➸ Underneath and Unexplored by eiluned

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: hurt/comfort | Smut: yes, explicit 
Word count: 5211 | Status: complete

My comment: A class on seduction with our favourite pair of assassins. A progression of emotion in five parts. Natasha-centric.

1. Natasha first tried to seduce Clint a few weeks after he helped her defect from Russia. Well, she gave it a half-hearted try back when he was just trying to kill her, but she didn’t think that counted.
The first time she tried it, she thought it was a way to repay her debt to him.
She was grateful, you see, that he had looked into her and saw something more than a coldly efficient spy and a killer. She was a coldly efficient spy and killer, but she had always felt something lurking beneath the surface. There was more to her than what she had been trained to do, but she had never really had the opportunity to dredge whatever that was from the bottom of her soul.
He looked at her and saw something. Maybe it was something familiar, something he recognized from himself, from his own past, but whatever it was, it made him stop, think twice about just putting her down. It made him defy his orders, made him help her rather than kill her.
And she thought sex would make up for that.
She was young back then, and her head was still firmly in a bad place.

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➸ Better Than Silence (series) by samalander

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: smut, angst, hurt/comfort | Smut: yes 
Word count: 13585 | Status: work in progress

My comment: Clint and Natasha’s journey + loads of smut

When she got to SHIELD, fresh out of the Red Room program, Natasha had never made her own decisions, never been in charge of her own time. And suddenly there she was, an agent who was facing the most dangerous foe she’d ever seen–the revolutionary idea of weekends, of time to be herself. For the first time in her life, Natasha balked, and she wasn’t sure, later, if it was because she didn’t know how to take a day off, or because she didn’t know what self to be when the choice was left to her.
How she managed to go six months with barely any days off, taking mission after mission after mission, wearing out partners and handlers and support staff, Clint wasn’t sure. She probably had to make some promises, tell some lies. But she did it.
And when Hill found out, she was furious that Natasha had managed to skirt the rules about mandatory rest and recovery after missions. But Hill’s fury was never hot; never the safe kind that burned itself out on revenge. Hill was methodical and evil. She assigned Natasha to Strike Team Delta, because, she said, if Clint was going to recruit pain-in-the-ass agents, then Clint could deal with them himself.
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➸ Bruises by Tahllydarling (ff.net)

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: angst, hurt/comfrot, romance | Smut: yes
Word count: 66683 | Status: complete

My comment:  Angst angst and angst! Clint tries to deny his feelings for Natasha without any success. But right now, Natasha needs him, and he’ll go to the end of the world for her. A must read.

For several months he had tried to conceal the desire he felt for her whenever they are in close proximity but he knew he was fighting a losing battle. His desire for her would be his undoing and possibly the end of his career with SHIELD. He had made his peace with that thought some time ago and was content to sacrifice life as he knew it for he chance to be the one man she lit up for when she stepped into a room. Now however, she needed him more than she had ever needed him before and he was determined no matter the cost he would be there for her.
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➸ Worlds Collide by SugarFey 

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: angst, hurt/comfrot, romance | Smut: yes
Word count: 13215 | Status: complete

My comment:  A story of the development of Clint and Natasha’s relationship from the first day they met.

She has been in America for a month and progressed from interrogations with suspicious S.H.I.E.L.D agents to men and women in tweed with degrees in front of their names. Somewhere S.H.I.E.L.D has gone from considering her a threat to a salvageable asset.
She is not sure what to make of that.
Barton visits her in a quiet moment between the endless physical examinations and interviews. He tells her about the new bow he is testing, how the strike team he is placed on won’t stop bickering and that he isn’t allowed to smoke on base. After a good ten minutes of blather he asks about her day.
“They did a pelvic exam.”
Barton nods as if considering the information. “Ouch.”
She shrugs. Being poked and prodded by men in lab coats is a known variable.
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➸ Know Thyself by eiluned

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: hurt/comfort | Smut: no
Word count: 1583 | Status: complete

My comment: Clint helps Natasha find herself after ‘The Winter Soldier’. Beautiful.

He found her.
He always found her, and it was a source of both frustration and relief. She could never just disappear because he would root her out, could never be completely alone because he was always a step behind her.
It took her years to realize that she didn’t actually want to be completely alone.
But this time was a little different. It wasn’t fear that made her disappear, though fear would probably be the smartest emotion she could feel. Or, it was fear, but not because her identity was blown wide open. It was fear that she wasn’t good enough. That she wasn’t trustworthy enough, and she needed to hide for a while, to lick her wounds and figure out how the hell she was going to face the world again, who she would be when she emerged from this cocoon.
For someone who could make herself into literally anyone, Natasha really didn’t know who she actually was deep inside.
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➸ Rivers and Roads by shtuff (ff.net)

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha
Genres: angst, hurt/comfort | Smut: no 
Word count: 4798 | Status: complete

My comment: It’s gonna hurt, but you’ll love it. A very beautifully written piece of work.

Two days after everything came so terribly close to ending, Clint asks for a leave of absence. Fury looks at him, sees everything he’s so desperately trying to hide, and nods. He tries not to show how thankful he is for understanding – tries to preserve a little bit of his dignity as he turns and walks away, fighting the urge to run with every marching step. 
He throws things in a suitcase without really looking at them – too wrapped up in the need to get out and away before he drowns in the guilt and the blood that refuses to come off his hands.
There’s a sound in the doorway and he turns to see Natasha with a bag over her shoulder and determination written across her face. 
“No,” he says, trying to sound firm but only managing tired.
“Yes, ” she replies and her eyes spark with a familiar fire that tells him he has no hope of winning.
So he sighs and nods and ignores the rush of relief he feels and knowing he won’t be alone.
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➸ Between the shadow and the soul by viverella

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Characters: Clint, Natasha, Steve Rogers
Genres: angst, hurt/comfort | Smut: no
Word count: 11924 | Status: complete

My comment: A beautifully written piece on the development of their relationship. Highly recommended!

Clint Barton learns fairly quickly that Natasha Romanov is one person he may never quite be able to figure out (it doesn’t stop him from trying though, either because he’s stupid or he likes torturing himself or both).
So when he asks Natasha, “Do you know what it’s like to be unmade?”
And she replies, “You know that I do.”
All Clint can think is, No, no I don’t, because he’s been working and fighting alongside her for years now and if he’s learned anything, it’s that she’s the most difficult person to know anything about that he’s ever met.
Clint learns the way her body works before he learns how she thinks, learns the feel of her soft skin, the exact placement of all her scars from bullets and knives and worse accumulated from a long, long career as a killer, the quiet stutter of her breath when she comes apart entirely beneath him. He learns that she talks in her sleep in tense Russian before he knows which of the skeletons in her closet make the ridge of her brow furrow and her teeth clench. He knows the sensation of her heel at his throat and her fist in his gut, but not why sudden movements when she’s sick can put her on edge for hours.
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➸ 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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➸ 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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