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Clint whistled under his breath as he lowered his bow. "I take it you needed to vent?" he asked dryly. He kept close to the windows of the abandoned warehouse where he could keep an eye out for hostiles.
Natasha glared at him and went back to pouring oil over the...decidedly messier kill than her usual. She stripped out of her dress and tossed it into the pile.
Clint sighed and went for his bag to dig out some spare clothes.
"I'm burning the mess," she said curtly.
He watched as she shimmied into one of his shirts, but he didn't comment. She had taken out some kind of frustration or anger on the mark, and she clearly didn't want to talk about it, which of course meant she ought to talk about it, but did it look like Clint had a death wish? He'd nag her after she'd put the knives away and climbed into a bathtub to soak.
Wordlessly, he passed her a match. The fire was spectacular.
"Feeling better?" Clint asked ten hours later when they were both throwing off dirty clothes from weary bodies.
Natasha's long sigh as she eyed the bathtub was as close to satisfied and contented as he expected it to get tonight. "I do actually." She glanced at him, lifted a brow when she saw his expression, then gave that small smug smile bordering on a smirk. "It was rather therapeutic." She stretched catlike before sinking into the tub.
"Better than bubbles?"
"Better than bubbles," she agreed. She pulled him down beside her as he climbed in. "But not better than you."
"So what was that about anyway?"
Natasha surprised Clint by not only allowing his arm to drape around her shoulders but also by snuggling into him and humming contentedly as she did. "He told me all the things he was going to do to destroy you."
Clint leaned back with a groan. "One godling wannabe does not give you leave to be overprotective."
"I wasn't." That was definitely a smirk. "I was ticked off."
And heaven help the poor soul who made her genuinely angry. Natasha's dispassion was legendary.
He aimed his next words carefully, having frequently been numbered among those poor souls. "Remind me not to steal the covers in the morning."
She shot him an annoyed glance. "That's different."
"See." This time, Clint was the one giving a smug grin. "Overprotective."
"If I wasn't exhausted, I'd be ticked off now." But Natasha didn't budge a centimeter from her snug resting place.
"No, you wouldn't," he murmured, kissing the top of her head.
She did not disagree.