Warnings: language, mention of drug use, mention of attempted suicide.
Thanks to my beta, irite, for being generally awesome. Also for being awesome in specific ways that I am too tired to enumerate.
I do not own the Avengers. Good lord, imagine what it would have been like if I did.
When Natasha made it to the roof, all but sprinting through the door, the scene had not changed much.
Clint was sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around them. Though he was facing her, he didn't acknowledge her approach and refused to meet her eyes.
Steve stood stiffly to one side, his hands shoved in his pockets, warily watching the man seated on the ground.
"Steve," Natasha greeted him.
He turned towards her voice, relief evident on his face. "Do you want me to go? Or...?" he asked softly, as if he were afraid to speak more loudly.
She considered. "No, stay. Please. Help me get him downstairs."
Natasha walked over to Clint and gently placed her fingertips on his shoulder. She could feel the strain there, how he was practically thrumming with the tension in the muscles of his back and arms.
He flinched away from her touch. "Don't."
She sighed, but removed her hand. "Can you stand?" She couldn't think of a reason why he might not be able to, but she didn't quite know what else to say.
He lifted his eyes to meet hers, looking momentarily as if her request had been made in a foreign language, one he didn't speak. Then, as he became more aware, he nodded and slowly unwrapped his arms from around his knees.
Steve offered him a hand up, but Clint steadfastly ignored it. Instead, he heaved himself awkwardly to his feet and stretched in a vain attempt to relieve the awful tightness in his muscles. Without glancing behind him, he walked towards the door, stiff, almost shuffling.
Steve battled the nearly overpowering urge to pick him up and carry him.
Somehow, they made it back downstairs. It had seemed iffy for awhile. At one point, Clint had swayed dangerously on the stairs before leaning heavily against the wall, breathing hard.
Natasha motioned for Steve to halt.
"You okay, Clint?" she asked.
"Yeah," he replied quickly, if a little breathlessly. "Just…really tired. And dizzy. Sudden, that's all."
"Want me to carry you?" Steve asked, half-joking, not really sure what he'd do if the marksman said 'yes.'
Clint managed a decent glare. "No. Thanks."
Relieved, Steve said, "All right. Are you…going to move?"
"Eventually."
And, eventually, he did. They made it to the elevator.
Back in the Avengers' quarters, Natasha realized that she had been operating largely on autopilot for the last half an hour. Now, Clint was slumped on the couch with his head in his hands, massaging his temples, and she had a moment to reflect on exactly how out of her comfort zone she was.
Sure, she had read that suicide was a risk during withdrawal. But she hadn't really thought about it. It had seemed so foreign, so completely out of the realm of possibility, that she hadn't even considered it. And now it filled the room, diffused to every corner, choking her.
"What were you thinking?" she asked abruptly, her voice harsh in the silence.
Clint apparently wasn't listening. "...What?"
That pissed her off. "What. The. Hell. Were. You. Thinking?"
"I..." Wasn't, he was going to say, but that wasn't true. Sure, he hadn't been thinking clearly (you're still not Barton, don't lie to yourself) but there had been a lot of thought involved. So, instead he said quietly, "I told you I couldn't do this."
Natasha looked dumbfounded. "Bullshit, Barton. You're not just going to…quit. What the hell?"
"Tasha…" he started, but she wasn't done yet.
"What, you thought you'd just take the easy way out? Fuck that."
"No, Tasha, I just thought—"
"Oh, so you were thinking. That's good to know." Some still-rational part of her mind was telling her that this was not how you were supposed to deal with a suicide attempt. She thought maybe compassion and understanding were usually prescribed as the best responses, not anger. But after the phone call she'd gotten, she thought a little anger was justified.
"What is it, Rogers?" she'd answered, exhaustion almost (but not quite) masking the irritation and worry in her voice.
"Natasha...I think...you need to come here." Quiet. Hesitant. Completely unlike Steve Rogers.
"Why? What happened?"
"It's...Barton. Clint. We're on the roof. I think...I think he was going to jump. He's okay, I got him, but—"
She hadn't waited to hear the rest.
For his part, Clint was having a hard time focusing on her words. He got that she was angry, and why, but she just didn't understand how fucking hard this was. How could she? She'd never fucked up this bad. And now she was chastising him for trying to do the right thing, trying to remove the danger, and she just didn't get it, she just couldn't see how logical it was, how crystal fucking clear...
That's because it's not logical, Barton, it's fucking crazy. Like you. She thinks you're crazy.
I'm not crazy, I'm just not...thinking straight. Right? I'm not crazy.
Then what the fuck is this? You're talking to yourself. You're crazy. And dangerous...
I'm not fucking crazy. I just need...
What? What do you need? Your fucking pills? Yeah, that's worked out really well for you, hasn't it?
With a small sound of negation, Clint shook his head and wrapped his arms tightly around his chest. He began to fidget, crossing and uncrossing his legs.
Steve had seen this nervousness once already tonight, and he'd seen how it could escalate. "Maybe you should calm down, Clint," he said cautiously.
Natasha noticed the change in his demeanor and immediately stopped her ranting. "Clint?"
"I'm fine," he snapped. Christ, when was she going to get off his fucking back?
You wanted this, Barton, you wanted her. It's not her fault you're a fuck-up.
Oh, but it was so easy to blame her, when she was so sanctimonious, tormenting him. If she'd just seen things his way, this could have been avoided. What the hell was wrong with her, anyway? Was she some kind of sadist? Did she like seeing him in pain? Did she like having this much control over him? Fuck, he'd give her control. He'd give her anything, let her do anything, if she'd just give him one fucking pill.
Don't. Don't fucking do this. That's not how this is. She is helping you, dumbass, not torturing you, now get a fucking grip.
Abruptly, he stood and moved towards the door. He had to get out of there.
But Natasha grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?"
"I need some space." He tried to pull free.
But her grip tightened, until it was hard enough to bruise. "No."
"No? What do you mean, no?" Clint's voice was taking on a panicked, hysterical edge.
"Do you really think you get to be alone right now? You just tried to jump off the roof."
He'd kind of been trying to forget that. "I'm not going to do it again." God, why wouldn't she just let him go?
Natasha snorted. "Forgive me if I don't just take your word for it."
And now she was laughing at him. Clint grew, if possible, more tense. The throbbing in his head reached a crescendo, and he saw red.
He was hardly aware that he had drawn his fist back to strike before she had him on the floor, both arms pinned behind his back. He had a sudden feeling of déjà vu. How many times is this going to happen tonight?
At Clint's movement, Steve had jumped to his feet to help. He quickly found himself at a loss, though, since it was clear Natasha had the situation under control.
Still, he could be useful. "JARVIS," he said, "Could you please send Bruce and Tony up here?"
A little more help couldn't hurt.
Bruce wondered if chronic insomnia was contagious.
Sure, he hadn't exactly been the best about regular sleep before, but after he started working with Tony, his sleep schedule had become, in a phrase, completely fucked up.
He had only intended to work until maybe eleven o'clock. He had a few test results to check, a few inventory items to mark off, and then he was going to call it a night.
That just wasn't meant to be, apparently.
Somehow, it was after one o'clock in the morning and he was still working. He blamed Tony. The man was a horrible influence. He made it seem so normal, staying in the lab until all hours of the goddamned night. Bruce suspected that Tony was doing it deliberately, peer pressuring him into turning into some kind of insomniac mad scientist.
Bruce hated peer pressure.
On the plus side, he had at least gotten some good news out of his extra work. He hadn't figured out what had been causing Thompson's issues, but he had discovered (through some very 'careful' testing...did Tony even know what safety protocols were?) that his body fluids had ceased being flammable after about 24 hours. That meant that, barring a second exposure, Thompson's issues should have been completely alleviated by now.
Bruce wrote those results up added them to the stack of test results and files he was going to send back to SHIELD. He imagined Thompson would be glad to get back to whatever he'd been doing before he'd turned into an unintentional terrorist.
He wasn't done, but he'd made progress, and wasn't that all in a day's work for a biologist slash chemist slash physicist?
With his report done, Bruce looked around, trying to find Tony. He located him a second later, playing with the biohazardous rats.
"Hey!" Bruce yelled. Tony had decided that, to avoid the awkwardness of talking about anything having to do with Clint, the best course of action would apparently be to rupture their eardrums with music. Bruce was struggling to make himself heard over the Led Zeppelin blaring from the incredibly loud and massively expensive speakers.
Of course Tony didn't hear him. Or, equally likely, was ignoring him. Jerk. So Bruce walked over to where the billionaire was sprawled on the floor and gently tapped him in the knee with his foot.
Well, maybe not that gently.
"Ow! Fuck, Banner!" Tony said. At least, that was the movement his lips made.
"I can't hear you, what was that?" Bruce mouthed.
Tony glared at him and snarled "Mute." Then, "What?"
"I think I'm done for the night. We should head upstairs and see if Steve needs anything." Like a drink, Bruce thought, even though he knew the supersoldier couldn't get drunk. It was the thought that mattered.
Tony stood, massaging his leg. "Sure. It's been what, an hour?"
"Four, actually."
"Really?" Tony looked at his watch. "Huh. It only felt like one. Time flies when you're having fun, right, science buddy?"
Bruce wondered about Tony's idea of fun. And time. "Uh, sure."
"Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner." Jarvis spoke, saving Bruce from trying to find a tactful way to tell Tony to never, ever call him 'science buddy' again. "Mr. Rogers has requested your presence upstairs in the Avengers' quarters, sirs."
Tony thought JARVIS's message, though lacking any overt signs of trouble, didn't bode well. The look on Bruce's face indicated that he felt the same.
Together, they made a beeline for the elevator.
When they entered the Avengers' living area, they were greeted with the odd sight of Natasha sitting on Clint's back, one knee on either side of him, pinning him to the ground. Her hands were wrapped around Clint's wrists, pressing them into his back.
Tony thought about making some off-color joke about bondage and domination, but he still had the bruises from the last time he'd had that brilliant idea. He wasn't a masochist. So he settled for an innocuous, "Well, this is interesting."
"We need to set up shifts," Natasha said calmly, as if she wasn't currently bodily restraining Clint from doing...what, exactly?
"You gonna get off of Barton, or just stay there? Cause it doesn't look comfortable," Tony said. "For him, anyway. I mean, if you want to stay there, that's fine. I don't mind."
Natasha was actually quite reluctant to move. There was something really reassuring about knowing exactly where Clint was. Knowing that he couldn't do anything so fucking stupid again. It made her feel like she had some tiny modicum of control over this situation.
Still, she got to her feet. Clint laid on the floor for a moment longer, apparently gathering his thoughts. He then slowly stood and made his way back to his place on the couch. It was starting to feel like home, he thought. At least when he was there no one was tackling him.
You deserved that. You know you did.
Okay, maybe. Still, it was getting old. And Tasha hadn't exactly been gentle. He could feel bruises forming around his wrists where she'd been holding him. His shoulders had been painful before; now they were approaching excruciating.
You deserve that, too, Barton. Just man the fuck up and take it.
Clint smirked to himself. Wouldn't it be nice if it were that easy? Just man up. Like he hadn't been fucking trying for months.
"Shifts for what, exactly?" Bruce asked, unaware of Clint's extensive inner dialogue. He watched the marksman rub at the beginnings of a hand-shaped bruise on his arm, just below the sleeve of his t-shirt. What the hell had happened?
"One of the potential risks of amphetamine withdrawal is suicide," Natasha told them, blunt and to the point. She was done dancing around. "We're not leaving him alone."
"Yeah, I read that," said Tony. "But don't you think you're being a little pre-emptive? It's not like that's really common or anything. It's kind of the worst-case scenario."
Natasha and Steve looked at him in awful, heavy silence. Clint, the worst-case scenario, looked resolutely at his lap.
Oh.
"He didn't," Tony whispered.
"I'm right here, Stark. And it's not a big deal," Clint muttered, speaking mostly to the couch cushion next to him.
There was a long pause. "He...did?" Tony asked, uncertain.
Bruce felt the blood drain from his face. "How?"
"Roof," Natasha said. "Half an hour ago."
Tony and Bruce took that in. When he'd remembered how to speak, Tony offered, "Well, you said this could get ugly. I'll take the first shift."
Once upon a time, Clint reflected, he probably would have been pissed to have his business all out in the open like this. He was private by nature. Always had been.
Really, that had been part of the problem. It was at his core to deal with things, like paralyzing anxiety and ridiculous phobias, alone. Asking for help was weak. Needing help at all was bad enough, but asking was just pathetic.
At this point, though, he was beyond caring. He was too miserable to notice that he was the object of careful scrutiny, too out of it to really register the four pairs of concerned eyes focused on his slumped and fidgeting form. They could talk about him all day and all night if it suited them. Their words barely brushed against his consciousness, completely unable to penetrate the fog of need and pain that enveloped his mind.
As it was, he could only focus on what was really, truly important.
It was now only four hours until Natasha had promised to give him his pills.
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