Containment (The Avengers, Clint/Nat) - Part 9/12 [Upd. 5/16/15]

[Anonymouse]

I miss doing longer, multi-chapter stories, and this idea has been brewing in my head since I left Amsterdam and got myself freaked out about MERS. Every couple of years the world is threatened by a new pandemic and the media works people (mostly me) into a frenzy about it, and I deal with the fear by writing about it. I wrote this for myself and realize that contagion that has the potential to lead to a deadly pandemic is not everybody's cup of tea, so if that kind of thing disturbs you then this is fic is not for you. Though I will probably keep it fairly mild 'cause I'm a coward myself and that stuff scares the shit out of me as much as it entices and fascinates me. Clint (Hawkeye)/Natasha (Black Widow) is my OTP if I ever had one and this story will focus on them, as well as Nick Fury and some of the other Avengers. It's based mainly on Marvel movie-verse and takes place after the first Avengers movie, but before the events of Captain America 2: Winter Soldier.

Before I decide not to post this, here's chapter one!

I.

After Loki, nothing scared us anymore.

Plenty of people were scared, of course -- and why wouldn't they be, after everything that happened in New York? But Clint and I found reassurance in the whole thing. We'd managed to hold our own with a team of superhumans. Anything our world had to offer now was child's play. Fury would keep an eye on the skies. If anything else was coming, we'd be ready for it this time around.

And until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.

Guns were never frightening to me. At least not after my ninth birthday. I don't remember much before that. It only took me a month to learn how to stop myself from flinching at exploding grenades, detonating landmines, rockets and such. A bit longer until I could repress and eventually eliminate that uneasy feeling that comes with plunging your knife through another human being. The guilt of slitting their throats in their sleep.

Clint was a little different. He still had those feelings, but he was skilled at compartmentalization. They never interfered when it was inconvenient, never compromised a mission like those post-traumatic stress disordered soldiers in the movies. At least, not since me.

Add aliens to the repertoire after all we've been through and what is left for us to fear?

We'd forgotten about humanity's common enemy. Diseases are tricky like that. They hover just below our consciousness, under the radar, escaping detection until it's too late. Viruses cannot be reasoned with, deceived, or seduced. We never received instruction on how to handle a threat like this. There was never any mandatory training, nothing beyond learning standard protocol that we never truly thought about applying. We had thought it the least of our concerns in a world full of dangerous threats.

As I listen to the rhythmic pumping of the machines, I take a moment to thank any greater power that might be out there that this was contained with us, and I can only hope it stays that way.

We always said we'd die in the field. I just could never have imagined it would be like this.

~~~

Less than an hour after landing at Newark Liberty International Airport, the agents were en route to their next destination. Natasha didn't like waiting around, and no amount of Clint complaining that he needed to stretch his legs and get something to eat would stop her from getting where she needed to be.

"If I get a blood clot it'll be your fault," he said.

"Just keep moving your legs."

Clint frowned, then pushed his seat back as low as it could go. He stretched his legs out before propping his feet on the dashboard and closing his eyes.

"Clocking out on me already?" Natasha asked, biting into the granola bar she got at the gas station.

"Six hours on a cramped plane watching Frozen and Gladiator and still finding that I've got five more hours to kill," Clint rued, trying to rub the exhaustion from his face with both of his hands. "That entire experience was soul-crushing. I'm completely drained."

Natasha chewed thoughtfully. "Was Frozen any good?"

He shot her one of those looks she knew all too well, refusing to answer the question out of principle.

"Hey, you insisted on economy seats," she said. "Said it would be an 'adventure.'"

Clint was too good-natured to stay cranky for long, and eventually his pout softened into a repentant smile. "I should have listened to you."

Natasha smirked. She loved it when Clint provided her with this kind of validation. "Next time," she said.

"Next time."

He yawned widely, then stretched his hood down over his eyes and turned his head towards the window. It was almost dark; assuming the GPS was accurate, they would arrive just in time to greet the sun as it rose from the other side of the world. They had gone through so many timezones in the past seventy-two hours and had seen the sun from so many angles, at such odd times. No wonder Clint was exhausted.

Natasha had managed to nap briefly on the plane. It was a light sleep, and though unconscious she was still tuned into the noises around her. The man next to her struggling to open his bag of peanuts. A whimpering baby two rows down. Someone coughing persistently at the back of the plane. The sound didn't really bother her; she preferred to be alert to it, and to anything that might be out of the ordinary. Now she felt ready to take on another seven hours, which was exactly how long it would take to get to Vermont.

Her thoughts drifted back to the plane. The flight itself hadn't been too bad. The airline had overbooked the plane ("Who overbooks a plane?" she had complained to the poor gate employees who had absolutely no control of the situation. "It's not like you don't know how many seats you have!") and they were the last ones to get seats because Clint had insisted on stopping for coffee. Natasha ended up sandwiched between two men who took up both of her armrests, leaving her to tuck her elbows in and try not to touch either of them with any part of her body. Clint had lucked out with a bulkhead seat and had all the leg room in the world.

And he had the nerve to complain about blood clots.

At least he had offered to trade with her several times, and his insistence had been genuine. She couldn't fault him for the choice she made. At least she didn't end up next to the woman with the baby that kept spitting up.

It wasn't long until Clint was sleeping like a baby, though Natasha never knew a baby that snored like that. She turned up the heat a few notches and flipped on the high beams as she followed the curve of the empty road. The bright LED clock kept catching her eyes. She chewed and swallowed the last of her granola bar as she did the math.

Only six hours and fifty-seven minutes to go.

---

"Clint."

A pair of hands were gripping his arm, shaking him.

"Barton."

He darted upright, his hands reaching for something, anything, but he was unarmed.

Then he saw her. Natasha.

It was just Natasha.

"Are you okay?" he asked, looking at her and then looking around. "Did we hit something?" It was dark in the car but he could see the white puffs in the air from his breath. The car was on but the engine wasn't running. Neither was heat, apparently.

"Can you take the wheel for a bit?"

The light from the headlights reflected off her cheeks like sunlight off the pale moon. Clint could barely make out her face, but her voice had the tension and tremor of a violin string drawn too tight. Something was wrong.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he persisted, and she nodded, equally persistent.

"I'm fine. Just tired."

Clint dug the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars, then opened the door and stepped out into the even colder air outside. "Leave the keys there."

He walked around to the driver's side door, the snow soaking through his sneakers. Natasha opted to bypass the cold entirely by climbing over the middle console and depositing herself in the passenger's seat. Her movements lacked their characteristic grace, but it was too dark for Clint to see her, let alone pick up on the significance of her clumsiness. "Seatbelt," he said, and Natasha begrudgingly clicked hers into place.

He looked at her for a moment, then started the engine, glancing at the clock as it lit up across the dashboard. Under ideal circumstances, Clint wouldn't have been awake for several more hours. "Couldn't make it the last few miles?" he asked, adjusting the GPS to minimize the distracting glare. "Well, few hundred."

"Too tired."

She sounded it, so Clint forewent the teasing and I-told-you-so's and managed to keep quiet for the rest of the trip. Even so, Natasha was so out of it he was certain she would have slept through a car accident.

By the time they got to the cabin she was sitting somewhat upright and blinking sleepily, her attention fixed on the changed scenery just out the window. She insisted on being carried inside, and Clint obliged, because what the hell, they were on vacation. He set her down on the couch and got a fire started, then brought their things in himself while she dozed under a flannel blanket.

At some point Clint sat down on the other end of the couch, just next to her feet. Natasha opened her eyes a fraction of a centimeter and regarded his blurred image through the black webbing of her eyelashes. "I've never seen you sleep like this," he said, sounding impressed by an act so unworthy of appreciation as sleeping. "Saving up your energy for another solid year without a vacation?"

"Mmm," she said, letting her eyes close. "Set an alarm for an hour from now."

"Sure thing, boss."

Satisfied with his reply, Natasha turned over on the couch and buried her face between the back and the cushion, blocking out the sunlight that poured through the windows. She slept through the first alarm, and Clint didn't see the harm in letting her take another hour. It wasn't often that they got the chance to relax.

Edited May 17, 2015 by AnonyMouse

[aussieblokeintexas]

This is an awesome start! thank you so much...very well written

[Garnet]

Aw yis, I am always game for more Clintasha shenanigans. This looks like an interesting premise, based on your intro! And now I'm worried that you're going to rip my heart out... Looking forward to more!

[glaciosity]

I am hooked!

[Anonymouse]

Warning: V-warning for this next chapter. Natasha gets sick in the italicized flashback/dream. There will also be sneezing in this chapter, just female for now. Thanks for reading!

II.

She jerks the car off the road so forcefully she's shocked to see that Clint is still sleeping soundly in the passenger's seat.

The shock wears off in about two seconds, when the persistent nausea that forced her to pull over in the first place seizes her attention. She manages to wrestle the door open and hunch over the side of the road just as the urge becomes too much to bare, the nauseating sensation like a sucker punch to the stomach. Bracing herself against the cold metal frame of the door, she tips forward gracefully and spills her steaming guts into the snow on the side of the road.

She barely has time to take a breath before her stomach compresses again and her throat spasms, bringing up another burning wave. She spits it down into the melting snow, her eyes watering so badly now that she can feel tears trickling down her cheeks.

There are few things Natasha hates more than throwing up.

It isn't something she does often, especially for no apparent reason, which makes this unexpected development all the more disconcerting. Wiping her lips with the back of her hand, Natasha pulls herself weakly back into the seat and slams the door with the last of her strength. Again she glances towards Clint, expecting to find him jolted awake and bitching about the noise, but he is motionless, his hood drawn over his eyes. She reaches out to touch his arm, her fingers seeking that reassuring rush of warmth under the skin that signifies life. His arm is cold; she grips it hard and shakes him. "Clint."

He jostles in the seat with the force of her shaking, but does not wake up.

"Barton!"

Goddammit, Clint, wake up… wake up...

---

Natasha woke suddenly to the sun in her face, its irritating position in the sky indicating that she managed to sleep well into the afternoon. The residual panicky feeling from her dream dissipated when she located Clint's sleeping body on the loveseat perpendicular to her couch. He was snoring softly, one leg hooked over the arm of the chair and his bow on the floor beside him. Always within reach.

Except in the car. She realized now he had been unarmed, that he'd reached for a weapon, only to come up empty-handed. Clint was never empty-handed. Not until last night.

The significance of this revelation was lost as a more immediate physical matter demanded her attention. Natasha sniffled and scrubbed her face with the back of her hand, letting out an irritated sound that scraped her throat like sandpaper. There was a faint prickling sensation tiptoeing its way down the bridge of her nose, miswired nerves firing like a rogue machine gun as the sunlight caught her fluttering eyelashes. "Hhh-h!... hTSshh!… h'TSSchhh'ue!"

She caught both sneezes neatly in her cupped hand, then sniffled again and shook her head. Her mind felt a bit clearer now, much clearer than last night, but she still didn't feel quite right.

"Mornin', sleepyhead," Clint said, awake now and watching her curiously from the loveseat.

"Afternoon," she corrected, glancing at the clock above the stove. "I told you not to let me sleep this long."

"No you didn't," he said. "Anyway, you looked like you needed it."

Natasha pressed her palm against her forehead. She could feel the faint beginnings of a headache: the slight pressure behind her eyes, the dim throbbing in her temples like a storm on the horizon. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Clint's expression shift, that little crease of concern denting the skin between his eyes. "Stop worrying," she said, before he could start bombarding her with questions. "I'm fine. Just overslept. You know that makes me feel like shit."

"I know, I'm sorry," he said, giving her a smile that was not only cute, but genuinely apologetic. "You just looked so peaceful. I never get to see you like that."

Suddenly Natasha was overcome with an inexplicable rush of gratitude. She remembered her dream now: Clint, unmoving, his skin cold under her trembling fingers. Her joy at seeing him alive jarred with the dread that gnawed at her as she thought more and more about the dream. The conflictual feelings tugged at her insides like barbed wire.

"My stomach's all messed up," she said, the organ in question churning. "Excuse me."

Clint eyed her suspiciously as she stood up. "Shouldn't've had that granola bar," he called after her as she made her way towards the bathroom, silently dismissing his concerns with the wave of her hand. "It's the gluten, Tash, I'm telling you."

---

They decided on breakfast for dinner. It seemed appropriate, with their circadian rhythms so out of whack. Clint got to work on the omelettes while Natasha beat the various contents of her bowl into a uniformly pale batter. She seemed to be feeling better now and was talking freely and at length, which was unusual, but nice. Clint felt like normally he did most of the talking, perhaps too much. Natasha seemed to be more fond of comfortable silences.

But tonight was different. They were both in good spirits, talking about everything under the sun except the mission they just completed. It was an unspoken rule of theirs, not to discuss the mission. Especially not on their annual holiday in Vermont.

Clint's frequent warnings about the dangers of gluten did not deter Natasha from making crepes. She rarely got to cook; very few people besides Clint even knew she actually enjoyed it. As he tended to the eggs Natasha clapped her hands together, brushing the excess flour from her palms and watching first crepe sizzle and bubble in the pan. "You've got to try them with Nutella," she was saying, just before she stepped back suddenly and unceremoniously from the stove to sneeze openly towards the floor.

"Bless you!" Clint laughed as Natasha blinked in surprise.

"That snuck up on me," she said, still poised in preparation, her expression ambiguous.

"Really? I didn't think it was possible to sneak up on you."

"Don't be a smart-ah'hih!… ass," she said, a weak, hitching gasp interrupting her mid-sentence.

Clearly she was not going to get control over this. Turning away from Clint, she took a few staggered steps across the kitchen. He watched her stop as her head bobbed once, then twice in quick succession, her sneezes expertly stifled into near-silence. It was impressive to watch, especially since both of her hands, still dusted with flour, remained at her sides.

"Don't go so crazy with the flour next time," he said, when there was an interlude. Natasha shot him a half-lidded glare over her shoulder before succumbing to another barrage of increasingly desperate sneezes.

"Tschh! h'TSCHhh! hi'TSChhh!... Hehh'TSCHH!"

She had just enough time to interject a breathless "Bozhe moi..." before doubling over with a conclusive double. "-ihTSCHHHhh!-tsschhhu!"

This time her hands came up to meet her face, cupping over her nose and mouth. Clint finally abandoned his station at the stove to bring her some napkins, which she accepted with mumbled gratitude. As she tended to her nose he reached out to tuck a strand of hair, loosened during the fit, back in place behind her ear. Then he cupped her face with his hand, brushing a bit of flour off her nose with his thumb. She leaned into the contact, eyes closed and brow furrowed like her head was bothering her again.

"You sure you're feeling okay?" Clint asked, frowning now.

It was a phrase she was growing tired of hearing, but she was beginning to ask herself the same question. "My stomach's still a little uneasy," she admitted, opening her eyes to look at him.

He was wearing an unusual expression that seemed to signify some sort of epiphany. "You're not... pregnant, are you?"

"Hy eMoe!" Natasha exclaimed, smacking his arm away. It was a playful gesture, but Clint knew her well enough to know to back away and shut his trap to avoid further physical harm. "Don't even joke about that!"

"I wasn't!"

Before the conversation could progress into something more significant they noticed the twin towers of black smoke that were rising from their pans. "Aw crap," Clint said, rushing to the stove to grab both pans off the burners.

Natasha remained in the middle of the kitchen, folding her arms and watching Clint scrape the burning mess into the sink. "Rinse them out," she instructed. "I'll be right back."

As Clint scrubbed the charred remains of a failed crepe off of what was supposed to be a nonstick pan, Natasha ducked into the bathroom to blow her nose again and take a long look at herself in the mirror. Something wasn't right, and she was going to get to the bottom of it.

Opening the bottom drawer of the bathroom vanity, she removed the pregnancy test she stowed there last year as a sort of "break glass in case of pregnancy scare" precaution. She positioned herself over the toilet and relieved herself, taking care to hold the stick under the stream, then placed it on the back of the toilet tank as she cleaned up and waited.

A single pink line came into view. Negative. Relief washed over her, followed by a wave of inexplicable nausea. She stared at the toilet in vague expectation until the uncomfortable sensation passed as quickly as it came. So she wasn't pregnant, but a stomach virus wasn't exactly a picnic either.

She rejoined Clint in the kitchen and managed to eat a few forkfuls of her kale-mushroom omelette to keep him from fretting too much before turning in for the night.

Edited June 3, 2014 by AnonyMouse

[Dusty15]

Well colour me curious for where this is going! I love the snippet of domestic!Clintasha

[karajn]

Perfect! You're doing an amazing job!

[curlyq9393]

THIS IS SO GOOD

[ID2006]

Normally I'm not that into these two, but you definitely have hooked my attention.

[Anonymouse]

Sneezing from both characters in this chapter, and an appearance by Tony Stark (who does not sneeze). Also disclaimer I have no idea how FaceTime works so I just made shit up. Thanks for reading/commenting! (And keep an eye out for references to Age of Ultron and Archer )

III.

“Why does he do this to us?”

“Fury doesn’t do this. It’s these sociopaths who keep giving us trouble. But let's face it, it pays the bills.”

She closed the file emphatically and tossed it back onto the table. Clint peered at the name -- “Krasimir Radkov” -- before sliding the file across the table towards himself and opening to the first page. “Nobody can keep up with him,” Natasha said, as Clint squinted at the picture.

“Road Runner,” Clint said thoughtfully, chewing on a nail as he perused the details of the first documented attack.

Natasha looked confused. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing, it’s from a cartoon… it's about a bird in the dessert that can run, like... a hundred miles an hour. This coyote's always chasing him, but the bird's always outrunning him. And outsmarting him.”

“Sounds… cute?”

“Sounds like this guy,” Clint said, slapping the file back on the table and standing up. He flipped through the pages, line after line of text depicting the gory details of Radkov’s slaughtering spree. “You’d think he would have pissed off enough towns by now to have several angry mobs on his tail.”

“Unless he’s got something against them. Something we don’t know about.”

“Some kind of weapon?”

“Maybe.”

“Well,” he said, closing the file. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

~~~

Clint was lounging on the porch with a cup of black coffee when his phone vibrated. He’d meant to leave it inside, but must have brought it with him out of instinct. He took another leisurely sip and watched a pair of brown birds flit between the evergreens, letting his phone buzz against the wooden railing for another moment before picking it up.

It was a FaceTime request from Tony. Tony was always good for company and Natasha was still sleeping, so he accepted. A live feed of the mechanic and his workshop appeared on the screen. Tony was leaning out of the frame; from the sound of it he was chastising one of his robots for knocking over a can of Red Bull. Sometimes Clint wondered if Tony built the poor thing just to have something to be snarky to while everyone else was asleep. Although Clint joked that someday the robots would become sentient and revolt, a little part of him believed that it could actually happen.

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on bugging you for too long,” Tony said, re-entering the frame completely and diving straight into conversation. “Let me guess, you’re outside with your coffee and Nat’s still asleep.”

Clint smirked, surprised but also not surprised at the accuracy of the observation. Tony knew their habits well enough from the time they spent at his tower - their tower - in New York, knew that Clint was a man of routine (it helped keep him sane) and that Natasha liked to sleep in (but felt guilty about it) when she had down time. “Yup,” Clint affirmed, holding the steaming mug in front of the phone’s camera for Tony to see. “We've been trying to adjust to all these time changes. What are you up to? Isn’t it four in the morning over there?”

“Oh, just working on some stuff,” Tony said, gesturing to a pile of assorted metal parts on a table behind him with the wrench he was holding. “Or I was, until this idiot spilled eight ounces of liquid sugar all over the floor. Do you want to get ants, numbskull?” he asked, talking now to the guilty robot. “Because that’s how you get ants.”

“I thought you switched to sugar free.”

“Lay off, Barton, I’m close to a breakthrough here.”

Clint turned his attention to the pines rustling about six yards from the porch and saw one of the brown birds darting out from between the branches. He looked for the other one but it was nowhere to be seen. “So why are you talking to me?” he asked Tony, squinting at the dark tangle of trees, looking for signs of life.

“Just wanted to take a quick break, figured I’d check out the digs,” he said, gesturing impatiently for Clint to turn the screen around. "Enough of that pretty face."

Clint obliged, turning his phone so that Tony could see what he saw. In his opinion it was better than sending a postcard. “We renovated the kitchen.” It could be seen just inside through the sliding glass door. “We tried cooking last night but that didn’t turn out so well. Didn't stop me from eating a burnt crepe, though. God, the food sucked where we were.”

Rather than pry into Clint's top-secret mission, like always, Tony asked a different question. “Natasha cooks?”

“You’d be surprised what she can do,” Clint said, with unintentional vagueness.

“Whoa, okay. TMI.”

Clint pouted. “I wasn’t--”

“Barton, I'm teasing.”

Among other things of which Tony was perhaps too intimately aware was that Clint had something of an inferiority complex. “Right,” he said, sliding the door open and stepping inside. "Sorry."

"See, that's what I'm talking about. You don't have to apologize. You and Banner, I swear to God, you guys drive me nuts."

Clint was distracted from the conversation by how toasty it was inside the cabin. Natasha must have gotten up to turn the heat up, though he saw no signs of her now. Of course Tony, several hundred miles away, was oblivious to the heat. Clint could hear the sound of his blender whirring as he made some kind of smoothie, possibly a cocktail, saying something that Clint couldn’t hear over the obnoxious whirring of the blades. He took in the scenery with a steady nod of approval.

“Jacuzzi tub,” Clint said, turning the camera towards the bathroom. “Kitchen. Living room.” He tilted it to the left. “Bedroom. Can’t go in there right now, though. And Fury has it cleaned after we leave and before we come back.”

He knew this factoid would appeal to the germophobe in the other timezone, who had more than once expressed an interest in renting the cabin for a weekend or two. Clint had gotten it cleared with Fury but Natasha laughed in his face when he suggested they invite Tony and Pepper to come with them this time. She was more open to the idea of them coming separately, as long as Tony promised not to blow anything up or give away their address to terrorists on international television. Not that they wouldn't be able to handle it.

“This little cabin has more amenities than your apartment.”

Clint laughed. “Why do you think I love coming up here?”

“I don’t know, nature? Self-discovery? Bird-watching?”

Clint smirked, looking out the back door as the brown birds zipped past. “Something like that,” he said.

---

Clint crashed on the couch around nine that morning, just for an hour or so. He was feeling worn down, not quite sick but not completely healthy either. Unfortunately the nap didn’t do him any good; he felt worse now than before he slept. He sat up, nudging his nose with the heel of his hand and pushing his fingers through his hair. It was almost half past ten and Natasha wasn’t awake yet. Every once in a while she slept heavily, like she did yesterday. It was almost to be expected after long, drawn-out, soul-crushing missions like this last one, but for it to go on for two days in a row seemed a little out of the ordinary. He braced himself against the couch to stand but then relaxed again, one hand drifting up towards his face as the other tightened around his compressed bow. “Hh’ih-...” His breath trembled, teetering between weak control and a total lack of it. “aeihhSSHhhuu! … hh’hAEHSHHschhhu! Ihgghh...”

Gross. Now he had to wash his hands. He was grateful that Tony wasn’t “here” anymore, or else he would have gotten a talking to about sneezing the wrong way. He got up and went to the sink, grabbing a handful of paper towels along the way to wipe off his hands. He turned on the sink and was waiting for the water to get a bit warmer when he heard a door close behind him and bare feet on hardwood. He spun around faster than he would have liked and found Natasha standing in the doorway looking like hell warmed over.

“Did I scare you?” she asked, unfolding her arms and touching the tips of her fingers to the wooden doorframe.

It was almost impercepticble, but Clint could tell she was trying to keep herself balanced. From across the room he could see that her pupils were blown, inky black, and slightly out of focus. “Geez, Nat, you sure you’re--?”

“I’m not,” she said, shaking her head back and forth slowly. Clint noticed that her fingers were white now as they gripped at the doorframe. The skin around her nostrils was red, as if she had been wiping her nose with something rough. “To be perfectly honest, I feel like shit.”

The admission was raspy, her voice shaking as the words dissolved into coughing. Just a few coughs, but it was concerning nonetheless. “Did we bring anything?” Clint asked.

“Clint, we just went over this--”

“I meant tea, or honey, or...”

She pointed towards the drawer by the refrigerator, muffling another volley of coughs against the back of her wrist. As the fit subsided she sniffled, just a couple of times at first, but then more frequently, as Clint searched the drawer. Among a mess of their favorite things he found a box of teabags and a jar of honey. He turned to show his findings to Natasha and she nodded, bunching up some paper towels against her nose. Clint frowned; he knew from experience that paper towels were hell against a sore nose. “Don’t we have actual tissues?”

“I don’t remember packing any.”

“Me neither.”

Well, at any rate he could make tea. “Go rest,” Clint insisted. “I’ll take care of it.”

Natasha lingered in the doorway, her eyes fixed on some distant point. Clint knew that look, and wasn’t surprised when she pinched her nose between the paper towels, trying in vain to muffle sneezes that were too powerful to be contained. “Hhi’ihtschhh! -- h’TSCHhhhu!”

She looked dazed, like she might faint at any moment. Clint crossed the room to assist her, almost forgetting his more basic manners. “Bless you… c’mere.”

He took her arm and guided her back to the bedroom. The covers were in disarray, which wasn’t surprising; Natasha was a restless sleeper when she was sick. She seemed to just now realize that she was expected to lay back down and hesitated in the doorway. “I don’t think I can sleep anymore.”

“I know, but I was afraid you were gonna pass out back there,” he said. “At least come sit down for a little bit. I’ll make you something.”

“I’m n-... hihh... hii’TSCHhew! … ndot hungry…”

She folded the paper towel and rubbed her nose through the rough material. Clint really wished that they had thought to bring tissues. Even toilet paper would be softer; he resolved to bring her a roll with her tea. “Okay, just tea then.”

“Tea’s fide,” she said, sitting beside him but turning away to attain some degree of privacy.

She folded the paper towels around her nose, then grabbed another from the stack on the bedstand to layer over the other two. She took a deep breath, intending to blow her nose, but the rush of air caught in her throat instead, escaping as a shuddery exhale. “hhh'hiihh-- ih'ttscch’hhhhew!… hh!... h’ihTSCHHhhieew!”

Clint reached out to squeeze her shoulder as she sniffled miserably. Natasha pressed into his touch like a cat, turning to nuzzle her warm cheek against his arm. Her right hand remained over her mouth and nose, holding the crumpled shield of paper towels in place; her left hand found Clint’s hand and squeezed it tight.

“Clint…” she began, and he knew everything she wanted to say from the tone of her voice.

“I know,” he said, giving her a faint smile. She smiled back and let go of his hand so he could go make her tea.

Clint instinctively grabbed his phone off the coffee table on his way back to the kitchen. Not expecting to see any notifications -- Tony helped him disable his Avengers email account for the duration of his vacation and everyone else knew that they would be off the grid for the next two weeks -- Clint felt his heart drop into his stomach when he saw he had four missed calls from Nick Fury. One new voicemail.

Had it been from anyone else, Clint would have put his phone right back down. Instead he dialed his mailbox and put the phone to his ear to listen.

“Barton, it’s Fury. Under no circumstances are you or Agent Romanoff to leave your current location. There is a S.H.I.E.L.D. team on the way. You will be given more details when they arrive, but in the meantime, do not leave your location. Agent Barton, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of you not leaving the cabin or opening the door to anyone until the team arrives. I hope we have an understanding. I will speak with you soon.”

Clint stared out the window as he processed the message. In the distance he saw some animal -- a gnarly-looking fox -- gnawing on something feathered and bloody that had been alive this morning. His phone asked him if he wanted to delete the voicemail or save it. He disconnected without doing anything, then stood there a few minutes more, watching the sky darken.

“Natasha,” Clint said, when he saw the tops of the trees swaying under the turbines of the descending helicarrier. “You should probably get out here...”

Edited June 3, 2014 by AnonyMouse

[serotonin]

I'm so happy you decided to post this <3

The premise is intriguing, I'm interested to see how you envision quarantine protocol and how they'll respond to it.

On a less plotty note, the domestic snippet was adorable and I love the sneeze sounds (plus emphasis) you're giving each of them

[Garnet]

Awww yiss, I agree. I love Clint's sound, super hot. And the gentle, familiar caretaking.

But also OMGWTFPLOT

[curlyq9393]

Oh my goshhhhhhhhhh this is so good that I can't even deal with myself

[Yuuki]

Cant wait for next part

[Anonymouse]

As always, thank you everyone SO MUCH for the comments! Each one is like a little piece of candy to me. There's like three sneezes in this chapter but it'll get better, I promise! At this point I'm kind of assuming those of you still reading are kind of interested in the plot too.

So last week I decided to get my Marvel on by starting “Agents of SHIELD” (I'm like five episodes away from the finale) and there was an episode that was freakishly similar to the idea I have for this story. Rather than fight it I decided to let them sort of flow into each other, since it’s all part of the same universe, and I’m all for the story evolving as I write it. The episode gave me a little glimpse of SHIELD contamination protocol so that was timely and helpful! If you don’t watch the show, agents Ward, Fitz, and Skye are all from “Agents of SHIELD.” In the Marvel timeline this story would take place shortly after the episode “FZZT” (which is the ‘sickness’ episode I keep mentioning). Paths collide! Also I’m not sure Natasha or Clint know Coulson’s still alive, so that’ll be fun to explore too.

IV.

The night before

It was just after midnight when Clint decided to get ready for bed. After he cleaned the kitchen and Natasha went to bed he spent a good portion of night out on the back deck with a fire, just watching the flames wax and wane and processing the past few weeks in peaceful crackling silence. The therapy was doing wonders for his peace of mind, even now, two months later, having gone without it for all that time. He needed this time alone, to sit and reflect, to make meaning of everything that happened. He also wanted to give Natasha some space to sleep without disturbing her with his own tossing and turning, but he wasn’t surprised to find her sitting up, awake, when he finally came in. She was perched on the edge of the bed, clutching a glass of water so tightly he feared she might break it. Her expression twisted when he turned on the light and sat next to her, and she winced and recoiled when he brushed the loose silk strap of her nightgown back up her pale shoulder. “Sorry,” Clint said, drawing back a bit. “Does that still hurt?”

“I’m just sore.”

She didn’t go into further detail. Natasha didn’t like talking about the mission and Clint didn’t like pushing her to.

“Can’t sleep,” she added, before he could inquire about nightmares. “I’m still a little jetlagged.”

He knew Natasha rarely got jetlagged, and never this intensely, but there was no point in challenging her. He knew she was sick, and she knew he knew, but they agreed to continue with these charades for the sake of her dignity. At least he knew how to get her to relax a bit.

“Want me to play with your hair?”

Natasha couldn’t stop herself from smiling at the unexpected offer. She put her glass down on the bedstand and slid back into bed, her hair fanning out across the pillow in an unspoken invitation. Her hair was always different -- it was the nature of her profession -- but tonight she wore it natural, slight waves kinking the auburn locks that hadn’t been washed in at least two days because they literally just got back from a mission and they were on vacation, dammit. Clint didn’t mind. He propped himself up against the headboard and started combing his fingers through her hair, gently working out the tangles with his calloused fingertips. Natasha winced once or twice but insisted that Clint continue, so he did. As the knots began to loosen up and relax so did she, the tension visibly melting from her muscles. His fingers moved more easily now through her hair, each stroke sending slight but noticeable shivers through her body like mild jolts of electricity.

Just when Clint was certain she’d fallen asleep she made a small but urgent sound, reaching out to grab a folded paper towel off bedside table. It hovered just below her nose, but as her breath began to hitch she held it closer, just barely touching it to her flaring nostrils. “hh!… hh!-… hih’tsschhhu! --hih’tschhue!”

She groaned and let her arm fall back against the bed, still clutching the paper towel. “We should get this place checked for mold,” she said, half-mumbling into the pillow..

“I wouldn’t worry about mold. Fury had the whole place checked out just last week.” Clint gave her a small smile, as if to soften the blow of the honest opinion that was about to follow. “I think it’s a cold. And I really wish you would at least consider taking something for it. I brought NyQuil.”

Natasha muttered some words that weren’t very nice and turned to bury her face entirely in the pillow. Clint slid down and wrapped an arm around her, grabbing a pillow and propping his head up with his other arm. He kissed the top of her head and stroked her hip through the silky thing she was wearing -- for herself, of course. The fact that Clint thought it looked sexy and felt really nice against his skin was just a bonus.

“I’ve never felt this worn out with a cold,” she said. “Or puked.”

He frowned at the back of her head, where he swore she hid a pair of eyes. “You said you didn’t puke.”

“I didn’t. Not here. On the way up here, before I had you take over.”

Clint frowned. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t want you… doing this,” she said. “The Inquisition.”

“I’m just trying to look out for you,” he said, slightly exasperated. “Lately it seems…”

When he decided it would be wise not to finish that sentence she turned towards him, raising an eyebrow. She was clearly eager to hear the rest of the thought that had started to make its way out of his stupid mouth. “Seems what?”

“That…” He stopped again, desperately trying to find some loophole in this catch-22. Tell her the truth and risk her getting upset or lie and risk… well, the exact same outcome. If he was going to be screwed either way, Clint always took the honest path. “What happened with Radkov… it just doesn’t seem like you, to make a mistake like that.”

She bristled under his hand. “We brought him in, didn’t we?”

Her response told Clint that she knew what he said was true, that it was still weighing heavily on her mind. Natasha, who could normally let things go, was ruminating. But it wasn’t often she made mistakes. She stared thoughtfully ahead for a while, Clint’s fingers resting against the crest of her hip.

“I just think we might’ve jumped the gun,” he said. “That after all that time, maybe we were so hell-bent on catching the bastard that we weren’t as careful as we should have been.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said simply, giving her nose one last wipe with the paper towel before putting it on the bedside table. “Can you turn the light off?”

This was why they didn’t talk about the mission. They could contain themselves in the field, in the line of fire, but the mission always haunted them until the next one, sometimes even longer, threatening to break out from the confines of the past to become a present reality. Talking about it brought it back to life, reopened old wounds stitched shut by denial. It gave them an opportunity to reexamine all the ways it could have gone wrong, thousands of different ways they could have lost one another.

Biting back the impulse to continue the argument -- that was his baggage, not hers -- he leaned over her silently to turn off the light. It was only a minute or two before she slipped into a deep sleep, lying beside him in almost complete silence. There was no moon in the sky and no light coming in through the windows. He didn’t mind; he found the darkness more comforting than the daylight, more comforting than seeing everything around him. There was something cathartic about surrendering control to the unknown. Natasha felt the same. He always thought it was funny, how people like them found silence and darkness to be such welcome company.

~~~

Clint knew something was wrong the moment they stepped off the helicarrier wearing biohazard suits, but there was nothing he could do to stop them. Even if he had the nerve to take on his fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents he didn’t have his weapon of choice. Right now it was sitting useless in a sealed bag somewhere; he had watched it get confiscated, plucked off the floor by the couch where he’d left it since yesterday afternoon.

He never went unarmed, even on vacation. Though Clint didn’t like to carry his gun around the apartment or the cabin he kept his bow and a few arrows within reach at all times. And yet there they were, twenty feet away from where he was standing when the suits came through the door. The last line of defense before his own fists, dropped into a bag by strange hands and vacuum-sealed.

They separated him and Natasha into two decontamination cells. Clint half-expected to see her when he stepped out on the other side but it was only a set of starchy white scrubs and Agent Maria Hill’s voice that greeted him.

“Get dressed and come out, Agent Barton,” she said. “We’ve got some catching up to do.”

Clint furrowed his brow in discomfort as he slipped on the clothing. He didn’t like how the material felt against his skin but he preferred it to walking out there naked. He was sure Maria would be grateful too.

“Mind telling me what’s going on here?” he asked, stepping into the room wearing the stupid scratchy scrubs. At this point he wasn’t surprised to see Agent Hill in a suit just like the others. It was like the whole agency was playing a bizarre game of dress-up, himself included. “And why those agents were manhandling Agent Romanoff?”

“Romanoff was getting rough,” Hill said. “We expected her to be a bit more... subdued, so we’d sent out some inexperienced agents to escort her onboard.”

“Bad call,” Clint said, frowning despite his lighthearted tone. “That girl has never been subdued.”

“I guess ‘weak’ would be a better word. We’ve gained some… intel.” Hill paused for a moment before continuing, apparently reluctant to fully explain the situation. “From your friend. Radkov.”

“That bastard’s not my friend.”

Clint couldn’t tell if Hill was surprised by his hostile tone; her expression was unreadable behind that warped plastic shield stretched across her face. She looked down at the tablet in her gloved hands and didn’t look back up again for a while. “During questioning, Radkov made certain implications,” she said, skimming through a document on the tablet. “He claims to have set off a biological weapon in the basement of the Podlza." She glanced back up again, and he saw her eyes for the first time since he walked in the room. "Did you know anything about this?”

The basement. Natasha had detained their target there, had called Clint for back-up. When he hit the ground she was already back upstairs, tussling with one of Radkov's lackeys in the front section of the building and getting her ass kicked. Clint kicked open the doors and took out the bodyguard first, even though Radkov was closer. Without hesitation he put an arrow through Radkov’s kneecap, incapacitating him long enough for back-up to arrive. Natasha never mentioned anything to him about something happening in the basement.

Clint stared at Hill, trying to read her face for clues, but it was obscured again by the plastic and the glare of the overhead light. Onto the next deeply concerning portion of Hill’s question. “She didn’t say anything about a… a what?" he asked. "A biological weapon?”

Hill nodded. “It’s all he would give us,” she said. “Didn’t say how he did it, or what it looked like, or what it was. We don’t even know if he did anything. We don’t know how contagious this thing could be if it’s real... the last thing this world needs right now is another pandemic scare, and the last thing S.H.I.E.L.D. needs is to lose two more of its best agents.” She paused again, just quickly enough to take a breath. “Which is why we need to question Agent Romanoff and isolate the both of you. We’ll have the lab run some tests and observe you over the next couple of days, make sure you're okay.”

Clint sat there and tried to digest everything while Hill arranged her paperwork. It was an unfortunate time for his nose to start tingling, what with all this macabre plague talk.

“hh!-’h’AESCHHhhu!”

He cleared his throat loudly in the aftermath, as if that somehow negated the fact that he’d sneezed very loudly (and painfully) into his shoulder. There was some spray, which made Clint cringe, but Hill seemed too busy jotting a last-minute note into her tablet to notice. She didn’t openly acknowledge the sneeze besides a small ‘bless you,’ but he could tell she was starting to get nervous. This kind of stuff always freaked her out. She was definitely moving more quickly than usual as she gathered up her things and placed them in a drawer with a lock on the front.

“Someone will be coming in shortly to take your blood,” she said, making her way towards the decontamination chamber. “I need to go next-door and share the good news.”

Clint assumed that Natasha was located next-door, but he didn’t bother asking for clarification. It didn’t matter as long as he was stuck in this cell.

---

Two agents were on the floor frantically checking their suits for signs of tearing while Natasha took on the third. She went at him with a punch and missed, stumbling and falling onto her knees. When Agent Ward attempted to put her in a restrictive hold Natasha slammed her head against his face, knocking him backwards. She went back with him, holding tight to his lanky frame, and used his body like a springboard to push herself up and away. Before she could get far Ward managed to kick his right leg out, knocking her back onto the ground. Hill winced, then raised her eyebrows and glanced back towards the window as if exchanging glances with a ghost.

Agent Phil Coulson was watching privately, out of sight behind the one-way window.

“Go ahead,” he said, and Hill nodded.

She pulled out the syringe gun and aimed it at the pair wrestling on the ground. “Agent Romanoff, stand down,” she instructed, and Natasha flinched at the familiar voice.

Ward had wrestled her arms behind her back and was just barely holding on as Natasha writhed around like a fish on a hook, damning them and their mothers in hoarse Russian. Hill shot the sedative into her leg and they waited as it circulated through her system, Ward trying to nurse a nosebleed against his shoulder as he clutched onto Natasha's arms. In a few seconds she went limp and Ward finally let her slide from his grip. Fitz and Skye, suits intact, shook themselves off and joined Ward and Hill. They all stared down at the infamous Black Widow, curled up like a dead spider on the floor.

“She’s not gonna be happy about that,” Skye said, looking at Hill.

“Then you might want to get her into her cell before she wakes up," she said, glancing back at Coulson's window and nodding.

Edited June 3, 2014 by AnonyMouse

[ID2006]

I love that you are including the other agents in on this.

[Winged]

Okay...I've never so excitedly followed a story before. I'm a science geek and biological weapons simultaneously fascinate and terrify me, so this story is right up my alley. The fact that it's Clintasha is just icing on the cake And THEN the fact that you've watched AOS and are incorporating in Ward and Skye and the gang? It's like Christmas in May, I can't believe it.

I adore your writing and am seriously enjoying this, even without the sneezing. Keep up the fantastic work, and I can't wait for the next update!!

Edited May 29, 2014 by Winged

[Dusty15]

O_o Nobody screws with Natasha! They're going to regret that!

LOVING this so far! What a great idea for a fic, Anony

[curlyq9393]

I am so desperate for more! It's carefully plotted and just excellent. Kudos.

[SneezyRae]

I have never been a huge Clintasha fan but loving this and love the whole Agents of Shield characters being brought in. Maybe Clintasha is growing on me as a pairing

[Anonymouse]

ickydog2006 - I'm glad you're glad! I went back and forth for a bit before I decided to just go for it.

Winged - Thank you so much for reading! I hope this continues to inspire more awesome Clintasha fic from you as well.

Dusty15 - Thank you so much!

curlyq9393 - I'm glad it comes off as "carefully plotted," because it is for the most part. As I write I change things up but ultimately I know where I want to go with this.

SneezyRach - I hope they do, they're quite awesome. Again, glad I made the right call bringing in Coulson & Crew.

I don’t think I’ve ever breezed through a series as quickly as I did Agents of SHIELD. I think I watched the whole thing in a week? Which may or may not seem like a long time but generally it takes me ages to finish a series. Anyway, I have a better understanding of the characters now and I how I want to incorporate them into the plot. If you haven’t watched the entire series yet there will likely be SPOILERS in this story, so please be aware of that. This is still going to be mainly Clint- and Natasha-centric, but as it stands they are currently on a medevac-style aircraft that was assigned to Coulson and his crew (guess who gave Fury puppy eyes when the assignment came up) so they’re going to be involved. Anyway here you go, this one got pretty long sorry about that. :x

V.

Six days ago

The two weeks they were promised stretched into two months. Their first lead was a dead-end, as was every lead since. Radkov was always on the move, passing through towns like wind in a wildfire, leaving everyone ruffled and shaken and, in some cases, burnt to ash.

The strike team was always arriving too late to towns ravaged with destruction that could have been prevented if not for simple errors. They were given the wrong coordinates not once, but twice; their communication gear occasionally failed for hours at a time, leaving them in the dark while the trail grew cold. Director Hand had assured them that those responsible for the slip-ups would be held accountable, but the damage was already done. After their success in New York, this wild goose chase almost felt scandalous.

To Agent Romanoff, it was downright unacceptable.

The people in the towns were no help; some didn’t even acknowledge the agents when they tried speaking to them. Finally S.H.I.E.L.D. came across some reliable intel on their end and for the first time in weeks they were one step ahead. Barton stuck to the roofs, out of sight, and picked off the enemies Romanoff couldn’t see or get to first. She made her way through twisting alleyways, ducking into what looked like an opium den with a statue of a golden bull out front. And at last, there he was -- that smug bearded face hiding behind a pair of bodyguards.

“Should’ve brought more back-up,” she said, disarming and subduing both bodyguards within seconds.

The beads hanging in the back doorway clicked together as Radkov fled, pursued relentlessly by Romanoff and her bullets. It was dark in the next room, the air dense and pungent with smoke and the heat of several humans crowded together in a small space. She tripped over warm, tangled bodies that rose and scattered as she chased Radkov towards the back of the room. He disappeared down a flight of stairs and she flew after him, her gun unflinchingly trained on the back of his head.

As she was nearing the last few steps Romanoff grabbed the beam above her head, swung herself forward, and wrapped her thighs tight around Radkov’s neck. She pressed her knees against his temples slowly, allowing herself a moment to enjoy the satisfying sound of his struggle. Barton called this one ‘the nutcracker,’ but she already had another move with that same name. Romanoff would have loved to crack Radkov’s head like a chestnut but she settled for tightening her grip gradually like some horrible living torture device. It was enough to make him splutter for mercy, his body bucking violently beneath her before going limp. Not dead, because their orders were explicit; she made sure she could still feel his pulse throbbing faintly against her thighs. While he was immobilized she did a sweep of the room. They were alone, at least until Barton came for back-up.

“Target detained,” she said, as Radkov started up again with his squirming and jostled her abound. “Kukatsz,” she whispered to her captive with convincingly faked affection, loosening her grip just enough to allow him a breath or two.

“Ten-four,” came Barton’s crackling confirmation. “What’s your location?”

“Basement of the Podlza.”

“I’m coming to you.”

The comms crackled and phased out. All she could hear now was her own racing heartbeat and Radkov sucking down gulps of air. She reached for Sasha, who she’d brought along with her for this special occasion. “You try anything funny,” Romanoff said, smacking Radkov upside his whiskered chin with the butt of the gun before cocking it against his temple, “and I’ll show you what this girl can do. Understand?”

For one blessed moment Romanoff thought he might cooperate -- that this could finally be over with in the next ten minutes -- but she wasn’t disappointed when Radkov began reaching for something. She instantly clamped his airway shut again with her legs, her fingernails digging into the creaking wooden beam as his body staggered and weakened beneath her. She hoisted herself up and swung back, landing several steps above him and shooting him in the shin. It gave her a sickening sense of satisfaction to watch the flesh split open, his blood splattering across the dirty floor. “Oops,” she deadpanned, aiming for his head now as he crumpled to the ground in agony.

After all the time they spent chasing him it was all she could do to keep herself from pulling the trigger.

“Hands in the air. Now.”

Radkov obeyed.

“Sure you don’t have a cyanide capsule you’d like to start chewing?” she asked, looking almost hopeful.

He chuckled, a gravelly sound that sent a rush of prickling discomfort down her spine. Romanoff cocked an eyebrow as he made a gun with his right hand, his ring finger glinting in the faint light of the bulb above his head. She didn’t realize what it was until Radkov set it off, sending it hurtling towards the floor with the flick of his wrist. Her finger squeezed the trigger but he dodged the shot, vanishing into the thick cloud that was spraying up from what appeared to be a smoke bomb. Romanoff caught a glimpse of it before it was enveloped in smoke; it was small, compact, pressurized. -- some sort of tiny smoke grenade. Radkov scurried towards her like a rat and tried to tackle her but she dodged him, chasing him up the stairs with her bullets. Each deliberately-taken shot resulted in a new non-fatal wound but the bastard refused to slow down. She ran up behind him as he disappeared through the doorway, her breath heavy in her chest. “He’s coming your way!” she hissed into the comms, hoping that Barton would get the message.

She cursed when it crackled but then his voice came through, fuzzy and only somewhat coherent. “-bit… kerfuffle up here, I... down now… -e careful...”

“When am I not careful?” she challenged, pushing through the curtain of beads without checking her peripherals.

Someone on the left yanked her arm, hard -- it literally swept her off her feet. Romanoff found her footing on her assailant’s face, the heels of her boots bashing his nose in as she propelled herself backwards. She landed awkwardly on the floor, the same shoulder that was just dislocated taking the full impact of the fall.

It wasn’t often she found herself on her back, looking up at her target… at least, not during these combat missions. Before she could regain her composure and draw her knife the man standing above her was pinned to the wall by an arrow. Romanoff scuttled backwards as his body dropped to the floor, then glanced towards the doorway where Barton was standing. Radkov was crumpled at his feet with an arrow sticking out of his kneecap.

Barton blandly announced that the extraction team was on its way.

Romanoff stood up and dusted herself off, her shoulder throbbing in pain as she moved. She wasn’t used to waiting around after a mission was completed; it was irritating. “Don’t take your eyes off him,” she said, and Barton nodded, though seconds later he did just that, ducking into his shoulder with a squeaky, stifled “Hi’NGTch!”

“Salud,” she said.

He sniffled and shook his head, then thanked her quietly as he refocused his attention on Radkov. The man was still conscious but incapable of fleeing, the blood oozing slowly from his knee. The tip of the arrow was more of a claw than a typical arrowhead; it gripped at his knee, the metal clenching tight against the bone and caritlage. “They could probably cover up the opium smell better if they didn’t use opium-scented incense,” Barton said a bit breathlessly.

“Screw opium,” Romanoff said, climbing over the dead bodyguard to get behind the counter. “I need a drink.”

Keeping his gun trained on Radkov, Clint watched a small crowd gather outside. Civilians. Some were smiling at them; others looked scared. “Make it two?” he asked, glancing over at her.

She gave him one of those rare, real smiles that she never gave during missions, the kind that lit up her whole face and made Clint's stomach do a backflip everytime he saw it. He didn’t realize how much he missed seeing her smile like that until now. She allowed him to enjoy it a few seconds longer before ducking behind the counter, glass bottles clinking together as she rummaged around for a good whiskey. She poured two glasses and brought one over to him. “Salud,” she said again, and they clicked their glasses together.

~~~

A tall agent in a hazmat suit sat on the stool across from her bed. It definitely wasn’t Clint, but she couldn’t imagine who else would have the audacity to sit and gawk at her while she slept. Natasha stared at him as she surfaced slowly from something much deeper than sleep. Her limbs were too heavy to operate properly; she couldn’t even turn her head, so she had to shift her eyes to look around. There was a cotton ball taped against the crook of her right arm; someone had recently taken her blood.

“What did they do to you...” the other agent mused aloud, as if he were more interested in solving a puzzle than concerned for her wellbeing. “You were sharp as a tack.”

Natasha blinked at him and said nothing.

“Do you even remember me?”

“Director Fury?” she said, slowly and dryly.

The other agent raised his eyebrows in amusement. Natasha swallowed and looked away. “I don’t really care who you are, unless you can tell me why they put me here,” she said, her voice so hoarse it crackled with every syllable.

“You’re sick,” he stated simply.

She swallowed again, then closed her eyes, feeling the heat of her eyeballs against her eyelids. There was a fever burning in her brain, triggering spasms of pain like jolts of electricity in every muscle in her body.

“I know,” she said.

“Do you remember how you got that way?”

Natasha closed her eyes and tried to conjure up an image of Radkov’s face. Despite seeing it a hundred times before -- in documents, newspaper clippings, the S.H.I.E.L.D. database, and, more recently, in person and her nightmares -- she couldn’t bring it to mind right now. She still couldn’t remember the name of the agent sitting in front of her, though she knew for a fact they interacted several times in the past. She also knew she didn’t much care for him.

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because we’re on the same team, Natasha.”

“Are we?” she said, and he stood up so abruptly she thought he might try to hurt her.

But he only came over to the bed and lowered himself until he was at her level. “I know you have your suspicions about me,” he said, “but I swear we both want the same thing. Justice for all those people he killed. For Radkov to burn. But we need him alive right now. This guy is telling us his people have access to biological weapons, Natasha. We think he used one in the basement of the Podlza.”

Natasha could feel the color draining from her face. This was the worst case scenario she kept dwelling on these past few days, ever since she started feeling like this. She knew the encounter with Radkov seemed a bit off at the time. Something about it left her replaying it in her mind even on the plane back to the United States.

“He had a smoke bomb,” she said, suddenly remembering. Natasha looked up at the other agent, remembering his name, too, but deciding not to give him the satisfaction of knowing. “But it might have been something else. There might still be remnants down there, if he didn’t have someone clean up after him. I can’t remember if there was anything else. If I do, I suppose I know who to ask for.”

Ward stood back up quietly and looked down at her, every bit of compassion leaving his expression. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Natasha watched him turn around and leave the room, presumably to go “question” Radkov. She tried to get the memory of Ward’s company out of her mind; it lingered like a bad taste in her mouth. Trying to sit up and only managing to prop herself up a couple more inches, she glanced out the large window that spanned her cell. The hallways beyond her cell were dead. She wondered where Clint was and wished she had thought to ask. Not that she trusted Ward to give her any straight answers.

She pieced together what she could remember from the basement and played the fragmented scene in her mind. Natasha couldn’t recall what the bomb looked like, or if the smoke had a smell. She couldn’t remember much beyond his beard and the light bulb just above his head. Her memory was riddled with holes, like a piece of moth-eaten fabric. She closed her eyes and tried to stop thinking but her mind was racing on autopilot, stubbornly trying to dig up more details of her time with Radkov.

But it was too exhausting, all this thinking. Even a task as simple as remembering was exhausting anymore. The drugs were wearing off now but things didn't get clearer, just more painful. Her body was definitely paying the price for her scuffle with Ward; her shoulder ached fiercely. Every muscle and joint in her body was so painfully sore that the tickle starting up in her nose was almost pleasant by comparison.

Glancing towards the window, she found that the hallway outside was still empty. Her breath hitched softly as she checked the perimeter of the room for cameras, fighting to keep her eyes from closing just yet. She was sure there were people watching her on a computer somewhere, but that didn’t stop her from just giving up and letting it out. “hihhh… hihh… h’hih’tschhhu!” It hurt her diaphragm but the sneeze felt good; she didn’t try fighting off the second, or the third. “ih’tschhhhhew! hihh… hi’TSCHHhieew!”

Sniffling against the back of her wrist, she glanced around the room again before settling her attention on the wall across from her. There seemed to be a small, barely noticeable lens embedded in the panels. “Eto prosto pizdets,” she murmured to whoever was watching before laying back against the pillows and closing her eyes.

---

Clint whipped the rubber ball at the opposite wall, catching it as it flew back towards him at breakneck speed. His arms were okay. His body was okay. A bit warm, but okay. That cheeky young guy -- Leo, or something like that -- brought him a ball to throw to keep himself entertained. “Throw it around if you want, but mind this wall,” he said, gently knocking the wall that Clint was certain divided him and Natasha.

A Gameboy or some snacks would have been better, but Clint would take the ball. There was nothing else here to play with, nothing to keep his mind from wandering to dark corners. No peaceful flickering flames to stare at. Everything in this room, except himself, the bed and the toilet, was locked up in the drawers and cupboards by the panoramic window he was trying to ignore. That stupid window allowed everyone above Level 6 to gawk at him like a zoo animal. Fortunately not many people seemed to have business down this way, and Fitz and the doctor were the only ones to bother him.

He didn’t know the girl -- well, she was a young woman, really, but she’d seemed so… green for a doctor. She was endlessly chatty and excited about every little thing she discovered about him. Things that most people wouldn’t find exciting.

“Deaf in your left ear?” she had exclaimed as she glanced over his records. “Well, who knew!”

Clint winced at her excitement; his right ear was still working just fine, assuming she kept the volume down. "Nothing to know, really,” he had said, but she was already onto the next fact (“My goodness, infant pneumonia? That sounds awful!”)

These doctors thought they could figure you out from a medical file. Sure, she knew now that he had frequent bouts of pneumonia throughout his childhood, but she didn’t know it was because his parents were drifters who couldn’t be bothered to stay in one town long enough to figure out where the closest hospital was. When Clint had his pre-employment physical for S.H.I.E.L.D. the doctors were shocked to learn that the prospective agent was never vaccinated. For anything.

Clint stared out the empty window and wondered what was taking so long this time around. The agency was getting lazy; that was obvious enough after this last mission. He felt like an old man, thinking like that, but it was true. He tried to remember the doctor’s name -- he had glanced at her nametag more than enough times trying to avoid eye contact with her as she poked and prodded -- but nothing he could think of sounded right.

These little memory lapses were at the top of the list of things to ask about when Dr. What’s-her-name came back, assuming he remembered to ask about it. He couldn’t get over the fact that he’d forgotten his bow in the past two days. He and Natasha both made mistakes and took risks on the mission and after that were not congruent their typical modus operandi. There was only so much they could blame on the stress and the poor communication; all that did was delay the mission. The rest was all them.

Clint stretched his arms out above him, eclipsing the glare from the overhead light, and dropped the ball. It bounced absently beside him as the headache from before snuck back into his temples. Whatever this thing was that had S.H.I.E.L.D. so worked up, Clint was certain it was starting to break through the fortress walls of his immune system. He could only hope the agency had the resources to figure out what it was, and how to treat it. Before New York he had doubted S.H.I.E.L.D.’s commitment to his life -- hell, they rightfully tried to eliminate him when Loki took control of his mind -- but ever since he became an Avenger the organization seemed to take a professional interest in his wellbeing.

Letting his tired arms fall back to his sides, he squinted up at the ceiling. The glare from the light nurtured a growing irritation that teetered on the verge of becoming a sneeze. He forced himself to focus on the light, to help coax it out. Eyes closing, he took a deep breath and steepled his fingers over his nose, catching each harsh release against his palms. “Hehh’AHKTCHHHu! h’AESCHHhhuu! …hihh!-- h-hh’H-!… hngh.”

Pressing his fingers into his throbbing temples, Clint closed his eyes tighter and tried to sniffle back the loosened congestion. His breath caught and he coughed, just once, but hard -- a deep, crackling bark. It was followed by a quick breath that scraped against his throat on the way in. For a moment his body couldn’t decide whether to cough or sneeze, but the tingling sensation in his sinuses proved to be quite persuasive. “hh-ahschhu! hehh-!... -- h’aeschhh! AH’TSCHHHu! … snrrffff.”

“Knock knock,” came a peppy voice from outside the room. It was the doctor from before. With some embarrassment Clint realized she must have been waiting a while to interrupt him. “Are you finished in there?”

Fuck those windows, man.

“If you don’t mind I’ll just get suited up then!” she said when he didn’t answer.

Clint did mind -- very much, in fact -- but the doctor disappeared, presumably into the decontamination chamber, before he could protest. In the meantime he tried his best to clean himself up without tissues. For some reason there weren’t any in the cell, but when the doctor wheeled her cart into the room Clint was relieved to find that she had the good sense to bring a box with her. Unfortunately it was amidst a mess of hypodermic needles and other instruments he couldn’t name or understand. “Mbore tests?” he asked, rubbing his face with his palm and sniffling wetly.

The girl -- woman -- Dr. Simmons, according to the nametag -- gave him an apologetic smile. “I know, it’s the worst part, isn’t it?” she crooned. “I just need a bit more blood so I can understand what it is I’m looking at. But first...”

Smiling, she handed him the box of tissues. He thanked her and grabbed a couple, too busy blowing his nose to acknowledge Hill, who was standing just outside the window.

“Can’t a guy get a little privacy?” he asked without looking up.

He tossed the tissues into the little trashcan on the cart, begrudgingly bearing his good vein to Dr. Simmons.

Hill was silent as the doctor cleaned the area and slipped a needle into Clint’s poor, abused vein. It had taken her three times to stick him last time she was here. He should have known to expect complications when she prefaced her first blood collection with the disclaimer that phlebotomy was not “an area of strength” for her. Watching blood leave his body through a needle skeeved him out, but it was better than looking Hill directly in the eyes. He suspected the cabin was searched, and Hill was giving him an opportunity to fess up.

“Smoke anything funny over there?” she asked casually.

“On the mission? Of course not.”

“What about after the mission?”

She raised her eyebrows, giving him a look that seemed to say ‘We have your blood, remember.’ Clint watched as more of it left his arm, sucked up into a little tube to be tested and analyzed. “We were on vacation...?” he said, wincing; it was a pitiful excuse and he knew it.

“It doesn’t stop being a federal crime while you’re on vacation. Where did you get it?”

“Not from Radkov, I can tell you that much… friend of mine in Newark.” Briefly, he wondered how Kate was doing. “I’d rather not rat her out, if that’s okay with you.”

Hill sighed but tabled the matter for a future discussion. “Did you eat anything strange? Sit near anyone sick on the plane?" She was clearly exasperated. "I told Nick you should have taken the--”

“No, no, look -- Tash- Agent Romanoff’s the one who’s sick. You should be talking to her.”

“She’s not the only one who’s sick,” Dr. Simmons interrupted. “You have a low-grade fever and your temperature seems to be climbing. Maybe it’s not a big deal, but considering the circumstances, we’ve got to play it safe.”

Clint frowned as Dr. Simmons pressed a cotton ball against the crook of his arm, taping it against his damp skin. “And what are the circumstances, exactly?” he asked finally, looking up at her.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” the doctor said, her smile looking more and more forced the longer their conversation continued. “And then we’ll get you and Agent Romanoff better.”

Clint bit the tip of his tongue and tried not to look at either of the people watching him. He felt too much like a specimen in a jar. A freak in a circus act.

“Is she okay?” he asked, throwing the question out to whoever might have had the answer. “Agent Romanoff?”

“She’s stable,” Hill said, the slight pause between her words stirring up dread in Clint’s chest. “We can’t say much more until we know more.”

“Seems to be the trend,” Clint sighed in resignation, shivering as Dr. Simmons lifted his shirt to press the stethoscope against his chest.

“Deep breath, please.”

He drew in a crackling breath and coughed it back out. Agent Hill watched for another moment before wordlessly taking her leave. Clint tried to keep himself from moving too much as the doctor’s stethoscope traveled across his chest, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. When she moved on to his back the irritation returned to his sinuses, a fierce, burning tickle in the same exact spot as before. Clint snuffled and pawed at his nose, his knuckles pressing hard into the malleable flesh of the appendage, but the rough treatment did nothing to subdue the irritation. “Eh’hihh-” It was obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to warn her in time; he jerked away abruptly, almost pulling the stethoscope out of her grasp, and directed a powerful stifle against his fist.

“Hehh’H’KNCHh!-uhh...”

“Bless…” she said, trailing off when his shoulders lifted with another trembling breath.

“ih’hh…-hh’NXCHT!!-dammbit… sorry...”

Dr. Simmons winced at the pinched, bottled sounds. “Agent Barton,” she said, almost as if she were scolding him, and Clint fixed his teary eyes on the doctor. “You don’t have to do that. I’m wearing the suit.”

She gestured to herself as if he wasn’t already aware.

His face felt a few degrees warmer. “I dowe, just… trying to be polite, I suppose.” He sniffled wetly. “Speaking of… excuse be.”

Grabbed some more tissues, he turned away again, this time to blow his nose. When that was taken care of Dr. Simmons finished her exam and finally left Clint to himself. He’d forgotten to ask about the memory problems, of course. His anxiety peaked the more he thought about it -- the memory lapses, the lost time -- what if there was something still in there, in his mind... lingering…?

Clint threw up a mental brick wall to stop himself from catastrophizing. Kind of a silly word, but it was the word the counselor had used. Clint took a few slow, deep breaths like she taught him and focused all of his energy into the ball in his fist.

Sitting up, he flung it across the room as hard as he could. It slammed into the opposite wall and shot back at him like a cannonball. He dodged just in time; it bounced off the the wall behind him and sailed over to the far corner, where it bounced and rolled a bit more before coming to a halt near his bed.

For a moment there was only silence; Clint realized was holding his breath. He let it out in a sigh but sucked it right back in when something rapped against the wall behind him. Turning, he saw only the blank white expanse of the cell’s fourth wall, the only wall that didn’t have anything in, on or against it except his bed. Its only purpose seemed to be to separate him and his partner.

It was then he realized that the tapping sound was. It was deliberate, not random… a code. Pressing his good ear against the wall, Clint closed his eyes and listened. Tap tap, scratch… tap… tap scratch tap tap tap…

Natasha...

He waited until she finished the message, then tapped out his reply. It was a variation on Morse code, something developed between and for the two of them. The message confirmed that this was indeed Natasha, or at least someone who knew their code and passphrase -- something Natasha swore she'd die with. They always began their correspondence with the first half of a Trotsky quote, and this time was no exception: The end may justify the means…

He barely finished his reply -- … as long as there is something that justifies the end -- when she began to tap again.

Are you okay?

I’m fine. Are you?

She didn’t reply as quickly this time, and he could hear why; she was coughing, a deep, hoarse sound that he could hear very well now with his ear against the wall. He wondered if she’d been doing it since they got there, and if so, how he failed to notice.

As soon as the coughing stopped her tapping resumed

Ward was here.

Hill has some sort of ‘special team’ taking care of us.

Do you trust them?

Each response was spelled out more slowly than the one before it; she was getting tired, he could tell. Clint was tired too.

I think we should wait and see.

He waited, but there wasn’t any further communication from her side, so he tapped out his little sign-off. Closing his eyes, Clint let his head slide down the wall a bit, the pillow cool against his neck. As he began to doze off he thought he heard her tapping again, but everytime he tried to focus the sound faded to nothing.

Edited June 22, 2014 by AnonyHawk

[Winged]

Eeee happy wriggling I really enjoy how you're structuring this story with the flashbacks, particularly since Clint and Natasha are suffering from memory loss. It's a neat parallel.

Also the part about them getting high and Maria frowning at Clint made me giggly because it's so in character it hurts. Hehehe silly agents.

I think my favorite part (aside from Jemma and Nat's suspicion of Ward) is their messaging system. It's so simultaneously sweet and practical, just like them, and you couldn't have chosen a better quote for their pass phrase. A+ research there

[Garnet]

Awww babies :x I really like that "secret code" that the pair of them have, it seems very fitting. And the Trotsky quote.

[LiveToBeMe]

I'm a hard core marvel fan, and I'll say that you have done a really good job with this story so far! Really enjoying it, thanks for writing it

[Dusty15]

YESSS! Loving this, Anony!

The secret code is a great addition….I was wondering when they'd get a chance to communicate (though I'd much rather them have a room together for Clint to fuss over Natasha and force her the snuggle ).

Very much looking forward to more!