Hello everyone! I updated this but the format was all wrong so I had to change it around.. sorry about that. Please leave a review! Thanks!
Bakuto was a piece of garbage.
From what Natasha could gather, he was suspected dead. He was a founding member of an organization called The Hand - known for creating child soldiers. There wasn't much in the SHIELD file that Natasha could gather expect that he was decapitated by some swordsman years before. There was no evidence of him being alive. She wondered if Clint was searching for the right man; perhaps it was the name he was looking for? Someone who had taken his mantle after his death?
But if she could get her hands on this type of information so easily, then Clint would've known. There was something else going on.
That night she traced Clint's whereabouts - he was staying at a sketchy motel just across an even sketchier restaurant. She sneaked into his room and waited for him, annoyed that this was the only way to get him to talk.
Clint was coming back from a fight - he had gotten impaled in his side and his head was piercing in pain. He staggered into his room, throwing off his shirt to take a look at his wound, when he noticed a figure sitting in the corner.
He whipped out his blade, immediately in an offensive position, "show yourself," he muttered.
Natasha emerged from the shadows, eyeing his nude torso. "Barton - what the hell?"
Clint let out an annoyed sigh and dropped his blade. He turned to put his shirt back on, ignoring Natasha's shocked expression.
His torso was covered in wounds - it looked like he was flogged. His skin was peeling, bleeding, with scratches everywhere, up his back and down his spine. Clint's expression looked as if he didn't feel an ounce of these wounds, and he just tossed his shirt back on, feeling awkwardly exposed to his former partner.
But Natasha had seen him naked several times before this - when they were sparring and when they were undercover. She had known his body before he was married to Laura, every inch of it; Clint used to treated it like a temple.
"Clint - "
"- I told you, if you want to be helpful, then find Bakuto. I don't need you here to gawk," he scoffed.
Natasha's temper rose. "Barton - I'm not here for a pity party. I'm here to tell you I've found your man, and he's long dead. Has been for several years…" she paused, after seeing no change in his expression, "but you already knew that… you're just sending me on a goose chase."
Clint shook his head, "You're rusty. I take it you haven't been doing this for a while? No, that's not it." He pinched the brim of his nose, "He's alive and he's recruiting children. He's turning them into weapons. And he doesn't really have a great track record with that either."
"I know... I read the file."
As she said this, he turned towards his bed, leaning down and wincing at the fresh wound as he went to grab a box out from underneath it. In it, piles of files were labeled with different names. "Abducted children. Or more specifically - abducted inhumans. Ever since he's been resurrected - "
" - Resurrected? What the hell? Clint, this isn't the type of mission SHIELD would have us - "
" - There is no us. And there is no SHIELD. I'm just telling you this so you know. I don't need you to understand," he reached down for a file, staring at the picture of the girl. It readLuna Maximoff.
Natasha grew closer at her former partner, who was still staring solemnly down at the photo. She recognized the last name - but there was no way that Wanda had a child in the given time span. "She's Pietro's?"
Clint nodded.
Natasha placed a hand on his arm, and her eyes trailed slowly down to his torso. She reached to raised his shirt, inspecting his wounds. Clint glanced at her, not opposing, but the familiar touch sent a jolt up his spine. He controlled his breathing, but when she reached for his belt he leaped back.
"Nat - what are you doing?" He almost looked embarrassed, heat rising.
She looked at him sideways and grimaced. She didn't see anything wrong with the touch - and she had no impure thoughts when she did it, "Let me see how bad it is," she said, "You look like you were whipped - flogged. And I know that wasn't from being Hawkeye."
He gritted his teeth, still feeling hot, pinching his nose again, "Nat - I'm not your responsibility," he cruelly spat back at her.
Natasha was growing more frustrated by the minute. "We made a pact in Budapest. I'm not here just because of our personal relationship, I'm here because of that pact - "
" - Yeah, well, I haven't been unmade, so you can leave - "
"- You haven't been unmade? What do you want me to say? I thought you were dead, Barton. You didn't answer any of my messages, you weren't at your safehouse. I've been tracking you for the past two years - eighteen people, Clint." Her eyes were sparked with fury, her fists clenched at her sides, as if she were the one that was compromised. He looked shocked to hear her say it, with so much emotion in her voice. He was speaking to a different Natasha Romanoff.
She continued, "You've killed eighteen people. You used to throw up just thinking about killing one."
There was a silence between them. Before, their silences were never uncomfortable. But the roles were changed and they were changed. The decimation had pulled a large toll on Natasha, and she felt as if she could never forgive Clint for leaving like he did.
He finally scoffed, continuing to play with his cruel facade, "That's not true. I killed plenty of SHIELD agents when Loki took over." he turned around, dropping the file and shutting his eyes, trying to ignore the pain at his side. "Get out or get out of the way."
This harsh rendition of Clint Barton was relatively new to her - even when they were previously in a relationship, at the start of their partnership in SHIELD, he was always the one reaching out to her. That was when she had blood in her ledger, when she was constantly compromised, when she had left the Red Room to join SHIELD. She was the one that ended that initial relationship, and then disappeared on a solo mission for SHIELD.
Clint had met Laura by then. Being gone for a year didn't help Natasha's case - Clint had always wanted stability and a sense of easement. During this time, she disappeared, far down in her covert mission in Budapest. Coulson had sent Agent Barton to bring her back for the second time - and he did.
Immediately after that, she was assigned on another solo mission to keep an eye on Tony Stark. It was a bit safer, in this case, since she was right under SHIELD's noses. But when Barton was compromised the first time, just a couple years later during the invasion in New York, it wasn't difficult for her to bring him back. Cognitive recalibration. Hitting people was much easier than trying to talk them out of something.
Clint sat down on his bed, looking up. They had been quiet for sometime. Natasha was usually good at speaking to people - to get inside their heads - but Barton he was different. HE had worked side-by-side with her, so no strategy or tactic would be useful on him. Her relationship with Barton was obviously more important than anything else to her, and he had changed so much she wasn't sure how to speak to him anymore.
She sat down next to him on the bed and looked down to his shirt, which was now soaking with blood. She sighed, "let me just get that," she said, "you're going to bleed to death if you just ignore it."
Clint didn't argue. He was too tired and it was already a pain in the ass to debate on the topic, so he just pulled his shirt off and laid with his back facing the ceiling. Natasha slid into the bathroom to grab some supplies, and started working on him.
Clint hid his face underneath the crook of his arm, not saying a word.
Natasha thought back to what had happened after the decimation. She had immediately gone to check on him - but he completely disappeared. Initially, she was shocked, thinking that he, too, had vanished because of Thanos, because he had not replied to any of her messages, and he wasn't on his farm.
No one was on the farm.
Natasha worked on his wounds for another hour, managing to bandage up the several wounds he had managed to ignore. He was sound asleep by the time that she was done, so she stepped outside to make a call.
"Did you get Ronin?" Steve asked from the other line.
She bit her lip, "I need more time, Steve. I…" she paused.
Steve did not know that Ronin was Clint. They were growing desperate by the minute - and when Scott had shown up at the headquarters, they knew that they needed to recruit more people. Ronin, initially, had made the news as a new fighter. He was targeting the worst kinds of people: rapists, murders, child abductors. When Natasha saw the footage, she recognized the patterns in his fighting style, but couldn't bring herself to believe it. So she didn't tell Steve anything but insisted to be put on bringing him in.
"What is it Natasha?" Steve asked, waiting for her response.
"Nothing," she said, "he's a bit difficult. He's in the middle of tracking down a pimp who's abducting inhumans. I promised to help him with this in exchange for him to join the team."
"Do you need backup?" He asked from the other line.
Natasha's response was almost immediate, "No!" she exclaimed. "I mean - he's not really a team player. I can handle him. Just give me four days."
Steve didn't like this response. "We need people to stay back, Natasha. With Tony gone - I can't rely on just Thor and Rocket. Bruce hasn't been able to manage the other guy - we're defenseless. We've lost resources in trying to find Tony, and we don't have much time."
Natasha looked down to her feet, feeling useless. "Steve. I know we've been trying to contact Tony but… do you think - "
" - He's alive, he's out there Natasha. I know it."
Natasha laid her head back against the wall outside of Clint's apartment. She didn't want to tell Steve about Clint. Not yet.
"Three days," she said, "Give me three days. I'll get you Ronin."