Blackmail - 6

Author Notes / Hiya. So one of the reviews on my last chapter said that the r*pe scene really freaked them out. So I was wondering if I should change it. I tried to make it as least gory as I could make it while also getting the idea across. So as a general census, Should I redo it and make it tamer?

Short chapter today, sorry about that.

MillyWidow

~Last time~

Bruce threw them a sad smile, not because of their childish behaviour but because he just wished Natasha could have something in her life that wasn't somehow affected by her past.

He remembered how heartbroken and annoyed she was when the rest of the Avengers found out about the red room. She wanted friends who liked her not pitied her.

He looked between the spider and the hawk, who were now whispering something between each other, and he thought to himself - What they have, that's love.

And he hoped beyond all hope that their relationship wasn't cut short by an untimely death.

But would it be another force that drew them apart?

"Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy." – Leo F. Buscaglia

A week after the incident Natasha finally convinced Bruce to take her cast off and instead she had to were a brace.

To say Clint was suspicious was an understatement and after a couple of days he sat her down to try and pull the truth from her.

Natasha was a spy so she knew how to deflect his suspicion.

She ended up 'admitting' that her injuries were from her excessive training, he had comforted her but it only made her feel worse.

Since then her life had been relatively uneventful.

Luckily for her, Kozlov had not called and from the outside, it looked like life went back to somewhat normal, but Natasha wasn't sleeping. She was scared of the nightmares, scared that she would say something in her sleep. So she just decided not to sleep

But that didn't work for her because Clint noticed, and being the caring guy he is, he held her until she fell asleep.

Still, the nightmares came back. Nightmares about her past, her future and most importantly the present.

She didn't tell Clint what she was truly dreaming about, she couldn't tell him.

Nevertheless, he was able to ease her through it and eventually help her go back to sleep

But Clint was only human and sometimes he wasn't there.

Like right now.

Natasha was lying awake staring up at the ceiling. She had just woke up from a dream and Clint was fast asleep next to her an array of pillows nested around him.

She smirked at his -hawkish- behaviour.

She really needed to sleep.

So she opened her draw, quietly as to not wake the lightly snoring man next to her, and took out the unopened bottle of pills.

The assassin stared at the bottle for close to half an hour before she unscrewed the cap and poured a few pills into her hand.

Bruce had told her to only take two, but she had a history of not reacting to certain drugs and sedatives, so she chucked 4 into her mouth and swallowed.

She tried to place the bottle back onto the table, but with her almost healed broken arm, it fell over, tiny capsules slipping out.

She would've cleaned it up but she could feel the gentle pull of sleep tugging at her.

She leaned against the pillows facing away from Clint in embarrassment.

She knew he had been trying to get her to take sleeping medication for years, but the fact she had gotten to a stage in her life where she was so weak to accept medicinal help made her so incredibly embarrassed.

She watched the clock on the wall slowly blur and she fell into the oblivion of sleep.

No dreams came to haunt her, and for the first time in almost the whole of Natasha's life, she slept the whole night.

-~—~-

The traffic of New York woke the archer in the early hours of the morning.

He didn't have to turn around to know Natasha was still in bed. Her warmth was radiating off of her slim body onto his less slim body.

He rolled over and wrapped his muscly arms around her waist pulling her closer to him.

He was surprised when she didn't wake up from the sudden movement. Natasha was always a light sleeper and the slightest movement woke her up.

Seeing as she was, by the looks of it, peacefully sleeping he decided not to wake her.

He spent the next hour contemplating life, nuzzling into her silky red hair.

When the clock struck eight, and she still wasn't awake, he decided to arouse her.

"Sup sleepy-head" he whispered into her ear, still no answer.

His eyebrows furrowed with confusion, and the archer spun around the sleeping agent.

She remained asleep as he moved her and when he crawled onto his knees and cupped her cheek she didn't even stir.

"Baby, time to get up" he once again whispered hoping the despised nick-name would force her awake.

She still didn't wake.

He kissed her, tickled her, and even pinched her but she didn't wake.

He was about to give up and just let her sleep when he spotted the open pill bottle.

Why would there be a pill bottle on her bedside table? And more importantly how much did she take.

He freaked out, jumped off of her to examine the bottle.

Natasha never took pills or any type of medication whether it be pain killers or just plain old paracetamol.

She didn't even take the pills Bruce had given her for her arm.

So when he found a bottle of pills splayed over their bedside table, it was safe to say he thought the worst.

"Nat, Nat, NATASHA" he yelled his voice rising in volume as his frantic cries were met with silence.

Had she tried to kill herself? he asked himself. Yes, it was the worst-case scenario but what if…. No, he couldn't think like that.

But just in case he slid his index finger and middle finger to the crook of her neck and was relieved to feel a soft steady pulse.

"Come on Tasha" he pleaded gently slapping her cheek.

To his relief, a tiny groan escaped the redhead's lips as she stirred.

"Hey, how are you feeling" his voice was soft and quiet but was obviously too loud for a just awake assassin.

Her eyes were glassy and her lips dry but she looked more radiant than she had been in days, more alive.

"Wha' 'm fine Clint, calm down" she mumbled turning away from him and shoving her face into the pillow.

Clint was overcome with a wave of emotion he could only describe as annoyance.

Annoyance that she had made him so stressed and worried that she had overdosed and then had the nerve to ask him to calm down.

"Cal- Calm down!?" he roughly grabbed her shoulder and rolled her to lay on her back again, "You wanna tell me what these are?"

"I don't know, I wanna sleep"

"Fucking hell Nat, how many have you taken"

"Just a couple" she groaned, "Didn't… want… to dream"

Clint looked at her confused before his gaze went back to the bottle. In all the commotion of the last 10 minutes, he had forgotten to read the bottle.

Temazepam - Sleeping Medication.

"Who gave you these" he spoke and Natasha could barely hear it.

"Banner"

It was silent as Clint continued to stare confused at the white pill bottle, but eventually, he raised his eyebrows and returned his gaze towards the redhead.

"Not going to lie I'm surprised you took them"

"So am I but like I said I didn't want to dream"

He placed the bottle back on the counter and crawled back into bed.

"Proud of you" he murmured, nuzzling into her hair again. "But I'm still angry at you for scaring me like that,"

She would have responded but was already half asleep and within a few moments, she was completely asleep again.

Clint left her sleeping figure and packed up the fallen pills before making his way downstairs.

Tony, Steve, Pepper and Bruce were already up, scattered around the floor.

He made his way over to the scientist and quickly muttered a thank you.

"For what?" Bruce asked confused as to why the archer was thanking him.

"Helping Nat" He replied simply before walking off.

Did that mean she had told him about her situation or was he talking about him patching up her injuries the other day?

Bruce decided to ignore it and turned back to his newspaper.

From what he had heard the mystery man hadn't called Nat in a couple of weeks and he felt relieved, for now.

Part of him hoped that this meant it was over, they had got what they wanted and had decided to leave her alone.

But the other side of Bruce knew,

That this was just the quiet before the storm.

-~—~-