Partners

Natasha emptied the drugstore bag full of magazines onto the coffee table, arranging them in a neat stack. The second bag was full of prescription pill bottles which she carefully organized in a cluster next to the magazines, checking each label to make sure they were in the order they needed to be taken. Next, she rounded up every remote she could find in the messy apartment and placed them in a neat line on top of the magazines.

She stood and stretched her back, working out the kinks she'd acquired from long days and nights spent curled up in the world's most uncomfortable chair while she'd held vigil over her partner. She padded into the kitchen that she'd spent the better part of yesterday cleaning – the last thing they needed was another infection, least of all one caused by the three-year-old cheese lurking in Clint's refrigerator. She grabbed a couple of bottles of water, leaving behind the beer she knew he was going to whine he'd rather have, and then she picked up the pizza she'd ordered, under duress – the first and last time she was going to give into her partner's pathetic demands for "real" food.

"Real food, my ass," she muttered as she made her way back into the main room in the apartment. She sat the box and bottles on the coffee table and surveyed her work, a weariness washing over her as she realized they were finally in the homestretch – they'd made it through the surviving stage and now it was onto the healing stage. The surviving part had worn her out.

Clint reached out from where he was lying on the couch, his hand flailing limply in the empty space between the couch and the table. "Gotta move it closer, can't reach it."

She rolled her eyes and nudged the table a foot closer to the couch. She lowered herself onto the floor, sitting crossed-legged as she put a couple of slices of pizza onto the chipped plates she found in the kitchen. She grimaced as the thin slices slipped from the box onto the plate, leaving behind an orange puddle of grease.

She handed Clint his plate and said, "You could make this easier on yourself, not to mention easier on me, and recuperate at Stark's."

"Nope."

"Why not? Do I have to remind you that'd you'd have robots looking after you. Robots. You're a guy, isn't shit like that supposed to be, I don't know, 'awesome'?" She used air quotes and rolled her eyes again.

"Well," he mumbled through a mouthful of pizza, "robots were 'awesome' until they beat the shit out of me and I wound up with the Black Widow as my personal nursemaid."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about the robots." She tilted her head and tapped her chin in contemplation as she said, "Still, could have been worse. Could have been …"

"Aliens," they both said in unison and he gave a mock shiver.

"So, Stark's …" she continued, really wishing he'd reconsider. Tony had a state of the art … well, everything. Clint would be looked after, not just by her and … "Crap," she groaned, pushing herself up off the floor. "The dog," she said simply, making her way to the door. "I'll be right back."

XxXxXxXxXx

Natasha couldn't tell who was happier – the dog or the owner.

She'd asked one of Clint's neighbors, a nice lady with a couple of kids, to look after the mutt while Clint was in the hospital and they'd jumped at the chance to help out. The woman was worried for Clint and Natasha made up some story about a bad car accident but she could tell by the way the woman raised her eyebrow that she didn't believe her for a second. Clint wasn't exactly the stealthiest person in the world when it came to protecting a secret identity.

Clint was feeding pizza to the dog in between ruffling the fur behind his ears. "Hey boy, did ya miss me?"

"He missed the pizza," Natasha said dryly. As if suddenly remembering she was in the room, the dog bounded over to her and jumped up, startling her as he put his paws on her hips, like some bizarre dance partner. She cringed and Clint laughed, followed by a chest rattling cough that made her wince.

"Hey there, Arrow," she said, trying to back up so that he'd let go, but the stubborn guy didn't take the hint and followed her around the coffee table in an awkward, lumbering waltz.

"Lucky," Clint gasped after the coughing spell abated. "I told you, his name is Lucky."

"Arrow," Natasha insisted. "Try all you want, Barton, you can't escape the fact that your dog is named Arrow. And if you get a cat, you better damn well name him Quiver."

"Whatever."

XxXxXxXxXx

The sound of gunfire battled with the sound of running water as Natasha scrubbed the dishes clean.

"What's going on out there?" she asked. "It sounds like World War III."

"Dog Cops," Clint answered and Natasha shook her head.

"Of course," she muttered under her breath.

Her partner was predictable to a fault and every Thursday they had to make sure any training or meetings or just general work related stuff had to be completed in time for Clint to park himself in front of a TV to watch the latest episode of Dog Cops. She just didn't get it. Cooking shows she got. Real Housewives of Every Town in America she got. She even liked The Bachelor, though she'd never admit to it, not in a million years, not even under the most intense torture imaginable. But Dog Cops? She'd sat through debriefings with Fury that were more entertaining.

"It's a marathon," Clint supplied when she came back into the room. He was stretched out on the couch, a stack of pillows behind his back, tattered quilt thrown over his lap, dog curled up on the floor next to him. Clint was battered and rumpled and her heart ached a little when she looked at him.

Swallowing the emotion that had suddenly crept up on her, she stuck with the subject at hand. "So you've already seen these episodes?"

"Of course," he scoffed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Couple of times. Well, not counting the two I missed while I was in la la land in medical. I still can't figure out the DVR despite Tony giving his best Home Electronics 101 tutorial a couple of months ago. New episode tonight – perfect timing, huh?"

"Sure. Great," she said dryly as she glanced around the room – the room that had exactly one couch and zero chairs. "Where am I supposed to sit?"

Clint shrugged.

"You don't have any chairs."

Another shrug.

"You have the decorating skills of a frat boy." She motioned for him to scoot up a bit on the couch, which he did, wincing as his still healing wounds protested. Gently, she raised his legs, easing herself under them, letting them rest across her lap. She was careful not to touch the thick bandage covering the thigh wound that had bled out and almost killed him … and her, if she was going to go all sentimental and ever admit to what those few awful minutes had done to her heart where they had lost him and almost didn't get him back.

"You really did a number on yourself this time, didn't you?" she said, unable to keep the worry out of her voice.

He settled back against the pillows and cleared his throat. "The robots did the number, I just did the bleeding and passing out."

"Tony did make that offer once about making you a suit." Actually, he'd made the offer pretty much every time they limped back from a mission, but Clint didn't correct her.

"Nah, I'll go the low budget route and make a suit out of bubble wrap and duct tape. Should be good enough." His laugh was cut short by more coughing. Grabbing his broken ribs, he doubled over, which Natasha knew couldn't be good for the stitches practically holding his abdomen together.

"You shouldn't be out of the hospital," she said, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. He responded better to facts than feelings and the fact was he should still be holed up in a cold, featureless room in SHIELD medical with doctors and nurses to watch over him.

"I'm fine."

"Tell that to the lung you just coughed up."

He leaned back, taking a couple of deep, raspy breaths. "You like to worry."

"At least go to Stark's."

He shook his head.

"Never mind the fact the only reason the hospital released you early was because you swore up and down and on a stack of old Captain America comics that you were going to do just that."

"I'm fine.

"You look like you're about to pass out."

"Promise you'll wake me up when the new episode starts," he said with a yawn, his eyes drifting closed. It was only when he started to snore that she realized she was trapped – Lucky had moved over, his head now resting on her feet, Clint's legs were a dead weight across her legs, and the remote was out of reach on the coffee table. She couldn't make a grab for it without waking up Clint, so she was stuck … watching four hours of Dog Cops repeats.

"Perfect," she muttered to herself in Russian. "Just perfect."

XxXxXxXxXx

"Pivot! I said pivot! To the right! Your other right!"

Clint scowled at the door and the muffled shouts coming from the other side. It sounded like Natasha was barking orders at someone – usually he was on the receiving end, so it was a sound he was very familiar with.

Leaning heavily against the door frame to his bedroom, Clint realized he'd left his crutches all the way back next to his bed. He did the calculations in his head – it was ten, maybe twelve steps back to get his crutches or twenty steps forward to the couch. Or - and the longer he stood there, the more appealing option number three was becoming - he could simply slide down to the floor and wait for someone to come rescue him.

Lucky padded up next to him, a concerned look on his furry face as he nudged Clint's hand, asking him to rub him behind the ears. He complied. "Fetch crutches, boy," he commanded half-heartedly and the dog cocked one ear and tilted his head, giving him what he swore was a sarcastic, "yeah right" look.

The door to the apartment banged open, bouncing off the wall. It would have slammed shut, but a fiery redhead hip checked it back against the wall. Clint watched in mute silence as she pulled a couch through the opening like she was performing some weird magic show involving decorating. He looked around, half-expecting to find hidden cameras documenting the whole thing, like he was on some weird ambush apartment makeover show.

"Uh … Tasha?" he started, but the question died when Steve Rogers stepped through the door, holding up the other end of the couch.

"Where do you want this?" Steve asked, his breathing even, not even a hair out of place despite the dozen or so flights of stairs he had to have been bullied up by Natasha.

Natasha brushed her hair off her forehead, a little more worse for wear than her cohort. "Where the old one was," she motioned, huffing out a couple of breaths.

"Since when does Captain America deliver furniture?" Clint asked, still leaning against the wall clear across his apartment. "And what do you mean 'where the old one was'?"

He braced his hand against the wall and limped forward to get a better look.

"Where's my couch?" His voice cracked.

Steve raised his hand and waved. "Hi, Clint."

Remember his manners, Clint nodded. "Cap." The niceties out of the way, he turned to his partner. "Nat. My couch. Where is it?"

"We left it at the curb with a "Free" sign on it," Steve said.

"That was where you found it, wasn't it?" Natasha asked Clint with a tilt of her head.

"So?"

"So? Now you have a new one, minus a wood plank hiding under the cushions because the frame is broken and minus that weird smell."

"Tasha, you can't just take a guy's couch without asking."

"You would have said no."

"Exactly. I love that couch. And what weird smell? Took me ages to get rid of that – all that hard work, gone to waste."

While they were arguing, Steve pushed the couch into place against the wall, across from the coffee table and the TV. Noticing something new had invaded his space, Lucky went to investigate, giving it a cursory sniff before jumping on the cushions and making himself comfortable.

"The dog likes it," Natasha said, pointing to the mutt.

"The dog also likes to eat out of the garbage."

"Uh … I'm just going to …" Steve interrupted, hooking his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing toward the door. "I'll go get the chair."

Natasha looked back at him, her face lighting up in smile. "Thanks, Steve."

"Chair?"

"Yes, Clint, a chair. For when other people visit. Not everyone likes to sit on the floor."

Clint took another step but stopped when the room started to spin and rock. Natasha ran up to him and ducked under his shoulder, bracing him against her smaller frame. "Now sit before you fall down."

He sank into the sofa – and it was so much more comfortable than his old one but there was no way in hell he was going to tell her that. "You can't just take over, Nat."

She sat down next to him with a sigh.

"I'm not a project."

"It's just a couch."

"First a couch, then …"

"Clint, sometimes a couch is just a couch."

Suddenly, the door opened and a little kid poked her head inside – she was his neighbor Simone's kid. "Captain America!" she said, a huge smile on her face.

"What about him?" Clint asked.

"You know him!"

"No I don't."

"Yes you do." She rolled her eyes and put her hand on her hip, like a mini-Natasha. "Just saw him leave here and he's an Avenger, like you."

"I don't know what you're talking about, kid," he said as Natasha smothered a laugh on his shoulder. "I'm not an Avenger."

"That's not what my mom says."

"Well, maybe your mom is wrong."

"My mom is never wrong."

"Everyone's wrong sometimes." Natasha batted him on the chest and he flinched. "What?"

"You can't tell a little kid her mom is wrong," her voice dropped to a whisper, "especially when she's not. Face it, Clint, the cat's out of the bag."

"No, it's n-" He didn't get to finish.

"Hi, Captain America," his little friend said as she greeted the super soldier. He was carrying a purple recliner, with little to no effort.

"Well, hello there, young lady," he said with a nod and wink. Clint would bet every cent he had that he would have saluted too, if his hands hadn't been full.

"Well, it's not like he's any better at keeping a secret," Clint grumbled and Natasha laughed.

XxXxXxXxXx

Natasha was sitting on the floor, her back against the couch, listening to Clint's even breathing as he slept. The TV was on, but she'd turned the volume down.

Lucky has his head in her lap and she was brushing her fingers through his fur. "Your human's a bit of a mess, isn't he, Lucky?"

The dog lifted his head and looked at her with his one good eye. If she didn't know better, she'd think he understood her. He looked worried, but he was probably just hungry. From what she could tell he was always hungry.

"Sorry, all out of pizza," she said quietly and the dog cocked his head, looking disappointed and for a second she considered calling the greasy joint down the street and ordering delivery for the mutt. The past couple of weeks were making her soft and sentimental.

Clint groaned and shifted slightly on the couch. He was awake … and he'd just heard her talking to his dog … she could tell by his shit-eating, if drowsy, grin.

"Don't start," she said as he opened his mouth to say something smart and cocky.

"Who me?" he asked, looking all innocent.

"You keep passing out, so all I'm left with is Arrow. He's a better conversationalist, anyway. He doesn't interrupt and turn everything into a joke."

"I heard you call him Lucky."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She pushed herself off the floor and went into the kitchen to grab a glass of water.

She came back and grabbed two of the pill bottles and shook out one pill each. Handing them to Clint, along with the glass, she sank back to the floor with a sigh.

"What are you doing on the floor anyway? Thought the chair was meant for you." He had to admit, it was a nice looking recliner and he figured she probably saw the purple as a bit of a joke but he liked it.

Natasha shrugged but he gave her a crooked grin. "Keeping vigil? Making sure I don't stop breathing?"

She tossed her hair over her shoulder and glared at him. "Keep it up, and you will stop breathing."

He laughed a bit, before the tell tale catch in his chest, the one that warned him he was about to start coughing and rip fire through his side and lungs. He sobered up and looked at his partner and the shadows clinging under her eyes. "Thank you for taking care of me, Tasha," he said quietly.

She reached up and brushed his hair off his forehead. He needed a haircut, badly. "It's nothing," she said. "It's what partners do."

He grabbed her hand, lightly running his thumb over her wrist, feeling her pulse speed up under his touch. His eyes were growing heavy, the drugs working fast. "Be here when I wake up?" He didn't let go of her hand as his eyes closed and his breathing grew even. Asleep. Again.

She shifted, getting a little more comfortable, the dog settling in next to her, with his furry head in her lap. She put her head on the couch, next to Clint's hip and whispered, "I'm not going anywhere."

A/N - Thanks for reading! I don't own The Avengers or Hawkeye. There is also a Friends reference in the story as well (Pivot!).