Voluntary Procedure

*

Natasha’s friendship with Clint is an anomaly—SHIELD agents are solitary creatures, preferring to be alone, especially when injured. For longer term recovery SHIELD will send them to one of many lower security safe houses to recuperate, but recently that’s become a problem. Over too many years too many people have learned where those houses are, and someone has been taking advantage of that knowledge to finish off wounded agents.  

* 

The cast on Clint’s arm is dark blue, and though Steve Roger’s disapproving eyes were everywhere Tony had managed to find an opportunity to paint a decently-sized penis on it with whiteout.  Further obscene art was certainly intended, but there wasn’t time for more than that one phallic symbol before SHIELD called them in. Natasha and Clint sit in the ops conference room and Clint doesn’t make any attempt to conceal it, and everyone spends the entire meeting with their eyes constantly drawn to Tony Stark’s dick. 

“Not that there’s anything to be concerned about,” Sitwell points out, heroically not looking at the cast. “Everyone knows you can handle this.” 

They can; they’ve won fights in far worse shape. And there’s no question of this op ending in a fight, because it will. Fury wouldn’t send bother sending the Black Widow and Hawkeye if a fight weren’t guaranteed. If he didn’t want this thing handled fast. If he didn’t want The Guy to end up dead. 

“The property is listed as an Airbnb, so the community is used to people coming and going,” the Logistics tech explains excitedly, clicking ineffectually at his laptop, trying and failing to bring up pictures on the viewing screen. “Private, but not too  private.” Of course not; wounded agents can’t be attacked if they can't be located. “Three bedrooms and two bathrooms, so you can each have your own—” The tech mashes the buttons again with no more luck, obviously panicking to be failing so extravagantly in front of the director.  

“That sounds really nice,” Clint says immediately, and the man brightens noticeably. 

Part of it is Clint’s natural friendliness, his Midwestern inclination to make everyone comfortable all of the time. But it’s also just another version of Everything’s Fine, his longest running con, spanning the entire time Natasha has known him. Spanning his entire lifetime, perhaps. She'd caught onto his game the day they met and found it pitiable, but she’s come to appreciate it in the years since—how hard he's playing the most accurate barometer to how her partner is doing.  

“The house is nice,” the tech agrees gratefully. “And there’s good cable, too!” 

Clint hmms admiringly, as if he doesn’t live in Avengers Tower, as if he doesn’t have access to every television channel on Earth. Natasha checks her eyeroll with only moderate difficulty, reframes her sigh into a slow, silent exhale. She satisfies herself by kicking Clint hard underneath the table instead, keeping her face carefully neutral when he kicks back hard enough to knock her shoe off and send it skidding across the room. Nobody else reacts either, most eyes still busily darting to the penis on Clint’s cast. A second Logistics peon gets up to assist the first one, their heads drooped together over the misfunctioning laptop, muttering. 

“I know it’s too early,” Fury surprises everyone by saying, the only person in the room to look them in the eyes. “You’re both still getting over the flu; I know that. It’s also our best chance to catch this guy. That can't be helped. But I want you to know that I am sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Clint responds easily, but the words that should be reassuring only deepen Fury’s frown. 

* 

They’ve been in the house for a week when the letter arrives, the first sign of life from The Guy, whoever he is, their would-be attacker. 

She should check it for trace chemicals or wires or something, but just tears the envelope open instead, shaking the contents out onto the counter. A pile of pictures showing a multitude of dead bodies, some crime scene photos from police reports, others obviously copied from SHIELD files. All are decorated with declarations of Murderer, Baby Killer, Monster, and the like written across the surface in red—Natasha holds the nearest picture to her nose and inhales deeply—nail polish. Yep, it's definitely written in red nail polish. 

She scoops the pictures into an untidy pile, the envelope on top, and deposits it in the evidence storage locker in the spare bedroom.  

She doesn’t mention it to Clint. 

* 

Logistics probably analyzed and agonized over every bit of furniture placement in house, only for the Black Widow to ruin it immediately, pushing everything to the walls. This is supposed to be her place to rest and recuperate, and she would never  have a fucking ottoman or a coffee table cluttering up a space of her own. She needs room to move and breathe; too much furniture reminds her first of warrens and dens, then of traps and snares covered with brush. Things that are made to look inviting while actually meant to hem her in, narrowing her world and herding her where someone else wishes her to go. 

She’s dizzy. Still dizzy, the world bobbing and dipping almost constantly in a way that’s become wearily familiar. She’d mentioned it very grudgingly during the physical required before every op, and Dr. Day promised that it was normal following a flu like hers, that it wouldn’t last much longer. Natasha didn’t mention it to Clint and she didn’t mention it to the team before leaving, already sick to death of their smothering concern. 

She cheats a little by neither dancing or exercising but doing a bit of both; a spin that ends with a deliciously painful stretch. A leap that lands in a lunge. Clint paces through the kitchen on his cell phone, lingering in the doorway at the end of each pass, subtly spying on her.  

The team calls regularly, a novelty for a SHIELD mission, allowable this time because they get to pretend to be themselves. I'm fine, Clint answers, playing a phone version his game—which none of the Avengers have seemed to catch onto yet—followed by she’s fine and it’s fine . Natasha decides that he’s talking to Steve, the only teammate to lead with that boring sort of conversation, her suspicions confirmed when Okay and Uh huh, are the answers to the next several questions. 

And then Natasha goes from feeling mildly dizzy to totally wobbly-kneed in the course of a moment, the crash both unexpected and completely fucking expected, because that’s been the way of things lately. She settles into a crouch that looks enough like stretch not to make Clint suspicious if he ducks his head back into the room, giving her enough time to get a handle on things before she topples over completely.  

“Yeah, I dunno,” Clint’s saying as his circuit brings him within view again, and his eyes are sharp as ever, taking in the sweat around her hairline, the lack of color in her cheeks. Natasha shoots him a warning look and he wisely turns on his heel to walk back the other way, telling Steve, “I'll ask her about it the next time I see her.” 

* 

Clint isn’t sleeping. 

He’s too smart to tip his hand by wandering the house at night or be caught awake by leaving his bedroom light on to shine out under the door. Natasha only knows he isn’t sleeping because she isn’t sleeping either, and figures it's been about three weeks since either of them have had any quality rest.

Dark circles grow under his eyes, a mirroring pair under hers, and neither comments on the other. During the days Natasha dances and ignores the vertigo while Clint walks around outside, googling the proper names of all the trees and rocks, both of them killing time. Wasting time. At night she stares at the ceiling and wonders if he's hoping she'll come in and ask if he’s alright. She’s afraid he’ll lie. Afraid he’ll tell the truth. 

Either way, she doesn’t want to hear the answer. 

* 

When they’re reduced to eating entirely from canned foods it’s time to hit the grocery store. 

They walk amongst the normal people and pretend to be normal too. Clint’s the better natural actor, blending in to become someone perfectly invisible, just another guy squinting at nutrition facts and figuring price per unit out loud. Natasha tries to do the same but feels conspicuous and foolish as she repeats what she's overheard other women say in stores, nonsense like “Look at this cute set of dishes” and “What a beautiful pear”. 

Clint is delighted to have an enthusiastic partner for this latest thrilling installment of Everything’s Fine, and for a moment Natasha wonders if he believes her act, or if he thinks she believes his. Wonders if he even remembers that he’s playing a game at all; he’s been at it so long. 

*

They buy boxes of cookies from a table full of Girl Scouts and chatty moms, and Clint polishes off a third of a box before they’ve exited the parking lot, opening a second one by the time they reach the safehouse. He grudgingly hands over two cookies at Natasha’s withering look. 

“Those boxes cost five dollars,” she reminds him. “Five dollars each.” 

“It’s not safe to eat while driving,” he counters, ignoring the fact that she’s driven while firing a gun more times than either of them can count. “Not only is it unsanitary, it’s also—” His lecture concludes abruptly in a surprised, “Huh.” 

In the small patch of woods at the end of the driveway, more an overgrowth of brambles than anything, a gleaming white toilet lays on its side in the grass. Natasha blinks at it. She’s not sure what she expected to find at the other end of Clint’s bewildered look, but a toilet certainly was not it.  

They remain in the car, staring, before he laughs. “I’ve heard of people leaving bags of shit, but not the shitter itself.” He fumbles his phone out of his back pocket and snaps a picture to be texted to Tony at the first opportunity. “It’s almost art.” 

“Almost.”  

It won’t be the most ridiculous status report she’s sent in, not by far,  but she’s not looking forward to writing it all the same. They'll need to haul the toilet into the house as mission evidence as well, and Natasha remembers suddenly that her partner has only one fully functional arm.  She sighs and fortifies herself with another cookie. 

Clint frowns down at his cast, obviously following the same train of thought. “You think it’s The Guy?” 

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Exactly who else do you think it could be? Ten Rings? Or maybe Hydra and AIM have given up on brainwashing and bombs and resorted to lobbing toilets at houses. Give me a fucking break.” 

“I don’t like it.” His good humor has abruptly vanished into suspicion, and he suddenly looks and sounds every bit as tired as he should be after weeks of not enough sleep. “All this time and The Guy does nothing. A toilet is a weird choice for an opening salvo.” His eyes cut toward her, slight smile curling around his lips as he adds, “Even for an American.” 

She still hasn’t told him about the letter. Or the one that followed. Or of the three phone calls that came interspersed amongst all the ones from Avengers, calls of nothing but silence before an underwhelming disconnection. She doesn’t have a good reason for keeping it to herself; maybe just wanting it all to last a bit longer—this ruse, this stolen season, this reprieve before The Guy, whoever he is, decides to burst in and attempt to finish them off. Before they have to go back to the Tower and finally face whatever string of events led them here. 

“Clint,” Natasha says, and has no idea what she’s going to follow it up with before he cuts her off quickly with “Tony’s going to love this. Too much, probably. In fact, I fully expect there to be toilets strewn randomly around the Tower when we get home.” 

“Clint,” she tries again, but he’s already opening the door, already outside. 

* 

“It’s really nice,” Natasha says, channeling the Logistics tech. She’s long since forgotten what he looked like, but his sunny sales pitch will live in her brain forever, to be called upon whenever the situation demands. “Three bedrooms, two bathrooms—we each get to have our own.” 

“Oh, that is nice,” Bruce agrees too heartily. “How’s the property? You’re in the woods, right? Are the leaves changing down there yet?” 

Bruce doesn’t give a shit about the house they’re in or a good goddamn about the trees—all of this is just a prelude to him asking how they’re doing, so he can fret properly over Clint’s injury. There’s a lot that Natasha doesn’t know about the last few weeks, but she does know that Bruce is responsible for the arm. Every Avenger’s mouth repeated the story of Clint falling out of bed—bad luck, so sorry, just one of those things—but their eyes told a different one. Steve’s eyes full of shame, Tony’s of anger. Thor’s eyes full of disapproval while Bruce’s constantly broadcasted guilt and self-loathing.  

It may have been the eyes that tipped Natasha that something was off, but it was the sunburn confirmed it. 

It had been fun at first, hanging out with Pepper, talking and watching movies and talking some more, like one of the sleepovers that a much younger Natasha Romanov had dreamed of but never experienced. But she tired of it quickly and made her way out of bed and into the world of the Tower to find Clint, who had also been sick and was also getting better. He wrapped her up into a one armed hug, and her hands crept up to his neck to get a better grip, only to be stopped by his rueful “Ow.” 

A sunburn ran from his neck into his hairline, dark red and painful, the one thing that kept it from all being believable, the one detail none of them has any control over. Because it was almost convincing otherwise. It certainly sounded convincing, despite such minor inconsistencies as Tony, the team’s most notorious germaphobe, being completely unconcerned about he or Pepper catching such a debilitating illness.  All such little things, and all easily dismissed or explained away when Natasha decided to look at things just the right way. 

But try as she might, Natasha still cannot reconcile a deep sunburn on a man who had supposedly been laid up in bed for a week with the flu. 

* 

Natasha ignores the way the world tilts and spins lazily as she cleans their cache of weapons, readying things just in case The Guy ever gets off his ass and makes his move. She frowns at television, which does not, in fact, have good cable; it actually has terrible  cable,  offering only a steady stream of talk shows, true crime, and nature programs.  The nature programs are the lesser of three evils, but still wearisome—all beginning with the wonders of animal life only to end in lectures on the cruelty of mankind and dire warnings about the general deterioration of the planet—hardly the themes Natasha pursues in casual pleasure watching. She pretends to watch a program on meerkats but mostly watches Clint through the window. The leaves are falling steadily around him as he rakes with grim determination, awkward and inefficient and one-armed.  

His slowdown is almost imperceptible at first; she only notices because she’s handling the weapons more slowly in unconscious sympathy as she watches. The two of them grinding to a halt at roughly the same time on opposite sides of the glass, Natasha with a pistol on a dishtowel in her lap, Clint with his hand resting on the rake handle, his chin resting on the hand. There’s no way he should feel her gaze upon him, but he stiffens and turns toward the window, his unhappy expression dissolving into something cheerful and smiling as he blows her a kiss. 

Because everything’s still fine. 

* 

Natasha makes her move at two the next morning. 

She kicks the bedroom door open to catch him in the act of being awake and for maximum effect, disappointed when he doesn’t react with startled surprise, when he doesn’t even look up from the magazine he’s reading by the dim light of his cellphone. Then she looks again and it’s not a magazine at all, but instead an advertising booklet for real estate, the kind kept near the exits of grocery stores, where he undoubtedly grabbed this one. Clint Barton is browsing the prices of houses and properties of area where he will never live, a place he’s only passing through. 

“What are you doing up?” she demands, and expects that he’ll throw the question right back to her, but instead eyes never leave the booklet. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” 

“You are in my bedroom.” His voice is clipped and annoyed as he looks up at her finally. “Walked right the hell in. Just like in the Tower—everyone  just comes on in whenever they want. No privacy to be had, whether in a gilded cage or a SHIELD safehouse. Goddamn .”  

"You can't be awake for weeks on end, Clint.” She doesn’t mention her own sleeplessness, sure that he won’t call her on it, if he even knows. “It’s not healthy. I need you to be able bodied if it comes to a fight. What if it wasn't me that broke in? What if it had been The Guy?” 

“I could have been doing anything in here,” he continues, folding down a page with exaggerated showmanship, bookmarking townhouses to peruse later. “You didn’t know. I could have been having a very private conversation on the phone. I could have been weeping manfully. I could even have been—” Clint flips the book onto the bedside table before lowering his voice theatrically “— masturbating  in here!” 

“Any one of those would be far more interesting than the reality.” 

He shuffles to the side to make room for her, shrugging when she scoffs openly, because she came in here to lecture him about the stupidity of willful sleep deprivation, not jump into his bed for a cuddle party. Clint pats the bed invitingly, grins when she huffs in frustration and climbs in next to him. 

“Just for tonight,” she warns, “and only if it helps you sleep.” 

“That’s very giving of you,” he answers, laying the graciousness on a bit too thick as he turns off his cellphone, plunging the room into darkness until her eyes slowly adjust. “I think we both need the rest. After all, The Guy might up the ante and toss a bag of dirty diapers on the porch tomorrow.” 

“And if we’re really doing this, fifty percent of this bed is mine. A full  fifty, Barton. Any arms or legs or cold feet that come creeping over get snapped off, I swear to God.” 

"Bossy is the new sexy,” he croons, both of them knowing full well that by morning she’ll have snatched away all the covers in her sleep, that he’ll have entwined all his limbs through hers in search of warmth.  

There have been so many safehouses and foxholes and close quarters that it should be easy to be drawn in by his proximity and familiarity and fall asleep. But she doesn’t, and he doesn’t, the two of them just laying there in silence, waiting for it to happen. 

“What wrong?” she asks finally. It’s easier to make herself ask in the dark, easier to abandon the scolding banter for something more genuine. “Bad dreams?”  

“Not really.” And as much as Natasha despises Everything’s Fine, she dreads even more the moments that it disappears. She hates him vulnerable, because that’s when he’s in the most danger, at risk of wounding himself on all of her jagged emotional edges. “Maybe I’m just scared of The Guy,” Clint teases instead, reaching for humor and not quite succeeding, something unsettled and anxious in his voice spoiling the delivery. “Scared he’ll gobble both of us up.” 

Of course he isn’t; even if they’re not at their best, there are few people around that could put up much of a fight. It’s a joke but Natasha doesn’t laugh, turns toward him instead.  

“Anything that ever hurts you, or tries to...I'll hurt them first. I’ll hurt them back.”  

The sentiment is inelegant and choppy, and shouldn’t make him as happy as it does. That’s not what normal people say. But that's her version of reassurance. It’s his. It's both the comforting thought they each want to hear after waking from a bad dream and the reassuring one needed to drift off in the first place. Not a promise there aren’t any monsters to be afraid of—because there are, they both know there are—but that any monsters that come calling will be stopped. That they’ll be punished. 

And it’s that thought that makes her say, “Clint.” 

“I know,” he says immediately, roughly, a simultaneous acknowledgement and dismissal. “I know, Natasha, I know I know.” 

“Something happened, Clint. Something happened to us.” 

“Maybe you should just let it go. We’re doing fine.” 

 She wasn’t raised to be questioning, discouraged from looking too closely at her life, taught to endure and move forward without complaint. Now she's grown and still doesn’t quite know how to tell him that it’s all gone sour, that she’s come to hate SHIELD, that she’s come to realize that it’s nothing but a dressed-up version of the Red Room. Coulson’s dead and Fury’s only nominally in control of a place that’s grown harder and colder every year that passes, no longer the kind of organization to spare a scientist that routinely turns into a monster, to search for a superhero long thought dead, to allow an agent to recruit a Black Widow instead of killing her. 

“We didn’t have the flu.” 

“And I don’t care,” he insists. “I don’t care what it was.”  

There’s no need to call out such an obvious lie. Natasha grabs back his good hand when he pulls it out of reach. “Things have to change for us.” 

He’s tense for long moments, the arguments constructed and considered and dismissed playing across his face while she watches, waiting, before he ultimately deflates. “Just not yet. I know what you’re saying, I do, and you're right. Just... Not yet. Okay?” 

 No more jokes, no more Everything’s Fine, nothing but the Clint that lives beneath all the other masks, one who’s not ready to leave the life he’s built at SHIELD, not ready to peel that part of himself away and discover what’s left. He may never be ready, just Nastasha might never be ready to abandon him to go ahead alone.  

“Okay,” Natasha agrees with a sigh, “we’ll wait. For now.”  And he must doubt her, because he draws back a little, enough that she can make out his eyes in the dim light, studying her.  “Okay,” she says again, exhausted and irritated, and this time Clint believes her. 

* 

What Natasha doesn’t know is that she’s come to the same painful conclusion seven times before. That seven times Clint has made the same plea. That seven times she’s agreed to wait. 

*

But there’s something else that Natasha doesn’t know. 

She doesn’t know that she isn’t the only one that’s grown to dislike SHIELD, who looks at it critically and unhappily and had decided things need to change.  But this time it’s someone that SHIELD hasn’t ensnared with devotion and history, someone the organization can't quite get their hooks into, for all its attempts to do just that. 

Tony Stark goes after this problem the same way he does any other—from multiple angles and with varying degrees of intensity. He hires lawyers for the long game, men and women who love picking through decades old SHIELD contracts and medical notes with professional detachment and critical eyes. One lawyer insists that Hawkeye’s repeatedly sprained ankle by itself is a treasure trove of medical abuse—sent back into the field only two weeks after injuring it one time, three weeks another time, and six days another. Surgery advised and scheduled and then delayed for a mission. Delayed again. Delayed again.  

Tony has his own plan of attack, because he doesn’t need SHIELD’s funding and he doesn’t need their advice, and soon enough there won’t be any need of their dubious medical services. There are only a couple things left to gather, a few more people left to hire. Good people, he hopes, ones that care more about their patients than some far-flung mission or the directions of a shadowy council. 

And he also prepares with his team, because there’s no need to do this any of this alone, not anymore. Steve pleasantly surprises everyone by immediately being on board with breaking with SHIELD. Bruce agrees to the plan with profound relief, and Thor with obvious pride. 

It’s unclear exactly when Nick Fury catches on. Maybe someone spots the medical equipment delivered to the Tower. Maybe Steve just tells him, considering it the most responsible way to go about things. Or maybe Fury just knows because he’s a wily motherfucker, an experienced predator that’s too good at scenting danger in the air. Tony fully expects a showdown, threats, and for Fury to fight for what’s his.  

What he doesn't expect is a text message. Stark. Are you stealing my agents?  

Tony doesn’t hesitate before answering Yes. 

It's about fucking time , chimes through a moment later, and that’s the end of it.