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lumelleTitle: Of Heroes, Rings, and a Lullaby in Russian
Fandom: Avengers
Pairings: Clint/Phil, Clint&Natasha friendship
Rating: PG-13 (for language and discussion of death)
Summary: After the battle, there is only pain, and the sound of a lullaby in Russian as he finally falls asleep. Or, in which Phil is gone, Natasha is a good friend, and Clint somehow gets his life back together just before he's torn apart by hope.
Natasha told him as soon as he woke up as himself, of course, once he'd got everything together in his head. She'd never been one for avoiding the painful things, not one for lying and hiding when she thought doing so would have been cowardice, and he supposed that in some small, fleeting part of his mind that wasn't numb or detached he felt sort of grateful. He then proceeded to push it out of his mind, to lock all the pain and emptiness away until he had the time to deal with it. Right now he couldn't afford to mourn, to stop even for a moment, because they had a mission and a world to save and Phil had always been incredibly fond of this world so they couldn't fail.
If Phil wanted heroes, then heroes he would have. Even if it killed them all.
Except they all survived somehow, even Stark survived no matter how idiotic his stunt with the nuke had been while it also saved them all. And then they just went to eat at the restaurant that really should not have been open at all but Stark promised to rebuild the whole place, and besides Clint suspects the owner might have thought he was just imagining it all. The point was that they got shawarma, though, and everyone started eating because this saving the world shit took a lot of energy. Except Clint took one look at the food, and thought of Phil, and his stomach turned and it was all he could do not to throw up even though his stomach was more or less empty.
He ended up reading instead, some terrible book someone had left behind at the restaurant not that he actually registered a single word of it, and Natasha let him prop his feet up on her seat without saying a word. None of the others questioned him, either, though he wasn't sure if they realized it wasn't a good idea right now or if they were just doing their best not to fall asleep. He was pretty sure he caught Cap snoring once or twice, which was sort of comforting and sort of freaky because Captain America should not have been sleeping sitting up at the table.
The book helped him stay calm, though, keep his mind off things, and somehow he managed to keep everything together until after Loki and Thor had headed off to Asgard. It wasn't until it was just him and Natasha in the car, just the two of them and nobody else and damn that was just wrong, that he finally broke down. Natasha drove on in silence while he sobbed, not just crying a little but actually fucking weeping, he hadn't even known his body was physically capable of producing so many tears. His shirt was probably ruined from all the tears and snot, and he half expected Natasha to make some sarcastic comment about how well he was handling this but she never said a thing.
It wasn't until they had made it to the hotel and Clint had washed his face and taken off the soiled shirt, feeling marginally more human as he curled up on the bed, that Fury finally called. Of course Fury called, it wasn't like there was anything Fury wasn't aware of, and frankly the only thing that surprised Clint was the fact that he had his phone on him. He hadn't exactly been thinking about keeping it safe and with him all this time.
For a moment he considered not answering, but then Fury would have just called Natasha who definitely would have answered and given him hell for it. When he did pick up his voice was hollow even in his own ears, informing the stupid meddler that he and Natasha were taking some time off, wouldn't want to have him around the base while they still couldn't guarantee that he was safe and it would be for the best if Natasha was there to keep an eye on him, and was there anything else or could he get back to thinking about how fucked up his life was, thanks.
There was something else, of course there was something else, and however much he didn't want to hear any of it he knew it couldn't be put off any longer.
He still managed enough detachment, enough fake calm, to listen to his voice speaking to Fury without breaking, informing him that he didn't want to be present, thanks, but he'd want the ashes when they got back later, and the ring, of course. He almost didn't ask for anything else, didn't think he needed anything else, until at last he asked Fury to set the trading cards aside too if they found them. It felt cruel of him, Phil might have wanted to take those with them, but he'd been so damn proud of them Clint couldn't bear to think of them thrown away or worse burned with him.
Fury was silent for a worryingly long time at that, but then simply told him to let them know when they got back. As though the bastard didn't have eyes and ears everywhere anyway.
He wasn't sure when Natasha had wandered back from the bathroom but she sat down next to him as he turned the phone off, tossing it across the room. Neither of them said anything for a while, Natasha's fingers slowly running over his hair in a rare show of compassion. Well, at least he now knew just what it took for Natasha to show such feelings.
"He's gone." She didn't say anything, didn't deny it, and really that hurt more than anything. "He's gone and I wasn't even there. Didn't even go see him before I rushed off to try and undo my fuck-ups."
"You could still go, you know. Say goodbye." Her voice was soft, with tones he wasn't sure he'd ever heard from her before. "They'll understand." Yeah, because everyone was definitely going to forgive him for slaughtering their own people just like that.
"Doesn't matter." He turned his head to the side, words muffled by his arm as he curled up tighter. "I don't have the right."
"Don't have the right to what?" There was no accusation in her voice, no bitterness or hate. He wouldn't have blamed her for any of that.
"To do that. Say goodbye, I mean. Don't have the right to look at his face as though it's not my fault that he's gone." He closed his eyes, and they stung though he was sure he had no more tears left. "Without me, he would still be alive."
"Stop that, idiot." She swats him on the back of the head, but from her, it's little more than a gentle tap, just a reminder. "He was a grown man and made his own decisions, paid the price and claimed the glory. Don't you dare cheapen that by claiming that what you did or didn't do half the globe away days earlier could have had any effect on that."
"Sorry." He murmured the word, barely audible even to his own ears, and drew closer to her, one arm reached around her waist. He hadn't felt this alone, this abandoned, since the day Barney left him.
He wasn't sure what started his tears again, or where he found any more, but they didn't stop until he fell into exhausted sleep, Natasha still watching over him.
*
They decided to go to Budapest again, mostly because he needed to get away and it was the only place they could think of in a hurry. He suspected they would remember this trip very differently, again, though this time it was mainly because he still wasn't quite registering everything that happened around him. Not that it mattered, anyway. None of this really mattered. It was all just a sick ruse to convince himself his heart was still beating.
They used fake identities, of course, because they were both just paranoid enough to have survived this far, and though he hesitated at first as Natasha dug out the old passports for Mr. and Mrs. Rushmore he went along with it anyway.
In a way it helped, just like the book had helped, let him get out of his own head and to some strange level where he wasn't really feeling it. Clint was the one in pain, after all, whereas Clive Rushmore was perfectly content and happy with his beautiful wife at his arm, and as he watched inside his head as his own body talked and laughed and brought Natasha's hand to his lips to kiss her lovely fake ring it almost didn't hurt at all.
The actual ring was under his shirt, where it spent most of its time, hanging off a chain because anyone knowing would be a security risk and besides nothing could be allowed to hinder his shooting. It felt cold against his skin, so cold he was sure it would burn right through him, etch a permanent mark into him because there was no way Phil could just be gone without a trace.
But the ring wasn't really cold, and there were no burn marks on his skin, and the guy at the café at the airport told him he had a beautiful wife and he grinned and said he knew.
They took turns sleeping on the plane, the way far too long to stay up after everything but not willing to be quite that careless. Natasha let her head rest against his shoulder as she slept, her hand held in his so he could signal at her without a sound if anything happened, and Clint closed his eyes and tried not to think.
And then they were in another hotel again, another shared room in another city on the other side of the Atlantic, with Natasha hogging the bathroom while Clint stared out of the window. There were people and cars and buildings but he didn't really see any of them, didn't really pay attention.
"He looked normal, you know." It wasn't until Natasha spoke that he realized the sound of the shower had stopped, turning around to find her toweling off. There was no shyness in the way she paraded her naked body through the hotel room to her suitcase, towel now focusing on her hair. Of course not, he'd seen it all a thousand times before, going undercover and patching her up on the field and the one or two times they'd both been desperate enough to fall into bed together and never talk about it in the morning.
"Phil?" He didn't really need to ask, there wasn't anyone else she would have just mentioned like that, not when his thoughts were so thoroughly occupied with this one man. "When I was gone?"
"Yeah." Natasha dug out clean underwear from her suitcase, sliding the panties over her infinite legs. "You couldn't have even told anything was wrong. He had his usual almost-smile on the whole time. Asked Cap to sign his cards, too, though they never found the time for it."
"That's good." He exhaled slowly, letting his eyes fall shut for a moment. And it was, it really was. If Phil had acted all normal, it meant he had been confident that Clint would be back, that he wasn't lost. It meant he had believed in Clint.
That he hadn't died thinking Clint was lost.
"I noticed his hands twitching once or twice, when he thought nobody saw, but that was it." Judging by the voice Natasha was now sitting on the bed, the one bed because they were supposed to be married now weren't they. "There was literally no indication of anything amiss. I don't think anyone but Fury still knows."
"Good." Because Phil deserved that, really, deserved to be known as a hero, not to be dragged down with some traitorous good-for-nothing who had shot up half the helicarrier. "That means he was fine." Except for the part where he had died, died alone with nobody but Fury at his side, and how fucked up was Clint's life that Fury was the one to comfort his husband in death.
"Fine enough to give a damn good impression of being mildly amused that his main asset is working for the enemy." She didn't skip around the issue, knew he didn't want her to, knew he needed it hammered home in painful detail before he could truly start to get over it.
"Phil's the best at that," he said. There was a momentary silence, and it wasn't until he opened his eyes and found Natasha looking at him with eyes that were far too sad for her that he realized he had spoken in the present tense.
He headed to the bathroom, then, shedding his clothes along the way across the small room, not wanting to face Natasha's sad eyes because Natasha's eyes weren't supposed to be sad ever. The water was hot as it washed over him, cleaning off the trip and the mission and a minuscule bit of the guilt from his scarred and bruised skin, and if the ring resting just below his collarbones felt that much colder in comparison he managed to ignore it for a while.
*
"He actually proposed to me, you know." He was playing with his food, eating a forkful or two whenever Natasha fixed him hard enough a glare, and really he knew it wasn't good for him to keep eating so little but he really just wasn't hungry. "Went the whole nine yards, found a ring and got down on one knee and asked properly and everything. I mean, not that I minded, but I never figured that'd happen. That anyone would go to that much trouble just for the sake of Clint Barton."
"Of course he did." Her voice still carried that strange soft tone that he was really beginning to loathe to the point that he was almost ready to do something really stupid to make her stop with it, except that would have given him angry Natasha instead and that would so not have been an improvement. "He was always going to huge amounts of trouble because of you. Mostly involuntarily, but then, that's what one gets for dealing with you."
"You wound me, Natasha." He supposed it was a good sign, that he could actually discuss it like this, discuss the actual good times and not just how broken and pathetic he was without Phil. "I mean, I thought he might ask eventually, he'd made some vague mentions and you know how good he was at turning vague things into reality, but I thought it might be just some casual comment, or just giving me the paperwork to sign. I never expected him to actually do it like that." Like he had been worth it.
"Well, he always was one for following established protocol." There was a faint smile on Natasha's lips, so unlike her usual smirks, and Clint still had to sometimes remind himself that perhaps she was grieving, too. "I've got to say I was surprised when you asked me to be your witness, though. I mean, not because you asked, I would have gutted you slowly and painfully if you hadn't, but because I just never thought you were the marrying type."
"Yeah, well, neither did I." Clint shrugged. "But then, before him I didn't really think I was the dating type, either, so I guess there was that. And besides —" He paused then, a wave of cold rushing through him, eyes fixed down at his half-eaten food.
"Clint?" She frowned at him, he knew that even without looking. "What is it?"
"I asked him what it would change, once," he murmured. "Why it mattered whether we were married or not. I mean, I've never had much property nor did I care to have his, and we both had S.H.I.E.L.D. medical and he was already the one they had on file for me in case of emergencies. You know, because of being my handler and all."
"And what did he say?" Her voice was barely loud enough to reach his ears over the calm lull of the restaurant well past rush hour.
"That if one of my idiotic stunts finally got me killed, he could then stand as my husband at my funeral." And to think he had thought that to be the more likely scenario, too. "Because we couldn't really be open, it would have been too clear a target for anyone wanting to hurt either of us, but he figured that if he lost me he could at least show it then." He hadn't stood there, hadn't claimed his rightful place, hadn't been able to finally stand proud and announce to everyone that yeah, that hero who just might have saved the world had actually been his husband. No, Clint Barton-Coulson had bravely told Fury to toss his husband in a fucking fire and then fled the continent.
Hell, he was such a coward.
He never really noticed how they left the restaurant or how Natasha got him back to the hotel without looking like a date rapist or a kidnapper. All he knew was that he had fucked up again, he always did fuck up didn't he no matter what he tried, and honestly Phil should have never involved himself with such a miserable reject in the first place, as a handler or a friend or a lover or a husband.
Natasha was humming something that sounded like a Russian lullaby as he finally drifted off to sleep, tears spent once again, and seriously he didn't deserve her but then he knew better than to try to tell her that.
*
"Maybe I should just become the Black Widower, now."
Natasha didn't even bother to look at him, simply rolling her eyes at the book she was reading. "Dream on."
"Hey, it'd be totally appropriate. I'm still your partner, right? And at least I actually am a widower, now. More than you can say."
"Clint, darling, please don't question my capabilities of offing a husband or two." Her lips twitched. "Certainly not when you're pretending to be one."
"I'd never be foolish enough to do that." Oh, he was well aware of her very specific skill set, and how frighteningly good she was at the things she did. "I just happen to know there isn't a man alive who could keep up with you."
"Aw, you're so sweet." Natasha finally looked at him. "So, starting to get used to the idea yet?" Her tone was still softer than usual, and Clint really hated that soft tone, because Natasha never spoke so softly and it just reminded him of how much pain he was in.
"Nah. Probably never will." He still had those stray thoughts, even now, about how pissed Phil would be when they got back after their impromptu leave, how much paperwork he would be buried in and they'd see if he ever had another good mission again. Then he'd catch himself and remember, remember that Phil wasn't going to be welcoming them with a stern look and shades over his eyes, that when they got back they'd probably be assigned a new handler who didn't know anything and honestly what the fuck had he done to deserve all this.
"As I recall, it took you about four months to get used to thinking of yourself as married."
"Good thing it didn't take longer, considering I never had the time to worry about an anniversary gift." And it hurt, of course it hurt, to think of the preciously short time he had, the time that was never going to be any longer. He'd spent a lot of time working with Phil, quite some time dating him, and such a painfully short time actually married to him, and now it didn't matter how long he lived because every day he got out of the bed marked one more day in the period where he was mourning Phil.
Natasha was still looking at him, eyes unreadable to anyone but him, but chose not to comment. Good, because he honestly had no idea what he would have said.
"You going to tell anyone?" Her voice was quiet, level, betraying nothing.
"I don't know. Not sure if there's a point." He sighed. "I mean, what would it change? 'Hey guys, you know that guy who got killed, the one you thought was just my handler and actually a really good friend? Yeah, so he was my husband too, so I'm not just morose because someone really important died but because I have to get used to a new marital status, again.'"
"Bet you Stark would make a really interesting face at that."
"Okay, so that's a good point. Definitely something to consider, then." Maybe he would tell, some day, if only to actually get that chance, the chance to look Tony Stark in the eye and tell him something he didn't know, couldn't have ever known. Not yet, though, not for a while yet, when he still sometimes had trouble remembering it himself, trouble getting it through his head that technically he wasn't married anymore even if the ring was still in the chain around his neck and when he closed his eyes he saw Phil's endlessly calm face, almost smiling.
"No pressure, sweetheart." The endearments usually sounded mocking, coming from her, as though the mere idea of her uttering them with any degree of seriousness had been too ridiculous to consider, but coupled with the soft tone it almost sounded sincere and oh how Clint hated it. He just wanted to get back to normal, back to a world where he and Natasha were nastier to each other than most divorced couples just before falling asleep curled around each other, where they exchanged words and blows and aimed weapons at each other's face before Natasha smirked and Clint grinned and they went to take down a few guys together.
He wanted to go back to a world where nothing had happened, where he'd soon hear Phil's voice over the comm link and Fury didn't call him to ask how he wanted to handle his husband's funeral, except none of that was true and he hated Natasha for reminding him of it. Hated her for treating him like he was something delicate and fragile, which was just ridiculous because obviously he wouldn't break, he had nothing left to break when they carted agents to the SHIELD morgue with arrow wounds on them and Phil would never get his precious cards signed.
Clint didn't cry, not anymore, he just went out and did his damn best to get drunk with Natasha watching him with entirely too sober eyes, and when they stumbled back into the hotel room he pulled her into a rough kiss and she allowed him to do so. Her lips were hard against his and her body was far too soft, and in the end all that happened was him curling up on the bed once again with his arms around her waist, and he was starting to learn the lullaby by heart by now but that was fine as long as she let him do this, let him be broken just a little while longer.
And every day that passed he picked up another piece, found another slot to settle it into, until by the time they were again flying over the ocean he had it all together, a perfect little facade all set up to face the world alone.
*
Nobody questioned him as he walked up to the deck of the helicarrier, nobody gave him another look at all. They were averting their eyes if anything, not quite ready to face him. One man had been stupid enough to accuse him, earlier when they had first returned, and Natasha had shown him the error of his ways when it had been apparent Clint wasn't going to defend himself. Honestly, he had no right. There were so many gone, so many buried or still injured or just plain lost because of him.
It had been almost a month, and he knew Fury wasn't happy with that, but he still hadn't said anything when Clint had walked into his office. All he'd done was hand Clint the plain urn, the urn and a small box that held the ring and the trading cards, because both of them knew that empty words of consolation would have only made things worse.
He'd slipped the ring out, then and there, and onto the chain around his neck, where it’d nestled comfortably against his own, and all of a sudden it hadn't felt quite so cold.
They were high enough up that nobody was out here if they could help it, not quite high enough to be dangerous but the air was thin and cold nevertheless. That was good. It meant he could get a moment alone.
It wasn't a nest, not somewhere he could feel safe and secure, but he was higher up than just anywhere else and that was enough to ease his breath a bit more than should have been possible at this altitude. He crouched near the edge, far too close for safety but then he'd never been one to care about safety, looking out to the landscape that was much too far below for depth vision to check in.
Clint set the urn down next to himself, now, opening the box again, taking a good look instead of just grabbing the ring from inside it. Taking the trading cards, the precious treasure Phil had spent years tracking down, he looked at each of them in turn, running a gentle fingertip along the edge of each of them.
He looked at the cards, soiled with blood, and now understood why Fury had gotten so quiet when he'd asked for them. Guess even the Director had some vague idea about human emotion even if he liked to act as though he was above any such foolishness.
His hand tightened around the cards, knuckles white at his tight grip, before he tucked them into the small pocket on the inside of his shirt, designed for things like wires and fake access cards and other small mission-sensitive things that he couldn't afford to lose while running along the roofs.
It would have been much easier to let them go, to cast them out to the wind and let them end up where they willed, but they were the last thing he had left aside from the other ring and besides he didn't deserve to get off quite that easily. He deserved this, to hold onto the cards marked with Phil's blood, a hero's blood, to look at them and remember just how much Phil had sacrificed, just how much had been lost because of his weakness.
He deserved, in that little part of his heart that maybe still somehow believed that he wasn't entirely beyond redemption, to remember just how good a man had taken his hand and not let go.
He took the urn, then, looked at it for a moment before opening it, scattering the ashes to the wind that blew them right off. It was just appropriate, he supposed, to have them fall from on high, blown far and wide over this world that Phil had worked so hard to protect, had given so much to protect. To fly off, just like his precious heroes.
He'd meant to say something, maybe some profound shit about love and loss and whatnot, but all that came out was a scream, a sound of raw pain that tore up from deep inside and left his throat aching. He screamed again, then, and again, until he had no strength left to raise his head again, lungs burning in the thin air and tears threatening to freeze on his face.
There was a hand on his shoulder, then, a fine and comforting hand that he knew could have snapped his neck in seconds, could have tossed him right over the edge and he might just have had enough time for a regret or two before he made it down. Natasha wasn't feeling quite that merciful, though; she squeezed his shoulder instead, a soft gesture instead of bruising and paining, prompting him to look toward her.
"Let's go," she said, and he barely heard her over the wind and the helicarrier's rotors, but then it wasn't like he needed to hear her to follow her. It wasn't like he could do anything else. "We've got a Stark to find."
He nodded, and stood, and the bloodied cards were heavy in his pocket.
*
It was months later that Stark gathered them all together around the table, a grease-stained tank top on and a wild look in his eyes. Clint had been working hard on getting everything back on tracks, on getting it through his head that he wasn't a married man anymore, that it was fine to sometimes still lock himself in the most remote room on the floor Stark had designated as his but that he'd better come out the following morning for a grueling spar and some damn good coffee with Natasha. He was back to normal, now, as normal as he had ever been, and sitting around the table with this bunch it pretty much made him average for once in his life.
Then Stark dropped the bomb, told them he'd received a message that seemed to be from one Phil Coulson, and all the pieces he had so painstakingly gathered and stacked together where suddenly shattered into a million painful, cutting shards again, tearing into his heart and leaving him grasping for breath.
He'd never known a sweeter pain, but then nothing opened old wounds quite as swiftly as renewed hope.
Fandom: Avengers
Pairings: Clint/Phil, Clint&Natasha friendship
Rating: PG-13 (for language and discussion of death)
Summary: After the battle, there is only pain, and the sound of a lullaby in Russian as he finally falls asleep. Or, in which Phil is gone, Natasha is a good friend, and Clint somehow gets his life back together just before he's torn apart by hope.
Natasha told him as soon as he woke up as himself, of course, once he'd got everything together in his head. She'd never been one for avoiding the painful things, not one for lying and hiding when she thought doing so would have been cowardice, and he supposed that in some small, fleeting part of his mind that wasn't numb or detached he felt sort of grateful. He then proceeded to push it out of his mind, to lock all the pain and emptiness away until he had the time to deal with it. Right now he couldn't afford to mourn, to stop even for a moment, because they had a mission and a world to save and Phil had always been incredibly fond of this world so they couldn't fail.
If Phil wanted heroes, then heroes he would have. Even if it killed them all.
Except they all survived somehow, even Stark survived no matter how idiotic his stunt with the nuke had been while it also saved them all. And then they just went to eat at the restaurant that really should not have been open at all but Stark promised to rebuild the whole place, and besides Clint suspects the owner might have thought he was just imagining it all. The point was that they got shawarma, though, and everyone started eating because this saving the world shit took a lot of energy. Except Clint took one look at the food, and thought of Phil, and his stomach turned and it was all he could do not to throw up even though his stomach was more or less empty.
He ended up reading instead, some terrible book someone had left behind at the restaurant not that he actually registered a single word of it, and Natasha let him prop his feet up on her seat without saying a word. None of the others questioned him, either, though he wasn't sure if they realized it wasn't a good idea right now or if they were just doing their best not to fall asleep. He was pretty sure he caught Cap snoring once or twice, which was sort of comforting and sort of freaky because Captain America should not have been sleeping sitting up at the table.
The book helped him stay calm, though, keep his mind off things, and somehow he managed to keep everything together until after Loki and Thor had headed off to Asgard. It wasn't until it was just him and Natasha in the car, just the two of them and nobody else and damn that was just wrong, that he finally broke down. Natasha drove on in silence while he sobbed, not just crying a little but actually fucking weeping, he hadn't even known his body was physically capable of producing so many tears. His shirt was probably ruined from all the tears and snot, and he half expected Natasha to make some sarcastic comment about how well he was handling this but she never said a thing.
It wasn't until they had made it to the hotel and Clint had washed his face and taken off the soiled shirt, feeling marginally more human as he curled up on the bed, that Fury finally called. Of course Fury called, it wasn't like there was anything Fury wasn't aware of, and frankly the only thing that surprised Clint was the fact that he had his phone on him. He hadn't exactly been thinking about keeping it safe and with him all this time.
For a moment he considered not answering, but then Fury would have just called Natasha who definitely would have answered and given him hell for it. When he did pick up his voice was hollow even in his own ears, informing the stupid meddler that he and Natasha were taking some time off, wouldn't want to have him around the base while they still couldn't guarantee that he was safe and it would be for the best if Natasha was there to keep an eye on him, and was there anything else or could he get back to thinking about how fucked up his life was, thanks.
There was something else, of course there was something else, and however much he didn't want to hear any of it he knew it couldn't be put off any longer.
He still managed enough detachment, enough fake calm, to listen to his voice speaking to Fury without breaking, informing him that he didn't want to be present, thanks, but he'd want the ashes when they got back later, and the ring, of course. He almost didn't ask for anything else, didn't think he needed anything else, until at last he asked Fury to set the trading cards aside too if they found them. It felt cruel of him, Phil might have wanted to take those with them, but he'd been so damn proud of them Clint couldn't bear to think of them thrown away or worse burned with him.
Fury was silent for a worryingly long time at that, but then simply told him to let them know when they got back. As though the bastard didn't have eyes and ears everywhere anyway.
He wasn't sure when Natasha had wandered back from the bathroom but she sat down next to him as he turned the phone off, tossing it across the room. Neither of them said anything for a while, Natasha's fingers slowly running over his hair in a rare show of compassion. Well, at least he now knew just what it took for Natasha to show such feelings.
"He's gone." She didn't say anything, didn't deny it, and really that hurt more than anything. "He's gone and I wasn't even there. Didn't even go see him before I rushed off to try and undo my fuck-ups."
"You could still go, you know. Say goodbye." Her voice was soft, with tones he wasn't sure he'd ever heard from her before. "They'll understand." Yeah, because everyone was definitely going to forgive him for slaughtering their own people just like that.
"Doesn't matter." He turned his head to the side, words muffled by his arm as he curled up tighter. "I don't have the right."
"Don't have the right to what?" There was no accusation in her voice, no bitterness or hate. He wouldn't have blamed her for any of that.
"To do that. Say goodbye, I mean. Don't have the right to look at his face as though it's not my fault that he's gone." He closed his eyes, and they stung though he was sure he had no more tears left. "Without me, he would still be alive."
"Stop that, idiot." She swats him on the back of the head, but from her, it's little more than a gentle tap, just a reminder. "He was a grown man and made his own decisions, paid the price and claimed the glory. Don't you dare cheapen that by claiming that what you did or didn't do half the globe away days earlier could have had any effect on that."
"Sorry." He murmured the word, barely audible even to his own ears, and drew closer to her, one arm reached around her waist. He hadn't felt this alone, this abandoned, since the day Barney left him.
He wasn't sure what started his tears again, or where he found any more, but they didn't stop until he fell into exhausted sleep, Natasha still watching over him.
*
They decided to go to Budapest again, mostly because he needed to get away and it was the only place they could think of in a hurry. He suspected they would remember this trip very differently, again, though this time it was mainly because he still wasn't quite registering everything that happened around him. Not that it mattered, anyway. None of this really mattered. It was all just a sick ruse to convince himself his heart was still beating.
They used fake identities, of course, because they were both just paranoid enough to have survived this far, and though he hesitated at first as Natasha dug out the old passports for Mr. and Mrs. Rushmore he went along with it anyway.
In a way it helped, just like the book had helped, let him get out of his own head and to some strange level where he wasn't really feeling it. Clint was the one in pain, after all, whereas Clive Rushmore was perfectly content and happy with his beautiful wife at his arm, and as he watched inside his head as his own body talked and laughed and brought Natasha's hand to his lips to kiss her lovely fake ring it almost didn't hurt at all.
The actual ring was under his shirt, where it spent most of its time, hanging off a chain because anyone knowing would be a security risk and besides nothing could be allowed to hinder his shooting. It felt cold against his skin, so cold he was sure it would burn right through him, etch a permanent mark into him because there was no way Phil could just be gone without a trace.
But the ring wasn't really cold, and there were no burn marks on his skin, and the guy at the café at the airport told him he had a beautiful wife and he grinned and said he knew.
They took turns sleeping on the plane, the way far too long to stay up after everything but not willing to be quite that careless. Natasha let her head rest against his shoulder as she slept, her hand held in his so he could signal at her without a sound if anything happened, and Clint closed his eyes and tried not to think.
And then they were in another hotel again, another shared room in another city on the other side of the Atlantic, with Natasha hogging the bathroom while Clint stared out of the window. There were people and cars and buildings but he didn't really see any of them, didn't really pay attention.
"He looked normal, you know." It wasn't until Natasha spoke that he realized the sound of the shower had stopped, turning around to find her toweling off. There was no shyness in the way she paraded her naked body through the hotel room to her suitcase, towel now focusing on her hair. Of course not, he'd seen it all a thousand times before, going undercover and patching her up on the field and the one or two times they'd both been desperate enough to fall into bed together and never talk about it in the morning.
"Phil?" He didn't really need to ask, there wasn't anyone else she would have just mentioned like that, not when his thoughts were so thoroughly occupied with this one man. "When I was gone?"
"Yeah." Natasha dug out clean underwear from her suitcase, sliding the panties over her infinite legs. "You couldn't have even told anything was wrong. He had his usual almost-smile on the whole time. Asked Cap to sign his cards, too, though they never found the time for it."
"That's good." He exhaled slowly, letting his eyes fall shut for a moment. And it was, it really was. If Phil had acted all normal, it meant he had been confident that Clint would be back, that he wasn't lost. It meant he had believed in Clint.
That he hadn't died thinking Clint was lost.
"I noticed his hands twitching once or twice, when he thought nobody saw, but that was it." Judging by the voice Natasha was now sitting on the bed, the one bed because they were supposed to be married now weren't they. "There was literally no indication of anything amiss. I don't think anyone but Fury still knows."
"Good." Because Phil deserved that, really, deserved to be known as a hero, not to be dragged down with some traitorous good-for-nothing who had shot up half the helicarrier. "That means he was fine." Except for the part where he had died, died alone with nobody but Fury at his side, and how fucked up was Clint's life that Fury was the one to comfort his husband in death.
"Fine enough to give a damn good impression of being mildly amused that his main asset is working for the enemy." She didn't skip around the issue, knew he didn't want her to, knew he needed it hammered home in painful detail before he could truly start to get over it.
"Phil's the best at that," he said. There was a momentary silence, and it wasn't until he opened his eyes and found Natasha looking at him with eyes that were far too sad for her that he realized he had spoken in the present tense.
He headed to the bathroom, then, shedding his clothes along the way across the small room, not wanting to face Natasha's sad eyes because Natasha's eyes weren't supposed to be sad ever. The water was hot as it washed over him, cleaning off the trip and the mission and a minuscule bit of the guilt from his scarred and bruised skin, and if the ring resting just below his collarbones felt that much colder in comparison he managed to ignore it for a while.
*
"He actually proposed to me, you know." He was playing with his food, eating a forkful or two whenever Natasha fixed him hard enough a glare, and really he knew it wasn't good for him to keep eating so little but he really just wasn't hungry. "Went the whole nine yards, found a ring and got down on one knee and asked properly and everything. I mean, not that I minded, but I never figured that'd happen. That anyone would go to that much trouble just for the sake of Clint Barton."
"Of course he did." Her voice still carried that strange soft tone that he was really beginning to loathe to the point that he was almost ready to do something really stupid to make her stop with it, except that would have given him angry Natasha instead and that would so not have been an improvement. "He was always going to huge amounts of trouble because of you. Mostly involuntarily, but then, that's what one gets for dealing with you."
"You wound me, Natasha." He supposed it was a good sign, that he could actually discuss it like this, discuss the actual good times and not just how broken and pathetic he was without Phil. "I mean, I thought he might ask eventually, he'd made some vague mentions and you know how good he was at turning vague things into reality, but I thought it might be just some casual comment, or just giving me the paperwork to sign. I never expected him to actually do it like that." Like he had been worth it.
"Well, he always was one for following established protocol." There was a faint smile on Natasha's lips, so unlike her usual smirks, and Clint still had to sometimes remind himself that perhaps she was grieving, too. "I've got to say I was surprised when you asked me to be your witness, though. I mean, not because you asked, I would have gutted you slowly and painfully if you hadn't, but because I just never thought you were the marrying type."
"Yeah, well, neither did I." Clint shrugged. "But then, before him I didn't really think I was the dating type, either, so I guess there was that. And besides —" He paused then, a wave of cold rushing through him, eyes fixed down at his half-eaten food.
"Clint?" She frowned at him, he knew that even without looking. "What is it?"
"I asked him what it would change, once," he murmured. "Why it mattered whether we were married or not. I mean, I've never had much property nor did I care to have his, and we both had S.H.I.E.L.D. medical and he was already the one they had on file for me in case of emergencies. You know, because of being my handler and all."
"And what did he say?" Her voice was barely loud enough to reach his ears over the calm lull of the restaurant well past rush hour.
"That if one of my idiotic stunts finally got me killed, he could then stand as my husband at my funeral." And to think he had thought that to be the more likely scenario, too. "Because we couldn't really be open, it would have been too clear a target for anyone wanting to hurt either of us, but he figured that if he lost me he could at least show it then." He hadn't stood there, hadn't claimed his rightful place, hadn't been able to finally stand proud and announce to everyone that yeah, that hero who just might have saved the world had actually been his husband. No, Clint Barton-Coulson had bravely told Fury to toss his husband in a fucking fire and then fled the continent.
Hell, he was such a coward.
He never really noticed how they left the restaurant or how Natasha got him back to the hotel without looking like a date rapist or a kidnapper. All he knew was that he had fucked up again, he always did fuck up didn't he no matter what he tried, and honestly Phil should have never involved himself with such a miserable reject in the first place, as a handler or a friend or a lover or a husband.
Natasha was humming something that sounded like a Russian lullaby as he finally drifted off to sleep, tears spent once again, and seriously he didn't deserve her but then he knew better than to try to tell her that.
*
"Maybe I should just become the Black Widower, now."
Natasha didn't even bother to look at him, simply rolling her eyes at the book she was reading. "Dream on."
"Hey, it'd be totally appropriate. I'm still your partner, right? And at least I actually am a widower, now. More than you can say."
"Clint, darling, please don't question my capabilities of offing a husband or two." Her lips twitched. "Certainly not when you're pretending to be one."
"I'd never be foolish enough to do that." Oh, he was well aware of her very specific skill set, and how frighteningly good she was at the things she did. "I just happen to know there isn't a man alive who could keep up with you."
"Aw, you're so sweet." Natasha finally looked at him. "So, starting to get used to the idea yet?" Her tone was still softer than usual, and Clint really hated that soft tone, because Natasha never spoke so softly and it just reminded him of how much pain he was in.
"Nah. Probably never will." He still had those stray thoughts, even now, about how pissed Phil would be when they got back after their impromptu leave, how much paperwork he would be buried in and they'd see if he ever had another good mission again. Then he'd catch himself and remember, remember that Phil wasn't going to be welcoming them with a stern look and shades over his eyes, that when they got back they'd probably be assigned a new handler who didn't know anything and honestly what the fuck had he done to deserve all this.
"As I recall, it took you about four months to get used to thinking of yourself as married."
"Good thing it didn't take longer, considering I never had the time to worry about an anniversary gift." And it hurt, of course it hurt, to think of the preciously short time he had, the time that was never going to be any longer. He'd spent a lot of time working with Phil, quite some time dating him, and such a painfully short time actually married to him, and now it didn't matter how long he lived because every day he got out of the bed marked one more day in the period where he was mourning Phil.
Natasha was still looking at him, eyes unreadable to anyone but him, but chose not to comment. Good, because he honestly had no idea what he would have said.
"You going to tell anyone?" Her voice was quiet, level, betraying nothing.
"I don't know. Not sure if there's a point." He sighed. "I mean, what would it change? 'Hey guys, you know that guy who got killed, the one you thought was just my handler and actually a really good friend? Yeah, so he was my husband too, so I'm not just morose because someone really important died but because I have to get used to a new marital status, again.'"
"Bet you Stark would make a really interesting face at that."
"Okay, so that's a good point. Definitely something to consider, then." Maybe he would tell, some day, if only to actually get that chance, the chance to look Tony Stark in the eye and tell him something he didn't know, couldn't have ever known. Not yet, though, not for a while yet, when he still sometimes had trouble remembering it himself, trouble getting it through his head that technically he wasn't married anymore even if the ring was still in the chain around his neck and when he closed his eyes he saw Phil's endlessly calm face, almost smiling.
"No pressure, sweetheart." The endearments usually sounded mocking, coming from her, as though the mere idea of her uttering them with any degree of seriousness had been too ridiculous to consider, but coupled with the soft tone it almost sounded sincere and oh how Clint hated it. He just wanted to get back to normal, back to a world where he and Natasha were nastier to each other than most divorced couples just before falling asleep curled around each other, where they exchanged words and blows and aimed weapons at each other's face before Natasha smirked and Clint grinned and they went to take down a few guys together.
He wanted to go back to a world where nothing had happened, where he'd soon hear Phil's voice over the comm link and Fury didn't call him to ask how he wanted to handle his husband's funeral, except none of that was true and he hated Natasha for reminding him of it. Hated her for treating him like he was something delicate and fragile, which was just ridiculous because obviously he wouldn't break, he had nothing left to break when they carted agents to the SHIELD morgue with arrow wounds on them and Phil would never get his precious cards signed.
Clint didn't cry, not anymore, he just went out and did his damn best to get drunk with Natasha watching him with entirely too sober eyes, and when they stumbled back into the hotel room he pulled her into a rough kiss and she allowed him to do so. Her lips were hard against his and her body was far too soft, and in the end all that happened was him curling up on the bed once again with his arms around her waist, and he was starting to learn the lullaby by heart by now but that was fine as long as she let him do this, let him be broken just a little while longer.
And every day that passed he picked up another piece, found another slot to settle it into, until by the time they were again flying over the ocean he had it all together, a perfect little facade all set up to face the world alone.
*
Nobody questioned him as he walked up to the deck of the helicarrier, nobody gave him another look at all. They were averting their eyes if anything, not quite ready to face him. One man had been stupid enough to accuse him, earlier when they had first returned, and Natasha had shown him the error of his ways when it had been apparent Clint wasn't going to defend himself. Honestly, he had no right. There were so many gone, so many buried or still injured or just plain lost because of him.
It had been almost a month, and he knew Fury wasn't happy with that, but he still hadn't said anything when Clint had walked into his office. All he'd done was hand Clint the plain urn, the urn and a small box that held the ring and the trading cards, because both of them knew that empty words of consolation would have only made things worse.
He'd slipped the ring out, then and there, and onto the chain around his neck, where it’d nestled comfortably against his own, and all of a sudden it hadn't felt quite so cold.
They were high enough up that nobody was out here if they could help it, not quite high enough to be dangerous but the air was thin and cold nevertheless. That was good. It meant he could get a moment alone.
It wasn't a nest, not somewhere he could feel safe and secure, but he was higher up than just anywhere else and that was enough to ease his breath a bit more than should have been possible at this altitude. He crouched near the edge, far too close for safety but then he'd never been one to care about safety, looking out to the landscape that was much too far below for depth vision to check in.
Clint set the urn down next to himself, now, opening the box again, taking a good look instead of just grabbing the ring from inside it. Taking the trading cards, the precious treasure Phil had spent years tracking down, he looked at each of them in turn, running a gentle fingertip along the edge of each of them.
He looked at the cards, soiled with blood, and now understood why Fury had gotten so quiet when he'd asked for them. Guess even the Director had some vague idea about human emotion even if he liked to act as though he was above any such foolishness.
His hand tightened around the cards, knuckles white at his tight grip, before he tucked them into the small pocket on the inside of his shirt, designed for things like wires and fake access cards and other small mission-sensitive things that he couldn't afford to lose while running along the roofs.
It would have been much easier to let them go, to cast them out to the wind and let them end up where they willed, but they were the last thing he had left aside from the other ring and besides he didn't deserve to get off quite that easily. He deserved this, to hold onto the cards marked with Phil's blood, a hero's blood, to look at them and remember just how much Phil had sacrificed, just how much had been lost because of his weakness.
He deserved, in that little part of his heart that maybe still somehow believed that he wasn't entirely beyond redemption, to remember just how good a man had taken his hand and not let go.
He took the urn, then, looked at it for a moment before opening it, scattering the ashes to the wind that blew them right off. It was just appropriate, he supposed, to have them fall from on high, blown far and wide over this world that Phil had worked so hard to protect, had given so much to protect. To fly off, just like his precious heroes.
He'd meant to say something, maybe some profound shit about love and loss and whatnot, but all that came out was a scream, a sound of raw pain that tore up from deep inside and left his throat aching. He screamed again, then, and again, until he had no strength left to raise his head again, lungs burning in the thin air and tears threatening to freeze on his face.
There was a hand on his shoulder, then, a fine and comforting hand that he knew could have snapped his neck in seconds, could have tossed him right over the edge and he might just have had enough time for a regret or two before he made it down. Natasha wasn't feeling quite that merciful, though; she squeezed his shoulder instead, a soft gesture instead of bruising and paining, prompting him to look toward her.
"Let's go," she said, and he barely heard her over the wind and the helicarrier's rotors, but then it wasn't like he needed to hear her to follow her. It wasn't like he could do anything else. "We've got a Stark to find."
He nodded, and stood, and the bloodied cards were heavy in his pocket.
*
It was months later that Stark gathered them all together around the table, a grease-stained tank top on and a wild look in his eyes. Clint had been working hard on getting everything back on tracks, on getting it through his head that he wasn't a married man anymore, that it was fine to sometimes still lock himself in the most remote room on the floor Stark had designated as his but that he'd better come out the following morning for a grueling spar and some damn good coffee with Natasha. He was back to normal, now, as normal as he had ever been, and sitting around the table with this bunch it pretty much made him average for once in his life.
Then Stark dropped the bomb, told them he'd received a message that seemed to be from one Phil Coulson, and all the pieces he had so painstakingly gathered and stacked together where suddenly shattered into a million painful, cutting shards again, tearing into his heart and leaving him grasping for breath.
He'd never known a sweeter pain, but then nothing opened old wounds quite as swiftly as renewed hope.
