A/N: A small one for Clintasha. It doesn't really have anything to do with Valentine's or romance, but it's a day in the partnership between Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff. I hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Avengers, Marvel or anything remotely affiliated with the brilliance that are these characters.
Through Debris and Declarations
Feb. 14, 2013
Coughs broke the silence that had been the result of tons of concrete falling on and filling the underground tunnels. Dust filled the air, making it a cloud of white and gray and hurt. As soon as she was able to breathe, she groaned as she registered the pain from her abdomen. Cakes of concrete dust covered her face and sat in her eyelashes, obscuring her vision. She looked about but everything was gray and dark. She prayed to whatever god would listen as she tried to move all her limbs, thankful but face twisted in pain as she felt sensation return. She groaned, compartmentalizing as she attempted to move from beneath the debris.
Only as painful protests from another person escaped a rather heavy-looking pile of debris did she realize that somebody else had been stuck with her before the building collapsed on the tunnel systems. She tried to recall what she had been doing but memory escaped her. Panic began to strike, as she proved unsuccessful in dislodging her arm. Dammit, she thought, her face contorted with pain, it was her primary shooting arm. She'd learnt long ago to compensate in case of such incidents, but she still preferred one to another. She felt something sticky beginning to run down her temple and cursed in her mother tongue as a wave of dizziness hit her.
"Tasha?" It was more of a groan than a call, but it filled her with dreadful concern.
"Barton!" she called out, hoping he hadn't succumbed to unconsciousness in the fucking long time it had taken her mind to absorb the word—her own name—and process its meaning.
"W-what happened?" he asked, and she wished she could see him. She heard some debris dislodge and bit her lip, hoping it hadn't fallen on him instead of being removed.
"Building collapsed. I'd say RDX from the blast," she replied, slipping into mission mode. It was what they needed right now. Their target had almost for surely been killed in the blast, and even if he'd survived, they were in no position to track him down, let alone apprehend and bring him in for questioning.
He coughed and continued; it was only when she heard his words that she realized he'd been laughing, a mad cackle to suppress—to no end; she knew him better than that—pain. "God, leave it to the Russians to distinguish explosives."
She coughed, too, feeling as if she'd inhaled too much of the powdered debris. Her eyes watered from effort and she heaved once. Bricks and large pieces of concrete shrapnel fell atop the piles. Natasha looked in the direction of Clint's voice, hoping he was more successful than her in freeing himself from the debris he had been caught under. She saw double but focused, forcing herself to keep her mind on surviving and getting out of this mess. No doubt S.H.I.E.L.D. had already determined the blast site from their surveillance equipment and satellite angles. Question was, how long would it take for a rescue team to get there? She glanced upwards but saw only the settling debris dust and what had once been the tunnel's ceiling.
"Are you injured?" she asked loudly. Metal rods stuck from the debris and she pictured an impaled Clint lying helplessly by before she banished the thought from her head. Clint had survived worse. So had she, for that matter.
Another groan. "M'fine," he murmured and debris dislodged, sounding like bricks. "You?"
"I'm stuck," she replied somewhat defeated, biting down her lip to sound more angry than hurt even if sensation was escaping her. Any normal person would have preferred numbness to pain, but she knew what numbness meant and tried her best to move the arm under the pile of heavy concrete. She winced and hoped he hadn't heard.
"Stay there," he ordered and she kept herself from rolling her eyes sarcastically. She was in no position to go anywhere, and he knew that; perhaps he was more hurt than he insisted. Comprehension escaped her as the room began to blur and she might have lost consciousness for a moment, because in the next moment of clarity, Clint was standing above her, feet balanced on concrete debris, trying to remove the shrapnel that her arm was caught under. Her head hurt more now.
How much time had she lost? She glanced in the direction where she thought she'd heard him earlier. Dust had fallen to the nearest horizontal surface and the air was almost clear. Damn. She winced as the weight on her wrist decreased.
"Sorry, Tash," he said but didn't cease his removal of the concrete pieces. He was bleeding from several cuts and his face was obscured by dirt, but he seemed intact. Lucky bastard. She coughed violently before she inquired about possible exit routes.
"Earpieces are dead. Out of range." His muscles flexed even in the oblivious darkness. She lost focus. The world blurred. She was close to fainting—exhaustion was so much nearer now than it had been twenty minutes ago (or was it longer? She couldn't tell)—but let out an unrestrained cry of pain as her partner managed to lift the last debris. Sensation returned far too fast and so did blood circulation. She flew upwards which brought her to a sitting position, heaving breaths as a result of the reminder of mortality.
"Hey," Clint said, kneeling down. He looked her in the eyes and didn't break eye contact until she had calmed down significantly. He should've been looking for an exit instead. As if reading her mind, he replied: "Had to make sure you were alright."
"I've handled worse," she responded almost bitterly. She hated being hurt; she could endure it, but Clint seemed to catalogue each time as if she was gathering injuries on some scale that justified his continuous concern. She didn't like being seen as less than she was. Flexing her fingers, she estimated she would be back at the gun range in a month's time. Cringing, she reestimated it to six weeks without interference.
He looked at her with mild exasperation if not fatigued amusement. "I know."
Then he proceeded to letting her go and shoveling through the debris to find stable ground to climb on with his arms. She noticed the limp in his left leg even though he was only crawling. Shaking her head, she decided to save that argument for another day—after they got out of here. She got on her feet, relieved that her arm seemed to be the only aching limb aside from the total soreness that was familiar to her. The darkness seemed to have concealed the head injury from him, which was good. His overcautiousness would only delay them. She crawled after him into the direction she assumed was out. She'd lost her sense of direction in the collapse.
They kept quiet which was unusual behavior for Barton when it came to the two. She figured it was determination that clouded his usual tendency to small talk—if it could even be considered that, seeing as his tendency was significantly diminished towards others, but it was almost as if he'd taken it upon himself to keep a conversation going once he'd realized that she wasn't going to. It was a nervous quirk in recruits, but she suspected that Barton did it out of friendship and reassurance of their positions in such rather than common nervousness. No, he was much like herself in that department: calm before the storm. It made them a great team.
After an hour passed with little difference aside from a four feet clearing of rocky concrete debris, she convinced him to let her look at his wounds: she'd noticed his pants growing more frequent as exertion came. His physical shape was something to be trifled with—one thing could be said for sure, their jobs kept them in the optimal prime—and it worried her to see his normally steady breaths so easily fractured by inspirational instability. He half sat, half collapsed down on the uneven floor of debris where one's ankle could easily be twisted, and closed his eyes. She kneeled down across from him, the darkness pierced by a flickering fluorescent light installation. She saw the exhaustion in his badly disguised features. He'd never been as good as her in portraying an entirely different emotion in the facial features. People claimed she looked cold and distant. Maybe that was true, but she could always direct her gaze to Clint and see real emotion, real opinion of whether or not she was doing all right. Her conscience had been lost a long time ago. Clint was expressive compared to her.
He opened his eyes and seemed surprised to find her staring. Unlike others, he'd once said that he didn't find it creepy the way she stared so intensely. He found it flattering; even as she'd gone on to explain that all men who'd found themselves on that side of her intensity were dead. He refused to be affected by the sinister truth, and that was one of the things that had made her fight to prove herself to S.H.I.E.L.D.
It gave her time to assess her own injuries. The arm was broken, where was unimportant. She'd tried leaning herself on debris by mistake and pain had flared through it. It would be one of the times where she'd had to resort to medical treatment with a doctor. She hated that. A large gash stretched across her stomach and the fabric of her black shirt kept sticking to it. Whatever mission wear she'd worm was now indistinguishable from Clint's due to dirt and debris and blood. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear out of habit rather than vanity. She trusted her hands more than she trusted her eyesight down here—and that was before her vision started to blur occasionally.
"It'll bruise," she said and broke their silence, referring to his injuries.
"I've had bruises before," he merely replied. It was true. Any day where they didn't get bruises was considered a good day, an off day. They didn't need filed reports to tell their stories; the scars of their bodies could do it for them. He bit his lip, a sign of weakness, but his eyes, too, betrayed emotion. Superficial pain, but underneath that, worry.
"We'll live," she said in response to that question in his eyes that neither of them dared voicing but both knew. They sat there in silence, rejuvenating their bodies with the temporary comfort of rest. How much would they have to dig? Hours? Days? She already felt dizzier than—.
"Whoa," Clint said as he caught her. She blinked, not having realized that she'd lost balance. Because that was all that'd happened: she had not fainted. His strong arm—biceps and triceps of an archer—held unto her until her weak fingers pried them away.
"I'm fine," she insisted but the depletion of energy in her voice betrayed the excellently worded statement. The whites of his eyes glinted dangerously in disbelief in the darkness. She cursed mentally for not telling him sooner—and not concealing it better. His hand moved to caress her cheek but met stickiness of the blood that had trailed down her temple.
"Bullshit," he stated in his American fashion. "Why didn't you tell me?"
She was so not in a mood to have this conversation. When she spoke it was that mission voice she used on rebellious recruits. No-nonsense. "It'd change nothing. We're still trapped and we still have to get out."
His eyed gleamed with the threat of taking this argument right here, situational sense be damned. He clenched his jaw before declaring defeat but the look he sent her made sure that she understood that they'd discuss this later. He was no more a gullible Iowan boy than she was a helpless Russian girl. She rose from her position; there was no reason to rest now.
She pretended not to notice the newfound tension in his shoulders as he worked alongside her, or the worry-filled glances he would cast in her direction when he thought she wasn't looking. He was supposed to be different: indifferent, in fact. It only infuriated her more to know that he was no better than the sexist criminals she was sent to seduce frequently. She didn't care about the greedy men and the fleshly desire in their eyes, but she minded that he considered her something more than her. However, the fury required energy and she resorted to pretending it didn't bother her to save her strength. She grew almost used to the double vision.
It took her several seconds to realize when they, hours and numb fingers later, broke through the frozen shower of concrete debris and sunlight streamed through the gap. She froze completely and it took her energy-deprived brain several seconds to react in its painful state to the hope. Barton started digging faster and she followed suit. Could it be considered digging when it was upwards? She was too tired and too hurt to care although a voice inside her head told her she shouldn't be. Endurance had been a skill admired with her previous masters, and she'd excelled at it. Perhaps that was why she allowed—which was another word for insisted with a vehemence—Barton to be the first to climb through the barely man-sized hole into freedom where Coulson stood by, claiming to have apprehended their target and have been searching for hours for the pair.
When she was pulled out, she sucked in all the groans and winces that tempted to leave her mouth, relieved to see paramedics already checking out her partner and his swollen left ankle. They'd thrown one of those blankets over him and she was flushed with relief and a sense of victory as she allowed herself to be placed on a gurney by trained medics, her body threatening to lose consciousness. In a moment of pure coincidence, Clint turned his head and she saw his eyed widen by the way his body tensed. After all, she knew his body language better than anyone.
She felt the gurney move on its wheels—so steady that it was a blessing after moving through rocky debris for hours—as Clint limped quickly to her side.
"You're a fucking fool, Romanoff." His voice was hard but she could see the smile at her being okay. Obviously he hadn't realized the full extend of her injuries. For some reason, that comforted her. She'd be no good if she couldn't even keep her pain from her partner in the darkness just because they didn't know a way out. He leaned closer and she sent what she hoped would be an intimidating glare in the direction of her medics to dismiss them. "Bashed your head pretty good."
She smiled through the hurt. "I think I'll live."
"It looks like it'll scar," he said.
Something must've flashed through her expression because he frowned. It all seemed delusional by now. She was no longer sure if they were still teasing and playing their game when she weakly asked, pouting, "Will you still think I'm pretty?"
"Tasha, I'll always think you're beautiful."
She smiled when she was wheeled into the ambulance—moments before losing consciousness—smiling like a madwoman.
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