Old Habits

“Clint!”

She’d seen him go down, taken out her rage on the mark in front of her, pressing the heel of a combat boot into the chest of the oncoming force with barely an afterthought as she craned her neck to see over the crumbling form blocking her view.

Blonde hair on an unmoving head peeked from between the legs of the trooper Yelena had been fighting.

A flash of white from the suit of her fast moving comrade as Yelena landed on the ground and they locked eyes for just an instant, with barely a nod to acknowledge the plan had just been changed.

Natasha leapt over the shoulders of the man she’d taken to his knees, sliding low across the floor between Yelena and James, who had just converged on the men she’d been taking care of.

The sound of ricocheting gun fire a familiar background track to her graceful movements as she reached her unconscious friend. A glint of metal in the distance to confirm that the Winter Soldier had taken matters into his own hands.

She couldn’t see where the others were, but she could hear them over the device in her ear, though just barely through the pounding of her own blood in her heightened sense of panic.

This day had not gone the way they’d expected, but then again these things rarely do.

She crouched down low, cradled the back of his head in one hand, careful not to move him too much until she could assess the extent of his injuries as the other hand went to his neck, fingers feeling for a pulse.

She breathed a sigh of relief at the steady thump against her hand, bent her head low to his face to whisper to him, feeling the welcome flutter of his breath over her cheek.

“Barton, we gotta move,” she said, her voice soft but stern.

He didn’t respond, didn’t twitch a muscle and she cursed under her breath at the situation.

James fell a few feet beside her, though not for long, exploding back up in a burst of energy and cracking his left elbow into the temple of another trooper. “Nat, you have to get him out of here,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

She knew it was true, though she also knew the fire fight was more than her remaining comrades could handle as they were severely outnumbered, even before they counted Hawkeye and the Black Widow out.

But with each second that Clint lay still it was becoming more and more apparent that he needed medical attention. And the constant weight of balancing favors, debts and collections on her shoulders told her in no uncertain terms that her oldest friend wouldn’t be lying unconscious on the ground if he hadn’t leapt to her call to help her out of her own compromising situation.

And then she saw the blood. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach, knowing that she didn’t have the time or space to examine him properly here, that she had to get him away if she had any hope of saving him.

“Barton,” she murmured. “I’m going to get you out of here, but I could use a little help.”

His eyes remained closed, mouth partially open as he lay un-moving, immobile, un-communicating. There was blood on the floor under him, but thankfully it wasn’t pooling, which probably meant either the bleeding had stopped or at least slowed. Or if they were really lucky, that it wasn’t even his. She wouldn’t dare to hope the latter.

“Clint, please come back to me,” she whispered into his ear, holding him close. “I can’t lose you.”

She lightly touched his cheek, and his eyelids fluttered, although his eyes remained closed. Still, she’d take it as a sign.

“Alright, Barton,” she murmured, throwing his limp arm around her shoulders as she prepared to balance his weight on her body. “Up you go.”

She didn’t look back, knowing that Yelena and James would cover her while she got Clint to safety.

XXXXX

A quick call to a friend and it had been only minutes until they were being transported to the nearest hospital.

She’d lain him down on the floor of the vehicle, placing an assortment of blankets under him to lessen the impact of the road. By the time she’d stripped him of his gear and found the source of the bleeding, tearing a piece of his shirt and bunching it to put pressure on the wound, she’d had other hands pulling her away from him, ER techs rushing him inside, a male nurse holding her wrists and murmuring words of comfort as she’d instinctively resisted.

Telling her that her friend was in good hands, that the best doctors were taking care of him as they speak.

As if she hadn’t done this before, many times over with many different teammates, including the man in question.

As if a couple of strong hands on her arms could’ve stopped her from breaking the nurse’s neck and breaking down the doors as well as the bones of anyone else who got in her way if she didn’t have the presence of mind to know that it was better for Barton now. That it was safer for the doctors to be attending to him, that she was at the mercy of however long it took in the waiting room, not knowing anything until someone would come to talk to her.

Luckily, it seemed like the hospital staff knew who he was. The golden haired, blue eyed poster boy of the Avengers. She figured by some extension that meant they’d taken a guess at who she was, even if they didn’t know exactly who she was.

They’d taken a look at the state of her disheveled and battle worn appearance and offered her a private room and some attention, but she’d politely declined, knowing she’d clean herself up later. Or much later, depending on how long it took to know Clint was okay.

Because he had to be okay, right?

At some point, James had joined her in the waiting room.

“Where are the others?” She asked, through the worry-fog in her brain.

“Back at the Web.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone.”

“It’s done?”

“It’s done.”

She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, trying not to cringe away from the comforting hand James had placed on her back. The warm flesh and bone one, not the cold metal and tech one, which would’ve been the easier one with the positions they were sitting in. Which meant he understood the extent of her worry.

Her gaze through her hands registered on Clint’s equipment. Clint’s clean equipment, right there on the table in the waiting room, as if this were an armory in an Avengers property and not the public waiting room of a hospital.

Clearly James had taken the time and care to meticulously clean every piece before he’d come here. Which meant he’d understood her need to unpack the events of the day in sterile, antiseptic, fluorescent solitude. And it also gave her an idea of how long she’d been sitting alone.

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

She looked up at him, finally registering on the blue eyes and stubbled frown that had been without a doubt trained on her the entire time he’d been sitting next to her.

“It’s not yours either,” she said, though she knew it was useless. Hawkeye cover the Winter Soldier, the Winter Soldier cover Hawkeye. At least that had been in the plan she’d called. So there was no way the man beside her wasn’t feeling the same weight of guilt that she was.

They sat in silence until the same nurse from the ER came to tell them they could see their friend now.

He hadn’t woken up yet when they made their way to the room they’d been instructed to go to, but the nurse accompanying them assured them he would soon.

James stared at the guy until he left them alone with Clint and Natasha made her way over to the hospital bed, taking in his steady breathing and the whir of the machines he was hooked up to as she slipped her hand into his.

“I’ve already lost so much. I can’t lose him too,” she finally spoke, her voice not much more than a hoarse whisper.

“I know,” James said, stepping up beside her. “But you won’t lose him. Not this time.”

She nodded, squeezing Clint’s unmoving fingers tighter.

“We should take him back to New York,” she said. “He’ll want to recover there.”

“Do you want to call Stark, or should I?”

She gazed up at him questioningly.

“He’ll be better off with the Avengers than alone in that shit hole apartment.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Plus, it’ll be easier to get him out of here with a well-worded phone call from Stark. Maybe we could even convince him to send a jet.”

The corner of James’s mouth tugged up into a wry half-smile. “You better call him then. He has a harder time saying no to you.”

XXXXX

Natasha settled into her luxury seat on the jet, letting Clint slump against her.

He’d woken up long enough to be helpful as they’d gathered his things from the hospital and ushered him onto the Stark jet, but it was clear his head was still heavy with fatigue.
James took a seat across from them, frowning slightly. “I can take him back to the mansion alone, if you don’t want to leave California,” he said, his voice softer than his expression.

“I got him,” she said, leaning over him and smoothing his hair back with her hand.

Clint murmured something unintelligible, sinking lower into her lap and she adjusted her position so he could get more comfortable, her hand still sifting through his hair.
James’s lips pressed into a thin line as he took in the intimacy of the gesture. “I just meant that if it’s too much for you, being back. I can handle him.”

“I said I got him,” she said in a tone that left no other option. She held him in both her arms as they prepared for take off, and James nodded silently to the pilot.

They were all quiet as they flew, with Natasha’s arms wrapped protectively around Clint.

She didn’t look up, but she could feel James’s eyes on her and she knew he was looking at her the same way Clint would be looking at her had the situation been reversed.

“They’re fine, by the way,” James said gently, his tone once again betraying his expression. “I checked in on them a few weeks ago.”

She didn’t say anything, keeping her attention on the man in her lap, humming softly as she kept patting his head, but she knew that James knew that she’d heard him.

She peered closely at Clint’s face as she caressed him, wondering how much of the conversation he was registering, and James seemed to think the better of it.

“Does he know?” He asked.

She shook her head, still not meeting his gaze as she kept her eyes and her attentions focused on Clint. “He doesn’t know,” she said quietly. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

James was silent for the rest of the ride.

Clint sighed contentedly, inviting her to keep up her motions as she fussed over him. She focused on him, glad to have someone to fuss over. Someone she loved deeply to protect and take care of, who needed her as much as she needed them. After awhile his soft sighs gave way to deep snores and she leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, not wanting to have to look at James when he was looking at her, her hand still intimately caressing thick blonde hair.