Avengers (2012): "Heavy in Your Arms (7/15)" (Clint/Natasha)
Title: Heavy in Your Arms (7/15)
Author/Artist: Koren M. (cybermathwitch)
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, there'd already be a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie.
Pairing: Clint/Natasha, Coulson/The Cellist
Rating: Adult 17+
Warnings: language, violence, eventually sexual content, dub-con if you feel that mystical/destiny sorts of compulsions qualify as dubious consent (Natasha might agree with you)
Spoilers: None
Type: WIP
Word Count: 5,481
Summary: "Which brings me to my next question: where are we planning to go?"
Author's Notes: See Chapter 1 for more notes.
So... this one is long (actually the longest chapter yet). O.O
One important point to note - while I've been to Europe once, years and years ago, it was as part of a school group. I've never driven over there, nor do I have any experience with how border crossings work now that the EU is in place or if you're an individual versus a big group on a tour bus. So... if I've gotten any of those details wrong, my apologies! I will freely admit to Deus ex Machina and the activation of convenient plot devices.
Thank you to anuna_81 and to sweetwatersong for the beta and general cheerleading! And thank you to everyone who's left such awesome feedback! I really <3 the discussions and to know what you think about it. :D
Previous Chapter
She was screaming. He could hear her, but he couldn't find her. It was all shadows and hallways, and her voice ricocheting off the walls all around him. But no way to get to her.
*****
Clint woke with a start, adrenaline running through his veins and his heart racing.
The screams were real.
He was out of the bed like a shot, cursing the precious seconds it took to unlock the door.
She'd managed to back herself into the corner of the room and was sitting upright, curled over her drawn up knees and shaking. The screams had stopped somewhere between the bed and the living room.
"Natasha?" his voice was rough and deep with sleep and she flinched. Froze.
"Clint?" she asked, hesitant and soft. It didn't sound like her at all.
"Yeah. You... were screaming."
He saw her take a deep breath, watched her shoulders rise and fall three times before she looked up.
"I had a nightmare."
Just like that, her self-control was back. She sounded like he'd just asked her if she'd like a cup of coffee or a sandwich rather than like someone who'd just been screaming bloody murder a minute ago.
"That was a helluva nightmare," he managed, but she didn't respond. Finally, slowly, she uncurled and stood. She tried to step around him, but his hand reached out to brace against the wall in front of her, keeping her in the corner space.
"Natasha. Talk to me. What was it?"
"I had a bad dream, Barton. It's really nothing. Not all my memories are pretty ones."
He didn't think about, just reached out with his free hand to cup her jaw and stroke his thumb across her cheek. "Natasha," he said it softly, beseechingly, and gently turned her face up to his. Her voice might've been under control but her eyes were still haunted and he found he wanted nothing more than to hunt down whatever dragons were causing it and slay them for her, never mind that she was perfectly capable of slaying dragons herself.
Her arms were wrapped around her stomach like she was trying to hold herself together, but with every brush of his thumb across her skin she relaxed a little more. She reached out, and her hand settled at his waist, causing him to shudder. The pull was getting stronger - now even through the fabric of his shirt he reacted to her. She drew her fingers back and forth lightly as if taking in the texture.
The air felt hushed and still, as if all the excess energy had gone up in a flashpoint, leaving only the steady hum of the bond.
"Missions sometimes fail. Extractions sometimes don't go smoothly." She fell silent again and he realized that was as much of an explanation as she was willing to offer. It wasn't an unfamiliar concept for him, he'd had a few of those nightmares himself.
His fingers slid deeper into her hair and tilted her head up towards his. He mustered every ounce of self control he had, and pressed his mouth against her temple in a remarkably chaste kiss, just resting there and trying to say without any words everything that was running through his head. He wanted to say "I'm here, I won't let anything happen to you, I'll protect you, I can catch you if you fall" but those weren't the words she needed and she wouldn't want them even if she did. She didn't need protecting (except that everyone sometimes needed protecting).
It was her turn to shudder, though she did it less visibly than he had, and her hand stilled at his waist. He could feel her breath on his neck and the warmth of her body this close to his. Reluctantly he pulled away, let his arm drop from the wall and stepped backwards. "Take the bed," he offered. "Get some sleep. In the morning we need to make a plan to get out of here."
Wordlessly, she headed for the bedroom door, but when she reached it, she stopped and looked back at him for a long moment before proceeding.
She closed the door behind her, but he didn't hear the lock.
*****
Lights shone through the window and made shapes on the floor. Natasha lay stiffly on the bed for a long time, willing sleep to come back, but was getting nowhere.
It had been a bad one, one of her worst. One of her oldest, about cold rooms and bloody floors and stern voices super-imposed over the sound of guns and screaming. She couldn't really remember being that young, just that things had been better, later: better beds, better clothes, heat and water. Enough food to eat, because what good was a trainee that was too malnourished to run or jump, fight or kill? They'd taken very good care of their girls, so long as they did what they were told, when and how they were told to do it. No matter how unconscionable it might be.
Of course there had been missions, later, that hadn't gone as planned. She hadn't lied, or not entirely (and even as she thought that, she had a hot flare of guilt in her stomach that she wasn't accustomed to). There had even been nights those missions had been the subject of her nightmares, but those were never the ones that she woke from screaming. Those just ached in her psyche like a slowly healing bruise, leaving her emotions slightly tender upon waking.
She could still feel his lips against her skin and resisted the urge to reach up and touch her face where he'd kissed her. He was leaving her emotions more than slightly bruised, she decided. It had been new, and different, and she couldn't remember ever having had anyone touch her like that, to comfort her. He'd wanted to do so much more, she could tell, she knew these things about men - knew when they were attracted and aroused, not that Clint (that Barton, she corrected herself) was making any secret of it anyway. She also knew how powerful the pull was, how she'd felt compelled to touch his skin, to seek out that contact. Yet all he'd done was that chaste kiss, comforting, not arousing, giving, not demanding.
What the hell was she supposed to do with that?
Rolling over, she adjusted the pillow under her head and stared at the door instead of the window, and wondered how this was ever going to end.
*****
It was the pull that woke her, an overwhelming restlessness that pulled her out of sleep and out of the bed. That itchy, tense sensation that told her he was too far away and compelled her to find him drew her out into the living/dining room, but he was no where to be seen.
Her gun was still on the table where she'd left it and she picked it up, clicking off the safety. She heard the footsteps in the hall about the same time that the tension slackened. Natasha left the gun trained on the door while she listened to the key fit the lock and watched the door handle turn.
When Clint, and only Clint, entered the room and shut the door behind him, she finally let her arm drop.
He'd noticed the gun, she'd seen how his movements had turned slow and deliberate, telegraphing everything he was about to do so there were no surprises. Slowly he set the bag he was holding down onto the table along with the two cups and a handful of what looked like maps and raised his hands so she could see them.
"Just me," he said, "I went to grab breakfast and coffee. I didn't think I'd be gone so long, but there was a line at the cafe."
She reset the safety and set her gun back down onto the table.
"It woke me up," she blurted out before she could stop herself.
He nodded. "Yeah, I felt it kick in and I wondered. I should've left a note."
"It's fine."
He held out one of the cups of coffee and she took it, took a long drink even though it was still hot, hoping the combination of heat and caffeine would clear the rest of the lingering disorientation from her system.
"I also got some maps. The train lines, along with a road map, in case we want to try and steal a car instead of rail travel." As she looked on, he started unfolding and spreading out the maps, studying them. One showed most of Western Europe. He set that one on top and took out a pen. "Ok. There are SHIELD facilities - either major or satellite installations - here, here... here and here," Clint circled several cities across most of the countries shown. "Those are the ones I know about. I can't promise there aren't more, but it'll have to do. Of the available train lines," he pulled out one of the other maps and laid it over the first, "none of them bypass all the major SHIELD installations. So, that's still an option, but extremely risky. SHIELD will have all those stations on alert, and can patch into their facial recognition software no problem. They probably already have."
"That leaves us with the car option," she offered, reaching for the bag he'd brought and looking inside. Pleased with what she found, she pulled out one of the fresh croissants and tore off a bite.
"It's doable, and it would give us the flexibility to avoid as many of these locations as we can. Which brings me to my next question: where are we planning to go?"
She paused in her systematic deconstruction of the pastry. "Like I said, I still need to check in with my people. If I tell them I was detained by SHIELD, but that I escaped, that might buy us some time. It would put them on our side, at least superficially. As long as they think I'm still their operative, I have access to their resources."
"I can't go with you." A statement of fact, but perhaps also of intent - he wasn't planning to defect, she supposed, and she didn't even blame him. He'd seen the reports, he knew the kind of businesses that the Red Room dealt in.
"No. They don't really bring in free agents on contract."
"Which still begs the question, how do we do this? Because right now, I can't very well not go with you. It's getting worse - I was only gone for half an hour this morning."
"I've... been thinking about that," Natasha admitted. She stared into her coffee rather than looking up at him. "I still say our best strategy is to get rid of the pull. The sooner we get it over with, the more easily we'll be able to maneuver. Once that's done, I can contact my people, go back in. I've..." it was perhaps the hardest thing to say, what she was about to admit - it was something she'd never said to anyone else. "I have a house. A plan. I wasn't going to stay with the Red Room forever, I've been planning to - run away, I suppose you'd call it. You can't just quit, of course."
He cocked his head to the side. "In for life, huh?"
"It's the only life I've ever known. It's the only life I'm ever supposed to know. I know of two others who've tried to leave. It didn't end well for them."
"But you've been planning it."
She nodded. "All I want, all I've ever wanted, is to be alone. Free."
Admitting it, maybe especially to him, left her shaky inside, her childish dreams brought out into the light unprotected. She'd felt a similar feeling the day she'd bought the house, when she'd turned the key in the lock and stepped inside.
"And the Red Room doesn't know about the house?"
She shook her head. "No. I've been careful, and I'm very good at what I do. I'm sure they don't. Or, as sure as I can be." It was the best answer she could give. She had taken every possible precaution, but there was a always the chance with them.
"So now we just have to boost a car."
"Boost?"
*****
When the woman approached his table, Phil stood up and offered his hand. He gave her his courteous "on the job" smile - she recognized it. (And of course she did - how long had she known him?)
"Thank you for coming," he said as she took his hand and shook it, brief and friendly. Just two friends meeting for coffee, except it was hardly that, she could already tell. "You look good. The E-Division has been good to you."
"Amazing what a promotion will do, right?" she agreed amicably, but couldn't quite keep the tension out of her voice and eyes. She'd never been as good at undercover work as others. No, she'd excelled at combat and computer skills more than acting and mind games.
"Amazing," he echoed, and then she knew something was wrong. The cafe was as much neutral ground as they could make it. She'd already been off the carrier on a week-long leave and she knew Phil would've taken precautions about being followed.
"Have you heard about what happened?" he asked, getting down to business.
A curl of fear formed in the pit of her stomach. "No."
A waiter came over and she ordered a coffee, but waved away the menu. She suddenly wasn't in any mood to eat.
"Barton's been compromised." Phil said it calmly, matter of factly, but she knew immediately it had to be wrong.
"Bullshit," she said flatly, and narrowed her eyes. "No way in hell."
"According to Fury," he amended, and yes, there was fear there. Even Phil's cool facade was cracking a bit and that scared her more than his words.
"You can't tell me what happened?"
"No. Not... not if I can help it. The less you know the better." The safer for you, remained unspoken but understood. "I have a favor to ask, and you can say no."
"What do you need?" There were only a handful of people she cared about and considered "hers" and both of them were on that list.
"I don't think Fury is making rational decisions anymore. But I need to know more before I can do anything about it."
"'Do anything about it?' -- What do you think you could do about it? We're talking about the Director of SHIELD."
"He's become irrational. Look. Barton brought in a potential asset, a potential informant on a major player on the world stage, instead of terminating her. There's more to it I can't tell you about right now, but the core of it is, Fury decided that his loyalty was compromised and ordered him to kill her. Without interrogating her, finding out what she wanted - anything. Instead Barton broke her out of holding and they escaped. I'm supposed to be out there right now hunting them both down. Orders are to kill them both on sight."
"What had she done?"
"We were following her in connection with several mid-level assassinations. She's a Red Room operative, and yes, they're dangerous. She'd been working a job that was counter to our interests and Barton was sent to take her out, but she didn't attack him when she had the chance, and came in voluntarily, for all intents and purposes."
"And Fury just summarily ordered her execution? That's... are you sure there's nothing going on, something above your clearance, maybe?"
Phil shook his head. "There's more to it, and I have my suspicions, but right now, that's all you need to know. Before we can go any further, I need you to hack into SHIELD's mainframe and get me the full copy of Fury's file. As soon as possible."
Her eyes hardened. "You don't ask for what's easy, do you Phil?"
"No."
The waiter hadn't brought her coffee yet, but she didn't care anymore, and she stood up to leave. She would do it, of course she would, because he'd asked and she owed him... everything. That didn't mean she was happy about it.
"And Bobbi?"
She'd taken two steps away from the table. "Yes?"
"You can't tell Maria."
Her fingers clenched but she didn't turn back around. "I know."
*****
It was still early, and it wasn't difficult to find a large parking lot and an easily opened car. It turned out that both of them knew the basics of hot-wiring and they made good time.
It was almost peaceful, driving down the motorway towards Germany, finally being able to go somewhere after two days of feeling like he was standing still, waiting for her to arrange things for them. He liked to drive, always had, ever since getting his first car at seventeen and that rush of freedom he felt being able to just get away under his own power.
There wasn't any sign of trouble until after they'd crossed the border.
"How long have they been back there?" Her voice was soft, but edged. She didn't turn in her seat or give any indication she had noticed something, but her eyes were flicking back and forth to the side and rear view mirrors.
"Who... well, shit." Looking himself, he realized that two of the men in the car behind them and to the right were the same ones that had chased them from the shops a day ago. "I don't know. How the hell did we miss that?"
"They're good at their jobs, and we're becoming more distracted." She looked again. "Dammit!"
His grip tightened on the steering wheel as the other car slid neatly into the space opening up directly behind them. The mens' body language changed, dropped the pretense of acting casual. "Yeah, they know we know. Hang on," he warned, just before he pulled the wheel hard to the right and changed lanes. Several of the surrounding cars honked their horns but there was just enough room that he managed, sliding expertly between two other vehicles. He double checked his clearance and then did it again, putting a full lane between them and their pursuers. "Because with everything else we need these two knuckle-heads after us," he muttered under his breath. They were already making a lane shift of their own. Traffic was crowded, which worked both for and against them - there was still one more lane to change before they would be able to take an exit to a different road and no clear space to do so was opening up.
Natasha already had one of the guns in her hand, but he could tell there were too many people in too many cars and too many variables for a shooting solution to be viable just yet.
"Can you get us off the motorway and onto a smaller road? Maybe away from people?"
"That would be what I'm trying to do," he snapped, still watching for a break in the traffic to their right.
"Well, do it faster." She unsnapped her seatbelt and he had to look twice to see what she was doing, then to see around her, as she climbed into the back seat and took a better position that gave her more visibility behind them.
"You've got five cars coming up on the right before there's a gap. If you slow do-"
"Already there." He didn't slam on the breaks, there were too many cars behind him for that, but he eased on them enough that the lane to their left was moving faster and forced the bad guys' car to pass them. Their brake lights came on, but it gave them the precious seconds they needed, as well as lining them up so that he could veer sharply over one more time. Picking up speed, he spotted the next off-ramp and aimed for it.
He was going too fast by the time they took the ramp, but the car didn't tip over, just created enough centrifugal force to lean them both sharply sideways.
The road led to a open countryside and a fairly wide two-lane road with what looked to be rural land on either side.
And the bad guys were still behind them.
"Goddamn it!" he cursed, and picked up more speed.
"At least now we can shoot them," she observed calmly.
"Just keep in mind we've got to conserve ammunition," he shot back. "There's a road coming up, it looks like it might lead to some kind of-"
Whatever he was about to say was lost as she yelled a warning just as the other, larger car slammed into them hard from behind.
He jolted forward hard enough to hit the steering wheel, felt the blood start to trickle down his face. A second impact and he felt her body hit the back of his seat and the angle drove them sideways. They fishtailed and he wrenched the wheel hard, narrowly avoiding a stone wall but still ending up halfway rolled into the ditch. The attacking car had shot by them, and squealed to a stop several yards away.
"Fuck," he bit out, reaching for his gun even as he started untangling himself from the seat belt. She was pressed against the back passenger's side door, and he could see she was trying to open it.
He scrambled over the gear shift and opened his own side door, giving him just enough room to pry himself out of the car. A bullet winged over his head and he put a bullet into one of the men in response. The car itself provided quite a bit of cover while he struggled with her door from the outside. It was well and truly stuck. "Move," he ordered, just before taking the butt of his gun handle and shattering the window glass, then turning back to the approaching men. He shot another right between the eyes, but they were shooting too and Natasha, now out of the car and crouched on the ground next to him reached up and grabbed a handful of his jacket to jerk him down out of the way.
"Three guys are left, I've killed two of them. Still got your gun?"
She held it up. "I've only got five shots left, though. You?"
"I didn't have a full clip. Probably two."
"Well, that sounds like more than enough, doesn't it?" She grinned, and it wasn't a nice grin, but it was reassuring.
That was when the other two cars arrived.
He stared, open mouthed, for a full half second before his brain kicked into gear and he started reevaluating the situation. "Jesus, Natasha, just how badly did you piss these guys off?"
"Pretty badly." Her grin was gone, replaced by a hard edged look. "Looks like twelve?"
"Yeah. Damn." More men than they had ammunition, so they would have either take them out by hand or take one of their own guns.
It put him in the line of fire, but he stood quickly and picked off two more, then dropped back down and looked at her inquiringly. "Might as well get rid of who we can."
It took her fractions of a second longer to line up the shots, but she still made them just as cleanly. It left their assailants scrambling for cover, and Clint felt the rush of adrenaline mix with the attraction and take his breath away.
She charged out from behind the car towards the closest of the men, moving quickly and giving them as little time to regroup as she could, and he followed. There was already a body at her feet with a broken neck and she was grappling with another. Clint dodged one of the men coming at them from the other direction and took his legs out from under him with a swipe, then reached out and slammed his head hard enough against the pavement he heard a satisfying crack. He rolled back to his feet and kicked the gun out of the final man's hand and received a kick to the chest in return that sent him staggering back several steps.
Right into Natasha.
There was a moment, just a second really, of disorientation at the contact, but it was enough. He heard her grunt even as the guy he was fighting got his hands on him. He struggled, rolling, finally throwing the other man to the ground in such a way that he heard the his neck snap. The gun he'd dropped was within reach and he grabbed it even as he was standing up and turning to see if she was alright.
The remaining two men were standing, holding her - her arms were wrenched behind her back in a way she probably could've gotten out of, except one of them was holding a wicked looking knife to her throat while the other held a gun to her head.
Damn.
Her eyes were clear and calm, but he could see on her face she knew how difficult the situation was. Either weapon could take her out in a hair's breadth of time. He was just one man with one gun.
It was an impossible shot.
Good thing he excelled at those.
The first bullet took out the man with the gun, and as he'd hoped the guy with the knife flinched. Clint watched the blade slice along her collar bone and shoulder rather than her neck as the second bullet punched home between the man's eyes and he fell.
*****
Natasha was steady on her feet as she stared at Clint, trying to process what had just happened. She had known, when she'd felt the blade at her throat and the gun at her temple, that her chances were slim. Even though Clint had a gun, taking out either man would lead to the other taking action. No one should've been able to make two shots so quickly and accurately.
But he had. More importantly, he hadn't hesitated, hadn't given the assailants a chance to get secure in their stance or position. Bare seconds had gone by since he'd seen her position, evaluated, taken aim, and fired.
Not even her response times were that good.
Her upper chest was starting to sting where she'd still caught the edge of the blade, but she could tell it hadn't hit anything vital.
"You're bleeding," he observed dryly.
"It's not bad. Just messy." She looked down, fingered the edge of the torn fabric and the skin near the wound, checked how deep it had gone. "I've had worse. It might not even need stitches."
"We need to get out of here. Find some place to clean up and regroup."
Nodding, she crouched down next to the two bodies at her feet and started patting them down for anything useful, like car keys or weapons. From the corner of her eye, she saw him start to do the same, as if by moving she'd broken some kind of spell.
The world was still too bright and edgy with the remnants of adrenaline as she found what she was looking for. She tucked two guns into the back of her waist band and pocketed a switchblade. Clint was finishing up with the last of the others when she walked over, dangling the keys in front of her like a prize. "You able to drive?"
"Yeah. Any idea where we're heading? Are we still going to try to reach Bern, or... ?"
"It's only about three more hours if we head straight there. I think that would be our best option, but we'll need to keep a better eye out for tails."
"Think they'll know this was us?"
"Do you mean SHIELD? No telling. How much of a connection are they going to find between you and these guys?"
She handed him the keys and they headed for the car. "Yesterday? I would've said none. Today? I'm not sure."
"Well, then let's get as much distance between us and here as we can."
*****
The rest of the drive passed without incident, and Natasha could feel herself uncoil with each hour that went by that no one followed them. It was late afternoon when they finally reached Switzerland, and she felt all the tension knot back up as she gave him directions to her home.
It was unassuming, a small two story house tucked back away from the road just outside of the city. She'd deliberately picked something with no visible neighbors, though there were several houses within a few miles in either direction. She'd never pictured anyone else here, but took a deep breath and unlocked the door with it's electronic code.
"There's a generator in the back, I'll go turn it on. The kitchen's through there and there should be something in the cabinets we can eat. I left several cans of food and some power bars the last time I was here."
Once the generator was running she found him in the kitchen, perusing their options. He paused in the process of opening some jarred tomato sauce and looked at her in the waning sunlight and flinched.
"God, Tasha," he hissed and reached out, pausing before he actually touched her bloody shirt. "Let's get you cleaned up."
Her fingers reached out and rubbed over the dried blood on his face and she tried to ignore how he leaned into her touch. "You're not such a pretty sight, yourself."
*****
She let him guide her over to one of the kitchen chairs, and didn't try to take the first aid kit or damp cloth from him, she just sat there as he started to wipe away the blood that she had smeared across her throat.
"You nearly died," he stated flatly, the moment on the road stuck on replay in his mind. As he moved down her neck, he could already see the wound was shallow, and she'd been right about it not needing stitches, but the blood had dried and her shirt was sticking to the wound in a way that looked painful. She didn't flinch when he tugged it free. The shirt was ruined anyway, so he slipped it off her shoulders and tossed it in a heap on the floor. The blood had soaked down into the fabric of her bra as well, but he left that where it was. His control was good, but not that good.
"it's not your fault, you know." Her voice was soft and even. Calm, despite everything. "It's not your job to protect me. I didn't notice them, either."
"I notice things. That is my job. If we'd realized the tail sooner, or-"
She reached up and grabbed his face, stopped him and looked him in the eyes. "The only reason I'm here is because you did the impossible."
"Don't remind me."
"Then stop torturing yourself with it," she shot back.
"If we'd done what you suggested two days ago, you wouldn't have been distracted when we ran into one another and he wouldn't have gotten the drop on you." He'd figured out that much of what had happened during the fight. She hadn't been having any trouble until that brief moment of overwhelm when they'd touched. It didn't even have to be bare skin anymore, as if the universal mechanics involved were getting impatient with them.
Cautiously, he traced his fingers over the skin of her shoulder, then wiped away more of the blood. She was smooth and warm, impossibly soft under his fingertips.
"Are you rethinking your decision?"
He took a deep breath. "If we do this, you have to be straight with me. Don't treat it like I'm a job, don't try to be someone else."
"I'm not sure how," she admitted. Her hand was still resting against his face.
"Have you ever done this, for yourself? Have you ever had sex with anyone when it wasn't a job, or an assignment?"
"Once or twice. But they didn't care how I acted or who I was. It was just... experimentation."
"I don't want that. For this to be like that, for either of us."
Eyes on hers, he felt, rather than saw it, when she took the wash cloth away from him with her free hand and brought it up to his face. She tilted his head so that she had a better angle and broke their eye contact for just a minute while she wiped the blood from him, too. He let her, reaching up when she was done to bring her hand to his mouth and press a kiss against her skin. "Let's finish getting you bandaged up."
Interlude 3: Honor and Loyalty
Chapter 8
Author/Artist: Koren M. (cybermathwitch)
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, there'd already be a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie.
Pairing: Clint/Natasha, Coulson/The Cellist
Rating: Adult 17+
Warnings: language, violence, eventually sexual content, dub-con if you feel that mystical/destiny sorts of compulsions qualify as dubious consent (Natasha might agree with you)
Spoilers: None
Type: WIP
Word Count: 5,481
Summary: "Which brings me to my next question: where are we planning to go?"
Author's Notes: See Chapter 1 for more notes.
So... this one is long (actually the longest chapter yet). O.O
One important point to note - while I've been to Europe once, years and years ago, it was as part of a school group. I've never driven over there, nor do I have any experience with how border crossings work now that the EU is in place or if you're an individual versus a big group on a tour bus. So... if I've gotten any of those details wrong, my apologies! I will freely admit to Deus ex Machina and the activation of convenient plot devices.
Thank you to anuna_81 and to sweetwatersong for the beta and general cheerleading! And thank you to everyone who's left such awesome feedback! I really <3 the discussions and to know what you think about it. :D
Previous Chapter
She was screaming. He could hear her, but he couldn't find her. It was all shadows and hallways, and her voice ricocheting off the walls all around him. But no way to get to her.
*****
Clint woke with a start, adrenaline running through his veins and his heart racing.
The screams were real.
He was out of the bed like a shot, cursing the precious seconds it took to unlock the door.
She'd managed to back herself into the corner of the room and was sitting upright, curled over her drawn up knees and shaking. The screams had stopped somewhere between the bed and the living room.
"Natasha?" his voice was rough and deep with sleep and she flinched. Froze.
"Clint?" she asked, hesitant and soft. It didn't sound like her at all.
"Yeah. You... were screaming."
He saw her take a deep breath, watched her shoulders rise and fall three times before she looked up.
"I had a nightmare."
Just like that, her self-control was back. She sounded like he'd just asked her if she'd like a cup of coffee or a sandwich rather than like someone who'd just been screaming bloody murder a minute ago.
"That was a helluva nightmare," he managed, but she didn't respond. Finally, slowly, she uncurled and stood. She tried to step around him, but his hand reached out to brace against the wall in front of her, keeping her in the corner space.
"Natasha. Talk to me. What was it?"
"I had a bad dream, Barton. It's really nothing. Not all my memories are pretty ones."
He didn't think about, just reached out with his free hand to cup her jaw and stroke his thumb across her cheek. "Natasha," he said it softly, beseechingly, and gently turned her face up to his. Her voice might've been under control but her eyes were still haunted and he found he wanted nothing more than to hunt down whatever dragons were causing it and slay them for her, never mind that she was perfectly capable of slaying dragons herself.
Her arms were wrapped around her stomach like she was trying to hold herself together, but with every brush of his thumb across her skin she relaxed a little more. She reached out, and her hand settled at his waist, causing him to shudder. The pull was getting stronger - now even through the fabric of his shirt he reacted to her. She drew her fingers back and forth lightly as if taking in the texture.
The air felt hushed and still, as if all the excess energy had gone up in a flashpoint, leaving only the steady hum of the bond.
"Missions sometimes fail. Extractions sometimes don't go smoothly." She fell silent again and he realized that was as much of an explanation as she was willing to offer. It wasn't an unfamiliar concept for him, he'd had a few of those nightmares himself.
His fingers slid deeper into her hair and tilted her head up towards his. He mustered every ounce of self control he had, and pressed his mouth against her temple in a remarkably chaste kiss, just resting there and trying to say without any words everything that was running through his head. He wanted to say "I'm here, I won't let anything happen to you, I'll protect you, I can catch you if you fall" but those weren't the words she needed and she wouldn't want them even if she did. She didn't need protecting (except that everyone sometimes needed protecting).
It was her turn to shudder, though she did it less visibly than he had, and her hand stilled at his waist. He could feel her breath on his neck and the warmth of her body this close to his. Reluctantly he pulled away, let his arm drop from the wall and stepped backwards. "Take the bed," he offered. "Get some sleep. In the morning we need to make a plan to get out of here."
Wordlessly, she headed for the bedroom door, but when she reached it, she stopped and looked back at him for a long moment before proceeding.
She closed the door behind her, but he didn't hear the lock.
*****
Lights shone through the window and made shapes on the floor. Natasha lay stiffly on the bed for a long time, willing sleep to come back, but was getting nowhere.
It had been a bad one, one of her worst. One of her oldest, about cold rooms and bloody floors and stern voices super-imposed over the sound of guns and screaming. She couldn't really remember being that young, just that things had been better, later: better beds, better clothes, heat and water. Enough food to eat, because what good was a trainee that was too malnourished to run or jump, fight or kill? They'd taken very good care of their girls, so long as they did what they were told, when and how they were told to do it. No matter how unconscionable it might be.
Of course there had been missions, later, that hadn't gone as planned. She hadn't lied, or not entirely (and even as she thought that, she had a hot flare of guilt in her stomach that she wasn't accustomed to). There had even been nights those missions had been the subject of her nightmares, but those were never the ones that she woke from screaming. Those just ached in her psyche like a slowly healing bruise, leaving her emotions slightly tender upon waking.
She could still feel his lips against her skin and resisted the urge to reach up and touch her face where he'd kissed her. He was leaving her emotions more than slightly bruised, she decided. It had been new, and different, and she couldn't remember ever having had anyone touch her like that, to comfort her. He'd wanted to do so much more, she could tell, she knew these things about men - knew when they were attracted and aroused, not that Clint (that Barton, she corrected herself) was making any secret of it anyway. She also knew how powerful the pull was, how she'd felt compelled to touch his skin, to seek out that contact. Yet all he'd done was that chaste kiss, comforting, not arousing, giving, not demanding.
What the hell was she supposed to do with that?
Rolling over, she adjusted the pillow under her head and stared at the door instead of the window, and wondered how this was ever going to end.
*****
It was the pull that woke her, an overwhelming restlessness that pulled her out of sleep and out of the bed. That itchy, tense sensation that told her he was too far away and compelled her to find him drew her out into the living/dining room, but he was no where to be seen.
Her gun was still on the table where she'd left it and she picked it up, clicking off the safety. She heard the footsteps in the hall about the same time that the tension slackened. Natasha left the gun trained on the door while she listened to the key fit the lock and watched the door handle turn.
When Clint, and only Clint, entered the room and shut the door behind him, she finally let her arm drop.
He'd noticed the gun, she'd seen how his movements had turned slow and deliberate, telegraphing everything he was about to do so there were no surprises. Slowly he set the bag he was holding down onto the table along with the two cups and a handful of what looked like maps and raised his hands so she could see them.
"Just me," he said, "I went to grab breakfast and coffee. I didn't think I'd be gone so long, but there was a line at the cafe."
She reset the safety and set her gun back down onto the table.
"It woke me up," she blurted out before she could stop herself.
He nodded. "Yeah, I felt it kick in and I wondered. I should've left a note."
"It's fine."
He held out one of the cups of coffee and she took it, took a long drink even though it was still hot, hoping the combination of heat and caffeine would clear the rest of the lingering disorientation from her system.
"I also got some maps. The train lines, along with a road map, in case we want to try and steal a car instead of rail travel." As she looked on, he started unfolding and spreading out the maps, studying them. One showed most of Western Europe. He set that one on top and took out a pen. "Ok. There are SHIELD facilities - either major or satellite installations - here, here... here and here," Clint circled several cities across most of the countries shown. "Those are the ones I know about. I can't promise there aren't more, but it'll have to do. Of the available train lines," he pulled out one of the other maps and laid it over the first, "none of them bypass all the major SHIELD installations. So, that's still an option, but extremely risky. SHIELD will have all those stations on alert, and can patch into their facial recognition software no problem. They probably already have."
"That leaves us with the car option," she offered, reaching for the bag he'd brought and looking inside. Pleased with what she found, she pulled out one of the fresh croissants and tore off a bite.
"It's doable, and it would give us the flexibility to avoid as many of these locations as we can. Which brings me to my next question: where are we planning to go?"
She paused in her systematic deconstruction of the pastry. "Like I said, I still need to check in with my people. If I tell them I was detained by SHIELD, but that I escaped, that might buy us some time. It would put them on our side, at least superficially. As long as they think I'm still their operative, I have access to their resources."
"I can't go with you." A statement of fact, but perhaps also of intent - he wasn't planning to defect, she supposed, and she didn't even blame him. He'd seen the reports, he knew the kind of businesses that the Red Room dealt in.
"No. They don't really bring in free agents on contract."
"Which still begs the question, how do we do this? Because right now, I can't very well not go with you. It's getting worse - I was only gone for half an hour this morning."
"I've... been thinking about that," Natasha admitted. She stared into her coffee rather than looking up at him. "I still say our best strategy is to get rid of the pull. The sooner we get it over with, the more easily we'll be able to maneuver. Once that's done, I can contact my people, go back in. I've..." it was perhaps the hardest thing to say, what she was about to admit - it was something she'd never said to anyone else. "I have a house. A plan. I wasn't going to stay with the Red Room forever, I've been planning to - run away, I suppose you'd call it. You can't just quit, of course."
He cocked his head to the side. "In for life, huh?"
"It's the only life I've ever known. It's the only life I'm ever supposed to know. I know of two others who've tried to leave. It didn't end well for them."
"But you've been planning it."
She nodded. "All I want, all I've ever wanted, is to be alone. Free."
Admitting it, maybe especially to him, left her shaky inside, her childish dreams brought out into the light unprotected. She'd felt a similar feeling the day she'd bought the house, when she'd turned the key in the lock and stepped inside.
"And the Red Room doesn't know about the house?"
She shook her head. "No. I've been careful, and I'm very good at what I do. I'm sure they don't. Or, as sure as I can be." It was the best answer she could give. She had taken every possible precaution, but there was a always the chance with them.
"So now we just have to boost a car."
"Boost?"
*****
When the woman approached his table, Phil stood up and offered his hand. He gave her his courteous "on the job" smile - she recognized it. (And of course she did - how long had she known him?)
"Thank you for coming," he said as she took his hand and shook it, brief and friendly. Just two friends meeting for coffee, except it was hardly that, she could already tell. "You look good. The E-Division has been good to you."
"Amazing what a promotion will do, right?" she agreed amicably, but couldn't quite keep the tension out of her voice and eyes. She'd never been as good at undercover work as others. No, she'd excelled at combat and computer skills more than acting and mind games.
"Amazing," he echoed, and then she knew something was wrong. The cafe was as much neutral ground as they could make it. She'd already been off the carrier on a week-long leave and she knew Phil would've taken precautions about being followed.
"Have you heard about what happened?" he asked, getting down to business.
A curl of fear formed in the pit of her stomach. "No."
A waiter came over and she ordered a coffee, but waved away the menu. She suddenly wasn't in any mood to eat.
"Barton's been compromised." Phil said it calmly, matter of factly, but she knew immediately it had to be wrong.
"Bullshit," she said flatly, and narrowed her eyes. "No way in hell."
"According to Fury," he amended, and yes, there was fear there. Even Phil's cool facade was cracking a bit and that scared her more than his words.
"You can't tell me what happened?"
"No. Not... not if I can help it. The less you know the better." The safer for you, remained unspoken but understood. "I have a favor to ask, and you can say no."
"What do you need?" There were only a handful of people she cared about and considered "hers" and both of them were on that list.
"I don't think Fury is making rational decisions anymore. But I need to know more before I can do anything about it."
"'Do anything about it?' -- What do you think you could do about it? We're talking about the Director of SHIELD."
"He's become irrational. Look. Barton brought in a potential asset, a potential informant on a major player on the world stage, instead of terminating her. There's more to it I can't tell you about right now, but the core of it is, Fury decided that his loyalty was compromised and ordered him to kill her. Without interrogating her, finding out what she wanted - anything. Instead Barton broke her out of holding and they escaped. I'm supposed to be out there right now hunting them both down. Orders are to kill them both on sight."
"What had she done?"
"We were following her in connection with several mid-level assassinations. She's a Red Room operative, and yes, they're dangerous. She'd been working a job that was counter to our interests and Barton was sent to take her out, but she didn't attack him when she had the chance, and came in voluntarily, for all intents and purposes."
"And Fury just summarily ordered her execution? That's... are you sure there's nothing going on, something above your clearance, maybe?"
Phil shook his head. "There's more to it, and I have my suspicions, but right now, that's all you need to know. Before we can go any further, I need you to hack into SHIELD's mainframe and get me the full copy of Fury's file. As soon as possible."
Her eyes hardened. "You don't ask for what's easy, do you Phil?"
"No."
The waiter hadn't brought her coffee yet, but she didn't care anymore, and she stood up to leave. She would do it, of course she would, because he'd asked and she owed him... everything. That didn't mean she was happy about it.
"And Bobbi?"
She'd taken two steps away from the table. "Yes?"
"You can't tell Maria."
Her fingers clenched but she didn't turn back around. "I know."
*****
It was still early, and it wasn't difficult to find a large parking lot and an easily opened car. It turned out that both of them knew the basics of hot-wiring and they made good time.
It was almost peaceful, driving down the motorway towards Germany, finally being able to go somewhere after two days of feeling like he was standing still, waiting for her to arrange things for them. He liked to drive, always had, ever since getting his first car at seventeen and that rush of freedom he felt being able to just get away under his own power.
There wasn't any sign of trouble until after they'd crossed the border.
"How long have they been back there?" Her voice was soft, but edged. She didn't turn in her seat or give any indication she had noticed something, but her eyes were flicking back and forth to the side and rear view mirrors.
"Who... well, shit." Looking himself, he realized that two of the men in the car behind them and to the right were the same ones that had chased them from the shops a day ago. "I don't know. How the hell did we miss that?"
"They're good at their jobs, and we're becoming more distracted." She looked again. "Dammit!"
His grip tightened on the steering wheel as the other car slid neatly into the space opening up directly behind them. The mens' body language changed, dropped the pretense of acting casual. "Yeah, they know we know. Hang on," he warned, just before he pulled the wheel hard to the right and changed lanes. Several of the surrounding cars honked their horns but there was just enough room that he managed, sliding expertly between two other vehicles. He double checked his clearance and then did it again, putting a full lane between them and their pursuers. "Because with everything else we need these two knuckle-heads after us," he muttered under his breath. They were already making a lane shift of their own. Traffic was crowded, which worked both for and against them - there was still one more lane to change before they would be able to take an exit to a different road and no clear space to do so was opening up.
Natasha already had one of the guns in her hand, but he could tell there were too many people in too many cars and too many variables for a shooting solution to be viable just yet.
"Can you get us off the motorway and onto a smaller road? Maybe away from people?"
"That would be what I'm trying to do," he snapped, still watching for a break in the traffic to their right.
"Well, do it faster." She unsnapped her seatbelt and he had to look twice to see what she was doing, then to see around her, as she climbed into the back seat and took a better position that gave her more visibility behind them.
"You've got five cars coming up on the right before there's a gap. If you slow do-"
"Already there." He didn't slam on the breaks, there were too many cars behind him for that, but he eased on them enough that the lane to their left was moving faster and forced the bad guys' car to pass them. Their brake lights came on, but it gave them the precious seconds they needed, as well as lining them up so that he could veer sharply over one more time. Picking up speed, he spotted the next off-ramp and aimed for it.
He was going too fast by the time they took the ramp, but the car didn't tip over, just created enough centrifugal force to lean them both sharply sideways.
The road led to a open countryside and a fairly wide two-lane road with what looked to be rural land on either side.
And the bad guys were still behind them.
"Goddamn it!" he cursed, and picked up more speed.
"At least now we can shoot them," she observed calmly.
"Just keep in mind we've got to conserve ammunition," he shot back. "There's a road coming up, it looks like it might lead to some kind of-"
Whatever he was about to say was lost as she yelled a warning just as the other, larger car slammed into them hard from behind.
He jolted forward hard enough to hit the steering wheel, felt the blood start to trickle down his face. A second impact and he felt her body hit the back of his seat and the angle drove them sideways. They fishtailed and he wrenched the wheel hard, narrowly avoiding a stone wall but still ending up halfway rolled into the ditch. The attacking car had shot by them, and squealed to a stop several yards away.
"Fuck," he bit out, reaching for his gun even as he started untangling himself from the seat belt. She was pressed against the back passenger's side door, and he could see she was trying to open it.
He scrambled over the gear shift and opened his own side door, giving him just enough room to pry himself out of the car. A bullet winged over his head and he put a bullet into one of the men in response. The car itself provided quite a bit of cover while he struggled with her door from the outside. It was well and truly stuck. "Move," he ordered, just before taking the butt of his gun handle and shattering the window glass, then turning back to the approaching men. He shot another right between the eyes, but they were shooting too and Natasha, now out of the car and crouched on the ground next to him reached up and grabbed a handful of his jacket to jerk him down out of the way.
"Three guys are left, I've killed two of them. Still got your gun?"
She held it up. "I've only got five shots left, though. You?"
"I didn't have a full clip. Probably two."
"Well, that sounds like more than enough, doesn't it?" She grinned, and it wasn't a nice grin, but it was reassuring.
That was when the other two cars arrived.
He stared, open mouthed, for a full half second before his brain kicked into gear and he started reevaluating the situation. "Jesus, Natasha, just how badly did you piss these guys off?"
"Pretty badly." Her grin was gone, replaced by a hard edged look. "Looks like twelve?"
"Yeah. Damn." More men than they had ammunition, so they would have either take them out by hand or take one of their own guns.
It put him in the line of fire, but he stood quickly and picked off two more, then dropped back down and looked at her inquiringly. "Might as well get rid of who we can."
It took her fractions of a second longer to line up the shots, but she still made them just as cleanly. It left their assailants scrambling for cover, and Clint felt the rush of adrenaline mix with the attraction and take his breath away.
She charged out from behind the car towards the closest of the men, moving quickly and giving them as little time to regroup as she could, and he followed. There was already a body at her feet with a broken neck and she was grappling with another. Clint dodged one of the men coming at them from the other direction and took his legs out from under him with a swipe, then reached out and slammed his head hard enough against the pavement he heard a satisfying crack. He rolled back to his feet and kicked the gun out of the final man's hand and received a kick to the chest in return that sent him staggering back several steps.
Right into Natasha.
There was a moment, just a second really, of disorientation at the contact, but it was enough. He heard her grunt even as the guy he was fighting got his hands on him. He struggled, rolling, finally throwing the other man to the ground in such a way that he heard the his neck snap. The gun he'd dropped was within reach and he grabbed it even as he was standing up and turning to see if she was alright.
The remaining two men were standing, holding her - her arms were wrenched behind her back in a way she probably could've gotten out of, except one of them was holding a wicked looking knife to her throat while the other held a gun to her head.
Damn.
Her eyes were clear and calm, but he could see on her face she knew how difficult the situation was. Either weapon could take her out in a hair's breadth of time. He was just one man with one gun.
It was an impossible shot.
Good thing he excelled at those.
The first bullet took out the man with the gun, and as he'd hoped the guy with the knife flinched. Clint watched the blade slice along her collar bone and shoulder rather than her neck as the second bullet punched home between the man's eyes and he fell.
*****
Natasha was steady on her feet as she stared at Clint, trying to process what had just happened. She had known, when she'd felt the blade at her throat and the gun at her temple, that her chances were slim. Even though Clint had a gun, taking out either man would lead to the other taking action. No one should've been able to make two shots so quickly and accurately.
But he had. More importantly, he hadn't hesitated, hadn't given the assailants a chance to get secure in their stance or position. Bare seconds had gone by since he'd seen her position, evaluated, taken aim, and fired.
Not even her response times were that good.
Her upper chest was starting to sting where she'd still caught the edge of the blade, but she could tell it hadn't hit anything vital.
"You're bleeding," he observed dryly.
"It's not bad. Just messy." She looked down, fingered the edge of the torn fabric and the skin near the wound, checked how deep it had gone. "I've had worse. It might not even need stitches."
"We need to get out of here. Find some place to clean up and regroup."
Nodding, she crouched down next to the two bodies at her feet and started patting them down for anything useful, like car keys or weapons. From the corner of her eye, she saw him start to do the same, as if by moving she'd broken some kind of spell.
The world was still too bright and edgy with the remnants of adrenaline as she found what she was looking for. She tucked two guns into the back of her waist band and pocketed a switchblade. Clint was finishing up with the last of the others when she walked over, dangling the keys in front of her like a prize. "You able to drive?"
"Yeah. Any idea where we're heading? Are we still going to try to reach Bern, or... ?"
"It's only about three more hours if we head straight there. I think that would be our best option, but we'll need to keep a better eye out for tails."
"Think they'll know this was us?"
"Do you mean SHIELD? No telling. How much of a connection are they going to find between you and these guys?"
She handed him the keys and they headed for the car. "Yesterday? I would've said none. Today? I'm not sure."
"Well, then let's get as much distance between us and here as we can."
*****
The rest of the drive passed without incident, and Natasha could feel herself uncoil with each hour that went by that no one followed them. It was late afternoon when they finally reached Switzerland, and she felt all the tension knot back up as she gave him directions to her home.
It was unassuming, a small two story house tucked back away from the road just outside of the city. She'd deliberately picked something with no visible neighbors, though there were several houses within a few miles in either direction. She'd never pictured anyone else here, but took a deep breath and unlocked the door with it's electronic code.
"There's a generator in the back, I'll go turn it on. The kitchen's through there and there should be something in the cabinets we can eat. I left several cans of food and some power bars the last time I was here."
Once the generator was running she found him in the kitchen, perusing their options. He paused in the process of opening some jarred tomato sauce and looked at her in the waning sunlight and flinched.
"God, Tasha," he hissed and reached out, pausing before he actually touched her bloody shirt. "Let's get you cleaned up."
Her fingers reached out and rubbed over the dried blood on his face and she tried to ignore how he leaned into her touch. "You're not such a pretty sight, yourself."
*****
She let him guide her over to one of the kitchen chairs, and didn't try to take the first aid kit or damp cloth from him, she just sat there as he started to wipe away the blood that she had smeared across her throat.
"You nearly died," he stated flatly, the moment on the road stuck on replay in his mind. As he moved down her neck, he could already see the wound was shallow, and she'd been right about it not needing stitches, but the blood had dried and her shirt was sticking to the wound in a way that looked painful. She didn't flinch when he tugged it free. The shirt was ruined anyway, so he slipped it off her shoulders and tossed it in a heap on the floor. The blood had soaked down into the fabric of her bra as well, but he left that where it was. His control was good, but not that good.
"it's not your fault, you know." Her voice was soft and even. Calm, despite everything. "It's not your job to protect me. I didn't notice them, either."
"I notice things. That is my job. If we'd realized the tail sooner, or-"
She reached up and grabbed his face, stopped him and looked him in the eyes. "The only reason I'm here is because you did the impossible."
"Don't remind me."
"Then stop torturing yourself with it," she shot back.
"If we'd done what you suggested two days ago, you wouldn't have been distracted when we ran into one another and he wouldn't have gotten the drop on you." He'd figured out that much of what had happened during the fight. She hadn't been having any trouble until that brief moment of overwhelm when they'd touched. It didn't even have to be bare skin anymore, as if the universal mechanics involved were getting impatient with them.
Cautiously, he traced his fingers over the skin of her shoulder, then wiped away more of the blood. She was smooth and warm, impossibly soft under his fingertips.
"Are you rethinking your decision?"
He took a deep breath. "If we do this, you have to be straight with me. Don't treat it like I'm a job, don't try to be someone else."
"I'm not sure how," she admitted. Her hand was still resting against his face.
"Have you ever done this, for yourself? Have you ever had sex with anyone when it wasn't a job, or an assignment?"
"Once or twice. But they didn't care how I acted or who I was. It was just... experimentation."
"I don't want that. For this to be like that, for either of us."
Eyes on hers, he felt, rather than saw it, when she took the wash cloth away from him with her free hand and brought it up to his face. She tilted his head so that she had a better angle and broke their eye contact for just a minute while she wiped the blood from him, too. He let her, reaching up when she was done to bring her hand to his mouth and press a kiss against her skin. "Let's finish getting you bandaged up."
Interlude 3: Honor and Loyalty
Chapter 8