DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING. Although I very much wish I owned Jeremy Renner.
The Wrong Three Words
"Barton's been compromised."
Focussed on her mission, busy coming up with reasons why Coulson should leave her alone to get on with her job, Natasha took a couple of seconds to process those three words. Clint's face flashed before her mind's eye, his blue-grey eyes sharp and watchful, that slight half-smile he saved only for her curving his lips, and Natasha admitted to herself, finally, her deepest truth. Her darkest secret. The one thing that had defined her ever since she took the archer's offered hand and let him help her to her feet, instead of forcing him to pull the trigger and end her miserable existence.
I love him.
What she said aloud, of course, was "Let me put you on hold."
Will I ever be able to tell him? Natasha wondered, as Loki promised her that she would die at Clint's hands. And she knew that she would let him kill her, no matter that he knew every stain on her soul, knew more dreadful ways to make her suffer than even Loki could have dredged from his mind. Because the one thing that would be worse than dying would be to see Clint die first.
Is there anything left of YOU in there? she thought, as they fought in the bowels of the helicarrier, Clint trying to disable her more than kill her, she was sure. Tired, sore and wounded from that horrific clash with the Hulk, he should have taken care of her in a hot second. She should have shot him in the back before he even turned to face her. Fury would rip her a new one for that particular idiocy later. If she survived this. And then she managed to knock his head against the handrail and he looked up at her, his eyes still that horrible crystalline blue, and frowned like a confused child.
"Tasha?" he said softly.
Not now, she thought. Don't say my name – the name only YOU call me – now, not while that awful colour is still in your eyes. And she struck.
She sat beside him until his eyes opened, back, thank any deity save Loki, to their normal shade of grey-blue. He fought his restraints, sweating, silent, until she said his name. Softly. Like a prayer.
"You're going to be all right."
The bitter chuckle he let out tore at her heart. But she kept her face still through what followed. Wondered if Loki had left any booby-traps behind when Clint asked her if she knew what it felt like to be unmade. Decided perhaps not when he told her he'd sleep better at night if he could put an arrow in the Asgardian's eye.
The worst came when he asked her why. Why she wanted to fight Loki. She was no soldier, never had been.
She couldn't say the words she wanted to. Not yet. Maybe not ever. So she said three different ones instead.
"I've been compromised."
He didn't understand. Assumed it was because of what he'd told Loki about her. So she let him think that. Told him that she had to wipe the red from her ledger. He'd accept that as a valid reason. Support her. Have her back, as he had since that day so long ago when he didn't put a bullet in it. Today, she'd repaid that particular favour.
Natasha watched him, of course. Watched him fly the quinjet, twice the pilot she would ever be, and she whispered silent thanks for it, because she didn't think any other pilot could have set that jet down in few enough pieces for them to get out alive, once Loki had blown one of their engines to hell.
"Just like Budapest," she said as they looked at the advancing enemy, to get a rise out of him. In some ways it was; hopeless odds, facing the unknown. And in other ways, of course, it wasn't. He didn't even look at her as he said;
"You and I remember Budapest very differently."
What else could he have said, after all? She'd gone to Hungary on a Red Room job and left as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s newest recruit. He'd gone to kill a Russian assassin and left with the unlikeliest of allies.
She watched him on the street, his hands sure as he nocked arrows and shot down the Chitauri. As he smiled and told Rogers to go, that the two of them would hold the aliens off. Watched the gentleness in his hands as he pulled children from a wrecked and burning bus.
It wasn't until the whole team was assembled on the street and Clint asked Tony for a lift to a nearby rooftop so he could direct the upcoming battle that she was sure he was back. All the way back. Because just as Tony grasped him by the quiver harness across his back, Clint looked at her. A slight smile lifted one corner of his mouth. He was so expressionless most of the time, despite the mobility she knew his face was capable of. But that slight smile was for her. Only her. And he mouthed two silent words no one else could possibly have seen. She held them to her long afterwards as though he had given her a pair of diamonds.
"Stay safe."
There had been no more time after that. No time for anything but fighting. Rogers was a good partner on the ground; solid and strong, if uninventive. Clint's arrows more than once blew away trouble before it got to her, and she knew he was watching over her. When she took to the sky he kept the aliens off her tail; blew Loki away when the Asgardian came after her.
And after the battle, he was there. She'd been just about to go and start searching frantically for him – they'd both lost their comms – when he walked out of the elevator into Stark's ruined penthouse. The others had arrived – amazingly Banner was still in Hulk form and not smashing – and until they had she'd been sitting in front of Loki where he lay crushed into the floor by Hulk's rage, pointing a gun in one hand and that damn spear in the other in case (in hope?) the bastard moved.
Clint had found a new quiver of arrows somewhere, probably down in Stark's R+D labs, who knew what they would do if so. At the sight of Loki he drew and sighted, and it was only the Captain's shield thrust hastily in the way that saved the Asgardian from an arrow between the eyes.
"Let me kill him!"
"No!" Thor and Rogers cried at once. Tony seemed to be thinking about it seriously, though.
"For Coulson," Clint hissed, and even Rogers lowered his shield, frowning.
"Justice before vengeance," Thor rumbled. "If his sentence is death, friend Barton, I will petition for you to be the executioner, if you will it. But he must face Odin to answer for his crimes."
And still Clint hesitated, the bowstring drawn back, his shot clear now that Rogers' shield was no longer in the way.
"Don't," Natasha said it softly. "Thor's right, Clint. We stopped the invasion. Justice before vengeance. This time."
He lowered the bow without even looking at her. And then snapped it up again as Loki stirred.
They were all hungry. Damn near starving. So once Fury and Hill arrived and dragged Loki off in chains meant to hold the Hulk, they'd taken up Tony's suggestion of shawarma and gone to that bloody awful restaurant. Natasha was so tired she could barely chew.
She could see how much Clint was hurting as well. He'd muttered something about crashing through a window, and indeed there were particles of glass embedded in small wounds on his arms. She picked them out carefully for him and glued the cuts closed while they waited for S.H.I.E.L.D. to arrive. And then he made her sit down and gently treated the cut on her brow, despite her insistence that it would heal on its own. Far faster than any wound he'd received, thanks to the Black Widow serum.
"Still, we can't let it spoil your looks, Tasha," he'd said almost mockingly, pulling the first-aid kit Tony had provided from her hands. She wanted to slap him, but instead she sat still and let him put two stitches in with gentle fingers. She didn't have to look to know how neat and perfect the stiches would be. It wasn't the first time he'd sewn her up, or she him, though he was far better with the needle than she was. She looked at him as he worked, looked at the scar on his neck that was a jagged reminder of how bad a nurse she was herself.
Clint braced a leg on her chair as she reached for another folded pita, surprising her. She glanced across at him. He had a book in his hands, leaning it on his thigh. That battered little Moleskine he carried with him everywhere, filling it with calculations on angles and wind speed and who knew what aerodynamic equations. The mathematics was beyond her. He took a pencil from a pocket of his cargo pants and wrote out a series of symbols that might have been Greek for all she knew. Some of them looked Greek, actually. He glanced up, caught her eye and smiled again. That strange little quirk at the corner of his mouth. She smiled back, a natural smile, too tired to mask the way she felt about him in that moment, and saw the surprised question in his eyes before she managed to pull her shields back down and look away.
Natasha didn't see Barton for days. After locking Loki up who knew where, Fury and Hill descended. They couldn't exactly restrict the other four Avengers, but she and Clint were S.H.I.E.L.D. employees. They were dragged in for debriefing, and then he was sent for a battery of psychological tests. They were frightened he would turn again, of course. She could have told them they were wrong. She did tell them. Agent Hill listened patiently, gave her a sarcastic smile and remarked that she was perhaps a touch biased in Barton's favour. Which was irrefutable, so she didn't argue.
Fury listened too. With more respect. And said that he agreed with her, but that it was better to have Barton's ass covered rather than not, wouldn't she say? He looked at her with that one black eye, knowingly, and she could only nod. Did Fury guess?
Even Coulson had never suspected how she felt, she thought. Coulson had thought they were lovers at first, which was damned funny considering that she and Clint had never so much as touched in any sexual way. Ever. They never normally touched in any way that wasn't work related, sparring, tossing each other a weapon or the like. Clint knew she couldn't bear any touch that wasn't entirely her own choice. He knew better than to try and hug her. It had taken her three years of working together before she would let him patch up her wounds in the field.
It was a surprise, and a relief, when her office door in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters hissed open and she looked up to see Barton in the doorway. He looked – normal. Black cargo pants. His favourite battered combat boots. Rust-coloured T-shirt, unzipped grey hoodie, a brown leather flight jacket as battered as the boots.
"They cut you loose?" was all she could think of to say.
He propped a shoulder against the doorframe and held up a hand. Keys dangled from his finger. "We got someplace to be, Tasha. And then we have a leave of absence. Four weeks of freedom. I thought we could head for the airport after we run this little errand. Get some tickets to anywhere."
She gazed at him. Taking him in. "Anywhere," she said in quiet agreement, opened the desk drawer and picked out a passport, and then stood, walking around the desk. "Let's go." She didn't need to pack. There was nothing she wanted that she couldn't buy wherever they were going. Tony Stark had sent her a black credit card with, when she called the bank to check, a million dollar line of credit. She guessed Clint had gotten the same. Two tickets to anywhere sounded good.
To her surprise, Bruce Banner was waiting in the hall. "Cadging a lift," he said to her quizzical glance. "Gotta give Loki a proper send-off, haven't we?"
Of course, that was where they were going. Natasha had known the date but not the time or location of the planned departure. Clint had obviously been told, though, because he drove them confidently through New York, answering Banner's questions from the backseat with his usual casual demeanour.
Clint slipped his dark glasses on as they got out of the car and Natasha glanced at him, seeing the hidden lines of tension in his shoulders that he tried to shrug away. She walked close behind him as they crossed Bethesda Terrace to the departure point. Saw him stiffen as Loki looked at him, and leaned over to murmur in his ear.
"Remember what Thor promised you."
A hungry smile curled his lips, and she moved away again. Confident he'd get through this.
The Asgardians were gone. She'd miss Thor, Natasha decided. He'd saved her from the Hulk; after all. There was no doubt in her mind that she would have been splattered into paste on the helicarrier if Thor hadn't intervened. She'd tried to thank him and been horrified when he knelt at her feet, kissed her hand reverently and thanked her for closing the portal! Stupid man and his sense of honour. He might come from a different planet but he was still male when all was said and done. She felt sorry for Jane Foster. As far as Natasha knew Thor hadn't even called her!
"My bag?" Bruce said behind Natasha, and she nodded, grabbed it from the backseat of the car and shoved it into his arms.
"You got a ride?"
"Yeah. Stark's offered me a job. A place at Stark Tower. He's gonna rename it Avengers Tower, did you hear? There's a place there for all of us." Banner's eyes slid from her to Clint. "All of us. No matter what."
Clint nodded sharply, jerking his chin up. He opened the driver's door and slid into the car. Natasha smiled a farewell at Banner and got into the car too.
They didn't talk as they drove to JFK. Clint abandoned the car in a tow zone, leaving the keys in it. It would get towed straight back to S.H.I.E.L.D. anyway. Fury would expect no less.
"Where do you want to go?" They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at the flickering electronic departure boards. They'd been there for a good ten minutes, reading the destinations in silence, when Clint finally spoke.
Natasha turned to look at him. "Anywhere, with you." She spoke from the heart.
Clint didn't look at her. "I've never been to Barbados," he pointed out one destination. "What do you think? Sun, sea and sand?"
"Sounds good." Something inside her snapped. "Clint…" but he was heading for the ticket counter, fishing that black card and his passport out of his pocket.
They bought a bag and filled it with a few casual beachwear pieces each. Wandered into the first-class lounge, sat down at a computer and booked the most expensive suite in the fanciest hotel on Barbados. Drank champagne. Boarded the flight and sat together. The attendants fussed over Clint – women always did, he was so good-looking, and so charming when he wanted to be – bringing him extra champagne, extra blankets, whatever he wanted. He settled comfortably back in his seat and closed his eyes, asleep in five minutes.
Natasha sat awake throughout the flight, her eyes dry and sore, staring out of the window.
It was after sunset when they landed. Headed for the hotel.
"Let's go walk on the beach," Clint said, surprising her, as he turned the key in the door to their suite. "Ten minutes?"
She nodded. Grabbed clothes from the bag and went into one of the palatial bedrooms.
Natasha had to laugh. Clint looked insane in a multi-coloured Hawaiian shirt and clashing shorts. She'd wondered more than once over the years if he was colour-blind, but he always laughed at her if she said it aloud. Maybe he just had really terrible taste. She, of course, looked the picture of elegance in a royal-blue sundress with tiny yellow daisies printed on it. She didn't know how to choose unflattering clothes. She'd forgotten to buy casual shoes, though, so she was barefoot. As was he.
They walked through the sand down towards the sea, away from the hotel's bright lights, and stood there, letting the cool wavelets lap over their feet. To Natasha's immense surprise, Clint took her hand in his. She let him keep it, let him twine his fingers with hers, feeling the calluses on his skin, the strength in his grip leashed as he held her hand gently, making it easy for her to pull away if she wished.
Natasha turned to him, lifting her eyes to his, though she could barely see his face in the darkness. Now or never, Romanoff, she thought to herself, and she opened her mouth.
They said it together. The three right words, at last. At long last.
"I love you."
A/N: All together now: AWWWWWWW!
Smack bang in the middle of writing Through A Glass Darkly, this came to me and I just had to open up a new document and bash it out. Is it good? I've got a vague idea for a sequel, or perhaps a second chapter, where Tasha asks him how long he's loved her for and they have a True Confessions session. Should I go there, or is it just right as it is?
I'd love to hear your thoughts in that massive empty review box!