Ch 3
Natasha wakes with a dry-mouthed, quiet gasp, her shivering limbs slick with sweat. Her heart is pounding in her ears as she sits up and wraps her arms around her knees.
“Nat.”
One hand reaches for the knife under her pillow while she looks around for the source of the raspy whisper. But it’s only Clint with sleep-mussed hair and no hearing aids.
He makes the signs for quakeand feel, then grabs the railing of the bunk with an exaggerated shaking motion.
Sorry, Natasha signs back, embarrassed that her thrashing about must have woken him up.
Clint replies with a dismissive gesture, telling her not to worry about it. Stay, he signs, jumping down from his bunk and tiptoeing out of the room without waking up the other two sleeping agents.
Natasha pushes sweaty hair away from her forehead, resting her head in her hands. She needs to get her shit together right fucking now. Putting on the weak, fragile little girl persona for a mission is one thing, but she will die before anyone sees her like that off the clock.
That was what she liked about STRIKE—they generally found her sharp edges not only acceptable but endearing. They didn’t treat her like a victim in need of a shock blanket and a teddy bear. They didn’t look at her scars with pity. They cheered her on with a “hell yeah, beat his ass!” when she ended up in a drunk 2 a.m. Waffle House fight with a UFC champion. (An ambulance was called, but not for her.)
Clint returns, sneaking back across the room with a glass of water. Natasha switches to a cross-legged position on her bunk and takes a long gulp. She shivers.
Cold? Clint signs.
She shakes her head, but shivers again.
He shoots her an unimpressed look, along with the sign for bullshit. Then he quietly extracts a sweatshirt, and tosses it behind him while he climbs up to his own bed. Natasha rests the glass on a bedpost, and pulls the hoodie on over her sports bra, still damp with sweat.
Then they are silent and still for a long while, sitting among the shadows made by the outside lights.
Clint taps his fingers against his leg, like he’s unsure of what he wants to say. His chest heaves with a deep breath.
He points to himself, signs deaf and before, then mimes pulling the pin on a grenade, throwing it into the distance, and the resulting explosion.
What? Natasha signs. When?
Five years old, he tells her. My father. Drunk. Mean. Angry. He looks away from her, but continues explaining, making the sign for interrupt several times, followed by a swift gesture of fist smacking palm, then finally holding his ear with an expression of shock and pain
Natasha nods, understanding.
Clint meets her eyes again, giving a small, sad shrug. Why? he signs. Five years old. Why?
Not your fault, Natasha sim-coms, mouthing each word emphatically. You were a kid.
Yes, Clint agrees. Then he points at her and makes the that sign twice: Exactly. So were you.
She nods again, staring out the window at the first hints of dawn and fidgeting with the strings of Clint’s hoodie. Natasha rolls her shoulders, trying to ease some of the stiffness there. But she goes tense again at a sudden noise, almost like a growl, until she realizes what it is.
S-N-O-R-E, she fingerspells, then points down at Rollins’s bunk. Clint leans down to see for himself, when it happens again even louder.
There’s a rustle of blankets below Natasha, followed by some muttered swearing. She twists over so that she’s hanging halfway off the bed. “Good morning,” she signs and whispers.
The commander startles, putting up his hands like he’s ready for a fight. “That’s fuckin’ creepy,” he grumbles as a snickering Natasha jumps down to the floor. Clint climbs down to join her. Coffee, now, he signs to the other two awake agents.
OK, OK, Rumlow signs, getting out of bed.
What time is it? she asks the archer.
Clint shrugs. Coffee time, he signs.
She signs clever with an exaggerated eye roll.
Rollins continues snoring while they get dressed, basically dead to the world. He doesn’t even flinch when Rumlow uses his phone to take a picture of Clint pretending to strangle the STRIKE lieutenant.
“What’s the point of having a camera phone if it takes such shitty pictures?” Natasha asks later. She bends the bobby pin that she’d used to pick the kitchen lock into its normal shape, and puts it back in her pocket.
“No one knows,” Clint says sagely, sipping his all-important coffee.
Once Hawkeye is sufficiently caffeinated, the three agents sneak back out to the dorms, carrying a few extra items with them. Natasha carefully opens the main door and slips in first, listening for any signs of activity. The coast is clear. She opens the door wider to let the other two in. Then she backs against the wall, allowing Clint to pass in front of her—he’s running point on this operation, for obvious reasons. They creep through the common area and get into position outside the room; fortunate to discover that they’d left the door ajar when they went for coffee. Clint gently sets down his weapons for a brief moment, so that he can turn off his hearing aids. Then he picks up the frying pan and metal spatula.
Rollins’s screaming makes for a very effective group wake-up call, Natasha observes.