Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Clint had returned to the compound and made a beeline straight towards his quarters. Steve and Rhodey had been waiting for him (probably thanks to Natasha and FRIDAY) but when they had called to him he had simply ignored them and closed the door behind him. He didn’t want or need any conversations (lectures, more like it) about what had just happened. Because in his mind, he had done the right thing. He had freed those girls and gotten rid of disgusting hyenas preying on the weak in a time where people needed one another now more than ever.
Instead of sitting in agonizing silence and his own thoughts, Clint had decided to clean his gear. The SHIELD outfit was tossed aside and replaced with just typical civilians and his gear scattered around him as he cleaned his knife. Getting anything right around the handle was the worst part of it but it gave him a distraction. Something to focus on instead of those moments that had turned him into this darker version of himself. I should borrow some things from Natasha…
And as if his best friend could read his thoughts, she had stormed into the room. Quite literally – he didn’t think his door could handle any more force than she had already exerted to open the stupid thing. “Come on in…”
“I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen,” Natasha interrupted, sitting down across from him. Clint heaved out a sigh as he sat down his knife. When Natasha said something like this there was no arguing or getting out of it. He would know – they had this trait very much in common. “Nat, I don’t…”
“No, you need to hear what I have to say. We all understand that this sucks, okay? We all know that this is not fair. We failed. We should have stopped him, and we are working our asses off to fix this. And we will fix this. But Clint…”“If you’re about to tell me anything about being patient or giving you guys time, please save it,” he cut off, shaking his head as he stood up from his seat. “I can’t sit here and listen to any more pep talks or optimism. I know we’ve faced seemingly impossible situations and managed to come out on top, but you know what the difference is now? Then, we had plans. We knew what we were going to do and we did it. We don’t have a plan. Hell, we don’t even know where this titan guy is or that we’ll even find him. There are no clues, no leads….nothing. And let’s say we find him, what then? You guys couldn’t even stop him and you had a whole country backing you up. How are we expected to get him to undo what he’s done? You said it yourself – we lost and there’s barely any of us left. Who do we have? We have Bruce who can’t hulk out, Thor who has barely said a word to anyone, Steve who just watched his best friend again, Rhodey, you and a talking racoon. Everyone else is gone, Nat. Wanda, Sam, Vision…”
“Clint…”
But Clint didn’t stop to let Natasha talk. “And you know what? You’re right. This isn’t fair. It’s not fair that billions of people have lost their loved ones because of some purple alien. You know what’s also not fair? It’s not fair that good, innocent people have been wiped out of total existence while assholes like the Diamondbacks got spared. It’s not fair that people have been left vulnerable to the worst of the worst. It’s not fair that Laura and Lila and the boys are gone yet Wilson Fisk is allowed to walk around free. So you’re right, this isn’t fair but trying to undo something that we’re not even sure can be undone is not the solution. It’s not fair to give people a sense of false hope. They’re gone, Natasha. We failed.”
Natasha watched him with shaken green eyes. She had known this man for so long and to see him like this – it was heartbreaking. After all, he was the one to give her a second chance. It was him who gave her a whole new family to be a part of. “So you’re just going to give up, then?” she asked, doing her best to keep her voice steady. “Throw in the towel and move on?”
Clint shrugged. “What else can we do?”
“We can fight back, Clint.” Now it was her turn to get to her feet. Sure he had a few inches on her but she could make herself appear tall when she needed to be. “We keep fighting until we win. We’re the Avengers…”
“We were the Avengers, Natasha.” Natasha stopped, sucking in a breath as she shook her head. “We still are, Clint. And we’re going to fix this. I don’t know how or when but we’re not going to give up. We’ll do whatever it takes to bring them back.”
“Don’t…” Clint stopped her, his voice having gotten softer and his eyes getting glassy as he shook his head. “Don’t give me false hope, ‘Tasha. I can’t….”
He sucked in a breath. He couldn’t even bring himself to finish that sentence. How could he tell his best friend he couldn’t keep ending another day dejected by the lack of progress? That when his body forced him to sleep he dreamt of his family reappearing only to wake up and find himself back in this nightmare? That he had wished Thanos had snapped him away too so at least he could be with them now.
Natasha had taken his hand and he hadn’t realized it. Maybe he was too numb from the grief and the pain. “I know you, Clint. You don’t give up. You’re the most stubborn man I know. Even Tony agrees with me. I’m just asking you to wait a little longer. You’ve earned your pound of flesh too.”
And maybe, maybe Clint should have stayed. Maybe he should have listened to her and worked with them to bring back everyone. But that’s the thing about hope – once you’ve lost it, it’s hard to ever truly get it back.
He shook his head and pulled his hand away.
“I can’t.”
And he left. He could hear Natasha asking him to wait, to tell her where he was going, but he couldn’t. He didn’t stop, not even when Steve and Rhodey tried to block his path. The bike he had borrowed earlier was still warm when he swung his leg onto it and he ventured off into the night.
Meanwhile Natasha had watched him leave from his bedroom window. She watched how his figure disappeared into the darkness. No bow, no gear. Those were still sitting on the bed he had just left moments before. It was Bruce who had come to check on her, although that wasn’t much of a surprise. “He’ll be back, Natasha.”
Natasha shook her head, blinking the tear away before turning away from the window where her best friend had just disappeared. “No…no he won’t.”
“Well, he has to,” Bruce commented as he pointed to the bow on the bed, “He left his gear here. We know he wouldn’t just leave that behind.”
But once again, she shook her head. And as much as it pained her to say, the words had fallen almost naturally from her lips.
“He would when it means goodbye.”
TBC….