Natasha pinched her eyelids to shut out the bright halogen lights. With each blink, she opened them a little farther until the sterile whiteness of the Helicarrier medical bay blurred into view. The threads of a course rosy blanket warmed her skin and a mountain of soft pillows supported her back. She quickly shrugged off the warmness and used her hands to sit herself up.
One of the nurses, in her white variation of the S.H.I.E.L.D. crew uniform, spotted Natasha and hurried in. "How are you feeling dear?"
"Fine," Natasha replied and immediately began to tug at the IV buried in the crook of her elbow.
"Allow me," the nurse smiled. She gently rolled Natasha's arm over and began to untape the IV line. "You should know that the bomb squad has found and disarmed every one of devices in Budapest. All thanks to your intel, I hear. And you still managed to come away no worse for the wear."
If the nurse had been in Natasha's shoes, with the strong ache in her muscles, burning on her back and dull pain pounding in her skull, she might have reconsidered that phrase. In Natasha's case, however, this was a decent day at the office. The only bandage she could see was a tight white wrap on her wrist. She touched it, feeling the grainy texture of the bandage fabric against her fingers and a pinch of pain on her wrist.
"We stitched up a small gash on your wrist that you received when you impacted the warehouse wall. You're also being treated for some minor burns across you back. You were lucky to have made it that far away from the device."
"And Barton?" Without him, after all, she wouldn't have known to run.
The nurse taped down a patch of gauze over the prick where the IV needle had been. "He's fine. Took a nasty knock to the head, so we'll be keeping an eye on him, but he's awake and resting down the hall."
Natasha swung her feet over the beige plastic side of the hospital bed.
"We would prefer it if you stayed in bed for another few hours."
Natasha narrowed her eyes. The nurse sighed. "Though by now we know better than to try and stop you."
"Thank you," Natasha nodded, and the nurse disappeared out the door. Natasha reached up beneath her collarbone and plucked away the little plastic sensors stuck to her chest. She touched her bare feet to the cold linoleum floor, carefully testing her legs before she put her full weight on them. Natasha circled the bed to the stiff green visitors' chair, where one of the nurses had left a set of her favorite size and style of S.H.I.E.L.D. sweats. Natasha shook her head as she slipped the soft fabric carefully over the pitches of gauze on her back. She was here far too often.
Natasha padded silently down the hall until she reached the door with Clint's name scrawled across the nameplate in dry erase marker. She lifted her foot off the polished metal deck and stepped over the threshold. Just as her toes were about to come down on the familiar speckled linoleum of the other side, she jerked them back. It all looked the same. The room, the floor, the bed, her favorite post med-bay sweats, all of it. She grabbed onto the door frame, willing her brain not to drag her back into that memory. It didn't listen.
Natasha found herself back in this same hallway three years earlier. The rage and embarrassment of their failed Budapest mission was fresh in her heart. She could still hear Varga's gunshot ringing in her ears, feel Clint's blood seeping through her fingers. As he laid in bed recovering from that surgery, Natasha had hovered around this very spot, watching him from outside. Even when she finally forced herself into the room, she couldn't bring herself to meet Clint's eyes. The shame and guilt had been too fresh.
Natasha took a breath, shaking off the déjà vu and willing herself back into the present. This time she had no more secrets, not about this.
When Natasha walked into the little room, Clint was sitting bolt upright in his bed. A sketch pad balanced across his knees, and his hand buzzed across it, dragging a pencil back and forth over the paper.
"Clint?" said Natasha. The nurse had said he was alright, but he looked miserable. His skin was clammy and white; all the color had drained from his face. "Clint, baby, are you okay?"
"Look at me."
"What?"
"Let me see your eyes. Look at me."
Natasha obeyed. His own frantic eyes stared back into hers. They scanned side to side, capturing every detail of her large green irises, the flare of her long black lashes. Clint's hand flew faster and faster across the paper in front of him as his gaze darted back and forth between her face and the page.
"I thought you didn't like to do this kind of thing on the Helicarrier."
"This is important."
"How hard did you hit your head? You're worrying me."
After he smudged one last area with his outstretched finger, Clint let the pencil fall from his hand. What little color he had left drained from his face. Natasha reached for the call button, but Clint caught her hand.
"Don't," he said. His eyes didn't leave the sketchpad.
"Clint, what's going on?"
He adjusted his grip on her wrist so he could give her hand a tight squeeze. His fingers were cold and sweaty against her skin.
Clint remained quiet for a long moment before he spoke. "Do you remember all the aftermath of New York, all the debriefings, the meetings, the hearings?"
"Of course, though plenty of times I find myself wishing I didn't."
"And do you remember the debriefings with Selvig and I, and everyone else Loki . . . took."
Natasha sandwiched his hand between her own. "I wish you didn't either. You shouldn't be thinking about that now."
"Tasha, do you remember all of the visions Dr. Selvig described? All the things he saw while he was under the Tesseract's influence? Things he couldn't possible know?"
"Yes. And you said all the Tesseract showed you was your next objective, the instructions Loki wanted you to follow."
"That's what I reported, yes. But I think . . . I think I was wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"I think the Tesseract showed me something else. Maybe I didn't understand it at the time and ignored it; maybe the Tesseract buried it somewhere deep in my brain. Either way, I think this latest blow to the head knocked it loose."
"What are you talking about?"
"Then again maybe I just finally knocked a few wires loose after one too many concussions. Who can say for certain?"
"Clint . . ." Tiny tremors shot through his hand. Natasha raised an eyebrow; concern showed plainly on her face.
"I know, I must sound crazy. It is crazy. It's impossible, or it's supposed to be. All of this, the science, the magic and myth, it's all miles above my head. All I know, Natasha, is that ever since I blacked out back there . . ." He took a long slow breath to steady himself. "I can't seem to shake this image from my mind. Every time I close my eyes, every time I blink . . . I see this."
He met her worried glance with his wild, haunted eyes and held her there for a moment. Clint turned the sketchpad and handed it over to her.
Natasha's heart stopped. She felt like she'd taken a bullet to the vest. The air vanished from her lungs and she choked, taking the sketchpad. Unable to tear her eyes from the drawing even for a second, Natasha felt for the edge of the bed. She lowered herself onto the mattress as quickly as she could, before her knees buckled beneath her. The warm sting of tears welled in her eyes, and for once she didn't try to fight them. She blinked, reveling in the salty comfort of the tears streaming down her cheeks, but hating that they obscured her view for even a second.
Staring back at her in the gray tones of a graphite pencil was the round, wide-eyed face of a toddler. A girl.
She had Clint's strong jaw and rounded nose. She had his smile too, that familiar ear-to-ear grin, and Natasha's full lips and graceful cheekbones. Clint had rendered her hair so gracefully that even in the black and white image Natasha could tell that the girl's long tumbling curls were a dusty blonde. But those eyes. It was the eyes that caught her. She had perfect miniatures of Natasha's shining round eyes and thick eyelashes, right down to the heaviness they carried in them. No wonder he'd needed the reference.
Natasha brought a hand up over her mouth. Tears cascaded softly over her knuckles. Clint sat himself up. He reached over, rubbing his hand against the soft sweatshirt hanging off of Natasha's shaking back.
"She's beautiful," Natasha finally managed to choke.
Clint placed his free hand on the sketchpad over Natasha's own. "Like her mother."
Natasha's body shuddered as she cried harder. "How . . ?"
"I have no idea," Clint replied in a voice almost as broken as her own. He took her shoulder and leaned back, pulling her gently down beside him. Clint pulled her close, holding her tightly as she sobbed into his shoulder, the fabric of his white t-shirt clenched in her fist. Clint felt the first gentle trickle of a tear on his own cheek, and he silently joined Natasha in release. The rage, the pain, the regret, the questions, they wouldn't disappear after this. Like so many of their scars, this one would never vanish, probably never even fade. Somehow though, buried in each other's arms, crying like the children they had never really been, they were free. Freer, even, than in the sweet river wind on a bridge overlooking Budapest a world and a lifetime away.
"I'm sorry," Clint whispered, brushing a damp curl from her face.
"I know," Natasha replied. " I'm so sorry."
He touched a soft kiss to her forehead. "I know."
Hours later, Clint and Natasha slept soundly in each others arms. The color had returned to their faces; the tear stains had dried taught on their cheeks. The thick white sketchpad rested safely on their blankets.
Maria Hill stood at the observation window, arms crossed and studying the scene inside. Her foot tapped impatiently on the metal floor. "How long have you known about this?"
"Longer than they have, I suspect," Director Fury replied as he strode easily up beside her.
"And you let them into the field together? How many lives have you staked over the years on the bet that they wouldn't let their emotions interfere?"
"Plenty, including my own from time to time, and seeing as we're all still here to argue about it, I'd say it's worked out fine."
"Even in Budapest?"
"They held it together; they made it out."
"Barely. And if they hadn't? Of course you wouldn't see any reason to report something like this, especially not among your pets."
"I let you have a lot of leeway, Agent Hill. You could at least pretend to filter that tongue of yours."
"Active assets are not permitted to be involved in romantic relationships among one another, especially not Senior Field Agents, whether they're your precious Avengers or not. S.H.I.E.L.D. regulations clearly state -"
"Listen to what I'm stating, Hill. Agents Barton and Romanoff are hereby exempt from all such regulations regarding their personal relationship."
Agent Hill scowled but held her tongue. Fury glanced at his two agents curled safely in each other's arms and sighed. "Let them have each other, Maria. That's all they've got."
A/N: The End! *sniffles* Wow, this has been such an amazing ride and a fun project to work on.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to anyone who read any and all parts of this story! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it.
Special thanks to everyone who reviewed, PM'ed, followed or favorited ( or posted their reactions via Tumblr gif!) I sincerely appreciate that this story meant enough to you that you took the time to do that.
Any final thoughts, reactions, questions, mistakes, improvements etc would be greatly appreciated! (And yes, I know I need to find a better way to proofread! lol)
Thank you so much,
~Curious Flynn
(As a bonus in the Marvel style of things, I've included a teaser scene for what I think is going to be my next fic as the next chapter. If you're interested, check it out!)