Natasha laughed - a quick laugh, a small one, but a laugh nonetheless as his fingers circled the arrow that lay in the hollow of her throat. If anyone else had touched it, it would have felt like a trespass, like something that had always belonged so entirely to Clint. She knew the affect it had on him the moment his eyes had landed on it, the way he'd kept his thumb over the imprint it had left in her skin, the way he liked to kiss her just beneath it. It should have been off limits, but James's hand on it - that made sense, to her. That seemed right. It wasn't a surprise, somehow, either that he would want to touch it or that it would not upset her, when he did.
"Yes. He should know," she said, complete agreement on that, because a person ought to have all the information. Because if she was done carrying her private grief and pain and longings around with her, she would never ask anyone to do the same thing. Not now; it had taken dying for her to learn that it was worth nothing, that silence, that festering, that ache. James cared for him, and Clint should be aware.
She wondered, for a moment, just one fleeting moment, if it would be enough to change Clint's mind, and then she put it aside. He loved her, she was sure enough of that, but if it would, it would. Neither of them would ever say it, but in a way, Natasha was the one who had intruded, here. Who had burst in from her own world - not by her own choice, but still - and as a result, she had burst into their lives at the exact moment that something might have happened with them. They deserved to be able to put that on the table, too.
"If there's one feeling in the world I can empathize with, it's being besotted with Clint Barton," she added, and curled her fingers around his wrist, still tangled up in her chain. "I've lived a lot of years knowing what it's like to never - be able to tell him. I wouldn't wish that onto anyone, James." She squeezed his wrist. "And if he feels the same, if that's a chance he wants, too, don't - don't deprive yourselves of each other by using me as an excuse. Promise me that, okay?" He'd been - so gracious here, he'd been the bigger person. She could offer him the same. It would be hard. Impossibly hard, maybe, but she had done it before. She'd be able to do it again. "Promise it."