495 words
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The first time, he brought her chocolates from Brussels. She didn’t understand what was happening when he handed her the little box. Clint just waited patiently until she took the hint and opened it. When she looked up at him, he told her he couldn’t go to Belgium and not buy chocolates. She didn’t point out that he had barely escaped with all his limbs intact. Where he had found the time to buy chocolate in the middle of an emergency extraction, she had no idea. But she ate the chocolates, and the tradition was born.
The room isn’t exactly as he left it. Clint isn’t surprised, given that it’s been five years. Someone’s been through and picked everything up off the floor, neatened the shelves, even the long-forgotten clothes in the hamper have been laundered and put away. There’s only been one person at the facility for years now, so it’s not much of a stretch to guess that Natasha is the one who’s been in here. The thought twists his chest, and out of sheer instinct he shoves that emotion down, works it into a cold knot of anger. Then he stops. He doesn’t have to do that here. Not here, and not with her.
He showers, and gets into bed. After five years of sleeping rough most nights, it’s a pleasant feeling to be somewhere he knows he’s safe, and to be able to lie here without planning his next assassination. Without those processes, though, his mind drifts, and after an hour of tossing and turning Clint gives up on sleep and sits up in bed.
He flicks on the lamp, and reaches out to open the drawer in his nightstand. He has a vague recollection of a novel he was reading all those years ago. Maybe it’s still here. He grasps something book-shaped, and pulls it out of the drawer. It’s not a novel. It’s a notebook, and there’s a pen clipped to the cover. Clint blinks, trying to remember if this is his. He opens the cover.
The first page is a list of names, with his right at the top. Several are crossed out, some are circled. His own name is circled heavily and followed by three question marks. As he reads down the list, he realises that this is Natasha’s handwriting, and it’s a list of the dead. He turns the page, and the list goes on. It takes up the first eight pages of the notebook, front and back. She must have written this in the first days of the Snap, Clint realises. He imagines what it must have been like - writing out a list of all the important people in her life, and finding out one by one that they were gone. Each page of the list makes his heart sink further. He flips to the page after the list.
Canada??
Sighting at Montreal, report from Quebec border agent - matching description.
No fake passport reported.
Belarus Airport - CALL ALIAKSIEJ.
Kiev??
Where next?
He knows what this is too. She must have been charting his movements. There are no notes after Kiev, and he knows why. He dumped every fake document he had into a furnace, and walked across the Russian border at Nikanorovka. There would have been be no way to follow him after that, not even with the best technology the Avengers had access to. Clint turns another page.
Central comms room.
Move tables into storage & set up conferencing center against South wall.
Call Tony?
Reroute security feeds to CR.
That matches the changes Clint noted when he arrived earlier. He feels guilty reading this. It’s clearly Natasha’s notebook. So why was it in his nightstand?
Marigolds
Ox-eyes
Milkweed
Cardinal Flower (Laura’s favourite)
He knows he shouldn’t be doing this. Even if it’s just lists, it’s personal.
Ask Steve about moving everyone to the same building
Help Steve pack
Help Bruce pack
Call Rhodes?
Clint bites his lip.
I wish you were here.
Close off unoccupied block
Call Pepper
Baby shower present?
Conference call
Where the hell are you?
A couple of subsequent pages are filled with little shapes and doodles. Clint recognises them as the product of Natasha being on a phone call and not being able to say what she wants to say. Lots of the little drawings have been scribbled over so heavily that the pages underneath are indented.
5 7 mile run
SHIELD drills
Gym back room - pull up mats (could be a studio?)
He knows she only dances when she’s in turmoil. He knows that because he’s the only person on this planet she trusts to know everything about her. Reading these pages, and knowing she was doing all this on her own - it’s a lot to take in. He reads on.
Birthday present for Morgan
Plant out cardinals for Laura
Call Steve (Brooklyn cell)
Clint
2 years, Clint. Not one message.
Bring extra monitors up from Bruce’s lab
Order coffee beans
2020, then, he thinks. Three years ago. Even then, he was barely thinking of her. He hates himself for it.
This is the longest stretch I’ve had no visitors.
Steve called the city ‘home’ last time he called.
Rhodes has info on you- Korea, this time.
I miss you.
Clint blinks. For the first time in a long while, he has to swallow a lump in his throat.
The last time I could do this many push-ups, I was in the Red Room.
The cardinals are blooming. I checked up on the farm a few days ago. Everything’s fine.
You left clothes on the floor. I washed them for you. Your hoodie is mine now.
The next few pages are blank. Then-
18.6.21
Happy Birthday. You’d better come back before next year. I don’t think I could make fun of a man in his forties in good conscience.
I saw what you did in Riyadh. I probably would have done the same.
If you’re worried about what I’m going to think, don’t. I just want you to come back.
I’ve been the only one here for two years.
I miss you.
Clint blinks away tears. He knew he’d feel guilty if she caught up with him. He didn’t expect to feel so ashamed.
8.2.22
Security footage from a bank in Seoul. It’s only the back of your head, but it’s nice to know you’re alive. At least, you were alive four days ago.
He remembers Seoul. He wishes he didn’t, but he does.
29.7.22
I slept in your bed last night. Some nights I sleep in the lounge. It doesn’t matter. There’s no one here to worry about me. Steve still comes once every few months. He’s busy now. I call Pepper on her birthday, and on Morgan’s. Tony made me her godmother. How weird is that?
I realised today that I haven’t said anything out loud for three days. I only talk when the conferences are up and running, and we don’t have much to report these days. Rocket mostly emails. Carol tries, but she’s busy most of the time. I can’t ask anyone to come and live here. They’d be crazy to.
He wants to stop. This isn’t right.
17.10.22
Clint, I
Clint
If you knew how it felt to be alone in this giant empty compound, you’d be back here in a heartbeat.
He can’t change what he’s done. He wants to cry.
“Clint?”
He looks up. Natasha is standing in his doorway, frozen at the sight of the notebook in his hands. He sets it down on the nightstand, and gets out of bed.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says, but her voice wavers for a moment. Clint crosses the distance between them like it was never there at all, and wraps her in his arms. She doesn’t hesitate, and hugs him back as tightly as she’s wanted to for five years. It’s not over yet, and they have so much left to do, but just for a moment, everything is alright again.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she tells him, finally pulling away enough to breathe. “We can talk about this after we’ve done what we have to do. Just… get some sleep, okay? We’ve got work to do in the morning.”
She goes to his nightstand and takes the notebook, then she leaves him alone in his room. She’s right. Tomorrow they will attempt what no human has ever done before, and if they succeed, well- Clint doesn’t want to think about that just yet. Hope is not a feeling he’s felt in a long time. He settles down to sleep. Nothing can go wrong tomorrow, not as long as Natasha is by his side.
Tony wordlessly holds out his empty mug, and Steve pours him one from the pot.
“This doesn’t feel right,” Tony says, after a lengthy silence. “Just… watching.”
“We have to,” Steve says, shaking his head slightly. “Can’t stop until it’s over.”
“Right,” Tony sighs. “How long do you think-”
On the monitor, Natasha sits up on her bunk. Even through the screen, she looks gaunt, and slightly wild. Steve sighs, and looks down at his coffee as she launches herself off the bunk with a shout, straight at the wall. Clint appears, blocking her path, and wraps his arms around her. She struggles for a moment, and they sink to the floor. Tony watches the screen in horrified fascination.
“You ever see this in conflict?” Tony asks. Steve looks at him, surprised. It’s not often he gets a genuine question from Tony, with no hint of mockery.
“I skipped the recovery part,” he says. “Went straight from the middle of the war to the twenty first century. So I read about what happened to the veterans, but no. Never saw it. By the time I was awake, most of them were dead.”
Tony looks like he wishes he had kept silent, but Steve waves off his apologetic look.
“She’s still trying,” Tony murmurs. “After sixteen hours.”
Steve just picks up the coffee pot. Simple actions are the extent of his abilities right now. “Sam’s coming to relieve you,” he says. “Get some sleep. Hopefully this will be over in the morning.”
Tony nods, and Steve leaves. The coffee is bitter, but he needs this right now to keep him sharp. He needs to be ready in case Clint needs his help. That’s their system. He’s only had to intervene once, when Natasha bit Clint’s hand so hard she drew blood. Tony sedated her and sat by her while Clint stitched himself up. There haven’t been many words spoken since they got her into the quarantine room in Medical. All they can do is wait.
Sam appears in the doorway after a few minutes. Tony waves him over, and surrenders his chair by the monitor.
“How you doing?” Sam asks him.
“I’m tired,” Tony answers, shrugging. “I’m worried. I don’t understand why she’s doing this.”
“Don’t have to understand,” Sam shrugs. “Just need to stop it from happening and help her when she comes out the other side.”
“I don’t get it,” Tony says again. “This is home, right? This is safe.”
“It’s not this place,” Sam tells him. “It’s not you, it’s not anything that’s going on here. Natasha has a long and violent past. She’s had things done to her that she won’t talk to anyone about, not even Barton.”
“Yeah,” Tony sighs. “I get it. Tragic backstory. We’ve all got one. I’ve never tried to slice my arms open with a paring knife.”
“I know you’re being an asshole because you’re scared,” Sam says, his voice sharper now, “but if you talk like that in front of Barton he will knock you right out.”
“I’m sorry,” Tony says, and Sam looks surprised. “I know. Well, I know I don’t know. It’s just hard to see her like this.”
“Get some rest, Tony.”
Tony nods, and leaves Sam to take up the vigil. A steaming mug of tea is his sole companion as he watches Clint try to settle Natasha down on the bunk. There is murmuring through the audio link that Sam can’t make out, and he doesn’t try to. Clint is in the eye of the storm right now, and he’s doing his best to cling on to Natasha. Sam has never seen her this bad. She’s tried once before that he knows of, but God knows what happened in the years before they met. Natasha is the strongest person he’s ever met, but she goes to darker places than he’s ever known, and she has more demons than any one person should be able to survive.
Clint has climbed onto the bunk now. Sam hopes it’s a good sign that Natasha is no longer trying to punch her partner. Clint isn’t holding her, just lying next to her. He isn’t relaxed. Sam can see the tension through the screen. Clint is ready to cover her, to leap over the bed and put himself in harm’s way just to save her life. It’s a partnership so strong that it can survive anything, and Sam knows it will outlast this episode of Natasha’s. Tony’s right, though. It’s hard to watch.
“How is she?”
Sam jumps. Wanda has a remarkable ability to sneak up on him. Vision is behind her, mercifully walking like a person instead of floating around and phasing through walls. That really freaks Sam out sometimes.
“Same as before,” he says. “I think it’s slowing down though. We’re getting more rest between incidents.”
Wanda looks at the screen with a pained expression. “If I could just-”
“Wanda,” Vision warns her. Sam shakes his head.
“This isn’t a quick fix,” he says. “Mind control isn’t going to help. She wouldn’t thank you for it.”
Wanda bites her lip. “I just want her to stop,” she whispers. “She can’t do this.”
“Sam won’t let her,” Vision says, moving in from behind her to pull her into a hug. “None of them will.”
“We won’t,” Sam says, and Wanda nods into Vision’s shoulder. The android guides her out of the room, and Sam finds himself wishing they would stay. Having someone to comfort always makes him feel like he can control something. This, just watching Natasha periodically try to hurt herself, this is something beyond his experience.
Inside the quarantine bay, Clint feels Natasha twitch beside him, and he rolls off the bed in time to tackle his partner around the waist as she throws herself off the bed again. She doesn’t even seem to have an end goal in mind. Just hit the wall and see how it goes. Clint wrestles her onto the bed and she’s silent, just crying without sound, her cracked lips forming words he can’t hear. He knows there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to die. He just doesn’t know how to reach it, and coax it back to the front of her brain. The responsibility is a weight in his chest.
“No,” he says, as she struggles. “Tasha- I swear to God, if you bite me again-”
“Let go,” she rasps. “Let me- let me-”
“Die?” he asks, wearily. “Yeah. No. Not gonna happen.” His tone is firm, but his heart is breaking.
She frees a hand and manages a weak punch. She hasn’t eaten for two days, so it lacks conviction, but the punch still adds to Clint’s catalogue of cuts and bruises. She goes for the bandages wrapped around her wrist, and Clint has to pin her arms again.
“Stop it,” he says, for the thousandth time. “Tasha, stop. Leave the bandages alone.”
Her struggles wind down a little, and he keeps her arms pinned until she’s just staring into space. Cautiously, he lets her arms go. She doesn’t move them, and he rolls so he’s sitting beside her.
“This is a long one,” he huffs. “Even for you, Romanoff.”
“Asshole.”
He turns, one eyebrow raised. It’s the first thing she’s said that wasn’t swearing at him or the team, or begging for him to let her die.
“Always,” he sighs. The fight has gone out of her, for now at least, and when he lies down beside her, she lets her head rest on his shoulder. Clint knows better than to hope that his partner won’t try again before the night is over, but this is at least progress. It’s all he can ask for.
Some things are best left hidden. Natasha knows that, and yet she still pushes herself when it comes to memory. Sometimes she can sense things at the base of her skull - just a buzz, or a quiet twitch of something that is present, but not remembered. Not yet, at least.
Sometimes they’re nice. One is the memory of trying coffee for the first time. Many are not like this, because in her life there haven’t been many opportunities to stop and enjoy things. Mostly death. Mostly killing and pain and cold. Those are the more common memories that surface.
She knows that there are things hidden in fire. She can feel memories tugging at her when she looks at flames. She knows she could push them away, ignore them like Clint taught her to in the beginning, but who is she without an identity, and what is an identity without memories? She decided a while ago that it is better to have the good and bad memories together than nothing at all. Even fire is better than nothing.
This doesn’t prepare her for the smoke.
It’s not a mission. She’s not in danger. It’s just breakfast in the kitchen, her and Clint moving around each other, weary and in synchrony. Everything is calm, and bright. Neither of them realise that Clint has nudged the dial on the toaster, and the bread in it is burning. Natasha sees the smoke before she smells it, and swears. Clint looks over as she presses the eject button, and two slices of blackened bread pop up, black smoke streaming.
She falters as the smell hits her - only burning bread, but there’s the buzzing again, something from the depths of her psyche clawing its way up into the forefront of her mind. The blackened centre of the bread spreads, across the toaster, over her hands, fills her entire vision, and suddenly a burning beam crashes down beside her head and she flinches away from it. She’s so close to the ground, is she kneeling? No, she’s a child, smaller than she has any memory of being before, and she’s screaming, her throat hoarse and burned from the fire all around her, the building is ashes, her family - are those the screams she can hear? Hands are pulling her away, dragging her from the fire, shouting in Russian and her skin is black with soot and searing from the burns and all around her is just smoke and confusion. Her hands are burning-
“Nat!”
She drops the toast. The pads of her fingers are red from gripping the burned slices. She lets oxygen shudder into her lungs and then curls over the sink and vomits, grateful for the acrid taste of it replacing the smell of smoke. She straightens up, wipes her mouth, closes her eyes. It’s okay. She’s safe. It’s just breakfast.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, turning back to Clint. He looks worried but not confused. He knows her well enough to tell when something new has come back to her, and it’s not hard to figure out that this one isn’t a pleasant memory.
“Do you know what it was?”
She bites her lip in thought. “I’m not sure. I was a kid. There was a fire, a big fire. I thought that maybe… maybe my family was in there.”
This is big. He moves over and puts a hand on her shoulder. She is grateful for the restrained touch. He likes to hug, but she’s not always ready for it.
“Woah,” he says, softly. It’s characteristically inadequate, and yet she agrees.
“I’m gonna go sit on the roof,” she murmurs. He waits for an invitation, but when one is not forthcoming he just nods and lets her go. He waits until she leaves to put a new round of toast on. He’ll offer her some later. Sometimes, he feels that’s all he can do.
Convoluted (or, the 5+1 of Natasha and sex)
Clintasha fic
1,357 words
tw: rape/nc
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Don’t worry, girl. It only hurts the first time.
Liars. Fucking liars, all of them. She knew it would hurt, not just because she’d never done it before, but because the brute lying on top of her had never thought to treat a woman as anything other than a hole for hire. After a dozen painful thrusts and a gust of bad breath, he was done, and he slumped onto his back. Natalia lay there, wondering if she was supposed to feel violated. All she felt was a mild sense of irritation that with all the surgeries, everything they’d done to ensure that she could take this route of seduction without there being issues, they couldn’t have figured out some way to make it hurt less. Not that they ever cared about the girls being in pain, but it wasn’t exactly adding to her efficiency as she slid out of bed and hobbled over to the purse she’d dropped at the door. The butterfly knife twirled in her fingers, and in thirty seconds the sleeping man’s heart was pumping his lifeblood out through the gash across his neck. Natalia wiped the blade on the sheets, and tucked it into her purse. She pulled her dress back on, zipped it up, and slipped out the door. It was going to be her sixteenth birthday tomorrow, and if she was lucky, they might allow her to watch the older widows sparring.
-
So many missions ended this way. Natalia was at least of age now, and had done this enough times to expect the rough treatment. She knew there were ways she could train herself so it would be less painful, but she didn’t mind it hurting so much anymore. It reminded her why she was doing it. For all this man had gushed over her beautiful face, he sure didn’t want to see any of it. He had his hand on the back of her head, forcing her face into the pillows as he thrust away behind her. He was clumsy, and muttering under his breath, presumably to keep his focus so his drunken body wouldn’t betray him and deny him the bragging rights. She wished she was here to kill him, but when he finished and fell asleep on top of her, she rolled out from under him, quietly robbed him and left without a backwards glance.
-
No matter how many times you do this, they told her, there will always be firsts.
That was true, of course, and it was that advice that was bouncing around her head as she gazed at her first female target. She was beautiful, and not much older than Natalia herself. They fell into bed, and though she knew that it wasn’t real, it was the first time she hadn’t had to fake orgasm to hurry along the foreplay. Acting was easy with the woman between her legs, and when it was her turn, she found her training had prepared her well. Pleased at being a passable lover, she was smiling slightly as she screwed the silencer onto her pistol and shot the woman through the back of the head as she lay sleeping. One more first under her belt. She hummed as she left the room.
-
There was always one who thought he could get away with touching the girls. He got the drop on Natalia before she had a chance to defend herself, and she found herself pressed against a wall in a dark closet, as a trainer thrust shakily into her from behind, crooning about what a good girl she was. A part of her felt sick. Of all the times she’d had sex, she’d never once been forced. She’d acted like she wasn’t in control, sure, but this… this was different. When he was done, he kissed her hard. She went to the silent ghost with the metal arm, the man they weren’t supposed to speak to, and she told him what the trainer had done. He said nothing, and she was sentenced to confinement for breaking the rules, but a week later the trainer turned up dead. His neck had been violently broken, and he had been thrown off the roof of the compound into the snow.
-
Freedom. It wasn’t a word she’d ever thought she would be able to apply to herself. Natalia- no, Natasha, now- was free. Free to do whatever work she saw fit to take. And yet somehow, she found herself back in the same hotel room, with the same faceless man grunting over her, on her first assignment of her self-given freedom. Fucking the information out of a target. Again. This time, she was glad he wanted her face in the pillows. That way, he couldn’t see the anguish on her face at the thought that this was all she was good for, and all she would ever be good at. Had she amounted to nothing but a degrading sex act in an anonymous hotel room with a dead man walking? This time, when she shot him, she felt no sense of accomplishment. Just a heavy weight settling in her stomach. This was the life she had chosen. She wondered for a moment, as she walked out of the room, if she shouldn’t just go back and throw herself on the mercy of the Red Room. At least there, when she wound up in bed with someone, it was under orders and not of her own free will.
-
“Tasha?”
She snapped out of her reverie. Clint’s face was hovering above her. She blinked.
“Is everything okay?” he asked softly. “Are you not feeling like-”
“Sorry,” she murmured, trailing her fingers over his cheek. “I was just thinking.”
“Do I want to know?”
She chuckled, and Clint slid off her, landing on his side. He pulled her in so she was resting against him.
“Wondering if you’re ever going to get sick of me,” she admitted. It was Clint’s turn to laugh.
“People get sick of each other,” he shrugged. “I won’t promise I’ll be around forever, because we’re in a line of work that doesn’t really come with a retirement plan, and last I checked, I’m about the most likely to die in a stupid accident. Cap gets hit by a bus, he’s probably going to be fine. Me… not so much.”
“But-”
“But nothing. I love you.”
There it was. It wasn’t that he hadn’t said it before. She’d even said it to him a couple of times, and meant it, which was huge for her. But it was so annoying when he used it to win arguments, especially because she had no response to it.
“I love you too,” she conceded.
Clint kissed her jaw, and moved his lips down her neck. Natasha closed her eyes. She loved it when he was soft like this. He actually liked kissing her, which was weird, in her experience.
When she was ready, he moved between her legs. He never liked for her to be facing away from him; he always insisted that she lie back, so he could kiss her while they fucked. It had taken some getting used to, but she had never disliked it. Feeling loved during sex was still sometimes foreign. Love and sex had always been opposite ends of a convoluted spectrum, and yet for Clint they were inextricably linked. It was so simple for him. He loved her, so he wanted her to feel good. The first time he’d stopped midway through a session because she’d changed her mind had been staggering to her. That someone could care enough to put their own needs aside for her… it was unthinkable.
When a soft climax washed over her, and Clint finished, she felt that now familiar warmth settle over her. It was something she’d only ever felt with Clint, and he described it as ‘afterglow’, something that normal people apparently felt all the time.
“Love… you,” Clint mumbled into her hair, wrapping himself around her and pulling the covers up so they would be warm.
“Mmm,” she replied, nuzzling against his cheek. She was asleep in minutes.
“Marzipan,” Clint repeats, noting it down on the page in front of him. Natasha is sitting cross-legged on her chair opposite him, watching him write.
“Any other sweets?” he asks. She purses her lips, thinking.
“I haven’t tried those peanut things.”
“Which ones?”
“With the chocolate.”
He thinks. “Reese’s?”
She nods. He writes it down. “You’ll like those too, I reckon. Okay. How about fruit?”
She considers it. “Berries. Sometimes pears, but only if they’re really juicy.”
“Breakfast food? Bacon and eggs?”
“Both.”
“Perfect.”
He sets the pen down and scans the list, nodding. “This is perfect.”
“You really don’t have to do this,” she says quietly, folding her hands on the table. “I can go myself.”
“I want to,” he assures her, pushing his chair back. He folds the list into his pocket. “Just relax here, I won’t be more than half an hour. Then we can do breakfast.“ He consults his watch. “Well, brunch. Late brunch.” He spins his keys around his fingers with a smile, and then he’s out the door.
The shopping trip is surprisingly enjoyable. Just the thought of being able to buy things for Natasha and do stuff for her gives him a warm feeling. He knows in the back of his mind that it’s because he’s acutely aware that no one has ever really taken care of her this way, but he opts for the warm feeling, because it’s not tinged with that special brand of angry sadness that comes whenever he thinks about what Natasha has been through. It’s taken him long enough to convince her it’s okay to crash at his place now and then. The food thing has been a longer time coming. He’s been working on it for a few weeks now, but she’s finally starting to admit what she likes and doesn’t like, and with every new addition to the list, Clint is getting a better picture of the real Natasha, the one that even she was convinced didn’t exist anymore.
He checks out, his basket heavy and his head full of plans, and soon he’s on his way home. He’s already planning the meal when he walks into the apartment, one arm laden with the shopping.
“Natasha?” he calls. There is no movement in the lounge, where she normally nests. He drops the bags in the kitchen and moves into the hall, thinking that perhaps she’s finally decided to spend time in the guest bedroom. She’s not there either, and finally he opens the door to his own bedroom.
“Hey,” she murmurs. Clint freezes, fixing his eyes instantly and determinedly on her face.
“You’re not wearing any clothes,” he manages.
“I wanted to thank you,” she purrs, and fuck, her voice is like honey, he can feel the primal parts of his brain already pulling him towards her. She’s spread out on his bed, ready for him to come and claim her, and he realises that he feels slightly sick.
“What are you doing?” he croaks.
“Come here.” God, he almost wants to.
“Put your clothes back on.”
“That’s a first,” she chuckles. “Come on, I want to repay you for all your kindness.”
“I’m not going to do that,” he says, trying to keep his voice even. He doesn’t do a great job, and she may be screwed in the head but she doesn’t miss the quiver of anger there.
“Are you uncomfortable?” she murmurs, pushing herself off the bed. She’s grace given human form. She’s fucking dangerous. He steps back.
“Of course I’m fucking uncomfortable.”
“Barton, I just want to say thank you-”
“Then say thank you,” he strains, his eyes sliding up to the ceiling, not in exasperation but simply so they won’t lock onto anything else.
“You can look, if you want.”
He doesn’t. She sighs. “Look, it’s simple. You’ve given me food, shelter, and now you insist on buying all these things for me, so now I’m giving you what I have to offer.”
“Put your clothes back on.”
His eyes finally find her face, and she looks bewildered.
“But… isn’t this what you wanted?” she asks, sounding uncertain for the first time.
“Of course not!” he shouts. She doesn’t exactly flinch, but her fingers twitch, and he can see the alarm in her face. He turns, and slams his palm into the wall.
“This is… fuck, this is so fucked, Natasha.” He swings around. She’s still standing there, stark naked. “I didn’t do all this so you’d… so I could…”
“You can’t even say it.” She cocks her head at him. “You… you actually don’t want this.”
“I want to make you breakfast.”
She stares at him, and for the first time he senses that she feels vulnerable with no clothes on, instead of powerful. Knowing that he’s made her feel like that isn’t a great sensation, but she’s finally grabbing a corner of the sheet to cover herself. He relaxes slightly.
“I don’t understand.”
It’s almost plaintive. He wants to reach out and hug her, but he definitely can’t do that while she’s still naked in his bedroom.
“I’m going to go put the bacon on, okay?” he mumbles, rubbing his neck awkwardly. “Just… get your clothes back on. Come and join me when you’re ready. I’ll have coffee ready.”
She looks like she’s ready to cry, so he turns and leaves the room. She doesn’t need an audience for that. When she finally emerges, Clint has a pile of crispy bacon and some eggs on toast waiting for her, as well as a large mug of black coffee. She sits at the table, and it’s the first time he’s ever seen her look anything close to meek.
“Thank you,” she says, awkwardly. He decides she’s thanking him for the bacon and coffee, and opts not to think about it any further for the time being.
When Natasha enters the training centre, her partner is nowhere to be found. Odd. She’s only been working with him for a few months, but in all that time he’s never been late. She checks the range, but he’s not there either. Maybe he’s sick, or something’s wrong. She sighs, and leaves the centre, heading up to Clint’s room.
She knocks sharply on the door when she arrives.
“Barton,” she calls. “You’re late.”
She hears a muffled noise from inside, and opens the door. Clint is sitting on the edge of his bed, countless sheets of paper spread out around him. He looks up at her when she enters, and for a moment she doesn’t recognise him. There is a deep, burning anger roiling just under the surface of his expression, she can see it from across the room.
“Barton,” she says quietly. “Is everything alright?”
He makes a weird, strangled noise, and her frown deepens.
“What are those?” she asks, looking at the papers on the bed. He doesn’t answer, so she moves across the room and picks one up. After a few moments, she drops it, as if scalded.
“This is my file,” she says quietly, looking at the papers scattered around him. “Where did you get this?”
“Fury gave it to me,” Clint says. There is so much tension in his voice that she worries he will snap. She looks away, because now that he knows, surely he will be disgusted. Surely this is the end of their partnership.
“You shouldn’t have read those,” she whispers. Everything will change now that he knows.
He grips her wrist, and she jumps, looking down at her partner. To her shock, his eyes are filled with tears.
“How could they?” he murmurs, his voice trembling.
“Who?” she asks, bewildered.
“THEM!” he shouts. Natasha flinches, and Clint throws himself off the bed, scattering the papers all over the floor. Natasha sees photographs of herself here and there. Clint slams his fist into the wall and she realises he’s still shouting, still raving about something.
“You were just a little kid, how could they do that to you, those bastards-”
He lashes out at the wall again, and Natasha jumps over to pull him away from it before he can injure himself.
“Clint,” she murmurs. “Calm down, it’s okay.”
He turns his wild gaze on her. “Okay? None of this is okay, Natasha, this is wrong, it’s sick- they tortured you- you were a kid-”
She takes his shoulders, unsure of how to deal with this kind of emotion coming from the usually stoic archer.
“I didn’t know any better,” she says, helplessly. “I didn’t know there was anything else.”
“You shouldn’t have had to,” he spits. “They brainwashed you, they did experiments on you until you believed that what they were doing was kind. No one deserves that. It’s not human.”
He’s choked up, she realises. The thought is foreign to her – someone cares about her. Her partner is furious over something that happened to her a lifetime ago.
“Clint,” she murmurs, stroking her hand up and down his arm. “It’s alright. It’s-”
Clint shouts, an incoherent, wrathful noise, and lashes out at the wall again. He moves through the scattered papers, kicking them up, roaring wordlessly, until Natasha captures him, holding his face in her hands and forcing her partner to look at her.
“Clint,” she says, her voice firm. “Look at me. I’m alive. I’m alright. I promise.”
“I’ll kill them,” he whispers, two trembling hands rising to cover Natasha’s. She strokes her thumb over his cheeks, waiting for him to start breathing normally again. He whispers it over and over, until she hushes him with a finger to his lips.
“I’ll help you,” she promises. He wraps her in a tight hug. Natasha tenses for a moment, then melts into his arms.
He holds her close for a long time before they part.
He is walking, but he doesn’t know where to, or from. Everything is spinning; nothing is clear to him except the sound of his footsteps - is that metal under his feet? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s nothing, and he’s really falling, with only the illusion of footsteps ringing around him.
He can hear breathing. Soft, gentle breathing, like that of someone sleeping. His footsteps slow, and then a picture forms in front of him. His lips curve, because it’s her, and she is beautiful. One arm is folded under her head and she sleeps on her side, ever so slightly curled into herself as she dozes comfortably.
Clint reaches out, and strokes soft fingers through her hair. She wakes, and rolls onto her back to look up at him. Clint stops.
Instead of a gentle smile, there is a look of unadulterated terror on her face. Natasha stares up at him, her eyes wide, and deeply scared.
He looks at his hands and they are covered in blood. He strips back the covers and the blood is coming from her wrists, which he has pinned to the bed. There is a knife- oh God, he has a knife in his hand, he has done this to her. He can hear her sobbing, pleading with him. His name assaults him, batters him with accusations and guilt, and yet he cannot stop.
He dips his head down and kisses her lips, tasting the salt of her tears on her skin, and he throws away the covers. He slices off her nightdress, tearing it away as she begs him to stop. She is naked, with his bloodied handprints all over her skin. He carefully carves a line from her sternum to her navel and she screams, the sound pouring over him. He shudders, but it is pleasure he feels under the torrent of pain and fear and guilt. He is enjoying hurting Natasha. He inks another red line, this time along one collarbone, and Natasha whimpers. He groans, and trails his finger through her blood as it drips onto the mattress. She begs him to stop, but it’s not Clint listening to her anymore.
He knows how he will hurt her even more. He knows what will destroy her even more than physical pain, and he leans in and brushes his lips against her ear.
“I never loved you,” he whispers, and she cries out in agony. His mind screams that it is a lie, but his lips curve into a smile and he pulls back to watch as her heart breaks. Her tears mingle with blood, and he slowly slides the knife into her chest, watching her struggle, listening to her screaming, and slowly, slowly seeing her become still.
-
Clint wakes with a gasp to find himself looking up at her. He is drenched in sweat, and Natasha is cradling his head in her lap.
“Clint?” she whispers, worry written across her face. He can still see it, he can still feel the sick pleasure of cutting her skin-
He rolls off the bed and staggers to the bathroom, where he is sick into the toilet. He slides down onto the cold tiles and begins to cry. She is there, rubbing his back, hauling him to his feet, and she guides him back to the bed.
“It was just a dream, sweetheart,” she whispers.
“I killed you again,” he mumbles, shivering. She pulls him into the bed and draws the covers over both of them.
“I’m fine,” she reassures him. “I’m right here.”
His tears wet her shirt as he buries his face in her shoulder. She strokes her slender fingers through his hair, cooing and soothing until his shaking shoulders become still.
“It’s going to be alright,” she whispers. “We’re going to be okay, Clint.”
Somehow, through the haze of lingering fear, he believes her.
