dampen her underwear, and her breasts pressing too flatly against the mattress. She rolls over, huffs a sigh, her eyes slowly blinking open. Getting up and slipping on a nightgown, Natasha pads barefoot, silent as a true spy, out of her room and down the hall, her arms wrapped around herself.

Instinctively, she heads for the roof of the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. A breath of fresh air might cool her down, clear her head. It would do her good to break free of the lingering night terrors; ones full of violence and bloodlust, and the sweat-triggering thrill of scaling walls and falling out of airplanes.

As she enters the doorway that exposes the expanse of the roof, she senses a presence. There is a figure sitting on the edge, one knee propped up, one arm dangling from the knee, and the other leg hanging off the edge, the other hand beside it, gripping the top of the cement. The figure is male, middle-aged, and she knows precisely who she's looking at.

She could sneak up behind him. She's been able to do it once or twice, in the past. But, instead, Natasha announces herself plainly.

"Couldn't sleep?" Natasha surmises as she steps fully out onto the roof of the government building. When Clint gives no response, she sighs. "Yeah, I couldn't, either."

She takes her place beside him, sitting down on the level ground just under the ledge he's propped up on. She leans her back against it – cool and jagged, like the shady side of a boulder – and tilts her head back to rest against the edge itself, her hair spilling onto the back of Clint's hand. He doesn't remove it. He scarcely so much as glances down at her.

There is more roof a few feet below the drop-off point where the archer is perched, and if he fell, he would be able to land with minimal to no injury. Still, Natasha wishes, sometimes, even with all his grace on par with hers, he would step away. It makes her stomach pitch when she sees him linger close to the edge, appearing too closely to a suicide mission he narrowly escaped once. She had to save him with a grappling hook. It was singularly the most terrifying moment of her life.

"You're going to Russia tomorrow to gather information, I take it," Clint finally speaks up, and this time he does bring his eyes to her; and it somehow calms her, having the eye contact. "I don't need to tell you to be safe, do I?"

"No. You know I can handle myself. And these thugs aren't that frightening, from what the file has told me," she replies with a shrug, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her thin arms around them. She overlaps her toes and scrunches them against the uneven tiles of the flat roof. "They are going to begin testing the Tesseract in a few days. I don't need to tell you to be safe, do I?"

He smirks at that, returning his gaze to the desert horizon. There's a fresh chill in the air, and it breezes past Natasha and refreshes her, cooling her lingering sweat. "No, I can handle a bunch of scientists experimenting with an energy source that is possibly a temporal transmitter. It shouldn't be too rough. I just have to make sure no one gets out of line."

"You'll stay in your nest, safe from harm, then, Hawkeye?" she jests lightly, but there is no humor in her tone, and barely any in her eyes. Always so serious, even when she's kidding, because there is truth in there. She wants him up and away from harm. All he craves is to see her genuine smile.

"I'll be all right," he assures her formally, looking down and giving her a nod.

Natasha holds out her arms and lets slip one leg to rest flat on the roof. "Come down here with me. The stars are especially bright tonight. No clouds in sight. It can be like old times, when we were on stakeouts together."

"I remember," Clint murmurs. He turns and hops down onto the roof, and Natasha aligns herself with him. Their fingertips touch between them, but they are laying opposite one another; her feet near his head, his feet near hers. His free arm goes behind his head. Hers rests across her stomach.

They watch the stars. Clint names constellations to travel by. Natasha relates them to phrases, animals, and people in Russian.

Clint strokes his middle fingers across her fingernail, and down the length, over the knuckles of her ring finger. She pretends not to notice.

"We were so exhausted in Budapest," she murmurs. "We laid out and looked at the stars like this, too tired to get up, forced to peer at the sky."

"Was this after the battle, or after the sex?" Clint jokes, but like her, he doesn't use the tone to match. His eyes smile, though, even though she can't see it.

She nudges him with her bare foot, briefly feeling his hair atop her toes. "After we fought the renegades, Clint. God, I forgot we even had sex in Budapest."

"I have a feeling that means I'll always remember it differently than you," he muses to himself.

"Men only think of one thing," she sighs. She closes her eyes and considers the fight. Fighting is better than sex for her. Fighting takes skill. Fighting is an art. Fighting is fluid and spontaneous and full of more adrenaline and dopamine for her than sex. Sex can keep its oxytocin and lesser adrenaline; she prefers the thrill of barely making it out alive as opposed to physical pleasure. She enjoys the sharp pains of muscles sore from battle, not the aches of rigorous sex. "I can't blame you, though. It's simply how your gender is built."

"I would be offended, but I see how other things hold more appeal to you," Clint agrees mildly. "God, sometimes I like it better than sex, too. When I have my bow in my hands, it's better than holding the curves of a woman. More familiar. There is more control, more at stake, and I know exactly what I'm doing."

Natasha smiles, truly smiles. She wishes Clint could see it, because she knows he likes her smiles. "You knew well enough what to do the times we've engaged in the act. We just work better when we kill than when we're together… otherwise."

"I don't know," the arches disagrees, "We're getting along just fine right now, and we're not doing either extreme."

The Black Widow hums in agreement with that. He has a point. She closes her eyes. She could sleep now. The stars are dancing behind her eyelids, and she feels safe up here with her fellow assassin. She shouldn't. By all means, being with another spying killer should make her uneasy. But they are indebted to one another, never fully able to repay each new debt they create every time they save each other's lives and go on missions apart or together, so it keeps her protected. It's what makes her feel safe, knowing that he would never hurt her.

It's not love, she assures herself as she drifts off to sleep. Clint doesn't love her. If he did, she might be offended. She prefers it this way, the way they are. The way they are locked in a secure stalemate, like the stars. The way they can burn together in passions both sexual and homicidal. It's comforting to her, to know that. It shouldn't be. She is aware. But it's her life. She likes it this way.

Natasha wakes to the feeling of arms slipping underneath her. She could easily jump out of them, attack, or whichever, but she lets herself be carried.

"I was going to go to bed soon," she protests against Clint's t-shirt, his warm chest breathing beneath her cheek, his pulse thumping in her ear. He's calm. His pulse is even. But his face is soft, tender; when she glances up, icy fear momentarily flashes through her, because what if he does love her? That would ruin everything.

"It's better if you go now," Clint replies. He carries her downstairs, carries her all the way to her room, her nightgown flowing by her feet, her arms pressed against him. She sighs.

"Fine. But if anyone sees us, I can't promise I won't threaten them into silence," she retorts.

Clint chuckles with closed lips to keep it quiet. She feels his chest rumble. It soothes her, oddly. "I know."

He sets her down in her bed, covers her. She catches his face before he leaves. Presses a kiss to his temple, his jaw, his mouth. He shifts and rubs a thumb over her shoulder, fingers curled around her bicep, and kisses her back. It lacks tenderness. It's desire. Good; he doesn't love her. She doesn't want that. Love is idealistic, unreal. She despises love.

"I can't tonight," he says into her mouth. "You're leaving tomorrow. You need what little sleep left you can get."

"I'll sleep better if I lose some of these pent-up nerves," Natasha replies. "Please, Clint. I was tossing and turning before. I couldn't stop shaking, sweating, half-dreaming of the fight to come, of fights previous. I need something to quell it. All of it. I need you."

Clint can't deny her. He slips into her bed and gives her what she wants until she's collapsed and sleeping soundly. He presses a lingering kiss to her brow before getting back into his clothes and leaving her room, door shut behind him.

He returns to the roof to wait for the sunrise in a couple short hours. The breeze cools the sweat on his skin. He lies and watches the stars, and he doesn't think of Natasha; not the entire time, anyhow.