Chapter 19
To Steve’s surprise Natasha and Clint arrive at breakfast, and whilst Tony and Bruce are nowhere to be found, he sends them a message quickly to come join them.
It’s likely that they’ve been up all night doing… who knows what they do, but he feels like it’s important to have everyone here.
Clint looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes; but Natasha, although moving slowly, looks lighter with him by her side.
“Morning,” he greets, offering the coffee to Clint first.
Clint takes the pot, holding it up in gratitude as he nurses it to the cupboard. Steve laughs as Clint fills it to the brim, slurping the top to bring it to the table.
Natasha is already sitting, so he sits next to her and groans.
“Tired?” Steve inquires.
He doesn’t get a reply.
Steve stands and grabs cereal and bread and offers them both to the assassins sitting at the table.
Clint continues to nurse his coffee, whilst Natasha points to the cereal.
Steve dumps some in a bowl and serves it to her with the milk on the side.
There’s a quiet thank you, and it only just dawns on Steve why her voice sounds more hoarse and when she talks, she says less.
Screaming makes your throat sore and your voice strained.
Clint closes his eyes as he sips his drink, and sighs contentedly, as Natasha eats the cereal slowly.
Steve reads on his phone as message comes through from Bruce, letting him know he’ll be there in five minutes.
Tony saunters in, disheveled. It makes Steve laugh as he instantly locates the coffee pot, fills a mug, and just like Clint fills it to the brim. He then sits next to Clint, filling up Clint’s mug again.
Natasha watches carefully, still half a bowl of cereal as she takes it to the kitchen disposing of it.
Tony clinks mugs as he drinks more, making Clint laugh as he does the same.
It’s been a long time since there’s been a morning like this and Steve appreciates the simplicity of it.
Bruce saunters in, and Natasha hands him a mug.
There’s a swelling of emotions, in him, and now as Natasha sits next to him, they watch the three drink coffee like it’s a lifeline.
“Thank you,” Natasha says, the four men looking at her, “for helping. For coming for me.”
Silence in the kitchen, as she continues.
“My experience with family is limited, but what you did for me…I won’t forget.”
Steve watches her bite her lip, as he feels he should say something back. Surprising everyone, it’s Bruce that talks.
“We’re a weird group of people, Nat. We protect our own. I’m sorry this happened to you. I wish it never did, any of it,” he says fiercely, “but you’re here with us now, and I hope you trust us enough to keep helping.”
He speaks, of course, of the two assassins tendency to run and hide when wounded.
To her credit, Natasha gives him half a smile and ducks her head.
“No promises,” she replies.
“This is touching,” Tony says, breaking the tension, “but what’s for breakfast?”
Clint nods, stands and pulls out a pan.
“Pancakes?”
.
Under the shower Clint can almost forget himself, the water beating down on him.
The coffee brought him to equilibrium, the shower makes him functional. Natasha headed back to bed after eating a bite of his pancake.
He can see she’s trying so hard to be normal, but he can see the cracks.
The way she flinched when Steve put he bowl on the table, the way she watched all the exits as the others entered. It must be exhausting in her brain right now.
Sleep is a reprieve, and he knows he needs to watch over her. For nothing other than she knows that he is her eyes when she can’t be.
He doesn’t think that he’s slept more than three hours a night in the last month and running on empty doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling of fatigue he feels.
He can’t be away from her.
He feels obligated to helping, fixing this. It’s partially his fault anyway.
He just feels like he needs to go away for a little while, from this life, this world.
Instead he shuts off the shower and gets changed.
.
“I need help.”
Tony turns to face Clint.
“She’s asleep,” he says.
It’s not even a question Tony had thought to ask.
“I’m worried that if I’m not with her, something bad will happen,” he tells him.
“Like what?” Tony asks slowly.
Clint is quiet, “I don’t know, something… anything.”
Tony’s heart sinks a little; “you think she’ll hurt herself?”
Walking forward, Clint approaches his workbench, picking up a screwdriver and twirling it unconsciously.
“Or that something will happen to her.”
“Dreykov,” Tony concludes.
Clint nods.
“He’s not dead. I know it. I think he’ll come for her. Can you find him? Track him maybe?”
Clint sits with a thud.
“What do you need?”
He shrugs.
“Sleep?” It’s said in jest but Tony knows it’s an honest answer.
“Okay, how about you rest over there,” he points to the bed Pepper set up years ago, “and I’ll start searching.”
Clint looks to the door.
“She’ll be fine,” he assures.
“I’ll send Steve with the cat, and Jarvis can tell us when she starts to stir, her heart rate usually changes when she starts to wake up.”
Clint almost laughs at that, that Tony has been monitoring her as much as he has… just from afar.
He looks to the bed again, the appeal of it clear.
“Okay,” he concedes, “okay, but you’ll wake me?”
Tony pulls up the schematics of planes into an out of Russia, and turns his back on Clint.
“Sleep.”
.
Liho steps on the bed making a cat noise loud enough to wake Natasha.
To Liho’s surprise she’s forcibly removed, a growl and surprised ‘mrrrp’ leaves her mouth as she stares disgruntled at the blonde man that’s taken her from the warmth.
“Leave her,” comes Natasha’s voice, and she’s placed back on the bed, following her voice and like she’s always done, she knocks heads with her and curls near her head.
“What’s the time?”
Steve’s low voice answers and she realizes Clint isn’t with her again. Her heart drops a little.
“Where’s Clint?”
Maybe he’s just gone out for a minute, but when Steve replies he’s with Tony, she knows he’s avoiding her again.
“Can you get him for me?”
She doesn’t even hear him leave, and she knows she could ask Jarvis but the truth is she wants him out of her room.
She wants to cry alone.
.
Light sleeping has always been a skill of Clint’s; ever since he knew he had to pay attention to when his father was home, or look into sniper scopes for hours; he’s always been able to wake up quickly and be alert to his surroundings.
He awakens but doesn’t move, only when Steve enters, he sits up and looks around.
Tony looks guiltily at him, and he knows something has happened.
He stands quickly, looking to each of them.
“What?” he questions.
“Good news or bad news?”
Tony looks worried, “Dreykov is in the states.”
Clint clenches his teeth, breathing through his nose.
“And?”
“And he’s meeting with Ross.”
Steve crosses his arms across his body.
“What can we do?”
“Kill him,” Clint mutters, thinking of all the ways he can take him out.
There’s a break.
“He’s here for her isn’t he?”
Dread fills Tony, and Clint backs to the door.
“Natasha asked for you,” Steve tells Clint, giving him the easy option to leave.
“Clint wait.”
He turns his back to his friends.
“Don’t do anything dumb just yet, let us see what we can figure out, and then we can do it together, whatever it needs to be.”
Steve’s words are tokenistic at best. Placating at worst.
Leaving the room, he feels his phone buzz.
Tony has sent him the coordinates.
.
By the time Clint arrives at her room, her eyes are dry.
She’s composed and sitting with Liho in her lap. She’s so tired of feeling so out of it, so disconnected and dissociated from life.
Everything feels hard, but it’s not like it was before, she can do this. She can be a part of the world.
“Hey,” he opens, sitting on the bed.
“Hey.”
He looks to his feet and she knows.
“What?”
Her stomach drops as he doesn’t make eye contact but hands her his phone.
There’s coordinates.
“Who?”
But she knows.
He doesn’t need to say it. It’s been the elephant in the room since she got back.
Her protector, the fear of losing her to not only her own mind but to someone else’s, her greatest fear that was realised, and now likely need to be alive again feeling like a sisyphean task.
“Confirmed?” she asks.
He nods.
“Tony found him.”
Then quieter.
“How is he not dead?”
Liho moves, stretches and then curls back in on herself, unaware of the angst settling in the room.
“What do you want to do?
Natasha stands up, holds her hand out for him to take, and leads him to the bathroom.
“No big decisions right now, we know what we’re going to, right?”
He nods, taking his tshirt off as she strips too.
“Wash my hair?” she asks, stepping under the spray.
He remembers his promise, and smiles.
“Of course.”
.
Dreykov leaves the secretaries office, purpose in his step as two widows trail behind him. Ross was a bastard, looking to American interests and they knew it. What he wasn’t expecting was for him to give Natasha back so easily.
Not through official channels of course, but the ease in which information was exchanged.
He smiles as he boards the plane.
Not long now.
.
Night falls, the day long and few words spoken.
“Will you be able to sleep?”
Clint traces patterns on her hand, his eyes tired as she pulls herself closer to him. He accepts her in his arms and feels for the first time the closeness he’s been missing.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he confesses, kissing her head.
“I’ve missed me too.”
She sighs, “when will this be over? I feel like I can’t process anything, do anything, because this still isn’t over. I want to go to Tokyo, or the beach, or anywhere that doesn’t have a medical facility attached. I don’t want to be in the same country as that man, the same world, universe even.”
Clint nods.
“We should call Thor.”
She scoffs at that.
“If they find me, and take me, you’ll do it won’t you?”
She knows what she’s asking of him, but she knows she can’t do it again. Last time she wanted to live, but there’s no way she would survive again.
“If they take me, I think I’ll be gone forever.”
It’s a melancholic statement and he doesn’t accept it.
“Always something with you, isn’t there?”
They both smile at the old joke, and slowly the night burns away as finally they talk. The debrief a long time coming. Natasha listens to Clint’s heart rate slow, both drifting to sleep.
.