Chapter Text
When they finally make it back to their designated hideout spot, Sam landing a few paces away so that they can move without being entirely seen, Natasha lets Clint grab her by the shoulders, helping her to limp slowly to the car, where she eases herself down on the grass.
“You gonna make a habit of bleeding out when we go do stuff together?” Sam asks with a frown, nodding towards Clint who is busy grabbing spare shirts from his bag in the trunk.
“I’d like not to, actually,” Natasha grits as Clint presses the clothes to her side, wincing at the pressure of his hand. “Clint, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” he returns, though she notices that his voice is less stifled than it was in the bunker. “But the good news is, I don’t think that the cut’s deep enough for stitches. Just a pretty nice gash by a Hydra agent who apparently doesn’t know much about how to wield a knife.” He frowns, sighing. “If you can keep pressure on it for awhile, it’ll be okay until I can bandage it properly when we get somewhere safe.”
Natasha obeys, pressing the shirts as hard as she dares against the cut. “What happened in there?” she asks as Clint stands up, trying to ignore the way her head is spinning and the way the shirt is darkening with red.
“Exactly what you saw,” Sam interjects, folding his arms, and Natasha notices the deep scratches along his elbows as he does so. “A whole lotta fighting. Couple of them tried to get at my wings, but they could only go so far. Managed to hold most of them off, the rest scattered. Not sure where.” Natasha watches as his eyes travel over both of them. “Did you guys find the control room?”
“Kind of,” Natasha grunts, and Sam raises an eyebrow.
“What do you mean, kind of?”
Natasha shrugs as much as she can. “We found the room, but there was no one inside. Or rather, the only things inside were some dead test subjects, a bunch of print outs and a computer rigged to explode when you tried to unlock it.”
“But you destroyed it, right?” Sam asks slowly, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, that was the explosion that we caused?”
“The computer destroyed itself, which means that the bunker destroyed itself as well,” Natasha says tiredly, remembering New Jersey. “Like a failsafe.” She glances over at Clint, feeling slightly helpless and for the first time in a long time, completely blank. “I don’t know where we go from here.”
Sam rocks back and forth on his heels as all three of them fall into silence, and Natasha wonders if Clint’s not talking because he doesn’t want to agree with her, or because of something else entirely. She ignores the feeling in the pit of her stomach, shifting the bundle of shirts on her side.
“You go take care of yourself,” Sam says after a moment, and Natasha looks up. “You get some rest, take some time to yourselves, get that wound looked at it and cleaned up. And then after, if you still wanna do this, you know where to find me.”
Natasha shakes her head. “You’ve done enough,” she says with a small smile, struggling to get to her feet. “Really.” She pauses, glancing over at Clint, and to Sam. “I think Steve needs your help more than I do.”
Sam doesn’t respond, staying quiet as Clint dumps his arrows and the rest of his gear into the trunk of the car, finally giving a small, sad smile back.
“You take care of yourself, Romanoff. Next time you come knocking on my door, it better be because you want a real breakfast.”
Natasha laughs in spite of herself as Sam leans over to kiss her gently on the cheek. When she pulls away she finds Clint at her side, and he grabs Sam’s hand, shaking it firmly.
“Thanks for the help. You’re not too bad for a bird with metal wings.”
Sam grins, giving Clint a brief nod. “Well, you ain’t so bad either, for a bird with a bow,” he admits, still smiling. “By the way, lemme know if you ever wanna train together sometime. Could use someone like you when I take these things out.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Clint says, dropping his hand. “Good luck, Wilson.”
“Good luck, Barton.”
Sam salutes once before shooting upwards into the air, and Natasha follows his movement until he’s little more than a speck against a blue, cloudless sky.
***
The motel that they stop at is in Maryland, what Clint considers a safe enough distance from the Hydra bunker and also as far as he’s willing to drive without proper attention to Natasha’s injury. He leaves her in the car while he takes care of checking in, and then drives around to the front door of their room for easy access.
“Just like home,” Clint mutters when he walks inside, noting the badly patterned comforter, a mold-colored carpet and two lamps, one of which he’s assuming doesn’t work based on the way its bulb is cracked down the middle, like a jagged strike of lightening. When he turns around, he’s surprised to find Natasha still lingering by the door, as if she’s uncharacteristically afraid.
“They’re not going to come after us,” he says finally, when he notices how stiff her body is despite her injury, recognizing the fear behind her actions. “At least, not yet.”
“You don’t know that,” Natasha says quietly and Clint sighs, walking back across the room.
“You’re right. I don’t. But I also know that if something were to happen, it would’ve happened when we left, or right after we escaped. I think we’ve got ourselves a reprieve for now.”
She looks up, her eyes bright with tears of both pain and exhaustion, and Clint lets his gaze soften further, putting one arm around her shoulder and squeezing it gently. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”
He counts it as a victory that she lets him guide her into the bathroom without protest, settling herself on the toilet in silence while he cleans out the wound more thoroughly. As he steps back, he notices the ash settling into her hair, the dirt on her arms and neck that he knows mirrors the grime on his own skin.
“You think you’re okay to shower?”
She nods silently as she stands up and he reaches over to run the water, helping her under the spray. She leans heavily against him while he massages the area around her scalp, working his way down her arms, rubbing dirt and blood off of her skin, and the whole thing seems too similar to the way they used to regroup when they were hurt on an assignment, when they needed the closeness that they couldn’t be afforded in the field. Once he’s finished getting her as clean as he thinks she’ll allow, he runs his own body under the water, until he’s feeling sufficiently more alive and a little less grimy.
“Hurting?” he asks, as he steps out of the shower, using his own towel to wipe her down before rummaging through the first aid kit, securing a bandage tightly to her side.
Natasha shrugs listlessly. “No worse than I can handle.”
Clint walks back into the room and rummages through his duffel bag until he finds some extra clothes, handing her a pair of sweatpants and an old archery tee shirt.
“Here,” he says, slipping on his boxers. “Figured you’d be more comfortable in something loose.”
Natasha swallows, taking them from his hand before dressing slowly, climbing onto the bed and over the covers when she’s done. Clint shuts the blinds and then inspects the lock on the door, fiddling with it a few times before giving it a sharp pull.
“Tracker should alert us if anyone without my fingerprints tries to enter,” Clint says finally, flicking the lights off. Natasha makes a small sound as he crawls into bed next to her.
“Thanks.”
“Thank Tony,” Clint says with a small smile. “He’s the one who insisted I come out here with at least a few Stark gadgets just in case.”
He sees Natasha smile faintly in the dark but she doesn’t continue the conversation, and he wraps an arm around her in response, tugging her close.
“What’s going on?”
She swallows, and through the thin clothing, he can feel the way she’s tensed. “I can’t get it out of my mind,” she says softly. “I could deal with the pictures…the knowledge. But seeing it – seeing my face…”
“It’s like watching a ghost,” Clint finishes, remembering the way the S.H.I.E.L.D. therapist had forced him to watch surveillance videos of himself on the Helicarrier during Loki’s attack, how it had made him feel and how it had taken him days to shake the sensation.
“Yeah,” she admits, her fingers playing with the covers. “A nightmare. Except you can’t wake up from it because –”
“Because there’s nothing to wake up from,” Clint finishes quietly. She laughs a little into his shirt, and he both hears and feels the start of a sob from somewhere in the back of her throat.
“We’re a mess,” she mutters, and Clint smiles wryly.
“Aren’t we always?”
“I guess.” Natasha edges up in the bed, away from his body, and for the first time he can see her face clearly, even in the dark shadows, the way she suddenly seems drawn and meek. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ran away like that. I should’ve…I should’ve told you.”
Clint lets out a long breath, trying to figure out how to respond, what he should say versus what he wants to say. “Yeah,” he says, because he knows that if there’s one thing they can give each other no matter what the situation is, it’s honesty. “You should’ve told me. I was angry.”
“You had a right to be,” Natasha responds tightly as Clint shakes his head.
“I did. But after all of this, I don’t blame you. You just wanted to protect me, right?” He wipes a stray hair from her forehead, letting the tips of his fingers trail across her skin. “That part of it, I get. And I would’ve done the same.”
Natasha leans back into his side, pressing her face against his chest. “That’s the problem, you know. After Fury…” She pauses, and he takes note of the way she’s trying to compose herself. “I used to say things like that all the time. That I did things because I had to do them, no matter who I was doing them to. I used to not care. But I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to be the person who lies to everyone they love.”
“So why did you do it then?” Clint asks, not unkindly, and when Natasha speaks again her voice wavers slightly.
“Because you wouldn’t have come after me. I thought if I gave you a trail – left you to your own devices, maybe, you would have a choice, and maybe you wouldn’t bother.”
“What?” Clint can’t help the surprise in his tone as he pulls back abruptly with a frown. “Of course I would have,” he continues a little sharply. “Why wouldn’t – why would you ever think that I wouldn’t do this with you?”
“Because.” Natasha stops and sighs. “Because look at what I’ve dragged you into, Clint. You don’t deserve this. And I never wanted my demons to be a part of your life. Not anymore than they had to be, anyway.”
“Like I don’t have my own?” he asks pointedly, thinking of his nightmares, of the way he knows he’s destroyed himself and sometimes, he thinks, her as well. Natasha swallows.
“I never wanted to be that selfish.”
“Who the hell is talking about being selfish? We’re partners,” Clint returns a little impatiently. “And you’re my best friend. We’re a part of each other’s lives, the good and the bad.”
“I know,” she amends, but he can tell by her voice that she doesn’t really believe him. Clint relaxes back onto the bed, pulling her close again, while being careful of her injured side.
“Look, it’s okay to have demons,” he says after a moment, putting his face by her own, letting his lips trace her skin gently. “Isn’t that what you always tell me?”
“Yes,” Natasha agrees hesitantly, and he can feel her shaking against him. “But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to accept.”
Clint sighs, stroking her hair, the weight of the day and of the past few weeks pressing in on his chest. “I know,” he admits, tucking himself underneath her and shielding her from her own terrors the only way he’s ever known.
***
Natasha wakes mostly from pain, the dull throbbing in her side sending her brain into alertness before her senses register the comforting smell permeating the room. She turns over as carefully as she can, using her elbows to push herself up in bed, and finds Clint sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s bent over looking at a handful of papers, a small travel mug resting in one hand on his knee, and she can see another one sitting on the bedside table next to her head, arguably the source of the strong aroma.
“Coffee?” Natasha asks a little incredulously, because as far as she remembers, the room isn’t equipped with any kind of device to make some. Clint turns around at her voice, smiling slightly.
“Kind of,” he admits, shifting so that she can see the hot pot plugged into the outlet on the far wall, and the packets of instant Starbucks next to it. Natasha manages a smile.
“Is this compliments of Tony Stark?” she asks as she takes the cup, wincing as the hot liquid burns her tongue. Clint laughs.
“No, this is compliments of Clint Barton, who learned the hard way that most shitty motels don’t have coffee makers.” He moves back on the bed, regarding her carefully and drinking slowly.
“How do you feel?”
She considers her response, not knowing if he wants her to answer on a mental or physical level. “Better,” she says, choosing her words with a little trepidation, because it’s the closest thing she can say that’s not entirely a lie. “And still in pain.”
He nods, handing her a bottle of Advil that she gratefully accepts, swallowing the pills dry before washing them down with another sip of coffee. “What are you reading?” she asks when she’s done, even though she’s pretty sure that she already knows.
“Finally got a chance to look at those papers,” Clint says, and Natasha feels her blood chill at his words. She swallows down the lump in her throat.
“And?”
“And, there’s a lot here that doesn’t make sense. Codes and names and equations that we’ll probably have to take back to Tony.” He shuffles the papers again, and Natasha searches his face until she can’t take the silence anymore.
“What are you not telling me?” she asks finally and when he turns around, his expression is both serious and tired.
“Your intel was only half right. According to these reports, this bunker was abandoned two days before we got there. They left the bodies, had it guarded by Hydra agents just in case, probably for reasons just like this. But as far as I can tell, they’ve already moved on.”
Natasha feels her stomach drop as he finishes talking, the growing realization of the fact that perhaps this entire venture was, in the end, for nothing. For a brief moment, she feels exactly like she did back in Zola’s bunker, when each new piece of information about the lies that had made up her life had been like another punch in the gut.
“Natasha.”
She wills herself out of her haze, struggling to center her mind again, but the emotions barrel through her like a dam that’s been burst wide open in the wake of a final straw that’s pushed it to the point of collapse.
“So whoever was doing this…we didn’t stop it.”
Clint remains silent, rubbing a palm over his jaw. “There’s no way to tell how far they’ve gotten with their research, and I don’t know if they’ve made any other clones successfully.”
Natasha nods and feels him put one hand on her leg, his fingers wrapping around her kneecap.
“Nat…”
“I know what you’re going to say, Clint.” She hates the sound of her voice, the tiredness and defeat, but suddenly she can’t bring herself to care. “You’re going to say that it’s not all for nothing, that we did something good. We found out about this and did our best to stop it.”
“It’s not all for nothing,” he repeats, shaking his head. “That bunker that we destroyed today? It is something good. It’s one more place that they can’t return, one more base that they can’t get back. Plus, they know now that they’re not making their plans in secret anymore.”
“But don’t you see?” Natasha asks almost desperately. “It’s like New Jersey all over again. Cut off one head, two more will take its place…they’ll just keep finding places to regroup, to rebuild. They’ll send more weapons out there. They’ll send more of me out there. I’ll keep killing. People will notice. And if we can’t stop them –”
“We will,” Clint interrupts firmly, putting his coffee on the table and grabbing both her shoulders. Natasha smiles sadly, blinking back tears.
“This isn’t your fight.”
“And if you think I’m about to let you go through it alone, you’re insane,” he responds with the same hard edge. “How many times have we done this type of thing together?”
Natasha concentrates on her coffee, before letting out a sigh. “Which part?” she asks miserably, her gaze still downturned. “Helping each other out of traumatic experiences, or chasing after bad guys that are too much for us to handle?”
Clint scoots further up onto the bed, and she lets her head fall onto his shoulder almost instantly.
“The part where we protect each other until there’s no exit strategy,” he says, his voice low. “Like partners do.”
Natasha uses his body to steady herself, closing her eyes. “You really want to do this?” she asks tentatively. “Even if we don’t know what’s out there? Even if we don’t know what we might find?”
“Yes,” Clint emphasizes determinedly, cutting her off before she can continue. “We’re going to get through this, Natasha. We’re going to get through this together, or not at all. And no matter what happens, I want to be there with you.”
Natasha smiles weakly, finding solace in his words, in his touch, in the smell of strong coffee and in the dinginess of the hotel room that feels like a familiar home in the only way it can, given how they’ve lived and what they know of the world.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she says quietly as she curls her hand around his own, fingers pressing gently into his skin, because it’s true, and because she needs him to know it’s true, even though Clint is already leaning over to kiss her, his lips lingering against her skin.
“I’m glad we’re here.”
When he kisses her again it feels like the first real step she’s let herself take in awhile, like the first real shred of belief of the fact that not all is lost, like the first breath of hope in a future littered with things still too uncertain to name.