—

It's the hanging time between end of day and beginning when she comes to find Clint, the rings around his eyes saying that he hasn’t gotten to bed yet either. She's in leggings and a fitted SHIELD shirt, an outfit he's seen a thousand times, but it's her wrapped hands that tell him their destination. He doesn’t ask if she’s sure, knows that she took her physical therapy seriously even if she hated being injured in the first place and if there’s anyone aware of their limits, it’s Natasha. He also knows that asking the question was likely to put him in physical therapy, and that’s a section of medical that he thoroughly tries to avoid. Pulling on training gear, he follows her dutifully, accepting it when they pass the main training room and descend into the bowels of the old SHIELD building. There are old private sparring rooms, mostly unused with the advanced equipment upstairs to be taken advantage of, and it's there that she leads him. The space is musty and small, not at all conducive to the style of dodging that she's been employing against him. If he needed anything else to tip him off that this is not going to be a regular session between them, the tape she tosses him certainly spells it out.

It's a good thing too, considering she still hasn't said a word since she showed up at his door.

Her gaze is pointed, like being the ant under the microscope, and he gets the impression that every fight of hers that he's seen has been muted, some part of her holding back for the sake of not scaring off her new employer. Taping up his fists, Clint rolls out his neck and shoulders. By rights, he should stretch, but something in his gut says that no amount of stretching would help him in this fight. Instead, he takes a deep breath and stands.

It's the last comfortable breath he gets for a while.

She's on him in a blink, her fist swinging to connect with his chest faster than he would've thought possible and it feels like sheer luck that he manages to push it away, following up with a jab of his own. Except she's not there, using her changed momentum to propel a roundhouse at his head that he has to drop down to his knees to avoid. Clint knows it’s a mistake as soon as he makes it, but there’s nothing he can do but commit. The kick’s a feint, and in the brief moment that her thighs lock around his neck and tighten, he’s in complete awe of how fast she can move …then she twists her torso over and it’s just pain, a hot ache exploding through his side as she throws him to the ground.

Natasha Romanoff is a little too harsh, unabashedly confident in her skills and her ability to take him apart at her leisure. Without a mask on, even the polite and cooperative one that she’s worn since she became a full-fledged member of SHIELD, there’s no mistaking she’s as dangerous as her namesake. Terrifying, even, with edges that are just as likely to cut her as him. Staring up at her from the floor, Clint’s not afraid.

Trust stretches between them like a fine string and she has to see something she approves of, because she reaches out to take his hand and help him to his feet. He grins when she does, an unrestrained and challenging thing, his head tilted towards the center of the mats.

Again?