*Streamers* 150 reviews! *More streamers* longest chapter yet! Seriously, thank you guys so much. I tried to do this chapter right, I really did. Sorry about any OOCness on Natasha's part in advance. And that's about it. Thank you for all of the amazing feedback and hope you enjoy! (I did not go easy on the feels with this chapter...)
Steve had been through plenty of long nights in his life. Countless nights spent without sleep, wheezing in and out because his pneumonia-stricken lungs simply couldn't get enough air. He wondered if each breath would be his last, but he always saw the sunrise to signal that the long night was over.
That soon switched to even longer nights overseas. The nights would be lit up with artillery fire and the usually calm air around them would be pierced with the cracks of bullets. The Commandos were never in the major fights, but they weren't far from them. Although they never complained about how sleep-deprived they were, every single man knew that they had been awake all night, praying that the next shell wouldn't land within fifty feet of their small camp.
Long nights were spent awake worrying about Bucky and replaying his death over and over and over in his head. Long nights he spent so cold he couldn't walk due to the shuddering. Long nights up sketching when the ghosts wouldn't leave him alone. Long nights spent in the gym, or training, or bouncing a ball up against the wall in the communal level, sometimes joined by Natasha or Tony or Clint, who shared his level of sleeplessness.
Steve Rogers had been through his fair share of long nights in his less than thirty total years of actual existence. Sure, time-wise he was approaching one hundred (Tony liked to remind him of that), but in actual years conscious, he hadn't hit thirty. As they flew back to New York, Tony pushing the jet as fast as it would go, Steve could have sworn that they weren't even moving. Everything was simply stopped.
Natasha was out cold on his shoulder, having stayed up a little over two hours before her injuries had gotten the better of her. Tony was up front, Bruce and Thor were probably sleeping in the back and Clint was…where he had been for the past two hours.
No amount of staring on Steve's part seemed to wake Clint up. No glances or blurry blinks would change the position of the sheet, or the man that lay under it.
Five hours into the journey back, everything was completely and utterly quiet, except for the slight hum of the engines. Steve was itching for something, anything, to do, other than to stare at the sheet. He cast a blurry glance towards their lockers on the side of the jet and slowly an idea came to him.
"Tony," he whispered, not sure if he would be heard, but also not wanting to wake Natasha up.
Tony appeared not a second later, looking slightly flustered. While he didn't look quite as pale, it was obvious that he hadn't been sleeping either. "What's wrong? Are you okay? Is Nat okay?" he asked hurriedly.
Steve put up a weak hand in response. "We're all good," Steve replied.
"Jesus, Steve. After this kinda day, you're going to give me a heart attack," Tony muttered, running a hand over his face. "What's up?"
"In my locker," Steve directed, as Tony immediately headed over and opened Steve's compartment. "There's a pad of paper and a small bag of pencils." Tony held up each item, to which Steve nodded, and he brought them over, laying them carefully in the captain's lap.
"Thanks," Steve replied, giving Tony a weak smile.
"You know Banner will kill you if you don't sleep a little," Tony warned with a pained smirk stuck on his face.
"I don't think anyone's actually sleeping."
Tony paused for a second and nodded. "Natasha's out. Keep an eye on her?"
"You don't have to ask twice," was Steve's reply as he quietly unzipped the case of pencils and turned the pad to a new page.
"We're about two hours out. Bruce called in some…Dr. Cho lady to help out. I don't know her, but he trusts her. You guys will be in good hands," he added, as if he would ask someone he didn't trust to work on his two friends.
Steve nodded again, not able to express how thankful he was that his friends had come back. He simply sat there, gazing up at Tony with a small smile on his face. The inventor seemed to understand, as he gently placed a hand on Steve's shoulder before letting it fall away and returning to the cockpit.
Steve then turned his attention to the blank piece of paper, already knowing what he was about to draw, and started outlining as much as his painful joints would allow.
"I've tried the whole punching bag thing. Doesn't really work for me."
Steve's fists immediately stopped their relentless bashing into the bag, letting it swing back and forth on the hook as he pushed a piece of damp hair out of his face. The clock on the wall read seven minutes after three in the morning, marking almost an hour that Steve had been in the training area.
He smirked, walking over to his duffel bag and unwrapping his hands. "I don't think Stark likes it either. He keeps having to buy new ones," Steve said, motioning to the two punching bags in the corner of the room that were still leaking sand. It hadn't been a good night, which was saying something.
"No match for Captain America and his fists of fury," Clint joked, walking over to Steve, his footsteps not making a sound on the wood floors. "Can't sleep?"
Steve shrugged slightly and zipped up his bag. "The usual," was his short explanation. "I could ask you the same thing."
"Yeah, but we both know the answer," Clint replied, the smirk still stuck on his face. "C'mon, let's see if something else works out a little better."
Clint led Steve to the other end of the training area and opened the door which led to the archery range. It was simply a big room with targets in the shape of people in different positions. Some were behind barriers, others suspended up high, but all of them had a target painted on them. There was already a bow next to the wall, and several dozen arrows stuck into manikins all over the room. Clint was just as sleepless as Steve.
"This one's about your size," Clint muttered, pulling a bow down from the wall and handing it to the soldier. Steve took the weapon awkwardly in his hands, feeling the weight and pulling back the string a little.
"I'm no good with bows," Steve began.
Clint promptly cut him off. "Doesn't matter if you're good or not. Do you have to be good to beat the shit out of a bag? Not really. This, my friend, is a matter of shooting something."
"That's it?" Steve asked, not seeing where Clint was going with it all.
"That's it," Clint affirmed. He picked up the bow by the door and spun it in his grasp before reaching for an arrow that was already in the quiver on his back. In one single, fluid motion he had the arrow out, on the string, in midair, and impacting the head of a dummy forty feet away.
"Points for impressiveness," Steve smiled.
"It's not about that," Clint shrugged. "See that target?" he asked, pointing to the dummy, to which Steve nodded. "Not a target. That's Loki. That's the asshole in the circus. That's the guy that made me get twelve stitches in my side on a mission in the freaking desert. That's the maniac that threatened my friends. Not a target," he restated.
Steve hefted the bow again and nodded slightly, still somewhat confused.
"It's not about how good the shot is here. Sure, for me, it's practice and mind help. For you, you're no archer. Shields, guns, brute strength, those are your things. This is about you envisioning whatever is keeping you up, and putting an arrow through it. If you miss, you miss, no biggie, you still beat it," Clint explained before pulling out another arrow. Without taking his eyes off Steve, he turned his arms to the right and shot another dummy in the chest.
"Kill shot? No. Is one more of my ghosts dead? Hell yeah." Clint handed Steve an arrow and helped him nock it, then pointed him towards a dummy. After a few seconds of adjusting Steve's grip, he allowed him to pull back the string. "Left arm down a little, fingers more relaxed," he instructed.
Steve followed and aimed the arrow at the target.
"Doesn't matter is you hit the ceiling or the floor or the dummy. Just not me, please," he joked with a slight laugh. "Picture whatever's keeping you up. I want you to take a snapshot in your mind and frame it. You let the arrow go, no matter where it lands, and you shatter that snapshot into a million teeny tiny little pieces. Then you do it again, and again, until the memory no longer burns the back of your eyelids."
Steve closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. He envisioned the cold ice of the Arctic coming to meet him, blue and white and terrifying. He froze the memory at the moment right before impact. Another breath, and he let the arrow fly. He heard it impact something, and imagined the memory falling away like snow until there was nothing but the training room left.
"Foot shots hurt, man," Clint smirked, gesturing to the dummy, which had an arrow sticking out of its foot. "Not bad. Like I said, shots don't matter. Memories, better or worse?"
Steve took another breath and let it out slowly. "Less cold," he replied after a few seconds and cast Clint a grin.
"There we go! Don't stop now! I don't know about you, but the image of Tony cooking again and setting the kitchen on fire, again, is making it hard for me to sleep," he laughed, letting another arrow fly. It reached its mark, just like all the others had.
They spent the rest of the night filling the dummies, and sometimes the floor, with arrows. They laughed and talked some, but they mostly reminded each other that they weren't alone, and that everyone had ghosts.
When Steve walked out of the training room after a night without sleep, he was smiling. When he looked behind him, ghosts weren't peeking out around the corner and he didn't need to thaw out from the cold.
It became a weekly tradition for them, driving the ghosts away by shooting arrows at their demons.
"Natasha," a voice whispered. "Nat."
She gradually opened her eyes, sighing as she did so. The black of unconsciousness gradually gave way to the dull gray interior of the jet. Her head and torso and ankle all screamed together in a chorus of pain. When her vision cleared slightly, she looked ahead of her to see Tony standing in front, glancing at her worriedly.
"We just landed. Medical team is outside. Steve's already down, they needed to look at his legs and all that," he explained quietly.
"And everyone else?" Natasha asked, shifting a little in the bed, cursing herself for falling asleep sitting up.
"Bruce is helping out, and Thor is supervising. I'm here to get you down there and to medical. Had to wake you up though, first." Tony caught Natasha's glance and pursed his lips together, knowing what she means by 'everyone'. "He's still here. People will be here in twenty to pick him up."
Natasha did nothing for a few seconds, and afterwards she slowly nodded. "Will we…see him after?" she said in a worried tone.
"Probably. If that note of yours says something about it, we will adhere to that, too. Have you read it?"
Natasha shook her head and clutched the worn piece of paper in-between her fingers.
"We need to get you medical attention, Nat," Tony said after a few moments of silence, to which she shook her head again. "I know you don't like doctors, but…"
"It's not that," Natasha whispered. "Can I…can I get five minutes with him?" she asked, almost embarrassed by how pleading her tone sounded.
Tony was quiet for a moment before he nodded, knowing that she deserved it and he wouldn't be able to talk her down. "Need help up?" Natasha glanced up at him and nodded in reply. He gently hooked an arm around her shoulders and helped to lift her off the bed.
The sudden change in pressure and spacing made Natasha's head spin, but after a few painful, limping steps, Tony stood her next to the table. She leaned on it for support and gestured in thanks.
"You need anything or feel like you're about to pass out, I'll be right outside," he assured before disengaging his arm and walking slowly down the ramp of the jet. Natasha listened closely to his footsteps, which stopped at the very end of the ramp.
She waited a few moments before looking down at the note in her hands. Carefully, as if she were afraid it would crumble to dust, Natasha opened the bloodstained piece of paper. It was from the small motel that they had been spending the night at during the mission. Where he had found a pen, she had no idea, and the handwriting was shaky but definitely readable.
Natasha read through the note four times in all, making sure she got everything and being careful to not let any of her tears fall onto the paper. They silently made their way down her cheeks as she folded the paper back up and stuck it into her pocket. She took a glance at the sheet, and knew immediately that talking to a blank, crinkled piece of fabric would do her no good.
With shaking hands, Natasha removed the sheet from around Clint's face, casting her gaze away for a second before bringing her eyes up. The corner of his mouth was turned upwards in a slight smirk, which only made her eyes burn more. Clint looked relatively peaceful, with not as much blood on his face as she would have expected. It was paler and stiffer then normal, which was to be expected. She drew back the sheet on one side to reveal his right arm, which appeared to be normal enough.
She ran a gentle hand along the archer's fingers, getting used to their cold temperature before closing her hand over his.
"You always said you would be smiling when you met death," Natasha said quietly with a pained laugh, her eyes glancing over her dead comrade. "Knowing you, I should have known it would be the truth."
She let the silence settle between them for a few moments, half expecting him to reply, and knowing deep down that he wouldn't. "Knowing you…" she repeated. "Has made my life so much more…worth it. I'm not just talking the saving people and the late night pizza parties and the banter."
Natasha gave a slight shrug, grasping his hand a little tighter. "I'm talking about…I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't saved me, brought me back, and told me that I was worth something. You gave me hope when I had none myself. You were the first person that got through to me, and I allowed myself to become friends with. And I can not thank you enough for that. There were countless hours spent fighting next to you, with you, and sometimes against you. I will forever cherish those hours because I will never get another."
She paused for a moment to stop the choking sound in her chest and instead pursed her lips together, bowing her head. "Knowing you, Clint Barton, Hawkeye, marksman supreme, self-proclaimed master of sarcasm and comebacks, partner, friend, father, husband," Natasha got out the last two just barely. "It has been a privilege. And I thank you for that, and wish that I had thanked you before."
Natasha wiped her eyes with her free hand, knowing that it would do no good. "I'll get you where you need to go. I'll look after them, all of them. It's the least you deserve." She took one more look at his face, reminding herself that this was probably the last time she would see him, that this was the last time she would get to talk to him by herself, and she still couldn't think of anything else to say.
Instead, she straightened up and allowed her tears to drip on the sheet as she pulled it back over his head and disengaged her grasp from his.
"This isn't goodbye," she whispered with a cracking voice. "I will see you again."
"It had better be later rather than sooner," she could practically hear Clint replying in her head. Not even bothering to wipe away the tears, Natasha called for Tony, who ran up the ramp immediately. He didn't comment on how she looked, or how the sheet had moved. He simply helped her out of the Quinjet to where the medical team was waiting.
Nat,
As you can probably tell by the shitty handwriting and the blood marks and the fact that you're not getting this note from me, something bad has happened. I won't go into detail because you probably know what happened better than I do. I don't know how much longer I have, so I'll cut to the chase. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for leaving without giving you the chance to say goodbye. I'm sorry that you will have to say your final words to me when I can't hear you. I'm sorry for everything that you will go through next. I'm sorry for what I'm about to ask you to do.
We've talked about this before, too many times, and you know what I want to happen. Now the tough part. I would like everyone else to know too. It will come out sooner or later, and I'd rather not have the realization a few months later that 'Clint died and we only now just found out that he has a family'. I know what I'm asking you to do, and I'm sorry.
But you shouldn't be. Don't carry around the guilt of never being able to repay me for saving you. I know you, Nat, you're worse than Steve sometimes. Please, don't do it. We've saved each other so many times over the years that we've both lost count. Hell, I probably owe you. You have no debt to repay, nothing to make up for.
My point being this: this sucks, and it probably always will. But you're the toughest, strongest person I know. You'll get through it. Lean on the others, let them lean on you, let them help, and help them even when they say they don't need it. You guys need each other. Take care of everyone, and take care of yourself, Nat.
I'll never be far away.
~Clint
So yeah. This was definitely a painful chapter to write. Don't expect the pain to end anytime soon! On an important side note, I AM sticking with the MCU canon of Clint having a family. I realize this may piss some people off, but that's the direction this story is going in. Sorry if Steve and Clint's little therapy session doesn't seem like it would work, I was trying to be creative ;) Thanks for reading, and onto replies!
Best Story Ever (2): Always look to the bright side, nobody is missing now at least. As always, sorry about the feels! NOTE: I'm thinking this story will go a little over 20 chapters, I've got a lot planned. Nothing is set in stone, so it could be less...or more, this is just an estimate ;)
Toolazytologin: *hands waterfall of tissues* It is marked as a sad story! Still sorry ;) Thanks for reviewing!
Leofis: Hope you liked this chapter and the letter!
CottonCandy: Thank you! I am leaning towards writing a spinoff where everyone finds and goes after the doctor. Would anyone be interested?
Guest: Definitely not the only one, and the tears and tissues and feels are not stopping anytime soon! Thanks!
Guest (2): Hope you liked this newest edition!