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It started as a deep, dull pain in her gut.
What passed for an upset stomach when she crawled into bed for a fitful doze was now a full-fledged stabbing pain, doubling her over despite the unbearable ache in her back.
She's never had another person growing inside her before, but she's pretty sure it isn't supposed to feel like this.
Groaning through the involuntary shakes, she gets her legs over the side of the bed, toes curling tightly around the carpet fibers as she presses her forehead into her knees and tries to think, breathe, everything's fine, breathe.
Unfortunately, the combination of stabbing ripping burning pain and finally noticing the blood starting to collect on her thighs causes any attempt at exhaling coming out as an unstable whine.
"Clint..." Words forced through gritted teeth arguably come out more garbled than she'd like, but there isn't much of a choice at the moment, "Clint, please..."
Wake up, something is wrong and please do something about it was supposed to follow that, but another aching tearing pounding cramp hurdles through her abdomen and it comes out as a strangled cry instead.
"Bobbi it's three in the-" Clint scratches at his scalp, half-conscious, but instincts kick in quickly enough and suddenly he's bounding over the bed and crouching right in front of her, clearly disoriented and panicking, but trying to move her hair away from where it's sticking to her face with tears, trying to help.
"Baby, whats wrong? Talk to me, Birdie." He's using the forced-calm voice, the kind you use on a kid thats trying to explain the fight they had on the playground. She doesn't want it right now. She wants him to fix this, and do it right now.
"Clint I... fuck, god..!" She sniffles in a hard, shuddering deep breath, pulling a hand away from where they're clutching desperately at her midsection and displaying clenched fingers coated in blood, "Help..."
The bottom drops out of his stomach.
"Oh, Birdie... Come on, it'll be okay, deep breaths." He doesn't bother to ask if she can walk, just wraps her up in his leather jacket left discarded on the floor and pulls her into his arms, trying not to let the water spill over his eyes as she grips red, sticky fingers into the front of his t-shirt.
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For all the time they've spent in hospitals, either in a bed or sitting next to one, he's never disliked it this much.
He didn't even think to put on shoes.
Bobbi probably would have appreciated pants, too, but right now all he remembers is trying to drive and not kill them both in the process, one hand steering while the other gripped her knee, doubled over in the passenger seat while he tried to spew comforting words and reassurances through her moans. Making them sound convincing was a whole other matter.
Feet cold and bloody hand print on his shirt, Clint fails to really notice either when he's allowed to sit at her bedside. She's still wearing his boots, curled up on her side and uncaring of the dried flecks of mud scattered over the bedspread from the treads, leather jacket pulled tightly over her hospital gown.
Her eyes are puffy, but she reaches for his hand and grips tight when he takes a seat on the edge of her bed, ignoring the chair entirely in favor of stroking back her hair.
"It's gone," Her voice is raspy, lip still trembling. He realizes he's never seen that on her face before, never seen her break that hard, "Oh god, Clint, it's gone..."
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Life moves along like nothing happened. They hadn't told anyone, no need to tearfully explain what happened, or accept pitiful hugs of sympathy that didn't fix a damn thing.
Clint buries himself in work, in the Avengers, Bobbi soon follows suit. She's quieter, more calculative, eyes colder when she's angry. She's still Bobbi, and he still loves her, but she gets scary much quicker these days.
Moving into the Avengers frat-house wasn't what she'd really wanted, but it was the obvious choice, and they didn't want to seem like the odd ones out. The old married couple: not team players.
There wasn't much in the house to move, and even less that wouldn't be in the new location, but Bobbi sorts through everything anyway, waiting until Clint's away on a mission to shove a certain box into the closet, buried under various shoeboxes and one container of tampax. Just to make sure he'd never go snooping around.
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Bobbi, the real Bobbi, is back. Rough roads come between them, but like Rome, it leads them right back where they started.
Things are still quiet, and Clint can't seem to stop using kitten-gloves on her, like a faberge egg he's terrified of breaking, and she can't say it's entirely awful, watching him bumble around and try so hard it almost makes his head spin. She knows she won't break, but she knows its just how Clint shows he loves her, however clumsy it may be.
Even after the Dark Avengers work him over, the unspoken understanding when he lies down next to her and pulls her to his chest every night makes it feel like it used to. He still wants her, and he always will. But neither wants to talk about things that hurt.
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Clint pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes screwed up tight as he closes the laptop. It's been happening alot lately, and he knows she can tell, but he won't say a damn thing and they both know it.
His eyes are getting worse.
Jarvis starts keeping the lights dimmed in their room, as Clint starts complaining about the glare almost daily. Where he used to sleep sprawled on his back, arm linked around her shoulders, now he buries his face in the pillow. Heels of his palms dig into his eye sockets until his pale eyelashes she liked so much start to wear away.
It takes three months before he lets any of it come to light. She ignores the date on the calendar when he does, like she does every October.
Bobbi looks up from the folders of paperwork spread over the bed as Clint shuffles in, her heart skipping a few beats.
He's holding the box.The box.
"Hey, uh..." He shifts his weight from foot to foot in the doorway, looking at the floor, though with how low the lights are and how red the whites of his eyes are, she wonders how much of the room he can actually see clearly, "I found this, um... I was lookin for my old jacket, and it was in this box, under some... stuff." She almost smirks that he still can't say 'tampons', but her mouth stays fixed.
Sighing like he's lost a confrontation with himself, he strides the room in a few steps, mostly from memory, and sets the box down by the bed.
'Goodnight Moon', 'Go Dogs Go', and 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' are on the top of the contents, staring her in the face, not looking a day of how many years they've been stored away.
Bobbi says nothing.
"I..." He starts with just as little confidence as before, scratching absently at his arm, "Damnedest thing, you know? I find these and... I guess you saved em, for-" He stops himself. Bobbi swallows a hard lump in her throat, threatening to bubble to the surface. "For the kid, and... I can't read 'em. Tryin' to focus on the words and stuff, strains the hell outta my eyes."
She nods, like this is totally normal, and that it isn't weird that she stashed a bunch of kids books she couldn't bear to toss out and her husband's bloodied jacket in a box and moved it to and from three different addresses, and tries not to laugh humorlessly that Clint only finds them after he literally starts to go blind. Wasn't like she hid it that well or anything.
"But, I was thinkin, silver lining and all," He looks up at her this time, and she can tell he's trying so painfully hard to focus on her clearly and make out every detail he can - she's started thinking of it as his soul-stealing stare - and she wishes he wouldn't. Because now he'll notice the puffy-eyed, lip-trembling face gazing up at him from a hospital bed all those years ago, "That since I've been not-dead, I got my hearing back."
She looks away from those pleading blue eyes that get lighter every day, to where he's pushing a pristine copy of 'Corduroy' into her limp hands.
Suddenly, her lip stiffens up, and her eyes still fill with water, but she lets them spill over, curling her fingers over Clint's hand where it rests over the red book cover, guiding him up and onto the bed where he fits like a puzzle piece to her side.
Nuzzled into the crook of her arm, he exhales what sounds like contentment as her fingers thread smoothly through his messy blond hair, muttering something about how she doesn't have to describe the pictures to him, too, if she doesn't want to.
Instead of an answer, she kisses him on the forehead and maneuvers the pages open with one hand.
"Corduroy, by Don Freeman. Corduroy is a bear who once lived in a toy department of a big store. Day after day, he waited with the other animals and dolls, for someone to come along and take him home..."
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By the time Clint's breathing evens out to signal his unconsciousness, the box is half emptied, it's previous contents scattered all over the bedspread, some left open and face down as he'd made her stop in the middle and move on to another, that childish sense of urgency coming to him like second nature.
The hand remaining in his hair continues it's soft strokes as she picks up the Corduroy book again, glancing at the last page before closing it and setting it on the nightstand, lamp extinguishing with a swift click.
"You must be a friend, said Corduroy, I think I've always wanted a friend..."