A.N: This chapter has been both pulling at me and tormenting me since last night and it has been the most difficult chapter of this story to write! Thanks to all you lovely people who have followed, read and reviewed - we're not done yet but I'm going to need a few days before the next one makes an appearance!
Thank you to Torti Quercu for your comments on the last chapter and to Phoenixblitz for your kind words about this story - I really appreciate it and I'm glad that you've both enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it!
The sound of her voice calling his name woke him, pulling him toward consciousness as somebody dragged him roughly across the floor and dumped his body against the wall. Natasha.
Clint was floating, his entire body suspended in a sea of nothingness, cold seeping into his limbs as he tried to piece together the events that had led him there. He wasn't uncomfortable, not really, if anything there was a curious numbness that had settled over him. A soft fog covered his senses,. It was a lot like ocean swimming, his body suspended beneath the surface, eyes looking down into the infinite blackness that lay below him and up toward the light that danced on the surface.
Flashes of memory, distorted by the slight ringing in his ears, brought back the events that had led him there. Walking down a hallway, gunfire, a door slamming. Where was he? Inhaling, Barton caught the scent of hot metal and blood, mingling with some kind of cleaning chemical that made his nose twitch. There had been a fight, brutal, so many blows, too many to count. Two men had come at him, one of them had died impaled on one of his arrows but the other one ... What had happened to the other one?
Forcing his eyes open, he found himself in a darkened room, the only light spilling in through a gaping hole in the wall above him. Glass shards glittered like crystals in the light, crunching beneath the boots of the man who had propped him against the wall. Pain shimmered on the edges of Barton's senses, awareness coming back to him in a rush as he heard the voice of at least one man somewhere in the room. The hole above him had been a mirror and the ache in his back, shoulders and skull had been caused by his body crashing through it. He tested his ability to move, curling his fingers toward the knife sheath strapped to his thigh and was relieved when his hands followed the instruction. He might feel like road kill but he could still move and if he could move he could fight.
"We underestimated you Natasha," announced a voice that he recognised as that of the man he had fought with in the hallway. The sound of that voice, the intimate way in which he said Natasha's name, made that increasingly familiar part of his nature snarl in anger. Vision swimming, he scanned the room, instincts recoiling from the memory of the last time he had stepped inside as an image of Natasha, chained and bleeding, flashed into his brain. "Understand that I won't make that mistake again."
Natasha stood on the other side of Jack Sawyer, the blade of her knife pressed to Brady's throat. Her face was deathly pale, except for where blood glittered against it but her hand was steady on the knife. For a second he didn't understand the look in her eyes, the desolation that he saw there mingled with the anger and then he realised that it was the look he had seen every day in the mirror when she had been missing. She wore the expression of someone who was quietly dying, her eyes dark and blank except for the anger that smouldered there like candle flames in empty windows.
"One more step and I'll cut his throat," she announced coldly. Sawyer chuckled and Clint saw the blood that ran from the wound to her captive's arm to pool on the floor below them. The memories roared and the need to avenge her suffering gave him the strength he needed to gather his limbs without crying out.
"As you did to Anders?" Sawyer asked mildly. "I saw what you did to him, inspiring really so much precision, but then you had your partner to help you didn't you? Not so now. You took my allies and I have taken one of yours ..."
What happened next appeared to him as if in slow motion. Brady threw himself to the right and into the crook of Natasha's curled arm, throwing them both of balance and knocking her leg out from beneath her. Like an acrobat she rolled, springing at Sawyer and taking him down to the floor with a vicious swipe of her legs. They traded blows, Natasha wrapping herself around him like a vine, pummeling the face of the larger man with punches until Brady regrouped enough to haul her off his friend and restrain her.
Forcing himself to his feet, Clint adjusted his grip on the hilt of his knife, hugging the shadows to stay out of sight. Only the strength that he drew from his connection to her kept him on his feet as the room swirled around him. Brady had pulled a knife from somewhere and now held it to her throat, his grip was not as sure as her own had been. Trusting his instinct, Barton whistled a sharply ascending note into the air, interrupting the chatter between the two men that he had tuned out. Natasha reacted perfectly, handling what must have been a devastating surprise beautifully and ducking to one side in Brady's grip just as he had known she would.
The knife left his hand, travelling end over tip to cross the distance between them in the blink of an eye, passing so close to her that he could only pray that she didn't turn her head to look for him. As Brady reacted, the knife caught him in the meatiest part of the shoulder, impact shifting the angle of his torso away from Natasha. He let out a cry of pain and dropped the blade, allowing her to fight her way out of his grip. Barton didn't wait to see how it unfolded, she'd always been more than able to handle herself in a fight, instead he threw himself into the fray, flying at Sawyer as he turned toward him, snagging him around the waist and pasting him to the tile in a spear tackle that rattled his teeth.
Time slipped away from him as they wrestled with one another, his hand reaching for the closest weapon he could find atop the metal table above them. Something hard collided with his injured leg, opening the stitches. He gritted his teeth against the pain as he felt the warm rush of blood beneath his suit. A pair of gunshots sounded in the room, the sound so loud and close that it translated only as pain when his eardrum absorbed the stimulus. Reeling, he brought the buck knife down with all the force he could summon into the side of Sawyer's left knee, forcing a bellow of agony from the man's mouth. Only then did he dismount to check on his partner. She rose like a wraith, blood streaking her face and arms to lean glassy-eyed against the wall, Beretta still in hand and pointed at William Brady where he lay on the ground. With grim satisfaction Clint saw that she had shot out both of his knee caps.
"Nat?" he didn't like the expression on her face, the way her eyes weren't tracking anything around her. "Romanoff!" He climbed painfully to his feet, injured leg threatening to fold under him and moved towards her. She swayed before he reached her, sliding down the wall with a grimace of pain on her face, one hand pressed to her side where blood seeped between her fingers. Numbly he realised what it all meant, Brady had been holding two knives, the one at her throat and another which had stabbed into her lower abdomen during the struggle. "Shit, Nat how bad is it?" he asked, crouching at her side, trying to pull her fingers away so that he could see the wound better.
"Had worse," she replied breathlessly. The hell she had, she could barely breathe around the pain and the entire area around the wound was saturated with fresh blood that shone in the dim light.
Behind him, Sawyer saw the opportunity to make a break for it and he took it, hauling himself to his feet and running for the door, moving without coördination because of that injured knee. Clint turned his head, following the movement, indecision freezing him in place. Natasha was his priority, she was always his first concern. Her gaze followed the movement too, then flicked to Brady who lay writhing on the floor a few feet away, unarmed and lost in a haze of pain. His gaze locked with hers and he saw the decision that she had made. "Go," she told him, "I can handle things here, just... just finish it. Don't let him get away."
He wanted to argue but he couldn't deny her anything and she knew it. They had come to New Mexico knowing the risks. They had come to finish what had started in this very room months earlier. A single tear spilled over her cheek and he wiped it away, forcing her eyes to meet his. "I'll be back," he promised her. Natasha nodded, just once but it was an acknowledgement and he would take it. "Hold on."
His leg should have hurt a lot more than it did but adrenaline was a wonderful thing. With a couple of running steps he clambered through the remains of the viewing window and into the office, snatching his bow from the floor where it had fallen during the fighting and grabbing a pair of arrows from the quiver that had been pulled from his shoulders. He skidded out into the hallway, feet slipping in the congealing blood that surrounded Sawyer's accomplice on the floor and took off down the hall at a run. The thought of Natasha in that room, undefended and bleeding, added wings to his heels as he closed the distance between himself and the man he was chasing.
Rounding a bend in the tunnel, he noticed that it had straightened out. Sawyer was ahead of him, his pace slowing as he dragged that injured leg behind him, eyes fixed on the stairway that lay ahead and paying no attention to what might be pursuing him from behind. He had probably gambled that Clint would stay at Natasha's side, he had lost. Raising the bow and knocking an arrow, he stared down his target, knowing that this shot counted more to him even than the one he had levelled at Loki during the battle for New York. Letting out a steadying breath, he let the arrow fly, watching as it cut through the air and plunged into Sawyers back. He stumbled a couple of steps further and fell, Clint didn't doubt his aim for a second. He didn't waste his time checking whether the man was dead; if he was still alive, he wasn't going anywhere.
Calling for immediate backup and a medevac team, he returned to the holding room. Natasha hadn't moved, still propped up against the tiled wall with a hand pressed to the wound in her side. Brady lay on his back, still breathing, whimpering, but unable to move away because of his shattered legs and injured right arm. As he dropped to one knee at her side, he fought to hold back the rising tide of his emotions. They had known the risks when they had set out on this mission together but Natasha had achieved something so few women in her position could claim, she had achieved something close to divine justice. The Black Widow had secured her reputation.
He would help her to get the closure she needed if it was the last thing in this world she ever did.
With tears in his eyes, he pulled the gun from her hand, placing his dagger in her blood slicked palm where her fingers closed around it instinctively. Green eyes met his own and he knew that she understood what he was offering her, he felt that connection between them once again in his bones and blood. Carefully, he moved her around until he held her in his arms, lifting her and holding her against his chest just like he had when he had carried her from this complex all those weeks ago. She cried out, fighting against the pain that he had inadvertently caused by moving her but bit her lip to swallow the sound. His own pain no longer mattered, he would have carried her until the last breath left his body if that was what it took.
When they were within range, he lowered her to the floor again, holding her upright. Brady watched them, breath heaving in and out of his chest, not understanding what was going on. Blood had pooled beneath him. Natasha gathered her strength, adopting a two-handed hold on the dagger handle, raising it so that it was above his heart. Brady saw what was coming and tried to get one of his hands up to deflect the blow. Barton moved quickly, determined that she wouldn't be robbed of the justice she was due. Using his own strength to pin Brady's arms to the ground and stop him twisting out of her path, he gave her the target she needed.
Staring down at him coldly, she swept the blade down with all the strength she had left. It was just enough. Brady bucked in his grip, screaming, trying to escape the pain and getting nowhere. Natasha's eyes burned into him, such hatred in that stare that Clint himself would have recoiled from it had it been aimed at him. Pulling the blade from Brady's chest, she looked up at him, tears balancing on the razors edge of her control as her strength faded and she sank back against him. "It's over..." she whispered,"... we did it."
He caught her before she hit the ground, hoisting her up into his arms and cradling her once again to his chest. The walk along the hallways was torturous, his injured leg threatening to buckle under their combined weight with every step. Time seemed to slow around him as if allowing him the moment to adjust to all that had changed and what was yet to come. As he carried her once again out of her own private hell, cradling her as gently as he could, her head tucked beneath his chin as it had been when she had slept curled into his side, he pondered the weight of deeds done in an instant and the ramifications that could last a lifetime. Tears fell unhindered, landing on Natasha's face and mingling with the blood that still glittered under the security lighting. This moment, these events, would be ones that he carried for the rest of his life.
He made it up the stairs into the warehouse by sheer force of will, determination alone keeping him on his feet. He wouldn't leave her there, no matter the cost he would get her out into the night where the air was clean and the memories couldn't harm either of them any more than they already had.
Blood trickled down his leg, pooling in the sand as it seeped over the top of his boot as he stared up into the night sky. Search lights lit the sky, helicopters closing in on their location, bringing the doctors who would do what they could for her. His leg gave way beneath him and he fell, landing heavily on his knees, the impact reverberating through his body like a wrecking ball. He swallowed a scream, biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.
They found him on his knees in the sand, empty eyed, his partner's limp body slumped in his arms, whispering Russian words to her that nobody else could understand. The doctors had to pull her away from him, his fingers slipping in the blood that covered them both as they separated them.
"Agent Barton?" one of the containment team looked down at him, waiting for a report, waiting for orders. Standard procedure, they wanted to know what to do about the site. They needed to know whether there were any survivors. "What should we do about the facility?"
With a pained grunt he staggered back to his feet, swaying slightly until he adjusted his balance. The pain in his leg, no longer numbed by adrenaline, made black spots dance over his vision but he stayed upright, ready to follow Natasha as they carried her away. He'd been at her side throughout the terror that had led her back here, he had no intention of leaving her now.
He didn't recognise the sound of his own voice when he responded, there was too much emotion in it, too many horrors fighting to escape in the words that he spoke. He put as much authority into as he could. "Burn it."