Work Text:
Clint's head hurt, but he couldn't remember what caused it. He was pretty sure he'd woken up with it because that was the only logical explanation for it. He hadn't suffered any knocks to the head recently and that was the usual cause of his headaches.
Or maybe he had gotten knocked in the head? Maybe at the doctor's office that morning? No, that wasn't right. Maybe when he'd gotten home then. But that wasn't right either; even though he couldn't remember coming home, he just knew he hadn't hit his head.
"...Clint?"
Clint glanced up, focusing past his pain to instead focus on Natasha. She was always careful to never give anything away with her facial expressions, but he could see she was annoyed. He'd done something wrong.
"What?"
"You've been staring at your coffee for fifteen minutes and haven't even touched it." Natasha pointed out, frown in place. "I assume you haven't heard anything I've been saying?"
Had she been speaking? He hadn't heard anything.
"No, I'm sorry. My head really hurts and it's a little hard to focus." Clint said apologetically, a lighthearted smile in place. "I should have asked for some medicine or something when I was at the doctor's for my appointment. I know, my bad. "
"Why were you at the doctor?" Natasha asked, seeming surprised. "Are you sick?"
Clint could have sworn he had mentioned it to her before, but maybe he had imagined it. His thoughts were a little jumbled, it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn't for some reason.
"My annual S.H.I.E.L.D physical? We all have to get one, you know that." Clint said with a snort. "Don't tell me you haven't gone yet."
Natasha's following silence was a bit unsettling. She was studying him, eyebrows drawn together and lips curling into a frown.
"What? You haven't gone?" Clint asked, confused as to why she was looking at him the way that she was. "You really need to go. They'll take you out of the field if you don't get it done."
"I know. That's why I went already." Natasha said carefully. "In January. You were there and had yours done too."
Now it was Clint's turn to frown. He always with Natasha to her physicals, facing the wall while everything was being done, but giving Natasha the reassurance that everything was going to be fine just by being there. They'd been doing it like that since the day he had brought her in.
But it didn't make sense. If he had gone with her already, why had he gone again to the doctor's today? Natasha had to be mistaking; he would remember if he had gotten his physical done at the same time as she had that year.
Clint's head started to throb.
"Yeah, January of last year."
"January of this year." Natasha corrected.
"But that's not right. January is now." Clint protested.
"January was two months ago. It's March now."
She was lying. This was just some big practical joke; it had to be. He had gone in for his physical that very morning and they always had their physicals done in January after the start of the New Year. It was standard S.H.I.E.L.D policy.
The pain in his head only worsened the more he tried to make sense of it, spots flashed in front of his eyes.
"Clint, what's wrong?"
"I don't...feel so good..." The world tilted on its axis, his vision blurred, and just as it began to get dark, he made out the figure of Natasha jumping up from her seat across the table.
"Clint!"
"So, what exactly are you going to be doing?"
"Just a few test trials. Nothing too serious."
"Right. So why am I strapped onto this table?"
"Just relax, Agent Barton. Count backwards from three..."
"Why do we always wipe him at the end of it all, sir?"
"At the end of the day, it's all classified information. If he were to talk about it outside of the trials, he could damage years of hard earned results or reveal well kept secrets."
"But won't Agent Coulson be upset? Wiping him isn't in the contract."
"Agent Coulson doesn't have to find out."
When Clint opened his eyes next, his headache was gone, but he wasn't in his apartment like he had been before. The walls were white, the bed was uncomfortable and machines were beeping in time with his heart; he was in the hospital and the realization made him groan out loud.
"Clint? Can you hear me?"
Natasha. He turned his head toward the sound of her voice, movements a bit sluggish and vision still a bit out of focus. It took him a few moments to fully focus on her face and when he did, he knew something was wrong. She looked upset; he figured it was at him for landing himself in the hospital.
"Nat...What happened?" His throat was dry, his voice rough. How long had he been here?
"How's your head?"
"It's fine. It doesn't even hurt anymore." Clint said honestly, then decided to repeat his question. "What happened?"
"Do you remember what month it is?" She asked instead.
"March. Why are you avoiding the question?" Clint asked, feeling himself becoming a bit more agitated as she continued to answer his questions with more questions.
"Because it isn't hers to answer." A new voice came from the other side of his bed and when Clint turned his head, he was surprised to see his handler, Phil Coulson, standing there.
"Coulson? What are you doing here?" Clint asked, looking back at Natasha again. "Why is he here?"
"I called him." Natasha said simply in a means of explanation. Her hand moved across the sheets and into his own, easily lacing their fingers together. "It was an emergency and he needed to know about it."
"It wasn't an emergency. I just had a really bad headache."
"You had a headache while completely forgetting what month it was as well as a physical event that you were present at. Then you lost consciousness." Natasha argued. "What else was I supposed to treat it as?"
"Enough." Phil's voice was firm; his 'I mean business' voice. "Your headache and memory loss were side effects."
"Side effects? Of what?" Clint asked.
Phil sighed heavily. "Side effects of an experiment you were a subject in this morning." He explained.
"What the hell do you mean experiment?" Clint demanded, looking back and forth between the two of them. Natasha's face held no emotion, but her eyes held a silent fury, an angry storm. She'd had no idea either. "You've been experimenting on me?"
"Remember that waiver you signed when you joined up? The one you didn't read allowing S.H.I.E.L.D to experiment on you?" Phil asked. "Funny enough, you were the only one who signed it."
"You did what?" Natasha asked, turning her full attention and anger to Clint. "You didn't read the contract?"
Clint's eyes widened a fraction. "Well...no--"
"Are you kidding me? This isn't the terms and conditions on your iTunes account, Clint!" Natasha exclaimed. "This is a serious secret government organization's contract!"
" I was young! I didn't know anything about fine print when I was recruited and I certainly didn't think there would be a waiver allowing them to experiment on me!" Clint protested.
Natasha was quick to turn on Phil next. "Where is Fury? I want to talk to him about this."
"Nat, don't--"
"Director Fury is in a meeting." Phil answered, cutting Clint off.
"Get him out of it. I want to talk to him now."
"You let him do this?" Natasha snapped. She was sitting at the table with Fury and Coulson, one who looked aggravated to even be there and the other who looked more than ready to stop a fight if it were to break out. "He was a child!"
"He was plenty old enough to make his own decisions and he signed those documents without reading them. That was his choice, Romanov." Fury said gruffly, crossing his arms.
"So you're using that against him, is that it? Using a teen's ignorance to read fine print on a contract to experiment on him and wipe him so he can't remember it?"
"That's not--"
"That's not it? Then what was it, Nick?" Natasha demanded. "What have you people been doing to him?"
Phil stood, still and silent at Fury's side; Natasha felt her fury growing.
"You have no idea what they were doing to him down there, do you? You let him go down there, but you never bothered to check up on him?"
"We're pulling the files as we speak." Phil answered instead, tone cautious. "It's all under careful investigation. The trails were cleared, but the memory wiping was something that had never been cleared by any higher up."
"I want them all fired and I want Clint's name removed from that waiver."
"That isn't your call to make." Fury said irritably.
"Oh, it's going to be." Natasha said firmly. "Because if it isn't, I will hunt every single one of them down and make them feel every moment of pain that they put him through. And because of S.H.I.E.L.D's blatant ignorance to the whole situation, I will burn this whole organization to the ground."
The threat hung in the air; Phil seemed to consider it. Natasha was always good on her threats, especially when it came to the safety of Clint.
"I'll look into it." Phil finally said.
"Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I have someone in the hospital to go check on."
Natasha didn't remember the ride back to the hospital, just like she didn't remember the walk down the busy halls, but when she finally came to a stop, she looked up at the room number only to realize her feet had led her right back to Clint's room.
Clint had always been her safe haven, someone she could always go to if she ever felt unsafe or unsure. He'd always been there for her, even since the beginning, always letting her know that she was safe and he was there. And this is how she repaid him? In years of not noticing that he'd been used and tortured in ways so similar to the ones she'd been subjected to so long ago?
How hadn't she noticed? She'd lived this life and she hadn't been able to see any of the signs, the signs that something was wrong.
She stood outside his door for some time, gathering herself before walking inside. Clint's eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling slowly, and the heart monitor was beeping evenly; he was asleep.
She watched him for a few moments from a distance before moving across the room to his bedside, taking a seat in the chair she had occupied earlier in the evening. She took his closest hand in her own, running her thumb across his knuckles tenderly, taking him in. He was alive, breathing, and according to the doctors, he would be just fine, but she still felt that unease.
She reached out with her free hand, running it through his hair, and Clint stirred under her touch, coming to awareness with a slow inhale of breath. When he opened his eyes, Natasha let out a breath of her own of pure relief; blue and aware as always.
"Hey." She kept her voice soft, indicating that everything was alright and there was nothing he needed to worry about.
"Hey." Clint squeezed her hand, offering her a small smile. "How did it go?"
"I threatened to hunt down and kill the people who hurt you." Natasha said casually. "Then threatened to burn S.H.I.E.L.D to the ground."
Clint laughed out loud and Natasha couldn't help a chuckle of her own. "You did what? Seriously?"
"Only if they didn't remove your name from that waiver and fire those people." Natasha explained, looking down at their hands. " I was...pretty upset."
"I noticed."
"I let my emotions get the better of me."
"You were scared for me. Angry for me. That's okay."
"What they did to you reminded me of what they used to do to me." Natasha said quietly. "In Red Room. They did almost the exact same things to me and I didn't even notice--"
"Don't. This isn't your fault." Clint said quickly, squeezing her hand. "Hey, look at me, hey, don't. It's my fault for not reading that form."
"You were a child, Clint. They shouldn't have expected some starry eyed teen who wanted to be a superhero to read fine print on a legally binding contract." Natasha protested, shaking her head in disgust.
"I guess not."
"And they experimented on you and used you and manipulated you for who knows how long--"
"They did."
"And wiped your memory so you wouldn't remember any of it--"
"I know."
"And the adults who were in charge of you couldn't be bothered to check on you!"
"And that's on them. That's not on you." Clint concluded gently, squeezing her hand again.
Natasha said nothing; Clint made room on the bed so she could climb in beside him, laying her head on his shoulder. They sat together in a comfortable silence aside from the beeping of the heart monitor, fingers linked together snugly.
"I'll be out tomorrow, they said."
"We should celebrate."
"Dog Cops and pizza?"
"Dog Cops and pizza it is."
Clint grinned, turning his head so he could press a kiss to Natasha's.
"Thank you. For looking out for me."
Natasha hummed, a smile toying at her lips.
"I always will."