FIC: no happy endings with me (for theladymore) - PG-13
Title: no happy endings with me
Author: noblealice
A Gift For: theladymore
Rating:pg-13
Warnings: post-movie Loki fallout, mentions of mind control and canonical deaths
Pairings: Clint/Natasha
Summary/Prompt Used: He understands now, how someone can feel so guilty that they haven’t earned the forgiveness and safety of love. With all the blood on his hands he’s more liable to destroy anything he touches anyways, and it would be a pitiful memoriam to the brave men and women in the ground.
Authors Notes: I hope you like this and it isn’t too angsty, If anyone is familiar with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, then you know that I owe a large debt of thanks to the relationship between Roy and Riza, which influenced the mood of this fic.
Banner by frea_o
Clint Barton’s particular skill-set didn’t involve extracting information out of targets. It involved killing them, clean and quick, and he usually had no problem with following orders. Hell, he’d been doing it half his life. Didn’t mean he always liked it, or didn’t bend the rules from time to time, but he had a good thing going with SHIELD and he did his best not to fuck it up.
Of course, after the fucking mess in Manhattan, his future was in jeopardy and he couldn’t help but feel splintered and crushed as the committee assessed the amount of damage he’d endured, the time and price it would take to repair him. He knew that at one point they probably discussed in purely clinical terms if it’d be more economical to just toss him in the scrap heap rather than try to put his scrambled brain back together again. SHIELD had plenty more snipers and he’s the most expendable member of this newly formed initiative.
Video footage of his involvement in the battle in the streets had been analyzed by tacticians, strategists and psychologists for hours on loop. He wasn’t worried about what they’d find. He let his body take over, his reflexes and muscle memory allowed him to direct his lethal tendencies towards the new threat, just as easily as Loki had directed him toward killing fellow SHIELD agents. They looked for differences between the footage of him on the helicarrier and footage of him in the rubble of the streets and could find few discrepancies.
They hadn’t yet decided if this was a good or a bad thing.
Eventually he was released from the hospital, feeling hollowed out and unsteady. He’d just learned that he was merely a weapon, to be spun around like a kid with a bat and pushed in the direction where he’d do the most damage. He thinks someone should just cut the damn red wire and disarm him before the timer counts down to zero.
They kept him under surveillance. Loki’s off world - off-universe technically - but they’re cautious. They’d had too many mistakes with sleeper agents. Fact is, he’d be angry if they were anything else, because he didn’t want to endanger his team or, more importantly, endanger Natasha. He didn’t want to harm her ever again.
Of course, that didn’t mean that the constant hovering, the tail of guards or the always blinking cameras weren’t damn unsettling. He was sitting across from the only shrink left aboard the helicarrier, wondering what it meant that his loyalties could be spun around so easily. He didn’t think SHIELD would think of it as interesting, so he never mentioned it. He spent a lot of his time zoning out.
He started off as a soldier until his skill as a sharpshooter got him noticed. Soon he was running his own ops with a skeleton crew, more likely behind enemy lines than not. He told Natasha that a sniper was different from a spy, he didn’t have to wade through mind games and espionage. In the field he only had to trust himself to be patient as he turned off his brain as his world narrowed down to the crosshairs of his scope. A sniper’s work is obvious. A sniper is a calling card, leaving either a message or a warning to let people know that they are not safe.
He’d spent hours upon hours on his belly, lying in his own piss with sun or rain or snow beating down on his camouflage netting as he ignored cramped muscles and a growling stomach, always waiting for that perfect shot.
For a sniper, death is kept at a distance. It is instantaneous but never witnessed. The recoil from the rifle costs him his view of the kill , causing him to stick around, searching through the scope to examine his handiwork and confirm the hit. Most snipers have spotters to do this, but he left his crew behind when he joined SHIELD and Tasha refused to come along just to witness more deaths from afar. It didn’t bother him, he preferred working alone when Natasha wasn’t available.
For years the two of them had isolated themselves from the rest of the organization, forming their own little unit within SHIELD’s army. It was dangerous but he couldn’t help but shy away from any partner that wasn’t Tasha. It earned them frowns and whispers, but they continued to get the job done so their idiosyncrasy was allowed. Now he’s careful not be alone in a room with her, can’t get comfortable until he’s sure that if something were to happen she’d have a clear exit. He’s sure that she’s aware of what he’s doing from how she started sitting close to the door and invited Steve to join them for lunch. She never invited other SHIELD agents and he was glad, the sting would be too much when they inevitably said no.
Nights spent alone were the worst. He laid out his bedroll in the floor of his closet, leaving his bed unruffled for the psychiatrists to puzzle over. He stared into the dark and stopped trying to shut everything out, let their faces stare at him with accusing eyes.
Clint knows that Tasha kept track of the lives she’d taken. He didn’t count his kills, but the weight of the anonymous lives and the potential he stole from them still weigh on him. He had a system of his own to remember, he wouldn’t want to dishonour their memories by forgetting their faces - he remembered every single one - he just didn’t count.
Clint had always suspected why Natasha had kept herself so reserved, had a theory that she thought like she didn’t deserve happiness after all she’d done. He’d thought it a a load of shit until he’d had to attend a dozen funerals within the span of a week - all of them caused in part by him.
He understood now, how someone could feel so guilty that they hadn’t earned the forgiveness and safety of love. With all the blood on his hands he’d be more liable to destroy anything he touched anyways, and it would be a pitiful memoriam to the brave men and women in the ground if he was not only allowed to survive by pure dumb luck but also allowed to feel love.
They had danced around the subject before, he thought that his feelings were known and he was comfortable waiting until she was ready, but now a scale had been tipped and it felt unfair. So he’d begun to hold himself back and kept to himself, trying to minimize the damage by denying himself the thing he wanted most. It would be selfish to ask for more than the life he has. He knows it will take practice, but he’d been working with the best teacher in the world; Tasha’s been denying her body from dependencies for years and he had the patience and discipline from his past to draw on.
He’ll endure. (He won’t live)
Of course, this attitude wasn’t exactly ideal for his self-preservation instincts. While ghosting through life, he tended to miss a few things - things that might have alerted him to the presence of a group of thugs coming up behind him.
When he dragged his ass back to the rendezvous point, Natasha’s eyes were wide with anger and her fist instinctually tightened when she surveyed his injuries. She stared at him for a moment before unfurling her fingers and he waited until she took a step back before meeting her eyes. She released her breath out through her nose, as calm as a cornered animal.
“Dammit Barton, don’t make Hill give me another lecture on team safety. It’s kind of hard to report that ‘everything went satisfactorily’ when you’re sporting a newly dislocated shoulder! And after a fucking recon mission! I think that by now I’ve memorized the speech better than she has.”
She makes no mention that she’s never actually heard this lecture from Agent Hill. Coulson was always the one reprimanding them when things on missions went south.
It's been weeks and he’s still haunted by the stain on the wall, the one he’d all but caused. He found himself starting to go out of his way to walk past the fresh paint everyday, a useless penance - if that’s what he was even doing - but for now it’s all he’s got.
When he looked up again she was pinching the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb. It was one of her few tells and he knew something besides the mission was bothering her. Normally he’d ask, pester her until she told him.
But normal was left back in the desert when a demigod walked through the door.
“You just going to keep acting this reckless until you get yourself killed?”
“You’re acting like I’ve got a ducking death wish. I’ve just had a bad few weeks.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re being intentionally sloppy.”
“Sorry, I can’t keep up with your standards, not everyone is as skilled at repressing shit as you.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, so quick he wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t known to listen for it. It was a low blow but he was grouchy and in pain and just wanted the peaceful oblivion of sleep without nightmares - a luxury that he hadn’t received in over a month.
She stalked toward him, her body language radiating the barely contained violence and he thought finally. Instead of hitting him, like he expected she merely trapped him with her eyes. “Why do you insist on keeping me out? Pushing me away? I can’t figure out what you want!”
“I want...fuck, Tasha. You damn well know what I want!” He wanted her, not just her body but her trust. He wanted her to be there through the night and into the morning the next day. He wanted to be able to touch her without seeing her flinch away from him.
He was breathing hard from the yelling and his shoulder throbbed with each heartbeat, she seemed taken aback by his uncharacteristically blunt outburst.
It killed him when she rocked back to on heels, like she was actually considering it. Like she’s wondering if it’s even possible to give him that trust outside of the field. It killed him because he’s had to stop her, had to keep her from getting hurt so he spoke up again before she had the chance to say anything. It wouldn’t be fair to let her think that he was capable of her trust right now.
“But for the first time ever I feel like it’s wrong.”
He considered that she probably didn’t want to hear about all the reasons she was too good for him - self pity only led to an asskicking with Natasha, so he tried a different tactic. “Look at who I am, what I’ve done and what I will do.”
He sighed, long and hard, the fight leaving his body. “It’s a betrayal to all of the agents I killed.” He lowered his voice, ashamed.
“Why should I get what they can’t ever experience again? People like me don’t deserve it.”
Her voice was barely above a whisper when she next spoke. “Someone once pitched a deal to me on the premise that people can change.”
He winced, wished she wouldn’t throw his own damn words back at him. Wished a lot of things.
“He got in deep, Tash. I don’t know if that ever fades.” They circled each other, like two wild animals preparing for a difficult battle.
“I’m not ready.” He admitted.
He’d done all the heavy lifting so far in this conversation so he waited for her to speak. “Me neither.” She whispered and it felt true.
“I might not ever be.”
She nodded her head at that, sympathy in her actions as she brought up a hand up to cup his face, slowly meeting his eyes.
“I understand. Somedays I feel......” She blinked twice before squeezing her eyes shut. When they opened he saw more on her face than she had ever let him see before, it humbled him that she would allow him this. “But I have to believe that I will be ready some day. Do you understand? I have to. If I lose that hope---”
“I understand.” Or at least, he remembered understanding. Remembered telling himself that he could wait for her, that one day they’d get their happily ever after.
“Clint, how will we know when the price has been paid?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll wake up without feeling guilty. Maybe one day the idea of taking something for myself won’t feel like betrayal.”
She moved closer, breath tickling against his ear. “So you want me to wait? Knowing how we both feel?”
He pushed her back, kept her at arms length where she’d be safe from him. “No. I can’t ask you to wait for me, Tash.”
Annoyance flashed across her face and she “Then I won’t.”
Clint lets a few days pass after Natasha stormed out on him before he goes to find her.
When he saw she was alone in her quarters he knocked on the open door before entering. “I’m sorry, Tasha.”
She looked over her shoulder and shrugged. “Some days I don’t know why I put up with you, Barton.”
“You could leave.”
“Yeah, I could. I’ve done it before.”
He noticed the bag by her feet for the first time and a tiny twinge of panic shoot through him. “Is this goodbye, then?”
She whirled around to confront him. “No. Because I’m choosing to stay. I’m not going to abandon you, not when you stuck by me.”
He opened his mouth to reply but she cut him off. “I’m not waiting for some arbitrary day when you decide you’ve faced down all your demons, because trust me, that day will never come. The demons will always be there and you just have to learn how to live with them. Basically, I’m not giving up on you Clint.”
“Nat, I can’t have you stay with me under the false pretense that I can give you what you deserve.”
“I don’t know what I deserve, it’s probably less than you think. But the truly important thing is what I want. One day I’ll offer you more than friendship and on that day you’ll say yes and on that day I’ll get what I want.”
He smirked. “Always were so sure of yourself.”
She raised her eyebrow in challenge. “Only because I have the track record to back it up.”
He sobered up at the smile in her eyes, wiped a hand over his face. “I don’t want to be the one mission you fail, Nat.”
She shook her head as she walked toward him. “You can’t fail me. You can annoy me and infuriate me and drive me to the limits of my patience but if you try even a little bit then you won’t fail me.”
“That’s asking too much of me.”
“I’m asking you to fight. Not to give in to the pity and guilt. I’m asking you to keep treading water until you’re ready to accept someone else’s help.”
“I’m tired, Nat.”
She rested her head on his shoulder, spoke into his neck. “I know.”
“I don’t think I deserve help. Not after--”
“Are you saying I didn’t deserve help? That giving me a second, third, hell, a sixth chance was wrong? Because of your faith in me, I was there to stop him. One day you’ll be there to stop the next person, but only if you accept your second chance at life.”
“‘This isn’t my second chance, and you know it.”
She pushed herself off him, frustrated. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this! Call me when my partner’s back.” He’d pushed her away so many times in the last couple of months and a part of him knew that day would come, but somehow he didn’t feel triumphant, he felt panic. He can’t lose her like this. She was almost out the door and instinct had him reaching out to stop her. He merely brushed the tips of his fingers against her arm but it was enough to make her pause.
“Nat, wait. I...don’t make this the end.”
She turned to face him. “You control that, Clint. You control more than you give yourself credit for.”
“I’m in no place now to be with you.”
“Me either. Not by a long shot. But we have to allow ourselves to wish for a happy ending. At least as happy as people like us can get.”
“People like us can get happy endings?”
She smiled at him, bright and hopeful. “Yeah, I think I read it somewhere.”
He was powerless to resist her. Felt his cheeks tug up in a small grin. “You got a manual for how to get there?”
She walked toward her bed, gestured for him to follow and sit next to her. “Nope. Guess, we’ll have to make it up as we go along.”
“We’re not half bad at that.”
“Yeah, at least we’ve had practice.” He couldn’t look away from the promise in her eyes, couldn’t believe himself this lucky. He had someone willing to fight for his future and he was in awe, but thinking about the logistics of the future made him feel awkward and his doubts refused to be settled from one conversation.
“You sure you can stick with me a little bit longer? There’s not going to be any overnight miracles.”
“I don’t expect any. But yeah, I guess I can put up with you for a few more years, so long as you’re not going to wallow in guilt.”
“I might wade around in it. Seems I’ve got a survivor’s complex along with a bunch of other things.”
She bumped his shoulder with hers. “Okay. I’ll be ready when you are.”
“I’ll be sure to tell you when that is.” He looked down to see Natasha take his hand in hers and when he felt her give his fingers a light squeeze, it seemed like the vice that had his heart in a tight grip was a little bit looser.
Author: noblealice
A Gift For: theladymore
Rating:pg-13
Warnings: post-movie Loki fallout, mentions of mind control and canonical deaths
Pairings: Clint/Natasha
Summary/Prompt Used: He understands now, how someone can feel so guilty that they haven’t earned the forgiveness and safety of love. With all the blood on his hands he’s more liable to destroy anything he touches anyways, and it would be a pitiful memoriam to the brave men and women in the ground.
Authors Notes: I hope you like this and it isn’t too angsty, If anyone is familiar with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, then you know that I owe a large debt of thanks to the relationship between Roy and Riza, which influenced the mood of this fic.
Banner by frea_o
Clint Barton’s particular skill-set didn’t involve extracting information out of targets. It involved killing them, clean and quick, and he usually had no problem with following orders. Hell, he’d been doing it half his life. Didn’t mean he always liked it, or didn’t bend the rules from time to time, but he had a good thing going with SHIELD and he did his best not to fuck it up.
Of course, after the fucking mess in Manhattan, his future was in jeopardy and he couldn’t help but feel splintered and crushed as the committee assessed the amount of damage he’d endured, the time and price it would take to repair him. He knew that at one point they probably discussed in purely clinical terms if it’d be more economical to just toss him in the scrap heap rather than try to put his scrambled brain back together again. SHIELD had plenty more snipers and he’s the most expendable member of this newly formed initiative.
Video footage of his involvement in the battle in the streets had been analyzed by tacticians, strategists and psychologists for hours on loop. He wasn’t worried about what they’d find. He let his body take over, his reflexes and muscle memory allowed him to direct his lethal tendencies towards the new threat, just as easily as Loki had directed him toward killing fellow SHIELD agents. They looked for differences between the footage of him on the helicarrier and footage of him in the rubble of the streets and could find few discrepancies.
They hadn’t yet decided if this was a good or a bad thing.
Eventually he was released from the hospital, feeling hollowed out and unsteady. He’d just learned that he was merely a weapon, to be spun around like a kid with a bat and pushed in the direction where he’d do the most damage. He thinks someone should just cut the damn red wire and disarm him before the timer counts down to zero.
They kept him under surveillance. Loki’s off world - off-universe technically - but they’re cautious. They’d had too many mistakes with sleeper agents. Fact is, he’d be angry if they were anything else, because he didn’t want to endanger his team or, more importantly, endanger Natasha. He didn’t want to harm her ever again.
Of course, that didn’t mean that the constant hovering, the tail of guards or the always blinking cameras weren’t damn unsettling. He was sitting across from the only shrink left aboard the helicarrier, wondering what it meant that his loyalties could be spun around so easily. He didn’t think SHIELD would think of it as interesting, so he never mentioned it. He spent a lot of his time zoning out.
He started off as a soldier until his skill as a sharpshooter got him noticed. Soon he was running his own ops with a skeleton crew, more likely behind enemy lines than not. He told Natasha that a sniper was different from a spy, he didn’t have to wade through mind games and espionage. In the field he only had to trust himself to be patient as he turned off his brain as his world narrowed down to the crosshairs of his scope. A sniper’s work is obvious. A sniper is a calling card, leaving either a message or a warning to let people know that they are not safe.
He’d spent hours upon hours on his belly, lying in his own piss with sun or rain or snow beating down on his camouflage netting as he ignored cramped muscles and a growling stomach, always waiting for that perfect shot.
For a sniper, death is kept at a distance. It is instantaneous but never witnessed. The recoil from the rifle costs him his view of the kill , causing him to stick around, searching through the scope to examine his handiwork and confirm the hit. Most snipers have spotters to do this, but he left his crew behind when he joined SHIELD and Tasha refused to come along just to witness more deaths from afar. It didn’t bother him, he preferred working alone when Natasha wasn’t available.
For years the two of them had isolated themselves from the rest of the organization, forming their own little unit within SHIELD’s army. It was dangerous but he couldn’t help but shy away from any partner that wasn’t Tasha. It earned them frowns and whispers, but they continued to get the job done so their idiosyncrasy was allowed. Now he’s careful not be alone in a room with her, can’t get comfortable until he’s sure that if something were to happen she’d have a clear exit. He’s sure that she’s aware of what he’s doing from how she started sitting close to the door and invited Steve to join them for lunch. She never invited other SHIELD agents and he was glad, the sting would be too much when they inevitably said no.
Nights spent alone were the worst. He laid out his bedroll in the floor of his closet, leaving his bed unruffled for the psychiatrists to puzzle over. He stared into the dark and stopped trying to shut everything out, let their faces stare at him with accusing eyes.
Clint knows that Tasha kept track of the lives she’d taken. He didn’t count his kills, but the weight of the anonymous lives and the potential he stole from them still weigh on him. He had a system of his own to remember, he wouldn’t want to dishonour their memories by forgetting their faces - he remembered every single one - he just didn’t count.
Clint had always suspected why Natasha had kept herself so reserved, had a theory that she thought like she didn’t deserve happiness after all she’d done. He’d thought it a a load of shit until he’d had to attend a dozen funerals within the span of a week - all of them caused in part by him.
He understood now, how someone could feel so guilty that they hadn’t earned the forgiveness and safety of love. With all the blood on his hands he’d be more liable to destroy anything he touched anyways, and it would be a pitiful memoriam to the brave men and women in the ground if he was not only allowed to survive by pure dumb luck but also allowed to feel love.
They had danced around the subject before, he thought that his feelings were known and he was comfortable waiting until she was ready, but now a scale had been tipped and it felt unfair. So he’d begun to hold himself back and kept to himself, trying to minimize the damage by denying himself the thing he wanted most. It would be selfish to ask for more than the life he has. He knows it will take practice, but he’d been working with the best teacher in the world; Tasha’s been denying her body from dependencies for years and he had the patience and discipline from his past to draw on.
He’ll endure. (He won’t live)
Of course, this attitude wasn’t exactly ideal for his self-preservation instincts. While ghosting through life, he tended to miss a few things - things that might have alerted him to the presence of a group of thugs coming up behind him.
When he dragged his ass back to the rendezvous point, Natasha’s eyes were wide with anger and her fist instinctually tightened when she surveyed his injuries. She stared at him for a moment before unfurling her fingers and he waited until she took a step back before meeting her eyes. She released her breath out through her nose, as calm as a cornered animal.
“Dammit Barton, don’t make Hill give me another lecture on team safety. It’s kind of hard to report that ‘everything went satisfactorily’ when you’re sporting a newly dislocated shoulder! And after a fucking recon mission! I think that by now I’ve memorized the speech better than she has.”
She makes no mention that she’s never actually heard this lecture from Agent Hill. Coulson was always the one reprimanding them when things on missions went south.
It's been weeks and he’s still haunted by the stain on the wall, the one he’d all but caused. He found himself starting to go out of his way to walk past the fresh paint everyday, a useless penance - if that’s what he was even doing - but for now it’s all he’s got.
When he looked up again she was pinching the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb. It was one of her few tells and he knew something besides the mission was bothering her. Normally he’d ask, pester her until she told him.
But normal was left back in the desert when a demigod walked through the door.
“You just going to keep acting this reckless until you get yourself killed?”
“You’re acting like I’ve got a ducking death wish. I’ve just had a bad few weeks.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re being intentionally sloppy.”
“Sorry, I can’t keep up with your standards, not everyone is as skilled at repressing shit as you.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, so quick he wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t known to listen for it. It was a low blow but he was grouchy and in pain and just wanted the peaceful oblivion of sleep without nightmares - a luxury that he hadn’t received in over a month.
She stalked toward him, her body language radiating the barely contained violence and he thought finally. Instead of hitting him, like he expected she merely trapped him with her eyes. “Why do you insist on keeping me out? Pushing me away? I can’t figure out what you want!”
“I want...fuck, Tasha. You damn well know what I want!” He wanted her, not just her body but her trust. He wanted her to be there through the night and into the morning the next day. He wanted to be able to touch her without seeing her flinch away from him.
He was breathing hard from the yelling and his shoulder throbbed with each heartbeat, she seemed taken aback by his uncharacteristically blunt outburst.
It killed him when she rocked back to on heels, like she was actually considering it. Like she’s wondering if it’s even possible to give him that trust outside of the field. It killed him because he’s had to stop her, had to keep her from getting hurt so he spoke up again before she had the chance to say anything. It wouldn’t be fair to let her think that he was capable of her trust right now.
“But for the first time ever I feel like it’s wrong.”
He considered that she probably didn’t want to hear about all the reasons she was too good for him - self pity only led to an asskicking with Natasha, so he tried a different tactic. “Look at who I am, what I’ve done and what I will do.”
He sighed, long and hard, the fight leaving his body. “It’s a betrayal to all of the agents I killed.” He lowered his voice, ashamed.
“Why should I get what they can’t ever experience again? People like me don’t deserve it.”
Her voice was barely above a whisper when she next spoke. “Someone once pitched a deal to me on the premise that people can change.”
He winced, wished she wouldn’t throw his own damn words back at him. Wished a lot of things.
“He got in deep, Tash. I don’t know if that ever fades.” They circled each other, like two wild animals preparing for a difficult battle.
“I’m not ready.” He admitted.
He’d done all the heavy lifting so far in this conversation so he waited for her to speak. “Me neither.” She whispered and it felt true.
“I might not ever be.”
She nodded her head at that, sympathy in her actions as she brought up a hand up to cup his face, slowly meeting his eyes.
“I understand. Somedays I feel......” She blinked twice before squeezing her eyes shut. When they opened he saw more on her face than she had ever let him see before, it humbled him that she would allow him this. “But I have to believe that I will be ready some day. Do you understand? I have to. If I lose that hope---”
“I understand.” Or at least, he remembered understanding. Remembered telling himself that he could wait for her, that one day they’d get their happily ever after.
“Clint, how will we know when the price has been paid?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll wake up without feeling guilty. Maybe one day the idea of taking something for myself won’t feel like betrayal.”
She moved closer, breath tickling against his ear. “So you want me to wait? Knowing how we both feel?”
He pushed her back, kept her at arms length where she’d be safe from him. “No. I can’t ask you to wait for me, Tash.”
Annoyance flashed across her face and she “Then I won’t.”
Clint lets a few days pass after Natasha stormed out on him before he goes to find her.
When he saw she was alone in her quarters he knocked on the open door before entering. “I’m sorry, Tasha.”
She looked over her shoulder and shrugged. “Some days I don’t know why I put up with you, Barton.”
“You could leave.”
“Yeah, I could. I’ve done it before.”
He noticed the bag by her feet for the first time and a tiny twinge of panic shoot through him. “Is this goodbye, then?”
She whirled around to confront him. “No. Because I’m choosing to stay. I’m not going to abandon you, not when you stuck by me.”
He opened his mouth to reply but she cut him off. “I’m not waiting for some arbitrary day when you decide you’ve faced down all your demons, because trust me, that day will never come. The demons will always be there and you just have to learn how to live with them. Basically, I’m not giving up on you Clint.”
“Nat, I can’t have you stay with me under the false pretense that I can give you what you deserve.”
“I don’t know what I deserve, it’s probably less than you think. But the truly important thing is what I want. One day I’ll offer you more than friendship and on that day you’ll say yes and on that day I’ll get what I want.”
He smirked. “Always were so sure of yourself.”
She raised her eyebrow in challenge. “Only because I have the track record to back it up.”
He sobered up at the smile in her eyes, wiped a hand over his face. “I don’t want to be the one mission you fail, Nat.”
She shook her head as she walked toward him. “You can’t fail me. You can annoy me and infuriate me and drive me to the limits of my patience but if you try even a little bit then you won’t fail me.”
“That’s asking too much of me.”
“I’m asking you to fight. Not to give in to the pity and guilt. I’m asking you to keep treading water until you’re ready to accept someone else’s help.”
“I’m tired, Nat.”
She rested her head on his shoulder, spoke into his neck. “I know.”
“I don’t think I deserve help. Not after--”
“Are you saying I didn’t deserve help? That giving me a second, third, hell, a sixth chance was wrong? Because of your faith in me, I was there to stop him. One day you’ll be there to stop the next person, but only if you accept your second chance at life.”
“‘This isn’t my second chance, and you know it.”
She pushed herself off him, frustrated. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this! Call me when my partner’s back.” He’d pushed her away so many times in the last couple of months and a part of him knew that day would come, but somehow he didn’t feel triumphant, he felt panic. He can’t lose her like this. She was almost out the door and instinct had him reaching out to stop her. He merely brushed the tips of his fingers against her arm but it was enough to make her pause.
“Nat, wait. I...don’t make this the end.”
She turned to face him. “You control that, Clint. You control more than you give yourself credit for.”
“I’m in no place now to be with you.”
“Me either. Not by a long shot. But we have to allow ourselves to wish for a happy ending. At least as happy as people like us can get.”
“People like us can get happy endings?”
She smiled at him, bright and hopeful. “Yeah, I think I read it somewhere.”
He was powerless to resist her. Felt his cheeks tug up in a small grin. “You got a manual for how to get there?”
She walked toward her bed, gestured for him to follow and sit next to her. “Nope. Guess, we’ll have to make it up as we go along.”
“We’re not half bad at that.”
“Yeah, at least we’ve had practice.” He couldn’t look away from the promise in her eyes, couldn’t believe himself this lucky. He had someone willing to fight for his future and he was in awe, but thinking about the logistics of the future made him feel awkward and his doubts refused to be settled from one conversation.
“You sure you can stick with me a little bit longer? There’s not going to be any overnight miracles.”
“I don’t expect any. But yeah, I guess I can put up with you for a few more years, so long as you’re not going to wallow in guilt.”
“I might wade around in it. Seems I’ve got a survivor’s complex along with a bunch of other things.”
She bumped his shoulder with hers. “Okay. I’ll be ready when you are.”
“I’ll be sure to tell you when that is.” He looked down to see Natasha take his hand in hers and when he felt her give his fingers a light squeeze, it seemed like the vice that had his heart in a tight grip was a little bit looser.