Usefulandstrange

ignite your bones

After the fall of General Dreykov, and the remnants of the Red Room still at large, Natasha first year at SHIELD is anything but healing. Labeled a traitor and a turncoat, Natasha tries to find her footing in a strange new world.

Whumptober 2024: Day 6 - unhealthy coping mechanisms

Warnings: guns/dissociation/vomiting

Word Count: 2.6k (another long one) (gif not mine)

Summary: Clint leaves Natasha with Maria but trust is not yet won on either side, resulting in some unhealthy coping mechanisms.

As always, comments/likes/reblogs are like crack <3

Maria walks Natasha to therapy, their steps in stride, neither talking and both annoyed.

The second day of their routine had gone just about as well as the first.

With Natasha getting angry in the debrief, unwilling to impart information on Odessa. She stalls the second day as well.

Maria feels frustration at the woman, who promised to give all the information she had in exchange for protection and if warranted, a part in taking down the organisations that brought her up.

Going from debrief to therapy, seemed cruel to Natasha, who was already spent from trying to defend herself in not talking about things that she would prefer only Clint be privy to.

It apparently wasn’t a good enough excuse and she knew it was Maria’s way of lowering her defenses and making her talk.

It had been the threat yesterday and she was following through with it today.

Both women were clearly not budging.

Olivia opens her door to find Natasha’s handcuffs slightly too tight and frowns on both of the women’s faces.

Natasha’s seems more covert, but she has come to know the spy’s tells.

Maria was obvious in her emotions.

“How long?” she asks, not unkindly, looking at her watch.

“Ninety minutes,” Olivia responds, looking up at the time. “Is this time change permanent?”

Maria looks to Natasha. “If she tells us about Odessa, it won’t be.”

Olivia bristles.

Maria can’t quite read the look on her face, but maybe if she were to guess, she’d say it was somewhere between anger and pity.

Maria leaves them, hearing the unmistakable click of handcuffs being removed and wonders if she should stay.

Maria knows she shouldn’t use therapy as a threat, but she felt like she was failing where Clint had succeeded.

The information Natasha had given previously filled in so many gaps in their knowledge, about different FSB projects, even linking them to Hydra and other players in the East.

She didn’t think Natasha even knew her value.

When Clint and Coulson had sent through the information from the new grad, Sharon, she knew Natasha had been in trouble, but she just thought it was low level; nothing life threatening.

She knew now it was.

They now have live feeds of the journey to and from the dungeons. If anyone were to get past the guards, she or Sharon would be alerted and lockdowns issued.

When Coulson and Clint returned they’d be added, and alongside Fury and Thompson, they were the only ones who knew.

It was a lot for someone who was so fresh, but the woman’s truthfulness and fortitude had impressed them, and even Natasha seemed to trust her.

They’d wondered at other protocols, and before Clint had left he’d requested that she’d have a weapon. It was denied, of course, but the option to attend the gun range had held.

Natasha also got to keep the handcuffs, once removed. And though she hadn’t been able to ask Clint before he’d left, she’d also noticed his watch in Natasha’s room, and then on the cameras had noticed Natasha marking time.

Maria sighs.

She doesn’t like being this intimately in charge of someone else.

It wasn’t that she disliked her, she just didn’t trust her.

She needed something to lower her defenses, and Clint had always said that Natasha looked weary after therapy.

The files were sealed of course, of whatever was spoken about, but Olivia was mandated to give over a report on Natasha weekly.

Maria read them with interest.

Clint wouldn’t touch them.

Huffing in annoyance, she leaves the therapist’s office and makes for the cafeteria, realising both she and Natasha have missed lunch.

Clint had said packaged foods were what she preferred, so she picked up two sandwiches and a couple of mandarins.

She eats hers on her way back to her office, then finishes some paperwork before making her way back to the psychiatrist's office.

She waits for Natasha to be released, wondering what her next play will be and just how to make Natasha talk about Odessa, before she has to talk to Fury about it. It’s a puzzle she wants to figure out herself.

The door opens, and Natasha walks out, hands cuffed and face straight.

Maria thinks she should take her back to debrief, but there’s a feeling she can’t place as she looks at the woman.

“Maria,” Olivia asks, “can I talk to you?”

Maria steps into the office, keeping Natasha in eyesight, though sure she won’t go anywhere.

Olivia keeps her voice low.

“Don’t weaponise therapy. It’s not fair to her, it’s not in the nature of what we are trying to do here and should not be used as a threat.”

The disapproval that oozes from the woman’s voice only makes Maria regret her choice minimally.

If it works, she’ll take the woman’s ire, and win.

“It’s not her fault. If you want to know about Odessa, then wait. She will tell you, but it’s not something easy to talk about.”

Maria knows Olivia is just doing her job, but she feels defensive.

She nods, straight faced, and doesn’t respond.

She glances towards Natasha and lets herself out, more determined now to return her to debrief.

Leading the way, she sets the stride long and leads her back to the cells.

Natasha is quiet as she always is.

Maria wonders if she should say something, but annoyance at the situation is overriding.

She almost misses the shake in Natasha’s hands as she uncurls the handcuffs and passes them across.

“We have debrief in two hours,” she tells her, “I’ll be back then.”

Natasha nods.

The door closes over and Maria leaves, returning to her office where she opens Natasha’s cameras.

Surprised to not find her in the small room, Maria turns on the audio and hears vomiting in the bathroom.

Feelings of guilt surprise her.

She realises that she didn’t actually give Natasha any food and wonders if she pushed too hard.

.

Natasha glances at the time

Expecting Maria at any minute, she ignores the hunger that bites and the reoccurring thoughts.

She finds it hard to concentrate and glances at the time again.

Natasha knows they want the details of Odessa.

She just can’t.

She doesn’t trust them with the information.

Not when it intimately affects her.

Dinner arrives but Natasha doesn’t feel hungry.

Maria doesn’t come.

Three hours pass and still no one comes to collect her. It’s past the time Maria said she’d return.

She places herself on the bed, wishing that Clint was back and hating the uncertainty of being here.

Natasha closes her eyes.

If she tells them about Odessa, then they’ll know about the other girls. If they know about the other girls, then likely they’ll go looking. If they go looking before the Red Room subsidiaries are all shut down, the girls will all die.

She knows they’ll fight to the death.

She would have.

She needs more time. She doesn’t trust Maria to hold the intel until other things have cleared.

Maria just wants to know for her own information and because it’s a missing piece of the puzzle.

Natasha swallows bile as memories of her time in Odessa surface.

She remembers stripping in front of Madam.

Shaking her head, she attempts to erase it, feeling nauseous all over again.

Olivia had talked about choices in therapy, letting Natasha just listen.

Natasha knows that she had been irate at Maria’s comment and had lowered expectations.

Olivia asked her about her thoughts on Maria, and Natasha hadn’t been able to answer.

“She doesn’t like me,” Natasha had decided.

The night feels cold, and glancing at the watch, Natasha thinks Maria won’t be coming back.

But she doesn’t want to settle into the bed yet, just in case.

She eyes the handcuffs.

If there was any night for it, it would be this night.

Her defenses feel so low, and she feels so sorry for herself that she grabs them and attaches them to her wrist and the bed.

She pulls tight and lets the images invade her mind.

.

Maria wants to go home.

Yawning, she glances at the time, and realises it’s past the two hours time she had told Natasha.

She opens the program to check on her and when she finds her handcuffed to the end of the bed, she doesn’t know what to make of it.

She seems safe enough.

Deciding to leave it, she packs up the laptop and leaves for her apartment off base.

.

Natasha screams.

Trying desperately to cover it as her surroundings of the glass prison become clear, she swears softly, feeling nauseous.

Images of Odessa plague her and she wants nothing more than to purge them.

Uncuffing herself she stumbles to the bathroom and washes her face.

She can’t shake the nightmare.

She can feel it in her bones.

Natasha finds Clint’s watch, 5am.

She knows the day will be a repeat of the last, and if it’s anything like that she needs more sleep, But the fear of heading into another nightmare gives her pause.

She wishes she had a book or something to do, as she sighs and closes her eyes.

.

Maria stares at the camera.

Natasha screams.

The muted video shows her distress, as she’s pulled from sleep, eyes wide and chest heaving.

She watches as Natasha centers herself, puts herself back into the same position and tries for sleep again.

It seems to take some time.

She fast forwards the video.

Natasha screams.

The handcuffs bite in as she strains against them.

Maria doesn’t understand the handcuffs and she can’t ask Clint, but it feels voyeuristic watching the woman’s distress.

She knows when someone isn’t okay, and Natasha is not okay.

She’s fucked up.

She’s pushed too hard and made a mess of things.

Maria is sure Clint would have told her, would have addressed what to do if he’d noticed any of this, but since he had n’, she has to think the problem was her.

She’s not only increased therapy and put the woman off food, she’s given her unhealthy coping mechanisms and left them in the room with her.

She should have returned and said the debrief wouldn’t go ahead, or let someone tell Natasha on Maria’s behalf.

“Fuck,” she whispers.

She has a brief idea; one which may backfire.

But it’s the only idea she has.

.

Natasha leaves the handcuffs on the bed and glances at the time.

Wrists raw, she breathes intentionally in and out, feeling memories of being handcuffed float over her.

She tries not to let them stay.

Any minute now, she thinks Maria will come for debrief.

She knows she’ll ask about Odessa.

She plans her admittance in her head.

If she can tell her some of the worst things first, maybe, just maybe, they’ll let her go and not ask any more until Clint’s returned.

Natasha rubs her wrists.

She hears the familiar unlocking of the doors and the lights turn on down the hallway.

Natasha stands and waits, watch in her pocket and handcuffs in her hands.

If it’s not Maria, she has a plan, not a great one but at least she can protect herself a little better in this space with hard surfaces and handcuffs.

She waits and hears Maria’s footsteps round the corner.

The glass door opens, and she finds Maria standing in casual clothing.

Natasha doesn’t say anything, her heart beating faster.

“Leave those on the bed, and come with me,” Maria tells her.

It’s the first time Natasha has left the cell without handcuffs and she finds she doesn’t really know what to do with her hands.

She finds herself following Maria into part of the compound she’s never been before, and it feels like a trap.

They head to the left, the doors leading outside and for the first time in months, Natasha breathes fresh air.

The sights and smells and temperature difference so marked that she stops and takes the biggest breath she can.

Maria waits for her, still not talking.

It takes a moment but Natasha moves forward, following her into the unknown.

It’s the sniper range.

“You’ve been cleared,” Maria tells her, and sets them both up with targets and guns.

The process takes time but Natasha revels in the fresh air and quiet of the morning.

“Here.”

The gun lays ready.

“Wind is at 3 degrees.”

Maria takes up her own gun, setting up the sight, and positioning herself for the shot.

Natasha copies her movement.

With the gun in hand, she feels more at ease and the images from the night before begin to disappear.

All that becomes relevant is her breathing and the target in front of her.

She breathes in and out and lines the shot.

Accounting for the wind, she adjusts her angle.

In between breaths, she shoots.

Pausing, she hears Maria do the same.

Looking down her scope, she finds that she’s hit the target, a little to the left but still close enough for a kill shot.

Maria’s shot is almost mirrored.

Natasha is impressed. She’d taken Maria as pencil pusher who had no real world value. She’d assumed she’d been trained by the agency but hadn’t thought her ready for a fight.

“There are 15 shots and we have an hour,” Maria tells her, feeling her gaze.

“We have to be back by then.”

Natasha nods, lining up the next shot, taking her time to get it just right. But Maria is first to hit it.

Natasha suppresses a smile.

This feels like the competition of the Red Room, she thinks to herself.

The hour passes quickly, time only punctuated by the sound of the long range shots.

.

Maria walks Natasha back a different way, wanting to avoid as many people as possible.

The route to the cells feels long, but she thinks Natasha doesn’t mind.

Breakfast is waiting for her when they arrive and Maria waits for Natasha to step through before talking.

“No debrief today. Or therapy,” she announces.

If Natasha is surprised, there’s no change to her facial expression. The general quietness of the woman, except in debrief, is absolute.

She didn’t expect Natasha to talk but sometimes she’d like a response.

She’s sure if she asked for one, like a robot she would give it.

Maria looks her over.

“Can I, uh, can I eat breakfast with you?”

She asks the question without really thinking about it, and it’s only then that surprise forms on Natasha's face. It appears in an instant, then it’s gone in a flash.

Natasha moves to the left, allowing Maria in.

Maria wonders idly if she’s allowing it because she doesn’t feel comfortable saying no.

She steps through the door, allowing it to stay open.

The breakfast tray only holds enough food for Natasha, but she shares anyway, offering the apple and the granola bar.

Maria takes the apple and they sit in a somewhat uncomfortable silence.

Tallying all the things she needs to do for the day, she looks around the room finding nothing.

“Do you want a book?” she asks, wondering how Natasha occupies her time.

She finds that when she’s left with her thoughts the world feels harder. Natasha has had two months of it.

Natasha looks up.

“A book,” Maria repeats. “Do you want one?”

Natasha shrugs and nods.

“Fiction or nonfiction?”

There’s no response. Not that Maria expected one.

“I’ll see what I can find.”

Standing Maria, takes the tray and the rubbish and leaves the rest of the food.

“I’ll see you later,” she says, thinking of her list and leaving Natasha to her own thoughts.

.

<3

EEEEE!! *Flap flap flap*

Here we go!

the language of flowers and silent things.

Whumptober 2023: Day 1 - How many fingers am I holding up

Warnings: perceived death (no death I promise), panic

Word Count: 2.3k (gif not mine)

Summary: The marriage of Clint and Natasha.

A/N: there are people that stand with you in darkness, brave the shadows and not shy away, if you have friends like that hold them tight. This is for you @broken--bow .

Friend, without you there would be no whumptober, there are no words for the consistency of friendship you have supported over the last month, and thank you doesn’t seem enough. I wish it were more, but thank you all the same.

Masterlist

Whumptober Masterlist

.

KASHMIR

2011

“It’s cold,” Natasha grumbles.

“Yep,” Clint replies, popping the p, and trudging on through the snow.

“How far?”

The snow is white and endless, and Natasha is sure they aren’t going the right way. Her rifle, slung across her shoulder, rubs and feels heavy, as it hits the back of her thighs; even though likely it’s her backpack that has the weight.

Clint glances at the gps, a small look of surprise on his face.

Natasha stops.

“What?”

“It’s less that two hundred metres,” he says, pointing to the left.

He adjusts his pack and trudges forward, giving Natasha places to put her feet as she grumbled again.

“You’re Russian!” he says, exasperated as the safe house comes into sight.

She throws him a look a rolls her eyes.

“I don’t like the cold,” she deadpans.

Approaching the house, they both split up, covering the front and back and simultaneously breach the door way.

Covering the rooms in a pattern, Natasha is first to call all clear, followed by Clint, as she beelines for the generator and sets up the heater.

.

The white noise of the generator infuriates Clint as he keeps the first watch; more snow falling. He

wonders if it will ever stop.

The cold that penetrates is icy, even though they’ve used spare blankets under the doorways and old newspapers on the window.

Natasha was finally asleep.

He knows by the soft breaths, slow and even.

She doesn’t like sleeping in the cold, and he knows why, it reminds her too much of the barracks of the Red Room.

She berates herself about becoming too soft, even as she makes their apartment and their rooms a constant temperature.

Less nightmares.

He tells her it’s not a bad thing to protect yourself from bad dreams, but it never seems to stick.

She sighs audibly and he wonders what she’s dreaming.

If the snow continues to fall at this rate, they’ll be snowed in. The trek here all uphill, and he hates Maria a little for directing them to this one.

“Hydra,” she’d said, “they’ve taken advantage of the political climate, and infiltrated the region.”

It’s a shame; he think idly, Kashmir is beautiful, but the evil that has infiltrated made it unsightly.

The man that they had killed was wanted by Interpol, crimes against humanity and all that.

Natasha’s kill shot hitting him between the eyes, as Clint had done the calculations quickly around wind speed and elevation.

One shot, one kill.

They made it look easy; isn’t that why Fury sent them?

Now, stuck in the snow, in a quaint house, Clint has too much time to reflect and worry about the repercussions of not being extracted until the snow stops.

His grip tightens on the gun, and he adjusts his position.

.

Natasha focuses on the landscape, the parts she can see anyway. Snow covers the door, just reaching the window and she feels vulnerable at not being able to see all the ways around them.

She knows if she looks at Clint, she won’t be able to hide her disappointment.

He won’t be able to hide his fear.

The satcom phone lays inert, as they await the next call.

Any way out.

Any opportunities for exfil.

Not likely for the next twenty four hours anyway.

The tension in the room is palpable. The generator has enough petrol for the next five hours, and the temperature is far below zero.

.

Clint focuses on the bowl of cereal, the snow still around them.

This was supposed to be easy.

He suppresses a shiver and pulls his coat around him trying to gain any heat he can.

The one room they’d kept heated, now growing colder.

He knows they both feel it.

Natasha pushes away her bowl, half eaten.

“You gotta eat, Nat,” he murmurs.

“We need to leave,” she argues, “the generator is done, the food almost gone, and the pipes are frozen. We have no water apart from what we have in that bucket.”

He shakes his head.

“It’s cold outside, no one is coming here in that weather; plus where are we gonna go? We have to wait for them to come.”

She’s knows he’s right. Standing and staring out the window, she shivers.

It’s not a good sign.

“Clint.”

The seriousness in her tone has him on edge as he joins her.

“It’s stopped snowing.”

They both know, when the temperature drops the snow stops, the sun, or what was left of it, hides behind the dark as the black starts to descend, night approaching; though the hour not late.

“What are we going to do?” she whispers.

.

They move to the smallest room, a tiny broom closet, big enough for the both of them. No windows, blankets piled in.

“I hate the cold,” she gristles, her teeth gnashing.

Clint pulls her closer, trying to stay warm, even though he’s sure it’s not helping.

“Talk,” he asks, “take my mind off this.”

The request isn’t lost on Natasha, the beginning of the third day had begun and they still had no way out, the sat phone silent, stood next to the door.

“Mmmm,” she says; trying to stop her teeth chattering.

“If you changed around this house, what would you do to make it better?”

It’s an old game, one they used to play when nightmares would keep either of them awake and neither wanted sleep.

Clint bites, he wants nothing more than the deep dread that fills his body to go away.

“Thicker windows,” he starts, “and for there to be a better security system.”

Natasha grunts in agreement.

“Insulation,” she continues, “the bedroom, I’d move to the back of the house, maybe another bathroom.”

Clint snorts.

“Like our house?”

She laughs, shivers hard and suppresses another.

“What’s that like again?”

He sits up a little straighter, and starts talking about the blueprints he’s sketched out when they’d first started dating.

“You know, you’ll have a library, and I’ll have a target room, the kitchen will be big, and the bathroom always warm.”

“The house is always warm,” she corrects.

“Heated floors?”

He nods, “definitely heated floors.”

She rests her head on his shoulder.

“”It sounds nice.”

.

The night passes slowly.

Both in and of consciousness, eating where they can and bodies shivering hard against the cold.

“My lungs hurt,” she grunts, forcing herself to take a breath.

Clint can’t answer, he agrees, but can’t do anything but nod his head.

She’s terrified; not because she’s going to die, but because he is.

“Talk to me,” she says, her teeth chattering.

She remembers Russia, the coldness of the room and the lack of heat in their dormitory rooms. The blankets thread bare.

She felt it then, but had no context about how warm the world could be.

“You think the world is warm?”

Natasha hadn’t realised she was talking out loud.

“It’s different, here, don’t you think?”

He swallows, trying to readjust his position but finds his limbs uncooperative.

She’s not making sense and he’s worried. He can’t think straight though and maybe she can’t either.

They won’t die here.

Someone will come.

.

“When we get married,” she starts.

They both laugh.

But it’s the silence that hangs.

“What are we going to do, Clint?”

She can see their breath, and movement is getting harder. Natasha knows this cold, Russian winters this biting, freezing kind of bitter. If they die….

If they die it’s not a bad way to go, here, safe with someone she loves and a life she curated for herself.

If she dies…

“What kind of wedding will it be?”

Clint stops her train of thought.

Desperate to change the subject to anything apart from their imminent death, he hugs her closer, trying to not be unnerved by how cold her skin is.

“Small,” she considers, indulging him.

“I’ll wear white, you’ll wear a tux, but it’ll only be our closest friends.”

He nods.

“Who are we inviting?”

“Maria.”

“Coulson.”

They take turns naming their friends.

“Pepper.”

Clint frowns, “really?”

“Yeah, why?”

The shiver stops him from answering, and she tries to pull the blankets more around him.

“If you invite Pepper, we’d have to invite Tony,” he says grumpily, disliking the fact that someone who heavily objectified Natasha would be invited.

Natasha’s head rolls over to him, a smile on her cracked lips.

“We’d make him sign a NDA,” she almost laughs.

“He wouldn’t be able to talk about it, and it would destroy him.”

Clint laughs, a cough bubbling as he sucks in too much cold air.

“He’d probably get a good present anyway.”

“Fury?” Natasha asks, and Clint nods.

“Yeah I think so.”

He sighs.

“Is it sad it’s such a short list?”

She shrugs.

“Who else would you invite?”

Clint knows.

Family. Isn’t that who you’re supposed to invite for your wedding? For you brother to be your best man? Or for your mother and father to sit in the front row and cry?

“Who’d walk you down the aisle?”

She ignores the question.

“I’d invite Yelena,” she decides, looking wistful.

Clint rubs her leg.

“Yeah. I’d invite Barney,” he agrees. Even though it’s likely his brother and her sister as long since dead, it’s a nice thought to have.

“Your mom,” she opens the thought.

Natasha stops but continues after a moment.

“I think I would have liked our mothers to come, even if mine abandoned me.”

Clint doesn’t know what to say.

“I would have liked that too,” he breathes.

“I think you’d walk me down the aisle,” she whispers, coughing into her gloves.

“Where?”

He knows where, he just wants her to say it.

“Okinawa,” she smiles, knowing he loves the shores of the tiny island as much as she does.

“Of course,” he smiles back.

They sit in silence

“We can find them, I think.”

Clint says it with conviction.

Natasha looks at him intensely, breath white, nose red.

They’re going to die here, he thinks idly. Why not give them another mission, even if it only gives them hope.

“Our parents?”

He shakes his head.

“Our siblings.”

Natasha sees Yelena standing at the door, sad eyes, hands waving goodbye.

Her eyes open and close languidly.

“Okay.”

She knows what he’s doing.

Offering hope when there isn’t any.

Gloved hand reaches out under the blankets and takes his.

“If we survive this, and if we find Barney and Yelena, we will get married. You just have to ask,” she proposes.

Clint nods, his movement slow, his voice quiet and somber.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Natasha? Will you marry me?”

Head against his, she kisses him slowly, purposefully; like it’s the last draw of breath she’ll ever take.

“Yeah, Clint, of course I’ll marry you.”

.

Maria panics at the empty house, wondering where her friends are.

If they thought she wasn’t coming, maybe they left to find safety; it would have been a death sentence.

Temperatures outside so cold it had taken far too long to trek anywhere for safety, the snow too deep.

As it was, it had taken too long for the helicopter to land anywhere safely.

Maria looks around.

Two people that already have so much trust issues, she’s not sure what they would have done.

She’s sure they would have thought no one was coming.

In the instant, Maria feels panic.

She clears the first room and the medic clears two more rooms; then — Maria finds them.

Huddled together, Natasha’s head on Clint’s shoulders their faces pale and they look half dead.

She calls the medic over, unwrapping them from the blankets.

“Thready,” the man tells her, assessing Clint, then Natasha.

They drag them out, laying them down on stretchers as they both call it in on the sat phone.

Maria places the warmers over their chests, as the medic works on placing an IV for both of them.

They work quickly and efficiently; slowly working to warm their friends, hoping against all hopes that the hypothermia has no permanent effects.

.

Natasha hears before she sees, the whir of the plane, the pain in all her muscles as life starts flowing back into her.

“Clint,” she tries.

Voice cracking, not loud enough, she can’t see him or hear him, her heart hurts and her thoughts race.

They’re going to get married.

They’re going to find Yelena and Barney.

They’re going to…

Breath comes fast, alarms blare and she panics; sitting up, eyes now open she finds herself connected to machines and monitors.

Clint lays next to her.

Laying back, doctors surround her.

“Clint,” she says again.

Maria appears in her field of vision, a stoic face.

“He’s okay too,” she clarifies.

Panicked eyes greet her.

“Natasha,” Maria says, “look at me.”

Wild eyes look her.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

She sticks two fingers in Natasha’s face, and predictably, her friend rolls her eyes.

“Two.”

Maria puts three more.

“Three.”

She nods.

“He’s okay,” she assures.

Closing her eyes, Natasha grunts and sinks back into a deep sleep.

.

“God you’re both so predictable,” Maria grunts, half holding him down.

“She’s fine, look, okay?”

Clint gives her a goofy smile, clearly still delirious.

He sees Natasha, oxygen mask on, eyes closed.

“She’sgonnamarryme,” he tells her, words mumbled.

“What?”

Maria thinks she misheard, because neither Clint or Natasha feel like the marrying type.

He nods, “jus’ gotta find Yelena and Barney.”

Clint’s eyes slip closed.

“She’sgonnamarryme,” he says again, falling back into a drugged sleep.

.

WEEK OF CHRISTMAS 2024 (2/7) —🎅🎄🎁🦌— THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL 1992 — dir. Brian Henson

here again now

Warnings: violence/aftermath of torture/recovery

Word Count: 7.9k (gif not mine)

Summary: Natasha is captured, tortured and left with insomnia. (Part 3/4

(pls note that the fic starts below and finishes on ao3 - i know how annoying it is to start on one platform only to have it finish on another)

A/N: Buckle up for a long chapter <3 in which everyone worries, Natasha struggles and Clint tries to help. The outside forces that aim to break Natasha down are revealed and small things are set right.

Not re-read my mistakes are my own <3

.

He doesn’t want to say anything as he breathes heavily, the fight not even lasting a minute as she stops as quickly as she started.

Clint watches her as she stares at herself in the mirror.

The slow touch of her hair, the dead stare and then the panic.

It’s starts with her pulling at the whispers of hair that are left, hard enough for them to come out.

A clawing at her skull.

He pulls her back from the mirror and holds her, stopping the harm that’s coming in waves.

She’s crying as she feels him behind her, a stuttering in her words.

“I can’t sleep,” she starts, “I can’. I can’t. I can’t.”

The words come over and over.

Clint doesn’t know what to do.

She’s still covered in vomit, still needs a shower, still needs sleep.

In this state nothing can happen.

She’s not present, not enough to do anything.

So he waits, holds her and hopes it’s enough.

.

Natasha can’t catch her breath. Every time she tries, she seems to only breath in smaller amounts. Even as she feels Clint surround her, it becomes almost a chore to suck it in and remember to push it out.

“Sedate me,” she breathes.

And as she says the words, she feels it’s the only way out.

“Sedate me,” she repeats.

If they drug her, she’ll really know then, when she wakes; if she sees the woman’s face or, if she’s back here.

She can’t breathe anyway.

Even as she’s encouraged by Clint.

Was she not loud enough in her request?

“Sedate me!”

The words louder now, even as they fall on deaf ears.

She struggles against Clint, trying to get a breath, black spots in her vision.

“Se..da..” she moans, pushing against him, running out of air on the words.

Natasha knows he’s talking, saying something to her but she can’t hear him, there’s a piercing white noise that overrides it and she can’t even hear herself, even as she repeats the same words over and over again.

At least, she thinks she is.

In a last ditch effort, she reaches for Clint’s face.

“Help,” she whispers.

He nods, his eyes glassy.

Holding up a syringe, he appears to ask her consent one more time as she nods pitifully back at him.

She can’t hear his words but longs for the black nothingness of drugged sleep.

She doesn’t care what happens to her body.

She just needs to stop thinking, stop moving… stop being.

To be held in the abyss for as long as possible.

Natasha knows she can’t keep going, not like this, not being able to tell the difference between awake and hallucination.

Clint encircles her again, holds her in a body lock as there’s a pinch on her left arm.

She looks over to it, and already the needle has been removed.

Clint holds her tight, rocking her gently and counts, knowing the repetition soothes her.

Only Clint knows that.

She’s home.

There’s no doubt now.

She starts to count with him, the abyss surrounding her.

.

Tony stares at the screen.

The van is parked not far, he sends out two drones to get real-time footage, and then triangulates all cameras from the time it dropped Natasha to follow the Van.

He wants to tell Clint, maybe Bruce too.

Turning his attention, he sees Clint lead Natasha into the bathroom.

He can’t reconcile her shaved head, even as he watches their movement.

Shaking his head, he sets Jarvis to keep an ear if Clint needs help and leaves the room to find Bruce.

He doesn’t go far into the bowels of the tower before Jarvis stops the elevator.

“Sir, they’re fighting.”

He doesn’t need to ask who is, because it’s obvious.

Tony detours back, opens the door to the infirmary and smells vomit and cringes.

He must have missed it whilst he was concentrating on the van. Tony hovers outside the bathroom, hearing a Clint tell Natasha to stop.

He wants to go but his feet don’t move.

Voiced pleas that are inaudible but he can tell what they are by the cadence and fear behind them, the way that the response is nothing.

He hears Natasha’s calls to sedate her, and Clint trying to talk her down as he goes through the options of what’s going happen next.

Tony pushes the door ajar and looks inside.

Neither of the spies notice him, and Natasha’s distress is clear as she struggles against Clint, repeating the words to sedate her.

He closes the door and stares for a moment.

“Sir?”

Jarvis’s voice breaks through his thoughts.

He leaves the room quickly, finding Bruce with a syringe in his hand.

“Jarvis..” Bruce says, by way of explanation.

Tony nods.

“What happened? He said that Natasha needed propafol?”

Tony takes the syringe, offering no explanation and heading back into the room. He knocks on the bathroom this time and opens the door.

Clint looks up at him, he has Natasha in a hold and holds his hand out for the syringe.

Natasha’s eyes open and close.

Her breath stuttering.

“Help,” she whispers, reaching aimlessly for Clint.

Clint holds her head, uncaps the syringe and injects her. He rocks her slightly, counting with her.

Tony feels like a voyeur.

They both watch as her body fights it, then, she goes limp.

Clint looks exhausted, as he stares up at Tony.

None of them have slept, but Tony is used to it.

He also didn’t have to watch Natasha and be vigilant for her.

“What’s the time?” he asks, not moving.

Jarvis responds.

“It’s 6.16am.”

Clint nods.

“She threw up, I don’t know what happened next, but she started to fight me, then seemed to realise something was wrong when I didn’t fight back.”

Clint touches her arms, almost unwrapping himself from the hold position.

“She started pulling at her hair in the mirror,” he says the words monotonously, like telling a story.

“She said she couldn’t sleep, then asked me to sedate her.”

He seems to come to the realisation that he’s injected her with a drug that he doesn’t know.

“Propofol,” Bruce supplies, seeing Clint’s confusion.

Tony doesn’t even know when Bruce came up behind him.

If Clint is also surprised, he doesn’t show it.

He just nods slowly.

“How long do you think we have?” He asks, lifting Natasha.

Bruce shrugs.

“She shouldn’t have been given it in an injection like that. Jarvis just said it was an emergency and I didn’t think we wanted a reoccurring incident like last August; so it was this or nothing.. Someone will need to stay with her, just to monitor her breathing…”

Tony looks up and Jarvis responds in kind.

“I am monitoring her vitals,” the AI tells them, “she is stable.”

Bruce nods.

“How long do you want her drugged for?”

Clint carries her to the large arm chair, the one that reclines back and places her gently on it.

“As long as possible,” he says.

“We need to find out what’s happened, and then maybe we have a chance at helping her get over whatever this fear is.”

Bruce nods and leaves, Tony presumes to get more drugs, or maybe a way of sedating her further.

“She needs a shower, or to get her changed. I don’t know!”

His voice escalates.

Tony feels he’s never been in a situation where he’s had to be the one to make decisions for another. Perhaps another reason why he doesn’t want children, the responsibility weighs heavily of taking care of his friends.

“Okay,” he says, raising his hands.

“Let’s get her changed, we’ll do it together. Bruce will get her sleeping for a bit longer and you’re going to go to bed. I’m going to follow the leads of the van and we will work this out.”

Clint stares at him.

Tony feels he’s said too much.

“Go have a quick shower, and get the supplies for changing her, get her clothes and maybe some wipes.”

Clint still stares.

“Now.”

Tony says it as gently as he can, but the urgency in his voice makes his friend move.

Clint takes one last look at Natasha and leaves her with Tony.

.

Continued…

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Look buddy, i’m just trying to make it to Friday.

Whumptober Masterlist 2023

Masterlist of fic

(Warnings at the start of every chapter, please be kind to yourself. Gif not mine; I do not possess that kind of power. This will be updated with links as we go and when placed on ao3 will be updated with the link. A lot of these can be read as one shots (I’ll try and mark the ones that can be read as such with a *) but together make a whole story; the story of how Clint and Natasha got married.)

the language of flowers and silent things.

2011 - Kashmir (how many fingers am I holding up) *

1984 - Russia (I’ll call out your name but you won’t call back) *

1984 - Iowa (make it stop) *

2012 - New York (shock)

2012 - New York (it’s broken)

1999 - Iowa (made to watch)*

2013 - New York / Wichita Falls (radio silence)

2013 - New York (it’s all for nothing)

1994 - Ohio (Polaroid) *

2014 - Budapest (you said you’d never leave)

2014 - Singapore (Captivity)

2014 - Singapore / Malaysia (Red) <now with amazing art by @oceanspirit9 >

2009 - New York (I don’t feel so good) *

2010 - Okinawa (just hold on)*

2010 - Okinawa (I’m fine) *

2014 - Rome (don’t go where I can’t follow)

2007 - Russia/France (leave me alone)*

2014 - New York (I tend to deflect when…)

2011 - Iowa (floral bouquet)*

2013 - New York (found family)*

2014 - New York (vows)

2012 - New York (watch out)*

2014 - New York (Shadows)

2014 - New York (I thought they were with you)

2014 - New York (buried alive)

2014 - New York (you look awful)

2014 - New York (scars)

2014 - Berlin (aftermath of failure)

2014 - New York (what happened to me)

2014 - New York (borrowed clothing)

2014 - New York (take it easy)

Elevation - Charles Baudelaire

Above the lakes, above the vales,

The mountains and the woods, the clouds, the seas,

Beyond the sun, beyond the ether,

Beyond the confines of the starry spheres,

My soul, you move with ease,

And like a strong swimmer in rapture in the wave

You wing your way blithely through boundless space

With virile joy unspeakable.

Fly far, far away from this baneful miasma

And purify yourself in the celestial air,

Drink the ethereal fire of those limpid regions

As you would the purest of heavenly nectars.

Beyond the vast sorrows and all the vexations

That weigh upon our lives and obscure our vision,

Happy is he who can with his vigorous wing

Soar up towards those fields luminous and serene.

He whose thoughts, like skylarks,

Toward the morning sky take flight

- Who hovers over life and understands with ease

The language of flowers and silent things

Translated by - William Aggeler

Ok, but thanks to You’re Wrong About now I know that Pilates was invented during WWI

The Avengers (2012) directed byJoss Whedon 🤮

I’ve noticed lately that it’s often Americans who leave tags like “I don’t even care if it’s made up” on posts I make that are not particularly unbelievable, but are pretty specific to my way of life or corner of the world (like the one about the cheese vendor). It reminds me of that tweet that was circulating, that said Americans have a “medieval peasant scale of worldview”—I mean, if you don’t want to be perceived this way by the rest of the world maybe don’t go around social media saying that if a cultural concept or way of life sounds unfamiliar it must be made up?

It’s the imbalance that’s annoying, because like—when I mentioned having no mobile network around here I had people giving me info about Verizon to fix my problem. I post some rural pic and someone says it must be somewhere in the Midwest because the Southwest doesn’t look like this. My post about my postwoman has thousands of Americans assuming it’s about the USPS. On my post about my architect there’s someone saying “it’s because architecture is an impacted major” and other irrelevant stuff about how architecture is taught in the US. This kind of thing happens so so so often and I’m expected to be familiar with the concepts of Verizon and the Midwest and impacted majors and the USPS and meanwhile I make a post about my daily life and Americans in the notes are debating like “dunno if real. it sounds made up”

Going online for the rest of the world means having to keep in mind an insane amount of hyperspecific trivia about American culture while going online for Americans means having to keep in mind that the rest of the world really exists I guess