—

"It's just, monsters and magic notwithstanding, I'm so sorry. And... thanks."

She tilts her head. "For what?"

"For not letting Loki win. For always having my back. For hitting me really hard on the head."

She smiles and tighten the fingers threaded in his. She feels a strange sense of deja vu, which makes no sense as they have most certainly never been in this situation before.

"Guys?" Steve says, reappearing suddenly. "Tony just called me over the comm, said he couldn't get through to you two. We've got a problem. Well, several actually."

"What's wrong?" Natasha asks.

"Loki… got away."

They are instantly on their feet. Their comms are switched back on, and they are greeted with verbal chaos as every location in the tower was systematically checked for the missing demi-god.

"I don't know specifics, I wasn't there. But as far as we know he is still in the building. I nearly just had him on fourteen but he… caught me off guard." His gaze narrows in on Clint, a look on his face that Natasha can't read. "He somehow got his scepter back as well. And Tony says that the cube has disappeared too. Something weird is going on."

"You have got to be kidding me," Barton groans.

"Tony, Thor, where are you?" Natasha asks.

"Lobby. Had a bit of an issue."

"I guess so," she says crossly. "What the hell happened?" Logically she knows that something very unexpected and unavoidable must have happened for them to let Loki escape, but she can't help but be angry. Even more so as she looks at Clint, who has that hard, pinched look on his face again that she had only just managed to get rid of. She glances at Steve and sees him staring at Clint too.

"Give me a break, Romanoff. I almost died."

This only makes her angrier. "Tony, I swear to God-"

"No, it is true," Thor says. "Something very strange is going on here."

"We're on our way down," she says as she follows Clint and Steve into the elevator.

They say nothing on the ride down. Tony's elevators are fast but feel as slow as molasses when there's a lunatic on the loose. Again. But elevators don't care about lunatics on the loose and none of the three of them can fly.

Steve abruptly turns to Clint. "What do you know about Bucky Barnes?"

What? she thinks.

"What?" Clint says.

"James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. While I was fighting Loki… he mentioned him. There's only one person I can think of from whom he could have heard that name."

Natasha bristles at Steve's tone. While he's not explicitly accusing Clint of anything, she does not appreciate him bringing this up right now. She likes Steve well enough, but if he just undoes all the progress she just made with Clint…

"I've never heard of a Bucky Barnes," Clint says flatly.

Steve just stares, putting Natasha on edge. "What does this have to do with-"

The elevator announces its arrival on the ground floor, and opens to complete chaos beyond.

"We'll talk more about this later," Steve says. "Right now, we've got a madman to find." And then he's gone.

Clint moves to follow, but Natasha stops him with a hand on his arm. He looks at her expectantly.

She makes eye contact, not sure of what to say but knowing he will understand what she feels. "I've still got your back," she says finally.

His mouth curves up slightly, then he nods once at her, and then they're off.

—

They search for hours, but, predictably, turn up nothing. Clint had been unusually laconic during their search, and Natasha had remained staunchly by his side, until he had managed to give her the slip about an hour ago.

She wasn't overly worried. She can appreciate the need to have some time to yourself to…process things.

"Romanoff, come in," Steve's voice says in her ear.

Her hand goes to her ear. "Romanoff."

"Anything?"

"You'd be the first to know if there was."

"I figured. Listen. I'm going to ask you a question, and you might not like it, but I need you to answer honestly."

She can already feel herself getting defensive. "What?"

"Was Barton with you the entire time before Loki escaped?"

She forces herself to take a deep breath. "Yes. He was." She surprises herself with how calm she sounds. "Why?"

"I just want to-"

"If you are implying what I think you are-"

"It's not an unreasonable question, Natasha. It's been less than twenty-four hours since he was Loki's right-hand man. And Loki's escape was so well-executed that we can't help but consider the possibility that he had accomplices."

Well, he sure had that explanation all ready to go. She would agree with him completely, if it were anyone but Clint. "Clint is not working for Loki," she grinds out.

"Okay, okay. But just in case, just stay with him and keep an eye out for anything strange." He pauses. "He is there with you, right?"

"Yes," she lies.

"All right. Well, just stay with him."

"Rogers-"

"If he were under some kind of control and didn't know it, wouldn't you want to know so you could help him? I'm not accusing Barton of anything, Natasha. We just have to cover all our bases."

Natasha takes a couple more deep breaths, exhaling loudly into her comm. "Is there anything else?" she asks tightly.

"Negative. I'm going to contact the others and then arrange a rendezvous. I don't think we are going to be finding Loki tonight."

"Understood. Romanoff out." She knows that Steve probably wasn't done talking, but she is done talking to him right now. Deep down she knows it is a logical precaution to take, but since it is Clint and she knows he is himself again she refuses to even entertain the mere premise. The last thing Clint needs right now is to think that she does not trust him.

She desperately wishes she had good news for Clint. Unfortunately, she agrees with Steve's assessment that they will not be finding Loki anytime soon, something she had strongly believed ever since Thor related just what had happened in the lobby. A couple of security guards had reported seeing him vanish through a 'misty alien portal,' and misty alien portals did not lead to air vents or abandoned buildings in Brooklyn.

It's in a combination of both that she finds Clint. An old, dust-ridden air vent of a condemned apartment building in west Brooklyn.

He had left his comm on, which meant that she could track where he was and also that he wasn't averse to her finding him. She raises an eyebrow when she doesn't see him at the location indicated, and briefly wonders if he's duped her, but then she looks at the rotting ceiling above her and grins knowingly.

It takes almost ten minutes to find his point of entry, but when she finally does she hoists herself up into the, frankly disgusting, air vent and follows his dust trail.

"I hope you appreciate me. I had to stare down three huge rats to get here," she says as she squeezes in beside him and hugs her knees to her chest. "You good?"

He shrugs. "Just needed a minute, I guess. Sorry for ditching you."

She nods and rests the back of her head against filthy vent behind her. "It's going to be okay, Clint. We will find him, sooner or later."

"Nat, I want you to promise me something," he says.

"What?" She asks, suspicious.

"If… if Loki gets control over me again, you have to promise me— "

"If you're about to suggest something asinine like 'take you out' then you'd better shut up right now."

"I'd be so much more dangerous if it happened again. This is personal for Loki now."

"I would figure out a way. I am not going to take you out unnecessarily, even under the ridiculously small chance that you get yourself mind controlled again. Which won't even happen."

"You don't know that. It might be the only way…"

"I refuse to accept that as an option."

"Tasha…" he says slowly.

She looks at him in surprise, but can see he used the name on purpose.

"…I would rather die than give Loki a chance to make good on his threats. I would rather die than be responsible for killing anyone else. Especially if that someone was you."

The words warm something within her despite the sinister picture they paint. "As if I'd even give you the chance," she teases.

"It wouldn't be the first time I did have that chance," he reminds her, turning to give her a pointed look. "I mean it, Tasha. Don't give him that chance."

"I won't," she says firmly. "It won't come to that, okay?" She smiles. "I know now to hit you really hard on the head, remember?"

He smiles ever so slightly, and Natasha feels the heavy blanket of emotional fog over them lift ever so slightly.

After a few minutes of silence, Natasha briefly ponders the idea of giving Clint the heads up about Steve's suspicions, but quickly decides against it. She pulls him into a comparison of battle wounds instead, many of which really should have been tended to hours ago. He has just poked a particularly painful bruise on her leg as revenge from the unnecessarily painful inventory she took of his wounds a moment earlier, when Tony's voice comes over her comm.

"Russian Assassin, come in. I can't get in touch with Legolas. Any idea what magical forest he has wandered off to?"

Nat rolls her eyes and bring a hand up to her comm. "Barton's with me. Any news?"

"Not unless it's on your end. We're out of feasible options over here."

This was the answer she expected, but she's still pretty sure her blood pressure rises in response regardless. "Right. Then what's the plan?"

"Tomorrow? Regroup. Exchange intel. Get yelled at by Fury. Now? I dunno about you and Katniss but all of us are starving. I vote for shawarma. Oh, Thor's with me. Two votes for shawarma."

"Shawarma? You've got to be kidding, Tony."

"I got thrown through a space portal and had my heart stop today, okay Romanoff? I've lost count of how many times I almost died. I've earned it. You and Artemis are free to opt out, but that's where we'll be." He clicks off.

Natasha glances at Clint. He hadn't reacted to the suggestion of food. This is both uncharacteristic and worrisome. "Clint?"

"They don't trust me," Clint says. It's not a question.

"What makes you think that?"

He gives her a look. "I'm not stupid, Nat."

"Well, I don't care what they think," she states emphatically. "I trust you."

He doesn't respond, and he's staring at the opposite side of the vent, but after a moment a smile fights its way onto his face. "Well, I guess that's all that matters now. Doesn't it?" he says softly.

She nudges his shoulder with hers. "Of course."

He sighs. "Let's go."

"Clint, we don't have to-"

"No. I want to. We are all on the same side, and it's important that we stay that way. Also, I'm starving."

"If you're sure..."

"This doesn't change anything, Nat. Loki still didn't win. And he won't win." He nudges her leg. "Not while I've got you around to knock sense into me, anyway."

Relief courses through her and blossoms into what must be quite the smile judging from the warm look Clint gives her in return. Her relief continues to expand when Clint is himself enough to joke about having to stare at her ass their entire way back through the vents. She waves her middle finger back at him and breathes easily for the first time in hours.

They meet with the others at the address Tony had texted her. They are the last ones to arrive, and it looks as if the others were not quite able to wait for them before starting. Thor is stuffing his face with food as they enter, and raises his arms and greets them with something unintelligible. It would be sweet if his mouth weren't full of partially masticated food.

"Say it, don't spray it, pal." Tony chides, turning to look at the new arrivals. "Nice of you two deadly assassins decided to join us." He indicates the two empty seats between Steve and Bruce. "Have a seat. Two more orders, please!" he calls to the staff.

Natasha's appetite had vanished the moment they had walked in, but she doesn't comment. Her eyes travel over each of her teammates as they sit down.

Bruce had become Bruce again around hour four of the search, and looks exhausted. He also smells... somewhat unpleasant, and she realizes why the seat next to him was empty.

Steve looks …off. Distant, unfocused, staring at food which it looks like he's barely touched. Natasha would be concerned if she weren't still kind of pissed at him.

"Hey, Natasha," Bruce greets her, then follows her line of sight and looks at Steve. "Everything okay, Captain?" he asks after a moment when he realizes Natasha does not plan to herself.

Steve sighs, not looking up from his partially touched food. "Not sure. I've got a meeting with Fury in the morning."

Tony snorts. "Yeah. No kidding. We all do. He's been screaming at me for hours already. He's gonna want answers that we don't have."

"Well, I have questions of my own for Fury," Steve says, then looks over at Clint, who has all his attention on the food he had just been given by the staff.

Natasha restrains herself from mild violence. "Is there a problem, Steve?" she asks, the hint of a challenge in her voice.

"I don't know," he answers, his gaze still on Clint.

"Give the Captain some slack. Loki said some things that's got him a bit suspicious," Bruce pipes in. "And can you blame him? SHIELD's been keeping so much from us. They shot a freaking missile at us just a few hours ago!"

"Fury wouldn't do that."

"Maybe not, but it's more than reasonable to have questions after a day like today."

"Loki should not have had any knowledge of what he told me," Steve asserts.

"What did he tell you?" Natasha asks.

"You know, I'm not even sure that was Loki," Bruce says.

"Who else could it have been?!" Steve pushes his basket away, irritated. "He had the scepter! He looked exactly like me!"

"I really don't know how he could have retrieved his scepter so quickly..." Thor muses.

"He knew... things! Things he shouldn't have known!" Steve's eyes move to Clint again. "Same as how he knew things he shouldn't have about you, Natasha."

Natasha's nostrils flare. "What did he tell you, Rogers?" she repeats, impatient.

"Is it too much to ask that everyone just makes nice long enough for us to have a meal together?" Tony laments.

"Here here! Let's enjoy the feasting of victors, brothers!" Thor says between bites.

"I don't feel very victorious right now," Steve mumbles. "I can't even say with certainty who in fact is a 'brother'."

"All right, that's enough," Natasha snaps, standing up and leaning forward to prop her hands in the center of the table. "Rogers, what exactly did Loki say to you?"

Steve takes a moment to answer, the restaurant getting so quiet that Thor self-consciously stops chewing. "He said that Bucky is alive."

"All right. I don't know who this 'Bucky' is, but Barton already told you he doesn't know anything about it!"

"He's SHIELD, isn't he? He could be under orders to 'not know anything about it'."

Natasha scoffs in disbelief. She looks to Clint, who has his gaze locked onto his basket. "Clint, now would be a good time to speak up."

Clint's eyes lift up and fall on each of them in turn. "It's... possible," he says finally. When he is met with silence, and a look of shock from Natasha, he continues. "I don't... remember a lot of what happened. What exactly I did. Told him. If I can't remember what I said, then it's possible I could have forgotten things I knew previously." He looks at Steve. "I really don't know anything about a Bucky, but I can't say for certain if I did or not before this whole... ordeal." He looks down at his food again. "I'm sorry."

Natasha presses her lips together. The legs of her chair skid loudly on the floor and she sits back down heavily. She takes Clint's hand under the table and sighs. They had been making so much progress.

"Look, I know you guys don't trust me. And I get it. Frankly I don't think I'd trust me either. I'm not sure I do trust myself at this point. But I want you all to know that I am on your side, and that I'll do whatever I can to help. I'll take myself out of the search, out of the meetings, get my head examined, whatever makes you feel better. I want this son of a bitch caught too." He swallows. "Probably more than anyone."

Everyone sits in silence for a moment, but it's a softer silence, and Natasha relaxes ever so slightly in her seat and loosens what she realizes must have been a painfully tight grip on Clint's hand.

"You're a good man, Barton," Steve says finally. "We'll figure this out, and catch Loki. Together."

Thor smiles and continues to eat. "I would not worry. Loki always turns up. I spent months thinking he was dead and he still turned up."

"Well that's... great." Bruce comments.

"I'll go with you to talk to Fury tomorrow," Tony says to Steve. "I think I remember something about a Bucky Barnes from my father's reports."

Steve's eyebrows rise in surprise. "Thank you. That would be greatly appreciated." He turns back to Clint, a hint of contrition coming over his features. "I'm sorry if I came off harsh, Barton. Bucky… Bucky was my best friend. I guess he's a bit of a sore spot."

Natasha sees Clint's eyes flick over her briefly before he lets out a dispirited chuckle. "Yeah. No problem," he says.

Natasha squeezes his hand.

Everyone begins to eat again, except her and Clint. Natasha knows she should let Clint go, because she's holding his left hand and he needs to get some calories in him, but she can't seem to bring herself to release him just yet, and he doesn't seem to mind.

"Okay. Now that that's out of the way. I gotta ask," Tony says, sitting up in his seat and focusing all his attention on Natasha and Clint. "Was that like, a bit? What you did to Loki? Did you plan that out beforehand? Or do you two have some kind of psychic connection? Because there's no way that was an impromptu performance."

Clint grins and watches Natasha out of the corner of his eye.

Natasha laughs, and thinks she may have an appetite after all.

—

It's well after midnight, and raining, when they part ways. Bruce and Thor split a cab, and Tony gets picked up in a Benz.

Steve stays behind to see everyone off, stating he wants to jog home. Natasha wants to call him crazy with how hard the rain is coming down, but she restrains herself.

"What about you two?" Steve asks when it's just the three of them left.

"SHIELD apartments. Just a few blocks from here."

Steve nods. "Okay." He holds his hand out for Clint to shake. "Good work today, Barton. Romanoff."

"Thanks, Cap."

"Goodnight, Steve."

They're about to round the corner when Natasha stops and tells Clint to wait there. She jogs back to where Steve is still standing, a question plain on his face.

She comes to a halt in front of him. "Hey. I just wanted to say." She clears her throat, suddenly uncomfortable. "No hard feelings, okay?"

He looks at her knowingly. "Sore spot?"

She lets out a laugh. "Something like that."

Steve nods and jerks his head towards where Clint is waiting. "Get some sleep. Take care of each other."

"See you in the morning, Steve," she says with a wave, then trots back through the puddles to Clint's side.

"Everything okay?" he asks.

She loops her arm through his as they walk. "Yeah. We're good."

"Good."

They walk in a companionable silence through the streets of Manhattan, uncharacteristically quiet after the devastation of the day. Natasha wants to ask how he is doing, what is going through his head, but she doesn't want to pressure him after the day he has had. And the peaceful calm around them for this brief moment is nice.

If she had her way, she would camp out on his sofa, ready to battle the demons that come for him in his dreams. But Clint notoriously does not take well to being babysat, and he no doubt has a long conversation waiting with Laura to convince her he is okay.

"You know, I never did get that drink earlier," he says casually as they turn into the alley that will lead them into their SHIELD issued rooms.

She grins broadly. "I've got some old scotch I've been waiting for the right excuse to break into?"

"Can't say no to that."

Natasha breathes a sigh of relief. Clint Barton is back.