The next part! The rating really isn't in effect for this chapter, but I'll be sure to make mention of when it's going to happen in the notes before it does!
Thank you to everyone who's been reading, reviewing, and just generally being awesome enough to stick with me on this one! You guys are the best!
As always, I love hearing what you think!
The glow of fire led him like a beacon through the woods, and he slashed through the dense undergrowth, cutting a path as he went. He hadn't felt such a sense of urgency since he'd been on Asgard and he'd come to with Frigga staring down at him, asking him if he was okay.
Just as he had then, he tried not to think about what might have happened to Natasha and the others while he was elsewhere.
It wasn't that he really thought his presence would have made a difference in the rear of the plane. Regardless of what had happened after he blacked out, he knew damn well that his actions were the main reason the plane had landed as well as it had (the rest of that narrow difference between life and death consisting of the superior engineering of the craft). He'd done all that he could, but he hated not knowing the fate of the others.
He hated not knowing what had happened to Natasha and the . . . what happened to Natasha.
Now that he'd been walking and the adrenaline and confusion had dissipated, he started to catalogue the events that took place in between the time he and Natasha had traded spots with Stark and Rogers. He kept going over and over in his mind what he could have done differently, if there was anything he could have changed to make a difference in the outcome, anything he could have done to keep the plane together. He kept drawing a blank, though that didn't keep him from self-recrimination. He should have been stronger, faster, better, less . . . human.
Instead, though, he was, if not as frail as the average Joe, certainly weak enough to let the goddamn plane crash in the jungle, and now he was tracking the aft section of the plane by the red tinge to the jungle in front of him.
And if that weren't enough to set him on edge (and, oh, it sure as hell was), the last thing he remembered before hitting the treeline was the roar of the Hulk cutting through the noise of the warning sirens and the rush of wind.
He shivered in the warm, damp night air.
He pushed through the woods, focusing on the task at hand, the hack and slash of the machete that he'd found tucked in with the emergency supplies (why the hell Pepper had included the damn thing there, he'd never know, but he certainly was glad for it). There would be time for figuring all of that shit out once he found the others, once he found . . .
"Natasha?" he called, popping out into a clearing and finding burning chunks of what used to be Stark's state of the art jet in front of him. The bulk of the tail section was a twisted clump of metal, and his stomach twisted just looking at it.
He scanned the wreckage and found the others were there, moving around in the smoke. Stark was kneeling on the ground, bent over what looked like Banner's prone form. At least he still wasn't hulked out. That'd be all they'd need right now – trying to calm down an enraged Hulk while picking through the wreckage of the plane.
He moved in closer, looking for Natasha. Fuck, where the hell was she?
"Barton! Glad to see you're okay!" Rogers said when he approached, but Clint wasn't concerned with any of that. There was only one thing on his mind.
"Where is she?" he asked, grabbing on to Steve's forearms as all of his worries came crashing down on him at once. Everyone he could see looked intact, they all looked fine, but where was she? He couldn't breathe, couldn't think straight, didn't know what the fuck he was doing here, why he'd let her come along on this bat shit insane mission, and if she was hurt, if something happened to her, to their . . .
"Clint?"
He whirled at the sound, recognizing her voice over the din of the fire and the sounds of the jungle at night.
There she was, on the edge of the clearing, standing well away from the flames, shielding herself from the heat and smoke.
He let go of Steve and rushed to her side, heedless of the world falling apart around him. Natasha was pale and bleeding from a cut in her forehead. It looked shallow though, the sort of thing that bled a mess, but wasn't indicative of a lot of damage. Besides, she was standing and walking and breathing and smiling and now she was in his arms, and she was alive. She had her hands locked around his back while he held the her head against his chest, and even if they were on the bottom of the damn world in a tropical fucking jungle, even if they had crash landed and lost their only shot at getting back to civilization, none of that shit mattered because she was here and alive and fine.
"Worried about you," he whispered, more out of a desire to conserve energy than any true worry that someone might hear him.
"Yeah, me, too." Her fists clenched more tightly in the fabric of his jacket, and he swore he could see a hint of a tear glisten in the firelight. "When I didn't see the front of the plane, I thought . . ."
She turned her face into his neck, shaking against him, and he held her tighter while she rode through the worst of it. He knew how she felt, and he clung to her just as desperately, just as happy to see her alive.
Eventually, he leaned back, taking her face in his palms to get a better look at her. He brushed his thumb near the wound on her forehead, and she winced.
"Fell against one of the seats," she said, and he cringed, knowing just how hard that kind of metal structure could be.
"You're okay, though?" he asked, his eyes flickering down to her waist. "You're . . . both of you. . .?"
She nodded. "Yeah," she said, the corners of her mouth turning up. "I'm . . . we're fine. The Hulk kind of . . . You know I don't even know what to say about it," she said. "He just picked me up and jumped out of the plane when it broke up. He kept me away from the worst of it. Besides, Russian women are tough."
He grinned back at her. "Don't I know it. All knocked up and you're still tougher than me."
"Better believe it, Barton," she said, and then she leaned up and kissed him. He was so absorbed in the taste of her and the sheer relief of finding her alive that he didn't notice they had company for several moments.
"Thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend, Natalia."
He broke away to find Barnes, still handcuffed, leaning on a tree and watching them with a closed expression. Clint took a step back from Natasha, knowing that she wasn't into public displays. He wasn't either, especially not when the public displays were in view of ex-Russian spies that may not be so "ex."
"I never said that," Natasha rejoined coolly.
Barnes smirked. "Implied."
"Not my fault that you're easy to fool."
There was something else going on there, Clint could tell, something beneath the surface, but it wasn't something that he dared interrupt or question. Natasha knew what she was doing, and if it was something important, she'd fill him in the first chance they had.
"So, uh, you think you can get me out of these cuffs?" Barnes asked. "I think maybe our circumstances have changed since our arrival."
Natasha narrowed her eyes. "I'll be the judge of if and when that happens," she said.
"Let's move back with the others," Clint said, motioning with his head over to wear Banner was sitting up, the others standing around him. "Looks like Bruce has rejoined that party."
Natasha didn't say anything to him, just ordered Barnes to walk in front of them, warning him against doing anything stupid. Honestly, though, there was little they could do if he really wanted to get away. They didn't exactly have the resources to spare to track him down.
Barnes didn't try anything though, just did as he was told. Clint suspected that Barnes would continue to do so, and he was sure that Natasha was thinking the same thing; anybody who survived the things Barnes had wasn't stupid, and known elements were always a safe bet in tenuous circumstances. Clint would be frankly surprised if he tried to get away before they figured out where they were in relation to the HYDRA base.
"I know Bruce took care of you, and I can guess about Tony and Thor, but how'd the others make it?" he asked conversationally as they walked.
Natasha didn't move her eyes from Barnes when she said, "They hitched a ride with the fly boys."
"And no one thought to take a second to get me?"
Barnes cleared his throat ahead of them. "Tried, but when the plane hit the treeline, the door to the cockpit locked. Steve tried to go for you, but we ran out of time."
Clint looked to Natasha for confirmation, but she just shrugged. "I was a pretty out of it, but you know I would have . . ."
Clint shook his head and grabbed her hand. He knew.
"We all made it, then," Rogers said when they approached, sounding grimly pleased. Banner groaned as he let Stark help him up off the ground.
"Some of us more intact than others," Bruce said, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked over at Clint. "Thanks for getting us down safely, Barton."
Clint nodded, strangely touched, although he studiously ignored Stark's protest over the word "safely".
They'd started to discuss their options when they heard a roar in the distance. Whatever had made that noise didn't sound friendly.
"We need to move," Steve said.
No one argued.
They walked through the jungle in the dark, trying to find an out of the way place to regroup, get their bearings, and take stock of their supplies. It might not have been the best idea to travel at night through unfamiliar territory, but staying around the wreckage of the plane was an even worse idea, especially given the sounds the forest was making around them.
She had been in jungles all over the world, had seen the deepest, most secret dark interiors of the planet, but nothing had ever sounded quite like this place. It was started to creep her out, to be honest, and on top of all that they had HYDRA to worry about. If the fires of the wreckage had drawn in . . . whatever the hell had made that noise, who knew what else it was attracting.
The ease with which they'd fallen into a line was a testament to their team dynamic. Rogers had taken up the front without question, followed by Stark in his (malfunctioning) suit, Barnes, then Natasha (she planned on sticking to James like glue), with Clint bringing up the rear behind her. It was an easy formation, one best suited to their strengths, and it was just another one of those things that made her more glad every day that she had joined this outfit, that she got to work with these people.
The length and stress of the day was starting to catch up to her, and even though she knew that they could be going for hours yet, she was already swaying on her feet. She was exhausted and a little light headed, but she was determined to keep going for as long as it took. She was the Black Widow, infallible master spy, and she would not be defeated by something as simple as a plane crash and a march through the forest. She didn't even have to cut her own path, for shit's sake.
And then she tripped over a stray branch, somehow not seeing it when everyone else in front of her had avoided it. Her arm flew reflexively across her middle as she prepared to topple to the ground, but then Clint was there, grabbing her elbow to steady her, pulling her firmly upright and letting her gather her balance before dropping to an easy pace beside her.
"Thanks," she said quietly, hoping that no one else had noticed her stumble. It didn't seem like it – no one turned back to see what happened. Still, she was going to keep her voice down. No sense in drawing unnecessary attention.
"How are you holding up?" Clint asked, and the unexpected, deep rage that had been simmering under her surface bubbled up, and she almost snapped at him for coddling her. She couldn't believe he would ask her something like that. She'd tripped, not been shot! What the fuck was his problem? What made him think that he could . . .
She took a deep breath, consciously making an effort to calm herself down.
What the hell was wrong with her? Were all pregnant women like this? She recognized that he wasn't coddling her; she knew that. She'd tripped, and he'd steadied her. All he was doing was checking to make sure that his partner was okay. She'd do the same damn thing were their situations reversed.
She took a deep breath and pretended that the hormones rushing through her body had no bearing on her mental state.
So she shrugged and told him the truth. "More tired and annoyed than anything."
Clint fished around in his pack, producing a foil wrapped bar. "Here," he said, offering it to her. "You should eat this."
She raised an eyebrow. "I'm not really hungry right now."
At least, she hadn't thought she was. The moment he drew attention to it, of course, her stomach growled audibly.
He chuckled, pushing the protein bar into her hand. "I think the . . ." He directed a cautious eye toward the people picking their way through the jungle ahead of them, then amended his statement. "I think your stomach has different ideas."
She took the bar with a roll of her eyes and a tiny smile, tearing the wrapper back and taking a bite. Once she'd started, she was glad that he'd given it to her; she really was hungry, now that the opportunity presented itself, and the high density protein tasted better than she thought it could. There was even some chocolate in there.
"Thanks," she said when she was done, carefully pocketing the wrapper.
He pulled her against his side while they forged ahead, pressing a swift kiss to the crown of her head. "No prob," he whispered.
She squeezed his side in reply.
They found a cave, of all things, a few miles out from the wreckage of the plane, and they'd agreed to hole up there for the night.
Rogers had wanted to keep going, but after taking a look at the faces of the rest of his team, he'd changed his mind. Even if he didn't directly say that he was only stopping because the less enhanced members of the team were looking fatigued, Clint could tell that he was thinking it. The realization didn't bother him as much as it might have once; Natasha had been looking paler and paler over the past mile, and he knew she would never stop on her own.
Rogers took over babysitting duty on Barnes, for which Clint was grateful. They could trust him to keep an eye out for any funny business, and maybe Nat would let herself get a few hours sleep before the sun came up.
Of course, that was assuming that the sun was going to come up at all. He remembered the cold weather training he and Nat had been forced to undergo a few years back in Alaska, and if the day and night cycle was anything like that, he figured if they got any daylight at all, it would be brief.
Well, at least this place was warmer than Alaska had been.
It was strangely lit here, anyway, even discounting the light coming from the crank lamp they'd set up in the middle of the space. He made a sweep of the cave, tossing energy bars at the others before settling against the wall next to Natasha. He offered her another bar.
"You sure we got enough for me to have another one of those?" she asked, but he could see the hunger in her eyes. "We could be stuck here a while."
He shrugged, pressing it into her hands anyway. If it came to it, she could eat his share of the emergency rations. He wasn't stupid enough to stop eating in a place like this, but he figured he would be able to find something edible in the jungle tomorrow.
"Still a bunch left," he lied.
She raised an eyebrow, but she'd already torn the wrapper back and was munching away. Her desire for calories wasn't going to be overpowered by noble intention tonight, at least. Good.
Casting an eye around, he saw that Bruce was already curled in on himself, asleep, tired out from the change. Tony was out like a light, too, but again, that wasn't exactly surprising. Thor was standing guard at the mouth of the cave, pacing slowly back and forth, and Rogers was deep in conversation with Barnes, talking lowly in the night.
Clint put one arm around Natasha's shoulders, pulling her close, and then drew his other down to her waist. "Still doing okay?" he asked, rubbing gently. He'd never been a worrier, and he understood completely why Natasha wanted to be here, why she needed to be here for this, but that didn't make him less nervous. His brain might understand the reasons for her presence, but his heart wanted her somewhere else, somewhere safer, someplace that they didn't had even odds for leaving alive.
"You need to stop worrying, Clint," she said, dropping her warm hand down over his and squeezing. "Something could happen to either one of us anywhere, at any time."
"I know that," he said, exhaling slowly. "It's just . . ."
She smiled at him in the dim light. "Believe me, I know," she said. "This isn't exactly ideal. But everything is fine right now, and until that situation changes, I'm not going to worry about it."
He chuckled a little, falling in love with her a little more for the determination, the absolutely surety with which she spoke. "Can you forgive me for it?" he asked. "For worrying?"
She dropped her head down to his shoulder. "Wouldn't be you if you didn't."
It was still dark out four hours later when she woke up, Clint's insistent hand shaking her and his finger pressed against her lips, warning her to be quiet.
She rose silently, instantly wide awake. She drew her knife and crept to the front of the cave behind Clint, keeping her back flat against the wall, seeing the rest of the team do the same thing.
It took a moment before she heard what had caused him to wake her, but then came the unmistakeable sound of a group of men marching through the underbrush.
They came out of the darkness one by one, marching across the small clearing in front of the cave.
"Should we check that out?" one of the men asked, motioning toward their position.
The man in front nodded, stabbing a finger toward the cave. "Franco, you're up." The man must not have expected Franco to find anything, however, because he spurred his unit on, back into the jungle, reminding Franco to catch up with them later.
Franco only made it a foot into the cave, his mouth opening to call out a warning to his compatriots before Rogers melted out of the shadows to silence the man.
"Should have just killed him, Rogers," she said, crouching over the body and getting to work on stripping the man. They had a very narrow window of opportunity. "Would have saved us a lot of trouble."
"Not killing someone is always worth a little added trouble, Romanoff," he replied, and she wondered, not for the first time, how a man like Steve Rogers managed to get through a world war.
Then again, she thought absentmindedly, tugging the goon's pants down and passing them off to Clint, who was already shedding his own clothing, Rogers really didn't survive that war.
"I don't think you're going to find any loose change," Stark said. He frowned. "What are you doing, anyway?"
She looked up briefly from her task of undoing the buttons on the man's uniform when James answered for her.
"Barton is going to follow that squad back to their base of operations," he said, then looked at Natasha. "Thought given Franco here's body type, I'd be the better candidate."
"You're not going anywhere, Barnes," she said, handing Clint the shirt. She looked over at Bruce, then. "Tie this guy up?"
She ignored the rest of the team, who'd started nattering on about what they'd were going to do about having another hostage to watch, instead turning to Clint who was now checking the gun Franco had on him.
"It's not the greatest, but it'll do in a pinch," he said.
She rolled her eyes with a smirk. "Please, Clint. We all know your opinion on anything created following the advent of farming."
He stuck his tongue out at her, then tugged Franco's hat down over the short spikes of his hair. "How do I look?"
She handed him one of her knives. "Like an idiot in camo."
"The usual, then," he said through a grin, then saluted her with the tips of his fingers. "Back before you know it."
He sped off after the HYDRA team, disappearing into the black.
