Disclaimer: I own nothing. I only wish I did. I hate these things. They always make me sad because I don't own stuff.
It occurred to me a couple of days ago that there is every possibility that Clint is HYDRA and I still don't really know what to do with it. But it also made me think about how Natasha has very few people to trust after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and she might doubt even Clint, despite being his partner. So this is a variation on that theme that has been rattling around in my head. Some feedback would be great - enjoy!
The aftermath of dealing with HYDRA leaves her confused. The fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. has left chaos in its wake. The agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are scattered. There are countless wounded and dead.
All of her covers are blown, scattered to every corner of the internet. Her crimes paint the front of thousands of websites. (There is red in her ledger. Now everyone can see that it is dripping, gushing with red.) Now the world knows who the Black Widow is.
That is the least of Natasha's concerns. She uses her blown covers as an excuse when Steve asks what she means to do now. It is not entirely wrong. She does mean to take care of that, but it is secondary to the thoughts that fill her head now.
Her first stop is a safehouse she knows is blown. She empties the cache, removing anything of value. She burns the documents and the passports – they are all over the internet, just like everything else, but she has a feeling that the government will clamp down and erase whatever they can. It is better that any evidence is gone.
She steals one of the cars that escaped the fall of the tower and the destruction of the helicarriers. Her first stop is a convenience store and the second is a gas station with a detached bathroom. When she leaves, she is blond and her hair is curled. She stops at a fast food restaurant that she knows has a television and stays for awhile.
The coffee is nothing special but she is used to having sub-par coffee anyway. She is on her second one when a special report appears on the screen. The headline makes her heart jump to her throat. International assassin apprehended at JFK.
It takes everything she has just to stay in her seat. They show the picture from Clint's classified file as the woman talks. She could read lips, but part of her is terrified and she cannot bring herself to try.
She is conflicted and confused. There are so many agents that she trusted – that he trusted, too – that have turned out to be HYDRA. She had thought she had known them – for heaven's sake, she had had coffee with Sitwell two weeks before and he was as much of a traitor as any of them. She trusted Sitwell and now she doubts everything he said to her – and everything anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. said to her, with a few notable exceptions.
They switch to video of his arrest. Watching a SWAT team surround him makes her throat constrict, especially when there are guns pointed at his head and he does nothing about them. He is on the ground with his hands on his head and Natasha rises. Her half-full cup of coffee goes in the trash. She pauses to watch the footage of him being lead out of the customs line, the case with his bow and quiver in it in the hand of one of the officers. She can see the fury written in the hard lines of his face as they drag him to his feet and lead him away.
She catches something about him being held without bail before she walks out of the building and jams her keys into the ignition of her car. This was why he was not supposed to go on assignments without her. He always, always got himself into trouble when she was not there to make sure he did not do anything stupid.
To be fair, they have not been partners in two years. Not since Loki and the disaster that was the Battle of New York. First because he was taken off field duty, then because he was assigned to the Treehouse instead of the Triskelion, only to be sent on a deep cover assignment that lasted nearly a year. She knew Fury had done it for a reason – Clint needed some space and to be able to find steady ground again and he was one of the best field operatives at S.H.I.E.L.D. They needed him stable and then they needed him to do his job.
It still hurts, not seeing him every day like she used to. His absence is a gaping hole in her life. It was nice working with Steve or working solo, but it was not the same. It is worse knowing that the assignment Fury had told her was next as a Strike Team Delta op and they would have been together again.
Now she does not even know if she can trust Clint. What if he is HYDRA? The thought makes her sick to her stomach. The one person she trusts more than anyone in the world, Fury and Coulson included, could be part of the organization that destroyed everything they had been trying to build.
This is a nightmare. Natasha has not felt this alone since right before Clint brought her into the fold at S.H.I.E.L.D. She tries not to remember what it was like before –it is difficult not to, when she has been faced with the Winter Soldier and the knowledge that he was once Steve Rogers' best friend.
It hits her as she is driving up the coast that she has no idea what she is going to do when she finds him. She has no idea how she is going to get him out—or if she can. She has no idea what she is going to do if he is HYDRA and he has betrayed her. She is not used to this uncertainty, especially with Clint. He has always been there for her and she does not know what the world would be like without him.
She stops only long enough to find one of her old contacts – one that is off the grid and not connected to S.H.I.E.L.D. because she cannot trust them –and put together a temporary cover. It will not hold up to scrutiny, but it will hold up until she can get to him if need be.
She uses this new alias to get into the prison he is being held at. It helps that one of the guards owes her a favor.
They bring him out in handcuffs and the look of surprise on his face when he sees her is enough to make her stomach sink. What if he is one of them? What will she do then? The only logical option is to kill him. It makes sense – he knows her secrets and he is one of the few combat operatives that knows how to take her down. Right now, the only thing standing between the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and treason is her and her testimony.
It takes everything she has not to reach up and hook her fingers around the gold necklace she is still wearing. It takes everything she has not to smile or to leap up to embrace him. Instead, she focuses on an exit plan, on the windows and doors, and then her eyes meet his and all thought of an exit disappears.
He sits down across the metal table, his wrists still handcuffed in his lap. They know better than to unlock them, it seems. Though she wonders why he has not already gotten himself out of this prison. He is a highly trained field operative who could take these men out in a heartbeat, even with handcuffs on. Especially with handcuffs on.
The guards back up, their eyes on the pair. She can feel their suspicion mounting. But it does not matter. She has her Widow's Bite under her jacket and it hardly matters to her anyway.
"What are you doing here?" Clint asks her softly. There is worry in his eyes. It makes her uncomfortable.
"I'm here to see you," she replies, as if it were not totally obvious.
He purses his lips. The look he gives her is barely different than the moment before, but she can see the disapproval in the lines of his face.
"I need you to tell me something," she starts. It takes everything just to keep herself sitting there, looking at him, instead of subduing the guards herself. "Two things. One – are you HYDRA?"
He looks affronted for a split second. "If I tell you no, would you believe me?"
They are silent for a moment. "I need your word, Clint. Tell me you're not HYDRA. I need to hear it."
"What would you do if I was?"
The question makes her stomach drop and her hands ball into fists. He can't be HYDRA. He can't. "You know what I'd do." That is all she can say.
He looks her in the eyes, his own burning like fire. Every word he says is measured, but there is anger behind them. He does know what she would do. He knows what she would do to him. He also knows that once upon a time, she would have razed the world just to see him safe. "No." His voice drops, low enough that the guards cannot hear him. "I am no traitor, Natasha."
"Then why are you still here?" The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them. It is a fair question, she thinks. If he wanted to get out, he would be out. He could have been out he would be a ghost. If Clint Barton wanted to disappear, he would have.
Clint is silent again, considering her with a look she is all too familiar with. (There is guilt in his eyes that she is too familiar with. It is his bleeding heart and his failures. It is everything that he cannot ever forget. In the depths of it, she sees New York, where he failed her, where he failed them. She sees Budapest and blood and she knows that she cannot give up on him.)
Don't you dare. If he brought up New York again—she cut the thought off, letting out a small sigh. She knows his hit went south. She knows that he would have had to pull out when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. "Don't. What happened on your op doesn't matter. I need you out there. Fury needs you. Steve needs you. We all do. We need your help, Clint."
He looks at her, then nods almost imperceptivity. "Where is safe?"
"Stark's. Maria is there already."
He simply nods again and suddenly the guards are there. Their time is up – she isn't even sure that they gave her as much time as the woman at the desk said she would get. That does not matter.
(He could still be lying to her.)
She lets another guard escort her out, and she gives her visitor's tag back to the woman who signed her in. "What's the story?" the woman asks.
Natasha offers a weak smile. "He lied to me," she says. "Thought I might be pregnant and he ditches me and I find out on the television that he's a murderer." She shakes her head. "Never should have trusted him."
The woman behind the desk gives her a sympathetic look. "Don't waste any more of your time on him, sweetheart. He's nothing but scum."
"I don't plan on it," Natasha lies. She knows that the woman is more than she seems – it is a high security prison, after all. (No prison could ever hold one of them.) But so is she.
She drives to Stark Tower next. Tony is there because his house in Malibu is under repair. (She does not bring up his stupidity and he does not say a word about her hair. They have a truce, if an uneasy one. All he had to do was call Fury instead of antagonizing the Mandarin to attack him.) She takes the time to dye her hair back to the color it is supposed to be and waits.
She turns on the television, watches as they talk about nothing but Clint's arrest for ten minutes, then turns it off again. Then she settles down to read from one of the many leather bound books she left in Avengers Tower during her last brief stay there. Suddenly she is grateful, as she runs her finger down one of the bindings. Her few personal things are at the tower, safe from the information dump that led her there.
The night is silent and she is more alone than ever.
It is three in the morning when his footsteps sound outside of her bedroom door. She does not hesitate to cross the room when she sees him. He is in civilian clothes and he is tired. They cross to her couch and settle there.
"How did you—"
He cuts her off by putting his hand on hers. "Friends in high places. You'd be surprised what happens when politicians and military leaders owe you a favor." His tone is light and it makes her mouth quirk up.
They sit there in silence for a moment, his callused fingers moving surprisingly gently against her hand. "I can't believe you thought I was HYDRA," he says. His tone is not accusing. It is a statement.
She looks up, meeting his eyes again, then shrugs. "Sitwell."
His mouth forms an oh and he says nothing more. He had known Sitwell longer than she had. They had trusted him.
Clint doesn't say anything else. They both know that facing the world after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to be like nothing they have ever known.
At least they are together, she thinks.