Thank you so much Not. So. Typical. Girl., Nessie sucks, country strong '89, Dasiygirl95, and snowangl05 for your awesome reviews! And a major thanks, also, to those who favorited/followed this story! I'm so, so glad you guys like it and wanted to make it a story!
In a bit of contrast to the first chapter, I thought I'd show you guys what life was like before Clint bought the camcorder. Though this chapter isn't nearly as comical as the last, I hope you'll enjoy it nonetheless.
August 31st, 2015
The knock came early one Saturday morning, the urgent banging jolting Georgia from a very naughty dream involving Clint and a bottle of chocolate syrup. Half-asleep, she managed to pull on some pants and stumbled through her apartment, shouting, "Coming! Sorry, I'm coming! Christ, what time is it?"
She unlatched the locks on the door not a second before it swung open and a very frantic Natasha Romanoff barreled into the apartment. Georgia blinked, shutting the door and fiddling with the alarm. "Good morning to you, too. Please, won't you come in?"
Georgia watched with a frown as the Russian assassin did a loop around her living room, getting an odd chill at Tasha's resemblance to some feral predator locked in a cage. Like a tiger. Or panther. Georgia crossed her arms over her chest, "Tasha, what's wrong?"
Natasha abruptly spun on her, eyes sweeping over Georgia's disheveled frame as if she'd forgotten she was there. Tasha crossed to her swiftly, gripping Georgia by the upper arms. "I need you to listen to me very carefully, G. When was the last time you spoke to Clint?"
Georgia blinked, "Um, it was weeks ag-"
"How long exactly?"
"I don't kno-"
Natasha's grip on her arms steeled and she shook her violently, "How long, Georgia?!"
"Shit, I don't know. Months! Not since the end of May. Tasha, what's going on? You're scaring me. Where's Clint? Is he okay?" A powerful wave of fear seized Georgia's chest as the Russian's hands fell from her arms and a blank look consumed her. "Tasha, where's Clint?"
Natasha blinked slowly, her chin quivering ever so slightly. "I'm so sorry, G…"
"Tasha," Georgia growled, her eyes suddenly stinging. "Answer me, now. Where is Clint?"
"We don't know."
Three little words and Georgia's world is sent spiraling out of orbit. Everything in the room began to spin and there came an abrupt pounding in her ears, her heart seemingly hammering away at her brain. What did she mean they didn't know? Where was her husband? And then Tasha was speaking again, "He dropped off the grid three months ago, stopped checking in, turned off his phone, threw away his tracker. At least that's their theory. We just found out this morning."
Georgia felt like she was going to vomit. Her shoulders began to shake, her torso convulsing as a sob tore through her. She stumbled forward, clenching the countertops to stay upright. Natasha was immediately at her side, one hand on her back, the other enclosing around Georgia's left hand. "Three months? He hasn't checked in for three fucking months and they're telling you now?"
"No," the Russian swiftly shook her head, red ringlets bouncing in place. "They didn't tell us shit. Tony and Bruce were doing some digging in the S.H.I.E.L.D. computer system and just happened to stumble on something suspicious. Next thing we know Tony's calling all of us, demanding that we meet him at headquarters, and then we're busting down the door to Fury's office…"
"Why wouldn't they tell you?! Someone could've been looking for him weeks ago!" shrieked Georgia, outraged. She clenched Natasha's hand, her fingers shaking. When she spoke, her words were pleading, a crying beg, "You have to get him back. Tasha, you-"
Her voice broke, a sob tearing from her lips. She cupped her mouth, gasping as a thousand and one awful scenarios raced through her mind, one after the other. Something terrible had happened to her husband and no one was doing a damn thing about it. "You have to bring him home to me, Natasha."
Natasha nodded, ardently blinking away the moisture rising in her eyes. "We will. The plane leaves in an hour. Look, until we have more information, we think it's best if you go stay at Stark Tower for a little while." She dug something out of her pocket, something small that she placed in Georgia's palm. "This is a cell phone that's program to receive and transmit calls from only one number. My number. If you hear anything, anything at all, G, you call me that second, okay? And I'll keep you updated."
Georgia nodded, holding the phone to her chest. "Is there anything I can do?"
"No, sweetie. We'll handle it. You just keep that phone on you."
She struggled to breathe but managed a slight jerk of the head. "Okay…oh, God, Tasha, what if-"
"Don't. Don't think like that. He's coming back," Natasha declared. Her eyes misting, the Russian shook her head, not knowing if she was trying to convince Georgia or convince herself. "Clint's coming back. We're going to find him and bring him home ourselves."
Tasha squeezed Georgia's hand, pulling the older woman close and hugging her shoulders fiercely. "I promise I'll bring him back," she whispered, sniffing and then pulling away suddenly. Clearing her throat, she looked at the thin watch encasing her wrist, "Pepper should be here within the hour. She'll help you get some things together. I'll call soon."
"Tasha!" Georgia cried as the Russian pulled open the apartment door. She paused, but only for a second, as Georgia muttered, "Be careful." The door shut with a resounding click behind her and Georgia's legs gave out. She slid down to the kitchen floor, awful, despairing cries clawing at her throat. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think. She just kept seeing Clint's face. The idea of him never coming back paralyzed her, seized her heart and lungs and mind, a foul hopelessness stirring in the pit of her stomach. He had to come back. Clint was her everything; he was her husband, her lover. He was her best friend. There was no way he couldn't come back to her.
She sat there, awkwardly curled in on herself on the cold kitchen floor, until her eyes burned dry, her cheeks and shirt soaked with tears. She sat there until her throat was sore, having been ravaged by such dreadful, agonizing screams. She sat there until Pepper Potts arrived and allowed herself in, saying nothing but crossing to where she sat, two slender arms slipping around her. And when she felt Pepper there, for a split second she had foolishly hoped it was Clint. And when she realized he was truly gone, Georgia cried some more.
Georgia became numb after a while, staring silently as Pepper packed her bags and murmured words she knew were meant to be comforting. Unfortunately, in spite of Pepper's good intentions, her reassurances fell on deaf ears. She can't exactly recall how but the next thing Georgia knew they were at Stark Tower and she was being settled into the guest room in Tony and Pepper's apartment. And then there was a drink in her hand and a sympathetic smile from Pepper as the glass was urged toward her lips.
The liquor burned her raw throat, her eyes stinging back to life. "This is so fucked up," she growled sometime later as she and Pepper curled up on the shag carpet in Stark's den, a pile of embers burning in the fire place and a bottle of scotch between them. "Who the fuck do they think they are? I get them not telling me, but not telling the team? No, you know, what? I don't understand how they can't tell me. I'm his fucking wife and he's gone for three months! They don't think I need to know that kind of shit! And why weren't they looking for him?!"
Pepper watched Georgia's hand tremble around her glass, saw the way her chin quivered and her chest shook as she struggled not to cry. Georgia sniffled, "You know, I spend weeks alone, sometimes months, and it's so hard-" They ignored the way her voice broke, ignored the pain lacing each word. "-I miss him every single minute he's gone and the only thing that gets me through it, is knowing that he's coming home. Knowing that in a few days or weeks he'll walk through that door and we'll be together again."
There came a brief silence as Georgia lost herself for a moment, staring into the last remaining bits of the fire. She sloshed her scotch around and whimpered, "This isn't like him, Pepper. Clint is a soldier. He knows the importance of keeping in touch, of maintaining contact. He wouldn't break protocol like this…"
Pepper's heart broke at the sight of her poor friend and the undeniable pain she was suffering. Clearing her throat, she took a sip of her drink and whispered, "The Avengers are the best team on the planet, G. They'll bring Clint home."
At the sound of his name, a handful of tears spilled over and Georgia bit her lip, choking back another round of inconsolable sobbing. "I know they'll bring him home…the only question is will he be alive when they do?"
September 1st, 2015
"How's she doing?"
Pepper sighed clutching the phone tighter in her hand as she eyed Georgia's sleeping form on the couch. Pepper hadn't gotten her to sleep until well after five a.m. and even then her slumber was broken by desperate cries and tremors. "As well as is to be expected. Tony, why wouldn't they have told us he ceased contact?"
"I don't know," he growled, the distinctively hard edge to his voice telling Pepper S.H.I.E.L.D. had better prepare for World War Three when the Avengers returned. For there would be immense hell to pay for the serious wrong they had done. "Natasha's going to call her soon."
"Tell her to wait at least a few more hours. Georgia needs to rest and she's just now fallen asleep."
"Roger that."
"Tony?"
"Yes, Miss Potts?"
Pepper's heart seized as she looked at her forlorn company. She certainly did not envy Georgia. "Be careful."
"Bye, Pepper."
September 3rd, 2015
The shrill ring of Natasha's cell phone had become her only lifeline. The sound became as familiar to her as the sound of her own voice. The sound of Clint's. And when she heard that high ring that night, felt the phone vibrate in her grasp, because she slept with her fingers curled tightly around the small device, she felt her heart fly to the back of her throat.
"Tasha?"
"We got him, Georgia. We've got him and we're bringing him home."
After four miserable days and five long months, her husband was coming back to her. Natasha had kept her promise.
September 4th, 2015
The back ramp of the Quinjet lowered and Georgia felt like her heart was going to burst from her chest at any moment. She'd never felt so anxious in her entire life. Her stomach was folded over in knots upon knots and she knew that if she squeezed Pepper's hand any tighter, the woman's fingers would permanently crook.
But none of that matter because, suddenly, he was there and she was running towards him and when they met, their bodies crashing together, a terrible cry ripped from her throat and she sobbed against him. He was back. Clint was home and alive and safe. This didn't fully hit her until his arms wrapped around her and he gave her the fiercest hug she'd ever known. And then he's pressing kissing into her hair and against the side of her face and murmuring apologies and, "I love you so much."
And he's trying to explain but she doesn't care because he's there and alive and had he ever felt this good beneath her fingertips?
"Later," she told him. Because right then all that mattered was him.
Clint kissed her so passionately that it made her knees quake on the tarmac and when they broke apart, she had to force herself to turn her face away from his, though her body remained firmly against him. She saw them over his shoulder, the Avengers, their wonderful team. She saw Tony hugging Pepper. Saw Bruce and Thor and Steve glaring at the few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on the tarmac. Saw Natasha watching her with a fond gaze. They looked so tired, so haggard. They looked like they'd gone to hell to bring him back to her.
"Thank you," she called to them, her voice wavering as Clint pressed his face to her neck and squeezed her just a little tighter, his arms a steel around her. "Thank you."
And it was Bruce who replied first. He sent her a small smile. "You know you don't have to thank us, G."
Thor nodded, his thunderous voice booming, "We are family. This is what family does."
"They go to the ends of the Earth for one another," continued Steve.
"No matter the costs," murmured Natasha.
Tony cleared his throat, arm securely fastened around Pepper's thin frame. "And that's what we'll always do. Because Blondie's right, we're a family. Now, where's Fury? I think we've got one hell of an ass kicking to deliver. Whatta you guys say?"
Clint drew back and cupped Georgia's chin, his thumb stroking her cheek, eyes forever searching her own. He kissed her tenderly. "I say not now. I've just spent five months away from my wife and we've got some catching up to do."
And there you have it. As I said, the tone of this chapter was definitely on the serious side. Never fear! The humor will make a swift return in chapter three.
Just so you know, if you leave a review, Clint will bake you cookies. Or, you know, brownies or something. He's a fantastic cook, don't worry.