Chapter 1
1/
Revenge was the only thing keeping her alive.
Her love.
The man that had saved her, was dead.
And she knew exactly who’s fault it was.
Months in the making, dreaming and thinking of ways to dismantle the person who had taken him from her, she now had the means in which to do it.
The plan, the hatred and funding; all together meant one thing.
It was time.
Training under MI6 had made her brutally efficient, and she considers, efficiently brutal.
Her government under the sector seven project demanded several things, but the number one was information extraction. She knew more ways to get the information she wanted than she knew languages.
Which, she considered, was a lot.
With a steely look of determination, she drives.
.
Clint laughs.
“You know that’s not what I meant!”
Natasha takes the lollipop out of her mouth with a pop and grins, rolling her head over to him.
“I’m just saying that if you lose, you gotta pay,” she replies.
She leans further into the chair and puts her feet up, one leg up where the airbag sits and the other underneath her.
Clint stops at the red light and looks over to her and frowns.
“Feet off,” he growls low, “you’re going to get mud on the dash.”
Begrudgingly, she does, instead tucking her knees to her chest on the seat, curled in a ball.
“How is that even comfortable?”
Natasha pulls out her phone and changes the music.
“Blink182?”
Nodding enthusiastically, Clint drums his fingers on the steering wheel as he turns the corner and accelerates slightly. The streetlights cast a glow that stripes the road as they fly past.
The roads are unusually clear for a Thursday night, and he takes full advantage of the fact.
The traffic light ahead turns yellow and he considers going through it.
His speed is such that he could go through without a worry but he always considers drunk drivers or those that may not make the same conscious decisions and pulls to a stop.
They’re stopped for less than ten seconds before he sees the large four wheeled drive approach.
Clint reaches across for Natasha.
It barrels into them.
Within seconds, the car crumples and rolls.
The sound of metal on metal and the crunch of the car is loud in the dead of the night. The screech of the car sliding on it’s roof would make anyone cringe but to the inhabitants of the car in the midst of the accident; it doesn’t even register.
.
Clint feels the seatbelt hold him. He’s upside down. He knows this feeling. He’s shot arrows upside down.
Does Natasha know that?
His head hurts.
Car.
He’s in a car.
He opens his eyes and looks his breath quickening slightly at the glass lodged in his arm.
Flexing his fingers, he concludes it’s a surface injury, no nerve damage if he can move his fingers.
But.
Nat.
She was with him.
He tries to move his neck and sees her bent at an odd angle, a limb out the window and arms protecting her head. She must have curled further into herself as the car hit.
“Nat,” he groans.
Then louder.
She doesn’t stir.
Doesn’t move.
Clint hopes the lights that surround them are people coming to help.
He can’t hear anything but he sees the headlights.
The other car.
The woman that was driving.
He hopes she’s okay.
Was she drunk?
He feels around for his seatbelt unable to locate it with his hand sticky as blood runs down it from the glass penetrating it.
Shadows approach and he calls out.
He regrets it immediately, a butt of an AK47 penetrates Natasha’s side window and the danger presents itself in slow motion.
He can’t get out of seatbelt.
Can’t get his gun in the glove box.
Is powerless as he struggles and tries to break free.
Arms reach in and pull her.
They drag her over the jagged glass of a broken widow, as Clint yells and struggles his way free.
He manages to get to the window, she’s just been dragged through watching as they inject her with something and push her into a trunk of a black Toyota.
They’re not interested in him.
Even as the man in the black mask looks back towards him and grins terribly, putting his hand up and saluting mockingly.
Clint scrambles across the broken window.
They’re gone before he’s even out, lights disappearing in the darkness.
Blood is everywhere.
He feels his vision blur.
His head…
Blood.
He can’t.
Natasha.
He turns back to the car.
He has no way of contacting the others, his phone somewhere in the mess of the car.
Unless…
Clint reaches inside and holds down the hazards button, wondering if it would work.
Tony had threatened to put Jarvis in their car, he only wondered if he actually had.
Clint’s vision blacks and he feels his body grow hot.
“No,” he tells himself.
“No.”
.
The bed is soft.
He reaches across to turn off the light, wondering why Natasha turned it on, as his mind is slammed back into the present.
“Natasha,” he says, sitting up.
His eyes go wide.
The hospital.
He’s in the hospital wing of the tower.
Tony stands to his left and Bruce on his right, both poised to catch him as he pitches forward.
“We know,” he says, handing him an iPad.
The video plays and Clint watches his car roll, he watches the whole incident.
.
Natasha’s wrists are handcuffed as she wakes; she keeps her eyes closed, trying to get any sort of information from any of the sounds around her.
There doesn’t seem to be anything happening and she tentatively opens her eyes.
It doesn’t take a genius to notice that she’s been captured.
The event likely targeted.
She hoped Clint was okay.
There was only one way to know, and it was to survive.
Natasha looks and startles at the woman in front of her.
Her white mask plain faced and emotionless. Sitting in a chair next to the bed Natasha is handcuffed to, she stands so her face is almost touching Natasha’s.
“I hope you enjoyed your sleep, because it’s the last one you’re going to get,” she says in a whisper.
2/
The van that pulls up is a nondescript, white van, no number plates and nothing about it that gave anything away about the cargo inside.
The Avengers Tower was used to gawkers.
Used to people stopping by and taking photos.
To cars pulling up or moving slowly past it.
The van did, however, something that none of the other cars had done; backing itself up, towards the gate, then opened it’s back doors, and shoved a woman onto the pavement.
The woman looked barely conscious, eyes open but blank. Languid blinks at the brightness in the air, her body scantly dressed and dirty. Needle marks in her skin as an IV line hangs out from the crook of her elbow.
Peeling away, the van covers her in more dust and debris.
For a moment, the world was silent, as if in shock at the moments prior.
It had only been a maximum of two minutes that it took to pull up, dump the woman and leave, but the shock seemed to last longer.
A curiosity of no more than three people turned away from the danger and then slowly turn back towards the woman who hadn’t moved at all.
Liana looked to the others.
None of them moved and she felt pity pull at her at the state of the woman in front of her.
If it was her, she’d want someone to help.
The woman may have looked dead, had it not been for blinking eyes, the rise and fall of her chest and slow clenching fists.
Taking a step forward, Liana shrugs off her coat and lays it over the woman. Something to protect her against the others and the cold.
She squats down and turns to the commotion on her left, two Avengers appear and the other onlookers walk forward to greet them.
Liana turns her attention back to the woman, picking up her phone to call an ambulance.
She looks down, recognition of where she’s seen the woman before as there’s a stab of uncomfortableness deep in her gut.
“Black Widow?” she whispers.
The avenger was unrecognisable, shaved head, bruised face, swollen features, dirt covering her body. The look was antithetical to the way she looked on television.
The archer, she couldn’t remember his name, approaches her and nods at her, picking up the body slowly.
“Thanks,” he whispers almost inaudibly, wrapping her coat tightly around her.
The gentleness of which he cradles her, makes her cock her head.
“Help her?” she whispers, unsure what to do.
She takes a small step back, her phone still in her hand poised to call, though likely she was going to get better care from the Avengers.
The other Avenger, she definitely knew him, Stark or Iron Man was her son’s favourite.
Always on television, always doing appearances.
But this time he looked different.
Tired and worried was the only way she could describe it. He wasn’t wearing his red Iron Man suit, or a suit for that matter, just regular pants and an Iron Maiden T-shirt that made him look shorter than she had thought he was.
Stark gave his patented peace sign, alongside an unconvincing smile and a platitude that they’ll take care of the woman.
It seemed that no one, except the three of them, knew it was Natasha Romanoff.
.
The world is loud.
Voices.
Assurances.
Touching.
She can’t escape it.
Can’t push against it even though she tries.
She has no strength, no power.
Breathing shallow, the remnants of the adrenaline still pulse through her veins.
There’s not reprieve in sleep, the last two weeks made that clear.
She sleeps, she dies.
Eyes open, she watches bodies moving around her.
She’s prostate on the table.
They’re removing the old IV.
She’d cry if she had any tears left.
She has nothing.
She’s so tired.
Exhausted.
The world is so loud.
It hurts.
.
Weak arms push at him.
They laid her on the sterile bed, a blanket on her body, but he can’t stand it.
He sits at the head of it, and pulls her into his lap.
“Natasha, it’s me,” he tries again.
Bruce holds her arm away from her body.
It’s met with resistance, pushing and wriggling.
“Nat, I’m sorry, we need to,” he tells her.
Weak arms push him away.
No words are spoken but blinking eyes reveal hurt.
They’re as gentle as they can be, removing the old IV line hanging out her arm.
“What did they do to you?” Clint whispers, holding her body against his.
They shaved her head.
Not neatly either.
Marks where electrodes had been placed are clearly marked with redness. He touches it gently, the short fuzz longer around her ears, little cuts on her scalp tell him more than words could and he hates that this is the thing that pulls at his heart the most.
Natasha loves her hair.
Red, brown, black.
Long, short.
She loved playing with the way it looked.
Loved to put it into a long brain. Or two.
He touches it again gently.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers into unseeing eyes.
He has no idea how she’s still conscious.
“It’s her,” Tony repeats.
He’s still in the corner.
Bruce sighs.
“Natasha,” he asks again, “can you answer me?”
He stands in her line of vision and shines a light near her eyes. She turns away, and almost growls at the intrusion.
“Okay, you’re okay,” he placates.
She burrows down, almost off Clint and pushes off the table.
“Natasha.”
Her name does nothing to make her stop moving, but the urgency and repetition of it, makes her pause.
“How can we help?” Bruce decides on.
She scrambles forward, beelining for the door.
Tony stands in front of her, blocking her way.
Natasha pushes out at his chest, eyes unseeing of the obstacle in her way.
He doesn’t move.
A growling scream erupts from her lips, and she repeats the action.
Wild is the only description that Clint has as he pulls her off Tony. Limbs flail, and she attempts to get away.
“But it’s us,” Tony tells her.
“Natasha, it’s us,” Clint repeats.
It doesn’t seem to permeate her distress.
Another growling scream gives her a second wind.
Bruce is ready though.
Needle prepped with a sedative, he recognises that in this state they can’t help her.
He motions to Clint to hold her and Clint wraps his body around hers, snaking his legs over hers and putting her in a hold that means she can’t move.
She screams.
It only becomes louder as the sedative is depressed into her veins.
“You’ve killed me,” she says hoarsely.
“You’ve killed me.”
.
Tony stares at them.
His face becomes hot and he feels sick. His breath quickens and he wants to vomit.
“What did she mean?” he demands.
Bruce and Clint look up to him.
Bruce is the first to answer.
“Get her on the bed,” he tells them, adjusting his glove.
Clint obeys, the archer oddly silent.
“Did we just kill her?” Tony demands.
“What did you give her?”
Clint lifts her gently, placing her on the bed.
“Run all your tests and do it quickly,” he commands, his voice low and hard. It shuts Tony up.
Bruce nods.
“Call who you need to call about the van. Who was driving, where it came from. We need to know where she’s been.”
Tony takes on the order and leaves the room, taking one last look at Natasha, and nodding, more to himself, now given a mission.
Clint doesn’t know what to do, he slowly takes stock of Natasha.
Puncture wounds in the crook of her arm speaks to drugs.
The dark circles under her eyes tell him she hasn’t been allowed much sleep.
Her hair… the thing that gives him the most worry, gone, shaved haphazardly. He counts four marks where electrodes had been placed.
He thinks likely electrodes, which means… electrocution probably.
Clint finds a blanket, watching brunch carefully and holding onto Natasha’s hand, squeezing it hard and bringing it to his lips.
There’s cuff marks around her wrist.
Her nails are sharp.
He turns her palm over and finds semi circles in her palm.
Clint knows they only come from digging your nails in.
Hard.
He stands again, feeling useless as Bruce draws vial after vial of blood.
Another puncture wound.
“Where, uh, where are the wipes?”
Bruce points to his left and Clint grabs the box.
Gently he pulls one out and starts to wipe away the dust and debris from her body.
Starting with her right hand, he wipes carefully, especially around the bruising and open wound; then up her arm. He throws the first one away, then gently he wipes her face.
She looks troubled, even sedated.
“What do you think?” he asks Bruce.
Bruce shrugs, unsure as he holds up the last vial of blood.
“I’ll go give these to Tony, and then.. I don’t know, we can give you more answers..”
“She should be out maybe for another hour or so, I don’t think I give her that much, maybe get some of her clothes we can dress her in?”
Clint nods.
“I’ll just finish…”
Bruce holds up his hand to stop him explaining.
He leaves, hands full of vials and finally Clint is alone with Natasha.
“What did you mean? Why would helping you mean killing you? What happened Nat?”
As he talks he gently wiped her down, face, arms, legs feet. He doesn’t want to leave to get clothes, so instead summons Tony.
He comes, without complaining, and he goes to find Natasha’s bag of clothes as instructed.
Clint wonders if he should neaten Natasha hair. Cut it evenly, so it grows back together.
He decides against it for now, not wanting to do anything to her without her permission.
He holds her hand and waits.
.
Tony looks at his friends from the outside of the door.
Natasha, still sedated, lays unmoving on bed.
Clint holds her hand close to his face and looks almost like he was praying.
If Tony didn’t know them better he’d say he was.
He knocks before he enters, a short tap, and holds up her clothes. He hopes it’s the right thing.
Clint opens the door.
He takes the bag and Tony wishes he had kind words to say. Or anything really.
Natasha would know what to say to him.
She always knew.
“Tony,” Clint says, looking expectantly at him.
“Sorry, what?”
Clint holds up her shorts and the button up pyjama top.
“Help me for a minute?”
He watches Clint thread one of her arms in, leaving the buttons at the wrist undone. He understands why, if they need to give her drugs or find a vein, the sleeves would roll up high.
Bunching up the shirt, he shoves some under her, and then Clint rolls her to one side.
Motioning for Tony to hold her shoulders, he does so and then pulls the shirt around the other side.
With that done, Tony steps back.
Feeling like putting on shorts was one step too intimate for him.
He watches Clint carefully though.
Watches the way he minds her privacy, and then covers her again.
“Do you think.. she’ll be asleep much longer?” he asks.
“Bruce… maybe about 30 more minutes?”
Tony nods.
He doesn’t know what to do.
Bruce has his job, Clint knows how to help here, and he… he just set computers to search.
“Jarvis is looking,” he starts, “running down the plates and, maybe finding something. If we can find who… maybe we can see what..”
He isn’t saying this right.
And maybe it doesn’t matter in this moment.
Clint nods aimlessly, the words perhaps not filtering.
Tony goes to leave, he knows he’s better in the lab, on the computer.
“You can stay,” Clint says, looking at him intently.
As he talks, Natasha moves.
Slowly at first.
Arm raising as if to protect her face.
As she becomes more aware, she becomes more frantic in her movements.
She seems to realise her arms are free first.
Hands go to wrists and check and then her eyes open dramatically.
“I was asleep,” she croaks.
Tony is quicker than Clint in recovering from the movement.
“Bruce sedated you,” he explains.
Natasha shakes her head.
“No, you didn’t, you can’t!”
She scrambles back, knees to chest.
“She’ll know, she’ll… kill, she said,” the words come out jumbled and Tony doesn’t understand.
“You’re safe,” he tries, thinking what helped him when he was rescued.”
“You’re safe and we are here,” he repeats.
“You…”
His words are cut off as a syringe comes flying towards his head.
“No!”
She throws another, and attempts standing on unsteady feet, backing up.
“I can’t fall asleep, okay? She’ll know, she kill me, she’ll kill you, she… she… she.”
The words get stuck in her throat, repeating as she heaves breaths.
Her panic is clear at falling asleep.
They may not understand why, but for her it seems like the most important thing.
.
Clint watches her distress.
As she throws things at Tony, she doesn’t even seem to notice him nearby.
It’s not like her.
Even when she’d been dissociated and disoriented, she would take it out on herself.
Never on her friends.
This was new.
The yelling and throwing and outright anger and distress.
He doesn’t understand the near obsession to stay awake, but he knows it can’t be good.
Natasha poses to throw the bottle of antiseptic, a long clear bottle, heavy enough to explode and cause some hurt if it hits.
“Stop,” he says loudly and firmly.
Natasha startles.
Stares for a moment.
Looks at the bottle in her hand and drops it.
“Clint,” she says as she drops.
He’s there to catch her.
She seems to know that he’s safe and Tony stands staring at her. Ignoring him, he doesn’t notice his friend leave, focusing on Natasha.
Always Natasha.
He puts her in a hold, placing himself behind her so she sits in the v of his legs, he sits back against the wall and tilts her back, rocking her gently from side to side.
“Don’t let me sleep,” she says, over and over.
“I won’t,” he says quietly, “you’re safe, you’re home.”
He says the words not knowing if they’re wholly true but knowing nothing can remove them from this moment.
There must be residual sedative in her system; because she jerks herself against his body when he feels her body relax.
It tenses and she moans against him.
“I need… water.”
Clint extricates himself from her.
Watches as her body curls into herself, knees to chest as hugs her knees and rests her ear on her knees.
Tired eyes watch him get some water from the sink, then he slowly approaches her, water in hand.
“Thanks,” she whispers.
He nods and sits down next to her.
She sips it slowly.
“Thanks.”
Clint doesn’t talk.
He can’t find the words and even if he had them, she’s not ready to hear them.
Natasha heaves a breath.
He doesn’t want to look at her but he thinks she’s crying.
Clint holds his hand out between them, an offering that she takes, grasping it and moving closer towards him, before resting her head on his shoulder.
“She shaved my head, Clint,” she says sadly.
“I begged her not to, but she did it anyway.”
He nods.
Hears the grief in her voice.
“I know,” he whispers, knowing if he doesn’t, his anger would be too strong.
“I’m sorry,” he says redundantly.
“Don’t let me sleep,” she asks, stretching her legs out straight.
“Okay Nat, what will help?”
She sighs.
“Tell me a story,” she asks.
.