His gaze was lingering on her eye, and Natasha let him, for a minute, before she ducked her head purposefully in order to turn and root around in the bag she'd brought over with her. The little bottle of morphling pills had been written out and prescribed to her, granted, but she didn't have much use for them; her injuries were shallow, surface ones, all of them feigned, and even if they hadn't been, drugs were generally a thing that Natasha eschewed under most circumstances. Unless she was dispensing them to other people, apparently, the needle she'd presented Wanda with at the Arena opening and now the little bottle that she passed over to Clint. She didn't like how dependent he'd seemed on alcohol lately - more than she'd ever noticed him reaching for it before, and there was a small, quiet part of her that protested as she placed the little bottle in his outstretched hand, as though she was just helping to make it worse.
The bigger part of her silenced it, though. He'd cracked his ribs. That was a legitimate reason to take painkillers. Actual, real, documented injury, that was the reason to take painkillers, and beyond that, she'd have to trust that he was a big boy who could make his own decisions.
Anyway, it hadn't gone well when she'd mentioned the drinking to him before now. Her concern always came out sounding more like judgment, and Clint didn't appreciate being judged, and it was another one of those infinitely repeating patterns of frustration they found themselves locked in. Endlessly.
"I called James Barnes," she said, and for once - for once, decided to just slash through the pleasantries. She was sick of pleasantries; there'd been almost none of those between her and James and she'd come away from talking to him every time, every time feeling better for the complete absence of playing a conversational game, feeling better for just getting to talk like two normal people. She was the only one making this difficult, by now, Clint had made it clear where he stood.
"I called James Barnes and I asked him to pretend that he'd paid me for a night of consented-upon rough, violent sex," she spelled out. "And he agreed. He didn't even hesitate. I asked him and five minutes later, he'd transferred an obscene amount of money into my account and told me he would say whatever I needed him to say. And that's what I said. That's what I told the people who needed to know, that I agreed to it but it ended up rough enough that I was in no shape to leave the apartment."