[ semi-plotted starter for @thedeafavenger ]
He looked… soft, like this, cozy and sleep-rumpled. Mouth drooped open slightly, a dampness of drool beneath it, arm bent at an awkward angle that couldn’t possibly be comfortable, the street light coming in through the gaps in the blinds catching on his stubble and on the hairs on his arms.
Natasha almost backtracked, almost decided to set up camp on Clint’s floor so there would be no chance of disturbing him. Yet, she loathed sleeping alone more than she did briefly awaking him. No matter how much she didn’t want to admit it out loud, Clint made her feel safe in a way so few people and things did, and she needed it, especially after two whole weeks in enemy territory all by herself, a few days of them being brutally beaten.
Silently, she stripped out of the clothes she’d come over in, adding them to an already formed heap on the floor, and fished out of Clint’s closet a shirt that was a garish purple with a sauce stain, a discolored patch on the neckline where he must have used the wrong product, and threads coming loose at every corner. But it was soft, and it came halfway down her thighs and it smelled like him rather than like blood and human waste or the stink of the floor of her cell. All in all, perfect.
Natasha lifted the corner of the blankets on the other side of the bed, his back turned to her. Painfully slowly, she climbed in, ignoring the protests of the welts on her back or of the awfully soreness of her muscles. She turned on her side and shuffled forward, until she could press her forehead between Clint’s shoulder blades, her hand shyly coming to rest on his waist.