Letters from Home

The couch cuts diagonally through the centre of the living room, and boxes line the freshly-painted walls. A pile of blankets and a pillow take up one corner of the room; the television rests directly on the hardwood floor, already plugged in. An old air conditioning unit rattles in its perch in the window as it sends shaky blasts of cool air into the otherwise sweltering room. On the fire escape is a cracked flowerpot, full of crumbly soil and the fragile remains of a dead plant. Voices filter through the walls, muffled by plaster and insulation but still audible.

Clint runs a hand through his sweat-soaked hair and smiles at his surroundings.

“Home, sweet shitty home,” he mutters to himself before pushing the front door closed, crossing the room, and falling face-first onto the couch.

He’s unfortunately dragged from his worn-out lounging by his phone vibrating in his back pocket. He’s willing to ignore it, but the thought of it being Natasha or Coulson is enough for Clint to get his ass in gear; he fishes the device from his jeans, fumbling as it threatens to slip from his fingers, and cracks one eye open to read the message. He’s completely unsurprised to see the spider emoji in the Contact bar.

You settled in yet?

He types a reply with one hand, sending back yup everythings in and im dead.

Quit being so dramatic is the first response, followed quickly by You doing okay?

Peachy.

Clint, be serious.

Im fine tasha i promise just really tired.

Go to sleep then.

I will soon but first i wanna hear about ur day.

She doesn’t answer, and Clint knows this is her way of telling him that she isn’t going to enable his erratic sleep schedule – if less than two hours a night can be considered a “sleep schedule.” He sighs and lets his phone clatter to the floor when the screen stays dark for more than five minutes. It’s just past eight, which means he’s been awake for nearly forty hours. Leaving his packing for the last minute had been beneficial (in his eyes, anyway, even if Nat doesn’t agree): It kept him from sleeping, kept him busy and mostly out of his own brain.

But now, a deep exhaustion has settled in his bones, and every inch of his body screams in protest any time he moves. Without thinking any more about it, Clint folds his arms under his head and stares blankly at a small clump of dried paint on the wall, forcing himself to focus on his breathing instead of the memories fighting to the surface.

A strangled sob echoes through the quiet apartment, but it’s cut off sharply by a groan when Clint’s body collides with the hard floor. He lays there trembling and aching, struggling to breathe through a constricting throat and a tightened chest on the verge of collapse. By the time he’s able to move once more, he’s finally stopped crying, now only sniffling while occasionally hiccuping; he sits up shakily and viciously wipes at his cheeks. His breathing is still unsteady, but he manages to rise to his feet without falling over, stumbling toward the bathroom.

The face in the mirror is haggard, ashen under splotches of vivid red; his eyes are swollen, surrounded by deep nearly-black circles, and his jaw hides under thick, sand-coloured growth. Clint splashes cold water on his face, using his shirt to wipe the remnants of tears and snot from his skin. After blowing his nose in the fabric (he can hear Natasha’s voice, clear as day, calling him disgusting in that fond way of hers), he strips off his shirt, leaving it on the floor, before he lurches down the hall to the kitchen.

Finding the bottle amidst the boxes proves to be difficult with his racing mind, nausea, and shaking hands, but he eventually emerges victorious. He doesn’t hesitate to crack the seal around the cap and bring the bottle to his lips. He takes three long swallows of the whisky as he tosses the cap; the plastic thuds lightly one, two, three times against the linoleum then spins to a stop. Clint can’t care about where it ends up – all he cares about is getting drunk enough to purge his memories from his brain, to lock them back up in the mental filing cabinet labelled “Fucked up, do {NOT} touch.”

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to a pounding head, dry mouth, and a body that refuses to cooperate. It takes five minutes of tiny movements for his muscles to relax enough to be used without absolute pain; he pushes himself up from the kitchen floor until he can rest his back against the cabinets and stares at the lightening sky outside the window above the sink. He isn’t sure how long he actually slept once the liquor started doing its job, but it was at least enough that he isn’t as dizzy or having as much difficulty concentrating.

He just wishes he'd had the forethought to move to the couch before starting to drink.

He may have had a helluva lot more experience in his life with alcohol than the average man, but an entire bottle of Jack can still kick his ass, and that's something he should have remembered. He waits until the sun is a bit higher in the sky before he clambers unsteadily to his feet and makes his way to the box that he thinks holds his clothes.

He changes quickly into another pair of maybe-clean jeans and a T-shirt that’s not coated in bodily fluids, shoves his feet into unlaced boots, and swishes some of the travel-sized mouthwash in his duffel-bag before he heads out the front door; a small coffee shop is on the corner of the block, so that’s his destination. His coffeemaker isn’t yet set up—he isn’t even sure it works anymore—and he desperately needs caffeine after all the work he did yesterday.

The barista behind the counter gives Clint a tired smile as soon as he steps inside. He orders the strongest plain-no-frills coffee available on the menu, requesting an extra two shots of espresso. The employee doesn’t question Clint’s choices, just moves about to make the drink. Once it’s in his hand, Clint doesn’t wait for it to cool; he merely swallows down as much as he can while ignoring the fact his mouth and throat are being burned by his scalding hot drink. He grins at the barista’s shocked expression, waves, and leaves.

The streets outside are already full, sidewalks bustling with people on their way to work or to run errands. Clint lets himself get swept up into the stream of rushing pedestrians, sipping the rest of his coffee as he goes. His brain is screaming at him to get out of the mass, to get somewhere secluded, but he ignores the warnings as well as he can. Having those instincts has saved his life—literally—dozens upon dozens of times in his twenty-seven years of existing, even before his career as a sniper for SHIELD, a covert, specialised unit of the FBI, but right now, he wants nothing except to enjoy the already-warm morning and to finish his coffee.

A stack of cardboard leans against the wall by the door when Clint finally gets back to his apartment. He stares around his living room—at the couch pushed against the far wall, the pillow and blankets folded and neatly placed on the new (to him, anyway; the scuff marks act as evidence of previous ownership) coffee table, the bow and case of arrows on a shelf he knows wasn’t there this morning and that he didn’t put up. He ambles through the flat, makes note of the lack of boxes in the kitchen as he passes.

In his room is a bed, positioned in the corner with the side against the wall; a thick black comforter is spread across the mattress, and two fluffy purple pillows rest against the headboard. A piece of paper is safety-pinned to the edge of the pillowcase, but he ignores it in favour of checking out the dresser that’s been set up. The drawers are mostly empty except for his meagre amount of underwear and tank tops. The closet holds five pairs of sweatpants, a handful of ratty t-shirts, three pairs of jeans, and a single black suit and white dress shirt.

Once his examination is complete, he unpins the note from his pillow, not really needing to read the words to know who it’s from but still grateful to see the familiar handwriting.

Clint –
Since you’re such a disaster and you wouldn’t do any work to get your place set up for at least another six months, consider this a housewarming gift from Coulson and me.

I’ll be by this weekend. Stay out of trouble, дурак.

– Natasha

There’s even a little doodle of a spider at the bottom. Clint brings the note to his nose, inhaling the faint traces of jasmine that clings to the paper. His heart aches beneath his ribs; he hasn’t actually spent any time with his best friend since he was given an ultimatum – leave field work or lose any employment through SHIELD. He’d reluctantly accepted desk duty, though he’d hated every second of it, and after only a week of doing nothing but filing reports, Clint lost his cool and yelled at one of the lower-level agents which resulted in a forced vacation ordered by the Unit Chief and Clint’s immediate supervisor.

Coulson had seemed genuinely apologetic, but he’d agreed with Fury’s decision, assuring Clint it was only temporary and he’d be back on the team as their sniper as soon as the appointed therapist had approved it. Clint knows he shouldn’t be too upset at being on suspension – at least he’s still been getting paid – but it’s been a month already, and unemployment is as bad as desk duty and clerical work.

Clint scrubs a hand over his face, grimacing at the beard that’s grown in the last week and a half, and heads for the bathroom. A smile splits his face at the sight of the counter: Natasha’s already set out a brand-new razor and a can of shaving foam, a yellow sticky note on the side of the canister reading Use me!! After he’s shaved his face and run wet fingers through his hair, he stands in the middle of the hall and wonders about what to do. It’s too late to go to the range but too early for the usual Dog Cops marathons; he hasn’t been able to focus long enough for a book, and the only video games he used to love playing are now out of the question. He settles on sighing and flopping onto the couch to watch some crappy reality television.

The next couple of days pass slowly. Though he has no reason to wake up early anymore, Clint finds it impossible to sleep past five in the morning, no matter how late he falls asleep the night before. The smallest sounds in the still-unfamiliar apartment rouse him from the very fine edge between awake and asleep, and his dreams are still as terrible as ever – haunted by the ghosts of his past, the memories of good men and women he’s had to say goodbye to, of the strangers he couldn’t save, the innocent lives cut far too short by his failures. He’s grateful, though, that he no longer wakes up screaming.

Clint has yet to meet any of his neighbours, not that he really wants to. The landlord had assured him that the building’s tenants are all nice people, but the shouting heard from the apartment below has quickly contradicted that statement. He’s aware he should at least try to meet the others but only because if he doesn’t, Natasha will give him that Look, the one reserved specifically for when she thinks he’s being a bigger dumbass than usual, and he actively tries to avoid that particular brand of judgment as often as possible.

So Clint’s been attempting to come up with a plan during the man hours he’s spent lying on the couch, the perfect plan to successfully complete a painless meet-and-greet with the other residents while also keeping the awkwardness to a minimum. Unfortunately, the trashy show he’s become addicted to hasn’t helped in the slightest. Then again, it was kind of dumb of him to expect any ideas from the group of early-20s coeds who have made an utter mess of their relationships: Dave’s slept with Justine behind Megan’s back, and Stephen is defending Megan’s honour while also admitting that he’s in love with her, never mind the fact that she’s a lesbian and he has absolutely no chance with her. Kevin and Lydia have been taking bets on who will throw the first punch.

Clint’s completely enthralled in the entire trainwreck and refuses to turn the TV off since it’s so entertaining. Trashy as all hell (and he will never admit that he watches this show, not even under extreme duress), but entertaining.

He’s so absorbed in watching Megan crying and screaming at her girlfriend that he doesn’t hear the lock disengage, the front door open and close, or the footsteps on the floor. He doesn’t hear a damn thing until Natasha speaks.

“You need a life, Barton.”

Clint can’t stop the undignified squeak-screech or the graceless, flailing tumble off the couch. He lands with a groan, lays there for a moment, then glances up at his best friend. Her red lips are pursed in the way that means she’s totally hiding a smile; she nudges him with the toe of her boot before stepping over him to sit on the couch. She scoops the remote off the table, turning the channel with the click of a button, and completely ignores him as he’s sprawled on the floor.

“I was watching that,” he complains without moving, and Natasha shrugs, unconcerned.

“I know.”

When she makes no move to change the channel back, Clint sighs and pushes himself up off the floor. He gives no warning before flopping down onto the couch, but like usual, Natasha doesn’t need it; as if she’s reading his mind, she raises her hands out of the way and seemingly magics a pillow onto her lap just before Clint’s head lands on her thighs. He closes his eyes when slender, nimble fingers immediately bury in his hair, scratch gently at his scalp. He lets himself sink a little further into the couch, into his best friend’s touch, as Mel and Sue talk and joke with the contestants.

Hours pass slowly with Clint dozing on Natasha’s lap while Great British Bake-Off plays quietly in the background. He’s so starved for her attention that he hasn’t even mentioned the fact that baking is one of the few things Natasha can’t do. He hates not being in the field with her, watching her six, keeping her safe from a distance when she’s in the thick of the action; it bothers him more than he cares to admit to know she’s being paired with someone else, someone who doesn’t know her like he does. Coulson would never partner her up with an incompetent agent—Hell, Coulson would never allow incompetence within a hundred clicks of his unit—but Nat’s new partner isn't Clint, and it causes something ugly and broken to twist deep inside his chest. Like usual, he keeps it to himself, along with the confession that he'll never forgive himself if something happens to her.

He jolts to full awareness when Natasha pinches his ear lightly. With a groan, he sits up, swinging his feet around to rest on the floor, and stretches out a kink in his back.

“Dinner time,” she announces.

“Why'd you let me sleep all day?”

“Stop your complaining, дурак. You needed the sleep.”

“I'm fine.”

Clint knows he sounds far too defensive to actually be 'fine’, but he can't take back his tone. Thankfully, Natasha doesn't argue, just raises one perfect eyebrow slightly and rises to her feet. She heads toward the door without bothering to make sure Clint's following; she doesn't need to – Clint is one step behind her already, stopping only to slide his feet into his boots.

Clint receives another lifted brow, this time accompanied by a faint smile, when he holds the door of a Japanese restaurant open for her. A hostess leads them to a booth in the corner, sets the menus on the table, then leaves them with a smile. Clint can feel the sudden rise in his heartbeat as he slides onto the booth bench, but he ignores the other patrons as best as he can, squashes the urge to get away from the crowded restaurant.

You're a trained fuckin’ sniper, Barton, get your shit together, he scolds himself, but his racing heart and clammy palms refuse to cooperate. Natasha—the best, most amazing best friend in the world, bless her—understands instantly without him having to say a word. She hooks her foot around the back of his ankle and sits close enough that their hips and thighs are touching. Clint exhales heavily and focuses on the points of contact. It helps.

“How often have you been sleeping?”

Clint unwraps his chopsticks, breaking them apart as he contemplates which answer to give—the truth, which will cause her to worry more and potentially tell Coulson which will inevitably extend this suspension, or a lie, which will anger her and cause her to worry more and definitely tell Coulson which will inevitably extend this suspension. He finally decides to tell the truth. Natasha worrying is tolerable, but Natasha worrying and angry is a level of Hell he likes to avoid.

“Couple of hours a night, I guess. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Sometimes not at all.”

Natasha hums in understanding but doesn’t say more—for the moment. “Met any of your neighbours yet?”

“Workin’ on it,” he responds around a mouthful of umami beef and rice. “None have been around when I leave or come home.”

“And how often has that been?”

“Not often,” admits Clint, sinking down a little in his seat, and Natasha rolls her eyes.

“Clint, you can’t stay locked inside all day, every day. It’s not healthy or helpful. I take it you haven't been going to therapy, then.”

It isn’t really a question, but it doesn’t need to be. She already knows the answer. So Clint doesn’t reply, just lifts noodles to his mouth and lets his silence linger. She sighs heavily, sets down her chopsticks, and twists in her seat to face him.

“You need to go to therapy. What happened. . . It was an immensely traumatic experience. Everyone involved has had to take a leave of absence and get psych evals done. Coulson and Fury both know, probably better than most, that this isn’t something anyone can shake easily, especially not you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snaps

“You internalise things. You warp reality to somehow make everything your fault. You take the blame for things you cannot control. Which is why they took you off of field work. We all were so certain desk duty would be enough to get you to go to therapy, if only because you’d want to work through this so you could stop having to file Rollins’s paperwork. Instead, you’ve become more stubborn and withdrawn, which is why you were put on paid suspension.”

Clint avoids her gaze, stabs at a chunk of cabbage in his udon. “I know.”

“What are you so afraid of? What’s stopping you?”

And leave it to Natasha to find the weakness in his armour, the biggest crux of his problems. Her words are to the point, but her eyes, so green and wide, are full of worry, softened by concern and affection. Clint can’t lie to her, though he desperately wants to; the words come tumbling out without permission, quiet, ringing with honesty.

“What if I’m told I’ll never be able to go out in the field again? What if all the therapy in the world can’t help, and I get back out there and prove I’m useless?”

Her fingers come up to grip his wrist tightly, and she leans her forehead against his temple. “You will never be useless. Coulson won’t let you be.”

“Coulson can’t control this,” he whispers back, his voice cracking as he struggles to keep himself together.

“Has Coulson ever let you down? Has he ever left you in the wind, stranded and alone and without backup on its way? Have I? No, we haven’t. So don’t you dare start doubting us now. Even if you can’t get back out there on the team, we will never leave you behind. Do you understand me?”

She’s pulled back far enough that he can meet her fierce gaze. Throat too tight to speak, Clint nods, because she’s right – of course she’s right, this is Natasha. He’s never had reason to not trust her or Coulson, even way back in the beginning when he was nothing more than a wild, reckless waste of space with no money, no home, no family to speak of.

Clint had been approached after a spectacular failure of a job by a man in a pressed suit, still immaculate even after chasing the twenty-year-old through filthy alleys and rain-filled ditches on the outskirts of Vegas. Cornered between two buildings and a delivery truck blocking off the only exit, with a bullet in one thigh and a worryingly large gash in his side from some goon’s knife during his escape, Clint had barely managed to fight back the fear, raising the bow—his only possession that had ever mattered to him—with far more bravado than he felt. The other man had come to an easy stop five feet away. His expression was pleasant, yet unreadable, as if there wasn’t an arrow pointing directly at his chest, held by a steady hand that never misses its target. He appeared to be waiting for Clint to lower his bow, but Clint refused.

If the FBI was finally catching up, planning to bring him in with a set of heavy cuffs around his wrist and his bow lost somewhere in an evidence room, then he’d go out with one helluva fight.

His fingers tightened on the grip, the string, of his bow when the other man started to reach into the inner pocket of his suit jacket; he smiled a bland smile at Clint’s reaction like he’d expected it, but he didn’t stop though he did move more slowly. His hand held a black wallet when he pulled it from his jacket, and he flipped it open, stretching out his arm for Clint to read the badge.

Agent P. Coulson
SHIELD, FBI

“You come to arrest me, Agent P. Coulson?”

“On the contrary, Mister Barton, I’ve come to offer you a job.”

Unfortunately (and embarrassingly) for Clint, his adrenalin had reached its end, and he’d been in worse situations where he had to force himself past his limits, but something in Agent Coulson’s eyes said it was time to stop running, that it was okay to stop running. So Clint didn’t think more about relenting, about lowering his bow, about collapsing against the cold metal of the delivery truck as his arrow clattered to the wet asphalt.

Since that day, Coulson’s brought Clint home, no matter the situation, the distance. All that the senior agent has ever asked for in return is Clint’s trust. Nothing more, nothing less.

Natasha pays the bill, and Clint follows her out onto the street. They walk in silence down the block, neither of them needing to talk; the way their shoulders knock together with their movements speaks volumes. They stop just behind a group of pedestrians waiting to cross the street, and she glances at him out of the corner of her eye.

“How’s unemployment?”

The question startles a laugh out of Clint. He scrubs his hand over his face. “It fuckin’ sucks.”

“So get your ass to therapy.” She flicks the back of his hand with one painted nail. “Seriously, please consider it.”

“I’ll. . . I’ll think about it.”

“Good. I gotta go. Be careful, you idiot.”

“I will. Same to you.”

“When am I not?”

She presses a gentle kiss to his cheek before disappearing into the crowd. Clint crosses the street on the signal, already missing Natasha’s presence. She always knows what to say and what Clint needs most, and he’s so grateful that she ever decided he was important enough for her to care about.

The light in the entryway of the apartment building flickers overhead as he stops to check his mailbox for the first time since he moved in. It’s stuffed full, to the point he has to gently wiggle around the envelopes and circulars to retrieve them. His flat seems much smaller, smaller and colder. With a sigh, Clint flips the deadbolt on the door and toes off his boots.

None of the mail in the stack is for him, so he double-checks the senders to make sure nothing is important before he throws it away. Clint flips past an envelope towards the back, eyes skimming over the names as he does, and he’s onto the next one before his brain catches up; he pulls the envelope from the pile and rereads the name.

“Sergeant, huh?”

He sets the important pieces of mail on the counter, tossing the rest in the recycle bin, and ambles down the hallway to his bedroom. His brain feels more relaxed, his thoughts settled in a way they haven’t been in so long. He strips off his jeans, grabs his phone from the pocket, and clambers onto his bed, settling in to play Angry Birds. He might as well do something mindless while waiting for sleep that won’t come.