A/N: So, I'm exploring another fandom here :) I simply love comics and the movie versions of them and I love Clint and Natasha even more :D So, here I am, giving you guys a little one shot about Nat's softer side and Clint's caring one.

I don't own The Avengers except for the DVD version :))

Enjoy!

Steve, Tony, Bruce and Clint all sat together in the huge living room of the former Stark Tower – now Avengers Tower. It was just past nine o'clock on a Saturday morning, Tony had spent the previous night as always down in his lab together with Bruce, Steve had been in the gym since four this night and Clint had woken from one of his nightmares two hours ago.

All in all, it was a normal Saturday for the Avengers except for one thing. "Where's your girlfriend, Barton? Still exhausted from late-night activities?" Stark asked innocently, even after living more than two months together with the master assassins, still not having learnt not to call them a couple. Because they weren't.

"For the last time, Tony, Nat is not my girlfriend. You mention that to her one more time and you won't be able to have kids anymore," Clint retorted, nursing his cup of coffee and talking in such a calm voice that Tony actually backed down.

"Well, then, where is your friend that happens to be a girl?"

Clint grinned, shaking his head, "Nice word play, really. Still in bed, I guess and before you ask, her own bed."

Although Clint wouldn't admit it, he was a bit worried himself. Natasha always got up early, most of the time even earlier than him, either waking up due to her own demons hunting her in her sleep or just the enhanced body functions she had thanks to the Red Room. This morning however, she was still nowhere to be seen and that was unusual.

Just as he wanted to stand up, walk to her room and see if everything was okay, Natasha strode into the living room, going straight to the fridge.

Her hair was a complete mess, the clothes looked like she slept in them and Clint could swear that she was holding herself differently, even her face was not the normal mask she wore without even noticing.

"Glad that you finally decided join us, Spidey," Tony greeted her in his usual manner, not really ironic or sarcastic, only Tony-Stark-like.

"Just shut up, Stark," Natasha snapped, looking through the fridge and eventually deciding on a bottle of water.

"Ooh, touchy, touchy, are we?"

One look of Clint shut Tony up - that warning of "un-manning" him probably included anything that pissed Natasha off, not just calling her Clint's girlfriend.

Tony only raised an eyebrow at the archer, but Clint wasn't paying attention to him anymore. Instead he focused on Nat, her styling, her hand tightening every now and then around the bottle of water and the slightly crouched form of her body. When he noticed what date it was, something finally clicked in his head.

Clint sighed and winced in sympathy before he stood up and walked over to her. He knew that she hated to be weak, even if she couldn't do anything against it. Those times were the ones when he had to step in, if only for the best of her. Clint uncapped with one hand the small bottle of pain killers that were standing on the counter, a left over from one of their last missions.

He shook a pill in his right hand, holding it out to Natasha who took it reluctantly.

"Go back to bed," he whispered in her ear, knowing that the whole team could see their little exchange but not caring at the moment. "I'll be there in a minute, okay?"

Natasha nodded, shooting Stark one last death-glare that expressed what exactly she would do to him if he was to say something, and then left the kitchen, the bottle of water still clutched in her hand.

When her footsteps, that usually weren't even audible, had faded, Clint searched the kitchen for some chocolate, pocketed the pain killers and turned to follow Natasha.

"Hey, Legolas, care to fill us in?" Stark called after him, causing Barton to stop and look at him.

"Remember what happened about twenty-five days ago?" Clint smirked, the events of the day as clear to him as if it had been yesterday.

"You mean Spidey beating me up, because I ate the rest of the chocolate?" Tony replied, frowning at the memory, it had not only been humiliating, but also really painful. Man, that woman would someday be the death of him. "What's it got to do with today?"

"Oh, come on Tony. Does Pepper never do something she usually wouldn't do? Gets cranky? Ready to cry at stuff she normally laughs about? About every twenty-one days? Does that ring a bell?" Clint mocked, humor clearly visible on his face.

As soon as he mentioned the twenty-one days, Bruce and Tony's face showed comprehension, Steve's only turned a dark shade of red. That was not a topic to be discussed back in the forties.

"That's what the pain killers are for?" Bruce asked, ever the doctor he actually wasn't but grew familiar with over the years, treating patients in Calcutta and other godforsaken places.

"Yeah, she gets pretty bad cramps," Clint answered, wincing when he remembered the worst moments Natasha had, barely able to uncurl herself from a fetal position without having to clench her teeth.

Bruce nodded, glasses already in his hands, reading the information on the bottle Clint held out to him. "This works, but I'll get you something that is better for the cramps."

"Thanks, Doc, really. But don't tell Tasha about it, she hates to be weak in front of you guys."

"It isn't a weakness. It is completely normal to – "

"Yeah, I know that, too, it's her you've got to tell it," Clint cut Bruce short and then sighed. "Just bring the pills to her room, when you get them, I'll be there."

With that the archer left, mentally preparing for next few hours, possibly days.

Natasha hated it when her cycle matched up. She just hated it.

It was a mess, left her cranky for days and hurt like hell most of the time. Yes, she could take being shot, stabbed, tortured in any way someone could come up with, was immune to several poisons, but she hated being on her period. That dull ache that was there all the time, not really pain, but that sort of pulling sensation in her abdomen drove her out of her mind. If you broke a bone, you'd cast it, if you had a cut, you'd put a band-aid on it but this, this was nothing that you could see, grasp – it was just annoying the hell out of Natasha.

She could never get children thanks to the Red Room, why didn't they take the rest of the process as well?

"Damn it," Natasha cursed, kicking the door to her room shut and falling right on her bed, curling in on herself. The pain killers started to work their magic, but not enough, by far.

Groaning, Natasha rolled over, pulling the blanket over her and tucking it under her chin. After her and Clint's little conversation in the common area, one of the other guys surely had figured what was going on. That meant that Stark was probably going to note her cycle somewhere and then do something stupid at the most unfortunate moments, Steve would not be able to look at her the next few days and Bruce, well, he would become even more caring and careful than he already was.

Great job, you did there, Romanoff.

Just when she actually thought about facepalming herself, it knocked at her door which then opened a bit.

"Nat?" That definitely was Clint. Her knight in shining armor – not that she would ever admit that out loud, not to anyone but him.

"Mmmh," she groaned as an answer, still not uncurling herself to face him or untangling from the blanket.

"That bad, huh?" she heard Clint ask, as he closed the door behind him.

"Mmmh," Natasha groaned again, getting a small laugh from Clint in return.

"And a bit stubborn, are we?"

"Shut it, Clint," that didn't sound half as threatening as it normally would, she hadn't meant it anyway. He chuckled again, then got rid of his shoes, put the chocolate on her bedside table and sat next to her.

"Anything I can do?" he asked, pushing the hair from her forehead, getting the first good look of her tense face. Even if it was only him, she would never show discomfort so openly, if it wasn't really bothering her.

"Make it go away," Natasha responded with a slight smirk, knowing he wouldn't take it for whining but her normal dry humor.

"Can't do that, but I have chocolate. And Bruce's going to stop by, he said he'd get you better pain meds," Clint said, still stroking her hair.

Before Natasha could reply to that, one of those really bad cramps hit her, leaving her clenching her fists and curling even tighter into herself. She was a master assassin, damn it, she didn't gasp at being shot, so she would never ever gasp at a cramp, no matter how much it hurt!

"Tasha," Clint sighed, he hated seeing her in pain, if it was because of her period or something else, he didn't care, "Listen to me, okay? Even the guys just said that it doesn't make you weak. Imagine Tony having to go through it every month, he would beg us to shoot him. He wouldn't go on missions like you do, every other time. So, again, anything I can do until Bruce comes with his wonder-pills?"

Natasha was really tempted to shake her head no, to tell him that she was alright, maybe just a tiny bit under the weather, but it was Clint – her partner, best friend, the man who had changed her life with making a different call.

"Get in here," she mumbled, half embarrassed, half glad she said it, and patted the bed next to her.

"Nat, I… don't think…," Clint stammered, turning slightly pink – that was not what he had intended.

"I don't want to sleep with you, idiot, I want your hand on my stomach," Natasha retorted, she would have laughed her ass off at Clint's face if she hadn't been in pain right now.

"Okay?" the archer answered, still a bit confused but climbed obediently on her bed and lay down next to her, getting under the blanket as well.

"Warmth helps," Natasha announced, already cuddling close to Clint, seeking his body warmth and his familiar features. It was by far not the first time that they lay in bed like that.

"No need to justify yourself, Tasha," Clint said softly, his left hand sneaking over her waist onto her belly, replacing her arms there with his own. "Like that?"

"Just put your flat hand right there and put a bit pressure on it," Natasha directed and sighed as he felt his rough hand on the exact right spot, the pressure just perfect. She could already feel herself relaxing.

"Damn it, Nat, I can feel you clenching," Clint cursed under his breath and started to gently rub circles on her stomach.

"It's already better, now," Natasha replied, feeling her eyes slipping close. She'd been awake most of the night, unable to go to sleep, and when she finally did, it only took a couple of hours before the nightmares had woken her up again.

"Try to sleep, Nat, I'll be there when you wake up. No nightmares today," Clint whispered as if he knew what she'd been thinking.

With Clint's hand protectively around her hurting middle, Natasha slowly fell asleep into one of the best hours of sleep she had had since a long time. Her knight in shining armor keeping the pain and the ghosts of her past at bay.

When Bruce knocked slightly at Natasha's door, he didn't expect to see the two assassins sleeping soundly in her bed, Clint's body curled around her smaller one, one hand wrapped around her stomach. Normally, it would have taken the two of them not even two seconds to have him pinned to the floor, bow and knives at the ready, when he came into one of their rooms like that.

The fact that they kept sleeping, not even stirring once, only showed how much they trusted their new team and how well they knew them by now – if there had been other than Bruce's footsteps, Clint and Natasha both would be awake now, weapons out.

Bruce smiled, tip-toed further in the room, placing the new bottle of pain killers next to the still untouched chocolate on the small table beside Natasha's bed, before sneaking out of the room again and silently closing the door behind him.

A/N: Alright, did you like it? It'd be really nice of you to leave a review, it's always nice to hear the voices of a new fandom :) Maybe until a next time, depends on your reactions!