Drabble 002:

Visiting Memory Lane

Natasha looks at Clint, her expression showing just how crestfallen she feels right now. He's sitting on the bed, in the infirmary on the Helicarrier, in their own little corner, separate the from the boisterous activity of the doctors and patients around them. The curtains are drawn, so they have their privacy, for the most part; they just have to remember to keep their voices down a bit, because no one - especially a SHIELD agent - likes to be eavesdropped on.

She's standing across from him, slouching against the wall. Her expression - usually one that's impassive, and unreadable - is dull, and it makes him feel like she needs to be cheered up a bit, but he doesn't know how to do that at this moment, with how she's feeling - with what she's decided to tell him.

"Nat," he says, gently, and her eyes snap to him, as if she's returning from going to down Memory Lane - something he knows she hates to do, because, in her mind, he knows that she's blocked off her own Memory Lane. She's put up barricades around it, she's obliterated with her mental defenses - and now, now he can tell she's created a tiny crack in the rubble surrounding the opening down the Lane, so she can wriggle through, and just stand at the beginning. Just so she can remember the small bits and pieces from before SHIELD, from after . . . after the Red Room.

She looks at him, patiently waiting for him to go on - because she knows he wants to say more. She knows him well enough to lock gazes with him, to let him know that she's rebuilt the walls around her Memory Lane, for the time being - just enough so she can't think about it till later.

"I . . . " he hesitates, something, as a SHIELD agent, he rarely ever does, but he has to be extremely cautious with his words, and then he realizes something.

He realizes that he can't really say anything without upsetting her, even though she won't show a thing, because one mention of a minuscule, seemingly irrelevant detail could bring up a whole set of other details that his partner wouldn't want to reflect on - not now, not ever.

He presses his lips together, and briefly, silently, thanks whatever luck he has that Natasha is keeping silent, that she's not rushing him to say anything, that she trusts him enough to speak about something that won't bring up old, lingering feelings - the ghosts of guilt, and pain, and doubt, that the Red Room has brought upon her psyche since she deflected from Russia and chose to take the chance Clint had offered her.

So he merely stands, her eyes running over once, noting the little flecks of dirt, grime, and blood on her body - making careful mental notes about any injuries she trusts her body to heal on her own. He pulls the curtain aside, and she quirks an eyebrow at him as they are exposed to the other people, the other SHIELD employees, and her expression is suddenly changed into one of calm, cool collectiveness that he can (sort of) see through.

"Do you want to see him?"

The look on her face softens, and Clint knows that he'd chosen the right thing to say. "Maybe tomorrow," she tells him. Her tone tells him how exhausted she is, from the battle, from the adventure she's had with Cap - from everything, and so he grins at her.

"Well, how about we grab some Thai food. I can pay, if you want."

A tiny quirk of her lips tells him she knows that he's just trying to be a suck-up so he can pick the next place they eat, without her being able to argue.

But Natasha nods, curtly, and pushes herself off the wall, and heads towards the opening between the curtains he's made for her. "Sure," she says, and smirks at him as she walks by, and he quickly falls into step behind her.

He can't see her face, though. He doesn't know that, while she walks, she's also still standing at the beginning of her Memory Lane. He can't know. If he did, he would see the ghosts of - of her past, of everything - on her face because he knows her too well.

So she keeps her back to him as she struggles to escape Memory Lane. But it's hard. It's harder than she remembered it being when she first did it - when she'd first laid eyes on the Winter Soldier himself.