➸ 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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➸ 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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➸ Faithfully by wtfrenchtoast

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha 
Genres: smut, fluff | Smut: yes
Word count: 3392 | Status: complete

My comment: So much shameless smut + Clintasha baby fic c:

Clint startles awake. His phone buzzes obnoxiously; who the hell? He glances at the digital clock on his nightstand. 3:44. And not in the afternoon.
Bleary-eyed, he grabs the offending object and glares at it accusingly, until he notices the source. It’s a text from Natasha.
You up?
She’s in Beijing, working. It’s roughly, what, quarter to five in the afternoon there? He groans, but replies anyway.
I am now. You good?
Get online.
He blinks slowly. If he had ever made the mistake of thinking that being married to Natasha meant he would have her figured out, that was an illusion long past.
Alright.
Clint swings his legs over the side of his narrow, SHIELD-standard twin bed and clicks the lamp on. The yellowed light is harsh and he winces as his eyes adjust.

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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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➸ Bows and Catapults by Sproid

Warnings: none 
Characters: Clint, Natasha, OC 
Genres: hurt/comfort, alternate universe | Smut: no 
Word count: 8345 | Status: complete

My comment: What if Clintasha first met when they were children?

The Laurensons put Clint in a room with a tree outside the window. In his opinion, that’s a really stupid thing to do, because if they ground him there’s no way they could make him stay in the house when the tree is right there. He hasn’t said anything though, because he’s not as stupid as they are even though he’s only nine, and also because he really likes watching the branches make cool shadows on the ceiling at night. Sometimes when he can’t sleep, he puts his hearing aids back in and goes to sit on the window ledge so he can listen to the wind make the leaves whisper to him. It always calms him down.
He’s doing that tonight. Not because he can’t sleep though, but because he doesn’t want to. At dinner, Ben and Monima told him that they’re going to pick up another foster kid tomorrow, and he knows what that means. Oh, they said it’s because they’ve always had two kids at once, and he needs someone his own age to play with, but that’s not how it works. The new kid won’t like Clint, and Ben and Monima will prefer her so they’ll get rid of Clint, and he won’t see this room again. He’s already got most of his things in the backpack hidden under his bed, so that when they tell him they don’t want him any more, he can run away before they can pass him on to someone else.
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➸ In love and war by Anuna

Warnings: none
Characters: Clint, Natasha 
Genres: hurt/comfort, romance | Smut: yes 
Word count: 2720 | Status: complete

My comment: After Clint makes a different call, Natasha tries to sleep with him as some kind of debt payment. Most of these fics have him declining - but this fic explores the possibility that he does actually sleep with her and emotions.

They say everything is allowed in love and war. Except love is for children and war is for fools.
Natasha isn’t sure she likes the list of rules that SHIELD has, but at the same time, their disciplinary procedures usually don’t involve killing their operatives. She is still not trusted enough to be sent on a mission on her own. She is being trained, observed, briefed, and everything she does, every intel she gives is being checked and double checked. She knew, of course, that this would happen and she agreed to it, but it doesn’t make the process go any faster, and she doesn’t feel any easier. She likes to spend her time sparring, but most other agents don’t enjoy sparring with her.
Then there’s agent Barton. Hawkeye. Clint. That guy who was sent to put an arrow through her, and he could have, but he didn’t. Instead he offered her a cigarette and told her that he really didn’t want to spill her blood. She looked at him and she knew that he could do it, that his decision wasn’t caused by some kind of a weakness but a conscious choice. She thinks about it – the way the rain poured over the street, wide and empty as he waited for her, his cigarette a single spot of light in the long sea of darkness. Clint is like that light, small, just a spot, but it’s there and you can’t miss it. It’s an unnerving thought, too large to fit, and it’s pricking her mind. She owes him. The notion is constantly there, even when it’s silent.
She feels indebted.
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