Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Natasha turns to see the boxes on the table.

Fatigue pulls at her as she walks to open them, knowing that if she sits down, she won’t be getting back up.

She hasn’t felt like this in ages, not this bad, or tired.

Her head hurts, her body aches, but she puts it down to the fight in Amsterdam with the security guard.

Solo missions were fine, it was a snatch and grab that should have been easy. Her own fault, she supposes, as she grabs a knife from her pocket and stabs the box.

The package is from Tony.

Russian candy.

She fingers it lightly as she swallows a lump in her throat at the amount that sits in the box. She would have killed for this as a child; did kill for this. It should hold dark memories but instead, she salivates at the promise of sweetness.

Unwrapping a piece carefully, she holds it in her mouth and closes her eyes, it’s just as she remembered.

Liho mews softly as she jumps up next to the box, watching carefully, as she pushes her way into Natasha’s hand, forcefully requesting a pat.

“I see you.”

Natasha’s voice carries in the quiet apartment, just as Liho’s meow did.

“I know,” she continues, “I’m hungry too.”

Maybe that’s why her head hurts, the turn to a migraine imminent as she puts dried food into Liho’s bowl and sticks a frozen meal in the microwave.

Mac and Cheese will have to do for now, she doesn’t have the energy for anything else.

Giving up and sitting down, Natasha rests her head in her hands groaning at the pain that seems to have increased tenfold in the last five minutes.

She doesn’t think she’s pushed herself too hard, but maybe she has.

The headache feels different as a wave of dizziness passes over her, the feel of lightheadedness not unlike being concuss. Sinking to the floor, wanting to feel ground underneath her, Natasha takes a breath.

Fog washes over her.

She’s going to pass out looking directly into the face of her concerned cat.

“I’m…”

She wants to tell Liho that she’s okay, but instead she loses consciousness and the world blacks out around her.

.

Natasha feels a heaviness on her. It’s warm and soft, unlike where she’s laying. The cold hard floor tile does nothing to alleviate the muscle cramps that seem to plague her body as she wakes.

Concerned green eyes stare at her, as Liho grumbles at her movement. The sitting position seems better than laying on the floor as the reason she is there floods back.

Her head still hurts.

Her body still aches.

But now, there’s more.

It’s felt like a slow burn to get here but now that she is, Natasha can admit to herself that she feels horrible.

The smell of macaroni and cheese permeates and it seems that the microwave may have beeped long ago.

That means she was out for at least ten minutes, maybe longer. She knows she needs to eat, but nauseousness invades instead and she gives up on it quickly.

Deciding on bed, Natasha holds onto the counter and leads herself into the bedroom, stripping, then dumping Clint’s hoodie over her head and pulling his shorts on.

A shiver runs through her and she feels as though she wants a shower but has no energy for it.

She doesn’t care, everything can wait til morning.

.

The sharp ring of Natasha’s cell phone wakes her up.

She feels like she’s in a dream, or pushing her limbs through mud. Everything feels heavy; she’s just so tired.

The message tone sounds again and she glances at it, wondering who would message at this time of the day.

It’s Clint.

“Where are you???”

He should know she’s here. She told him. Didn’t she? Opening the message, she looks to the top left corner and almost swears.

It can’t be right.

9.47

She was supposed to be at work two hours ago.

She’s never been late in all her years at Shield, even now as they’ve integrated into the Avengers.

Rushing to find her clothes, she changes quickly, sticks her hair into a bun and almost trips on a disgruntled Liho.

“Shit, okay, hang on Cat.”

Natasha dumps a can of cat food into her bowl, and and grabs the last iced coffee as if it’s going to save her. Her bag sits where she dumped it.

Sighing, Natasha ignores the headache that sits over her eyes, seemingly worse in the sunlight.

Stiff neck, sore muscles don’t help as she crams herself into the car and drives to the offices downtown.

.

Clint glances at her with a frown as she knocks on the door and enters the board room.

“Sorry I’m late,” she announces.

“Romanoff,” Fury nods.

She puts down her bag and tries to concentrate on what’s being said. It doesn’t make sense.

It feels as though she needs subtitles. Sometimes, she loves that she speaks so many languages, but today; she wishes everyone, anyone spoke hers.

The meeting ends at midday, and Natasha’s head is pounding so hard that she thinks Clint can hear it too.

She just about makes it to the bathroom to splash water on her face before waves of nauseousness hit her.

Unable to hold it in, she vomits in the sink.

“Ugh.”

It’s mostly bile and coffee, but the acidic taste makes her cringe. Natasha washes her face and looks at the message that has appeared.

“Gym? Now?”

Clint’s next meeting is at 3 she thinks, trying to remember what he’d said on the phone yesterday.

The phone goes off again, Tony this time. There’s just emojis and a question.

“Candy arrive?”

She doesn’t have the brain space to reply even though she wants him to know how much it means to her to have it.

Instead, she responds to Clint with a thumbs up and stares at herself in the mirror. She looks out of it, tired, pale; but maybe that’s just her own judgement.

Hoping that exercise helps her headache and body ache, she washes her face and goes to find Clint.

.

The first punch misses him, the second off too. His kick misses her head but he pushes her off him to back up and then trips her.

A laugh escapes him as she falls to the ground.

“Nat, what is up with you?”

She’s quick to stand, but the feeling of lightheadedness is back. The same as last night.

“Headache,” she admits, hands up and ready to fight.

“No, wait,” he tries, “you’re feeling sick?”

She doesn’t care for pity.

Natasha hits him, pulling back as she always does, but somehow she misjudged the distance and the punch hits hard. He rolls with it, sweeping her legs and falling to the ground with her.

Her head bounces as she can’t catch herself in time, she knows how to break fall; has known it since she was five, but this day, she can’t make her body cooperate.

She lays flat on her back, unable to move herself without feeling nauseous.

Clint sits next to her, body over hers.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, helping her into sitting.

“Headache,” she repeats, not elaborating, unsure what this is.

“What hurts?”

Even in sitting, the aura that surrounded her last night, is back. So does the feeling of blacking out.

“M’sorry,” she mutters, and the world goes dark again.
.
Clint catches her as she drops. Fear pulsates through him.

The seizure makes her body start to shake and he clears the space around her. He pulls his phone out and curses as he can’t get the timer open.

It hurts to watch and he wants to press the emergency button, but he knows that’s would make everyone come to the gym, he knows Natasha wouldn’t want that, would be mortified if anyone saw her like this.

Three minutes, he thinks, if it goes longer than that, he’s pressing it.

He likes the shield gym, it’s private rooms for working out and for that he’s thankful.

He likes the Avengers tower better but the constant monitoring by the AI makes him feel uncomfortable. In situations like this, though, he wonders if it would be easier.

He rests his hand on her, her body hot and sweaty as it works through whatever this is.

Two minutes fifteen.

It starts to slow.

He breathes, unaware that he was holding his breath.

There’s blood on her bottom lip where her teeth have bitten down, mixed with saliva makes it looks worse than what it is.

“Natasha.”

The words come out in pity and awe, but most of all he’s just concerned.

Clint can see when awareness comes, and she rolls onto her back.

There’s silence as she orients herself to the world again.

“Wh’appened?” she slurs, hand to mouth as she pulls it away to find blood.

“You had a seizure,” he tells her, bluntly.

“Oh.”

There’s a whirl of anger that stirs in him. He doesn’t know if this has happened before? recently? The reason why she was late to work?

He knows without a doubt that she wouldn’t tell him; even if it had.

“Headache huh?” he opts for.

Natasha pushes herself up.

“Yeah.”

To his surprise, she continues.

“Since yesterday.”

“Have you had any other seizures?”

There’s a pause.

“I don’t know,” she admits.

Clint moves to get some water, turning his back on her but watching her through the mirror. He sees her body curl in on herself, and then change as he heads back.

He wonders if it’s a conscious decision to mask everything, something borne out of self preservation.

It makes his heart hurt when he approaches her again, she completely changes her body language, and smiles as she takes the water from him.

“You don’t have to pretend with me, Nat,” he assures.

Anger shoots across her face, a frown accompanying it.

“What do you think I’m pretending about?”

There’s a lilt in her voice; breakthrough of a Russian accent.

“How bad you feel,” he pushes.

There’s silence in the room as she holds his words.

“I don’t feel well, but I have too much to do. I need to do the write up for Amsterdam, debrief Williams on the Cohen debacle and then head to the tower for the review on weapons with Tony. There’s not enough time to be sick.”

Her eyes glaze and he frowns with her.

“It can wait.”

She cocks her head, and then shakes it.

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not.”

The challenge is clear, and continuing to confront her doesn’t help. It’s clear she doesn’t want to stick around for more.

“I can’t do this right now,” Natasha huffs, stalking to the door.

“Wait,” he asks, standing up and moving with her.

“I’ll come with you.”

She shrugs and heads to the woman’s shower block, leaving him alone, unsure what to do next.

.

Natasha feels her temperature spike.

She downs two painkillers and growls softly at herself.

She just needs to make it through the day. Just like she told Clint. She’s got three things to do, and then she can rest.

Bed feels like heaven.

The meeting with Williams is easy, he’s not a bad operative, just too rigid in the ways he responds. Determining he’s not a threat, she sends him to Maria for his next mission.

Clint stays close by her, and she ignores him as he suggests again to go home.

She omits the fight in her report, feeling it unnecessary to go into and finally she leaves the Shield offices, heading to the Avengers tower as Clint goes to his meeting.

Driving, she feels the headache come on, despite the pain killers she took hours ago.

Natasha knows her body churns through medications fast, but even this feels too quick or too much of a break through of pain.

The seizure had worried her. She wonders if last night it had happened as well. If it happens again, she think, she’ll ask Clint what to do.

Natasha feels sweat on her back, her stomach hurting and bowels twisting. The nauseousness returning too.

Swearing, she turns off the on ramp and heads home. Quicker there than to the Tower in this traffic.

She should message Clint, but not really sure what to say, she doesn’t.

Everything hurts.

Her vision blurs and she pulls over. There’s no way she’s making it home.

“Fuck,” she whispers to herself.

She can feel herself pull away from her body, and with a last burst of energy she calls Clint and puts him on speakerphone.

And then, feels nothing and knows no more.

.

Clint’s phone rings, and he apologizes to the Maria, ducking out when he realizes it’s Natasha.

“Nat?”

There’s no answer. He thinks he can hear cars on the road, but it may be his imagination.

“Natasha?” he says again, but still there’s nothing.

Panic builds in him as he rushes to his car; something is wrong. He knows it.

He puts on tracker he’s put onto Natasha’s phone, sticks the password in, and sees she’s parked on a side street near her apartment.

Something is wrong.

He speeds. He doesn’t care.

Memories of the morning seizure are the only thing on his mind. If she’s seizing in the car, if she’s seizing at all; he bites down on his lip, concern at her well-being. What if she’s really sick?

“Nat? Can you hear me?”

There’s still no answer.

Two minutes to get there. He pushes his car to go faster, stress making his hands sweat.

Does he call an ambulance?

Arriving, and parking next to her, he finds her passed out in her car. It’s locked as he tries to open the door, smashing the window on the passenger side he opens the door and climbs across the front seat.

Only to be met with a gun to his head.

.

Chapter Text

“It’s me,” he tries.

Glazed eyes stare, and he realizes she’s not with him.

Seeing but unseeing.

“Natasha,” he starts.

“You’re in your car, somethings happened.”

He’s as gentle as he can be, taking the gun off her, away from his head.

“‘Lint?”

She’s not all gone, he thinks, terror clawing at his throat as he smiles at her, trying to exude calm.

“‘Athappnd?”

Her eyes close, and she pushes her head into the car seat.

“Your head hurts?” he assumes.

“Yeah,” she breathes.

Clint wants to question her more, but he also wants to get her home.

“It’s time to go home?”

He doesn’t give her a choice. Unlocking the car, he leaves her to open the driver side door.

As soon as he opens it, the gun is at his head again.

“Natasha,” he admonishes.

“It’s me.”

It looks like it takes all the energy she has, to fully see him, lower the gun and stare at him.

“Clint?”

“Come on,” he prompts, helping her out.

The car with the broken window will have to stay here, she’ll be pissed when she realises but right now he doesn’t care, he’s an inch away from driving her to the emergency department.

She leans heavily on him, as he bundles her into the car, seatbelts her in and closes the door.

Natasha doesn’t talk, her eyes still closed even as he pulls into her apartment driveway to park the car.

“You’re home,” he prompts, unsure what to say.

He’s met with glazed eyes again, this time, when he touches her, he knows that her temperature is up.

He’s never known Natasha to be sick.

Not like this.

“Okay, almost there,” he holds her tight.

She grips his arm, but as soon as they enter the apartment she pushes off him and heads for the toilet, leaving Clint with Liho staring at him.

He shrugs to the cat and puts the kettle on, maybe some tea. Now is not the time for confrontation, he tries to convince himself.

But as he hears her vomit in the toilet, he knows there’s another one coming.

.

She passes out quickly.

Unable to handle Clint’s concerned look, Natasha knows he wants to ask.

But she has no answers for him.

She just… doesn’t feel well. She’s hot, her head hurts, muscles ache, nauseous and shaky. It’s not like she knows why, and she doesn’t have the brain space for the conversation.

So she avoids him and puts herself into bed.

.

“She’s gone to bed, hasn’t she?” he asks the cat.

He peeks into her bedroom and finds her curled onto the bed, face flushed, a tremor intermittently running through her. It’s not a seizure, Clint tries to convince himself.

He’s helpless.

He should call an ambulance, but he knows how that will go. She’s already pulled a gun on him twice. He doesn’t want a repeat of Zimbabwe.

Instead, he calls Tony. It’s not even five pm.

“Clint,” he hears the billionaires voice, “where’s Natasha? She was supposed to be here an hour ago.”

Stress makes him pace.

“She’s sick,” he tells Tony, unsure of what to say next.

“I’m worried.”

There’s a pause as he hears Tony stop.

“What do you mean?”

“She had a seizure when we were sparring, I don’t know if it’s her first one. She’s currently sleeping.. I.. Ugh.. I don’t know about last night. I think she’s got a temperature.”

There’s silence.

“Shit,” Tony breathes.

They both ruminate in silence; Clint unsure what to say next and he feels Tony is thinking a thousand things.

He sighs.

“Come here,” Tony tells him.

“We have a medical suite, we can get Bruce here, we can run tests.”

There’s a pause.

“It’s better than being alone.”

“She won’t want to,” Clint reasons.

“Yeah well, there’s a lot of things she won’t want to do I think.”

He knows Tony is right.

This isn’t normal. Not for Natasha.

“She’s going to be okay. Get her her here.”

The words feel hollow, as Clint goes to check on her again. She’s still asleep, still flushed, and as he reaches to touch her arm, warm.

He leaves the room, nodding.

“Okay, yeah. We’ll come, I’ll tell her when she wakes up. Can you do me a favour, her car has a smashed window,” he proceeds to tell Tony about the events of the afternoon and asks him to tow the car. It’s probably an unfair ask, but he figures Tony is rich and can work it out.

He agrees, of course, and offers to send a car to pick them up. Clint declines, hoping that Natasha feels better in the morning.

Maybe it’s just a bug.

Maybe it’s nothing.

He feels in his gut though, it’s something bigger.

He always trusts his gut.

Thanking Tony, they organize the day tomorrow, hoping nothing is needed over night.

Next, he calls Fury, and lets him know they’re both taking a personal day tomorrow. He doesn’t have to elaborate, and truthfully Fury likely thinks it’s a mental health day, but he doesn’t say much, not sure what to say.

.

Clint feeds Liho, patting her gently, turning on the television, and looking around. The box on the table has Russian candy and he unwraps it eating it as he goes to sit down.

It does not taste great. It’s like coffee mixed with chocolate, he’s not sure how he feels about it but curiously wants another.

The evening passes slow, and still Natasha doesn’t arise. He checks on her intermittently but nothing changes.

Once he tries to wake her, but she just rolls over and mumbles to leave her alone.

It’s nine pm, when his phone starts to die from playing games and looking up possible causes for Natasha’s fatigue.

He thinks maybe poisoning, that maybe antibiotics might help, that he just needs to get her to medical and they can be the ones to answer the questions.

He hears a groan from the other room and he gently moves Liho off his lap, as he checks again.

It’s clear she’s in a nightmare and he’s caught between waking her or letting her work it through herself like usual.

“Nat? Natasha?”

He calls her name in hope; but it doesn’t work.

Clint moves closer but is beaten by Liho jumping on the bed. It’s like she knows what to do, as she invades Natasha’s space and pushes her body near her face.

It seems to work, enough anyway for Clint to squat next to her and brush sweaty hair from her face.

“Hey,” he whispers, her eyes tracking him.

“You’re okay, you’re here with me, in New York, okay?”

There’s a slight nod in her head as she seems to understand what he’s saying.

He repeats it anyway.

“We’re going to go see Tony okay?”

She sits up, Liho moving to the end of the bed, and Clint climbing in with her.

“Now?” she slurs.

Clint hugs her close.

“Tomorrow morning,” he assures.

“How are you feeling?”

Likely it’s an unfair question, but he asks it anyway.

He can feel her mumble against him, a nonsensical answer.

Wishing he’d gone to the toilet and put his phone on charge before climbing in with her, he closes his eyes and pulls her close.

.

Irina sighs, her head pounding as she repeats the ballet steps.

First position, second position then third. Repeat.

She’s already sweating.

Natasha watches her friend carefully, the shake in her arms as she holds them in front of her.

Madam turns her back and walks to the door, they all see Dreykov hovering.

“Hold!” She calls out.

They all hold the position, legs crossed and arm in the air.

“Are you okay?” Natasha whispers to Irina.

“Yes,” comes the harsh whisper.

They were all in medical, getting injections yesterday. Natasha had felt hot but it seemed better when she woke up. Irina, however, had stayed tossing and turning all night.

She leaves it. If Irina says she is okay, Natasha won’t ask again.

The lesson continues as Madam hits them with her switch, correcting positions and making them do repeat it, again and again until they’re all sweating with exertion.

They’re made to line up, Irina trips and starts to shake, her eyes rolling back as her whole body convulses.

Natasha knows she’s not the only one who’s terrified. They gather round her, trying to protect her from Madam who calls the guard, commanding them back into position.

No one moves except the guard who picks up Irina’s body, restraining her movement.

There’s water on the floor that Natasha is sure wasn’t there before and Madam gives the call again, anger that she’s had to repeat herself.

“Hold position four,” she commands; and she leaves behind the guard.

The girls don’t dare move.

The hour rolls on and just as they start to adjust position, Madam returns.

“Line up.”

Natasha thinks she can detect a hint of concern on the normally taciturn voice.

“Take them to medical,” she directs their line handler. Natasha feels the dread plague them all.

.

Chapter Text

Clint is still asleep when she wakes, the clock reading 6.17am. Laying still, she tries to remember the fog of the night before. All she does remember is Irina’s shaking form and going to bed early.

Doing the math, Natasha realises she’s been asleep for almost 13 hours.

It’s something that’s never happened before.

In truth, it scares her, because she still feels tired and everything still hurts.

This is not going away.

She washes her face in the sink, looking at the shower. She wants one so bad.

A hot shower on aching muscles sounds like heaven.

But she knows she doesn’t have the energy.

Clint somehow knows. He’s at the doorway, and watching her.

He must have woken up as soon as she moved, his sniper senses tingling.

“Come on,” he says softly.

He strips his clothes off, putting the bathroom heater on, turning on the water and then pushes her to the toilet seat.

Gently he removes her hoodie, then her shorts and underwear.

Helping her up, he checks the water and gently nudges her inside.

Natasha lets out her hair, reveling in the way it seems to alleviate her headache that’s been with her for what seems like a lifetime.

“We’re going to see Tony,” Clint tells her gently, “he’s expecting us and has some ideas about how to help.”

He’s careful not to say medical, doctors, or anything that will make her balk at the suggestion, but she’s too smart for him and knows exactly what that means.

“Medical,” she says bluntly.

He hands her the shampoo and watches her fumble with the opening.

“Yeah,” he nods, taking it back off her to squeeze it into her hands.

“Do you have any idea what it is?”

Clint watches her closely, her eyes glazing, maybe tears as she rinses her hair.

“I don’t know,” she lies.

And he knows it.

“You’d tell me, right?” he asks of her, “if you knew anything?”

She motions for the conditioner and opens it, more confident this time.

“I don’t know, I want it to be a cold, the flu, something easy but maybe it’s something to do with the Red Room,” she admits.

He’s silent on her words, wanting her to say more.

She doesn’t.

But maybe that gives them a starting place.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

Natasha’s eyes don’t move, her grip tightens on the bottle, and her body goes rigid.

He’s seen her in dissociation before, this isn’t that.

“Nat?”

He touches her shoulder gently, trying to get her attention, but she’s not there. She’s gone.

He waits it out, keeping the water temperature constant and a hand on her in case she drops.

Clint takes her in.

She hasn’t lost weight, there’s no rashes on her body, just something messing with her brain. Something that’s increasing electrical signals, making the seizures come and temperatures spike.

The conditioner bottle drops and he hears her audibly take a breath.

“You with me?” he asks, guiding her to the shower bench seat.

She shakes her hand out and grasps the side but he can see the intermittent tremors that go through her arms.

“Hey, hey,” he sits on the floor, the water still beating down on them both, as she breathes heavy.

“Eyes on me,” he guides.

It takes a second but she does, pupils blown and panic setting in.

“I’m going to..”

The words come out in a wheeze, and she repeats them again. The world is running out of air.

“I’m going to die,” she covers her head in her hands and tries to take a deep breath. It fails, and catches and she tries again.

“Look at me,” he says again, gently pulling her hands down, and guiding her eyes towards him. He’d prefer to do this clothed as the water goes cool.

“We’re going to figure this out.”

He takes her other hand and turns the water cold purposely, changing the temperature, the shock clear when she feels it.

“Breathe, Nat,” he prompts, and he can see her trying.

“Good, that’s good,” Clint pauses, “again.”

“I can’t, I..”

Wide eyes stare as she can’t get words out, words that he doesn’t want to hear.

“Irina died, I’m going to die,” she gulps, words seemingly easier but the panic still staying.

He changes the water warm, and hands holding onto her still.

“Breathe.”

He opens the conditioner and body wash, and she seems to understand what he’s doing.

Turning off the water, he reaches to get the towels and wraps them around her back and on her lap.

“You can smell them?” he asks, gesturing to the bottles as he still has a hand on her in case she faints.

“Yeah,” she whispers.

“Breathe, yeah?”

It’s forced but it’s there. Again and again.

He dries her as she works to force air into her lungs. Tshirt first, then hoodie, and finally she’s pushing him away.

“I’m okay,” she bites out, teeth biting into her lip, clumsy hands pulling her underwear and shorts up.

He steps back, a shiver running through him as he stands with her and walks her to the bedroom.

“Sit,” he commands, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He leaves her to dry off quickly, put his clothes back on and then, returns to her.

“We need to go to medical don’t we?” she asks, as he enters.

He sits next to her, her head automatically resting on his shoulder.

“Yeah, Nat, I think we do.”

.

The drive to the Tower is quiet. Neither Clint nor Natasha want to speak, both lost in thought.

They’ve both managed to have something to eat but the nauseousness that’s been plaguing Natasha still sits with her.

She only did it because he looked at her with such sadness that she felt guilt.

The memory of Irina seizing in ballet, and the repercussions of testing on all of them holds such memory in her that she’s sure the nausea is not from whatever is wrong: It’s fear.

She thinks that her body is failing her.

Shaking hands clasp together as she stares out the window, the car heading into basement of the tower.

Parking, Clint sighs, not moving even though the car is switched off.

“This is going to suck, isn’t it?” he says quietly.

Natasha can’t answer.

It’s obvious. Once they go in, they’re not coming out for a while. Something is wrong with her and it shouldn’t be.

He undoes his seatbelt and grabs the bag they packed.

They’ve stayed in the tower before, whole levels set up for them to live on, so they didn’t need much.

He knows the medical floor is not like a hospital, but the dread they both feel is like stepping into one.

Natasha follows a step behind him. The elevator opens for them without even pressing a button.

Clint takes her hand, and they walk in together.

.

Natasha is silent.

Even as they slide the IV in.

Even when they take blood.

Even when Tony comes in.

She doesn’t talk.

Clint thinks it’s protective, she’s not seizing, she’s not dissociated, she just seems… done. Over it. Shut down.

He wants to bundle her up and take her home. He knows how hard this is for her.

They put the heart rate monitor on her and it immediately betrays her. Clint knows it usually sits around 50, it’s nearing on 80.

She glances at the machine that tells all her secrets and she visibly takes a deep breath, relaxing her body into the chair.

It drops but not by much.

Tony leaves when they set her up for the EEG, the monitoring of her brain waves.

They take more blood, and Clint likens the nurse to vampires.

There’s not even a crack of a smile.

He does as much of the talking as he can for her, but he can’t answer some of the questions they have.

They look expectantly to Natasha when the doctor asks how long it’s been happening, if she’s experienced this before.

But there’s no answer.

Frustration curls at Clint.

“Nat,” he admonished, “tell them about Irina.”

He knows nothing except the name, and he can feel the anger boiling off her that he knows even that.

“Tell them,” he pushes.

To their credit, the doctor is patient.

Clint knows that Tony has likely got a doctor that is well informed on trauma.

It’s why they’re not in a hospital bed.

It’s why this room is sterile but has comfortable chairs and a table.

It’s why the nurses say exactly what they’re going to do before doing it, and wait for Natasha to say no, even though she just looks away in acceptance.

She licks her lips.

“It’s happened before,” she starts, “not to me, but to another girl.”

Natasha purses her lips.

Clint sees where she is stuck.

“How much of Natasha’s past do you know?”

The doctor holds up a blank piece of paper.

“As much as you’re willing to share,” she responds.

It’s clearly the right answer.

Natasha looks away, and speaks softly anyway.

“Tony has my medical file, it’ll clear up some questions, but you’ll have others. Come back when you’ve read it.”

Clint feels strangely protective of that file, like it’s got Natasha’s dark secrets in it and it shouldn’t be read by anyone.

He thinks it’s a good thing that she’s freely giving permission for the doctor to read it, she must trust her on some level.

The doctor nods.

“We’ll run more tests whilst I go through it. First the EEG, and then the CT scan and hopefully we will have more information,” she pauses at the door. “Okay?”

Natasha nods; a slight dip of her head.

There’s some small telltale signs that she’s stressed, the clench of her fist, the biting of her lip, the way she’s curled in on herself; and there’s nothing Clint can do.

Chapter Text

Natasha hates it here.

She hates that they’re going to know just how fucked she is. She can’t hide it now.

She’s going to have to tell them about Irina, and Sana.

They’ve got her blood.

They’re going to do scans.

They’re going to know.

She wishes she could disappear.

Her attention wavers and she sees Bruce standing at the door talking to the doctor that was in before.

Tony joins them and there seems to be an argument.

She’s too tired to read their lips, instead she closes her eyes and sighs internally.

Clint, Tony and Bruce are the only ones that have read her whole file.

Tony because he’s a nosy prick with all the technology and no boundaries, Bruce because of the mission in Bolivia and Clint, well that was a gift; and he knew it was too.

The three men know the workings of her body, the simple changes that make her different and now, the stranger of a doctor will too.

There’s a reason she doesn’t get sick, why she churns through medication quickly, why little cuts; not matter how deep, will heal without scars.

There’s nanites in her blood.

There’s still Red Room poison in her, but up until this point it’s saved her, kept her alive.

Like all her memories, it’s not something she could ever get rid of. It’s part of her.

The doctor looks over to where she sits, then back to Bruce, anger on her face as she says something.

It’s got Clint on alert, and clearly it’s nothing good. He squeezes her hand in reassurance.

She’s not above killing the doctor, Natasha thinks, fists clenching unconsciously, if it would eliminate another person knowing all of her.

Clint might even agree.

Her teeth bite hard into her cheeks.

She’s not running because she knows what this might be.

Death.

The beginning of the end.

She feels it, the dread that washes over her.

Pain spikes as she shivers to cover the flinch.

The headache is dulled comparatively to the morning but the day of tests has been exhausting. More emotionally than anything else.

She can feel her mind slipping.

Clint hasn’t left her side and keeps his hand in hers; even when she tries to pull away. Maybe because he thinks she’ll pull out her IV.

She won’t.

If anyone can fix her, the three people arguing outside her room can.
.

Tony paces.

Bruce is steady.

The doctor frowns.

“What do you mean?”

Tony feels anger, restlessness and thoroughly inept; but he pushes it down, trying to get his head around what her blood work and scans have revealed.

He read her file, but seeing the way it works, the way it’s affecting her makes it real.

Her past is a horror story, to him maybe, to her, it’s real life, and now the horrors are back.

Like they ever really left her alone.

Natasha looks up from her chair in the room and they make eye contact through the door.

Tony tries to hold it but she closes her eyes instead.

His anger boils at the unfairness of what he knows.

“Her nanites are failing, they’re dying,” Bruce explains in layman’s terms; trying to make sure they’re all on the same wavelength.

The doctor refers to her pages and nods.

“Why now?” Tony understands most things but he’s not a doctor, this is all so far out of his comfort level of knowledge.

“They’re old,” the doctor says bluntly.

“She wasn’t supposed to live this long.”

They’re all silent in that realisation that the upgrades that came with being a Black Widow meant that they didn’t expect them to live past a certain age.

Bruce crosses his arms, face gaunt with a twinge of green around the ears.

Ignoring it, Tony continues.

“So they’re in her blood?”

He doesn’t understand. If the nanites make up everything, in her blood for repair, healing, he’s sure there can be a simple fix.

“Give her a blood transfusion,” he rationalises.

The doctor shakes her head.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

Bruce is the one to explain further.

“It doesn’t treat the cause,” he says, slowly.

“They’re in her, everywhere, even if we gave her a blood transfusion, they’d still be with her, and if we try and get rid of them, her body will shut down, she’s lived to long with it, to not live without it.”

The doctor hands Tony her scans to further the point. There’s grey and blacked parts, and she points to all the places the nanites are.

Everywhere.

Infecting every part of her.

The doctor looks to Natasha.

“Do you know anyone from her past? Anyone that could have programmed the nanites? That could essentially preform a system upgrade?”

Tony understands that, like a computer.

He appreciates the analogy.

“We can do it then?” he asks hopefully. He preforms system upgrades all the time. How different can this be?

“What, you’re experts on nanorobotics and molecular homeostasis?” the doctor shakes her head.

“Not yet,” he says fiercely. For her he will. How hard can it be?

The doctor sighs, a loud heaving of breath.
“I don’t doubt you’d both, but it’s a specialised field, specialised fields…”

Tony scoffs and gestures to the tower. He can do it, he knows he can.

“I’m not saying you can’t..”

But that’s what he’s hearing.

“To save her, we will,” he says defensively.

“I understand, you might, but it just won’t be in time,” the doctor tells him.

“You might kill her.”

Sighing, the doctor rubs her face, tucks all the paperwork under her arms and looks to Bruce.

“Find someone who was there, find someone who understands now and they might be able to reverse it.”

Appealing to Tony, she tries to tell him as it is. He can’t save her.

Not this time.

“She’s going to die before you figure it out, tailor it to her, and figure out what works for her.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Tony says fiercely, anger on his face.

“Tony…”

But he pushes past her, entering Natasha’s room, welcome or not, unwilling to hear more.

Bruce wears a face of acceptance and the doctor appreciates his calm. It’s ironic given his reputation.

“Do you want me to tell her?” he asks.

Someone has to.

Maybe Natasha can tell them who they can contact.

The doctor looks to Bruce and then Tony who’s sitting on his computer, that’s appeared from nowhere.

“I think we should,” she decides, “I want to run a few more tests.”

Bruce nods.

“What other tests?”

“Maybe a PET scan. It might tell us where the nanites are attacking, what’s been damaged, if anything, find a way to slow it down.”

She starts to walk away, and appeals to him one last time.

“Bruce; find someone who can help, anyone, this isn’t going away, and we don’t have the current technology. Convince Tony. We’ll do what we can, and I suspect that Natasha will trust you more, ask her, she might know more than she’s letting on.”

.

Natasha feels it coming, she doesn’t have time to alert Clint.

She’s gone and back and none the wiser of time that’s passed, except wide eyes looking at her saying her name.

“Mmok,” she tells him, wishing she could take the worry away.

“Do you want some water?” he asks, holding up a straw.

The disorientation on waking has her vision blurred, but as it’s cleared she sees Tony on his laptop in the corner.

“Hey,” he acknowledges, and although he covers it, she can see she scared him.

“You had another one, but this time we caught it.”

He points to the EEG that Natasha is still attached too.

“They’re going to do a PET scan, which isn’t as fun as what it sounds,” he continues.

“Your body is trying to kill you,” he says bluntly.

Overwhelmed, Natasha falls silent.

Her head hurts, it’s thumping and she’s so tired.

“Go’way”

Clint glares.

“They want me to find someone from Russia to fix you,” he starts, “they think I can’t.”

It’s like it’s a personal assault on his intelligence.

“But I don’t know everything,” he turns his screen around, and Natasha is assaulted with an image of her own body.

From what she can see, the nanites are everywhere, but not integrating like they usually are.

They’re stationary, moving slow.

“Tell me the story of Irina,” he asks.

She doesn’t know where he’s got the name from.

“It’s this, or Russians,” he threatens.

Clint frowns.

Her head hurts so much.

“Wrong,” she bites out, sitting up a little straighter, taking a deep breath, pushing all pain down.

“Sana,” she sighs.

“Sana is the one you want to look up.”

This all costs. Spilling her secrets, talking, knowing that he won’t find anything, that she’ll have to say it.

“Sana, got sick. Seized. We tried to hide her. Hide when it happened. But they knew. Punished us. Took her. We thought. We thought they’d kill her. Like Irina. Defective, they said. But. They didn’t. They fixed her. She came back. Not sick.”

Clint squeezes her hand.

“So it can be done,” concludes Tony.

“That was then,” Natasha replies.

She closes her eyes.

“Go away Tony,” but it’s not unkind.

He leaves, with Clint following behind.

Natasha trusts that he’ll fill her in on everything they’ve found, or not found.

She closes her eyes and forces herself to sleep.
.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Clint glares.

He’d demanded that if they were indeed going to make contact with the Red Room then he was going to be there.

He wanted to know everything, whatever demands they made, whatever information they had. He was going to find out.

Tony sets up the video link.

Clint can’t help but wring his hands together. They shake when he’s not got hold of his arrow head, the one the usually lives in his pocket.

He knows he’s anxious, scared even.

They’ve been Natasha’s big bad wolf for so long, it’s like he’s meeting the devil to make a bargain.

He twirls the arrow through his fingers, concentrating on not dropping it, willing his hands to stop shaking, lowering his breath rate and forcing himself to concentrate.

He puts Natasha out of his mind, thinks of this as a hostage negotiation.

He can’t think of her, it makes it too personal.

Tony looks aloof, his quick wit annoying Clint; even though he cognitively knows is protective.

“Shut up,” Clint tells him, and Tony sticks out his tongue.

“How long?”

“Five minutes.”

The screens light up and a tracking programs alights on one.

Tony sees him looking.

He nods to the other screen which holds a GPS.

The screen goes black and they wait.

There’s silence, until… two men appear on the screen, clearly Russian judging by their uniforms and the way they’re sitting.

“You’ve contacted us about a program you should not know about, but since you do, let’s drop all pretense about what this is,” one man says.

“You have one of our defectors,” the other states.

“We’d like her back.”

Jarvis translates with subtitles, but Clint replies in Russian, much to Tony’s surprise.

“She’s not a defector, she’s not yours, she’s American. And she’s sick from something you did.”

They both stare down the camera.

“She was once ours, she is always ours, we will fix her,” the other one states.

“How can you fix her, if you don’t even know what’s wrong?” Tony says, and to Clint’s surprise it translates automatically.

There’s a pause, and then the smaller of the two men answer.

“Seizures, her body is failing her.”

He clicks something and it brings up a scan that looks like Natashas.

“The nanites are attacking her body,” he starts, “they’re old technology, and even you, the genius can’t figure it out.”

Tony snarls inaudibly, and Clint can feel his whole body tense.

The man smiles, “we know who you are Mr. Stark, and you Mr. Barton.”

He continues on.

“If you’ve given her medication to stop the seizures, she will enter states of fatigue, and her body will start to shut down, run only the basic functions, she will start to see things, hallucinate.”

He pauses.

“The medication will not hold, and the electrical impulses in her body will surpass the strongest of medications. If you had not given her anything, she would already be dead, and we would not be talking. Once it starts, there’s only a certain amount of time before we can reverse what’s being done.”

He frowns.

“The Black Widow is our property. Give her back and we will fix her.”

Clint clutches the arrow head so hard, the point digs into his hand, drawing blood.

“How can we trust what you’re saying?” he questions, “how do we know what you say is the truth?”

The larger man smiles.

“Is it a risk you’re willing to take? Her life, over our truths?”

Tony nudges Clint, willing him to calm down.

“What do you want in exchange for an antidote?”

Both men laugh.

“There is no exchange, give her back.”

Shrinking into his seat, Tony glances at the gps tracking that’s almost got their location.

“How?” he asks.

.

They demand for Natasha to be returned in Georgia, in the small village of Resi near the Terek river. Three days from now.

They send a video, to further prove their point. It’s of a girl, seizing, she’s no older than ten.

Tony watches it in horror.

Clint watches in resignation.

They restrain her and inject her. Body stilling, they can see as she sinks into unconsciousness.

The time stamp changes, it’s hours later if they believe it; she’s up and walking, like it never happened.

Dread fills Clint.

There is no way that this can go well.

He stays in the room long after the Russians are gone, trying to figure out just how this will go, how to account for all scenarios and get Natasha back to them safely.

Tony offers fo stay but Clint wants to be alone.

They have two geniuses, a hulk, a super soldier and him. Surely, they can do this.

He can feel the panic rising.

They’re sending her back to a house of horrors, the place that broke her, and tortured her.

He can’t catch a breath.

No matter how hard he tries to ground himself, it doesn’t work.

Clint’s face feels hot, and he curls in on himself.

“Agent Barton?” The AI feels far away but it breaks through his panic. “Your heart rate is skyrocketing, can I get someone for you?”

Clint groans out a no, trying again to stop visions of Natasha being held down, tortured. He counts his breath in and out until his mind wanders again.

He’s not sure how long he’s in there but somehow he’s on the floor, more cognizant of the world around him.

They’re sending her back with no clear plan to help her home.

“Where’s Natasha?” he says out loud, knowing the omnipresent computer will tell him.

“She’s on the medical level, she seems to be asleep,” is the response.

Clint stands, makes his way to the door and takes another deep breath.

Tony better have a plan about this, because the only one in his head is to get them to fix her, and then he’s going to kill them all.

.

Steve is asleep next to her as Clint enters, though he wakes as soon as the door moves.

“They gave her something to make her sleep,” he whispers.

Clint nods, she’d been pretending to sleep, but he doesn’t know if it’s fear of the constant nightmares she’d been having or pain.

Perhaps it was both, he hadn’t asked.

To think that this time a week ago, everything had been fine, they’d been sparring in the gym, eating dinner together and planning their trip to Barbados.

Natasha had laughed and said she wanted to wear her new striped bikini that she’d bought in Australia last year.

He’d kissed her then, and they’d both grinned at the thought of a holiday.

He shakes his head.

They’ll get there. They have to.

He thanks Steve and says he can go, tells him to have a talk to Tony about upcoming events but doesn’t elaborate. Steve nods.

“Do you need anything?” he asks, taking in his friend.

“No,” Clint says bluntly. “Just figure something out with Tony.”

He sits by Natasha’s bed and watches her carefully.

Dark circles under eyes, iv’s now in each arm. So small in a big bed.

They’re trying so desperately to keep her here. The Red Room better want the same thing.

Dozing, he sleeps lightly holding onto her hand.

.

Natasha watches him.

She knows when he wakes up the news he will bring, so she stays in this bubble of blissful ignorance, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles.

She sees when he realises, hand grasping a little harder, eyes orienting up to meet hers.

“Hey,” she whispers.

“Hey,” he whispers back.

“What’s the time?”

Clint looks at his watch.

“It’s just past 7.30 in the morning,” he nods.

“Move over.”

Clint climbs into the bed, minding her wires and lines. It feels like it’s been a lifetime since he touched her, held her.

The silence has them both thinking until she can’t take it.

“Tell me,” she requests.

He sighs.

“Three days. Resi in Georgia. They want you sedated on transfer.”

He can feel her body tense.

“You can say no,” he offers.

“No I cant,” she replies.

Pauses.

“I don’t want to go,” she tells him burying herself into his body.

“We’ll protect you, set up safe guards. Tony and Steve, they’re working on some ideas now.”

He hugs her close, hoping she believes his lies.

“I won’t come back the same,” she confesses, the thing that’s worrying her most, as tears drip down her face.

Clint wishes he could be strong, but his heart hurts and he feels tears on his face too.

“I don’t want to do it, Clint. I don’t want to go to that place,” she clenched her fists in his clothes.

He can feel her body shake, shuddering breaths as they hold each other for dear life. When she can access words, her breath slows.

“What do you think death is like?”

His answer is harsh, quick to rebuke it.

“No one is going to die.”

This is a truth he knows.

“We do this, and they fix you, then we will come and get you. We do this and they fix what they broke inside okay?”

Natasha looks away. He can’t know the future, and she doesn’t believe his words.

“There’s a story the older girls used to tell; we’d just come back from the tundra; and they knew what had happened. 12 of us left and 4 came back. They’d been through the same. I think they tried to make us feel better, so they told us stories. One of them, she said that death was like being carried to your bedroom by your parents, loved; held.”

She suppresses a groan as she adjusts her position.

He hugs her tighter.

“For those of us that had experience with home, parents, love.”

“Ruthie died calling out for her mother, for someone to carry her to her bed,” she pauses, swallows.

“I’m scared,” she admits, “that that will be me too, but I’ll be calling out for you.”

He squeezes her then, ignoring the shudder that runs under her skin. Clint tries to convey everything in it, kissing her head, her face, her lips.

“Soon, this will all be a bad dream. A memory, just like Budapest, and Moscow and Trinidad.”

Hand under her chin, he kisses her again, lips soft like a long kiss goodnight.

.

Chapter Text

Liho curls with Natasha as Clint drops her in her lap.

The blood transfusion almost half way through.

“Tell me again,” she demands to Tony.

He nods.

“It’s got tracers in it. They can’t detect it, but we will be able to find you. There’s another under your skin on your hip, and you’ll have one in your clothes. We’re coming with you as far as we can, and we have the location of the Red Room or where we suspect it is.”

She nods.

“It’s not enough,” she surmises.

“No,” Tony agrees, “it’s not.”

Natasha watches the blood flow into her arm.

“What are you sedating me with?”

She knows the ins and outs, they’d made the plan together.

They leave for Resi in the morning, ten hours form now.

The quinjet ready to go.

“It’s a painkiller compound with a light sedative. I’m hoping that the combination takes away the pain but also doesn’t leave you out of it for too long.”

There’s apprehension curling in her gut, going in blind to Russian compound is not her favourite part of this plan. They could do anything with her.

“Then what?”

Tony shrugs.

“Then we wait.”

Natasha falls silent.

“They have a week,” Bruce says, speaking for the first time. “If they haven’t been able to cure you in that time, then they don’t intend to. A week. Okay?”

Clint feels her freeze at that.

A week was a lifetime in hell.

“If you can get word to use before that,” Steve says softly, “we will come and get you straight away.”

There’s a scoff as Clint rolls his eyes.

“She’s not going to summer camp,” he argues.

“No,” Steve says slowly, “I know, but she’s done it before… got out?”

Natasha rolls her eyes. Liho ruffles in her lap, tuning in to the tension in the room.

“Stop,” she commands Clint, who looks red in the face ready to rebuke him.

“Fine. Is there anything else?”

Tony shakes his head.

Bruce avoids her eyes.

Steve looks at her with resignation.

Clint crosses his arms.

“You can go,” she tells them.

There’s protest, but she holds up a hand and shakes her head.

“If I’ve got to do what I know I have to, you all need to leave.”

There’s a hardening in her heart.

Bruce leaves first, then Tony, and lastly Steve holds his position at the door.

“I’m staying outside if you need anything,” he tells her, and like the solider he is, he stands watch.

“You too,” she tells Clint.

But it’s too much of an ask.

“No.”

She stares him down.

“No,” he says again. Arms crossed across his body,

“I’m not leaving you alone in this.”

Natasha sighs.

“I’m always alone in this.”

He crawls next to her, moving Liho out of the way.

Gently gently picks up her hand, and kisses it.

“You’re not alone, you’re never alone. Even when it feels like it, even when the world is dark.”

He picks up a pen from the side table and draws a little arrow on her hand. And then another.

Small signs, no bigger than her little finger nail, drawn sporadically on her body.

“They’ll go, but you’ll see where they were and remember,” he says, capping the pen and pushing next to her. She still feels the light pressure of the pen, and knows that he’s right.

She motions for the pen and draws them on him too.

“Don’t forget,” she whispers.

Staring at him, she takes in everything about him. His hair, his wrinkles, his eyes and nose and mouth. Things to help her through.

If they take her memory, what’s left of her?

“You’ll be with me tomorrow?”

“Every step of the way.”

.

Natasha doesn’t sleep, but she does lose time.

Chunks of time missing from the clock and she grimaces to herself that she can’t do that when she’s there.

To be fair, she hasn’t even thought more than a day ahead. One step at a time, sometimes only minute by minute.

If she thinks too far ahead, she knows she’ll spiral; and that’s one thing she can’t do.

Clint dozes in and out, his hand always on her. Liho, even though she’s not used to being here, stays at the end of the bed.

She knows Steve doesn’t leave his post. Tony’s likely watching cameras, Bruce probably meditating nearby.

The television plays renovation shows, that Clint complains about, making her lips twitch; and they both complain about the timelines in which things get done.

He offers her candy, the Russian candy Tony had delivered, explaining he’d picked it up when he got Liho. She takes it, shares it and they talk of favourite candies, ranking them together.

If she didn’t know what she knew, she could almost pretend that…

She lets go of that thought.

The nurse apologises when she enters, explains that the last lot of antibiotics are as long lasting as they can be, and that the fluids are laced with painkillers. No sedative this time, as requested.

She wants to remember as much of this night as she can.

It may be her last as Natasha Romanoff.

.

An hour from Georgia, Bruce disconnects the lines attached to her.

He takes her vitals, and gently gives her a wet cloth to wipe the dried blood away and the sweat on her face.

She hasn’t had to do so much in the past couple of weeks and she’s embarrassingly exhausted.

“I think they won’t keep the lines we put in, so better we take them out than they do,” he reasons.

She agrees of course, and holds the cotton wool over where her IV line was, staunching the blood.

Clint doesn’t let go of her.

Steve goes through the exchange again.

It’s going to be at the private airfield, the location only just chosen so neither could be set up there.

In order to stay as close to her as possible, they’re going to sedate her, with Steve carrying her and Tony flanking them both.

Clint continues to surveil the location with the satellites that Tony has tasked. He has two options for sniper perches. He assumes the Russian’s will be on the left, so he choose the one on the right, near where the quinjet will land.

Bruce is going to stay, already commenting that he doesn’t like this, a growl from the hulk breaking through.

Tony pushes next to her on the other side, slips a bracelet on her wrist.

“One more thing,” he explains, “this has a tracker, I’m hoping they keep it on them, it’s made of verbrainium, so unlikely they’ll throw it away. When they take if off you it will ping it’s location every five minutes. It’s also powerful enough that it will map out the location of where it is.”

Natasha rests her head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says ever so quietly. “This is my fault.”

She scoffs.

“This is not your fault,” she whispers back vehemently.

The others pretend to not listen as Tony stares and Natasha breathes.

“They’ll fix me and you’ll come get me, okay?”

He nods vehemently. She think she can see tears in his eyes.

.

Clint swears. A long string of expletives as he rushes from his perch.

“No, nonono no,” he breathes, sprinting to where Steve is holding Natasha’s sedated body.

He’s so glad she’s out because if she was there, he’s sure she’d be backing out of the exchange right about now.

“Stop,” he tells the others, but it’s too late.

Dreykov stands in front of four other widows ordering them to take Natasha from Steve. They all hold guns directed at the two men, and he reluctantly gives her over, placing her on the gurney.

It’s done before Clint is even half way to the drop point.

“Stop,” he shouts into the comms.

This can’t be happening.

They’ve just given her to the devil.

The one man she betrayed, killed his daughter and took his throne.

This wasn’t the plan.

Dreykov wasn’t part of the plan.

He’s back from the dead and Natasha is fucked.

“What’s wrong?” Tony asks, his face shield covering his face as he answers only in comms.

“Get her back, she can’t go with him,” Clint huffs, trying to talk and run.

But time is not on their side.

“Clint… she needs to,” Tony’s voice is placating, like Clint is just trying to stop the exchange. He doesn’t know what Dreykov has done to her, what their history is.

He’s supposed to be dead.

“He’s supposed to be dead, goddamnit.”

Dreykov is back in his truck.

The Russians are backing away with Natasha in tow and they’re standing there sending her to a fate worse than death.

“No!”

Tony flies up in annoyance, leaving Steve on the ground.

“What’s wrong?”

Clint stops and shoots towards Dreykov’s truck, fear at what they’ve just done.

“We’ve killed her,” he mutters, shell shocked.

.

Dreykov smiles.

The Black Widow has come home.

He’s going to have so much fun.

Pleasure curls in his gut at seeing her helpless.

He orders the doctors on site of the makeshift hospital in Koban.

He feels better being back in Russia and all the protections that entails; sure that the Americans won’t follow them in without an international incident.

Staring at her, he orders her the widows to undress her and make sure there is nothing tracking them into the hospital.

They remove her bracelet and hand it to him, her only jewelry. He’s suspicious of it, he knows she wouldn’t come with jewelry she knows would get removed.

He taught her strategy better than that.

Handing it back to one of the widows, Dreykov tells her to send it to the Kremlin.

Let them deal with it.

She leaves immediately, and he turns his attention back to his defector.

Now dressed in a hospital gown and handcuffed to the bed, he orders her torso to also be strapped down. He’s not taking any chances.

The doctors take blood, scans are completed, even though they all know what’s wrong.

They’ve had years of this. The nanites that course through her system are the old technology; he knows exactly how to help her.

Dreykov smiles.

He knows exactly how to take her apart too.

He tells them if the diagnosis and recovery is not completed in the next 24 hours, he will kill them.

He’s sure the other avengers have a plan to rescue her.

He needs her better, because then he can start work on her.

Chapter Text

Clint won’t leave Georgia.

The country bordering Russia feels so cold and he feels almost catatonic with dread.

Tony tries to convince him to get into the Quinjet but knows that as soon as he does they’re going to leave.

“We can’t stay here,” Tony tells him, the strange voice of reason.

Steve is silent, almost ready to head into Russia after the small amount that Clint had divulged about Dreykov.

Clint knows they can’t stay, but he can’t leave.

The closer they are to Natasha, the quicker they can get her back.

“The military is approaching,” Jarvis informs them through their earpieces.

Steve bristles.

“We need to go,” Tony repeats, slightly more urgently.

He flies back to the Quinjet leaving Steve with Clint.

“Come on,” Steve encourages.

“We can’t save her if we’re locked up.”

Clint knows he’s right. He trudges back behind Steve, the feeling of defeat heavy in his soul.

She’s alive for now, and he’s got to believe that.

It’s just what they’ll do to her now that she’s there.

.

It’s feels like there’s something on her chest. Natasha tries to change positions but as awareness filters into her, she realises she can’t move.

Her arms are spread out, cuffed and splinted, her chest strapped down, the harness over her shoulders across her chest attaching to the bed.

She can’t move.

Pain radiates from everywhere, whatever painkillers Tony had been giving her have clearly worn off.

She can’t think straight.

How long ago was that?

How long has she been here?

She struggles against the bindings, trying to find any loosening but all she manages to do is sweat.

Panic rises within her.

There’s a familiar aura that makes her vision blur and her mind slip.

No, she thinks, not now.

No.

.

Dreykov watches as she seizes.

“Administer it,” he orders the two doctors.

He enjoys seeing her helpless.

She made him feel that way once before, and he is looking forward to it repaying it tenfold.

The blood transfusion injects new nanites compatible to the ones in her system, reprogramming them and making new pathways that the old ones had died in.

It’s technology they’d tested on so many widows, death just being part of the process.

If she dies, it will not be a big loss, but he knows, his Natasha will not die.

She’s too stubborn for that. What killed the others in their childhood, had strengthened her, made her faster, stronger, healthier and had given her all the advantages in the trials of becoming a widow.

He suspects that this will do the same.

.

She doesn’t know how much time as passed. Only that everything hurts, her heart is beating fast and she’s so hot.

Tossing her body against the restraints, she tries to loosen them, anything to stop the feeling of being held down.

Somewhere in her subconsciousness she knows that something is wrong, the pain seems to come from the inside out and she can’t breathe.

Everything feels suppressed and she can’t even curl in on herself.

Opening her eyes, the room is blurry, there are others here.

Clint? She wonders.

Why would he tie her down?

Gulping breaths, she feels a face mask being put over her face. She hears the beeping of machines and a soft whine that isn’t human.

She feels something icy entering her veins, travel into her chest where it settles then spreads. Everything hurts, deep seated pain that makes concentrating hard and everything so confusing.

Tony, Bruce, they can help. The doctor with the kind face.

Where are they?

She closes her eyes again, unable to do much else, bucking again against the restraints again.

Something is wrong.

Why would they tie her down?

Voices from her childhood, makes her think she’s hallucinating; women, the masked faces of doctors, laughter of sadistic men.

Isn’t that what they said would happen before she died?

Visions and mirages of what once was?

Maybe it’s a nightmare. She tries again to turn in the restraints but they’re too tight.

Nightmares shouldn’t feel this real.

She thinks she might be dying.

.

Steve thought they’d be headed home, but instead they end up in Greece. The Chateau that the Quinjet lands in is the biggest house he has ever seen.

Tony explains the quick layout and sleeping quarters and then disappears, leaving Bruce and Clint standing by Steve.

“What now?” Bruce asks, unsure.

Clint huffs, adjusts his arrows and guns, and storms off after Tony.

Steve looks to the kitchen; “do you want something to eat?”

Even if no one lives here, he’s sure that there might at least be pasta or rice or something.

Bruce shrugs.

“I guess?”

Though neither of them feel like eating, it’s something to pass the time, something that feels almost like it’s just another night and that they didn’t give Natasha voluntarily over to her enemies.

It makes Steve feel sick, every time he thinks about it.

To his surprise the kitchen is fully stocked, fridge full and cupboards hold more than what he expected.

Of course Tony has thought ahead.

.

“You have a plan, tell me,” Clint demands, grabbing Tony’s arm.

“We wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

Clint knows that Tony is a genius, but when he masks it behind stupid statements, bullhead opinions and quick wit, it’s easy to forget.

He hates him a little for that.

He knows now that he’s at least ten steps ahead, so at the very least, there’s something else going on.

The dark circles under Tony’s eyes are apparent.

“What did you do?”

“Go eat something with the others,” Tony dismisses, pulling his arm away.

“No.”

There’s a built tension as they stare at each other.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing,” he growls.

“There was nothing I could do.”

Clint can feel the lie even as it passes his lips.

“Stop lying,” he insists, “all of this— you didn’t just give her over, I know you. You wouldn’t just leave her there. What did you do?”

Tony turns his back again and walks forward, Clint follows, and then sees.

The room is outfitted with cameras, satellites that followed the trucks that took Natasha away, others that were still following trucks.

There’s the tracker following the bracelet, but separate to the one on Natasha and it reads her vitals.

“It’s not enough,” Tony says forlornly.

“They got rid of the bracelet,” he points to the moving car, “and they’re giving her a blood transfusion.”

He analyses it further as Clint stares at Natashas vitals.

“They’re fixing her I think.”

Handing him a tablet, it shows the progression since they left her, since the sedation.

“I can’t tell much, but they’ve kept her seizures mostly under control, expect here when her heart rate skyrocketed, and then something else happened here.”

Clint has no idea what he’s looking at but he stares at Natasha’s current heart rate that’s far too high, and her blood pressure that’s far too low, and wants to kiss Tony.

She’s still alive.

For now.

.

Steve wanders into the room that Clint and Tony disappeared into. He’s not able to sleep and he’s had enough of cooking things.

He thinks he’s used all the ingredients in the kitchen and it had done nothing to take his mind off things.

He finds Tony passed out on the chair watching screens of satellites.

Leaving the room, he goes looking for a blanket for him, and finds Clint on the couch hugging a tablet and groaning.

It doesn’t take any imagination to know he’s having a nightmare.

Torn between waking him up and leaving him be, Steve continues to look for a blanket and shuts the door too loud, looking over to Clint who’s now watching him intently.

“Hey.”

“There’s food if you’re hungry,” he offers, watching as Clint swallows and nods.

“You slept?” The archer asks.

Steve shakes his head.

“No,” and it seems redundant to do so as the world is not so dark.

“You should.”

“And you should eat.”

Clint nods.

“Yeah.”

He glances at the tablet and nods again.

“Yeah. Yeah okay.”

Steve opens another cupboard and closes it again, quieter this time.

“What’re you looking for?” Clint asks, standing and stretching.

“Blanket,” he says, opening another cupboard.

“Hey Jarvis, where’s the blankets?” Clint asks.

It surprises Steve that the AI responds, astounds him even, that in this house, the AI lives.

He locates the quickly, and picks the purple one, glancing again at Clint.

“Maybe eat?” He offers once more, “Bruce is in there, reading.”

Clint dips his head and points to the kitchen, making Steve nod at him too, leaving to find Tony.

.

Natasha wakes up to find herself still strapped in a spread eagle position and torso strapped to the gurney.

There’s a feeling of awareness in her, that she’s feeling better than she’s felt in a month.

Something is different.

Swallowing and trying to get her mind to stop panicking, she opens her eyes and starts counting her breath.

It doesn’t take long before someone enters.

Her heart rate betrays her and she struggles hard against her bonds.

“You’re dead,” she croaks.

Dreykov smiles, his face ugly in it’s glee.

“Welcome home, Natasha.”

.

Chapter Text

The day passes slow, there’s nothing really to do except wait; hope really, that the Russians are doing what they say they will.

None of them talk much, except to encourage each other to take care of themselves.

Eat.

Drink.

Rest.

They take watch on Tony’s monitors, though what was meant to be a secret, a burden he’d keep to himself, has made them all a little lighter, she’s alive and they haven’t found the tracker under her skin on her hip. The one that’s feeding them all the information.

The day morphs into night, and they all become lost; unsure what to do.

Tony doesn’t sleep anyway, his circadian rhythms non existent. So he promises to wake them if anything changes.

Clint dreams, holding the portable tablet close to his chest.

He dreams of Natasha dancing down the hall, to a song only she can hear. It transforms and changes to her reading in the living room, face creased in concentration as her cooking burns in the oven.

He laughs as she apologizes, the cookies easily rescued.

In his dream she is happy, content and he can feel her warm body, curls close to him.

He hugs her close and falls into a deeper sleep.

.

Bruce reads Natasha’s file, hoping that it give him something that when she is back with them he can help her more, tailor medical attention to her; but the more he reads the more understandable her reactions to medical attention becomes.

He considers how horrific the last couple of weeks must have been for her. Bruce feels the low growl of the Hulk in his gut and closes his eyes.

No, he reasons, not now.

If the Hulk fronts, he’s not coming back.

The anger they both feel at the injustice of her upbringing, and the abuse suffered will never go away, he thinks.

So he mixes it into all the anger that courses through his body and holds it.

.

The third day without her brings change to her systems, Tony thinks it’s leveling out. There’s no spikes to her temperature, no constant racing heart, or bug fluctuations and her blood pressure seems to become somehow stable.

“I think they’ve done it,” he questions, looking to Clint who’s playing games on his phone.

“Get Bruce,” he orders.

The doctor is in the room in seconds of Tony asking, and they start a conversation on stabilization and causes.

They video call the doctor and give her Natasha’s vitals and the doctor confirms what they know; they’ve likely cured her.

“Maybe they’d put her in an observation room, just to make sure she’s stable?” Steve asks hopefully.

Clint shakes his head.

“I don’t think so, but we can hope they go gentle,” he says kindly, knowing it’s not the truth.

.

Steve opens his phone.

He scrolls til he finds the picture of him and Natasha taking stupid selfies in the Quinjet, passing the time as they waited for refueling.

He loves the way she looks so carefree, pulling faces with him, grinning at his stupid faces.

It makes him melancholy when he thinks of how tired she’s looked, how resigned she was to the whole thing from the moment she knew what this was.

There’s a look soldiers get when they’ve seen war, shell shocked is a good name for it, because it’s exactly how they look; overwhelmed; mind protecting body.

He flips through the pictures, sending a couple to Clint, even though he sits on the next couch. There’s a hint of a smile on his face as he acknowledges them, and nods at Steve in thanks.

They’re all in waiting, the call to go and get her, one more day they’ve decided.

Waiting is hell.

.

She feels the mouth guard in her mouth, a hard plastic that makes her breathe through her nose.

She knows what’s coming, the thick metal cuff across her wrists and the chair that tips up.

Natasha can feel the revenge.

Whether she comes out alive or not, is another thing.

She’s still dressed only in her hospital gown, that goes ¾ of the way up her legs. She feels naked before them.

There are three people in the room that she can see.

But her head is strapped down too.

The others need to come and get her.

Now.

The first shock alights every nerve in her body.

It’s familiar and painful and she screams and bites hard into the mouth guard.

Her muscles freeze in rigor and there’s no thought in her head except, make it stop.

The buzz that sounds gives out, but her ears are still ringing. There’s moments of reprieve, an instant to regain breath, but it’s not enough.

There’s no questions, no talking as it switches back on, just paralysed muscles tightening until she thinks they’re going to snap.

She counts, knowing that the machine can’t hold its charge forever, but it hurts.

It hurts.

The forth round, no one has said anything and she’s sweating profusely; out of breath, muscles trembling.

She wants to pass out.

Vision blurry, mind dulled, she hears the door open and slam shut.

Dreykov appears in her field of vision.

“I wanted to be the one,” he growls holding up a syringe.

The liquid squirts out the top and he laughs.

“I wanted to be the one that brought you back into the fold; that made you one of us again.”

He’s not gentle when he jabs the needle into her neck, lingering and whispering into her ear.

“Did you really think you could leave? You’ll always be mine.”

There’s a disconnect in Natasha’s brain, much like dissociation but she’s aware.

There’s an invisible wall and it almost feels like a split. Two of her, Natasha and the Black Widow.

She is not in control; the Black Widow is.

.

Natasha is dressed. Another widow with dead eyes stands next to her, pulls the waistband tight.

She just follows.

His order was to comply.

Any order that is given, the Black Widow does.

Stand, he’d said, taking the restraints off her arms, the crusted blood and bruises.

The Black Widow does.

“Kneel,” he says.

Everything against her tries to fight it, but the Black Widow takes over.

She does everything Dreykov says, there is no choice; no option, comply, comply.

She can’t help her body shaking; the repercussions of electrocution; but even as she kneels in front of the man that made her childhood hell, she doesn’t feel anything.

She wants to ask him what he’s done to her but he gleefully explains anyway.

“Chemical subjugation.”

“We saved you, and you will forever be in our debt. You will repay it.”

She wants to scream until her lungs give out. Instead she hangs her head and awaits the next order.

“Let’s go home,” he smiles.

From the medical wing, she’s put into a car.

“Say goodnight,” a widow tells her.

“Good night,” Natasha says, the words falling out of her mouth.

Injected again, this time the world goes dark instantly.

.

She wakes up in a cell, in control of her own body somewhat. She takes a stock as she always does, although apart from feeling nauseous and dizzy, she overall feels okay.

Her wrists are covered in bruises, she can tell where all the needles have been inserted by the little pot holes in her skin; but the way everything is healing; it’s like when she was younger.

The nanites are back in action. They’ve truly healed her of the constant seizures; the drops in blood pressure, racing heart, and likely the organ damage the doctor had told her she was heading towards.

Given all of that, it’s likely they haven’t had enough time to get to all her bruises and cuts.

There’s still a constant ache in her bones and her muscles ache; but she thinks it might just be from the taser and electric shocks.

Not quite understanding what is happening, Natasha decides to pick the lock. She wants to know where she is, how far they’ve taken her; how long she’s been here.

There’s a guard at the door as soon as she approaches it.

“Stand at the back,” he orders.

Compliant legs carry her the three steps to the back, as he opens the door.

“Follow me.”

She does, wanting to kill him as she has no idea why she’s being so submissive, until she remembers the injection and Dreykov’s breath on her neck.

They pass widows in training and Natasha forces herself to look straight ahead. How many of them are there? How many girls has she failed?

She thought this was done.

Rounding the corner, Natasha finds herself in a gym room, three widows lined up.

Lena, Max and Jace stand in front of her; all grown up.

.

Chapter Text

She’s paired against Lena first. The lithe girl she once knew with kind eyes and a love of braiding hair, wears guns on her hips and widow bites on her arms.

In fact, as Natasha looks to the two others, she realises they do too.

She carries no weapons, and it’s clear what’s going to happen here, because for every weapon she sees there’s likely two more in hiding.

Sharp eyes now watch her, as the guard offers rules.

“Disarm at any cost. No death,” he clarifies.

Natasha now notices that there’s two way mirrors in this room, and instinctively knows they’re being watched.

If she tries to communicate with the others, they might be tortured. If she tries anything, they might be tortured.

But that’s not why she complies.

She wants to be defiant, even if it’s just to see what happens.

“Fight,” the command comes.

Lena hits her hard in the face, the impact on her cheek as she just manages to turn before it impacts to her nose.

Get the weapons, she knows, as Black Widow works to disarm Lena.

She grabs for the first gun, but Lena is too quick. She avoids it and elbows Natasha hard in the gut, making her lose her breath. She plays on it, making Lena come in closer.

Natasha realises she is not in this fight. It’s Lena versus the Black Widow and Lena is winning.

It’s like she’s a spectator as she grabs for the guns, switches the safety off and ejects all the bullets.

Using the butt of the gun, she hits Lena; though the other gun distracts her.

The fresh feeling of electrocution pounds through her body, even though the voltage seems lower.

Growling, she attacks Lena full force, anger at her concept of her widow bites being used on her, but her weakened body is no match for a widow at full strength.

Two quick kicks and elbow to her jaw, sends Natasha to her knees and Lena on top of her arm wrapped around her neck, the choke hold complete as she crushes Natasha’s windpipe.

The black widow taps out before she passes out, but Natasha knows if it was her in charge, she’d just pass out.

It would be kinder to herself.

Lena let’s go, pulled off by the guard who hands her a long knife.

“Mark your win,” the guard tells her.

Lena approaches her, holds Natasha’s chin steady and guides the knife down her face.

She feels it cut into the soft skin of her cheek the blood running down into her neck as she stares at the woman, who won’t make eye contact.

“Next,” the guard commands.

Max steps up, her dark eyes staring into Natasha’s as the blood tickles her neck.

“Fight.”

Max doesn’t attack, instead reaches for her gun, making Natasha lunge at her; disarming her and walking straight into her play.

Max drops the gun, and picks the knife, stabbing at Natasha catching her by surprise. It’s not a deep cut, but it does push through her uniform cutting into her skin.

Dancing away, Natasha backs up, feeling short against the other girls height.

She can do this, she can fight.

The thing is she’s deconditioned and not used to the brutality of hits that are raining down on her as she backs up arms up.

Catching one, she throws the larger girl, leveraging her momentum and weight against her. It’s unfortunate that Max trips her as she does it and it turns into grappling on the floor.

She doesn’t have a chance.

Max holds down her arms; arm across her neck as she sits on top of Natasha. Leaning in close, she whispers in Natasha’s ear.

Black spots appear in her vision.

“Traitor,” she hears as she gasps for breath.

The guard stops the fight, as Natasha coughs, her windpipe free of pressure.

Max is handed the knife.

“Mark your win,” the guard tells her.

This time, Max pushes Natasha down, she slices the knife across her thigh, cutting through the uniform and into her skin.

Natasha grimaces as she breathes through her teeth.

“Next,” says the guard.

Jace steps up.

“Fight.”

There’s a pause as Natasha remembers them being sixteen, her brown hair thick and tied back laying next each other, clasping hands and making a blood pact that they won’t kill each other.

She still feels the scar across her palm, even though it’s long healed.

Jace throws a half hearted punch and Natasha feigns a kick to her head, changing it to a back fist at the last minute. The connection is loud as the crack across her cheekbone resonates.

Anger plays across Jace’s face and she starts fighting for real, knife out, stabbing towards Natasha as she dodges and weaves.

Jace throws the knife, narrowly missing Natasha and then follows up with a kick and then back fist that connects hard making her see stars.

She falls back and the guard stops Jace from following up.

She gets handed the knife and Jace pulls Natasha’s hand from her body, slicing across her palm; face set in a hard line.

“Stand,” the guard tells them.

The black widow stands, blood sticky in her clenched palm, down her thigh and on her face.

Pain in all the hits, a fatigued body and the disconnected feeling from herself makes Natasha want to shrink back, go back into whatever cell they’re going to push her into.

The others have to come.

She’s not going to survive the wrath of Dreykov, the guards and the other widows.

It’s only a matter of time.

.

Alarms blare throughout the house as Tony rushes into the surveillance room. He finds Clint holding up the tablet.

“It’s no longer transmitting,” Jarvis tells them, and Clint nods.

Tony backtracks to where the last transmission was; typing furiously as Steve and Bruce appear at the door.

“It’s no longer transmitting,” he tells them, a map appearing on the screens.

They watch the footage, or at least what they can see of Natasha’s vitals, as they spike, her heart rate doubling, tripling; then nothing.

Clint makes a noise, a groan that stays in his throat.

“I think.. I think they electrocuted her..”

He leaves the thought hanging.

Tony pulls the satellite footage up.

“How long ago?” Steve asks.

“Since it stopped transmitting?”

Tony looks, “fifteen minutes.”

Clint’s already moving.

“Three hours,” he grumbles. “We are three hours away.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have left.”

Rushing to the quinjet, they all are silent in their thoughts, even as Tony swears, watching the overall satellite footage.

Steve pilots the plane.

Clint cleans his guns, making sure they’re loaded, and pulls his bow from the armory. The arrows he pulls makes Bruce frown.

“You think it’ll be needed?”

Clint’s face is dark. A look Bruce is sure he hasn’t seen before.

“Yes.”

He doesn’t elaborate.

Tony is in his full Ironman suit.

Bruce sits hands clasped tight, body curling in on itself.

“Update,” Clint orders.

Tony stares at the footage.

“Not change in it out of the facility, there doesn’t seem to be any movement.”

Clint nods.

He sits next to Bruce, adopting his posture of hands clasped, breath slowing even though his anger is hot.

With thirty minutes to go, Tony growls at the screen.

“No, don’t you fucking dare.”

There’s cars streaming out, Clint standing next to him, watching; knowing Natasha is in one of them.

“Can you track them?” he asks.

Tony nods.

There’s drones that appear from his suit and he sends them out, six drones for six cars.

“Will they get there in time?” Clint asks as the drones fly away.

Huffing, Tony nods.

“I hope so,” he says quietly. “I was going to leave them in Georgia but I didn’t want to leave any evidence we were there. Ross is a bastard and any stepping out, he’s threatened…”

Tony stops.

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

Clint thinks he knows. Tony holds more knowledge on the world than all of them. They don’t ask, and he doesn’t tell.

Tony tells Steve to cloak the jet as they cross the border into Russia, and he looks for a place to land it.

Koban is small, and Clint is worried that they’re going to meet resistance; and civilians. He doesn’t put it last Dreykov to do anything in self protection.

He’s thankful for the cover of darkness as they get off the plane, he motions for Tony to give them aerial view of everything.

They needn’t have worried though.

The place is deserted.

.

They take Natasha back to medical. March her back, even though she can’t do anything.

It’s clear they’re in Russia, the Cold War feel permeating through the halls.

Jace is on her right, Max on her left and Lena ahead.

It seems as though they are her handlers.

She wishes she could talk, but they said no talking, she wishes she could fight, but the cuts on her hand, face and thigh, prove she’s no match for the widows, even if she could.

Natasha wants more than anything to be left alone.

The doctors tell her exactly what to do, then they cuff her to the bed. They inject her with god knows what, and she feels herself falling, just as it did when Dreykov injected her the first time.

She’s still conscious but everything is delayed. They draw blood, they attach electrodes to her and monitor vital signs.

If she falls asleep, she can escape the trauma of them acting on a body that’s not hers, but then she wouldn’t know what they’re doing.

It’s a catch 22 where she can’t win.

.

They dump her in a cell to herself.

Jace stands watch and she’s thankful that it’s her; out of anyone.

There’s a single bang on the door.

It used to mean someone’s coming.

Apparently it still does.

Dreykov enters her room, Jace still stands tall, eyes forward as he enters.

“Lay down Natasha,” he tells her.

She does.

She hates herself.

He sits on the bed next to her and smiles, a snarl underneath.

“Look how well the Nanites are working, you’ve taken a beating so well,” he laughs, “well three beatings. The way Jace hit you, you’d think she hates you.”

He pushes his hand into the cut that’s deep on her thigh. She winces, unable to stop it playing across her face.

“Does it hurt? Does this hurt?” he asks squeezing.

His hand lingers as he pushes her hair away from her face.

“You look so pretty with all your bruises, but they’ll be gone tomorrow; we’ll just have to do it again.”

Dreykov stands.

“Maybe next time, we will have more fun with you, hmm?”

He takes a small washcloth from his pocket and throws it on her.

“You’ve taken this punishment so well, but this is only the beginning,” he announces.

“You think your friends will find us, but they’ll never find us here.”

There’s another smile.

“Patch yourself up,” he nods.

“You’ll need it for tomorrow.”

.

Natasha vomits in the toilet. The cell has a sink, a toilet and a bed.

She does as he says and wipes herself down. Gets rid of the dried blood and scrubs hard at the place she can still feel his hand on her thigh and face.

She’s trying desperately to hold it together but little by little she can feel herself withdrawing, let the black widow take over.

She knows what that means though, remembers how hard it was to claw her way back the last time.

It all hurts so much, not only in her body but in her soul.

It feels like it’s being broken bit by bit and the people that helped her to put it back together won’t be so lucky this time.

She won’t be so lucky.

Even if they find her.

How can she be whole after this?

She’s drifting,

Jace opens the door, and Natasha vomits once more, then stands, half dressed to face her.

“I hate you,” Jace opens.

“You left us and they… they got meaner, more brutal afterwards.”

She takes a step towards Natasha, the glint of a dagger in her hand, Natasha watches warily.

“But I never forgot you, and I wanted the best for you. Even as they tortured us, even as they asked if we were going to defect too.”

There’s a break in her voice.

“We hold onto what we can here. They’ll inject you daily. It’s chemical. It will take over your brain. It means you have to follow everything they say, whatever they say. They say jump, you jump until they say stop. They say strip, you do. They say kill, you have no choice. They say fight, and you hit your friend.”

She opens her hand and Natasha sees the scar on her palm. For it to still be there, for it to be scarred, she knows Jace must have cut into her hand nightly. It’s something she would have done too to stay present in herself.

“I think I loved you,” she says offering the dagger.

Natasha takes it, feeling emotions that she can’t deal with.

“I know I loved you,” she whispers back.

“I’m sorry.”

And she means it.

Jace shakes her head and adjusts her gun.

“Only use it on the widows, you won’t be able to on Dreykov or any of the guards. If they come for you, you can protect yourself.”

It’s an obvious warning. They’re gunning for you. No one is coming to save you.

Natasha nods in thanks.

Jace pulls her in for a quick hug.

Kisses the top of her head.

“Salaam Natalia.”

“Salaam Jace.”

A whisper and a prayer.

.

Chapter Text

Sitting in the jet, Clint and Tony analyse the footage of the drones. There’s so many cars leaving and they have no way of knowing what car Natasha is in.

There’s no infrared scanning, no technology they could have deployed more than what they have.

They’re in Russia.

Tony can’t even redirect the satellites overhead.

Clint growls in annoyance at the lack of movement.

“I should be out there looking for her, on the ground,” he grumbles.

Tony gestures to the drones.

“Yeah,” he snorts, “what could go wrong with that?”

Clint shrugs.

“Better me than any international incident you lot make,” he challenges.

Steve and Bruce are still in the makeshift compound, searching for any clues, any leads that can bring Natasha back to them.

Clint watches the three drones, and Tony another three.

One trudges deeper into the Russian tundras, whilst the others head towards the cities.

Tony groans in annoyance.

“How are we—“

He’s cut off as a loud noise from the compound as the Hulk powers through a brick wall.

The growl that emanates feels like it breaks sound barriers as Clint shudders and the suit crawls to completely cover Tony.

“Fuck,” they both say simultaneously, as they move in tandem to corral the Hulk.

Flying up, Tony realises that Steve is chasing after him.

“What happened?” he yells.

“I don’t know!” Steve yells back into the ear piece.

“He was on the computer, and hacked into their medical files, and then all of a sudden he changed!”

Clint has no idea what to do.

He can chase them but he doesn’t have the ability to fly like Tony and can’t run like Steve.

Cursing, he sprints back to the Quinjet. They don’t have fucking time for this.

He thinks he might have jinxed it by saying it, but really he’s better off looking for her by himself.

He’s so angry already, at not pulling her out on time, at being in Greece for gods sake. What good is working as a team if they’re a liability?

Clint turns once, watching as the Hulk reaches the small town. This is not his fight, he knows where his fight lies and it’s not here.

.

Despite Tony throwing small bombs trying to redirect the Hulk, there’s a determination to the green monster that he can’t defend. He doesn’t even have Hulkbuster to help.

“She’s not there!” he shouts.

The small blasts do nothing to deter him, even Steve with all his strength, can’t stop the momentum the Hulk.

“Stop!”

Throwing a car into the nearest building, the Hulk roars, a guttural sound that rips through the town, breaking some windows in the nearest building.

It turns out it’s a supermarket, people run with their shopping, small children crying as it all seems to happen in an instant.

The small building evacuates quickly as it crumbles and somewhere in the town a wartime bell starts ringing.

The whirring stops Steve in his tracks, a sound he hasn’t heard in so long.

Tony hovers next to his changed friend and tries again, hands up.

“Big guy, she’s not here! Okay? She’s been taken!”

He yells the words as panic engulfs the town.

Steve tries to direct them away from the path of the Hulk. They don’t understand him.

Another car gets thrown, this time at Tony as he deflects it but it hits straight onto another building.

There’s fire, screams and chaos as finally, Tony’s yells seem to get through.

“She’s not here. They don’t have her! Okay?”

The Hulk takes two steps back, another growl and then..

“Not here?” he questions.

Tony shakes his head, and points to the road.

“Not here. Somewhere out there okay?”

The Hulk trudges to where Tony points, leaving destruction and possible death in his wake.

The bell continues and Steve tries to ignore it, even as it drags in his soul.

That sound, it feels to him like the universal meaning of war; but this time, it’s him that brings it upon these people.

As much as possible he tries to make things right, staying behind to move big things, apologising, and helping the fire brigade put out the remaining fires.

He can’t understand them but he thinks it means something that he helps.

It’s not enough.

It feels like hours before he stops.

He doesn’t see Tony, or Bruce, or Clint for that matter who didn’t even join in the fight.

Steve sits, exhaustion from sensory overload of sound, sweat and sights invade all his senses. An elderly man offers him a glass of water and he takes it gratefully.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

The man clasps him on the shoulder.

“Not you,” he says in broken English.

“Monsters,” he points, to where the Hulk disappeared.

The alarm finally stops.

Steve nods, head pounding, flashbacks of the war at the forefront of his mind.

“Monsters,” he agrees.

.

Tony keeps talking. It’s all he can do.

Fear keeps him in a state he only knows how to deal with in words.

“Come on, Hulky, Green man. Destroyer of towns. Come with me.”

Flying around the Hulk’s head, he leads him away.

He needn’t worry though, by the time they reach the tree line, there’s change.

First a little, and then he’s Bruce again.

Tony lands next to him, his face shield lowering as their eyes meet.

It’s good because he’s naked.

“Clothes,” he says, breaking the silence.

He flies up again, locating a clothesline and steals pants and a top that looks vaguely Bruce’s size.

He marks the location and orders new clothes to be sent there; he does it on the spot because he knows he’ll forget.

Landing softly, he hands Bruce the clothes, averting his eyes as he dresses in silence.

“What happened?” he asks, unable to help himself.

Bruce licks his lips, “Tony, they fixed her. She’s healed but then.. they.. then they tortured her, they’re going to use..”

Bruce pauses, spitting on the floor.

“There’s a chemical they have.”

His face is hard.

Fists clenched, Tony feels like the Hulk is too close for this conversation to be had.

“Don’t worry—“ he starts.

“No. It’s important.”

Bruce lets go of his hands

“They’re drugging the girls, it’s a neurostimulant. It combines with the Nanites, and makes them… compliant.”

Tony is confused.

“I don’t—“

“The guards, the higher ups, they also have them, they use pheromones that mix in, they’re compliant and they can’t fight back. Even if they wanted to they can’t.”

Nothing Bruce says is making sense.

Tony puts the suit in sentry mode and pushes his friend to sit down.

“Tell me again. Tell me what you saw.”

Bruce looks forlornly at Tony.

“We sent her there for them to fix her, but they’re going to break her. They’re monsters, she was right, she’s not coming out; not the Natasha we knew.”

The words physically hurt.

He wants to tell Bruce he’s a liar, he’s wrong; but he holds his tongue and takes in his words.

“What do you remember of the compounds?” he asks, instead.

Bruce shrugs. “Most of it I think.”

Nodding Tony trusts this assessment.

“Can we fix it?”

He rephrases the question.

“Can we reverse it?”

Tony knows he can. Even if it takes longer than a week, he knows he can help.

“I don’t know,” Bruce admits.

Standing, Tony offers him a hand and helps him up.

“Come on,” he tells him, “it sounds like we have a lot of work to do.”

.

Chapter Text

“Clint’s gone,” Steve announces.

He smells like fire and is covered in chars and soot.

“Are you—“ Tony starts, and then processes his words.

“What?”

“Clint’s gone,” he repeats. He eyes Bruce warily; and then nods to him.

“Are you okay?”

Bruce pushes past him.

“Fine,” he says quietly.

“We have to go find him,” Steve finishes.

“I need to go back to the Tower,” Bruce starts.

“What?”

Steve lets his anger flow, frustration of the incident of the last two hours getting the better of him.

“Natasha is missing, probably being tortured, Clint is in there, blind; no idea where to find her, and you want to go home?”

“Steve—“ Tony starts.

“No.”

He pauses.

“No.”

He sinks down into copilot seat and takes a drawn breath, his face pale and sad.

“They are just people out there, they don’t know what was happening here, they didn’t know anything about the Red Room; and we just destroyed their home, their marketplace, their school. It was on fire. We are destroying everything. Natasha is gone. Clint is gone.”

He looks to Bruce.

“You can’t go too.”

Tony looks exhausted as the helmet and face shield comes away.

They’re failing.

All of this work and they’re failing.

He pulls up the screens and hopes against hope that Clint was at least listening when he was talking about tracking.

His cell phone is still connected and the little purple light that pings on the screen almost makes him lose his balance in relief.

“Clint?” he calls, the phone connecting after two rings.

“You’re all being too slow,” Clint opens, “I’m not apologising.”

“It’s okay, we’ve got you on screen. Did you find her?”

There’s a pause and then a quick answer.

“No.”

Tony watches as the purple dot turns, some direction to where he’s going.

“But you have a lead,” he guesses.

“Yes.”

Steve stands, his emotions big in the room.

“I’m going to drop the Captain here to help. Bruce and I will go back to the states, there’s something he needs to do.”

Tony puts Clint on speakerphone as the cloaked plane rises at Bruce’s command.

“Natasha’s been drugged, she won’t be herself when you find her,” he tries to explain, looking to Bruce who won’t make eye contact. “They’ve given her a medication to make her compliant, a way to make all the widows do as they say.”

Clint is silent.

“You there?”

“You can fix it?”

Bruce shrugs and Tony nods.

“We need to go back home. If … when you find her you can bring her back, and we can fix her.”

“Okay,” Clint complies, “do whatever, just be ready.”

They hover in cloud cover, Steve standing at the entrance, of the plane, ready to jump.

“You’ll come back?” he asks, directing his question to Tony.

There’s a short nod, a clasp on his shoulder and Captain America leaves the plane.

Bruce wrings his hands together.

“You think they’ll find her?”

Tony doesn’t answer.

If they can’t no one can.

.

“March,” comes the order.

Natasha lines up with six other widows, recognising only Lena and Max in her group.

Dressed neatly in their widows uniforms, Natasha feels messy and tired. She’d braided her hair, old habits in a familiar place made her feel simultaneously better and worse, the tiny bit of control she has.

Standing, she follows the order, she has no choice.

The mess hall is as she remembered, stark and grey. There are far less girls and women there though, than perhaps there were in her childhood, but she can’t be sure at the extent of the place.

Three groups of six enter alongside their group and Natasha can’t stop the fear that settles in her chest.

Everyone is staring at her.

At least that’s what it feels like.

She lines up with the others and takes her tray of food. Mashed potato, a meat like substance and milk to wash it down with. The water fountain they all have access to, is too far away even though she knows she needs it.

Sitting mechanically, the loyalty oath plays over the loud speaker, Dreykov’s voice permeating in all the corners of her mind.

Max leans over, and spits into her potato, grinning as she digs into her own.

It seems that there is some voluntary actions despite the chemicals that course through.

She tries to move her arms to eat, but nothing happens, she needs a command, a word, something to let her know she can proceed.

It doesn’t make sense.

In her cell, she had voluntary movement.

Here, nothing. She’s at their whim and everything is conditional.

She thinks it might be proximity to the guards.

Pheromones… isn’t that what Jace had said?

“Eat,” the command comes.

She sucks down the milk before anything can happen to it, the potato now inedible.

The meat like loaf looks and smells like if isn’t fit for human consumption but she tries it anyway.

Natasha knows instinctively that she needs to eat, that worse days are coming; she has no idea if this is the only meal of the day.

For her at least.

“Don’t eat it,” the girl on her left advises quietly.

She glances to her and there’s a subtle shake of her head.

Stuck, Natasha doesn’t know if the warning is real and there’s some sort of poison, or if the warning is fake and they’re messing with her.

Compulsively, she reaches for it anyway, the order was to eat. Taking a bite, she swallows it down and reasons with the voice that tells her to eat more.

I did it.

I ate.

I followed the instruction.

She sits in limbo. Stomach growling, she settles for keeping down the tiny amount she’s eaten. It’s not long before the next call comes.

“Line up.”

Legs move and the woman walk in spider lines. In truth, Natasha has no idea what is happening, she just follows, hoping to stay under the radar.

She’s holding on by threads and trying to be conscious in all of this, stay alive, Clint had asked.

She wishes she could tell him she’s trying.

.

The first blow hits Max in the stomach.

No weapons this time and finally given time to heal, Natasha knows she has the upper hand. Max’s fight style is predictable and she can read her blows by the way she stands.

Defending against two kicks, she dodges right and elbows her in the head.

Dazed, Max steps back allowing Natasha to hit her again, knocking her to the floor chocking her.

“Don’t spit in my food again,” she growls in her ear.

Her voice feels foreign, even to her own ears, the malice and brutality of the action as she feels Max tapping out.

Natasha doesn’t let go.

Wants her to feel the fear that she can’t stop feeling, for someone to take it from her.

If anger is the way, she’ll take it.

It’s only as a guard says stop, that she lets go.

Unable to hold the position, she gets to her feet and stares down at the coughing girl.

“Come here.”

The guard orders them both over and hands Natasha a knife.

“Mark it,” he says monotonously.

Natasha twirls there knife, still feeling the mark on her thigh, she wants to return the favour, she feels Dreykov’s hand digging into it.

Instead, she draws the knife along her jawline, the blood dripping to the floor. It’s shallow skin, and will heal quickly; it seems mean, but it’s a kindness.

Watching the next fight, she’s given water by one of the nameless girls that she takes gratefully.

She should know better that nothing in the Red Room is kind.

Almost straight away she starts to feel light headed, she’s called up to fight, and her legs almost buckle underneath her.

She should have listened to Jace.

Unable to say anything she looks back to the smirking girl and puts her arms up.

She’s taken down easily, her arm pulled back behind her. She hears the bone snap before she feels it, and evidently the guard does too.

“Stop,” he commands.

Pain radiates as she feels bone on bone rub together.

Her vision blurs and she wants to vomit whatever she’s drunk out.

“Medical,” he commands.

Another guard takes her, holding her by her other arm and pulling her along. The Black Widow takes over, Natasha retreats back into her mind, reveling in the safety of it.

It’s not so bad, having a protector.

She doesn’t even flinch as the cuffs are placed over her wrists, the arm straightened and injected; a brace placed over it; immobilizing it.

Natasha assumes that the soft plastic can be easily broken, they wouldn’t give her a weapon here.

“One week,” the doctor informs her, “only fractured and no displacement.”

Glazed eyes stare into nothing, as she’s injected again. It works against the drugs that were in the water bottle and she vomits on purpose.

Then grins at the doctor.

.

The black widow struggles against the thick cuffs around her feet, torso and wrists.

Natasha pays attention; confused about how she got here.

She’s lost time, taking over, there’s a conscious decision to be present.

She promised Clint.

She can’t leave.

But she wishes she could.

The mouth guard is back in, and shivers pulse through her body.

There’s a white hot burning sensation coming from her abdomen and she realises that she’s not alone in the room.

“Ah, welcome back Natasha,” comes the dry voice of

Ranskahov. He reheats the bar and looks over to where a woman is sitting, a two way mirror behind her.

She wants to ask how he knows that’s she’s back, but perhaps the change is obvious. Perhaps it’s obvious in all the girls.

Everyone always had a way of retreating.

Her heart rate is doubling, and the struggle against the handcuffs hurts. Broken arm, she remembers.

She wonders what she did to end up back in here, but then, like in childhood, you didn’t really need to do anything to end up in there.

“We were asking about Shield. We want to know what they know. You haven’t been forthcoming so far,” he updates her, and presses the bar to her stomach.

Natasha screams.

The hot iron scalding, welting as she tries to move away from it.

“Hm. Yes, that’s all I seem to get out of you.”

He pulls it away and reheats it.

“You can make it stop, any time you want.”

He presses it again, and Natasha smells her skin burning. She doesn’t care how she sounds when the scream breaks free.

Looking down she counts five lines, the welts raised and white.

“Stop,” the woman says. Natasha now recognises her as a one of the doctors.

Natasha is injected with two needles and she blacks out again.

.

Gasping, pain and heat radiates across Natasha’s abdomen, her arm and her head. It takes longer than she wants for her to become conscious, but she’s thankful that she’s alone.

Her widows uniform is wrapped around her waist and she presumes that they just dumped her into the cell after they did whatever they wanted to her. She doesn’t think shes been unconscious for long.

Nothing internally feels painful, and for that, she is thankful. She inspects her body seeing needle marks on the inside of her arm and feeling a slight raise in her neck.

The other arm is splinted, the cheap plastic splint doing nothing to immobilize the arm. She pushes the uniform down, wincing at the pain that now seems to throb nonstop throughout her body, thumb running over a raised section.

Tony’s tracker.

It feels like so long ago that she was with friends.

That she was wanted and loved.

Finding Jace’s dagger, she digs it into her hip, groaning and clenching her teeth. Luckily it’s not deep as she pulls out the wet tracker, her fingers sticky with blood. It’s dead, it’s clear, no longer transmitting.

But, Natasha thinks, if she can get some electricity to it, she can start it up again, maybe make it send the distress signal out.

And it gives her hope.

Chapter Text

Clint hits the soldier hard, glancing over his shoulder he sees Steve do the same.

“On your left,” Steve tells him and Clint shoots twice, taking down one more soldier.

“You think they’ll know?” Steve asks, heading into the building.

“What, where Natasha is or that we’ve infiltrated their compound?” Clint responds dryly.

“Where Nat is?”

There’s a hopeful tone to his voice and Clint can’t let himself feel it. They’re deep in Russia and and all he feels is trepidation.

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully.

Steve throws his shield at the window, letting it bounce to hit one more guard and he shrugs.

“I think it’s clear,” he deadpans.

Clint has a hint of a smile on his face.

“You know Rogers, you’re half funny.”

Steve smiles.

“The other half is trauma.”

Clint can’t help but laugh at that.

“Don’t we all?”

He runs up the stairs to where Jarvis has told him the computer control center is, so he can hack the data base to find all the outgoing flights.

The military base isn’t big enough for military operations and not small enough for private chartered planes, and it was the only place that two of the cars had stopped at.

Enough to carry Dreykov and maybe Natasha.

“Watch the entrance?”

Clint needn’t have asked, Steve already has it covered.

The hack takes him over ten minutes, however once he’s in, he sends the data to Jarvis to go over knowing it’ll be quicker than he could ever do it.

“Now what?” Steve asks, as Clint rejoins him.

“I guess we wait.”

.

Natasha grits her teeth.

The widows uniform hides the burns across her abdomen and she’s long since removed the splint. It made her a target more than she wanted it too.

The girl that gave her the water and the other that broke her arm stare at her. She’s not sure if she knows them.

There’s too many unknowns here. They’re marched into a part of the compound that she doesn’t know.

The tracker that’s held against her chest is a life line.

If she can activate it, they can find her.

Her own defiance against the complete control on her body. She just needs to find out how.

Natasha knows if she steps out of line, they’ll likely send her to the basement, back to the chair, but it’s a toss up whether it’d be more branding or electrocution. If it’s the electrocutions; she can touch the tracker to chair, it’s likely enough to reset it.

But… getting there, making it happen, it means more; more damage, more pain, more hurt.

She doesn’t care.

She wants to go home.

The armoury is exactly as she remembers.

They’re lined up in two lines of six.

She hears the order and makes a plan.

She’s following orders. It’s not her fault the guard isn’t specific.

“Aim.” The first order.

“Shoot.” The second.

Round one, Natasha complies, feel the urge of the Black Widow to take over and she snarls as she pushes back the pain, steadying her broken arm with the other, ignoring the burns that light up her torso hot and painful. It hits left of the target.

“That’s ten,” the guard tells her, and she sees one of the widows smirk.

In the old days, shooting off target meant ten minutes in stress positions. Do it again and it would be twenty. Then forty.

Natasha shivers lightly at the memory.

The next order comes, a reprieve as the girl in front of her steps up.

She readies herself for the dumbest thing she’s done in a while.

“Ready.”

She raises the gun.

“Shoot.”

And shoots the girl that poisoned her in the leg.

.

Dreykov stands over her. Mouth guard in his hand as he frowns.

“That should not have happened.”

He holds up another injection and cocks his head at Natasha, the chest guard back on, straps firmly in place.

She smiles at him.

They’re going to electrocute her and she’s gleeful.

He seems to be frustrated at her, because he backhands her face, splitting her lip against the metal of the top of the mouth guard. She clenches her fist around the tracker, the top of it pressed against the chair, hears the first whir of the generator and then feels the spark flow through her.

It’s pain that makes her feel like her skin is peeling back to expose her neurons, but it’s a win.

In all her time in the Red Room, she can count the times she’s won on her fingers. She just hopes to god it works.

Dreykov gives the call to stop, and he hovers over her. Her vision blurry and head pounding.

“We haven’t tried this on the others yet, but no time like the present to try it on you.”

His grotesque look makes her stomach turn; the liquid in the syringe blue and viscous.

“New nanites, they’ll combine well. You’ll have no control over anything, and only the Black Widow will remain.”

He leans in close.

“Say goodbye.”

Injecting the liquid into her neck, Natasha feels the cold inside and out.

.

Tony rubs his hand over his face and groans. On one hand, he keeps Jarvis looking for Natasha, the operating system scanning across Russia as Clint’s data is analyzed.

On the other hand he has a scientist who recreates a serum that seems to be like a paralytic mind control.

Bruce is incredulous at the power behind it, as he reworks it.

He explains to Tony that it’s only when he knows what it does that he can create the antidote for it.

Tony doesn’t care, he just wants to help Natasha.

“Sir,” the AI brings his attention to Grozny, then zooms into a compound in a town that Tony can’t even begin to pronounce.

“Her tracker is live,” he announces.

Tony’s heart fills with hope.

“Map the area whilst it’s still active,” he orders.

“Can you get her vitals?”

Jarvis replies with a negative but gets the schematics of the compound.

“Will it stay active?” he asks, looking at the layout and sending all the information to Clint, calling him straight away.

“Yes I believe so.”

Clint picks up straight away.

“You’ve found her,” he states.

“Grozny,” Tony answers.

“How long will it take you to get there?”

Clint pauses, maybe looking at all his options for transport.

“An hour,” he decides.

“Okay, keep in touch. Clint, she’s been given who knows what but… Bruce is figuring it out but uhh, preliminarily it doesn’t look good. We aren’t sure how many widows are in the compound so maybe make it covert. I’m coming with the quinjet, I’ll meet you there.”

There’s a pause.

Clint voice is steady, and Tony is again reminded he used to be a soldier.

“Do you have an in for us?”

Tony shakes his head, but even as he does it he looks to the schematics and starts to think.

“I’ll figure it out by the time you get there,” he promises.

“Call me when you reach the point I’ve just sent you, okay?”

Pausing, Tony runs scenarios in his head.

“Maybe Steve can drive and you can have a look too?”

Clint’s more of a tactician than both he and Steve are, and they all know it.

“Yeah, yeah okay,” Clint agrees, putting Tony on speakerphone and thinking out loud as points to a car for Steve to hotwire.

.

Clint thinks it’s a good plan.

It’s their only plan.

A diversion at the front, whilst he goes in up through the sewage entry, the pipes big enough for him to get through, and back out again.

Tony says she hasn’t been moved from the space he thinks is their medical facility.

Clint is terrified at what he’s going to find, but they fixed her Tony said.

Everything else is better than death.

.

Chapter Text

Steve checks his gun and then his watch.

The explosives set on the charge are set to detonate in two minutes.

The compound isn’t large, the size of a small prison and seems to be made up as such. He watches the guards patrol again and shoots the first with deadly aim, and then the second.

He doesn’t like guns.

He doesn’t like those who hurt his friends more.

Idly, he wishes he hadn’t listened to some of Clint’s stories of the Red Room, it makes him feel more feral.

“Ready Cap,” comes Clint’s call.

There’s commotion near where the downed guards are, and he shoots two more that have come to see what is happening.

Ten seconds and he feels the adrenaline dump through him.

His vision narrows and he feels at war.

The explosion rocks the prison.

He ignores the sounds of yelling, that sounds too much like a battlefield.

Soldiers and women run out, the honey trap set.

More, he thinks, he wants more to come out.

The guards fan out and he presses the remote detonator to blast the two charges, sending bodies flying.

It’s a clean up job near him, four down, he becomes pinned behind a wall. The sounds of shooting and shouting and screaming.

“Clint?” he presses the offensive, throwing his shield and hearing it reverberate across the wall, knocking down three.

There’s girls dressed like Natasha, they appear like ghosts.

“Clint; the widows are here,” he calls again. It seems Clint has his own set of issues.

“Change to tranquillisers,” he hears Clint shout, “they’re not going down without a fight, and I don’t want to kill them. It’s not our call.”

He sounds out of breath.

Steve changes guns, holstering the lethal one and holds his shield in his other hand, as he wonders just how potent these are.

“Go for the neck,” he advises, as the first dart shot into the widows chest doesn’t even slow her down. He throws his shield again, but they vault over it easily.

Distracted, they don’t expect the shot of the dart that hits two of them in the neck as they drop immediately.

Potent then, he surmises grimly.

Two more launch at him as he runs away, hiding beyond the gate they came through.

He climbs quickly as they catch up to him, reading his stance, as they both exchange blows.

They’re fast, and strong, and don’t hold back.

It’s luck that another charge explodes, and he gets off two shots whilst they’re distracted.

“Clint?” he calls, watching as four more widows approach, “where are you?”

“At medical,” Clint responds quickly, “I’ve found her, they’ve got her guarded. We’ll be coming out hot, can you cover us?”

Steve hears a shout and then… swearing.

He quickly reloads the gun and fires on the women.

Two drop, but the third and fourth still come.

He runs to where he left Clint, the two in hot pursuit as he throws a smoke bomb, then a frag grenade that lights up the path.

It’s knocked them over, and he takes the opportunity to shoot them so they don’t keep coming.

More shouting, and Clint yells that he’s coming.

The sewage pipes are large, and stink more than Steve wants to admit.

He tells Clint he’s setting charges for them to collapse once they’re free and clear; which he does with the remote charges.

He throws in two smoke grenades for cover and waits.

“Now!!” Clint shouts as he emerges; Natasha unconscious in his arms.

Steve does as he’s told covering them both; and sets the charges off.

The tunnel collapses inwards, he hopes not on any widows.

They race to the car, the compound flaming and smoke billowing as they leave.

Clint holds onto Natasha for dear life as Steve gets in, the Quinjet parked not far away.

It just feels too far right now.

.

Clint can hear the commotion, the distraction working as he works his way into the belly of the beast.

Medical isn’t that far from the point he emerges. He tries to keep out of the sight of the cameras, but it’s almost impossible.

He just hopes they’re so distracted by Steve that they don’t even think to look inwards.

Steve tells him the widows are coming for him.

He wants to wish him luck. He doesn’t want to kill them, wondering if they all are as tragic as Natasha.

There’s a reason that they chose girls no one would miss.

Looking to his left, he realises that medical is a locked ward.

He should have known.

The swipe key is on a guard.

He shoots him as he comes round the corner; uncaring, knowing exactly what the guards in this place are known for.

Steve calls to him. He knows it can’t be this easy.

“We’ll be coming out hot,” he assumes. Even if they won’t be, he wants to burn this place to the ground.

Taking the swipe card, he enters, finding two widows and Natasha strapped to a gurney.

“You’re here for her,” one says, as he raises his gun.

“Let her go,” he asks, his Russian stilted.

“She’s a traitor!” The other shouts. “She will always be ours. She will always be one of us!”

He shoots her in the neck, dropping her immediately.

The other swears, loud, as he shoots her too.

Natasha looks to him with dead eyes as he approaches her.

“Hey,” he says softly. “You’re okay, tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” she says robotically, eyes staring straight through him.

He reaches to touch her and she can’t help the involuntary flinch.

“Tell me what’s wrong?” he asks, backing off, hands up.

“I know you, don’t I?” she says in thick Russian, a languid blink

He stops in his tracks, looking her up and down.

“What?”

What have they done?

“I’m telling you want’s wrong. She.. I know you.”

Natasha shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut as if in pain. She swallows visibly.

“Of course you know me,” Clint says slowly.

“Are you here to kill me?”

The question is like a sucker punch.

He hasn’t moved but know he has to; Steve is likely to get pinned, and there’s surely more widows coming. If not them, then the guards of the building.

“No, Nat, no,” he placates, unstrapping her from the chair; worried at the way her body is shaking slightly.

“I am not Natasha,” she tells him, getting up off the gurney, slightly angry and a frown on her grey face.

“Of course you are,” he says; making her stand on shaking legs.

There’s a grunt as her legs buckle and he tries to catch her.

She strikes first and hard, punching him in the face. He’s ready though, he’s thankful that even when she’s not herself, she’s predictable.

Clint takes the punch, rolling his body into hers, stabbing her with the injector and depressing the needle.

“No,” she whispers, tired eyes staring at him.

.

Steve is quiet as Clint checks the auto pilot.

Tony sits on the other side watching them both carefully.

Holding her hand, Steve squeezes it hard, hoping it conveys everything he needs it to.

Her widow suit has tears through it, the thick material frayed, but they don’t want to remove it without medical being present. Clint already suspects a broken arm.

Steve’s breathing quickens, he starts to panic; what if’s slamming into his brain like gunshots, as he notices blood on her mouth.

In war, everything was fair game. The women in that compound weren’t at war, but they were being trained for it.

Moved like soldiers, reacted like them. Enemies of America, his brain supplies.

He can feel his breathing quicken, and closes his eyes.

Bringing her cold hand to his face, he smells gunpowder on his own hand.

Steve remembers sitting with Bucky, the war raging as they shared a meal and talked about home.

The flashback isn’t bad, more of a memory, but still leaves him desolate that Natasha might have similar memories of her own wars.

She doesn’t have memories of home, not that she’s told him about.

What would she talk about with someone on a step?

What good memories does she have to keep her going through any of this?

How old was she when she got out the first time?

He holds her hand tighter, wanting to convey everything in it. That he’s sorry, sorry for everything she’s had to endure; that they sent her back into a hell because they couldn’t fix what the Russians had broke.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, breathing shallowly.

“Hey,” Tony’s voice breaks through his melancholy, “hey, let go.”

Gentle hands take his from Natasha’s, and he realises from the redness just how hard he’s been gripping it.

“She’s going to be okay,” Tony tells him, repositioning her hands by her side.

Unconvinced, Steve stands, joins Clint, and leaves Tony with Natasha, pain holding his heart as he looks back tentatively, wondering if things can ever be okay again.

.

Chapter Text

Dark eyes watch him, but she says nothing.

She hasn’t said anything in the six hours she’s been with them.

Since she woke up.

Clint won’t leave her.

She’s still in her widow uniform because they won’t do anything without her explicit permission.

She won’t give it, because she won’t answer.

So he waits with her, watches as she does and tries to ignore the tremors in her body as she stares.

.

“Theoretically she’s stable, according to Jarvis,” Tony announces. “From what he can tell, her blood pressure seems to be holding, her heart rate is fast but not dangerous and the tremors don’t seem to have a cause.”

He rubs his face, looking from Bruce to Clint then to Steve.

“I don’t know why she’s not responding, without more tests.”

Bruce points to the lab.

“I can try the antidotes I’ve made but I have no idea if it’ll work, or what else they’ve done.”

He pauses .

“You’ve got to get her to agree to something Clint,” he implores, “or even just testing, or start small, changing clothes, a shower, something; anything.”

Clint knows they’re right.

He looks to the room that Natasha is in, and sighs.

“I know.”

He just doesn’t know how.

.

“You need to drink something,” Clint tells her, being mindful of his words.

Eight hours in, and concern claws at his gut. He wonders if she’s in there and he keeps running over their conversation in medical.

“I know you,” she’d said.

“Are you going to kill me?”

Natasha has to be in there, otherwise she’s a shell, and all the evilness of the red room has bled in and carved her out.

He holds up a bottle of water, takes a sip first and then offers it to her.

She doesn’t move.

“Drink,” he tries.

She does. Shock pulls at him as he watches her take a sip.

The order seems to pull something inside and she does what he says.

“Nat, can you only do what you’re ordered to?”

Eyes stare at him.

“Speak,” he trials.

“Yes.”

Horror engulfs his body.

“Tell me what did they do to you?”

He asks it as an existential question but she answers anyway.

“Electrocuted me, injected me with things I’m not sure of, took my blood, burnt me, broke my arm, and made me fight,” she lists, takes a deep breath to continue.

He waits, wanting to ask so much more but he’s truly afraid at the repercussions of what they’ve done.

“Are you in any pain?”

He cuts her off from continuing.

It’s a sorrowful ask that she doesn’t respond.

It’s not phrased as an order or a question that he’s ordering her to answer.

“We need to X-ray your arm,” he starts, deliberate in his words. “We need to draw some blood, look at the burns and any other wounds.”

Clint holds his own hands as he summons his courage for his next words.

“Choose what to do first,” he orders.

There’s a pause as she seems to fight against the words.

“Blood,” she decides on, biting out the words as a snarl crosses her face.

Clint calls in the doctor and watches as she takes six different vials from Natasha’s unbroken arm.

He doesn’t say anything as he notices the tracks on her arms, and to her credit the doctor doesn’t either.

She did say she was injected, she neglected to say just how much.

“Choose what’s next,” he says as the doctor leaves.

“X-ray,” comes the answer, with a clench of her jaw and a piercing look.

Jarvis knows, he always knows; and always listening.

There’s a portable machine they’ve used before. This time it’s Bruce that enters with it.

“Hi,” he says gently.

The room is so quiet.

Clint stands at the door, waiting.

“Can you put your arm here?” he asks.

Eyes look to Clint as nothing happens.

He feels so emotional and knows he can’t stay here much longer. He doesn’t want to give her orders of things she doesn’t want to do.

Natasha wouldn’t want this. It feels as though she’s disconnected from herself that she can’t break through, and nothing he is doing is helping.

He gives the order.

“Put your arm in the machine.”

She does.

Bruce doesn’t seem to get it, looking from both Clint to Natasha, then takes the images as nothing more is said.

“Thank you,” he tells her, “all done.”

He removes her hand and wheels the X-ray machine out, looking to Clint as he exits.

“Get back in bed,” he orders, clenching his jaw, “and get some rest, I’ll be back.”

She dutifully does as he says, a slight furrow of her brow.

Clint leaves not daring to look back.

.

Pouring himself a drink, Steve looks at him in shock.

“You don’t drink,” he observes.

“No,” Clint answers, taking a swig.

“But you’re drinking now.”

Clint pours another.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Get Tony and Bruce,” he says, wiping his mouth, “I don’t care what they’re doing.”

He’s angry they’re not here already.

“The doctor too?” Steve asks.

Clint shrugs, “if she’s available.”

He skulls another, and pours one more, holding onto it, lost in thought til the other men arrive.

“What is it?” he demands.

Bruce and Tony share a look.

“She’s only responding to orders. Specific words. The way things are phrased. What is it?”

Bruce steps forward.

“There’s a compound they used, mixes with her nanites. It’s similar to what they had schematics for, but in her blood work, it’s different, it’s… worse.”

Tony steps forward.

“They’ve fixed her nanites though, she’s back to normal in that sense,” he tries, but it not enough.

“Fix it,” Clint growls, “fix what they’ve done because I can’t be giving her orders for the rest of our lives.”

His voice breaks and he drinks again.

“I can help,” Steve offers. To Clint that feels even worse.

“No.”

“How long?”

There’s another look and silence.

Anger reaches boiling point and Clint throws the glass at the wall.

“How long? How long do I have to keep giving her orders on things that she has no consent over? How long til you fix this?”

The shattering of the glass makes the silence in the room grow.

“Clint…”

“Fucking do it faster,” he finishes, storming out, unable to stop the flush of anger and hot tears on his face.

.

Clint sits outside her room.

He knows what needs to happen.

First he needs to get the widows uniform off her.

Needs to look at the burns.

She likely needs a shower.

He doubts they would have let her do that in the days since he saw her last.

They need to cast her arm.

Probably need to do more in-depth tests to make sure she has no trackers on her.

But all of that can’t be done, because she has no voluntary control. All of it he’s going to have to order her to do.

He’s so glad that he’s slightly drunk because there’s no way he’s doing this sober.

.

Clint sticks to the ordered choice. Offering two suggestions that she then has to pick one. It doesn’t make it better but the illusion of choice is something he needs.

“Shower or we look at the burns, pick one,” he tells her.

“Shower,” she says.

He nods. He would have picked it too, it means they can do both at once.

The bathroom is large, as they all are in the Tower but the one in medical is better; with seats and wet and dry areas.

Nothing is set up though. In his state, he hasn’t been prepared and doesn’t have clothes or anything ready.

Letting her into the bathroom, he waits til she turns,

“Maybe get undressed,” he says and she cocks her head. It’s not an order.

Fuck, it’s not something he ever wanted to order her to do.

“Um. Get undressed and wait.”

The immediacy in which she does it makes him feel like vomiting.

He wants to ask what happened in the Red Room. He hopes to god that no one made her do this.

Leaving the room before she is naked, he pauses to get his breathing under control then goes to get some of his clothes.

His hoodie that seems to big on her, his shorts that she likes and then picks up a clean tshirt of Tony’s and underwear.

He returns to find her naked.

Bruises in various stages of healing litter her body. She said made to fight.

His mouth hangs open.

There’s a wound on her thigh, her arm is clearly broken, and the burns are blistering.

Clint finds it hard to breathe. He knows he’s staring.

“Okay,” he says more to himself, swallowing every emotion down.

“Okay.”

“Sit.”

Pointing to the seat in the shower, she follows his direction. He takes the shower head off the wall and turns on the water.

Modifying the temperature, he starts with her legs.

“If it hurts, you must tell me to stop,” he orders.

For an instant it seems like she’s afraid, but when he looks again, the emotion is gone.

He washes away the blood, inspecting the wound. It seems to be healing, but still is deep.

“It’s going to need some glue maybe,” he tells himself.

He makes his way up her body, lingering near where she’s seated, tries to avoid the burns, and then keeps it away from her face as she stares straight ahead.

Unsure what to do with her hair, he decides that he’d just braid it back.

When she’s back, he’ll wash it for her. He tells her this out loud; tells her anything for this not to be so fucking hard and weird.

Shutting off the water, he covers her with towels.

“Dry yourself and get changed.”

He hopes he says it well enough that she can do it, follow it.

Stepping back as she stands, Clint leaves her, getting the medical supplies he left on the side table; when he re-enters she’s dressed.

“Okay, let’s do this slowly, just like we always do.”

He sighs.

“Jarvis, play someone you loved; on the medical playlist.”

The music starts, and Clint can feel his breathing level out.

Routines make this feel less weird and even though she won’t make eye contact he sits next to her.

.

There’s a part of her that’s fighting against herself.

There’s another part that’s too tired. She’s too far buried to push her way to the surface. The black widow knows best.

Help me, she wants to tell him.

She gives in to the orders because she can’t do anything else, there’s nothing that can happen without direct instruction, so why try?

Shame pulls at her as she gives in. Too weak to push past it.

Maybe she won’t even remember this. Maybe she won’t have to.

She loses time, again and again.

Help me, she thinks.

.

Chapter Text

Dreykov’s anger burns hot. How dare she leave.

The two man assault that blew bits of his compound make him see red.

He’s going to get her back, and then he’s going to make her wish she’d never been born.

“Activate Midnight Protocol,” he growls at the six widows in front of him.

.

Tony watches carefully.

He wants to say so much, so instead directs all his angst to Bruce.

Twenty hours in Tony watches as Bruce separates compounds, uses the lab for all its glory.

He makes another coffee pot, hands Bruce a cup and starts again on his own tests.

“I think we almost have it,” he whispers, then louder.

“I think we almost have it.”

Bruce stands and stretches.

“Run it again,” he says, biting his lip.

“If we get it wrong, it could mess with the nanites and we could be back at square one.”

Tony nods, pulling up the schematics again, the computers showing biometrics with Natasha’s body and blood.

Bruce’s arms wrap around his body as he stands motionless watching the computers.

Tony knows that he’ll stay in this holding position until the test is complete.

Two hours to go.

.

He sits with her as the doctor casts her arm.

He doesn’t talk to her, more at her. Clint tries to get her to speak but it’s the wrong thing to say, she starts reciting the Red Room loyalty oath.

He orders her to stop almost immediately.

The cast is not big, more immobilizing than anything, and as the doctor finishes, he pulls down her sleeve and gentle kisses her thumb, hoping she’ll forgive the unwanted touch.

Clint wonders idly, how long it’s been since she slept, apart from the tranquilliser he shot her with, he feels like it’s likely been a long time since she slept without fear.

“Follow me,” he says gently, leading the way out of the medical.

He figures that if he has any chance of helping her sleep, it’s not going to be in a place she hates.

Instead, Clint walks to her room, a place that she’s set up to be her own.

He’s slept on her blue couch more times than he can count, and her bed is more than ready for rest.

“Lay down,” he prompts.

She does, a flash of fear, comes and goes as she does as he asks.

“Sleep,” he says.

He thinks he hears a huff, as her eyes close.

Still he talks, as he places a blanket over her, promising to watch over her, then settles on the couch with another heavy blanket.

.

The distress she feels is like nothing she’s felt in a very long time.

Bits of her are broken.

An amalgamation of parts that don’t fit together or held together by the thinnest of threads.

Her mind won’t turn off and he’s ordered her to sleep.

She can’t do it, but the order was clear.

Turning to the right, he’s reading a book out loud.

Words are not even penetrating through her distress as she works to breathe.

No matter what his words are, unless he changes the order, he can’t help.

Help is for those that have something inside of them that’s not just a black hole.

She’s stuck in indecision and can only think of one moment to the next, one minute, one second.

He told her to sleep.

She can’t.

The disconnect is rife in her body.

There’s only one thing she can think, but he also told her to lie down.

She knows what to do.

It’ll be better than this minute to minute survival. Old patterns, things tested that are true, it would be easier with handcuffs.

Conditioned from a lifetime of punishment, it’s what she needs now, to feel nothing and retreat into the deeper recesses of her mind.

The stress position is more difficult lying down, but as she lays prone, with her arms crossed behind her, legs crossed over each other and head to the side, she can feel the pain ground her.

The uncomfortableness of the position does more in helping her mind stop thinking than his order did, she wants it to stop but knows the only way out is sleep.

.

A message comes through to Clint’s phone.

“It’s done, we’ve found an antidote that we think will help. We are just trying to synthesise it so that it’s safe. Two hours max.”

Hope holds him hostage.

It’s been a long fucking day.

.

Lena laughs as she passes Natasha, sprinting to the finish line.

Morning runs are the freest of times.

The guards are usually tired, the 5am wake up leaving them yawning as they march the girls to the track.

“Beat you,” she says with a grin.

Natasha laughs with her.

“Where’s Jace?”

Two other girls pass the finish line, as Jace round the corner, grinning as she sees Natasha and Lena.

“Slow,” Lena berates her.

“Gotta learn to sleep like the dead like you,” she replies to Natasha.

They all laugh as the last girl finishes her run, and meet the guard to take them to breakfast.

“Teach me how to sleep like you,” yawns Jace as she sits.

Natasha laughs.

“You don’t want to know how I make myself sleep.”

Jace sits next to her friend

“Alright, keep your secrets, tomorrow I’ll beat you.”

.

Chapter Text

“We’re almost there, Nat.”

He says the words like they have meaning.

The transfusion started on Clint’s orders, the IV lines and constant monitor of her vitals placed in.

Bruce looks nervous as he places the antidote alongside antibiotics to run through the IV like. He just wants to get this over with.

If it works, his friend is safe. If it doesn’t, he may have just killed her.

Natasha is silent.

Steve paces.

Tony and Clint stand together, and together the Avengers wait.

.

The reaction starts slow, the increase in her heart rate that she can’t hide or control.

The temperature that hurts her skin.

Then, the pain that courses through her body.

If they were trying to torture her, she’d tell them all the truths and lies she knew.

“It hurts,” she squeeze out.

Clint’s order in the shower was not forgotten. He said she had to.

She didn’t want to say anything.

The machines start to buzz, as her vision whites and the familiar approach of a headache and seizure approaches.

“Hey, stay with us.”

Tony’s face appears in her vision, as she reaches for something to hold on to.

Immediately, he grabs her hand, tells her it’s going to be okay. She wants to believe him so badly.

Pain radiates again, and it feels like her brain short circuits.

“It hurts,” she says again, but this time her brain shorts out.

.

Bruce watches perplexed, the doctor injecting medications into IV, making sure the leads are long enough as she seizes.

He watches as her body slows, hopeful that the seizure has only lasted for a minute before it’s stopped, and she comes out of it, curling into herself as Tony squats next to her.

“Are you okay?”

The question is likely redundant, because her face crumples. All of a sudden she is sobbing and holding onto his hand for dear life.

Tony looks to Clint to take over but he shakes his head slowly, letting Tony take over as Steve pulls a chair for Tony to sit closer, before he leaves the room.

It feels like such an intimate moment to be part of that Bruce isn’t sure what he wants to do.

Choosing to sit in the corner, he opens his phone, and does what he knows, stays vigilant and holds his peace.

.

Steve leaves, his anger is tumultuous, as he heads outside for fresh air. He shouldn’t have the sound of her sobs in his head, but he does.

It’s going to haunt his dreams, just like her seizures do. Sometimes it morphs into Peggy seizing, sometimes it’s Bucky‘s eyes that are rolling to the back of his head.

He’s so glad they have her back, it’s done, but a part of him wishes they’d done more whilst they were there, blown it all up, taken out more; the higher ups. Dreykov, isn’t that who Clint had said?

He doesn’t miss the war, always wanted it done, over with.

No one wins in war, but being part of the Avengers continues to allow him to continue the part of the war that he can abide by; teamwork, reaching common goals, and eliminating bad people. Sometimes, it’s that simple.

The cold air hits him and he breathes deep.

Please let her be okay, he asks any deity that’s listening.

Please.

.

Clint watches as she clutches close to Tony.

It seems fitting that it’s not him, even though he desperately wants it to be.

He’s made her do things that he never wanted to do and feels like he’s betrayed her.

Steve leaves and Bruce curls in on himself.

He hears Tony’s quiet reassurance, even though they know it’s likely she’s not taking in his words.

Clint wonders if the the sobbing is pain, either physical or mental, means what he think it does, that’s she’s aware of where she is and what’s happened.

Ducking his head, he can’t help but shed a tear with her, wiping it away as soon as it falls.

.

“Six hours until we get there, sir.”

Dreykov nods, folding the newspaper, and uncrossing his legs in the thick leather chair.

The plane is easily cleared into the United States, money being no issue, but diplomatic air travel has always benefited him.

The two soldiers on his left, guard him, as he orders the widows into stress positions. The pilot looks uncomfortable as the girls on their knees look at the floor.

He wishes his dogs could travel with him.

He has a plan once they land, Secretary Ross had better agree, otherwise he’s prepared for underhanded means to get her back.

.

The room is uncharacteristically silent as the doctor enters.

Natasha appears to be asleep, her eyes closed anyway. Her face red and blotchy, and the doctor knows she’s shed tears.

Steve is missing, as is Bruce, but Tony and Clint sit either side of the red head.

First she checks with Jarvis, the screens updating with her vitals, her heart rate in a normal range, a little fast maybe; her blood pressure seems okay.

The last lot of blood they took before the seizure showed improvement, better than before she left.

The doctor doesn’t know the extent the men went to, to get her back in this room, but whatever they did to her has helped.

“Natasha,” she says softly, waking the woman with her voice.

“I’m sorry I need to take some more blood, is that okay?”

Dark, tired eyes look at her.

And then.

She nods, offering her arm. It’s a slow movement with her palm to the sky.. deliberate it seems, rather than forced.

Clint sits up, leans forward.

“Nat, can you.. You can do things you want?”

The doctor notices how clumsy it comes out, that he doesn’t want to tell her do something, even answer his questions.

Natasha is quiet as the doctor takes blood, leaves it on her tray.

“I’m going to test some things okay?”

Natasha nods again. Tony looks on interested and Clint shuffles his chair forward.

“Are you in any pain?”

There’s a shake of her head.

Progress. The pain killers are working.

“Can I see your burn marks?”

Another nod.

She lifts her top and even this movement brings the slightest of smiles to Clint’s face.

It’s different, it’s voluntary.

The doctor redresses the wound that seems on the mend, the blisters still present but the redness around them less.

Her bruising seems better, although still prominent across her torso.

“Are you hungry?”

The question is met with a stare, and then slowly, a shrug.

“I don’t know,” Natasha says, as if realising she has a voice, a say in this.

“I’m thirsty though.”

Almost comedically Tony and Clint stretch their arms to offer their water bottles.

The doctor waves them off and pours another drink into the disposable cup.

“How do you feel?”

The question has always been a difficult one for Natasha. It doesn’t surprise Clint to hear the stock standard answer that he knows she gives when she can’t be bothered explaining.

“I’m tired.”

The doctor nods.

“You can rest now. Thank you for this,” she holds up the blood, “we will hopefully have more answers for you tomorrow.”

Natasha nods looking directly to Clint.

“Thank you,” comes the quiet response.

Followed by the two men speaking the same words.

.

Chapter Text

Sleep comes with ease.

It’s waking that’s hard.

She doesn’t want to accept new realities of new violations, or not being herself and having her mind and body taken against her will.

No one challenges her, even as she sleeps into the afternoon. There’s a change in the guard as Steve takes Tony’s place and Bruce sits in Clint’s chair.

By evening she expects Clint to be back, to tell her to wake up, but he doesn’t.

Tony sits with his tablet next to her; reading something as she opens her eyes.

Now she can make her own decisions, and that she’s has autonomy, she doesn’t know what to do with it.

She knows she needs to go to the toilet, wants her hair away from her face, to shower and scrub herself down, but she doesn’t have the energy to make those decisions for herself.

No.

That’s wrong.

She can make the decision.

She just is stuck in it.

The voice at the back of her head tells her to wait for someone to tell her what to do. To tell her to get up and do it.

It’s too hard.

So she does what’s in her power and closes her eyes.

She’s just so tired.

.

There’s a dream; Natasha knows she’s dreaming but she can’t quite wake up.

Too much of what is before her isn’t real, but reality bends into fiction.

Dreykov sits in front of her on a throne, and she kneels at his feet.

The four men who she trusts with her life, sit behind her, faces stoic. They hold swords on their laps.

Waiting.

“What do you wait for?”

His voice is booming, echoing in her mind.

She can’t talk. Can’t move.

Even as he stands over her.

She stands, the movement slow, prying the fungus from her mind.

She can do this, she can kill him.

She failed before but not this time.

“Stop.”

She commands it to herself as much as to her oppressors.

Enough is enough.

Rising against the fog she growls and takes the sword from Clint.

She pushes it straight through Dreykov, her hand drenched in his warm blood, as he growls low to her.

“Good Little Natasha, now what?”

She pulls it out viciously and slits his throat on the blade.

.

Natasha notices his absence.

Feels it when he’s not there but completely unable to ask for him.

It’s his choice and even though she doesn’t understand; she respects it.

He’s there for when she sleeps, but it’s rare he’s there when she’s awake.

When he is, he offers gentle smiles and holds her hand tight. He doesn’t talk much, tending to her softly, as she tries to do more each day.

She misses him.

It’s Tony that eats meals with her, Bruce that plays chess with her and Steve that reads with her, or watches television whilst she waits for Clint to come late at night.

When he comes in, Natasha knows she can sleep, and she hopes that he does too.

On the day that she requests to be let out of monitoring, Tony is the one that helps her move.

She tells them she’s fine, each of her blood tests continuing to come back normal, her stamina and hatred for medical settings and procedures, she argues, is doing more damage.

Tony agrees with her, telling the doctor she’ll be monitored by Jarvis, nodding to Natasha that he isn’t lying. She nods back, allowing it.

“Tell Clint,” she says sadly, feeling stupid that she’s sad that he isn’t there. Tony nods and hands her a hoodie, watching as she shivers.

The short trip in the elevator exhausting her.

She worries it’s taking too long, this healing thing, but then Steve tells her a story of his youth and she becomes somewhat reassured.

It’s only been six days.

Six days since they pried the control of Dreykov from her mind.

Over a week since became free of the Red Room again, just over a month since this all started.

Exhaustion comes in waves.

She can’t stay awake long enough to see if Clint comes to her room to stay with her.

.

Clint walks to medical, finding Tony standing and waiting outside.

“She’s not here,” he says, arms crossed over his body.

“She’s in her room.”

He must see the worry that makes Clint look around, frantic, because he keeps talking.

“Where have you been? We thought, you needed time, that after last week; you had enough or that maybe you needed a break from caring.”

He pauses.

“That’s not a criticism. We saw how hard ordering her to do things was on you. But you should know, she doesn’t blame you. She asks where you are every time she wakes up. She asks if you’re going to eat with us. She keeps herself awake until you come in.”

Clint clenches his jaw. Guilt at every word Tony is throwing at him.

“She asked me to tell you, she’s in her room.”

He pushes himself off the wall, walking towards the elevator.

“You may not believe it, but she wants you close; and this? This avoidance? The separation from each other, based on your own assumptions?”

Tony rolls his eyes.

“You’re an idiot. And if you’re not already married, you should be.”

Clint how’s his head, knowing that all of Tony’s words are true.

“Go see your wife,” he goads.

“You’ve had enough of a pity party for yourself, it’s enough. Go tell her what’s on your mind, and give her a chance to make it okay, or to explain how she feels too. Okay?”

He reaches the elevator, pushing Clint inside.

“I don’t like being the adult in this relationship. Don’t make me do this again.”

The doors close and Clint nods at Tony, thankful for the push.

.

She’s asleep when he opens the door on her room. Seeing her makes his heart pull, the guilt underlying still holding him hostage despite Tony’s pep talk.

Stepping forward he gathers his courage, and hops onto the bed with her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to her sleeping form. “I’m so sorry.”

Clint feels so scared of hurting her again, hates that this is just the beginning.

He remembers all the deprogramming from the first time she got out of the Red Room, all the triggers, depression and despondency.

He just hopes, with all his heart that this isn’t like before.

He curls protectively near her, the king size bed allowing him to be close but not touching. He falls easily into sleep, hoping she’ll be okay with him being near her in the morning.

.

The pain from the burns wakes her like it always does. The last of the pain medications of the day before wearing off.

The heat emanates, and she rolls to her back, taking the pressure off the blistered skin.

It takes her a second to realise Clint is next to her.

He’s found her. He gives her the smallest of smiles and she reaches for his hand. He kisses her knuckles gently, mouthing hello.

A smile graces her lips as she closes her eyes.

He’s back.

.

Chapter Text

To Steve’s surprise Natasha and Clint arrive at breakfast, and whilst Tony and Bruce are nowhere to be found, he sends them a message quickly to come join them.

It’s likely that they’ve been up all night doing… who knows what they do, but he feels like it’s important to have everyone here.

Clint looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes; but Natasha, although moving slowly, looks lighter with him by her side.

“Morning,” he greets, offering the coffee to Clint first.

Clint takes the pot, holding it up in gratitude as he nurses it to the cupboard. Steve laughs as Clint fills it to the brim, slurping the top to bring it to the table.

Natasha is already sitting, so he sits next to her and groans.

“Tired?” Steve inquires.

He doesn’t get a reply.

Steve stands and grabs cereal and bread and offers them both to the assassins sitting at the table.

Clint continues to nurse his coffee, whilst Natasha points to the cereal.

Steve dumps some in a bowl and serves it to her with the milk on the side.

There’s a quiet thank you, and it only just dawns on Steve why her voice sounds more hoarse and when she talks, she says less.

Screaming makes your throat sore and your voice strained.

Clint closes his eyes as he sips his drink, and sighs contentedly, as Natasha eats the cereal slowly.

Steve reads on his phone as message comes through from Bruce, letting him know he’ll be there in five minutes.

Tony saunters in, disheveled. It makes Steve laugh as he instantly locates the coffee pot, fills a mug, and just like Clint fills it to the brim. He then sits next to Clint, filling up Clint’s mug again.

Natasha watches carefully, still half a bowl of cereal as she takes it to the kitchen disposing of it.

Tony clinks mugs as he drinks more, making Clint laugh as he does the same.

It’s been a long time since there’s been a morning like this and Steve appreciates the simplicity of it.

Bruce saunters in, and Natasha hands him a mug.

There’s a swelling of emotions, in him, and now as Natasha sits next to him, they watch the three drink coffee like it’s a lifeline.

“Thank you,” Natasha says, the four men looking at her, “for helping. For coming for me.”

Silence in the kitchen, as she continues.

“My experience with family is limited, but what you did for me…I won’t forget.”

Steve watches her bite her lip, as he feels he should say something back. Surprising everyone, it’s Bruce that talks.

“We’re a weird group of people, Nat. We protect our own. I’m sorry this happened to you. I wish it never did, any of it,” he says fiercely, “but you’re here with us now, and I hope you trust us enough to keep helping.”

He speaks, of course, of the two assassins tendency to run and hide when wounded.

To her credit, Natasha gives him half a smile and ducks her head.

“No promises,” she replies.

“This is touching,” Tony says, breaking the tension, “but what’s for breakfast?”

Clint nods, stands and pulls out a pan.

“Pancakes?”

.

Under the shower Clint can almost forget himself, the water beating down on him.

The coffee brought him to equilibrium, the shower makes him functional. Natasha headed back to bed after eating a bite of his pancake.

He can see she’s trying so hard to be normal, but he can see the cracks.

The way she flinched when Steve put he bowl on the table, the way she watched all the exits as the others entered. It must be exhausting in her brain right now.

Sleep is a reprieve, and he knows he needs to watch over her. For nothing other than she knows that he is her eyes when she can’t be.

He doesn’t think that he’s slept more than three hours a night in the last month and running on empty doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling of fatigue he feels.

He can’t be away from her.

He feels obligated to helping, fixing this. It’s partially his fault anyway.

He just feels like he needs to go away for a little while, from this life, this world.

Instead he shuts off the shower and gets changed.

.

“I need help.”

Tony turns to face Clint.

“She’s asleep,” he says.

It’s not even a question Tony had thought to ask.

“I’m worried that if I’m not with her, something bad will happen,” he tells him.

“Like what?” Tony asks slowly.

Clint is quiet, “I don’t know, something… anything.”

Tony’s heart sinks a little; “you think she’ll hurt herself?”

Walking forward, Clint approaches his workbench, picking up a screwdriver and twirling it unconsciously.

“Or that something will happen to her.”

“Dreykov,” Tony concludes.

Clint nods.

“He’s not dead. I know it. I think he’ll come for her. Can you find him? Track him maybe?”

Clint sits with a thud.

“What do you need?”

He shrugs.

“Sleep?” It’s said in jest but Tony knows it’s an honest answer.

“Okay, how about you rest over there,” he points to the bed Pepper set up years ago, “and I’ll start searching.”

Clint looks to the door.

“She’ll be fine,” he assures.

“I’ll send Steve with the cat, and Jarvis can tell us when she starts to stir, her heart rate usually changes when she starts to wake up.”

Clint almost laughs at that, that Tony has been monitoring her as much as he has… just from afar.

He looks to the bed again, the appeal of it clear.

“Okay,” he concedes, “okay, but you’ll wake me?”

Tony pulls up the schematics of planes into an out of Russia, and turns his back on Clint.

“Sleep.”

.

Liho steps on the bed making a cat noise loud enough to wake Natasha.

To Liho’s surprise she’s forcibly removed, a growl and surprised ‘mrrrp’ leaves her mouth as she stares disgruntled at the blonde man that’s taken her from the warmth.

“Leave her,” comes Natasha’s voice, and she’s placed back on the bed, following her voice and like she’s always done, she knocks heads with her and curls near her head.

“What’s the time?”

Steve’s low voice answers and she realizes Clint isn’t with her again. Her heart drops a little.

“Where’s Clint?”

Maybe he’s just gone out for a minute, but when Steve replies he’s with Tony, she knows he’s avoiding her again.

“Can you get him for me?”

She doesn’t even hear him leave, and she knows she could ask Jarvis but the truth is she wants him out of her room.

She wants to cry alone.

.

Light sleeping has always been a skill of Clint’s; ever since he knew he had to pay attention to when his father was home, or look into sniper scopes for hours; he’s always been able to wake up quickly and be alert to his surroundings.

He awakens but doesn’t move, only when Steve enters, he sits up and looks around.

Tony looks guiltily at him, and he knows something has happened.

He stands quickly, looking to each of them.

“What?” he questions.

“Good news or bad news?”

Tony looks worried, “Dreykov is in the states.”

Clint clenches his teeth, breathing through his nose.

“And?”

“And he’s meeting with Ross.”

Steve crosses his arms across his body.

“What can we do?”

“Kill him,” Clint mutters, thinking of all the ways he can take him out.

There’s a break.

“He’s here for her isn’t he?”

Dread fills Tony, and Clint backs to the door.

“Natasha asked for you,” Steve tells Clint, giving him the easy option to leave.

“Clint wait.”

He turns his back to his friends.

“Don’t do anything dumb just yet, let us see what we can figure out, and then we can do it together, whatever it needs to be.”

Steve’s words are tokenistic at best. Placating at worst.

Leaving the room, he feels his phone buzz.

Tony has sent him the coordinates.

.

By the time Clint arrives at her room, her eyes are dry.

She’s composed and sitting with Liho in her lap. She’s so tired of feeling so out of it, so disconnected and dissociated from life.

Everything feels hard, but it’s not like it was before, she can do this. She can be a part of the world.

“Hey,” he opens, sitting on the bed.

“Hey.”

He looks to his feet and she knows.

“What?”

Her stomach drops as he doesn’t make eye contact but hands her his phone.

There’s coordinates.

“Who?”

But she knows.

He doesn’t need to say it. It’s been the elephant in the room since she got back.

Her protector, the fear of losing her to not only her own mind but to someone else’s, her greatest fear that was realised, and now likely need to be alive again feeling like a sisyphean task.

“Confirmed?” she asks.

He nods.

“Tony found him.”

Then quieter.

“How is he not dead?”

Liho moves, stretches and then curls back in on herself, unaware of the angst settling in the room.

“What do you want to do?

Natasha stands up, holds her hand out for him to take, and leads him to the bathroom.

“No big decisions right now, we know what we’re going to, right?”

He nods, taking his tshirt off as she strips too.

“Wash my hair?” she asks, stepping under the spray.

He remembers his promise, and smiles.

“Of course.”

.

Dreykov leaves the secretaries office, purpose in his step as two widows trail behind him. Ross was a bastard, looking to American interests and they knew it. What he wasn’t expecting was for him to give Natasha back so easily.

Not through official channels of course, but the ease in which information was exchanged.

He smiles as he boards the plane.

Not long now.

.

Night falls, the day long and few words spoken.

“Will you be able to sleep?”

Clint traces patterns on her hand, his eyes tired as she pulls herself closer to him. He accepts her in his arms and feels for the first time the closeness he’s been missing.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he confesses, kissing her head.

“I’ve missed me too.”

She sighs, “when will this be over? I feel like I can’t process anything, do anything, because this still isn’t over. I want to go to Tokyo, or the beach, or anywhere that doesn’t have a medical facility attached. I don’t want to be in the same country as that man, the same world, universe even.”

Clint nods.

“We should call Thor.”

She scoffs at that.

“If they find me, and take me, you’ll do it won’t you?”

She knows what she’s asking of him, but she knows she can’t do it again. Last time she wanted to live, but there’s no way she would survive again.

“If they take me, I think I’ll be gone forever.”

It’s a melancholic statement and he doesn’t accept it.

“Always something with you, isn’t there?”

They both smile at the old joke, and slowly the night burns away as finally they talk. The debrief a long time coming. Natasha listens to Clint’s heart rate slow, both drifting to sleep.

.

Chapter Text

She’s gone when he wakes, no longer in his arms. So gentle in her movements, even he hadn’t felt her go. Maybe he had just been so content.

He’s terrified she’s gone after Dreykov by herself, but the reality hits him harder.

Positioned against the wall, she squats against the wall, wrists together, caught in what looks like flashback, a memory or nightmare, sweat on her face as unseeing eyes stare straight ahead.

“Natasha?”

His voice cracks as he steps back, away from her. She’s seemed so cognizant last night, talking more than she had so long.

He takes a deep breath.

“Natasha,” he tries again.

Wondering how long she’s been in that position for, he looks around for the cat, knowing she helps.

Clint squats to her level, seeing if he can catch her attention, saying her name, and it becoming like a chant.

They make eye contact, and although it seems like a lifetime, she drops to the floor; wrists parting, legs crossing and breathing audible.

“I just needed my mind to stop thinking. I just wanted to not be scared of what’s going to happen next,” she admits after Clint says nothing.

“You’re safe here,” he tells her. “You’re safe now.”

She turns to him, a look of emptiness.

“That’s the thing, now I’m safe, now I’m okay but I need to be brave again and again knowing he’ll find me. He’ll never stop.”

The possessiveness of Dreykov over Natasha makes Clint’s skin crawl when he thinks of all the things she’s disclosed about their interactions.

Her audible sigh feels like resignation.

“I don’t want to be brave anymore,” she tells him, clearly, making eye contact, looking at him to save her.

He doesn’t know how to respond to that. She’s been brave since the day she was born, he thinks. It’s not something she will ever just turn off, and he doesn’t know how to comfort this.

He sits down next to her and takes her hand.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

She smirks, the action mirthless.

“If I dream, they’re not good.”

He nods, inches closer to her.

“Where’s the cat?”

Natasha nods to the couch in the other room. “I think over there. She hasn’t left this room since we bought her here.”

Clint smiles and nods, leaving her side to find the black cat on the couch. He picks her up unceremoniously and dumps her on Natasha’s lap.

The initial indignation turns quickly into purring, as she settles into Natasha’s crossed legs.

“Fight me,” he offers, surprising her.

“Come on, it’ll be good for both of us.”

Slowly, she nods, liking the idea more and more.

“Yeah okay.”

“Okay, meet me in the gym in half an hour?”

Natasha continues to nod and pats Liho gently.

.

If anything, Clint finds her more dangerous, the lethal way in which she attacks, hits and turns defense into an offense feels like he’s fighting someone new.

There are new patterns to learn here.

She tires quickly though. He takes this one advantage and uses it, defending until she can’t hit him anymore, her movements slowing as he grabs her arm and throws her onto the mats.

Grappling, she grabs his arm but he manages to pull it out, grabbing her own and putting it into an arm bar.

He holds it and extends it, waiting for her to tap out, wondering if it’s the right choice to win.

It takes seconds for her to register the pain, before she struggles and then begrudgingly taps once.

Releasing her immediately, Clint stands and helps her up.

Natasha produces a knife and offers it to him.

“Mark it,” she says, to Clint’s confusion.

“What?” he laughs, knowing her words do not hold anything good.

“Mark your win,” she says, offering it again.

He scoffs.

“No, what?”

She purses her lips and frowns.

“You have to.”

Natasha says it with such conviction, that fear drops in his body.

“I don’t want to,” he tells her.

She doesn’t seem to have an answer for that, so instead, she turns her palm up and cuts it.

Clint’s exclamation is loud, disarming her quickly the knife taken off her.

“What are you? No!”

The words fall out of his mouth, and regret in fighting her sinks in.

She shrugs in indifference.

“You won.”

Clint wraps her hand in his tshirt, unable to look at her, knowing that they’re heading for therapy regardless of what she wants.

“No,” he growls.

“No. That’s not how we do things. That’s not. This is not how we are. We don’t.”

He huffs again, unable to explain himself as he lifts the cloth to see the extent.

Dragging her into the bathroom, he makes her out it underwater the blood mixing making pink water.

He pulls the first aid kit and dresses it, still not looking her in the eye.

“That’s not how we do things,” he growls again, so angry at her action and himself.

She doesn’t seem to register his words, as she looks at the gentle way he bandages her hand.

“That’s not how we do things,” he repeats.

.

America thinks it’s so good, Dreykov thinks, as he enters the warehouse, his guns for importing ready to go.

He sends the widows off to guard the entrances and exits, leaving one with him as he realises he has time to waste before he is needed elsewhere.

Natasha will come for him, he is sure. All he has to do is wait.

Ross had confirmed it. He trusts in her pride; she will not bring the Avengers with her.

If she does, the widows are expendable.

She cannot stay away, always looking for him. He knows her so intimately that the draw to him is clear.

She will come.

And then they will go.

She will be his again.

.

She can’t live in a place she doesn’t feel safe, and right now, he realises the world doesn’t feel safe.

She said she was done being brave, and he wasn’t sure when knew what that meant, but doing this, he can be brave.

He has the power to do something about it.

Tony gave him that. No one else needs to be in danger. Steve and Tony can take care of her.

He packs his bow and arrows, guns and a grenade for good measure, looking back only once to watch her sleeping, hoping again that the decisions he makes don’t impact on her negatively.

She will be safe in the world, and he will do anything to make it so.

.

The note is short. He’s gone to finish what they started all those years ago.

Kill Dreykov.

Avenger her.

He shouldn’t have. He’s likely walking into his death.

If she wasn’t so weak, this would have never happened. The thing is, she would tear apart the world for him.

Which is exactly what she’s going to do.

Zipping up her widow suit, she ignores the scarring on her body, the track marks healing on her arms, her still broken arm as braids her hair into tight braids, and exits the safety of the tower, chasing after Clint and all her nightmares.

.

Chapter Text

The trap is set from the moment Clint walks into the airplane hanger.

He should have known it wouldn’t be easy. The first shot misses him, as he ducks and moves to the left.

Taking cover as two widows emerge, Clint swears, their guns drawn effectively pinning him down.

There’s no way out, unless he kills them, and every time he looks to them, all he sees is Natasha in her widow suit.

Instead, he shoots the light fixture above them, making the place dark, glass shattering everywhere.

They separate and duck, allowing Clint to move to the door.

The first shot is a warning, as a third widow approaches in the dark.

“Drop it,” she says, accent strong.

“Okay, okay,” he says loudly, the tall widow approaching.

He throws his gun to the right, and then turns to face the three widows now surrounding him.

Clint holds his hands up, dread at whatever is going to happen next, holding him frozen. He wishes he could say it was part of his plan, but at this stage, it’s not.

He can be flexible though; if the outcome is still the same.

As they march him into the offices, he takes all the terrain in, making a plan as he goes.

Part of him wants to see Dreykov, meet the man that he knows from Natasha’s stories.

Some of them, he wishes he didn’t know.

He’s ready to kill him, regardless.

.

Natasha runs, sprinting into the cockpit of an empty plane. She doesn’t think she’s been spotted, the darkness covering her.

She breathes heavily, wondering why the room is clear and quiet. There’s evidence of a fight.

Clint must be somewhere around, she should be in in the rafters, because that’s what he’s likely to have gone.

If she can get to the roof, then she can scope the place more easily.

Moving quickly back outside, she climbs the drain pipe, getting to the roof quickly, finding a skylight to look through.

.

He’s cuffed to a chair, his head tipped back, towel on on his face. It’s a torture he’s endured before, but one he feels you can never prepare for.

Natasha used to hold her breath in the shower, trying to extend the time she could hold onto that one bit of oxygen.

He’d laughed then, but sees the necessity in it now. He wishes he could hold his breath like Natasha.

The water is cold as it blasts through the towel, shocking him into taking a breath, regretting it immediately as he chokes on water coming through.

They don’t even bother with questions.

He counts six times before he hears the opening and closing over the doors, even though he can’t see anything; her knows.

The footsteps are of the man in charge.

“Clint Barton,” he hears, the towel removed from his face.

He’s older than he expected.

His teeth yellowing, an incisor missing, as his accent doesn’t feel wholly right.

“Hello,” Clint grins.

.

Natasha sees it and her heart sinks.

Clint is tied to the chair, water boarded by Max. The widow who seemed to have an affinity with drowning. Natasha knows it’s because she almost did.

In their water training, tied to the bottom of a swimming pool, Max had been the one that couldn’t hold her breath long enough, effectively drowning where she was held.

When she was resuscitated, they used her as an example. How to survive drowning, how to resuscitate someone who had.

She knows it’s Max’s preferred method of torture, because she knows how much it hurts. How much your lungs scream and your brain shorts out wanting air.

Natasha watches Clint cough, buck against the ties and she is about to drop down, when it all stops.

Dreykov walks in, and Natasha can’t breathe, panic making her skin crawl.

.

“Where is she?”

His voice is gravelly, like a lifetime smoker, which Clint assumes is not far off.

There are four widows around him now.

“You can’t protect yourself from me? That you need to be protected by girls?”

Dreykov backhands him, his rings cutting into Clint’s face.

“Yeah thought so. You hit like a child.”

Clint laughs to himself, “but from what I hear, the children you traffic can probably hit harder than you.”

He’s hit again, the smack resounding.

He takes a little pleasure that Dreykov’s face is red and anger clear on his pudgy face.

“Where.”

Hit.

“Is.”

Hit.

“She.”

Clint sees stars. His head pounding, as he feels the swelling around his cheeks and eyes start.

“I’m here because we failed at killing you,” he smiles, “I won’t fail this time.”

This time his hand is grabbed, two fingers pulled back and snapped.

The man is such an idiot, he doesn’t know Clint is left handed.

He starts to say something else, when the skylight above them breaks, and Natasha falls through, guns drawn as two widows are dropped immediately.

The second she points them at Dreykov, her face changes, body frozen.

He laughs and claps his hands.

“You should know, my Natasha, that you can’t hurt me. My pheromones prevent it.”

Clint has no idea what that means, but he thought that Tony and Bruce cured it.

Was this the same for something different? What did it even mean?

He watches as her face turns to one of consternation, not pulling the trigger and standing motionless in anger.

“Try and pull the trigger,” Dreykov snarls.

“You can’t, can you?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet?”

He steps closer to her, the two black widows flanking her.

“You can’t hurt me.”

There seems to be a moment where Natasha realises the gravity of the situation, dropping her guns and pulling a knife.

“Try it,” he gloats, confidence as he steps towards her.

It’s like an invisible force field surrounds him as Natasha strikes down. It doesn’t get anywhere near him and she grunts in effort.

Easily, Dreykov disarms her, holds her face in his hands and licks her face.

“Pathetic.”

The two other widows pull her back, secure her to a chair opposite Clint, as finally she makes eye contact with him.

Morse code was never his strong suit, but as she blinks rapidly, he understands.

“I’m sorry too,” he blinks back.

.

Chapter Text

Jace stares at the man that’s so adamant in protecting Natasha.

She’s confused by the way he acts, the way he speaks his mind and ignores the threats that drip from Dreykov’s mouth.

When Natasha breaks through the ceiling, and then comes to realise what the other girls all know; her heart breaks.

They’re all powerless here.

Jace knows she can only follow direct instructions, but over the time she’s been given the injections she’s found loopholes.

They say ‘fight’ but they don’t say how hard. She pulls punches and doesn’t cut so deep with the knife.

They have rules and orders but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t have power too.

The man looks desperate as Natasha is tied up, pulling against his bindings.

If she can give him something to loosen them a little, maybe he can escape.

They’re both very lucky here in the hanger that it’s just her, Max, Lotte and Grace.

Lotte and Grace are young, stupid and have no idea what they’re in for.

They are Dreykov’s current favourites to be alone with, to travel with as companions, and they haven’t quite figured out how to manipulate him; only die inside as they do everything he asks.

Jace is just thankful it’s not her.

Max is a pit bull, ready to die for the good of the country and she supposes that Dreykov trusts that blind compliance.

Jace doesn’t know why she’s here, although she likes gun running assignments, it’s better than the oppression of the Red Room.

It feels more like she’s a pawn in this game, and she doesn’t like the uncomfortable feelings that being around Dreykov and Natasha make her feel.

She hasn’t felt strong emotion in such a long time that she wants to escape it.

Bucking against the hand cuffs, Dreykov watches Natasha as she tries to extricate herself, his amusement clear on his face.

Jace wants to tell her they can’t hurt him. None of the widows can.

But, the realization dawning on her, the blonde man can.

The chance that Jace has always waited for is in her grasp. She feels like she has been biding her time for this - the way out, a path to freedom has led her here.

She takes a breath.

The man seems to be on Natasha’s side, the affection clear as he yells and makes empty threats.

Jace’s brain fixates on the thought. She can get him free, he can free Natasha, he can kill Dreykov.

Assessing the situation, she doesn’t see a way out for Natasha as the other widows hold her down, Dreykov’s attention on her alone.

She inches towards the man, his arms pulled back against the chair as she produces a knife and presses it into his hands.

His body stills in shock, the strong string of profanity stopping for an instant before he starts again, seeing what Jace is trying to do.

She can’t help him more than that. Her training and chemicals won’t allow her.

.

The knife is small in his hands. The widow with brown hair is already at the other side of the room, like it never happened.

Jace? he wonders. Natasha’s stories of the brown haired assassin always leaving an impression that she was good and kind, just like Natasha; but her circumstances in life had been less than ideal.

He works the knife between the ties gently, continuing to watch Dreykov as he continues his tirade to Natasha, threatening her with a world of pain and ugliness as he hits her, punctuating his remarks.

The two younger widows standing behind the chair she is tied to holding her so the chair doesn’t flip under his wrath.

The other widow cocks his head to him, and he wonders if Natasha has stories about her.

She looks about Natasha’s age. He continues to yell, asking him to stop, his voice almost hoarse even as he no longer even thinks about what he is yelling about.

Almost.

He’s going to kill Dreykov first, then he’s going to free Natasha.

Adrenaline pumps through him as the last strap breaks.

.

Natasha takes the hits. If he’s focusing on her, he won’t hurt Clint.

Then.

It stops.

A gasp and Dreykov’s body drops, a knife in his back as his eyes roll and he clutches uselessly to pull it out.

Clint.

The girls holding her stop, and they move forward to attack him.

Failsafe. She knows this order.

Without the girls around him, she’s able to flip the chair, breaking it as she twists her arm, feeling the bone displace again, wondering if she’s broken it more.

Ignoring the pain, Jace gives her a look as she moves forward to attack.

Standing back to back with Clint, she rotates so he’s facing Jace. She doesn’t want to fight her. She wants to save her.

“It’s a failsafe, they’ll keep attacking you,” she tells Clint spitting blood and feeling it on her face.

“Save her, I’ll be okay,” Natasha stands in front of the three widows as Clint moves to fight Jace.

Even he can feel that she is pulling punches.

“I don’t want to do this,” she tells him, a punch narrowly missing her head. “The order to kill anyone who attacks him always stands. We must always follow.”

Clint knows.

He has a plan.

“It’ll be okay,” he assures. He feints left, narrowly avoiding her charged widow bites. He uses Natasha’s move, climbing her body locking her in a full nelson, choke hold, holding her writhing body against his.

“It’ll be okay,” he reiterates, as he holds onto her, squeezing hard, her body slowly stopping movement, giving into the inevitable darkness.

He’s going to help her like she helped him.

Just like he helped Natasha.

Cornered by the three widows, he shoots Jace’s gun into the air, pointing it at them as he shouts.

“Hey!”

The older widow turns first, running toward Clint as he throws the gun to Natasha, not wanting to make the decision to put her down permanently.

Natasha has no such compunction, shooting her in the back, and then pistol whipping the other girl in the head.

Left with one widow against two avengers, the fight is not fair, both of them working easily together as Natasha shoots her in the leg, then punches her, knocking her out, her body inert on the floor.

His attention to Dreykov is only to check if he’s dead, but the cockroach of a man has more lives than a cat as he crawls to the door.

“I can’t do it,” Natasha tells him, pointing the gun to Dreykov, unable to pull the trigger.

Clint snarls.

“Do you want me to?” he asks.

Natasha nods.

Gently, he places his hands over hers so they are holding the gun together, then fingers entwined they shoot him together.

First in the head, and then in the heart.

Chapter Text

She doesn’t move.

He’s reminded of the time in the vent when they thought they had killed Dreykov the first time, when they killed his daughter.

This is not like that.

His body is still and face down as she moves to it, kicking it viciously.

Blood trickles to where Clint stands as she starts to punch him, anger, grief and pain in all her actions as animalistic sounds come from her body.

He’s torn between letting her go and getting help, and in the end, she stops herself turning to look for Jace who is still unconscious.

She’s covered in blood.

Her arm hangs loosely by her body, and he knows it’s broken.

Blood on her face.

She looks feral.

“She’s coming with us.”

Clint nods, picking up Jace as the other three widows, one dead; two alive lie nearby.

“And them?”

Natasha shrugs.

“I don’t know.”

Glassy eyes stare at Dreykov’s body as she starts in on him again, kicking him in the head.

This time, he does pull her away, standing between her and the body.

“We need to go now,” he tells her, Jace still in his arms.

There’s an initial hesitance, but then a nod as she looks around, picking up the guns and widow bites.

“Tell Tony to send Shield?” she suggests.

It tells him she does not want the others involvement, keep it in the family.

She looks to Jace.

“I want her to have the option. She can stay, be debriefed, but she can leave too. I want her to be free,” she swallows looking to Clint.

“I want her to have the choice.”

Clint understands the decision. Being on the side of the American government is not for everyone.

It’s likely the two girls will be debriefed and kept in holding for years, until they can figure out what to do with them.

It’s also likely, given Jace’s history that they would never let her go.

They walk to the car Clint arrived in, covered by darkness, even though he can see the peak of sunrise on the horizon.

He feels light headed but pushes it back, pushing through the intensity of a headache.

She sits in the back with her friend, head positioned gently in her lap.

Clint puts his hands on the steering wheel, knuckles bruised, hands bloody.

In the safety of the car, he feels he can finally breathe.

They’ve been gone less than twenty four hours but it feels like a lifetime.

“Do you want to go back to the tower?” he asks her, licking his split lip.

Natasha nods, eyes still glazed.

“I think,” she pauses, “I think we might need some help.”

.

Jarvis alerts Tony as soon as Clint leaves, Tony hopes he’s doing the right thing in leaving them to deal with it.

He heads down to the workshop and sighs.

He should be helping them, but Iron Man would just draw more attention.

If Ross is involved, then he doesn’t want to be drawn into the political drama.

If Clint and Natasha can handle it, then it’s Shield’s problem, and likely that would work out better for all of them.

He loses time fixing his armor, Natasha’s nanobites giving him an idea around how to make his armor appear and swarm rather than for it to be metal, but the components proving too complex to manipulate until he understands them better.

Jarvis tells him that Natasha and Clint have returned, and he glances at the time, 5am is ridiculous.

He should have gone to bed.

“They have another person with them, and they should all go to medical,” Jarvis continues to inform him.

Tony sighs, picks up his tablet and heads for Medical which is where he is sure Clint would be dragging Natasha.

The reality is a bit different.

The woman Clint carries is dressed in the widow’s outfit, she doesn’t look injured, just unconscious, but they treat her as fragile.

Clint’s face is bruised, swollen and cut. His clothing looks slightly damp.

Tony wants to ask what happened.

“Do we have a space where she’ll be secure, but doesn’t have to be handcuffed?” Natasha asks from the corner.

She holds a washcloth, wiping her face smudging blood away from a still weeping wound. Tony notices she favours one arm.

“Uhh,” Tony nods and frowns, “- she can go into the basement holding cells? They’re decked out for um, I’m sorry, who is she? What happened?”

Clint washes his hands and then sits heavily on the bed. He has gauze in his hands and starts to wrap his hands neatly, focusing on splinting two fingers.

“She’s someone we need to protect,” Natasha says curtly. “For now at least.”

She spits into the sink, and Tony notices how bruised her face is too.

Tony sighs.

“I’ll take her down, whilst you… clean yourselves up,” he offers.

Waiting until Natasha nods, he picks up the girl and leaves them to it, watching as Clint approaches Natasha tucking stray hairs away from her face.

.

Jace awakens in a clear glass room, the bed neatly made, a bathroom and sink to her left.

Fear encompasses her. She remembers being choked, passing out. She remembers Dreykov dead.

Happiness bubbles inside her at the thought.

She’s free.

Her reflection stares back at her as she touches the glass.

Dread settling in.

She’s free. 

Chapter Text

Steve and Tony sit across from the two assassins. Steve wishes he had the words for the disappointment he feels in seeing them injured… again.

He crosses his arms and waits for them to talk; explain themselves.

There’s a woman in the basement.

A dead Russian diplomat, head of the Red Room, found by Shield. Dead widows and two more hog tied and gagged.

This feels like an intervention; or an interrogation.

They look to each other, and do the silent conversation that Tony hates so much.

“Start at the beginning,” Tony prompts, “and don’t leave out any details.”

“Dreykov is dead,” Clint states, “what more is there to know?”

.

Tony rubs his hand over his face, meeting Natasha in the kitchen.

“Who is she to you?” he asks, handing her some water, choosing to ignore the fact that she still only uses one arm and hasn’t done anything to immobilize the other.

She sips the water, pouring the rest down the sink.

“Someone I used to know and love,” she says truthfully.

It strikes Tony that he doesn’t know Natasha extremely well. Or, he does, but he doesn’t know her past.

“We went through hell together, and somehow survived.”

Tony understands a little.

“She’s you, adjacent.”

He gets a smile at that, or a patented upturn of the lips.

“Kind of.”

They stand in waiting for the other to talk.

“You can’t leave her down there, you know? You will need to talk to her eventually.”

Natasha nods.

“I know.”

She sighs and pours another drink, the action perhaps unconscious, as she hands it to Tony.

“I just wanted to give her time to think about what she wants to do.”

Staring straight ahead, Clint still in her line of sight, there’s moments where she’s brought back to her own decisions, why she chose to be a part of Shield, then, of the Avengers.

“Did you know, when Clint first asked me to join Shield, I stole all of his possessions and then ran away?”

She turns to Tony and smiles again at the memory.

“He then got caught up in following me and got into trouble in his own right.”

“And then you saved him?” Tony asks, intrigued.

“Something like that.”

He’s impressed that after the last two days, she’s still not lost in herself as he’s seen her do many times after big days and big emotions.

Maybe she’s holding it all together, keeping strong and guarded until she can find a place to fall apart.

“How are you?” he ventures.

She bites her lip, a quirk he’s seen Clint do.

“I’m okay,” she decides on. “It’s like all these things have happened and I don’t know how to process it. I keep thinking… I keep thinking that if I can make it through today, then I can rest tomorrow. And then, there’s more.”

He nods.

“Always something?”

“Always something.”

“What would have made it easier for you?” he asks tentatively.

She shrugs, the question feeling personal.

“Maybe options? Knowing that death or defection weren’t the only two options?”

Tony’s stomach drops.

Having never had to make decisions around his own death, not directly anyway, he can’t imagine having to make a choice about it.

“Are you going to talk to her?”

Natasha nods, eyes blank. He can almost see the thoughts and fear.

“Maybe she’ll choose to stay here,” he says, unsure if it’s what she wants.

“Maybe.”

There’s a pause.

“You cured me of his voice in my head and I never thanked you for that.”

Tony knows he can’t accept the thanks, so he waves it off, as she doubles down.

“Do you think you could make an antidote for it? A general one I mean.”

Natasha thinks that it is what she would want, even if he’s dead, to make sure no one could give orders to her and make her do anything she didn’t want to.

Tony nods slowly.

“I think so, it would be an extrapolation of the initial compounds, the nanites that are in your blood now more generic, so if it’s something they have too, I think… I think I could do it,” he tells her.

She steps to the door.

“Thank you, I won’t forget what you’ve done.”

He wonders later why her words sounded like a goodbye.

.

Jace paces back and forth.

Although she didn’t like Lotte and Grace, she wonders what happened to them.

There’s no love lost for Max, the little girl who used to like picking flowers went a long time ago, cruelty and anger making her into a ruthless widow that seemed to have no good left.

She will always remember her though.

She rubs her thumb across the scar on her palm, wondering what the day holds.

.

Natasha stands at the elevator.

She’d told Clint she didn’t want him with her, but being here alone, she wishes he was by her side.

Fear holds her stationary, as she works to get her breathing under control. No weaknesses, not now.

Jace watches Natasha opening the door, standing on the opposite side of the room.

“I’m sorry,” she opens, “for not coming sooner. It’s selfish on my part, to leave you waiting. Wondering.”

Jace doesn’t move, even as Natasha sits on the bed.

The only weapon she has is the sharpened toothbrush, and the terrain. Sometimes that’s all you need.

“The other two are under surveillance by Shield. It’s likely they will be debriefed and then given a choice between being locked up or joining shield.”

There’s a pause and shake in her breath.

“They don’t know you’re here. Whether you want to stay or go is up to you. You have the choice.”

She pulls out a small bag, making Jace stand back.

“Sorry, it’s just…”

Opening it she shows Jace the money inside, a change of clothes and disposable phone.

“It’s not much, but it’s enough to get you where you need to go.”

Jace stares.

She doesn’t know what to say but she knows freedom is not something that she takes lightly.

Natasha seems unsure what to do next, the silence unnerving.

“Do you remember when we did the morning run, and Max picked the flowers, put it in her hair, and then they shaved her head when she came back?”

Jace crosses her arms across her body, the death still fresh. She’s not quite ready to reminisce, despite the fact there’s no love lost.

Natasha seems to take the hint, standing and moving to the door.

“It’ll be open. You can leave when you want, if you decide you want to stay, just be here tomorrow and we will work it out then what to do next.”

Pausing, she turns to look at Jace, really look at her.

“I am sorry. For everything. For leaving, for not coming back… I wanted to.. I just.. couldn’t.”

Her voice cracks.

Jace hears her, she also doesn’t blame her. She can’t say what she wants, she doesn’t know what that is.

Her heart hurts.

It’s not fair.

.

Chapter Text

The shower beats down on Clint as he examines his body. His face smarts, and fingers hurt the most.

He lets his thoughts flow; allowing them to pass through him.

He hears the door open, and he peers out, finding Natasha stripping, looking up to him as she steps into the shower, hugging him under the spray.

“Are you okay?”

She hugs him harder.

“Seems to be the question of the day,” she mumbles against him.

He pulls away first, looking her over.

She still hasn’t set her arm, and the bruising is evident.

The burn marks on her stomach now scarring and the cuts on her body bright red in healing.

He brushes the hair out of her face, careful of the bruises.

She examines him, carefully drawing her hand over his broken splinted fingers.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

He nods.

“It’s been a really long couple of months, hasn’t it?”

“Clint?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

Natasha kisses him gently and then kisses his cheek.

“I wouldn’t be here without you,” she admits.

“I just needed you to know, that I appreciate everything you do for me, your kindness and patience, always saving me.”

He hugs her close, turning up the water so it’s more her temperature.

“Always Nat,” he assures. “Always.”

“We need to do something about that arm.”

.

Bruce hands Tony the compounds as Jarvis runs the numbers.

“What do you think?”

He glances at the mixture, the way it turns almost florescent before it settles.

“Test it again,” he says, wanting to be sure.

“That’s the third time,” Bruce reminds him.

“I know, I just want to be sure.”

Nodding Bruce give the order to test it again, watching as compound seems to eliminate the infection.

“And it’s generic?”

Bruce shrugs, “from what I can tell, yeah I think so?”

Tony nods.

“Did the girl leave?” Bruce asks, all caught up on the last week.

“Yeah, she left after Natasha left the door open.”

Bruce cleans the table, as Tony eats his gummy worms.

“Do you know where she went?”

Tony shrugs.

“Natasha said I couldn’t track her, so no.”

Bruce rolls his eyes, “sure.”

Tony knows he’s not lying, he’s technically not tracking her, he’s tracking the phone they gave her, the money too. But technically not her.

“Do you think Nat is okay?”

Tony puts the antidote into vials, making them easily injectable if needed.

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“I hope so.”

.

Jace realises quickly that she has no where to go. No purpose in life without the Red Room. She’s free but it’s costly.

She stays in a hotel room and feels the existential crisis of living.

How did Natasha do this?

How did she live when there was no one telling you want to do?

What was the meaning of life? For her?

It’s something she wanted for so long, that now she has it she doesn’t want it.

She doesn’t understand why she is still alive, and so many other widows are dead.

Jace thought she was different, that she could live a peaceful life, live for simple pleasures, but after four days of doing so she’s just so… lost.

Bored.

Angry.

Lonely.

She laughs at herself that it didn’t even take that long.

Maybe Dreykov was right. She’d always be theirs.

Night seems to be the worst and it’s around 11pm where she can’t stop thinking, gathering a coat she’d bought, she goes to find the only person she knows will understand.

And might have some answers.

.

Jarvis flashes the bathroom light, waking Natasha up as she recognises the Morse code.

Roof.

The signal repeats and she gets out of the warm bed, putting on her coat, unsure what the AI means.

The elevator takes her straight to the top and she puts away her knives. The three on her body perhaps enough.

It’s not who she thinks it is.

“Jace.”

The woman turns, dressed in the clothing Natasha provided her, with a long coat that seems new.

“Natasha.”

They stand opposite each other, like a standoff except there’s no drawn weapons.

“How are you?”

Jace stares at her.

How do you explain that the world is ending?

“How did you do it?” she asks, “how did you survive?”

Natasha is tired. Her casted arm itches and the wind is cold. But as soon as Jace starts, she knows what she’s asking for.

“You want to know why I saved you?”

Jace nods and sits on the side of the building, turning her back on Natasha, legs hanging over the side.

To anyone else it looks risky; suicidal maybe, but to Natasha it looks like trust.

“Why did you save me? Why didn’t you send me to Shield? What’s the point? Why is this so hard for me?”

Jace whispers the last words but it’s loud enough to for Natasha to hear the breaking of her heart.

She mirrors Jace’s position and sits with her on the edge of the building.

Natasha kicks her legs, practicing the words in her head before saying them out loud.

There’s so much she wants to tell her.

“Living is hard, but I think it always has been. We have an obligation to ourselves to survive, if we didn’t we wouldn’t have lived this long. We have to sit with every painful emotion, all the disgust, the hate, the foulness of our lives and then still find ways to love ourselves despite that. Why did I save you?”

She remembers this conversation with Clint so vividly.

“I saved you because you’re worth saving. Even if you don’t feel like it. Life..” she pauses again, “I think it’s hard for everyone. Finding a purpose, a way through.”

The silence is comfortable as Jace thinks on her words.

“Do you know what you want to do?”

The night is calm, only a whisper of a breeze in the air.

Light pollution lights the buildings as Jace gets lost in her thoughts.

“No,” she decides on.

“You can stay here, if you want?” Natasha offers.

“No,” Jace says almost immediately.

“I think I need to find my own path. My own way.”

There’s horns, and traffic below, the city loud in their own silences.

“Dreykov’s really dead?”

Natasha hears the desperation in the words. The vivid memory feels like a flashback as she’s back in the room, the feeling of the gun in her hands and Clint’s over the top of it.

She sees his body deflating as death takes him.

“He’s really dead.”

Jace nods, looking at her hands, running her finger over the scar on her palm.

“There are others like him. Some maybe worse, still in Russia, scattered maybe all over the world.”

The Red Room was always pervasive. Natasha thought, she’d done it, taken it out years ago.

The last few months had proved that wrong, it had also showed that government bureaucrats protected each other.

The Red Room was not just a Russian entity. It was like the CIA, the KGB, the FSB or ASIO.

“How many?”

She’s not sure she wants to know the answer.

“Enough.”

It’s fair.

“And the girls?”

Jace shrugs and sighs in a single movement.

“The drugs we’ve been injected with can be tailored, sometimes it’s the guards, sometimes it’s marks, sometimes whoever they’ve been sold to.”

Natasha feels sick.

“Will you stay here?” she asks, “just for five minutes, I need to get something.”

Jace doesn’t respond straight away but nods under Natasha scrutiny.

Getting up to leave, she pauses at the lift.

“Five minutes.”

She’s less than the 300 seconds she promised. Jace is good at counting time.

It’s 247 seconds when Natasha steps back through the doors, holding vials of clear liquid. She holds up her hands to show she has no weapon, as Jace lowers her gun.

“You’ve always been better than me, at helping others,” Natasha says, speaking Russian making her clumsy in her words.

Jace scoffs and turns her back. Natasha has helped thousands of people.

Literally.

Given little girls hope.

Saved men, woman and children from monsters and aliens.

“No it’s true.”

Natasha sits back down and hands over the vials.

“You have this way with words, of saving people without violence. It’s why Dreykov knew you could always be counted on to diffuse situations he couldn’t. It’s why you were always the one that was in charge of the rooms. You could do it without even thinking.”

She swallows down memories.

“You can save them. The others still out there. This is the antidote. I know that you don’t want to be here or join shield or be part of a agency, but maybe we can work together in a way? Maybe saving those that are stuck under the guards or marks. Those that Dreykov…” she pauses, taking a shaking breath, wishing she had more sleep to make the pitch.

“Do you think you can?”

Jace stares at the vials in her hands, and then tucks them into her coat.

“I can try,” she says quietly.

Natasha shifts closer to her so their shoulders are touching.

“Salaam, Jace,” she whispers

Jace looks into the sunrise, her face a mask of sadness.

“Alas Natasha, it’s not as it should be.”

. 

Chapter Text

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.

.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

They take the car back to his apartment.

He contemplates whether it should be her apartment or the tower but in the end he decides that he’d like some home comforts too.

Clint likes his apartment, his couch and bed. He likes the way it opens up to the balcony that he can reach the roof with and all the little intricacies of home.

It’s his own space.

The tower is great and it’s served so many purposes to keep all of them safe but now; he thinks they just need quiet.

Home is quiet.

She’s silent, apart from the audible breathing through her mouth. Her nose likely blocked from the tears shed.

He reaches across and grabs her hand, driving like they always do with one hand in each other’s.

“Will you talk to someone?” he ventures as he rounds the corner into the car park.

“I suppose.”

Natasha’s voice is quiet, far away.

He offers his phone and the text from their psychiatrist with a link to a secure video call.

“Now?” he asks, knowing he’s put her on the spot.

He could kiss Tony for his skills at making people do what he wants with money. Sometimes money doesn’t solve things but it does make access to resources a hell of a lot easier.

“How’d you manage that?” she asks, handing back the phone.

“Tony.”

“Of course.”

Natasha grasps her hands together, thumb touching her nails, that she rubs over and over unconsciously.

They walk up the stairs in unison, as they have so many times before. He opens the door and lets himself in, closing it behind her.

He offers her water that she takes with a nod.

“She’s ready whenever you are to call.”

Natasha takes the phone and stares at it. Puts it down and then picks it up.

She sighs.

“I can’t.”

Clint can’t stop thinking.

“I saw you standing by the water, I thought you were going to jump.”

He needs her to make the call.

“I was,” she admits.

“I felt like I was drowning without the water.”

Clint offers her the phone again.

“And now?”

She takes it.

“The feeling comes and goes.”

“Do you think you can?” if not, Clint thinks he’s going to make the call, not for her but for him, to help him process what he’s seen; what he’s done.

“Ten minutes?”

It’s a reprieve whilst she gets a hold of herself; it’s something he can give her. Setting a timer on the phone, shows her.

Sad eyes look at him for some sort of direction.

“Can we patch your thigh whilst we wait?”

Leaving the room, he keeps an eye on her grabbing a pair of clean pants and then rummages in the kitchen for his first aid kit.

“It’s not that bad,” Natasha tells him, taking off her pants, the blood dried.

“Your stomach?” he asks.

She looks to him in confusion.

“The burns?” He clarifies.

Natasha lifts her top, the healing blisters just now white with a thin red line around them. She gives half a smile.

Reaching up gently, she touches the cut on his nose, and the bruises that litter his face and chin.

“How’s your face?” she asks, grimacing.

“Better than yours,” he grins. Her bruises are healing already but still the dark marks stay.

“I’m sorry,” she says pulling her hand away.

“Don’t be,” he placates.

Gently, he wipes the dried blood away, the skin peeled back, almost flayed as he wonders what she was thinking when she did it. The scar tissue still seems thick underneath.

“God you did a good job,” he mutters.

Natasha watches him carefully, not pulling away and holding her leg down as he dresses the wound.

“I don’t remember doing it,” she admits.

He finishes with a bandage and sits back on his heels helping her pull her pants on over her feet.

“How worried should I be?” he asks, glancing at the timer.

Five minutes.

“How bad do you think it is?” he asks.

Met with silence, she doesn’t answer straight away.

“I don’t know. Some minutes are better than others, and then, I’m drowning again. It feels like I can’t breathe or like I’m so dizzy I can’t stay upright.”

She sighs as the timer goes off.

Holding his phone, she clicks on the link.

.

The therapists face appears almost straight away. Natasha’s hand reaches for Clint’s and squeezes hard.

“Hello Natasha. Hello Clint,” she says, her hair in a high bun, artificial light alighting her face.

“I’m sorry,” Clint begins, feeling bad that it’s likely some ungodly hour where she is.

“Don’t be sorry,” she dismisses, waving her hand.

She’s just as Clint remembers, kind but serious and no nonsense.

“It’s urgent,” he tries to justify, still feeling bad that he’s put her out and made this happen.

“So I heard. I’m sorry, I only have half an hour before I need to go, but we can talk more tomorrow. I think it’s good that we start, okay?”

Natasha body is fixed but even she nods with Clint, leaning slightly forward.

“There’s ugh… there’s a lot that’s happened.”

Clint starts, looking to Natasha.

The therapist looks to Natasha to continue,

“To you?” she invites,

Natasha nods minutely.

“She was telling me that she’s living minute to minute,” Clint breathes, unsure how much of the conversation to divulge.

Biting her lips, Natasha gives a half shrug.

“Sometimes it feels like that.”

The therapist takes it as an opening, and seems to know just what question to ask.

“What happens when you’re not feeling right?”

“She was standing by the water, ready to jump,” Clint can’t stop the words tumbling out of his mouth, much to the surprise of the two women.

“No I wasn’t,” Natasha rebukes.

“Yes you were,” he argues.

There’s an uncomfortable silence.

“There’s been some intrusive thoughts,” Natasha clarifies, but keeps it to herself the extent of the damage they’ve been causing.

“Are they sticking with you?”

Clint’s leg starts to bounce, his anxiety spiking.

“Now? No. They’ve stopped for now.”

He hopes it’s the truth. He hope she remembers the rules of therapy.

“Can you pin point what made them come?”

Natasha opens her mouth but Clint can’t help the words that cut her off, they tumble out of his mouth like vomit.

“She cut her leg,” he tells the therapist.

“What is this telling on me?”

He almost laughs at Natasha’s indignation, it’s the first time in a while she’s been angry or derisive at him.

“Sorry,” he whispers.

Natasha takes a deep breath, knowing this is the start of something hard.

“How much do you know of what’s happened in the last eight weeks?” she asks.

The therapist nods at them both.

“Some, but I’ll need to hear it from you. You know how this works.”

They do.

Natasha almost snarls at the thought.

The therapist seems to sense it.

“What’s been the worst bit for you? What part of the day is the hardest?”

She knows what she’s doing; breaking it down. It’s an old trick they used to do when healing felt to big, the enormity of it too much.

“Everything,” she says, honestly.

Then.

“No that’s a lie,” and it is. Natasha knows that she can separate it. She thinks of the times when she’s been okay, and the times that seem harder.

“I think at night, when I’m alone with my thoughts,” she clarifies.

The therapist shakes her head.

“You’re always alone in your thoughts,” she rebukes.

“What makes the night time different? What is it that makes the night harder?”

Silence.

She doesn’t know. Or can’t answer.

“Does it make it harder to sort through them?” she prompts, “or is it that they seem more harsh when you’re trying to rest?”

Natasha can’t think. Can’t formulate a sentence to save herself.

“When they’re trying to do battle,” she tries, looking to Clint to help her.

“Can you talk back to them?” he asks quietly.

It’s not a new thought.

“I did, I think.”

She turns to the therapist.

“What do you tell them?” The woman asks.

“I thanked them for keeping me safe,” Natasha says honestly.

“They wanted.. There was something they wanted to do, and I didn’t want to…” she tapers off. She doesn’t want to tell Clint that she wanted to kill him and run. All she ever wanted was to make sure he was safe.

Fear and embarrassment make her face burn.

She must see it.

“Our thoughts aren’t all of us,” the therapist clarifies kindly. This is not the first time they’ve had this conversation.

“Do you think you can keep pushing it away?”

“Sometimes.”

“If you can’t, what can you do?”

Natasha freezes.

Oh god, what if she can’t? What if she had killed Clint? What if in her impulsivity, she had done something that was irreversible?

Her breathing quickens as all the possibilities of what could have happened start running through her head.

“I don’t…” she starts, “I don’t..”

Clint squeezes her hand hard.

“Tell Clint?” She offers.

“And?”

She bites on her lip.

“Write it down?”

They’re the right answers, she’s sure.

“Do you still have the cat?”

Liho. Liho’s with Tony, she thinks.

“Yeah.. Yes,” she says, a vague memory of this conversation.

“Tell the cat?” The therapist prompts.

“Liho?”

She feels aghast.

“I couldn’t tell her those things.”

She could never tell the Cat.

“So why do you think it’s okay for them to sit with you?”

Natasha knows why.

“I don’t…” she starts.

“Because it’s me.”

“It’s hard.”

Everything feels hard.

“I know,” the therapist tells her.

“Do you feel suicidal?”

The question shocks Natasha.

She’s fought so so hard to be here.

She doesn’t want to die. She feels it’s not the same as not wanting to live though.

Not wanting to struggle through each day.

“No. No.”

It’s true, she doesn’t. Even if the voices prompt it.

“You don’t have a plan?”

The therapist looks at her intently through the screen.

“No,” the words are confident. She doesn’t.

“You would tell me?”

Would she?

“Yes,” she supposed, the words not confident.

The therapist looks at her until she looks down.

“I don’t, I would.”

The words more confident this time.

She nods.

“Clint, how are you?”

His eyes widen, the question unexpected.

He can feel the shaking of his hands start and overwhelm threaten.

“I’m fine,” he squeezes out.

“You’re worried?”

She can read his mind, he’s sure.

“Yes.”

He can’t look at Natasha.

“That she’ll get lost… that she won’t come back.”

The therapist is silent, waiting. Clint hates it. He knows she does it on purpose.

“That she’ll leave, and I won’t be able to find her.”

The therapist nods.

Clint sniffs, biting down hard on his lip, holding back the onslaught of emotions that threaten.

Natasha reaches under the table and grabs his hand, holds it as tight as she can.

He hangs his head unsure what to say, his greatest fear unveiled.

The silence in the room feels big.

“Natasha?”

The therapist says her name and she takes her eyes off Clint to look at the screen.

“I need to go soon, but I need you to know some things.”

She likes the therapist, likes how clear she is with her communication.

“You’re still figuring out how to live given all the heaviness you’ve faced recently. So many things have changed. There is more to life than pain, than the hurt you’ve been through, but I fear it’s not over yet. Is there anything you want to talk about right now?”

Natasha is so tired. So over talking. Her answer is slow, but one she can sit with.

“I’m not ready to talk about it yet. “

It seems to be the right answer for everyone.

The therapist smiles.

“That’s okay. We have time.”

She glances at the time.

“I’m going to call through tomorrow at ten.”

She nods.

“Homework,” the therapist laughs, “there’s always something right?”

Both Clint and Natasha grimace. Although used to the way this woman works, they haven’t had to do this in a while. They haven’t stopped holding hands.

“Stay in your comfort zones, for now, it’s important. Recalibrating yourselves and your needs, is where we need to start. Your comfort zone is where you’re going to find something that makes you smile, genuinely, conversations with each other, with friends, and those close to you, getting absorbed into something so you forget your struggles, and the heaviness and pain of what you’ve been through.”

“Those thoughts? Let them pass through. You too, Clint. You’re so worried about Natasha that you’re on tender hooks, and eggshells. Say them out loud, tell each other, make it ridiculous, tell the cat, write it down.”

She takes an audible breath.

“I’m sending through a prescription for sleeping tablets, the same ones you’ve used before. Take a quarter tonight, half tomorrow and then a full tablet the day after. You can taper back down but we’ll talk more about that over the next couple of days.”

He can feel Natasha flinch at the mention of medication.

“If you don’t want to or can’t take it, then you need to set aside time for the meditation exercises we’ve discussed before, but Natasha? You need sleep, and this will be easier than the control that takes for the mediation to work. It’s important, you hear me? You too Clint.”

She glances at her watch.

“I’m sorry I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow. Think about what I’ve said, okay? One day we’ll talk on not so serious circumstances.”

She smiles, “talk later,” she says, and hangs up.

Clint collapses against the couch, thankful he’s in his own apartment and the comfort of it.

He’s exhausted.

It’s clear Natasha is too.

“You okay?” he asks, knowing the answer.

“No,” she says to his surprise.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry my darkness keeps leaking into your life, I’m sorry I got so lost and you had to find me and save me, again and again. They hurt you and it’s my fault. I didn’t mean to get so lost, I don’t feel like me.”

She starts sobbing into his arms, her body cold as he pulls her towards him.

“He’s dead,” Clint starts, his emotions overflowing too, “he’s dead and I couldn’t save you. I would take it all for you.”

Natasha looks sharply at him.

“No,” she says, voice clear and steady. “Better me than you. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, I would never want you to endure…”

Finally, she feels more in control and clear, the sessions, the burst of tears, his words, all helping her with clarity.

“No.”

She takes a shaking breath.

“They did terrible things to me, then; now. But it’s real and it did happen. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get so lost. I am here, I’m not leaving, I’m fighting I swear.”

“I’m not going to leave you.”

Clint nods, exhaustion peaking.

“Can we stay here tonight?” he asks, looking to the promise of his own unmade bed.

Natasha stands and leads him there, pulling out some clothes for her and throwing his pyjama shorts at him.

“It’s like 7pm,” he says aghast. “We haven’t even eaten dinner.”

Natasha looks to the kitchen.

“Do you feel like cooking?”

Clint finishes changing and nods, “I feel like eating. Come on.”

He sticks the Mac and cheese packet into the pan and on the stove top, adding the butter and milk, and stirring it.

“Better than a peanut butter sandwich,” he goads, his voice more steady now, his actions sure.

.

Chapter Text

He’s worried about his friends.

They’ve been missing for over two days, and even though he knows where they are, it feels like the tower is empty.

Steve wanders in and they talk about everything and nothing, avoiding the elephant in the room.

Bruce doesn’t say anything, just appears sometimes, to show Tony something or to use something in his lab.

He wants to see Natasha, know that she’s okay. Clint messages him every now and then, and sometimes he sends back a meme or picture and it’s easy communication.

It doesn’t stop the worry.

Their cat stays with him his his workshop, and he doesn’t hate the random company it keeps.

“Hello cat,” he greets, stretching and walking into the workshop. The cat stretches and eyeballs him, as he skirts around her, not wanting to disturb her.

“I think you need to go home,” he tells her, “be with your people.”

The cat licks it’s paw, then ducks it’s head as Tony gets nearer, sits next to her and sighs.

She stands and stalks over to him, sitting on him much to his delight and displeasure. He can’t move now, even if he wanted to.

“Jarvis, where’s Natasha?”

The AI takes a moment.

“They’re in Clint’s loft,” comes the comforting voice of his robot.

He sighs and absentmindedly pats the cat.

“Where’s the other girl ninja assassin?” he asks, wondering if it’s something Natasha wants to know.

“She was last tagged in Florida,” he’s told.

“Bruce?”

“Asleep.”

For once.

“Steve?”

“In the kitchen.”

The cat starts to purr lightly, the vibration oddly soothing as Tony relaxes.

Everything that’s happened over the last month, is his fault. All their pain, this journey into the abyss, rests heavily on his shoulders.

He stares at everything in his workshop, all of this and money and still…

He blames the Red Room, too, but, they’d trusted him to help; and he couldn’t.

He feels so guilty.

He keeps thinking about how he could have done it differently, if he knew then what he knows now.

He can’t take it back.

He wants to apologise to her but he doesn’t have the courage.

Sharp claws press into his thigh, and it takes his mined off his thoughts as he looks down. Green eyes look back to him as she kneads her front paws into his skin.

“Ow,” he complains.

But he doesn’t move her; he focuses on her, burying his fingers into her soft fur.

.

“Are you coming to get your cat?” Tony opens, as Clint laughs in response,

“Don’t act like you don’t love her.”

There’s a pause.

“Bruce told on you,” he finishes.

“Traitor,” Tony mutters, “Are you coming home.. Back?”

The silence is telling.

“No,” Clint says clearly.

“So this is goodbye?”

It hurts more than Tony cares to admit.

“For now.”

Even though he knew it was coming, he wonders if it would hurt less if they spent the last couple of days here.

If he could care for them, help them with anything they need. He knew they’d leave.

It’s what they do. They come and go like ships in the night.

Ever since he’s known them.

It was only a matter of time before they left again.

“Put Nat on?”

He almost feels Clint nod as the phone has static and then…

“Hey Tony.”

Hearing her speak, makes his breath catch in his throat.

“How are you?”

He can’t stop the question passing his lips.

The silence on the other end makes Tony cringe, it’s the wrong question.

“I’m doing okay,” she says finally. He’s not sure if she’s lying.

“Really?”

There’s a little pause before she speaks again.

“Yeah, getting there, you know? Note to self, don’t get kidnapped when you’re a child, it will lead to trauma later on.”

He sees where she’s going, opting for some levity, but he can’t quite take it.

“But … I don’t want that for you,” his words are forlorn, thinking of the conversation he’d had with Steve around childhood memories.

“It’s okay, Tony.”

“Will I see you again? Soon?”

He’d love to see what she’s doing right now, that this was a video call, because it takes her a second too long to answer. It’s been a week since he saw her last and it feels like too long,

“I’ve got to come get the cat at some point, right? Maria usually has her, but from what I hear, you’ve been getting along like a house on fire.”

Tony looks around for the black cat, unable to see her.

“I suppose,” he grumbles.

“You’ll keep her company for a couple of weeks?”

He hopes that’s all it is, he doesn’t want to tell her he’s already ordered food and scratching post and a few other things to make the cat more comfortable.

“I suppose,” he repeats.

“Where are you going?”

He’ll track them anyway, but he wants her to know he’s interested.

“Barbados,” she tells him. “The beach.”

Tony smiles, he remembers Clint being excited about the trip, which felt like so long ago.

“I’m glad you’re going,” he admits.

“Me too.”

Natasha takes an audible breath.

“Thank you, for everything,” she says softly into the phone. He hates that it sounds like goodbye.

“Always Nat. Need me to do anything whilst you’re away?”

Clint takes the phone back, as he answers.

“Nah, we’re good, but maybe don’t make the cat fat?”

Tony’s already looked into where they mentioned they’re staying; the hotel and plane. He updates the booking and changes the flights to first class.

“Okay,” he says absentmindedly.

“You’ll take care of each other?”

Clint answers straight away, sending a text at the same time.

“Of course,” he says.

Thanks; the text reads.

.

He’s the bearer of bad news at breakfast as he eats with both Steve and Bruce.

“They’ve gone,” he reveals, digging into the eggs that Steve had scrambled.

Bruce sips his coffee, nodding like he knew it was coming.

Steve’s back is turned, so he can’t get a read on his face. His hunched shoulders look disappointed though.

“What do we do now?” he asks, turning to face Tony, his face disappointed and serious.

Shrugging, Tony feels at a loss as well. Everything has been secondary to getting Natasha well, or safe, that going back to normal seems wrong somehow.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly.

“I don’t know.”

.

A week earlier.

Clint revels in the heat of the shower. Finally, things feel more stable, the routine of life almost back to pre-sickness levels, and yes, the trauma of life still weighs heavily on him, and yes, everything they do is reactionary to Natasha’s stressors and triggers, but it almost feels manageable.

It’s not like before when they had to contend with shield and reprogramming and setting up Natasha with a whole new identity.

It’s now that she needs to reset, find out who she is again, given everything that life has thrown at her.

He hopes his thoughts aren’t wrong.

It hurts to see her in pain, or dissociative at times, and he’d do anything to take it away from her, but it does feel promising the progress she’s made in the last week with the help of the therapist, and consistency of routine.

Stabilising, is perhaps the word he’s looking for.

Some hours are worse than others, but some are better.

Natasha is nothing, if not resilient. She takes what life throws at her and she takes it all in, deals with it and puts on a brave face to the world, even if inside she’s dying.

He hopes that’s not how she feels.

He turns off the water and steps out, drying and dressing himself monotonously.

Hoping to find her in the place he left her, Clint walks into the bedroom, finding her asleep, somewhat peacefully on the bed.

It’s something.

.

Sleep isn’t easy, just as the therapist had said.

Nightmares plague her brain in disjointed images. She shoots Jace, pushes Clint off the bridge, tasers Tony in the face.

Each time, she wakes up sweating.

She eyes the sleeping tablets, and takes it as prescribed, feeling guilt at the failure.

No, she tells herself, that’s wrong; medication is not a failure.

She’s been getting better at the self talk, the recalibration of self and soul, but old habits die hard.

Clint’s shower seems long as the tablets take hold.

She wanted to tell him that she’s ready.

For the sea.

For the change in scenery.

He had asked in therapy a week ago, if she still wanted to go to Barbados.

She barely remembered the trip that they had planned with what felt like a lifetime ago.

She’d not known what to say.

Change and moving from their safe little corner of the world was not something she could even entertain. She barely left the house, sometimes only going to the tower if he made her, or the therapist challenged it.

Nothing felt safe anymore.

Sometimes not even in her own body.

He’d not mentioned it again.

But sometimes it was all she could think of.

The thought, once implanted, was sometimes true only good thing to think.

Blue skies.

Blue seas.

Somewhere that she could forget all of this had happened.

Escape.

Natasha lets sleep claim her.

No dreams, she tells her brain, please no dreams.

.

Clint wakes her, the daylight breaking through the window. There’s sweat on her brow, despite the cool of the room.

There’s still moments of panic as she transitions from sleep, but it’s not met with a knife to his face as he talks her down, or a wild punch that comes at his nose.

Nowadays it’s just a frown as recognition dawns, and then a nod, as she takes herself to the bathroom.

Today though, Natasha watches him.

He wishes he knew what she was thinking.

“Bad dreams?” he asks, hoping it’s not the wrong thing to say.

“Something like that,” she replies, voice quite on the air.

“Do you still want to go?” she asks cryptically.

He cocks his head in confusion.

“Go where?”

Natasha reaches over for his hand.

“Barbados. Do you still want to go?”

Emotions swirl in his being.

He’d forgotten what hope felt like.

“It’s okay if you don’t…” she starts, a slight frown of disappointment on her face.

“No,” he kiss her hand, “of course I do, of course…”

He looks at her, taking her in.

“Are you sure?”

The small smile that appears is something he’s missed. Not even remembering the last time she smiled, he can’t help but smile with her.

“Yeah,” she replies. “Yes.”

.

Chapter Text

Three months later

Natasha closes her book, the ending somewhat satisfactory. She focuses on the feeling of the sand beneath her, and the sound of the waves of the sea below.

She digs her toes in further, glancing idly at her phone.

4pm.

They have two hours before they arrive.

She should go help Clint.

Taking one last glance of the empty beach, she smiles softly to herself and picks up the book.

Clint had shooed her out around midday telling her to go finish her book and get the last bit of peace before the others arrived.

She’s laughed as he pushed her out the door, the sun bright, and the day perfect to relax.

Natasha wipes her feet at the door, dusting them off and smelling the cookies through the door, before she even opens it.

“You made cookies?” she calls, entering the house.

It’s not only that, he’s cleaned the house.

Clint rounds the corner, a smile on his face as he sees her.

“I made cookies,” he smiles, “the ones you like with the icing.”

She follows him into the kitchen seeing the brightly coloured cookies cooling on the bench.

Natasha hugs him, feeling more comfortable with touch now than she had when they first arrived. She’s able to offer it, receive it and sometimes even seeks it out.

The progress is praised, but it makes her feel more human, to have made it to this point.

No longer flinching as he kisses the side of her head, she beelines for the cookies, pulling out of his touch.

“How long til they get here?” he asks, looking at his phone.

Natasha shrugs, lost in a memory of the deliciousness of the cookie, the first time she had them.

“You okay?”

She hums, mouth full.

“You remember when you first baked these?” she mumbles.

Clint picks up another cookie that’s shaped like captain’s shield, and bites down on it.

“The first week we got here?” he asks.

She nods, “yeah, it was like the first food I enjoyed in so long.”

He looks at her strangely.

“I didn’t know that,” he confesses.

Chewing thoughtfully, she wonders just how much to tell him.

“I don’t think I’d slept in like almost three days, and hardly eaten anything and you made them. The smell broke me out of some panic attacks so much so that I wanted to taste them.”

She pauses.

“So I did. And then I ate another. And I forgot that some food in your stomach could make some of the ugliness go away.”

He looks contemplative, “you went outside the next day?”

Natasha nods, remembering the first step out the door being hard, but the sea had drawn her in.

“It gave me energy to face the day, in a way that I hadn’t been able to.”

He looks at the cookie in his hand.

“Well shit, maybe I should be cooking these more often.”

Laughing lightly, she grabs another and nods.

“Magical cookies you have here.”

They putt about the house, music on in the background, readying the bedrooms for the soon to arrive guests.

.

Tony arrives early. Entering the house he bursts in without knocking, talking loudly.

“You’d better come help me, the car is full, and I come with food and a whole bunch of toys.”

Clint is first to see him, clasping hands and hugging in delight at the sight of his friend he’s only been talking to on the phone.

“Hey man,” he smiles.

“It’s good to see you.”

Tony hands him a basket of strawberries and then gestures to the car.

“Come help me.”

Clint frowns, “we said not not bring anything.”

Tony laughs.

“Yeah sure, and you think I’d listen?”

The answer is flippant but Clint feels like Tony does everything in abundance, why should this be any different?

Natasha appears, and laughs at them both, carrying a variety of fruit up to their chins.

“We said not to bring anything.”

Tony carries his keys in his mouth as he answers.

“Go help,” comes the muffled reply, and Natasha dutifully heads to his convertible.

Her breath catches when she sees the box of Russian candy.

He’d remembered.

She picks it up, the box fairly light, and hugs it close to her body.

Natasha looks into the car, not seeing anything else to bring in, but hears the roar of Steve’s bike coming up the drive.

Deciding to wait to greet him, Tony and Clint come back out to see what’s held her up, and all three wait.

Steve’s hair is longer than she remembers and for some reason it makes a breath catch in her throat about just how long she’s been away. How long this has taken her, still taking her to heal; to get over this.

But she swallows it down and greets him with a hug as well.

“Hey,” he says, hanging onto her a little longer and a little harder than she’s used to.

“Hey,” she replies.

“Don’t leave me in the tower with Tony again, okay?”

He says it with a tone of seriousness and mirth but she understands the underlying sentiment.

Steve has lost so many people in his life, but in ways they’ve just disappeared or he has.

She nods, grinning, “you guys are bunking together in the same room, you know?”

Tony groans, overhearing the conversation.

“Why didn’t you take me up on the offer for the bigger house on the hill?”

Clint hugs Steve too, taking his bag from his bike and leading the way in.

“Because that’s not what we needed,” he replies with a flick of his hand.

Steve takes in the cottage and all the considerations in it, built perfectly for two spies. Up high enough for Clint, smaller windows for Natasha, multiple exits and he’s sure he’s not seeing everything.

She nudges him.

“What are you thinking about?”

Steve covers his thoughts.

“When does Bruce get here?”

Tony answers readily, and Steve knows he’s been keeping a close eye on everyone from afar.

“He’s coming from an island I bought him. He’ll probably be here tonight.”

Clint nods and opens the back door up, the smell of the sea air permeating through. He shows the two men around whilst Natasha sits in the kitchen, waiting for their return.

.

He catches her alone in the kitchen, bringing in the glasses that have held wine, spirits and vodka. Taking them from him, she rinses them out, and he grabs a tea towel to dry them.

“Thanks,” she nods.

Tony hands them back to her to put away.

“How are you?” he asks, softly, quietly like the secret can stay between them.

“And don’t give me the bullshit response that you gave the others that things were hard but now they’re better.”

He pauses.

“I know you.”

His piercing stare makes her drop her gaze.

“I know you.”

She nods. He does.

Sometimes she thinks they’re cut from the same cloth and although lives two separate lives, there’s similarities that she loves they share; a darkness that not everyone understands.

“How’s Liho?”

He stares, frustrated at her non answer.

“She’s fine, she’s with Pepper, they’ve got a bond. Did you know she likes being on a lead outside?”

Natasha laughs at that, something she would have never have thought of doing with a stray cat, would be to train it to go on a lead.

He waits her out.

“I don’t know,” she says finally.

“I think I’m okay, but then little things will happen and I won’t be. It was bad that first month. I can’t even tell you what happened, Clint probably can.”

Natasha looks at him as a slight realisation dawns.

“Thank you, for taking care of him, whilst I couldn’t. I know it was you calling and making sure he was okay here.”

Tony waves her off.

“It been getting better, I’m not there yet. I don’t think I’m ready… for a lot of things. There are things that… still hold strong memories, but I’m working on it. I’m working through it.”

She laughs.

“It’s a daily job.”

Tony smiles with her.

“You’re so bored aren’t you?”

Natasha laughs again.

“So much.”

“And the therapist?”

“She’s been so patient. I think I’m her full time job.”

Offering Tony a drink, she sits down at the table next to him.

“Clint’s going now too,” she mentions, “sometimes together, which I think helps.”

“I’ve been seeing mine,” he confesses.

“Seeing you, like that…I think it brought up some things for me.”

They’re quite, hearing Steve, Clint and Bruce talk loudly in the other room.

“Steve’s been going too.”

Tony shrugs.

“I guess we all have a lot of baggage to work through.”

“I think so.”

She clinks her glass with his, and notices Clint at the door.

He still hasn’t been able to leave her for long periods, calling it separation anxiety, but she knows that the fear that she’s going to leave still holds strong.

“You like the therapist?” she calls.

Clint nods, “you guys coming back.”

Tony is first to stand, grabbing his drink and nudging Natasha as they walk back together.

“I’ll help you with the boredom thing.”

She eyes him, pursing her lips and smirking.

“Get it past Clint first and we’ll talk.”

.

There’s a slight heaviness that settles on her.

She watches the others talk and laugh and can’t help but feel a bit removed, her mind wandering and creating scenarios that she reframed consciously.

They’re here out of pity and curiosity, a part of her says, but she knows it’s not true. They wouldn’t have come out, not here, if they rudely didn’t want to.

Tony wouldn’t have brought her candy, Steve wouldn’t be making plans with her, and the thing that makes her smile, Bruce wouldn’t have come and brought them flowers from his island.

Claiming he didn’t know what to bring, when they told him not to bring anything, he’d turned up with an array of beautiful flowers she couldn’t stop looking at.

“What do you think, Nat?” Clint asks, touching her hand gently, but she hasn’t been listening.

He covers quickly, seeing the confusion pass her face.

“Sweet or sour candy? Steve thinks that sweet candy is the best but Tony contends that sour is, you know my opinion.”

“And I prefer savory, over either,” Bruce comments.

Natasha gives a shrug and comments that she doesn’t mind either option.

“But,” she clarifies, “I’ll always take the sweeter option.”

Clint and Steve look smug as Tony pouts and Bruce cracks up.

Glancing at the time, she realizes it’s just past 1am.

No good thoughts happen past midnight, and it’s likely she needs to go to bed.

Yawning, she stands.

“Sorry boys, I think I need to sleep.”

They nod, standing as well.

“No no, stay, you know where your rooms are?”

Clint throws a pillow at Steve.

“If your old brain can remember where I said,” he goads.

“Hey! Technically he’s older,” Steve exclaims, throwing it to Tony.

“Lies! He’s a year older than me,” Tony growls, throwing it to Bruce.

She can’t help but smile by their antics, but still, she knows if she has any chance at sleep, she needs to go now.

“Goodnight boys, play nice,” she departs, giving them a nod as she heads for her bedroom.

She’d forgotten how exhausting being around people was. Even when it’s people that she loves and likes spending time with.

Quickly brushing her teeth, swallowing the medication and washing her face, she climbs into the cold bed, curls in on herself.

Everything is okay, she rehearses.

Everyone is safe.

Tomorrow will be a good day.

And she hopes like hell she’s not wrong.

.

“How is she really?” Steve asks, Natasha’s lithe form now not in view.

Clint sighs, knowing the question was coming. They’d all been in various stages of communication after they’d left, Tony checking in the most, Steve a close second and Bruce doing what he can.

He’d kept them updated as much as he could, but how do you tell someone over the phone that someone they love is drowning, and the only lifeline they had was time and space?

“Better,” is the word he decides on, feeling comfortable with it as soon as he says it.

“Lots of things are helping. She wouldn’t have agreed for you to come if she wasn’t in a space to see people.”

He looks to Tony.

“You know she wouldn’t.”

“So… so she just…” Steve sighs and rubs his face, the same way Tony usually does.

“We send her back to Russia, she gets tortured, we rescue her and then she goes looking for them to finish them off… then you two just disappear here for over three months, and she’s just ‘better’?”

Clint feels anger at the oversimplified version of events and the work they’ve done to get here. For Natasha to be better.

“No,” he frowns.

“That’s not it, that’s not…”

He forces himself to take a breath.

“She’s worked hard on getting better, talked to the therapist daily, worked on sleep and talking through things.”

It’s only then he realises Steve has manipulated him.

“We are doing better. We are. It’s just that it takes time and it’s hard.”

His voice peters off.

“It’s hard,” he whispers.

Bruce hands him a cookie and he takes it in thanks.

“She seems better,” he says, “than when I last saw her.”

“And she’s talking more,” Tony adds.

“And she’s better at concentrating and not getting… stuck? I think?” Steve comments.

It’s nice, having them realize that there have been changes, sometimes he’s too close to see any change is happening; sometimes he knows intimately what those changes are.

“Thanks for coming.”

The words are slightly forlorn.

“She’s been looking forward to seeing you all… I have too. I hope you have some fun here, even if it is under.. these circumstances.”

Bruce is first to talk.

“We’re already having fun, Clint, being together, being a team, having parts of us that are more heavy than others, that doesn’t change things. There can still be laughter even if it feels dark.”

“Yeah,” Tony agrees. “I mean look at us.”

“Fossil.”

“Green man.”

“Metal man.”

Clint can’t help but smile.

“Yeah,” he replies.

“I guess we’re all a little fucked, right?”

Tony laughs.

“I’ll drink to that.”

.

She’s still awake as he slithers into bed, breath toothpaste fresh as she curls into him.

“Did they find their way to their beds?” she whispers.

He doesn’t even ask her why she’s still up. He doesn’t have to.

“Yeah,” he laughs, “Tony and Steve aren’t so happy they’re bunking together.”

She smiles in the dark.

“It’s late Nat,” Clint states, the clock reading 3am.

“You’re one to talk.”

“Did they ask about her?”

“Jace?”

“No, but I think Tony has an update for you.”

“Okay, I have one for him too.”

She closes her eyes, breath slow.

“He said he put Liho on a lead.”

Clint laughs.

“How did that go?”

She smiles, eyes still closed imagining Liho hating every moment.

“Apparently not bad.”

The silence doesn’t last long.

“Not tired?”

Natasha takes a deep breath.

“I think it just feels peaceful, and I don’t know what to do with that. I want to live in it whilst it’s here.”

She hears him huff out a breath.

“You can rest now?”

Natasha hugs him close, kissing the bottom of his chin and rests her head on his chest.

“Yeah,” she breathes.

“I can rest.”

.