A/N: I'm maliciously glad nobody's figured out the glove thing yet, as it reflects Clint's confusion. Also, without revealing too much of this chapter, it'd like to apologize for any ignorance or poorly researched facts. That being said, I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's... different.
I went to Gibraltar and bought the next books, having almost finished Games of Thrones, book one of A Song of Ice and Fire. A lot of other things happened, but this isn't a diary, and I don't even know how many of you read these A/Ns, so I'll just get on with it.
Silent Spider, guys. By the way, what do you think of the title? I'm curious.
Disclaimer: I own not.
Silent Spider: Chapter 7
Vienna, Austria
He watched her eat in silence, his shadow of her spider self, committing the imagery almost creepily to memory. She had relented his intense scrutiny. Unlike a fair share of women, she didn't blush under attention. When on a mission, she'd basked in it, but really, she grew angry. Not upset, not infuriated, not cranky; just aggressively annoyed, especially if there was something better to do. Oftentimes, there had been, like scopes to readjust or guns to disassemble and clean, but it annoyed the hell out of her—still did, he could see, in the corner of her eyes as much as she tried to hide it—and of course, Clint Barton had taken it upon himself to master it. She snapped. The funniest part of it had been explaining the Widow's bouts of rages to handlers and senior agents. Of course, they had never found themselves on that end of Barton's intense attention, the ambition usually reserved for targets, so what would they know, having been deprived of the honor? Then again, few people had as admirable a partner as he had.
Surprisingly so, Natasha had accepted his fierce statement as the truth and hadn't (yet) expressed any misgivings or even grazed the topic for revision. He had suspected, like always, a pouch of resistance but had, so far, met none if you didn't count half a dozen bruises in inexplicable places, two weeks of heartbreak and a near-drowning in the coldest Russian body of water Clint would ever allow himself to be thrown in, regardless of the need to "maintain cover". He really hoped Alejo shared the same belief. He remembered the Hispanic's look of incredulous annoyance and wondered if it'd be justified if Alejo ever got to know Natasha Romanov. Clint decided he really didn't need to know. While Rosario held his own against Clint's stupor of recklessness, sarcasm and insanity, he'd be helpless against Nat's very aura and constant threats of bodily harm. No, one should not forget that however much S.I.D. might be S.H.I.E.L.D., agent and handler Alejandro Rosario was no Phil Coulson.
For the first time in a long while, Clint allowed himself to think of the people he hadn't considered friends in years, but who'd once been the closest allies a man could ever dream to have. Yet Clint wasn't a political man or a man of power who needed someone who'd avenge him or be remarkable allies. No, in spite of everything he might have done, Clint was a simple man who didn't ask for much, rarely of his friends. What had once been a close-knit—albeit dysfunctional and filled with more jackasses than not, Clint being one of them—group had gradually been destroyed by the Widow's departure as Clint had refused to take a new partner—"mentor and shape" might have been the exact description, but Clint hadn't wanted to shape and mold a partner, he'd had a partner, a damn good one, in fact, who was competent on her own and goddamn irreplaceable—leaving him exposed during their battles. Without Tasha, he hadn't been interested in the sappy superhero crap. In the end, they'd all been grateful—although none had actually had the indecency to say it aloud—when he was reassigned to solo black ops, even if more members disagreed on the existence and use of such with his expertise.
Clint would have expected different of and from them but he had taken his leave as gracefully as someone that disinterested and repugnant had been capable of. Fury had sent his ass off to intensive re-disciplining, and a wayward and slightly more well-mannered archer had been how that had gone. In truth, Clint had just learnt when to keep his fucking mouth shut when his comments weren't appreciated. Half the time, he did it anyway—what did Fury care, he was a sniper, if that was what it took to maintain sanity and that incredible aim, he'd be able to live it down.
Clint Barton didn't play nice, and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been fools to mistake him for having done such with the Black Widow, Agent Natasha Romanov (oftentimes misspelled by junior field agents as Romanoff), revered by junior agents and senior agents alike. They hadn't played nice. They hadn't played anything. They had, for a change, gotten to be themselves without bothering or offending anyone. It had lead to a stormy partnership that most (but not all) had been too afraid to gossip about at the water cooler.
Having been stripped of that once, Clint wasn't about to lose it twice. Perhaps it was out of pity—although he suspected it wasn't—that she allowed him this close, but it was more likely that she was biding her time to make him reconsider what he was saying yes to. In her haste to do that, she hadn't realized that he was saying yes because he got a chance to. He was actually permitted the choice—by her—to have a say in their relationship. (Not that he wouldn't have voiced it anyway, but he'd never been the easiest person to run from). Previously, she'd halted the development at every turn and stop. Now, she seemed to (with difficulty) be able to embrace the idea.
Clint recognized that as progress when he thought of the control freak Natasha really was. She might be as spontaneous as a child, but it was really calculated decisions made in an instant based on years and years of harsh strategic training. However, he didn't want her to feel cornered or forced, and least of all like she'd lost more control than she evidently had when she'd lost her voice. Although she didn't seem bothered by it, he'd caught her opening her mouth for the slightest of seconds to dish out some vice comment but to retreat it before its birth, possibly arguing it wasn't important enough to gesture or mouth. It saddened him, because their rapid verbal sparring and banter had always been the most steadfast pillar of their partnership, and without it, awkward silences were not filled with sarcastic remarks or crude jokes, or even threats of bodily harm.
When your advances could be easily ignored, why even go to war?
However, Clint had held her as she slept, not likening her to a fragile doll or a princess, but the strong woman she was, of muscle and heart and mind, honored to even bear witness (although he knew that he was as good as dead if he were ever to share this knowledge). He wanted to catch those lost words and vile comments as much as he wanted to show her that she wasn't alone.
Natasha was still deep in thought and analysis by the time they retraced the steps of the narrow staircase to her apartment. Somehow, feet felt heavier as they approached the place that had been so hopeful hours ago and now seemed so sullen. Had he been wrong to declare his willingness go see where this went? She had been at least that selfish when she'd left him. He could take a hint, but he knew she hadn't been wanting to leave last night, and not because he was just there, but because he was just there, regardless of all the reasons he shouldn't be.
Suffice to say, "shouldn't" had suffered a lot lately as well as its brother, "should". Clint didn't know how to feel about that—he'd had this notion of right and wrong in his head, and now everything he'd ever thought he'd known was so very gray—but stuck to what he knew for certain (almost): that he trusted his partner. She'd given him no reason not to, although she'd provided him with excellent options of shouldn't's. It had never been easy getting Tasha out of his head. For a while, his life had revolved around her professionally and that kind of fervid obsession didn't pass. In her case, it probably never had, although different adjectives had been used to describe the nature of their relation. They hadn't liked each other very much in the beginning. It hadn't been some fairytale where they'd instantly realized their similarities and discovered how well they complemented each other. No, it had been a hardship of learning to trust each other, often demanded by desperate handlers with red faces of sheer frustration.
The result had been remarkable, though, and it was now ironic that it came rushing—the trust, the partnership, the loyalty—back, never to serve S.H.I.E.L.D., or them for that matter, well. It was hard to lose what had once been as instinctual as waking after sleep, or, in their case, as loading a gun. It was hard to overrule what had been so fiercely fostered and nursed as their partnership. S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't demanded them to work as an extension of one another, just that they worked together and that they worked together smoothly and successfully, but it had been like a well-oiled machine, and so the rest had come naturally. It did, now.
When she locked them in, he was once again brought face to face with the packed suitcase. She'd obviously been planning to leave yet he had intercepted. Was his visit merely inconvenient? He didn't want to know the answer, yet as his hand strayed her lower back, he felt like an intruder. He ignored how she leaned into the touch, trusting him, as the bitterness of it all dawned on him.
"Are you going somewhere?" he asked hesitantly when she resumed packing, collecting loose items around the apartment—on the kitchen counter, by the coffee table, all hastily thrown into a backpack.
She looked up, grimacing. 'It isn't right,' she spat, mouthing it in mantra as if convincing herself it wasn't worth the heartache. He stepped closer, halting her rash movements. His arms wrapped themselves instinctually around hers in a soft, restriction-free embrace, meant to calm and soothe, which it, alas, did. He felt her sag against him.
"Who says so?" he asked her softly after having hugged her for a minute. She looked at him, puzzled, for a moment before she realized he was replying to her murmurs.
Natasha looked at him with incredulousness. The answer was easy—everyone. S.H.I.E.L.D., Red Room, whoever she worked for if they were to find out, only to mention a few. "What I mean is," Clint said, breathing, unable to believe what he was about to propose, "only if they find out."
He tucked a wayward strand of red hair behind her ear, meaning it as a caress. 'No. I can't let you do that.'
Anger, in infancy, grew in him at how little faith she had in their ability to keep it a secret. "You're willing to give up on us before we've even given it a shot?"
Heedless, she threw the backpack from her and jerked a notepad from its pocket. Less than calm, Clint grabbed the pen from the desk beside him and offered her it sourly. He was still longing to hear her reply.
This is treason, Clint. You'd be stuck on probation for years if SHIELD discovers this. Yet there was a desperation in those words. It is pointless. You will be gone next week, off to some mission in Cape Cod, Rhonda, or Rio.
"I won't," replied, to every of those and none of those statements in particular. "Do you think I'm gonna leave you when I've just found you? Not gonna happen," he persisted. He didn't mention how it was bloody unlikely that he'd be sent on a mission outside Europe, because S.I.D. didn't operate outside Europe.
'Idiot,' she mouthed and he could practically hear the venom. He nodded and saw something that resembled gratitude in her eyes, behind the initial exasperation.
Dresden, Germany
That was all the resistance he got the next three days. He kept his promise—he didn't leave her—and she kept hers. It was treacherous how easily they found themselves falling into the roles of someone they weren't (perhaps because it was easier than being themselves, given the situation). They boarded a train to Germany like some foolish naïve couple, knowing better than to take the brief vacation from themselves for granted. Clint occasionally searched for Alejandro in the crowds they swam in, but never found him, and hoped that maybe it was as easy as they hoped it to be.
Lying required commitment. The number one reason for getting caught was being unable to commit fully to the lie or forgetting the web of lies that had been spun. Aside from commitment, lying, not only bluffing but truly lying, the art form of thieves and the cunning, required conviction. Most people looked for truth in the eyes of the suspected liar. The eyes were the most common 'tell'. However, the tone of voice, the angle of the chin and the micro-expressions were all just as important. The voice could reveal both degree of commitment and conviction. Without it, it was hard to convince anyone of anything.
It should have astounded and unsettled Clint how easily Natasha lied to the policeman in the patrol car. He'd never realized how much a language not having a language was, and so indulged himself with watching Natasha as she communicated with gestures and subtle movements. He found himself relearning to read her, adjusting to her expressiveness.
Natasha made lying a skill—a skill she mastered better than honesty, which was sad, really. He now understood why she'd forced herself to be more expressive (if would never have happened on its own). It was how she communicated and it required an almost intimate knowledge of her movements to decipher. He wondered if he was even qualified—but, if not him, who then? The last five years, he'd been learning to be on his own, unlearning the ways of a partner he'd told himself he didn't care for. How wrong he'd been.
They startled and chased pigeons across the squares, buying sweets from vendors and eating lunch in abandoned city sections overlooking an unbeautiful city, spending their afternoons stealing from tourists with fat wallets and making a game of returning the wallet to its right owner without detection. In the evenings, he'd pester her until she gave in and went out with him. The third day of their counterfeit paradise, he gaped when he saw her in a skirt—dresses often had necklines she didn't want—chastising himself for forgetting how beautiful she was and that she wasn't just riffraff. He took her out for Italian that evening and looked ever the bit of a lowly guy taking his girl out just to see her smile.
Clint got to see that smile as they became further entranced in the illusion of safety and possibility. There were those horrible, terrible moments of realization when he woke up in the mornings and she'd still be asleep where he'd grab his phone from the bedside table and shuffle through emails, more than relieved when he saw none from Alejo Rosario. He didn't want to show his doubts and fears to highlight hers, and found himself even more determined to make the best of their week.
There were eternal reminders—not always of who they were, when one of them would flinch and scan a crowd without reason, but of why it would never work out. Obstacles, Clint called them in his mind. Tasha's scar was one of them. He'd been naïve to think her neck had been the only one. It seemed that she, like he, had had trouble readapting to being partnerless. Without backup, things that had seemed like child's play were risky and bordered on suicidal. Amazing how one person meant so much. Natasha had relearnt that lesson the hard way, he'd gathered.
It had been after one of their more successful dates. They had gone to a restaurant and climbed the spindly fire escape of an abandoned building. The moon had shone through the window of the shabby hotel room they had rented. She'd thought him gone to bed or shower or whatever, because tension had spiked immediately when she'd heard him step through the threshold. His yawn had been stifled by the vision before him.
The glove had been removed, abandoned on the table's surface. Clint had grown to loathe that glove (and everything it represented), but found himself puzzled at its unexplained absence. He'd come to accept its seemingly eternal resting place on her left hand. He knew its twin, but hadn't seen the right-hand glove since the night they'd sparred, discarded somewhere. He'd been wise enough to realize that something was amiss with her extreme fleshly attachment to the item of clothing, but distracted, he hadn't approached her with his suspicions or observations. It had taken her days to wear shirts that even remotely showed off her neck scar, so he'd figured that it'd all come, given time.
The glove reached her mid-forearm, an inch above the wrist, really, and was dark leather, worn soft with usage. It wasn't why Clint stared, though. Beside the glove, placed carefully he had no doubt, laid two fingers. Not of flesh, no, but of plastic, presumably, and a material that adopted the seemliness and appearance of human skin. The finger prostheses were those of the thumb and index finger of the left hand. Fingers that had touched his skin without detection, he realized and felt queasy. Delicate, dexterous, even, with what appeared to be bendable digits, but not a convincing replica of the real deal.
Natasha obviously hadn't meant to be discovered, because although she didn't spring from the chair on which she was seated, he watched the panic before it was drowned by the emotionless control she'd possessed years before meeting him. He watched her repress her doubts, eat them up before they could become her undoing. His eyes landed on the prosthesis once again, assembled with a plate on which the two fingers were attached, presumably to be attached to the hand. Clint was no expert, but if a prosthesis was needed, something had to have been missing. His eyes sprung to her left hand, fisted in tension and cloaked by the dark shadow of its owner.
"Tasha? What's this?" he asked, and made sure to sound as if it was a question and not the inquiry his body language made it. Why was he always finding these things out by chance and not by confidence? He hated having caught her off guard and yet was glad he had, when clearly, she hadn't been meaning to tell him in the near future.
A hand came forth, reluctant in its journey towards the light. 'Hand' being the only term Clint could assign it. It wasn't filled with savage scars like her neck. The pinky and its neighbor had healed from injury, slender and skin possibly soft to the touch. The middle finger had suffered a harsher treatment, but aside from a slight burn scar on the side, it remained purposeful—he'd seen it balled in a fist as she'd shielded it. The thumb and index fingers had been removed—by fire, injury, or surgery, Clint couldn't tell, although if he'd have to stick to one, it'd be surgery. It seemed a clean cut from amputation. The skin had healed gauntly but healthily from where the bone had been cut.
He took the hand, fragile as it seemed, lighter than it'd ought to be, into his for examination, inhaling sharply. It's her left hand, his mind registered, her shooting arm. Well, not exactly, as Natasha was (had been) ambidextrous, but when she fired one-handedly, it was the left, had been the left. She preferred the left. It wasn't easy to tell, but having had one of her guns pressed repeatedly to his delicate parts, he'd noticed. She twitched with the left one as well, or had, back at S.H.I.E.L.D. His mind reviewed the last couple of weeks and tried to recall which hand had been her dominant one. He couldn't tell.
It hadn't seemed relevant. He cursed himself for not having known—not having realized. Here he came with all his declarations of knowing her, and he hadn't noticed something as obvious as the absence of fingers, replaced by a cheap copy of the real deal. Could she even still shoot, he wondered?
Clint cradled the hand carefully as if it was made from glass. His eyes only moved from hers when he inspected the remaining fingers—fingers his own had twined during their night of passion (he'd held her down, but so had she—and he'd never realized). They were delicate; an eternal reminder of what she'd lost, but he couldn't forget—mustn't forget—that these soft hands were the hands of a killer. Of an assassin who rivaled, if not outshone him, with the length of her kill list. It ha never been a competition between the two, not that.
His thumb brushed her digits in caress. His touch was light, lighter than a feather, he hoped, as his lips strayed the row of knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers. She looked so breakable in that moment, but a fire of anger roared behind the green sea of vulnerability, warning him of her caution and temper. He saw only because she allowed him to see, her walls stretched like a rubber band, ready to come right back if he crossed the line. Slowly, softly, he kissed each knuckle. When he was done, he led it to rest against his sternum, drawing her in closer. He could hear her hitched breath, feel the tension in her muscle as they stood as one shadow. Natasha leaned her forehead against his chest. She looked so tiny.
Finally, he spoke. It felt sappy, but she needed to hear it (if not to call him out on it), he needed to hear it. "You're beautiful, Tash. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise," he murmured into the wispy softness of her hair.
That night, he made sure to hold her scarred hand in his as he lulled off to sleep.
It was the fifth day of their German adventure that all hell broke loose (not really, but Clint had always been one for dramatics, and it described his state of mind afterwards pretty well). They'd chased the pigeons like two toddlers and jogged the park. Yes, Clint realized how domestic it sounded. Was he about to complain? No.
He was showering, cleansing himself of the dirt and sweat that had gathered during their run, most of it not from exertion but from the harsh pre-noon sun. They'd stayed in bed this morning, and Clint hadn't minded, not until he'd had to exercise in the nightmarishly feverish streets. He'd raced Natasha to the hotel's reception and had lost the right to the first shower. That he hadn't minded as much, as he'd gotten to see her undress. She'd screwed up her face in abhorrence and asked how anyone could ever find someone so filthy and sweaty attractive. Considering they had worked in questionably sanitary environments more often than not, Clint had simply smiled sheepishly. He'd have found her attractive in a cotton shift dress.
He toweled himself in one of the big, white hotel towels. He hadn't brought anything himself, having been offered little when Alejo had dumped him in a town whose name Clint's Russian wasn't well fluent enough to pronounce. Garments were quickly purchased, though, and he'd submerged his phone into a bowl of rice to save its sorry ass. Nat hadn't known to bring towels for him. The damp towel on the hanger told him she hadn't even brought ones for herself. As he shaved, he heard a knock on the door and turned off the tap. "Yeah?" he shouted.
He turned, obviously, but almost forgot to, facing her so he could read her lips. He had to admit, he hadn't lip-read in a while, but he'd insisted that she allowed him to get better at it. It was better to see than her hastily written notes. Plus, he could read the emotion on her face while she was saying it, and that was a whole hell lot of better.
'Going,' she simply mouthed and he must've frowned in confusion; they didn't have plans other than browsing the television for laughable German soap operas they could diss.
"Where?" Clint asked. He was half-naked, covered only in a towel. He could get ready in less than a minute, though. The look on her face told him she wasn't expecting him to.
'Just picking something up,' she said, hasted, forcibly casual. She tapped index and middle finger against the door, head the only thing that showed. Something was amiss, but the mess in the background confirmed that she hadn't packed and was sneaking out, making a quick escape. He supposed he was just paranoid.
"Okay," Clint consented reluctantly, confused as to what required such haste all of a sudden, but by then she'd blown him a kiss and gone off. He could hear the door slamming. Maybe she needed lady products, he thought awkwardly, then couldn't help but check the toiletries bag by the cabinet. No, they were in there plentifully, he concluded with a slight blush.
He finished his shaving and redressed, still pondering what had required her immediate attention. His hair had almost dried by the time he discovered the blinking dot on the voicemail. He'd seen many blinking colors in his life, most having been bright, almost offending neon signs, some countdowns to bomb explosions, but he recognized the universal voicemail gesture. You've got mail, he thought. He pressed down the button.
"Confirm deletion of message," the electronic voice said. Clint knitted his brows in confusion. Why would you delete a message—they deleted themselves naturally after you'd listened to them after a few days.
He pressed 'no'. It was easy to operate the voicemail system. Clint had dealt with more complicated bombs with no EOD experts in the vicinity. Suffice to say, he was still here, but he wasn't the tech wiz Natasha had proven to be. "Replay old messages?"
He felt like a spy, but then remembered he was one. It was more like peeking, anyway. Maybe she hadn't even listened to it, and it was most likely to be a telemarketer or the clerk from the reception. 'Yes'. Eternity passed before the voice replayed the recording.
"You have 1 new message. Beep. 'Nikolaevna'," a dark voice, obscured by some accent Clint couldn't place, said. No telemarketer would have a voice like that, as crime poured on silk. "'Desta speaking. You know why I call. I know you're in Dresden.'" Then it turned softer, almost fatherly. Clint was no fool to believe it."'I need you, child, to fix something'."
The owner of the voice—Desta—grew annoyed, sighing with exasperation and frustration—not aimed at the recipient, but at those he spoke of. Clint wondered who this Desta person was. He didn't need to wait long. "'Sylvio botched the abduction. Take over. Deal with it. Finish him off when you're done. Anybody protests, kill them. Get them in line, Nikolaevna. Oh, and I need that list of candidates. I'll see you in Prague.' Beep. You have no new messages," it finished.
Clint stood, frozen, stuck in the replay of the tapping of her fingers. She lied, he realized. She had met his eyes and he'd seen what he'd wanted to see. He gulped. There were few uncertainties in that message. Abduction. Kill. Take over.
Timeout had been broken, game resumed. Clint glanced at the messy assortment of clothes that had been in the suitcase a couple of days ago. The bedroom certainly didn't look like its occupants were planning to leave any time soon—and yet he knew for a fact that he'd be, in little over a day's time. He stiffened when he saw a hastily stowed-away metal case, no larger than 14-by-12 inches, stick out from underneath the bed. He pried it open, fearing he'd see what he saw.
The case was foam-lined, the impression of its former occupant still clear. His fingers traced the imprint left by a currently absent handgun.
Too sappy? Probably. I assure you it won't be now. I almost feel bad for Clint, but I feel worse for Natasha, for some reason. But hey, they left Vienna! Doesn't mean they left their insecurities behind, though.
Type a review and I'll see if I can get back to you before I leave Malaga for London. If not, there are hours to pass in the plane. I'll type a chapter if my father consents. It's his laptop.
Seriously, leave your thoughts for me to see :) I can't believe how much I've written so fast. Feel spoiled. It normally takes me weeks, months, to write this much.
- L.