Chapter 3
4/
He doesn’t want to say anything as he breathes heavily, the fight not even lasting a minute as she stops as quickly as she started.
Clint watches her as she stares at herself in the mirror.
The slow touch of her hair, the dead stare and then the panic.
It’s starts with her pulling at the whispers of hair that are left, hard enough for them to come out.
A clawing at her skull.
He pulls her back from the mirror and holds her, stopping the harm that’s coming in waves.
She’s crying as she feels him behind her, a stuttering in her words.
“I can’t sleep,” she starts, “I can’. I can’t. I can’t.”
The words come over and over.
Clint doesn’t know what to do.
She’s still covered in vomit, still needs a shower, still needs sleep.
In this state nothing can happen.
She’s not present, not enough to do anything.
So he waits, holds her and hopes it’s enough.
.
Natasha can’t catch her breath. Every time she tries, she seems to only breath in smaller amounts. Even as she feels Clint surround her, it becomes almost a chore to suck it in and remember to push it out.
“Sedate me,” she breathes.
And as she says the words, she feels it’s the only way out.
“Sedate me,” she repeats.
If they drug her, she’ll really know then, when she wakes; if she sees the woman’s face or, if she’s back here.
She can’t breathe anyway.
Even as she’s encouraged by Clint.
Was she not loud enough in her request?
“Sedate me!”
The words louder now, even as they fall on deaf ears.
She struggles against Clint, trying to get a breath, black spots in her vision.
“Se..da..” she moans, pushing against him, running out of air on the words.
Natasha knows he’s talking, saying something to her but she can’t hear him, there’s a piercing white noise that overrides it and she can’t even hear herself, even as she repeats the same words over and over again.
At least, she thinks she is.
In a last ditch effort, she reaches for Clint’s face.
“Help,” she whispers.
He nods, his eyes glassy.
Holding up a syringe, he appears to ask her consent one more time as she nods pitifully back at him.
She can’t hear his words but longs for the black nothingness of drugged sleep.
She doesn’t care what happens to her body.
She just needs to stop thinking, stop moving… stop being.
To be held in the abyss for as long as possible.
Natasha knows she can’t keep going, not like this, not being able to tell the difference between awake and hallucination.
Clint encircles her again, holds her in a body lock as there’s a pinch on her left arm.
She looks over to it, and already the needle has been removed.
Clint holds her tight, rocking her gently and counts, knowing the repetition soothes her.
Only Clint knows that.
She’s home.
There’s no doubt now.
She starts to count with him, the abyss surrounding her.
.
Tony stares at the screen.
The van is parked not far, he sends out two drones to get real-time footage, and then triangulates all cameras from the time it dropped Natasha to follow the Van.
He wants to tell Clint, maybe Bruce too.
Turning his attention, he sees Clint lead Natasha into the bathroom.
He can’t reconcile her shaved head, even as he watches their movement.
Shaking his head, he sets Jarvis to keep an ear if Clint needs help and leaves the room to find Bruce.
He doesn’t go far into the bowels of the tower before Jarvis stops the elevator.
“Sir, they’re fighting.”
He doesn’t need to ask who is, because it’s obvious.
Tony detours back, opens the door to the infirmary and smells vomit and cringes.
He must have missed it whilst he was concentrating on the van. Tony hovers outside the bathroom, hearing a Clint tell Natasha to stop.
He wants to go but his feet don’t move.
Voiced pleas that are inaudible but he can tell what they are by the cadence and fear behind them, the way that the response is nothing.
He hears Natasha’s calls to sedate her, and Clint trying to talk her down as he goes through the options of what’s going happen next.
Tony pushes the door ajar and looks inside.
Neither of the spies notice him, and Natasha’s distress is clear as she struggles against Clint, repeating the words to sedate her.
He closes the door and stares for a moment.
“Sir?”
Jarvis’s voice breaks through his thoughts.
He leaves the room quickly, finding Bruce with a syringe in his hand.
“Jarvis..” Bruce says, by way of explanation.
Tony nods.
“What happened? He said that Natasha needed propafol?”
Tony takes the syringe, offering no explanation and heading back into the room. He knocks on the bathroom this time and opens the door.
Clint looks up at him, he has Natasha in a hold and holds his hand out for the syringe.
Natasha’s eyes open and close.
Her breath stuttering.
“Help,” she whispers, reaching aimlessly for Clint.
Clint holds her head, uncaps the syringe and injects her. He rocks her slightly, counting with her.
Tony feels like a voyeur, even moreso than last time.
They both watch as her body fights it, then, she goes limp.
Clint looks exhausted, as he stares up at Tony.
None of them have slept, but Tony is used to it.
He also didn’t have to watch Natasha and be vigilant for her.
“What’s the time?” he asks, not moving.
Jarvis responds.
“It’s 6.16am.”
Clint nods.
“She threw up, I don’t know what happened next, but she started to fight me, then seemed to realise something was wrong when I didn’t fight back.”
Clint touches her arms, almost unwrapping himself from the hold position.
“She started pulling at her hair in the mirror,” he says the words monotonously, like telling a story.
“She said she couldn’t sleep, then asked me to sedate her.”
He seems to come to the realisation that he’s injected her with a drug that he doesn’t know.
“Propofol,” Bruce supplies, seeing Clint’s confusion.
Tony doesn’t even know when Bruce came up behind him.
If Clint is also surprised, he doesn’t show it.
He just nods slowly.
“How long do you think we have?” He asks, lifting Natasha.
Bruce shrugs.
“She shouldn’t have been given it in an injection like that. Jarvis just said it was an emergency and I didn’t think we wanted a reoccurring incident like last August; so it was this or nothing.. Someone will need to stay with her, just to monitor her breathing…”
Tony looks up and Jarvis responds in kind.
“I am monitoring her vitals,” the AI tells them, “she is stable.”
Bruce nods.
“How long do you want her drugged for?”
Clint carries her to the large arm chair, the one that reclines back and places her gently on it.
“As long as possible,” he says.
“We need to find out what’s happened, and then maybe we have a chance at helping her get over whatever this fear is.”
Bruce nods and leaves, Tony presumes to get more drugs, or maybe a way of sedating her further.
“She needs a shower, or to get her changed. I don’t know!”
His voice escalates.
Tony feels he’s never been in a situation where he’s had to be the one to make decisions for another. Perhaps another reason why he doesn’t want children, the responsibility weighs heavily of taking care of his friends.
“Okay,” he says, raising his hands.
“Let’s get her changed, we’ll do it together. Bruce will get her sleeping for a bit longer and you’re going to go to bed. I’m going to follow the leads of the van and we will work this out.”
Clint stares at him.
Tony feels he’s said too much.
“Go have a quick shower, and get the supplies for changing her, get her clothes and maybe some wipes.”
Clint still stares.
“Now.”
Tony says it as gently as he can, but the urgency in his voice makes his friend move.
Clint takes one last look at Natasha and leaves her with Tony.
.
Gently, Tony moves her body up and onto the lounge chair that’s heavily reclined almost like a makeshift bed.
He cringes inwardly taking off the button up top that he and Clint had put on her last time she was asleep.
It feels like a violation and he hopes she will forgive him. He doesn’t miss the rings around her wrists and the bruising on her torso, now more predominant, and if he had to guess by the colours; all of it was not from being thrown out of a van.
The top is wet with bile and vomit, which reminds him he needs to clean the bed too.
He leaves her shorts on, but covers her with a blanket large enough for her body and moves to stripping the bed.
He dumps all the clothes and sheets in the corner and focuses back on Natasha, just as Clint returns.
“Thanks,” he says, entering the room.
Tony nods.
“Sometimes we need to step away.”
Clint doesn’t answer.
His hair is wet, and Tony thinks he must have had the quickest shower.
Shoved under his arm are Natasha’s clothes but also some of his larger sweaters.
Tony thinks it’s a good idea; to have familiar smells.
“Have you ever been caught by an enemy?” Tony asks oh a whim.
Clint doesn’t answer straight away, he takes a moment sorting out the clothes he’s brought, before turning his attention back to Natasha.
“It’s not like the movies is it? Being held by an enemy?”
Tony shakes his head. The cold and fear of the cave he was kept in, the constant pain and inability to see past the next moment; he didn’t think it would be like that.
“The movies don’t give the visceral feelings. They can show you, but they don’t ever capture what it’s like.”
Clint nods.
“Wherever they held her, it’s somewhere in the city. They’ve been able to keep off our radar, but it obviously can’t be far.”
Tony agrees with that.
“Maybe anticloaking? Something to keep off the grid, but also it would have to be somewhere we didn’t look.”
Clint starts with her hands, wiping them down with care of her wrists, wiping them with antibacterial wipes.
“Can you pass me the bandage?”
Tony does, holding onto them a little longer to make Clint look at him.
“What was it like for you?” he asks the question intentionally.
Clint is quiet as he cleans and wraps her wrists gently.
“It’s the indignity of it all. It’s like you’re not a person for the time that you’re there. They treat you like an object, as something not someone. When you come back… it’s like it takes time to remember that. To remember that you can function and be by yourself without the constant need for someone to be with you to tell you they’re there and it’s okay to be scared of breathing lest the pain come again.”
Tony takes in his words.
He’s right.
“So you do two things, you pretend it hasn’t happened or you enter a void of pain and try and work your way out of it.”
He sighs.
“I’ve done both and they both suck as much as each other. Maybe the latter just lets the pain hurt less in the long run; because it has happened, and it has changed you.”
He puts cream on the cuts on her arms, and rubs slowly.
“This will change her, and she’s going to hate it. She’s been so many people that reimagining herself another time, even if it doesn’t seem like anything , it’ll hurt.”
He pauses.
“When it’s her choice, it’s easier, but things like this, it’s like cracks in the armour, they need to be repaired otherwise it all falls apart.”
Clint is often right, even as he says things in a joking or playful manner, he has the wisdom of a much older man. His youthful demeanor often clouds Tony’s judgement of him.
He decides then, that he’d like to get to know the archer a little better, more than just the mutual kindness and friendship that has been keeping them together.
He knows this is not the take away.
Pepper always said he had no friends, but maybe Clint could be one.
Natasha, he thinks, is his friend.
He’d almost died and she’d saved him in a backhanded way, but the truth was, that after that, they’d come back together and become something as close to friends as anything could be.
In reverie, they’re both silent.
“I’m sorry it’s happened to you,” Clint says, spontaneously.
It takes Tony a minute.
No one has ever said those words to him.
“Yeah, you too,” he replies.
He knows he should elaborate but the mutual understanding seems to be enough.
Clint gently wipes Natasha’s face, over her head and down her neck.
He changes wipes and Tony cringes inwardly at the blood and dirt.
Tony stands staring and waits.
Clint removes the blanket and wipes down her chest, the crop top they’d found her in; which was probably the one she went missing in.
“Can you pass me the scissors, they’re on your left,” Clint asks.
Tony complies without talking, and then realises what Clint is going to do.
“Do you want me to leave?” he asks, as Clint starts to cut away the clothing.
Clint shakes his head.
“You can turn around if you feel more comfortable.”
Tony does.
Nothing about this has felt comfortable. He preferred looking through the cameras. Though voyeuristic, it gave separation he thought was better. Like pretending that it didn’t happen.
If he looked at her without a top on, he feels like it would be one violation too many.
He looks over his shoulder after a time and finds Natasha dressed in one of Clint’s hoodies. The black and purple hoodie dwarfs her, even though he always tends to think that they’re all around the same size.
Sure Natasha was slight, but she was always a presence, larger always than Clint in the room; unless she didn’t want to be.
Clint touches her hair.
Or what was left of it.
Wipes away the blood from where she pulled some hair out.
“Do you think we cut it?” he asks, sadly.
Tony shakes his head.
“No, I don’t, I think it needs to be her decision,” he says reaching out to touch before he reconsiders and draws his hand back.
Clint agrees, a small dip of his head and withdraws his hand too.
Tony doesn’t want to be here anymore.
“I’m going to go check on the van and where Jarvis is up to,” he says, backing out the door, leaving the two spies to themselves, bumping into Bruce as he leaves.
His arms are full and Tony looks him up and down.
“Will you need help?” he asks, hoping the answer is no.
“Uh, yeah that would be good,” Bruce tells him, handing him the sterile packages and taking two vials out of his pocket.
Tony inwardly cringes and follows him back into the room.
He realises idly that he didn’t remake the bed.
He leaves Bruce talking to Clint, and wanders over to where the bed stands, without the sheets.
Tony sighs, and makes the bed, first with the fitted sheet; Clint appears next to him and wordlessly helps.
It seems as though they’re both deep in thought, even though all Tony can think is what Bruce is going to do next.
Clint motions for him to shake out the sheet.
They finish the bed; Tony looks to the door, then glances to where Bruce is examining Natasha. Clint does the same, in a less obvious way, all keeping a quiet eye on the movements of others
“I think let’s wait for her to wake up,” Bruce decides, “then she can decide whether she wants to be asleep.”
He looks over her.
“She can maybe tell us more about how she’s feeling than I can examine, and even if there’s some more investigations needed. We’ve got blood and it’s currently being tested more, but actually, apart from the bruising, she seems okay?”
Clint feels it can’t be true.
She looks so… vulnerable with her shaved head and bruised body. To think that a week ago they were laughing and playing a game on the roof of the tower.
Not worrying about her.
Again.
He doesn’t know what to do.
He places the chair next to her and holds her hand, his body slumping in defeat.
“So we just… wait?”
Bruce nods.
“I think probably for the best to do so.”
“You can get some sleep too, if you want?”
The offer is one of kindness; the freshly made bed ready for either of them.
“You’ll be here, in case she wakes?” He asks directing the question to Tony.
Gently, Tony nods.
“Sleep,” he ushers.
“I’ll be here.”
.
Tony plays on his phone, finding himself also dozing in and out. The night of no sleep got him also wearing him down.
He wants to follow up on the van and if he’s honest with himself; he feels nervous.
He doesn’t know what kind of Natasha he’ll get when she wakes up and even as he looks nervously at her, he thinks he’s not adequate to help her.
Tony sighs heavily.
He doesn’t know how to help.
The silence engulfs the room.
He wonders how they would do with white noise, he personally doesn’t like it; preferring brown noise; the deeper sounds helping him more when he needed to sleep; the noise seemingly connecting him to himself is the only way he can describe it.
Sometimes it’s the only thing that helps him quiet his brain for sleep.
He thinks he’ll suggest it to both of them; then he thinks why wait.
“Jarvis?”
“Put the brown noise playlist on? The one with river sounds.”
The low droll starts.
Tony takes a deep breath, the sounds centering him.
The noise seems to fill the room.
He glances at his friends who are still asleep, one on his left and one on his right.
10am.
The morning is so slow.
But maybe that’s what happens when you’ve been up for over 24 hours.
He closes his eyes, one hand on Natasha’s, probably more for him than her, if he was honest with himself.
.
Clint wakes with a start, his dreams turning ugly.
He sits up, and looks around for Natasha.
Still asleep, with Tony holding her hand, he settles back down to bed.
At some point, Tony must have put the sounds on; Clint thinks it had likely put him to sleep too.
He snaps a quick photo on his phone.
It’s not that he wants to remember, but he thinks it’s important to, and for Natasha to know he’s not the only one who cares.
He wakes slow, taking his time to process his thoughts and come up with a plan.
Sleep helped.
He knows it usually does; it’s perhaps why Natasha feels and maybe felt so out of control, so unreasonable and unhinged.
Clint notices Tony’s hand on his phone, it seemed to be doing something with its blinking lights.
A picture.
An Id.
Someone was behind this.
He likes to think he’s not one for revenge, but actually, his bottled anger and tiredness combined, makes him want to hunt. He wonders if it would help Natasha too.
It’s been a day, and already he wonders what the next will bring.
He’s first to admit he’s scared of the future.
Scared of what kind of Natasha he’ll get, and the Black Widow that follows. He know the others haven’t seen her in her true form, and whilst the psychological factor of her being beaten down now, he wonders just what will emerge.
5/
There’s another two hours where the tower is quiet.
Clint dozes, finding rest in a chair facing Tony and Natasha.
He could follow Tony’s lead and search but if he’s honest, the peace is hard come by and he revels in it.
Natasha wakes with a scream.
Her body seems to try and protect itself as her arms shoot up and she scrambles back, cutting the scream off when she processes where she is.
Tony looks scared, before the face is covered up.
He puts his hands up and moves away, just as Clint moves closer.
Her hand goes to her mouth, breaking the heaving breaths, and covering her face in embarrassment.
“I’ll go get you a drink,” Tony says, breaking the silence that seems to have captured the room.
There’s water in the room, but Clint understands.
Natasha does too, he thinks, watching her nod; the movement small, but at least he knows she’s heard it.
There seems to be an acceptance that this is real.
That this is not something she is imagining.
Clint is at least thankful for that.
Looking up, her eyes glisten with she’d tears.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I’m sorry, I…”
He crosses the gap and holds her, the hug hard and firm as she leans into him.
He whispers that it’s okay, that she’s safe and other platitudes that he can’t guarantee.
“It was real, it’s real, and Clint?”
He looks down at her looking up, holding her question.
“She shaved my head.”
The words are said so forlornly, that he has no words, just holds her close and nods.
They both know.
It’s a strange violation, though a violation nonetheless.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, knowing that it’s probably a hard question to answer.
It’s met predictably, with a shrug.
He hugs her close again.
“Let’s get some food,” he offers, and helps her to sit up.
She has a far away look.
Clint hears Bruce and Tony in the hallway.
Natasha must hear them too, he feels her body tense.
Bruce enters first, he smiles and gives a little wave, Tony bustles after him.
Clint wants to help, wondering if having people around is a good thing or not. Judging by her grip on his arms, he’s not sure it is.
“Do you want them out?” he whispers in her ear.
Natasha seems cognisant of being in a medical environment, and takes a deep breath, Clint thinks to try and centre herself.
It’s a shaky start.
Bruce asks her permission to take some vitals, and she diligently offers her arm.
Natasha looks away when she sees the track marks.
Clint stares.
Tony hands her water.
So much seems to happen, and Clint knows it’s only because he’s being so hyper vigilant around everything that’s happening.
Previously, he knows, she likely would have pretended to be asleep, but that avenue is not viable.
Tony offers her a mandarin.
She takes it, and surprises Clint by eating it.
There’s something about sharing food.
It calms the room.
Seemingly calms Natasha, makes Tony slow down, and Bruce turn away from his charts and devices.
They all don’t eat much, but it’s not the point.
It’s a pocket of normal in an abnormal situation.
They all look wrecked.
Dark circles, eyes full of worry and Clint knows it’s just the beginning.
When Bruce offers caffeine, they all take it gratefully.
Tony looks around.
“I think I found the woman who did this,” he says quietly, breaking the peace.
Clint wished it had lasted just a little longer.
Natasha body shudders.
He feels her tense and relax and her demur change.
She runs her hands over head.
“Go on,” she croaks.
Tony looks uncomfortable.
“Sofya Zorn.”
Clint looks sharply at Natasha.
“You didn’t say it was Sofya.”
Bruce looks from Natasha to Clint and then to Tony.
“Who is she?”
Clint looks at the floor.
Natasha sighs and gathers her courage.
“I killed her husband, tortured her for information.”
She turns to Clint.
“I thought she was dead.”
Tony looks uncomfortable. Bruce puts down what he was eating.
“What do you mean?”
Clint wants to shield her, protect them, do something to protect them from one another; he thinks they might not accept this.
Natasha doesn’t talk about her time as a widow.
There’s a reason for that.
They won’t understand.
.
There’s something about having no sleep that makes being raw and honest easier.
She doesn’t think she’d ever say anything about the black widow days to Tony or Bruce for that matter, but here she is.
She sighs.
Natasha can feel the shame, the anger inside.
As much as she understands the woman wanting revenge, she also wants to kill her.
Her pain.
Her grief and anger, dwarfed by her own current need for revenge.
If she explains to them, they’ll help her find Sofya, but they’ll think of her differently.
If she doesn’t, maybe they will anyway, but they’ll always wonder.
She doesn’t know what is better, the truth or a lie by omission.
Natasha looks to Clint and takes a deep breath.
The truth it was.
Her friends perhaps deserved that.
.
“I was the best.”
Clint stares at the floor and Tony looks enraptured.
“They knew it too. I don’t know what it was about me that made them concentrate money and time into me, but they told me, because they did, I owed them.”
She sighs.
“And I had to repay the debt.”
Bruce looks uncomfortable.
She’s wonders how graphic to get.
Decides against it as Clint squeezes her hand.
“Sometimes it was easy things, deliver something, kidnap someone else, lure someone into a location. From seven, I could travel in the world, and be different people from one day to the next. I’d do what they say.”
She swallows, memories still freshly pounded in mind.
“Whatever they said.”
Clint squeezes her hand again, and this time, she can’t stand the touch.
Pulling away, Natasha stands.
“Sofya worked for British intelligence. She was a child born from a Russian mother and German father. She was adopted out when she was a teenager, neither parent wanting her and they made a special case for her in the UK. Given her proficiency for languages and intelligence. They ordered to her to marry an American, and she became invaluable.
We ran in similar circles, and when the red room hired me out to the KGB, they ordered me to kidnap her and kill her husband.”
Natasha moves to the window.
The world is big, she reminds herself, and I am small.
“I held her for three days, drugged her, gave her more when she gave me the answers I wanted. I shaved her head too, and left her alive. They wanted information. I gave that to them. I don’t expect that she would seek revenge twenty years later.”
Bruce is quick with the maths.
“But then, you were..”
Clint is quicker.
“Too young.”
He stares down Bruce and Tony, daring them to say anything.
Natasha giving a piece of herself when so much was gone already.
It was another thing to contend with, more pain, more heartache.
“It’s not your fault,” Tony says quietly.
“Natasha. That could never be your fault.”
She turns, braving them both.
“She’s not a good person, but then again, neither am I.”
Almost 48 hours since she was first brought in, Natasha walks out of the med bay.
.
She feels her chest tighten as she makes her way to her floor of the tower. Vision blurs as she moves as quickly as she can.
Pain and breathlessness imbue every step but her determination to get there and muscle memory guides her.
She needs something.
Pushing herself to take measured breaths, the elevator guides her up, depositing her at the floor she knows so well.
Natasha passes through the bedroom and into the wardrobe, wondering if she has enough energy for a shower.
Deciding against it, as her vision narrows, she strips from Clint’s pants and into her own; puts on a long sleeved top, stopping to scratch at her pierced arms.
She puts back on the comfort of his oversized hoodie, his smell imbued within it, making her feel at least the tiniest bit more comforted.
Looking in the drawers, she finds the beanie.
It takes courage to look at herself in the mirror.
She hasn’t been gone long, but her face has changed.
In the drawer of the bathroom she finds Clint’s shaver.
Her vision blurs.
Her hacked hair.
When she was little, she remembers it being a punishment, it was the worse shame.
When she had done the same to Sofya, she couldn’t imagine anything worse. Time, she feels, has taught her different.
But she was a different person then.
Carefully, she cuts the remaining hair, an even cut that makes her look and feel less crazed.
Hair grows back.
She stares at her image and then at the hair in the sink.
It’s not the worse punishment.
She’s so tired.
Dead on her feet.
Her heart beats faster.
Her skin too hot.
Unable to regulate, unable to breathe.
Fingers curl into fists.
She fits the beanie on her head, and immediately feels better, body covered, ready to go.
.
Clint lets her leave.
He feels he knows what she’s going to go do.
Armed with information.
He’d do the same.
Revenge is an easy outlet.
He finishes his mouthful of food and grabs a water bottle off Tony, and looks at him.
“Where is she?”
Tony frowns.
“She just left? Do we follow her?”
“No,” Clint replies, frustrated, “Sofya? Where is she?”
Tony looks at his tablet, and hands it across to Clint.
The coordinates aren’t far.
Maybe a misdirect, Clint doesn’t think it seems right.
A trap?
Did she expect them to come?
She did dump Natasha outside the tower.
“Can you send a drone in? Check it out?”
Tony looks like he hadn’t considered that option and nods with a look on his face.
Clint moves to leave the room, stopped by Bruce who grabs his arm.
“She’s not well enough for this,” he comments.
They all know that.
“This is a pain killer and this is sedation.”
The four syringes are prepped and the tablets are pushed into Clint’s hand.
Bruce knows.
This is not the first time.
He has them prepared and ready.
“You’re the only one who knows what she’s ready for.”
He’s wrong.
No one knows that.
Probably not even Natasha.
.
He finds her at the downtown bridge.
Always six steps ahead of him, she’s still predictable on her nature.
Hide in the shadows, next to bodies of water.
He just happens to know her.
He stays away, watching at first.
The day seems darker, with clouds imitating the ominous feelings inside.
She moves slowly, blending into the world around her.
People would never even guess that two days before she was a shell of herself.
Probably still is.
He wonders if she knows he’s out there.
Wonders if she cares.
Natasha knows there’s a threat in the world, and she’ll eliminate it to protect herself.
Protect him.
Protect the others.
And eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
She stumbles.
Clint watches her pick herself up and then move to a bench to sit.
There’s still some protective reactions.
She seems him and cocks her head.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he tells her.
“And where should I be, Clint?”
“Resting?”
She scoffs.
“And what does that bring me? Panic? Nightmares?”
She stops herself.
Composes her body.
Clint hates when she does that, it’s like a shudder rolls through her and she stops any emotions coming out. The amount of control she has on it is terrifying sometimes, and it feels in stark contrast to how emotional she was hours before when she was asking him to sedate her.
“Natasha,” he starts, “do you even have a plan?”
She turns to study him, sizing him up as to whether to go through him or tell him her plan.
“Under the bridge is a sniper rifle from the Alcott Mission. I hid it, even though we told Fury that we dumped it in the river.”
Clint looks over to it, half expecting the rifle to be visible.
“The coordinates that Tony found are a building not too far from here, but there’s a better sniper perch from the one adjacent.”
He shifts and she glances at him.
“There’s flags in between and it’s an easy shot.”
For her it would be fine, she’s not sleeping anyway, so waiting in a sniper perch, probably not a hard thing.
He stands and offers a hand.
“Okay,” he agrees, “let’s go.”
Natasha looks at him, this time, meeting his eyes.
“No.”
He scoffs.
“What, no?”
“No, you can’t come.”
He laughs at her.
“I’m coming.”
It’s a stupid fight.
“You’re not.”
He rolls his eyes.
“Hold out your hand,” he asks, breaking the tension.
Natasha stands and pushes past him, heading for the bridge.
He wanted to see just how shaky she was, but it seems she didn’t want to show him.
Clint follows and waits for her to retrieve the pieces of the gun.
It’s cleverly placed.
She doesn’t bother to assemble it, just placed the pieces into her bag and keeps moving forward.
The building adjacent is an old apartment building. It doesn’t take them long to get there, and Natasha doesn’t entertain any conversation, just checks to see if he’s still near her.
He tries to smile, but his worry is deep.
She’s been drugged by them, drugged by Sofya and the weeks seems to just keep having more hits.
How much further could she go before she crashed?
She hasn’t slept and neither has Clint and he can feel that in his body.
He has no idea how she feels but he’s sure she’s feeling it.
Sometimes he thinks that she’s super human, however they played with her body and mind in the red room, that they reconfigured her into someone that’s more than human.
Natasha holds the elevator for him.
The 43rd floor seems mostly empty, and he wonders how she knows.
As if on cue, she hands him her phone and he sees how she’s hacked the drone from Tony to see where she can set up.
He shakes his head.
Always three steps ahead, even when broken down and operating on fumes.
“Okay,” he nods, “I’m with you.”
.
Tony sends a couple of messages to both Clint and Natasha and then gives up and hacks into their phones.
Only Clint’s seems to appear and he knows exactly where they are.
Maybe they’re not going to do something stupid.
He looks around and wonders what to do.
He feels lost.
Not wanting to be a part of direct revenge he decides on offering them an escape.
The quinjet, the one he’s been working on with the cloaking device seems like a good option and gives him something to do and get ready.
Leaving Bruce, still running tests on Natasha blood, Tony heads to the hanger bay.
.
The gun rests on a table, it’s small tripod holding it up. Natasha looks through the scope and to the left to find the American flag flying as an indicator of wind speed.
She hasn’t seen Sofya, and she tells Clint to contact Tony to make sure she’s still inside.
She doesn’t want to show him that her hands are shaking, even though as soon as they touch the gun they stop.
Training in the red room surely beat that out of her. It’s like her brain knows that when it’s time to shoot, she can’t have any weakness.
The downtime in the cold and quiet sends a shiver down her back.
She can feel her mind slipping.
The lack of sleep and residual drugs make her feel unsteady, and she knows this is a bad idea.
She doesn’t care though.
Sofya had sent her in a walk through her past and she wanted to punish her for it. Her head itches where the hair had been pulled out, cut, and shaved and she feels her skin crawling.
Natasha feels her eyes close, and when she opens them, she feels the pressure of her past close in.
She looks around to see Clint, who smiles and asks her a question.
She doesn’t react.
His choice to come, hers not to entertain him.
“Natasha,” a singsong voice raises.
She looks around to find no one.
Taking a deep breath, she tries to centre herself.
There’s no one here except her, and Clint.
“Natasssha.”
The voice seems to be everywhere and nowhere and Natasha feels it viscerally in the air.
There’s no one here except her and Clint.
There’s a breeze
“Just do what you’re told,” comes a deep voice.
It takes all her will power not to turn around.
The voices aren’t there.
They can’t be.
The people that speak them are dead.
She stares down the barrel of the gun and feels her body go still.
All the sounds of the world still and her mind slows as she counts her breathing.
Still no Sofya.
She takes her hand off the gun and breathes.
Clint moves so he’s sitting near her.
She can smell him.
Natasha hopes, that once Sofya is dead that all the feelings that sit under her skin will fizzle and die.
“Tony says she’s in the building,” Clint says, just loud enough that it breaks over the voices.
“The drone says far left. Two body guards.”
“Just do as you’re told.”
“Natasha.”
“Just do as your told.”
She touches the gun.
“Easy to kill, hard to die, makes a girl stupid and..”
Natasha puts her eye to the scope and the world goes quiet again.
She readjusts her position and find where Clint and Tony had directed her to.
She looks old.
Older than Natasha remembers even though it had had only been days.
In the panic, and the drugs, she thinks she didn’t get to look at her.
She looks to the flag, her breathing slowing.
This she is good at.
It’s a clean shot.
Natasha feels the drugs in her system.
The taunts against Clint.
The ease in which she killed Sofia’s husband.
Her young hands replace the ones on the gun and she’s a teenager again. She enjoys the creativity of having power over someone older. Giving them the same pain that the Red Room gave her.
She remembers it well.
Natasha forgets to breathe.
It comes out in a whoosh and she forgets everything.
It’s only for a moment but the ignorance is peace.
Just like it is when she’s in a stress position.
“Breathe Natasha.”
The voice is like a soothing balm.
“Still your body,” he continues.
It helps her to breathe.
She forgets how much Clint saves her.
Wonders idly if Sofya’s husband did the same for her.
“Breathe Natasha.”
She does.
He stands to the left of her vision. She sees him and Sofya in the same vision and feels overwhelmed by juxtaposition.
“Empty your thoughts Natasha.”
The use of her name serves to ground her.
“Listen to your breath.”
And breathing becomes easier.
She focuses, finding Sofya in the cross hairs.
“Feel the rise and fall in your chest.”
Natasha feels the shot through her arms, to her fingers, and readies the gun.
“Let your senses guide you,” he whispers.
She takes the shot, and kills Sofya.
.
Clint hears Natasha laugh after the shot and he glances at her curiously.
It’s not the reaction he anticipated, especially after the kill shot.
She laughs again.
“Nat?”
The laugh becomes maniacal.
It’s a horrible sound.
It doesn’t sound like Natasha, and isn’t anything he’s ever heard come out of her mouth.
“Nat?”
She takes her hand off the gun and turns to face him with a smile.
“They said to just do as I’m told.”
She holds her hands up in surrender.
“But I didn’t. I killed her but they told me not to.”
He cocks his head, trying to put the words together in some semblance of meaning.
“Natasha?”
She looks at him, with unseeing eyes.
“Do as you’re told,” she whispers.
Smiles.
“But I didn’t.”
Clint tries to see it from her point of view.
“Nat…that was before.”
He doesn’t know, how to help, only that they need to leave and make it somehow either back to their safehouse or back to the tower.
There seems to be a moment of awareness as she looks at him and frowns.
“Leave?”
She smiles.
He sees no mirth behind it, only danger.
“Nat, where are you right now?”
Clint’s phone buzzes in his pocket, breaking Natasha’s smile.
She turns and disassembles the gun, putting it back into her bag, turning to face him, Natasha holds a smaller gun in her hands.
“I told you not to follow me,” she threatens, holding the gun up against his chest.
Clint stops breathing, wanting to catch her unseeing eyes.
He doesn’t speak.
It’s not worth it.
She won’t process it anyway.
He just stands still with his hands up, breathing slowly.
His phone goes off again.
It’s Tony, he’s sure.
Waiting for them on the roof with the quinjet.
Faced with no resistance, Natasha doesn’t seem to know what to do.
Clint thinks she wants to run, he steps forward, taking the gun and a laugh bursts from her as she surrenders it to him.
It’s disconcerting how quickly she shifts between manic and confused.
He doesn’t like it.
There’s the drugs in his pocket to sedate her but he didn’t want to use it. Never wanted to drug her without it being her choice.
It’s starting to feel necessary.
He turns away from her, wondering if she’ll follow as she shakes her head.
The hit comes to his left, he ducks under her arm, thankful how slow she seems.
The fight in her body seems to abate as he turns on her and blocks the second punch.
There’s no fight in it.
“Natasha.”
The words are final, harsh and he says it with a tinge of anger.
Clint can see her fists curl, but her body is restrained.
“Who are you?”
He asks because he honestly can’t tell.
Natasha? Black widow? Someone else entirely?
He shows her his phone and tells her to head to the roof.
This time, he makes her go first.
Pushes her gently forward.
The elevator is mirrored and he can watch her face without staring.
The 55th floor comes quick, and it’s like she doesn’t have full control of her body.
He sees her fists clenching, eyes slowly opening and closing, and a slight hunch in her shoulders.
She needs sleep.
She’s starting to scare him.
.
The darkness takes everything.
It envelops her and she barely can focus on the steps in front of her.
Tony greets them with a jet on the roof, and she can’t help the growl and smile that comes out more like she’s baring her teeth.
Clint takes her hand.
She thinks it’s in warning.
Her vision blurs around the edges, just as it had been.
At least the visions seem to have disappeared.
The feeling hasn’t though.
She feels dangerous.
Clint and Tony don’t talk, which she realises only once the jet has taken off.
The man that doesn’t stop talking and the other who hates silence.
“Talk,” she commands, clenching her fists.
Her head hurts, and her body feels like it’s been beaten.
“Um. About what?”
Tony’s stupidity makes her angry.
“Talk about anything.”
Clint seems to get it at least, and he starts by talking to her.
“Uh. Are you okay?”
The knife strikes the empty seat, and Tony swears loudly.
“Talk.”
It seems to be all she can think to say, because if she’s left alone in her own head, she feels the darkness will envelop her.
Tony starts.
He talks about Pepper, a neutral topic, how she’s currently in London, and he wonders if she’s buying out Harrods.
Natasha appreciates it.
She loves Pepper, her steadfastness.
The darkness doesn’t go near her, Pepper knows how to cope.
Jealousy curls within Natasha and she feels mean.
The knife in her pocket feels hot against her thigh, its twin is still embedded in the seat nearby.
She almost feels her body shutting down.
It scares her.
“Nat?”
She turns her attention to Clint, his hands raised.
Tonys not talking and she thinks she sees fear.
“Do you want to give me the knife?”
She looks down, the knife is twirling in her hand and she didn’t even realise.
She nods and hands it to Clint. Her face burns in embarrassment.
“You need sleep,” Tony says bluntly.
Taking a step towards him, Clint puts himself between them.
“Don’t,” he warns.
He tries to get her to make eye contact, and it’s not until he says her name again that she stops staring at Tony.
“Where are you, right now?” he asks, his voice soft.
She doesn’t want to answer.
Tony is right.
She feels like she needs to be sedated for a year. Even with Sofya gone, Natasha thinks she’s taken part of her when she died.
Killed.
She doesn’t know.
Maybe it was her ability to sleep.
“Do you want the honest answer? Don’t ask the question if you don’t want it, Clint.”
There’s a pause.
“Do you want to sleep?”
He asks the question quietly, tentatively and prepares for the repercussions.
The fact that he’s scared of her, sinks her heart.
She sinks back into the chair and gives a nod of her head.
“Say it,” he prompts.
Natasha holds out her arm, looks at Tony, then back to Clint.
“Sedate me.”
.
Tony doesn’t like the realities of their work.
Doesn’t like that Natasha’s past is what it is.
Hates the sag of Clint’s shoulders and the tear that rolls down Natasha’s face as he sticks her with a needle.
He watches Natasha’s eyes roll to the back of her head and he feels overwhelmed with the confronting feeling of helplessness.
“I’m sorry,” he hears Clint say.
Tony leaves to check the trajectory of the plane.
He tries to focus on the screens but ends up walking back out to Clint and offer him a bottle of water.
Clint takes it and snorts in derision.
“I think I might need something stronger,” he tells Tony.
“Want me to sedate you too?” Tony offers, half serious.
The bark laugh that comes out of Clint’s mouth, makes Tony feel marginally better.
He hands Clint a blanket and they cover Natasha.
“Where are we going?”
“London.”
“Seriously?”
Tony shrugs.
“I felt it may be better for everyone to not be in America right now.”
Clint slumps on the chair next to Natasha.
“Wake me when we get there?”
Tony nods.
He can watch over his friends, even if he feels dead on his feet too.
.