Chapter 26
Clint finds her alone on the roof, the cold biting. He wants to say so much, the fight finally over.
It feels like he can breathe again, the first time since he saw her have a seizure in the gym.
It’s over.
She’s safe and sound.
“Hey,” he greets, as she turns to watch him, the blanket he bought big enough to drape over both their shoulders.
“Hey,” she replies in Russian.
Clint grins.
“Russian day?” he asks, the morning fresh.
The tiny half smile says yes, as he continues in Russian as well.
“Jace has gone?”
Natasha stares into the city.
“She’s gone to save the others.”
It’s not specific about what she means but Clint supposes he can wait for more information.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to truly meet her,” he tells her, the remorse genuine.
“Maybe one day.”
Natasha says the words slowly, as though she’s in a dream, lost on her own thoughts but still replying in this world.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” he prompts.
“Do you think I’m a good person?” she asks, switching to English.
The question floors Clint as he bundles close to her.
“You, Natasha Romanoff, are one of the very best people. Why do you ask?”
She shrugs nonchalantly, not elaborating on her thought.
He lets it go, frowning slightly.
“Come inside,” he ask in Russian, the command seeming harsh, and like an order.
He doesn’t like it.
“Are you ready to come inside?” He changes, placing the blanket on her, in case she’s not.
Predictably, Natasha shakes her head.
“Soon,” she whispers, “soon.”
.
Natasha knows she’s not okay.
Stumbling down the hall back to her room, she only just catches herself before dizziness makes her hold onto the door frame.
She doesn’t feel like herself.
She was only just able to hold onto a conversation with Clint, she heard her voice but it felt like she was a thousand miles away.
Like she was apart from herself.
“You don’t deserve the kindness,” a voice supplies.
“You are not a good person.”
She makes it to the bed, laying down, closing her eyes hoping for peace, and knowing it’s not going to come.
Thoughts of Dreykov permeate in her mind, memories from the last month freshly intersperse with old memories that have been brought to the surface.
She tries to hold onto memory of the gun in her hand shooting to kill, the sound of the bullet hitting flesh.
But it doesn’t feel like enough.
“It’s your fault he was still alive, left to ravage the world and little girls. You should have saved them.”
She wishes she could have done half of what he did to her.
Death seems too kind.
A bullet to the head seems too easy.
She hasn’t got the energy to stop the thoughts, wanting nothing more than oblivion.
It’s uncomfortable in her skin.
She’s here but she’s not.
Lost, in a way, knowing she needs to ground herself in the here and now, otherwise may become stuck in thoughts.
Nails dig into her palms, as the pain only just touches her consciousness. If there could be more, then maybe, maybe she can bring herself to hold onto the tentative strings she has.
Pain has always been a friend, a way of clearing her mind and helping her tunnel her vision.
She could position herself into a stress position but this feels like it needs more to stop the world turning over in her head.
Sitting up, she feels the sharp little daggers she always carries with her on her person, and moves to the bathroom.
Stripping carefully, she looks at her body, ignoring her splinted arm. It makes things harder but not impossible. She knows how to wield a knife one handed.
Her eyes move to where Max cut into her leg, where Dreykov put his fingers and tainted her skin.
Cut it out, she thinks.
The skin will grow back new, without any touch memory attached.
The dagger appears and presses it to her skin, feeling where his fingers touched, she shaves the skin away, blood bubbling and pain spiking.
Natasha smiles.
More.
.
Clint finds Tony in the workshop, predictably working on his suits. He looks up to find Clint twirling arrows and looking intently into colours that are displayed on his suit.
“I’m trying to make the suit be able to blend into the environment, so I’m teaching it different colours.”
Clint touches it again, liking the way Tony talks about his suit as if it’s a thing that knows.
He often talks about his bow the same way. Something that has sense memory, feelings.
“What’s wrong?” Tony wonders, as he looks to his friend, and offers him the same Russian candy that’s in Natasha’s apartment.
Clint takes one, his mouth filling with saliva at the thought of the sweetness and the coffee flavour.
He sits in the one seater couch, and chews on it thoughtfully.
“Who’s your therapist?”
The question intrusive but he’s not sure how else to frame it.
Tony picks up his train of thought immediately.
“Mine would not be a good fit for her, but Pepper’s might be?”
Clint shrugs.
“We have our own but she’s not available, I just called her and she’s in Ottawa until next month.”
Clint swallows the last of the candy.
“I think maybe she needs to talk to someone now.”
The conversation on the roof made him feel like she had a lot more going on in her head. The switch between English and Russian, the slow drawn out words and deep thoughts, he doesn’t know what it is, but he does know that it doesn’t feel good.
His gut hasn’t failed him, and he trusts it for Natasha as well.
“I can pay her to come back?” Tony offers.
Clint laughs. The way his friend throws money around to get what he wants is sometimes astounding.
“No, it’s okay, I’ll talk to Natasha and see if we can organise something. Will you send me Pepper’s therapist’s number?”
Jarvis has already done it by the time he finishes the sentence and Clint nods, arrow back in hand.
He touches the suit again, and looks to Tony.
“Need any help?”
.
There’s an aimlessness to the way he wanders the hall, wanting so badly to go and check up on her but not wanting to intrude on her space.
So he finds Steve in the kitchen and challenges him to a bake off, something they’re both equally bad at.
There’s been so much sadness, angst and heaviness in the tower that Steve’s smile seems to lighten things somewhat.
There’s benefits to escapism. Clint thinks, and he remembers that the therapist had always told him when things were too heavy to separate himself from it.
That he needed to find things that he can do rather than ruminate on all the things wrong within his world.
He can do this, he can put his energy into making banana muffins whilst Steve makes some carrot muffins.
Then he has something for her.
It’s a good plan. He knows it is.
.
Fresh air feels foreign as she steps outside.
Taking a deep breath, she smells the city in all its glory.
Natasha feels the pulling of the open wound on her thigh. She thinks vaguely that she should have treated it but also the pain pills her attention away from the fog in her head.
It’s likely that, at the very least, she should have put gauze and a dressing over it. She can feel the blood drip down.
Walking feels aimless but it seems that her legs know where she needs to go.
Water.
The pier.
The sound of the water has always given her answers.
.
Clint grins at Steve’s frustration, the carrots he’s grated too much for the recipe.
“Just double it,” he goads unhelpfully.
Steve frowns, and shakes his head.
“No, no I think I have enough. Do you want a carrot sandwich?”
It makes Clint laugh.
“Sure, that sounds equally disgusting and appealing.”
Shrugging, Steve grabs the bread from the pantry and puts butter on it before stuffing the grated carrot inside.
Clint makes a face.
“Um. No butter for me thanks.”
Steve makes another, cuts it in quarters and hands it over on a plate.
Tentatively, Clint takes a bite, not loving the flavour but seeing Steve’s hopeful face he keeps chewing.
“Mmm,” he utters, “it’s… different.”
His nonchalance makes Steve nod as he starts on his own sandwich.
“You think she’s doing okay?” he asks mouth full.
Clint isn’t sure how to answer.
“Truthfully?”
He swallows the mouthful.
“No, I don’t think so.”
Steve nods.
“When I came out of the ice, there was so much I didn’t know, couldn’t process, because it wasn’t within my world view. I didn’t have any reference points for what was happening or what I was seeing.”
He takes another bite.
Clint looks at him, his youth betraying his age, and his wisdom.
“Maybe it’s like that for her too. That this has completely changed her world view, things she had put to bed in her own mind, now has to be sorted back through.”
Putting his sandwich down, he offers Clint a drink.
“Strange new world for her,” he finishes, “maybe we need to give her more time.”
Clint takes the drink, opening it, considering his words.
He’s right of course. It’s not just the red room being back, it’s Dreykov and being tortured by his hand, it’s being in the place that broke her, made her into a killer, it’s being controlled by men; again, and it doesn’t even touch on the repercussions of being sick.
He knows how much of a mind fuck this has all been.
If she came out whole, he wouldn’t believe her.
It also makes him worry about her now, it’s the first time she’s been alone in a while.
“Jarvis, how’s Natasha?” he asks to the ceiling.
Steve looks up as well, like they’re both expecting the AI to appear, instead the disembodied voice does.
“She’s left the tower Mr Barton, about an hour ago.”
Clint gets up face serious, panic making his stomach drop and face go hot.
“What?!”
“She left the tower about an hour ago,” Jarvis repeats.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asks, frustrated.
The AI doesn’t answer and Steve moves with Clint to Natasha’s quarters.
It’s empty, just as Jarvis had said, the room slightly messy, clothes on the floor. It’s so unlike Natasha, who was raised in order.
Clint sees the blood on the bathroom floor, his heart sinks further.
“Jarvis,” he growls, “was she injured when she left?”
He’s so angry at himself, whilst he was having a joke and cooking with Steve, she was in here bleeding.
“I don’t know, sir,” the AI says unhelpfully.
Clint looks to Steve, who can’t seem to stop staring at the blood on the floor and sink.
She’s not as safe as he thought.
.