A/N: i should tell you, this is a filler chapter! and about 1/3 of the chapter is twisted. so, if you want to get heartbroken, AGAIN, please proceed on reading this filler chapter and i.. should... be... sleeping... now... :( HERE YA GO!(: drop me a tip, favourite line, advice? whether you'd rather want to use a PM, or just press the little blue box below(; adios!
disclaimer: disclaimed, like in every single chapter i write! we should change that, right? all shippers shall own these characters! 8)
If she knows herself well enough, when the shadows in her mind close in and she flounders in the black misery and aberration of it all, how atrocious it may seem, the only thing she knows to do is to cry. But she's ever only cried with Clint by her side, comforting her into calmness with his presence alone, as she neglects her desire to appear as a tenacious woman to her peers.
To be crying for him, without his hands to soothe and silence to comfort, the dead silence in the room is overbearing and too much for her to take. A piece of her, maybe even a whole, feels chipped off. Simply put, nothingfeels right without his shadow lingering by her bedside. Lingering by her balled up figure, body wracking along with her deep sobs. Lingering by her with his arms wrapped around her shoulders. Without Clint, none of her feels complete.
In the dark of the night, the blinds all drawn and the room completely void of light at all, those stubborn tears just choose to finally march down her face. Alone, Natasha recognises. They travel alone. Tear by tear, silently slipping from under her eyelids where her eyes are burning and her mind is screaming and shrieking like cat claws against the chalkboard. It's so noisy in her head; everything's creating a ruckus and not leaving her in peace! The ache in her head pounds, and she cries even harder, feeling as if her head is about to explode. She lets loose a groan, sinking further down into her pillow and bed. Clint...
Maybe the sound of his name, in her mind, clears her head a little. The screaming stops, and it allows her to at least cry in ease. Natasha rolls over to her side, listening to her own breathing on soft sobbing. The sound lulls in her ears like a lullaby, and she hopes to sleep soon. Get one night over with and drag through the next, when the sun comes up and pesters her face with awakening. All she wants to do is sleep, yet it doesn't come easy at all.
-cookies!-
It's three in the morning, and he just can't sleep. Maybe none of them can sleep tonight. He rolls over the look at his wife, completely exhausted and in such disturbed sleep, he feels apologetic for making her fret. Tony takes time to process the captain's words, even though he knows majority of it was used only to anger him into letting the steam out. Actually, it issomewhat true. Steve wasn't wrong at all, pulling words like that on him.
Tony needs some air, so he goes back out onto the roof again to get a breather. This time, he freely dangles his legs over the edge of the roof, throwing down all caution of the possibility that someone might come and push him on his back so that he falls. Kudos to Clint, actually, for having found such a breathtaking place up here. It's no big wonder anymore on why he climbs up here all the time. The gravitational pull on his legs down to the centre of the earth, threatening to topple him over and splat him all across the pavement of the Manhattan streets, feels comfortable, in fact. Tony has never noticed how beautiful the Manhattan skyline is from the roof to his own tower until now.
"The man always has ways to amaze people." He hears a voice that he recognises almost instantly. Steve walks out into the opening and slings his arms over the ledge as he gazes out into the skyline. "So this is where he goes every time he disappears. Can't believe the man didn't share it sooner. I never knew such a place existed until today."
Tony chuckles briefly. "Never been up here myself either. I never did take the time off of the electronics to venture my own building, and the magnificence that lies beyond it." Their eyes watch the lights of the nightlife burn in exuberance, existing in a kaleidoscope of colours that comforts their vision. The wind breezes gently behind their backs. It's really the kind of place for peace and quiet, a little thinking, and it comes to thought that Clint and Natasha might have cherished time and friendship up here. Like they always. Tony's eyes catch on the tower in the midst of all buildings, the one they might be visiting tomorrow to pay their last respects to their buddy. And how the director must be sitting in his chair in one of the rooms right at the top, thinking nothing about Clint Barton, but instead, picking out whom to send off to their next mission.
"What if he did it on purpose, you know? Send him on an extended mission half across the world to separate them?" Tony asks, and Steve holds that thought. It mightbe possible, even if he doesn't want to believe it. "What if he wanted them to learn the hard way? That he doesn't stand by relationships between SHIELD operatives?"
"I doubt that the director did it on purpose, Tony. He's not that ruthless." The man tries to reason out, going back to beige the loyal operative of SHIELD's anti-terrorism assemble, all under the call of Director Fury. He doesn't know much about that upright man, but he sure looks like the kind that thinks things through thoroughly enough.
Tony sighs defeatedly. "I dropped that assumption about a year ago." His voice is taut but tired, so they let silence sink back in until one of them speaks up again. "How do you think she feels now, losing her partner? If Coulson is already that bad, I can't imagine what she's going through."
"Lost, unguided. I know how it feels. But Natasha's a tough nut to crack, she'll be alright I guess." Steve replies. He's lost his loved one before, and that didn't go so well for him until he got over it.
"That's because he'd been there for her all along. Clint came up to me once, asked me what to do because she was sinking deeper into a breakdown. He told me that she had nightmares of them dying so graphically, bloody, and that he didn't know what to do but just to be there for her and hold her as she sleeps." They shiver at the thought of how wild her nightmares might have been. Gory, gushing red. "She's never been alright her whole life; it makes me wonder why she's been trying to hide it from us."
"It doesn't take all of us to answer that. I think you know it very well too. The reasons."
"So, we're not done with that, huh?"
Steve shakes his head. "You haven't given an answer yet. On why the impulse started to grow on you." Tony glances back at the other man, then looks back out into the horizon again. He sighs, clicking his tongue in thought. "There's only so much you can take, you know. I mean, you can't lose two of your closest friends just like that and just walk off with a bounce in your step. It just piles on, and on, and it doesn't stop until you snap. Make an irrational decision and bust your ass."
Steve only grunts at his answer. That might be the first, of all things, that they can agree on.
-cookies!-
Clint's just... standing there. Standing there staring at her. His eyes are bearing into her skull, until she turns to face him. How near he is. It's within the reach of her fingertips where she can feel the lifeblood of his gushing through every vein under his perfect skin. Perfect skin, no battle scars.
It's too surreal. He's too flawless. He's not real, and she knows it, but all she wants to do is embrace his unreal being and be there forever. It's what her heart tells her to do. To wrap her arms around that beacon of light and feel his presence on her skin again. Let her overcome her loses and stay in this dream where they are together and he is alive. Where she can feel his heart drum against her ear. Where she knows he's warm and strong and wanting.
So she does that. But the slightest touch upon his skin turns all of him to shattered glass. His eyes, those that she's stared into a million times before, just disintegrate right before her. He's gone.She's stepping on broken glass now and they're all stained with red. The deep, sticky red of his blood. Her surroundings turn dim until it's completely dark, and Natasha knows that she's nowhere. Lost between what she has and what she doesn't. What is real and what isn't.
In her dreams - nightmares to be exact - she is as vulnerable as a man to all terrible things in the world. Everything from emotions, to injuries, and to death. The way her epic bravado is skinned down to the bare minimum, and she's just as weak and powerless and unable, it makes her mind a paradox to the reality. She's in pain. So much pain, as her feet continue to step on the broken shards. She doesn't know where she's going, and - demented and twisted as it is - her bone white honesty can scream out at her weaknesses right now.
Natasha. She hears his voice call her name, and her heart immediately races. He's out there, somewhere. She just has to find him. Her footsteps steady, she ventures out blind, following his voice. But it's everywhere! Natasha doesn't know which direction it's from. Natasha.His voice is more urgent now. She picks up her pace, throwing one foot in front of the other and giving no thought to how the glass shards are hurting her feet. Clint is somewhere, in all that darkness, calling out her name, in need of help.
Her feet sting, but she doesn't care. Natasha!He's practically screaming now! The trepidation in his voice, as well as the shrillness, pulls daggers through her chest. Her nightmare evolves again, and now she's bleeding into the cotton of her white top, soaking every inch of it with her blood.
Yet, she continues running even when she's growing weak and her feet are cold and numb. When she finally falls, her tears cascade down her face, like the blood gushing from her wounds. The shards of glass get embedded in her skin, but the physical pain doesn't bother her. It's her chest, her heart, that's burning. It feels like it's Clint's anger, asking her why she hadn't saved him. Why she hadn't found him sooner. Why is he dead? Why fucking why!
She just curls up on the floor, when all the pieces of blood-drenched glass disappear, letting these demons chew at her skin and eat her alive. Why hadn't she loved him sooner? Her tears turn into rain, each droplet being a white hot burn in her skin. Like acid. Hell, Natasha wants to scream. Needsto scream. But her lungs work against her and steal the air she feels she doesn't necessarily need anymore. "I'm sorry... I'm so, so, sorry Clint…" She's pleading.
She really is alone, and she really needs Clint. But now he just seems so far away...
well which one of you lovelies understood the last part?(; drop me a tip, or your favourite line/paragraph in the part(: CCs are always welcome!
G'night from the SEA!(:
