Lean Over The Edge Now, Darling

by Tarafina

"Tell me about Darcy..." the doctor prompted. / Clint is ordered to see a psychologist after a traumatic event causes SHIELD to indefinitely bench him, but he's falling apart faster than anybody could possibly help put him back together.

Title: Lean Over The Edge Now, Darling, Stare Into Abyss (Jump, And I'll Catch You, I Promise)
Category: Thor/Avengers
Genre: Angst/Tragedy/Romance
Ship: Darcy/Clint
Rating: R/Mature
Warning(s): Character Death, Violence, PTSD
Word Count: 9,628
Summary: "Tell me about Darcy..." the doctor prompted. || Clint is ordered to see a psychologist after a traumatic event causes SHIELD to indefinitely bench him, but he's falling apart faster than anybody could possibly help put him back together.

Lean Over The Edge Now, Darling, Stare Into Abyss (Jump, And I'll Catch You, I Promise)
-1/1-

The ticking clock was so loud it felt like either hand was scraping against his brain with each passing second.

Tick—

scrape

Tick—

scrape

Tick—

SCRAAAPE

"Agent Barton?"

His eyes snapped up, swimming for a second before he focused on the severe woman across from him, seated ram-rod straight behind her large, oak desk, a thick folder with his name written in black, block letters atop it and a pad in front of her that she'd been silently taking notes on since he arrived, her handwriting slanted, messy, short-hand.

His brows furrowed and his eyes dropped for a second, focusing on his foot bouncing, ankle resting over his opposite knee.

The SHIELD psychologist waited impatiently for him to focus on her again; she cleared her throat, a thin, black eyebrow arching imperiously over her dull brown eyes. Otherwise she was stone-faced, staring at him from behind thin-wire glasses, the corners rounded off.

The angles of her face were sharp; he imagined some might find her attractive in a tall, willowy, model kind of way. Her lips were just a bit too full for her otherwise thin face. Her dark hair was pulled up in a bun that stretched her face like it was trying to smooth out every non-existent wrinkle.

He decided she was probably repressed; the kind of person who never who enjoyed sex or fun or even music. She spent her every day involved with case files and waiting for the next client to diagnose.

Darcy wasn't like that. She was the farthest thing from being repressed that he'd ever known. Her hair was almost always loose; falling thick, chaotic waves down her back. She didn't wear suits if she could help it; she hated skirts. She was jeans and a knit sweater. She was crooked, thick-framed, square glasses and pop-tart crumbs stuck to her clothes. She was laughing, loud and abrupt, not caring if she was disturbing anyone or anything. She was crude humor and pop culture references and she was always up for skipping work in favor of a morning in bed, no clothes, just skin on skin.

Darcy was freedom.

He looked around the office, all dark wood and dusty books, and decided the good doctor was the opposite.

The name plate on her desk read Dr. Smith; it was probably a cover. If it wasn't, he imagined she was born for a job like this. The kind of person who was absent of emotion, clinical, interested only in understanding what made others tick; taking them apart and pointing out everything that was wrong before shoving them out the door; "Your hour is up. Come back next week."

Clint would rather skip it; so he pasted on a pleasant enough smile. "Sorry Doc, had a rough night."

Her eyes narrowed, sharpened. "You've been having trouble sleeping?"

Inwardly, he chuckled derisively. Trouble? Didn't exactly cover what sleep was like for him these days. He thought back to his night, his eyes turned off in memory.

There was pacing. Back and forth. His feet were itchy; restless. His fingers were moving, twitching. His eyes scanned, for an enemy? He hoped. A quick shot from the dark, put him out of his misery. But no, there was no one. And that only made him pace faster, quicker, desperate to get away from the crawling, clawing feeling of loneliness, despair, regret, guilt. He dragged his fingers through his hair, pulled at it, and talked, talked, talked. Just to hear his own voice; to hear an echo in an otherwise empty room. To remind himself to breathe, to remind himself why he was alone, to beg for an end.

He tried lying down; he always tried. But the bed was too large, the sheets too confining. He always woke up, tangled in them, reaching out and finding nothing but space. A cold sweat would soak through his clothes; make his skin itch, too tight. He'd walk to the window, stare out at the city below, the moving, blinking lights, and he'd bash a fist down against it and wish it wasn't bullet proof; that there was a way to open it, push it open, climb out on the edge, feel the air on his skin, but even the balcony was sealed off from him now, locked down tight by JARVIS or SHIELD or both.

And in the end he would just sit in front of his weapons cache, legs crossed, hands in his lap, staring at the doors, mentally trying to figure out a way inside. Until the sun would rise and his eyes burned and itched and he would pick himself up off the ground, take a shower, don his uniform, and report for work.

"You ever have one of those nights where you just can't fall asleep?" He shrugged, shook his head. "I dunno… Turned on the TV, thought the infomercials would help…" He grinned. "Bought myself a new blender." He winked at her. "Too good a deal to pass up."

She hummed, wrote something down on her pad.

While she wasn't looking, his cheek twitched, his fingers gripped his ankle, squeezed.

But when she looked back up, he was calm, at ease.

"Do you know why you're here, Agent?"

"PTSD," he said, giving a short nod. "Fury said I couldn't go out on missions until I was cleared."

"And do you understand what Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is?"

"I have internet access, Doc. Wikipedia's a gold mine," he assured. At her unimpressed face, he shifted in his seat, reached up and traced an eyebrow with a knuckle. "I knew some guys when I was stationed in Iraq; they weren't the same after…" He remembered their faces, their hollow eyes; he'd tried visiting a few of them, but it was like bringing ghosts back into their lives, making them relive it, so he stopped.

"And you, Agent? Did your time spent in war affect you?"

He stared at her a long moment. "It affected everybody… Some of us more than others."

She started writing again, but said as she did, "But you weren't suffering any ill effects then? That didn't begin until you started work for SHIELD, is that right?"

He ground his teeth together and lifted his chin a notch. "I'm a soldier. A target is a target. I did what was necessary."

"Agent Coulson has you listed as his most sought out agent," she told him, tapping a finger against the file folder. "Aside from Agent Romanov, he said you were the best he had."

He nodded; there wasn't anything to say to that. He knew the math; if Coulson needed somebody, Clint was his first choice when Natasha was on assignment. Sometimes even when she was around, depending on where he was going and why. If it hadn't been Coulson who offered him the job with SHIELD, he might not have taken them up on it. But Phil was a ninja; he was made of stone most of the time and making that mask crack was a hobby of Clint's. It was what kept him, for the most part, sane during and after missions, especially when they went haywire and more bodies were being flown home in bags than the amount of agents returning alive.

"You were compromised four years ago, is that right?"

His muscles tensed up, burned. "Against my will, yes."

"You were forced to work under Loki; to assist him in his terrorism."

A statement, not a question, but Clint nodded all the same.

"You were aided in your recovery by Agent Romanov and returned as an asset, joining the Avengers in the fight against Loki and the Chitauri army. And you've been a team member since, is that right?"

"Until recently."

She hummed. "Yes, Director Fury has made it very clear that if you are suffering from PTSD, as will be determined under my assessment, then you will be removed from duty until such a time as you are deemed fit."

Clint turned his eyes away, his jaw stretched tight.

"Were you treated for PTSD post recovery from Loki's brainwashing?"

"There wasn't much time… I dealt with it."

She stared down her nose at him shrewdly. "Are you dealing with your current trauma in the same way?"

He was trying, and he knew that.

When everything went down with Loki, when he'd been undone, he'd thrown himself into work. Being a part of the Avengers made that easy; there was always someone or something that wanted to take over the world or destroy what was good left in it. For months, he did nothing but work, bow in hand, focusing on a new target, trying to relieve the red in his ledger.

He couldn't do that now. They wouldn't let him do that now.

"I'm coping," he said instead.

He dropped his foot down to the floor and gripped the armrests of his chair.

She watched him curiously. "Tell me about…" She looked down at her notes. "Darcy?"

His throat tightened up. "What do you wanna know?" he asked, staying carefully stoic.

"You and she started a relationship after the Loki incident, is that right?"

His gaze fell to the floor; hard woods, shiny and gleaming.

Darcy shivered. "Shit. What is wrong with carpet? Why do rich people think cold as hell wood is cool?" She ran across the room on her tip toes and jumped onto the bed, burying herself in the sheets, dragging them and over her head, hugging them close. "I want shag carpeting… Y'think Tony would let me?"

He snorted, his arm tucked behind his head, a file left open on his chest. "After he ranted to you about how tacky is it, sure."

"I like tacky." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Tacky is unique. Marble and hardwoods are overdone." She rolled onto her back and shifted up the bed to lie next to him. "So? Who are we taking on this week, Barton?" She wiggled her eyebrows. "The Joker? Lex Luthor? No! Wait!" Her eyes widened. "Sue Sylvester finally put her world domination plans into action..."

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I'm canceling your Netflix account, Darce." He closed the file and dropped it on the end table. "I'm serious; Batman and Superman aren't real… And Glee sucks."

"Bite your tongue!" she ordered, wagging a finger. "I live in a tower filled with superheroes, so it only makes sense that my childhood idols are real too… Bruce Wayne is out there; he's a billionaire, he can hide under the radar if he wants to."

He arched an eyebrow down at her. "Fine." He dropped a kiss to her hair. "Besides, even if he was real, I couldn't tell you."

She grinned up at him. "You're awesome… Seriously, letting my little fangirl heart live on by suggesting he might just be out there and you can't tell me." She sighed, pushing up and crawling into his lap. "You make me proud to own your action figure, Hawkeye."

He snorted, but settled his hands on her waist, tracing her hip bones with his thumbs. "I can't believe you bought that thing."

She shrugged, rubbing her hands up and down his chest. "Avengers pride."

"You've only got me and Tony… and that's because Tony made up a welcome basket for you and Jane and it was filled with Iron Man merch."

"Did you know he modified one to send off real electronic bursts?" She smirked. "He accidentally put that one in my basket, but he took it back after I singed his hair."

Clint's eyebrows hiked. "Are there pictures?"

She grinned. "What do you think?"

"JARVIS!"

Her head fell back as she let out a loud laugh.

"Agent Barton?"

He cleared his throat and sat forward. "We started dating eight months after, yes."

"Against company policy, is that right?"

"No offense ma'am, but company policy is more like guidelines…" He shrugged. "I was never ordered not to engage her."

"It was implied."

He raised an eyebrow. "They didn't imply hard enough."

She blinked at him, her head tipped slightly. "How did your relationship evolve?"

"She shot me."

Her brows furrowed before her eyes fell to the file folder in front of her and she started searching through it. "That isn't listed in my notes…"

His lips twitched. "With a Nerf gun," he amended. "She kept one on her at all times… She thought the best way to introduce herself to a master-marksman was to beat him at his own game." His eyes fell away.

Thunk.

He paused, turned his head, and spotted a Nerf dart stuck to the side of the air vent. Brows furrowed, he stared at it a long second before a second joined in, five inches closer to him.

"Shit," she cursed.

He couldn't see her, the confines of the vent were too small, but it prompted him to start moving, crawling through the vents faster, his lips turned up in a grin.

He got to the end and turned left, crawled all the way down to Coulson's office before he pushed the cover out of the way and climbed down, landing on his boss's desk, crouching. He nodded hello before he hopped off and started down the hallway, exhilarated by the chase and proud that he'd won.

His mysterious pursuer wouldn't get another shot at him for a week, again in the vents. She seemed to think it was easier to shoot at him if he was confined to a small space. She wasn't wrong. But the angle was harder than she expected and the pressure behind the Nerf gun wasn't as strong as she might've hoped. She missed again and he crawled out in the break room, startling a secretary who was just trying to get a cup of coffee.

It went on for two weeks before finally she shot him while he was walking down a hallway, whistling to himself.

He felt it hit him dead center in the back before dropping to the floor. His whistle trailed off as he turned back around, only to find a smirking brunette, gun in hand. "Gotcha," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "In the back. Little ruthless, don't you think?"

She scoffed. "All's fair in love and war, Robin Hood."

His lips twitched as he looked her up and down. "Wanna get a victory drink?" he asked.

"You don't even know my name," she reminded, amused, before moving to walk past him. She slapped the gun against his chest. "Besides, you haven't proved yourself worth it yet, soldier."

As she walked off, he watched her over his shoulder and grinned.

Game on.

"It started with a game of cat and mouse…" His hands fisted. "Just progressed from there."

"You fell in love."

He ground his teeth.

"Tell me about her. What you love."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

His knee jumped and he reached up to scrub a hand over his mouth. "She's…" He shook his head. "Loud." He snorted. "Always. She's always talking, laughing, shouting…" He smiled to himself. "And singing, badly." He reached up and scratched his fingers through his hair. "She loves music."

He watched her, her head tilted, fingers running down the strings, plucking them carefully.

"You play?"

He shrugged. "When I can."

"When you're not saving the world?" She grinned back at him. "When do you get the time?" she teased, "Earth's mightiest archer."

His lips twitched. "Bring it here."

She saluted him, but picked his guitar up by the neck and carried it across the room, handing it over. He cradled it in his lap, tuned it out of habit, and then let his fingers drag down the strings, eyes turned to her as she settled down beside him on the couch.

"Play me a song, Curtis Loew…"

His eyebrow ticked. "Skynyrd, Darce? Color me impressed."

She shined her nails on her shirt before laughing and dropping her chin to his shoulder. "Let's hear those pipes, Barton."

He didn't play Lynyrd Skynyrd for her; instead he broke out Johnny Cash's Heart of Gold. He watched her face as she looked pleasantly surprised by his voice before she was soothed enough that she closed her eyes, a faint smile pulling at her lips, and rested her head down against his arm, just listening.

Her fingers tapped the beat out against his bicep and when he was finished, she moved the guitar out of the way and climbed into his lap. "Keep singing," she told him, before she buried her mouth at his neck, biting and licking and kissing his skin, her fingers working his shirt open.

He was still singing, shakier now, losing the tune more than once, when she sunk down on him, her legs spread and his fingers pinching and circling her throbbing, aching clit as she rocked herself up and down, climaxing when he hit a high note and taking him with her. His voice was too hoarse to continue even after she dropped against him, her head on his shoulder, nothing but damp, naked skin between them.

Twenty minutes later, he carried her to his bed, stripped off the last of his clothes, and told her, "From the top..."

After some of his worst missions, she'd bring him his guitar, and just lean against him, comforting him without words. Other times, she'd break out the guitar and get him to sing her into bed. She got him to record a few songs and put them in a playlist; she confessed she'd curl up in one of his t-shirts and listen to them whenever he was away on assignment.

"Do you ever have flashbacks, Agent Barton? Nightmares?" the doctor asked.

His eyes moved toward her, but he was confused, still stuck in his memory. Of Darcy dancing in the living room in nothing but one of his shirts, long on her, while he laughed, strumming the guitar a little harder, foot tapping, watching her move, all hips and waving arms and shaking her head, her hair bouncing. Until she was flushed and tired and she fell against the couch next to him, looking up at him from under long lashes. 'C'mon, cowboy,' she'd say before she replaced his guitar in his lap with herself and he'd get lost in her lips, her nails dragging through his hair and down his neck, raking at his back.

"Nightmares," he repeated, his brow furrowed. "Sometimes I think my life is a nightmare; one of those dime-a-dozen horror movies where it all starts out fresh; main character gets a new start. Shit hits the fan and nobody's safe… Even the survivors; they're never the same, stuck in what happened, playing an endless loop. Their do-over is done before it began. And then nothing is new, it's just old… It's all old memories and old enemies…" He scratched at his chin and shrugged, catching her eyes with dark resolve. "We all get nightmares, Doc… It's whether we wake up or not that matters."

When he was a kid he used to have a recurring nightmare that he missed. He would keep shooting his arrows, over and over, but they would never hit the target. They'd swerve off before they hit the center. He woke up every morning scared they'd kick him off the circuit; that he wasn't of any use to the circus anymore without his bow. With sweaty palms, he'd pick up his bow and force himself to train, over and over again, to prove to himself that he could still shoot, he was still of worth.

Dr. Smith was writing on her pad, her lips pursed, causing wrinkles and lines to form around her mouth, making her look older than she was.

"Do you dream about what happened, Agent?" she wondered, though her eyes were still down as she continued to write.

Can't dream if you don't sleep, he thought.

Actually, that wasn't true. Sometimes he managed to fall asleep; he woke up later, desperate and half-crazed. And sometimes he became so exhausted it was like having a waking dream. He was there, but it was almost an out of body experience, where his mind's dream started to play out in front of him. He couldn't escape it, either. He was stuck, re-watching what had happened. Hearing voices, explosions, orders being repeated through his comm. link, and the sound of each arrow leaving his bow, cutting through the air.

And he was helpless, pulling at his hair, trying to change it, willing it to be something different, to turn out another way.

But it never did.

He remembered an old army buddy that he visited once; he'd lost his leg and a good portion of his sanity when he was discharged.

"They ever ask you if you dream about what went down—" He stabbed his temple with his finger, "—if it's stuck in your head on repeat, you tell 'em no." He shook his head. "They'll hook you up with a doctor, fire you up with drugs, and sit you down in a straitjacket, man." His face darkened. "You think it's hard remembering, try forgetting only for it to hit you like a brick wall so fast it's like they tore out your organs and stuffed 'em back in backwards."

Funny thing, nobody ever asked until now.

"I don't dream," he told her.

She hummed. "And you never feel like it's happening again? You haven't had any out-of-body experiences, where it feels like you're back in the field and it's all repeating in front of you?" She raised an eyebrow. "Maybe just a severe sense of déjà-vu? A trigger or feeling?"

Everything was a trigger. His entire apartment, his work place, hell the floor was a damn trigger!

Clint stared at her. "Nope. Feeling fine. Good. A little edgy, but that's just because I've been on psych watch for the last two weeks." He frowned. "I'll be better when I get moving again."

"And your body? Have you had any physical reactions? Fast heartbeat, churning stomach, sweatiness, dizziness? These usually occur when you think about what happened…" She watched him. "Do you think about it very often, Agent?"

Did he ever stop?

"No. None of those."

"But you're having trouble sleeping…" She tapped her pen. "What about anger? Have you been feeling any surges of irritation or an uncommonly short fuse lately?"

He shrugged. "If I'm irritated it's because I'm not being used to my full abilities."

"And have you been hyper vigilant lately?"

His eyes narrowed. "I'm a trained spy; I'm always hyper vigilant." He could hear Darcy's voice in his head, exclaiming, 'Constant vigilance!'

"Even in the event that you understand you are perfectly safe?" The doctor waved a hand around. "You would agree this was a safe place, wouldn't you?" She watched him. "But I've seen you check the locks, the windows, and you've searched for cameras, no less than six times."

"Nowhere is safe; it never has been and it never will be. This is a SHIELD facility; I have every reason to assume they're watching… They ordered me to be here." His eyebrow arched. "You think they trust your assessment, but they're just using you to ask the questions; they'll evaluate me themselves." His lips curled in a humorless smile. "You're a note taker, a go-between… A pretty face on the cover."

"You sound aggravated, Agent… Are you suggesting your mandatory therapy is a conspiracy against you?"

He chuckled darkly and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Why don't you break out the hard-hitting questions, Doc…?"

She was silent for a long moment before she rested clasped hands on top of her notebook. "Your superiors believe you've been… erratic… emotional… They fear you'll be problematic in the field."

"No sugar-coating, I appreciate it," he muttered.

"You've suffered a great loss, Agent…" She eyed him, though there was no compassion in her face. He wondered if that was just her or her SHIELD training. "You were with her for three years… You married only four months ago…"

He winced, his eyes turned away.

He made her a new playlist before he left; he spent hours finding each and every song and downloading them. Getting her iPod away from her was a little harder. But with a little help from Jane, he managed it.

Every song was about proposing marriage. Some cheesy, some funny; some rock, some country.

The last thing he added was a voice recording of him asking her to marry him. He spent his entire mission worried he'd get home and she'd have moved herself out. Or that she wouldn't listen to it at all; that all of his hard work would be for nothing.

When he got home, she jumped him, laughed, and told him yes.

They were married a month later, nothing big, just his team and a few friends and her mom. He sang a song for her he wrote himself and she cried before dragging him out to dance with her. He remembered thinking, as he twirled her under his arm, that all the shit in his life, from losing his parents to his brother to everything that went down in Iraq and all the people he'd had in his sights working for SHIELD to Loki, it was all worth it for this one moment, this one person.

When she kissed him, icing still stuck to her lips from the cake he'd mashed there, and told him she loved him, he never believed anything more than that.

Dr. Smith raised an eyebrow. "Agent, it was your arrow that you killed your wife, can you honestly tell me that you are dealing with that?"

His cheek twitched. "My arrow was manipulated by the enemy and forced to kill my wife," he told her.

It was something he'd been repeatedly telling himself since it happened.

Something Coulson had told him when he was debriefed.

Something Tony, Steve, Thor, and Bruce each told him, in their own way.

Natasha didn't.

But she sat outside his apartment every night, staring at his door, searching for a way to tell him it wasn't his fault, one that he would actually believe.

She never found one.

"The battle was with the mutant known as Magneto, is that correct?"

He stared at her.

"He controls metal… Of which your arrows were infused with, is that right?" She watched him.

His expression never changed.

She drew in a deep breath. "It's my understanding that there was a press conference involved? Darcy was there assisting Pepper Potts; she was a political science major, she'd been training to help with pubic relations for the Avengers…" She flipped open her file and removed a number of photos. "When Magneto and the Brotherhood engaged with the Avengers, Miss. Potts and Darcy were ushered out of the fight. But there was civilian interference keeping them from getting away…" She paused on one photo and stared at it a long moment. "You had a shot at Magneto and you took it… He redirected your arrow and, because he'd seen you with Darcy earlier, had a different target in mind."

She held up the picture, taken only minutes before Magneto had attacked. He'd been leaning down, whispering against Darcy's ear, his hand at the small of her back. She was biting her lip to hide a smile, eyes turned up to watch him.

"We should get out of here…"

She snorted. "Some of us are working," she reminded. "You think I put this pantsuit on because I like it?"

He looked her up and down. "I don't know, it's doing great things from back here," he said, eyes settling on her ass.

"Keep it up, Legolas, and you'll be bunking with Thor."

He raised an eyebrow, amused. "Don't tell me you're passing up a quickie to play nice for the cameras..."

"I'm not passing, I'm asking for a short raincheck," she argued. "Pepper wants me to make a statement; she's trusting me." She smirked. "And besides, I think somebody will notice if we're one Avenger short."

He shrugged. "They'll probably just think Thor ate me; Asgardian custom."

She laughed. "I don't think you're his type."

He frowned. "I think I'm offended."

Chuckling, she shook her head. "Don't worry; I'll soothe your bruised ego later."

He grinned, ducking his head to kiss her temple, his hand settling on her lower back, thumb tracing circles over fabric. "How about right after you give your statement?"

"Fine, but we're going out tonight." She pointed a finger at him seriously. "I want dinner and karaoke."

"What's wrong with take-out and my guitar?"

"I feel like getting drunk and singing Spice Girls." She shrugged. "We can either do that at home or where other fellow drunk people can appreciate my craptastic singing."

He narrowed his eyes, thought it over, and then decided, "Fine, we'll go out."

She snorted. "Yeah, I was going to go out, with or without you. I was just being polite and inviting you along."

He grinned, nipping her earlobe and watching as she bit down on her lip. "You love me… You'd miss me if I wasn't there to carry you home when you're too wasted to walk straight."

She hummed. "Maybe a little."

"Only a little?"

Her eyes turned up to him. "Are you fishing, Agent? Do I not compliment you enough?"

"Only when I'm naked."

"Been there, enjoyed that, definitely the best time to compliment you, I think."

He grinned. "You're not bad yourself, Darce." His arm settled around her waist and she rested her hand over his wrist guard.

Her fingers fluttered to her heart. "I'm flattered."

He chuckled low in his throat. "So when you're done this, we'll hit the sheets and then the town?"

"In that order, yes."

"Paint it red?"

She reached out and traced the shoulder of his suit. "Or purple."

"Darcy?" Pepper called.

"That's me." She turned, lifted up onto her tip-toes and kissed him. "Wish your wife good luck."

He patted her ass. "Good luck."

He watched her walk away; she'd only reached the podium to say hello when chaos abounded.

"She died in minutes, is that right?"

He blinked furiously. "Four minutes, thirty-two seconds."

"You got to her before she died?"

She asked like she didn't know, but she held up a picture of him holding Darcy. It was blurry, zoomed in, but it was clear enough. He was kneeling beside her, her head in his lap, one hand on the arrow through her chest, trying and failing to stop the bleeding, and the other brushing through her hair.

He could feel his hands shaking.

"Did she say anything to you?"

"Jesus, fuck, Darcy… Darcy, look at me…" He licked his lips, his eyes searching her pale face. "Focus, sweetheart. I'm right here; I got you." He pressed his palm to her cheek and brushed a loose tear away. "It's okay. We got someone coming, all right? You're gonna be fine!"

Her lips were moving but he couldn't hear her. Partly because there was so much noise; people screaming, things exploding, the clash of the Avengers meeting the Brotherhood head-on in battle.

He bent lower to her and she covered his hand, the same one wearing a matching wedding band. When he was close enough to her, she told him, "It's not your fault… I don't blame you…" She shook her head, another tear slipping. "I love you. Clint, I love you, okay?" She blinked quickly. "Don't—Please don't add me to your ledger. Okay?" Her breath left her shakily. "I don't want you to remember me like that…"

His mouth trebled, his jaw ticking, as tears burned from his closed eyes. "You're gonna be fine. You're a fighter, Darcy. You're—"

He felt her last breath as it hit his face and he stopped, his throat burning. His mouth opened in a silent scream, the muscles through his neck stretched to the limit, and he dropped his forehead to her cheek. He gripped her hair tight enough to hurt but she didn't move. His hand twisted her bloody shirt up in his fingers. He stayed there, hunched over her, breathing in her scent, holding her, the sounds of the fight fading to a dull buzz in his ears.

"You're gonna be fine," he breathed, stroking her pulse-less neck. "Just fine."

"She was incoherent… Blood loss," he told Smith.

She laid the picture down. "Is it true you kept the arrow that killed your wife, Agent?" She eyed him searchingly. "That in fact you carry a vendetta against Magneto, and plan to use it to kill him."

"If Magneto dies by my hand, it's because I was ordered to kill him, as a matter of national security, to guard my country."

Her lips pursed and she started writing on her pad.

He was growing to hate that thing.

A knock at the door sounded then and they turned.

Coulson stepped inside, his arms tucked behind his back. He stared at the psychologist but spoke to Clint. "You can return to your apartment, Agent."

"I had a number of questions still to ask," Dr. Smith argued, standing, hands braced on her desk.

Clint stood from the chair and started for the door; he knew orders when he got them.

"Your notes are appreciated, Dr. Smith, they'll be very important in determining the mental health and stability of my agent."

"I was informed that Director Fury would be making the final call; that he would speak to me personally."

"The Director is aware of all that happened here; he's taken everything into consideration. We'll be in contact when necessary; for now, I need any and all notes and recordings you've made." His short explanation was one word, "Procedure."

Clint shut the door behind him and walked away.

There was an agent shadowing him; as soon as he left his apartment, he had a guard on him. Everyone, including himself and the agent, knew that if push came to shove, if he wanted to get out and the only thing standing in his way was this agent, Clint would be the victor. But it would also alert the rest of SHIELD and, for whatever reason, they seemed comforted by the idea that he had someone on his six at all times.

He made his way back to his apartment; he wasn't cleared to be at the shooting range and while he felt wired and ready to fight, he knew nobody would engage him. He'd already asked Natasha, repeatedly, but her narrowed eyes and raised eyebrow were all she needed to tell him she didn't think it was a good idea; that she wasn't willing to go a round with him in the state he was.

He spent the rest of his day like he had every one before it, at least since the incident.

He sat on the kitchen counter, legs dangling, boots still on, eating a bowl of cereal.

Honey Nut Cheerios.

He dipped his spoon down into the bowl and filled it; there was an art to cereal.

"You have to pour the milk counter-clockwise," she told him, leaning her hip against the counter, eyeing him.

Clint snorted. "It's milk; it doesn't matter what direction it goes."

"Blasphemy, Agent Trajectory," she argued, pushing off and moving in behind him, resting her chin on his shoulder. She covered his hand and redirected it. "You circle the ring of the bowl, counter-clockwise, and then stop! right when they all start to float."

He watched her as she directed him, squeezing when it was time to lift the jug back. She handed him the spoon and sunk it into the center and stirred.

"Voila!"

He scooped it up and took a bite before shrugging. "Tastes the same to me," he said through a mouthful, a drop of milk escaping the corner of his lips.

She rolled her eyes. "You'll learn." She reached up and swiped the milk away with her thumb, sucking it clean before walking away.

He took another bite and watched her hips. "Any rules on toast?" he called after her.

She looked at him over her shoulder, smirking. "Never use butter right out of the fridge."

He grinned, shaking his head. "Write a list; Darcy's Breakfast Food Etiquette."

She raised a fist above her head. "On it."

He found it pinned to the fridge with a purple and black Hawkeye magnet the next morning.

He watched as the sun fell, shadows and darkness creeping over the kitchen cupboards and walls.

JARVIS automatically turned on the lights for him, dimmed for comfort.

Clint had long adapted to a lack of movement. He preferred to constantly be on the move, but being trained as a sniper, spending as much time as he did in the vents and crouched in the rafters, he wasn't unused to a lack of activity. So he didn't feel it much when his body was forced into the same position for hours; his shoulders hunched a little, head bowed, hands in his lap.

It wasn't until his eyes started to itch and his skin felt tight that he shoved off the counter and started back toward their bedroom…

His bedroom.

His big, empty bed.

His extra pillow.

His blanket that he had so much more of now, nobody to hog it.

His sheets that used to smell like her.

His two end tables, one with her spare glasses tucked away in the drawer. A dog-eared book she was reading. A handful of files she'd been going through for Pepper, indexed with different colored tags for easier perusal.

Her iPod.

He always kept it charged.

He laid down on his side of the bed, completely straight, boots still on. He took her iPod in hand and held it against his chest, her earbuds in, and he closed his eyes, her playlist on repeat.

She had so many; one was marked Iowa and it was filled with country and rock, every song he'd ever played for her on his guitar, and every song that reminded her of him.

She had one for every Avenger, for Coulson and Jane too.

And then she had the playlist he'd made for her; her most played.

He listened to every song, over and over again, of crooning singers promising forever and loyalty and happiness. Promises he'd made and didn't keep.

"I, Clinton Francis Barton, take you, Darcy Virginia Lewis, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, to have and to hold, to guard and protect, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life…"

She raised their hands up to swipe quickly at her cheeks. "Ugh, gold star for waterproof mascara." She smiled crookedly up at him when he released her hands and did it for her, swiping his thumbs under her eyes.

As their fingers threaded again, the priest announced, "You have declared your consent before the Church. May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with his blessings. That God has joined, men must not divide. Amen."

Darcy laughed when he leaned down to kiss her; it made him grin wider. Her arms circled his neck and she stared up at him. "You're stuck with me now, cowboy."

"Good." He dipped her back, chuckling at the cheering of his team. "Wouldn't want it any other way."

His dreams were snapshots, a mixture; from his childhood, the orphanage, the circus, to enlisting, becoming a soldier, Coulson, SHIELD, sharpshooting from a distance, picking off marks as easy as squeeze-snap-bang. Natasha, Loki, the Avengers. And then Darcy, Darcy, Darcy. Laughing, dancing, fighting, singing, fucking, cuddling, kissing. A tazer she used all too often, waving it around as a warning to anybody who got too close. Nerf guns. A chilled beer; her picking at the label, watching him, challenging him.

She blocked the shot with her folder and peeked over it, a gleam in her eyes. "Best marksman in the world, my ass," she told him, sticking out her tongue.

He turned his head, eyebrow quirked, smile tugging at his lips. "Maybe I let you have that one… Maybe I like the chase."

"Only because you haven't tasted the goods," she told him, smirking. "You wouldn't be teasing yourself if you knew the prize in the end."

"I'm getting a feel for it." He walked forward, smirking as her eyes dropped, taking him in, lingering on his arms. He moved to her side, paused, turned his head to say, close enough that his breath ruffled her hair, "Enjoy it; when I catch you, it's going to be fast, quick, and hard." He watched her bite her lip. "Patience is a virtue."

Her eyes turned up toward him. "I bite back, Agent. Anything you can give, I can dish it right back."

He grinned. "Looking forward to it."

It took him less than a week; he could've shot her earlier, but he liked keeping her on edge. He liked watching her dodge his shots, giving her a chance to. She kept a Nerf dart on her desk; he watched her touch it sometimes, a certain sense of fondness on her face before a wicked smirk would spread her lips.

When he finally hit her, it bounced off her back and she paused in her steps, turned and looked back at him. "Ruthless," she told him, bending to grab it up from the ground.

He shrugged. "All's fair," he returned, blowing at the end of the Nerf gun like it was real before tucking it away in a hip holster.

She laughed, but raised an eyebrow. "Victory drink?"

He tucked his arms behind his back and bent his head down toward hers, his breath skittering over her lips. "Absolutely."

One drink became two and then three and then they were dancing to an old jukebox, just a mash of hips and wandering hands, heads bent close, playing very little attention to whatever song was playing. Before finally, she took his hand and held it over her shoulder as she walked out, pulling him along with her. They spent the rest of the night in his apartment, laughing, stripping each other down, exploring, finding new ways to make each other scream.

When he woke up there was an orange and blue Nerf dart stuck to his back. "Never let your guard down," said the note on the bedside table. "You're it."

He grinned before shoving up from the bed, reloading his Nerf gun, and dressing for his hunt. This was one target he was very happy to engage.

Eventually, it all bled into the end; he could see the arrow turn abruptly and skewer directly through her chest, as easy as a knife through butter. He could see her eyes widen abruptly and practically hear the rattle of her lungs, the desperate intake of breath that wasn't quite enough. And then she was down, staring up at the sky, her brows furrowed, her hands reaching for but not touching the arrow.

And he was shoving people; civilian, team mate, Agent, enemy, all alike. It didn't matter who, he just kept moving, darting in and out, until he was next to her, collapsing at her side, staring in shocked guilt. She was saying his name, over and over, in that way he'd heard so many times before. From dying soldiers, agents, from targets. Please, make it better, stop this somehow, I want to live.

But he couldn't.

He failed her.

He held her as the life left her and could do nothing to make it come back.

He startled awake in a cold sweat, his throat hoarse, his clothes clinging to him, sheets tangled around him, his arm stretched out to her side of the bed, her music too loud in his ears now. He yanked the buds out and pushed up, his body protesting, every muscle aching, screaming at him. He dragged a hand through his hair and stared at the floor.

He dragged his fingers over his eyes, pressed them hard into the sockets until he saw little stars dancing in his vision. He scraped his palms down either side of his face and climbed off his bed.

Exhaustion quickly became an almost hysterical desperation to do something. He stretched his arms and started to pace the length of his apartment. His muscles were buzzing, his heartbeat racing, he felt trapped inside his own skin. He tried not to blink; he thought he could see her every time his lids fell over his eyes.

Sometimes she was smiling; sometimes she was dying.

He could hear her voice.

It's not your fault.

It's not your fault.

It's not your fault.

But he didn't believe her, shaking his head, pleading under his breath for her to stop, stop, stop.

She didn't.

He pressed his fist against his head, banged it against his temple, but her voice only got louder. Until finally he was sitting in front of his weapons cache, hidden behind a wall, staring. He knew it was locked down; there was no way to get in. It didn't stop him from studying, from looking for some unseen access point. For hours, that was all he did. He just stared, searching, and drowned out the voice with strategy, with planning.

And then the sun rose.

He heard Natasha climb from her spot outside his apartment and walk away; he wondered if she though the daylight washed it all away enough for him to cope. She always left at the same time; as the sun reached where he sat, warm on his bare forearm.

He turned his hand over and reached out, letting sunbeams dance on his palm.

A knock at his door startled him and his hand went to his waist, but there was no gun there. Not a real one. Just a Nerf gun. He checked to see if it was loaded anyway, before placing it down on the floor and climbing to his feet, crossing to the door and opening it.

"Director Fury requests a meeting," the Agent told him, feet braced, arms tucked behind his back.

Clint gave a sharp nod. "Thirty minutes," he said, before closing the door.

He showered, changed, ate a bowl of cereal —outside rim, counter-clockwise— before leaving his apartment, stone-faced, and following the agent to the Director's office.

Fury was seated behind his desk, a file open in front of him. He didn't look up, instead ordering simply, "Sit."

Clint dropped into a chair across from him and waited; his eyes didn't wander, he didn't relax, he simply stared directly between Fury's eye and eye-patch.

"Patient shows signs of severe PTSD…" he began to read. "Despite putting on a good show of bravado, stating clearly that he felt he was ready for duty and dealing with his grief, Agent Barton often lapsed into silence, appearing to be lost in his mind…"

He skimmed a few paragraphs before picking it back up, "When Agent Barton spoke of his wife, he carefully used present tense, possibly showing a break from reality, unwilling to admit that she is deceased. When presented with the fact that an arrow he shot was the cause of his wife's death, Agent Barton was argumentative, denying any belief in his guilt; I concluded that he believes the opposite to be true. Barton blames himself for Darcy Lewis-Barton's untimely death and carries an unhealthy resentment toward Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto."

He turned his head to another paper. "It is my professional opinion that Agent Barton is suffering severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I recommend group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well as weekly one-on-one therapy sessions to better equip the patient with the tools to deal properly with his grief in a healthy manner. I would suggest Agent Barton be denied clearance to return to work, as it is my opinion that he would not take his own health into consideration, putting himself and others at risk."

Fury closed the file then and lifted his head to stare at Barton, an eyebrow raised above his good eye. "It would seem, the good doctor has taken your measure and deemed you unfit, Agent."

"All due respect, sir, I don't think a couple hours with a shrink is enough time to figure me out."

"I would normally agree…" He sat back in his black, leather chair, tapping a finger against the arm rest. "Barton, you've been with SHIELD a long time…"

He nodded.

"Not to play favorites or let it get to your head, but you're one of our best agents."

"I'm aware, sir."

Fury stayed carefully unemotional. "You'll remember that when the paperwork was processed for you and Miss. Lewis to begin a relationship, I told you it wasn't a smart idea."

Clint clenched his jaw. "I remember."

"And when you proposed marriage, I warned you that I didn't think it would turn out well."

Throat swollen and burning, he simply nodded.

"I regret that I was right," Fury told him.

Clint's eyes fell. "Me too."

"I'm sure your team has been quick to tell you that it wasn't your fault… To tell you that your arrow was manipulated and it was Magneto's fault that… Darcy became a victim." He watched him closely. "And that's all true, but I don't think it changes how you feel about what happened and what your role in it was."

Clint's hands fisted as he shook his head.

Fury sat forward and tapped the file. "Do you believe you need therapy, Agent Barton?"

He let out a short, humorless laugh under his breath, his eyebrows flashing. Hands in his lap, he scraped a thumb nail down the opposite palm, over and over. "I don't think any doctor is going to fix me."

"Can you honestly tell me you think you're fit to return to work?" He paused. "To pick your bow back up?"

Clint stared at him, his fingers curling up tight. "No… But if I don't do something, I'm not sure I'm going to survive."

Fury eventually nodded.

It was less than an hour later that Clint managed to climb through a vent, relieved of his shadow. He shuffled silently, on elbows and knees, silently making his way toward the conference room, empty of bugs and cameras, where strategy meetings often took place.

When he finally arrived, he could hear their voices rising up, louder through the acoustics of the vent. He turned onto his back, closed his eyes, and just listened, twisting his wedding band on his finger, around and around.

"It can't keep going on like this…" Steve said, his voice raised above the others. "Something needs to change!"

"Don't you have a mind-wipe, eraser pen?" Tony wondered. "What kind of secret agency is this?"

"You want him to forget?" Jane exclaimed, angry. "How much?"

"Even if he were to forget, how would we keep it up?" Steve argued dubiously. "We just never mention it? Get rid of the pictures, the footage? Never talk about her again?"

"And if one of us slips up, it could trigger the return of his memories, making him confused, disoriented, and restarting this all over again… Only worse," Bruce piped in, clinical and calm.

"We are not mind-wiping him. End of discussion," Natasha said, her voice like steel.

Tony wasn't so easily deterred. "But—"

Her hand slapped down on the table, cutting him off. "You can't take away what little of her he has left."

"What about replacing memories with other memories?" he offered. "She divorced him, moved to Antarctica; it was just too hard keeping up with the super-spy lifestyle… He'll be bitter, but not broken!"

"He wouldn't believe it," she dismissed.

"And the mind is an incredibly complicated thing," Bruce reminded. "I'm not sure we should be messing with it."

"Messing with things is my life's goal," Tony snarked.

"Damn it, Tony!" Steve shouted, banging his fists down against the table. "This is not a game!"

"You think I don't know that?" he yelled back, losing his calm exterior. "JARVIS alerts me every time Barton has another waking nightmare, while he's screaming Darcy's name!" His voice rose. "I have to manually lockdown his room, from windows to cutlery drawers, keeping an eye on his weapon's cache while he sits there staring at it, looking for a way in! You think I'd be suggesting a Men In Black white-wash if I didn't think it was necessary?"

Silence reigned for all of three minutes before Coulson spoke up. "Fury cleared Barton to return to work forty-five minutes ago."

"What?"

"How!?"

"The in-house psychologist said he had PTSD, she recommended counseling, medication, CBT… Fury talked to Barton personally and determined that he was fit for duty… He believes he just needs a distraction."

"I do not know what this PTSD is, but on Asgard, when a soldier witnesses great loss, he has been known to become volatile…" Thor's booming voice joined in. "Some have been known to take to their beds for decades at a time, while others lose sight of their morals and cast greatness aside in favor of courting death…"

"This is bullshit," Tony snapped. "Barton's not cleared to be on his own balcony because SHIELD's afraid their perfect marksman will take a nosedive, but they think it's smart to put a weapon in his hands?"

"Has he talked to any of you since it happened?" Steve wondered on an exhausted sigh.

"Every other night he gets severely drunk and sits on the other side of the door… He begs me to put him out of his misery," Natasha spoke. "I believe he is serious."

Tense quiet filled the room once more.

Clint's eyes opened, staring at the top of the vent for a long moment. He brushed his thumb over his wedding ring, remembering how he'd pleaded with Natasha, begged her to just kill him, make it quick; 'If you care at all, you'll do this for me…'

She banged her fist against the door, but she never came inside to do what he asked.

"So what do we do?" Tony sighed. "Start slipping medication into his food?"

"If he's drinking, it will have an adverse effect," Bruce argued.

"What about the therapy they offered?" Jane asked hopefully.

"I knew soldiers who said talking it out with people made it worse," Steve offered quietly.

"What if when he gets his weapons back, he hurts himself?" Pepper wondered worriedly. "If he's really asking that of Natasha, how do we know he won't take his own life?"

"He's had a guard on him this whole time, it could be why he hasn't," Steve allowed dimly.

"He won't," Natasha said, but her voice was skeptical. A moment later, however, she said decisively, "Darcy wouldn't want him to."

Clint didn't stay much longer after that; instead he crawled his way through the vents back to the hallway outside his apartment. He dropped down to the floor and dug out his pass to get inside, breathing in relief when he didn't have someone following him, hovering, suspicious of everything he did.

As the door closed behind him, he simply leaned back against the door.

Tomorrow, he would return to ranks. He was cleared for target practice and he would be issued his gun when he reported to Coulson in the morning, whether his boss wanted him to or not. His bow was confiscated after the attack, but he had others hidden away in the weapon's cache, still locked up tight by Stark's design. He pushed off the door then and walked to his bedroom, sinking down to his knees on Darcy's side of the bed. He slid a hand in between the mattresses and felt around, pausing when his hand hit something stiff and cold to the touch. He pulled out a silver-pointed arrow, splotches of rusty-red across it, though not from undue care.

Blood. Old, dried blood.

He sat down, his back against the bed, and rolled the shaft over in his palm, watching as light glinted off the end. He ran his thumb over the razor sharp edge, feeling as his skin split and his blood welled, mixing with hers, overlapping it.

He held the arrow up and stared down the length of it; perfectly straight, deadly, one of his own designs.

When the time came, he would bury it in Magneto's dead heart; he'd watch the life drain from his eyes as he reached for the arrow there, his brow furrowed, his eyes full of desperation.

Please, make it better, stop this somehow, I want to live.

He would have the power to save him and he wouldn't.

Instead he would paint a target on his forehead with his own blood and whisper, "Gotcha."

Until then, he would wait. He would cope, burying himself in work, sticking to his side of the bed, with her iPod plugged into his ears, and his voice asking her to marry him, to end the chase with a victory wedding. He would dream of her saying yes, jumping into his arms as they spun around, ignoring how his ribs hurt and his stitches pulled, and focusing on the vivacious, beautiful woman in his arms and the life she promised to share with him.

He would wait for the fear to fade, the guilt and pity to drain from his team, for the indefinite lock on his weapon's cache to finally lift. For the sliding glass doors and the windows to release, letting him out, trusting him. Patience was a virtue.

And when his mission was complete, he would spread his wings and fly.

[End.]