Chapter Text
After New York, after the mayhem and the mind-control and the loss of his husband, all Clint Barton wanted to do was sleep. He wanted to curl up in his (their) bed on his (their) farm and never leave. Unfortunately, SHIELD had a different plan. After three months’ worth of confinement and tests and “how do you feel?” and “are you sleeping?” and “Why not try seeking out a close relationship instead of your usual one night stands?” Clint finally lost it. Yes, part of it was his fault, he knows they would have handled his treatment better if anyone had known about his relationship with Phil, but they’d agreed to keep it secret from everyone, from Natasha. Telling anyone now would be the ultimate betrayal in Clint’s eyes. So, instead of doing the smart thing, Clint broke out of the medical wing of the Triskelion, slammed his way into Fury’s office and demanded a mission or a pink slip. With a surprisingly little amount of fuss and/or ranting, Clint was given an assignment.
Alone.
With Captain America working for SHIELD, Natasha’s usual cohort living under doctoral supervision and Phil dead, Strike Team Delta had been disbanded. Clint was now being sent on solo missions (which he hated), wet works assignments (which he hated even more), or solo wet work tasks (which were the literal worst). When Clint had worked with his team, when his husband had been alive to protect his assets, they had stayed away from assassinations and seduction missions that went too far. Phil had seen how badly the missions could wear on his teammates. He went to great lengths to stop Natasha’s eyes from dimming to a dead stare for weeks at a time or to keep Clint from disappearing to their farm for days and coming back 10 pounds lighter with blood dripping from over-worked fingers. With Phil gone, Clint was guaranteed to be working with the wet works department more often than not. By the time the anniversary of Phil’s death came around, Clint was wishing fervently for that pink slip.
~*~
SHIELD fell on a Sunday. Clint was sitting on a rooftop in the center of Minsk’s factory district waiting for his target to finish an arms deal. It was one of the few assignments Clint had a back-up and extraction plan on. For once, he’d gone into the mission unworried. Of course, when a gun barrel touched the back of his neck and he was ordered to “Stand Up” in a bark of Russian, Clint felt a spark of surprise. The fight was short and brutal, Clint finding himself falling into a sea of black as the man with the gun and short temper put a bullet in Clint’s leg.
Clint woke in a small cell. A small barred window sat high up on one wall. A TV blaring news of SHIELD’s destruction and Hydra’s reappearance was on the opposite side of the bars from Clint. A man sat chuckling as he stared at the horror on Clint’s face.
“Seems you’re secretly a Nazi,” the man’s voice was full of arrogance, “My mother was a prisoner in one of your concentration camps. I think she would be proud of what I’m going to do to you.”
Clint could only close his eyes and hope that Natasha would notice when he didn’t answer any of her calls and not assume he was Hydra.
~*~
By the end of the third week, Clint was sure he was going to die. The TV, which hadn’t been turned off in the time he’d been held captive, showed almost continuous coverage of the SHIELD debacle. It also showed the rest of the Avengers living it up in New York as they attended trails and press conferences to assure the public of their allegiance to the “True SHIELD”, not the damaged and poisonous organization they’d managed to take down. Clint hadn’t been mention once.
It takes another week and he’s not exactly sure how he does it, but Clint gets out. All he can remember is that the man had let down his guard after the sixth cigarette he’d put out on Clint’s clavicle and suddenly Clint was putting a knife through the man’s throat and bolting (limping) quickly to the cell door.
Clint came back to himself in the dingy backroom of one of his old contacts from his years after the circus but before SHIELD. After a quick patch job and the liberal application of makeup to hide the worst of the bruises on his face, Clint began the journey back to New York. Maybe Natasha wouldn’t hate him for not being there to help when things went to shit. Hopefully they’d give him time to explain instead of killing him on sight.
~*~
Clint needn’t have worried. When he reached Avenger’s Tower, JARVIS let him right in. Clint made sure to hide his discomfort behind a blank mask as he rode the elevator to the communal floor where the rest of the team was currently located. When the doors opened, Clint tensed.
None of the Avengers noticed his presence, not even Natasha.
How the fuck do any of them survive?
“H-hey,” Clint’s voice was rough, his vocal cords still recovering from the hours of screaming he’d been doing over the previous month.
Natasha barely turned away from the plans the rest of the Avengers were studying to greet him.
“I see you finally made it. You’re a bit late,” she said bitterly, her eyes focused on her tablet screen in her hands, “Could’ve used your help when shit was hitting the fan Barton.”
Barton, that’s what did it for Clint. Natasha never called him Barton unless she was teasing him. Seemed she did blame him for not being there after all. He wanted to cry. Instead he replied, “Yeah, I got caught in Minsk. Spent—“
Tony cut Clint off before he could finish explaining, “We already checked you out Katniss. We know you’re not Hydra. JARVIS can take you down to your floor and you can get settled. We already had dinner so you can fend for yourself.”
No one else acknowledged Clint as he walked back into the elevator and rode down to what was apparently his “floor.” After a quick walkthrough, Clint spent the next week holed up in his new living space only leaving once for a dentist appointment to replace the molars he’d lost to the man in Minsk and grabbing enough energy bars to last through his self-imposed isolation.
Clint didn’t receive a single visitor.
TBC