A/N: I found out that a) we have free Wi-Fi in the apartment and b) my dad brought his almost brand-new MacBook Pro. Guess who's back in business. I can't promise daily updates, but it's a hell of a lot better than waiting ten days for an update, right? I hope so. I kind of left you with a cliffhanger. To make up for it, they'll be getting closer in this chapter. A vague warning. I don't aim for smut (nor will I in the future unless I am convinced otherwise), because technically I still consider the content of this story T. If you disagree, let me know.

Disclaimer: Guess what I don't own? Yeah, sigh, that's right. These characters or the universe. I'm passively working on it. ;)

Silent Spider: Chapter 5

Vienna, Austria

Voiceless. Adjective. Mute, speechless. Vocally impaired. Clint knew the word, knew its meaning. He just had a hard time coping with the fact that Nat had taken time and considerable emotional effort to write the one word down and conceal it from him with great reluctance. As if she was afraid of what he'd make of it.

He must have looked it. She stared up at him with expectant eyes that, gradually, broke. Just broke. He'd never witnessed an assassin fall apart, but he could watch and pinpoint the mental chaos that had to be unfolding within her rapid mind. She made assessments as he weighed options. In another life, she would have been a great leader: able to make choices fast and stick to them. He mentally winced as he realized she was a leader. A leader to people who didn't deserve her or her leadership.

Absentmindedly, his finger traced the line of her jaw, caressing it mindlessly. It was a bad habit he'd had before she left, and it was made worse by her continuous permission to let him do it. Of course, that had been when they'd actually trusted each other enough to fall asleep next to each other. Half of him—the part S.H.I.E.L.D. had trained, he realized bitterly—expected her to kill him soullessly.

"You… don't have a voice?" he finally asked in what he hoped wasn't mocking disbelief. He couldn't imagine not having a voice. He used his so often—cracking jokes, greeting people, insulting junior agents, ordering food. "Hey, look at me," he said gently, guiding her chin upwards with his index finger

Nat shook her head. She didn't look sad or particularly dejected. She looked defiant as if she'd been expecting him to use it against her. He felt angry at her for expecting it, but realized he couldn't. He couldn't use her handicap—although she'd probably found a way to work around it, making it handicapable—to excuse her and the way she'd left him as if he'd meant shit to her years ago.

"Tasha, don't think this forgives what you did. Or what you're doing." Foot, meet mouth. "God!" he exclaimed, backing off in an attempt to compose himself. He didn't want to give her in. He truly didn't want to. Loyalty like theirs didn't just go away. "Organized crime? Europe? What happened to wanting to live a normal life, huh?"

Clint kicked a wooden chair in frustration. He was losing control over the situation by the minute. She said nothing, looked at him challengingly. He tried controlling his breathing. He fucking tried. His mind was still trying to accept the fact that she'd gotten an injury (he winced mentally as he thought of the scar, but never with disgust, never) that had left her efficiently mute. Mute wasn't a word he connected to Natasha Romanov. She mouthed something and he had to look twice to get it.

'That was your dream. Never mine.'

"You left S.H.I.E.L.D. so you could go off and join these people? Murderers and terrorists?" he asked bluntly, reciting some of the titles of the men he'd been told to watch out for.

She silently exclaimed in disgust and frustration with large hand gestures, and then grabbed the notepad by the kitchen counter. Feverishly, she wrote and it wasn't neat or pretty. It was as if the letters were declaring war against each other in pure contempt. So were we.

He halted immediately. He'd forgotten this aspect of their rela—partnership, he corrected himself.

What we had couldn't have been real. Or you wouldn't have left. She told the truth. She could twist words into obscurity, but she'd always been honest with what she was—even if he'd managed to forget (something he rarely allowed himself to do, but it had happened on occasion). She'd called herself a traitor, a murderer, a child killer, a terrorist, and a whore more times than he'd ever wanted to account for.

"Don't you dare compare us to these immoral bastards! We did good. We fought for the good guys, Tasha and then you quit! You broke us up. You ruined something good. And I'm mad, I have the goddamn right to be mad!" he shouted as his temper got the best of him. He never laid a hand on her, but she'd hear about the way he'd suffered, alright. "You left and Fury had me for weeks, inquiring as to how I hadn't seen it coming. Weeks. And I was mad, I was pissed!"

He felt his hands starting to shake as the anger was allowed venting. Truth be told, he was happy not to be interrupted until he remembered why. She'd lost her voice like some Ariel in the sea. His voice grew quiet, almost apologetic. "And I was mad. And I am mad. You know why? Because even though you broke us, I still had it in me to forgive you. Because you're Tasha. You're my partner. And even thought you're kicking me ass in Vienna, I'm still worrying about you catching a fucking cold."

He was shaking and he was tired—physically, mentally, emotionally. He sat down on the couch, trying to cool down. And slowly, he felt her form sit next to him and tentatively rub her hand over his bicep. It was soothing. It wasn't supposed to be, but it was. He damned himself for his vows, convinced that it would have been easier to maintain celibacy than to resist the protective instinct around her. Others might have feared her—Clint only wanted to shield her. Shield her from all who wanted to harm her, from S.H.I.E.L.D., from her own past and her own mistakes (even the ones she'd made without him), and shield her from everything. It had been his job once. It had been easy to shrug off as duty, then. They both knew it had grown far beyond that.

Clint wasn't going to apologize. She knew better than to expect it. Hell, she'd insisted he stopped his halfhearted and wholehearted apologies within the first six months they worked together. She wasn't polite so he wasn't going to be. He'd forgotten her exact words but remembered the point as vividly as he remembered the bruises of the fight that had accompanied it, as fights so often accompanied Natasha's points.

He'd forgotten how draining she could be. It wasn't a bad thing, but living or being around Natasha was intense and he hadn't gotten younger in her absence. He managed to turn off that annoying buzz in his head that told him he should get the hell out of here—the part that conjured scenarios based on her victim profile and executions. He managed to repress the questions that threatened to rise to the surface and make her bolt.

He wasn't stupid enough not to see what this was. He was still attached to her in that fierce way that had terrorized S.H.I.E.L.D. when they had still been partners. And she obviously felt something or she wouldn't have hesitated and pulled back, least of all invite him back here. She might have misread him—he doubted that, but was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt given the past five years and his outburst—but she still saw him for what he'd been and not for what he was.

"Tasha," he sighed, leaning his head onto her shoulder. His hands had stopped shaking, no more anger pulsing through them.

He felt her press her lips to his temple and he leaned into the light touch. It didn't mean anything—except it meant everything. It didn't mean anything between them romantically but the touch itself was the same kind as his hand before. Touchstones. Harbors. One touch was enough to affect him, be it anger or calmness to flood him. He was glad, treacherously so, to see it had the same affect on her, because as his hand urged her not to stop, his eyes reduced to that of a beggar's, he noticed how she inhaled and her breathing grew unsteady.

She doubted herself. Clint could see it and hated himself for inspiring such conflict. Once he would have been satisfied, as it meant she faced emotion—especially her feelings towards him instead of ignoring them head-on with outrageous stubbornness—but now he hated it. It would be so much easier if he'd never seen her falter.

Nat left a trail of light kisses down his temple and jaw, and it didn't feel like pleasure but an unspoken apology. He was afraid to offend her by cutting it off, instead cataloguing how his body relaxed at her touch and presence. When she grazed the stubble of day-old beard, he stopped her, grabbing both of her wrists and rubbing his thumb on the skin above her pulse. He felt it quicken as she tried to realize what he was doing, and then panic became acceptance. She rose to her feet and gently, the fear of rejection so very real in her eyes that it almost made him feel like the bad guy, lead him to one of the closed doors.

His throat felt dry and he opened his mouth to form some kind of protest, but said nothing when she simply contained whatever desire she'd had (at least he'd hoped it to be, and not some twisted version of interrogation that Red Room had implanted in her mind) and gestured towards the closet.

'You are wet,' she mouthed and he paid attention to the way her lips moved and imagined how her voice would have sounded. He recalled it easily as it regularly made an appearance in his nightmares and dreams.

Clint looked down himself and realized she was right. "Damn, still tending me after five years, Tash," he said, smirking.

She smiled wistfully and turned her back to him, pulling off her likewise soaked clothing. He felt relief flood him when he saw no additional scars on her back, no sporting of half melted flesh. No additional reason to feel guilty. He didn't even take note of the bra or her underwear when she slipped out of the pants, too, and redressed before he could remark uncomfortably or offer his temporary leave from the room. It reassured him and she had to know it did. Maybe she didn't, maybe it was all subconscious by now. Just seeing her alive was a reassurance.

Even in the darkness and with the knowledge of the scar that adorned her neck, he couldn't help but admire her beauty. It wasn't stunning or statuesque like that of models and modern beauty icons, but it was mysterious as its owner. She knew how to manipulate men—but he liked her and her beauty even better when she didn't, when she was just Tasha. Clint knew it made her uncomfortable, as if shredding those second skins of her aliases made her feel too naked, too vulnerable. She was too strong to ever be just vulnerable in his eyes, but he appreciated when she made an effort to be vulnerable, enough so that he could wrap his arms around her and feel that he was needed.

When she was done redressing—he couldn't determine in what, because it looked like it could be both streetwear and pajamas, but wasn't going to ask—she slid onto the bed, above the covers and made no move to remove her clothes. She curled up in a sleeping position, back to him, and he started at her blankly, unaware of what to do until she, annoyed in what he used to call domestic annoyance, padded the sheet behind her as if trying to instruct him. Unsurely, he removed his pants, which were dripping, and crawled unto the bed, hesitantly spooning her as he felt her melt into the embrace.

He breathed in the scent of her hair. It smelled of Viennese rain, but somehow, it smelled of his favorite assassin, too. He felt her hips twist as she turned in his arms, pushing the blanket upwards so it managed to cover him, too, the warm fleece rivaling the heat of her own body. She yawned and curled up against him as if she'd been expecting him to be her sleeping buddy for weeks—and if he hadn't been feeling the stress in her body fade, he would have believed it.

As it was, he simply stared at her in drowsy disbelief before joining her in a restful sleep. What are we doing, Tasha?

Two weeks later

No.

No, this can't be happening.

Clint screamed but terror silenced him—a bitter testament to his current situation—and he struggled passionately. His terror had robbed him of his sight and panic struck beneath the volatile reaction. His lungs filled with incredible cold and he couldn't breathe, couldn't scream, couldn't even shout.

His limbs felt so heavy, as if weighed down with every responsibility he'd ever had—from his earliest memories of being instructed to look out for his brother to the blurry recollection of his last briefing and the mission-of-the-week bad guy.

The pain of the struggle was replaced by the ache and soreness of sheer helplessness. He couldn't remember why he struggled—why did he? He had a hard time remembering, and the inner image of his brother faded, taken away like his sight. He felt defeat nearing and panic settle. Panic was useless but it had to be better than outright acceptance.

There was something he was supposed to remember. Someone he was supposed to be staying alive for. He couldn't remember, couldn't even conjure an image. Then it's not someone important, the voices of the past told him condescendingly. No, they are important, his brain supplied. He felt his legs give up.

No, this can't be happening. Not when I finally found her.

He gasped and awoke, his lungs startled to breathe in oxygen.

Somewhere along the Volga River (Tver), Russia

"Barton, tell me why the fuck we even bother with you," the (very) sobering voice of his handler—whose name he couldn't remember right now if to save his life but whose voice he was goddamn glad to hear—demanded. He would have grinned—if he had been able to—because he could hear the concern behind the frustration and annoyance of the statement.

Clint coughed a good half a liter of cold water up from his lungs before he could even think of an answer. His sarcastic mind did it for him. "B-b-bull's e-eye," he clattered through frosty teeth. God, it was cold. Was water even supposed to be that cold in summertime?

"Idiot." He registered Rosario's rolling eyeballs. Huh. When had he called Rosario? He couldn't remember. Actually, everything but the man's name was a bit blurry. "Then tell me why I bother with you."

Clint was lying down. He felt the cold creep back into him and stupidly tried to move, but it felt like he'd been run over by a truck.

"Keep still, Barton, or I'll throw you back into the water. See how you like that."

Clint coughed once more, more to prove a point than actual discomfort although there was still plenty of that left in his body. Water. Huh. That made sense, the way things made sense to Clint Barton. He looked up at the suit-clad handler S.I.D. had assigned him. "Don't dial down the kind words on my count. Keep it up and I might accept that Valentine's card I know you have lying around for me," he said sarcastically, battling the exhaustion in all of his protesting limbs. They were on a pier by the harbor although it looked like any harbor.

Rosario picked up on his sarcasm with his own. It was one of the reasons they worked. "And disappoint all your lady friends? Puh-lease. I can do better sober."

Clint glared at his handler with feigned contempt and hurt. He had no lady friends, just as Rosario hadn't. Their constant moving made relationships difficult to maintain, and while Clint had accepted that, he suspected Rosario still had his run of European one-night-stands. He hoped so for his friend's sake, because if all the company Rosario got was from him, he got crap.

The field agent accepted the hand the handler offered and as he got up, he registered all the soreness of his limbs and almost collapsed into Rosario. "Thanks for the save."

"Yeah? Remind me next time you pull an asshole move," his S.I.D. handler said, trying to straighten the soaked tie. Clint gave him a lookover; he was as wet as Clint, yet somehow pulling off composure and aloofness.

Clint tried to recall what had gone wrong (evidently, something had). "What happened?"

"You ask me? I'd wage your horrible personality spooked them," Alejo Rosario said without missing a beat, shrugging. "We knew there was a possibility that it could happen."

Clint took in his surroundings, trying to ignore the cold that was actively trying to settle in his bones. He recognized the architecture and skyline. At least enough to tell the landmarks and country. "The Volga? Really?" he spat in disbelief. "They could have at least made sure I was an agent before throwing me in the Volga," he hissed, offended.

His handler offered a clap on his shoulder in solidarity. Considering he was as wet as Clint himself, it might have actually meant what it implied. "Let's get your ass out of here."

Twenty minutes later, they were in a car headed for yet another S.I.D. safe house, wearing clothes that were drier than they were colorful. His handler drove the car without conversation, and secretly, Clint was glad as it allowed him to restore his mind from whatever hallucinogens he'd been exposed to. God, he hated being drugged.

Rosario, the man in shining standard-issue armor, had dragged his ass from Volga after he'd made a stupid-ass decision that got him knocked out and thrown into the icy water. Alejo was like that. He rarely told Alejo that, but he understood anyway. Handlers didn't take it personal when they were frequently dismissed, ignored or disobeyed. They didn't get mad – they got even. To get even, one had to generally keep one's agent alive, which was harder than it looked and Rosario was doing a helluva job.

It had been two weeks since he had written his report on the Viennese meeting in the Leonum Tarpeius (he'd memorized the name after the revelation that she'd joined them). Two weeks since he'd slipped out of a bed in a crappy apartment to "go do his job"—her words, not his. Everything was a bit blurry since that, not only due to the icy water from the Volga River.

It wasn't the pink cloud of love he was floating on. No, his life had been downright miserable after he'd known that she was out there living a mirror life to his own, traveling through Europe, planning to take him down. Nothing personal, just a job. It was bittersweet.

He tried not to think of the morning where reality had come lurking back. He tried to remember the evening before it, where he'd been the teddy bear of an international assassin and hadn't minded. He tried not to think of how it had been the most restful of nights he'd endured in a long time. He'd expected it to be filed in the category in his mind that he reserved for gruesome kills. Things not to linger on, he'd long ago labeled it. Except his treacherous brain wasn't a goddamn filing cabinet and half of what went on in there wasn't of his choosing.

He dreamed. Sometimes it was pleasant dreams, dreams of pretense. Dreams where he held her, dreams where she spoke voicelessly. Ever since Vienna, he hadn't heard her voice in his dreams as if his brain had registered that and accepted it without his consent. Oftentimes it was nightmares. It shouldn't be anything remarkable—an assassin having nightmares was normal in their line of work (his, he stubbornly corrected)—but it wasn't the faces of his victims that terrified him. It was centric, but not towards him. It was her. She haunted him, devilishly so, and when she didn't, she was the victim of some unknown villain of his mind, held, tortured, crying, restrained. He could never remember his dreams, just the remnant sensation. He didn't know which dreams were scarier. They were both unattainable.

They had driven for a while when he spoke.

"Alejo?" he said, a rare use of the handler's first name.

The man shrugged non-committedly, not having expected the agent to speak—he rarely did after near-death experiences and they had both accepted that. "Huh?"

"What's the possible medical recovery time for drowning?"

Rosario tore his eyes off the road briefly to stare the agent down. Clint gave him nothing but sincerity. He tried to conceal the other emotions. He must've looked tired enough, because Rosario replied back in sincerity. "In Sid?" The handler always referred to the agency as if it was an entity of its own. He wasn't wrong. "24 hours. Coupled with the hallucinogens and additional beating, they'd keep you for a week if I brought you in. Why?" he asked suspiciously.

Clint thought of Vienna and smirked. "Maybe I've got eyes on a girl," he joked, half serious but largely kidding. If Rosario had any idea about the girl he was thinking of, he would never unleash him.

"Yeah right," Rosario snorted in disbelief as he turned his attention back to the road. "You know I don't pretend to know you, Barton…"

"Thank god, not. S.H.I.E.L.D. sent that warning label with me, didn't they?" Clint joked, knowing fully well how one agency had tired of him and sent him onto the next.

"Must've gotten lost in all the disciplinary reports I had to read when they assigned me," Rosario murmured, almost managing to sound regretful.

"Reason why I'm not a handler," Clint said and leaned back into the seat as if his life was all roses and daisies compared to Alejo's. Some days, it was, like today. How many S.I.D. handlers got to pull their very own assets out of a freezing river? Clint grinned.

Rosario continuously tried to convince him to join the safety of the handlers, claiming it came with benefits. The only 'benefits' Clint saw were the promises of gray hairs and additional frustration with rookie agents, or worse, agents like him that ignored advise and orders with the same mindless fervor. He suspected that, other than believing him competent, Alejo was trying to convert him for his own sake so he wouldn't have to deal with Clint's behavior. The sales pitches were getting less frequent, which told Clint nothing. Alejo Rosario could be as enigmatic and goddamn unreadable as another handler he knew abroad. One who would have known which girl he was thinking of before he'd even thought of her.

They pulled up some curb and the handler leaned over to open the door. The streets were frequented and appeared to be populated, abuzz with life. Clint looked at Alejo questioningly. He thought they were going to a safe house.

"Go," the handler urged, annoyance tainting his tone. "Whatever you've got your mind on, it won't be fulfilled or supplied in the infirmary. God no, I don't want you in the infirmary. Go find your girl," he said, still not looking like he took Clint's word for it. For a moment, Clint stared at his handler in disbelief. "Don't make me explain myself," he growled, and Clint sprung out the door with renewed energy.

"Don't get yourself killed. And be in Riga in a week!" Rosario reminded him like a fretting mother with a four-year-old. Clint, still taken aback by the handler's ability to read his intentions—he couldn't be blamed for not knowing about Natasha—gaped as he watched the car drive down the street and disappear from his sight.

Vienna, Austria – Sixteen hours later

Everything about every target he'd ever tracked told him that this was hopelessly naïve. Yet he found himself standing outside the door to the apartment he'd been to two weeks ago, ready to knock against the hardwood of the door. At first, nothing happened and panic struck him along with a sense of disappointment. He didn't know how to track her, not when he only had one week, less so now. She'd probably ditched the apartment the afternoon of the day he'd left, and she could be anywhere on the planet, actively trying to forget him or plan his demise.

All of these thoughts halted when the doorknob turned from within. He ceased breathing, too, and he couldn't remember the last time he had been so open to hurt. He chastised himself for it immediately. Only fools hoped when they knew better.

The apartment's tenant opened the door slowly as if not daring to believe it herself, eyes tentatively searching his for a reason as to why they were both here, hoping.

He said nothing as he stepped in through the door and hugged Nat, right there for the world to see. He felt her surprise—and gave her credit for it, as he knew her instincts to be something other than allowing someone to hug her so suddenly—and searched her eyes briefly for permission before his lips found hers in a long-awaited kiss. His hands ran over her body in disbelief to what she wore—a cardigan of all things, but he liked it all the same—and he needed no further instruction than the moan he received and the instant cooperation of her body pressing itself against his in compliance and need.

Clint's mind went blank as his body did the opposite and he poured all of his emotions into the next kiss, stumbling across the threshold and feeling the door slam shut behind him. Her movements grew more participatory and hungry as her hands roamed his body, searching for the contraptions to release him of the new clothes with little regard for their novelty.

He smirked briefly against her lips before he allowed himself to be guided to the bedroom, pretending not to see the packed suitcase on the table. His hand ran through her hair in worship and he uttered a low moan. Despite the urgency, it felt like they had been caressing their bodies with such passion and fervor for years and not been eluding it—and each other—for years.

Clint chose to go with her instruction, needing a brief (but altogether desirous) touch to be ignited with a passion he'd forgotten after her departure. Your girl, Alejo had said, as if thinking of some passing attraction. He banished the memory as he banished everything else but her upon entering the bedroom to do things to her he'd dreamed of.

After all, he'd know the instant she didn't want him anymore—but prayed to whatever gods would listen that it wouldn't happen, because he wanted her with the same fervency of a spoiled brat that had been denied his wish.

That was… long. Stuff's happening. Events are unfolding. Reviews are—hopefully—being typed as we speak. What do you guys think of Clint's handler?