I probably could have made the prompt word more significant but instead there’s this
Clint’s not stupid, even if he acts like it sometimes: he knows full well he and Natasha are in deep shit.
And he can admit that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to rush in after Natasha all half-cocked, but what choice did he have? SHIELD – he doesn’t even know if there is a SHIELD anymore, and all he had heard from her up to that point was a quick text: SHIELD infiltrated by Hydra, trust no one. Which isn’t reassuring, but isn’t nearly as frightening as the complete lack of response to any of his attempts to contact her. She hadn’t answered any of her phones, even her burner ones, and Clint had been beyond worried. He had told himself she was out there in the thick of it and didn’t have time to answer him right then, but that offered little comfort. He’d been dead wrong, anyway.
With that handy little “Trust no one,” he hadn’t had anyone to turn to. Maria Hill, maybe, or Phil, but Phil had been off with his team and he didn’t know what was happening to Maria. So when he got the call, there was nobody to call on. Just him, just like it had always been.
Clint can’t remember the last time he had been as scared as he was last night. Right on the heels of Nat’s text, his phone had started to ring, and when he’d answered, it had been to screams and the sound of Tasha’s voice. “Thank God,” had been the first words out of her mouth when he’d picked up, carried on a breath that was closer to a sob than anything else, and that’s when Clint had known. “Clint, wherever you are, you need to get the hell out, they’re coming–”
Then Clint had been treated to the sounds of guns volleying through his cell speakers and Natasha’s voice had lowered. He’d tried to talk to her – what’s going on and stay calm, okay? and tell me where you are and I’m coming to get you, Tasha and you’re going to be okay – but he hadn’t been sure how much she had heard. All he knew was that one moment, he was shouting reassurances through the phone while trying to gather his gear in a blind frenzy as Nat relayed coordinates to one of the SHIELD bases in San Francisco, and the next, more gunshots and Nat’s voice cutting out mid-word. Clint doesn’t think he’ll ever forget that heart-stopping moment when there had been nothing but gunshots and silence and he’d thought that she was dead. He’d had some scares before, times he never thought could be topped, but this had been right up there. For one single moment he had been absolutely sure that his partner was gone.
That fear had been quickly dispelled, to be replaced by an equally horrible one: the agents who had captured her either hadn’t seen the phone or had been intentionally luring him into a trap, because they’d told him everything he needed to know about who had her and where they’d most likely be.
It had been a trap, one he had waltzed right into. He doesn’t think he’s been captured so neatly since SHIELD first got their hands on him; usually, he puts up some semblance of fight, but this time he had been so caught up in his hero act that he hadn’t even noticed the guns until they were firing. Just tranquilizers, mind, but it was more than enough to take him down.
So now he’s here, chained to a fucking wall in nothing but his boxers and undershirt, accompanied by a pounding head, aching muscles, and an irate Natasha. “Some rescue,” she hisses. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Clint can’t look at the arm she cradles to her chest; every time he glances at the twist of bone beneath her skin he thinks he’s going to be sick.
“Steve better be a damn sight better at this than you,” she all but spits. Fury tautens her entire frame, and Clint doesn’t meet her eyes. “Because you suck at the whole rescuing thing.”
“Shut up, Nat,” he says half-heartedly. He deserves everything she throws at him – he managed to get her moved from her low security cell to one in the fucking center of the action. It looks old fashioned – bars and padlocks like something out of an old fifties movie, painting a stark contrast against the sterile white backdrop of the hallway – but the electronic keypad and round the clock guard detail isn’t what he would call a downgrade.
“Real bang-up job you did there. Somehow, you made being incapacitated and imprisoned by traitors in a covert base worse. I had a plan, Clint, Ever heard of those?”
This doesn’t sound like the rational, unshakable pillar of calm Clint has come to rely on, but he reminds himself that she’s hurt and that this is her right. Natasha Romanoff is, without exaggeration, the most competent person he has ever met and will ever meet, and she probably would have gotten out of here just fine if it weren’t for him coming in and screwing up all her plans.
“Ah yes, Clint Barton, codename Disaster Walking –”
“– somehow, and I don’t even know how this is possible, manages to fuck up more than usual–”
“Natasha.” He says, his tone flat and his voice pitched low.
She knows that voice, knows what it means, and she shuts up immediately. She glares at him with a fierce intensity for about ten seconds before she deflates before his eyes, all her anger seeming to rush out of her in a single wave of defeat. “Jesus, Clint, I’m sorry,” she says, scrubbing the hand attached to her good arm across her face. “I didn’t mean that. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
Clint lets it roll off of him, pretends her words don’t sting, especially on the heels of New York and Loki and everything he had done, and says, “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not, I just –” she shakes her head.
Clint swallows. “Natasha–”
“What were you thinking?” She repeats, but this time she looks up and Clint is trapped in eyes as green as dewy grass under the light of the morning sun. “You had to have known you’d get caught, so why in the world–”
“Tasha,” he says. Her face is covered in blood, one cheek is blackening and the other is sliced through the middle with a score of narrow cuts, and Clint doesn’t think he’s ever loved her more because he understands. She doesn’t have to tell him that she doesn’t think she’s worth it, that she’s scared and that she doesn’t want to see him hurt or killed and that she can’t watch horrible things happen to him and that she loves him because Clint meets her eyes and he knows. “Did you think I was going to leave you in here?” he says gently. “Tasha, look at me. Did you really think I would abandon you?”
She shakes her head wordlessly. Clint pretends he doesn’t notice her lower lip trembling. “If the odds were a million to one that I could save you, I’d still take them. You wanna know why?”
Her gaze ducks away from his and she shakes her head again, this time forceful and fast in a clear denial of what he’s about to say. He wishes more than anything he could hold her, but he can’t. “Look at me, Tasha,” he murmurs instead.
She does, and the corners of his lips turn up. “Because life isn’t really life if you’re not there with me,” he tells her, and he could swear her eyes grow shiny. “You’re everything to me, Nat, don’t you know that?” He rolls his eyes. “For a spy, you can be pretty dumb sometimes.”
And if the short laugh that bursts out of his partner sounds closer to a sob, Clint isn’t saying anything. “Shut up,” she croaks.
“We’re going to make it through this, okay?”
Clint is easy with his promises, but this one is loaded with meaning and sincerity and Natasha immediately nods and cracks a rather shaky grin. “Do I have your word on that, Barton?” she says.
For a moment he forgets that they’ve been captured by people they used to call friends, forgets that his head is killing him and Nat’s arm is broken, forgets that he’s chained to a wall with little prospects of getting free, and for one moment they are just Natasha and Clint. Just like it’s always been. Clint smiles. “Always.”
