Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers, Marvel, Joss or anything that you recognize here. I was just having some fun with their characters.
Natasha took a steadying breath as she watched her partner get strapped down to the cot. She wanted to protest the restraints, claim that Clint was not longer under Loki's influence, but she couldn't be sure if that was true. Sure, when they fought, she caught a glimpse of recognition in his eyes before she knocked him out cold. They, however, were not his stormy grey eyes that she had grown to love. No, they were still a haunting shade of blue that exposed all the nightmares that Loki had promised her.
Loki. That green-clad bastard had started all of this. She couldn't wait to look him in the eye when he fell, because she knew he would. Even if she was the only one left to go after him.
After all, who was left? Stark and Rogers were trying to keep the ship in the air last she heard. The helicarrier was still flying, but the banter between the two of them over the comms had come to a stop. Last she knew of Dr. Banner and Thor was that they were beating each other across the Helicarrier. The battle ended - thankfully - with the very angry Banner off the carrier. And, as she had gathered from bits of conversations off her comms, Thor was no longer on board, either.
The Avengers were no longer "assembled", as it were, and that only left her fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Out of all of them, there were only a handful she liked, and even less that she would work with. One of them was lying a few feet from her, still unconscious. The other was no longer alive.
Phil.
Just the thought of his name caused Natasha to choke back a sob. On paper, Phil was her handler. Just another boss for her to answer to when it came to missions and protocols. Off the books, though, Phil was much more than that. He, along with Clint, was the closest thing she had to a family. He took her in when Clint had brought her in as an asset to the agency. Of course, he didn't do it lightly. Clint had to convince him that having the Black Widow on board was a good thing. Coulson was pissed and he let it known that he wasn't happy with the situation, but he trusted Clint's call and took the former Black Widow into his protection. The three of them became quite the team and wherever one was, the other two were not usually far off.
That is, until recently. Fury had put Barton on a protection detail at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base in New Mexico. Phil followed, mostly to keep an eye on any developments with the Tesseract, but also to keep tabs on his archer. Natasha had followed as well, but didn't get to stay long. A developing threat in Russia required her special set of skills, and Fury sent her as soon as possible. She couldn't have known that it would be a trek through hell before she got to see either of them again.
Natasha took a seat across from her unconscious partner and finally let herself rest. To say she was sore was a huge understatement. She had very unwillingly gone up against the Hulk. He knocked her around some before getting sidetracked by Thor (a man she would very much like to thank, should she see him again) and only had moments to recuperate before she went after Barton. In comparison to the Hulk, taking on Barton was a walk in the park. However, the bruises were still there and as the adrenaline began to wear off, she became much more aware of every one of them.
"Oh, Clint…" she whispered, rotating her neck to keep those muscles at least from locking up. To her surprise, he responded to his name.
It was just a twitch at first, a quick toss of his head. Then his breathing began to accelerate as his body began to realize that he was trapped. His arms tugged at the restraints and his fists clenched. But his eyes didn't open. She quickly went on the alert incase he wasn't himself, but kept her voice from sounding threatening.
"Clint," Natasha said softly, hoping to calm his struggles.
His eyes opened quickly and she saw the anger and the fear in them as he continued to struggle even more. He shook his head back and forth as if he was trying to shake off the last bits of a horrible nightmare. He clenched his eyes shut tight, moaned, then opened them again, struggling.
"Clint," she said again, leaning forward a little bit. " You're gonna be alright." She kept her voice calm, just incase this wasn't her Clint sitting before her, but instead the blue-eyed machine she had only moments ago fought down.
He opened his eyes again after she spoke, still struggling, but a little less forcefully, as if her voice brought him a sort of calm. But he didn't look at her, only kept his eyes forward. She wanted to reach out, turn his face to hers so she could see those stormy eyes, but she held back and waited. Partially out of caution, but also because she was afraid she would meet Loki's eyes instead.
"You know that?" He asked, his questioned laced with an almost frightened laughter. "Is that what you know?"
Natasha noticed that Clint's struggling had finally gone down to a minimum. She took that as a good sign. As Clint let out a few mumbled words, she stood and crossed the room to pour him a glass of water. She could hear the scratchiness in his voice from the few words he had managed to speak.
"… Have to flush him out…" Clint breathed, leaning back on the cot and finally relaxing some.
"You got to level out. It's going to take time," she stated calmly.
"Have you ever had someone take your brain and play?" Natasha froze, and Clint continued. "Pull you out… stuff something else in? You know what it is like to be unmade?"
Images of the Red Room and Ivan Petrovitch suddenly flooded her mind. She had been just a kid when they took apart her mind and filled with combat training, biotechnological tactics and espionage. She was turned into a killing machine when she was just a kid. It was something she remembered all to well. It was also something she had confided in Clint.
She turned to him, finally meeting his eyes for the first time since he had awoken from her knock-out punch. She was greeted with the storm-grey color she had longed for and it took every part of her being to refrain from touching his face. She wanted to be sure that it was really him, but she couldn't shake the caution. She didn't want to admit it, but what Loki had said had scared her right to her core. She thought that seeing his eyes return to normal would be the convincing she needed, but then he mentioned being unmade. He knew everything about her past, just as she knew all about his. How could he forget…
"You know that I do" Natasha replied, doing all she could to keep up an emotionless mask. If it wasn't Clint, she didn't want him to know that he struck a nerve. If it was Clint, she didn't want him to know that what he said had brought back painful and unwanted memories.
Upon hearing her reply, Clint took a long pause and looked away as if he were ashamed that he had even mentioned it. She took that as another good sign.
"Why am I back?" Natasha kept her eyes on him as he changed the subject quickly back to what happened. "How did you get him out?"
"Cognitive Recalibration," she stated coolly, as if it were common sense. When he gave her a puzzled look, she added "I hit you really hard on the head."
As he groaned out a thanks, she took him all in. On the outside he looked exhausted, but she could see that he was also still scared. Afraid of what Loki had done to him, of the things that he himself had done, and whether or not he was going to become possessed again.
She took a moment to glance at the straps holding her partner down. What he needed right now was a sense of safety, but also trust. Being strapped to a bed wasn't a sign of trust. She quickly figured out what sort of attack plan she could dish out in their current position if he went blue-eyed again before deciding to undo the wrist restraints.
"Natasha," he began, "How many agents did I -"
"Don't," she said quickly, her eyes darting up to meet his. "Don't do that to yourself, Clint."
She knew that, had their roles been reversed, she would have asked the same question. She also knew that Clint could not be happy with the fact that she was withholding information from him. But she had to. It wasn't a number she wanted to share or that he needed to have weighing on his already troubled mind. As his partner - as his friend - she willingly took that burden. Of course, Clint wasn't free of it. He knew he had killed agents. That alone was going to haunt him, and as she stared into his eyes, she knew that he knew it, too.
"This is Loki. This is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for." As the tricksters name left her lips, she saw a wave of hatred pass across Clint's face before he went cold.
"Loki. He get away?" His voice was a wave of hatred. Natasha smirked. The assassin in him was back and ready to take down the bastard that did all of this. That was another wonderful sign.
"Yeah," she said with a slight nod. "Don't suppose you know where?" He shook his head.
"Didn't have to. But he's going to make his move soon."
"We have to stop him," she stated firmly.
"Yeah?" he asked, slightly amused. "Who's 'we'?"
"I don't know, whoever is left." She said again, a little aggravated by Barton's lack of enthusiasm. They had faced worse together - granted on accident - but they came out still breathing and always capable of more.
Seeing her determination, Clint gave a sight nod. "Well, if I put an arrow through Loki's eye socket I'd sleep better, I suppose." He gave himself a slight nod as if that were a painful truth and chuckled. Just like her Clint would. She let out a sigh of relief and smiled at her partner when he looked back at her.
"Now you sound like you," she mused, glad to see her Hawk smiling once more. She never realized how much she loved his smile before she thought she wouldn't see it again. Hell, she didn't realize there were a lot of thing about her partner that she would have missed until they were no longer there.
"But you don't," he pointed out, studying her face. "You're a spy, not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why? What did Loki do to you?"
The sudden question had caught Natasha off guard. Leave it to Clint to ask an obvious question that she had so easily overlooked. After all, she wasn't concerned about her, she was concerned about him. She was ready to tear the world apart to get her Hawk back. Luckily enough for her, she had friends in high places who brought along an entourage of super heroes to lend a hand.
But through all of it, she never really asked herself why. After all, he was her partner. That's what partner's did for each other, right? At least, that's what she would have told anyone else. And they would have accepted it as such.
But not Clint. He would know. He would see right through her guise and know that the reason she was ready to run head first into the war was because Loki had taken Clint away from her. And it wouldn't just be because they were partners. It would be because she needed him, just as much as he needed her.
Natasha stared into Clint's stormy eyes, trying desperately to come up with an answer for him. She wanted so badly to tell him the truth, but she couldn't find the words. Not to mention that everything she stood for was telling her to not say how she really felt. Love is for children and she, most certainly, was no longer a child.
Finally, Natasha spoke. "He didn't, he just…" Even as the words escaped her lips, she knew he wouldn't believe her. That realization quickly made her hesitate with an answer. Her brain was fighting with the words to say. Did she tell the truth or did she lie? She regretted never telling Clint how she really felt when she thought that Clint was a goner. Now here was her chance to change all of that, and she was faltering.
And the more she looked into his eyes, the harder it was for her come up with a believable lie. She quickly turned away from Clint and tried to gather her wits. She has faced thugs, dictators, soldiers by the handful and so on without much hesitance. But when it came to how she felt about Clint, she was lost. It was unknown territory to her and in light of recent happenings, she had to learn real quick on how to handle it.
"Tasha…" he whispered softly in a voice that was reserved only for her. She bit her lip, continuing to look at anything but his face. He, however, was having none of that. Gently, he lifted his hand to her cheek and turned her face back towards his, just like she had wanted to do earlier. "Nat," he whispered again, "What did he do?"
She felt a rush of electricity as his fingers caressed her cheek and she knew she was done. She couldn't hold back the tears that had suddenly emerged when their eyes locked, nor could she hold back the words that followed.
"You," She sobbed softly. "He took you away from me, Clint." The words caught themselves in her throat as all her emotional training just went out the window. "I thought I was going to lose you."
Soothingly, he ran his thumb across a tear streaked cheek. "Hey, don't you worry. It won't be that easy to get rid of me, Widow." He said with a smirk. She let out a small laugh, another tear coasting down her face. He was quick to wipe it away, along with a few stray locks of her hair.
For a moment, there were no words between them, but their eyes never parted. The silence, though, spoke volumes. She let her hand cover his as she leaned into his touch and took in all of Clint that she could. She almost lost him once, and the war wasn't even over yet. There was no way in hell she was going to let any more opportunities with Clint slip by again.
As her heart raced, she found herself leaning towards her partner. And when he met her in a kiss, she knew that her Hawk was back where he belonged and there was nothing anyone could do to keep them apart.
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