Disclaimer: Still don't belong to me.

Notes pt.1: (i) This story is now labelled with the added category of angst. Somehow this didn't occur to me before, but yeah, this chapter? Angst-galore. (ii) As promised, this chapter is entirely Clint POV. (iii) I'm unsure about the stylistic structuring of this chapter. The dialogue and introspection is blocked, if that makes sense. I would appreciate feedback on what you think about this.

Warnings: (i) This chapter contains mention of thoughts of suicide and graphic descriptions of self harm that may be triggering. You know yourself best. Please do not read if you think this may pose a problem for you. (ii) There is a short sex scene. This story is rated M. If you watch any television at all, it's nothing more graphic than most of what's on tv today. Just in case though, you have been warned.


Chapter 3 aka When Somehow They Think You're Their Psychotherapist, And You're Really Not

Those are my last pair. I don't have anymore spares.

Wise.

Fucked up one pair when crazy alien guy messed with my head. Blew the other in the battle.

Cover's blown anyway.

Think I can get a few weeks off? A week? Few days? Least I don't have to listen to their bickering, sucker!

Clint had never considered his hearing loss as a problem. He wore his hearing aids mostly out of necessity on missions as they functioned as his com link as well. His job as a sniper required someone who wasn't bothered by long silences and the idea of being alone. In fact, it was something that he enjoyed. He liked the solitude of being perched up in the rafters waiting for his prey. It wasn't until he'd been recruited by shield, met Coulson, and then Natasha that he really enjoyed the company of another person again. His deafness made his job more bearable and vice versa. But seeing the shock on his team mates faces also made him remember why it was something that he usually kept to himself. It did not interfere was his ability to do his job but it was something that made others uncomfortable.

Tasha, can you ask Pepper what the point of all this was? What was she going to ask us in the first place?

Aside from the fact that what they have between them is probably the closest thing to love that either of them would know, he loved having Natasha around because she was totally comfortable with it. When she'd first found out she'd said she was alright with it and meant it. It might be a hassle yes, but it was quantifiable, what bothered her the most were the intangibles, emotions and other forms of human(weak)ness.

Dinner?

Good. I'm hungry.

"Yeah, well. Let's eat then! We'll be out in a minute..."

As Natasha ushers the group out, he turns to his duffle to grab a change of clothes. The day is catching up with him, and even though his hearing aids are out and incinerated, his head is still pounding and he's not sure whether it's the pain in his back or his head that's worse. Struggling to pull a shirt on, he feels her hand on his back and relaxes.

Not going to pass out or anything are you, baby?

I don't pass out.

Budapest, Venice, Kandahar. I can go on.

That was from blood loss.

Suit yourself. Maybe you should still take a children's advil just in case.

Fuck you.

Wouldn't you love to.


When they finally made it to the kitchen, there was no food.

"I though there was going to be dinner. Where's the food?" Thanks Nat. "Don't tell me we went through all that trouble and that there's no food."

"Yeah about that. Turns out half of New York City is destroyed and most of the other half is without electricity or water or both. Not much choice in terms of take out available."

"Stark, we're standing in a kitchen."

"Yeah, a kitchen, not a restaurant. It requires someone who can cook. A vital distinction. How's Legolas doing after your hack and glue job?" Hack and glue job. Huh? Considering all the times that Nat had had to patch him up, this really wasn't all that bad. His back was hurting like a bitch but he'd been fucked up enough times to know when he was Fucked up and this wasn't one of them. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up some antibiotics though, with the luck that he's been having. That is, if he hasn't caught the plague already. It was their job to put their life on the line, to cross the line and do the things that no one else wanted to do, but even with all the weird messed up shit that he's seen and been through during his years in S.H.I.E.L.D, being turned into a drone by a psychotic demigod from the other end of space was not one of them.

Clint? You alright?

I'm good. Let's see if we even have anything to work with here. I feel like I haven't eaten or slept in days. Scratch that, I'm sure I haven't eaten or slept in days.

Clint could see all the pairs of eyes that were trained on him. Hell, he could feel their gaze burning on his skin but he truly could not care less right now. Undoubtably they all had questions. As new as this so called Avengers team was and as little as they knew of and spent time with each other, he was the newest and least known entity. Not so many hours ago, he was on the other side for all they knew.

If Clint were any of them, he wouldn't even be standing here right now. Except for Tasha, why should any of them have reason to trust him at all? For all they knew, for all they should know, he could flip a switch and try to kill them all right now. Who's to say that all it took to flush Loki out was a hard hit on the head. Does he even know? Can he be sure, that it was now all him inside his head? That there wasn't hidden away in some corner of his mind, just enough? That in some next mission, something in him wouldn't hesitate just enough, miss just enough, to do something just enough, to get them all killed? To get Nat killed?

And yet, here he was standing in a kitchen in Stark tower surrounded by all of them. Were they all this naive? Or did they all think him that weak?

He knows he's just on autopilot now, because he just can't think. Even in the action of today, everything is muscle memory, just as dicing a tomato now. Clint's job was to kill, most of the time secretly but sometimes in an all out fight. Sometimes it's with an arrow, sometimes a bullet, sometimes poison, sometimes a rope... But the action of killing is the same. To release the bow, it feels no different when the arrow is going into the flesh of a man vs into an alien. The feel of the trigger's pressure on his finger no different whether it's met by quiet acquiescence or a shrill scream.

This is what Natasha and Clint have in common. The others, everyone else, not just the rest of the Avengers, but the new S.H.I.E.L.D. recruits and sometimes he thinks even Fury and Coulson, they do not understand indifference. At some point they all moralize and struggle, there are some jobs that they just can't do. What they don't realize is that their difference and categorizing is misplaced. It's not that he and Nat don't care but that they knew from the very first kill that they were doomed. There was some red that could not be wiped out no matter what you did. It's not about being able to see past the situation to the larger picture. It's not about being able separate oneself from emotions to make the objective move. It's not about being able to suppress and compartmentalize.

Clint still remembers his first days in the circus and his absolute ineptitude, but right from the start they would all praise him for his bravery. You've got to learn fear kid they said, your indifference will get you killed. What they didn't realize was that it wasn't that he wasn't afraid standing on the ledge but rather that his life was filled with fear. And their comes a point where the mind becomes simply saturated and all you can do is learn to live with it. So yes, it is indifference. Indifference about life, indifference about death, but not indifference like anyone of them would understand, not like Natasha.


They all eat in silence, at least to Clint. He keeps his gaze on the bowl, on the counter, on the ground in front of him. Still, he can't miss a glance at the occasional parting of their lips where he catches the edges of his name. Silence. He'd probably pay for it later, but it doesn't matter to him now. Nat is sitting stiffly to his left, attacking her pasta with a fork, every movement is precise, timed, and calculated. It's the first thing that they teach you in dealing with interrogation, repetition, how to put yourself in a trance almost. How to put yourself away so that you don't even know your own mind, let alone any sensation in the body. And she was always the master. When they'd first met, he never saw her sleep, and that was saying a lot. When she'd finally told him, it was a year and a half in. I don't like losing control of my thoughts. Simple. And that was that. Except on those nights where her screaming gets so loud that it wakes even him and when she finally wakes she doesn't even feel the wetness of her hot tears running down cold trembling skin. Simple.

What happened to Nat to while he was gone? What happened to him?

He places a hand slowly on the small of her back, increasingly the pressure slowly, and suddenly her hand jerks to a stop. Wordlessly, she places her fork onto his plate, stacking it on her on and moves to place them in the sink. Their eyes meet in a fleeting glance and he gets up too, and wordlessly, they head back to the room. He can still feel their eyes boring holes in the back of his head but all he hears is silence. Throughout the meal he knows that they must have been speaking, but the voices never raise above a gentle whisper and he can't even hear the brush a harsh consonant like he usually does.


Tasha, are you okay? This was perhaps their most hated question, but he couldn't help himself.

How about you look in the mirror and ask yourself that? The frown on her face suggests that she's not pleased, but her eyes betray her. Here, take these, she signs, tossing a small orange bottle at him. The label's faded, but recognizes the doxycycline that medical hands out whenever one of them gets sliced up enough that they're worried about infections.

I'm sorry. When there's no way to defuse a bomb, the next best thing is to blow it up...

What for? There's no turning back once you lay the charges...

What not for? And light the fuse.

Is this a joke? Because I'm not up for this right now! They call me in the middle of a job. Tell me that you're compromised. Tell me that they don't know if you're dead. Have me running around with a bunch of whack jobs looking for a whack job, looking for you. Thinking that if I find you, at any moment, you're going to finish that job that you never got done. Thinking that I'm going to have to off you. Thinking that the sick bastard is going to have you off yourself in front of me. So tell me, Clint Barton, what are you sorry for? Her hand is shaking as she forcefully signs each letter of his name. She's been chewing on her lip and he could tell that the red on her teeth is not just from the lipstick but was blood as well. Red, how much red dripped from the both of them?

On the worst of days, it was a question that he could never answer. On the best of days, he could just manage to keep it from his mind.

He wants to scream right back at her. Does she think, for a moment, that this was easier for him? But he can't, knowing how much she must be hurting for her to expose herself like this. Instead, he reaches a hand to the corner, dislodging a tear that had rested itself in the crease. Her reaction is slow. It takes her a full three seconds to pull her gaze from the floor to his face. Before her hand even makes it an eighth of the way he's already seen it, he doesn't move, but waits instead, for her to slap him hard in the face. And again. And again.

Why do you do this to me? Why do you have to make me this way?

If it means anything at all, I've never wanted to hurt you Tash. You know that.

Look at us, Hawkeye and the Black Widow, trained assassins, here reduced to a soppy mess. She's smiling again now but he knows her well enough to know that it doesn't mean anything more than the fact that she's regained enough control to push it all to the back of her head.

With the week we've had, I'd say that we've earned it. All it took was what? A few hours? I'd say that we're good. Any else would still be cowering away in some dark corner. Clint forces himself to return her smile but a look flashes in her eyes that says he's said something wrong.

Nat?

She grabs both his hands into her's in a tight grip. Shut up. All pretense of emotion's dropped from her face. And just like that she springs her body onto his, tripping out his feet from underneath him, and they both fall hard on the carpeted floor. The carpet is a soft creamy white and Clint can't help but wonder what kind of idiot chooses such carpeting in a bedroom. He could feel that the cuts on his back have opened back up and judging by how slick the material of his shirt feels against his skin, he's pretty sure that Stark's carpet is going to be ruined. She's all frantic energy and pretty much destroys his and her clothes. The way that her nails claw into his back should be murder but his entire body is streaming and he's feeling too much to feel anything at all.

She's so tight that it takes everything just to keep himself from bursting. Her expression, however, hasn't changed at all, and then he knows, the woman in front of him is Natalia Romanova and he'd just have to ride it out until Natasha comes back.


She's passed out cold and Clint's glad. He honestly did not think that there would come the day where he would be glad that he'd fucked someone to sleep. That someone being Natasha of all people. But that, was not Natasha.

For two people who depended so much on each other, they knew surprisingly little about each other's pasts. They both know each other's birth dates, the names of their parents, where they were born, the names of everyone the other's killed, how they were killed... But on the days that Clint finds it impossible to sleep and Natasha's screamed herself hoarse, there is nothing more than an understanding that something is irreparably broken inside the two of them and that the worst things in life are the things that you can't put a label on, the things that you cannot put into words. For these things, it is a constant struggle to bury them as deep inside as possible. For these things, they're a lot like a serrated knife and once it's worked its way into the flesh there is no pulling it out. It's not something that would kill instantly and you can still walk for a while with it buried inside. But the moment you pull it out, there is no stopping the bleeding. And then, you die.

On those nights, they both know not to ask why, and the best remedy is only your presence, and silence.

But sometimes Clint can't help but wonder, what's happened to you, Natasha? What's happened to me? The act of killing is so simple. The moment between life and death less than a second. But the road leading up to the moment of the killing is so much longer, it's their entire lives.

He carries her back to bed and hopes that she's too exhausted to dream. He knows that he cannot sleep tonight, as much as feels that he should be able to sleep for a week. The room looks like a crime scene. The carpet reminiscent of the opening shot of some crime drama, all that's missing is for someone to trace his shape over the large bloody stain. He'd watched a few episodes of CSI once. It was after he'd gotten shot in Vienna. More of a graze really, but after having to wade through a rather suspicious pool of water, the infection was so bad that he'd almost died. For something so simple to begin with, the scar on his side was one of the most horrendous that he has. He remembers being stuck in medical and willingly staying put, not because of the pain but being afraid that he could die. He, Natasha, and Phil had spent a day watching crime dramas. Him and Natasha criticizing the idiotic ways that people chose to commit the murders. It was so normal, domestic even, except for what got them there in the first place.

The bedside clock reads 2:00 a.m. Putting on a pair of boxers, Clint heads out to the kitchen. He'd throw on a shirt as well but he hardly expects any of them to be awake right now. Besides, while any bleeding on is back was now nothing more than a trickle, a shirt would cling as the blood dried and he was not up for taking another shower which would probably wake Natasha up as well.

He doesn't bother with the lights, just moves to sit on one of the bar stools and stares out the large floor to ceiling windows, and zones out.

It's pure instinct the moment the light snaps on that he grabs a knife from the block, spins around and hurls it at the intruder. It's only at the very last moment that his mind catches on, giving him just enough time to adjust so that the knife whistles past the side of Stark's face and lodges itself solidly into the wall.

"What are you doing?" He's not sure if the stunned look on Stark's face is from the knife, how loud he may have just said that or some combination of both.

"I'd say that this is my tower and I do what I want. The proper question being me asking you what you are doing. Or you know, how many times you've been run over by a bus to look like that. However, I guess it would be unwise to ask those questions right now." Well, the fact that he was back to his usual snarky annoying self meant that there was no real damage done. The problem being of course, that Clint was now essentially trapped with the aforementioned, and Tony Stark knew that Clint could understand him just fine.

"By stating them. You just asked them."

"Snappy are we? You know, you don't look so good. Did Stalin kick you out of bed? Cause that really wouldn't be very nice, with you being injured and all. But then again, if you both stayed up this late..."

"Stark."

"Just trying to do a bit of team bonding. With Coulson dying and all, and us saving the world. It's till death do us part now, the six of us. Wow, that was just all levels of wrong."

"Is everything a joke to you? You could at least show a little respect!"

"Hey, Phil was a good man. I know that..."

"You don't know anything. Phil was... Phil saved my life..."

"Right, saved you, like you saved Romanoff, to go on doing the dirty work for S.H.I.E.L.D instead. I've read your files. Even with most of the thing blacked out there's no hiding what you two do."

"And you think you're so much better Stark? How much blood to you have on your hands? Hiding in that suit of yours doesn't make you more clean. What makes you think you have the right to be judge and executioner?"

"The situations that I was in. I only killed when I had no choice. I had to, to protect innocent lives. What you two do, you wait for people to be at their most vulnerable then slit their throats!"

"Right, and by going up higher in the food chain Natasha and I are the evil ones now? You get to take out the foot soldier to save the child and be the hero, but taking out the guy behind it all, that's wrong?"

"Well, if you put it that way..."

"I'm not going to lie. I've done some messed up shit. Before Phil, I did anything for money. S.H.I.E.L.D is no exemplar of morality either but don't think for a second that it gives you the right! Do you remember the faces of the people you've killed Tony? Do you ever consider what drove them there, to be killers? To make you a killer too?"

"Stop trying to twist this all around! How bout you, huh? You remember all the people you've killed?"

"Me being messed up doesn't make you any less so. For Ms. Potts' sake, I sincerely hope you aren't as messed up as me. But I think we both know there's a reason we're the only ones standing here at 4:00 in the morning." The look on Stark's face forcing him to consider he may have twisted the knife just a little too hard.

"You ever learn to get past it? All the things you've had to do? All the things you couldn't do?"

"Asking the wrong guy if you want advice. Been trying to scrub my hands clean for twenty something years and there's always a spot that won't rub off."

"I don't know if I should be more disturbed by the fact that I think you just made a Shakespeare reference or the fact that you basically admitted to committing murder as a child."

"I was seven years old and I hated my parents. Father was an alcoholic but that was good. The drunker he was the harder it was for him to catch Barney and I, the harder it was for him to land a punch. Mother didn't give a damn, but you really can't blame her. There was nothing she could've done. Caring would have just made it worse. Barney, my older brother, would lift bottles of rubbing alcohol and we'd mix it with the cheap stuff that the bastard drank to get him drunk faster. One day, he was so wasted, we thought he'd finally pass out, but then, he grabs our her, takes the car out. Police show up an hour later. He'd ran a red. They weren't wearing seat belts, died instantly. When he was thrown from the car and flew into the lamp post, it smashed his head like a watermelon. I was actually happy you know? When I first heard what happened."

"We stayed at the orphanage for six years. It was nothing like before, but then you start to miss having some adult around who cared enough to at least beat you up once in a while. The one thing worse than dreading the future is the feeling that you have no future at all. You know what we did then? Ran away to the fucking circus. Can you believe that people actually did that shit? Everyone there was so messed that you can convince yourself that you were normal. When you're standing at the top of the tent, you can't see the netting underneath. It's a horrifying feeling that's seducing, but on the day that you step off, the fall barely lasts a second. It knocks the wind out of you. Then the next time you step up there, it doesn't feel like anything at all.

I could tell that Barney was jealous when I got chosen for the act and he didn't. In the beginning when you first learn to shoot, gloves or not, you shoot long enough the string just shreds your fingers, and then on the heavier draws. Or when you're working the tension and the damn thing just snaps and slices your arm open? I made sure Barney'd see the blood.

He tried to convince me to join the army with him. I thought he'd have waited a little longer. Who knows? Maybe I'd be the one who's dead now and he'd be here talking to you.

God! My head is so messed up right now. You told me five hours ago I would be spilling my guts out to fucking Tony Stark I would've told you to go fuck yourself."

"Yeah well, right back at ya. And not to be insensitive or anything, but that was the most depressing story I ever heard, and I watch Oprah." Tony Stark, maybe not so bad after all.


Well that was long and unpleasant, over 4,000 words! I wasn't sure how to set up the long monologue there at the end other than that I wanted it there and I wanted that stuff in there. In the end, having Clint "spill his guts" to Tony seemed the most natural fit. Tony is one of the easier characters for me to write and it helps that he and Clint are not exactly best friends to begin with here. Personally, it's much easier to spill everything to a person I'm not so close to because I don't care so much what they'd think. The flip side of course being that the relationship completely changes after the fact. The entire thing may be a bit ooc but I think being ooc is expected when he hasn't eaten, hasn't slept, had his brain messed with, etc. Real people are inconsistent.

Notes pt. 2: (i) Poor Clint and Natasha. It just got darker and darker and darker as I was writing this. But, there was a speck of humor in there! You may have had to squint. A light does start to appear next chapter. Let's just hope it's not a train. (Or I don't know, do you want it to be a train?) ii) Thank you so much to all of you who are reading this story and especially to those of you who have reviewed and/or are following. I'm sorry for putting this right at the end, but here's why: less than 1% of people who click on this story review. Personally, I'm horrible about reviewing as well so I really can't complain. However, as someone who's writing their first fic and who's rather insecure, I have no way of telling if a) people like this story but just don't have time/ don't have much to say in a review or b) click on this and decide it's not their thing or c) start reading this and think it's a piece of crap out to torture humanity. If you're reading this here at the end, chances are you are at least not in category c; please leave me a short note telling me this, just for this one chapter. I'll never ask again. Thank you.