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They watched Bucky walk away in silence, none of them quite knowing what to say. Only when the three other men were left alone did Logan finally speak.
“I don’t like it,” he stated gruffly, as was his way.
“He’s just hurt. I’m sure he’ll come to his senses,” Steve said, watching the doorway with a worried expression.
“What, so until he does we just pretend? I’m sorry, Cap, but I’m not gonna lie to her like that. She’s been through enough,” Clint said, shaking his head for emphasis.
“I know, but Bucky-” Steve started to say, but was cut off quickly.
“But nothin’, bub. It ain’t his choice,” Logan growled, looking up fiercely at the much taller man.
“I know,” Steve said again, letting out a heavy sigh. “It would be best coming from one of us anyway, people she knows and trusts.” Squaring his shoulders, the switch to leader mode was absolutely seamless. “I will go talk to Bucky.”
“I got a few things I’d like to say to him too,” Logan spoke, popping a single claw for emphasis. Steve eyed him warily for a moment.
“Clint, you tell Natasha,” he met the archer’s eyes. Even if he hadn’t said it he knew that Hawkeye would have volunteered, and probably would have argued with anyone who tried to tell him no.
“On it,” Clint replied. He watched the other men leave before ditching his bow and quiver and entering Natasha’s room.
“Hey,” he greeted, waiting until she acknowledged his presence by slowly turning her head toward him before he walked over to take a seat in the chair beside her bed. “How you holding up?”
“I’ve been better,” she replied, dropping her eyes to her hands as she wrinkled the sheet beneath them and smoothed it out again before repeating the action.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Clint offered, but she declined with a simple ‘no’ and he didn’t push the subject, a fact that she appreciated greatly.
For a long time they sat in companionable silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Natasha had been through a horrible ordeal, she had killed people she knew, people she liked, and although she knew it hadn’t been her in control that didn’t alleviate the guilt. She was angry at herself, angry that she had let herself be brainwashed yet again, let herself be someone’s pawn once more. Would it ever stop?
Clint too thought of all the things she had been through, all the things she had done, but more than that he thought of what had possibly been done to her by that bastard Novokov. He silently wished he could have put an arrow through a rather sensitive part of that creep’s body, and hoped he suffered greatly in his new ‘home’.
More of that darkness talking.
After a long time Natasha turned her head to look at Clint and found him watching her. “Thank you,” she said simply, his silent comfort exactly what she had needed right then. She noted a flicker of something in his eyes at the words, though, and it made her body stiffen. Something wasn’t quite right, she knew him well enough to know that. “You’re not here just to check on me, are you?”
Lowering his eyes he sighed and shook his head before forcing himself to look at her again. “I did want to check on you. I would have been here anyway, I didn’t want you to be alone,” he said quickly because it was true, he needed her to know that his top priority in this was helping her and making sure she was okay, or as okay as she could be under the circumstances.
“I know,” she said, and she did. Even though he clearly had another reason for being here, presumably some more bad news to share if she had to make a guess, Natasha knew he really had been concerned and wanted to be there for her.
When he didn’t speak she reached over to touch his hand gently. “Clint...” she prodded, giving him that look that told him he better start talking, and quick.
“Okay,” he said. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and ran his hands over his face and back through his hair, letting out a slow breath as he did so. There was no easy way to do this, but with Natasha he knew the best way was to just give it to her straight. She had never been a fan of sugar coating anything. “Okay, when they de-brainwashed you, they weren’t able to... not all your memories came back.”
The silence was deafening and for a long moment she just stared at him with an unreadable expression. Clint being Clint, he took this as a sign to babble on.
“It’s not like events or months or anything, it’s more like... all your memories of... a certain person are still missing somehow, like he was removed from your mind.”
“Bucky...” Natasha said the name quietly causing Clint to look at her in surprise. Then he remembered that of course she had heard the name, and she would have even been asked about him as they worked to remove the damage done to her mind. She was a smart girl, of course she would figure it out.
“Yeah, Bucky,” he said, watching her brow furrow as she considered the information he had just dropped on her. Too bad he wasn’t quite finished. “There might still be a way to get those memories back. Magic, telepathy, there’s a bunch of things we can try if you want to.”
She turned her head to look at him again but Clint couldn’t shake the feeling that she was looking through him... no, like she was somehow looking deep down inside him, pulling out all of his secrets with those too intelligent eyes. “It’s your choice, Nat. If you don’t want anyone messing in your head again then nobody will, but if you wanna try...”
“They are my memories, Clint. They are a part of me. You know I can’t be content knowing that a piece of that is missing,” she replied.
“I know,” he said. That was why he was here, why he could never have allowed Bucky’s request to go unchallenged. “I’ll let them know.”
Getting to his feet, Clint took Natasha’s hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze before heading for the door. When he reached it he paused, one hand on the knob, and peered back at her over his shoulder.
“Tasha? I’m sorry about the leg,” he said, and he was sure he felt his heart skip a little when she smiled suddenly. He certainly felt satisfied managing to win a smile during all of this.
“World’s Greatest Marksman and you couldn’t hit him anywhere without going through me?” she replied with a teasing grin that he couldn’t help but return. Of course they both knew he could have, but it would have been a headshot, and Hawkeye didn’t kill, plain and simple. So they shared a smile and he opened the door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he added before closing it behind him. He would be back tomorrow, and the next day, and every one after that until she told him to go away. It was going to be a hard recovery and he knew she would keep it all to herself, not let anyone know just how difficult it was, so he would be there for silent support, and if she ever needed an ear to finally open up to then he would be that too. Always.