"Nat, hold up!" he called, striding along the game trail behind her.
Natasha stopped, turned to look back at him, eyes searching their surroundings as if she were contemplating bolting off the path and into the undergrowth. He didn't like the strain that he saw in her face, the way that she maintained distance from him with every step. She had stripped down to a vest and shorts in an attempt to escape the heat, leaving her arms and legs bare to the stems and branches that lined most of the trails. Thin rivulets of blood ran from scratches on her arms and shoulder, the result of an altercation with a patch of thorns that she barely seemed to have noticed.
"Stay away from me," she panted, bracing her palms against her thighs as she tried to catch her breath. She'd set a punishing pace since they had left the cabin that morning, the apparent calm of the previous evening wiped away by whatever had surfaced during the night. She had been pacing the lounge long before sunrise.
Holding up his hands and maintaining a 'safe' distance between them, he gestured to her arm before reaching for the waterskin at his waist. "You're bleeding," he told her calmly, " will you let me clean it?"
Following the line of his gaze, she appeared surprised to see that he was right.
She angled her arm toward him. "Just don't touch me … please."
Carefully, he extended his arm and poured water over the wounds to wash away the blood.
After days of harming herself, the only option that she appeared to have come up with was to try to outrun the horrors. Clint had known it would happen sooner or later; he had counted on it. It was a classic response to PTSD and although he wasn't a shrink, he was familiar enough with what that looked like to be confident she was within that diagnosis profile.
He didn't know what he could do to make her feel safe, except give her time and space. All he could do right now was be there. If she couldn't outrun the horrors then he would let her take out her anger on him.
"You should drink something," he coaxed, offering her the water.
Natasha stared at him warily, muscles taut as if ready to bolt at any moment. Sweat glittered on her brow and her breath was fast and light. They had been hiking for hours, climbing higher and higher up into the mountains. Barton was glad that he had brought bed rolls and his favourite compact bow with them. It had already been a long day and with the distance they had already covered they would not be returning to the cabin before nightfall.
"We should keep moving," she countered, rejecting the offering as she whirled and pushed on further up the trail, scrambling over fallen trees with little of her usual grace.
He could see that she wasn't moving properly, her muscles too tight, her body rebelling against the demands she was placing on it day after day.
Sipping the water, he sighed and turned his attention to the sky, calculating how much daylight they had left and wondering where he could steer her that might allow her to burn off some energy without the need for relentless forward momentum.
"You can do this Barton," he told himself, careful to keep his mutterings out of earshot. He would get her through this, he didn't know how, but he would get her through the day and those that followed somehow.
It was approaching sunset when he finally got to sit down and rest. Leaning against a boulder as he skinned the rabbit that he had hunted down for dinner and prepared it for cooking, Barton kept one ear on the rhythmic sound of an axe colliding with a nearby tree.
After some persuasion he had managed to steer Natasha toward the clearing his grandfather had shown him near the top of the deer trail and had set her to work chopping firewood that would see them through the night. Not only did the axe allow her an outlet for her anger, more importantly it provided one that would keep her in one place for a while. He'd even managed to snag a couple of rabbits with his bow while she was busy, ensuring that they would have the chance to eat something more satisfying than the fruit and snacks that he had packed for the day.
It had taken him hours to coax a little food and water into her but he succeeded in getting her to slow her pace a little and nibble on some raisins as the afternoon wore on. Now as dusk approached, he was wondering how much longer she could keep going. Surely her muscles couldn't have much more to give after the last few days?
"How's the firewood coming?" he called, moving toward the clearing where she had been hard at work for the last hour or so. She looked up at him, eyes full of shadows and gestured vaguely toward the pile of freshly chopped timber that had been steadily growing on the other side of the clearing to where she stood. Wiping the sweat from her eyes, she lowered the axe, using it to partially support her weight as her legs trembled beneath her.
He didn't try to catch her when she collapsed to the ground, not wanting to intrude on her precarious self-control. She ended up on her knees, axe falling to the floor in front of her, all but forgotten in the moment, every breath heaving in and out of her lungs. Approaching cautiously, he waited for the right moment to make his approach. Silent tears flowed down her cheeks as she gulped in air, fighting for control.
It only lasted a moment or two. It felt like a lifetime. When it passed, she slumped forward and cried so hard that he found himself having to fight back his own tears. She fought when he reached out and put his arms around her, but there was no temper behind it and her resistance only lasted a moment. As she cried he held her, rocking her gently until she relaxed enough to lean into his shoulder and accept the comfort that he was offering.
"I'm so tired Clint," she admitted quietly, "but when I'm still it all comes back. I have to keep moving to block it out …"
"Shhh," he comforted, reassured that after hours of near silence interspersed with snarled demands for space, she had finally spoken. "Come on, let's build a fire and set up camp in the clearing for the night."
She didn't resist as he raised her up from the floor, leaving the axe behind and moving to where he had already pulled together a small pile of kindling to make a cooking fire. With a raised eyebrow in his direction when she noticed his efforts, she turned her attention to unpacking the sleeping bags and arranging them on the floor, limping a little as her muscles protested even that small movement. She disappeared to the creek that ran along the furthest edge of the clearing as he built up the fire, returning a few minutes later looking cleaner, a small wash cloth in her hand. "Barton?"
"Hmm?" he replied, busying himself with the fire.
"I think I'm hungry." Relief washed over him, his heart sang in his chest. After refusing food all day, she was hungry.
He looked up, finding her looking slightly lost at the edge of the clearing. She was wearing an expression of exhaustion that he was beginning to recognise all too well. "Then you'll be delighted to know that I'm fixing dinner. Caught us a couple of rabbits while you were busy with the trees back there."
She watched him as he prepared their dinner, moving around the clearing, restless but no longer driven to keep moving. He took it as a good sign when she finally sat down on her bed-roll and an even better one when she reached eagerly for the skewers of rabbit meat he had prepared for her. It was the first time he'd seen her eat with any enthusiasm since they'd left SHIELD together. Side by side they ate, small talk about the terrain and the game that they might come across in the area filling the silence.
When she wasn't looking, he snuck her an extra skewer and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She had been treating her body like an enemy worthy of nothing but punishment and contempt and she was exhausted, both physically and mentally. Before he had even finished packing away the leftovers of their meal, silently thanking his grandfather for teaching him how to survive off the land all those years ago, Natasha was asleep.
Draping another blanket over her, he leaned back against the trunk of a nearby tree and allowed himself to think back to the moment he had found her a few days earlier.
He had gone alone to search the warren of tunnels in the basement of the complex, meaning that he had been the only one who had seen the ruin that had been made of her. The horror began with the video files that showed quite clearly what had happened to her in the days that she had been held. He hadn't taken the time to watch them, deleting them without hesitation so that they could never come back to haunt her.
What he found when he forced open the next door in that hallway still had the power to turn his stomach. Naked and curled into the foetal position, Natasha had been chained to a floor that was stained with her own blood. She'd been barely conscious at first, and then when his entry into the room had roused her, she'd been too weak from days of drug induced sedation and interrogation to do more than lie in a pool of her own blood.
He had seen with his own eyes the injuries that had been inflicted upon her and known that nobody could endure what she had gone through without being changed by the experience. Cutting her loose and helping her into her clothes, Clint had carried her back along those endless hallways to safety.
She had leaned heavily on him, one arm around his shoulders while his own wrapped around her waist, so that she could walk out of the building on her own two feet and face the other agents who had been searching for her. He had known how important it would be to her not to be seen as a victim, not to let others see exactly how she had been victimised.
Throughout all that followed, he stayed close to her side. While she submitted to the attentions of her assigned medic, throughout the transport back to SHIELD HQ and all that followed. He had stayed because the thought of leaving her was inhuman; she had let him because when her judgement was compromised by the drugs that had been forced on her he was the only person she trusted. He had his suspicions about what had happened to her, but her refusal to submit to a full physical examination had gone a long way towards confirming them.
When she had begged him to get her off base and away from the people who wanted to get inside her head, he had, knowing that she was a heartbeat away from cracking wide open, done exactly that, taking her halfway across the country and making sure that she had the time and space she needed. He had given her words and given her his silence, helped to treat her injuries and held her when she broke, offered her his strength and shown her that no matter how bad things got he wasn't going anywhere.
The last few days had been without doubt the most emotionally gruelling he had ever experienced. He didn't regret the choice he had made though, not for a moment, but one thing he knew for sure was that he would never forget how it felt to find her in that room as long as he lived.
He could only imagine how it felt to live with the actual memories of those days.