Nat. A name she’d worked for, a beat that hit differently when it came from his mouth, because it was usually followed by something else. Nat. Nat. Tasha. Whispered when she was little more than a child (at least by biological terms – early twenties, she should’ve scarcely understood the world and yet) covered in snow and pressing a knife to his throat, a gun pointed to her head at the same time. They could’ve killed each other, that day. Neither of them would be here to talk like this, to fight, for Natasha to try releasing the tension that had been building up in her chest since that night by taking a swing for one of the only people who had ever seen her and not made it feel like a punishment, or tempting fate.
“Fuck you,” she spat, and it was English instead of Russian because she needed him to understand. She always needed him to understand that he could, if he wanted to, that she wasn’t like those who wanted him under her thumb or under her foot, that if he wanted to make her bleed, too, he could. He could but he never would. He was a better person than she would ever be – a fact she’d accepted long ago. She pushed him back, ignoring the urge in her gut to pull him closer and bury her face into his shoulder because …
Because love was for children, and nothing proved that so much as relying on someone, needing them, and having them leave.
Natasha sucked in a breath. “What–” She cut herself off, re-calibrating. “Barnes, Wanda. You came with them.”
/ ..-. / ..- / - / --.. /
A good friend was like a bruise sometimes. The kind you got from running into a counter in the morning or screwing around in the gym trying to make her laugh, not the kind that came from a closed fist. The kind you didn’t really remember, but you looked down one day and there it was. And once you knew it was there, you couldn’t help but press on it. Over and over, just to feel something, something real and tangible, something that said I lived, I got hurt and I lived and I’m still here.
Maybe that was just him. He’d never claimed to be well-adjusted. Just enough of an actor to fool teachers, SHIELD shrinks, and Fury — though he had never been sure with that last one. Fury probably saw right through him, but figured the pros of having him on the field outweighed the cons. Fury made exceptions like that a lot.
Fuck you, she said, and he almost laughed because she said it in English, a sign that she was extra irritated with him. Before, that had been because he’d taken the last of the coffee while she was warming up in the gym, or because he managed to flip her during a sparring session, or because he was watching the Dog Cops Christmas Spectacular for the hundredth time.
But there were a dozen messages on his phone, voicemails where she spat at him in English because he was being an idiot, a selfish moron, and I know you aren’t this stupid, Clint. He preferred the anger to the soft whispers that followed. Please come home. Let us help you. Let me —
He never listened to that part. He couldn’t. Because if he had, it would’ve reminded him that he was human, that she was a bruise he didn’t remember getting, that she could make him feel something. Like she had when she showed up in Japan, standing there in the rain. Giving him hope, when it was the last thing he wanted.
“Not with them,” he murmured. “We all just kind of... showed up here. It wasn’t a choice,” he breathed, thinking of Sam. How angry he was. The one constant of any universe seemed to be Clint Barton letting people down. He ducked his head, cheek throbbing, arm pulsing. “I missed you, Tasha.”
