"And that is how change happens.
One gesture. One person. One moment at a time."
― Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing
The guards don't even bother taking him to his factory foreman or even to the head of the Level 11 security detail; they march him straight into one of the shiny and bright elevators that he has only stepped into once or twice in his life before. They are for ithe other ones/i, the professors and politicians and the rich people, the ones running the project and funding the search for a cure.
"Where are you taking me?" he asks, once. But he isn't surprised when silence is their only reply and so he shuts his mouth again and watches instead, trying to take in every detail. Bruce always says that he has keen eyesight, so he might as well put it to good use.
Clint hardly even feels the elevator move, but suddenly there is a pleasant ringing sound and the doors open to a polished, blindingly white floor with pictures on the walls and flowers – actual flowers! – in the corners. While they drag him away, Clint cranes his neck, tries to take in every detail. He has never seen real plants in his life, only pictures in books. They are oddly alien and comfortably normal at the same time and for a moment Clint thinks he remembers: A day in a garden with sun and humming bees and flowers everywhere - they tickled his nose, he thinks.
He knows, of course, that flowers and plants still exist. Not as many as there used to be, but in some underground greenhouse there must still be people growing them, making them ready for a day that will probably never come again. Still, they have a purpose – or so he'd always thought. But just having them stand there, in a long white corridor that seems so unused that Clint wonders if he and his captors might be the first people to ever walk through it … it seems wasteful. And if The Corporation is one thing, it is not wasteful! But before Clint gets to think about it more, before he can store all the different plants and colors and impressions in his mind, they go through another door and all is grey again.
Cement and dust and steam surround Clint as he is dragged across a metal grid bridge so narrow, he can see down the sides into a deep void; the vastness of it all takes his breath away. Logically, he knows this place has to be gigantic, considering how many people they probably rescued from the surface. But to see so much of it in such a short time makes his head spin. He looks up and sees the same nothingness going on for what seems like miles, the cylindrical shape of the room stretching on higher than he can remember seeing before. For a second – although it must be a trick of the light – for a second he thinks he sees a bit of bright blue all the way at the top … but then he gets a smack on the back of his head and it smarts and he lowers his gaze again. He tries not to dwell on the forbidden blue up high, decides there must be a good reason for it, and marches on.
Still, no one has said a word. Instead, they march him through another door, back into one of the polished corridors and into a room with nothing but bare walls, a white chair and a large observation window. Even behind the window, there is more white. He is shoved onto the chair and one after one, the security guards file out the room, not looking back at him.
And then, everything around him is quiet. The brightness of the room seems to pierce his brain and Clint has to squint. His breathing still hasn't slowed and in the quiet whiteness of the room, the noise seems harsh and unfitting. Everything around him is so clean and large and fresh, that for the first time in his life Clint feels dirty, as if his mere presence tarnishes the virginal perfection all around him.
What will happen to him now? He knows he broke protocol, more than just being late for a shift or designation. People up in Directory tend to tolerate a larger time breach toward the end of curfew, though only in special cases. Clint has never heard of anyone breaking protocol to the extent he had, for such a long time and in the middle of the day … and suddenly he remembers why he got himself into this mess in the first place.
His Connection.
His eyes fly to his wrist; he scrambles to get his sleeve up, hope and terror thumping away in unison in his chest.
Finally, his eyes fall onto the smooth skin of his underarm.
Three seconds.
His heart stops. Or at least it feels that way. There is no air in his lungs and he feels as if he is freefalling.
Two seconds.
He gasps in a breath, jumps from his chair just because he doesn't know what else to do. He is stuck between shock and horror. Was he too late? But he can't be, there is no one here, he hasn't seen anyone.
One second.
As if on its own accord, his head whips up and he looks, he searches, his eyes finding nothing at all but still flitting – from one imagined imperfection to another; nothing but stark whiteness and blinding light and he nearly thinks he's done it, nearly believes he has made it past when suddenly, there is a flash of red in the corner of his eye. And because it's the only bit of color he can see in this place, his eyes zero in on it; there is nothing he can do.
The world seems to stop and as the last remaining second ticks away, Clint feels as if he is torn apart. Horrible, treacherous elation is battling a mind-numbing fear when …
… suddenly his eyes find those of a young woman on the other side of the glass window. She seems illuminated; the contrast of her black clothes and fiery hair make for a breath-taking picture against the never-ending whiteness.
It only takes a moment, a split second of time but Clint knows instinctively that this is the most defining moment he has experienced since the day the Earth started to tremble beneath his feet when he was 5 years old.
Suddenly, it feels as if something has settled in his chest. As if a piece has fallen into place that he wasn't aware he was missing. And he knows it is iher/i; it could have only ever been her. There is no reason, no logic to it. There is only a certainty that he has never felt before in his life.
And it scares the shit out of him.
The moments tick by as he stands there, staring at her. Taking all of her in and not seeing enough. She looks at him, too. Her eyes are wide and shocked, for a moment emitting so much pain and confusion that he nearly staggers back from the force of those emotions. Clint wants nothing more than to find out what made her that way and that thought makes him angry, very angry suddenly and though he can't look away, cannot physically make himself move, he desperately wants to. Because he still doesn't know how it works, this Connection, but now he wants to know, needs to know because there is no way he can just accept it.
He cannot look away though, either.
They stand and they stare at each other and Clint has no idea how much time has passed. But when he takes a step toward the glass, unconsciously, following more primal need than rational decision, she startles. A shadow falls over her face and the emotions so openly on display earlier vanish in the blink of an eye. She rips her gaze from his and it cuts like a knife, no matter how happy he is to be rid of her intensity.
Clint squeezes his eyes shut and starts breathing again properly. He feels unsettled and shaky and needs a moment, just a moment, to take it all in, to somehow come to terms with the fact that the one thing he has fought against his whole life has come to pass and now he can hardly battle the desire to just give it all up, simply accept this Connection. Just looking at her, just a look, makes his mind want to relinquish any hold on his own sovereignty, present it to her on a silver platter.
Clint screws his eyes shut, balls his fists until his nails nearly cut the skin of his palm. Whatever it is they did to him, to all of them, he will not just surrender. He cannot pass up his beliefs in the wink of an eye for a person whose name he doesn't even know. He will inot/i just give in.
Still though, his eyes fly open again, searching for her, but she is still gone and he breathes a sigh of relief.
Slowly and as controlled as possible, he sits back down in his chair. His eyes fall back to his wrist and find nothing. The timer that has been on his arm for more than half his life is gone, blinked out of existence and his skin is free again, smooth and untouched. So it really happened. Again his eyes fly to the observation window at the other side of the room but it is still mockingly empty. Clint hates that for a second, his chest flares up in pain before he stomps on that bit of misplaced hope and turns his eyes away.
Clint cannot remember ever feeling this wired, this much in a battle for control. In just over an hour, it seems he has lost any grip he ever had on his life and that is more than unsettling him; it is exhilarating and mind-blowing and so fucking scary that he can no longer sit still. But still he stays seated. His entire body screams for him to give into impulse and temptation, to somehow dash after her, to find her. But he stays seated, wills his body to obey the small part of rationality he seems to have left.
He has always been someone who followed a routine and not just because it was forced on him, but because he liked it. Yes, he is suspicious of this life, craves free will in its original form. But that doesn't mean he wants to throw caution to the wind. He just wants to know that the decisions he makes are his.
There is only one thing his over-active brain comes back to, again and again, and that is her. But she doesn't ground him, she doesn't bring order. She gives him the feeling that he is flying – she is pure chaos to his mind. Thinking about her blocks out every other thought but sends his heart into a maelstrom of emotions he has never had to deal with. He never wanted this, yet now he is struggling not to think of it, can't not feel it. It's as if suddenly there is color to the world where before there were only shades of stormy grey, and with each passing second he seems to lose more ground beneath his feet.
He doesn't know her name, only knows that somehow, in the stroke of one second, he felt compelled to go back on all that he considers to be himself.
He did not escape Connection Day.
He tried but he failed, and now a whole new world has opened up for him, shines a light in his face and blinds him. But the fundamental reasons for his rebellion are still true. And maybe, if he never sees her again … Clint nearly dares to hope for a moment, though the hope is small.
The sudden clicking of a door behind him startles him and when he turns around, it's like a punch to the gut, because she is back. With graceful strides, she stands immediately in front of him, her face a calm mask. Before Clint can even think of doing anything, she raises one of her hands, holds her finger up in front of his lips, not quite touching. iSilence/i.
The entire situation is so absurd that Clint finds enough distraction in it to throw her a questioning, confused look. She still stands in front of him, hand raised. Her eyes seem to be searching for something in his face, but he doesn't know what she is looking for, so he stays silent.
He can see her gaze wandering now, slowly travelling down from his face over his shoulders and lower and his heart thumps loudly in his ears, a wild prickling sensation seems to follow the path her eyes take all over his body. Feeling caught between panic and pleasure he is once more unable to move.
Her eyes are still moving over him, back to his face now and out of nowhere her hand snatches up his own.
For a second he tries to fight it, to put a stop to what is going on so they won't be dragged in deeper, but the moment her skin touches his, all he can do is gasp.
Without conscious thought, Clint wraps his own hand around hers, his calloused fingers relishing in the softness of her skin and he can't stop feeling … all of it. There is a pain in his chest, a harsh pain, that is burning its way in deep but it's the kind of pain that he knows he will never again want to be without.
Moving his fingers over hers and around, he grabs her other hand. For the first time in a long time he feels grounded, as if some silent symmetry has found its way back into his life. His hands envelope hers, move up and down and around and she moves with him, their hands dancing their own little dance, just feeling, while they stand still.
They are both breathing more heavily than they probably should and Clint is still clueless as to what is going on, but when she leans onto the tips of her combat-boot-covered toes – her face now so close that for the first time he can smell the subtle fragrance of something alien – when her lips seem to ghost past his to whisper in his ear, "Will you come with me?" there is only one answer he can give.
Suddenly, his earlier control and struggle for dominance over this fabricated connection are so far removed he can hardly see it let alone grasp it.
He squeezes her hands and nods his head. iYes/i.
And suddenly, everything happens very fast. They've only taken two steps to the concealed door she stepped through, his left hand still tightly wrapped around hers, when the door at the opposite end of the room flies open.
"RUN!" Her scream is an order.
And he does, they both do, and he can hear swearing behind him and the terrifying sound of bullets flying wild. She is leading, running with too much ease for someone like her. And for the first time he actually realises that she looks like someone from 'up high'. She doesn't wear any type of selected clothing, her hair is wild but expertly done and there are traces of permanent make-up on her skin. Not recent, but definitely there.
It is this moment, with a hail of bullets behind him and a soft woman's hand in his, rounding corners and fleeing through doors he wouldn't even have seen, that Clint comes to a further decision.
For now, there is nothing he can do.
Because no matter how big a part inside him will fight against a chemically-induced perfect romance, he is still on the run. And she is the only person he can rely on right now and there is no way back. He hates it, nearly feels like blaming her, but he is man enough to realise he agreed to run. He could have just let her escape on her own but he didn't. She only asked a question, he was the one who agreed.
So he knows that his old life is over and his survival might just be in the palm of this stranger and he has to accept that to survive.
And it works, his legs seem to run faster, he doesn't crash into any of the randomly placed items anymore and in a matter of seconds, he somehow knows her pattern of movement, knows when she is about to take a sharp turn, knows when she will go straight.
After another 15 minutes of running and climbing, they are on their own. Clint finds himself in a place the like of which he has never seen. They are deep down in Maintenance, deeper than he had ever known it to go and he is pretty sure that no one will find them here. He isn't even sure he would find the place again.
If he had to describe it, Clint would call where he is 'living quarters', because that's what they appear to be. But they are unlike any quarters he has ever seen. The small space has little furniture and what there is has been haphazardly welded together from scraps of metal and random wood. A small table, a chair, a shelf, a ratty mattress on the floor. Where has the wood come from? Down here, there is only cement and plastic and metal.
Now that they have stopped running, Clint realizes his exhaustion. His legs are shaking; he is utterly out of breath. He is sweaty and wonders if his vision has always been this blurry. He stumbles, apparently, because suddenly she is by his side.
Her arms are around his shoulders and she guides him into the chair, forces him down when his legs don't follow the instructions of his brain. From somewhere, she produces a standard issue mug with water and makes him drink it, the whole thing, in small sips.
"Close your eyes for a while, breathe deeply."
She is speaking again, and for the first time Clint actually ihears/i her voice. How deep it is and how sure it sounds, how calm. But his body is making clear that the kind of exercise he just took part in is not something it can deal with at the moment. It is enough motivation to make him lean his head back and close his eyes, taking a break from whatever chemical reaction makes him want to do nothing but stare at her.
He leans his head back against a pipe behind him and closes his eyes, takes deep breaths. It's not that he isn't fit. He has always passed every health check with flying colors, knows that his muscle tone is better than that of most people down here. But considering that he cannot even remember the last time he ran anywhere, it shouldn't be a surprise that his lungs aren't quite up to the challenge.
Clint pinches the bridge of his nose and grimaces a little. This life. As if he had just gone up to check-out, given Betty a flirty grin and exchanged his old life for this new and screwed-up version.
Funny how he was handed both his absolute dream come true and his most personal nightmare all in the same moment - chemical connection and desperate freedom in one paradoxical package.
He hears her moving, the quiet tinkering of someone who knows her way around her own space, and he realises that his earlier assumption must be right. These are her living quarters. For a moment he fights the desire to look at her, stubbornly wants to pretend that there has been no change, that he has mastered her and him and their fucked-up deal. But of course that doesn't last and so he opens his eyes again and watches her. She doesn't have her back to him and he has a feeling she doesn't turn her back on anyone, friend or foe – who knows which he is. He doesn't quite know himself yet. What he does know is that if he were to move now, she would be ready for it.
It's a sobering thought and an elating one at the same time, that there should be someone so much more equipped for rebellion than him. He always assumed it was just him who didn't fit in and Bruce … well, his friend wanted to fit in, but wasn't allowed to.
But here he is, on his Connection Day. And he has connected - there is no other word for it - and she is the embodiment of life, of freedom, of open space … while at the same time tying him down, making him question his own decisions because it gets more and more difficult to figure out whether his intentions come from him or from some warped desire linked to her. It's frustrating and more than a little annoying but he is in this mess now and he won't be a coward. They are a couple now, though a couple of what kind is yet to be determined. Still, there is nothing wrong in knowing your … partner.
"What's your name?"
He asks, his voice cold, more detached than most of him wants. That she doesn't flinch or spin around when he talks tells him that he was right – not much gets past her.
She turns from her crouched position on the floor, puts whatever item she was holding back on the ground, and looks at him.
"You can call me Natasha." Her face seems oddly closed off now, mysterious even, as she regards him for a while, quietly.
"Clint", he says eventually, clipped. "Clint Barton."
"Clint," she says, as if trying how it sounds and tastes on her tongue and he cannot help it that his eyes fall to her lips, watch the way they shape around his name.
Again the silence lasts while she looks at him, her gaze wavering a bit, uncertainty mixed in with that quiet confidence. She opens her mouth, then closes it and turns around for a second, grabs whatever she was tinkering with.
"Take this, get used to the feeling. I can't show you how to operate it, so you have to get used to it as much as possible just by holding it."
Cold steel is pressed into his hand. He is holding a gun.
His first instinct is to drop it, to run as fast as he can. Possession of anything that can be used as a weapon is one of the highest offences; owning an actual, functioning gun is pretty much a death sentence.
But here he is, weapon shoved in his hand while his new … partner? plays with a small knife, lets it fly back and forth in her fingers.
"What the …?" He stares at her, shock and distain on his face all the while battling the really quite sad feeling of total devotion and trust that he feels rising in his chest whenever he looks at her.
She regards him without expression for a while before pursing her lips, annoyance in her gaze.
"Look, I know this is a lot to process. But either you're in, or you're not. If you're in you're gonna need it, if you're not, I'm gonna knock you out and take you back. You'll never find me again."
His mouth continues to hang open, but he feels himself growing angry now and he welcomes it. Because no matter what connects them, he is apparently allowed to feel actual annoyance towards her.
"In What?!" he snaps and jumps to his feet, happy to realise his legs are working just fine again.
"Until a few hours ago, I led a normal life; suddenly I'm on the run because iyou/i asked me to. And now you give me some bullshit ultimatum and, apparently, a gun – which also means you seem to trust me and …"
His anger-induced energy suddenly leaves him and he falls back into his chair, eyes on the gun still in his hand and utterly frustrated. Dimly, he notes that the gun in his hand already feels a lot more familiar than he is comfortable with, but he shoves the thought away and looks up at her, finds her watching him intently but silently.
"I don't know who you think I am, but you cannot …" he starts again but trails off, suddenly uncomfortable with the silence.
"I mean iyou/i took me with you. iYou asked/i. And I …" He has no idea what else to say, it all seems so absurd. He snorts, rolls his eyes and mirrors her movement by crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"Natasha, until 2 hours ago, I was dreading my Connection Day and now I am here, having escaped a hail of bullets and run through half the Corporation iwith you/i, and I am not saying it was your fault but you need to … you cannot … you need to explain."
It might be sad, the way his voice hitches in the end. But he is kind of desperate and his world is spinning and she just … doesn't say anything. She just looks at him and he feels his heart react to her intense gaze, though he wills it not to. He wants to be angry with her, to not feel like she is the centre of his universe.
His eyes are burning and his heart is thumping away and somehow he suddenly wonders if this is all one big mistake, if he made it all up in his head, her reaction – the way she looked at him as if he was her reason to breathe.
He hasn't realised it, but his knee has started twitching, nervously jumping up and down; her hand on it makes him pause and of course he looks at her again. He doesn't expect her to kneel in front of him, but that's how he finds her. There is still a wild, harsh determination in her eyes, but he has come to realise already that that will never go away, it's how she is and his heart stutters. But underneath the harshness, he sees the same uncertainty and confusion and fear in her that he feels himself.
She seems to offer herself to him and the gesture seems so out of character, and she looks so uncomfortable doing it, that Clint slides out of his chair, kneels down as well, their eyes level. He can feel the air crackling again, so he leans back, needing more room to breathe.
"It's your Connection Day?" she asks, her voice nearly a whisper. Clint nods slowly, rolls up his sleeve a little bit and shows her the smooth bit of skin where his timer used to be. She reaches for it and, trails her thumb over it. Clint swallows and before he can help it, he speaks and this time his words aren't cold or harsh or angry.
"It ran out the moment I saw you behind that window." His voice is just as quiet, but she reacts as if he screamed.
She stares at him. "Impossible."
Clint narrows his eyes in confusion.
"Wasn't it yours?"
Instead of answering, she shows him her own wrist. Instead of a timer or bare skin, there is a scar. It's callused and uneven and ugly, but Clint can't help but run his finger over it, ignoring as best he can the dryness of his mouth at the touch.
"What happened?" He continues to trace his fingers over the scar, but looks at her and she lets her eyes fall to the floor for a while, another surprise admission of weakness he hadn't expected of her. She lifts her eyes again before she speaks, no weakness in her eyes now.
"I cannot remember."
Clint again cannot look away, feels as if he is drowning in her and for the moment, he is unable to pull himself back.
"I don't know why I have this scar and I don't know why I trust you, when every rational part in me tells me I shouldn't. But I do. And I know that is wrong. Trust gets you killed."
Her voice is colder towards the end and he is glad to see that she isn't overjoyed about their pre-destined union either.
Instead of speaking again, she catches his hand, stops the movement over her scar. Instead she lifts his hand and explores his fingers, each one in turn and he lets her.
"I woke up one morning in my bed and I couldn't remember my name." She isn't looking at him now, still has her gaze fixed on his hand.
"I had this scar and a couple more bruises and a gun under my pillow. And though everyone around me treated me as if everything was normal, as if I belonged, I didn't feel normal and they tried to help, tried to make me believe I was part of the family. But people like them are no good at acting or hiding their real emotions, and I began to try and find out what happened. I found a lot of answers, like the lie of the Corporation, but I still don't know who I am … or who I was." She looks at him now, her gaze just as fierce and determined.
"But I am Natasha now and I won't let anyone take that away from me again."
There is a hurricane of emotion inside him and he knows there are things - big things - that he should ask her. About where she came from and what 'lie' she meant. Instead, he just looks at her. At the way her lower lip is shoved forward just a little bit, as if she was asking him to defy her new reality. How there might be the tiniest hint of wetness in her eyes, but he knows that she hasn't cried, that Natasha doesn't cry.
And he lifts his hand again and slowly, carefully, cradles her face in his hand, traces his thumb along her bottom lip. He really shouldn't, because this isn't natural and he wants freedom not more Corporation-induced instructions. But he cannot help it and it really doesn't feel unnatural. And regardless of their connection, she is still amazing, isn't she? She has defied the Corporation at every turn, has risked her life for her freedom – isn't that something to celebrate, to aspire to, to marvel at?
"Natasha." He says and he smiles, just a little, because he doesn't know what else to do and because she is fire and life and she remade herself and if she can do it, maybe so can he. Just for this moment it doesn't matter to him if Connection Day is real or not, because it feels so right and if he is free now, shouldn't he be allowed to finally act on his feelings any way he chooses? So when he lowers his head and brushes his lips with hers, there is only a little hesitancy, only a short moment that makes him pause, but he chooses to ignore it.
It is nothing but a quiet touching of lips for a while, a slow exploration of new territory. He has seen people kiss before, but this is the first time he has done it himself, ever even felt like trying it. It is miraculous and exciting and scary but it feels right.
Natasha reacts as he should have expected – with passion. She practically throws herself into the feeling and after a time, it is she who dares more … she who sets her hands on his hips and opens her lips wider. And suddenly Clint's world is turning from an entirely different kind of feeling. It overwhelms him and sucks him in at the same time and he wants her closer and far gone at the same time. But there is more, so much more, he can feel it at the edge of his consciousness and he just doesn't know …
He breaks the kiss, only now realising how heavily he is breathing, just like her.
His hands are still holding her face and he can still feel the excitement and fear of this new experience humming in his veins. But he feels conflicted again, the doubts coming back now, forcefully breaking in from where he banned them earlier.
"Is this real?" he asks her and she takes a long time replying, her fingers absently trailing up and down his waist.
"I don't know," she says finally. "But I hope it is."