Feels Like Coming Home | +arrowsandradiation
Closing her eyes, Natasha tries to stem the flow of the hot, traitorous tears. For the first time in a long time, all she can see is the unfairness of it all. In another place, another time, they could have been happy. Together, whole, as they should always be.
Maybe somewhere out there they are. She’s seen things she could never have conceived of, nightmares made real - maybe the dreams are real somewhere else too.
These are a child’s notions, she chastises herself. This whole thing is proof of why love is something to be turned from, a game for those who cannot face life as it is.
Why then is it that she cannot draw her hand back from Clint’s, not with all the will in the world? She stays exactly as she is, knee pressed against one of his, hands linked in her lap as her thumb strokes over the back of his.
“I have to,” she tells him. “Or I’ll destroy you too. I… “
It takes a deep breath and the knowledge that not telling him might harm him further one day to push the words past her lips, barely more than a whisper.
"I don’t know what happened on the mission. Not really. I blacked out, and when I regained my senses, Devreau was dead.”
His eyes are on their hands, his body frozen in spot, not a single motion inside of him. He hides his tears from her, his thoughts, his fears. He tries to hide himself a little, but he knows it’s pointless.
He doesn’t know what she’s thinking, what she’s doing, but the time without her, the time with him being all by himself on different missions, worried, scared, fearing for her life, just a second away from getting where she was and getting her out of there, had worn him out. He’s empty, broken, lost.
And to take her away from him now, too, was the most cruel thing one could do to him.
Her words cut through the thick ball of emotions, memories and thoughts in his head as he lifts his gaze up to her face. He sees the tears on it, he hears her voice, and by the shake of his head his hand grasps hers back, sighing.
“It’s okay, Natasha… It’s okay. It happens. It was not your fault. It wasn’t.”, he says and in his voice, there’s a certainty that hasn’t been there before. He knows it’s not her fault. He believes in her when she doesn’t and tries to build her up when she’s broken down.
“I promise you… It’s not your fault..”
“Clint…. I think I did it.”
There. There it is - and if he chooses to walk away from her now, she couldn’t find it in her to blame him. Because she’ll tear herself apart, leave herself without her most vital of escape routes to see him unharmed.
Well, physically intact at least. She knows that allowing what happened between them to occur was more damaging than anything else she could have done, but she can stop it now. Stop it while he’s still breathing.
As his hand grips hers back, powerful and familiar, she nearly falters. It’s been a long day - a long couple of months, if she’s honest - and if she was capable of doing so, she’d crawl into Clint’s arms and never leave. Trace over his features, so well known to her, and ground herself with him.
Instead, she waits, barely able to risk looking at him with this admission hanging between them.
arrowsandradiation reblogged this from inheritorofmemories and added:
When she’s burying her face in his shoulder, he thinks things are going to be okay, before he blinks, looking at her as...
inheritorofmemories reblogged this from arrowsandradiation and added:
Natasha steps forward, burying her face in his shoulder for just a moment before taking herself across the room. She...
carmy-w liked this