And now and again my battered heart swells.
TITLE: Be Still, My Battered Heart
FANDOM: Avengers Movieverse [MCU]
CHARACTERS: Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Phil Coulson
RATING: Teen [Language, on-screen and off-screen violence, weapons use.]
SUMMARY: Before Budapest -- before anything at all -- there was Prague, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: scribble_myname did this. So did xenokattz. And that is all.
(Okay. There's more than that. Any mistakes in the depiction of military hand signals is my fault and I apologize in advance should they indeed be incorrect. And THAT is all.)
We find ourselves in Prague.
Specifically, a cheap, anonymous hotel room in the Staré Město. In this hotel room, we have one Clint Barton and his L115A3 sniper rifle.
(His bow is in his suitcase. He's pretty much incapable of leaving home without it.)
Across the street is the reason he's here: Natalia Romanova. Or Tasha Romanov. Natalie Rushman. Natasha Romanoff. Intel says it changes with her mood.
He's watching her closely, waiting for the little voice in his earpiece to give the kill order.
She's sitting on the bed of an equally crappy, equally anonymous hotel room, stripped down to her bra, pants, and half-laced boots as she sanitizes a sewing needle with a lighter.
Threading the needle with the skill of practice, she turns her attention to closing up a very thick and very angry gash on her upper arm.
There was a thing with some people at a place, and while Clint thinks using 'you should see the other guy' is lame, when the Black Widow walks away from a pile of dead bodies with only a superficial wound and some bruises to show for it, the turn of phrase fits.
Clint's index finger is curled around the trigger. He's ready to take the shot.
The thing is this.
The Black Widow isn't wincing as she sews herself back together, and he sure as hell didn't see her even flinch at that place where that thing with those guys happened.
(You should see the other guy. You really should.)
She does react once she's tied off the sutures, and looks up only to notice him. It's a deer in a headlights thing, and it's only for a split-second, but it's there. She knows that even she can't move quickly enough if he squeezes the trigger. He watches her breath hitch, her left hand ball, and her right hand reach for the pistol next to her on the bed even though it's useless. Defiant to the last, even through fear.
The kill order comes.
Clint makes his call. He pulls out his earpiece.
And he's going to regret this -- really, really fucking regret this. Fury's going to rip him a new one, and Coulson won't react at all, which is somehow even worse. Clint will probably be decommissioned until further notice, they'll most likely cut off his access to the shooting range (bastards know just how and where to hit him), but he's going to do this anyhow.
He lifts his hands from his rifle and raises them in a gesture of surrender. There's a moment where the Widow looks confused, but he sees her hand grip the pistol tight, and he's got to make a move before she does.
The plan comes quick. The Widow isn't technically military, never mind American military. Still, given who she is, it just might work.
His right arm shoots straight up. Halt. Stop. He then waves it over his face. Cease fire.
She looks at him and frowns. She covers her face with her hands, palms out, right on top of left. I don't understand.
Clint grins in relief. She's recognized the hand signals. He raises his arm, bent at the elbow, his hand a fist. Maintain position. Finally, he shoots his arm straight up once more and moves it in a circular motion above his head, then indicates her hotel room. Assemble. Your location.
She's still frowning, but gives a thumbs up. Message acknowledged. Her arm goes forwards and horizontal, palm inwards, and she draws her arm back towards herself. Come forward.
***
He takes a second before he reaches for the door to her hotel room. No point knocking. She'll be waiting on the other side, and it'd be a sucker's bet to say she won't have him in her crosshairs as soon as he so much as cracks the door open.
He opens it to see her standing there, wearing a form fitting black tank top now.
"You had the shot," she says, gun trained right between his eyes.
"I saw what happened in the--"
"You had the shot. You didn't take it."
The demand why is unspoken, but clear as hell. He raises his hands yet again in the universal gesture of surrender.
"You've got the shot right now. Are you going to take it?"
She lowers the gun, and takes steps backwards towards the bed. "At least not until you tell me what your angle is."
"You're a free-lancer," he says, lowering his hands.
She pulls the magazine out of her pistol, setting it aside on the bedside table before sliding the emptied gun in to a holster at her thigh, and he reads it as reassurance that she doesn't want him dead. Yet.
(There's the knife at her hip and the knife tucked in her boot, probably a derringer palm pistol hidden somewhere on her person too, and that's not even taking in to account the fact that her very body is a weapon, but he appreciates the token action anyhow.)
She crosses her arms. "You can call it what it is, you know."
"I was going to go for something more tactful than 'mercenary', but hey."
"If the shoe fits," she shoots back. "And exactly who, or what, are you?"
"Gainfully employed."
She takes a seat on the bed, watching him carefully. "Are you suggesting I'm not?"
"Your line of work isn't known for being very steady. Or for a decent life expectancy."
"There's always people who will want people killed."
He looks to her arm, where the stitching is actually quite amazing. Neat, even, tight. He catches a glimpse of a few faded scars that suggest similar work.
"Nice sutures."
She shifts a hand to cover it, but the action doesn't hide the dried and drying blood. Clint rolls his eyes.
"For fucks' sake," he mutters, dropping his bag on the floor. He digs out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some gauze bandages, and tosses them to her. "Clean up your arm."
"You carry first aid supplies with you everywhere?" she asks dryly, catching the items. And there's her sense of humour. He'd been waiting for it to rear its head.
"You always carry a needle and thread?"
The Widow smirks. "No. Courtesy sewing kit from the hotel."
"Clean your arm up, and we'll talk a little more."
She rips a section of the bandages and douses it in the hydrogen peroxide. Wiping gently at her arm, the blood is cleared away. The peroxide bubbles across the slash.
Setting the dirtied chunk of bandage aside, she starts wrapping the wound with the rest of the gauze.
"So what is it you want?" she asks, tying off the bandage.
"You've got to know that I and the people I work for know just how good you are. 'One woman army' is the favourite description back home. I kinda like 'goddamn chameleon' myself."
"I'm assuming this story has a point. You want to get to it?"
"You may be good, Widow, but you're not good enough to hold off every single government, group, and person that wants you dead forever. Those guys you took out --"
Her eyes blaze. "-- are none of your concern."
"-- are just the first wave. I was sent to be ahead of them. To take you out. You've got..." he glances at his watch. "Half an hour, max, before they come in hard and heavy. Way more men, way more guns, collateral damage completely acceptable, blah, blah, blah."
She laughs. "You're expecting me to be surprised by this. That's adorable."
"If you figure you're going to make it out of this one on your own, then you're deluded."
"Deluded -- big word coming from you. I'm impressed."
"I never pegged you as suicidal."
"You don't know me."
"I know who's coming for you just as well as you do. They'll find you and they'll kill you. They're from the Red--"
She cuts him off sharply. "And you just happen to be offering an alternative that doesn't involve you putting a bullet in my head."
"Yeah. Yeah I do. I can get you out of here if you want."
She waits, silent and expectant.
Here goes nothing.
"How'd you feel about some steady work? Comes with a pretty sweet benefits package."
She looks at him through narrowed eyes as she pulls on a light jacket. She's listening.
***
Clint stands in the interrogation room behind Natasha.
Across the table, Coulson sits, face unreadable as he looks from Clint to Natasha, Natasha to Clint, and then back again.
Clint may not know the details -- this is SHIELD, but more particularly, this is Coulson, and the distance down the rabbit hole you'd have to go to get to the full truth about him is beyond impossible to travel -- but he knows that the man's background isn't squeaky clean by any stretch of the imagination.
Truth told, Clint's been developing a theory that ugly skeletons in the closet are job requirements for SHIELD.
He's banking on Coulson knowing this.
Stupid really. Of course Coulson does. The only thing left now is to see how this plays out.
"I imagine you understand my predicament right now, Miss --" Coulson starts, voice trailing off in expectation of the phrase's completion. She obliges.
"Natasha Romanoff."
This gets her a nod, as though Coulson had been expecting that exact answer. He probably had.
"You are on SHIELD's watch list, considered a threat to the point where we had gone so far as to send one of our best men to neutralize you."
Coulson's eyes flit to Clint briefly, though remain placid. It's possibly one of the most frustrating things about him. Clint's jaw tightens.
"And now," Coulson continues, "the agent we sent has brought you right to us."
"With the promise of recruitment being accompanied by asylum and the destruction of any previous records," she finishes for him.
"It's what I got when I was brought in," Clint says, figuring it's a reasonable and valuable point, and that seeing this mess is kind of his fault, he should say something.
Coulson nods almost imperceptibly. "It's what we were all given when we joined the Division."
A moment passes where Coulson and the Black Widow (Natasha, Clint reminds himself. Her name's Natasha) look at one another, dead quiet. Clint manages to stay frozen in place, just observing in his attempt to gauge if the conversation is going well or not.
"Are you willing to be part of SHIELD?" Coulson finally asks, and Natasha takes a moment to herself before she answers the question.
"If the protection you can offer is as all encompassing as I understand, then I just might be safe here from the one group that would be able to destroy me. On top of this, from what your agent has said, the work is in my field of expertise but keeps my name off all kinds of lists."
Coulson doesn't even look down at the folder in front of him that reads 'Black Widow' on the side, just nods again, though this time it's a more defined gesture.
"If there's a space, I'll take it." Her eyes betray some mild concern. "I still don't understand why you're so willing to look at me though."
"You would be surprised at the sort of people SHIELD recruits, Miss Romanoff."
Again with the quick glance Clint's way. What the hell? Clint settles for, instead of saying anything, firing a look back at Coulson that's just as accusing...except, of course, with actual facial expressions.
Apparently ignoring this, Coulson keeps speaking with Natasha. "I'll show you to the barracks for now and introduce you to a couple people. We can go forward from there."
The two rise and head to the doorway. Clint blinks a little. That went surprisingly well. He'd expected far more resistance and lot more of Fury yelling. This? This hadn't been half bad.
"And Barton," Coulson calls over his shoulder, deceptively lightly. "Would you mind staying behind? There's some paperwork I'm going to need you to go through."
Clint groans as he sinks into the chair that Natasha had so recently occupied. He can already envision the stack of forms that Coulson is going to spring on him for this. Of course. He should have seen that coming.
He tries to look on the bright side: at least he isn't getting cut off from the shooting range.
-fin-