“I promised I’d stay,” Natasha tells him, fingers smoothing over the familiar features - she should stop touching, but she won’t. This night is theirs alone. The rest of the world can wait to claim what is left come morning.
She knows every line, every scar, every tiny quirk of the muscle beneath the skin, and yet it still comforts her to be able to feel it real and warm beneath her touch.
“And I don’t break promises. Not to you.”
One day, it won’t be true. She’s disappointed enough people to know that, and been disappointed in turn, but for now she has meant every word she ever said to him.
Drawing back just a little, just to refocus him in her sight, she sees that look - the one they’ve both been pretending she doesn’t see for longer than she cares to remember. This is the point where she should turn away. It would be easy enough to do, and done delicately enough it wouldn’t seem to be anything at all.
Instead, she smiles softly, letting her fingers finally trace his lips slowly, almost tentative by her standards. If this is her last night with him, she doesn’t want to leave without knowing what might have been.
The way she touched him, the way her fingers were moving over his skin left a warm tingle on every little spot of skin she explored. The reassuring Natasha’s that she’d stay made him calm down further, but it didn’t stop his heart from beating fast against his chest, making him realize again what he felt for her.
He knew it was wrong to a point, and he knew that they both tried to pretend she didn’t know. She knew, she knew so well, because she always knew everything. She knew him better than he did himself. Every single situation they’ve been in that was like this ended with her turning away from him, of course not obvious.
She was drawing back and he could see her again, the right way this time, her eyes looking up to his and he knew that she could read every single word he was never brave enough to say in his own eyes. He wasn’t hiding it, not from her, not this time. Whatever was going to happen, he knew that he would still be her’s. He would forever be her’s, if she wanted him or not.
This time, it was different, as he felt her fingertips on his lips, closing his eyes on the soft touch, her smile the last thing he’d seen before, but then he opened them again, searching for something in her eyes, something that tells him that it’s alright. That it’s okay. For once, Clint doesn’t know what’s right. What she wants.
Instead, his body works for him, his lips touching her fingers, giving them a small kiss, but not more, before his eyes were back on hers, waiting for a reaction, for her to turn away or say something like she always did. Instead, her eyes were just watching him, confusing him on the inside, but he wasn’t showing it, not now. For now, he only enjoyed her closeness, her warmth and her scent, making him feel whole and complete.
Natasha feels his mouth contract beneath her fingers, his breath warm, and she knows he’s watching her. Waiting for her to make the call that creates or destroys them.
Oh, it would be so easy. To lean forward, brush her lips to his - to have his thigh between her legs as she rocks against him, a smooth, muscled chest beneath her fingers as they move together in the way they were made to…. but she can’t. Not yet.
Right now, he needs too much from her (she needs too much from him, but that admission is buried deeply) for her to promise this to him. Years of training and disappointment have warned her that upping and leaving had to always be an option, and the moment her lips touch Clint’s is the moment that it ceases to be so.
Not trapped, but not safe either.
She still can’t stop herself from touching him, mapping out what she might lose… and it’s with that thought, allowing no other to permeate her mind, that she leans in, pressing her mouth to the join of his jaw.
Nowhere near what she wants, but more than she could’ve hoped for. Not with the taste of sharp aftershave and the roughness of his neglected stubble grazing her lips. “Clint,” she murmurs, before another kiss finds his jaw. “Stop me. You should.”
bannerandbarton reblogged this from inheritorofmemories and added:
Clint looks at her, he’s not that big of a mind, really, but he understands a lot. And so he understands what she’s...
inheritorofmemories reblogged this from bannerandbarton and added:
Natasha rests her hands on his chest, fingers twitching slightly with the need to make him understand - well, that and...