➸ enough to go by by sweetwatersong (ff.net)

Warnings: self harm, smoking
Characters: Clint, Natasha 
Genres: angst, hurt/comfort | Smut: no
Word count: 1490 | Status: complete

My comment: This fic is going to kill you but you’ll love it. One of my favourite Clintasha fics ever. Exquisitely written.

Clint picks up the habit in the aftermath of New York, the rush of nicotine nothing compared to the steadiness of his hands as he pulls out the first cigarette, cups it against the fall wing and breathes life into it. There is something so simple about the minute flame, controllably, touchable, erasable; on, off, on again with the flick of a switch. Bright against the dimness in the alleys, bright and warm within his curved hands, steady hands, hands that shake no more.
She finds him leaning up against the corner of the apartment building, feeling relaxed for the first time in days – weeks, if he’s honest, months if he can admit it, and really the lie of normalcy is the only thing he can cling to Th the moment so no, he’s not honest, not about that. He exhales a stream of smoke, watching her with the cigarette low against his side; watches, waits, for her reaction, for her expression.
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➸ Couldn’t Get That Boy To Kill Me by redbrunja

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha 
Genres: angst, hurt/comfort | Smut: yes
Word count: 3158 | Status: complete

My comment: Clintasha and angst and just Clintasha :)

Her right knee is dislocated, three ribs broken, wrist sprained. There’s blood dripping into her eyes, sweat stinging at her cuts, and she’s out of bullets. He’s panting, faced bruised to hell and back, the left leg of his fatigues glistening with blood, black on black, and he has an arrow pointed at her forehead.
Kill me, she thinks, empty gun trained right between his eyes.
She is so tired.
He lowers his weapon.
Natasha hates him for that for  years.
During her intake, with SHIELD combing through her mind and testing her body, she thinks she should have forced the issue, fought Barton until he put her down. She would have deserved it. Death clears all debts. But Natasha has never been one to take the easy way out. Dying wouldn’t wipe out the red in her ledger.

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➸ Find Your Way Home to Me by watts

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha 
Genres: angst, hurt/comfort | Smut: yes
Word count: 7926 | Status: complete

My comment: A quite accurately characterised Clintasha fic set before and during the catws events.

She’d been expecting him for a while by the time she heard someone approaching the door, pulling her handgun from beneath her pillow all the same. The footsteps paused and she knew he was pressing his hand into the recognition system, waiting for his name to pop up on the screen and grant him entrance. Natasha lowered her aim when the sliding door revealed Clint’s familiar frame, and he shot her a smile as he headed over to join her on her bed.
“The Winter Soldier, huh? Wasn’t expecting that one.”
“No,” she agreed, replacing the gun and leaning into Clint’s warmth as he sat down next to her and twined his arm around her shoulders, “me neither.”
“I thought nothing took you by surprise, Agent Romanoff.” She gave him a weary smile, letting her eyes shut as his hand slipped down her side and under the loose hem of her t-shirt, caressing her hip gently.
“Don’t be a smart-ass, Clint,” she chastised him mildly, all too willing to let his teasing slide as long as his ministrations continued. She’d learned early in their partnership that in such an exchange she always came away with the better deal. He chuckled and twisted his body, dropping his mouth to the shell of her ear and nipping at the sensitive skin in a way he knew all too well would elicit a moan from her. She kept herself passive, content with the progression, or lack thereof, really, of their conversation, practically purring with pleasure when his hand moved down to the juncture of her thighs, palming her through her panties.

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➸ you are the only exception by bittervoid

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha 
Genres: hurt/comfort, angst | Smut: no
Word count: 1461 | Status: complete

My comment: A take on the development of Clint and Natasha’s relationship. 

The blood seeps from splintered knuckles—
It hurts, bones brittle and snapped so easily like a fence panel, but it’s nothing she hasn’t had before. Burst vessels in her eye, a broken leg or ribs shaped into a new cage by someone’s boot; most at a younger age, at her most vulnerable and just learning the trade of an assassin, most done by her creator.
She hisses as the bandages press against raw skin, split open by how hard she’d punched her target, and doesn’t look up when she senses Clint hovering at the door. She knows his arms are crossed, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
‘Who pissed you off this time?’

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➸ Chess by HappeningInMyHead

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha 
Genres: hurt/comfort, angst | Smut: yes 
Word count: 4215 | Status: complete

My comment: Oh my goodness, all the beautiful smut. So…..what exactly made Clint bring Natasha into SHIELD?

Some people compared him to God.
He was watching from the rooftop as she emerged from the building into the throng of people outside, her red hair taunting him as she swished from person to person. It’d be so easy to end her right then and there: to send an arrow shooting through her skull at breakneck speeds and watch the chaos that ensued around her lifeless figure, but he needed information from her. The arrow would have to wait.
Leaving his makeshift nest he gripped the edge of the roofing and swung in through a door on the second floor into a vacant room. He shot out into the hallway only encountering a single tipsy couple as they scurried to their room. He took the stairs two at a time, threading seamlessly through the thickening crowd. He slipped out into the cool night air and caught sight of her instantly. Her read curls bounced as she schmoozed another ancient businessman into a conniption. He sped up as she began to turn away and barely caught her shoulder in time. She whipped around to face him, her body tense, and her blue eyes sharp and warning. He looked into her eyes and he knew—without a doubt—that she knew exactly why he was here. He broke out into a jovial smile as he released her shoulder from his vice like grip.
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➸ Grieve by ReaperWriter

Warnings: character death 
Characters: Clint, Natasha 
Genres: hurt/comfort, angst | Smut: yes 
Word count: 1795 | Status: complete

My comment: Natasha comforts Clint in the few ways she’s good at after Coulson’s death.

From where he stands, leaning against the tree, in the shadows, the bright gleam of the brass on the shiny, black coffin hurts his eyes. He would rather be up the tree, bow in hand, guarding them all, but Nat’s hand on his arm, the look in her eyes, stops him.
They are the two odd birds in a team of circus freaks and weirdos. No crazy exo-skeleton powered by an internal arc reactor for them. No super serum or gamma radiation making them insanely stronger, nigh on invincible. And certainly no god like powers. Even if the Red Room had enhanced Tasha in some ways, over all, they are startlingly, achingly human. He knows, because he remembers the feeling of waking up the morning after that had taken chunky swaths out of Manhattan while saving the world to the feeling of at least two cracked ribs, splinters of glass, a strained back, and a shoulder he is pretty sure he re-located himself when he swung through that window. Of seeing her after, his hand unconsciously rising to wipe the tacky blood from her scalp.
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➸ I’m Not Ready (For the Weight of Us) by Sproid

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Phil Coulson, Maria Hill
Genres: hurt/comfort, angst, romance | Smut: yes 
Word count: 7655 | Status: complete

My comment: Clintasha in the early days of their partnership.

Clint isn’t worried.
Really, he’s not. He knows damn well that Natasha’s capable of handling whatever Fury throws at her and then going back for more. Just because she’s been in his office for three hours now doesn’t mean that things are going badly. Fury probably approved Natasha’s enrollment with SHIELD within two minutes, and they’ve spent the rest of the time exchanging frightening stories from their even more frightening pasts.
No, Clint isn’t worried. He might be a little anxious though, which is why he’s currently sat in his room cleaning his bows while listening to radio chatter. Just in case. If Natasha and Fury had a throwdown he’d probably hear the commotion even from here, but it pays to have an ear to every available source of information.
At the knock on his door, Clint scrambles off the bed so quickly that he almost gets tangled up in the sheets and just barely stops himself going head first into the wall. Gives his elbow a good whack in the process though, which hurts like hell. When he opens the door to Natasha, who definitely heard the thump, she looks amused but doesn’t say anything. Clint’s pride is grateful for that.
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➸ You’re poison, running through my veins by mercscilla

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Fury 
Genres: alternate universe, hurt/comfort, angst | Smut: none 
Word count: 923 | Status: complete

My comment: Another amazing Clintasha AU.

The case has trouble written all over it from the beginning, from the moment they’re called into Commissioner Fury’s office. Someone has given the department a tip to take a closer look at recent deaths of high society men that were determined to be sudden heart attacks with no foul play involved. According to the little birdie though, they’re anything but ordinary deaths. Unfortunately, the source is found dead the next morning near the river but Fury decides to investigate further, turning the case over to Clint and Coulson.
“You never miss a thing, Barton,” the Commissioner tells him and he’s right. Only a few days later, after hours of digging, Clint finally finds something, the one thing connecting the deaths. Each man has died within the next 48 hours after visiting the infamous nightclub Spider’s Web.
The men of the upper class love it, for what happens behind the scene is every man’s dream of sin coming true. Of course, it’s never acknowledged they’re part of the debauchery taking place in the rooms beyond the club and getting the information from the families of the deceased is quite the battle. Sins belong to the night, are the words they hear over and over again. Never to see the light of day.
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➸ The Red Thread (series) by Anuna, Koren M (CyberMathWitch)

Warnings: descriptions of violence and blood 
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: angst, hurt/comfort | Smut: yes 
Word count: 21277 | Status: work in progress

My comment: Clint and Natasha begins with red. Read it. You’re gonna love every single tiny bit of this story.

It begins with red.
She begins (again) when she cuts off the dyed hair. All of it, the artificial faded blond hanging around her shoulders. She cuts it off mercilessly, because it makes her feel faded as well, like a picture without a face.
In days to come she watches (gleefully) how red reappears.
She is red. Strands of red, swirling around her like snakes, winding like ropes, a beautiful warning – her hair, the only thing that was always hers.
She knows she is red in the blur of things and choices; different kinds of bread and different ways to have your coffee; a variety of fabrics under her hand while she touches and tests them under her palm. She wonders what would the girl from two months ago like, the last one among the fake girls. It would be like flicking a switch and then, this would be easy.
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➸ для полета (For Flying) by CloudAtlas

Warnings: body horror 
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Mcu!Avengers, Comic!Avengers, Darcy Lewis, Sam Wilson 
Genres: alternate universe (ish), hurt/comfort, angst | Smut: none 
Word count: 2098 | Status: complete

My comment: A sequel to my previous rec – ‘Strange Bird’. Trust me, you’ll want to read that first before reading this. This is going to break you, but you’ll be smiling (if not with a tear-stained face) in the end, and you’ll love (and hate) it.

She wondered if this would have been easier without so many witnesses. Their team had grown now; the original six from the Battle of New York expanding until it comprised of a rotating team of countless people, all different but all uncommon in some way.
Natasha was still not sure who they were fighting or why, of all places, they thought that New York was the place to have this little turf war. All she knew was that there was magic involved. That or some very advanced technology that even Tony didn’t understand. To be honest, past that she didn’t care, because Clint had been hit.
When she reached him, he was hardly recognisable; a tangled, grotesque bundle of once-man keening like she’d never heard. Natasha immediately called for an evacuation and, thankfully, it was Carol and Tony that replied, flying Natasha and the bundle of agony that was once Clint Barton to the Bruce-approved Hulk floor of Avengers Tower.
The fighting continued without them, though not for long.
When the team arrived back at the Tower, battle sore and tired, it was to find a baffled Tony and a shell shocked Carol witnessing a stoically petrified Natasha attempt to sooth a panicked mass of bone, ripped cloth and feathers.
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➸ طائر غريب (Strange Bird) by CloudAtlas

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha 
Genres: alternate universe (ish), hurt/comfort, angst | Smut: none 
Word count: 5919 | Status: complete

My comment: Clint was a hawk before he was human. Natasha was a little girl, before she was made into a weapon. A must read :’)

Natasha Romanov’s life was saved by a man who had once been a hawk, though she did not know this at the time.
She was finishing up a mission in Zagreb, an extraction-slash-assassination job with an oil tycoon and all round arsehole, when she turned around and he was just… there. No one had ever managed to sneak up on her before and it unsettled her more than she was willing to admit, even to herself. Her gun was up before she had time to process, but he just looked at her calmly, apparently unfazed by the .9mm pointed right between his eyes.
He had a bow in his hand and a gun at his hip, and, if he was anything like her (and she assumed he must be, because who else would be able to stand within two feet of her without her knowing?) he had more weapons hidden away where she couldn’t immediately see. But he didn’t use them. He just stared at her not blinking and then, telegraphing every move, raised his hand and covered the end of her pistol.
“I’m supposed to kill you,” he said, sounding as if he was coming to the realisation that this was not the most logical course of action. “But I think… I think you should come with me instead.”
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➸ All Your Metal Armor by surreallis

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Fury 
Genres: angst, hurt/comfort | Smut: yes 
Word count: 3334 | Status: complete

My comment: A story of how Natasha helps Clint heal after the New York incident. It’s pure divinity.

She is accustomed to living without breath. This is the life she has chosen, was thrust into; living without the time to process the action. Moving without the time to just stand and take a breath.
After the particularly big operations though, she sometimes has no choice.
She expects downtime once she and Clint drive away from the Avengers. She hasn’t quite decided what she wants to do, because SHIELD still has ‘tests’ for Clint and she’s been through them too many times to walk away without waiting for him.
She isn’t really surprised when, once those tests are over, Fury shows up and gives her a digital itinerary card for her shortly-upcoming vacation. In fact, he gives her two, and then he sets Clint’s already-packed bag next to her, and his eyes give her that look.
The one that says: Watch him.
She says nothing, because even though she knows this thing between Clint and her, it’s not a secret, she still doesn’t like expressing it to others. Even to Fury. It feels too much like exposure.
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