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🕑 Added 2016-11-12 04:27:05 +0000 UTCFrom there, Natasha’s memory ran in fits and starts. She didn’t remember Clint holding her, comforting her, so much as she remembered the safety of it. It had the lingering feeling of a dream upon waking. She remembered more the moments of separation from him: the evac, the doctors, times in the hospital room when she had to be so quiet and calm and just ask where he was instead of screaming. He’d gone to be debriefed; he didn’t know how much she wanted him there.
But he knew something, which was more than most could claim. He came about after the debrief was finished and sat with her in intensive care, stubbornly seeming to meditate on her recovery, just pure concentrated concern over her that Natasha drank in like the sun after years in the shadows.
She stayed quiet, convalescent, centering herself while he watched over her. She supposed it was sadistic, letting him worry about her, gauging his anguish like it was some kind of test, but no one had ever accused her of being cruel or not being cruel. Just efficient.
This wasn’t efficient. She had a longing that she could resist, but not shake. While the emotion wasn’t overwhelming, the curiosity was. She actually missed being wounded, teetering on the brink of death, simply because it had excused so much. It’d let Clint hold her. It’d let her be held.
Apparently, the furious concentration under her eyelids had become too much for even Clint not to notice. “There she is.”
Natasha took a page from his book: a short, noncommittal burst of communication. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
Natasha didn’t try to move, but cast eyes down to her bandaged torso. “How bad is it?” She already knew—she was good at knowing how far her body had been pushed—but Clint would tell her of any complications, no bullshit.
“I think you’re gonna miss the spring formal,” he informed her gravely.
“And I already picked my dress out,” Natasha pouted. She’d be grounded for months, recuperating, then recertifying herself—God help her, psych evals. This was why she didn’t like getting shot. Even after they took the bullet out, it was still such a big deal with people.
“I’ll be taking a couple of weeks’ vacation time,” Clint said. He shrugged. “Better that than breaking in a new partner. You’re welcome at the apartment, if you can go without sponge baths.”
Natasha smiled to herself. She had her own place, and appreciated the privacy of it. Some wounds she liked to suffer in silence with. But Clint always offered—sometimes she’d taken him up on it to pacify him. Guy seemed to get a kick out of reaching out to her, and since a lot of the time he was banged up worse than she was, she let him have it.
But here he was, with just a scratch, and the offer stood, and she felt herself smile and she felt herself nod. Just while she healed, rested up. The doctors would only release her if she was out of intensive care, so at any point, she could declare herself cured and go back to her own little safehouse.
She wondered if Clint had given it some clever name, like ‘the Widow’s Web’. Probably. She’d ask him, but it would hurt to laugh.
“Okay,” Clint said, trying to act like her agreeing wasn’t some big deal. “I’ll tell Laura to make up the guest room.” It was a walk-in closet neither of them used. Laura had the least shoes of any woman Natasha had ever known. No wonder he’d married her.
“You need to buy that farm already,” Natasha told him.
“Fury needs to give me a raise.”
“I agree to one sleepover at your place and you start believing in miracles…”
***
She felt vulnerable. She felt alone. And the last time she hadn’t had been bleeding out on a battlefield.
She didn’t know what was in her veins anymore. She missed him, she missed knowing that he could take her in her arms and hold her and no matter how bad she felt, that feeling would go away. Fear, pain, regret… she’d thought they were all so big, so omnipresent, but they could be dispelled. She just had to replace them with something.
Every hospital bed at SHIELD had a tablet built into it. No matter what Fury had said to get the budget for them, the main thing they were used for was the Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video links that came up as soon as she turned it on. But Natasha bypassed them, going into SHIELD’s databases, looking up Clint’s files.
She knew most of it, but she looked into his past mission reports anyway, from before they’d been paired. She knew most of that too, from the secretive osmosis of the intelligence community. Everything known, nothing proved. It was mildly enlightening to get the facts, or at least the officially unofficial facts, in black and white.
“Light reading?” Nick Fury asked. For a big black guy in a full leather coat, he could move quietly when he wanted to. “Guess I should’ve renewed some of our magazine subscriptions.”
“They’re not classified,” Natasha replied, leaving unsaid that if they were, and she wanted the databases hacked, Fury wouldn’t know about it the way he knew what she was using her tablet for.
“Still, you’ve never cared who you were partnered with before.”
“I’ve never been partnered before.”
“Yes, you have. For months now. Going on years.”
Clint. “I’ve never been partnered this long before.”
“So you want to get to know him?”
“I know him,” Natasha said quietly, though she wasn’t sure who she was assuring. She did know him… know everything there was to know about him… but like Tolkien’s Hobbits, while that may have taken a single day, after years he could still surprise her. Had surprised her.
She wanted to explain him, an answer for a question she couldn’t ask.
“You want to get to know him, I suggest talking to him.” Nick stood up from the shadowy chair in the corner of the room that the doctors had to put there for dramatic staging like that. He came into the light. “When I hired you, I understood I was getting a war machine. No personal bullshit. You and Clint make a good team. I’d hate for someone to get their hands on a nuke because you two shelved your friendship bracelets.”
“He’s engaged,” Natasha told him.
“He’s a lot of things. So are you. I don’t care about most of them, so much as I care about you stopping being a good agent.” He straightened the lapels of his coat. “Something to learn from the movies. The woman who shows up trying to steal some other woman’s man? She’s usually the bad guy.”
“What about the bald guy with the eyepatch?”
Fury’s good eye widened. “Touché.”
***
Clint’s apartment had been used mainly for showering and sleeping, and holding whatever knick-knacks Clint had collected. Until he’d met Laura, he’d lived for the job as much as Natasha had. Now he was engaged and they were trying to work out a farm to buy—they’d always wanted to live in the country. Clint always being called away on missions had made escrow hard, but he was determined to settle it while he was on vacation.
Natasha should’ve resented that that was all that life had taken from him, when it had barely given anything to her, but she couldn’t. She envied the apartment, even in its disarray, with Laura’s things packed into boxes because they were just going to move again once the farm was settled and her old apartment had had the ceiling fall in. In the chaos, there was a warm pressure that pushed in on Natasha, soothed the ache she was just becoming aware of.
Laura had a huge hug for Clint, but she took mercy on Natasha, with her crutch supporting a limping leg and the continual low abrasion of bandages under loose clothes. She took Natasha’s free hand and clasped it in both of hers, leaning in to kiss Natasha on the cheek, the pressure overwhelming, grinding into Natasha, crushing her a moment, then Laura stepped away with her just-right perfume and the light warmth of her touch and was once more almost that distant image Natasha had once thought of her as, just A Clint Thing, not someone under Natasha’s skin.
“Look at me—I’m like a little girl excited because her best friend gets to stay over,” Laura said, rubbing her arms. “I’ve got goosebumps! There’s a room made up for you, we’ve got the TV if you want to watch something, you can order something off the On Demand…”
“She knows how a TV works, babe,” Clint said gently.
“Of course you do!” Laura’s eyes flicked nervously to Natasha, anxious, but smiling to override it. “Can I get you anything?”
“I just need to sit down,” Natasha said, easing her crutch forward.
Laura gave it a wide berth. “Great! Well, there’s dinner on the stove, which I should get back to, so don’t get too comfortable, you are about to be well-fed!” She started to turn. “I mean, do get comfortable, you don’t have to go to the kitchen right this minute—we don’t have a dining room—I think I smell smoke.”
She fled to the kitchen.
Natasha heaved the crutch forward again. “Please don’t tell me I intimidate her, I don’t think I can manage to be less threatening than this.”
“She’s just nervous about making a good impression.” Clint shadowed her, ready to swoop out and catch her if she slipped. “She likes you a lot—maybe something to do with saving my life a bunch of times—she wants to be your BFF.”
“The job’s hers if she wants it,” Natasha said cavalierly, finally managing to erect herself before the sofa. Transitioning from her rickety standing to a sit seemed suddenly daunting. She had managed it on the car ride over, but she’d had much more energy. The low-level pain, the sweeping transitions between languor and movement—it all sapped her strength, left her weak as a kitten at a moment’s notice.
Clint’s hand gently settled on her shoulder. “Little help?”
Natasha threw her head down, feeling a ridiculous urge to pout, to register some complaint with her wounded fatigue. “Please,” she said instead, keeping all resentment of the situation out of her voice.
Clint’s touch was unerringly gentle, nonsexual, almost businesslike but for the care he took. He steadied her, held her, lowered her slowly down to the couch. And it was all the more intimate for how she let herself be touched and he only touched her that much, his hands firm and steady, warm and soft. She felt the calluses of his bow fingers as they trailed off her flesh, leaving her sitting comfortably.
“You don’t hesitate to call out when you need to get up, even if you think you can handle it,” he told her. Firm but caring. Giving orders because they were in her best interest.
Natasha felt something swell inside her, a muscle clenching after all the exercise it had got in the field, hearing his soft words and being held by him. God, what was she feeding inside herself? What was she letting grow that she responded even this much to him?
“Thank you,” she said as he went to check on Laura, dinner. He half-turned, clearly surprised that she’d bothered to thank him. Of course, it was just a function of their partnership, one more way he watched her back and she watched his. Didn’t need to be said, and excessive politeness didn’t exactly fit her profile. But it felt good to say.
“Welcome,” he nodded, and left her to it.
Natasha hugged the crutch to her chest, the hominess of the space pressing in on her, her curiosity overwhelming and something else.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what this feeling was or if that was just an excuse for more of it.
***
Natasha’s musculature pivoted between stiffness and the loose vagaries of pain pills taken at the recommended dosage—twice what Natasha usually indulged in. But it didn’t feel right to have the jarring shocks of pain that came with unmedicated healing. She sat through dinner, hazy, loopy, and just tried to keep up with the questions Laura asked to draw her into conversation. Short, clipped answers. She wasn’t foggy enough not to notice Clint put his hand on Laura’s, silently urging her to lay off. She wanted to be a part of the conversation, but she didn’t know how. She just ended up listening as attentively as she could while Laura and Clint went back and forth.
Then it was time for bed, at least for her. Clint volunteered to help her to the walk-in closet and its cot, and she acquiesced. She was surprised when Clint brought her to the master bedroom instead.
“Clint,” she said weakly, struggling for linked words with a full stomach and a pilled bloodstream dragging her eyelids down. “It’s your home.”
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he said. “Laura’ll take the cot. It’ll be fine. Good reminder to me to get that farm bought up.” He saw her marshalling to argue the point. “Stretch out, Nat. You’ve earned it.”
He set her down on the bed and there wasn’t much she could do but sit there, clutching her crutch. A few minutes passed; she was ready to relinquish the bed if they asked for it back, because surely Laura wouldn’t go along with this. And Laura came in, but it was only to grab a book of hers.
She looked at Natasha with fond reproach, meant for Clint, not for her. “I’m guessing Clint forgot a few things.”
“I didn’t ask for the bed,” Natasha said defensively. Didn’t ask for his friendship, his care, didn’t ask to be welcomed into their home…
“Do you need any help undressing?” Natasha could see Laura realize how that sounded. “Clint’s come home with more than a few bandages, and I know it’s harder than it looks, getting some things off…”
“Yes,” Natasha said. She was letting pain into her voice, displaying it for Laura, and she didn’t know why. “Please help me? It hurts.”
“Poor dear,” Laura said, and went to her. She knelt down to untie Natasha’s shoes, pull them off her feet. Then her socks. Then she undid the belt on Natasha’s baggy pants, pulled that out of its loops, then the pants down off Natasha’s long legs.
Natasha blushed, being displayed to Laura this way. She’d shown a lot more to people a lot more interested, but this felt blunt. Intimate. Laura stood, and put her hands on the hem of Natasha’s shirt.
“Can you lift your arms for me?”
“I’ll try,” Natasha said, pouting now, still not sure why she was drawing all the possible pain from this and putting it into her words, deluging Laura with it. It was this place, these people, she thought.
Laura reached out to her, brushing a lock of hair back behind Natasha’s ear, stroking her cheek, then Natasha lifted her arms for her and Laura helped her out of her shirt. Natasha wasn’t wearing a bra, and after a moment, she crossed her arms over her breasts. She didn’t mind people looking at her—it was body parts, nothing more—but she found herself wondering at Laura’s reaction to her body too much to want to allow it.
“I have something that should fit you,” Laura said. “It’s nice and loose, you’ll barely feel it.” Her voice lowered to a whisper as she went to the closet to search. “Sometimes, I run it through the dryer, then wear it to bed all warm. When Clint’s on a mission, it’s a little like having him back where he belongs on the other side of the bed.”
Natasha felt a stab of guilt, as if she were intentionally taking Clint away from this woman.
Laura retrieved a sweatshirt in Clint’s size from the closet, the name of his alma mater written across the front. Natasha had enough of a grasp of human psychology to imagine the little cold war that had played out, Laura stealing it from Clint, Clint stealing it back, loving it like men could only love worn things, but letting her have it because he realized she needed it more than he wanted it.
Laura pulled it over Natasha, popping her head through the neckhole in a burst of scattered red hair, then tugging the ends down to Natasha’s thighs, even helping her pull her arms through the sleeves. There was no lingering warmth to it, lying cold in a closet, clean and waiting, but Natasha could smell Clint on it, smell Laura, like Laura had sat in his lap and snuggled under the sweater with him, her lithe body distending the front, her head poking up through the loose neckhole with his. Close and warm and together.
“Here we go, sweetie,” Laura said, dragging Natasha with impressive muscle and impressive care to the head of the bed, laying her down on the pillows, pulling the covers out from under her and then up to her chin. “Is that alright?”
“Uh-huh.” It was the drugs, it was her tiredness. She was sluggish and warm, covered in a soft sweater and softer sheets. Everything was smooth and soft. Her wound was a distant star in a far-off galaxy, the light barely reaching her. And Laura was the sun.
Laura lingered over her, stroking Natasha’s hair again, her fingers on Natasha’s cheek and her lips, cajoling Natasha to be comfortable in this unfamiliar bed.
“Get a good night’s sleep, alright? Your phone’s on the nightstand, if you need anything just call Clint or me. Promise you will?”
“Yes,” Natasha said, as if she’d never defied interrogations that had sent pain blazing through her every pore.
“Good girl,” Laura said. “I’m gonna fix you a real big breakfast, so make sure you go to sleep right away. No playing on your phone; I want you up bright and early to get breakfast while it’s warm, mmm?”
Natasha nodded faithfully to her question. “Yes,” she said again. It felt so good to say yes to her. Yes to this person who only wanted to take care of her. The only person she’d ever met who cared more about her than some mission. No wonder Clint was in love with her.
“Laura?” she asked, her voice younger than ever, softer than she could even recognize.
“Yes?” Laura replied, sweeter than anyone had ever spoken to Natasha. Even the people trying to seduce her would want something from her.
“When was the last time you felt safe? Really safe, like there’s nothing in the world that could hurt you. Nothing in all the world…” She didn’t usually repeat herself, but Laura had to understand what she meant. Even in the most secure safehouse, you still knew there were people somewhere who wanted you dead. This was the kind of safe when you didn’t know there was such a thing as death, a narcotic level of thought that Natasha hadn’t known existed until…
“When Clint’s here, I always feel safe.”
“He makes me feel safe too. But, not the kind of safe I mean. The safe that… lets you sleep as a baby?” It made her feel like she was back in the Red Room, struggling against languages, not having the right word to say how she felt.
Laura sat down on the bed. Natasha’s heart raced. She didn’t understand, but she felt safer—like she wished Laura would stay there forever like a sentinel, and also not safe. Very, very unsafe, a dog growling at her and Natasha wishing it would just lunge so the tension would be over. A little part of her wanted to be devoured.
“I think I know what you mean,” Laura said. “Being with Clint, I know he can take care of me, how he wants to take care of me… but I also know all the things—shit, just some of the things that want to hurt us. And when he’s gone, I worry for him so much more than for myself. I guess it’s one of those lost innocence things. I wouldn’t go back to not knowing Clint for all the world, but back before I knew him—hell, back before 9/11—I remember being a little girl and all I had to do was feel safe was run to my daddy and put out my arms. He’d pick me up and hold me and I’d think about how nothing could get to me, all the way up there, with those big arms around me like a wall.”
Laura rubbed at her eyes. She was crying a little, and Natasha hated herself for that, even as she hung on every word that Laura bled.
“He’s gone now,” Laura said, her voice slightly stiff, like it didn’t want to be used. “You can’t ever go back to not knowing how the world works. But at least I know there are a lot of people like him in the world, good people… people like you.”
Natasha bit her lip, thinking there was no way she could possibly give Laura the comfort she’d described. She could never be that safe.
“Would you go back to feeling that way? If you could?”
Laura wiped her eyes. “Maybe for a little while. A night or two. But I want to go forward too. Clint and I, we both want kids. He thinks I’ll make a good mom. I know he’ll make a good dad.” She smiled at Natasha. “Maybe you should get used to being Aunt Nat.”
***
In the night, Natasha wondered whether she would hear them making love, if she strained her ears hard enough. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear or not.
***
A creaking door jarred her sixth sense. It spoke to how comfortable she was and how safe she felt that it took the comparatively loud sound to wake her: not the feet shuffling at the door, the knob turning, the disturbance in the air patterns that came with a warm body on the other side of the door. Still, she woke, and her training wouldn’t let her slip back under without ascertaining who it was, even though she knew who it was, who it had to be.
She opened her eyes, and striding out of slumber and into wakefulness caused a dozen different aches and pains to bloom, rallying on the edge of her consciousness and rushing her as she stirred from barely moving insensateness.
“You awake there, sleeping beauty?” Clint called, knowing she was, able to register the keen awareness of her psyche through some charge in the air. Then he noticed her pain and was quick to drop his good humor, moving to the nightstand and popping the cap on her pill bottle.
He went to the bathroom, filling a glass of water from the sink, and brought it back. He gave her the pills, then tilted the glass to her lips. Natasha could not even protest over him holding the cup for her.
“That’s it,” Clint said, as she steadily swallowed, not too fast and not too slow, but precisely the rate of the level glass he had at her lips. “That’s it… nice and easy…”
“More,” Natasha said after she’d drained the glass. “Please, more…”
Clint went back to the bathroom, filled the glass again, and when he came back, Natasha was conscious enough to hold the glass herself, drain it again. He took it from her before she could try to set it down on the nightstand, her coordination still off.
“Time is it?” Natasha muttered, feeling far groggier than she should’ve. The windows were bright with daylight, and she’d gone to sleep quickly enough, she should’ve been well-rested.
“11 AM,” Clint told her. “Laura went and made breakfast anyway. She doesn’t know how much you like sleeping in.”
Natasha closed her eyes, trying to push the pain down, center herself until the pills did their work. She was too sluggish to be sharp and too pained to be clear-headed… the worst of both worlds.
Clint smiled at her, reassuring, but his words were almost brusque except for the concern in his voice. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
Natasha had a nightmare vision of him helping her out of bed, carrying her to the toilet, sitting her down and waiting outside while she tinkled. She also knew that the only reason she didn’t agree was that she didn’t need to go. “Uh-uh.”
“You hungry?”
She nodded.
“Think you can make it to the kitchen?”
Natasha almost sniffled before she shook her head. The pain was still too present, pressing down on her like weights. The yards to the kitchen seemed insurmountable. Even if he supported her, the simple shift of her weight to and fro would be unbearable. She needed to stay here, in bed, where it was safe from the pain.
“Okay then,” Clint said, incredibly little judgment in her voice, like she hadn’t been the best agent he’d ever seen before this. “I’m gonna go warm up some food and bring it in for you, alright? Breakfast in bed for the Russian princess. Think you can keep down about a plate?”
Natasha started to nod before it occurred to her that using her voice was more mature. “Yes,” she said, sounding almost herself to herself.
“Alrighty. Be right back. Don’t try to move.”
Natasha laid there, wishing he’d come back. She wondered how many times he’d checked in on her while she was still too asleep, too tired, to notice. She wondered if Laura had checked in on her as well. She wondered why the pain was so much easier to bear when one of them was there, tending to her, almost mothering her—with her own entreaties playing into it, begging them to coo over her injuries and coddle her still more.
She imagined Laura lying in bed with Clint, wrapped in him like she was in his stupid sweater, and wondered if either of them knew how lucky they were.
True to his word, Clint returned in a few minutes, bearing a tray like the one the hospital had used. She wondered if they’d bought it just for her or if Clint had used it while recovering from various injuries.
He set the tray down over her, careful not to spill anything atop it. There was a glass of water, utensils, and a single plate of eggs, bacon, and toast. They smelled delicious despite the secondhand heat of the microwave.
“Thank you,” Natasha said, and took hold of her fork and knife in numb hands. Despite her wayward coordination, she was able to summon up enough fortitude to eat, at least, though Clint was there to step in. When she reached for the water, he took hold of it for her and held it to her mouth, helping her drink. She wondered if she should feel embarrassed by the excessive attention. He could’ve just brought her a straw…
“Nat,” he said, stealing a snip of her bacon. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“I don’t have anything better to do.”
Clint reached for another piece of bacon, and though Natasha made no move to stop him, he pulled his hand back and kneaded both together in his lap. “When you were shot, you kept saying a word, a single word, over and over again. Бата…”
“Батя,” Natasha corrected.
“Yeah, that,” Clint said. “I was just wondering what it meant.”
Natasha was silent. She indicated the water. Clint helped her drink until it was gone.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. The reason I didn’t look it up was, well, I figured whether you want me to know—“
She hated him thinking she didn’t trust him. “It means ‘papa,’” Natasha said. “I was calling out for my papa.”
Clint smiled ruefully. “I figured as much. People say all kinds of stuff when adrenaline collides with shock. I was just curious, I suppose.”
“Can I have some more water?” Natasha asked.
“Sure. Anything you like.”
Clint took the glass with him and thankfully went to get water from the Britta in the refrigerator, not the tap.
It was when he was gone that Natasha let the feelings play over her face. Her lips tremble, her eyes squeeze shut, as she remembered a little more of how she had felt that rainy night and let it bury itself in her consciousness as she forced her mind away from it, into the taste of the bacon and the texture of the toast.
She didn’t even remember her father. But she found herself wishing that if she had been raised by him, he would’ve been very much like Clint Barton.
