So I've decided that in this story Clint and Natasha will be like platonic soulmates. They don't want to ruin their friendship that has taken years to form with romance. Hope you enjoy and don't forget to review at the end :)
"Physically, agent Romanoff can be cleared. Her body has recovered well. We have begun taking her off the drugs that are no longer necessary. Once she is cleared, she will have weekly checkups." Dr. Abel told Coulson and Clint. "However, we are still unsure of her mental state. And this is why I am recommending that agent Romanoff have a psychiatric evaluation to assess the state her mind is in." Clint glanced at the still form of Natasha through the window.
"Agent Coulson, It says here that you are her emergency medical contact." Coulson masked his surprise. He would have assumed that Clint was her emergency contact, but now it made sense. Being partners, Natasha and Clint went on many of the same missions. Usually if she came back bumped and bruised, he did too. "Do you consent to this evaluation?" Abel continued.
"Yes," Coulson said, glancing at Clint, who did not seem to have any objection.
"Alright then. Agent Romanoff can go home, and we will alert her as to when she will have her evaluation. You can expect the notification within the week."
"Nat," Clint said, "It's time to go home. We can go back to my place." Although Clint knew Natasha had her own apartment in town, he thought it best not to leave her alone in the current state she was in.
"Alright." Clint said, dumping a bag of takeout onto the table, "One large pizza and a small salad." Still receiving no reaction, Clint took out two plates and two slices.
Natasha took a few bites of the pizza before she felt her stomach tighten. With difficulty, she swallowed the food in her mouth. Tearing her empty gaze from the edge of her plate, Natasha glanced down at the remainder of her pizza; more than three-quarters remained. Slowly, she raised the slice and took a small, tentative bite. Fighting the urge to spit it out, Natasha forced herself to swallow it. Even with the little amount of food in her stomach, Natasha felt like she was going to throw it back up.
"I… I can't eat any more." She said, pushing her plate away. Even to Natasha, her voice sounded strange and foreign. She hated feeling like this. She knew she was hungry and that she needed the nutrients, having lost over ten pounds in North Korea. But she just couldn't eat. Her body had grown so used to not eating and so now eating and taking bites made her stomach want to repel the food.
"That's okay," Clint reassured, putting the remainder of her slice back in the box, honestly just glad that she had said something. "We'll put it here 'til you want it."
"How long was I there Clint?" Natasha asked, a strange look in her eyes. "It seemed like forever… but it couldn't have been more than 3 weeks."
"Sixteen days Nat. You were there for sixteen days before we found you and organized an extraction plan." A regretful, bitter note laced his words. "Sixteen d*mn days in that hell hole." Natasha nodded, a far-away look in her eyes.
"Are you a spy?"
"I am not a spy," she allowed fear and innocence to lace her voice. The man slapped her in the face again.
"Are you a spy?" Again, she denied the accusation and received another blow to her face. "Don't lie!" The man picked up a delicate silver knife and slashed her abdomen. Natasha clenched her teeth, allowing no reaction of the hot, fiery pain to reach her expression. The man pulled back his fist and struck her fresh wound. Her body contracted to protect the wound, and she sat there, unable to control her panicked breathing.
Her dream shifted. She was back at SHIELD, Coulson and Clint were there. Roughly, they pulled her to a room, it took her a moment to realize that this was the first room she had ever been in SHIELD: The isolated, bare cell she had been interrogated in. She saw herself sitting in there, alone and cuffed to the metal table. She knew it was herself, but she couldn't attach any emotion or memories to that person. The only person she saw was a killer. And assassin.
Her image morphed into the figures of two techies and the driver, mangled and bloody.
"Why didn't you save us?" The first techie, Robert rasped. "Of any of us to survive, why did it have to be you of all people?"
"If anybody, you deserved to die the most painfully." The driver said.
"I tried to - there was nothing I could've - could do," She stuttered.
"There's nothing you can do but kill anything." Clint accused from the doorway. "everything you touch dies and rots away, so why haven't you?" A wave of panic and helplessness washed over her.
The room dissolved before and she was back in North Korea.
"No, no." She muttered. She was strapped to the chair again. But instead of the normal interrogator, it was a faceless man. Looking more closely, Natasha could see all of the people she had ever killed morphing into focus in his face. Every victim that had ever died at her hands stared back at her while the faceless man's hands stuffed a tube down her throat. She wheezed and coughed, knowing full well what would happen next. The first wave of water hit her unexpectedly and most of it went into her lungs. Mercilessly, the faceless man water boarded her over and over again.
"Stop, please," She tried to speak, but her voice didn't work. Although her body remained dry, water continued to pour into her lungs. She gasped for air, only to be met with more water.
"Nat, Natasha," A pair of hands shook her awake. "Wake up." Before she could fully register that it was only Clint, Natasha had a knife to his throat.
"What're you doing here?" She mumbled, still trying to free herself from the grasp of the nightmare.
"What am I doing here?" Clint said, "You're in my apartment."
"Right," Natasha said, now remembering that she had spent the night in Clint's spare room.
"You okay?" He asked, concern in his eyes.
"Yeah… Well you know." Natasha said, "It was just a nightmare. Did I wake you?"
"Do you want to talk about it?" Clint asked softly, completely disregarding her question.
"Almost every night I sleep," Natasha began, "I'm back there, in Korea… and It's horrible. But," She said, meeting his eyes. "Of all the agents in there, why was I the one that survived? I mean, the things I've done, the people I've killed…" Natasha said. He could almost feel the self-hatred and guilt radiating from her, "Out of anyone of those agents, I deserved to die the most. Not the young, life full ahead of him techie. So why me?"
"You can't change what you did in the past Natasha." Clint began, "There's nothing you can do about that. The only thing you can do is change your future. And I for one think you've gone straight, you're trying to make the world a slightly better place. And for why you survived? You are a survivor. You survived the red room. You survived that one mission in Bangkok, remember that? You survived North Korea. You're a survivor Nat. Whatever curveball life throws at you, you can handle it. You've made it this far, and… You can make it threw whatever life throws at you next."
"Thanks," Natasha murmured, resting her head on his shoulder.
"And for what it counts for," he continued. "You're going to have deal with me for a long while because I'm not going anywhere." At this, Natasha gave a wan smile.
Per an unspoken agreement made by the pair seven months ago, Clint stayed with Natasha the rest of the night. In the aftermath of a fateful mission in Peru, Natasha and Clint mutually agreed to never leave the other after a nightmare. And so they fell back asleep together, wrapped in each other's arms, helping dispel any nightmares the other might have.
