“Ow,” Clint hissed.

Natasha dabbed at the cut on his forehead with an antiseptic-soaked cotton ball and arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Baby,” she muttered.

Funny, he could take knife wounds and bullets and falls from buildings without complaint, but it was always the healing that hurt the most. “Be gentle with me,” he pleaded, letting his lower lip jut out. The curve of her lip quirked up into a smirk.

“An infection will hurt worse,” she said before sitting back on her heels. “Done.”

“My hero,” he drawled. He watched as Natasha got up from the bed, carrying the mess of cotton balls and gauze over to the garbage, before picking up her discarded towel and running it through her hair. She looked out the window, where rain pattered arhythmically against the glass. “It’s still coming down out there, huh?”

Her I’m-not-blind,-Barton look got a boost in efficiency from Mother Nature as lightning flashed in the distance, followed quickly by a rumble of thunder. The tropical storm, which had drenched them as they fled the Cuban warehouse they’d decimated, was settling in on top of them.

“Okay,” he teased, “You’re going to have to teach me how to do that.”

“We’re far enough inland that storm surge should not pose a problem. Debris is going to be another matter entirely.” Natasha draped the towel around her shoulders as she crawled back up onto the bed, stretching out next to Clint. The lights flickered before the room was plunged into darkness. She frowned. “S.H.I.E.L.D. needs to start putting us in real hotels with actual generators.”

“Where would the fun be in that?” Clint draped an arm around her shoulder, drawing her into his side. It was a simple routine, lying like this. It meant warmth in shared body heat and security knowing that someone had your back. It meant that, at least for the moment, they could relax. “Did you know that the sky turns green before a tornado?”

“There are no tornadoes in Russia,” Natasha said exhaustedly, closing her eyes.

“It’s like nature’s own warning system,” Clint said, his gaze focused out the window. “They’re pretty amazing, you know. One row of houses can be completely wiped out, but the other side of the street is completely untouched.”

“They can also annihilate an entire town,” Natasha replied. “I am not an idiot, Barton.”

“Never said you were,” he said, holding his free hand up defensively. He rolled onto his side propping himself up on his elbow. “You know, you’re kind of like a tornado.”

She cracked open one eye. “Violent and unpredictable?”

He ran his hand along her side, careful to avoid the blooming bruises on her skin. “Unstoppable, incredible... a force of nature.”

She shrugged and nestled in closer to his body. “I accept your complement.”

Natasha drifted off to sleep with her head pillowed on his arm. In the dim light, her face seemed serene and young and other things she never showed the world. He pushed a damp lock of red hair back from her face and smiled. Maybe, instead of a tornado, she was a hurricane--and this was the eye of her storm.