Work Text:
She’s only just barely breathing when he finds her. Clint knows she goes hard when everything falls to hell. The last couple missions have absolutely met that criteria. Fury keeps sending her for what he calls intel gathering and the bruises on her body clearly call something else entirely. Laura’s put her back together after a few of them, but lately Nat’s stopped showing up at the farm when she makes it stateside.
It’s Steve who suggests she might need checking in on. He caught a glimpse of her heading out of medical and passed along that she was walking tenderly. He doesn’t come out and say it, but Clint gets the definite impression he’s not referring to a bum ankle. So off he goes to one of the no name buildings in Alphabet City where Nat keeps a bolt hole.
The key turns in the lock, but there is no click, no indication that she threw the latch when she arrived. He identifies himself on the way in, hoping she’s at least sober enough to not shoot first and ask questions later.
The tiny living room is empty, kitchen silent as the grave. A check of the grimy bathroom shows water on the shower curtain and the tang of vomit in the air.
“Nat? You breathing in there?” he calls out again, before shouldering open the bedroom door. First glance gives him an unoccupied space. Covers rumpled but no sleeping Nat beneath them. He crouches, checks beneath the bed and finds naught but dust bunnies.
“Natasha,” he tries once more. Voice steady but nerves beginning to tingle in ways he absolutely does not like.
He crosses to the little closet door. Tugs it open. She’s there, slumped in the corner with her works neatly laid on the floor a foot away. There’s a trickle of vomit from lips to chin, mouth still ever so slightly open. He kneels, reaching for her neck, hoping for – anything.
Her chest rises just as his fingers make contact with clammy skin. The faint pulse beneath his hand is all the reassurance he can hope for. It’s been ages since he’s found her with needle and spoon, but old habits don’t ever truly die. He’s never specifically asked her to quit. Knows there are hurts that go too deep to be soothed any other way.
“Let’s get you to bed,” he tells her, though a response is beyond any realistic possibility. She’s breathing only a few times in the space of a minute, but her lips aren’t grey beneath their reddish stain and he’s willing to accept that as good enough.
She’s lost weight again. He knows her body perhaps even better than his own. Knows every inch of slender flesh, every scar catalogued in endless firefights, assignments, and the time she refers to only as before. She’s not quite as feather light as she was the first time he brought her home to Laura, but not by much.
The bed creaks as he settles her on it, putting himself beside her and using his leg to keep her rolled to one side. Fingers rest against her neck, the reassurance of slowly thudding heartbeats beneath them small comfort.
It’s hours before she stirs, eyelids fluttering and a whine escaping her throat.
“Shhhh, you’re safe,” he tells her. It’s a lie, but it’s one they’ve been telling each other so long it’s become practically a form of greeting.
“Please,” she whimpers, and the hurt in that soft tone reminds him of the lost woman child he once refused to kill.
“I’ve got you, Nat. I’ve got you.”
He does. He missed the slide down this time. But he’s got her now. He’s had time to catalogue the pinpoints on her arms and ankles. He’s had long enough to survey the too prominent points of her hips, the too deep crevices of her collar bones.
She hiccups, a soft sound that brings with it a gush of bile and what he assumes is probably whatever cheap alcohol she grabbed on her way here.
He pats her back, offers meaningless encouragement to get it out, that she’ll be better when it’s up. She says something in reply, but it’s lost in a gurgle as more liquid pours from her mouth. When the retching ends, he lifts her from the mess and wipes her face with the dry corner of the sheet. He’ll deal with the laundry later.
“How long this time?” he asks her when she’s settled against his chest.
“Long enough.”