Natasha Romanoff, forever my girl @adorationamy - Tumblr Blog

Prompt: a sequel to BARF where Nat decides to use it.

(This gif is amazing and definitely not mine)

an: I fully intended to revisit this fic at some point but never did. This is a sequel to this fic - but you don’t need to have read it to read this one. Basically, Tony offers BARF to Natasha to find missing memories. This is fic about Natasha using it.

If you’ve read the Melina fic, you’ll notice parallels. There will be one more (?) fic in these parallel series around Natasha’s mother. (Title from the poem of the same name by Mary Oliver, 3k words, just warnings for angst(?) I guess.)

a voice from I don’t know where.

Clint knows that there’s something wrong by her message.

It’s short, there’s no emojis and she only gives a location. It’s a park, not far from the tower. It’s got swings. Given the time of the meeting, 5am, he assumes she just wants to swing on the swings without an audience of small children waiting their turn.

He runs and scopes the park first, but she is already there. Breathing heavily, he stops and slowly walks towards her.

She’s seen him, of course, and meets him with a smile. The smile he hates, because he knows it means bad news.

“Hey.”

Clint sits next to her on his swing, and they both just watch the darkness of the sky grow light.

“I’m going to do it.”

He knows she’s talking about BARF. It’s been an ongoing conversation for months. He should have known, but the last time they’d talked she’d seemed certain.

He wants to know what’s changed, maybe it was her nightmare two days ago, or their mission last week with the child and the balloon.

He looks over to her, not meeting her eyes but watching as her feet scuff of the floor.

“What made you change your mind?”

Natasha shrugs.

“I think I need one memory.”

Frowning, Clint cocks his head, questioning her in silence.

“I want to know about my mother,” she clarifies.

He knows it’s because of Pepper’s pregnancy, the thoughts it’s brought up, the wondering and pain. She’d never say it, but he can see it.

“Just one?” he asks, because if it’s just this, he can help, he can handle it, and the fallout that is inevitable.

Natasha looks over to him. She looks defensive.

“I’m telling you because I promised you,” she admits, swinging off the ground slightly.

He doesn’t want to fight. He wants to be supportive. He thinks this is a horrible idea.

“How will this work?” he decides on.

Clint copies her actions, pushing his feet off the ground and breathes the fresh air, fighting back dread.

“Tony has a place in Brooklyn, a lab…”

She stops, looking over to him.

“Is it safe?” he asks, making eye contact, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.

Natasha looks away and shrugs.

“It’s going to be you, me and Tony,” she clarifies.

“We’re going to watch him go first.”

He nods. “Then?”

The sigh is audible.

“Then, it’s my turn.”

For such a private person, she’s acting like someone seeing her innermost memories is no big deal. It’s a farce, he knows.

She’s terrified. So is he. He’s glad he’s not alone in this.

“What if?”

“I don’t know.”

She cuts him off straight away.

It’s clear she’s made the decision and doesn’t want to think of the repercussions.

He barely does too, this can only end in heartache.

He’s so selfish.

“How are you.. Are you scared?”

It’s the wrong question.

She ignores it.

“He said, he said, start with a strong memory.”

It’s clear she wants to talk, but perhaps not about feelings. It’s fine, he can be clinical. He pushes down the fear.

“What one are you thinking?”

Clint knows her. The pool of happy memories are limited. Even ones that are good are tainted.

“Maybe my first day at shield?” she offers.

He counts the swings as he goes back and forward.

“Yeah? Why?”

He hopes there’s a specific part of that day she’s thinking, because he does not remember that day being a good one. In fact, it’s one of the crappest days in Shield he’s had.

She shrugs.

“I feel like it’s got strong points of reference in it.”

It would be amiss if he didn’t try and change her mind.

“Nat,” he says softly.

“What?”

She’s all sharp edges.

“Maybe choose another?”

He wants to save her.

“Why?”

It’s a fair question. How does he tell her that for parts of that day, there were two people actively trying to kill her.

“I’m not sure you’re remembering that day correctly.”

It’s now clear that she does not remember the day, and probably brings further evidence that this is something she needs to do. But is perhaps, not something she should.

He has no idea what it’s like to lose time to depression, or dissociation or a shit childhood that literally wiped memories, and gave traumas so deep that her mind repressed them so she no longer has access to them.

Natasha stops her feet moving, bringing herself to a stop.

“What do you mean?”

There’s a weird tension now, and he tentatively looks up.

“Maybe pick a happy memory?”

Natasha frowns.

“It is a happy memory,” she defends.

It’s not the time for this argument. He doesn’t want to argue, he doesn’t want to get onto her bad side so she shuts him out of this.

“Okay. Okay,” he placates, and starts swinging again. It’s going to happen, whether he wants it to or not. He’ll deal with the fallout when it happens.

“Thanks for telling me.”

She nods.

“It’ll be okay, Clint. It’ll be okay.”

He knows she’s trying to convince herself too.

.

The day comes quickly. They haven’t talked much. Natasha’s hardly talked at all. Certainly not about this. She’d stayed away, and the two days since the swing, even Tony hadn’t wanted to talk to Clint. Clint thinks he would punch him if he did.

Natasha had climbed into his bed around 11pm and he’d hugged her, trying to convey everything. She’d stayed, and when he woken he’d found her sitting on the floor.

“Did you sleep?” he asks, rolling over.

The answer is obvious.

“No, not much,” she tries to smile.

The newness of the day means they both are still quiet and contemplative.

“What memory of Tony’s do you think he’ll choose?” Natasha asks, taking a sip of her coffee.

Clint ponders. He’s sure there are many.

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully.

“Did he say anything?”

Natasha shakes her head.

“Only to get there at 10am.”

It’s not what he meant and they both know it.

They both lapse into silence. He's sure they’re thinking of the same thing.His alarm sounds and he sits up to turn it off.

Helping her up, he pulls her into a hug.

“I’m worried Nat,” he whispers into her ear.

“Me too,” she replies just as quietly, hugging him back.

He pulls away first, holding her and looking her over.

“But you’re still going ahead with it,” he searches.

“Yes.”

There’s no more hesitation now. She’s decided and he’s along for the ride, whatever this leads to.

Dread grows. He’s so scared, he can’t imagine how she feels.

“Will you go see Devon?”

The Irish therapist is likely the best they’ve had, and perhaps the only one equipped to deal with whatever happens from here.

“We have an appointment tomorrow at 1pm.”

Natasha’s self deprecating smile is exactly what he expects, but also pulls some hope through the dread that things after this may be okay.

He laughs, covering his fear.

“Good, that’s good,” he tells her.

She nods.

“Thanks for coming with me,” she tells him, pulling him into the bathroom, and stripping for the shower.

The dread dissipates a little more.

“Where else would I be?” he answers and follows her lead.

.

The lab is not what Clint expected. It’s a house in the middle of Hells Kitchen. There’s a large room, a couch and a recliner chair. Everything else is fake and blank, like a green screen.

Tony greets them at the door and says nothing as they enter. He’s usually one that’s full of words and quips, the silence is unnerving.

“What happens?” Clint asks defensively, unable to disguise his fear and nervousness.

“I’ll show you how it works, then…” he gestures to Natasha.

Clint can’t stop the huffing sigh that comes out of his mouth.

“What memory did you choose?” Natasha asks.

Tony points to the couch and both Clint and Natasha sit dutifully.

He fiddles with the machine, and Clint hears the soft whir of machinery.

He then injects himself with something that looks like an epipen and sits on the couch.

Parts of his iron man suit helmet seem to appear from nowhere and Clint instinctively knows it’s his nanotech.

He hates the way it seems to obscure his vision, and run down his neck, but the holograms start to illuminate the room, surrounding both Clint and Natasha on the couch.

It’s amazing. It’s terrifying.

There’s sand all around them. The couch and recliner remain but everything else is different.

Clint knows they’re in Afghanistan.

A rocket with Stark Industries lands to Clint’s left, and instinctively he covers Natasha, only, that’s not what happens, the other Tony who’s appeared to their right, starts to run but the rocket explodes. Clint watches as Tony is flown backwards.

It’s not real, he reminds himself, fists clenching and his heart rate spiking.

He’s seen this before, only as he watches Tony rip his shirt, his friends weren’t wearing state of the art bullet proof vests.

It’s clear that this is the memory Tony is working on because the next thing they see is nothing. A hessian bag.

Present Tony, lifts his hands and lets the memory rewind, replay, and Clint has to close his eyes as he watches the rocket explode again; watch as Tony bleeds on the ground, only this time there’s more.

Insurgents appear around them, and Clint grabs at Natasha’s hand.

Fear fills him, as their guns aim at Tony who seems to be in and out of consciousness, the red that covers the top of their heads protecting them from the sun and the cloth over their mouths protecting from the wind swept sand.

The memory falters.

He’s squeezing Natasha’s hand hard now, he knows this, he hates this.

He’s never put the timelines together but he thinks this must be around the time he was also in Afghanistan.

Maybe around the time that Benny… he takes a breath.

Not here. Not real.

This is Tony’s memory.

They identify him in Afghani, Clint doing the rough interpreting in his head.

The insurgents knew exactly who he was, exactly who they were aiming for.

Another panics at the blood he is losing and wraps thick gauze and bandages around the wound.

The memory jumps again to the hessian bag and then… nothing.

It’s over.

The whole process, reliving traumas took maybe fifteen minutes. The pseudo VR system disappears and Tony emerges, looking no worse for wear.

Clint thinks maybe he feels worse, as his heart rate lowers slowly and his palms sweaty in Natasha’s as he removes them to wipe them on his pants.

“I want to remember more of that day, since it was so formative to this..”

He gestures around him.

“So Red, what memory did you choose?”

.

Natasha has always been a show, don’t tell person. With her feelings, he often guesses by her behaviour rather than anything she says.

It’s more reliable.

He can feel her apprehension as she stands, leaden legs carrying her to the chair.

“I guess we’ll all soon see.”

He knows in that moment that she’s not going into the Shield memory.

She’s going to go straight for her mother.

Tony guides her, and Clint sits paralysed in apprehension, as he tells her to sit.

“It’s not configured for you yet, so I have to attach these to your head.”

Natasha nods, accepting the electrodes before the nanotech masks her face.

Clint slows his breath. It’s just like a mission. She’s going to be fine. Just like watching her do something dangerous.

“If you want out, want it to stop, you need to clench your fist twice, okay?” Tony tells her.

Clint wants this to stop. His heart is beating loud. Hands clenched.

He finds his voice and reiterates what Tony just said, wanting to make sure she’s not gone somewhere else. He can’t see her.

“Nat, tell me again what you need to do to make it stop,” he asks, loudly.

“Clench my fist twice,” comes a steady voice.

He thinks it’s good that she’s so determined. It’ll hold off everything.

“Are you ready?” Tony asks.

No, Clint thinks.

“We can stop?”

Tony is clearly protective of Natasha, Clint thinks that he wouldn’t have offered BARF to her if he wasn’t. If he didn’t know the value of memories.

“No,” comes Natashas clear answer.

There’s a kind of hope attached to it and Clint feels dread at the apprehension.

“You’ll feel pulsing across your body, and tapping on either shoulder okay?”

It takes a second, maybe that’s what she’s feeling.

“Okay,” Natasha confirms.

“Tell me about the memory,” Tony asks.

Gates appear around them. A woman with auburn hair, holding an infant is crying.

“I think this is my mother,” She says, voice shaking.

“Nat,” Clint says in warning, marveling at the way the woman looks simultaneously like Natasha and nothing like her in the same image.

The memory stops and the machine slows to a stop. He can hear her guiding and slowing her own breath.

“Again,” Natasha commands, after a minute.

Tony looks to Clint who shrugs. He sets it up again.

“You’ll feel the tapping,” he tells her.

The gate appears. The woman’s voice is distorted as another woman stands next to her.

“Melina,” Natasha breathes.

The image clears and the woman is revealed, all in black, the red room insignia emblazoned on her coat.

The memory shorts and is lost again, as a desperate “no” erupts from Natasha’s lips.

Tony looks again to Clint.

“Again,” Natasha commands again.

Both men are at a crossroads, the wrath of Natasha or let her find her memory at great cost it seems.

“You’ll feel a tapping,” Tony says quietly.

The gate appears and the stone floor appear quickly now, Natasha seems to have got a handle on the control as she looks around. The static image shows the woman and the infant.

Russian voices fill the room.

“She will be safe?” The woman asks, desperate, angry at her choices in life.

Clint translates in his head.

The other woman, the one that Natasha called Melina, nods. Clint knows of course, of Ohio. Of Alexei, Yelena and Melina, and the home they created for Natasha.

He’s never seen her though. She looks so young, maybe just older than the woman holding the infant.

“The Red Room will be her home,” Melina says.

Clint expects it to stop. But it doesn’t. He looks over to Natasha who has tears on her cheeks, her body held tight.

The woman talks again.

“I’ll come for you,” she promises, kissing her baby’s nose, her face, nuzzling in, appearing to memorise every inch.

“Stay alive,” Clint hears the woman say, “and I will too.”

The woman hugs the child, Natasha, tightly. “I’ll come for you,” she promises. “This is not forever.”

The memory cuts out and disappears.

“No!” Natasha cries, anguished.

But it’s gone.

“Again,” she shouts, but this time, Clint shakes his head when Tony turns to him.

“Sorry Nat, that’s it, the machine needs to charge,” he lies.

The helmet pulls back and reveals her face, tear stained and stoic.

“How long?” she asks, voice schooled and steady now.

Tony shrugs, “twenty four hours maybe?”

She stands. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Shaky legs propel her out of the house, as Clint chases to follow.

“Nat, wait up, wait,” he calls.

He catches her at the car.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says immediately.

He nods.

“We’ll have to tomorrow,” he tells her, thinking of Devon and thanking whatever deity that the appointment is already booked.

“That’s a problem for me tomorrow then isn’t it?” She snaps, getting in the car.

He moves to the other side and gets in, knowing it’s a bad idea she drives but not wanting to get left behind. The drive is silent.

He doesn’t want to talk til she does. But as always, she wins. She’s heading for their safe house in Brooklyn. He knows by the traffic.

“Nat.”

“What?”

“You’re speaking in Russian,” he realises.

“What?”

The harshness of her words and even the fact that she hasn’t noticed that she’s been speaking in Russian since the first memory played makes him more worried. No wonder Tony had been looking to him.

“Never mind,” he mumbles.

The drive is slow but she seems aware of her surroundings, seems to know where she’s going; and as she pulls into the parking garage, he settles on the enormity of being able to keep herself together.

Natasha takes a moment and then gets out of the car, and he dutifully follows up the stairs and to the small apartment on the right. The key lives in the false bottom of the seventh stair and he picks it up and unlocks the door letting her go in first.

They move around each other with practiced ease, Clint cooking and Natasha cleaning, each grounding themselves in their own way after the traumatic morning. He pushes her to eat dinner, and motions to the bedroom.

“Will you be able to sleep tonight?” he asks.

“I guess we’ll see.”

She stares at her uneaten food.

“Do you want to sleep alone?” He asks, knowing the answer already.

“Yeah,” she sighs.

“I’ll take the couch,” he offers.

Natasha doesn’t even object. He tries once more, needing to tell her something before she leaves him.

“Nat?”

She looks up and meets his eyes, finding nothing but love there.

“You were really brave today.”

There’s a slight dip of her head as she tries to smile.

“Thanks.”

Clint knows this is not okay, will not be okay for a while, but he has faith that she’ll tell him when it’s not. They’ve navigated worse, and maybe this can be healing.

He grips her hand and squeezes three times. I love you.

.

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