AN I am so excited and nervous for this, you guys, you don't understand. My heart is beating and my palms are sweating and I don't know what to even say. I initially wanted to hold off to post these last two chapters, because then it would be completed in exactly two years, but I have both of them finished alright, and I JUST CAN'T WAIT.

"The Dog Days are Over"

Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her stuck still no turning back

She hid it 'round corners and she hid it under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with her drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back
Struck from a great height by someone who
Should know better than that

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses?
'Cause here they come

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

Florene + the Machine

they find a lawyer, they set up a case.

Meeting with Clint's lawyer was intimidating. The man didn't seem very impressive, but he looked at Natasha like he was cutting off her mask with a big pair of scissors.

His name was Anthony Warwick, he was short with broad shoulders, his eyebrows always seemed to be raised in cynical questioning, and he had a clipped accent she thought was from California. He shook her hand once outside of his office, but paused before he let them in.

"Clint, can I talk to you for a moment?" he asked. Natasha glanced between them, very, very certain that she did not like the sound of that. Clint hesitated, then gestured for Natasha to enter the office. He had a frown that matched hers.

Natasha walked into the office, and settled into one of the arm chairs facing the desk. She looked back at Clint and Warwick, less than relieved to find that Clint's frown had evolved into a full on scowl. Natasha bit the inside of her cheek. Everything was fine, she was fine. No need to worry.

In a moment, both had returned to the room. Clint sat next to her and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. She gave him a questioning look, but Clint just shook his head.

"You'll see in a sec," he said, eyes still on Warwick. Natasha turned back to the lawyer.

Warwick flipped on a recorder, then gave her a long look. Natasha fought the urge to fidget, uncertain she wanted to know just what Warwick was seeing in her. His gaze wasn't one that offered much place to hide. He took a slow breath, then straightened. Warwick skipped through the pleasantries, instead shooting out devastatingly straightforward questions.

"Why are you going after this man? He offered you shelter, didn't he? Don't you owe him anything?"

"No," Natasha said, startled into an answer. Heat was snapping through her chest, shocked that he would dare make such a statement. Natasha glanced at Clint, shocked by the man's aggressive manner, but he was just watching Warwick with narrowed eyes. "I owe him nothing."

"Oh? Seems that he protected you from the dangers of the street. It's an ugly world, a woman by herself in the city."

Natasha flashed back to her dark, dingy time on the subway, to the long, cold days, and the heartbreaking kindness of a man she was barely allowed to know. Sitting on the subway with Devon had been so much safer than hiding in one of the Landlord's rooms.

"He wasn't protecting me, he was ruining my life."

"So is this vengeance? Are you simply trying to get ahead? Benefit however you may from him going to jail? Prostitution's a quick fix, but maybe you have something more planned."

Natasha shot another look at Clint again, wondering why the hell he wasn't protesting at his lawyer's verbal assault. He met her eyes, and she was shocked to find that while they were unhappy, they were also encouraging. He tilted his head ever so slightly, like he was telling her to go on. Natasha swallowed and turned back to Warwick, anxiety lacing her indignation.

"I'm doing this because he is a despicable human being. No one deserves to be under him."

"But he deserves to go to jail? That's a hard thing to swallow. He's been giving dozens of girls shelter, just like he did for you. Some would say that's a charitable thing."

Natasha straightened, feeling her anger harden into ice. It was almost alarming, how easily she slipped back into her old clothes of condescension and frost.

"He stole everything from me."

"So the rent's a little high. Move somewhere else."

Natasha broke into a cold laugh. The taste of ice was suddenly bitter on her tongue. Why hadn't Clint done anything yet, what was he waiting for? Did he think this was a battle she had to fight for herself? She didn't want to fight this, she was done with being the icy Russian girl. She didn't want to have to sit here and be judged for things she honestly could not have controlled.

"He wouldn't let me."

"Why not? It's just a matter of walking out the door. After all, isn't that what you did?"

"He wouldn't let me. You wouldn't understand."

"It seems a lot like there isn't anything to understand. You've brought us here with some serious accusations, but have no evidence to back it up. This appears to be a conniving prostitute looking to smear the name of a wealthy business man that has decided to offer her some help."

Natasha glared at the man, too viciously angry to speak. She felt like she was choking on her disappointment and betrayal. She was going to leave. She didn't care what Clint thought about her behavior or the lawyer, she was going to get up and walk out of that room and never look back. There had to be someone else she would go to, someone that didn't look her as a self-serving, bitter whore.

"I don't mean to come off as a real asshat," Warwick said abruptly, his posture relaxing almost instantly. Natasha blinked at him, alarmed by the sudden shift. A part of her was still clinging to the ice, screaming that she maintain the last defense she had and stalk out of the room altogether, but was suddenly wondering if she even needed to defend herself.

"Hard as it may seem, I wanted you to see what it would feel like, being in court. That was why I asked Clint to step aside for a moment, see how you took care of yourself," he said, nodding at Clint. Natasha stared at him, still a little confused, but Clint squeezed her hand again.

Warwick took off his glasses, and braced his hands on the desk. He watched Natasha for a long moment, picking out his words.

"I want you to know that I have the deepest respect for you and your situation. But this is a nasty piece of work you just walked in with, and if we get to court, the lawyers against you won't be any nicer. They're going to cut you apart, because you're the main thing between your former pimp and a dropped case."

Natasha gave a jerky nod, her jaw set. She still wasn't sure if she believed him.

"Clint explained the basics to me over the phone," Warwick continued, and now his eyebrows lowered into an unhappy line. "What you did was…very, very brave. And I admire your desire to see this through, and have this man arrested, but you by no means have to appear in court for it."

"You just said I was basically the only thing that could send the Landlord to jail."

"I suppose," he admitted, then rocked back on his heels. "You would certainly help. A witness with so intimate a testimony, that's excellent. But you have a pretty bad image, if we're being honest."

"That's because he made it that way."

"Doesn't matter. It's an ugly history that they're going to play off of, like I just did, and I don't even know all the facts."

"So there's no point?"

"I didn't say that. I'm just saying you need to prepare yourself."

Natasha tilted her head, and gave him a humorless smile. She had done much, much worse.

"If…" he began, then hesitated. "If there were any others that could appear...there would be more we could do."

Natasha thought about the myriad of scared, macabrely interested faces on the stairs as she had left. Certainly there were girls that were angry and wanted to speak out. Alexandria's face snapped into her head, not the twisted, spiteful thing she was accustomed to, but the one full of stark fear when the Landlord had broken up their fight and ordered the other woman down to his room. She had been just as hurt as by the Landlord as Natasha had been. Except, the next day she had been twice as vicious.

"I don't know," Natasha admitted. "I…I think I'm the only one that has ever chosen to leave."

"But after the Landlord is arrested, they'll be free to speak. If they do testify against him, then he's certainly going to prison."

Natasha shook her head.

"You don't understand," she repeated.

Warwick sighed, and folded his arms.

"If you're going up to the stand, first thing you need to do is not shut down."

"What?"

"Any time something hard comes up, you close yourself off, and then snap out the nastiest things you can think. That's not going to fly. You need to be open with us, as open and brutally honest and you possibly can be."

Natasha frowned, a finger of dread going up her back. Honesty was not something she was good at. She looked at Clint, who was now watching her. She kept her eyes on him when she spoke next.

"I—I'm not very good at that."

"I know, that's fine. We can work on it. But this isn't about you, Natasha, remember that. When I was attacking you earlier, I made it about you, I isolated you and made it seem like it was just you coming up with wild stories. That's what they're probably going to do, especially if we can't get any more witnesses. But you need to make it about everyone. This isn't one woman being hurt, this is dozens. It's not 'me', it's 'us'."

she is shocked and touched by the trust of this stranger.

She nodded, breath coming a little faster, because this was real, this was a validation she had never before hoped to have. Clint believing her and trusting her was very different from a stranger accepting her word as fact.

"Contacting the police and arranging a raid will hardly be a problem," Warwick continued, finally sitting down. "I know some people on the force that would be more than eager to get him off the streets. But it'll be pushed through fast, so we've got to start on this now."

He pulled out a pen and a notepad, and looked at Natasha.

"I need you to explain all of this to me."

"A-all of it?"

"Honesty, remember?"

"Yes, but…there's a lot." He nodded, but didn't look fazed.

"I don't need everything right now, but it's best to cover the basic details. Where did you live, how long, what did you do, what was your pimp called, stuff like that."

"We called it the boarding house," Natasha began, and it seemed so, so surreal. She focused on the window behind Warwick's desk, but held tight to Clint's hand the entire time. "I lived there for a few years. It was small, the rooms just big enough for a closet, a dresser, and a bed. He had dozens of girls, each got a room."

"And they were all prostitutes?"

"Yes."

"Did you receive customers in the boarding house?"

"No, never. We always went to the street, or he told us where to meet our customers."

"And what kind of people were these customers?"

"The drive-by customers, the ones we picked up on the street, they were anybody. But the regulars, the ones he told us to go see, they were businessmen, usually."

"What kind? Paper pushers, or CEOs?"

"They weren't normally powerful men. We weren't expensive enough for that."

"What was his name?"

"What?"

"Your pimp, the one that ran the boarding house and told you where to go. What was his name."

"The Landlord, he is—he—Calvin Hughes," she choked out. The words felt wrong in her mouth, they didn't belong there. She wasn't allowed to give a name to the monster that had run her world.

Warwick paused, and when he spoke again, he voice was almost gentle. "I assume those came from him."

Natasha gave him a confused look, and then Warwick brushed his knuckles against his cheek. She straightened, heat rushing through her face.

The bruises. She had almost forgotten them. She didn't have to put on an attractive face every day, not any more. She didn't have to fret over first impressions and turning her face just so until she had been paid.

Her hand jumped up to touch the mark on her cheek, but she pulled it back at the last second. Natasha grit her teeth, and nodded.

"He do that a lot? Hit you?"

"Sometimes," she managed, and she felt Clint's grip tighten on her hand. "Sometimes he didn't leave marks."

"Would he only hit you?"

"No. He would throw things, destroy a girl's room, or yell. He yelled...a lot."

"Alright, Natasha, I want you to take pictures of it. Any bruises or marks he left on you, take pictures the moment you get home. We can mark it as—how long ago was it? That bruise on your face, when did that happen?"

"A week or so ago. When I left."

"What happened?"

"I—I was leaving, I had my bags. But he stopped me in the foyer, grabbed me and told me to go back. He hit me, and—and then Clint came."

"Clint?"

"Yes. He offered to help me, said he'd come pick me up. And when I didn't come out on time, he—he came in for me."

"Did he?" Warwick asked, finally looking at Clint. He did not seem ecstatic to hear of Clint's intervention.

"Yes. The Landlord told him to leave, but he didn't, and when he—when he hit me again Clint stopped him."

"How?"

"I hit him back," Clint said, voice part sheepish, part defiant. Warwick leaned his head back, and cursed at the ceiling.

"Dammit Barton, I wish you had not done that. How'd you hit him?"

"I punched him once, in the jaw."

"Okay, anything else?"

"No, he let go of her after that."

"And you simply walked out?"

"We left," Natasha confirmed. "He screamed at me the whole time, though."

"What did he say?"

"He threatened me. He didn't say what, but he said that he would do much worse than what he had done before."

"Alright," Warwick sighed. "Alright, we'll come back to that later. Now, Natasha, how did you meet Clint?"

Natasha shifted in her seat, and glanced at Clint. She didn't want anyone to know how they had met, the ugly beginning that cast such a dirty light on Clint. But he nodded at her, encouraging her to go on.

"I…he hired me," she whispered. "Over a year ago, he picked me up off the street."

Warwick nodded, clearly Clint had told him this before, and gestured for her to go on.

"We…he'd call for me every few weeks. And…things worked out."

"How?"

Natasha frowned at Warwick. She didn't know how. She didn't know how she had ended up cutting Clint's hair one night, telling him about her family and how they had died, or how he had explained his own dreary beginnings in return. She didn't know how she had come to care so much that she would save him from a loan shark, or how he would care to demand the details behind her own terrible bruises.

She did not know how she had moved from seeking shelter with him, to being heartbroken and hating him, to trusting him again. She didn't know how. She just knew why.

"It just happened," Clint supplied, once more impossibly strong in the face of Natasha's weakness and fear. "I…started to care for her. And I guess the same happened with her, so I...I offered her help."

"You're not making this easy on me," Warwick sighed, scowling at Clint. Clint, for his part, shrugged. Natasha wondered very much how these two had met, and where they had gone from there. "But okay. Okay. This is a good place to start."

Warwick continued to siphon out the details, and Natasha slowly, slowly began to calm. When Warwick stood to send them off, Natasha held out a hand to stop him.

"Mr. Warwick," she began, then hesitated. "There's…there's another matter."

"And that is?" He looked like he was bracing himself, preparing for whatever misfortune she had left. Natasha swallowed.

"A little girl. There's a little girl in the boarding house, one of a few, but this one…Gracia, she…I would like to see if we could...if it's possible…if she could stay with us?"

He eyed her, and Natasha felt the question is she yours? hovering on his tongue. But he simply nodded and held out his hand.

"I'll see what I can do," he told her. Natasha nodded, glanced at the ground, then looked back up.

"If...if I can talk to her, I'm sure we can get her to testify. Will that...will that help?"

"...Yes, Natasha, that would help very much. Thank you."

"Thank you," she said, the words popping out of her mouth before she had time to think. Warwick met her eye, gave her hand one solid, solemn pump.

it starts to feel real, and that is terrifying. but she does it, step by step, waiting to not be so afraid. it slowly happens.

Natasha and Clint followed Warwick's advice. When they went home, Clint took pictures of the bruises on Natasha's body, which was its own sort of incredible discomfort. Natasha had to hold her hands tight to keep them from shaking as Clint took photos of the remains of her split lip, the painful stains on her cheek, shoulder, and arm. Clint didn't say anything as he documented her abuse, just set a steady hand on her uninjured shoulder. Natasha set her hand over his.

After that, they were simply left to wait, which was agonizing. Natasha and Clint went through their days, trying to be patient, trying to be smart and not rush into ruining things. One thing that did help slightly was that Warwick had given Natasha the name of a psychologist he thought would work well with her.

"She works with domestic trauma," he had told her, and at the time it seemed so very strange, the word 'domestic' being applied to her time in the boarding house. But Natasha had taken the little card he handed her, and set up an appointment. So far it seemed like nothing more than conversation between the two women, but Natasha didn't mind. It helped fill up her day, at least.

Then, they received a call from the police station. Natasha's heart was in her mouth the whole way down, because she was very, very used to the police being at best a nuisance and at worst a threat. But the detective that spoke with them was straightforward and kind, introducing himself as Detective Goldman like they were his new neighbors and not part of a terrible crime. He was even polite as he asked for as many details as Natasha could provide about the Landlord and his operation. She, on the other hand, was nervous and she spoke too fast, and at one point Natasha had to leave the room because she thought she was going to vomit, but she did it. She told the man every single thing she could without breaking into hysterics or the Landlord beating down the door.

Sitting in the car with Clint afterward was the sweetest thing she had done all week.

"That was brave," he murmured, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

"It was harder than it should have been," she said, because she still felt embarrassed and frustrated and completely not certain what to do with compliments. Clint smiled, shook his head, and kissed her jaw before pulling out of the lot.

The best thing about this waiting period was Warwick's call about Gracia.

"It's not for sure," he prefaced his news, "but I think, think, you can give her a place to stay. I talked to some people with child services. It's going to be sticky, real sticky, but I think we can manage her staying with you. There will be more court dates to determine if you're suitable, but I'm sure we can deal with that."

"Really?" she breathed, a little afraid of saying the word too loud.

"Yes. Like I said, it's not for sure, but Natasha…you've got a fair reason hope."

"I—I—thank you, oh, thank you so much. Does Clint—have you told him yet?"

"No," Warwick said, and Natasha was certain he was smiling at her through the phone. "I'll let you tell him that bit of news."

"It's all coming together," Clint said that evening, after she had told him about Gracia. He looked proud, maybe, like he was really, really pleased about what she had done. Natasha smiled at him, because she was starting to allow herself to think the same thing, too. Of course, she didn't let herself become too confident, things always went very, very bad when that happened, but she started to feel confident in being able to make a change.

"So how do you want to do this?" he asked, brow furrowing slightly. Natasha frowned, not sure she understood. "I mean, Gracia. Detective Goldman said that when they raid the place, everyone's being grabbed up. Gracia and all the other kids will be put into child services right away."

Natasha's heart beat a little quicker at the thought. Warwick had made it clear that if they couldn't make a very, very good case about why Gracia should stay with them, their chances about keeping her went down considerably. If she was pulled into the system right from the beginning…well, Natasha didn't know what would happen, but she felt in her stomach that it would be very difficult for her to see the little girl afterward.

"What can we do?" Natasha asked Clint, no longer afraid to quietly admit that she did not know what to do.

He considered her for a moment, leaning against the counter in what had come to be a wonderfully familiar pose. He tilted his head at her and shrugged.

"We get her out of there."

"Take her? We can't go back there, you know that."

"Yeah, I do. But I also know that if she wanted to, she could run away from there."

"Gracia's just a little girl. She couldn't walk out of the boarding house like I did, I barely even made it. If she—if she—" Natasha cut herself off, grimacing at the thought of what the Landlord might do to her.

"I know." Clint's voice was mild, but there was an undertone that made Natasha give him a hard look. She couldn't quite tell what it was, but it was flippant in a steady sort of way, like he was seriously considering something that would make Warwick groan and put his head in his hands, but that he was almost certainly going to do it anyway.

"So…?"

"We go pick her up. She goes out, right, onto the street corners? Yeah, so when she goes out, we're there. We arrange it with her, let her know what we're planning, and then we can just take her back here. She won't be there when they raid the boarding house, she'll be safe with us."

"If she leaves before it happens—"

"The detective said that they were going to go in around the time that all of the girls get back. No one's going to miss Gracia in that time."

Rae would, Natasha was certain of it. Between the trial of supporting Natasha and her own stupid, intoxicating way of dealing with the suffering, Rae would rely on any helping hand she got. But this wasn't about Rae. This was about a little girl that had been thrown to the wolves.

"Is this okay?" she asked, already agreeing with the idea, but still hesitating at the idea of breaking the law. She was just starting off as a normal citizen again, she didn't need anything more to her record. Plus, she liked Warwick despite their rocky start, and didn't want to earn one of his exasperated-at-Clint looks.

"I think we're in a grey area," Clint said. "But I will talk to Warwick, make sure he knows what's up."

Natasha gave a slow nod, then went a little faster as she decided. "Okay. Okay. Let's do it. I want to do this. When…?"

"Tomorrow, I think. That way, I have time to call Warwick, make sure he at least knows what we're about to do."

"Okay," Natasha repeated, speaking through her fingers.

Rescuing Gracia had always felt like a strange, abstract notion. When she had promised her and handed over the puzzle box as a sign that she would come back, Natasha hadn't had anything more than a compulsion to fit into her head. There was no timeline, nothing to make it a reality. Even the small blanket Gracia had given her in return had sat on a chair in Clint's bedroom, a reminder for some hypothetical situation that someday would become practical. Now she was planning, more than that, now she had a plan and was on the verge of enacting it.

Clint smiled at her and Natasha gave a tired smile back.

AN I really like Warwick. I wish there was more I could do with him, but alas, not in this story.