Natasha eyes her silent partner. He's sinking into his chair, one foot up on hers, pulling out his Russian copy of Crime and Punishment, a sure sign of his trying not to think. He doesn't look up when the waitress puts the shawarma in front of him, just reaches out for the wrap and rips a piece off with one hand while the other keeps the book open.
She knows there's only a thin barrier keeping them both from collapse, and hopes it wouldn't happen yet.
They part later. Tony takes Steve and Bruce back to Stark Tower; only he keeps calling it 'Avengers' Tower' and insists they all need to come there, promising them multiple floors each. Fury sends an agent (trust him to know where they are) to pick up Clint and Natasha, and ends up taking Thor along too, since he wants to see his brother.
In the infirmary, they bandage each other up; Clint's knee is pretty bad, and Natasha makes an exasperated comment about falling out of windows, and Clint responds by saying he jumped and it's almost normal.
Except there should be a third person there.
Clint hijacks a SHIELD car and they leave the compound (and a probably irate Fury) behind and just start driving. Once out of the city, Clint accelerates more and more and Natasha, who was reciting the words for Finlandia in the original Finnish over and over to keep from thinking suddenly realizes they're going past one hundred miles an hour.
'Barton...'
He doesn't respond.
Pay attention, Barton, you almost hit that truck. Phil - don't think about that – one hundred bottles of beer on the wall – I wasn't there to help. I wasn't there. I was leading an attack against everything he stood for. I wasn't there when my handler – Coulson – Phil – my brother– was dying. He died. He's dead. He's gone. He's dead. Gone. Gonegonegonegone-gone-
'Clint! Черт возьми, Clint, slow down!'
His grip on the steering wheel is white-knuckled and it takes a moment before his foot leaves the accelerator. He can feel moisture stinging his eyelids and can't remember the last time he cried about anything; and then he's losing it. He brakes sharply, swinging onto a gravel road and skidding to a stop. He can't see anything anymore, anything but Phil's face the last time he saw him. A ragged breath escapes him.
He pulls over and leans his arms against the wheel, dropping his head onto them, and then his shoulders start shaking. Natasha's never seen him cry before; he's always pulled through the hardest situations with terrible jokes, but this is Coulson and she can feel his loss too. After Clint, he was the first to accept her into SHIELD, even before Fury trusted her, simply because Clint did. She opens her door, crosses to the driver's side and opens his, then takes his hand. He comes without saying a word, still breathing hard, and she leans against the side of the car, arms holding him, trying to offer comfort. He cries then, soaking her shirt and she can feel her own eyes watering. Coulson was their only family, and now he's gone.
Clint recovers slowly, shuddering gasps still escaping him, and sits back up.
'I'm so sorry, Nat,' he says. 'I wasn't there. It's my fault; I wasn't there!'
'Stop that right there,' she tells him. 'It's Loki's fault, not yours. You weren't trained for any of what happened, and you can't be blamed for it.'
He looks into her eyes, desperately wanting something, anything, to change, to bring Phil back saying, 'It was just a prank.' But he knows it won't happen. Phil is dead. He's gone. Nothing can change that, nothing at all. They sit there, side by side, backs against the car, for a long time.
Clint is on the passenger side now, with his eyes closed, fighting a headache. They aren't sure where they're going; somewhere maybe where they can forget for a while, only what place is that? Phil was Clint's handler for almost eleven years, and both of theirs for eight. They've been all over the world with him. He was more than the person on the other side of the comm., he was Clint's brother in all the ways that mattered, a better brother than Barney had ever been.
They drive straight south for almost thirty hours, switching off regularly and napping in the passenger side, both silent, until they reach Colorado. Natasha breaks the quiet as she slides back into the driver's seat.
'Do you think we should go back?'
He looks away, out over the mountains, before bringing his eyes back to her.
'Nat-'
He can't finish, just folds himself into the seat and slams the door. She puts the car in gear again and continues west.
They stop in Grand Junction, pulling over beside an actual truck-stop restaurant, since Natasha flatly refused to eat any more heat-lamp-warmed Bavarian sausages. The place isn't wonderful, but the food, Clint assures her, is top-notch. And then she laughs at him for using a word like that, and he grins and for a moment everything is normal.
Natasha sits well away from the window in a little booth where she can see the entrance and Clint slides in next to her. The waitress is friendly, if a little sleep-deprived, and the food, as promised, is excellent. Clint's got something on his mind and Natasha is fine with silence, so the only noises come from the kitchen and the highway outside. They're almost finished before Clint speaks.
'Tasha, I wanna marry you.'
Her fork freezes halfway to her mouth, eyes widening in surprise, and he hurries on.
'I wanted to talk to you earlier, but then all this craziness started happening and we got too busy. And – It-' he makes a frustrated noise. 'I was up there on the roof, couldn't even see you, felt like I was useless… I don' want that to happen again, Nat. I don't wanna be without you.' He stares at his hands for a moment, then looks her in the face. 'I love you.'
There's something in his eyes – Natasha recalls a day, almost nine years earlier, when he finally caught up with her and actually had the arrow at her throat before he really looked at her. His gaze now is similar, but there's something more in it. She's seen it in marks that she was sent by the Red Room to seduce, seen it in the unguarded moments before she ripped information from them and sent them to their graves, but with Clint it's as far unrelated to that lust as poison is from water. Nothing she's ever done has prepared her for this.
She's been broken, but so has Barton, and her jagged edges fit against his somehow and for the first time since the Red Room she's whole.
'Yes,' she says simply, and takes his hand.