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A Gift From: geckoholic
Title: Paint These Cities Red
A Gift For: be_compromised
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Choose Not To Warn: Canon-level violence, a tiny bit of blood and gore because, you know, vampire AU.
Summary/Prompt Used: That's still Natasha. She's not lost. He won't lose her to the bite.
Author's Note: n/a

Paint These Cities Red

She didn't make a mess. Clint isn't sure why that matters to him, under these circumstances, yet he considers it to be oddly comforting. The man at her feet is barely breathing, but he'll survive, which should be more important than the fact that she left no trace of her attack other than the small incision from her fangs in the man's neck and the thin traces of blood around her lips. The restraint, however, of not only stopping just short of lethal blood loss but also not ripping his throat out like a wild beast means that's still Natasha. She's not lost. He won't lose her to the bite.

Natasha wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and blinks at him. She looks at her prey and pales.

“It's okay,” Clint says. “He's not dead. We'll call an ambulance for him. I promise you he'll make it.”

She makes a tiny, distressed, animal-like sound in the back of her throat and stumbles away from the man's body. Clint runs over to catch her by the elbow and lead her home. Once he's got her situated, taking some of her weight and steering her in the direction of their apartment, he fishes around for the cell phone in his pocket. Better make that call before they're too close to their registered address.


***


Getting turned on accident is a risk every vampire hunter accepts. They dedicate their entire life to chasing rabid animals. It'd be arrogant to expect none of them would ever get bitten, although that particular disease isn't kept at bay with a regular tetanus shot. The codex says that Clint should have delivered his partner from such misfortune before she even got done turning. But he didn't. Of course he didn't.

It's Natasha.

The two of them already broke the fraternization rule a good dozen times. It's not like they aren't used to disobeying the fucking code.


***


Her eyes are unfocused. Her heartbeat is irregular and way too fast, the vein at her wrist pulsing with the stranger's life force that's awakening her body. Clint knew this part was coming; he'd planned to offer himself, break yet another of their fucking rules, but when he woke up a few hours ago she was already gone. Finding her wasn't hard, it's what they do – what they did for a living.

“I killed him,” she whispers. Hearing the pain in those three words is reassuring, and also damn near unbearable.

Clint emphatically shakes his head. “No. You didn't. You didn't. I told you, he was alive when we left, and you left him enough that he'll recover for sure.”

She turns away with a huff, and her heels click on the cheap linoleum as she walks into the bathroom. Clint hears the shower run a few minutes later, and he allows himself to breathe a sigh of relief. The desire to wash the shame off is a human reaction, too, doesn't mash with the image of a wild, mindless predator.

Over the course of this transformation, Clint might have to review some of the so-called facts about vampires he's been taught all his life. Now's not the time to ruminate on that, though. His world has been tilted on its axis enough as it is. The philosophical discussions will have to wait, same as making concrete plans for their future.


***


It was a simple misstep, the kind that sometimes seems inevitable after a week of hunting a whole clan of vampires on little else than adrenaline and awful diner coffee. Vampire hunters, unlike their opponents, are human after all. Even the best get tired.

Natasha was the best. Is the best, maybe. Clint kind of isn't sure where to go from here.

His first instinct told him to run, leave town immediately, change their names, possibly leave the country. But their community isn't confined to any one country or continent, and there's nothing more suspicious than a hurried getaway. For now it's smarter to lay low, stay at home, act like they're only licking their wounds after a week of constant battle. The next scheduled check-in won't be for a while, and even then... if they can get here through the worst of the turning in time, no one might notice. Natasha is good at deception. A vampire pretending to still be human wouldn't be her most difficult charade to date.


***


She stays in the shower for close to twenty minutes, and Clint knows from experience that the water from the shitty boiler in the basement must have long since run cold. Not like it matters much anymore; Natasha won't feel the chill, nor will she ever feel hot or sweaty again.

Nevertheless, she's trembling when she crawls into bed with him, her body like an ice block in his arms. He tries not to care. She'll warm back up in no time, adjust to the temperature of her environment. Vampires are like reptiles that way. Cold-blooded and –

Clint shakes himself out of that train of thought. Natasha must feel the movement because she shifts against him, shifts away, and Clint reaches behind his back to capture her wrists.

“Don't.” He tugs to get her closer once more. “I didn't mean it like that. I'm not... disgusted. Or afraid of you.”

She laughs, but it peters out into something more like a sob. “Of course not. You lack the self-preservation instincts to just throw me out on the streets and forget we ever met.”

He rolls onto his other side so he can look at her. In the dark, her eyes carry a slight red glow around the irises and it's more beautiful than it should be. It suits her in some weird way. “You've always been about seventy percent of my self-preservation instinct, so throwing you out wouldn't really benefit me either.”

Her eyes go wide with surprise or disbelief, and then her expression softens. The red glow vanishes, her lips quirk up with a smile, and she's just Natasha as she reaches out to ruffle his hair and giggles when he flails away with an indignant noise of protest. But he's smiling back at her, the familiar squabble bringing comfort to them both.