Battle Scars.

“Hello?”

She has no idea why she's calling now. She shouldn't be. Dialling this number right now is the worst thing that she can possibly be doing. Everything that she has been working for the past week, the past year actually, has just been reduced to shambles and there are casualties.

“Hi, Laura, it's uh- it's- it's Natasha,” she manages to blurt out as she realizes that she has no choice now that the connection has gone through. Banner's missing, they lost his track when the computer's went dead. Thor's missing, probably dead for all she knows (she has some hope that he survived the fall).

And then there's the more worrying stuff.

“Natasha, oh god, are you alright?” Laura asks, from the other end of the world it seems. She can hear Natasha's breathing, her voice so close to breaking. It's not often that Natasha feels this way, but right now. After all that happened? She doesn't know what to feel. Doesn't know what to do. And, if there is one thing that can help her ground herself, it's Laura. Laura who has always been there to listen to her.

Laura tries again, when Natasha doesn't answer. “Is it Clint?”

How does she tell her? 'Hi, yes, uh, I found Clint, I hit him super hard on the head but Coulson's dead, my ankle's broken, the Hulk freaked me the absolute fuck out and almost brought down the helicarrier after Clint – yeah, CLINT – almost brought it down in an attack and I don't know who to trust right now.' That wouldn't sound too good, would it? So she just takes a deep breath and tries to gain some composure as she replies to her partner's better half.

“Yeah, it's... Well I have a lot of news. Want the good ones or the bad ones first?” she decides to go with, hoping that somehow, this will dissolve the tension. Clint hasn't been very responsive since she pushed him into the railing. She can still heard the loud bang his head made on contact, but most of all, she can remember the pain of him pulling her hair. The sight of him, blue eyed and absolutely cold. So cold he might have been dead. Pulling out his knife when she took his bow and arrow from him. He had aimed an arrow at her. He'd missed because she knew him that well.

But. Clint had tried to kill her, and there was no denying it. It made her want to throw up.

“Is it that bad?” Laura asks, and Natasha nods. “I'll take the good first,” she then says, as Natasha bites her lower lip, pushing her head back. Everything's a mess. She needs someone to rely on right now, and Fury is too busy trying to get Stark and Cap to sit down and agree on a plan of attack. Loki's gone. With the sceptre. They are so screwed, aren't they?

“I got Clint back!” Natasha tries to announced gleefully, but it comes out comically cold instead. She sighs as she suppressed a sharp intake of breath, and resumes speaking. “Sort of, anyway.”

“But he's alive?”

Why did Laura choose those words? Clint had tried to kill Natasha. He had almost succeeded in taking down the Helicarrier all by himself. Fury's voice echoes in Natasha's head 'Barton's headed for the detention level'. That hadn't been Clint. Had it? Could she trust him? Would he even recognize Laura and his kids? He'd tried to kill her. “He's... unresponsive.”

Natasha doesn't know how else to put it. She rubs her temple and looks up, as if to find a more elaborate answer. “Loki's spell... It's- it's weird. I knocked him on the head and he had this moment of clarity where he said my name, and then I knocked him completely out,” she says, as she can feel her lips start to tremble. “He was trying to kill me, Laura,” she then flips out, and she can't hold herself anymore. She has rarely been so scared, but to see the deadly eyes of her partner, going for her throat...

“I don't know why, I don't know how, but he was going to kill me, and I can't get through to him because he's in a weird state, he's not responding right now, and Coulson's dead too, and I don't know what to do.”

She can hear Laura try to calm her down on the other end of the line, but before she knows it, she has to keep herself from crying. She focuses on some breathing exercices, and hears Laura tell her to do exactly that.

“Nat, calm down, alright. Take a deep breath. Talk me through what happened.” How can she be so calm? Natasha has just told her that her husband, that Clint, is unresponsive, that Coulson's dead and she's not freaking out?

At least, now she knows even more why Clint chose her. Grounding him and grounding her, Laura was always the one to keep both her feet firmy on the ground.

“Clint lead an attack on the carrier, he took down one of the engines, which had Stark and Cap run out to fix it, and in the explosion me and Banner fell down and Banner turned and I've never been so scared in my life, Laura. You've seen the Hulk, right? From that news footage in Harlem? He was trying to kill me too. Or catch me. Or- or- or something. Then Thor handled him, but then they both disappeared, and I had to go stop Clint because he was going to release Loki, and he tried to kill me. Didn't help, because Loki escaped and killed Coulson.” She takes a deep breath as she tries to think back to what has just happened. Coulson is dead. And it's probably Clint's fault. She holds her head down, resting her face against her free hand and begins to count the squares on the metal floor to calm herself down.

Laura is still listening.

“But I mean... I got Clint. I got him. I beat him and now he's strapped down in the medical wing either trying to worm himself free or just being unresponsive. I'm scared about what Loki's done to him, Laura,” Natasha finally states.

She can hear Laura breathe heavily into the phone. Laura's known Clint for longer than her. She's known him for over twenty years, almost. Laura had been there in the beginning, Natasha knows, when Clint joined SHIELD. It's such a long relationship... She can't think about this right now.

“Natasha, listen to me,” Laura started, and she could feel that same tone that Clint got when someone was freaking out. (They were parents alright). “You go back to Clint, and you tell him he's gonna be fine. You talk him through this, and you get him back. After that, Nick'll figure something out. You still got the Captain and Stark with you, right?” she asks, and Natasha replies with a firm yes. “Then get your ass to my husband's bedside and hold his hand for me. I don't care what you do, but get him back. You'll have your feet back on the ground in no time.”

Sure. Easy for her to say. Natasha knows that she shouldn't be skeptical of Laura's advice right now, but it seems so hard. Can she? Can she go into Clint's room and look at him, talk to him, try and get him back, when he was that monster a couple of hours ago? All of that is Loki's fault. Natasha wants to kill the God. But, Laura is still there, at the other end of the line.

“Natasha, stop thinking. Go do it. It's an order.”

And, Natasha knows that when Laura uses that tone, there is no way out.

“Yes, ma'am,” she replies, as she hangs up. There is no more to say or do, she needs to do what Laura Barton has just ordered her to do. She knows that Laura was military and was SHIELD. She knows that Laura actually ranked higher than Clint. She knows that Laura will find a way to reach Clint if she fails. She doesn't want to fail. She can't fail.

Her ankle hurts as hell as she walks down the corridor, ignoring all her instincts that are yelling at her to go back. Clint is there. Almost there. Behind the door.

Laura gave her an order. Get Clint back. And that's what she was going to do. As Laura said, once Clint comes back... things will be a little bit better. Because Clint always knows what to do. He always has. And he always will.

Right?