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Natasha doesn't like to admit certain things, so she waits until Clint has already sprawled over one half of the couch to watch Firefly before she curls up next to him and tucks his arm around her waist. He doesn't say anything, never has liked people who talked during movies, just smiles a little as he holds onto her.
Before the first episode finishes, she slips out of his grasp to refill her tea and his coffee and waits just a few moments into the second before she returns with the beverages.
His commentary is as absent, his embrace as warm.
The first time Natasha experienced this...feeling was watching over Clint in a hospital bed a year into their partnership. She wanted to crawl in beside him and hold onto him until she knew he was going to be okay.
The first time she gave into the urge was after they spent a night wrapped up together in his bed. She found herself snuggling into his side, desperate to feel more of him, pure comfort and not sexually at all.
"You're a cuddler," Clint realized aloud.
A mistake. She slugged him on the arm, and he grinned at her but never commented on it again.
They've finished their TV show marathon, Clint's griping his usual spiel about how they cancel all the good shows, and Natasha is lazily lingering in his grip, head over his heart. She wishes sometimes she could will this desire for human contact out of herself—she never had it before Clint—but with a soft sigh, she gives it up as a lost cause, snuggles in a little closer, and lets herself drift off to sleep.
It's not her imagination that Clint's voice softens then trails off and he kisses her hair gently. It's not the beginning of dreams that he wraps his arms around her and keeps watch so she doesn't have to.