Wow. My first ever M rated fanfic. O.O

So I got this idea listening to Say Something by A Great Big World. I literally listened to it on repeat while writing this fic because it was the only way I thought I'd be able to finish it. For some reason, the song makes me feel heavy and sad every time I hear it. I also did my best to get into Clint's head for this, and I hope I did him justice.

This is also just over 3k words. I can't believe I did that. :)

Anyway, I do not own The Avengers or Say Something.

WARNINGS: severe depression, suicidal thoughts, reference to self harm, the entire thing is from Clint's POV and that means his thoughts narrate the fanfic

DON'T READ if you think you'll be triggered

Now cross posted to ao3 at /works/6961324

Do Something

(I'm Giving Up on Me)

Beginning at: Tony Stark's bar, three weeks After Loki

Clint never really understood. He didn't know why people thought that it was okay to hurt themselves, didn't know why people thought that it was okay to kill themselves. Sure, he read. He watched TV. He saw it happen in front of his own eyes with this seemingly happy girl back when he was fourteen and celebrating his second year free of the foster homes (not being in the circus, he'd never celebrate that). He saw it happen in front of his own eyes with military veterans, with kids who were abused before being shoved into an orphanage before being shoved into foster home after foster home after foster home where the abuse continued, saw it happen with doctors and pilots and mothers and fathers and teenagers and kids three years into college. He saw it happen with SHIELD agents who volunteered for the suicide missions, saw it again with agents who died with a Sorry on their lips after being taken down on missions so simple they would have been labeled Irrelevant if they hadn't needed to be done. He saw it happen with agents who put their own SHIELD issued weapons to their head or their neck or their wrists depending on whether they were using a gun or a blade. He saw it happen, watched TV, and he read. He still didn't understand.

He wouldn't, not until after Loki.

After Loki.

Clint tilted his head back, tilted a beer bottle back with it, and wondered drunkenly if all of the moments of his life had to be called after something. After birth. After 100% hearing. After Harold and Edith Barton. After the orphanage and half a dozen foster homes. After he found archery. After another betrayal (three, actually: Jacques, Buck, and Barney, and even Clint admitted he should have seen those coming). After Coulson picked him up. After he picked up Natasha. After Budapest. After New Mexico. After the Tesseract. After Loki.

He had wondered, distantly, before it happened, how people got depressed. Did they just wake up and realize it was there? Or did it build and build and build on whatever foundation had started it?

Clint learned, later, that it was a bit of both. It built and built and built on After Loki before he woke up one day and realized how much heavier the world had become. It wasn't like he had lightened anyone else's world. His was just heavier.

"Hey, Barton, don't you think you've had enough?" The question came from Tony. He had an After Loki, too. All of the Avengers did. Clint wondered how they kept going when his own After Loki was so dark. Maybe theirs were brighter. Maybe that's where his light went.

"N'pe," Clint mumbled. He peered up at the older man from his position on the floor. He hadn't moved from there except to get more drinks after he finally crashed to the carpet thirty minutes previously. "'m not drunk, T'ny. Jus'… jus' havin' fun. 'sides, I got 'evie. 'evie'll look after me."

He made a wild attempt at patting Steve on the shoulder, but ended up slapping the other man's thigh instead.

"You mean Steve?" Tony questioned. "You know, normally I'd be laughing my head off about this, but you're just being pathetic now, Clint. Who would've thought: Clint Barton, best shot in the entire world and also the world's most pathetic drunk."

"Enough, Tony," Steve said with a frown. He stood from the bar (Stark's actually, drinks were on the house) that they were seated at without even a wince. "I'm taking Agent Barton back up to his room. Hopefully he'll be able to cool down there. No shenanigans, Tony. Bruce, holler if he does anything stupid, okay?"

"You got it, Cap," Banner replied. "And you know Natasha's right across the hall from Clint, right?"

Steve nodded. "I'm hoping to avoid her interference, if possible. Something tells me she wouldn't be too fond of what Barton's been up to tonight."

"Are you kidding me?" Tony asked, his eyes beginning to gleam as he got over Clint's apparent pathetic drunkenness. "I'd love to see her punish him for a change. She plays favorites, that Widow. I'm still not certain that my physical health will ever be the way it was before it came into contact with her fists."

"S'ee punch 'ou?" Clint slurred. "Betcha deser'ed it."

"Yeah, Clint, I bet he did," Steve said, "But at the moment your judgement is severely impaired, and I bet you'd deserve it if she decided to punch you right now. You're certainly drunk enough."

Clint shook his head. "'ot enough, 'eve. Never 'nough."

For some reason, Steve thought that those were the most honest words his teammate had spoken to him since the battle with Loki.

Steve didn't do anything except take Clint back up to his room.

Clint sighed, turned over in his bed, and buried his head in his pillow. His blanket was black, the sheets and pillow deep purple. Clint thought that together, they'd be no match for how dark his soul felt every day.

It burned with each breath that he took, lit black with hellfire. Its flames choked him, squeezing his chest tight and forcing him to hunch in an attempt to breathe through the smoke and the weight of the world.

It had been a month since Steve revoked his alcohol privileges.

Clint breathed, relished how difficult it was for him to draw in air. At least this way he wasn't choking on fire.

A knock sounded at the door, and he recognized Thor's pounding announcement.

The archer sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and stood.

As he walked to answer the door, he wondered if all of those other agents and people who he had seen like this had also pondered swinging their legs (followed by their torsos, and then their heads, and finally their hands - those were always the last things holding on) over a different edge. He wondered if any of them actually had, if anyone had been there to catch them or to grab their hands and not let go. He wondered why they had fallen anyway.

"Thor," He greeted.

"Hawkeye!" Thor exclaimed, taking in the smaller man's appearance.

Clint knew he didn't look good. Black smudges adorned his cheeks directly below his eyes, ash left over from the hellfire. His hair was messy, the short blonde style tussled from his day in bed and his clothes - a pair of navy blue sweatpants with a dark purple v-neck - the same way. He figured that he had lost muscle mass, his motives for visiting the gym and working out gone since After Loki began.

Thor hesitated, but his words were the same. "You… look well, my friend. Come, the Man of Iron has made popcorn and wishes for everyone to share in the good times of a night at a museum! I hope you are hale?"

"Yeah, Thor," Clint replied, closing his door behind him. Just keep doing the motions. "I'm fine."

Thor walked with him to the living room, greeting everyone with a hearty laugh and a slight, worried glance at Clint.

That was all he did.

Clint stood directly under the spray of water in his shower and thought, letting the water wash over his nose and mouth as he held his breath.

People said that the world was their oyster.

Clint figured that if the world was his oyster, then it must still be underwater. He knew the symptoms of drowning.

He felt his chest getting tight and suddenly realized that it wasn't because of the hellfire still burning inside him.

Apparently he was still having trouble connecting drowning to need to breathe.

He pulled his head out of the stream and took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air before he plunged his face back into the water.

It had been two and a half months since the drinking incident, and Clint wondered when someone wrapped his chest in thorns. He wondered when they squeezed his heart, wondered when they made his arms burn.

He wondered if Natasha would notice that her knife was missing (he didn't want to use his own, didn't like the idea of using a weapon that he had used to kill).

He thought that she would, thought she'd notice as soon as she pulled out her knife kit to clean like she did each night.

Clint noticed her new knife, knew she'd gotten it to replace the one she'd lost.

She asked Steve and Bruce, Thor and Tony. Asked them if they'd seen the knife, even threatened Tony with another blade after questioning the other three.

She never got around to asking Clint.

Clint breathed, felt his chest move. Felt his chest constrict against the thorns, felt the hellfire burn his lungs as air rushed through them.

"And that one?" He asked.

Bruce followed Clint's index finger's path to yet another container, this one labeled CN-.

"Cyanide," Banner replied. "A mix of carbon and nitrogen that produces an almond-like smell. Probably the most commonly known poison in the world."

"How fast does it work?"

Bruce shrugged. "Usually takes about 15 minutes to kill, if that's what you mean."

The blonde nodded.

"What about that one?"

"Potassium chloride, used in executions around the country. It's the third injection given to the condemned criminal and stops their heart."

"Injection?"

"Yeah, it'd be injected. Cyanide, on the other hand, can be inhaled or swallowed."

Clint nodded absentmindedly, his stormy gaze scanning the labeled containers that Bruce had brought into his lab for use in an experiment.

"Hey, Clint?" Bruce questioned.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you so fascinated? No offense, but you've never shown any interest in my work before."

"I dunno. I was kind of thinking about using poison on my arrows or something, but maybe not. If I do, potassium chloride seems to be the best choice."

Clint was lying, but Bruce didn't question him.

Clint figured that he was done. His entire life, he'd been running. Running from his dad. Running from the system. Running from Barney, Jacques, and Buck. Running from the circus. Running from his past. Running from his mistakes. Running from Loki. It had just taken him this long to figure out what he was running to. The edge.

And now he was here. That edge was the edge of Stark Tower's roof. And it was right there. He was sitting on it, both feet hanging over it. Next thing to go, he remembered, would be his torso. Then his hands, and only one of them needed to let go because if one went then the other would, too.

"Clint?"

Not there yet, then. Physically, maybe, but it wasn't the right time. Not with Tony there.

"Yeah?"

"You gonna come in? It's been awhile since you've been at movie night - pretty sure it was Night at the Museum, almost three months ago."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll come in."

If Tony noticed the way Clint's eyes flickered back to the edge as they walked inside, he didn't say anything.

The movie that they watched was Perks of Being a Wallflower. At the end, when Clint figured out what was happening, he wondered if anyone else had known before they chose the movie. He bet they did. He bet they chose this movie for a reason. He bet it was Tony. Or maybe Steve. It was too obvious to be Natasha, too outspoken to be Bruce. Thor wouldn't have a clue, and Clint was pretty sure the demigod bawled his eyes out through the end, anyway.

Clint bet that Tony chose the movie. It seemed like something he would do.

He took a page out of his teammates' book and didn't say that it may have actually helped. Just a little.

It was Natasha who found him in Bruce's lab.

He had been staring at the potassium chloride for a little over two hours then, debating with himself. It turned out Perks of Being a Wallflower only worked for about a week before things went downhill again. It'd been three weeks now, since that night.

Clint hadn't meant to end up like this, in the lab by himself. He'd come down to talk to Bruce, see if he needed help with anything. See if he could distract himself from the war raging inside his head. Problem One started when Bruce wasn't there. Problem Two started when he saw the potassium chloride.

Natasha looked at him, looked at the potassium chloride, and read him like she had learned to read blood spatter.

She took his hand, led him away, and sat him down in front of one of Tony's many chessboards.

The game took hours.

They always were pretty awful at chess, which was surprising considering they were known for being master assassins.

Clint knew Natasha had read him again halfway through, knew she knew her plan had worked.

He didn't get any better at chess, but he wondered if he just imagined the heat of the hellfire cooling.

He had a staring contest with Bruce, the very next day.

Bruce said Clint needed a shrink (not specifically, he said psychiatrist, but Clint knew what he meant - Bruce wanted someone to dig into Clint's head).

Clint thought he didn't need anyone but his teammates, but he told Bruce to f*** off instead.

They compromised.

And maybe it helped. Just a little.

Clint didn't count Bruce as a shrink.

Thor was the one who convinced the others to let Clint back into The Avengers. Officially, anyway, because he hadn't really been taken off the team, he just hadn't been allowed on missions after the potassium chloride incident (the one with Natasha, not with Bruce). It'd only been a month, but for some reason Thor figured that Clint was ready.

"He is a warrior," The demigod had stated. "Let him fight."

Clint figured that Thor was wrong, because he didn't feel like a warrior, not anymore, but he didn't protest.

It got him into the next battle against Doom and his doombots, and Clint wouldn't say anything, but it felt good to be suited up again.

Blood fell to the floor, dripping off of Clint's fingers. Dryly, he wondered if this would help to drain his ledger. It was filled to the brim with red, gushing with the coppery liquid in a way that was almost identical to what Natasha had described to him, years ago when he had recruited her.

He swallowed, asked himself when his bathroom had turned into a desert because his mouth was dry, too dry. It was the parched mouth of someone who hadn't had water in days, which was impossible because he'd had water just that morning.

Clint figured this must mean that he was no longer drowning.

He swallowed again, his tongue licking at his lips as he attempted to wet his mouth.

Was the hellfire burning hot again, no longer cool? Was that smoke he smelled?

No, he decided after a moment. That was copper. Copper blood. His blood.

His.

His life that he was draining.

He closed his eyes, opened them again to look in the mirror, and then watched as the hellfire went out. His eyes were stormy, like always, but they seemed different.

Now he knew he needed to stop.

His eyes had life.

He couldn't afford to let that go again.

Steve caught Clint a few days later.

Natasha's knife was in his left hand, and he was watching red blood stream down his right. He looked up as the bathroom door creaked open, watched as Steve's face went from relaxed to horror.

Clint didn't attempt to protest as Steve grabbed the blade from him, snatched it and tossed it in the trash, and the archer didn't say anything about how he'd been planning on giving it back to Natasha, really he had, he'd just been borrowing it for a bit.

He knew Steve would point out how a bit had turned into a while, because by now it'd been about four months since Natasha began asking questions, since the knife went missing and since, no doubt, he started watching himself bleed. Literally, this time, because he'd started watching himself leak red for a little less than seven months now but that red was just figurative.

Clint didn't protest as Steve ran his forearm under the tap water - he'd used the part of his arm that would be hidden under his gauntlet, the perfect hiding place because when he wasn't in uniform he was wearing Phil's old college sweatshirt (and yeah, he may have stolen it from Coulson's belongings After Loki).

He didn't protest when Steve slapped rubbing alcohol over the markings (little stick men who'd lost all of their appendages as well as their heads). He didn't say anything when clean white bandages followed the alcohol, didn't say anything when Steve tugged them a little too tight and swore, loosening them so Clint wouldn't lose feeling in his right hand on top of everything else that was going on.

Clint didn't protest, didn't say a word when the taller man led him back to his bedroom, laid him on his bed, and then left. He wouldn't tell Steve the next morning that he'd seen the other man's shadow, just peeking through the doorway as he kept watch over his teammate.

He would never tell Steve how maybe he'd used one of the communal bathrooms for a reason, how maybe he'd left the door open on purpose.

Later, when Clint was almost better, or as close to better as he would ever get, because he would never really be the same again, he could maybe tell Steve, "Thanks".

And Steve could say, "What for?"

"You know."

And Steve did.

The Avengers never really understood.

Not until he was already slipping.

Then they held on with both hands.

And they didn't let go.

Ending at: Stark Tower, seven months After Loki

Alright, well, I hope you all enjoyed! Well... not enjoyed Clint's pain, but the fanfic. Um... yeah.

Please review!