CHAPTER SEVEN

For a moment, Clint's mind rejected what she had just said. All of that trouble to use him against Natasha. Him? His mind had retracted back into itself so he did not realize he was staring blankly at her as he tried to fit this new information with his recovered memories. Try as he might, there was no way to prove she was wrong, though, and he finally refocused on her, knowing his expression was one of utter confusion.

But then Natasha continued, sounding as close to tears as he had ever heard her, "I'm so sorry, Clint."

"What were they doing to me that required chips? Tell me that," Clint finally said, not sure whether to mistrust Natasha or accept her explanation—after all, she had lied to him for two weeks about not knowing anything and she had been there for at least some of it.

She bit her lip and clutched his jacket tighter around her shoulders, looking so uncharacteristically helpless that he wondered if he was being too hard on her. "Mostly, they were using you to spy on me, as far as I could tell…but they warned that you were programmed to kill me if the need arose or if I told you what I knew."

Clint shot to his feet and half shouted at her, "Then why the fuck did you stay around me?"

Only after his breathing and pulse had almost returned to normal did he notice her wince.

"What was I supposed to do? Clint, I'm sorry for everything you went through and I'm sorry this went on for so long, but I'm the one who told Tony to get into your mind. I had some idea of what needed to be done and you didn't deserve what happened to you and I was the only one who could do anything about it. And I sure as hell couldn't do that from halfway across the world."

"So you did exactly what they wanted you to do and they saw everything I saw and heard everything I heard and maybe they have new ways to attack you," Clint was fighting back an anger of which he could not identify the source, "As soon as I got back, you should have talked to Tony and disappeared until I was better."

At that moment, Natasha stood up, his jacket falling behind her, and slapped him, her green eyes blazing, "I don't need you telling me how to protect myself. It was you I was worried about."

Clint stood stunned for a moment, gaping down at her reddened face incredulously. He had always understood that people were wary of Black Widow, but he thought he had never truly encountered that side of her in the rawest form until this moment. She could go from near breakdown to enraged in no time at all.

And in that moment, he realized that, whatever the chips had messed with inside him, they had not faked his feelings—he was madly in love with Natasha Romanoff and there was no way he could keep lying to himself about it. And he still trusted her completely, even if that trust would cost him his sanity or his life, because loving Natasha Romanoff was like loving a black widow, for sure: she could just as easily kiss him as she could kill him in cold blood. But he loved her.

"If you think for one moment that I would get you into this situation and then just dump you off into someone else's lap, you're terribly mistaken. I fix the problems I create if they're not intentional." Once she has finished, her eyes burned into his and such a weakness engulfed him.

"To hell with it," Clint decided. If this was how an epic friendship died, there was nothing more he could do. His hand went behind her neck and pulled her close until their lips collided.

There was no hesitation. She seemed to have been waiting on him to make a move, and no sooner had he pulled her into his arms than she turned him around and forced him down onto the couch over the armrest, biting his lip in the process.

The world seemed to be spinning at breakneck speed and the only thing that mattered to Clint was keeping Natasha as close as he possibly could while their lips moved in perfect synchronization. Her hands clawed at his hair, pulling his head back so she could kiss him more deeply, his hands trying to decipher the zipper of her dress.

Suddenly, there was a loud, frantic knocking on the door and Natasha shot up in his lap, climbed off, yanked her dress down, and ran a hand though her hair at lighting speed before sprinting to the door and opening it.

The spinning of the world had stopped so suddenly that Clint was left breathless for a moment, so stunned that he did not notice Tony enter the apartment until he was standing over him, eyes wide.

Without a word, Tony shoved Clint's head to the side and inserted a needle just below his skull. For a moment, Clint glimpsed Natasha's sheet white face, and then there was nothing…

…until a jolt ran through his body and he felt his chest seize up. He thought there ought to be pain, but he felt almost numb.

There was white light everywhere and a sound like an electric fence resonated off the walls, but Clint felt distant from everything.

What had happened? How had he gotten here?

Natasha.

He remembered her hands.

And he remembered her lips.

And then he remembered her ghostly face and a pang struck the base of his skull and traveled down his spine, eliciting a sharp cry.

"Not again." A wave of despair covered him, "Please, God, not again."

There was a high, whining sound above him and he dreaded what would come next. To his left was a rapid beeping, and somewhere else in the room was a woman's desperate voice, "Stop it! Stop it! He won't survive this, you have to stop!"

Natasha.

Tony snapped back, "He won't survive stopping."

A/N: So, it's been over two years since my last update and I am so sorry. Life has been super hectic but I haven't gone a week without thinking about this story. College and all the stuff that comes with that had made spare time a huge luxury but I finally have an update, so if you haven't given up on me, please tell me what you think. I have most of the story planned out (always have, just haven't been able to write it), so more updates are soon to come. Thank you so much to everyone who supported the story and I promise it won't be that long again.