Specifically requested angst for this one. XD Prompt: "I can't breathe"
The ground drops out beneath her and she hits the freezing water with a yelp of surprise that isn't at all becoming of the Black Widow. The cold shocks the air from her lungs, numbing her fingers and toes almost instantly.
The river was frozen solid not fifteen minutes ago, so the hole has to be from a stray missile or repulsor blast, and if it's the repulsors she's going to absolutely murder Tony for compromising their escape route.
She kicks hard for the surface, but the frigid night air doesn't bite her cheeks as expected. She bangs her head against something hard and unyielding instead. Panic swells in her chest.
Panic won't get her out of the river. She clamps it down and forces her eyes open despite the stinging cold. The ice is black above her, but there, ahead, a lighter patch with jagged edges.
She kicks again, pulls herself toward the shaft of twilit water, limbs moving more on force of will than because she can actually feel them. She doesn't make progress. The escape route draws in on itself, becomes smaller, until she realizes the river has a current. A current stronger than her poor attempts at swimming.
Oh god, and don't panic flash across her mind simultaneously. She swims, even without progress, because she wasn't trained to give up.
She doesn't give up, but her lungs burn and her chest aches and she can't think of a real way out. Her weapons are all useless. Useless if she wants to live, that is. She contemplates the Widow's Bites. Would electrocution be quicker, less painful, than drowning?
A flicker of shadow brings her back from that dark corner of her mind. One booted foot dips into the water, just for a moment, before drawing back.
Clint.
And the terror sleeps. He almost fell in after her, but he knows about the hole in the ice. It's fine now. They'll laugh about it on the Quinjet later.
She fights her way toward him, still no progress, but the current doesn't sweep her further along either. Shadows flicker again as he brushes away the thin dusting of snow from the surface of the ice.
He starts near the breach, gloved fingers working methodically as he searches for her. She can't call his name to draw him closer, but she wills him to move further down the expanse of ice. Her strokes and kicks devolve into disjointed paddling.
His movements become frantic, and he gives up clearing a clean line of snow with his hands in favor of spot checking and scraping the snow away with his boots.
The seconds stretch, fear seeps in again to grip her heart, but he's drawn to her as always and his shadow looms over her.
Maybe he meets her eyes, she can't tell in the dark, but there's a determined set to his shoulders as he pulls an arrow and draws his bow. He aims a bit in front, and she sees how he means the rescue to go. Shoot out the ice, work with the current, pull her out. Easy.
She hasn't counted the seconds underwater, and wills herself not to start now; she's good for ninety, she knows that, while Clint always hits closer to the two minute mark in their S.H.I.E.L.D. evaluations.
It's been a minute, she decides firmly, as Clint looses the arrow. She can hold out another thirty seconds.
There's a flash and she feels the explosion ripple through the water, but there isn't the expected escape route. Clint takes a step forward and fires again, two arrows in quick succession.
Still nothing.
Clint charges forward and she follows without thinking. She wastes oxygen swimming with the current to reach him, and finds him on his knees.
The explosives left tiny cracks and fissures, all near the surface. The ice above her head feels smooth and unyielding when she runs her hand across it.
The end, then. She doesn't mind so much, except for being separated from Clint. He's safe, however, not hunkered over her body in a firefight or being tortured for information alongside her. A consolation.
The cold was always going to take her. She was born in it, raised in it, ice and snow flow in her blood. She resigned herself years ago to an end without warmth or comfort.
Clint sweeps more snow away, presses his palm flat against the ice above her. She watches his mouth move, his face distorted through the water, and she knows he's shouting for her even though she can't hear. She touches her hand briefly against his, and he stops yelling and starts pounding the ice with his fists instead.
It breaks her. It breaks him, too, and she aches for the fact that he'll have to live with this memory far longer than she will.
He leans down close, nose almost pressed to the ice, and this time she does catch his gaze. She tries to tell him everything she can't say, then in a foggy stroke of inspiration she signs to him, sloppy gestures with numb fingers, but he understands. He scrubs a hand across his eyes and shakes his head, and she knows he's got it.
It's okay and I love you and you saved me.
She tries to hold on for him, god how she tries, but it hurts so much, and even though she knows it won't work, Clint will despise her for giving up, she's been trained better than this, she gives in and lets her body suck in a reflexive breath.
Clint is warmth and air and home, Clint always drags her back into the light, but this time...this time….
I can't breathe.
Everything's dark.