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Avengers - Ineffectual Methods [2/2]
Title: Ineffectual Methods
Genre: Gen, Clint and Natasha friendship
Rating: R
Length: ~18,400 words
Warnings: Non-con, aftermath of non-con, aftermath of torture
Synopsis: They were captured and interrogated by those souped up on a mock Super Soldier serum. The methods were ineffective.
Author's Notes: For the "rape/non-con" square at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hc_bingo. Please heed the warnings.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also available as a single post on AO3.
Part 1 on Dreamwidth | Part 1 on Live Journal
Natasha found him a scant few minutes later while he was still leaned up against the wall, head swimming with the recent revelation as much as with pure and simple exhaustion. He could feel every bruise, every reopened wound tacky with sweat and drying blood, and was thankful once again for the way the dark material of his uniform hid the worst of it from view. He wouldn't fool her, he never did, but at least no random agent was calling Medical on his ass, so there was at least that. "What's wrong?" she asked with her usual demand, ignoring formalities and any chance he might have to brush her off. Not that he would. Not now. Not so soon after everything that had happened.
He held out the drive Tony had forced upon him and replied, "Stark found the video feed." Her hand froze where it had begun to close around the offering. "He didn't watch it though, not all of it," he clarified, already answering what he guessed would be her next question.
She took the drive and secreted away quickly enough that even he couldn't say where it went. "Of course he didn't," she said calmly, but joined him supporting the wall. To anyone passing by, it would be nothing more than two agents commiserating after a long and semi-successful mission, postures forcibly relaxed, expressions scaring all but the most stout-hearted away.
He turned to look at her, found her face shadowed by the curtain of her hair. "What do we do?" he asked. He didn't want to come clean, didn't want to deal with the questions and counseling and whatever else Hill came up with after lecturing him about the need for full disclosure and chiding him for trying to provide less than adequate data.
She tilted her head slightly, face set as stone, and replied, "Whatever you feel the need to do."
He shook his head. "This isn't about me..." he protested.
She smiled, sad and honest for a fleeting moment. "The important parts are," she promised. She straightened, the very image of the legendary Black Widow once more, no hint of her sorrow or other pesky emotions showing through. "I know what happened, you know what happened, SHIELD has a copy of the official report. Anything beyond that is your choice, Barton. Just realize that choice has consequences, even if you choose not to decide."
"Yeah, because that doesn't sound ominous at all," he teased, but his heart really and truly wasn't in it. He gave up the pretense and asked, in all seriousness, "How are you?"
She shrugged, but it was far from fluid or graceful. The harsh light from the hallway seemed to highlight the bruises along her neck, the swelling of her lip. "As far as interrogations go, their ways were less than effective," she told him, a near parroting of her previous report.
It wasn't what he wanted, and they both knew it. He did everything save for reach out and tilt her chin to make her meet his gaze, and said, "You know that's not what I mean."
Her body shifted, a subtle change that let him see as much of the real her as she would allow while they were still technically in the field. "They didn't do anything that hadn't been done before, really. The paralysis was a bit over the top but..." She shrugged again, this time letting him see a hint of just how tired she really was, letting him see the lines and shadows she had held at bay by pure force of will. "I'll heal."
"You always do," he agreed. He wasn't sure if he envied her or not at this point, and settled for deciding to keep watch, stay closer for the immediate future, just in case that legendary healing of hers decided to take a plane to Tulsa.
It was because he watched that he saw her take that extra step back when Steve and Bruce joined them. Saw her choose the front passenger seat of the transport and tuck herself away from any incidental touch when Rogers still insisted on handling any and all doors along their way back home to the Tower. Saw her choose the stool by the kitchen counter for that night's meal instead of pulling up a chair and squeezing in when she came down late, skin blushed red from its recent scrubbing and damp hair still scented like the shampoo he once hit six stores in Singapore to find for her.
Bruce offered her tea, and Tony offered her vodka, and she took both in equal measure, but both were set down before her, offerer already stepping back before she reached for the cup. He wondered if her subtle avoidance was noticed by the others or if they were actively trying to give her her room as well. He also wondered if the avoidance stretched to include him, but her shoulder brushed his arm when she reached around to put her dishes away, her body barely tensing from the contact before continuing on as though nothing happened.
She accepted him, but only just. He knew better than to push the subject or push her buttons, just as he knew that she probably reasoned she was allowing it for his benefit and recovery more so than her own.
They met with Fury the next day, where he advised them that they were both on stand down until further notice. He didn't even try to pretend it was to give them a chance to heal from their injuries, minor as they were. They were to deal with any inner demons they may or may not have while the techs and Stark and Banner analyzed the serum and other drugs found at the mansion. He made it absolutely no secret that he would have kept them both back at the safe house until properly cleared for duty, but he also gave them the Fury version of praise, which was to begrudgingly admit their presence proved useful.
Clint snorted at that, especially since it was now common knowledge no one would have found anything useful without access to the labs of the sub-basement. Fury even allowed it, and then pointedly mentioned the written reports not yet filed, and hinted that the post-mission counselors were available to senior agents as well as the newbies who hadn't yet learned to avoid them.
He went back to the Tower and squirreled himself away in his room, a nest of blankets heaped upon his bed and a stockpile of junk food on the small table to the side. His reports were laid out before him and he worked his way through them methodically just as he worked his way through the wrappers and cans. He looked up as he finished the last one and stretched, feeling each and every injury protest both the movement and the sitting in one place for so long. Somehow, it had become half past one in the morning, and his stomach growled for want of more than sugar.
He shuffled down to the shared kitchen as he knew he had nothing left in his own cupboards save for things that had probably gone stale a month ago, only slightly surprised to find it empty despite the hour. The tea kettle was still warm and the scent of Natasha's favorite still lingered in the air, so he figured he must have just missed her. He knew she wouldn't begrudge him a cup of the same, even if it wasn't usually his thing, so he grabbed a mug from one of the upper cupboards and filled it with something other than coffee for a change.
A few slices of bread and some cold cuts later, and he had a rough approximation of a sandwich. He shoved about a quarter of it into his mouth and slouched over the plate to limit the range of the resulting crumbs. He had forgotten the mayo and mustard, and coughed at the dryness, so he reached for the mug to wash it down. Unfortunately, he didn't remember that he had also forgotten to close the cupboard until he raised his head and his forehead collided soundly with the wooden edge.
He fumbled with the cup in an attempt to rescue it, but managed to slosh a good half of its contents across the overpriced slate flooring in the process. He grabbed a towel to wipe up the resulting puddle and bent low to clean it before someone, probably him, slipped and made things worse.
Suddenly, he found himself on the floor, knees aching from the collision. It was no longer slate he saw, but cement. The warm tea his hand brushed up against was viscous and red. His head screamed in pain and his ribs wanted to buckle under the onslaught, but he stayed still, stayed quiet, raised only his eyes to look over to where Natasha lay, safe and sound for the time being, safe and sound as long as he didn't cause trouble, didn't fight back.
Only she wasn't there. Only the counter loomed, plate teetering along its edge. His hands clutched the now soaked towel and not his own destroyed shirt, and there were no taunting voices, only the slightly concerned tones of JARVIS asking, "Master Barton? Master Barton, are you unwell?"
He pushed himself up to his knees, and then to his feet, using the counter to steady himself even as his hand automatically pushed the plate back away from danger. "I'm fine, J," he eventually replied, though even he knew better than to trust his lie.
"You were unresponsive for seven minutes, eighteen seconds, though your vitals indicated you were conscious during this period. Do you require medical assistance?" the AI inquired.
He shook his head, the world tilting oddly with the motion. He closed the door that was still far too close to that head and insisted, "No, I'm fine," though he wasn't certain who he was trying to convince.
To prove his point, he shoved the last of his sandwich into his mouth in a series of too big of bites, choking it down like the sawdust it tasted like, and downed the last of his tea in one go. He placed his dishes in the sink to deal with later, and stepped over the remaining dampness of the floor as he headed back to his room. Once there, he closed and locked that door and briefly questioned if there was a way to prevent a system override of the locks even as he briefly considered opening the bottle of the one thing he knew that was not stale in his quarters. He shrugged that off though, knew it was a downward slope as soon as he cracked the seal, and hobbled over to the bathroom instead.
He did not lose his dinner, but it was a near thing. Instead, he braced his hands on the edge of the sink, and eyed the new bruise already blooming that would only add to his collection at this point. There was a tiny trail of blood where the corner got him, and he swiped at it angrily, only succeeding in smearing it instead.
He looked like shit with the shadows under his eyes and a face mottled with shades of blue and green and yellow. He was exhausted, but knew he wouldn't sleep any time soon, not without assistance in the form of one bottle or another. So he decided to do something foolish and stupid and childlike and take a hot shower to see if the steam and soap did anything to relax the built up tension radiating from every inch of his body.
He stripped and pried free the bandages and braces without actually looking at what lay beneath, never quite liking having to pick the soaked things from the bottom of the bath when they inevitably fell off anyway. He cranked up the water and stepped in without testing the heat, knowing JARVIS would prevent himself from doing any actual damage. He braced himself up against the wall, water pounding across his back, and simply stood there, willing his mind to empty, willing his thoughts to wash away with the lingering stickiness and blood.
It didn't actually work, but he didn't actually expect it to. So, sometime later, after the room had filled with steam so thick even he had trouble seeing through it, he turned the water off and scrubbed a towel over himself and resolutely avoided the mirror in any way, shape, or form. He grabbed his robe because he didn't think he could manage actual pajamas at that point and the thing was as soft as a blanket anyway. He stepped out into the chill of the rest of his living area, and was in no way surprised to find Natasha there.
She didn't say a word, only took him by the arm and led him to his bed where the blankets were all sorted flat and neat with his reports and tablet placed off to the side and definitely not how he left everything such a short time earlier. She laid across the bed and tugged him down with her, wrapped herself around him, and just held on. He held her back because she was real and she was safe and she was alive, and sometime between saying such things, nose buried in her hair, he drifted off to sleep.
He didn't wake up until the light from the window was blinding and bright and found her still at his side. She retreated slightly, only her calf still pressed against him where it was wrapped up in the blankets, and asked, "Better?"
He blinked and tried to do a self assessment and remain professional and such, but gave up with a shrug and an honest, "No."
Her fingertips traced his latest bruise before she used them to comb his hair back into some sort of semblance of order that only she knew. "Would bacon make it better?" she asked in the same light but guarded tone.
He smiled despite himself and admitted, "Probably not, but-"
"It couldn't hurt?" she finished for him.
She pushed herself up and away and he realized that she was fully dressed, couldn't remember if she had been the night before. "Tasha..." he started, but didn't know where to end.
"You have no food, I know. But we live in a multimillion dollar Tower that is fully stocked at the worst of times and we live with people who are dying to do anything to help," she told him. She fished through what he hoped was his clean clothing and handed him a pair of boxers, some track pants, and one of his favorite tees. After a moment, she paused and added the worn hoodie that had definitely seen better days but fit him just right in all the right places and pointedly added the brace for his hand if not his foot.
"Are you suggesting using our friends?" he asked as he wormed his way out of the robe. She had seen everything before, multiple times and for multiple reasons, but he could still feel her eyes on him, the way they zeroed in on the now uncovered and still healing lacerations and slowly shrinking welts, the way they flinched for him when he moved wrong and his ribs protested.
"I'm suggesting giving them something to do other than to hover," she corrected. To add action to words, or possibly more words to words, she then spoke upwards the way they all did when addressing JARVIS and requested, "Please ask Captain Rogers if he would object to making a pancake breakfast."
There was a pause, followed by the response of, "Captain Rogers wishes to inform you that it is now 11:35 in the morning."
"Then ask him to throw a few BLTs on as well," she said, just as smoothly.
Clint struggled into the hoodie, arms not wishing to cooperate quite as well as he wished and the contraption on his hand getting stuck in the sleeve. By the time he figured it out, and by the time Natasha was straightening the almost threadbare fabric, JARVIS replied, "He says to meet him downstairs and to tell Agent Barton that, next time, he is to do his own dishes."
She smiled as though the situation was handed to her satisfaction, so Clint felt like an ass for pointing out, "You know, bacon isn't actually going to make this better, right?"
"No," she agreed, considering. She already knew he wasn't going to turn down her request, especially as simple as it was, but still let him pretend to protest. "But either is ridding Stark of his Reyka and Glennfiddich, which was my other option. At least this way our stomachs will be full and we can pretend to function as normal."
Of course, there was no normal, not for them. Bruce met them down there and busied himself setting the table while Thor contemplated the pros and cons of each type of syrup currently available before deciding on them all. No one mentioned the extra color along his hairline, but he did catch Steve glancing between the wound and the hint of reddish brown on the edge of the cupboard door before Natasha nonchalantly reached up and scrubbed it clean, Steve neatly ducking out of the way to give her the room she so desired.
Bruce insisted on adding fruit and Thor insisted on adding powdered sugar and Tony only showed up with the promise of fresh coffee and sizzling pork. Bruce ate his pancakes crepe-style and Thor dusted his sandwich nearly white and no one mentioned the way Clint hid his nerves when Steve clanked the metal spatula against the cast iron pan or the way Nat happened to overflow her selection with syrup at the same time until Clint himself righted the bottle.
Steve was called away almost immediately after brunch as apparently someone who may or may not have been one of the augmented humans and may or may not have been a scientist that knew about the formula had accused the team of excessive force and destruction of property. Of course the property was related to recreating the serum, something SHIELD would like very much, and of course the person in question would have been more than willing but, alas, he simply no longer could.
It was bullshit and they all knew it. Not the excessive force part because they all pretty much silently admitted to that, but the destruction of anything save for the room Natasha and Clint had been kept in was not their fault because everyone wanted everything traced and analyzed on the off chance anything worse than a paralytic had been given to their team.
Steve left to go report in like a good team leader and soothe ruffled feathers or some such thing and Bruce pulled up a documentary about Buddhist monks and meditation, not even trying to go for subtle. One of the caves was a little too close to his own personal history for Tony's liking, so he left sooner rather than later. Clint took the opportunity to slip away as well, but headed for the range instead of his room.
He shot until his arms ached and then turned to the punching bags because he still really felt like doing something harm and the pain of his once again braceless hand reminded him to focus, amongst other things. His hoodie was discarded hours before Steve returned, but he kept his shirt on, not needing to provide that much of a show when he was fairly certain Thor had left him at least three bottles of water and Stark was watching him through his numerous cameras. He flipped one off for good measure and took a swig of water, paused for a moment before he went back to abusing his muscles, which is how he saw Steve storm in, still in his street clothes, knuckles that shade of healing bruise that meant his had hit something solid not long ago, and stalked over to a bag of his own.
"That good?" he guessed.
Steve swung out and the bag shook on its chain. "It was a set up, the man never wanted to help in the first place." Another swing, another shake. "He was hoping one of the two of you would show, didn't realize what team you were on." The chain creaked. "The things he said... The things he implied..." Yeah, the bag was toast, or about to be anyway.
Clint closed his eyes, stalling as his hands fiddled with his gear by rote, and then hoped that his slip wasn't caught. Steve kept pounding away though, even after it was clear the bag was a goner. "Well," he swallowed, and tried for glib. "With us he wouldn't have had to imply; we already know the full score."
Steve stopped at that, a bead of sweat on his brow that threatened to drip into his eyes. "And for that, I am so very sorry." He swiped at his face with the back of his hand, fingers new and interesting shades of blue since he hadn't bothered to tape them. "If we... If I... She wouldn't... I'm sorry, Clint. I'm so sorry."
He looked ready to do that clap his hand on your shoulder thing, and Clint wasn't sure he could take that, not now. So he stepped away, feigned a stretch that proved his damp shirt had adhered itself to his back, hoped the welts weren't visible through the thin fabric, because he didn't need Steve's guilt for that on top of everything else. "It's done," he forced himself to say. He fell back on Widow's words, hid behind the persona she fought so hard to create. "They tried to get us to break and their methods simply didn't work."
"Ineffective," Steve parroted, hinting that they had used that line one too many times.
"Something like that," Clint agreed, took the out whether he was being offered it or not, and edged towards the doorway.
"It's more than that," Steve insisted. Clint turned so he wouldn't have to see him, draped the towel he had just used over his shoulder even as he knew it wouldn't hide all of the sticky damage beneath. He couldn't look at him though, couldn't see the anguish written across his features, couldn't see the expression of emotion that he himself tried so hard to push down and crumble.
"It's not," he said as he walked away, numerous water bottles forgotten. What he didn't add, at least hopefully not aloud, was, "It can't be."
He went back to his room and bathed yet again, this time counting seconds to make sure he didn't stay that long even though the water offered a solace he wasn't finding anywhere else. He had pulled on a pair of sweats but hadn't bothered with a shirt yet when there was a knock in his door. His front wasn't as bad as his back, so he held a shirt in front of him for mock modesty's sake, figuring he could talk whoever it was into leaving, or give them enough attitude until they managed that revelation on their own.
It was Bruce though, someone he always had trouble giving the slip for some reason. He stood there and looked decidedly unimpressed with the greeting he was offered, and countered with, "Turn around, bright eyes, and let me treat the back you've been ignoring so Cap stops thinking your dying of dysentery or something."
Clint barked out a laugh despite himself, and stepped back to let him in. "A - I can't believe you just used Bonnie Tyler against me. B - I question your medical prowess if you think I can catch dysentery from some rusty metal."
Bruce offered him his usual quiet smile and said, "My love for the classics knows no bounds. Also, it got me in, didn't it?" He waved a small bag in front of him and added, "And no, not dysentery, but possibly some nasty bacterial infection, so you're going to let me clean 'em and drug you and then come docilely with me to where Steve and Thor are making more BLTs for you and attempting to make borscht for Natasha."
That brought him up short. "She hates borscht," he warned. He stopped the pretense of covering himself and straddled a chair instead, back out in offering to the medical treatment he was about to receive, whether he wanted it or not.
Bruce shrugged and set the bag to the side so that he could push up his sleeves. "It's the only thing Russian he knows other than Tchaikovsky," he said by way of explanation, which made Clint shake his head and wonder how much more he would know by the end of the night.
New bandages applied and a promise/threat that fresh ones would be procured for at least three days, he tugged on his shirt and dutifully downed the pills offered, Stark's earlier words echoing in his mind as much as Banner's raised eyebrow and the knowledge that he was one if the few people on earth willing to wait him out if need be. He followed his new overlord down to the kitchen where, sure enough, the smell of bacon mingled with the smell of beets.
Natasha arrived, took one look at the offerings, and simply said, "No." She made herself a salad instead, stole a piece of meat from Clint's plate to crumble on top, and walked right back to her room.
Thor looked crushed and Steve looked confused, but Clint turned to Bruce and said, "Told you."
He ate his sandwich and drank the milkshake Thor made him, questioning the calorie count until he remembered he hadn't eaten since their late breakfast and that his team was keeping close enough tabs on him to notice. By the time he reached the bottom of the glass, he questioned if the shake had been drugged, or if there was something more than antibiotics in the pills he had been given. He was dead on his feet and could barely keep his eyes open.
Bruce escorted him back to his room and settled him on his mattress, tucked a light blanket around him despite the precision temp of the room. "You know," Clint yawned, watching as a glass of water and another dose of something, this one actually in a prescription bottle, was placed on his bedside table. "It's usually bad form to drug someone senseless after a traumatic event."
"It's usually bad form to lie about the severity of your injuries to someone trying to keep you out of Medical," Bruce countered, which wasn't so much a low blow as an honest one. "You were given a mild muscle relaxant to ease the strain on your back and that hand you've been ignoring, the rest is all you."
"Shouldn't be that tired," he protested. He shifted the blanket up a little bit higher before he gave it up as a lost cause.
"Shouldn't be that stupid after having the crap beat out of you," Bruce rejoined. He pulled the offending fabric to just under his chin, where Clint himself preferred it.
"Your bedside manner sucks," he complained, yawning yet again. "See if I'm able to haul my ass up when we get a call to assemble. You're on your own, bro."
"You're on stand down anyway," Banner pointed out.
Clint scoffed. "Yeah, because that totally makes a difference."
Bruce had nothing to say to that, so he smiled and muttered some nicety that was probably a goodnight, and closed the door softly behind him. Clint waited exactly three seconds after hearing the click to say, "Hello, Tasha."
Natasha appeared from behind a corner, expression suspicious. "What did he give you?" she demanded.
Clint was self aware enough to know pretty much every common drug's reaction on his body at this point in his career, and so he was fairly confident in his correctness when he said, "Exactly what he said. Can push through it if I need to, but have to admit sleep sounds real good right about now." He meant sleep without nightmares, sleep without dreams of her tied to that damn gurney with him helpless to do anything about it, but figured she understood the subtext.
She nodded and kicked off the soft soled shoes she had been wearing before she settled herself on the bed, headboard at her back. "He shouldn't drug you," she said, still more than a little peeved and a lot more than a little protective.
"Nope," he agreed with another yawn.
"He saw the bruises," she said next, after a pause. She filled the silence with adjusting the covers she had just disrupted back to their previous state.
"Probably," he sighed. He knew which ones she meant, the ones the others either hadn't seen yet or hadn't pieced together the source of. The ones shaped like fingers. The ones carved into skin. The ones easily covered, if you paid attention to such things.
There was another pause, her hands stilling, and then, quieter, "Do you think he knows?"
He turned slightly, pillow squashing beneath the weight of his head. "I think he suspects. I think they all do. I also think they have it wrong," he answered, the drugs and the fact it was her making his tongue loose and blatant.
She nodded, and from this angle he could see it as well as feel it. "Get some sleep," she ordered, clearly settling in for the night.
"Yes, ma'am," he dutifully replied, stopping short of giving her a salute because he did still value his life.
He woke in the morning to an indent in the bed and a lingering warmth on the pillow beside him, even if Natasha was nowhere to be found. He corrected that assessment when he heard a noise coming from his bathroom. He kicked off the covers but made his way over there slowly, giving her time to ready herself for human contact of the conscious sort. He pretended he hadn't heard her retch just like he pretended he didn't see her rinse her mouth with water from the tap. Instead, he let her slide past so he could enter and begin his morning ablutions and commented, "You show up in the same clothes as last night after leaving my room at odd hours and people are going to start to talk."
She wandered back to the doorway and made a show of removing her long sleeve tee only to replace it with one of his Henleys. It have him a glimpse of the lingering marks on her wrists, the line of colors along her side, the ring of fading green around her neck. "They won't say a thing," she said, and he had to concede that she was right. She grabbed a brush he hadn't known he had and dragged it through her hair before she asked, "Are you feeling better today?"
He considered that for a moment before admitting, "A little." The twinge between his shoulders was nearly nonexistent, the muscles of his back looser, even if he could still feel the actual healing wounds. His thumb still hurt like a bitch, but that's what he got for purposely dislocating it and then both fighting with it and spending far too long on the range without a brace. She handed him that brace now, and he fought the urge to roll his eyes at the predictability of the action.
"Food?" she suggested, a sign that he was not even to hint at knowing she had just emptied the contents of her stomach moments ago.
He didn't bother shaving, but did reach for clean clothing as he said, "They keep making that much bacon and not only will there be a pig shortage in the state of New York, but I'll be too fat to fit into my gear soon." He had been ready to comment about the artery clogging factor, but knew even the slightest mention of ill health was probably not a good thing at this point, for either one of them.
"There's always sausage," she said glibly, pulling on the shoes he hadn't noticed she had been going without,
He paused in the act of buttoning his jeans to raise his eyebrows at her. "You do know that most sausage is made with pig too, right?" he asked.
"Only the good stuff," she replied readily enough.
This time he did give in to the urge to roll his eyes, and caught the faintest hint of a smile for his efforts.
They reached the common kitchen to find that, yes, no one said a word about her choice in clothing or possible sleeping arrangements. Bruce was in charge of the meal this time around and it was something involving vegetables, quinoa, and a crap ton of spices; not the usual breakfast fare, but edible enough. Clint made a point of pouring coffee for both himself and Natasha despite Steve's attempt to do so, the look he gave him making the supposed team leader turn red and hint at just who managed to slip him the relaxant the night before. Bruce responded by letting everyone dish out their own servings into their own bowls as proof that everything was on the up and up. Natasha grabbed the crockery for the both of them, forgoing the ones already set to the side and rinsing fresh ones first.
"Sorry for last night," Bruce offered. He added a chili paste to the already spicy concoction in his bowl and stirred it in.
"No you're not," Clint replied, forgoing the extras.
Bruce took a bite and used the time it took for him to chew it to stall before he answered, "Not really. At least not if it worked and you actually feel better." He looked over the rims of his glasses as if to verify such a thing, and Clint spared a thought in remembrance of the far more mild and soft spoken rage machine of a doctor who he had first met so long ago, and wondered whether they had changed him, or simply let his true self free.
Clint didn't really have anything to say to the commentary or the scrutiny, not that he could as a call in from Fury interrupted anything else anyway. They were to assemble, just as Clint had predicted the night before. However, both he and Natasha were specifically excluded in the order, and not due to any narcotics that may or may not still be in their systems. She protested, Fury was unmoved. She protested more, Fury threatened dire consequences if he found her on the Quinjet or anywhere near the structure the others were to head to, dire enough that she actually looked like she was going to stand down.
The same threat applied to Clint, of course, with Hill herself to come over to babysit if they tried anything. They relented, but mainly because Tony stood just outside of Fury's view and silently promised a live video feed for anything and everything that happened. Steve pretended he hadn't heard or seen a thing, a remarkable coincidence for someone with his enhanced senses, which was as good as permission to do it as any.
The others left and Clint and Natasha stayed back and dealt with the dishes and set up the feed and pretended they didn't notice a cadre of agents milling about the base of the Tower or the way any easy to get to and reliable transport was locked down. Of course, Tony being Tony, there were backups that the team knew about and SHIELD did not - there were also probably backups that Tony knew about that the team didn't as well, but that was another matter all together - but the circumstances didn't seem quite dire enough to reveal those yet, so they were held in reserve should the shit hit the fan later.
The mission itself was to a compound of warehouses where the production of the serum was believed to occur. Considering they had found evidence of the production at the mansion, this seemed odd to Clint, but there was apparently enough evidence to warrant a team to investigate. Given that there was also evidence of those who had already been enhanced by the serum as well, the truncated Avengers team was sent instead of a standard SHIELD team.
As expected, it had been a trap. Over a dozen enhanced goons were on site, ready to challenge any interlopers. Not quite as expected was the fact that their interlopers included an alien god, a gigantic rage monster, a man in a nearly indestructible suit, and the original super soldier who was the only fully successful recipient of the full serum in known existence.
Or maybe it was expected, at least partially, Clint amended when one of the goons actually spoke. Tony had the sound rigged as well as video, and so Clint and Natasha listened in as the guy went on about the glory of challenging "the original" and how good it was going to feel to take him down.
Thor and Tony responded by putting themselves between Cap and the goons, and Cap responded by tossing his shield and nearly decapitating about three of said goons. Hulk simply began to smash. Deciding Steve had things well in hand, and possibly due to the explicit order, Tony and Thor spread out a bit to both give him room and challenge a few idiots of their own.
One such idiot really took a liking to Tony. Stark had been instructed not to use lethal force unless absolutely necessary - something that applied to the team as a whole, though the Hulk was usually given a little more leeway than most. This meant that he did not fire when the guy tossed him into some metal scaffolding, but just rolled with it and tried to disable him in other ways.
He continued to roll with it even when pressed up against a wall, alarms going off from the pressure exerted upon the suit. Over those alarms, Clint heard a grunted, "With that mask on, you could be anyone. Are you the infamous Iron Man, or are you the pretty little slut dressed up to try to fight with the big boys?"
The voice made his blood run cold. His memory matched the voice to the image on the screen, a face he remembered looming and taunting as the blows rained down, a head thrown back in laughter as he was told there was nothing he could do about it, and the brief moment of being dumb enough to almost believe it.
The sound stopped abruptly, and he worried that he had spaced out for a moment as much as he worried that Tony's tech had been compromised. Instead, Stark's voice, loud and clear and only a little out of breath, said, "Secure line. Is it safe to assume there were more than three bad guys in the room with you that night?"
Clint licked his lips to respond, realizing that must have been all the further Tony had made it through the footage, but Natasha beat him to the punch. "There were five," she replied with a voice completely devoid of emotion. Of course, her fingernails were currently carving into his palm, but he ignored that for now.
"This idiot in red and who else?" Stark asked.
"Short blond hair in blue," Clint replied before he could question himself. "What are you thinking Tony?"
Stark, as expected, did not actually respond, the line must have switched again because there was a click and then the alarms were back, the goon still spouting some truly disgusting suggestions. "I feel like my life is threatened," Tony commented idly, and Clint suspected he knew where this was going.
"Then you're finally getting with the program," the goon replied. He shifted and there was a distinctive crashing noise, a crunching of metal that corresponded with another beep of warning. "Though I can't decide if I want to just kill you outright, or tear that armor off and have another go at you."
"Yeah, definite threat," Tony said, tone suddenly far deeper and far more serious. The whine of his suit powering up echoed through the connection, and then, louder still, he called, "Hey, Big Guy, I have a toy for you. Don't feel the need to go gentle on 'em."
The goon in question was blasted back away from Stark and into the waiting hands of the Hulk. Tony kept the camera trained on him just long enough to let his teammates know "not gentle" was an understatement of epic proportions before he made a beeline for a certain other goon, bypassing at least three in the process. Thor took care of those, and then Thor took care of the remnants of the one in the blue shirt before the entire team, Steve included, rounded on the remaining super-powered idiots.
Clint watched numbly as the men who had made his life and that of his partner a living hell - albeit for only a few hours - were, for lack of a better word, decimated. It seemed too easy, even though he could see the effort his teammates were exerting to finish the job. He knew it shouldn't be a big deal and that, in the long and the short of it, what he went through that night should be only a blip on his radar of suck over the past few years. And yet, it wasn't. And yet every time he closed his eyes he saw Natasha laying there unmoving, vulnerable in a way he had never seen her before. And yet he remembered his words, his pleas for them to leave her alone, his taunts so that they would pay attention to him instead.
Maybe the incident was just too fresh. Maybe the incident was somehow more personal. Maybe he had grown too accustomed to his newly found massive backup and his expectations had been severely altered. Maybe this time things just really and truly sucked.
Part of him wished he had been the one to take the assholes down. Part of him wished he had at least been granted the satisfaction of seeing the take down a little more close and personal than a remote, clandestine video feed. Most of him still wished none of it had ever happened in the first place.
He forced open eyes he didn't remember shutting to look at Nat now, to see her sit there, outwardly calm and professional while her nails dug deeper and deeper into his skin, betraying her inner emotions in ways he would never call her on. She faced the screen and watched the cleanup and resulting investigation of the warehouse, and so he tried to do so as well. Nothing registered though, nothing stuck, and he would have to hack into the mission reports if he actually wanted to know what the hell any of his teammates had done. His mind was miles and nights away, filled with a sequence of images on repeat, the cycle beginning again and again and again while one tiny corner of his consciousness not currently hung up on living in the past reasoned that Fury was right and he had been in no condition to go back into the field, at least not for this particular mission.
When it was clear that the team was in no further danger and that the situation was under as much control as possible, Natasha and he slowly extricated themselves from each others' grasps. She disappeared down one of the many corridors and he did nothing to stop her. Instead, he blatantly stole a handful of nonperishables from the shared cupboards and headed up to his own rooms.
He locked the door and instituted the additional security protocols Stark had granted each of them upon assignment of their personal quarters and ordered, "JARVIS, no one in or out without my approval."
And JARVIS with his calmness and knowing simply asked, "Of course, Master Barton. Are there any exceptions to this decision?"
He thought of how pissed Tasha would be, and then he thought of how he needed time, even if it was only for a few hours, to sort through this on his own. With a heavy swallow, he replied, "No, none."
Of course it wasn't only a few hours and of course his teammates were less than understanding. Bruce had JARVIS relay messages while Steve physically wrote them out and tried to shove them under the door. Thor knocked, possibly hard enough to leave a dent, and promised to stand watch if needed. Tony pounded and threatened to hack in and override the protocols, but the fact that he didn't actually do so meant that he understood Clint needed some space, even if he didn't want to actually have said understanding.
Natasha was silent.
It was a surprise, and yet it wasn't. On the third day of wallowing in his self pity, he pulled up the various messages left and found she too had gone radio silent. No one had seen hide nor hair of her and she had somehow programmed JARVIS to simply relay that she was somewhere on the premises, but not to say exactly where. Dishes appeared and disappeared from the central kitchen on a regular basis, and Bruce's tea supply was seriously dwindling, but no one actually caught her roaming about, even though they actively tried.
He looked at the evidence versus what he knew of her and had a fair idea of where she would be the following day. Five in the morning rolled around and he released some but not all of the locks in a very predetermined manner and hit the vents and hidden access panels to skulk around with minimal interference.
He reached the gym to both find that his suspicions were proven true, and that someone else had either pieced the same evidence together, or had gotten incredibly lucky. She and Steve were going at it, sparring being the loosest definition of the battle he watched waged. She struck again and again and he blocked and dodged but made little to no offensive moves.
"Why won't you fight me?" she demanded, fingers darting outwards towards his throat.
He blocked the move with his own hand and swept her arm to the side. "I don't believe it's what you really want," Steve replied, and Clint winced in readiness for the retaliation. Rogers sounded winded, as if the fight was actually tiring him, and he wondered how long it had been going on before he happened across it.
"Are you," she began, foot lashing out towards his kneecap, glancing off as he sidestepped.
"Going to tell me," she continued, spinning in a roundhouse and following through with an elbow that looked like it connected in a truly painful manner.
"What I do or do not want?" she finished with a snap kick aimed towards his chest. He caught it and held her foot between his hands, her inner grace and balance and his restraint the only things keeping her from toppling backwards.
"Do you dare?" she demanded, and there was an edge to her voice, an anger and frustration that she had kept under wraps for these past few days, hidden away from everyone and everything. It lurked at the very limits of her being now, truthful and painful in equal measures, and Clint could see it in her eyes as much as hear it in her voice.
When Steve spoke, he sounded as broken as she was, rough and brittle and willing her to understand everything they weren't saying, everything they couldn't say because years of training and suppression had wound it too tight, kept it pushed down too far to ever let it out into the bright light of day where someone could use it against them. "I would never," he promised. He lowered her foot, dropped it in a way that helped her adjust and compensate, before he repeated. "I swear, Natasha, I would never."
He stepped away and grabbed a towel, never fully turning his back on her, but never twisting that extra little bit to meet her glare either. He moved slowly, stiffly as he picked up his water bottle and headed for the door. The slightest tilt of his head acknowledged Clint's presence in the hallway, but he never said a word.
Natasha, for her part, had moved on to venting her frustrations on a punching bag of the non-living variety. She kicked and she hit and she punched all in a flurry of movement, just the tiniest bit more vocal that her usual silent routine. It felt like glass against his veins to see her like this, not broken but so very far from whole. It was a rare thing, and he knew she usually preferred her privacy in times like this, just as he knew he couldn't leave her alone.
He stepped forward and figured she would have heard his footsteps as he did nothing to hide them, right up until he called out a soft, "Nat?"
She spun on her the ball of her foot, arm raised and fist at the ready, momentum enough to carry the movement through to its undoubtedly painful conclusion. She stopped though, stayed the attack, and there was absolutely no recognition in her eyes for one painful second.
"You going to beat me up too?" he half joked, making absolutely no move to defend himself.
He watched as she crumpled, her body folding inwards like the cliched puppet with its strings cut. "No," she whispered, promised in a voice so very quiet and so very much the real Natalia and not the act she liked to put on for everyone else. "Not you. Never you," she swore.
He caught her before she knew she was falling, led her gently to the floor where she wrapped herself around him, all sweat and heat and anger. He held her and let himself be held and the rest of the world seemed to fade away as nothing, absolutely nothing, was as important as that moment and simply being there for each other. "We're here," he spoke into her matted hair, red strands tickling his lips. "We're here and we're safe and we're whole," he told her, willing the words to be as true as he wanted them to be.
He wasn't sure if she was rocking him or he was rocking her, but he felt the gentle sway of the push and the pull. "I'm so sorry," she said, words muffled by shoulders and fabric. She pulled back slightly, forced him to meet her gaze. "I was aware. The whole time... I could hear and think but couldn't move, couldn't help you, couldn't stop them..."
He had suspected as much, but had no evidence until now, hadn't wanted to ask and discover the truth. "Nat, it wasn't your fault," he told her, tried to pull her close again.
She shook her head though, adamant as she said, "I know what you did for me, what you did so they wouldn't... I know, Clint. Even if no one else does, I do."
She sunk into him then, clinging and clung to and probably as pissed at him as she was upset upon his behalf. She didn't cry, and he was so very tempted to do so but couldn't do that to her, couldn't risk her misinterpreting the action, though he highly doubted she actually would.
Later, after his legs went numb and prickly and he could feel her shiver against the drying sweat, they helped each other stumble back to her room, the hallways and corridors oddly empty of any random interlopers. Behind the carefully locked doors, he slid to the floor in front of her couch, used it as a cushioned backrest while she dug around and set up her rarely used television.
They sat side by side, didn't say a word as the scene on the screen unfolded. Her shoulder brushed up against his arm, and her knee against his thigh as she huddled close, as the men on the screen taunted and teased and threatened, as they smeared Clint's blood across her naked skin and pondered the benefits of another test subject against instant gratification. She reached down and picked up his hand when a voice just barely offscreen, gruff from misuse and abuse, sounded to say, "You don't want her. Much more fun when they fight back, isn't it?" There was a pause and he remembered the tang of metal when he spit out blood. "Take me instead."
She didn't mention how it sounded more like a plea than a dare and he didn't mention how the supposedly unconscious woman on the screen squeezed her eyes that much tighter against something moist and reflective in the rough light of the room. Instead, she threw the remote through the screen, flecks of glass and sparks scattering around them both as she wrapped her arms around him and held on.
It wasn't perfect and it wasn't over, but it was as near to it as they were going to get any time soon, if at all. Knowing this, he pulled her closer still, bruises and welts and aching tendons all clambering for attention that he refused to give. He had far more important things to worry about now and, somehow, that granted him a peace he never knew he needed. He closed his eyes and made a silent promise, both to himself and to the woman in his arms, to use every method at his disposal to keep it that way.
End.
Feedback is always welcomed.
Genre: Gen, Clint and Natasha friendship
Rating: R
Length: ~18,400 words
Warnings: Non-con, aftermath of non-con, aftermath of torture
Synopsis: They were captured and interrogated by those souped up on a mock Super Soldier serum. The methods were ineffective.
Author's Notes: For the "rape/non-con" square at
hc_bingo. Please heed the warnings.Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also available as a single post on AO3.
Part 1 on Dreamwidth | Part 1 on Live Journal
Natasha found him a scant few minutes later while he was still leaned up against the wall, head swimming with the recent revelation as much as with pure and simple exhaustion. He could feel every bruise, every reopened wound tacky with sweat and drying blood, and was thankful once again for the way the dark material of his uniform hid the worst of it from view. He wouldn't fool her, he never did, but at least no random agent was calling Medical on his ass, so there was at least that. "What's wrong?" she asked with her usual demand, ignoring formalities and any chance he might have to brush her off. Not that he would. Not now. Not so soon after everything that had happened.
He held out the drive Tony had forced upon him and replied, "Stark found the video feed." Her hand froze where it had begun to close around the offering. "He didn't watch it though, not all of it," he clarified, already answering what he guessed would be her next question.
She took the drive and secreted away quickly enough that even he couldn't say where it went. "Of course he didn't," she said calmly, but joined him supporting the wall. To anyone passing by, it would be nothing more than two agents commiserating after a long and semi-successful mission, postures forcibly relaxed, expressions scaring all but the most stout-hearted away.
He turned to look at her, found her face shadowed by the curtain of her hair. "What do we do?" he asked. He didn't want to come clean, didn't want to deal with the questions and counseling and whatever else Hill came up with after lecturing him about the need for full disclosure and chiding him for trying to provide less than adequate data.
She tilted her head slightly, face set as stone, and replied, "Whatever you feel the need to do."
He shook his head. "This isn't about me..." he protested.
She smiled, sad and honest for a fleeting moment. "The important parts are," she promised. She straightened, the very image of the legendary Black Widow once more, no hint of her sorrow or other pesky emotions showing through. "I know what happened, you know what happened, SHIELD has a copy of the official report. Anything beyond that is your choice, Barton. Just realize that choice has consequences, even if you choose not to decide."
"Yeah, because that doesn't sound ominous at all," he teased, but his heart really and truly wasn't in it. He gave up the pretense and asked, in all seriousness, "How are you?"
She shrugged, but it was far from fluid or graceful. The harsh light from the hallway seemed to highlight the bruises along her neck, the swelling of her lip. "As far as interrogations go, their ways were less than effective," she told him, a near parroting of her previous report.
It wasn't what he wanted, and they both knew it. He did everything save for reach out and tilt her chin to make her meet his gaze, and said, "You know that's not what I mean."
Her body shifted, a subtle change that let him see as much of the real her as she would allow while they were still technically in the field. "They didn't do anything that hadn't been done before, really. The paralysis was a bit over the top but..." She shrugged again, this time letting him see a hint of just how tired she really was, letting him see the lines and shadows she had held at bay by pure force of will. "I'll heal."
"You always do," he agreed. He wasn't sure if he envied her or not at this point, and settled for deciding to keep watch, stay closer for the immediate future, just in case that legendary healing of hers decided to take a plane to Tulsa.
It was because he watched that he saw her take that extra step back when Steve and Bruce joined them. Saw her choose the front passenger seat of the transport and tuck herself away from any incidental touch when Rogers still insisted on handling any and all doors along their way back home to the Tower. Saw her choose the stool by the kitchen counter for that night's meal instead of pulling up a chair and squeezing in when she came down late, skin blushed red from its recent scrubbing and damp hair still scented like the shampoo he once hit six stores in Singapore to find for her.
Bruce offered her tea, and Tony offered her vodka, and she took both in equal measure, but both were set down before her, offerer already stepping back before she reached for the cup. He wondered if her subtle avoidance was noticed by the others or if they were actively trying to give her her room as well. He also wondered if the avoidance stretched to include him, but her shoulder brushed his arm when she reached around to put her dishes away, her body barely tensing from the contact before continuing on as though nothing happened.
She accepted him, but only just. He knew better than to push the subject or push her buttons, just as he knew that she probably reasoned she was allowing it for his benefit and recovery more so than her own.
They met with Fury the next day, where he advised them that they were both on stand down until further notice. He didn't even try to pretend it was to give them a chance to heal from their injuries, minor as they were. They were to deal with any inner demons they may or may not have while the techs and Stark and Banner analyzed the serum and other drugs found at the mansion. He made it absolutely no secret that he would have kept them both back at the safe house until properly cleared for duty, but he also gave them the Fury version of praise, which was to begrudgingly admit their presence proved useful.
Clint snorted at that, especially since it was now common knowledge no one would have found anything useful without access to the labs of the sub-basement. Fury even allowed it, and then pointedly mentioned the written reports not yet filed, and hinted that the post-mission counselors were available to senior agents as well as the newbies who hadn't yet learned to avoid them.
He went back to the Tower and squirreled himself away in his room, a nest of blankets heaped upon his bed and a stockpile of junk food on the small table to the side. His reports were laid out before him and he worked his way through them methodically just as he worked his way through the wrappers and cans. He looked up as he finished the last one and stretched, feeling each and every injury protest both the movement and the sitting in one place for so long. Somehow, it had become half past one in the morning, and his stomach growled for want of more than sugar.
He shuffled down to the shared kitchen as he knew he had nothing left in his own cupboards save for things that had probably gone stale a month ago, only slightly surprised to find it empty despite the hour. The tea kettle was still warm and the scent of Natasha's favorite still lingered in the air, so he figured he must have just missed her. He knew she wouldn't begrudge him a cup of the same, even if it wasn't usually his thing, so he grabbed a mug from one of the upper cupboards and filled it with something other than coffee for a change.
A few slices of bread and some cold cuts later, and he had a rough approximation of a sandwich. He shoved about a quarter of it into his mouth and slouched over the plate to limit the range of the resulting crumbs. He had forgotten the mayo and mustard, and coughed at the dryness, so he reached for the mug to wash it down. Unfortunately, he didn't remember that he had also forgotten to close the cupboard until he raised his head and his forehead collided soundly with the wooden edge.
He fumbled with the cup in an attempt to rescue it, but managed to slosh a good half of its contents across the overpriced slate flooring in the process. He grabbed a towel to wipe up the resulting puddle and bent low to clean it before someone, probably him, slipped and made things worse.
Suddenly, he found himself on the floor, knees aching from the collision. It was no longer slate he saw, but cement. The warm tea his hand brushed up against was viscous and red. His head screamed in pain and his ribs wanted to buckle under the onslaught, but he stayed still, stayed quiet, raised only his eyes to look over to where Natasha lay, safe and sound for the time being, safe and sound as long as he didn't cause trouble, didn't fight back.
Only she wasn't there. Only the counter loomed, plate teetering along its edge. His hands clutched the now soaked towel and not his own destroyed shirt, and there were no taunting voices, only the slightly concerned tones of JARVIS asking, "Master Barton? Master Barton, are you unwell?"
He pushed himself up to his knees, and then to his feet, using the counter to steady himself even as his hand automatically pushed the plate back away from danger. "I'm fine, J," he eventually replied, though even he knew better than to trust his lie.
"You were unresponsive for seven minutes, eighteen seconds, though your vitals indicated you were conscious during this period. Do you require medical assistance?" the AI inquired.
He shook his head, the world tilting oddly with the motion. He closed the door that was still far too close to that head and insisted, "No, I'm fine," though he wasn't certain who he was trying to convince.
To prove his point, he shoved the last of his sandwich into his mouth in a series of too big of bites, choking it down like the sawdust it tasted like, and downed the last of his tea in one go. He placed his dishes in the sink to deal with later, and stepped over the remaining dampness of the floor as he headed back to his room. Once there, he closed and locked that door and briefly questioned if there was a way to prevent a system override of the locks even as he briefly considered opening the bottle of the one thing he knew that was not stale in his quarters. He shrugged that off though, knew it was a downward slope as soon as he cracked the seal, and hobbled over to the bathroom instead.
He did not lose his dinner, but it was a near thing. Instead, he braced his hands on the edge of the sink, and eyed the new bruise already blooming that would only add to his collection at this point. There was a tiny trail of blood where the corner got him, and he swiped at it angrily, only succeeding in smearing it instead.
He looked like shit with the shadows under his eyes and a face mottled with shades of blue and green and yellow. He was exhausted, but knew he wouldn't sleep any time soon, not without assistance in the form of one bottle or another. So he decided to do something foolish and stupid and childlike and take a hot shower to see if the steam and soap did anything to relax the built up tension radiating from every inch of his body.
He stripped and pried free the bandages and braces without actually looking at what lay beneath, never quite liking having to pick the soaked things from the bottom of the bath when they inevitably fell off anyway. He cranked up the water and stepped in without testing the heat, knowing JARVIS would prevent himself from doing any actual damage. He braced himself up against the wall, water pounding across his back, and simply stood there, willing his mind to empty, willing his thoughts to wash away with the lingering stickiness and blood.
It didn't actually work, but he didn't actually expect it to. So, sometime later, after the room had filled with steam so thick even he had trouble seeing through it, he turned the water off and scrubbed a towel over himself and resolutely avoided the mirror in any way, shape, or form. He grabbed his robe because he didn't think he could manage actual pajamas at that point and the thing was as soft as a blanket anyway. He stepped out into the chill of the rest of his living area, and was in no way surprised to find Natasha there.
She didn't say a word, only took him by the arm and led him to his bed where the blankets were all sorted flat and neat with his reports and tablet placed off to the side and definitely not how he left everything such a short time earlier. She laid across the bed and tugged him down with her, wrapped herself around him, and just held on. He held her back because she was real and she was safe and she was alive, and sometime between saying such things, nose buried in her hair, he drifted off to sleep.
He didn't wake up until the light from the window was blinding and bright and found her still at his side. She retreated slightly, only her calf still pressed against him where it was wrapped up in the blankets, and asked, "Better?"
He blinked and tried to do a self assessment and remain professional and such, but gave up with a shrug and an honest, "No."
Her fingertips traced his latest bruise before she used them to comb his hair back into some sort of semblance of order that only she knew. "Would bacon make it better?" she asked in the same light but guarded tone.
He smiled despite himself and admitted, "Probably not, but-"
"It couldn't hurt?" she finished for him.
She pushed herself up and away and he realized that she was fully dressed, couldn't remember if she had been the night before. "Tasha..." he started, but didn't know where to end.
"You have no food, I know. But we live in a multimillion dollar Tower that is fully stocked at the worst of times and we live with people who are dying to do anything to help," she told him. She fished through what he hoped was his clean clothing and handed him a pair of boxers, some track pants, and one of his favorite tees. After a moment, she paused and added the worn hoodie that had definitely seen better days but fit him just right in all the right places and pointedly added the brace for his hand if not his foot.
"Are you suggesting using our friends?" he asked as he wormed his way out of the robe. She had seen everything before, multiple times and for multiple reasons, but he could still feel her eyes on him, the way they zeroed in on the now uncovered and still healing lacerations and slowly shrinking welts, the way they flinched for him when he moved wrong and his ribs protested.
"I'm suggesting giving them something to do other than to hover," she corrected. To add action to words, or possibly more words to words, she then spoke upwards the way they all did when addressing JARVIS and requested, "Please ask Captain Rogers if he would object to making a pancake breakfast."
There was a pause, followed by the response of, "Captain Rogers wishes to inform you that it is now 11:35 in the morning."
"Then ask him to throw a few BLTs on as well," she said, just as smoothly.
Clint struggled into the hoodie, arms not wishing to cooperate quite as well as he wished and the contraption on his hand getting stuck in the sleeve. By the time he figured it out, and by the time Natasha was straightening the almost threadbare fabric, JARVIS replied, "He says to meet him downstairs and to tell Agent Barton that, next time, he is to do his own dishes."
She smiled as though the situation was handed to her satisfaction, so Clint felt like an ass for pointing out, "You know, bacon isn't actually going to make this better, right?"
"No," she agreed, considering. She already knew he wasn't going to turn down her request, especially as simple as it was, but still let him pretend to protest. "But either is ridding Stark of his Reyka and Glennfiddich, which was my other option. At least this way our stomachs will be full and we can pretend to function as normal."
Of course, there was no normal, not for them. Bruce met them down there and busied himself setting the table while Thor contemplated the pros and cons of each type of syrup currently available before deciding on them all. No one mentioned the extra color along his hairline, but he did catch Steve glancing between the wound and the hint of reddish brown on the edge of the cupboard door before Natasha nonchalantly reached up and scrubbed it clean, Steve neatly ducking out of the way to give her the room she so desired.
Bruce insisted on adding fruit and Thor insisted on adding powdered sugar and Tony only showed up with the promise of fresh coffee and sizzling pork. Bruce ate his pancakes crepe-style and Thor dusted his sandwich nearly white and no one mentioned the way Clint hid his nerves when Steve clanked the metal spatula against the cast iron pan or the way Nat happened to overflow her selection with syrup at the same time until Clint himself righted the bottle.
Steve was called away almost immediately after brunch as apparently someone who may or may not have been one of the augmented humans and may or may not have been a scientist that knew about the formula had accused the team of excessive force and destruction of property. Of course the property was related to recreating the serum, something SHIELD would like very much, and of course the person in question would have been more than willing but, alas, he simply no longer could.
It was bullshit and they all knew it. Not the excessive force part because they all pretty much silently admitted to that, but the destruction of anything save for the room Natasha and Clint had been kept in was not their fault because everyone wanted everything traced and analyzed on the off chance anything worse than a paralytic had been given to their team.
Steve left to go report in like a good team leader and soothe ruffled feathers or some such thing and Bruce pulled up a documentary about Buddhist monks and meditation, not even trying to go for subtle. One of the caves was a little too close to his own personal history for Tony's liking, so he left sooner rather than later. Clint took the opportunity to slip away as well, but headed for the range instead of his room.
He shot until his arms ached and then turned to the punching bags because he still really felt like doing something harm and the pain of his once again braceless hand reminded him to focus, amongst other things. His hoodie was discarded hours before Steve returned, but he kept his shirt on, not needing to provide that much of a show when he was fairly certain Thor had left him at least three bottles of water and Stark was watching him through his numerous cameras. He flipped one off for good measure and took a swig of water, paused for a moment before he went back to abusing his muscles, which is how he saw Steve storm in, still in his street clothes, knuckles that shade of healing bruise that meant his had hit something solid not long ago, and stalked over to a bag of his own.
"That good?" he guessed.
Steve swung out and the bag shook on its chain. "It was a set up, the man never wanted to help in the first place." Another swing, another shake. "He was hoping one of the two of you would show, didn't realize what team you were on." The chain creaked. "The things he said... The things he implied..." Yeah, the bag was toast, or about to be anyway.
Clint closed his eyes, stalling as his hands fiddled with his gear by rote, and then hoped that his slip wasn't caught. Steve kept pounding away though, even after it was clear the bag was a goner. "Well," he swallowed, and tried for glib. "With us he wouldn't have had to imply; we already know the full score."
Steve stopped at that, a bead of sweat on his brow that threatened to drip into his eyes. "And for that, I am so very sorry." He swiped at his face with the back of his hand, fingers new and interesting shades of blue since he hadn't bothered to tape them. "If we... If I... She wouldn't... I'm sorry, Clint. I'm so sorry."
He looked ready to do that clap his hand on your shoulder thing, and Clint wasn't sure he could take that, not now. So he stepped away, feigned a stretch that proved his damp shirt had adhered itself to his back, hoped the welts weren't visible through the thin fabric, because he didn't need Steve's guilt for that on top of everything else. "It's done," he forced himself to say. He fell back on Widow's words, hid behind the persona she fought so hard to create. "They tried to get us to break and their methods simply didn't work."
"Ineffective," Steve parroted, hinting that they had used that line one too many times.
"Something like that," Clint agreed, took the out whether he was being offered it or not, and edged towards the doorway.
"It's more than that," Steve insisted. Clint turned so he wouldn't have to see him, draped the towel he had just used over his shoulder even as he knew it wouldn't hide all of the sticky damage beneath. He couldn't look at him though, couldn't see the anguish written across his features, couldn't see the expression of emotion that he himself tried so hard to push down and crumble.
"It's not," he said as he walked away, numerous water bottles forgotten. What he didn't add, at least hopefully not aloud, was, "It can't be."
He went back to his room and bathed yet again, this time counting seconds to make sure he didn't stay that long even though the water offered a solace he wasn't finding anywhere else. He had pulled on a pair of sweats but hadn't bothered with a shirt yet when there was a knock in his door. His front wasn't as bad as his back, so he held a shirt in front of him for mock modesty's sake, figuring he could talk whoever it was into leaving, or give them enough attitude until they managed that revelation on their own.
It was Bruce though, someone he always had trouble giving the slip for some reason. He stood there and looked decidedly unimpressed with the greeting he was offered, and countered with, "Turn around, bright eyes, and let me treat the back you've been ignoring so Cap stops thinking your dying of dysentery or something."
Clint barked out a laugh despite himself, and stepped back to let him in. "A - I can't believe you just used Bonnie Tyler against me. B - I question your medical prowess if you think I can catch dysentery from some rusty metal."
Bruce offered him his usual quiet smile and said, "My love for the classics knows no bounds. Also, it got me in, didn't it?" He waved a small bag in front of him and added, "And no, not dysentery, but possibly some nasty bacterial infection, so you're going to let me clean 'em and drug you and then come docilely with me to where Steve and Thor are making more BLTs for you and attempting to make borscht for Natasha."
That brought him up short. "She hates borscht," he warned. He stopped the pretense of covering himself and straddled a chair instead, back out in offering to the medical treatment he was about to receive, whether he wanted it or not.
Bruce shrugged and set the bag to the side so that he could push up his sleeves. "It's the only thing Russian he knows other than Tchaikovsky," he said by way of explanation, which made Clint shake his head and wonder how much more he would know by the end of the night.
New bandages applied and a promise/threat that fresh ones would be procured for at least three days, he tugged on his shirt and dutifully downed the pills offered, Stark's earlier words echoing in his mind as much as Banner's raised eyebrow and the knowledge that he was one if the few people on earth willing to wait him out if need be. He followed his new overlord down to the kitchen where, sure enough, the smell of bacon mingled with the smell of beets.
Natasha arrived, took one look at the offerings, and simply said, "No." She made herself a salad instead, stole a piece of meat from Clint's plate to crumble on top, and walked right back to her room.
Thor looked crushed and Steve looked confused, but Clint turned to Bruce and said, "Told you."
He ate his sandwich and drank the milkshake Thor made him, questioning the calorie count until he remembered he hadn't eaten since their late breakfast and that his team was keeping close enough tabs on him to notice. By the time he reached the bottom of the glass, he questioned if the shake had been drugged, or if there was something more than antibiotics in the pills he had been given. He was dead on his feet and could barely keep his eyes open.
Bruce escorted him back to his room and settled him on his mattress, tucked a light blanket around him despite the precision temp of the room. "You know," Clint yawned, watching as a glass of water and another dose of something, this one actually in a prescription bottle, was placed on his bedside table. "It's usually bad form to drug someone senseless after a traumatic event."
"It's usually bad form to lie about the severity of your injuries to someone trying to keep you out of Medical," Bruce countered, which wasn't so much a low blow as an honest one. "You were given a mild muscle relaxant to ease the strain on your back and that hand you've been ignoring, the rest is all you."
"Shouldn't be that tired," he protested. He shifted the blanket up a little bit higher before he gave it up as a lost cause.
"Shouldn't be that stupid after having the crap beat out of you," Bruce rejoined. He pulled the offending fabric to just under his chin, where Clint himself preferred it.
"Your bedside manner sucks," he complained, yawning yet again. "See if I'm able to haul my ass up when we get a call to assemble. You're on your own, bro."
"You're on stand down anyway," Banner pointed out.
Clint scoffed. "Yeah, because that totally makes a difference."
Bruce had nothing to say to that, so he smiled and muttered some nicety that was probably a goodnight, and closed the door softly behind him. Clint waited exactly three seconds after hearing the click to say, "Hello, Tasha."
Natasha appeared from behind a corner, expression suspicious. "What did he give you?" she demanded.
Clint was self aware enough to know pretty much every common drug's reaction on his body at this point in his career, and so he was fairly confident in his correctness when he said, "Exactly what he said. Can push through it if I need to, but have to admit sleep sounds real good right about now." He meant sleep without nightmares, sleep without dreams of her tied to that damn gurney with him helpless to do anything about it, but figured she understood the subtext.
She nodded and kicked off the soft soled shoes she had been wearing before she settled herself on the bed, headboard at her back. "He shouldn't drug you," she said, still more than a little peeved and a lot more than a little protective.
"Nope," he agreed with another yawn.
"He saw the bruises," she said next, after a pause. She filled the silence with adjusting the covers she had just disrupted back to their previous state.
"Probably," he sighed. He knew which ones she meant, the ones the others either hadn't seen yet or hadn't pieced together the source of. The ones shaped like fingers. The ones carved into skin. The ones easily covered, if you paid attention to such things.
There was another pause, her hands stilling, and then, quieter, "Do you think he knows?"
He turned slightly, pillow squashing beneath the weight of his head. "I think he suspects. I think they all do. I also think they have it wrong," he answered, the drugs and the fact it was her making his tongue loose and blatant.
She nodded, and from this angle he could see it as well as feel it. "Get some sleep," she ordered, clearly settling in for the night.
"Yes, ma'am," he dutifully replied, stopping short of giving her a salute because he did still value his life.
He woke in the morning to an indent in the bed and a lingering warmth on the pillow beside him, even if Natasha was nowhere to be found. He corrected that assessment when he heard a noise coming from his bathroom. He kicked off the covers but made his way over there slowly, giving her time to ready herself for human contact of the conscious sort. He pretended he hadn't heard her retch just like he pretended he didn't see her rinse her mouth with water from the tap. Instead, he let her slide past so he could enter and begin his morning ablutions and commented, "You show up in the same clothes as last night after leaving my room at odd hours and people are going to start to talk."
She wandered back to the doorway and made a show of removing her long sleeve tee only to replace it with one of his Henleys. It have him a glimpse of the lingering marks on her wrists, the line of colors along her side, the ring of fading green around her neck. "They won't say a thing," she said, and he had to concede that she was right. She grabbed a brush he hadn't known he had and dragged it through her hair before she asked, "Are you feeling better today?"
He considered that for a moment before admitting, "A little." The twinge between his shoulders was nearly nonexistent, the muscles of his back looser, even if he could still feel the actual healing wounds. His thumb still hurt like a bitch, but that's what he got for purposely dislocating it and then both fighting with it and spending far too long on the range without a brace. She handed him that brace now, and he fought the urge to roll his eyes at the predictability of the action.
"Food?" she suggested, a sign that he was not even to hint at knowing she had just emptied the contents of her stomach moments ago.
He didn't bother shaving, but did reach for clean clothing as he said, "They keep making that much bacon and not only will there be a pig shortage in the state of New York, but I'll be too fat to fit into my gear soon." He had been ready to comment about the artery clogging factor, but knew even the slightest mention of ill health was probably not a good thing at this point, for either one of them.
"There's always sausage," she said glibly, pulling on the shoes he hadn't noticed she had been going without,
He paused in the act of buttoning his jeans to raise his eyebrows at her. "You do know that most sausage is made with pig too, right?" he asked.
"Only the good stuff," she replied readily enough.
This time he did give in to the urge to roll his eyes, and caught the faintest hint of a smile for his efforts.
They reached the common kitchen to find that, yes, no one said a word about her choice in clothing or possible sleeping arrangements. Bruce was in charge of the meal this time around and it was something involving vegetables, quinoa, and a crap ton of spices; not the usual breakfast fare, but edible enough. Clint made a point of pouring coffee for both himself and Natasha despite Steve's attempt to do so, the look he gave him making the supposed team leader turn red and hint at just who managed to slip him the relaxant the night before. Bruce responded by letting everyone dish out their own servings into their own bowls as proof that everything was on the up and up. Natasha grabbed the crockery for the both of them, forgoing the ones already set to the side and rinsing fresh ones first.
"Sorry for last night," Bruce offered. He added a chili paste to the already spicy concoction in his bowl and stirred it in.
"No you're not," Clint replied, forgoing the extras.
Bruce took a bite and used the time it took for him to chew it to stall before he answered, "Not really. At least not if it worked and you actually feel better." He looked over the rims of his glasses as if to verify such a thing, and Clint spared a thought in remembrance of the far more mild and soft spoken rage machine of a doctor who he had first met so long ago, and wondered whether they had changed him, or simply let his true self free.
Clint didn't really have anything to say to the commentary or the scrutiny, not that he could as a call in from Fury interrupted anything else anyway. They were to assemble, just as Clint had predicted the night before. However, both he and Natasha were specifically excluded in the order, and not due to any narcotics that may or may not still be in their systems. She protested, Fury was unmoved. She protested more, Fury threatened dire consequences if he found her on the Quinjet or anywhere near the structure the others were to head to, dire enough that she actually looked like she was going to stand down.
The same threat applied to Clint, of course, with Hill herself to come over to babysit if they tried anything. They relented, but mainly because Tony stood just outside of Fury's view and silently promised a live video feed for anything and everything that happened. Steve pretended he hadn't heard or seen a thing, a remarkable coincidence for someone with his enhanced senses, which was as good as permission to do it as any.
The others left and Clint and Natasha stayed back and dealt with the dishes and set up the feed and pretended they didn't notice a cadre of agents milling about the base of the Tower or the way any easy to get to and reliable transport was locked down. Of course, Tony being Tony, there were backups that the team knew about and SHIELD did not - there were also probably backups that Tony knew about that the team didn't as well, but that was another matter all together - but the circumstances didn't seem quite dire enough to reveal those yet, so they were held in reserve should the shit hit the fan later.
The mission itself was to a compound of warehouses where the production of the serum was believed to occur. Considering they had found evidence of the production at the mansion, this seemed odd to Clint, but there was apparently enough evidence to warrant a team to investigate. Given that there was also evidence of those who had already been enhanced by the serum as well, the truncated Avengers team was sent instead of a standard SHIELD team.
As expected, it had been a trap. Over a dozen enhanced goons were on site, ready to challenge any interlopers. Not quite as expected was the fact that their interlopers included an alien god, a gigantic rage monster, a man in a nearly indestructible suit, and the original super soldier who was the only fully successful recipient of the full serum in known existence.
Or maybe it was expected, at least partially, Clint amended when one of the goons actually spoke. Tony had the sound rigged as well as video, and so Clint and Natasha listened in as the guy went on about the glory of challenging "the original" and how good it was going to feel to take him down.
Thor and Tony responded by putting themselves between Cap and the goons, and Cap responded by tossing his shield and nearly decapitating about three of said goons. Hulk simply began to smash. Deciding Steve had things well in hand, and possibly due to the explicit order, Tony and Thor spread out a bit to both give him room and challenge a few idiots of their own.
One such idiot really took a liking to Tony. Stark had been instructed not to use lethal force unless absolutely necessary - something that applied to the team as a whole, though the Hulk was usually given a little more leeway than most. This meant that he did not fire when the guy tossed him into some metal scaffolding, but just rolled with it and tried to disable him in other ways.
He continued to roll with it even when pressed up against a wall, alarms going off from the pressure exerted upon the suit. Over those alarms, Clint heard a grunted, "With that mask on, you could be anyone. Are you the infamous Iron Man, or are you the pretty little slut dressed up to try to fight with the big boys?"
The voice made his blood run cold. His memory matched the voice to the image on the screen, a face he remembered looming and taunting as the blows rained down, a head thrown back in laughter as he was told there was nothing he could do about it, and the brief moment of being dumb enough to almost believe it.
The sound stopped abruptly, and he worried that he had spaced out for a moment as much as he worried that Tony's tech had been compromised. Instead, Stark's voice, loud and clear and only a little out of breath, said, "Secure line. Is it safe to assume there were more than three bad guys in the room with you that night?"
Clint licked his lips to respond, realizing that must have been all the further Tony had made it through the footage, but Natasha beat him to the punch. "There were five," she replied with a voice completely devoid of emotion. Of course, her fingernails were currently carving into his palm, but he ignored that for now.
"This idiot in red and who else?" Stark asked.
"Short blond hair in blue," Clint replied before he could question himself. "What are you thinking Tony?"
Stark, as expected, did not actually respond, the line must have switched again because there was a click and then the alarms were back, the goon still spouting some truly disgusting suggestions. "I feel like my life is threatened," Tony commented idly, and Clint suspected he knew where this was going.
"Then you're finally getting with the program," the goon replied. He shifted and there was a distinctive crashing noise, a crunching of metal that corresponded with another beep of warning. "Though I can't decide if I want to just kill you outright, or tear that armor off and have another go at you."
"Yeah, definite threat," Tony said, tone suddenly far deeper and far more serious. The whine of his suit powering up echoed through the connection, and then, louder still, he called, "Hey, Big Guy, I have a toy for you. Don't feel the need to go gentle on 'em."
The goon in question was blasted back away from Stark and into the waiting hands of the Hulk. Tony kept the camera trained on him just long enough to let his teammates know "not gentle" was an understatement of epic proportions before he made a beeline for a certain other goon, bypassing at least three in the process. Thor took care of those, and then Thor took care of the remnants of the one in the blue shirt before the entire team, Steve included, rounded on the remaining super-powered idiots.
Clint watched numbly as the men who had made his life and that of his partner a living hell - albeit for only a few hours - were, for lack of a better word, decimated. It seemed too easy, even though he could see the effort his teammates were exerting to finish the job. He knew it shouldn't be a big deal and that, in the long and the short of it, what he went through that night should be only a blip on his radar of suck over the past few years. And yet, it wasn't. And yet every time he closed his eyes he saw Natasha laying there unmoving, vulnerable in a way he had never seen her before. And yet he remembered his words, his pleas for them to leave her alone, his taunts so that they would pay attention to him instead.
Maybe the incident was just too fresh. Maybe the incident was somehow more personal. Maybe he had grown too accustomed to his newly found massive backup and his expectations had been severely altered. Maybe this time things just really and truly sucked.
Part of him wished he had been the one to take the assholes down. Part of him wished he had at least been granted the satisfaction of seeing the take down a little more close and personal than a remote, clandestine video feed. Most of him still wished none of it had ever happened in the first place.
He forced open eyes he didn't remember shutting to look at Nat now, to see her sit there, outwardly calm and professional while her nails dug deeper and deeper into his skin, betraying her inner emotions in ways he would never call her on. She faced the screen and watched the cleanup and resulting investigation of the warehouse, and so he tried to do so as well. Nothing registered though, nothing stuck, and he would have to hack into the mission reports if he actually wanted to know what the hell any of his teammates had done. His mind was miles and nights away, filled with a sequence of images on repeat, the cycle beginning again and again and again while one tiny corner of his consciousness not currently hung up on living in the past reasoned that Fury was right and he had been in no condition to go back into the field, at least not for this particular mission.
When it was clear that the team was in no further danger and that the situation was under as much control as possible, Natasha and he slowly extricated themselves from each others' grasps. She disappeared down one of the many corridors and he did nothing to stop her. Instead, he blatantly stole a handful of nonperishables from the shared cupboards and headed up to his own rooms.
He locked the door and instituted the additional security protocols Stark had granted each of them upon assignment of their personal quarters and ordered, "JARVIS, no one in or out without my approval."
And JARVIS with his calmness and knowing simply asked, "Of course, Master Barton. Are there any exceptions to this decision?"
He thought of how pissed Tasha would be, and then he thought of how he needed time, even if it was only for a few hours, to sort through this on his own. With a heavy swallow, he replied, "No, none."
Of course it wasn't only a few hours and of course his teammates were less than understanding. Bruce had JARVIS relay messages while Steve physically wrote them out and tried to shove them under the door. Thor knocked, possibly hard enough to leave a dent, and promised to stand watch if needed. Tony pounded and threatened to hack in and override the protocols, but the fact that he didn't actually do so meant that he understood Clint needed some space, even if he didn't want to actually have said understanding.
Natasha was silent.
It was a surprise, and yet it wasn't. On the third day of wallowing in his self pity, he pulled up the various messages left and found she too had gone radio silent. No one had seen hide nor hair of her and she had somehow programmed JARVIS to simply relay that she was somewhere on the premises, but not to say exactly where. Dishes appeared and disappeared from the central kitchen on a regular basis, and Bruce's tea supply was seriously dwindling, but no one actually caught her roaming about, even though they actively tried.
He looked at the evidence versus what he knew of her and had a fair idea of where she would be the following day. Five in the morning rolled around and he released some but not all of the locks in a very predetermined manner and hit the vents and hidden access panels to skulk around with minimal interference.
He reached the gym to both find that his suspicions were proven true, and that someone else had either pieced the same evidence together, or had gotten incredibly lucky. She and Steve were going at it, sparring being the loosest definition of the battle he watched waged. She struck again and again and he blocked and dodged but made little to no offensive moves.
"Why won't you fight me?" she demanded, fingers darting outwards towards his throat.
He blocked the move with his own hand and swept her arm to the side. "I don't believe it's what you really want," Steve replied, and Clint winced in readiness for the retaliation. Rogers sounded winded, as if the fight was actually tiring him, and he wondered how long it had been going on before he happened across it.
"Are you," she began, foot lashing out towards his kneecap, glancing off as he sidestepped.
"Going to tell me," she continued, spinning in a roundhouse and following through with an elbow that looked like it connected in a truly painful manner.
"What I do or do not want?" she finished with a snap kick aimed towards his chest. He caught it and held her foot between his hands, her inner grace and balance and his restraint the only things keeping her from toppling backwards.
"Do you dare?" she demanded, and there was an edge to her voice, an anger and frustration that she had kept under wraps for these past few days, hidden away from everyone and everything. It lurked at the very limits of her being now, truthful and painful in equal measures, and Clint could see it in her eyes as much as hear it in her voice.
When Steve spoke, he sounded as broken as she was, rough and brittle and willing her to understand everything they weren't saying, everything they couldn't say because years of training and suppression had wound it too tight, kept it pushed down too far to ever let it out into the bright light of day where someone could use it against them. "I would never," he promised. He lowered her foot, dropped it in a way that helped her adjust and compensate, before he repeated. "I swear, Natasha, I would never."
He stepped away and grabbed a towel, never fully turning his back on her, but never twisting that extra little bit to meet her glare either. He moved slowly, stiffly as he picked up his water bottle and headed for the door. The slightest tilt of his head acknowledged Clint's presence in the hallway, but he never said a word.
Natasha, for her part, had moved on to venting her frustrations on a punching bag of the non-living variety. She kicked and she hit and she punched all in a flurry of movement, just the tiniest bit more vocal that her usual silent routine. It felt like glass against his veins to see her like this, not broken but so very far from whole. It was a rare thing, and he knew she usually preferred her privacy in times like this, just as he knew he couldn't leave her alone.
He stepped forward and figured she would have heard his footsteps as he did nothing to hide them, right up until he called out a soft, "Nat?"
She spun on her the ball of her foot, arm raised and fist at the ready, momentum enough to carry the movement through to its undoubtedly painful conclusion. She stopped though, stayed the attack, and there was absolutely no recognition in her eyes for one painful second.
"You going to beat me up too?" he half joked, making absolutely no move to defend himself.
He watched as she crumpled, her body folding inwards like the cliched puppet with its strings cut. "No," she whispered, promised in a voice so very quiet and so very much the real Natalia and not the act she liked to put on for everyone else. "Not you. Never you," she swore.
He caught her before she knew she was falling, led her gently to the floor where she wrapped herself around him, all sweat and heat and anger. He held her and let himself be held and the rest of the world seemed to fade away as nothing, absolutely nothing, was as important as that moment and simply being there for each other. "We're here," he spoke into her matted hair, red strands tickling his lips. "We're here and we're safe and we're whole," he told her, willing the words to be as true as he wanted them to be.
He wasn't sure if she was rocking him or he was rocking her, but he felt the gentle sway of the push and the pull. "I'm so sorry," she said, words muffled by shoulders and fabric. She pulled back slightly, forced him to meet her gaze. "I was aware. The whole time... I could hear and think but couldn't move, couldn't help you, couldn't stop them..."
He had suspected as much, but had no evidence until now, hadn't wanted to ask and discover the truth. "Nat, it wasn't your fault," he told her, tried to pull her close again.
She shook her head though, adamant as she said, "I know what you did for me, what you did so they wouldn't... I know, Clint. Even if no one else does, I do."
She sunk into him then, clinging and clung to and probably as pissed at him as she was upset upon his behalf. She didn't cry, and he was so very tempted to do so but couldn't do that to her, couldn't risk her misinterpreting the action, though he highly doubted she actually would.
Later, after his legs went numb and prickly and he could feel her shiver against the drying sweat, they helped each other stumble back to her room, the hallways and corridors oddly empty of any random interlopers. Behind the carefully locked doors, he slid to the floor in front of her couch, used it as a cushioned backrest while she dug around and set up her rarely used television.
They sat side by side, didn't say a word as the scene on the screen unfolded. Her shoulder brushed up against his arm, and her knee against his thigh as she huddled close, as the men on the screen taunted and teased and threatened, as they smeared Clint's blood across her naked skin and pondered the benefits of another test subject against instant gratification. She reached down and picked up his hand when a voice just barely offscreen, gruff from misuse and abuse, sounded to say, "You don't want her. Much more fun when they fight back, isn't it?" There was a pause and he remembered the tang of metal when he spit out blood. "Take me instead."
She didn't mention how it sounded more like a plea than a dare and he didn't mention how the supposedly unconscious woman on the screen squeezed her eyes that much tighter against something moist and reflective in the rough light of the room. Instead, she threw the remote through the screen, flecks of glass and sparks scattering around them both as she wrapped her arms around him and held on.
It wasn't perfect and it wasn't over, but it was as near to it as they were going to get any time soon, if at all. Knowing this, he pulled her closer still, bruises and welts and aching tendons all clambering for attention that he refused to give. He had far more important things to worry about now and, somehow, that granted him a peace he never knew he needed. He closed his eyes and made a silent promise, both to himself and to the woman in his arms, to use every method at his disposal to keep it that way.
End.
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