Partners

They entered the burning warehouse through a broken window, but anything after that is a blur. They got the cube, Strucker and MODOC were arrested, there was the relief that came after a fight and not dying.

Now, while everyone is guarding MODOC and Strucker until SHIELD arrive to take them away, Natasha pulls Clint to the side.

She bites her lip before speaking. “I need to get out of here.”

He had always assumed she would stay.

“What? Why?”

“Please.”

She could easily slip away without him. Why is she telling him this? As soon as the cube was touched, she could have slipped away then; everyone had been distracted. Hell, she could have gone right before she pulled him over.

“Okay.”

No one sees them leave. They weave their way through the shipping containers. He rounds a corner and freezes - three SHIELD soldiers are in front of him. Natasha grabs a hold of his shoulder and pulls him back around the corner,

“They didn’t see me, had their backs turned.” He’s breathing heavily. Not from tiredness, his heart is beating too fast.

She pushes him up against the container, pinning him there with her forearm, into the shadows as more soldiers pass close by. They discuss something with the group Clint almost ran into and then continue on their path, away from him and Natasha.

He can feel her breath, light and fast, on his cheek and he misses her. He misses being with her all the time. They practically lived on the helicarrier together when they weren’t on missions. She was a constant presence and now he’s never going to see her again.

“Natasha,” he begins.

“Shh.” She leans the smallest bit closer as she speaks. “Wait.”

Soon enough, another lone SHIELD soldier passes. The footsteps soon disappear and Natasha lets him go.

“Yes?”

She turns to him, an eyebrow raised in question.

“Don’t go.”

How can she leave him again? She knows how he feels. Is that why she came to him for help, because she knew he couldn’t say no?

“Clint, I ... I.” She takes a deep breath. “Fury is missing. I have to find him. Even if ...” She clears her throat. “Come on. SHIELD are going to overrun this place soon and they won’t be happy to see me. And they certainly won’t take kindly to you helping me, either.”

She sticks her head around the corner.

“It’s clear, come on.” She dashes across the pathway and hides behind another shipping container. They continue on, not talking.

Clint keeps an eye out behind them, but soon the amount of people they see dwindles and when they stop in an alleyway on the outskirts of the shipping yard.

They sit on a couple of boxes and wait, catching their breath. Clint’s fogs in front of his face and he pushes his luck by shuffling a bit closer to her. For warmth, he can say, if she asks.

She doesn’t.

“How did you escape the gamma radiation?” he asks. Maybe if he keeps to conversation going, she won’t leave. Somehow, he can convince her to stay.

She laughs. “I’ve got a few tricks. Maybe you remember.” She nudges him in the shoulder.

“I don’t think I could forget.”

Their eyes meet and she smiles sadly. She looks so tired, so much older than when he first saw her last. How long had she been reporting to Strucker before he found the messages?

“I’m sorry things had to go the way they did.”

He shrugs. “Fury needed the best.”

She puts a hand on his arm, the arm that is not covered by his costume, catching her fingers on the purple band around his upper arm. She slips her hand under the material, her skin cool against his.

“What’s it for?”

He has momentarily forgotten how to speak. He can feel his pulse against her fingertips. “I, um. The ... I don’t know. For show.”

She takes out her hand and hesitates, then takes his hand in hers.

Clint takes a sharp breath in and she doesn’t say anything. Maybe she is as terrified of this as he is.

“What’s it like, living in a place on the ground?”

He snorts. “Less seasickness. Airsickness. Hulk takes up all the hot water.”

“He didn’t seem to like me very much. Neither did Wasp. Or anyone, for that matter.”

They wouldn’t, he thinks. Not when he’s been talking of nothing but Natasha whenever he got someone to listen to him. Janet was the best to talk to. Tony either didn’t care or couldn’t deal with emotion, Clint suspected it was both. Bruce was never around, Steve had his own problems to worry about, Hank was always too busy in his laboratory. T’Challa barely spoke. Thor was too hard to talk to.

Janet didn’t mind if he had a bit too much to drink, either. She would complain about Hank and have a bit too much herself, too.

“Well, I may have said some things. I thought you’d betrayed me, I--”

“Don’t worry about it.” She smiles at him but the sadness is still there.

She stands and lets go of his hand. “It’s time for me to go. They would have got MODOC and Strucker locked up by now.”

“Wait here, I’ll check if it’s safe.”

A squad of SHIELD soldiers run past. He takes a deep breath. “You’re clear.”

She steps out of the shadows. There’s no way he can make her stay, he knows. Her mind is made up.

“This is crazy, Natasha. Come back to the mansion with me. The Avengers will protect you until we can locate Fury.”

She doesn’t need protection. He knows, she knows. But he needs her there, can’t she understand?

She takes a step forward. “No. I have to find him.”

Her voice wavers on the no. That was unexpected. She places her hands on his chest and he doesn’t know what to do. If he says anything now, he won’t be able to form words. His heart feels like it’s choking him, wrapped around his windpipe, swelled up too big inside his chest.

“Clint, if Fury really is missing, then something terrible has happened.”

He feels her hands slide up to his shoulders, almost on his neck. He can’t look at her face, so he watches her hands.

“Come with me.”

He can’t go with her, he knows that. “I can’t. I’m an Avenger. They’re my partners, now.”

He can’t think of any other words, though there is so much to say, he can’t think of anything except that sentence that falls so short of everything. He wants to tell her how much she scares him, how she makes him feel too much. But there are no words for that.

Then she kisses him and he doesn’t need to say anything. There had never been a kiss quite like this one for him. He has kissed happy people, angry people, lustful, sad, indifferent people, but has never quite felt this desperate loneliness in someone else before. His hands go to her waist and if he had the option, he would never let her go.

But he doesn’t and she breaks away. Her eyes are too deep. He is good at keeping people out, but, right now, she gets in. She sees too much of him and he hates and loves her for it.

Without another word, she runs. He stands in the alleyway for too long, long after she’s gone.