After the results of the tests came in, Phil had to report to Fury.
"What the hell happened?" Fury gestured angrily to the written report. "My new recruit sidelined on his first mission? Blinded?"
"I have a team sifting the mansion ruins now, but Ten Rings was storing exotic weaponry under Shaw's place. I planned to give some of it to Stark to look at and figure out where it comes from."
Fury gestured that away sharply as irrelevant. "You're telling me we stumbled onto this?" Fury demanded. "We didn't even know that basement existed until our agents were on scene?" he scowled. "Worse, let me spell it out for you: we did not know Shinobi Shaw had a mutant talent? That is unacceptable, Agent Coulson. We need to know more before we send our field agents into work."
"Yes, sir. I agree."
Fury glowered at the file then up at Phil, with a heavy sigh. "So. Is it permanent?"
Phil nodded, feeling even worse. "Seems likely, boss. Doctor Farhan said it's a burned retina and optic nerve. There's a remote chance that Reese's improved genetics may heal it, since he's got a bit of an accelerated healing factor, but right now, there's nothing there. I think we got lucky the blast didn't blind Romanoff and Barton, too."
"I don't see anything 'lucky' about this at all, Agent Coulson."
"No, boss. Of course not."
"Any fancy tech solution out there? Cyber-eyes, something like that?" Fury asked impatiently. "Surely our labs have something."
"Nothing I know of, though you could make it a research priority."
"Yes, do that. And talk to Stark about it, too. Maybe Stark Industries has something he can bump up the priority." Fury clenched his fists and hit the top of his desk. "Well, damn. This wasn't how this was supposed to play out."
Phil was tempted to ask how it was supposed to have gone but he didn't. At the very least Fury had wanted John to use his field work talents and that was over, at least for now, unless some technological miracle happened.
"Boss," Phil started and then wasn't quite sure how he wanted to say this, except he wanted to confirm what he'd told John. "Agent Romanoff tells me that the airstrike in Ordos, China, was the Agency trying to assassinate him."
Fury's sole eye fixed on him, and he knew exactly what Phil was trying to ask. "We will not sink to their level. He remains on the payroll. We take care of it all, Coulson: his medical, his recovery, a new identity including a fucking job, if necessary. I don't want to hear anyone say that we don't take care of our own, not ever."
Relieved by the declaration, Coulson nodded. "I'll tell him."
"No, I will," Fury said. "I'll go talk to him. Give him a pep talk."
Coulson was pretty sure only Fury could make 'pep talk' sound quite so much like a threat.
John checked the wrap of his hospital gown, making sure that he was decently covered. It would be all too easy to let something hang out when he couldn't see it. Not that he cared all that much - modesty had little place in the military or anywhere else he'd been - but he didn't want to do it accidentally.
Then, sure that he was alone in his room, even though there was probably video monitoring, he swung his bare feet to the floor and groped for the stand of his i.v. He found it was easier to close his eyes and not strain to try to see something he couldn't anyway. And this way he could pretend that if he opened his eyes, things would change, even though he knew they wouldn't.
Then hand wrapped around the stand he used that to leverage himself to his feet, holding out his other hand. He couldn't find his balance at first, dizzy and sore all over, but he clenched his jaw and waited until he steadied.
Haltingly, he explored the small room, and keeping a part of his body touching the bed, he touched all he could, learning where everything was within immediate reach of the bed. Which went well until he tripped over the foot of a table or some damn thing and went flying. "Damn it!"
His hands hit first with thumps on the floor, and then his ribs seemed to stab him inside, and he couldn't breathe through the sudden pain. After a moment, it eased and he tried to catch his breath without jarring his ribs or his head again. God, that had been stupid. He stayed there on the floor for a moment, resting his cheek against the cool linoleum, before he moved his hand around to find the wall and pull himself up to sit against it.
Fucking useless. Couldn't even navigate next to his own bed.
He tried to tell himself that people dealt with this all the time, that he could relearn to get around. But the words sounded hollow and he didn't believe them. It seemed pointless, when he had nothing else he was good at.
There was not much need for blind ex-assassins or sightless spies. Or visually impaired retired Army sergeants for that matter.
"Agent Reese?" a familiar but surprising voice of Director Fury questioned from the far side of the room, near the door.
John pulled himself to his feet, keeping a hand on the wall. "Yeah. Here. I'm… adjusting."
"On the floor? Interesting choice," Fury said dryly. He shut the door and his shoes made soft clicks on the floor, coming closer, and then a strong hand closed on John's elbow. "I'd let you do it yourself, but there's a stool in the way." Fury sent the stool spinning off toward the wall and pulled John back to the bed. "There, now sit down and we can talk."
John perched on the bed and tugged the sheet across his lap, more for something to hold onto than modesty's sake.
"I'm gonna sit here, across from you," Fury said and dragged the chair closer across the flooring, making a screech that seemed to cut into John's head. He shut his eyes tightly as a flare seemed to pass across his vision along with a renewed ache behind his forehead.
"So. Blind," Fury announced without preamble or softening it. John was at first struck by the blunt words, then relieved not to dance around it with false sympathy. "I remember when I lost my eye. It wasn't the same, I know, but it wasn't fun. Losing both is worse. But it happened in our service, and I am not those assholes who tried to cut you loose when you got inconvenient. They tell me there's a chance you might heal up yourself, and I've made it a priority for R&D to look for some technological fix. Hell, maybe there's magic that can help - at this point in my life, I am way fucking past second-guessing what's out there. But this I promise, I will look for it. And in the meantime, you get what you need. You want a private braille tutor, it's yours. You want a fancy white cane that you can stab people with if they fuck with you, it's yours."
John had to smile a little at that.
"There," Fury said. "Amusement is better than self-pity. Now about the rest of you? You look… better."
"I'm better," John answered. He wasn't one hundred percent, but he didn't need to be, did he? He wasn't going back into the field.
"Good. Now I want to know something - Romanoff said you were targeted in Ordos. Why? Other than general pain-in-the-ass-ness."
John hesitated. It felt like quid-pro-quo - give Fury the answer in return for support now that he was basically helpless as a kitten. But what the hell did it matter anymore? It wasn't as if the Agency had done anything to buy his silence on the topic. "Mostly that, I think," John answered heavily. "I wanted out, and they weren't real good about letting that happen. I know too much. But the mission was fubared from the start - everyone was already dead when we got there. We were supposed to retrieve a prototype computer, but it was gone. It didn't seem like a Chinese government op, but I don't know who was behind it. I was a bit busy not dying afterward to track it down." And then busy letting himself die, but he kept that part back.
"And if you had to guess?" Fury prompted.
John hesitated to think about it, but there was only one thing that had made sense to him. "Someone wanted that thing very badly and were covering their tracks to get it. Some traitor at the Agency with enough power to make it all happen."
Fury made a thoughtful sound. "Seems like that place could use a housecleaning."
Which was true enough. "Secrecy breeds corruption."
"And you mean to point that at me," Fury observed dryly.
"Your bosses could be the same people who tried to kill me. When you work in the shadows, all the faces look the same." He thought about the vision metaphor and gave a little wry grimace. "Well, they did, anyway."
"All right, I'll give this some thought and we'll poke at it, see what I can shake loose. I'd like to find enough to hold over them to leave you alone, at least." His clothes rustled as he stood up. "Where do you want us to set up a place for you? When they let you out of this fucking cave?"
John didn't have to think about it too hard. "New York. Somewhere near where you've got Rogers stashed. I know the area and I can get around without a driver."
Fury sounded like he was smiling - it was kind of unnerving. "Ah, excellent idea. Carry on, Mister Reese, get yourself better."
When Fury had gone and for lack of anything better to do, John felt for his cup of water, drank, and then carefully put it back, feeling with his other hand to make sure he was putting the cup on the tray flat. It took about four times longer doing it by touch, and he was feeling disgruntled as he lay back in the bed and closed his eyes.
A voice from the doorway stirred him from his bored daze. "You can't possibly be asleep still," Natasha chided, but sounded teasing, too. She closed the door behind her and came up to the bedside. "You look better."
"You look… hell if I know. How are you?" he asked, trying to make a joke but it came out rather bitterly. He hoped she didn't notice or wouldn't comment on it, but since he couldn't see her face, he didn't know. Not that Natasha was easy to read anyway, but it would be even harder to decipher from her voice alone.
She ignored the question. "John…" Then she stopped and inhaled a deep breath. "I don't know what to say," she admitted softly. "This should never have happened. I'm so … sorry."
He held out a hand, patiently keeping it out until she took it with hers. "It's not your fault."
"I know, but… If I could go back and do it again...I should have shot him first."
"He was unarmed, or so we thought," he reminded her. "We didn't know he could do that. Whatever the hell that was."
"Mutant power," she said. "I should have shot him the moment he threatened you. I knew he was planning something." Her thumb was lightly sliding across his fingers in a repetitive soothing motion, though he was unsure if she was trying to soothe him or herself. Her voice had a faint tremor she was trying to suppress, but he could hear it anyway.
"I shouldn't have stared at him and moved sooner when he pulled the grenade. So it was my mistake, Nat, not yours."
Her free hand touched his face and her fingers caressed his cheek. "Would you absolve me of everything?" she murmured. "The Black Widow takes another victim..."
"I'm still alive, Natasha." He thought of Jessica and the thousands in Ordos, and others, reaching back to that boy in the home, who weren't living, because of him. "And I have my own curse of death following me, wherever I go. Maybe this is my punishment - justice for -"
Her fingers laid across his lips, stopping his voice, even as hers turned ragged, "No. It was an accident, a stupid accident-"
He pulled her fingers away. "Natalya." Then he brought them back to his lips to kiss, and held them. "You and I both - we've done awful things. We wanted to make them right, even though we know the ledgers are awash in blood. But this - I'm not going to be able to join you now. I can't see, I can't fight - can't help. It's over."
"You don't need your eyes to see, John," Natasha murmured. And he felt breath and warmth an instant before her lips touched his. He froze, shocked.
"Nat?"
"What is it you tell me?" she asked in a murmur, fingers caressing his cheek. "You're more, too, John."
He reached out, finding the side of her arm and then he caressed up to her shoulder to her neck and the back of her head to put his fingers in her hair. It was much shorter than he expected. "You cut it."
"It got burned in the fire," she answered.
"It feels so soft," he whispered, combing his fingers through it and the nape of her neck, and coaxed her nearer.
They kissed again, this time hungrily, and she slid a leg across to kneel above him as she leaned down. Her hand was light on his chest, careful of his bruising and healing ribs, and her fingers slipped beneath the cotton of the hospital gown, feeling him as if she had to learn him with her fingers as much as he had to with her.
Keeping his eyes closed and kissing her, touching her, felt perfect, as if he'd fallen into some dream. His hands slid across her shoulders and bare arms, and then her back and sides, learning her lithe muscles and curves that now he could only remember seeing.
She murmured in Russian, pressing against him, and laughed softly when he returned the phrases in Arabic, before returning her mouth to his to silence them both.
His fingers opened the buttons of her shirt and slipped down along her stomach that tightened under his touch and deeper still, "Oh, John."
"I hate not being able to see this," he muttered.
She grabbed his other hand and brought it to her face, letting him touch her lips and feel her breaths, and then down her neck to feel the sweat between her breasts. "You can. It's just as real."
Her hips teased him, moving with slow precision, and he wished desperately he could see her like this, shirt and bra undone and rising above him in a glory of all that was beautiful.
The feel of her slick leggings against his arousal pounded through him. And he couldn't see her, but he could touch her and he could smell both the sweat and the tang that hit the back of his throat. Plus he could hear her voice, hoarse and soft, in time with her short breaths.
But he tried to will himself to see, to know what she looked like at this moment, as the pressure grew and grew, and he could feel his own heart beat thumping and hear it in his ears.
"Natasha…" he groaned.
The springs of the cot were complaining rhythmically with her motions, and seemed to echo.
And then, for one glorious miraculous moment, he saw her.
The image came to him, not seeing her as he knew she looked, but like a ghost in the darkness. Light and transparent, but … shining. There was no color, but he could see Natasha and her face and the long line of her throat and his hands on her. Like a sketch of light against the darkness, almost like a night-vision scope but in shades of silver, like picture drawn with strands of starlight.
He gasped in surprise and wonder that lasted through the finish. And he didn't need eyes for this, only his touch to bring them both to completion.
He caressed her slowly bringing her down, as she gained her breath and then folded herself across him again to kiss him languidly, uncaring of the mess they'd made between them.
"I told you after," she murmured between nips. "After the mission."
Cold reality intruded and he held a sigh. "Nat-"
Her free hand drifted across his shoulder to his neck to press at the carotid pressure point. "If I hear any sort of noble self-sacrificing words out of you, John Reese, I will push this. I'm not better off without you."
"But Clint - "
"Is my partner, and I owe him, but he's not the one here with me right now," she said, and sounded as if she was smiling. She leaned down to feather her breath across his face again, deliberately tracing his features, forehead to chin, ear to ear. "You and I don't know how to do 'normal'. Neither of us ever had it. Maybe we never will. But we know how to fight for what we want, and I want you. I want you to fight for me, too."
His hands crept up her back, beneath her opened blouse to lay his palms on her skin and caress either side of her spine and hold her near, for a moment simply lost in the wonder of her words. "Yes. Yes, always. I just… I don't know where to go from here. What would you do?"
She laid her head on his chest. "I don't know," she admitted after a moment. "We'll figure it out. As we go."
He closed his eyes and pulled a lock of her hair through his fingers - mostly soft, but he could feel the bit of the curl still in it in the way it sprang free.
"John, in the middle, what happened? I saw your face - like something happened that surprised you."
So he described what happened, and she propped herself up on a pointy elbow into his chest. "John, that sounds like… some sort of… sixth sense. Maybe that grenade did something else to you…"
He'd thought it was just an artifact of lust and that moment's need to see her, manifesting in a hallucination, but she seemed determined to prove that it was something else.
But he was able to persuade her to wait to tell anyone about it, for the selfish reason of wanting her warmth on top of him as long as possible.
tbc...
