A/N: I've written this one-shot specifically as a surprise present for CinderScoria on Twitter,otherwise known as Lost in Translation — she happened to see me linking another Twitter user to my profile on fanfic, and she proceeded to freak the heck out. Apparently, she had already read my Clint/Natasha fanfics — quite literally bawling her eyes out in the process — and though we had chatted on Twitter before, she had no idea that I'd written those stories, since I use the pseudonym "Shadows of a Dream" on fanfic.
She promptly broke into ALL CAPS, giggling, and general freakout, adding that it felt like meeting a celebrity, as I was one of her favorite authors. Needless to say, I was utterly stunned. I started grinning so much that my face ached, and I must have been blushing because my face felt ridiculously hot.
Thank you, Jasmine, for an incredible complement that took me utterly by surprise. Thank you for encouraging me and energizing me as I get back to revising my novel. Consider this my surprise present to you — I hope you like it! (And by "like it," of course I mean "bawl the whole time as you read," but let's put it in nicer terms, shall we? I seem to have a habit of writing doomed romance, as of late.) This will probably be somewhat short, seeing as it's already almost 11 PM and I want to finish it tonight, but hopefully, you won't mind. *hugs* [EDIT: I just finished and it's a quarter to one in the morning. Go figure. Excuse any typing/grammatical errors, as I'm fairly certain this qualifies me as sleep-deprived, but I'm still wide awake.]
The songs for this fanfic are GIVE ME LOVE by Ed Sheeran and FALLING SLOWLY from the ONCE soundtrack (which I know nothing about save for this particular song, but the song is beautiful so I don't care.)
~x~X~x~
GIVE ME LOVE (FALLING SLOWLY)
Dedicated to Cinder Scoria (Lost in Translation)
~x~X~x~
It began and ended in the dark — with the heat of her skin and the racing of his pulse, and the slow, lingering touch of her lips. Clint said "I love you" because it was true, and Natasha started to cry because she had never been truly loved. And then she ran away because she was afraid, or at least, that's what he tells himself as he lies awake at night. She probably ran away because she never loved him at all.
One day, when Clint arrives at the Triskelion for his latest assignment, Maria Hill glances seriously in his direction. "Natasha's back," she says. "From her classified mission."
Clint's heart stills in his chest, hot and cold at once. "How do you know?"
"She called in with a mission report last night," Maria says. "Made me promise not to tell you."
Clint flashes a crooked smile. There is bitterness in his voice, though it shames him. "A spy, expecting someone to keep promises?"
To that, Maria gives no reply, other than general well-wishes. After she has gone, Clint Barton vows to himself that he will not contact Natasha Romanoff.
But assassins and spies aren't all that different, and he's never been good at keeping promises, either.
~x~X~x~
The phone rings; once, twice. Natasha doesn't rise from her bed to answer.
You've reached Natalie Rushman, the machine says, because assassins use covers, not names, when renting personal apartments. Leave a message, and I'll get back to you.
There's a beep, and then — absurd, foolish, beautiful — it's Clint Barton's voice, low and lilting, like how he'd whisper against her skin as she slipped into sleep. It's been months since she heard that voice.
Hey, 'Tasha, he says, and the slur in his tone tells her everything she needs to know. His blood has turned to alcohol tonight. I heard you're home. I missed you.
Natasha grips the edge of her bed with her fingernails. She cannot recall having ever been missed — the Red Room had no use for memories of compassion, and so any affection she once knew may as well have never been.
Sometimes, when I'm almost asleep, I think I hear something and I open my eyes and... Oh, hell. I don't... I tried to make it stop, 'Tasha, but it doesn't stop. I miss you like hell. Just wanted... I dunno... I wanna hear your voice, 'Tasha. Just once.
She blinks, and her eyes are leaking. She slams them shut like curtains — as if in keeping the tears in, she could keep Clint Barton and his soft, sweet voice out.
I know it's damn wrong. I know, but... Oh, hell, 'Tasha. I'm drunk. I'm drunk out of my damned mind. I'm sorry, all right? I'm sorry.
There's a click, a stretch of static. Then silence.
Natasha tries to take a breath, but it breaks into a sob, and the sob slips into a scream, and she buries her face in a pillow, trying to strangle sound, trying to make sense of how a man she destroyed could have missed her when she was gone, could have missed her when no one else ever has.
~x~X~x~
He calls every night, more often drunk than he is sober.
Once, he's drowning in alcohol and she's had too many shots of vodka herself, so she answers the phone on impulse. It's a flood of saltwater and apologies and I missed yous — and she'll spend the night throwing up on a cold tile floor, and he'll have the strangest dreams that he's suspended in flight above Budapest — and when the sun rises, she'll clean her apartment and he'll wipe his eyes, and they won't remember anything at all about a phone call.
And they'll both be too ashamed to ask.
~x~X~x~
They're in denial and they know it. Of what, they haven't the slightest idea. And so the hours go by.
Natasha's life falls back into a reckless rhythm of mission after mission, without even the briefest reprieve. She sleeps alone and wakes screaming. And so the days go by.
Clint's existence can be reduced to espionage and alcohol, and maybe it isn't healthy, but if Tony Stark can do it, he certainly can. He sleeps alone and wakes with her name on his lips, with her taste in his mouth. And so the weeks go by.
They're closer than ever, and they're severed beyond repair.
And so the months go by.
~x~X~x~
Clint is home alone, buried in a book instead of a bottle, when his phone signals that he's received an email.
Clint —
You loved me better than I deserved. You believed things would get better, but I don't think they ever will. I've got more red on my ledger than I can ever erase. I've broken more hearts than I can mend. I want to be free, so I'll release myself.
Know that you did all you could. Know that I will always regret how I treated you. Don't stop living on my account.
Goodbye, Clint Barton.
— Natasha
It will take ten minutes for Clint to remember how to breathe. It takes less than a second for him to start running.
~x~X~x~
She changed the lock on the door, so he breaks into her apartment. "Natasha! Natasha, it's me. It's Clint! Don't do this —"
She's sprawled on the floor, a discarded knife lying inches from her outstretched hand. Angry red gashes streak both her wrists. He reaches for her neck, trying to take a pulse, but she arches her back, cringing away, and only then does he realize she's still conscious.
Her eyes are glassy, distant, as though she's observing him from underwater. "Let me die this time, damn it."
He calls the hospital anyway, speaking over her curses and protest. They promise to send paramedics immediately. When he hangs up the phone, he finds that he's shaking.
Natasha sighs — a soft, shuddering sound — and reaches for his hand. He grips back tightly, though her palms are hot and sticky with her own blood. She holds his gaze, the ghost of a smile playing on her perfect lips. "You should've killed me in Budapest."
"Maybe," Clint admits, but he isn't sorry for making a different call. He leans down, pressing a kiss to Natasha's forehead, wishing she knew what her absence would have been to him — not a candle quenched, not a star burned to dust, but the sun itself snatched from the sky.
~x~X~x~
The doctors sedate Natasha to perform a blood transfusion. When, at long last, the procedure is complete, Clint is forbidden from entering the recovery room. He enters anyway.
Natasha is barely awake, groggy and heavy-lidded. "Barton," she mumbles.
"Romanoff."
"You kiss any other girls while I was gone?"
"A few." Clint bites his lip, his heart twisting. "They didn't taste like you."
Natasha's eyebrows draw together, a sharp V in the center of her forehead. "What do I taste like?" she asks, and for an instant, her gaze is lucid.
"Guilt," Clint says, sighing. He tucks an errant scarlet hair behind her ear. "Sorrow." He brushes her cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. "Hope."
Natasha blinks. "Hope," she says.
"Hope," he says.
"Kiss me, Barton."
He does.
It's a kiss that says, I love you, and means, I never could. And it isn't fair and it isn't kind, but she is so, so lonely, and Clint understands, and she's more desperate than she is sorry. His eyes drift closed as he leans into her touch, her fingers laced behind his neck, her lips ghosting, feather-light, across his.
She tastes like hope and has none left to give.
I would have enough for both of us, Clint thinks, but when their lips slide apart, he doesn't kiss her again.
~x~X~x~