Whumptober Day #6: Made To Watch
If anyone thought it would be a while before I got back to Nat/Matt, well...you were wrong!
Natasha has made it one single step into Clint's house when she gets a text on her phone, alerting her to a high-priority mission.
"Are you serious?" she asks absolutely no one, swiftly picking up the bag she had just set down.
Matt sends her a fond, questioning smile. "Something come up?" he asks. He picks up Nate, who had wrapped his arms around Matt's legs immediately upon their arrival.
Clint and Laura both walk into the room. "Mission," Clint explains before Natasha can answer, his go bag swung over his shoulder. He reaches over to ruffle Nate's hair. Nate giggles.
(Natasha will have to remember the domesticity of this moment for what will come.)
"It's not a group mission, is it?" Laura asks, concerned, because those ones are always the most dangerous.
"Nope," Natasha says, scrolling through the mission brief. She looks up and shares a grin with Clint. "Just the two of us, like old times."
"Like old times," Clint agrees with a nod.
"Sorry 'bout this," she tells Matt. "I know this wasn't what you were expecting."
"It's fine," he says. "Not like you can control it." He smiles kindly at her, and she still, despite the years since they have met, doesn't know what she did to deserve him.
He fits with Clint's family. The kids love him; they love their Uncle Matt. Lila teases Natasha about a possible wedding, and Natasha laughs along because no one else on her end knows about the two of them.
It's better this way, she thinks.
Secrets can be sweet, like forbidden fruits. Secrets can protect, like shields.
Natasha has survived on secrets for a very long time.
(They aren't as secret as she had thought.)
It's with these thoughts of secrets in her head that she says, later, "I have a bad feeling about this."
Clint, on top of a nearby building in a little sniper's nest, says, "Well, that's not good. Your instincts aren't usually wrong."
Natasha still doesn't know how Clint has so much faith in her, either. She's failed so many times and has so much blood on her hands, and yet, he chooses to stay by her side.
"Something's suspicious about this whole situation," she continues, walking casually around the building they think the target is hiding in, making note of weak spots and escape routes.
"Would Fury really lead us astray?" Clint asks, half-joking.
"Something's suspicious about Fury, too. I just can't put my finger on it."
"People make mistakes."
"Most people aren't Nick Fury."
"Most people aren't Natasha Romanoff," Clint says, making Natasha smile, which had probably been his intention.
Natasha suddenly hears a sound and tenses up, but she doesn't openly react because she still needs to keep this mostly under wraps. The Avengers are meant (were meant) to make a statement; the two of them, SHIELD agents through and through despite everything they've gone through, despite SHIELD technically not existing anymore, are meant to be covert.
She is meant to be covert. She is a shadow in the darkness. She is not supposed to exist.
Except the sound is like...like gas leaking from a pipe, like a fuse being lit.
"Clint, you see anything?" she asks, but receives no answer before she's blasted backwards. Her head knocks against the ground hard and she's unconscious in less than a second.
Matt tilts his head, hearing the sound of tires on gravel, of the voices of many unfamiliar men, distant but growing louder.
Laura seems to notice, because she pauses, knife held above an uncooked carrot. "Matt?" she asks, tensing up. They are somehow already in sync, their minds set on one goal: protecting the kids.
Matt frowns. "You weren't expecting company, were you?"
"What is this, the millionth time we've been abducted?" Clint asks, back leant against the stone wall of the cell they are in. There are no locks or metal bars here, though. They are trapped by some energy barrier, which intrigues Natasha, because this must not be your average bad guy.
Still, she doesn't have any reason to worry, not yet. "Just slightly less than that," Natasha responds with a small smile.
"'Just slightly,' she says." Clint snorts. "Once is enough."
"Not if the bad guys are incompetent."
"Only you would say that."
"And Tony, probably." Natasha's smile fades. She misses the team. It hasn't been the same since they split up.
Clint, likely thinking the same, says, "You would think his time in Afghanistan was enough."
Natasha shrugs, drumming her fingers against the stone floor. "He's masochistic like that," she says. It's meant to be a joke, but it falls flat.
She feels so distant from Tony and the others now, wherever they are. The only people she has consistent contact with are Clint and his family and Matt and his people. She knows she could find the Rogues if she really tried; she knows she could break into the Avengers Compound if she really tried, too.
But she doesn't. She's not sure if she's wanted, by any side, by anyone. She started out as a lone agent and she should have expected that she would return to being one, too.
The only reason Clint isn't on house arrest like Scott is is because he agreed to be sent out on missions like this. Officially, they are under the US government; unofficially, Fury's somehow taken charge of it. Natasha doesn't question it.
Clint, sensing her unease like any years long mission partner slash best friend would do, grabs her hand and squeezes it gently before letting go just as quickly. Signs of affection are bad signs when you're in captivity. They sit side by side in silence, waiting for what comes next.
At this point in her admittedly dangerous life, Natasha doesn't think anything can surprise her.
She is proven wrong when the metal door on the other side of the barrier slams open, and three men walk in, two of them dragging unconscious people on the floor.
Unconscious, familiar people. Shit.
"Hey!" Clint immediately yells, getting up and stalking towards the barrier, slamming a fist into it despite both of them knowing it won't do anything. "What the hell do you want?"
Natasha, instead, trails her eyes over Laura and Matt, who have been unceremoniously dropped onto the floor. Laura has a cut on her cheek, a split lip, and some blood trailing from her hairline. Matt has an extremely bloody nose and a reddish bruise on his cheek that Natasha knows will look far worse by tomorrow. They both have bruised knuckles.
Natasha internally smirks. She should have known they wouldn't go without a fight.
On the outside, she simply frowns. It's bad enough that she and Clint are here. How did they even find out about Clint's home? How quickly after Clint and Natasha leaving did they arrive there? Matt hasn't even had the time to change out of his suit yet. He'd been at a trial just a few hours before.
"Hey, asshole!" Clint says, face creased with anger. "Answer me! Do you have my kids here too? What'd they ever do to you, huh?"
"Settle down, Agent Barton," the man says. Natasha hates that she doesn't know who he is, just that he sounds vaguely Russian. She really hopes this has nothing to do with her past, otherwise the guilt will kill her. "Nothing will happen to them if you give me the information I need."
It is a cliché situation, one the both of them have certainly been in before.
But all the times before, they had successfully kept their personal lives and work lives separate. They've never had to deal with this before.
The man makes it sound almost reasonable. Natasha knows it is anything but. "What information do you need to know?" she asks anyways.
"Information on the Avengers, of course, of which you are members," he answers with a pleasant smile.
"Hate to break it to you, man, but the Avengers are no more," Clint says flatly. "That's all the information I have for you." His hands are clenched into fists at his side.
"What about SHIELD?"
"Also toast."
The man scoffs. "You can't expect me to believe that, do you? SHIELD and the Avengers are still intact, but secret, now. The public thinks them gone, but I know better." He looks and sounds triumphant. Natasha would really like to prove him wrong.
"Do you know better?" she asks. "Someone who knows better wouldn't be in constant denial like that."
He scowls. "Give me the location of the current SHIELD base and all the passcodes I need to know, and I will let you go."
"You can't expect us to believe that, do you?" Clint says, half-mocking the guy.
"You don't have to believe it, not if you don't want to," the man says. "But...I think it would be in your best interests if you did." He casually walks over to Matt and his sprawled limbs. Clint winces and Natasha actively refrains from flinching when he rests his foot against Matt's throat and lightly applies pressure for enough time that Matt, unconscious, begins to struggle and gasp for breath.
When he steps away, his shoe leaves an imprint on Matt's skin.
She wants to kill him.
But, even as Clint starts yelling again, she doesn't react. She does nothing.
"You seem very concerned for this man I found in your home," the man tells him, utterly calm. "I must admit I have no idea who he is."
Interesting, Natasha thinks. They likely had the location of Clint's home and nothing else.
"He's my brother-in-law," Clint says immediately and without hesitation.
It isn't, technically, a lie. The two of them are like siblings, after all.
But they will assume that Matt is Laura's brother, and that is what matters. It gives them a connection to Matt, so that they don't immediately write him off as useless and kill him. Strangers aren't the most useful for hostages. It also distances themselves from Matt a little, and maybe that'll be enough to save him.
Both Clint and Natasha have been through this song and dance before.
Clint is the concerned husband and father, anger brimming beneath his skin. This is expected. He can't hide this. There is calm, calculated certainty underneath the anger, though. He won't succumb to his emotions like this man surely expects him to.
Laura is the innocent wife being held for leverage, but she is more capable of fighting back than they know.
Matt is the oblivious victim who somehow got dragged into this mess. He is perhaps the one they will hurt badly first because they won't expect him to be able to take it. But he will take it. He's been through worse.
And Natasha, well, Natasha is the Black Widow, the one with no family and no stable home to speak of. She is supposed to be uncaring, unfeeling, unreactive to people being hurt right in front of her.
She has a reputation of being deadly, so she will put on that mask because, if it seems like she doesn't care, it'll keep them all safer.
They all have their roles to play here.
I have had this extremely cliché and self-indulgent whump scenario in my head for quite a while, and I guess I thought it was about time to write it, so if some details seem somewhat vague (*cough* the villain guy *cough*), that is why.