"Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man." ~Loki, God of Mischief, to Natasha on Clint.

A/N: So... Last Chappie :) Anyway, this chapter's really short too, so yeah... BlackHawk/ Clintasha, kinda OOC

Disclaimer: Still don't own!

The next time he catches her crying is after the Battle in Manhattan.

She's curled up on her plush new bed in Stark Tower her shoulders shaking as she sobs into the black and red covers.

Where Stark found the time to customise their rooms, he didn't know.

But that didn't matter. He was deviating from the point.

He walks in on Nat again, this time slightly more hopeful as to Nat's reaction to him.

He remembers their conversation, the underlying worry in Nat's voice as she consoled him. (Clint, you're gonna be alright.) (Don't. Don't do that to yourself, Clint.) (He didn't. I just- I've been compromised.)

He pushes into the room, and before Nat can give him the famous glare, or before he can chicken out, he sinks onto the bedspread beside her and pulls her into his arms.

She stiffens, despite knowing that it's him.

He can still feel her shoulders shaking slightly as she suppressed her sobs, and after a while, in which Clint simply tightens his hold on her, she finally relaxes into his grip.

"God, Clint," she chokes out brokenly into his shoulder. "I was so goddamned scared- I was so afraid he'd destroy your mind and leave you for d-dead. I-I-"

He shushes her, pulling her flush against his chest, where she curls up like a cat, face buried in his S.H.I.E.L.D. issued vest.

"It's alright, 'Tasha, I'm here now, I'm fine, we're together, Loki's gone."

Natasha flinches at the name, curling up into his embrace, surrendering herself completely to her emotions for the first time ever, wondering how in the world this one man can make her feel so utterly helpless.

She feels feminine and girly around him, light-headed and almost as if she's in a perpetual dreamlike state around him.

And she realises that she doesn't mind.

So she presses up against him even more, melting into his warmth.

Clint is struck by how small she really is, pressed up against his side like she is, her lithe body dwarfed by his bulkier, more muscled one. He feels like he could snap her in half like a twig, despite the knowledge that he usually can't even best her in a fight.

Her body is so small compared to his, so slim and fragile-looking, her skin pale and shoulders quivering.

He can feel her hot tears soak his vest, and he wraps his arms around her in an even tighter hold, telling himself to stop treating her like a porcelain doll -she may look like one, but she sure as heck isn't going to break as easily as one.

He buries his face in her soft, sweet-smelling waves of copper-red hair, sitting there with her in his lap, rocking them back and forth and murmuring softly. He'd never been good at comforting, but he would do anything for Nat.

Clint breathes her in, her sobs slowly subsiding as she droops in his arms, head lifting slightly before coming to rest in the crook of his neck, nose buried next to his throat, breathing him in as well.

Nat is starting to give in to fatigue, he can tell, and and he can feel his own eyelids drooping as well, the exhaustion of the past few days and the battle finally catching up to them.

He swears that the two of them have barely accumulated nine hours of sleep over the past four days, and that's only when the total amount of sleep the both of them have had is added together.

He stands, laying Natasha down gently on her black and red silk-covered mattress, pulling the soft, downy quilt up to her chin, tucking her in.

On a whim, he presses an impromptu kiss to her forehead, and turns to head back to his own room when Nat's hand shoots out and grabs ahold of his wrist.

"Stay?" She whispers, soft and tired and so completely unguarded.

He smiles gently, coming around to the side of the bed that she's not lying down on, crawling under the covers and pulling her into his arms.

Both sets of eyelids droop closed over the bluish-gray and green respectively.

Thoughtlessly, Clint mumbles, "Love you, 'Tasha."

Nat stiffens in his grasp and wriggles away, her previously exhausted and pliant body suddenly sharpening and gaining the razor edges that made her a master assassin.

"Love is for children," she intones stiffly, more than a semblance of her usual self coming back into play.

Clint winces noticeably, regret and hurt in his gaze. But the damage is done, there's no way to go back now.

There is a moment of tense silence that Clint's voice breaks. "Then maybe we're still children."

He pulls Natasha back into his arms, and, surprisingly, she doesn't protest. Clint tucks them both back under the covers, realising that Nat is so exhausted that even with the previous tension, she's already reverted to a semiconscious state, limp in his arms.

He finds that he too is in that state.

It is just before sleep claims them that an almost undecipherable murmur comes from Natasha.

"Maybe we still are."