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Apologizing for any spelling/grammar mistakes beforehand.
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"I don't only think of you
Eyes can tell I'm insecure, chloroform
I would rather stand if you stay
Why would I lie to you?"
-Chloroform, Phoenix.
Chapter 18
When she looked back at Clint she forgot for a moment that he had slept in a different bed and in a different room last night.
Careful to not rouse him, Natasha leaned down and scrambled for the hairbrush she knew she'd left somewhere near her pillow. His breath blew warm currents on the inside of her wrist. Her fingers collided against cold plastic, and she hooked them around the brush handle to draw it out deftly.
Not fast enough. A hand shot out from the baby blue covers and latched onto hers. A messy hold; Natasha couldn't tell if he had aimed for her wrist, her fingers, or the brush. She let him steer her over him and sank down on her elbows and knees, her back arching like a spoiled, petted cat so that although they touched, her weight remained hers to carry and not for the still-healing body beneath her.
"You were supposed to wake me up, not fall asleep yourself." Natasha tapped the burn marks on his shoulder with her brush handle.
"I did. Otherwise you'd be the one lying here, not me."
"You climbed into my bed right after kicking me out of it."
"So?" Clint made a face. "Coulson didn't say that was prohibited. You're awake. My job's done."
"We have twenty minutes and I still need to shower."
"And what exactly are you doing here, then?"
Natasha muttered a few slurred words and fixed the blankets she'd disturbed back over him; took up her hairbrush and tried to bring some order to her hair. Hopefully a good handful of conditioner will sort this out. She looked at herself in the sink mirror, and plowed through her tangles another time.
"Stop pulling so hard or your head's gonna come off," Clint said. "I can hear the ripping all the way from here."
Natasha tugged the loose hairs from the bristles. It did look like enough for a wig.
Halfway through her shower a back and forth of shouts broke the calming sound of running water. She turned the shower faucet off and listened. When she heard nothing more than a continuous, exasperated string of "okay"'s, she grinned to herself and turn the water back on. The sucker deserves it.
When she came out, Coulson was at her table with half a sandwich on his plate as predicted. "Come eat." He pointed at the other foods set out.
Natasha dumped herself a bowl of cereal. "What happened to leaving at eight?" She sloshed in the milk. "It's eight-fourteen."
"I had to re-schedule." Coulson stuck a piece of fallen lettuce back between his bread slices.
"Where are we going, by the way?"
"You'll know soon."
Well, what did I expect? Natasha sipped a spoonful of milk and asked something else. "Then when are we leaving?"
"It doesn't matter."
Coulson didn't agree to come to Crete for nothing. Turned out they were going to one of S.H.I.E.L.D's weapons development branches, a half-hour from their hotel in Kissamos to the city of Chania. He led them into a worn building and took the stairs up to the third floor. The structure sighed and struggled with every step they took, and the dust in the corners enough to suffocate. Given the sort of business that went on deep inside the guts of that "residential building," it was the only appearance it could have.
Coulson felt along the peeling walls and pried open a compartment. He stuck his head in, and the blue glow of a retina scanner bounced onto his suit. The glow turned red, and Coulson pulled his head out in confusion.
"It didn't recognize me," he said.
As if on cue, the section of the wall next to him popped open with a tired creeeeak. A blond head poked out, the expression there amused. "You're the first one to use that thing in five years," the stranger said. "I'm surprised it's updated."
"Updated?" Coulson asked.
"Why else do you think they denied you access?" The man pushed his glasses up. "You pissed Fury off? That's new."
"No one's pissed at anyone, Dunstan. Charmed to see you again, too." He gestured a hand back at his agents. "You and Barton know each other already. Agent Romanoff, this is agent Wallis Dunstan. Science tech and weapons analyst."
"Yes yes. Black Widow. And it's doctor, Coulson, not agent." Dunstan waved distractedly. "You pissed Fury off enough that he's not even taking a chance with retired devices."
"My phone's not blocked." Coulson waved said gadget in hand. "I could've called you to open the door."
The phone blinked once, then turned black except for a line of thin red text in the middle: ACCESS PROHIBITED. Coulson blew air into his cheeks and returned it to his pocket. "So, you gonna show us or what?" He tried to hide his embarrassment.
"Sure." Dunstan stepped aside. "Next time you drop by though, we've a new door on the other side of the block. No one's come 'round this dog flap in a long time. We've an elevator now. All it plays is Mozart."
The room inside was smaller than Natasha'd expected. Countless machines with more buttons and switches than the Helicarrier's control panels bordered the space and sent off a whir that imitated the feel of a jet. Holograms hovered and spun. Metal parts from the size of machine guns to bullet shells aligned themselves from biggest to smallest along the three rows of benches dividing the room.
Curious, Natasha reached out to pick up one of the odd-looking pieces. A force field halted her inches from the object's surface. She traced the dimming threads of blue on the field to its source at the edge of the table, where a fingerprint scan patrolled, and knew without doubt that it'd never yield for her. S.H.I.E.L.D could write a best-selling book on the reasons why.
Clint pointed towards the end of the room, where the translucent wall showcased a dull red glow that flashed on and off like lightning on the other side. Lasers.
"Show me what you've been working on," Coulson said to Dunstan.
The engineer glanced at the other two agents with him, uneasy. "Coulson, are they cleared?"
"It's alright."
"Coulson, c'mon. Yes or no?"
"It's alright," Coulson insisted. "Do I look like I'm cleared?"
Giving up, Dunstan scratched his shaggy hair and passed the group to the door on the left corner. He pressed a button on the wall and waited for the red lights to disappear before stepping inside. Sensing his discomfort at having her around, Natasha fell behind to the end of the group.
Dunstan removed a handgun from its suspended platform: small, narrow, and silver all over save the grip, a black material.
"This is the E-806 Starfire." He presented the weapon.
"Misleading name," Coulson commented. "Laser tech?"
"It's no Revenge, mind you." Dunstan nodded and did a mock pout. "Body heat powered, twenty-five degrees Celsius and up would get it going. The beam will hold for up to fifteen seconds if you keep the trigger down."
"So, say, it's winter and snowing. Your fingers are frozen stiff and nowhere near twenty-five degrees Celsius. What then?" Coulson asked, unimpressed.
"There's an emergency energy supply for up to forty-eight hours of usage, and the battery inside absorbs any kind of warmth you provide, doesn't need to be your hand." Dunstan defended. "Look, like I said. This doesn't come anywhere close to Revenge, but it's practical. It weighs less than a pound and kills in silence."
"They're tinkering with the Tesseract and fire energy out there, and here you are with lasers."
"As you can see, Coulson, we're not exactly overflowing with funds." Dunstan returned the gun to its place. "Everywhere else they're getting workshops the size of hospitals and small towns, and here I am with a kindergarten classroom. You talk of harvesting the Tesseract's energy, well, I've never even seen the damn cube. If you want the manslaughter toys you should've gone to P.E.G.A.S.U.S."
His accusations left no mark on Coulson. "What about the other models you're working on?"
"Oh, those are still infants. They'll take months more."
"I'll have a look."
"Go ahead." Dunstan gave no implications that he's coming with him.
Natasha lingered behind. Something in their conversation had caught her attention and raised questions of her own. She let Coulson and Clint out, then closed the door behind them.
"A word, Dr. Dunstan," she started.
"Yes?" He looked reluctant to talk to her.
"So the gun can run infinitely on body heat?"
"If it's above the minimum temperature, yes."
"What if it's like a… like a microchip?"
"Sure, their design converts energy much more efficiently, too." He deliberately kept his answers short and vague, but she's heard enough.
She nodded her thanks and left.
For the rest of the day, all Natasha could think about was her conversation with Valeria. She felt it buzz in the background, unrelenting like a swarm of angry bees. Valeria had called her stupid for believing in lies Natasha had accepted as truth without questioning. The Red Room had told her upon leaving the program that they'd remove the Collar now that their control over her had transferred directly to the Soviet government's. She didn't remember doubting that information. Ever. Valeria was right. With Natasha's level of guile and efficiency at what she did, it was unthinkable for her to overlook important matters like that and believed like a dog would.
Noticing the concentrated frown on her face, Clint left her alone for most of the afternoon, and kept Coulson busy with talk as they walked around Chania. He glanced at and steered her around with a hand every now and then, checking up on her without invading her space. His presence helped coax her thoughts to rest. Slowly, she tuned in with her companions' chatter.
Coulson's attitude turned from black to white and he spilled his heart out about Phase Two. Bombs and missiles and rifles that made Dunstan's Starfire look like a water gun. Now that he revealed what Natasha had wondered about for so long, she no longer held interest in the topic. S.H.I.E.L.D could manufacture enough weapons to blow up the planet if they're in the mood. They could keep whatever they desired from her. As long as they didn't do anything to her, or Clint, there was no point to care anymore. Without the suspicions she weighed herself down with like extra luggage, her basis became simple. All she wanted to was to pull through each day in as much peace as her job could spare.
Clint shoved an ice cream cone so close to her face Natasha almost walked straight into it. Giving in to his tentative, hopeful smile, she granted the ice cream a half-hearted lick. The sweetness coating her tongue lured her in for another taste. She oppressed the urge, instead reached for his free hand and locked it with hers. The corners of his mouth flitted up further. She thought of the vanilla glazed over his lips and licked her own to hide the quiver there.
After dinner, in the hotel lobby, Coulson separated himself to chat with a couple he'd just met. Natasha handed Clint a glass of champagne a stranger had insisted upon her moments before and leaned against the wall next to him.
"Can I interest you in a drink, miss?" She deepened her voice and rolled her eyes.
"That's what he said?" Clint took a sip from the glass and raised it with a smirk at the furious man still scouting around Natasha. "By the looks of him I thought he'd have more charm than that."
"Charm? My ass. How's the champagne, though?"
"Not bad."
"Guess something good came out of talking to that perv." She tipped the glass from his hold and drank a small mouthful. The same bubbly sweetness. Might as well went for a soda. She didn't know why she expected something different.
"The last time you handed me a drink, we ended up with you hiding in the shower and Stark's house blowing up." Clint took another sip, swallowed, and continued. "Wanna bet what will happen this time?"
"Last time I handed you a drink was two days ago, Clint."
"Don't remember it."
"Prob'ly not. You dropped before midnight."
"What?" He pushed himself off the wall with a laugh and sauntered off, passed the clusters of leather armchairs scattered over a red and brown area rug, almost dragging with him fire from the rows of candles lined up on the wall.
"Coulson hauled you to bed. I felt bad for you two, but not for long." Natasha smiled. She followed him out the door and into the remote, quiet cold, buttoning her cardigan in haste.
"And you were doing what, exactly?"
"Oh, that was my best night of sleep."
Clint pushed her playfully and gulped the rest of his champagne. "Good," he said, and left the empty glass on the nearest bench.
A generously sized lawn stretched in front of the hotel, cut off by a dimly lit parking lot to the left, a wall of shrubs to the right, and parted clean through the middle by a driveway that led to the entrance. Clint chose neither side and strolled along the drive, veering from concrete back to grass whenever a car approached. When they neared the end of the lawn, they turned around and retraced their route. Waiting for Coulson to wrap up for the night was a dull ordeal.
"Tasha?" Clint asked after a few laps along the driveway. A trail of coughs tailed hotly on his breathy question.
Natasha hauled herself back to attention. She'd spaced out during their walk, retreated into the trenches with only a string holding on to her awareness.
Clint came to a stop to properly search her face. His eyes darted like marbles rolling in a bowl, never settling on the same part of her for long. "That night at Stark's party, before shit blew up, what were you thinking?"
Spiders' legs danced on the back of her neck. It felt like a year had passed since she duct-taped Stark Industries into functionality with Pepper; a decade since Vanko's one-man riot in Monaco. Yet the evening at Stark's mansion she recounted with more clarity and speed than she'd preferred. Natasha'd prepared for Clint to ask this the moment she let loose the answer to Tony's question, but that didn't mean she'd welcome it with hospitality.
"Dying. And you," she said without hesitation, despite the difficulty she often had with honesty.
Those grayish marbles inside his eye sockets wobbled to a stop. Clint didn't seem to know what to do with his face, whether he should smile or not. His fingers knocked against his thighs and snared onto his jeans, where they ran up and down the seams like confused trains on their tracks.
He cleared his throat, as if to chase away the rasp in his voice from his coughing. "Were you... Did you feel-"
"Scared."
Clint dipped his chin down and stuffed his hands inside his pockets. She laid a hand on his arm and squeezed gently, tilted her head to ease his eyes back to hers. He had to know. This wasn't something they could lock behind a glass display to stare and ponder and make assumptions about.
"I know that's not what you want to hear, Clint, but whatever this is right now, I didn't feel it before." She neutralized her answer to a sterile, steady tone.
"Cause of the whole mess in Monaco, right? Was it that?" Clint's voice rattled. His stance shifted to something far more dangerous than fear. Arms hugged tight against his chest shook Natasha's hand off, and she let it hang empty by her hip. Guilt pecked at the inside, not outside; unless she killed that tactless bird flapping around inside him now, it would eat him up before her eyes. Clint always over-thought matters. Her thoughts came nowhere close to Vanko at Stark's party. She couldn't find a foothold anywhere on him for guilt to cling when he had never done anything to wrong her.
"I don't care about Vanko. It's not him, Clint." Natasha considered moving closer to him, but decided against it.
"Then what was?"
"I felt scared for myself. I knew the vulnerability I would put myself in."
"Is that still what you're telling yourself? Even now?" Clint loosened his arms to grasp both of hers and tugged her a little. Only then did Natasha notice her own shivering.
"Do you feel at a disadvantage because of me?" He continued, not waiting for her answer. "If you do, I'll-"
"Don't."
Clint nudged her jaw to face him. "I don't want to be a burden."
"You're not."
"The fuck you scared for, then?"
"I'm not anymore." Her loud breathing spoke otherwise. The crisp air suffocated her, every breath she drew like ice water freezing and clogging her veins. She stayed as Natasha for him. Anyone else, and she'd have slipped into a more comfortable skin by now.
Clint slid his hands down, outlined the rough shapes of her arms through the bumps and folds of wool, and pressed his palms where her thighs joined her hips. He circled them around to rest on the small of her back, beckoning her to him. Natasha closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder, feeling his lips hot on her neck.
"Can I ask you a question hypothetically?" His request crawled like thick, sluggish lava against her skin and she felt herself ignite, inside and out.
Natasha's pulse quickened. She nodded, and waited for him to continue. Her answer would stay the same as before.
He never did ask.
Sighing, she let him hold her for a while longer, his erratic little coughs shaking them both like earthquake tremors, and peered at the cars passing back and forth over his shoulder. The pang of disappointment that came with not being able to give her answer took her by surprise. She didn't like how Stark was the one with her when she said it. The clueless one. The one she had felt relieved at the time to face instead of Clint, but now she regretted. Now that she had the chance to repeat herself, Clint didn't want to hear it anymore. She thought on her answer anyway; analyzed it, specified it, molded it into something she could blurt out as if commenting on how long their handler was taking or how the Nissan that just rolled by had a chihuahua strapped into an infant car seat.
"Something like this would be nice," she muttered, just loud enough for him to hear, and stopped estimating the time when Coulson would come looking for them.
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