leaving Cheyenne
rating: pg
characters: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff
warnings: angst, implied character death
summary: Tie my bones to his back, head our faces to the west / We'll ride the prairie that we love the best... Wild West/zombie!AU.
author's note: Title and summary from I'm Leaving Cheyenne. And yes, this is another unexpected combo AU... because why not?
leaving Cheyenne
Who did you send to fight the undead? When the well was running dry and the preacher's fear had turned all hands against any help, when the cows were starving and the plague was knocking at your door, who did you send to fight the undead?
She coughed, the telltale rasp almost hidden by the sound of the approaching horde, and checked her shotgun.
"Somehow I didn't see dying like this when I began riding with you."
"Personally, I'd prefer a death bed over a heap of crappy rocks, one of which is digging into my spleen, by the way, but if this is all we get..." Clint didn't finish the sentence, fingers running over the fletching on the few arrows he had left.
"We had enough," Natasha said firmly, lowering the gun to lay it across her outstretched legs. She looked at Clint, as if daring him to disagree; as if asking with him to say she was right. He left the last tattered arrow alone and looked back at her, caught in the rush of war. Any second lost was a second they were closer to dying, and they had only seconds now – but something changed in his shoulders, releasing the tension down through his arms and his fingers, up through his eyes.
"Yeah," he replied, and if they hadn't been about to die the tone in his voice might have been fondness. "Yeah, we did."
What they didn't say, what they wouldn't let themselves say, was that she would have enough too, Lord willing and the creek don't rise; that the little girl held in not unfriendly arms somewhere inside the stockade would have the chance to grow up, that someday the story of her mother and father would be one of heroes and not outsiders sentenced to die from the dead or the plague. They drew their arrows and cocked their guns, hands steady and breathing easy despite the rasping, and with the taste of dust in their mouths they waited for Death to come and get them.
Who do you send to fight the undead? The ones who are dead men walking.
end