Disclaimer: I do not own "The Avengers" or any of the characters affiliated with them. If I did, there would totally be a Hawkeye/Black Widow movie in the works. I do not claim any of the directly quoted lines from "The Avengers" as my own, they belong to Marvel and the writers. The cover art came from a google search with the original source being pinterest where it was credited to Anthony Genuardi.
Author's Note: While I embrace constructive criticism, remember this old saying if you choose to leave a review "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"
Alrighty, thanks to all who reviewed Chapter 14: Batghost, GremlinX, nowgiveusakiss-a, JRBarton, Well done you, darkdestiney2000, LostHawk, CyanB, Qweb, Carolinagirl117, Lollypops101, Sandy-wmd, weemcg33, R1dDL3M37h15, Wolfsdrache, StumpyTPDimples, GinervaMarieChaseEverdeen, Kirstiej104, BatmanOtaku, quiet-raindrop, Belice, discordchick, yevguine, BooksAreMedicine, RAGAnne, skoreangirl tina, penguinecrazy, thababes, Natalia Grayson, ladybug114, 3, piper, GreenLoki, ILuvClintasha, Arlothia, jaguarspot, Rogueroza, and animexluva13
You can guess the song up until I tell you what it is in the final chapter!
As usual, thank you to my wonderful betas Kylen and JRBarton. Who knows where i'd be without them :)
to darkdestiney2000: we won't find out this story, but we will in the rewrite of Vantage Point :)
to skoreangirl tina: Natasha has a lot on her own mind right now. She's doing her absolute best to be there for Clint, and be what he needs, but SHE is grieving too. She lost two good friends too. This whole thing knocked her off balance too. So no, she's not reading him as well as she usually does, but it's understandable. I'm not gonna give away if Phil's really dead in the VPU, you'll find out for sure in the next story though :) I get the quotes through targeted google searches lol, like this story it was 'quotes about war' or 'quotes about going to war' and the like. Then I find a ton and narrow it down to my favorites depending on what might work for one chapter and how many I need.
to thababes: lol, I don't even know if Clint loving kids can even be classified as 'lowkey' haha, he pretty much TURNS INTO ONE any time he's around one lol Don't you worry, Clint will get to meet Baby Wilson one day :)
to Natalia Grayson: the Milestone one shot that follows this is Milestone 9, it's not in this story since it is its own thing :)
to 3: I hope you buy my novels one day too!
to jaguarspot: i'm in Virginia so I'm only what, an hour or two a head of you lol. I'm glad you reviewed though, even if you lost some sleep over it - and ah yes, Dan does need to pass on Todd's final words doesn't he? :)
to Rogueroza: one of the best ways to improve your writing is to read, read, read. It is such an honor and a compliment that my work is one of the things you read to help improve yours :)
Now, on we go!
Last time in The Untold Stories:
"Let's go," she stepped back to give him room to shift his legs back into place on his Ducati. Then she climbed on behind him. Clint waited for her to get settled, waited for her arms to wrap tightly around his waist, then he put the dispersing funeral in his rearview and didn't look back.
Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
John F. Kennedy
April 19, 2012
2:07am
Undisclosed safe house, Southern California
"You have shown me your heart, Agent Barton."
Clint flinched, eyes snapping open. His hand tightened instinctively around the gun he'd slid under his pillow when he and Natasha had gone to bed, but his hand closed into an empty fist. Adrenaline surged through his system, sending every sense into overdrive.
He was out of the bed with a twist of his body, set in his combat stance, with his eyes searching for the threat.
"Tash!" he hissed lowly, knowing the call would rouse her from even the deepest sleep.
But the lump under the blankets on the other side of the bed didn't move, didn't even stir.
Clint's eyes continued to scan the room, looking for the owner of that voice – looking for Loki. He didn't know how the god had gotten back from Asgard. Or how he had found them. They were so off the radar, the road that led to the road that led this house wasn't even on a map.
"Natasha!" he called again, firmer this time, even as he moved over to his pile of clothes at the foot of the bed and patted around for his knives. Frustration swept through him when he found those gone as well.
When his partner still didn't move, Clint made his way quickly to her side of the bed, reaching for her shoulder. It was as dangerous to wake her by touch as it was to wake him that way – they'd learned both the hard way early on – but the beginnings of panic were filtering into his veins and he'd feel better with her by his side.
"Natasha." He shook her blanketed shoulder, only to have the blanket collapse under his hand, falling to the bed as if there had never been a body beneath it.
Clint drew back his hand as if he'd just found a rattle snake in the bed, panic starting to weave in a little thicker. Slowly, he reached for the blanket, jerking it back and casting it to the foot of the bed.
The bed was empty.
"Natasha…"
"Now I will show you how I will destroy it." The words were whispered at his shoulder in that low, silky voice Clint had come to hate with every piece of his soul.
He whirled, swinging his fist into a hard cross that met nothing but air.
He looked around wildly, heart pounding, but he was alone.
For a moment, the only sound he heard was his own harsh panting.
Then…
"CLINT!"
Her scream had him bolting for the door without a processed thought. He tore into the hallway, sprinting down the short distance to the living area.
"NAT!"
"CLINT!" she screamed again, but it was outside now. Clint all but dove for the front door, ripping it open just as a gut-wrenching scream broke the stillness of the black night.
Clint cleared the five front porch stairs in a single leap, feet sinking into the sand and then kicking it up as he spun, searching the darkness for her.
"NATASHA!" he yelled, only to be answered by another blood curdling scream.
He turned towards its source and took off in a sprint.
He hit the beach at a dead run, arms pumping and lungs burning. He skidded to a halt, looking one way – seeing nothing – and spinning to look the other.
Then he saw her.
She was on the ground, straddled by a man in all black, being beaten and brutalized.
Rage blacked out his vision and he ran. He hit her attacker at a full sprint, and with all the precision of an all-star linebacker making a game-winning tackle.
The hit carried them both rolling into the sand. They grappled brutally, exchanged blows viciously, and drew blood ruthlessly.
But when he truly saw black, as he was right now, Clint couldn't be bested.
He had his opponent pinned in less than 90 seconds.
He ripped the man's hood back, exposing his shadowed face.
The entire world around him went dead silent – not even the waves crashed, not even his heart beat.
It was him.
He was staring down at himself. His doppelgänger's eyes were dark and vicious, but they were his. The smirk was cruel and twisted, but it was his.
Clint felt his jaw go slack as he stared, eyes wide and horrified.
"Look what you did…" His other self nodded towards where he'd last seen Natasha.
Clint's eyes strayed to her immediately.
She was broken in a way he'd never seen. She was bleeding from more places than she wasn't and bruised everywhere else. Her clothes were in disarray and her hair a knotted mess around her head. Her usually sharp green gaze was practically catatonic. If he hadn't been able to see her chest rise and fall, he'd have been sure she was dead.
"You do good work when you set your mind to it."
Clint heard his twin speak, but didn't look at him. He couldn't pull his eyes from Natasha.
He'd done this.
"You, who she holds most dear, will be her undoing and her end."
Loki's words floated on the wind like a whisper but Clint knew that even if he looked, the god would be nowhere in sight.
Abruptly, Natasha blinked, eyes focusing on his.
"Clint…please…"
"Natasha…" He scrambled away from the man he held subdued and went to her side, but she flinched away. "Natasha…" he tried again, softer this time.
"Why?" she asked through cracked and bleeding lips, her face twisted in pain. "How could you?"
"I…" Clint shook his head. He had done this, hadn't he? He had wanted this? He had enjoyed it just as Loki had demanded of him.
If that were true, why did he feel like his heart was being torn from his chest?
"How could you?" she asked again, weaker this time. That was when he saw the knife, the one she'd given him, buried to the hilt in her gut. He tried to reach for it, but found his arms had become like lead. He couldn't move no matter how hard he tried.
"Help me, Clint," she pleaded brokenly.
He strained against whatever was holding him captive, but couldn't break free.
"Why won't you help me?" she asked in a soft whisper even as her eyes slid shut.
"No...no, no, no…Natasha! Open your eyes! NATASHA!"
Clint closed his eyes and threw every ounce of strength he had into breaking free. And just like that…it worked. He nearly fell forward due to the sudden lack of restraint, but caught himself, eyes snapping open.
His hand moved forward but dug into nothing but sand.
Natasha was gone.
He searched the area frantically, opening his mouth to call her name.
But before he could make a sound another shout rose from somewhere behind him. It was a shout of pain and shock. A shout that was familiar and that belonged to a voice he'd know anywhere.
Phil.
He whirled in time to see Phil falling to the ground, a bleeding wound painting his chest red.
"NO!" he screamed as he surged to his feet and ran towards him. A foot away he slammed to a halt when he ran headlong into some sort of invisible wall. It was like a force field keeping him at bay, and no matter how hard he kicked it, punched it, or threw his body against it, he couldn't break through.
Finally, he went to his knees, eyes wide as he watched Phil struggle to breath.
"Phil!"
His handler's eyes rose to meet his, but nowhere was the warmth and affection that had always been present over the last nearly nine years. Instead there was nothing but contempt and anger.
"You let this happen."
"Phil…"
"You led him here!"
Clint didn't have a defense. It was true.
"You did this, Clint! You killed me!"
He had.
"And you killed her!"
He knew without looking, that Natasha's body was there again, resting on the sand next to him, bloody and broken.
"You are poison, Clint…you always have been. I just wish I'd seen it before it got me killed."
Clint shook his head. It was all true. He'd not-so-secretly believed it for as long as he could remember. People he cared about, they got hurt.
But hearing Phil say it – Phil who he'd come to count on so completely. He couldn't take it. Not from him.
"My greatest regret," Phil glared at him, "is you."
Clint closed his eyes and dropped his head, feeling his shoulders bow under the weight of Phil's scathing words.
"I will break you and leave you shattered on the ground."
Clint kept his eyes closed as the words floated around him, poisoning the air. It wasn't until an iron grip – stronger than anything he'd ever felt before – latched onto his shoulder that his eyes snapped open. He caught a glimpse of green and gold and then he was landing hard on his back.
Loki loomed over him.
"Show me what you fear," the god hissed just as he reached to take Clint's head in his hands.
Then there was nothing but all consuming pain.
Clint jackknifed with a desperate gasp, like a diver surfacing after too long without oxygen. He blinked down the sights of his Desert Eagle and searched the room.
Loki was here. He could feel him. Couldn't he?
"Clint?"
The bed shifted behind him and a hand ghosted over his shoulder without touching it. She knew better, especially when he was armed.
Clint blinked, trying to sift through all the raging instincts screaming at him – trying to sort out what was genuine and what was a product of the dream.
"Hey? You with me?"
Clint continued to stare down the length of his gun, frowning slightly when he noticed the gun shaking. Only it wasn't the gun. It was his hand.
"God, you're shaking. Clint, snap out of it and talk to me!" Her voice had grown sharper, an unfamiliar undercurrent of fear making itself known.
The previously withheld hand landed on his shoulder, shaking him roughly.
He dropped the gun like it was red hot, and watched it fall harmlessly to the blanket. He turned, keeping his back to her as he put his feet on the cool hardwood of the floor.
"Clint, you're scaring me here."
He swallowed thickly, trying to force moisture into his dry throat so he could speak.
"I'm fine."
The hand on his shoulder tightened, her fingernails digging into his skin.
"Don't pull that bullshit with me. Talk to me." Even as she spoke she moved, climbing over the bed and going to her knees in front of him.
He shook his head.
"It was just a dream." He barely believed himself and wasn't all that surprised when she didn't buy it either.
"Bullshit it was just a dream. Did you remember something?"
He shook his head.
"No." It wasn't a complete lie. The dream had been a twisted version of what might have been – or what was in Phil's case. The only part linked to real memory had been Loki's words. He'd never forgotten those…so really he hadn't remembered anything. It was a technicality, a weak one, but it was the only defense he had.
"Then what was it about?"
Clint just shook his head, reaching to rub his eyes. God, his head hurt. His head always hurt now. Maybe Loki had fucked something up for real in there, no matter what the scans had shown.
"Clint, don't do this, okay? Don't try and carry this by yourself. We're in this together."
But they weren't. Not really. Because she didn't know the whole story. She didn't know because he was lying to her.
"Talk to me," she demanded firmly, but at the same time with such a gentle warmth that he nearly buckled.
He raised his gaze to meet hers, the sincerity in her eyes twisting his heart.
He opened his mouth, hesitated, and then went on,
"It was just a dream," he said again. "About the footage I watched…about Loki killing him."
Another half-truth. He couldn't tell her the rest though. Because he wasn't supposed to remember what Loki had said to him, or what Loki had made him want to do to her.
Her gaze softened, as it always did when he mentioned Phil – or didn't mention him as the case tended to be. He hadn't been able to bring himself to say Phil's name since that day outside Fury's office when he'd spit undeserved venom at her.
Before she could offer empty comforts that he didn't want, he stood, moving past her.
"Go back to sleep. I'm fine."
"Where are you going?" she asked, voice tense and poorly masking her worry, as he made his way to the bedroom door.
He didn't look back as he walked out.
"For a run."
He heard her stand and follow him, but he ignored her.
Instead he headed through the house and to the front door as if she wasn't even there.
Thunder rumbled as he hit the sand and kicked into a run, ignoring the immediate flair of pain in his leg and ankle. When he reached the water front a few moments later, he headed up the beach, pushing himself faster.
She was still trying to follow.
He ran faster.
She was fast, damn fast…but he was faster. Even his injuries wouldn't slow him down. He wouldn't let them. Pain only existed if you acknowledged it. It only slowed you down if you cared about it.
It didn't take long before she started to fall behind.
He still pushed himself harder, until he could barely even sense her presence behind him on the beach anymore.
When the first drops fell, he ignored them.
When those drops turned into a steady rain, he just kept going.
When that rain turned into a downpour, he just pushed himself harder.
Running with broken ribs was painful, dangerous if any of them were displaced. Sprinting with broken ribs was like stabbing yourself over and over with a hot poker. And breathing was like getting hit in the chest with a crowbar.
But he didn't stop.
He embraced the pain.
She was gone now, not even a spot in the distance. Maybe she'd still try to catch up, maybe she'd just wait for him to come back. Either way, he'd left her behind. Guilt swept through him, but after lying to her about Loki for days now, he'd gotten good at ignoring it.
He kept running until his bad leg finally gave out, sending him tumbling into an ungraceful sprawl that he barely managed to turn into a semi-graceful roll that mostly protected his ribs. He stopped his momentum and came to his hands and knees, forehead pressed into the wet sand. For a moment he just let the rain beat down on him, plastering his shirt to his body and his hair to his head. The waves seemed to crash in time with the rolling thunder and even through his closed eyelids he saw lightning split the sky.
He hated the rain – so goddamned much. He hated the memories it brought. He hated the pain those memories awakened.
But right now. He embraced it. He deserved it.
"I will break you and leave you shattered on the ground." The memory of Loki's words haunted him, bringing fresh anger bubbling to the surface.
He sat up abruptly, flinging fistfuls of sand into the night with a guttural yell.
"You goddamned bastard!" he shouted at the sky. "Why didn't you just kill me?"
No answer was forthcoming, but he hadn't expected it to be. He knew the answer anyway. Loki had needed him. He needed him to do what he did best – kill.
And he had. He'd nearly killed the only woman he'd ever let himself truly care about, a woman who owned him, heart and soul. He had killed the man that had saved that soul to begin with. He'd brought Phil's death. He'd brought Todd's death and countless others.
Because he was weak.
Clint stood, grim determination taking root. He started back towards their hidden safe house, slowly at first and then faster. Soon he was running again, moving through the rain at a pace that made his legs burn, his ankle throb and his lungs ache. That sent knives of pain through his chest as his broken ribs protested.
But he didn't stop, not when the pain threatened to force him to listen, not when he blew past Natasha on the beach, leaving her scrambling to about-face and chase after him again.
He didn't stop until he hit the front porch.
He slammed his way into the house and made for his bow and quiver. He didn't even bother grabbing the entire quiver, he just snatched a handful of arrows and jerked them free, sending the quiver crashing to the ground and scattering the remaining arrows in a wide arc.
He ignored it and headed back the way he'd come. When he hit the sand, he knelt, slamming the arrows tip first into the soft ground – save one. He set that one in place and drew the bow string back to his cheek.
It hurt. He'd done this too much over the last several days. He hadn't given his body time to heal from Loki's abuse and the battle that followed.
But he forced himself to hold the pose, embracing the pain.
He deserved it.
Only when his arms started to shake, with the rain still pouring down around him, did he finally let the arrow fly.
When it hit, dead center in the trunk of a nearby palm tree, it wasn't Loki's face he pictured. The anger and hate…it had shifted.
Because now the face he saw…
It was his own.
Natasha ignored the driving rain as she raced back up the beach, back the way she'd come just minutes ago. She'd been waiting for this, waiting for Clint to snap. His hold on his emotions had been white knuckled since he'd found out about Phil, his grasp on his control had grown more tenuous as the days passed. Their arrival at their Southern California safe house should have brought peace, but instead, in the last 48 hours, things just seemed to have gotten worse.
She made it back to their sandy front yard in time to see him release an arrow towards a tree, a look of such complete and utter hate on his face that she knew exactly who he was picturing. There was only one person Clint could hate with that much passion.
Himself.
He snatched another arrow out of his stockpile in the sand and drew his bow again, letting it fly with a vicious growl.
Something was wrong, more wrong than it had been lately. That dream had more to it than he was admitting. That much was obvious. She had thought last night was the worst of it. He'd woken after only a couple of hours in a panicked, cold sweat. He'd put himself through punishing rounds of archery until he couldn't even draw his bow anymore or keep a grip on the string with his fingers.
But then, after a few hours had passed, he'd seemed to find some semblance of calm.
He'd started talking to her again, he tried to eat, even went swimming with her when she asked.
She'd thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd find some kind of peace here.
She saw now, that it had just been the tip of the iceberg. The really dangerous, devastating part of this mess had still been hidden beneath the surface.
She made her way slowly towards him, pausing when he drew another arrow and waiting until he let it loose before continuing her approach.
"Clint," she called firmly.
He didn't acknowledge her, instead he reached to his stockpile in the sand and grabbed another arrow.
"Clint," she tried again, throwing some sternness into her tone.
He drew the bow string back to his cheek and held it in place.
"Go inside," he commanded lowly, so low that she barely heard him over the rain.
"No." Her stubborn refusal didn't even draw his eye. He just stayed there, as unmoving as a stone statue, bow drawn, eyes down range at the tree already littered with arrows.
"Go inside." His voice dropped even lower, an undercurrent of anger simmering below the surface.
She came closer, matching his hardening tone with a firmness in her own.
"No."
His arms quaked. He still held the string taut.
"I'm not leaving you alone," she insisted. Not like this. Dan's last piece of advice to her echoed through her head.
"Be there."
Just when she thought his arms couldn't hold the tension anymore and that his fingers were just going to give out, he released the arrow. It had barely even cleared his bow before he was standing, whirling to face her.
"Don't you get it yet?" he spat darkly. "Alone is what I want!" He stalked a step closer, but only one. "I don't want you out here, Natasha."
"He's going to tell you to leave, and knowing Barton, he's going to do everything in his power to try and drive you away."
She shook her head in refusal.
"Be there."
"You're not alone Clint, I'm not leaving you." Maybe if she said it enough times, if she was stubborn enough, he'd believe it.
He growled a sound that was somewhere between rage and frustration.
"But I am alone!" he shouted, making her blink in shock. Clint never shouted. When he was angry, he dropped his voice, made himself sound even more lethal and dark. He didn't need to shout to strike terror. That he was doing it now, it only told her that things were even worse than they seemed. His control was unraveling by the second.
"I'm so goddamned alone there's not a soul within miles!" He gestured around him with a desperate sort of sarcasm.
"He's going to be hurting, and he's going to take the pain out on you."
"I'm right here, Clint," she assured firmly, venturing slowly closer. He matched her advance with his own retreat.
"You're here, but you're not here, Natasha." He tapped the tip of his bow roughly against his own temple. "And you could never understand," he scoffed, "I thank God that you could never understand."
She scowled, wiping her wet hair out of her eyes.
"You think I don't get it? I get it, Clint. Better than anyone. You know that."
He shook his head.
"It's not the same."
"The hell it's not."
"It's not."
"Why?" she demanded sharply.
"Because what happened to you, it wasn't your fault!"
Natasha wanted to slap him, or punch him, or strangle him. She settled for pressing her hands to her own temples in frustration.
"And what happened to you wasn't yours!" she yelled. Why couldn't he just accept that? Why did he have to take the entire weight of the world on his shoulders? She wanted to take whoever had told him once upon a time that all that was wrong in the world was his fault and dismember them. She had a distinct feeling that culprit's name was Barney fucking Barton.
"Go back inside." His voice was made of ice and stone, nothing but sharp points and hard edges.
She saw it then, the line he was drawing, it was written in that hard gaze.
You walk away, or I will.
She stared at him, hardly believing he was throwing down an ultimatum. She thought for sure it was a bluff. That he was trying to bully her into giving him what he wanted.
But Clint hadn't done 'alone' well in a very long time. He'd admitted that fact a more than once over the years. She had to believe that somewhere inside, he remembered that. And that he didn't really want her to leave.
"Be there."
So she stayed stubbornly immobile, staring at him defiantly through the rain.
She watched his jaw clench, saw walls slam into place in his expression, and then could only stare as he turned away from her. He leaned to snatch his stock of arrows from the ground and then headed to the tree.
"Clint…" she followed warily. He yanked his arrows free in one movement, their grouping was that close together. He added them to the rest and then started back towards the beach without even looking at her.
"Clint!" she called, jogging after him.
He turned, pinning her with a look so hard that she froze in place. He'd never, not even when he'd been sighting down an arrow to kill her, looked at her like that.
"Do not follow me." Never in her life had she heard a man be able to put such anger and force into such quietly spoken words. And she had known some terrible, terrifying men.
When he turned away again and started walking, she didn't follow.
She stood, frozen in place for several minutes, watching him disappear down the beach.
Only when the rain started to let up – it never rained long in Southern California when it bothered to rain at all – did she move. She numbly moved back to the house and sank down on to the front porch steps.
Something wasn't right. Something more than just losing Phil. This, tonight, this wasn't the withdrawn disassociation she'd come to expect. This was anger. This was rage.
At himself.
She frowned, pieces starting to fall into place as she thought back over the last several days since he'd woken up. Small contradictions, indicators, easily missed in the moment in light of the war they'd been fighting. The zoning out. The PTSD-like symptoms.
It hit her like a freight train then, and she knew.
He remembered.
She stood, ready to take off after him and call him on all the bullshit. To force him to confront what Loki had done to him once and for all. To tell her so that she could help him.
She only made it a few steps before she stopped herself, some of the righteous, hurt anger draining out of her.
Not so long ago, she'd been the liar. He had forgiven her, had let it go. He'd let it go because it had been a lie born of necessity, had been unavoidable.
She found herself realizing now that the same was true here.
If Clint was lying about this, about something this big, then it meant he needed to. Maybe it was because he couldn't face it. Maybe he didn't want to talk about it. Maybe he just needed, right now, to pretend he didn't remember.
Maybe he needed the lie to keep going. Maybe, right now, the lie was a kind of armor when every other defense had been stripped away.
She backed up, sinking heavily back onto the porch steps.
It hurt, being lied to. But Natasha had grown used to pain.
If this is what he needed…if the lie helped him in some way…
She'd let him have it.
She'd do as Dan had told her and she'd be there. She'd wait, as patiently as she could…as patiently as he needed her to. When he was ready to tell the truth, she'd be ready to listen…and to forgive. Because no matter what he'd done, no matter what lies he told, she would never walk away.
He was hers. She was his.
No matter what.
That's just the way this shit worked.
6 hours later…
Clint approached the front porch slowly, eyes pinned on the figure draped against the front step railing. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted against the railing post, arms wrapped around her knees where they were bent in front of her.
Her hair had been swept back from her face at some point, it fell now in wild waves long since dried from the rain.
Her eyes opened slowly as he approached and the calm in her expression did nothing to ease the trepidation he felt.
He'd been wrong to walk away. He'd been even more wrong to stay away for so long. But he'd needed space to breathe, to think. The dream had woken something in his soul, a restlessness. It had woken a desire he hadn't felt in a long time – the desire to run. Not just run down the beach, but run away. For the first time since he'd walked across that tarmac in Debrecen and agreed to Phil's offer to join SHIELD, he wanted to run. He wanted, more than anything, to leave every bit of it behind.
Every bit but her. She was the only thing he had left now, leaving her wasn't even a whisper of a thought in his mind. But walking away like that, staying gone, it had sent the exact opposite message. And she didn't deserve that.
She was just worried about him, he knew that. He'd disappeared on her with Loki. She'd want him in her sights as much as she wanted to be there as support. He would know – he felt the same way after what happened in Germany.
He watched her slowly stand and come down the steps to stand toe to toe with him. He met her gaze and waited. Her eyes shifted, visually scanning him. He knew she'd see the sweat still drying on his bare chest and face. She'd see the tremble in his hands from firing his bow for too long. She'd see the dried blood from the cuts the bow string had left on his fingers. She'd hear the way his breathing wasn't quite even because his ribs had resorted to drastic measures to get his attention.
Her eyes rose back to his but she still didn't say a word.
Clint swallowed and wet his lips with his tongue.
"I'm sorry."
She nodded slightly, gave him one last once over with her eyes and then turned on her heel. She scaled the porch stairs and went into the house without even glancing back to see if he'd follow.
He did.
By the time he'd made it through the front door and closed it behind him, she was opening the first aid kit on the kitchen table. He rested his bow against the wall by the door and tossed his few surviving arrows to the floor next to it.
She glared him into a chair and with a gentleness contradictory to her stern expression she pulled his left hand up on to the table.
It was only as she started cleaning the cuts on his fingers that she finally spoke.
"Hours, Clint. You were gone for hours. I would slap the shit out of you for disappearing on me like that if you didn't look so damn beat to hell already."
The quiet comment had him fighting the urge to go find a mirror. He hadn't looked in one since the Brooklyn safe house before the funeral. He'd looked bruised and battered then, and his numerous bruises would have darkened by now. The fact that he looked bad enough that she hadn't hit him outright for being such an ass suggested he looked about as bad as he felt.
For a moment he silently watched her clean the cuts on his fingers and carefully wrap them in gauze. He waited until she was tossing the few supplies she'd taken out back into the first aid kit before speaking.
"I shouldn't have taken off on you like that," he offered quietly.
She nodded and closed the first aid kit, refusing to meet his eyes. She started to turn away to return the kit to its spot under the kitchen sink but he caught her wrist.
"Natasha…"
The tone – like her name was a whispered prayer – got her, it always did. She clenched her jaw and let him pull her down into the other chair.
"I won't do it again." And he wouldn't. He'd walked away from her exactly one other time, when they fought and called it quits before Germany. It remained one of his most stinging regrets. He'd almost not gotten to her in time after that. He almost hadn't gotten a chance to make it right.
She nodded again and finally met his gaze.
He was gutted by the emotion in her eyes. She would never say it, but he could see it clearly in her eyes. She'd been afraid he wasn't coming back. She'd been afraid he'd leave her behind. It was exactly what he'd known his actions would cause, but seeing it staring back at him made his heart clench.
He reached out instinctively, tightening his hands around hers.
"I would never leave you behind, Natasha. Not unless you wanted me to and maybe not even then."
The corner of her mouth quirked a little at the last part and he let his own lips turn up slightly before sobering.
"No matter how screwed up I am right now, it's still you and me. I swear, okay? I won't leave you."
He could see in her eyes that she believed him.
"And I won't leave you, okay?" she replied quietly. "Wherever we go, whatever we decide to do…we do it together."
He nodded and released her hands, sitting back.
"I thought a lot about that while I was out there," he said. Her eyebrow quirked curiously. "I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back to SHIELD. I don't want to go back to the Avengers."
Surprise lit her gaze, and hidden beneath it was immediate understanding.
"Are you sure?" she asked seriously, not challenging him, not trying to talk him out of it. Just being there, being whatever he needed.
God, he loved this woman so damn much. Only 'love' never had and never could adequately describe the depth and power of what he felt for her. And after hearing Alexi proclaim his 'love' for her, Clint would never be able to bring himself to define what he felt in the same terms. What they had, it just was. It didn't need defining.
His mouth quirked warmly and he nodded.
"Everything that's happened. Loki…and," his throat tightened and he had to clear his throat before he could go on, "and everything he did…I don't think I want to be around those memories, don't want to risk them coming back." Then, to perpetuate the lie he was living, "I don't want to remember, Natasha."
But really, he didn't want to go back because he did remember. And the thought of walking the halls of the Helicarrier, of passing the detention room where Phil had died, it made him sick. The thought of walking the streets of Manhattan again, where a battle had raged just days ago made him twitchy with something vaguely reminiscent of PTSD.
He'd been through a lot in his life. He'd lost everything at a very young age. Then he had been shuffled into an abusive – both violently and otherwise – orphanage. After running away, he had joined the circus and entered into apprenticeship with Jacques – who'd been more verbally abusive than violently, though he'd had his moments.
When he had been betrayed and nearly murdered by his own brother, it had been the beginning of the end for his time at Carson's. He'd been briefly apprenticed to a new mentor, who was in no way abusive but remained a dick all the same. Then had come his year in the U.S. Army, followed by a few months in military prison, a year as a contract assassin, and then nearly nine years as a SHIELD agent. His career there had been peppered with both minor and life-threatening injuries. Through all of it, he rolled with the punches – for the most part, at least. He'd managed to keep his head above water. To always keep fighting.
He'd met Phil and he'd found the strength to do more – to be better. To stop existing and start living again. To fight harder to be something more than he'd ever thought he could be.
With everything he'd been through in his life, a simple bout of alien mind control shouldn't even be front-page news. But it was. It was the goddamned headline and he couldn't find a way to cope.
And really, he supposed – one way or the other – it all came down to control. Loki had stolen his control. And when he'd managed to retain a tiny fingertip grasp on a tendril of it, Loki had violently ripped it away.
He'd only felt completely out of control three times in his life before Loki. Once, on his seventh birthday when Phillip Jacobs had come into the bunkroom and over to his bed in the middle of the night for the first time. He'd taken that control back a couple of weeks later when he fought back, broke the bastard's nose, and started sleeping in the rafters of the barn.
The second time he'd been 15 and had been lying in the mud, rain pouring down on him, with a knife sticking out of his chest. Barney's betrayal had ripped away the very foundation of Clint's entire life up to that point. In those dark, terrifying moments before Buck came to his aid, his entire world unraveled. He'd realized that there was nothing he could control in that moment, not if his brother loved or hated him, not if he'd ever see Barney again, not even if he would live or die. When he'd woken in the hospital, control over himself and his situation became something like an obsession.
The third time, he'd been tied to a chair in Uzbekistan, blindfolded and gagged, undergoing vicious torture. He'd flirted with PTSD after that, had been convinced that they'd taken every ounce of control from him and he hadn't been able to handle it. How could he, when he'd spent every day since he was 15 keeping control in a white-knuckled grip? Phil had been the one to show him that just by surviving, by being able to take what they dealt out, he had held onto some small shred of control.
But this was different. Loki hadn't just taken away his free will, he'd imposed his own will on Clint. Loki had invaded his mind and subjected him to what equated to mental torture beyond anything he'd ever thought was possible. Maybe that was the difference. Loki had been in his head. There had been no escape. Clint had been helpless to fight him off – though he'd tried, God he'd tried. He'd paid for that resistance too.
And even though he had control of himself and his mind again, he still found himself doing mental checks all the time to make sure Loki was really gone, that he hadn't come back.
Going back, it would only reinvigorate the memories.
And he wasn't exactly lying. He didn't want to remember. All he wanted to do was forget.
He'd promised Phil he wouldn't go backwards, that he'd keep fighting…but he couldn't. He didn't have it in him to fight anymore.
"If that's what you want, we won't go back," Natasha's calm acceptance drew his mind back to the moment. "We'll find somewhere far away and get some real distance."
With her on board, he suddenly had the urge to just go, right now. To just grab their stuff and head for the nearest border or airport.
"Then let's go," he said suddenly, "right now. Let's get our stuff and just go."
She looked slightly startled by his abrupt suggestion, but recovered quickly.
"Clint, we just got here…"
"Here is as good as anywhere else, isn't it? Come on, we could go anywhere, start over. Be anybody we want to be."
He could leave Clint Barton behind for good and maybe he could leave everything else behind too. Maybe he could finally get a clean slate and if he told himself he wasn't Clint Barton anymore, maybe he could really stop being him. And maybe he could erase all the memories that went with him.
It sounded so goddamned appealing.
It was also running. It was going backwards. You didn't get more backwards than erasing who you are. He'd promised Phil he wouldn't go back…but he told himself that maybe Phil would understand.
"You're still healing," Natasha was reasoning, drawing his attention back once again, "give it a few days, let your body recover. Then we'll go."
A few days…could he survive as Clint Barton for a few more days?
He met her gaze and saw the worry there. If he pushed it too hard, her concern would grow. She'd start to wonder why he was so anxious to run.
He could survive a few more days.
So he nodded.
End of Chapter 15
Yikes! Clint's reacting in an extreme here, I recognize that. But given the sheer amount of emotional trauma he's faced and the amount of guilt he's drowning in, not to mention the dark cloud of grief that is hovering...extreme is almost expected. He wants to run, to try and forget it ALL. And really, who can blame him...man, I just want to hug him.
And Nat figured it out! Of course she did! She knows he's lying! But HE doesn't know that she knows! And it takes him SIX months to confess. Bless that woman, she is more patient than I would have been.
Only 2 chapters left people! Then you get to find out what the next story is! Tomorrow we'll meet back for the next chapter and until then, you know what I want...I want you to go down to that little review box and drop me a line, or a paragraph, or a novel, hell, i'd take just a word ;) And in return, here's a preview :D
"I just don't want to let him down again, Natasha."
"How would you be letting him down? Huh? How?" she asked gently.
"Being an Avenger – it was all he ever wanted for me. When he read me in on my part in the Initiative a few months ago, it was written all over his face. He wanted me to finally be the hero, Nat. How can I not do that for him now?"