Dedicated to all those who survived and are still surviving Hurricane Sandy.
WARNING: May contain triggers.
The storm would not stop him...
The Storm
There was no way to prepare. Even with all the warning and the devastation that had followed in her wake. The city braced and readied themselves... but they were not prepared.
Sandy came down on the city and all around it with all the merciless vengeance and power nature had to offer.
The hurricane cut the coast to the bone, then gnawed on the exposed marrow relentlessly.
SHIELD had done all it could to assist, putting its personnel to work to help sandbagging and evacuations and stocking supplies. To no avail. When Sandy hit SHIELD, like everything else, was swept off its feet. They scrambled to get out the ones that needed and protect the ones that were pinned down. Clint was there with them, throwing all his strength and weight into boarding windows against the wind and checking in names. He did his fair share and then some in record time.
Then, not for the first time in his career, left his post without warning or explanation.
To dangerous to take his beloved motorcycle, doomed to drown in the SHIELD underground garage, he took his Jeep. Skidding and slipping through the rush of torrential water and tearing wind. He barely darked take his eyes from the road, trying to see through the dark and rush of water.
Clint wove through the city, cutting through alleys and fighting his way around blockades, his desperation growing by the second, so much so that he flashed his old police badge to break through roadblocks.
He cut through the wash out, determinedly and doggedly plowing through the storm. To Brooklyn. To Steve.
Clint knew Steve would never abandon his city, his neighborhood and neighbors. Not in an hour like this. And Clint would never abandon Steve.
He got as close as he could, driving through roads washed out and sinking as the murky water of the ocean surged in. He had to leave the Jeep a few blocks behind. The road locked up by a massive tree uprooted from a small park and a few crushed cars under the broken branches. He gave the faithful Jeep a parting pat, unscrewing the handle from the gear shift to keep for sentimentality in case the Jeep was lost. Then he plunged into the wind and rain and ran. Slipping and sliding, falling into water surging up from storm drains. But he went doggedly on, step by soggy step pushing his way to Steve.
The block was already dark, wires torn and bursting as they swung brokenly in the wind. The power already gone. The two Avengers had done what they could to brace for the loss. Stocking up on non-perishables, smoking and jerkying their meat and filling standing coolers with ice to prolong the life of milk and cheese and eggs. A few flats of bottled water and and a bottle of iodine were stored in the pantry. Bought canisters on canisters of propane and batteries for a pair of space heaters and lanterns. Even horded a few tanks of gas. The survivalist training that Steve and Clint had been given made them cautious. Though in the coming days of the aftermath most of their hard collected supplies would be given away to Steve's neighbors in the building and on the street.
Clint made it to the door, thankful for the broken lock as he plunged in and out of the deafening wind and icy hammering of the rain and storm surge. He stood shivering, sucking air into burning lungs and he shakily made his way up the stairs, stumbling more than once until he stood before the door. His hand had barely touched the door when it was yanked open, Steve pulled him in by the pale blue glow of one of the camping lanterns.
The soldier was all sure movements, whispering to Clint about his stupidity for braving the storm but no more. Only the shake of his hands gave away his fear and worry over the archer. Though Clint couldn't tell passed his own shaking. Nor could he tell that the air in the dark apartment was already cooling without the power to heat it. Steve steered Clint into the kitchen, helping the archer strip, leaving the muddy and soaked boots off in a corner, wringing the filthy and rank water out of his clothes in the sink then dropping the soaking clothes in to dry. Clint scrubbed himself dry and bundled up in some of Steve's clothes for the reassurance the scent in the fabric offered, still chilled to his core but no longer shivering.
They didn't speak, just moved around, following a plan they'd set for themselves when news of the storm had reached the city. The bathroom was the only place in the apartment without windows, set deepest into the building. It was stable. Safe. They gathered the pillows and blankets from both beds and carried them to the bathroom, heaping together a massive nest in the bathtub. A flat of water, two of the lanterns, a basket full of snacks were carried in as well. They drank the last of the warm coffee from the dead coffee maker then shutting off the lanterns plunged the apartment into darkness.
Clint led Steve by the hand, his sharp vision cutting through the black. Walking the soldier into the bathroom and down into the safety of their nest, heaping Clint's favorite quilt over them, creating a pocket of warmth. They settled down, curling up together and set in to wait.
They tried not to listen. To the howls of wind that sounded like the agonized screams of the dying. The cracks of limbs and wood snapping and breaking like bones and bullets. The moaning of the brick and mortar leaned into the wind. The booms and bangs of transformers exploding that sounded like bombshells.
They tried not to listen to the war Sandy was making on New York. There would be time after, when the wind had gone and the water drained, when the still unforeseen Nor'easter had swept through a blanket of snow and ice. There was would time when Clint and Steve would work relentlessly to exhaustion to help dig their city back out from under the debris of the battlefield and graveyard it would become. All after.
They didn't seek entertainment or distraction. They only curled up as close as they could to one another, cradled in the nest of bedding, pillows and ceramic of the tub. Soaking in the warmth they had to offer one another, breathing in each others scents and air, taking comfort in each other and listening to the combined thud of their heartbeats to drown out the storm.
A/N: Wish I could say this one was fun to write but no subject matter like this can really be called fun. I was not on the east coast for the storm though a few friends of mine were, I am very thankful for their safety and wish the same of everyone else rebuilding in the region.