1.
She returns from Russia in a blaze of winter. Her words are frosted and her expression is guarded.
He watches her slink off the plane, shoulders hunched in a way they've never been before. She looks pale and unsteady, no longer hard and proud any longer. The ground team hover over the rest of the crew, hauling out figure after figure that all stagger down the ramp in various states of bleeding.
No one notices the Black Widow vanishing from the crowd, skirting her way around the medical team. All that runs through his head is that it had been three days longer than the expected time, and she never returned three days ago and that it was three days later than what it should have been.
He trails her from a distance.
"Natasha," he calls softly, watching her slump down against a wall in some forgotten hallway.
She doesn't look up.
He approaches her carefully before settling down across from her. "Tasha."
She mumbled something in low in Russian, words cold and meaningless.
"I don't speak Russian. Try again."
She froze, head snapping up. "What do you want?" Her gaze is angry, eyes narrowing. There's something tight in her words, like she isn't quite sure of her words anymore. "Leave me be." Natasha's accent is the thickest he'd ever heard it before.
He ignores her anger. "What happened?"
Natasha's drawing herself tighter and tighter and he can see the way she's ready to flee. He's shifting himself, ready to grab her and hold her down tight. "You do not need to know." She tells him quietly. "Go."
"They sent you to the Red Room, didn't they?" He realizes suddenly, tasting suddenly something sour. "They hurt you."
She's quick to her feet, wincing at the sudden movements. "You do not need to know," Natasha says again before turning around, starting off down the hall at a quick pace. "Go away, Barton."
"Get back here, Tasha." He grabs her by the arm and yanks her backwards. "You don't walk away like this." Clint pins her arms to her side as gently as he could despite her struggles. She's hurt; he can tell by the way she doesn't just throw him off her. Her breathing is shallow and skin is cold and all he wants to do is keep holding on.
2.
"Remember when I first found you?"
"I remember you were annoying. You've yet to prove me wrong."
He smirks, locking the door behind them. Natasha's looking uneasy at the small room, gazing at the blank walls. "Your lips were blue."
"I think your brain is blue."
Natasha allows him to disarm her, keeping her eyes intently on the table where he leaves him. "You told me you wanted to die, but that you wouldn't beg."
There was a slight pause before she shrugged. "You had a gun to my face."
The winter was bitter, a roaring wind cutting through his thick layers. 'She'll be up around here soon. Scott said he saw her go beyond this street.' Coulson directed him through the ear piece. 'She wouldn't go too far. It'd be stupid, and she isn't stupid.'
The town had vanished a while ago in the storm, nothing more than trench like walk ways slowly filling with snow and ice. The buildings were hard to see in the dark, everyone else burrowed away like any sane person would.
Clint kept pushing further.
The town stopped here. Beyond this was a wooded area, a cold blooded killer lurking within the shadows. 'I'm heading out.' He mumbled.
'Be careful.'
He had no real way of keeping track of time. He had a feeling it was after midnight but he couldn't be sure. The woods were dense, roots somehow managing to stick out of the thick snow enough to trip him. It was quieter though inside the forest, as if the roar of the wind couldn't slip through the large branches.
He almost stepped on her.
Within seconds he had his gun aimed at her, waiting for movement.
She rolled her head to look at him, pale skin trembling in the cold. "Hurry and make up your mind," she told him quietly, words shivering in the frosted air.
It felt strange, holding a gun. He was used to a bow to defend himself with. "Are you trying to kill yourself?" Clint was confused.
She gave a shrug. "I'm not begging for death. Just waiting."
"You're crazy."
"I am tired, Barton. Now pull the damn trigger or walk away."
She glared at him, snow caught in her eye lashes. The Black Widow looked as if she had been carved out of ice, her skin pale white and dark red hair glittering with ice. Her lips were turning blue. "How do you know my name?" He still had the gun held tight in his hands, but he wasn't sure what to do with it anymore.
"You are sloppy."
He dropped the gun in the snow. "Why do you want to die?"
Her eyes shut. For a moment, he wondered if she had fallen asleep before she opened them again. "I am tired. Very tired."
"Come with me."
"You are annoying and stupid."
"Still. Get up and come with me now, or I drag you out of here. You choose." Clint held his hand out.
"I already choose."
He shook his head. "No. Choose better."
"Go to hell."
She slipped her shaking hand in his and allowed him to pull her up out of the snow. He caught her before she could stumble, her legs uncooperative. "It'll be okay." He slipped his arm around tighter, trying to keep her balance. "My name is Clint."
"I know who you are, Barton."
"My name is Clint."
She exhaled, stumbling through the buildup of snow. "Your people will not like me much."
"They can suck it, for all I care."
"Do you still want to die?" He leaned against a wall, looking over her gaunt appearance.
"You know the expression, baptism by fire?" Natasha began untying her boots, pulling out a dagger in the process. "I think it is baptism by winter. You told me to choose, and I choose. I am still tired and angry, but life? Life may not be as bad."
For a second Clint thought he saw ice in her hair.
3.
"What happened?" Clint had waited patiently for her to take a shower, steam escaping from the crack beneath the door. He'd waited almost twenty minutes for her to leave the cramped little bathroom until he simply couldn't wait any longer. He'd given her half an hour before he would go ahead and pick the lock to ensure she wasn't doing anything irrational.
Natasha stood in the middle of the room in nothing more than a towel, her bare skin bruised and cut. "I took a shower, Barton."
A small part of him wanted to hit a wall hard. "I mean in Russia. You were missing for three days." He flinched as the sight of the backs of her legs sliced up. "You come back like this."
"They found me going through files. They used a gas in the air to put me under." She took out a hairbrush from the drawer of the dresser. "I woke up in the red room to be reprogrammed."
"How did you get out?" Clint swallowed.
She gave him a ghost of a grin. "Some things cannot be rewired, you know. Some things are better off broken."
"Some things are unable to break."
4.
"Do you miss life before all this?" She whispered as they looked up at the ceiling. Clint had decorated it two months before with glow in the dark stars, arranging them into various constellations. "Before?"
He takes her hand in his own.
The circus was a nightmare, he realized. Bright lights and thin lines, all breaking down into the reality of the world-his childhood was an existence of scamming and lies.
There was a time in between all this, when he was numbed. He lived behind bars, gazing out at the world through locks and fences.
"No." Clint turned his head to look at Natasha looking at him. "Do you?"
She looked conflicted. She had a childhood where everything was simple. You kill your opponent and you get to live just a bit longer than the rest.
"I hate the colour red."
He smiled, twisting a lock of hair around his finger.
Red like fire.
5.
"I never thanked you."
"For what?"
"Not giving me a choice."