He starred at their hands, wanting to know what the right thing to say was but pretty sure that whatever came out of his mouth was going to make things worse. In the past there was nothing they wouldn’t tell each other, it was like he felt completely safe and at home with her. Nothing was too much information, she knew about the circus, about his brother, about what he’d done before S.H.I.E.L.D. He hadn’t asked her to do the same with him, that wasn’t who they were, but she had told him much more than anyone else. Trusted him with more than he had ever held in his life.
Dragging his eyes away from their hands he might her eyes and smiled, it was a small smile but an honest one. “Good, I’m not sure what I’d have done if we couldn’t keep being partners,” his voice was low and a bit shaky. “No one else could put up with me. One guy tried to get me killed by the men we were tailing.” that encounter and ended with a few more scars on his body and a lot more blood on his hands.
She smothered a laugh. "I know," she smiled mysteriously back at him. Sometimes she still had contacts tethered within S.H.I.E.L.D., people whose communication lines the enemy wouldn't have thought to track because they weren't as conspicuous as Fury or Clint. "And to be completely honest? I think I've had my fill of working alone." She pursed her lips together while her eyes remained on him. "It's always good to have someone else watch your back for a change." Her voice was slightly quiet towards the end of that sentence.
Natasha had been programmed to become a magic bullet--the kind of weapon you only need to fire once and who could get precisely to the heart of the problem and get the job done without nobody ever noticing until the damage had been done. She was used to being alone; she had been alone, working by herself and trusting no one until she met Clint. Teamwork had been an alien concept to her at first but she had warmed up to it since.
