Clint generally made it a policy not to drink. He'd spent so much of his youth lost inside a bottle. Whiskey was the lubrication that had kept the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders moving smoothly, and it had taken him years before he could shed the need to have the warm, soothing burn before drawing a bow. It took years to admit that same burn was the one that pushed Jacques, his first real teacher and mentor, to gambling and theft, the same burn that pushed him and his brother apart until their bond broke. He tried not to dwell too hard on it... the bottle led him to where he was now, and he couldn't really complain, but still. Clint knew he was a better man when he didn't drink.
Thus it must have been something of a surprise to his partner when she silently stepped out onto his balcony, took in the sight of his bare and broadly muscled back as he looked out over the Albanian coast, and realized he was holding a bottle of bourbon. She hovered for several beats, suddenly unsure how to proceed.
"I know you're there, Natasha," he broke the silence without turning, his voice uncharacteristically graveled. "You may as well come out, the sunset is really incredible tonight." He sloshed back a large gulp directly from his bottle and wiped his lips.
"How did you know?" she asked softly, unmoving. She knew he wasn't wearing his hearing aids because she had seen them on the table when she came through his apartment.
He shifted his arms, leaning hard on the iron railing. "I can smell you," he replied with a short laugh. "And I can feel you frowning at me now. I don't mean it in a bad way... you just smell like... I dunno," he took another swig of bourbon. "You smell like Natasha," he finished eventually.
She moved up to his side, and glanced over at him. He hadn't been shaving and the stubble was thick in the fading light. Despite the deep bronze tan he had gained since she had last seen him in New York, he still managed to look tired and somehow even pale. The cuts and bruises traversing his chest seemed to be fading, but he was still standing as though he was in pain. "Barton?" she whispered. "Are you...okay?"
A minute passed, and he still had not looked away from the ocean. He took several more sips from the bottle, yet she waited. He was either going to talk to her, or not, but she wasn't going to push him.
"I'm stuck in a loop," he said finally, shaking his head. "This loop where I want to say, 'how did you find me?', but then I already know because I know that there isn't a corner of this Earth where you could hide and I wouldn't find you."
Natasha sighed, reaching out and putting a hand on his muscled forearm. He pulled away from her touch immediately, confusing and hurting her with unexpected severity. "What is...? Clint, what's wrong? You've gotta talk to me," she begged. "Is this about New York? Is this Loki?"
He stood straight, snorting derisively and taking a step back from the railing. "Nah," he declared, "Nah, that's... uhh... that's all level. I got that. Aliens. Gods. Mind control. It's all good..." his voice started to sound panicky and he trailed off. She was silent but her huge green eyes pinned him with concern. He spat out a curse and pushed himself away from the balcony railing. "But hey!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "Vlorë! Isn't it gorgeous? I love it here!" he gestured broadly at the skyline with the half-empty bottle.
She bit her lower lip sadly, and he swore again. "Fuck. Okay, Nat, let's pretend that didn't sound as pathetic as we both know it did, okay? And let's just... let's... god dammit. Why are you here?" he demanded.
Her eyes narrowed. "Don't make this about me, Clint," she snapped back at him. "You're my partner, and you bailed on me. I would have been there, you know. I'm always fucking there... not this," she grabbed at the bottle, successfully pulling it away from the unprepared archer.
He muttered something unflattering and she scowled at him. "I don't even know what this crap is," she railed, looking at the bourbon. "What is this, American whiskey? Garbage! If you're going to replace me with a bottle, you at least use some good vodka, okay? Russian Standard. Okay?" she shouted at him.
His eyes snapped to hers, and he saw the curls of a smile at her lips. He exhaled explosively and his shoulders sank back down into their pained position. Natasha took her cue to close the space between them. She wrapped her arms around his chest and clung to him.
He hesitated only briefly, before sighing and twining himself around her. He sank his face into her soft red hair and breathed deeply, filling himself with the Natasha smell he would recognize any time, any where in the world. He couldn't have described it, knowing that she (like all SHIELD agents) wore nothing scented. Sometimes he tried to come up with labels for that smell, but they were always things like "spicy" and "warm" and "coming home" and he was embarrassed by the mere thought of them. He could only imagine how many stitches he would need if he ever shared those thoughts with her. But for now, he hung onto her like a man drowning and let her fill his senses completely. "I'm so sorry, Tasha," he choked out.
His partner tightened her embrace. "Don't leave me, okay?" she murmured into his chest, and it made his throat tighten.
"Natasha," he whispered into her hair, "I'm sorry... but I had to. I had to get as far away from you as I could." He felt her stiffen in his arms but he held her fast. "No, wait, let me explain, before I chicken out. Loki... he took me over, used me. So completely that I... I don't have any recollection of those days. It's gone. I can't bring up any of it... until that moment on the catwalk when the veil drops and I look up... and it's you."
She looked up at him as he paused, and he shook his head. "No, no, please don't look me in the eye. I can't do it," he pleaded, and she slowly buried her face into his bare shoulder. "It's you," he sobbed out, "and I had been trying with all my might to kill you. I could have killed you."
"Shhhhh," Natasha murmured, squeezing his torso. "You didn't, and that's all there is to it. It wasn't you, Clint. I know that."
"But I don't," he choked out, lifting his head back up and staring out at the final rays of the sun as it dipped into the Adriatic. "How do I? How am I supposed to know that? How can you ever trust me?" The despair in his voice stabbed at her, and she reached up to hold his face in her hands.
"Barton, look at me," she insisted as he struggled weakly. "Я доверяю тебе. I trust you. Only you." She met his eyes as tears welled up in them.
"Fuck," he exclaimed, and tried to pull himself away from her. "And this is why I shouldn't drink."
"No, you shouldn't drink because you're the only American in Vlorë looking for this crappy bourbon," she retorted with a wry smile. "Anyone with half a brain could have found you. You're a terrible spy."
He gave her a sad smile. "I guess I'm slipping. Or maybe I wanted to be found."
"Maybe."
"What now?"
"Now we take some time, Barton. We work it out. You and me. Not you and this," she idly hefted the bourbon a couple of times before her arm snapped back and she hurled the bottle over the balcony. It sailed in a graceful arc down to the water, crashing apart on the rocky shore.
He winced. "That was hard to find."
"Not hard enough," she replied, returning to his embrace. "Clint, listen to me. You know how I trust you? Because that wasn't the first time, remember? Clint, you were sent to kill me before. You made a different call." She ran her hand down his stubbled cheek, and he shivered. She grinned. "You're stuck with me, now."
"You're an idiot, Romanova," he whispered, closing his eyes and leaning into the palm of her hand. "I'm going to get us both killed. Who's the bigger fool? The fool, or the fool who follows him?"
"That's cute," she chuckled, tapping his cheek chidingly. "You think you can quote Star Wars at the Russian and she won't notice? How about this: 'I find your lack of faith disturbing.' Haven't you ever noticed that we're more than the sum of our parts? We're one and the same," she told him, brushing her thumb down his cheek.
He swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat and looked down at her, his eyes glistening. "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?" he teased.
She rolled her eyes in response, pulling herself off his chest but threading her fingers through his. She tugged his arm towards the balcony door. "Come on, Skywalker. The sun's gone down and I'm tired." She lead him back into his apartment, where he stood in the main room, grimacing.
"Tash... Tasha, I'm lost," he admitted. "I just can't seem to get the ground back under me. You shouldn't stay. I would never forgive myself if... if I..." he stammered. "I'm unforgivable, Nat," he finally surrendered.
"Well, I don't know about that. But what I do know, Clint, is that I'm here, I'm not leaving, and I think we have some work to do. And trust me... Вы не можете утопить своих демонов. You can't drown your demons."