Whispers

Clint feels Natasha's back tense under his hand in the bed. He gently presses down until he is certain she has registered him and will allow him to roll over, body against hers, and turn off the radio alarm clock she favors. He gave her a look the first time he woke to a Czech reporter's voice, but she just gave him a look back, like he should know that orienting herself on waking is something she won't forego.

Sao Paulo. The hospital fire. Clint turns off the alarm clock and nestles a kiss where her shoulder curves upward into the graceful line of her neck. He waits until she is silent and still again before lifting his head to see if her eyes are open.

Her hand on his arm stops him from pulling away. She opens her eyes and breathes in one uneven inhale before steadying.

He rubs his hand over her spine and feels the way she arches gently into the touch. She likes to curl into him, like he is comfort, like he is a shelter against the world they live in.

She reached out into the shadows and laid her hand gently against his skin, heart tightening in her chest, and she prayed he wouldn't stir and wake.

The faintest motion brought his eyes blinking open, a shift of his body and sunlight touched his skin.

No.

He was beautiful, hers. She could see the pained look in his eyes as his mouth opened and before he could speak, could touch her himself, skin became soft feathers beneath her touch, wildly beating wings, as her hawk was wrenched away from her by another dawn.

She wakes up in a SHIELD medical wing and slurs out, "Where's Laura?" but Clint only turns to her blankly from his toe-to-toe fight with Fury over her continuing survival.

Her heart sinks. Laura was insurance. Laura would have protected him from her.

"Do you think God could ever redeem us after the things we've done?" He worded it carefully, threw it out right as he pulled out of his stretches and picked up the throwing knives.

Shift turned, glanced over her shoulder, but finished her own stretches before answering with exaggerated patience. "Justus. You're asking the wrong person."

It wasn't any one particular mind that gave David pause, regardless of what he was willing to admit out loud. It was a particular kind of mind. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. What was nature thinking when it made him?

"You're the only operative we have available who knows how to infiltrate the Red Room for extraction of our compromised agent."

He stopped cold behind Phillipa, making her pause and look at him. Nikolai noted the shadows under Agent Coulson's eyes, the absolute conviction in them that he would agree.

"No."

"It's Barton."