ext_26680 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
cybermathwitch.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
be_compromised2013-01-04 08:10 pm
cybermathwitch.livejournal.com) wrote in be_compromised2013-01-04 08:10 pm
Entry tags:
BASKET: Bang Your Head (Mental Health) (2/4) (for kl_shipper1) - PG
Title: Bang Your Head (Mental Health) (2/4)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oresteia
A Gift For:kl_shipper1
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some hint of violence and psychological torture and unwanted medical procedures but it's mostly dramatic angst mixed with happy endings
Pairings: Clint/Natasha, Tony/Pepper, Jane/Thor, Team
Summary/Prompt Used:
4) Who are they, besides their job, besides the assassins they're trained to be? Show me who Clint and Natasha really are and what they do when they're not on a mission-- when they have some time to decompress and be themselves. Basically, Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff vs. Clint and Natasha.
Things I like: Banter, happy endings, deaf!Clint, team!shawarma, team antics, UST and/or RST, (romance with) reasonable amounts of angst. AUs. Movieverse. Clint showing off his musical abilities (and Natasha having them too).
I don't want to receive: Dub-con/non-con. Torture. Character death. Unhappy endings. Lots of smut. Non-C/N.
Authors Notes:
The story is kind of told in an disjointed format. It’s almost built like Memento or Pulp Fiction. The beginning gives the ending away to some extent. There’s more after the beginning but it tells it all final conclusion (that is left open ended slightly). Time jumps quickly but the story is written linear, so that none of the time jumps are so misplace that they don’t make sense. Also, this story involves Phil Coulson as a general important character. The heart of it is about Clint and Natasha but really it’s him as their third (not romantically in the least, brotherly, friendly).
(May 21st 2013)
Clint knew he was wasting away. Natasha and him as a couple were more solid than they ever had been before. They had friends and family now. They were liked, they had a real home, and they weren't trapped undercover in jobs they could not even bring up to each other at dinner unless they worked the same job.
It was nice to just be normal… well as normal as they could possibly be.
But Clint was getting worse. He thought he had coped well with Loki, almost as well as when he lost his hearing. Clint was sure that he it under control.
Then the nightmares started. In them he saw Phil Coulson. And Natasha. Always Phil and Natasha. His brother and his lover. In full blown three dimensional terror. In them, someone was always hurt or dying but these weren't just dreams, they were memories.
Memories of a time before Loki and The Avengers. When things were supposedly simple.
The nightmares slowly were causing a shift. Natasha and Clint had what they called and on- and off work relationship. Their entire relationship dynamics between the field and “real life” were completely different. Their identities, their habits, their interests changed for the sake of their own sanity.
With every nightmare, a little bit of their wall fell down. Clint's identity merged, blended into something dark and twisted. He could feel himself withdrawing from the crowd unable to stop it.
Natasha could too. Her own suffering was a direct result of his. He could feel her become more suspicious of his behavior. It brought about her own form of paranoia.
She would react by throwing herself into work. He knew she had called base no less than three times this week about getting work thrown her way.
The Avengers changed everything for the better on the surface but somewhere along the lines neither professional had gotten that message. Instead, they were drifting further down the river with the paddles already gone.
---
“I need a job. I need something to do,” Clint said one evening to Sitwell over Skype.
Sitwell sighed, Natasha had already asked for an assignment. Fury had basically told him in no certain terms that they were retired from duty effective immediately and no matter how much they begged, shit was not going to happen.
“You know what Fury said,” Sitwell replied.
Clint rolled his eyes, “And you know damn well that you would not have talked to Natasha three times if you weren't planning on ignoring that little directive.”
“I'm not Phil Coulson.”
“No shit,” Clint retorted angrily, “Look, I just need an out. I know you have something. I just need to know what it is.”
Jasper paused, Coulson would have told Barton. Not only that, he would have insisted he come along and Fury be damned. It was about doing the right thing.
On the other hand, Jasper wasn't Phil Coulson. Fury did not give him that kind of free reign and he fully admitted that compared to Coulson he was a god damn pussy.
A good brave agent prepared to die for his country if need be but a pussy nonetheless. Breaking the code was so not his thing.
“There might be something…” Jasper said after a minute. He slowly pulled a paper file from his desk drawer.
Clint's eyebrow rose.
“Look, you do this…. There won't be any SHIELD support. We can't have you involved officially. I can't be your ears. You'll have to rely on your hearing aids and whatever good judgment you have left in you. No avengers. No Fury. No SHIELD. I can get you safe passage, some money to get a hotel and some shit, and your gear. That's it,” Sitwell said after a minute.
One of these days Clint was going to have teach Sitwell how to use sign language, he really only could get half of that but the statement was luckily for him straight forward. This was some mission impossible kind of shit. This message will self destruct in five seconds, go luck, get moving agent.
Clint nodded, “So where am I going?”
“Gaza.”
--
(June 2013)
Leaving would not be hard, it was a job. Clint worked like every other American only his job was a little more unique than nine to five. The others like Tony Stark had no idea what life was like. They lived on calling the shots or picking their own hours because of their genius (like Bruce).
Clint was the kind of man that knew his job and did it well. Trying to tell his teammates that however would be a bit of a struggle. Especially since Natasha and Tony knew of Fury's directive concerning the two SHIELD agents.
Natasha was going to kill him.
But at this point anything was better than the direction he had been going in. Clint was a step away from taking up a drinking habit (and that was an extremely bad sign) and becoming a football junkie (another thing Clint was not so keen on. He actually found it boring).
“So I took a job. I'm leaving tomorrow,” Clint blurted out at dinner that evening.
He announcement came in-between Thor and Tony's argument over the potatoes being better fried or boiled. Steve had dropped his silverware and stopped mid-chew to stare at Clint.
Tony and Thor had snapped their heads in his direction like he had just announced his plan for a sex change.
Bruce paused but otherwise showed no reaction whatsoever.
Natasha at first mimicked Bruce until she saw that his gaze was on hers than she took a moment to slam her fist on the table making everyone jump in surprise. No one knew Natasha to be hotheaded or outwardly angry most of the time.
“Don't do this,” she said simply hiding her anger underneath her plea.
It was impossible to shield from Clint though, he knew what Natasha's seething tone sounded like-- this was it.
Tony might have been the mouth of the group but often he liked to be voice of reason as well, “She's right, you shouldn't do whatever you're planning Legolas.”
“Why not?” Steve interjected.
The group all stared at him amazed that he was picking Clint's side.
Clint just lifted his brow in surprise.
“He could do some good. Maybe it's an important mission. And we can always provide backup if need be,” Steve replied to the shell shocked team.
“Absolutely not,” Clint snapped instantly,
Now Steve turned to him less supportive and more annoyed.
Natasha let out a bitter laugh, “We can't come Captain because wherever Barton has decided to go involves going undercover. Not his usual gig but he picked it just to make sure we couldn't follow him.”
Barton not Clint. Yes, he was in trouble with his girlfriend. A lot of trouble.
“Why would you do that?” Steve asked him with a piercing gaze.
Clint wanted to fidget and confess all his problems to Captain America like he was Phil Coulson number one fan. Unfortunately, when Cap was Steve, Clint was anything but cooperative.
Clint stood up, “That's my business no offense kid.”
Kid. Not Captain. Not Boss. Not Steve but kid.
That riled up the rest of the team besides Natasha who had not been riled up to begin with.
“Hey don't talk to him like that,” Tony snapped in Steve's defense, “He's not some little boy you put in the corner because he wouldn't stop screaming. You can't just tell him or anyone else at this table to fuck off just because you're having a moment. We're a team and a family-- your decisions affect us too moron.”
Clint scoffed okay now he pissed off too, “Okay let's pretend that's true for a second. Then how far up your ass has your head been since we arrived?”
Tony stood up to stand eye level with Clint, he was a little shorter but his anger and the intensity of dark eyes was enough to make him Clint's equal.
“Oh you mean Natasha and yourself? What you think I didn't notice Legolas?” Tony ranted, “That I somehow missed how lost you've become since last month. No, I just ignored it.”
“Why? Huh Tony? We're such a big family that you ignored it?” Clint taunted.
“I ignored it because it's what you both wanted,” Tony countered.
He was right. Clint had no comeback for that. It was true that was exactly what they had wanted to work out their own issues.
“You don't belong to them anymore,” he said after a minute, Tony's anger seeming to disappear some. “I've tried to do everything for everyone. I tried to make everyone happy. The only two people that have resisted so far have been you and Natasha. She's at least willing to work with me. You on the other hand? Had no intention from the beginning. You've let your nightmares and fears rule you since last year Barton and there's nothing anyone can do for you.”
Before anyone else could offer their unwanted advice or truths that Clint had been happy to ignore, he stormed off.
Natasha's gaze never left his face.
--
An hour went by before Clint found himself face-to-face with his girlfriend. Not his partner but the human being left behind that did normal everyday things with him. His life partner and boy was she pissed.
Natasha Romanova the killer might have been supportive. It was Nat that was homicidal.
“So that's it? Doesn't matter what I think?” she demanded by way of greeting noticing his travel bag was half packed and his shoes were already on his feet.
Clint threw his arms up, the entire exchange had been without words so far. At the table, she used telekinetic aggravation that she not so subtlety pushed in his direction. The second he stormed off, she followed and proceeded to sign aggressively this time with actual not pretend mental words in his line of sight.
All of them being rather rude by a any normal persons standard. Then she got mad and stormed off to go rant to Pepper Potts on the phone. It was testament to how much better she was handling having roommates that she actually called them in time of distress.
Pepper, Tony and everyone else after they moved realized they were a couple. However, most of them shy of Thor who had zero expectations on relationships assumed it was like they were trained professionals 24/7.
Bruce almost had a heart attack the time he walked in and they were baking cookies. Cookies like it was some kind of sex kink that they said “let's bake” but meant something else entirely. He somehow did not believe them to be serious clearly Bruce learned a lesson that day.
He also showed class by not acting like an idiot when it was fairly apparent that he had believed them incapable of baking treats.
Tony though had flat out accused them as only being sex partners. Natasha threw a shoe at his head and showed the entire team pictures of their trip to Maui where they did everything except have sex.
Still they kept their non-sexual/non-business relationship away from the team as much as possible if not only to spare their psyche.
“I can't stay Nat. I tried. I tried really hard.”
“Really hard? That's the excuse you're going to use? Really hard? No, Clint. Let's be honest. You flat out attempted to make this fail since the beginning. So did I at first. I miss the field too…” she started.
Clint snorted, “Of course you don't. No more having to lead on drug dealers with promise of sex like you're their toy. No more Tony Stark's. No paperwork. It's the life you always wanted, killing the bad guys to make up for your past without having to compromise anything.”
Perhaps that was the wrong argument to have with her.
“No compromise Barton?” she looked positively murderous. Her face almost as red as the hair on her head. The image of head exploding was streaming into Clint's mind.
Before Clint could even think to apologize, despite his hands already being lifted up into the hair as if he trying to stop her from shooting-- “Loki.”
He deserved that.
“I'm sorry.”
“Not good enough.”
Clint sat down the bed and put his hands over his face. Sounds of frustration apparent. It was a good thing his hearing aids had been back in because Natasha was not about to stop her assault.
“I- I- I can't do it anymore. By it, I mean Stark Tower. No, not even that. I like everyone you know that. I've been dealing with the lack of privacy and the obvious surprise at everyone that we bake and watch television. I'm miserable. I'm not sleeping. You aren't either. We're losing what relationship we had among ourselves to the entire team,” he pointed out staring at her.
"So you're giving up?” she asked, “On what exactly? On us? On the team?”
“I don't know anymore.”
She sat down on the chair in the corner of their room, “I called Sitwell you know. About a month ago. I saw the direction we were heading in. I thought maybe he could fix you. Put a band aid on the problems we were having.”
“And?”
“There's no band aid.”
Clint sighed, “Maybe there is…”
Natasha rolled her eyes, “Going on a mission is not a band aid.”
“Sitwell is the one that asked me to go. He said it would be good for me. It's not SHIELD sanctioned. Wouldn't tell me what it was for just that it was something he wanted to check out on his own,” Clint began, “Coulson trusted him. I offered to be his eyes and ears.”
Of everything Natasha expected that had not been it. Clint was going on unknown mission being done in secret by one man just because he was Coulson's protégée.
“Are you out of your mind? You never take jobs that resemble your time as a freelancer.”
That was a lesson known fact, that Clint was once a very good very high priced hitman. Not exactly something he had been proud of but he did anyway.
“I'm sorry but I have to do this-- whatever Sitwell is offering. I can't stay here waiting for the end, for trouble to happen again, or for god only knows for our skills to die out. I'm going Nat and I don't know when or if I'll come back.”
---
(July 2013)
She would never admit to it but every morning Natasha woke up feeling the sheets of the spot next to her. In her self-lucid state she always imagined Barton sleeping there next to her.
Then her brain would catch up with reality and she would moan slightly and wake up fully. It was becoming a familiar habit of semi denial.
Natasha was getting restless and she sorely missed her partner-- her lover-- her friend.
The others noticed the change in her the second Barton walked out the door. Natasha on a good day was friendly, kind of girly, a little bit of a housewife and semi emotionless on the surface but with an overall witty and noticeable sense of humor.
Since Clint had left, Natasha had basically become the standard mindless solider they knew some operations within SHIELD to be. Withdrawn would be an understatement, Natasha was almost not even there at all.
If she was, it was simply to eat and go to sleep.
She had even refused to workout with the other teammates, sure she still lifted weights and ran-- shot at things but if anyone offered a sparing partner she would flatly refuse them and walk away angrily.
Like they were Clint because obviously that had been another thing between them.
The girls night out with Pepper had ceased to exist.
Pepper would try to talk and Natasha would put her on best Natalie Rushman act for it to only fail once Pepper would latch onto something based on perception which would anger Natasha and send her back into solitude.
For the team it was like losing Clint all over again.
“You would think Barton died or something,” Tony muttered after watching her sit at the breakfast table staring into space.
Steve hissed angrily at Tony, “And you saying that isn't going to help.”
Tony rolled his eyes and put butter on his toast aggressively, “He's my friend too. More mine than yours Cap. But it's just a mission and maybe it might him some good. I admit I was pissed at first. Then after a day or two I realized the rest of the Tower was no longer tense. None of us were waiting for the other shoe to drop anymore.”
At that statement, Steve sighed but was forced to at least to himself agree that Tony was right. They had been all waiting for the destruction to happen. Clint had been miserable and Natasha seemed to be constantly on edge.
When he left whether they liked it or not (and none of them did) almost everyone sans Natasha seemed to relax. It made Steve feel terrible but within a week of Clint's disappearance things had almost leveled out among the group.
Natasha however had gone from angry to depressed. Like she had been hit with the four stages of grief. Tony was right, it was as if she was mourning him as dead.
They knew he would be back though. The thought otherwise had never once entered their minds. What if they were wrong though? Steve had never considered that maybe Natasha's grief wasn't so uncalled for after all.
“Natasha?” Steve said after a second.
He could feel Tony's eyes on him suspicious as if he expected Steve to disagree with him-- possibly fight with him over the issue. Instead Steve turned almost white as a sheet of paper and addresses the elephant in the room.
“Yes?” she asked turning in their direction. She had a moment of pause when she noticed the expression on Steve's face.
“Barton IS coming back… right?”
Tony's mouth dropped open in shock. Natasha never responded.
--
(June 2013- The day after Clint left)
“Where's Clint?” Bruce asked the next morning after Clint's impromptu shouting match with the rest of the Team.
He like Thor and Steve assumed that it would blow over. That tomorrow (now today) the team would re-assemable and all would be well.
Tony and Pepper had disagreed but still felt a favorable outcome would happen soon.
The look on Natasha's face however seemed to tell the opposite story. Natasha looked downright irate.
She started stabbing her bagel with a kitchen knife, “Oh Barton is gone. Left last night. First plane off the base if the flight log was telling the truth.”
Bruce gulped.
Not exactly what anyone had thought would occur. Clint left them and not only that, he left his angry killer girlfriend home with them.
“Is there someone I could get for you?” he asked timidly afraid that if he set her off, she would set The Other Guy off.
“No. I'm just fine. Sitting here. Eating.”
The bagel wasn't even edible anymore, she had hacked it to a bread crumb death.
“Tasha…”
Natasha looked squarely at Bruce, her expression sobered and she sat down the knife, “I don't think he's coming back.”
Before he could process her distress or the meaning behind that sentence, Natasha got up and practically ran out of the room.
--
(SHIELD headquarters in New York- June 2013- Clint's departure)
“Sitwell,” Clint said by way of a fast greeting. He was standing there with nothing but his black duffle, his bow, some arrows, and an expression that said he wasn't entirely happy to see the man.
Not that he hated Sitwell but he really wished that he was there illicitly meeting Coulson or maybe even Agent Hill instead.
Really he had somehow hoped this was a cover and that Fury had a job for him under the radar where the council wouldn't find out. Instead, it appeared to be legit as Sitwell claimed it was. That is to say, it was a mission entirely of his making involving only Clint and himself.
Kind of sad to be honest.
“Barton. Glad you could make it.”
Clint did a survey of the flight deck noting that there was a single plane. All others had been removed or were in-flight elsewhere. The cameras appeared to have been disabled-- probably by someone Sitwell was friends with in Security.
There was a single co-pilot someone that Clint had never met before based on the lack of surprise or accusatory look of the man. Besides that, there were a free cargo boxes and manila folder that Sitwell had in his hand.
Otherwise, the place was a barren desert. It unnerved him. Never had Barton seen the make shift airport so empty in his entire tenure.
“What's with the secrecy? Where's the other shit they usually have here?” he asked cautiously trying not to come off as accusing or suspicious of the agent.
Sitwell laughed slightly, not that he didn't expect Clint to ask those particular questions but he out it rather enlightening that the agent would say that first instead of last. Lesser men might have bullshitted for awhile or just panicked and started throwing accusations.
Not Barton.
Now Sitwell knew why he had been Coulson's pet. They were alike in a number of ways, “Needed to make sure no one else would come in. Had supplies and storage items moved so that if an agent needed to poke around they would do it elsewhere. Didn't want anyone seeing you here or finding out I gave you this mission.”
That was a little alarming, Clint ignored the feeling though and pushed it back.
“Two weeks after The Manhattan Initiative (what they were now calling Loki's plan to take over the world) we had an agent go missing.”
“Missing?” Clint's voice echoed. Why would Sitwell want Clint to look for a missing agent. Wouldn't SHIELD already be handling that? Besides, that was a year ago, a little late to be searching for a missing agent.
“Well that's where it gets tricky. The agent was deemed KIA before he even went missing,” Sitwell explained.
Clint stared at him partially in shock but also, he was a little on the annoyed side, “So you want me to find a missing agent that was deemed dead? How the fuck does that even happen Sitwell?”
This where it got tricky at least for Sitwell, to tell Barton but not tell Barton that he was tracking a maybe real actually living Phil Coulson. While, avoiding not telling him that if he was alive, they had left him in enemy hands for almost eight months now.
“The team leader saw him die or so he thought. Called it. Left to save his own life. He came back to get the body with a team… the body was gone,” Sitwell explained. “Generally it was assumed that just maybe the agent was dead. Until last week when I got what I think was a distress message from the missing agent. If it is, we need to find him and get him back.”
What the hell had gone wrong that led them to this little disaster?
“So where was the mission? Was it in Gaza?”
“No exactly,” Sitwell hedged, “It's hard to explain exactly what happened but this our best guess. Or at least the most probable scenario. Agent CX55 was in the Manhattan Project Battle on board with us when you attacked the base…”
Clint gulped this was not exactly something he wanted to relive and especially not at this moment where he was about to sent to recuse said Agent CX55 (what they did with deceased agents was usually assign them a letter/number combination so that no one could access their personal data post-mortem or in the event they were killed by a friendly (or in the presence of one) would be able to feel guilty by finding out who was killed and how they were killed).
“He was injured, they sent him to one of our top medical facilities in Europe since the base here was being filled with injured parties from the city. He was recovering nicely and then the base was attacked. Several injured agents were killed. We assumed no one had survived but somehow- we think this one CX55 might have…” Sitwell said.
Clint finished the blanks from there, “Because he was already deemed KIA, he wouldn't have had a tracker nor would have anyone been sent to go look for him. As far the agency was concerned he was already dead.”
Sitwell nodded grimly.
“No one else can know about this because whoever it was important enough that if turns out to be false alarm or there's trouble. You don't want to get fired-- and of course, I'm supposed to be inactive,” Clint responded to himself.
“I wish you weren't so good,” Jasper said after a moment, sadness still in his tone.
He wished he could tell Clint what he was sending him to do. He had a feeling that Clint would only refuse but if this went south, Sitwell might have lost a good solider-- a good man for good.
Natasha would kill him and Fury would make sure he never saw the light of day again.
God did Sitwell hope not only for his sake but Clint's that everything worked out.
--
“Will you come back?”
“I'm not sure.”
“Clint…”
Natasha rolled in bed, sweat dripping from her forehead. Her nightmares had gone from old murders to Clint. Every time, Clint said goodbye and then she never saw him again.
Every time just before she woke up, she was attending his funeral.
She then forced herself awake-- gasping, sucking in air to her lungs causing her to cough from air chocking. Natasha would love it if this was just her paranoia in action (she honestly like all good agents was slightly on the paranoid side) but she couldn't shake this feeling that something was wrong.
Clint had never actually had that conversation with her. About coming back. Natasha had been too mad to ask him that. Clint had said that but to be fair, they always said that before rushing into danger. He never explicitly said he wouldn't COME BACK to the Tower. Just that he may not come back alive.
Did that really make it any better? After all, the end result was still the same.
Still Natasha wanted to believe that Clint would come back and when he did that he would return to her. Part of her feared though even if he did survive that somehow he would refuse to come back to her. To the Tower and to the team. In her mind, it was almost as dark as him dying maybe… perhaps more frightening.
Death was something they were prepared for.
Separation by choice? Nothing that either had banked on or prepared for. Gods and Aliens were easier to train for. Being left by a loved one voluntarily? Not exactly something she had any experience with nor did she want it.
From what Clint had told her, it was like being tortured.
Just like ironically she was experiencing every night in her dreams.
--
(July 13th 2013- After breakfast with Tony and Steve)
Natasha went to the gym and started to use Steve's punching bags. She kept punching them, harder and harder. Harder until her hands started to swell.
Finally after a few tries, one of her knuckles started to bleed from the skin being rubbed raw from contact.
Natasha kept punching.
Until JARVIS alerted the team.
Five minutes later, Steve, Tony, Bruce, Thor, and Pepper had reported to the gym,
“Warrior Queen, cease fighting. You are injured,” Thor announced.
Thor had taken to calling her Warrior Queen after streaming Xena on Netflix.
“Can't,” she half whispered harshly. If she stopped than reality set in. Reality that already kept her awake at night and ruined her sleep. Reality that Steve had unintentionally at breakfast said out loud where she could hear him (voicing all the fears she already had).
“Natasha-- Ma'am look I'm sorry about what I said earlier…” Steve began slowly.
“Save it Rogers,” she replied somewhat aggressively, “It's what we were all thinking anyway.”
Tony raised his hand, “Actually I never even considered it a possibility.”
“Either had I,” Steve confessed.
“You're an optimist,” Bruce retorted dryly to Tony, “And you're incapable of pessimism,” Bruce told Steve.
“So you thought he was gone for good?” Pepper demanded of the kind doctor. She liked Bruce but all of them had pulled for Clint to come to his senses, come back, and work out his issues like an adult. Like the family member he was.
“No,” Bruce said after a minute, “I just didn't completely rule it out or deny it like either of you did.”
Natasha let out a strained noise.
Before anyone else could react, Thor ran over to her and gently gripped her hands in his strong grasp.
“Time to stop now, Warrior Queen. You have overworked yourself and caused you great harm,” he informed her cradling them as if afraid to injure them further.
“I don't think that was why she was distressed,” Bruce interjected helping Thor take her over to the weight bench.
Bruce uncapped a water on the ground and brought the bottle to her lips, “Drink slowly.”
Natasha complied somewhat cooperatively.
Pepper had come back with some antibiotic cream and Bruce went to work on her knuckles.
“He'll come back,” Steve whispered after a minute.
Natasha shook her head, “No, he won't.”
The rest of the team paled at her response, “Did the Hawk say this?” Thor asked her distressed visibly by her words. Clint had become his new Loki, a brother, and he had already lost the one he had… not ready to do it again.
“No,” she replied, “But he heavily implied that it was probable.”
“No. No. You're wrong. Barton wouldn't just quit us. His family,” Tony snapped back somewhat in denial. Not to cheapen her relationship to the sniper but Clint was his family (like the rest of them). Family didn't leave.
“On you? No, Stark he wouldn't. On me? It's a possibility. We've hurt each other before. I reacted poorly-- so did he. We said horrible things to each other. He left. He was broken, I could see it but Stark, I was too angry to care,” she confessed after a minute.
The world could end and Clint would still be there for Stark, Rogers, Thor, and Banner. It was Natasha that feared she was expandable despite the fact that they had the longest ongoing relationship of the group entirely. He would never leave another brother behind again, like Thor it had crushed him to the bone.
Unfortunately, that didn't promise Clint would stay an Avenger or that he would move back in either.
“Tasha, he wouldn't do that to you,” Bruce said softly, he might have doubted Clint's return to base-- to the team but the one thing he had never doubted was that Barton would return for Romanov every single time.
Natasha sighed, “I wish I was as confident, Doctor Banner. I've known Clint a whole lot longer and trust me the more time that goes by? The less likely he is to return to the status quo.”
--
(Six weeks after the Manhattan Attack)
Natasha was reading the New York Times on her kindle when her cell phone rang.
“Black Widow?”
“Is that really how you answer your phone?” Tony asked amused on the other end as if someone had told him the best joke in the entire world.
“Only when I know whose calling,” she retorted.
She was trying to sound a little more intimidating than usual. Contrary to popular belief most of the field agents not only liked her but did not fear her in the least. Though a few still secretly suspected her of being a HYDRA plant.
Those were the agents she avoided like the plague.
Tony laughed obviously signing an autograph for a fan on the other end, “So what are you doing this fine afternoon?”
Natasha snorted, “Is this a social call?”
“What are we in fifth grade? Is this a social call? Hi, Natalie can you ask your daddy if you can come over and play?” he taunted.
“Call me Natalie again,” she warned with a hint of anger that dropped from her tone a second later, “Honestly, is it?”
“It might be.” He admitted, “Bruce is bunking on the 58th floor and well we're feeling chit-chatty this wonderfully hot day figured we should phone a friend. Apparently you're the only friend either of us has in New York. Sad right?”
Natasha blinked trying not to looked surprised even though she knew Tony couldn't see her, “We're friends now?”
Tony shrugged on the other end forgetting the same rule before realizing that he was on the PHONE.
“It's not everyday you save the world with someone….”
“Mine name isn't James Rhodes.”
Tony snorted after a beat.
“Are you always this funny?” he accused her as if surprised by her deadpan humor.
There was a time when Natasha would have frankly rather instantly blown him off. However, those days had passed for the most part and she actually on some level was looking forward to this potential gathering assuming that Clint would also take part. Though she was rather inclined not to admit to it.
“What would be our plans?”
That took Tony Stark by surprise. Honestly, he had wanted to genuinely ask but figured that the agent of doom would turn him down. Besides a girl hanging with two science nerds? This wasn't Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network. She would not blow them in the bathroom stalls (never mind that Tony wasn't actually single anyway). If anything it would be slightly awkward and kind of weird.
Really what did anyone know about each other from the group? Sure Bruce and him had gotten to know each other over the last six weeks through the lab. They all knew Coulson to some degree but honestly did Agents Barton and Romanov even know each other outside of work? Tony had no idea.
“I don't know, catch a movie maybe? Get some greasy burgers at a fast food joint…”
“I'm in but Barton can come too right?”
Well that answered that question.
Tony smiled to himself, “So you actually know this Barton guy socially?” Oh there could be some blackmail material here if he played his cards right.
“I would hope so,” she said dryly.
Taken aback he asked slowly, “What does everyone else know that apparently I don't?”
“Everyone at SHIELD or the team?” Natasha asked, “SHIELD knows plenty, we have things called personnel files,” she added with some sarcasm. “Honestly, I doubt anyone knows unless they asked one of us and I don't remember anyone asking about my love life except you.”
Tony was flabbergasted, she admitted it was her LOVE life. Not some sexual awakening. Not some partner with benefits but used the direct term for significant other in a sentence and Natasha never said what she didn't mean.
Tony's voice sounded rather gleeful, like he had won the lottery. Natasha Romanov was not ice cold, “So Barton and you see each other? Like Pepper and I?”
“Hopefully more often than Miss Potts and yourself, Stark considering we've lived together for a few years now.”
“Oh.”
Natasha could not stop the mental eye roll, did he think she was one of this robots?
“He can come right?” she pressed again not giving him the chance to ask anymore inane questions.
“The more the merrier.”
Author:
oresteiaA Gift For:
kl_shipper1Rating: PG
Warnings: Some hint of violence and psychological torture and unwanted medical procedures but it's mostly dramatic angst mixed with happy endings
Pairings: Clint/Natasha, Tony/Pepper, Jane/Thor, Team
Summary/Prompt Used:
4) Who are they, besides their job, besides the assassins they're trained to be? Show me who Clint and Natasha really are and what they do when they're not on a mission-- when they have some time to decompress and be themselves. Basically, Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff vs. Clint and Natasha.
Things I like: Banter, happy endings, deaf!Clint, team!shawarma, team antics, UST and/or RST, (romance with) reasonable amounts of angst. AUs. Movieverse. Clint showing off his musical abilities (and Natasha having them too).
I don't want to receive: Dub-con/non-con. Torture. Character death. Unhappy endings. Lots of smut. Non-C/N.
Authors Notes:
The story is kind of told in an disjointed format. It’s almost built like Memento or Pulp Fiction. The beginning gives the ending away to some extent. There’s more after the beginning but it tells it all final conclusion (that is left open ended slightly). Time jumps quickly but the story is written linear, so that none of the time jumps are so misplace that they don’t make sense. Also, this story involves Phil Coulson as a general important character. The heart of it is about Clint and Natasha but really it’s him as their third (not romantically in the least, brotherly, friendly).
(May 21st 2013)
Clint knew he was wasting away. Natasha and him as a couple were more solid than they ever had been before. They had friends and family now. They were liked, they had a real home, and they weren't trapped undercover in jobs they could not even bring up to each other at dinner unless they worked the same job.
It was nice to just be normal… well as normal as they could possibly be.
But Clint was getting worse. He thought he had coped well with Loki, almost as well as when he lost his hearing. Clint was sure that he it under control.
Then the nightmares started. In them he saw Phil Coulson. And Natasha. Always Phil and Natasha. His brother and his lover. In full blown three dimensional terror. In them, someone was always hurt or dying but these weren't just dreams, they were memories.
Memories of a time before Loki and The Avengers. When things were supposedly simple.
The nightmares slowly were causing a shift. Natasha and Clint had what they called and on- and off work relationship. Their entire relationship dynamics between the field and “real life” were completely different. Their identities, their habits, their interests changed for the sake of their own sanity.
With every nightmare, a little bit of their wall fell down. Clint's identity merged, blended into something dark and twisted. He could feel himself withdrawing from the crowd unable to stop it.
Natasha could too. Her own suffering was a direct result of his. He could feel her become more suspicious of his behavior. It brought about her own form of paranoia.
She would react by throwing herself into work. He knew she had called base no less than three times this week about getting work thrown her way.
The Avengers changed everything for the better on the surface but somewhere along the lines neither professional had gotten that message. Instead, they were drifting further down the river with the paddles already gone.
---
“I need a job. I need something to do,” Clint said one evening to Sitwell over Skype.
Sitwell sighed, Natasha had already asked for an assignment. Fury had basically told him in no certain terms that they were retired from duty effective immediately and no matter how much they begged, shit was not going to happen.
“You know what Fury said,” Sitwell replied.
Clint rolled his eyes, “And you know damn well that you would not have talked to Natasha three times if you weren't planning on ignoring that little directive.”
“I'm not Phil Coulson.”
“No shit,” Clint retorted angrily, “Look, I just need an out. I know you have something. I just need to know what it is.”
Jasper paused, Coulson would have told Barton. Not only that, he would have insisted he come along and Fury be damned. It was about doing the right thing.
On the other hand, Jasper wasn't Phil Coulson. Fury did not give him that kind of free reign and he fully admitted that compared to Coulson he was a god damn pussy.
A good brave agent prepared to die for his country if need be but a pussy nonetheless. Breaking the code was so not his thing.
“There might be something…” Jasper said after a minute. He slowly pulled a paper file from his desk drawer.
Clint's eyebrow rose.
“Look, you do this…. There won't be any SHIELD support. We can't have you involved officially. I can't be your ears. You'll have to rely on your hearing aids and whatever good judgment you have left in you. No avengers. No Fury. No SHIELD. I can get you safe passage, some money to get a hotel and some shit, and your gear. That's it,” Sitwell said after a minute.
One of these days Clint was going to have teach Sitwell how to use sign language, he really only could get half of that but the statement was luckily for him straight forward. This was some mission impossible kind of shit. This message will self destruct in five seconds, go luck, get moving agent.
Clint nodded, “So where am I going?”
“Gaza.”
--
(June 2013)
Leaving would not be hard, it was a job. Clint worked like every other American only his job was a little more unique than nine to five. The others like Tony Stark had no idea what life was like. They lived on calling the shots or picking their own hours because of their genius (like Bruce).
Clint was the kind of man that knew his job and did it well. Trying to tell his teammates that however would be a bit of a struggle. Especially since Natasha and Tony knew of Fury's directive concerning the two SHIELD agents.
Natasha was going to kill him.
But at this point anything was better than the direction he had been going in. Clint was a step away from taking up a drinking habit (and that was an extremely bad sign) and becoming a football junkie (another thing Clint was not so keen on. He actually found it boring).
“So I took a job. I'm leaving tomorrow,” Clint blurted out at dinner that evening.
He announcement came in-between Thor and Tony's argument over the potatoes being better fried or boiled. Steve had dropped his silverware and stopped mid-chew to stare at Clint.
Tony and Thor had snapped their heads in his direction like he had just announced his plan for a sex change.
Bruce paused but otherwise showed no reaction whatsoever.
Natasha at first mimicked Bruce until she saw that his gaze was on hers than she took a moment to slam her fist on the table making everyone jump in surprise. No one knew Natasha to be hotheaded or outwardly angry most of the time.
“Don't do this,” she said simply hiding her anger underneath her plea.
It was impossible to shield from Clint though, he knew what Natasha's seething tone sounded like-- this was it.
Tony might have been the mouth of the group but often he liked to be voice of reason as well, “She's right, you shouldn't do whatever you're planning Legolas.”
“Why not?” Steve interjected.
The group all stared at him amazed that he was picking Clint's side.
Clint just lifted his brow in surprise.
“He could do some good. Maybe it's an important mission. And we can always provide backup if need be,” Steve replied to the shell shocked team.
“Absolutely not,” Clint snapped instantly,
Now Steve turned to him less supportive and more annoyed.
Natasha let out a bitter laugh, “We can't come Captain because wherever Barton has decided to go involves going undercover. Not his usual gig but he picked it just to make sure we couldn't follow him.”
Barton not Clint. Yes, he was in trouble with his girlfriend. A lot of trouble.
“Why would you do that?” Steve asked him with a piercing gaze.
Clint wanted to fidget and confess all his problems to Captain America like he was Phil Coulson number one fan. Unfortunately, when Cap was Steve, Clint was anything but cooperative.
Clint stood up, “That's my business no offense kid.”
Kid. Not Captain. Not Boss. Not Steve but kid.
That riled up the rest of the team besides Natasha who had not been riled up to begin with.
“Hey don't talk to him like that,” Tony snapped in Steve's defense, “He's not some little boy you put in the corner because he wouldn't stop screaming. You can't just tell him or anyone else at this table to fuck off just because you're having a moment. We're a team and a family-- your decisions affect us too moron.”
Clint scoffed okay now he pissed off too, “Okay let's pretend that's true for a second. Then how far up your ass has your head been since we arrived?”
Tony stood up to stand eye level with Clint, he was a little shorter but his anger and the intensity of dark eyes was enough to make him Clint's equal.
“Oh you mean Natasha and yourself? What you think I didn't notice Legolas?” Tony ranted, “That I somehow missed how lost you've become since last month. No, I just ignored it.”
“Why? Huh Tony? We're such a big family that you ignored it?” Clint taunted.
“I ignored it because it's what you both wanted,” Tony countered.
He was right. Clint had no comeback for that. It was true that was exactly what they had wanted to work out their own issues.
“You don't belong to them anymore,” he said after a minute, Tony's anger seeming to disappear some. “I've tried to do everything for everyone. I tried to make everyone happy. The only two people that have resisted so far have been you and Natasha. She's at least willing to work with me. You on the other hand? Had no intention from the beginning. You've let your nightmares and fears rule you since last year Barton and there's nothing anyone can do for you.”
Before anyone else could offer their unwanted advice or truths that Clint had been happy to ignore, he stormed off.
Natasha's gaze never left his face.
--
An hour went by before Clint found himself face-to-face with his girlfriend. Not his partner but the human being left behind that did normal everyday things with him. His life partner and boy was she pissed.
Natasha Romanova the killer might have been supportive. It was Nat that was homicidal.
“So that's it? Doesn't matter what I think?” she demanded by way of greeting noticing his travel bag was half packed and his shoes were already on his feet.
Clint threw his arms up, the entire exchange had been without words so far. At the table, she used telekinetic aggravation that she not so subtlety pushed in his direction. The second he stormed off, she followed and proceeded to sign aggressively this time with actual not pretend mental words in his line of sight.
All of them being rather rude by a any normal persons standard. Then she got mad and stormed off to go rant to Pepper Potts on the phone. It was testament to how much better she was handling having roommates that she actually called them in time of distress.
Pepper, Tony and everyone else after they moved realized they were a couple. However, most of them shy of Thor who had zero expectations on relationships assumed it was like they were trained professionals 24/7.
Bruce almost had a heart attack the time he walked in and they were baking cookies. Cookies like it was some kind of sex kink that they said “let's bake” but meant something else entirely. He somehow did not believe them to be serious clearly Bruce learned a lesson that day.
He also showed class by not acting like an idiot when it was fairly apparent that he had believed them incapable of baking treats.
Tony though had flat out accused them as only being sex partners. Natasha threw a shoe at his head and showed the entire team pictures of their trip to Maui where they did everything except have sex.
Still they kept their non-sexual/non-business relationship away from the team as much as possible if not only to spare their psyche.
“I can't stay Nat. I tried. I tried really hard.”
“Really hard? That's the excuse you're going to use? Really hard? No, Clint. Let's be honest. You flat out attempted to make this fail since the beginning. So did I at first. I miss the field too…” she started.
Clint snorted, “Of course you don't. No more having to lead on drug dealers with promise of sex like you're their toy. No more Tony Stark's. No paperwork. It's the life you always wanted, killing the bad guys to make up for your past without having to compromise anything.”
Perhaps that was the wrong argument to have with her.
“No compromise Barton?” she looked positively murderous. Her face almost as red as the hair on her head. The image of head exploding was streaming into Clint's mind.
Before Clint could even think to apologize, despite his hands already being lifted up into the hair as if he trying to stop her from shooting-- “Loki.”
He deserved that.
“I'm sorry.”
“Not good enough.”
Clint sat down the bed and put his hands over his face. Sounds of frustration apparent. It was a good thing his hearing aids had been back in because Natasha was not about to stop her assault.
“I- I- I can't do it anymore. By it, I mean Stark Tower. No, not even that. I like everyone you know that. I've been dealing with the lack of privacy and the obvious surprise at everyone that we bake and watch television. I'm miserable. I'm not sleeping. You aren't either. We're losing what relationship we had among ourselves to the entire team,” he pointed out staring at her.
"So you're giving up?” she asked, “On what exactly? On us? On the team?”
“I don't know anymore.”
She sat down on the chair in the corner of their room, “I called Sitwell you know. About a month ago. I saw the direction we were heading in. I thought maybe he could fix you. Put a band aid on the problems we were having.”
“And?”
“There's no band aid.”
Clint sighed, “Maybe there is…”
Natasha rolled her eyes, “Going on a mission is not a band aid.”
“Sitwell is the one that asked me to go. He said it would be good for me. It's not SHIELD sanctioned. Wouldn't tell me what it was for just that it was something he wanted to check out on his own,” Clint began, “Coulson trusted him. I offered to be his eyes and ears.”
Of everything Natasha expected that had not been it. Clint was going on unknown mission being done in secret by one man just because he was Coulson's protégée.
“Are you out of your mind? You never take jobs that resemble your time as a freelancer.”
That was a lesson known fact, that Clint was once a very good very high priced hitman. Not exactly something he had been proud of but he did anyway.
“I'm sorry but I have to do this-- whatever Sitwell is offering. I can't stay here waiting for the end, for trouble to happen again, or for god only knows for our skills to die out. I'm going Nat and I don't know when or if I'll come back.”
---
(July 2013)
She would never admit to it but every morning Natasha woke up feeling the sheets of the spot next to her. In her self-lucid state she always imagined Barton sleeping there next to her.
Then her brain would catch up with reality and she would moan slightly and wake up fully. It was becoming a familiar habit of semi denial.
Natasha was getting restless and she sorely missed her partner-- her lover-- her friend.
The others noticed the change in her the second Barton walked out the door. Natasha on a good day was friendly, kind of girly, a little bit of a housewife and semi emotionless on the surface but with an overall witty and noticeable sense of humor.
Since Clint had left, Natasha had basically become the standard mindless solider they knew some operations within SHIELD to be. Withdrawn would be an understatement, Natasha was almost not even there at all.
If she was, it was simply to eat and go to sleep.
She had even refused to workout with the other teammates, sure she still lifted weights and ran-- shot at things but if anyone offered a sparing partner she would flatly refuse them and walk away angrily.
Like they were Clint because obviously that had been another thing between them.
The girls night out with Pepper had ceased to exist.
Pepper would try to talk and Natasha would put her on best Natalie Rushman act for it to only fail once Pepper would latch onto something based on perception which would anger Natasha and send her back into solitude.
For the team it was like losing Clint all over again.
“You would think Barton died or something,” Tony muttered after watching her sit at the breakfast table staring into space.
Steve hissed angrily at Tony, “And you saying that isn't going to help.”
Tony rolled his eyes and put butter on his toast aggressively, “He's my friend too. More mine than yours Cap. But it's just a mission and maybe it might him some good. I admit I was pissed at first. Then after a day or two I realized the rest of the Tower was no longer tense. None of us were waiting for the other shoe to drop anymore.”
At that statement, Steve sighed but was forced to at least to himself agree that Tony was right. They had been all waiting for the destruction to happen. Clint had been miserable and Natasha seemed to be constantly on edge.
When he left whether they liked it or not (and none of them did) almost everyone sans Natasha seemed to relax. It made Steve feel terrible but within a week of Clint's disappearance things had almost leveled out among the group.
Natasha however had gone from angry to depressed. Like she had been hit with the four stages of grief. Tony was right, it was as if she was mourning him as dead.
They knew he would be back though. The thought otherwise had never once entered their minds. What if they were wrong though? Steve had never considered that maybe Natasha's grief wasn't so uncalled for after all.
“Natasha?” Steve said after a second.
He could feel Tony's eyes on him suspicious as if he expected Steve to disagree with him-- possibly fight with him over the issue. Instead Steve turned almost white as a sheet of paper and addresses the elephant in the room.
“Yes?” she asked turning in their direction. She had a moment of pause when she noticed the expression on Steve's face.
“Barton IS coming back… right?”
Tony's mouth dropped open in shock. Natasha never responded.
--
(June 2013- The day after Clint left)
“Where's Clint?” Bruce asked the next morning after Clint's impromptu shouting match with the rest of the Team.
He like Thor and Steve assumed that it would blow over. That tomorrow (now today) the team would re-assemable and all would be well.
Tony and Pepper had disagreed but still felt a favorable outcome would happen soon.
The look on Natasha's face however seemed to tell the opposite story. Natasha looked downright irate.
She started stabbing her bagel with a kitchen knife, “Oh Barton is gone. Left last night. First plane off the base if the flight log was telling the truth.”
Bruce gulped.
Not exactly what anyone had thought would occur. Clint left them and not only that, he left his angry killer girlfriend home with them.
“Is there someone I could get for you?” he asked timidly afraid that if he set her off, she would set The Other Guy off.
“No. I'm just fine. Sitting here. Eating.”
The bagel wasn't even edible anymore, she had hacked it to a bread crumb death.
“Tasha…”
Natasha looked squarely at Bruce, her expression sobered and she sat down the knife, “I don't think he's coming back.”
Before he could process her distress or the meaning behind that sentence, Natasha got up and practically ran out of the room.
--
(SHIELD headquarters in New York- June 2013- Clint's departure)
“Sitwell,” Clint said by way of a fast greeting. He was standing there with nothing but his black duffle, his bow, some arrows, and an expression that said he wasn't entirely happy to see the man.
Not that he hated Sitwell but he really wished that he was there illicitly meeting Coulson or maybe even Agent Hill instead.
Really he had somehow hoped this was a cover and that Fury had a job for him under the radar where the council wouldn't find out. Instead, it appeared to be legit as Sitwell claimed it was. That is to say, it was a mission entirely of his making involving only Clint and himself.
Kind of sad to be honest.
“Barton. Glad you could make it.”
Clint did a survey of the flight deck noting that there was a single plane. All others had been removed or were in-flight elsewhere. The cameras appeared to have been disabled-- probably by someone Sitwell was friends with in Security.
There was a single co-pilot someone that Clint had never met before based on the lack of surprise or accusatory look of the man. Besides that, there were a free cargo boxes and manila folder that Sitwell had in his hand.
Otherwise, the place was a barren desert. It unnerved him. Never had Barton seen the make shift airport so empty in his entire tenure.
“What's with the secrecy? Where's the other shit they usually have here?” he asked cautiously trying not to come off as accusing or suspicious of the agent.
Sitwell laughed slightly, not that he didn't expect Clint to ask those particular questions but he out it rather enlightening that the agent would say that first instead of last. Lesser men might have bullshitted for awhile or just panicked and started throwing accusations.
Not Barton.
Now Sitwell knew why he had been Coulson's pet. They were alike in a number of ways, “Needed to make sure no one else would come in. Had supplies and storage items moved so that if an agent needed to poke around they would do it elsewhere. Didn't want anyone seeing you here or finding out I gave you this mission.”
That was a little alarming, Clint ignored the feeling though and pushed it back.
“Two weeks after The Manhattan Initiative (what they were now calling Loki's plan to take over the world) we had an agent go missing.”
“Missing?” Clint's voice echoed. Why would Sitwell want Clint to look for a missing agent. Wouldn't SHIELD already be handling that? Besides, that was a year ago, a little late to be searching for a missing agent.
“Well that's where it gets tricky. The agent was deemed KIA before he even went missing,” Sitwell explained.
Clint stared at him partially in shock but also, he was a little on the annoyed side, “So you want me to find a missing agent that was deemed dead? How the fuck does that even happen Sitwell?”
This where it got tricky at least for Sitwell, to tell Barton but not tell Barton that he was tracking a maybe real actually living Phil Coulson. While, avoiding not telling him that if he was alive, they had left him in enemy hands for almost eight months now.
“The team leader saw him die or so he thought. Called it. Left to save his own life. He came back to get the body with a team… the body was gone,” Sitwell explained. “Generally it was assumed that just maybe the agent was dead. Until last week when I got what I think was a distress message from the missing agent. If it is, we need to find him and get him back.”
What the hell had gone wrong that led them to this little disaster?
“So where was the mission? Was it in Gaza?”
“No exactly,” Sitwell hedged, “It's hard to explain exactly what happened but this our best guess. Or at least the most probable scenario. Agent CX55 was in the Manhattan Project Battle on board with us when you attacked the base…”
Clint gulped this was not exactly something he wanted to relive and especially not at this moment where he was about to sent to recuse said Agent CX55 (what they did with deceased agents was usually assign them a letter/number combination so that no one could access their personal data post-mortem or in the event they were killed by a friendly (or in the presence of one) would be able to feel guilty by finding out who was killed and how they were killed).
“He was injured, they sent him to one of our top medical facilities in Europe since the base here was being filled with injured parties from the city. He was recovering nicely and then the base was attacked. Several injured agents were killed. We assumed no one had survived but somehow- we think this one CX55 might have…” Sitwell said.
Clint finished the blanks from there, “Because he was already deemed KIA, he wouldn't have had a tracker nor would have anyone been sent to go look for him. As far the agency was concerned he was already dead.”
Sitwell nodded grimly.
“No one else can know about this because whoever it was important enough that if turns out to be false alarm or there's trouble. You don't want to get fired-- and of course, I'm supposed to be inactive,” Clint responded to himself.
“I wish you weren't so good,” Jasper said after a moment, sadness still in his tone.
He wished he could tell Clint what he was sending him to do. He had a feeling that Clint would only refuse but if this went south, Sitwell might have lost a good solider-- a good man for good.
Natasha would kill him and Fury would make sure he never saw the light of day again.
God did Sitwell hope not only for his sake but Clint's that everything worked out.
--
“Will you come back?”
“I'm not sure.”
“Clint…”
Natasha rolled in bed, sweat dripping from her forehead. Her nightmares had gone from old murders to Clint. Every time, Clint said goodbye and then she never saw him again.
Every time just before she woke up, she was attending his funeral.
She then forced herself awake-- gasping, sucking in air to her lungs causing her to cough from air chocking. Natasha would love it if this was just her paranoia in action (she honestly like all good agents was slightly on the paranoid side) but she couldn't shake this feeling that something was wrong.
Clint had never actually had that conversation with her. About coming back. Natasha had been too mad to ask him that. Clint had said that but to be fair, they always said that before rushing into danger. He never explicitly said he wouldn't COME BACK to the Tower. Just that he may not come back alive.
Did that really make it any better? After all, the end result was still the same.
Still Natasha wanted to believe that Clint would come back and when he did that he would return to her. Part of her feared though even if he did survive that somehow he would refuse to come back to her. To the Tower and to the team. In her mind, it was almost as dark as him dying maybe… perhaps more frightening.
Death was something they were prepared for.
Separation by choice? Nothing that either had banked on or prepared for. Gods and Aliens were easier to train for. Being left by a loved one voluntarily? Not exactly something she had any experience with nor did she want it.
From what Clint had told her, it was like being tortured.
Just like ironically she was experiencing every night in her dreams.
--
(July 13th 2013- After breakfast with Tony and Steve)
Natasha went to the gym and started to use Steve's punching bags. She kept punching them, harder and harder. Harder until her hands started to swell.
Finally after a few tries, one of her knuckles started to bleed from the skin being rubbed raw from contact.
Natasha kept punching.
Until JARVIS alerted the team.
Five minutes later, Steve, Tony, Bruce, Thor, and Pepper had reported to the gym,
“Warrior Queen, cease fighting. You are injured,” Thor announced.
Thor had taken to calling her Warrior Queen after streaming Xena on Netflix.
“Can't,” she half whispered harshly. If she stopped than reality set in. Reality that already kept her awake at night and ruined her sleep. Reality that Steve had unintentionally at breakfast said out loud where she could hear him (voicing all the fears she already had).
“Natasha-- Ma'am look I'm sorry about what I said earlier…” Steve began slowly.
“Save it Rogers,” she replied somewhat aggressively, “It's what we were all thinking anyway.”
Tony raised his hand, “Actually I never even considered it a possibility.”
“Either had I,” Steve confessed.
“You're an optimist,” Bruce retorted dryly to Tony, “And you're incapable of pessimism,” Bruce told Steve.
“So you thought he was gone for good?” Pepper demanded of the kind doctor. She liked Bruce but all of them had pulled for Clint to come to his senses, come back, and work out his issues like an adult. Like the family member he was.
“No,” Bruce said after a minute, “I just didn't completely rule it out or deny it like either of you did.”
Natasha let out a strained noise.
Before anyone else could react, Thor ran over to her and gently gripped her hands in his strong grasp.
“Time to stop now, Warrior Queen. You have overworked yourself and caused you great harm,” he informed her cradling them as if afraid to injure them further.
“I don't think that was why she was distressed,” Bruce interjected helping Thor take her over to the weight bench.
Bruce uncapped a water on the ground and brought the bottle to her lips, “Drink slowly.”
Natasha complied somewhat cooperatively.
Pepper had come back with some antibiotic cream and Bruce went to work on her knuckles.
“He'll come back,” Steve whispered after a minute.
Natasha shook her head, “No, he won't.”
The rest of the team paled at her response, “Did the Hawk say this?” Thor asked her distressed visibly by her words. Clint had become his new Loki, a brother, and he had already lost the one he had… not ready to do it again.
“No,” she replied, “But he heavily implied that it was probable.”
“No. No. You're wrong. Barton wouldn't just quit us. His family,” Tony snapped back somewhat in denial. Not to cheapen her relationship to the sniper but Clint was his family (like the rest of them). Family didn't leave.
“On you? No, Stark he wouldn't. On me? It's a possibility. We've hurt each other before. I reacted poorly-- so did he. We said horrible things to each other. He left. He was broken, I could see it but Stark, I was too angry to care,” she confessed after a minute.
The world could end and Clint would still be there for Stark, Rogers, Thor, and Banner. It was Natasha that feared she was expandable despite the fact that they had the longest ongoing relationship of the group entirely. He would never leave another brother behind again, like Thor it had crushed him to the bone.
Unfortunately, that didn't promise Clint would stay an Avenger or that he would move back in either.
“Tasha, he wouldn't do that to you,” Bruce said softly, he might have doubted Clint's return to base-- to the team but the one thing he had never doubted was that Barton would return for Romanov every single time.
Natasha sighed, “I wish I was as confident, Doctor Banner. I've known Clint a whole lot longer and trust me the more time that goes by? The less likely he is to return to the status quo.”
--
(Six weeks after the Manhattan Attack)
Natasha was reading the New York Times on her kindle when her cell phone rang.
“Black Widow?”
“Is that really how you answer your phone?” Tony asked amused on the other end as if someone had told him the best joke in the entire world.
“Only when I know whose calling,” she retorted.
She was trying to sound a little more intimidating than usual. Contrary to popular belief most of the field agents not only liked her but did not fear her in the least. Though a few still secretly suspected her of being a HYDRA plant.
Those were the agents she avoided like the plague.
Tony laughed obviously signing an autograph for a fan on the other end, “So what are you doing this fine afternoon?”
Natasha snorted, “Is this a social call?”
“What are we in fifth grade? Is this a social call? Hi, Natalie can you ask your daddy if you can come over and play?” he taunted.
“Call me Natalie again,” she warned with a hint of anger that dropped from her tone a second later, “Honestly, is it?”
“It might be.” He admitted, “Bruce is bunking on the 58th floor and well we're feeling chit-chatty this wonderfully hot day figured we should phone a friend. Apparently you're the only friend either of us has in New York. Sad right?”
Natasha blinked trying not to looked surprised even though she knew Tony couldn't see her, “We're friends now?”
Tony shrugged on the other end forgetting the same rule before realizing that he was on the PHONE.
“It's not everyday you save the world with someone….”
“Mine name isn't James Rhodes.”
Tony snorted after a beat.
“Are you always this funny?” he accused her as if surprised by her deadpan humor.
There was a time when Natasha would have frankly rather instantly blown him off. However, those days had passed for the most part and she actually on some level was looking forward to this potential gathering assuming that Clint would also take part. Though she was rather inclined not to admit to it.
“What would be our plans?”
That took Tony Stark by surprise. Honestly, he had wanted to genuinely ask but figured that the agent of doom would turn him down. Besides a girl hanging with two science nerds? This wasn't Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network. She would not blow them in the bathroom stalls (never mind that Tony wasn't actually single anyway). If anything it would be slightly awkward and kind of weird.
Really what did anyone know about each other from the group? Sure Bruce and him had gotten to know each other over the last six weeks through the lab. They all knew Coulson to some degree but honestly did Agents Barton and Romanov even know each other outside of work? Tony had no idea.
“I don't know, catch a movie maybe? Get some greasy burgers at a fast food joint…”
“I'm in but Barton can come too right?”
Well that answered that question.
Tony smiled to himself, “So you actually know this Barton guy socially?” Oh there could be some blackmail material here if he played his cards right.
“I would hope so,” she said dryly.
Taken aback he asked slowly, “What does everyone else know that apparently I don't?”
“Everyone at SHIELD or the team?” Natasha asked, “SHIELD knows plenty, we have things called personnel files,” she added with some sarcasm. “Honestly, I doubt anyone knows unless they asked one of us and I don't remember anyone asking about my love life except you.”
Tony was flabbergasted, she admitted it was her LOVE life. Not some sexual awakening. Not some partner with benefits but used the direct term for significant other in a sentence and Natasha never said what she didn't mean.
Tony's voice sounded rather gleeful, like he had won the lottery. Natasha Romanov was not ice cold, “So Barton and you see each other? Like Pepper and I?”
“Hopefully more often than Miss Potts and yourself, Stark considering we've lived together for a few years now.”
“Oh.”
Natasha could not stop the mental eye roll, did he think she was one of this robots?
“He can come right?” she pressed again not giving him the chance to ask anymore inane questions.
“The more the merrier.”
no subject