Fallout Patterns (3/?)
This is an ongoing fic. Typically I don't share anything until it's done. But this one is long and I'm actually not exactly sure where it is going or how long it's going to be. Since it's already seven chapters on AO3, I figured I'd start posting it here too. I'll put it on be_compromised when it's complete just because I'm not sure of all the warnings.
THIS FIC IS TRIGGER HEAVY
Title: Fallout Patterns
Rating: Mature
Warnings:Suicide, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempts, Self Harm, Dubious Consent Sex, POSSIBLE eating disorder allusions, other warnings may apply
Pairing: Clint/Natasha
"Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible loneliness." --Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
Clint’s heart pounded in his chest. He said quietly, “Give me your gun, Natasha.”
“You think this is the only one I have?” she asked him, her eyes wide and desperate. She stepped away from him and tapped her head with the muzzle of her gun. “Does this scare you, Clint?”
“It should scare you,” he replied.
She gave him a suspicious look and asked, her voice low and full of friction, “Should it? Should it? I don’t even know who I was last night.”
He didn’t tell her that she was Natasha because it was possible she was not. He hadn’t asked. It hadn’t occurred to him that it was a problem, that she might not know who she was in bed with him, that she may occasionally lose track of Natasha even in a space as private as their own hotel room. Clint wondered how much he actually knew her. He swallowed his own doubts and his own fears about the role that he played in what went down the previous night. He needed to keep her from doing anything drastic at the moment. Everything was secondary to that objective. Once he established that in his head, he felt like it was a mission and everything crystallized for him.
“You made a choice to live up here two years ago,” he told her quietly. “You’re my partner. I want you to make that again. Whatever comes from this, we can handle.”
“We?” she echoed.
He met her eyes with fierce determination. “Tasha, you are my partner. You’re the only partner I’ve ever liked, much less cared about.”
“They would find you a partner who didn’t want to die. You wouldn’t have to do this every other mission,” she argued, her grip tight around her gun. “You don’t get it, Barton. It’s…I have nothing. I have nothing that keeps me here. I can’t even figure out who I am after missions sometimes and I snapped last night. I could have killed you instead of fucking you.”
He flinched. “You’re right.”
She looked relieved at his words. She nodded. “You should probably go then.”
He shook his head. “No. You’re right. You could have killed me. But you didn’t. So all isn’t lost.”
“It could happen again,” she told him after a moment.
“Or we could work through it,” he replied.
She looked over the trains, and her hand lowered from her head, her gun pointing at the ground. He took a step towards her and she stiffened. He stopped moving. They stood there in a new position, him watching her, her watching the trains. He thought that he could watch her forever. He spent a large part of their time together watching her from a distance, so most of what he knew about her had to do with the way she moved, spoke, the way she seduced people and the way she navigated a city. He knew her long lines, fluidity, her confidence, the sound of a hundred different languages coming off her tongue. But here, two feet from her, he could see the places where her façade was cracked and broken, the way she shifted on her feet, the way one of her fingers ran over the textured grip of her gun like she was feeling her own indecision. He studied the way her jaw was strong and taut and determined, the way her eyes focused and unfocused, changing where they were looking without ever moving. He studied the way her red hair was tousled by the wind, the way she hadn’t pulled it back that day.
She moved so fast that he almost missed it. But he didn’t. He was Clint Barton and he didn’t miss. She drew her gun level with her head, wrist turned towards her own body, and he moved, charging into her, his wrist finding hers and forcing her hand upwards as her fingers curled around the trigger. A shot rang out as they hit the roof. He landed on top of her, tore the gun out of her hands, and threw it across the roof. He pinned her wrists to the roof and straddled her with his full weight, feeling himself rise and fall as she sucked oxygen into her stunned lungs.
She stared up at him, unharmed. She began to shake. “You should have let me die.”
He leaned down, resting his forehead on hers, his breath shaking out of his mouth. He closed his eyes. “Not today, Natasha. Not today.”
It was minutes before she quietly agreed that he could take her back to the hotel. He gripped her hand tightly as they walked past her gun. He stopped, picked it up, and threw it over the roof and into the river. She said nothing as they walked to the main road and caught a cab back to their hotel. She sat with her eyes closed in the car and he did not let go of her hand. He pulled into the room and locked the door behind them. He dutifully collected all of the weapons in the room that he could find and put them in his suitcase with a lock. She sat on the bed and watched him.
“I’m not going to try it again,” she insisted, her eyes dark and unreadable.
“Pardon me if I don’t want to risk it,” he snapped in return. She was silent. He sat on his bed and put his face in his hands. “Let’s get something to eat and then we can talk.”
“Okay,” she agreed, her voice flat. She changed with her back to him and he watched her not under the pretense of seeing her naked but because he wanted to be sure she didn’t have any more weapons, that she didn’t have a knife in her bra that happened to collide with her wrists while she was getting dressed. She moved slowly, like her body hadn’t been prepared to live through going to the warehouse and it was uncertain. She pulled a new sweater over her head, rolled it down her body and pulled her hair out from the collar.
Clint changed then, never letting his eyes leave her, and he took her out to a small cafe around the corner. She refused to order food so he ordered them both soups and coffee. She scowled at him, her fingers dancing across her arm anxiously. She looked around them and he watched her eyes find the exits, the waiters, the streets, the cameras.
When their soups arrived, he waited until the waiter was out of ear shot. “So you going to tell me what happened? I get that you didn’t know who you were.”
“I just…” she began abruptly after a long moment and her voice trailed off. She looked down at her hands. She said in a voice almost too soft for Clint to hear, “They told me I was a dancer. I wasn’t though. I can dance but I wasn’t a dancer. And Raina looked so beautiful and happy and I remember thinking that’s what I felt when I was on stage, but that’s a lie.”
He did not know how he went this long without being able to touch her. He wanted to reach across and hold her hand then, but he didn’t dare touch her. He said quietly, “So knowing you had a false memory made it harder to hold onto yourself.”
“No,” she shook her head, red hair jostling around her lowered face. “I don’t know. It wasn’t that. It was…does this matter?”
“Yes.” Clint gestured to her bowl. “Eat your soup.”
“I don’t want to,” she snapped petulantly.
“Do not doubt my willingness to forcefeed you,” he snapped back.
She glared at him. “I don’t understand why we’re doing this. Just tell Coulson I tried to kill myself and they’ll take me out of the field indefinitely and you’ll get a new partner and I’ll be alive, so you’ll be happy and I’ll be happy.”
He snorted. “Your definition of happiness could use some revising.”
“Like you’re a ray of sunshine all the time,” she shot back.
“At least it’s been a long time since I tried to kill myself,” he hissed angrily.
She paled. “Clint.”
“Eat your fucking soup.”
The fallout goes for miles. Nowhere is safe. Everyone is contaminated. He knew what it looked like when a bomb like Natasha goes off. It looked like soup thrown on the ground in a childlike tantrum and screaming fits where they switched between Russian and English he was dizzy. It looked like coffee spilled on laps, curses in Bulgarian. It looked like her sliding a knife from the café up her sleeve and him angrily pulling it out and putting it back on the table. It looked like her fists pounding his chest while he held her in the street and repeated, angrily and determinedly over and over into her ear, that he didn’t care, it wasn’t her choice, he wasn’t going to let her killed in the fallout of her own mind.
THIS FIC IS TRIGGER HEAVY
Title: Fallout Patterns
Rating: Mature
Warnings:Suicide, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempts, Self Harm, Dubious Consent Sex, POSSIBLE eating disorder allusions, other warnings may apply
Pairing: Clint/Natasha
"Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible loneliness." --Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
Clint’s heart pounded in his chest. He said quietly, “Give me your gun, Natasha.”
“You think this is the only one I have?” she asked him, her eyes wide and desperate. She stepped away from him and tapped her head with the muzzle of her gun. “Does this scare you, Clint?”
“It should scare you,” he replied.
She gave him a suspicious look and asked, her voice low and full of friction, “Should it? Should it? I don’t even know who I was last night.”
He didn’t tell her that she was Natasha because it was possible she was not. He hadn’t asked. It hadn’t occurred to him that it was a problem, that she might not know who she was in bed with him, that she may occasionally lose track of Natasha even in a space as private as their own hotel room. Clint wondered how much he actually knew her. He swallowed his own doubts and his own fears about the role that he played in what went down the previous night. He needed to keep her from doing anything drastic at the moment. Everything was secondary to that objective. Once he established that in his head, he felt like it was a mission and everything crystallized for him.
“You made a choice to live up here two years ago,” he told her quietly. “You’re my partner. I want you to make that again. Whatever comes from this, we can handle.”
“We?” she echoed.
He met her eyes with fierce determination. “Tasha, you are my partner. You’re the only partner I’ve ever liked, much less cared about.”
“They would find you a partner who didn’t want to die. You wouldn’t have to do this every other mission,” she argued, her grip tight around her gun. “You don’t get it, Barton. It’s…I have nothing. I have nothing that keeps me here. I can’t even figure out who I am after missions sometimes and I snapped last night. I could have killed you instead of fucking you.”
He flinched. “You’re right.”
She looked relieved at his words. She nodded. “You should probably go then.”
He shook his head. “No. You’re right. You could have killed me. But you didn’t. So all isn’t lost.”
“It could happen again,” she told him after a moment.
“Or we could work through it,” he replied.
She looked over the trains, and her hand lowered from her head, her gun pointing at the ground. He took a step towards her and she stiffened. He stopped moving. They stood there in a new position, him watching her, her watching the trains. He thought that he could watch her forever. He spent a large part of their time together watching her from a distance, so most of what he knew about her had to do with the way she moved, spoke, the way she seduced people and the way she navigated a city. He knew her long lines, fluidity, her confidence, the sound of a hundred different languages coming off her tongue. But here, two feet from her, he could see the places where her façade was cracked and broken, the way she shifted on her feet, the way one of her fingers ran over the textured grip of her gun like she was feeling her own indecision. He studied the way her jaw was strong and taut and determined, the way her eyes focused and unfocused, changing where they were looking without ever moving. He studied the way her red hair was tousled by the wind, the way she hadn’t pulled it back that day.
She moved so fast that he almost missed it. But he didn’t. He was Clint Barton and he didn’t miss. She drew her gun level with her head, wrist turned towards her own body, and he moved, charging into her, his wrist finding hers and forcing her hand upwards as her fingers curled around the trigger. A shot rang out as they hit the roof. He landed on top of her, tore the gun out of her hands, and threw it across the roof. He pinned her wrists to the roof and straddled her with his full weight, feeling himself rise and fall as she sucked oxygen into her stunned lungs.
She stared up at him, unharmed. She began to shake. “You should have let me die.”
He leaned down, resting his forehead on hers, his breath shaking out of his mouth. He closed his eyes. “Not today, Natasha. Not today.”
It was minutes before she quietly agreed that he could take her back to the hotel. He gripped her hand tightly as they walked past her gun. He stopped, picked it up, and threw it over the roof and into the river. She said nothing as they walked to the main road and caught a cab back to their hotel. She sat with her eyes closed in the car and he did not let go of her hand. He pulled into the room and locked the door behind them. He dutifully collected all of the weapons in the room that he could find and put them in his suitcase with a lock. She sat on the bed and watched him.
“I’m not going to try it again,” she insisted, her eyes dark and unreadable.
“Pardon me if I don’t want to risk it,” he snapped in return. She was silent. He sat on his bed and put his face in his hands. “Let’s get something to eat and then we can talk.”
“Okay,” she agreed, her voice flat. She changed with her back to him and he watched her not under the pretense of seeing her naked but because he wanted to be sure she didn’t have any more weapons, that she didn’t have a knife in her bra that happened to collide with her wrists while she was getting dressed. She moved slowly, like her body hadn’t been prepared to live through going to the warehouse and it was uncertain. She pulled a new sweater over her head, rolled it down her body and pulled her hair out from the collar.
Clint changed then, never letting his eyes leave her, and he took her out to a small cafe around the corner. She refused to order food so he ordered them both soups and coffee. She scowled at him, her fingers dancing across her arm anxiously. She looked around them and he watched her eyes find the exits, the waiters, the streets, the cameras.
When their soups arrived, he waited until the waiter was out of ear shot. “So you going to tell me what happened? I get that you didn’t know who you were.”
“I just…” she began abruptly after a long moment and her voice trailed off. She looked down at her hands. She said in a voice almost too soft for Clint to hear, “They told me I was a dancer. I wasn’t though. I can dance but I wasn’t a dancer. And Raina looked so beautiful and happy and I remember thinking that’s what I felt when I was on stage, but that’s a lie.”
He did not know how he went this long without being able to touch her. He wanted to reach across and hold her hand then, but he didn’t dare touch her. He said quietly, “So knowing you had a false memory made it harder to hold onto yourself.”
“No,” she shook her head, red hair jostling around her lowered face. “I don’t know. It wasn’t that. It was…does this matter?”
“Yes.” Clint gestured to her bowl. “Eat your soup.”
“I don’t want to,” she snapped petulantly.
“Do not doubt my willingness to forcefeed you,” he snapped back.
She glared at him. “I don’t understand why we’re doing this. Just tell Coulson I tried to kill myself and they’ll take me out of the field indefinitely and you’ll get a new partner and I’ll be alive, so you’ll be happy and I’ll be happy.”
He snorted. “Your definition of happiness could use some revising.”
“Like you’re a ray of sunshine all the time,” she shot back.
“At least it’s been a long time since I tried to kill myself,” he hissed angrily.
She paled. “Clint.”
“Eat your fucking soup.”
The fallout goes for miles. Nowhere is safe. Everyone is contaminated. He knew what it looked like when a bomb like Natasha goes off. It looked like soup thrown on the ground in a childlike tantrum and screaming fits where they switched between Russian and English he was dizzy. It looked like coffee spilled on laps, curses in Bulgarian. It looked like her sliding a knife from the café up her sleeve and him angrily pulling it out and putting it back on the table. It looked like her fists pounding his chest while he held her in the street and repeated, angrily and determinedly over and over into her ear, that he didn’t care, it wasn’t her choice, he wasn’t going to let her killed in the fallout of her own mind.