Chapter 20
She’s gone when he wakes, no longer in his arms. So gentle in her movements, even he hadn’t felt her go. Maybe he had just been so content.
He’s terrified she’s gone after Dreykov by herself, but the reality hits him harder.
Positioned against the wall, she squats against the wall, wrists together, caught in what looks like flashback, a memory or nightmare, sweat on her face as unseeing eyes stare straight ahead.
“Natasha?”
His voice cracks as he steps back, away from her. She’s seemed so cognizant last night, talking more than she had so long.
He takes a deep breath.
“Natasha,” he tries again.
Wondering how long she’s been in that position for, he looks around for the cat, knowing she helps.
Clint squats to her level, seeing if he can catch her attention, saying her name, and it becoming like a chant.
They make eye contact, and although it seems like a lifetime, she drops to the floor; wrists parting, legs crossing and breathing audible.
“I just needed my mind to stop thinking. I just wanted to not be scared of what’s going to happen next,” she admits after Clint says nothing.
“You’re safe here,” he tells her. “You’re safe now.”
She turns to him, a look of emptiness.
“That’s the thing, now I’m safe, now I’m okay but I need to be brave again andagain knowing he’ll find me. He’ll never stop.”
The possessiveness of Dreykov over Natasha makes Clint’s skin crawl when he thinks of all the things she’s disclosed about their interactions.
Her audible sigh feels like resignation.
“I don’t want to be brave anymore,” she tells him, clearly, making eye contact, looking at him to save her.
He doesn’t know how to respond to that. She’s been brave since the day she was born, he thinks. It’s not something she will ever just turn off, and he doesn’t know how to comfort this.
He sits down next to her and takes her hand.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
She smirks, the action mirthless.
“If I dream, they’re not good.”
He nods, inches closer to her.
“Where’s the cat?”
Natasha nods to the couch in the other room. “I think over there. She hasn’t left this room since we bought her here.”
Clint smiles and nods, leaving her side to find the black cat on the couch. He picks her up unceremoniously and dumps her on Natasha’s lap.
The initial indignation turns quickly into purring, as she settles into Natasha’s crossed legs.
“Fight me,” he offers, surprising her.
“Come on, it’ll be good for both of us.”
Slowly, she nods, liking the idea more and more.
“Yeah okay.”
“Okay, meet me in the gym in half an hour?”
Natasha continues to nod and pats Liho gently.
.
If anything, Clint finds her more dangerous, the lethal way in which she attacks, hits and turns defense into an offense feels like he’s fighting someone new.
There are new patterns to learn here.
She tires quickly though. He takes this one advantage and uses it, defending until she can’t hit him anymore, her movements slowing as he grabs her arm and throws her onto the mats.
Grappling, she grabs his arm but he manages to pull it out, grabbing her own and putting it into an arm bar.
He holds it and extends it, waiting for her to tap out, wondering if it’s the right choice to win.
It takes seconds for her to register the pain, before she struggles and then begrudgingly taps once.
Releasing her immediately, Clint stands and helps her up.
Natasha produces a knife and offers it to him.
“Mark it,” she says, to Clint’s confusion.
“What?” he laughs, knowing her words do not hold anything good.
“Mark your win,” she says, offering it again.
He scoffs.
“No, what?”
She purses her lips and frowns.
“You have to.”
Natasha says it with such conviction, that fear drops in his body.
“I don’t want to,” he tells her.
She doesn’t seem to have an answer for that, so instead, she turns her palm up and cuts it.
Clint’s exclamation is loud, disarming her quickly the knife taken off her.
“What are you? No!”
The words fall out of his mouth, and regret in fighting her sinks in.
She shrugs in indifference.
“You won.”
Clint wraps her hand in his tshirt, unable to look at her, knowing that they’re heading for therapy regardless of what she wants.
“No,” he growls.
“No. That’s not how we do things. That’s not. This is not how we are. We don’t.”
He huffs again, unable to explain himself as he lifts the cloth to see the extent.
Dragging her into the bathroom, he makes her out it underwater the blood mixing making pink water.
He pulls the first aid kit and dresses it, still not looking her in the eye.
“That’s not how we do things,” he growls again, so angry at her action and himself.
She doesn’t seem to register his words, as she looks at the gentle way he bandages her hand.
“That’s not how we do things,” he repeats.
.
America thinks it’s so good, Dreykov thinks, as he enters the warehouse, his guns for importing ready to go.
He sends the widows off to guard the entrances and exits, leaving one with him as he realises he has time to waste before he is needed elsewhere.
Natasha will come for him, he is sure. All he has to do is wait.
Ross had confirmed it. He trusts in her pride; she will not bring the Avengers with her.
If she does, the widows are expendable.
She cannot stay away, always looking for him. He knows her so intimately that the draw to him is clear.
She will come.
And then they will go.
She will be his again.
.
She can’t live in a place she doesn’t feel safe, and right now, he realises the world doesn’t feel safe.
She said she was done being brave, and he wasn’t sure when knew what that meant, but doing this, he can be brave.
He has the power to do something about it.
Tony gave him that. No one else needs to be in danger. Steve and Tony can take care of her.
He packs his bow and arrows, guns and a grenade for good measure, looking back only once to watch her sleeping, hoping again that the decisions he makes don’t impact on her negatively.
She will be safe in the world, and he will do anything to make it so.
.
The note is short. He’s gone to finish what they started all those years ago.
Kill Dreykov.
Avenger her.
He shouldn’t have. He’s likely walking into his death.
If she wasn’t so weak, this would have never happened. The thing is, she would tear apart the world for him.
Which is exactly what she’s going to do.
Zipping up her widow suit, she ignores the scarring on her body, the track marks healing on her arms, her still broken arm as braids her hair into tight braids, and exits the safety of the tower, chasing after Clint and all her nightmares.
.