Title: Rituals
Author: celesteavonne
Characters/Pairing: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff
Rating: M, for swearing and sex
Word Count: Ten chapters with a total of ~17150 (Completed)
Disclaimer: For fun and fun alone. All hail the great and mighty Joss and the venerable Stan Lee.
Warnings: Spoilers for the Avengers movie; not really spoilers, just vague nods at stuff that happened. Some PTSD in this chapter.
Summary: After defeating Loki with the Avengers, Clint and Natasha spend 24 hours in a hotel suite. Together they recover from the trauma inflicted on each of them by Loki. As Clint’s memories return, he relives the various encounters with Natasha that lead them to where they are now, beginning with Agent Barton’s failed mission to kill the Black Widow in Cairo.
AN: I don't know who it was on tumblr, but I owe her a bit of head canon for this chapter. She wrote a brief conversation between Pepper and Natasha about how Hawkeye made the team watch Hitchcock films. That fits so perfectly with him, I incorporated it here. Whoever you are, thanks for that.

In this chapter, Hawkeye remembers a time when Coulson saved his ass.

New York
Present Day
03:26

He awakes in total darkness with a clawing panic in his throat. It swells up and ruptures and he’s shouting and thrashing and shoving. He hears her calling his name, but it feels distant. It’s like he’s trapped beneath an ice sheet and it’s razoring into his skin as he flails against it, trying to break through.

Then her hands on his. Her voice a breath in his ear. The ice is gone. The panic, gone. It’s just them.

He takes in the scene. She’s on her knees beside him. She’s got him in a hold.

“What happened?” he says.

She relaxes her grip. “You were dreaming.”

He sits up. Scrubs his eyes. Tastes blood on his tongue.

“What do you remember?” she asks.

Flashes. Dead men. Blood. Smoke. And then... her. In Vienna. She’s wearing a blue velvet evening gown and white elbow-length gloves and she reaches to take his hand. Then there’s a jostling of memories, all cut together like a movie made from the exploded fragments of his mind. They race through him, so bright they sting, and all of them of her. There’s a sense of someone else watching, too, someone leering over his shoulder, looking for the choicest moments to cull...

Clint shakes himself. “Think you might need to hit me in the head again.”

Natasha cups his face in her hands and kisses his forehead. “Maybe that instead?”

He breathes out. “Okay.” Then he spies a bruise on her wrist. A bruise like a thumbprint. One that wasn’t there before. “Wait. What—?”

“I restrained you,” she says.

He blinks. His mouth is dry. “What did I do?”

“It’s classic PTSD, Clint. Nightmares, flashbacks, mood swings, irritability...”

He presses the heels of his hands to his forehead.

“We’ll get through this,” she says.

Clint clears his throat. “When Loki first arrived, when he—” He runs aground as the memory closes over him. There’s a buzz like static in his mind. He feels the ice-bright touch of the scepter and the separate tendril strikes that crawl into his skin and his face and his chest.

He feels the warmth of her hand on his shoulder. “Clint.”

“He said, ‘You have heart.’ That’s why he chose me. He... he killed most of the others, but I think... I mean, do you think...? Did he know?”

“About us?”

He drags his eyes to hers. “Yes.”

She frowns. “H-how could he? No one does.”

Clint blinks. “No, you’re right.” Then, “Maybe he sensed it. He must have. 'Cause that’s what he went after. Every memory of us.”

“Loki’s a master of manipulation,” she says. “He was looking for your strings, for the way to twist you, to play with you.”

“Yeah, he found ’em.” His jaw clenches against the rage that wells up. But there’s more than anger. Anger is simple. There’s guilt, too. That’s what knifes into him, flays him wide open. “I’m sorry, Nat,” he whispers, his voice hoarse and ragged.

Her eyes met his in the half-light. They were wide and glistening.

“So we both have strings,” she admits. “He got mine, too. That’s what happens when people get tangled up in each other.”

“That’s what’s so dangerous. You and me, we don’t carry around the average, every day person’s secrets. It’s not like gambling debts and secret affairs; it’s national security buried under a trail of hidden bodies...”

“That’s the debt we owe. The blood.”

Now he’s agitated. He scrubs his palms on his knees. “And how can we repay it? We could feed every starving child from here to Kabul. It won’t be enough.”

She shrugs, a half-hearted gesture. “We saved the world. Maybe that’s a start.”

“What are we doing, Nat?”

“We’re doing our jobs.”

“I mean,” he sweeps a hand between them. “Us. And, this.” He gestures around the room. “It’s mission after mission, both of us soaked in blood by the end, and then we fuck each other senseless and repeat the whole god-damned business all over again. And we’re not, like, demigods or, or, billionaires, or pumped full of gamma radiation, we’re normal people under that armor, and we fling ourselves in front of creatures like... like Loki—”

“Is there something you’d rather be doing?”

“No.” It’s a reluctant answer and she hears his uncertainty.

“You got hurt, Clint.”

“Compromised,” he says. He can’t bring himself to look at her. “I was... I am compromised.”

She curls her fingers into his hand. “So am I,” she says, and she brings their linked hands to her heart. “Remember?”

His eyes sting. “Yeah,” he says. “Yes. I remember.” Then he does look at her. There’s concern in her eyes, completely unveiled, but she’s scared, too. Like she knows that things have changed between them, because Loki unearthed things that they’d left unspoken, and now they’re strewn over the ground, impossible to ignore.

Linking hands is another ritual. He completes his part, presses them to his heart, too, but he doesn’t let go. He says, “What did Loki say to you?”

“He told me the truth,” she says. “That I’m a child at prayer.”

She winds into his arms, fitting herself into the spoon of his body. Their joined hands rest at her center. He feels her tracing the outline of his nails.

“Nat,” he says.

“Hmm?”

“What do you pray for?”

She brings his fingers to her lips, and he knows the answer. It’s a pain like loss, that knowledge. It’s an all-body ache that staggers him. It’s not loss, but the fear of losing themselves. And each other. That’s the part that hurts.

So he holds her. He wills the clocks, the planets, the whole universe to stop spinning, so that they can keep this moment.

Every moment, he realizes. Good or bad. Up or down. If it’s them together, he wants it.

Port Fu’ad
2005
Five days after failed SHIELD Mission
to take down the Black Widow

The wind scoured the striped awnings of the sidewalk restaurants, flapping them like sails, and they ducked into a market stall to get out of the stinging sands. The place smelled richly of roasting meat and dirt and curry. People bustled around them, a late afternoon crowd heading home for prayers, and the place seemed made of noise.

They strolled through the market.

He asked, “When was the last time you strolled through anything?”

She answered, “I strolled through jiu jitsu.”

He shrugged like, It’s fair, and she looped his fingers in hers. They swung their linked hands back and forth between them, like children on a playground.

As they meandered through the market stalls, they sampled figs and dates and olives. He bought a packet of chai. She bought a saffron scarf and twirled it around her neck. The ends of it streamed behind her as they walked. Above them, colored sheets snapped on laundry lines, scattering motes that made it seem like the sunlight sifted down on them.

Without saying it out loud, they both knew it was their last day in Egypt. He didn’t know where they were going, but it was unwise to stay in one place. At least until they figured things out.

The sun slowly set behind the squat warehouses along the bay of Port Fa’ud as they made their way to their hotel, where they’d checked in as newlyweds under the names John and Francis Robie from Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief.

As they approached the whitewashed facade of their rundown hotel, Clint felt his hackles rise. Her hand flexed in his and they knew. Someone trailed them.

Only a shared glance, and he knew their play. It was instant, like reading each other’s thoughts, so that when the attackers descended on them, without hesitation, they reacted as one.

She slipped his knife from his belt, held it behind her back. He unhooked his crossbow. They positioned themselves in the center of the street, back to back, as seven hooded figures in gray combat fatigues drew in around them. He swept a cursory glance at the small windows that looked down on the street.

One of the figures signaled and the rest came to a halt.

“We just want her,” the leader said. Vaguely Russian accent, Barton noted.

“Well you can’t have her,” Clint answered. He glanced over his shoulder at her. There. Second story window. Flicker of movement. He tried to play casual. “Obviously, people want her. She’s a desirable woman.”

She touched his hand. “Ah, thank you. That’s really sweet.”

“No, it’s quantifiable fact, not just a compliment. You’re built like a bombshell. Everybody wants you...”

The leader snapped, “Shut up.” The other six raised their pistols.

“The point is,” Natasha said, gesturing to the leader. “You can’t have me. No one can.”

Clint scoffed. He said, “No one can? I thought... Well, I was gonna say, You can’t have her. She’s with me.”

“I’m standing beside you,” she said. “I’m not with you.”

“I’m staring down seven guys with guns, how can you say I’m not with you?”

The leader scratched his neck. Clint wondered why he hadn’t given the order to fire. Then it clicked home. It was Turgen: Natasha’s former partner. He'd been able to sneak up on them, which meant he was as well-trained as she was. It also explained the masks and why he hadn’t charged in, guns blazing. He wanted her alive, which offered a degree of relief.

However, Turgen did have a sniper in the window above. Only one reason for a sniper...

Clint wheeled to face her. She held his knife between them. The corner of her mouth quirked into a smile.

He dropped to his knees, simultaneously firing the crossbow into the window. As he rolled away, cranking in another dart, Natasha hurled the knife at the nearest gunman. She caught him in the throat, then dived in the opposite direction, taking a second gunman with a sweep of his legs. His gun clattered away; she swiped it and fired twice into the man’s chest.

The remaining fighters opened fire. Clint fired his bolt point blank into one man’s eye. He rounded on another who was just bringing his gun barrel up. Clint smashed the crossbow into the man’s wrist, sending the gun flying. The man twisted with Clint’s momentum, though, and slammed a neatly placed elbow into Clint’s ribs. A burst of white exploded behind his eyes, but he bit down on the pain enough to stagger out of the man’s range... and into Natasha.

She caught his arm to steady him. “It’s Turgen,” she bit out.

“I know,” Clint said.

Elbow guy charged in. Natasha shoved Clint behind her and round-housed the attacker squarely in his jaw. His head snapped sideways, spraying her with blood, but he wasn’t down.

“Damned Russians,” she hissed.

Clint got his bearings. Of the eight assailants, only Elbow the Mighty Henchman and Turgen remained. Only Turgen had a gun. And it was trained on Clint.

“It’s over, Natalia,” Turgen said. “Let this boy go. I only wish to talk.”

“Boy?” Clint said.

“I’m not going anywhere, Evgeny. We have nothing to say to each other.”

“If you knew what I know of Arnault Zimsky, you wouldn’t feel that way,” Turgen said. “Please, Natalia. Give up this foolish quest. You owe him nothing—”

Clint felt her stiffen. She said, “Only my life, Evgeny—”

A tremendous grating shriek drowned out the rest of her words. Suddenly, multiple shots thudded into walls behind them. Strafing rounds.

Clint leapt for Natasha. They crashed into the cover of a shallow concrete niche as the air filled with smoke and the deafening screech of a jet engine.  He caught sight of it as it shrilled overhead. He recognized the insignia on the wing.

“That’s a SHIELD plane,” he said.

“SHIELD.” Understanding dawned in her eyes. “You work for SHIELD.”

“We have to get out of here.” He took her hands. “It’s a slash and burn, Natasha. They must think I’m dead, and they're just finishing the job. And if you’re here—”

She peered out into the street. Elbow was dead. Turgen was gone. “It’s coming back,” she said.

“You’ve escaped custody too many times. The Director wants you dead.” He laced their fingers and pulled their linked hands to his heart. “Natasha.” He swallowed. “Go.”

“What?”

“I’ll signal them. You go.”

She stammered. The jet’s engines roared, nearer each second.

“You got away, all right? I was supposed to kill you, but you escaped. Someday when you’ve sorted things out...” He released her hands. “Come find me.”

He backed into the street. She stood, frozen, her mouth slightly ajar, her eyes alight.

“Go,” he said again. Clint plucked his knife from the throat of the fallen gunman and cut a swath of fabric from the man’s shirt. He raised it above his head and waved it wildly as the jet readied for its second strafing run.

He looked back. Natasha was gone.

~~~

Several hours and thousands of miles later, aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier, Agent Barton paced a narrow corridor outside Director Fury’s quarters. Agent Coulson, the poster child for the perfect agent, hovered at a decorous distance between Barton and the door. Director Fury was making them wait.

“He’ll be glad you’re alive,” Coulson said, his tone terse yet consoling. “Five days with the Black Widow—”

Barton glowered.

Coulson centered his briefing files between his hands and looked elsewhere. Then he said, “It was clever, though. Your signal.”

“Pardon?”

“To Catch a Thief,” Coulson said. He gave a thin smile. “All those Hitchcock films you made us watch. When the name John Robie came up on the hotel registry, I knew it was you.”

Barton released a trembling breath. “Right,” he said.

With months, perhaps years, of emotional distance, Barton would come to appreciate the irony that it had been him after all. He’d betrayed them. He’d led Coulson straight to Port Fa’ud; an inadvertent betrayal, but a betrayal nonetheless.

But it wasn’t only John Robie on the registry. They’d registered as newlyweds, which meant...

Barton’s head snapped up to find Coulson’s eyes leveled on his.

“It’s not in the report,” Coulson said. He pressed his lips together in that same astute smile.

The door opened. Coulson bowed slightly and passed him the file. Barton went in to face Director Fury.