It’s not human, what Tony builds for her, what his fingers piece together and meld into a functioning machine. Small and silver and nestled in the cavity of her ribs, tucked under the ivory curve of re-healed bone and red flesh, it beats and beats and keeps her alive, keeps her breathing. He lies with his head on her breast, listening to the rhythm of her inhalations, the rise and fall of her chest. She is sleeping, or near as, her head tipped towards his shoulder and her limbs loose on the sheets, easy and graceful despite the change. Under his ear it beats and beats and repeats, and he wonders what else the explosion has taken from him.
A hand slides gently through his hair, and it seems Natasha isn’t as unaware as he assumed.
“What are you thinking?” She asks, voice traveling through her bones, sounding as amused as if she follows his thoughts. He knows how she feels, knows she accepts the mechanical heart as easily as her own one, her broken one, her bone-studded and shrapnel-laced one. [The cracks of Bruce opening her rib cage, the slick feel of her heart as he pressed it into Clint’s hands (“Massage it, keep it going, it’s the only chance we have-”), in the background above a dull roar Rogers yelling for someone, for anyone, for Stark…]
Her fingertips brush against his scalp, light and taking nothing in return, and he tips his head back to meet her knowing gaze. There’s the smallest smile on her lips, curving ever so slightly upwards under her lidded eyes.
They don’t say the words, have never asked the question, but with the gears and electricity flickering away underneath their touching skin, he finds it is closer now more than ever.
She looks at him as though she can hear it, as though she’s been waiting, and the glow in her smile settles something in his chest.
Her hand shifts, gliding down his bare skin to rest over his heart, and in the syncopation of their pulses Clint finds he has come home.
fic: describe the sky to me, rated: PG-13, warnings: bare skin and medical gore
A hand slides gently through his hair, and it seems Natasha isn’t as unaware as he assumed.
“What are you thinking?” She asks, voice traveling through her bones, sounding as amused as if she follows his thoughts. He knows how she feels, knows she accepts the mechanical heart as easily as her own one, her broken one, her bone-studded and shrapnel-laced one. [The cracks of Bruce opening her rib cage, the slick feel of her heart as he pressed it into Clint’s hands (“Massage it, keep it going, it’s the only chance we have-”), in the background above a dull roar Rogers yelling for someone, for anyone, for Stark…]
Her fingertips brush against his scalp, light and taking nothing in return, and he tips his head back to meet her knowing gaze. There’s the smallest smile on her lips, curving ever so slightly upwards under her lidded eyes.
They don’t say the words, have never asked the question, but with the gears and electricity flickering away underneath their touching skin, he finds it is closer now more than ever.
She looks at him as though she can hear it, as though she’s been waiting, and the glow in her smile settles something in his chest.
Her hand shifts, gliding down his bare skin to rest over his heart, and in the syncopation of their pulses Clint finds he has come home.