Haven't done one of these in a while! This time the prompt was hurt/comfort and: "By the time they find Natasha its hard to spot an inch of undamaged skin. She tries for a smirk but there is blood in her teeth, and when they step forward to help she flinches back, grimacing apologetically even as she starts to shake..."
"We've got Banner," Clint says, the words echoing hollow over the comms. He should feel relieved and grateful - Bruce is a teammate, and he's in one piece - but all he can think is how he'd rather be saying We've got Nat.
"Is he-"
"Unconscious," Clint breaks in, speaking over Tony. "Sedated or something."
He watches Sam remove the monitors and IV drip, watches Thor lift Bruce from the metal exam table. If someone in this compound successfully discovered a way to keep Banner's Other Guy at bay, what would they have done to Natasha?
She isn't special, in the traditional sense. She isn't a god, she doesn't have serum enhancements, no arc reactor, no gamma radiation. Why would they want her?
"Has anyone cleared Level 6?" Steve asks as they move into the hallway, and there's something in his tone that sets Clint's nerves on edge, makes him pause just short of following Sam and Thor to the exit.
Everyone sounds off, stating their position. Steve blows out a long, slow breath.
"I've got bodies. It looks like Natasha."
The statement lilts into a question at the end and he knows what Steve really means to say - It looks like Natalia - only Steve's never seen that side of her and doesn't have the words.
"Hold position," Clint barks, and slams into the stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time. There's an odd ringing in his ears that has nothing to do with his aids and everything to do with the way he can't quite breathe at the grim silence from Steve's end.
He finds the first of the bodies Steve mentioned on the landing for Level 6, a man in a lab coat with a length of rebar driven through his eye socket. Natalia's work, alright, either pissed off or terrified. Natasha's kills aren't usually so messy.
Steve opens the door for him, pointing down the hallway beyond with two fingers, a sharp military gesture, then signaling for Clint to be quiet. He looks past Steve to the second body and knows immediately that any sound Steve heard is Natasha and not more enemies.
He makes himself study the corpses, because he has to get a read on her somehow. The closest one is slumped against the wall, one arm raised, the hand pinned above its head with a knife driven through the palm. Routine, if not for the way she took the time to skin the man's arm, wrist to elbow, flesh hanging in long strips toward the floor, no doubt done while he was still alive.
Steve's wearing a convincing poker face, and who knows, maybe he saw worse in the war. Maybe his presence will help rather than hinder.
"No weapons," Clint warns, a soft exhale of breath in the space that suddenly feels dangerously quiet. He rolls his shoulders but can't quite shake the feeling of being watched, the predator versus prey dynamic making him feel vulnerable in a way only Natasha could ever inspire.
He moves down the hall, Steve tight on his heels. The next kill is a little less brutal, a guard with the barrel of his sidearm still jammed in his mouth, brains and blood splattering the wall beside him. Two more lab-coated scientists, empty syringes with huge needles sticking out of their chests.
Then, mercifully, a guard with a simple gunshot wound to the forehead. A guard with a thin red line standing out across his throat, evidence of the garrote Natasha's so fond of. He looks back and studies the trail of bodies again, and maybe Steve doesn't see it, but to him the progression tells a story that makes his heart hammer a little less fiercely.
Steve waves his hand again, indicating the last room on the left; the door stands half open, the room beyond dark.
If he thinks about it, he'll lose his nerve.
"Tasha?" he calls, and flips the light.
There's a flurry of movement from the far side of the room, a crash as a metal surgical tray full of brutal-looking instruments falls to the floor. He freezes, and senses Steve do the same behind him.
One beat, two, three. He isn't dead, and he looses a relieved huff of breath.
"Mission's done," Steve says, the words tight and clipped. "We've got Natasha."
But the mission isn't finished at all, at least not for him. Not by a long shot.
He passes Steve his bow and quiver and comm unit, telegraphing each motion with slow, patient gestures. Natasha crouches behind a lab table and scrutinizes them.
"We're okay," he murmurs, more to settle his own nerves, because holy shit Natasha's good, and if she senses any weakness at all she'll tear him apart. "You're okay."
He chances the smallest step forward; Natasha lifts her chin and narrows her eyes, and it would almost be easier if she were afraid of him. He moves closer like that, a painstaking pace and whispered reassurances. He drops down to mirror her position, leaving some three feet of space between them as a buffer, studying each shift and movement she makes and half expecting her to lunge for him.
She does lean forward, a quick gesture that makes his heart leap into his throat, then-
"Took you long enough," she says coolly.
He finds himself sitting on the floor instead of crouching, his breath coming in ragged bursts as the tension seeps away all at once.
"Asshole," he retorts emphatically.
She smirks then, but any black humor is immediately lost in a wince of pain and the shine of blood in her teeth. It's not just her mouth; she's absolutely covered in blood, hair matted in sticky clumps near a head injury, jeans stained with large black patches. Hell, he could probably wring it out of her shirt if he tried.
He can't quite tell how much of the blood is hers, however. He can make out a number of bruises, some dark purple and some fading already to a sickly yellow-green, she's got a split lip and the cut to her head, superficial knife wounds. No, if he had to hazard a guess, most of the blood belongs to the facility's staff.
"Let's get outta here," he says. He pushes himself up and reaches for her without thinking, takes her hand to pull her up.
She makes a squeaky, hitched noise, not quite a scream, wrenches her hand away and kicks him in the shin, and his chest aches for how terribly he's misjudged the situation.
"S-sorry," she whispers, shaking her head faintly and watching him with wide eyes, her back pressed against the wall, shaking and trembling. Her eyes are too wide, pupils too dilated; he didn't notice before, focused instead on the blood. There's a bruise and a dark smear of red in the crook of her elbow, and he wishes she'd saved him one of the scientist.
"S'alright," he says, shrugging, tone light. She bites her lip and looks away. "You know what they gave you?"
She shakes her head again.
"I can't find Bruce," she says to the floor, sounding a little unsure. "He was afraid."
"He's fine," Clint lies, "they weren't bothering him. You drew them away on purpose, right?"
It's a shot in the dark, but she looks up again and nods once. She relaxes a little, pulls away from the wall, meets his eyes with a searching expression, brows drawn.
"Clint," she says, not a question, but he knows she's grasping for something familiar so he gives her a smirk and draws up a cavalier attitude he doesn't really feel.
"Don't worry, Red. I won't tell anybody you needed extraction."
She narrows her eyes and curls her lips into a sneer at the teasing, but doesn't fire back. She walks with shaky steps to meet him, brushes past him in a barely-composed, too-casual way. He rests his hand against her back out of habit, one of a hundred throwaway intimate gestures they use around each other.
"Don't," she says sharply, and the facade breaks. She dodges away and gives him that apologetic expression again, clenching her hands into fists to hide the trembling in her fingers. "I was back there, and I know it wasn't real but it still feels like it, so...don't."
"You tell me when it's okay," he says. She exhales and some of the tension seeps from her posture.
It's familiar territory - old, but familiar - and his feelings aren't hurt. Maybe it's the drugs or maybe it's the head injury, or a combination of both. It means a bit more work on his part, drawing her out and waiting for the flashes of memory to wane, but he'll take paranoid covered-in-blood Natasha over his initial dread and fear of how the situation could have played out any day. This, whatever this is, they can work through it.
He moves into the hallway and lets Natasha trail behind at a distance. Steve's cleared the space of bodies, and Clint feels a rush of gratitude for the foresight. The stairwell's clear, too.
He throws little glances over his shoulder, studies the way she moves in fleeting looks. She seems steady enough to get herself to the Quinjet, a little too wary and hesitant maybe, but he can't fault her for it.
A new thought hits him. His original plan was to keep quiet and let Natasha come to him, but she might not want everyone seeing her like this, and she'll feel even worse if she ends up lashing out at someone other than him.
She's grown close with the other Avengers, but he's never bothered to ask exactly how comfortable she feels, or how much of herself she's given to the others. She's less guarded with Steve, he's noticed that much, and Tony, oddly enough.
"The team's waiting on the Quinjet," Clint tells her, pausing on the first floor landing. Natasha stops too, three stairs above him. He can see Steve through the little glass window in the door, waiting in the hall beyond. "Do we need to find our own ride back?"
"No," she says, a little hesitant. Then, stronger, "No. It's fine."
He takes her at her word, when probably none of the others would.
Steve doesn't question why Natasha's walking a solid ten feet behind him. They move through the facility and across the grounds, into the darkness of a moonless night. The Quinjet's parked on a ridge half a mile away, through sparse woods and across a shallow slow-moving creek.
He senses Natasha moving closer as they walk, closing in on him as the trees push together. She takes his hand.
"Hi," she breathes, and his next few steps are as unsteady as hers as relief sweeps through him. He turns to catch her eye - her fingers twitch in his grasp and begin to slide away - but he tightens his grip and pulls her in closer.
"Hi, Tasha."
She smiles, just a small one, a tremulous expression that wavers and breaks too quickly, but it's real and it's enough. Mission accomplished.