Cannot Fix.
While under the Tesseract's spell, Clint is made to brutally attack Natasha. She has a very hard time coping. Rating for language and sexual violence. AU. Not sure how many more chapters there will be. It all depends on how the story moves along and how I feel. Not so subtle hint: reviews spur my desire to write.
TW: talk of rape. This chapter's got touches of angst.
Another not so subtle hint: I've got around 7 followers and 1 review for this story. On my other newer fic, My Own Bed, I received five favorites and zero reviews. I really, really appreciate that you guys like my stuff, but it's quite hard to stay motivated without any feedback whatsoever.
There wasn't any fucking time.
There wasn't time to dwell on Clint, there wasn't any time to visit medical, and there was barely any time to slip into a fresh uniform (but she had to). Her body ached and her face throbbed, but she tucked the pain somewhere else, filed away for later, and moved quickly to Clint's holding room. She hesitated before the door for only a second before shaking her head and going inside.
Clint was writhing against his restraints. She hovered beside the door and successfully fought the urge to turn around and leave. She needed to see that he came down from whatever spell Loki had him under. So she waited patiently by him and tried her best to soothe him. It was hard to touch him, so she didn't. Her fingers stopped midair, trembling, causing her stomach to clench, so she rested them in her lap instead. She absolutely did not acknowledge that just touching her own thighs made her skin crawl.
"Oh my god..."
"Just hold on, Clint. It's almost over."
Clint's face was flushed and slicked with sweat. The veins in his arms looked angrily back at her as she studied his tense form.
"Nat," he moaned. She had to stop herself from hissing don't call me that. He looked miserable. She murmured a string of mostly meaningless comforts, guiding him slowly back to her. After several minutes, his muscles started to relax. His shirt was soaked. Natasha's eyes flicked to the door longingly, but she ignored the lure. "You're back now," she soothed. "It's... it's okay."
"It's not. It's not okay."
"You weren't under your own control."
"How many people?"
"H-How many..."
".. people. How many people did I hurt?"
Natasha reeled from the question. He didn't remember. He didn't even fucking remember. In a huge way, this was a good thing. She would never want to put Clint through the pain and awkwardness of the situation they were in; it gave her a chance to forget about it and resume life as normal. It gave her relief. Relief. She thought weakly that relief should feel different, shouldn't make her stomach knot up, or her palms sweat. In the event that she couldn't deal with it, then what in the fuck was she supposed to do? She couldn't just tell someone -
"Natasha, how many people?" Clint's tone was sharp and commanding. She shook her head and looked at him squarely in the eye. "No," she murmured. "You're not doing that. We're not doing that."
Clint let his head fall back in resignation. Natasha forced herself to stay in place. She trained her eyes on the floor and tried to focus on anything at all. Her thoughts floated and scattered like smoke, slipping through her fingers. She desperately wanted to march out of the room and find a bed, a couch, even comfortable carpeting, and go to sleep.
"What happened to your face?"
She noticed the throbbing ache in her mouth and brow now that he's brought it up. "Just... work."
" 'Just work'?" When she didn't respond, he shifted in his seat. "Did I do that to you?"
After a beat, Natasha smirked and rose to tend to his restraints. "Nothing you haven't done before, right?"
"I don't know, Nat." His voice was only a hair lighter than it usually was, and in that difference she could hear his worry and shame. He rubbed his chafed wrists and watched her. "Was it?"
She couldn't find the strength to answer.
She needed stitches.
Lots of stitches.
Natasha stood among the other Avengers, all of them battle-weary. Loki sprawled on the floor before them, having the nerve to ask Tony for a drink. She cut a look at Tony, but he only looked back at the villain with his trademark smirk, amused. "Let's wrap it up, guys?" she urged the group. Steve and Thor snapped into action and yanked Loki up by his arms. The god cried out as Steve was purposely reckless with his dislocated shoulder. The Hulk grinned in satisfaction.
"Ah, Natasha Romanoff," Loki sang. "Or shall I call you Nat?"
"You shouldn't speak to me at all," Natasha seethed.
Loki pointedly ignored her request. "What happened to your fair features, my little spider? Was it the beast?" Loki licked his lips. His eyes gleamed. "Or was it another monster? Perhaps somebody you know more intimately?"
The room fell to a hush as Natasha cocked her fist back and punched Loki in the mouth. He groaned and then laughed, blood staining his teeth. It dripped thickly down his lips. His laughter sent a white thrill of adrenaline through her veins, and it seemed for a moment that there was nothing in the room but her and Loki. Her, and Loki, and her fists. His bloody mouth. Her boot in his groin. She snapped out of it when Clint pulled her back and wrapped his powerful arms around hers. She struggled briefly and became aware of Loki's deranged, sputtering laughter and everyone's eyes on her. "Nat," Clint whispered, "are you okay?"
Loki still grinned up at her, even as blood continued to flow from his ugly mouth, and his eye began to swell up. "I'm fine," she insisted. Within Clint's grasp she felt a weird, suffocating sense of dread. "Let me go, Clint."
After a moment he released her. She was relieved, especially when Steve and Thor dragged Loki away. She poked gingerly at her own injuries and grimaced. "I need to get sewn up. Stark? Take me to a doctor in this damn place?"
Before Tony could answer, Clint stepped forward. "I can take you. Let's go."
Natasha sighed impatiently. "It's okay," she snapped. "I can just do it myself." Clint and Tony shared a look, Tony shaking his head slightly as if to say, she's all yours and walking away. Now Clint was focusing on her, with that confused and worried look, and it was putting her on edge. The anxiety coiled tightly in her belly and waited to explode into full-blown panic mode. She forced herself to soften. "Look, it's been a really rough day at work. I'm just going to get fixed up and go to bed. I'll see you later." She didn't wait for him to respond or turn her head when he sighed.
When Stark's on-site medical staff stitched and bandaged her face up, and prodded at her bad leg (they determined it to be nothing that rest couldn't help), she ignored the intermittent burn of pain between her legs. She determined that nothing could help that.
