The young woman gasped as the ground shuddered more strongly beneath them, and Clint looked down with a reassuring smile. Fisting his hand into the grass, he secured her more tightly against his side, careful of the blanketed form of the baby clutched to her chest.
Somewhere to his far left, a woman screamed, a horrible cry of fear and loss. A name, perhaps, of a child or loved one, but the voice was lost in the cacophony of panicked shouting and the low rumbling of shifting earth.
Looking up again, driven to check, the archer's eyes once again immediately searched out those he cared about. Zeroing in on Natasha, he met her own steady observation with a nod, while assessed the stability of her position, and that of the little boy in her arms.
Satisfied that she was as safe as could be expected, Clint turned slightly, his gaze sweeping behind Natasha, to where Tony had been kneeling only seconds ago.
Only, the area, recognisable by a small grassy knoll and half warn foot track, was now empty.
Clint was already halfway to his feet, ignoring the woman clutching at his arm, when he stilled, his horrified gaze captured by a sudden movement further upstream. His brain caught up to his eyes just in time to watch as Tony, arms wrapped around a shock of bright pink, was tumbled off his feet. An instant later, before Clint could even shout, the muddy bank just – gave out, sliding into the river with a ghastly squelch…taking Tony with it.
The last rumbling shudder settled, and an ominous silence blanketed the small park.
Clint was on his feet and almost to the river before anyone else could move, skidding to a stop beside the collapsed bank. Kicking off his shoes, he prepared to launch himself into the water, only to have his arm caught in a vice firm grip, as Natasha dragged him back a step, exclaiming, "What are yo-! Oh my g-Tony? "
Seeing the look of horrified comprehension blossom across her face, Clint nodded frantically and pulling away from her lax hold, he prepared to dive in.
"No! Wait-" Natasha shouted, grabbing his arm again, and Clint turned to brush her off- didn't she know that every second Tony was- That every second counted.
Before he could open his mouth though, an inhuman shriek cut through the air and a young woman catapulted between them, intent on throwing herself into the river, a desperate cry of "Carrie!"on her lips.
Clint caught her about the waist, the force of the motion lifting the woman off her feet and the archer swung her around in a wide arc, before dragging her back against his chest in a secure lock hold.
Natasha always had good reasons.
"Ma-am, please. Wait-" Clint tried to reason with the sudden wild creature in his arms, as she thrashed and screamed, repeating the same word –"Carrie!"
Pinning her more forcefully, Clint looked to Natasha for help, nonplussed by the woman's apparent hysteria, although having a strong hunch.
Natasha pressed in close, ensnared the woman's face with both hands and held her in place until their eyes met, before she spoke in a deadly calm voice that demanded attention and had no problems holding it, "Look at the water. If you jump in now, you'll get dragged down, and likely killed – you're no good to your…daughter…dead. "
As she spoke, Clint's own eyes went to the water – the swirling, writhing, bubbling mess of choppy waves and floating hunks of debris, and knew that Natasha's words were also meant for him. He knew she was right, but some instinctual need still drove at him to ignore common sense and just dive in, just get Tony out. That if he could just get Tony out and to a hosp-.
"I'm so stupid! God – An ambulance, we need an ambulance…." Clint cried, trying to dig through his pockets to find his stupid Stark phone- which he'd left in his bag when he'd hit the skate park. And they'd been using the goddamn closed circuit comm system. Only Tony's had a direct link to Jarvis. Goddamn it all to hell! "Nat – have you got your phone-"
"My husband was ringing-" came the upset woman's raw voice. Something in Natasha's calm detachment had obviously gotten through to her. She hadn't exactly calmed, understandably, but the fight had gone out of her, leaving a gasping, sobbing mess in Clint's grasp.
She was still, but he wasn't fool enough to release her just yet. Instead, he did one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do – he stood and made small talk while one of his best friends was possibly drowning somewhere less than 50 feet away.
"Thankyou – I should have thought of it earlier. I'm Clint, and this is Nat, - your little girl, Carrie? Wearing Pink?" he asked, staring at the writhing surface of the water, begging it to settle quickly.
The young woman sobbed on her first attempt at an answer, but a deep breath later and she visibly pulled herself together, answering shakily "Carrie-Anne. She's 6. Pink's her favourite colour." She took a gulping breath and then added, "I'm not – I'm not a bad mother. Please, she needs me. I thought I had her, my husband- I didn't even see her. But I'm not a bad mother.….?"
Surprisingly, it was Natasha who answered, compassion and gentle reassurance leaking from her carefully retrained tone, the lower register of deep concern only audible to Clint, " I think we saw Carrie earlier, with a little girl in yellow- her sister?" The woman gave a broken nod, and half glanced over her shoulder.
Clint followed her gaze, slightly taken aback to notice the steadily increasing ring of onlookers, but only because their presence had gone unnoticed, to both himself and Natasha. In all honesty, he couldn't care less if they were paparazzi, nosy neighbours, genuinely concerned citizens or Doom's mutated lackeys.
It wasn't until he saw an overwrought man kneeling on the ground a few meters away, cell phone clenched to his ear as he spoke urgently, that Clint's attention stilled. The man's gaze was distraught as it leapt between the screaming boy in his arms, and the vast stretch of water, desperately wanting to be in one place, yet needed dreadfully in the other as well. The littlest boy, cradled against the man's chest, had obviously fallen during the quake, if the odd angle of his arm was any indication. A second child, the little girl in yellow, was draped over her father's back, leaning against his shoulder with huge wet eyes, and the oldest boy was curled in against the small huddle, one hand holding his sisters and the other worrying at his father's shirt hem.
The family. What that little girl had to come back to. Why that little girl had to come back.
Did Tony know he had something to come back to as well? A reason why he had to come back?
Clint dragged his attention back to the surreal conversation between the two women, his own gaze riveting on the surface of the river, along with the other two sets of eyes, despite the words shared between them.
Natasha continued, "You're not a bad mother when your little girls can smile and giggle like those little girls."
The woman half nodded, but her face crumpled and she moaned, " - please, I- I can't, I need to-", as she tried to pull away from Clint, who wanted to allow her, if only so he could follow her.
Distracting her, and putting his own rambling thoughts into words, the archer answered, "I know. I know- that man he's our be-"
The woman actually turned her head to look up at him. The complete bafflement on her face would have been funny in almost any other situation as she asked, "What man?"
"Our friend- Tony. He had her when they went under- trust me, if anyone can keep your little girl safe, it's Tony." Clint answered, the truth of his words ringing strongly in the conviction of his tone. He honestly believed that Tony would put life and limb on the line to save that little girl.
That was what he was worried about.
Strangely, it was the woman's sudden quietness, the minute relaxation of her body in his hold, and the tangible renewal of her hope that destroyed Clint's will power, and letting her go, he said, "Nat, I can't wait any longer- I'm the strongest swi-"
Clint suddenly found his voice drowned out by an overwhelming buzz of noise and movement as their apparently massive crowd of onlookers unexpectedly buzzed with unison gasps and outcries.
His heart leapt into his chest with hope, and his stomach bottomed out with dread. Clint spun away from the noise, to face the river, and-
The little girl had surfaced.
Paddling weekly against the still swirling water some twenty feet away from the bank, she was spluttering, coughing, and crying, her hair plastered to her face in wet tangles, but she was alive and beautiful.
Clint was in the water before he made the conscious decision to leap, strong strokes gliding him through the upper surface of the river, propelling him through the thick sediment and long buried roots that still floated, until suddenly he had a tiny pair of arms wrapped in a strangle hold around his neck.
The mother met him half way back to the bank, and Clint happily passed the hysterical child over, unsure how he could possibly be smiling when Tony was still down there somewhere, but unable to help it as the little girl rambled feverishly, every third word a tear choked 'Mummy'.
Perhaps the perfection of the moment was the equally hysterical shrieks of "Ri! Ri!...Riii!", and the little yellow streak jack rabbiting up and down the closest stretch of bank, carefully kept in check by a crying father.
Whatever the case, Clint had more than one type of tears in his own eyes as he turned back to where the little girl had surfaced, and with a deep breath, dove into the dreary world of mud-washed water and dwindling hope.
Watching Clint dive beneath the surface, Natasha shed her own shoes and sundress, glad in some distant part of her mind for the practical bodysuit beneath, but not really caring at that particular moment. The young mother was approaching the edge, and Natasha, wisely, didn't offer to take her crying, clinging burden, instead offered a hand, and carefully helped pull them up the slippery bank.
The little girls' return to dry lands was greeted with a storm of clapping and cheering from the onlookers, many not realising that the rescue had only just begun. Some considerate individual approached with a towel, which Natasha absently draped around the child, and up over her mother's shoulders, her mind preoccupied trying to determine the most likely spot the girl had surfaced from.
"Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou…." the mother was almost chanting the simple word, but the genuine heartfelt feeling said so much more, more than any mother would ever be able to repay.
Brushing off the thanks, as not necessary, and certainly not hers to receive, Natasha replied, "I need to help Clint. The ambulance will be hear in a minute, I can hear the sirens -"
"There's only one ambulance! We didn't know about- about your friend. We'll – I can. We can call another -" The woman exclaimed, leaning into her husband who had suddenly appeared to wrap an arm about both his wife and daughter, the baby boy in his own arms, and two little shadows pressed in close at their sides.
Natasha, itching to be in the water, looking, helping, answered, "Tony. His name is Tony. You need to take the ambulance. Your children need medical care-", when the woman still looked torn, she added, "Please – we have our own help coming. Tony risked his life to save Carrie. He would want you to get her to help. Please."
"Okay. – and please, tell him. Tell him – just. So much." the woman broke off abruptly as the ambulance siren became obvious in the near distance, and with one final "Thankyou", the family moved toward the car park, the crowd parting before them like the red sea, most drifting after them, like bees to honey.
Natasha was thankful that she hadn't had to spend longer convincing the woman, especially when it was the truth – they had their own help incoming. She, Clint and Tony had already missed their last check in by a good four minutes, and with the quake, SHIELD would definitely already have the regulation back-up enroute, including the required medivac. Hoping that the back-up wasn't far away, and intending on giving them something to Evac. when they finally got there, Natasha turned, and started to slip carefully down the bank, when something suddenly occurred to her.
Scrabbling up the slippery slope and sprinting after the slow moving crowd, Natasha yelled, "Wait! – uh- damn!", and realising she didn't know the mother's name, she improvised, and hoped like hell, as she shouted "CARRIE!."
Thankfully, one of the parents must have heard, as the group slowed to a stop, and Natasha started forcing her way through the rear of the crowd that sluggishly began to part. Reaching the family, she leant in close to the pale little girl, and gentled her voce, "I'm sorry little one, I know you're cold and sore, but I need your help. Can you do that?"
Ignoring the sudden influx of hard glares that the uninformed members of the crowd were giving her, at her apparent audacity to badger an injured child, Natasha continued, "The man, the one who helped you – did he let you go after you hit the water?"
The nearest bystanders gasped, and several turned back toward the river, just in time to see Clint duck back beneath the surface, and comprehension started to dawn. People loved a 'hero'.
The whispering died suddenly, as the little girl frowned slightly, and opened her mouth, answering, "Tony's very strong! Very, very strong! Of course he didn't let go, not even once!"
The crowd was instantly charmed. Both by the precocious little girl with so much spark, and by her mysterious rescuer who had gained her loyalty with such fervour.
Natasha nodded, replying seriously, "Yes he is, and very brave as well. Do you remember anything about when he did let you go? How he was lying, maybe? "
Carrie closed her eyes, a little pinched look crossing her face as she obviously tried very hard to remember. Green eyes suddenly snapped open, and she swayed in the safety of her mother's arms as a look of dismay swept over her pale features. Huge tears wet her lashes as she answered, "We were going over and over and over – he was cuddling me- and then we hit something and everything stopped. He was so still, and wouldn't move, and he was holding on so tight…I- I'm sorry- I pulled his h-hair! And then he let go. I'm sorry! "
"Shh, hey- hey, it's okay. That was very helpful- thankyou." Natasha said, perhaps a little stiffly in the face of such innocent upset, but unable to stomach the completely unconvinced look Carrie was levelling at her, she tried again, "Do you want to know something else? "At the curious glance and little affirmative head tilt, Natasha added, "Tony probably would have pulled your hair if you'd been the one holding too tight."
The little giggle made her feel much better.
The ambulance pulled into the car park a short distance away, and Natasha turned to the mother again, "Thankyou for letting me-"
The young woman cut her off, "Anything. I mean it. Anything. Thankyou."
Unable to think of an appropriate response to such candour, Natasha simply nodded, turned, and hurried back toward the river, uncaring of her own entourage as much of the crowd broke off to follow the 'action'.
The little girl hadn't been overly helpful, but at least she'd confirmed that Tony was likely to be somewhere in the area she'd surfaced. Slipping down the bank and into the water, Natasha's own sure stroke brought her out to where Clint had just resurfaced.
The frustrated shake of his head as she approached told her all she needed to know of his lack of success so far, and he waited the 4.2 seconds it took her to reach his spot.
"I'm following the path of the slide. Carrie surfaced about here, in line with that tree-" the archer took a deep breath and slapped the water, adding dejectedly, "He's got to be here. "He's been in the water almost four minutes, Nat, what if-"
Feeling like it had been so much longer than four minutes, Natasha cut him off firmly, shaking her head as she answered, "No. We're going to find him and he's going to be okay. – Carrie said he held on until he let her surface – so we must be in the right area. Keep. Looking."
And with that, she dove beneath the surface.
Her world narrowed to a hazy inklike swirling mess of mud and debris, and she thought she'd probably have more visibility with her eyes closed. Two feet in front of her, and everything became a grey blur, slightly darker silhouettes speaking of deeper areas, branches or floating clumps of mud, yet to settle to the bottom.
And it was deep. Much deeper than she'd expected, and as she swam downward, Natasha began to wonder if she was even physically capable of scouring the bottom without a diving suit. She had to be though, they simply didn't have the time to wait.
Her ears popped and her head ached, but finally she touched on mud that was thick and gluggy – part of the bank, making up the current river floor.
She swam in a straight line, or as close as she could estimate was a straight line, hands outstretch, hoping to touch on something soft and Tonyshaped, unable to navigate in any other way.
Soon, too soon, her lungs started to scream, and she rocketed to the surface.
A breath of fresh air, a glimpse around showing no signs of Clint holding a waterlogged Ironman, and she dove again.
The image of ironman in her head suddenly begged the question, why hadn't Tony summoned the suit? He'd had the bracelets on earlier in the day, and Natasha knew they worked underwater. It didn't beg for closer thought, and so she focused on the search instead, skimming over a half buried log, fingers trailing in the mud.
Up,
Breath,
Look,
Down,
Search,
Up,
Breathe,
Look,
Down,
Search,
Up,
Breathe,
Look,
Down,
Over and over, until her lungs burned, her head throbbed and her limbs ached.
Search,
Up,
Breathe,
Look,
Down,
Over and over, until her fingers ached from little cuts and scratches from brushing against obstacles.
Search,
Up,
Breathe,
Look,
Down,
Search-
Her fingers trailed along the bottom, scraping along the surface of the glutinous mud, her arms outstretch to each side of her. Just more empty expanse- mud, water, mud, branch, mud, rock-rock-rock-rock, hair, mud, mu-
Hair.
Oh god. Hair.
She backtracked, finding the huge rock just behind her and to the left, using it as leverage to slide around to where she was sure she'd- hair.
Specifically, hair attached to a head.
Unable to see in the near blackness and unable to hear over the thump of her own heart, Natasha trailed her fingers through the hair she refused to lose contact with, onto smooth skin and finally over closed eyes.
Still, unblinking, closed eyes. Closed, unmoving lips.
Natasha had to resist jerking her hands away, and instead slipped them down to curl under Tony's arms in a tight hold, and with a tug, she pushed for the surface.
Only to have him slip completely from her grasp as something held him down.
Thrust several feet away in the drab, dark water, Natasha was made unsure of her exact direction by the unexpected release, and was moving by blind instinct and hope as she turned to swim back down.
The hand that connected with her stomach was the most welcome blow she'd ever felt in her life.
Following the shaking spasming path of the arm that was joined to the hand that had attached itself to her side, Natasha was soon back by the huge rock, which as it turned out- was the issue.
Trailing her hands down from Tony's struggling shoulders, she found his chest, hips, and then –rock.
It was huge, easily as big as she herself, and very effectively pinning Tony to the bottom of the river.
Tony who was thrashing and writhing against her, his hand, the one not locked on her hip, was clawing somewhere in the vicinity of his own throat as his lungs burned and scorched and demanded air that he refused to try and breathe.
With no time to think of any other options, Natasha scrabbled about in the dark until her hands found Tony's face, and holding him as still as she could, she swam forward and locked her lips over his.
And breathed.
A/N-
Sort of not a cliffy. Maybe. If you squint.
- I do promise - this *is* Stony, and one day soon Steve *will* arrive - and I'll make it *so* good for you.
Promise :)
As always, I hope you enjoyed, I love to hear from you - and... Happy Reading :)