Chapter Text
December 1st.
Prompt: Budapest
This was it. Natasha had finally hit rock bottom.
She’d clawed her way through hell and back again. Many times over. She’d knocked at death’s door. Stared the devil in the face. Gritted her teeth. And pulled out the winner, victorious. Bloodied, bruised, and broken, but still kicking.
Not now. Not anymore. There was a bullet in her chest, cold metal too close to the warm beat of her heart. She was so tired of fighting…all…the…time…
“Nat.”
She recognized the voice but her thoughts were too sluggish, too slow to identify it.
“Nat.”
Softer this time. A whispered prayer.
Natasha dragged her eyes open. Clint leaned over her and brushed a lock of hair away from the corner of her mouth, her cheek sticky with blood.
Her blood.
He was the enemy. American. SHIELD. Avengers Initiative. You can have a second chance at a better life, he had told her. So optimistic. Sweet-faced Kansas farm boy tangled up with a Russian assassin.
He had come to kill her so long ago. To finish her off and roll her body into the nearly-frozen river, her lips blue, ice on her eyelashes, water in her lungs.
Instead, he'd made a different call. Idealist that he was. Starry-eyed with the belief that no matter what horrors she had committed, a clean slate was hers for the taking if she wanted it.
But there was no such thing. Not for her. Too much blood. On her hands. Leaking onto the pavement. Turning her clothes sticky and wet against her skin.
Clint cupped his hand to the back of Natasha’s neck, supporting her head. He slid his other arm behind the crook of her knees.
“I’ve got you,” he said softly, breathing so gentle against her hair like a lover’s kiss.
Natasha closed her eyes. As Clint picked her up, cradling her in his arms, she didn’t have to fight anymore. She knew she was safe.