➸ Stay With Me by angel-death-dealer (ff.net)

Warnings: none
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Mcu!Avengers 
Genres: angst, hurt/comfort | Smut: no
Word count: 7816 | Status: complete

My comment: It’s gonna hurt, but you’ll love it. The writing is beautiful and they’re all so in character. One of my all-time favourite Clintasha fics that includes the Avengers gang. Not one of those cliche Clint-takes-a-bullet-for-Natasha-and-they-make-love fics.

In hindsight, it was ridiculously suspicious how easy things had become. Four guns to eleven, so to speak; the four belonging to Black Widow, Hawkeye, Captain America and Iron Man. It was a Sunday, and the job had been a last minute call in for intel interception, and Fury simply didn’t want to wait until the intel had been passed and they had a more stable location. No, they were sent to the cliche warehouse in the middle of the meat-packing district and tasked with taking out both groups, securing the intel and bringing in the leaders of each group. Now, seven men lay on the ground with their arms above their heads as they waited for their back up team to arrive and transport them back to SHIELD base.
Tony was standing over them, hands extended with repulsors glowing ready as a constant an very real threat that they could end up like one of their four dead buddies if they attempted to move. Beside him, Steve was there with his shoulders thrown back at full height, ever the leader, and though he wouldn’t admit it, ever trying to remind Tony that in the field, he was in charge.
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➸ buying a stairway to heaven by zihna

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Mcu!Avengers 
Genres: hurt/comfort, alternate universe | Smut: no, brief mentions 
Word count: 34592 | Status: complete

My comment: One of the best Clintasha AUs I’ve ever read. This fic uses the plot of The Avengers but in an alternate universe where the six of them are fallen angels, messengers and servants of God. There are also some BrucexTony and past StevexTony in it but it’s a must-read especially if you like mythology as much as I do.

God has many eyes. Some are small, some are vast, some peer into the darkness, others stare into the sun, but no pair of eyes is sharper than Uriel’s.
(Though that is not what he will call himself, one day. Uriel is a strange name, even among humans.)
Uriel’s eyes see everything, given enough time.
He finds Gabriel in 1881. It was only a matter of time, really, and good ol’ Gabe hasn’t made himself all that hard to find. (Granted, it’s been nearly three thousand years. He’s grown arrogant, not that he wasn’t in the first place.)
“Raz,” Uriel whispers. “I’ve got him.”
“We moving in?”
On the wind, there’s the faintest rustle of wings.
Uriel pauses. “No,” he says, folding his own wings (wide, golden-brown) in tight. “Not today. We know where he is. Now we just wait.”
“For what?” Raziel turns towards him, heaven’s light stirring beneath her eyes.
Uriel is God’s sharpest pair of eyes, and he is the archangel of wisdom. “For when it’s time.”
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➸ They Will Rock You by SneakyHufflepuff

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Mcu!Avengers, Darcy Lewis, Kate Bishop, Loki, Fury
Genres: alternate universe, romance| Smut: none (brief mention) 
Word count: 27081 | Status: complete

My comment: It’s a finished Clintasha medieval AU! How rare!

Sir Nicholas Fury, Slayer of Evil and Defender of the Realm, lay collapsed against a squat tree. Steve knelt in front of the wounded knight, squeezing water from a cloth into Fury’s mouth, but it was of no use. He was fading, and fading fast. A spear wound to his side had become infected. There was nothing either of his squires could do.
“Barton and Rogers. Listen up.” Fury’s voice was gruff and authoritative, even as he approached death. “This land is a shithole, and if you stay here much longer you’ll be the ones at the receiving end of a spear.” He coughed, flecks of blood landing on his armor.
“Tell me something I don’t already know, sir,” Clint said, hiding his grief at his master’s illness behind snark. Fury wouldn’t want tears.
“Shut it, Barton. I don’t have much time left.” Fury took a steadying breath, then winced at the pain. “When I came here I had hope of lands and a wife if I served long enough. You two don’t have that. You do have my armor and my horses. Take them, and go on the tourney. Make your money from the noble bastards and get out.”
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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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➸ La Belle et La Bête by ShaiWinchester

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Mcu!Avengers 
Genres: alternate universe, romance, fluff (?) | Smut: none 
Word count: 21469 | Status: indefinite hiatus

My comment: I can only hope that this fic ruins you just as much as it ruined me.

“I like to live away from others, so in my search for a home I was much selected. I needed solitude and a place to sleep, that was it,” Clint told her as they entered the door. He held onto her hand tightly and brought her inside with him. Her long white dress dragged on the floor and the pearls around her neck felt like ice.
Natasha’s eyes wandered around with curiosity. The floors were polished wood and the walls were stone, but decorated. There was the most lavish of furniture, but none of it looked very comfortable. It was very dark, except for candles and torches selectively placed. The castle seemed as if no one lived in it, but yet he did… all alone, until now.
“Don’t you freeze to death, Lord Barton?” she wondered aloud. A chill came through her body and she shivered. He chuckled and pulled her closer to him as they walked.
“I like the cold, but you shall be fine here,” he responded.
“What does that mean?” Her brow furrowed in confusion.
“You’ll see, my love,” Clint mused and kissed her on the forehead before they moved forward again. His affection for her seemed to heighten as they moved further into his home. At their wedding he barely touched her, but now he practically cradled her to him.
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➸ Sweetest Downfall by Jo (mindsofiron)

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Bruce, Pepper, Tony
Genres: hurt/comfort, romance | Smut: none 
Word count: 2776 | Status: complete

My comment: Clintasha and (non-cliché) wedding feels, with just the right dose of angst and fluff. What more can you ask for?

The one stark difference, Natasha muses - and chuckles inwardly to herself as she does - is that she’s here in this building today by invite and not covert operation. That, and she’s here today as Natasha Romanoff, friend to Pepper and Tony, and not Natalie Rushman From Legal. Same thing, really. She almost follows the train of thought that pertains to how she’s gone from killing machine to slightly human, when she finds the cause of that change standing in a corner of the reception room by himself, watching everyone with a slightly wary look that would look bored to the common human.
Speaking of said effector of such change, he’s changed a lot within her that she’s been ignoring for the past few years even while she gives in to the warmth that floods her system when he holds her and the way she softens at the thought of him. It’s an impulse foreign and a little confusing to her, until she realises what it is and then tries to actively avoid it. Crossing the room, Natasha goes to stand by him, nearly as tall as him in her stilettos. He raises an eyebrow at her and she reciprocates in kind as he skates his gaze over her body in the dress she’s wearing.
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