Trying a nightmare fic. Poss multi chapter. Just to be clear I don't know Tasha/Clint's full story or their past so teh flashbacks are just my imagination. Enjoy! :) x

"Forget everything. This is your life now. You have been trained to kill. No second chances, no turning back, and no hesitation. You have been pushed to your limits, to be faster than the fastest, stronger than the strongest, and smarter than the smartest. There is no halfway or almost there. There is only perfection. You will run, you will shoot, you will fight, you will kill. You have been prepared in every way for that one distant horizon: to be the perfect assassin. Now is the moment to become what you have worked for. You will see things, things from nightmares; things only children think they see hiding under their beds. You will lose limbs, friends and family, and whatever used to be important to you will fizzle to nothing. This is the price for playing god. You will always pay it."

_/\_

The basement is clammy and dank. A single chair holds a broken body with a hanging head. Defeat and expectation have left stale imprints on his skin.

Thin lips and crooked yellow teeth brush against her ear. A soft, meaty hand rests on her shoulders, intentions clear. His hot bloody breath slithers across her cheek. The gun pulses in her hands, finger inching on the trigger.

She does not waver.

She does not hesitate.

She does not think.

The sound of a bullet rips through the night and drags her from her sleep.

Natasha has pulled her gun from beneath her pillow and aimed at the silhouette at her door before she has fully woken from her dream. Her breathing is ragged yet she does not scream or whimper.

Her silence is deafening.

His hands slowly rise as the stranger makes his way into the shadow-speckled room. She already knows who he is – he's the only one stupid enough to enter her room without the fear of being shot.

But she doesn't lower her weapon.

She's still trying to reign in her mind and shake the last clinging tendrils of her dream. She doesn't yet trust her eyes.

He's a step closer now, metaphorically naked at the foot of her bed without his usual leather, quiver and bow.

At her mercy.

Her breathing has finally returned to normal and the images of the dream have almost separated completely from reality.

She lowers her gun and he comes around her side of the bed. They do not speak. She merely shifts the slightest inch to her left as he slides in beside her.

It is only later when she is spread across his chest and enfolded in his arms that she allows him to wipe the sweat from her brow and dry the remaining tears searing her cheeks.

In the morning he is gone yet the sheets are still warm with his scent.

Let me know your thoughts? xx