Title: The Edge Has Found Me, Friend (Let Me Fly, My Peace Is Near)
Category: Thor/The Avengers
Genre: Angst/Romance
Ship: Clint/Darcy
Rating: R
Warning(s): Character Suicide
Word Count: 2,962
Summary: [sequel to: Lean Over The Edge Now, Darling, Stare Into Abyss (Jump, And I'll Catch You, I Promise)] Clint spread his wings but he did not fly.
The Edge Has Found Me, Friend (Let Me Fly, My Peace Is Near)
-1/1-
Someone once told him that grief was like a disease; it ate away at everything until there was just a chewed up husk, gaping open, desperately stuck between wanting to live and wanting to die.
Clint couldn't remember who it was; he couldn't quite make the words fit a particular face.
He remembered the smell of smoke and blood, he remembered soft brown hair sifting through his fingers, he remembered the way she begged him not to make her a regret.
But it wasn't Darcy who warned him about grief, he knew that much. Darcy was hope; she was filled with it. Even her crooked grin was ambitious, excited, anticipating each new adventure. On his worst day he knew he could find her, curl himself around her, and find solace.
Darcy was reading, her glasses shoved up onto her head as she rubbed her tired eyes. It was late, long past when she'd usually be sleeping, but she always waited up for him when he was called out and tonight was no different.
Clint leaned in the doorway, silent, watching her. His ribs hurt when he breathed in, his knuckles were split and he had stitches just over his eyebrow. He could still feel the vibration of impact from when he'd been thrown, hitting a cement wall. He'd shaken it off when it happened, adrenaline helped, but now that he was coming down, it all hurt.
She was humming; her iPod was on her bedside table but she had a song stuck in her head and she mimicked the tune. His fingers tapped the beat out reflexively against his bicep, arms crossed over his chest.
She reached up and dragged her hair off her neck, using an elastic on her wrist to tie it up in a lopsided bun. A few curls fell, tickled her neck, framed her face. She chewed on her lip and tapped her pen against the stack of papers he was sure Pepper had given her.
She was wearing one of his t-shirts, her bare legs folded under her, their blanket covering only her feet.
"Staring's not cool," she murmured. "Especially when you're free to touch instead." Her lips curled in a smirk.
He laughed under his breath, pushed off the door jamb, and crossed the floor, kicking his boots off and crawling onto their bed, wincing as his ribs pulled. He tugged at the sleeve of his shirt until it slid down her shoulder, baring it, and he bent to kiss her soft skin. She turned her head, smile fading some, and reached a thumb up to probe the sensitive skin around his new stitches.
"You're lucky I like battle wounds," she teased, before scrubbing those same fingers through his hair.
His eyes fell to half-mass. "I got a few of 'em you can like all you want."
She chuckled before reaching over and putting her papers on her bedside table. Flicking her glasses back down she crawled down the bed and turned onto her side so she was facing him. She slowly, carefully, slid her leg up and over his hip. "What's the damage, soldier?"
He covered her knee with his hand and let his fingers delve under her thigh, dragging the tips up and down, lips tilting when he could feel the muscles tighten. "Bruised ribs, couple cuts, massive headache; I've had worse."
She hummed, looked him over thoughtfully, and then pushed his shoulder until he laid flat against their bed. Rising to her knees, she crawled in close, and reached for the zipper on his vest. She dragged it down, letting her fingers follow along the bared skin of his chest.
He pulled his arms free and she parted the leather back. She bit her lip, looking over each bruise, new and old. And then she leaned over him, arms braced on either side of his body, careful not to apply any pressure, before she dropped her lips down and pressed feather light kisses to each and every bruise and scrape. The loose curls of her hair followed her, dragging, tickling his skin. Finally she kissed her way up his sternum, nipped at the edge of his chin, and settled her mouth over his. He framed her face in his hands and kept her close, suckling her lips, flicking her teeth with his tongue. Her hands covered his, fingers falling into the spaces between his.
It was a few minutes before she was panting and dropped her forehead against his. "Scale of one to ten?" she asked.
"You're a good distraction from the pain," he replied.
She shook her head faintly and nipped at his lip. "That's not an answer."
He shrugged, wincing at the pull. "Eight. Good stuff hasn't kicked in yet."
"Hmm…" She nuzzled his cheek before finally settling herself down next to him. She slid an arm around his waist, asking, "Is this okay?"
He slid his hand up her arm, circled her elbow with his finger, and nodded.
Head resting close to his, she kissed his shoulder and his cheek and his temple. "I'm just gonna hold you until that's a six, sound good?"
He could feel his eyelids drooping, tired. He slid his other arm around her and hugged her in close, turning his head so his nose was buried in her hair. "Then 'go me for killing the bad guy' sex, right?" he slurred.
She grinned. "Absolutely."
He managed a half-smile before sighing, relaxing, and letting himself drift away, wrapped in her.
He was still too banged up for sex when he woke up, but she gave him a foot rub and fed him chicken noodle soup, even if she scalded him by accidentally dripping steaming hot broth on his chest. They spent the next day in bed, with him in and out of sleep, and her keeping a close eye on him.
It felt good.
To be taken care of.
To be cared about.
Sometimes he wondered what he'd ever do without her.
In the months since she died, he could feel himself walking along the edge, his feet close enough that loose debris slipped with each step, falling, falling, a whistle of descent reaching his ears. He tipped his head and listened to it like a song; a promise of his future.
He kept to himself; after being cleared to join back in on missions, he buried himself in work. His weapons cache eventually clicked, unlocked, and a sense of relief, of promise had filled him. He took his bow out, a last companion.
He avoided his team when he could; their offer of help, the look in their faces, a mixture of apology, understanding, and pity, it was all too much to handle. There were some nights, when exhaustion had drained him to a point where breathing hurt, that he considered asking Stark if he might work on that memory eraser.
But then he'd turn over and stare at the space beside him where she used to lay and he would hear her laugh echoing clearly in his head. He covered his ears and he closed his eyes, but it echoed and echoed, louder than his screaming. Until it drained away and he was left staring, wide-eyed, his face red with exertion, his chest heaving with breath, a line of spittle hanging from his lips. And then the silence would consume him and he'd curl up in a ball, his arm outstretched, hand reaching, reaching, finding nothing. "Come back," he'd whisper hoarsely.
Time blurred together; he could remember being in the back of a Boeing C-17, strapped in, parachute on his back, bag in his lap, the familiar rocking of the plane almost lulling. But he would stare at the other agents, taking sleep where they could, while he sat, staring listlessly out, trying to avoid Coulson's knowing, heavy stare, boring into him from the other side.
He was waiting for a reason to put him on psych-leave again. Waiting for him to screw up, fall asleep at the wrong time, make a mistake in the field, anything that would give Coulson enough reason to tell Fury that he wasn't fit for battle, he needed more time. Despite how exhausted Clint was, how his insides felt like they were being eaten away by battery acid, he knew how to do his job. When he was fighting, when he was focused on a target, he could push it all away, he could put Darcy to the back of his mind, wash his hands clean of her blood just long enough to paint them in someone else's.
It felt good; to fight, to kill, to bury an arrow in an enemy. The rage building up inside him ebbed just a little. Until he remembered that it wasn't who he wanted to kill; that these people didn't matter to him.
He knew he was walking a thin line; his desperation was starting to show. He barely slept and he couldn't keep the signs hidden forever. Sometimes, he heard her voice; he could hear her talking to him, distant but there. Commenting. That snark of hers filling his brain, making him laugh or grin at random. He was losing it.
His nights were the worst; he laid in his bed reliving moments of his life that he wished were still happening. He fought with himself to sleep, with the part of his mind that was so fractured that he wasn't always sure what was and wasn't reality.
Sometimes he convinced himself she never died; it was him who died and this was his hell.
Tony sedated him that night, as he lay curled in a corner, laughing and crying hysterically, pulling at his hair, repeating, over and over, "She's not gone. I am. I am."
Since neither Fury nor Coulson took him off duty, he assumed it was kept between the two of them. At the very least it provided a few hours of uninterrupted sleep that he desperately needed. But Tony never quite looked at him the same after that. There was something more to the pitying looks he tossed his way, something Clint could never define.
Many nights he looked back on his and Darcy's relationship and tried to find that moment where things could have gone different. When he could have walked away before they got too deep or at least done something that would've saved her life.
Hindsight was a cruel bitch.
"I love you."
Darcy looked up at him sleepily, her chin propped on his chest. "Huh?"
His lips twitched. He reached for her, tucking her hair behind her ear, and rubbed the curve of her cheek with his thumb. "My life's kind of a shit storm and I know it sucks for you sometimes… You get left behind and when I come back, I'm usually worse for wear…"
"Yeah, but I've apparently got a kink for ass-kicking, so…" She shrugged. "It like, balances out or something, I dunno."
"I just don't want you to think I don't know it's hard…" His jaw ticked. "And if it's ever too much, you gotta tell me. Don't…" He shook his head, eyes falling. "Don't just leave."
"Hey…" She climbed up a little and took his face in her hands. "I'm not going anywhere…" She shook her head. "You are stuck with me, Tweety." She grinned slowly. "Seriously, I'm a long haul kinda girl…" She slid her leg over his waist and straddled his stomach. "Does it suck when you come back with more holes than when you left? Yes!" She nodded, her eyes wide. "But that's 'cause I don't want you getting hurt, even if it saves the world or whatever." She shrugged. "The rest of the world doesn't have to see you limping around or leaning to one side or flinching when you breathe…" She licked her lips. "So it sucks serious balls sometimes, but that doesn't mean I'm not proud or that I don't get it…" She stared at him searchingly. "You're a squishy human, Clint, but you're top grade on my list of heroes."
He stared up at her, his brow furrowed. "If I ever fuck this up, you've got free reign to shoot me with my own arrows."
She laughed, her head falling back. Dropping her body down flat against his, she shook her head. "Nerf arrows only; personal rule."
"Well…" His eyebrow arched. "You do have crap aim with my bow… I mean, ya did shoot Fury with that arrow one time…"
She smirked. "When I tell the rookies I shot him, I point at my eye so they think I'm the reason he has the patch."
He chuckled lowly, grinning at her. "You're a devious woman, Lewis."
She smiled happily. "Thank you."
His grief was a disease.
He could feel it in the ache of his bones, the stretch of his skin, the beating of his heart that continued to throb even as he willed it to stop.
When he killed Magneto, he thought he would find satisfaction. As he lay in the grass, hand reaching for the arrow sticking out of his chest. It hadn't been easy, especially considering he could wield metal to his bidding. But Clint had determination on his side and a sneak attack courtesy of his long-polished stealth skills.
Watching as the recognition, the knowing, the desperation filled Magneto's face left him feeling hollow. He knelt by him, examining his face as his brow furrowed and his eyes became dull and empty, dead. Blood pooled on his chest, his heart, his lung, nicked with the serrated edge of the same arrow that had taken Darcy.
Clint left it there as he walked away, as the Brotherhood and the Avengers continued to fight in the background.
It was Natasha, not surprisingly, that found him.
He walked the ledge on top of Avenger's tower, back and forth across, like it was his tightrope. His hands were dried with blood, his ledger as clear as it would ever be. Without his mission now to guide him, without something to set his sights on, he felt even worse. His shoulders slumped, his eyes burning both from the bite of tears and the exhaustion that created an itchy film.
He didn't hear her coming, but then, he never did. She stood, her arms tucked behind her back, face carefully blank.
She watched him as he juggled, as he leaned precariously over the edge, barely catching his toy before he tossed it to the other hand, all the while walking, never looking at where his next step was, where it led, whether it was right off the edge or not.
"Fury's looking for you."
He hummed, continuing to walk. "Do you know there's a trick to cereal, Tash?" He didn't so much as glance at her. "There are rules, etiquette to certain foods…" He nodded to himself. "And the floors, they're so cold, we should have carpeting…" His mouth twitched. "Shag carpeting."
She simply watched him, completely still.
It took him a few minutes, the words stuck in his throat. "I killed him."
"I know."
He let out a distant laugh. "It didn't work."
She paused before finally, quietly, she said, "I know."
"I should've left her alone…" He shook his head. "If I'd left her alone she never would have—"
"Maybe," she interrupted. "Maybe not."
His jaw ticked as he swallowed thickly, his eyes falling. He closed his eyes and let the wind whip around him, let it ruffle his hair and smooth over his skin. It was cold, biting, welcome. He dropped off the ledge to land on the roof; she flinched, as if she expected him to go the other way.
He took a seat and rested his arms on his knees.
Slowly, she crossed the space between them and sat down, watching him from the corner of her eyes.
He turned his toy over in his fingers, staring at it. "Does it ever stop?"
She turned away, her brow arched. "It dulls… Becomes a part of you, distant but always there…"
His hands balled into fists; he couldn't imagine it. He couldn't imagine months, years down the road, remembering her and feeling only a slight pang. He wasn't sure he wanted it to dull. "Do you think I'm weak?"
She turned her head quickly, stared hard at his profile. "Because you loved her or because you miss her?"
He stared starkly ahead before dragging a hand over his face; he was so tired. "Take your pick."
She frowned, her gaze dropping in thought. "No." She turned forward once more. "You aren't weak," she decided.
"I can't do it," he breathed.
She clenched her jaw. "I won't beg you to reconsider."
He smiled, the feeling almost foreign after what seemed like forever. "I know."
He reached for her hand and she flinched, staring down at his fingers curved around hers. "All's fair," he told her.
Her brow knotted and she looked up at him, stared searchingly at his face. And then, slowly, she blinked, once twice, and her expression cleared entirely. She turned her face forward.
It was silent at first, when he pushed off with his feet and toppled over the edge. But as the wind whipped past him, as the floors of the tower went by in a blur, he could hear the whistle. When he closed his eyes, her laugh replaced it.
"Where are you going, soldier?" Darcy asked him.
"Home," he answered.
Clint spread his wings but he did not fly.
And then it was all black, numb, gone.
Atop the tower, Natasha turned her hand over, a single tear sliding down her cheek. She stared at the orange Nerf dart in her fingers, and swallowed tightly. "Find peace, my friend," she whispered.
[end.]