Disclaimer: I do not own The Avengers, along with everything else associated with Marvel.
A/N: Hey guys! As I said in the summary this is a sequel piece, which is currently under rewriting. For the first few chapters of this fic there will only be hints at what the last one was about, then when we start hitting the middle there'll be direct references (OCs, plot influence, etc) that will be difficult to understand if you haven't read AOHQ (Which covers Iron Man 2 to The Avengers, Nat's POV). For returning readers, I really hope you'll like this one!
This story starts at approximately a week after the Manhattan battle.
*_*—*_*—*_*
The car didn't start up when they returned to it from the corner store.
"Battery's dead." Sitwell wriggled out of the driver's seat to the head of the car and lifted the hood. "Jump-start... how the hell am I gonna get this jump-started..."
Natasha didn't budge from the sidewalk. Sitwell deserved this. Who would stop within a mile of their destination to drop into the nearest grocer for a late-night snack?
"Call towing." She opened the trunk, hoisted a backpack onto her shoulder and tossed the other to Clint, slipped her hand into his and tugged, but he needed no encouragement to comply to her plan.
"Hey, hey. Where are you two going?"
"Can't be late. We gotta make a good impression." Her voice rang flat in the still night.
"But I need Agent Lin's signature! It's mandatory!"
Natasha ignored Sitwell and broke into a jog, rounding the first turn ahead. He wouldn't tail them. He'd probably call Autozone and go back to complain to Fury at S.H.I.E.L.D. The stiffness in her knees and thighs from being cramped in the car loosened with each clap of her shoes on the ground. Block after block. Clap and clap and clap and clap. The further they ran the more uninviting the San Franciscan wind grew, crashing into her, piercing the flimsy cardigan she wore. Too bad. In a haste to get rid of Sitwell she had left her jacket in his car.
"Maybe we—shouldn't have—ditched—him," Clint said, his voice disconnected like a bad radio reception, in beat with his steps.
"You wanted him to drop us off?"
"We gotta do this—proper, Nat. We can't just—"
"Too late."
At the next intersection the street dipped and climbed, hill after hill. Halfway down the slope they stopped in front of one of the box-like houses, gray paint crackling and scabbing on the walls. The windows were dark, curtains drawn.
Natasha climbed the stairs on the side and rang the doorbell.
"You think this is ridiculous," Clint said.
"Yes."
"Fury's made worse decisions."
"Like what?"
"You know the answer to that question better than I do."
They stood outside the door for three minutes. Four. Five. Natasha took out her phone and called, but no one picked up. She looked behind at Clint. He shrugged.
She knocked, then, reaching pass the metal gate to rap her knuckles against the white wooden door, and the hollow sound it made gave away that the house inside was hollow also, devoid of human presence. That couldn't be right. Her phone read 12:37 a.m.
"Stop. Stop knocking." A voice commanded from behind them—female, brittle like a stack of porcelain plates clattering to the floor. "Get down here. Get down, get down."
A murky figure planted herself by the sidewalk, one hand raised and flapping. Stepping down the brick stairs, Natasha and Clint stood in front of the woman, and the latter extended his hand first.
"Agent Lin, we're sor—"
"Drop the 'Agent', I'm retired." She gave them the most lifeless of handshakes.
Lin dug into her purse, and after some rummaging the clinking of a key chain surfaced. With a beckoning finger she led the two agents to the side door on the street level. "Where's your supervisor?" She looked them up and down.
"He had some problems with the car," Natasha said.
"Too bad."
The garage smelled of old paint. When Lin switched on the light and proceeded to open the second set of doors to the basement, the light brought out the white wisps that peeked out from her short, black permed curls. She turned and the light shone on her face, outlining the slight crinkling above her puffy cheeks. "Outside." She held up a key. "Inside." She held up another, and dropped both into Natasha's hand.
The basement was an ancient ruin: a small bathroom by the entrance, a set of stairs leading upstairs next to it; the remaining space divided into two doorless rooms, the carpet underfoot challenging any ideas of walking barefoot. One room had no furniture. The other had a small table leaning against the corner of the far wall, a double bed parked next to it.
"I've just one proper bed," Lin said. "Extra mattress in the closet there." She pointed to the other room. "I'll explain the rest tomorrow."
And with that she creaked up the indoor stairs. A moment later the door slammed. The walls seemed to shake.
The bed, unlike the rest of this tomb, thankfully, looked almost new. Clint settled on its edge, unbuckled his belt and pulled his pants down to his knees. The bitter tang of alcohol wipes dispersed into the air. Natasha busied herself with changing into an old shirt and a pair of shorts from her backpack, flicking her gaze every few seconds to the metal box he unlocked. Only when he had finished and dropped the used syringe into a red sharps container did she approach and sit next to him.
"Three." Clint rattled the container. His voice was hoarse.
"Let's hope we get out of here before you add a zero to the end of three." Natasha scooted closer. "This wasn't what I had in mind for an 'observation period.'"
"It could be worse."
"Go to sleep."
He shrugged, pulled his pants off rest of the way and tossed them onto that dirty carpet, then swung his legs onto the bed and threw a thin gray blanket over himself. Asleep in moments. A twinge of envy dug into her chest. Natasha flipped over onto her stomach beside him to try and smother that ugly feeling, but it only sharpened; drilled deeper.
At least it kept her awake.
After a night of tapping away at her Tetris app, and the dusty blinds above her head began to lighten, Natasha slipped her phone under the pillow and waited. Within a half hour Clint stirred, shifted around until he rolled the entire blanket around himself, and stretched. An arm stuck out from his loose cocoon and rubbed his eyes.
He gave a loud, swallowing exhale, and the mattress shifted under her. Natasha closed her eyes.
A warm light fabric fluttered down on her body. Something—a hand—poked her side as it tucked the cloth in. Then it left her alone. A minute later the sink in the bathroom began to gush.
Natasha rolled over on her back and let loose the yawn she had held back all night; this was the only time she could yawn without looking suspicious. Clint didn't need to know a thing.
"You awake?" he called, barely audible over the rush of water.
"Yeah." She yawned again.
"Sorry."
"No, it's ok. I slept enough."
"This mirror's got stuff stuck to it."
"We gotta clean anyway." Natasha got out of bed and went to the bathroom, where Clint leaned in to the mirror, his fingernail grating against some white spots, making the glass squeak.
"I'll do it." She budged him aside. A stained towel hung off the rail on the shower door. Natasha dropped it into the sink, then wrung it out and used it to scrub down the mirror. A vacuum cleaner whirred on the other side of the door, sucking up (she hoped) every bit of chipped paint and sand and who-knew-what-else that latched onto the tan carpet like ticks.
After she finished with the mirror, Natasha filled a bucket and carried it to the only window in the basement: the blackboard-sized piece of glass on the wall facing the backyard, above where the bed stood. Up went the blinds in a frightened flurry of dust, and it was another round of scrubbing.
"Well, that's a nice view," she muttered. An abundance of half-dead weeds and thorns hoarded the space where grass should grow.
The sound of the vacuum cleaner neared. Clint's reflection magnified on the glass. "Matches the inside."
Hollow footsteps on the staircase. Lin stationed herself at its bottom, and in the bright sunlight Natasha finally got her first clear look of the retired agent: tired eyes that she didn't know how to hide, cheeks tinted a suspicious pink, jade bangles cuffing the hand on her plump hips. Lin glanced around the basement, nodding, swiveling her head like a security camera.
"Morning," Natasha said.
Lin strode to them, still nodding. "Didn't need the extra mattress?"
"No."
"Figured out the bathroom?"
"It's fine."
The wine on her breath explained her blush. Lin sat on the edge of the bed and massaged her knees with her palms. "They call this neighborhood Sunnyside." She pointed out the window at the fog-soaked houses and trees. "Someone had a bit too much to drink."
And Lin kept talking, more to the alcohol coursing through her system than to Natasha and Clint. "Have you ever been to S.H.I.E.L.D Academy?" she asked. "Took three years off my life, and I only taught the introductory data analysis class, which supposedly had some of the calmest students." Lin paused to think. "They weren't bad, they were nice kids. They were nice, nice kids. Some of them made it into prestigious operations. Project Sailboat. Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S..." she trailed off. Her eyes filmed over with a faraway look. She gripped her jade bangles.
"I'm going up," she muttered. "Left the radio on."
Natasha couldn't hear any radio.
The stairs creaked as Lin went up. The door clicked closed.
"She knew someone from P.E.G.A.S.U.S," Clint said.
"Not uncommon. Lots of people do." Natasha redirected her focus to the wet towel in her hand and resumed scrubbing the window.
There wasn't much left to clean.
Clint wrenched the rusty back door open, but didn't go out. Natasha peeked from behind him. Dried-up gray vines studded with thorns overflowed the threshold, threatening to climb indoors. She'd seen neglected gardens before, but never this bad.
"You wanna do some shopping?" Natasha asked. "We gotta eat."
He shook his head, closed the door and hooked his arm around her waist, pulling her down onto the bed with him. Lying on her back, Natasha draped her arm over her forehead, utilizing the shadows to hide the ones that might be under her eyes.
Clint knocked her arm away and tilted her face so she'd look at him.
"You didn't sleep well."
"Still trying to take in everything."
"It's not fair, I know," he said, brushing her cheek with his knuckles. "That I get a free pass with the meds. If—"
"I don't want you on the medication."
"You know how bad it gets if I'm not taking them."
"Why tell me something I know?"
Clint took his hand off her face. "Why make me do something I can't do?"
Natasha rolled onto her side to face the wall. Every night he jabbed those loathed needles into himself she felt like they jabbed into her, too. Having him admit his dependence on them felt worse.
The mattress rocked once, and the heat of his body burned on her back, like sitting too close to an open fire.
"I know... I know you don't want—that it's—" A ragged exhale brushed the back of her neck. "I don't want to press, Natasha. But—"
"Some things I'd rather do alone, Clint."
No reply. His weight lifted from the bed, his heat from her body, and her back felt oddly cold. Natasha turned her head.
His movements sharp, Clint threw on a jacket and grabbed their only keys from the table. "At least you have the choice," he said. "I'm doing shopping."
He came back later with paper bags of stuff they had no place to put, and dropped a newly-copied set of keys into her lap. Before she could get in a word he left again, and this time he didn't tell her where he was going.
So that's how they'd be.
After a while her phone rang. Natasha fetched it from under her pillow, hoping it'd be Clint, but frowned when she saw the caller's name on the screen.
"Director Fury."
"Why'd you ditch Sitwell's ass?"
"He'd have slowed us down, Director."
"He had a car."
"One with a dead battery."
"I don't need you playing smart with me, Romanoff. You still had to stick to him. You're in no position to pull anymore stunts. Just because the Council let you go doesn't mean they don't got their eyes on you."
"Yes, Director."
"Is Barton ok?"
"Yeah, he's fine."
"He won't pick up his cell."
Natasha tried Clint's number after Fury hung up. No response.
Lin visited again that afternoon, changed into street clothes with the wind's disturbance in her hair. She entered from the garage. "Where's Barton?" Her easy, meandering tone had evaporated since morning, her voice tightening again.
"He went out," Natasha replied.
"Why aren't you? He should be the one cooped up. Until the check-in session next week, at least."
"Confinement's got nothing to do with it."
"Then why are you confining yourself? Fury could have easily landed you two in some boring old countryside. You got San Francisco. I'm not here to hold your hand and walk you through a tour."
There was a knock at the front, a humming bang against the garage door. "Florence!" a male voice called.
"Jesus Christ," Lin muttered and went to open the door.
Natasha stayed behind and waited for Lin to deal with the visitor.
"Aw, man. We had the greatest trip." The new voice, thick with a Spanish accent, grew closer, inside now. "It didn't rain this year. Lord is good."
"You say that on every trip with those elementary brats." Lin sounded like she needed a nap. "Get out. I'll open the front door."
"Nah, it's fine. What are you doing down here?" A laugh. "Gardening?"
"I have guests," she grumbled.
"You didn't tell me!"
"You spent a week playing Tarzan with your little monkeys."
The basement door swung open. "Hello!" The man that came through had bulging backpacks on his back and front, and two more hooking on the crooks of his arms. Like boulders they tumbled onto the floor. Sweat soaked the front of his white t-shirt. He smiled with his whole set of teeth exposed, and his hand shot forth to Natasha. "My name's Alvaro."
"Hi." She smiled and shook his hand. Warm and firm and—were those colored-marker streaks on his fingers? "I'm Natalie."
Alvaro looked over her shoulder at the bags and the clothes strewn around the bed. "You staying long?"
"Coupla months."
"Flo could do so much better with fixing this place up. You from around here?"
"New York."
Alvaro's eyes widened. "Did you live in Manhattan?"
"No." She laughed. "I didn't see any superheroes. Sorry."
"Oh that's alright. I saw them on T.V. Iron Man." He bent and slung his bags over his body. "Look, Natalie, I'd love to talk more, but I got my kid sitting on the stairs outside an' all this camping stuff I need to sort out at home. I visit Flo every Friday so I'll see you around."
Lin groaned. "Stop calling me that."
After Alvaro left, she did, too, leaving Natasha alone again. Grudgingly, she rummaged through the food and supplies Clint had brought back on his first trip out: corn flakes, granola bars, coffee, a carton of milk that would have spoiled if she didn't rush it to the fridge in the garage; plastic spoons and forks and cups, toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, and a crushed roll of today's paper.
Stark's face took up the front, with the headline Billionaire Tony Stark Talks the Avengers and Ambitions for Stark Industries straddling the width of the page.
More like "Pepper Potts Talks," but the New York battle and his promise on chasing after Jericho had illuminated a corner of Stark that she hadn't seen before. Maybe she had always known it, that he had more going on about him than snide comments and ego issues. Did she want to admit it? No.
Natasha tossed the newspaper back into the bag.
The hours crawled from afternoon into evening. Lin's Chinese drama blasted from upstairs in a mix of shrill conversations and soft piano soundtracks. Natasha dug into a bowl of milk and cornflakes and waited. Where did Clint go? She typed half a text message before backspacing it all, and tossed her phone into a burrow of crumpled shirts. Having someone control another part of his life was the last thing he needed... Plus, his phone's probably still off.
It was approaching midnight when she heard the ring of keys. He entered without a word and headed straight for the shower. When he came out ten minutes later, damp hair spiky and glistening, he promptly got into bed, curled up on his side, and draped an arm over Natasha. She was lying on her stomach, giving the Tony Stark newstory another chance. He pulled her close. The shampoo smell on him grew stronger.
"Where'd you go?" she asked.
"Around." Clint stretched to turn off the lamp.
Natasha slipped the newspaper under her pillow. If he didn't want to tell her, fine; her concerns concentrated elsewhere, anyway. She couldn't stay awake forever, and from the looks of it he'd make sure she slept tonight. Maybe she should tell him. Tell him why he'd do better to leave her alone. But what good would that do? Telling him would mean uprooting a barrier between them that she tried to ignore.
The moonshine filtering through the window cast a blue, almost opaque glow over his eyes.
She let her bedraggled consciousness go with a shiver.
—
Snapping awake some hours later, Natasha held her breath and fixed her eyes on the first thing in sight: the mute color of the too-hot pillow under her cheek. Slowly she let her breath go and waited for her heartbeat to quieten. Her throat felt like she had swallowed a mouthful of sand, her body twitched with shivers.
She didn't expect to be caught off-guard by something she had thought and dreaded about for days.
For the entire week after Manhattan her sleep had came either from fatigue and shock or from the IV drugs Fury had insisted upon, after sitting by her hospital bed in the hidden room behind his office. He knew the nightmares would hit; Fury knew everything. Now she had but herself and it wasn't enough.
Her eyes traveled up. Clint was awake. Staring at her. With the moonlight tingeing his face silver, the crisp indifference in his expression made her pulse shoot up again. He observed her the way cats did from afar, keeping his limbs to himself, gray-blue irises dissecting and analyzing. That look on his face hit her harder than any murky remnants of the nightmare did.
"How long have you been awake, Clint?" Natasha held still under the sheets.