Her perfect body tucked against him felt as overwhelming as ever, even when he was half asleep, and he enjoyed every second of it, every soft touch of her lips sending goose bumps down his spine. His lips caught hers shortly before she turned away, a short sigh of disappointment on them, but it was okay. More time and chance for cuddling tomorrow, when they wouldn't be both that drained anymore.
He drifted somewhere between relaxation and dozing while he watched her, as long as he could still keep his eyes open. She was gone soon and looked so peaceful, so still in this moment, as if all the catastrophes of the last days hadn't even happened. The bright light, filtered through the curtains, colored the room and her pale skin into a faint glowing orange, her hair floating around her shoulders was a flame.
Clint longed to reach out and touch it but he didn't want to disturb her, not when she finally got a desperately needed break from everything. But he watched her, watched her roll on her back in her sleep, watched the perfect light on her skin and her full rosy lips slightly opened. The calm rising and falling of her chest, the delicious curve of her breast. And much lower, nearly invisible in this position, the changing surface of her no longer completely flat belly.
There... He wasn't quite used to the sight no longer producing only fear and dread in him but this strange, stupid, nearly ecstatic anticipation. Suddenly he found himself wanting to kiss exactly that little spot, and it was even harder to hold back from that. Stupid, careless, naive. He would only make himself hurt so much more if he allowed such deep feelings for this... this whole thing yet, if it turned out to be doomed in the end.
Unfortunately he had no idea how to stop it. Whenever he let his eyes wander to Natasha's belly, he saw that damn photo on his mind, nothing but two shapeless blobs really, but soon... Maybe when they did the next ultrasound already... It scared him a little how much he wanted this to go right, in spite of all this fears. How much he wanted this little peanut in Natasha's body to grow, see what it would become. If it would be a little girl maybe, with Natasha's beautiful red curls and...
But that was a too scary thought to lose himself in, and his mind fled into finally a more sleep-like state. That imaginary baby in his thoughts didn't stop growing though. It grew rapidly. It wasn't a redhead after all, it had darker skin and hair. It actually didn't look a bit like any of them.
The fast motion movie in Clint's head went on, until he was faced with a teenager he once might have known. Sharp features, thick eyebrows, early shaped body. Natasha's current state apparently still occupied him, because the girl who couldn't even hit fifteen, sported a big swollen pregnancy belly. As she caught him looking, she smiled at him, like the girl in the hospital earlier, but it didn't look happy. Her eyes were dead.
She had a knife in her hand, with a bloody blade, and Clint faintly remembered that this very blade had left that one scar between his shoulder blades. But this couldn't be right, he didn't know her... Nor any of the young girls surrounding her, all of them too provocative dressed and dolled up for their age, all of them scarred by torture, fear and desperation.
Except he did, didn't he? Maybe not in his conscious mind, maybe his head refused the details of the mission which had brought him to this beautiful sunny country in the first place. But his terrified heart remembered when the walls of alertness and mental training fell.
Will you help us, Signore? Have you come to save us?
There was also Hill there, and God knew that wasn't a face he didn't need to see in his fucking Holidays. But Hill was a sure bet if you needed someone to ruin the day, of course. So of course she would be there, giving him the famous side-eyed look because Barton, stupid-reckless-inappropriate-insufficient-emotional Barton was fucking up the mission again and why was he still here again? He should be back out on the ocean with his damn boat, watching his target instead of messing with foreign business.
This is police work. And you're compromised. Get your ass out of the city. Or I'll have you extracted right away and you can write reports for the next five years.
Sea water burning in an open cut to the bone like acid. Endless weeks out in the open, living off what he fished out of the water. More often than not he had puked it back out before it could poison him too much. And these dead eyes, a shrill scream of a newborn piercing a hot summer night. Blood on his hands.
There was salt on his lips too, on his tongue, and that was real, and he supposed he was crying, but his mind wouldn't get any more lucid than realizing that. His body was obviously of the opinion he needed sleep, even if it was the bad kind.
A dead cat on his porch next time he came home, weeks after. And of course, because things were always fucked up when he slept, it was a black one, though that wasn't right either, he was sure. He could nearly grasp it, nearly recall everything if he just wanted it... But oh boy, didn't he.
You can help us, signore, can't you? You have to. You will...
Searing hot pain crawling down his back, and maybe that was real too because he was a stupid fuck and had made it to fall asleep on his stomach. And now his body was so tense and frozen, it wouldn't even let him turn or startle enough to rip his mind out of this stupid dream.
no subject
He drifted somewhere between relaxation and dozing while he watched her, as long as he could still keep his eyes open. She was gone soon and looked so peaceful, so still in this moment, as if all the catastrophes of the last days hadn't even happened. The bright light, filtered through the curtains, colored the room and her pale skin into a faint glowing orange, her hair floating around her shoulders was a flame.
Clint longed to reach out and touch it but he didn't want to disturb her, not when she finally got a desperately needed break from everything. But he watched her, watched her roll on her back in her sleep, watched the perfect light on her skin and her full rosy lips slightly opened. The calm rising and falling of her chest, the delicious curve of her breast. And much lower, nearly invisible in this position, the changing surface of her no longer completely flat belly.
There... He wasn't quite used to the sight no longer producing only fear and dread in him but this strange, stupid, nearly ecstatic anticipation. Suddenly he found himself wanting to kiss exactly that little spot, and it was even harder to hold back from that. Stupid, careless, naive. He would only make himself hurt so much more if he allowed such deep feelings for this... this whole thing yet, if it turned out to be doomed in the end.
Unfortunately he had no idea how to stop it. Whenever he let his eyes wander to Natasha's belly, he saw that damn photo on his mind, nothing but two shapeless blobs really, but soon... Maybe when they did the next ultrasound already... It scared him a little how much he wanted this to go right, in spite of all this fears. How much he wanted this little peanut in Natasha's body to grow, see what it would become. If it would be a little girl maybe, with Natasha's beautiful red curls and...
But that was a too scary thought to lose himself in, and his mind fled into finally a more sleep-like state. That imaginary baby in his thoughts didn't stop growing though. It grew rapidly. It wasn't a redhead after all, it had darker skin and hair. It actually didn't look a bit like any of them.
The fast motion movie in Clint's head went on, until he was faced with a teenager he once might have known. Sharp features, thick eyebrows, early shaped body. Natasha's current state apparently still occupied him, because the girl who couldn't even hit fifteen, sported a big swollen pregnancy belly. As she caught him looking, she smiled at him, like the girl in the hospital earlier, but it didn't look happy. Her eyes were dead.
She had a knife in her hand, with a bloody blade, and Clint faintly remembered that this very blade had left that one scar between his shoulder blades. But this couldn't be right, he didn't know her... Nor any of the young girls surrounding her, all of them too provocative dressed and dolled up for their age, all of them scarred by torture, fear and desperation.
Except he did, didn't he? Maybe not in his conscious mind, maybe his head refused the details of the mission which had brought him to this beautiful sunny country in the first place. But his terrified heart remembered when the walls of alertness and mental training fell.
Will you help us, Signore? Have you come to save us?
There was also Hill there, and God knew that wasn't a face he didn't need to see in his fucking Holidays. But Hill was a sure bet if you needed someone to ruin the day, of course. So of course she would be there, giving him the famous side-eyed look because Barton, stupid-reckless-inappropriate-insufficient-emotional Barton was fucking up the mission again and why was he still here again? He should be back out on the ocean with his damn boat, watching his target instead of messing with foreign business.
This is police work. And you're compromised. Get your ass out of the city. Or I'll have you extracted right away and you can write reports for the next five years.
Sea water burning in an open cut to the bone like acid. Endless weeks out in the open, living off what he fished out of the water. More often than not he had puked it back out before it could poison him too much. And these dead eyes, a shrill scream of a newborn piercing a hot summer night. Blood on his hands.
There was salt on his lips too, on his tongue, and that was real, and he supposed he was crying, but his mind wouldn't get any more lucid than realizing that. His body was obviously of the opinion he needed sleep, even if it was the bad kind.
A dead cat on his porch next time he came home, weeks after. And of course, because things were always fucked up when he slept, it was a black one, though that wasn't right either, he was sure. He could nearly grasp it, nearly recall everything if he just wanted it... But oh boy, didn't he.
You can help us, signore, can't you? You have to. You will...
Searing hot pain crawling down his back, and maybe that was real too because he was a stupid fuck and had made it to fall asleep on his stomach. And now his body was so tense and frozen, it wouldn't even let him turn or startle enough to rip his mind out of this stupid dream.
Well, there went a night of good rest.