Avengers (2012): "Heavy in Your Arms" (2/15) (Clint/Natasha)
Title: Heavy in Your Arms (2/15)
Author/Artist: Koren M. (cybermathwitch)
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, there'd already be a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie. But Marvel has owned my loyalty since I was about 3, so...
Pairing: Clint/Natasha, Coulson/The Cellist
Rating: Adult 17+
Warnings: language, violence, eventually sexual content, dub-con only if you feel that mystical/destiny sorts of compulsions qualify as dubious consent
Spoilers: None
Type: WIP
Word Count: 3,143
Summary:
"You don't have an actual plan, do you?"
"I'm pretty much at the 'keeping you alive' stage of things right now. That's as far as I've gotten."
Author's Notes: See Chapter 1 for more notes.
Thanks, as always to my lovely, lovely betas, kadollan, and SidheRa!
I already had most of this chapter written, so this update was pretty quick. I will warn you now, I'm working on some last minute prompt fills, so the next update probably won't be until sometime this weekend. :) Thank you so, SO much to everyone who's left me such wonderful feedback! I'm absolutely giddy over it! :D
Previous Chapter
She wasn't sure how long she'd been in the cell - hours maybe. The pain had receded so she'd let herself drift into a semi-sleep to recharge. It wouldn't be enough to sustain her for long but it helped as she came down from the adrenaline and evened out. When she woke up she was disgusted to find herself rubbing her hand back and forth over her forearm where he'd held onto her on the rooftop. She was still pissed at herself for not shooting him when she'd had the chance.
Then the buzzing, wanting, aching in her body had returned.
If she didn't know better, she'd think someone was concocting some kind of elaborate con to get information out of her. It might be possible, she allowed, that they actually were but as time drew on and no one even came to question her, she doubted it.
She knew about things like soul bonds. She had more information than most people did about them, because it was a powerful way to manipulate someone. If you could get them to believe in the possibility of something like that, you could use it as leverage against them to gather information. People generally wanted to believe in it enough that convincing them they were feeling things they weren't was laughably easy. She hadn't ever thought too long or hard about whether or not it could happen for real because it hadn't mattered to her. Even if it were true, she'd reasoned, she didn't have a soul in the first place, so she was safe.
She didn't want it. She did not want to be tied to someone else and have her very survival depend on them. She was a force unto herself, an assassin, a spy, and that was all. Period.
So why did she want so desperately to see him again?
*****
The hallway felt endless, but he hoped it would never end. Clint felt the weight and pull of the gun in his hand. It was cold and heavy and was familiar but at the same time it was wrong.
"No." He pulled up short, stopping in the middle of the corridor. The two agents flanking him reached for their own weapons and he held up his free hand. "No - I can't do it like this. Phil," he turned his head and looked back at the man he'd once considered to be his friend. "Get me my bow. If I have to - it's better that way."
Coulson nodded, gestured at the other agents to stand down, and turned and headed back the way they'd come without a second glance.
It didn't take him long to return with the bow and quiver. Clint swapped with him and didn't miss the subtle relief on the others' faces when he no longer had a loaded gun in his hand. Idiots he thought to himself, that they hadn't learned by now the older weapon was just as deadly, just as quickly.
It was thirty more feet to her cell. He could tell where she was, knew without asking which door she was behind.
He also knew, because he knew the ship inside and out, exactly where the access panels were on this level. Maybe he ought to have kept the gun, but he could stall just a little longer with the bow, particularly if she made some gesture or comment about his choice of weapons. He could brag a bit, grandstand for her and that would buy him some more time. As plans went it wasn't the most well thought out, but it was what he had to work with.
They were giving him a wide berth and he wondered if they were afraid of her or of what they thought they were about to witness. It was the stuff of horror stories after all. That would work to his advantage, too.
The door swung open and the first thing he did was look at her. A calm, warm, settled feeling stole over him as he let his eyes follow the curves of her face, her hair, then down over her shoulder to the line of her arm crossed protectively over her midsection in a gesture designed to make her appear weak and helpless. Anywhere else it would probably also be hiding a knife or other weapon in her hand until the last possible and most deadly moment. SHIELD wouldn't have left her with anything to use as a weapon but it was still a good psychological effect if you didn't recognize it as such.
Her eyes immediately found the bow and arrow in his grip and he raised it so the sharp tip was trained directly on her throat.
"You couldn't kill me before, so you're going to do it now?"
"I've been given orders. They think you've compromised me, so in order to prove my loyalty they want me to kill you and remove the threat."
"Do you think you'll survive that experience?"
"I know I won't survive the alternative. SHIELD doesn't take kindly to traitors." This was going even better than he'd hoped. The longer they talked, the more anxious the agents behind him were getting. He couldn't tell how Coulson was reacting from here, but he... had hope.
"If you're going to go ahead, then do it. I certainly would prefer death now to the alternative."
That brought him up short. "Which alternative would that be? Right now, in all of these scenarios, you die."
"I meant to being caught in this," she gave up the pretense of injury and gestured between them, "whatever this is. Of being bound to someone and dependent on them. Death would be preferable."
"What, I'm not pretty enough for you?"
She almost smiled, he could see it hinting at the corners of her mouth.
"Hardly. This kind of connection would be a weakness, and I don't do weakness."
"That's not what the stories say. They talk about how two are stronger together than apart and all that bullshit."
"It's just that. Bullshit, as you put it. Having someone else makes you a larger target and gives your enemies more ways to hurt you. And having someone you can't live without? That's the greatest liability of all. I don't do liabilities, either."
"Me either, as a rule."
"I'm waiting."
He sunk into the feel of the bow, the tension of the string, the brush of the fletching against his cheek as he drew back. The tip stayed in his line of sight right over her throat until the very last fraction of second, and just as he was losing the arrow, he pulled the shot to the left. It sailed cleanly through the air and sliced a shallow cut across her cheek and slipped through her hair. There was a thunk as it encountered the wall behind her.
*****
Her eyes went wide but her lips were pressed into a thin, silent line. A throat shot would've been soundless. She wasn't sure what he was up to, but she knew there were others outside that she couldn't see and she didn't think they were at an angle to see her, either.
The next parts happened in rapid succession. He pivoted, pulling another arrow from his quiver in a move so fast it was blurred. It found it's target in the hall and there was shouting and coughing and she wondered just what that particular arrow had done.
"Cover your mouth and nose with something," he called back over his shoulder even as he was diving to the ground and bullets winged off the corridor walls nearby. She quickly tore off a strip of material from the hem of her shirt. He was gesturing sharply at her to follow him and she scrambled to her feet.
Fabric pressed tightly to her face, she ran behind him until they reached the end and he stopped in front of a panel about four feet square. He been covering his own mouth and had tears running down his cheeks from the chemicals, but he reached out and lifted off the panel, then waved her inside. "Ventilation and maintenance access. We're about four floors directly below the hangar deck."
So they were making a break for it, then. She could certainly work with that. Once she was inside and he'd climbed in after her, she turned to him before starting to climb. "Do you have a back-up weapon?"
"What? Yeah. Here." He tugged a small handgun out of a a holster near his boot and handed it to her.
"Thank you." It felt much better to have a ranged weapon of her own. She tucked it into the back waistband of the pants they'd given her when she'd come on board.
"Do you know how to swim?"
The look she shot him had annihilated lesser men. "Of course I know how to swim."
"Right. Well, how far can you swim, in the condition you're in right now?"
"How far will you need me to? Several miles, at least."
His eyebrows arched appreciatively. "Nice. We're probably about two miles out to sea."
"That's doable."
The ventilation shaft terminated along the hull and it only took about 30 seconds for Clint to disassemble the access panel so they could both fit through. Cool night air came streaming in and she looked out, then down at the dark water below them. Far, far below them - they were sitting about three stories up.
"Once we jump, head straight for shore. We'll regroup and see how we stand."
"You don't have an actual plan, do you?"
He caught her gaze with his own and she realized she'd been avoiding direct eye contact with him. She didn't like the feeling that someone was seeing straight through her.
"I'm pretty much at the 'keeping you alive' stage of things right now. That's as far as I've gotten."
The words were flippant, but the tone and the look on his face were decidedly not.
"How long did you follow me before trying to kill me?" she wondered aloud.
"A while. How long did you know I was there?"
"Not quite that long," she admitted, feeling decidedly uncomfortable with the thought.
Metal clanging echoed through the tunnels and she shook herself back into the immediate present. Another quick glance down at the water, and this time when she looked up, he was holding out his hand.
Taking a series of progressively deeper breaths she laced her fingers through his before she could stop herself and actually shuddered at the warmth that swept over her from the contact. Her hand tightened on his involuntarily, and then they were both flying, falling towards the water below. The metaphor was not lost on her.
*****
Their hands slipped apart as the icy cold water of the Atlantic closed over their heads. He knew he had to trust that she was beside him, there was no visibility under the water in the dark and he started powering towards the shore.
It was only a matter of time before SHIELD realized they were off the carrier and sent out helicopters and quinjets to try to scan the water for them. There was a narrow window of coastline where they could crawl out and they'd swarm those locations, too. Speed was their only defense. He just hoped she could keep up. He had no idea how much the Red Room had or hadn't pushed a skill like swimming, but she'd seemed confident enough of her abilities.
Time was as fluid as the ocean - he had no idea how long they swam, but eventually, they reached a point that he could look ahead and see the coast, along with the shadows of people moving rapidly up and down the beach searching for them. He stopped, treading water and shivering and suddenly felt her along the line of his back.
"Now what?" she asked, sounding as out of breath as he was.
"We go sideways and hope we can find some area they haven't gotten to. It's not the best plan, but I can't think of another one, can you?"
She was silent for several long minutes, then, "maybe I can. Look to your right."
He turned his head and narrowed his eyes, forcing the barely discernible gray tones to become identifiable shapes. Boats. Houseboats, by the look of them.
"Think you can make it that far?" she asked.
"Yeah. You?"
"Of course." She looked so affronted he had to smile despite how cold he was.
"Third one from the end looks deserted, lets try it first. With any luck, we can hide aboard until SHIELD is done with this stretch."
******
The boat was empty, and they managed to haul themselves out of the water despite being numb and shaky from the cold. Natasha made sure to keep any contact between them as brief and cursory as possible, grabbing at clothing rather than skin when she could. She kept noticing his hands shifting, like he would start to reach out to her, then change his mind and shift away again.
If anyone used the boat, it wasn't often. There wasn't any food on board, and scant possessions beyond basics like some dishes in the galley and the equipment necessary to run the ship itself. If silence hadn't been imperative she might've cried with joy when she uncovered a stash of blankets in a cabinet. They were coarse and utilitarian but that would still serve her purposes. Any kind of fire or power would alert the SHIELD agents, but they still needed to get warm.
"I found blankets," she announced in little more than a whisper when he entered the room.
"Good. There's crawl space in between the two levels of the ship."
"What are you thinking?"
"It'll be a tight fit, but if we hide down there and make sure to pack the area around us with boxes, they hopefully won't find us. If they do find us, we'll have a better chance of making it out since they'll be restricted to one at a time. I'm hoping they'll assume we drowned, but I wouldn't count on it."
She considered his plan, found it mostly acceptable. She didn't like the idea of being in such close quarters with him for so long (not with the steady hum of the bond trying to pull them together), but it was far preferable to either going back into the icy water or being found and killed by SHIELD. She was nothing if not practical, after all.
There was also the consideration that it would be far warmer with two bodies generating heat in a closed, insulated space and she had no interest in frostbite.
"Just make sure to keep your hands to yourself."
*****
It was a long time before they heard the ringing sound of booted feet on the deck above them. They were huddled at the end of the crawl space with as many boxes and items as they could find wedged in with them to leave the least amount of visible room possible. They'd crawled in, padded the space with blankets to muffle any stray noise, and then brought down the rest of the items to fill in the remaining space under the hatch. If the searchers decided to take the whole place apart they'd be found, but if there was some kind of miracle they wouldn't go that far, wouldn't think two people could empty and repack an entire crawlspace after a three mile, cold ocean swim.
She honestly wasn't sure how they'd managed it herself, other than sheer will and desperation.
It was warm in their little space, but very, very crowded. Two full grown people could fit side by side only if they were pressed together, and by necessity he'd looped an arm around her waist and her head was tucked under his chin. She had the guns, because she was in front and this angle gave her just a little bit wider range of motion should they need it. He was unarmed and relying on her to keep them both alive. She couldn't decide if he was being practical or stupid.
The last few hours had been a subtle kind of torture, being so close to him. It was distracting, for one thing. Half her brain seemed to focus on nothing but him - where he was, what he was doing, whether or not she could reach out and touch him - the other half was scrambling to try and think of ways out of this mess, as well as keeping her traitorous hands in check, because she did want to reach out and it was making her angry. She didn't want people, didn't need them - she was perfectly content on her own. Other people were likely to get you killed, and this situation wasn't changing her opinions on that front.
As people moved above them, the hand not around her waist crept up until he was covering her mouth and nose lightly and she could feel that he was burying his face in her hair to muffle the sounds of his own breathing. The footsteps came closer until they were right over their heads. She felt his heart rate speed up against her back and his fingers tighten against her jaw. The metal of the hatch screeched as it was opened and she lined up the gun in her right hand with where she knew the opening to be. Something tapped the boxes. Low voices spoke but they were too muffled to make out full words.
She could hear the shifting of cardboard against cardboard and imagined they were pulling out some of the things to see what was behind them. Which of course would be more boxes, because they were wedged several layers thick.
Time stood still except for their breath and heart beats. Maybe those stopped too, just for a moment.
Then there was another sharp clang as whoever it was dropped the hatch back down, and voices raised to a normal pitch called out orders and the boots moved away, back up to the deck and out of the danger zone. Tension seeped slowly out of her arms as she lowered them and sagged just slightly back against him.
Clint's hand lowered from her mouth even as the arm around her waist tightened and she felt him press his face more firmly against her neck through her hair. She almost thought she felt the ghost of his lips against her skin, just for a second.
They both knew better than to say anything out loud, and realized they need to stay hidden for another few hours to be safe. But it seemed like the immediate danger - the immediate external danger, Natasha corrected herself, had passed.
Interlude 1: Bleed Out
Chapter 3
Author/Artist: Koren M. (cybermathwitch)
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, there'd already be a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie. But Marvel has owned my loyalty since I was about 3, so...
Pairing: Clint/Natasha, Coulson/The Cellist
Rating: Adult 17+
Warnings: language, violence, eventually sexual content, dub-con only if you feel that mystical/destiny sorts of compulsions qualify as dubious consent
Spoilers: None
Type: WIP
Word Count: 3,143
Summary:
"You don't have an actual plan, do you?"
"I'm pretty much at the 'keeping you alive' stage of things right now. That's as far as I've gotten."
Author's Notes: See Chapter 1 for more notes.
Thanks, as always to my lovely, lovely betas, kadollan, and SidheRa!
I already had most of this chapter written, so this update was pretty quick. I will warn you now, I'm working on some last minute prompt fills, so the next update probably won't be until sometime this weekend. :) Thank you so, SO much to everyone who's left me such wonderful feedback! I'm absolutely giddy over it! :D
Previous Chapter
She wasn't sure how long she'd been in the cell - hours maybe. The pain had receded so she'd let herself drift into a semi-sleep to recharge. It wouldn't be enough to sustain her for long but it helped as she came down from the adrenaline and evened out. When she woke up she was disgusted to find herself rubbing her hand back and forth over her forearm where he'd held onto her on the rooftop. She was still pissed at herself for not shooting him when she'd had the chance.
Then the buzzing, wanting, aching in her body had returned.
If she didn't know better, she'd think someone was concocting some kind of elaborate con to get information out of her. It might be possible, she allowed, that they actually were but as time drew on and no one even came to question her, she doubted it.
She knew about things like soul bonds. She had more information than most people did about them, because it was a powerful way to manipulate someone. If you could get them to believe in the possibility of something like that, you could use it as leverage against them to gather information. People generally wanted to believe in it enough that convincing them they were feeling things they weren't was laughably easy. She hadn't ever thought too long or hard about whether or not it could happen for real because it hadn't mattered to her. Even if it were true, she'd reasoned, she didn't have a soul in the first place, so she was safe.
She didn't want it. She did not want to be tied to someone else and have her very survival depend on them. She was a force unto herself, an assassin, a spy, and that was all. Period.
So why did she want so desperately to see him again?
*****
The hallway felt endless, but he hoped it would never end. Clint felt the weight and pull of the gun in his hand. It was cold and heavy and was familiar but at the same time it was wrong.
"No." He pulled up short, stopping in the middle of the corridor. The two agents flanking him reached for their own weapons and he held up his free hand. "No - I can't do it like this. Phil," he turned his head and looked back at the man he'd once considered to be his friend. "Get me my bow. If I have to - it's better that way."
Coulson nodded, gestured at the other agents to stand down, and turned and headed back the way they'd come without a second glance.
It didn't take him long to return with the bow and quiver. Clint swapped with him and didn't miss the subtle relief on the others' faces when he no longer had a loaded gun in his hand. Idiots he thought to himself, that they hadn't learned by now the older weapon was just as deadly, just as quickly.
It was thirty more feet to her cell. He could tell where she was, knew without asking which door she was behind.
He also knew, because he knew the ship inside and out, exactly where the access panels were on this level. Maybe he ought to have kept the gun, but he could stall just a little longer with the bow, particularly if she made some gesture or comment about his choice of weapons. He could brag a bit, grandstand for her and that would buy him some more time. As plans went it wasn't the most well thought out, but it was what he had to work with.
They were giving him a wide berth and he wondered if they were afraid of her or of what they thought they were about to witness. It was the stuff of horror stories after all. That would work to his advantage, too.
The door swung open and the first thing he did was look at her. A calm, warm, settled feeling stole over him as he let his eyes follow the curves of her face, her hair, then down over her shoulder to the line of her arm crossed protectively over her midsection in a gesture designed to make her appear weak and helpless. Anywhere else it would probably also be hiding a knife or other weapon in her hand until the last possible and most deadly moment. SHIELD wouldn't have left her with anything to use as a weapon but it was still a good psychological effect if you didn't recognize it as such.
Her eyes immediately found the bow and arrow in his grip and he raised it so the sharp tip was trained directly on her throat.
"You couldn't kill me before, so you're going to do it now?"
"I've been given orders. They think you've compromised me, so in order to prove my loyalty they want me to kill you and remove the threat."
"Do you think you'll survive that experience?"
"I know I won't survive the alternative. SHIELD doesn't take kindly to traitors." This was going even better than he'd hoped. The longer they talked, the more anxious the agents behind him were getting. He couldn't tell how Coulson was reacting from here, but he... had hope.
"If you're going to go ahead, then do it. I certainly would prefer death now to the alternative."
That brought him up short. "Which alternative would that be? Right now, in all of these scenarios, you die."
"I meant to being caught in this," she gave up the pretense of injury and gestured between them, "whatever this is. Of being bound to someone and dependent on them. Death would be preferable."
"What, I'm not pretty enough for you?"
She almost smiled, he could see it hinting at the corners of her mouth.
"Hardly. This kind of connection would be a weakness, and I don't do weakness."
"That's not what the stories say. They talk about how two are stronger together than apart and all that bullshit."
"It's just that. Bullshit, as you put it. Having someone else makes you a larger target and gives your enemies more ways to hurt you. And having someone you can't live without? That's the greatest liability of all. I don't do liabilities, either."
"Me either, as a rule."
"I'm waiting."
He sunk into the feel of the bow, the tension of the string, the brush of the fletching against his cheek as he drew back. The tip stayed in his line of sight right over her throat until the very last fraction of second, and just as he was losing the arrow, he pulled the shot to the left. It sailed cleanly through the air and sliced a shallow cut across her cheek and slipped through her hair. There was a thunk as it encountered the wall behind her.
*****
Her eyes went wide but her lips were pressed into a thin, silent line. A throat shot would've been soundless. She wasn't sure what he was up to, but she knew there were others outside that she couldn't see and she didn't think they were at an angle to see her, either.
The next parts happened in rapid succession. He pivoted, pulling another arrow from his quiver in a move so fast it was blurred. It found it's target in the hall and there was shouting and coughing and she wondered just what that particular arrow had done.
"Cover your mouth and nose with something," he called back over his shoulder even as he was diving to the ground and bullets winged off the corridor walls nearby. She quickly tore off a strip of material from the hem of her shirt. He was gesturing sharply at her to follow him and she scrambled to her feet.
Fabric pressed tightly to her face, she ran behind him until they reached the end and he stopped in front of a panel about four feet square. He been covering his own mouth and had tears running down his cheeks from the chemicals, but he reached out and lifted off the panel, then waved her inside. "Ventilation and maintenance access. We're about four floors directly below the hangar deck."
So they were making a break for it, then. She could certainly work with that. Once she was inside and he'd climbed in after her, she turned to him before starting to climb. "Do you have a back-up weapon?"
"What? Yeah. Here." He tugged a small handgun out of a a holster near his boot and handed it to her.
"Thank you." It felt much better to have a ranged weapon of her own. She tucked it into the back waistband of the pants they'd given her when she'd come on board.
"Do you know how to swim?"
The look she shot him had annihilated lesser men. "Of course I know how to swim."
"Right. Well, how far can you swim, in the condition you're in right now?"
"How far will you need me to? Several miles, at least."
His eyebrows arched appreciatively. "Nice. We're probably about two miles out to sea."
"That's doable."
The ventilation shaft terminated along the hull and it only took about 30 seconds for Clint to disassemble the access panel so they could both fit through. Cool night air came streaming in and she looked out, then down at the dark water below them. Far, far below them - they were sitting about three stories up.
"Once we jump, head straight for shore. We'll regroup and see how we stand."
"You don't have an actual plan, do you?"
He caught her gaze with his own and she realized she'd been avoiding direct eye contact with him. She didn't like the feeling that someone was seeing straight through her.
"I'm pretty much at the 'keeping you alive' stage of things right now. That's as far as I've gotten."
The words were flippant, but the tone and the look on his face were decidedly not.
"How long did you follow me before trying to kill me?" she wondered aloud.
"A while. How long did you know I was there?"
"Not quite that long," she admitted, feeling decidedly uncomfortable with the thought.
Metal clanging echoed through the tunnels and she shook herself back into the immediate present. Another quick glance down at the water, and this time when she looked up, he was holding out his hand.
Taking a series of progressively deeper breaths she laced her fingers through his before she could stop herself and actually shuddered at the warmth that swept over her from the contact. Her hand tightened on his involuntarily, and then they were both flying, falling towards the water below. The metaphor was not lost on her.
*****
Their hands slipped apart as the icy cold water of the Atlantic closed over their heads. He knew he had to trust that she was beside him, there was no visibility under the water in the dark and he started powering towards the shore.
It was only a matter of time before SHIELD realized they were off the carrier and sent out helicopters and quinjets to try to scan the water for them. There was a narrow window of coastline where they could crawl out and they'd swarm those locations, too. Speed was their only defense. He just hoped she could keep up. He had no idea how much the Red Room had or hadn't pushed a skill like swimming, but she'd seemed confident enough of her abilities.
Time was as fluid as the ocean - he had no idea how long they swam, but eventually, they reached a point that he could look ahead and see the coast, along with the shadows of people moving rapidly up and down the beach searching for them. He stopped, treading water and shivering and suddenly felt her along the line of his back.
"Now what?" she asked, sounding as out of breath as he was.
"We go sideways and hope we can find some area they haven't gotten to. It's not the best plan, but I can't think of another one, can you?"
She was silent for several long minutes, then, "maybe I can. Look to your right."
He turned his head and narrowed his eyes, forcing the barely discernible gray tones to become identifiable shapes. Boats. Houseboats, by the look of them.
"Think you can make it that far?" she asked.
"Yeah. You?"
"Of course." She looked so affronted he had to smile despite how cold he was.
"Third one from the end looks deserted, lets try it first. With any luck, we can hide aboard until SHIELD is done with this stretch."
******
The boat was empty, and they managed to haul themselves out of the water despite being numb and shaky from the cold. Natasha made sure to keep any contact between them as brief and cursory as possible, grabbing at clothing rather than skin when she could. She kept noticing his hands shifting, like he would start to reach out to her, then change his mind and shift away again.
If anyone used the boat, it wasn't often. There wasn't any food on board, and scant possessions beyond basics like some dishes in the galley and the equipment necessary to run the ship itself. If silence hadn't been imperative she might've cried with joy when she uncovered a stash of blankets in a cabinet. They were coarse and utilitarian but that would still serve her purposes. Any kind of fire or power would alert the SHIELD agents, but they still needed to get warm.
"I found blankets," she announced in little more than a whisper when he entered the room.
"Good. There's crawl space in between the two levels of the ship."
"What are you thinking?"
"It'll be a tight fit, but if we hide down there and make sure to pack the area around us with boxes, they hopefully won't find us. If they do find us, we'll have a better chance of making it out since they'll be restricted to one at a time. I'm hoping they'll assume we drowned, but I wouldn't count on it."
She considered his plan, found it mostly acceptable. She didn't like the idea of being in such close quarters with him for so long (not with the steady hum of the bond trying to pull them together), but it was far preferable to either going back into the icy water or being found and killed by SHIELD. She was nothing if not practical, after all.
There was also the consideration that it would be far warmer with two bodies generating heat in a closed, insulated space and she had no interest in frostbite.
"Just make sure to keep your hands to yourself."
*****
It was a long time before they heard the ringing sound of booted feet on the deck above them. They were huddled at the end of the crawl space with as many boxes and items as they could find wedged in with them to leave the least amount of visible room possible. They'd crawled in, padded the space with blankets to muffle any stray noise, and then brought down the rest of the items to fill in the remaining space under the hatch. If the searchers decided to take the whole place apart they'd be found, but if there was some kind of miracle they wouldn't go that far, wouldn't think two people could empty and repack an entire crawlspace after a three mile, cold ocean swim.
She honestly wasn't sure how they'd managed it herself, other than sheer will and desperation.
It was warm in their little space, but very, very crowded. Two full grown people could fit side by side only if they were pressed together, and by necessity he'd looped an arm around her waist and her head was tucked under his chin. She had the guns, because she was in front and this angle gave her just a little bit wider range of motion should they need it. He was unarmed and relying on her to keep them both alive. She couldn't decide if he was being practical or stupid.
The last few hours had been a subtle kind of torture, being so close to him. It was distracting, for one thing. Half her brain seemed to focus on nothing but him - where he was, what he was doing, whether or not she could reach out and touch him - the other half was scrambling to try and think of ways out of this mess, as well as keeping her traitorous hands in check, because she did want to reach out and it was making her angry. She didn't want people, didn't need them - she was perfectly content on her own. Other people were likely to get you killed, and this situation wasn't changing her opinions on that front.
As people moved above them, the hand not around her waist crept up until he was covering her mouth and nose lightly and she could feel that he was burying his face in her hair to muffle the sounds of his own breathing. The footsteps came closer until they were right over their heads. She felt his heart rate speed up against her back and his fingers tighten against her jaw. The metal of the hatch screeched as it was opened and she lined up the gun in her right hand with where she knew the opening to be. Something tapped the boxes. Low voices spoke but they were too muffled to make out full words.
She could hear the shifting of cardboard against cardboard and imagined they were pulling out some of the things to see what was behind them. Which of course would be more boxes, because they were wedged several layers thick.
Time stood still except for their breath and heart beats. Maybe those stopped too, just for a moment.
Then there was another sharp clang as whoever it was dropped the hatch back down, and voices raised to a normal pitch called out orders and the boots moved away, back up to the deck and out of the danger zone. Tension seeped slowly out of her arms as she lowered them and sagged just slightly back against him.
Clint's hand lowered from her mouth even as the arm around her waist tightened and she felt him press his face more firmly against her neck through her hair. She almost thought she felt the ghost of his lips against her skin, just for a second.
They both knew better than to say anything out loud, and realized they need to stay hidden for another few hours to be safe. But it seemed like the immediate danger - the immediate external danger, Natasha corrected herself, had passed.
Interlude 1: Bleed Out
Chapter 3