usefulandstrange
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Latest Posts by usefulandstrange
REBLOG if you are old enough to remember what a VCR is.
just because elphaba is gay doesn't mean she's a friend of dorothy. in fact,
WEEK OF CHRISTMAS 2024 (2/7) —🎅🎄🎁🦌— THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL 1992 — dir. Brian Henson
ignite your bones
After the fall of General Dreykov, and the remnants of the Red Room still at large, Natasha first year at SHIELD is anything but healing. Labeled a traitor and a turncoat, Natasha tries to find her footing in a strange new world.
Whumptober 2024: Day 24 - I never knew daylight could be so violent. (No light, no light)
Warnings: whump/angst/therapy
Word Count: 2k (gif not mine)
Summary: Olivia needs help; but then again so does Natasha.
Masterlist
Whumptober Masterlist.
.
Pain shoots through her abdomen and and she bows to it.
She doesn’t allow herself a cry of pain, only a huff of a breath and closes her eyes.
Her hand shakes as she empties the last of the tryptophan her heart sinking as she feels nauseousness rise and tremors shudder through her.
“Fuck,” she swears.
The night is going to be long.
She takes one of the last two tablets anyway knowing it’s only delaying the inevitable.
She sighs, laying down and trying to breathe through the pain.
Shield had the medications that she needed, but she didn’t quiet trust them.
Pain thrusts its way through her, making her clench her fists and forcing breath in and out consciously.
She decides in the moment to find Coulson or Fury. Shield is not safe but the two men would perhaps help.
She owed them, they owed her, and she’s sure she could call in a favour.
.
The seizure leaves her on the floor, her head pounding as she feels her consciousness return to her.
Wiping her mouth, she pushes herself up.
Hands still shaking, Olivia takes the last pill, hoping it makes her functional.
She knows she’s running out of time. She didn’t realise how close she was running out when she left.
Stupid, she berates herself.
Living in America had made her soft, dependant… Compliant.
If she was on her own, she’d have stocks, but instead, she’d just worked through the emergency medication knowing she’d have access to more.
Allowing herself a moment of self pity, she wonders just how to find the others, and slowly dresses herself.
The number she’d memorised for Fury may still work, and she contemplates if she’s able to make it to the closest pay phone.
The small apartment’s furniture helps her to move on shaking legs, and the walking stick she keeps in the closet feels like a good option.
Armed with a knife and sunglasses, she makes her way out to the harsh light of day.
Nauseous, she descends the stairs, tremors still wracking her body.
She can do this, she’s done much harder things.
One hundred steps, she tells herself.
When she reaches that, she counts 100 more.
At 345 she stops, breathing labored at the public pay phone.
“This better fucking work,” she mutters to herself, dialing the number.
Four rings in and she feels bile rise in her throat.
On the fifth, the phone picks up and she closes her eyes in relief.
“It’s bad,” she opens, “I need… what you owe me.”
Fury seems to understand.
“Safehouse six. I’ll organise for it to be sent there.”
He pauses.
“You owe me too. Don’t think I won’t collect.”
The phone hangs up and she groans, sinking to the floor, holding onto the walking stick and feeling another seizure coming on.
.
The knock at the door sets them all on edge.
Even though Fury calls to tell them that Olivia is coming, they all stand. Maria’s hand on her gun, Clint close to his bow and Natasha stands near the draw with the knives.
Coulson opens it, and finds Olivia standing there, just as Fury had said.
He opens the door wider, letting her in and showing the others that they have nothing to fear.
She enters, and Clint frowns.
“Are you… are you okay?”
The woman waves him off, and says something quietly to Coulson. He walks to the back room and returns alone.
“She needs some privacy and sleep,” he announces, much to all their confusion.
The shower starts running and Clint thinks of all the scenarios that could have had her looking so drawn and pale.
He turns back to the game of cards that he had been playing with Maria and swears as he loses again.
“I’m bored,” he complains.
Maria shares a look with him.
“How do we know Fury is okay?” she asks, much to Coulson’s annoyance.
“He’s okay,” he assures, “but if you want to go help, then fine, I can’t stop you.”
Maria grins at Clint.
“I’ll let you know how I go.”
“He’s gonna be angry,” Clint assumes, throwing the cards to the container.
“Nah; he’ll be appreciative. Who reads the lackies of Shield, better than me?”
Coulson sighs.
“I should go with you.”
He looks to the door that Olivia just moved through, and sits back down.
“Go. Call me in four hours and tell me what’s happening.” He looks at time.
“Four hours okay?”
Maria grabs the keys and a piece of pizza.
“Yeah yeah, I’ll call,” she smiles, pleased to have something to do.
The evening feels early, even though it’s 6pm, the sun moving to sleep. Maria reveals in the fresh air; and heads for shield.
.
Natasha lays on the couch. She’d opted to take first watch.
Olivia was still in the room, door closed having not come out since she went in.
Coulson in the other room, and Clint gently snoring on the other couch.
She doesn’t feel tired.
Probably, would be unable to sleep anyway.
If nightmares plagued her like they did in the cabin, she would have the whole house on edge.
At least the cell was soundproofed.
Here, she thinks she would wake up the whole apartment block.
Clint has eyed her when she’d offered to take first watch, and she had nodded assuringly.
Maria had called to say she was with Fury, he hadn’t sent her away much to Coulson’s surprise.
Coulson had decided he’d return in the morning, barring no incidents during the night.
Natasha was determined to just let them sleep.
She liked the darkness, and with others around, she was sure she wouldn’t be seeing anything… anyone.
Lost in her own thoughts, she catches movement on her left and stands to confront it.
“It’s me,” Olivia announces quietly.
Natasha sits up straighter.
The psychiatrist moves into the dimly lit room, and then to the kitchen finding water and taking a sip.
She downs two pills as Natasha watches on in interest.
“I’m defective,” she says, noticing Natasha watching her.
“They experimented with us, trialing… god knows what, to try and make us better soldiers. And they succeeded but at a cost.”
Olivia’s eyes rake over Natasha.
“Shield has drugs that help combat the symptoms. The Red Room would have just killed me.”
She feels scrutinized and wants to hear so much more of her experience of the Red Room.
It’s like piecing together bits of her own history, things she’s forgotten, things that have been wiped.
Part of the debrief had asked so many basic questions that she should know, but couldn’t retrieve it.
Experimented was right.
Natasha moves to seat at the bench to sit across from her.
Her face itches where the cut on her forehead is healing, and she suppresses the urge to touch it. Her whole body is itchy, uncomfortable and foreign.
Olivia looks to Clint, and deciding he’s asleep enough, starts to make coffee.
Natasha watches practices motions and refrains from talking.
She wants to ask her so much.
Waiting until Olivia sits, Natasha takes an offered coffee and they sip it together.
“Ask, if you need to,” she tells her, voice tired and resigned.
Natasha has so many, she thinks of the last couple of days. How impaired she had been to take care of herself, of Clint and how, if she was back in the red room, she would have been killed ten fold by now.
“How do you stop the nightmares? The flashbacks? How do I… I can’t sleep and then when I do… it bleeds into the day. I try.. But everything in me keeps remembering.”
Natasha holds back, the feelings and worries that have been plaguing her, she wishes she knew how to articulate them.
She feels like she’s going insane.
Wounds wide open and she can’t stop remembering.
Olivia looks at her, takes a slow sip of her drink.
“Your mind is an open wound, they’ve dug into in debrief and left it bleeding.”
Natasha nods.
It’s exactly what it is.
She feels like an exposed raw nerve.
Olivia sets down her coffee.
“We don’t have a lot of time together. Not what you need anyway.”
She sighs heavily, fatigue seeming to weigh her down, but the kindness and patience that she has always shown to Natasha remains.
“It’s not fair, that you have to deal with this. So the coping mechanisms I’m going to say to you I want you to use when and where possible. There are going to be a myriad of times, where they don’t work, but for a lot of the times it will.”
Natasha swallows, understanding what she’s saying.
“We haven’t the time so I need you to listen. To hear me. Okay?”
Olivia doesn’t even wait for her to respond.
“Being triggered, doesn’t apply to you because your nervous system is always going to be heightened, walking on eggshells, and when they crack, is likely going to be when you will feel it. With or without flashbacks, the emotions will come, and you won’t always understand it. When this happens I need you to note that it’s there, label it and stay with it, even for a moment.”
The urgency in her voice makes Natasha give undivided attention.
She doesn’t notice that Clint sits up, moves closer; but Olivia does.
“Emotions, they try and tell us something, things we aren’t subconsciously aware of, they sit in our body, in our chest, sometimes like a weight, sometimes like itch you can’t scratch. They can sit in our minds; numbing us to the world that’s happening around us. In small ways, in big ways too.”
Natasha feels her face grow hot.
Olivia’s words are true and she knows it.
“Work on finding where the emotion is in your body. Close your eyes, for a moment and extend your mind out. Learn Natasha, learn about emotions, their labels and how they feel. The Red Room didn’t care and the words you have for emotions mean nothing. You have to learn beyond happy and sad.”
Natasha swallows.
“Learn what happiness feels like, and remember it so you have something to compare it to. Learn anger, and how it’s different to hatred. Disappointment. Anxiety. Frustration. You know these in a sense, but your education on them is poor.”
Olivia stops, taking a breath and then a sip of her coffee, acknowledging Clint.
“Accept help from those that are willing but don’t trust blindly. You have your own thoughts and feelings and they matter too. Do you hear me?”
Olivia talks softer.
“They never taught you, because they never wanted you to know, how smart and powerful you are. The feelings and emotions and the rawness of it all won’t last forever. But when it comes do something with it. Do something with your hands like shooting a gun at the range, clean, shower, breathe. Anything that you can do that acknowledges the feelings but doesn’t erase them.”
She reaches across and grabs at Natasha’s hand, pulling her sleeve up to expose raw handcuffed chaffed wrists.
“Nights will be the hardest,” she acknowledges, “but they will get better.”
Natasha pulls away, embarrassed.
“Feel it,” encourages Olivia, “try not to hide from it.”
The silence in the room extends; but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable.
“What if I can’t?” Natasha whispers.
Olivia smiles.
“Then you can’t. And you try again next time. This is not pass or fail. This is not the stakes of the Red Room. You won’t die because you can’t do something; even though it might feel like it.”
Finishing her coffee, Olivia stands.
“I’m truly sorry, Natasha, for everything you’ve been through. I can see why you’ve made it this far. I believe our paths will cross again, but it might not be for a while.”
Natasha nods, biting down on her lip.
The one person that understood her and everything she had been through… disappointment and grief floods her.
She feels it.
Olivia touches her hand again.
“You’re not without support.”
She nods to Clint.
Coulson bustles in and looks at the two women and Clint.
Daylight streams through the windows and Natasha feels herself withdraw.
.
ignite your bones
After the fall of General Dreykov, and the remnants of the Red Room still at large, Natasha first year at SHIELD is anything but healing. Labeled a traitor and a turncoat, Natasha tries to find her footing in a strange new world.
Whumptober 2024: Day 6 - unhealthy coping mechanisms
Warnings: guns/dissociation/vomiting
Word Count: 2.6k (another long one) (gif not mine)
Summary: Clint leaves Natasha with Maria but trust is not yet won on either side, resulting in some unhealthy coping mechanisms.
As always, comments/likes/reblogs are like crack <3
Maria walks Natasha to therapy, their steps in stride, neither talking and both annoyed.
The second day of their routine had gone just about as well as the first.
With Natasha getting angry in the debrief, unwilling to impart information on Odessa. She stalls the second day as well.
Maria feels frustration at the woman, who promised to give all the information she had in exchange for protection and if warranted, a part in taking down the organisations that brought her up.
Going from debrief to therapy, seemed cruel to Natasha, who was already spent from trying to defend herself in not talking about things that she would prefer only Clint be privy to.
It apparently wasn’t a good enough excuse and she knew it was Maria’s way of lowering her defenses and making her talk.
It had been the threat yesterday and she was following through with it today.
Both women were clearly not budging.
Olivia opens her door to find Natasha’s handcuffs slightly too tight and frowns on both of the women’s faces.
Natasha’s seems more covert, but she has come to know the spy’s tells.
Maria was obvious in her emotions.
“How long?” she asks, not unkindly, looking at her watch.
“Ninety minutes,” Olivia responds, looking up at the time. “Is this time change permanent?”
Maria looks to Natasha. “If she tells us about Odessa, it won’t be.”
Olivia bristles.
Maria can’t quite read the look on her face, but maybe if she were to guess, she’d say it was somewhere between anger and pity.
Maria leaves them, hearing the unmistakable click of handcuffs being removed and wonders if she should stay.
Maria knows she shouldn’t use therapy as a threat, but she felt like she was failing where Clint had succeeded.
The information Natasha had given previously filled in so many gaps in their knowledge, about different FSB projects, even linking them to Hydra and other players in the East.
She didn’t think Natasha even knew her value.
When Clint and Coulson had sent through the information from the new grad, Sharon, she knew Natasha had been in trouble, but she just thought it was low level; nothing life threatening.
She knew now it was.
They now have live feeds of the journey to and from the dungeons. If anyone were to get past the guards, she or Sharon would be alerted and lockdowns issued.
When Coulson and Clint returned they’d be added, and alongside Fury and Thompson, they were the only ones who knew.
It was a lot for someone who was so fresh, but the woman’s truthfulness and fortitude had impressed them, and even Natasha seemed to trust her.
They’d wondered at other protocols, and before Clint had left he’d requested that she’d have a weapon. It was denied, of course, but the option to attend the gun range had held.
Natasha also got to keep the handcuffs, once removed. And though she hadn’t been able to ask Clint before he’d left, she’d also noticed his watch in Natasha’s room, and then on the cameras had noticed Natasha marking time.
Maria sighs.
She doesn’t like being this intimately in charge of someone else.
It wasn’t that she disliked her, she just didn’t trust her.
She needed something to lower her defenses, and Clint had always said that Natasha looked weary after therapy.
The files were sealed of course, of whatever was spoken about, but Olivia was mandated to give over a report on Natasha weekly.
Maria read them with interest.
Clint wouldn’t touch them.
Huffing in annoyance, she leaves the therapist’s office and makes for the cafeteria, realising both she and Natasha have missed lunch.
Clint had said packaged foods were what she preferred, so she picked up two sandwiches and a couple of mandarins.
She eats hers on her way back to her office, then finishes some paperwork before making her way back to the psychiatrist's office.
She waits for Natasha to be released, wondering what her next play will be and just how to make Natasha talk about Odessa, before she has to talk to Fury about it. It’s a puzzle she wants to figure out herself.
The door opens, and Natasha walks out, hands cuffed and face straight.
Maria thinks she should take her back to debrief, but there’s a feeling she can’t place as she looks at the woman.
“Maria,” Olivia asks, “can I talk to you?”
Maria steps into the office, keeping Natasha in eyesight, though sure she won’t go anywhere.
Olivia keeps her voice low.
“Don’t weaponise therapy. It’s not fair to her, it’s not in the nature of what we are trying to do here and should not be used as a threat.”
The disapproval that oozes from the woman’s voice only makes Maria regret her choice minimally.
If it works, she’ll take the woman’s ire, and win.
“It’s not her fault. If you want to know about Odessa, then wait. She will tell you, but it’s not something easy to talk about.”
Maria knows Olivia is just doing her job, but she feels defensive.
She nods, straight faced, and doesn’t respond.
She glances towards Natasha and lets herself out, more determined now to return her to debrief.
Leading the way, she sets the stride long and leads her back to the cells.
Natasha is quiet as she always is.
Maria wonders if she should say something, but annoyance at the situation is overriding.
She almost misses the shake in Natasha’s hands as she uncurls the handcuffs and passes them across.
“We have debrief in two hours,” she tells her, “I’ll be back then.”
Natasha nods.
The door closes over and Maria leaves, returning to her office where she opens Natasha’s cameras.
Surprised to not find her in the small room, Maria turns on the audio and hears vomiting in the bathroom.
Feelings of guilt surprise her.
She realises that she didn’t actually give Natasha any food and wonders if she pushed too hard.
.
Natasha glances at the time
Expecting Maria at any minute, she ignores the hunger that bites and the reoccurring thoughts.
She finds it hard to concentrate and glances at the time again.
Natasha knows they want the details of Odessa.
She just can’t.
She doesn’t trust them with the information.
Not when it intimately affects her.
Dinner arrives but Natasha doesn’t feel hungry.
Maria doesn’t come.
Three hours pass and still no one comes to collect her. It’s past the time Maria said she’d return.
She places herself on the bed, wishing that Clint was back and hating the uncertainty of being here.
Natasha closes her eyes.
If she tells them about Odessa, then they’ll know about the other girls. If they know about the other girls, then likely they’ll go looking. If they go looking before the Red Room subsidiaries are all shut down, the girls will all die.
She knows they’ll fight to the death.
She would have.
She needs more time. She doesn’t trust Maria to hold the intel until other things have cleared.
Maria just wants to know for her own information and because it’s a missing piece of the puzzle.
Natasha swallows bile as memories of her time in Odessa surface.
She remembers stripping in front of Madam.
Shaking her head, she attempts to erase it, feeling nauseous all over again.
Olivia had talked about choices in therapy, letting Natasha just listen.
Natasha knows that she had been irate at Maria’s comment and had lowered expectations.
Olivia asked her about her thoughts on Maria, and Natasha hadn’t been able to answer.
“She doesn’t like me,” Natasha had decided.
The night feels cold, and glancing at the watch, Natasha thinks Maria won’t be coming back.
But she doesn’t want to settle into the bed yet, just in case.
She eyes the handcuffs.
If there was any night for it, it would be this night.
Her defenses feel so low, and she feels so sorry for herself that she grabs them and attaches them to her wrist and the bed.
She pulls tight and lets the images invade her mind.
.
Maria wants to go home.
Yawning, she glances at the time, and realises it’s past the two hours time she had told Natasha.
She opens the program to check on her and when she finds her handcuffed to the end of the bed, she doesn’t know what to make of it.
She seems safe enough.
Deciding to leave it, she packs up the laptop and leaves for her apartment off base.
.
Natasha screams.
Trying desperately to cover it as her surroundings of the glass prison become clear, she swears softly, feeling nauseous.
Images of Odessa plague her and she wants nothing more than to purge them.
Uncuffing herself she stumbles to the bathroom and washes her face.
She can’t shake the nightmare.
She can feel it in her bones.
Natasha finds Clint’s watch, 5am.
She knows the day will be a repeat of the last, and if it’s anything like that she needs more sleep, But the fear of heading into another nightmare gives her pause.
She wishes she had a book or something to do, as she sighs and closes her eyes.
.
Maria stares at the camera.
Natasha screams.
The muted video shows her distress, as she’s pulled from sleep, eyes wide and chest heaving.
She watches as Natasha centers herself, puts herself back into the same position and tries for sleep again.
It seems to take some time.
She fast forwards the video.
Natasha screams.
The handcuffs bite in as she strains against them.
Maria doesn’t understand the handcuffs and she can’t ask Clint, but it feels voyeuristic watching the woman’s distress.
She knows when someone isn’t okay, and Natasha is not okay.
She’s fucked up.
She’s pushed too hard and made a mess of things.
Maria is sure Clint would have told her, would have addressed what to do if he’d noticed any of this, but since he had n’, she has to think the problem was her.
She’s not only increased therapy and put the woman off food, she’s given her unhealthy coping mechanisms and left them in the room with her.
She should have returned and said the debrief wouldn’t go ahead, or let someone tell Natasha on Maria’s behalf.
“Fuck,” she whispers.
She has a brief idea; one which may backfire.
But it’s the only idea she has.
.
Natasha leaves the handcuffs on the bed and glances at the time.
Wrists raw, she breathes intentionally in and out, feeling memories of being handcuffed float over her.
She tries not to let them stay.
Any minute now, she thinks Maria will come for debrief.
She knows she’ll ask about Odessa.
She plans her admittance in her head.
If she can tell her some of the worst things first, maybe, just maybe, they’ll let her go and not ask any more until Clint’s returned.
Natasha rubs her wrists.
She hears the familiar unlocking of the doors and the lights turn on down the hallway.
Natasha stands and waits, watch in her pocket and handcuffs in her hands.
If it’s not Maria, she has a plan, not a great one but at least she can protect herself a little better in this space with hard surfaces and handcuffs.
She waits and hears Maria’s footsteps round the corner.
The glass door opens, and she finds Maria standing in casual clothing.
Natasha doesn’t say anything, her heart beating faster.
“Leave those on the bed, and come with me,” Maria tells her.
It’s the first time Natasha has left the cell without handcuffs and she finds she doesn’t really know what to do with her hands.
She finds herself following Maria into part of the compound she’s never been before, and it feels like a trap.
They head to the left, the doors leading outside and for the first time in months, Natasha breathes fresh air.
The sights and smells and temperature difference so marked that she stops and takes the biggest breath she can.
Maria waits for her, still not talking.
It takes a moment but Natasha moves forward, following her into the unknown.
It’s the sniper range.
“You’ve been cleared,” Maria tells her, and sets them both up with targets and guns.
The process takes time but Natasha revels in the fresh air and quiet of the morning.
“Here.”
The gun lays ready.
“Wind is at 3 degrees.”
Maria takes up her own gun, setting up the sight, and positioning herself for the shot.
Natasha copies her movement.
With the gun in hand, she feels more at ease and the images from the night before begin to disappear.
All that becomes relevant is her breathing and the target in front of her.
She breathes in and out and lines the shot.
Accounting for the wind, she adjusts her angle.
In between breaths, she shoots.
Pausing, she hears Maria do the same.
Looking down her scope, she finds that she’s hit the target, a little to the left but still close enough for a kill shot.
Maria’s shot is almost mirrored.
Natasha is impressed. She’d taken Maria as pencil pusher who had no real world value. She’d assumed she’d been trained by the agency but hadn’t thought her ready for a fight.
“There are 15 shots and we have an hour,” Maria tells her, feeling her gaze.
“We have to be back by then.”
Natasha nods, lining up the next shot, taking her time to get it just right. But Maria is first to hit it.
Natasha suppresses a smile.
This feels like the competition of the Red Room, she thinks to herself.
The hour passes quickly, time only punctuated by the sound of the long range shots.
.
Maria walks Natasha back a different way, wanting to avoid as many people as possible.
The route to the cells feels long, but she thinks Natasha doesn’t mind.
Breakfast is waiting for her when they arrive and Maria waits for Natasha to step through before talking.
“No debrief today. Or therapy,” she announces.
If Natasha is surprised, there’s no change to her facial expression. The general quietness of the woman, except in debrief, is absolute.
She didn’t expect Natasha to talk but sometimes she’d like a response.
She’s sure if she asked for one, like a robot she would give it.
Maria looks her over.
“Can I, uh, can I eat breakfast with you?”
She asks the question without really thinking about it, and it’s only then that surprise forms on Natasha's face. It appears in an instant, then it’s gone in a flash.
Natasha moves to the left, allowing Maria in.
Maria wonders idly if she’s allowing it because she doesn’t feel comfortable saying no.
She steps through the door, allowing it to stay open.
The breakfast tray only holds enough food for Natasha, but she shares anyway, offering the apple and the granola bar.
Maria takes the apple and they sit in a somewhat uncomfortable silence.
Tallying all the things she needs to do for the day, she looks around the room finding nothing.
“Do you want a book?” she asks, wondering how Natasha occupies her time.
She finds that when she’s left with her thoughts the world feels harder. Natasha has had two months of it.
Natasha looks up.
“A book,” Maria repeats. “Do you want one?”
Natasha shrugs and nods.
“Fiction or nonfiction?”
There’s no response. Not that Maria expected one.
“I’ll see what I can find.”
Standing Maria, takes the tray and the rubbish and leaves the rest of the food.
“I’ll see you later,” she says, thinking of her list and leaving Natasha to her own thoughts.
.
<3
Reblog to give the person you reblogged from the ability to finish their WIPs
that article going around abt firefox's new ad program is annoying bc it's phrased as though "mozilla has finally TURNED on its people and is SELLING YOU OUT for cold hard cash!!" when. that's not what's happening. it is specifically being implemented to discourage tracking behavior, and literally all the data they are giving to advertisers is aggregate and anonymized, which is like, the opposite of what that post wants you to worry about, lol
Watching US Politics as a non-American is like watching a horror movie where you're begging the protagonists to save themselves, except if the killer gets them then you get poisoned in real life.
here again now
Warnings: violence/aftermath of torture/recovery
Word Count: 7.9k (gif not mine)
Summary: Natasha is captured, tortured and left with insomnia. (Part 3/4
(pls note that the fic starts below and finishes on ao3 - i know how annoying it is to start on one platform only to have it finish on another)
A/N: Buckle up for a long chapter <3 in which everyone worries, Natasha struggles and Clint tries to help. The outside forces that aim to break Natasha down are revealed and small things are set right.
Not re-read my mistakes are my own <3
.
He doesn’t want to say anything as he breathes heavily, the fight not even lasting a minute as she stops as quickly as she started.
Clint watches her as she stares at herself in the mirror.
The slow touch of her hair, the dead stare and then the panic.
It’s starts with her pulling at the whispers of hair that are left, hard enough for them to come out.
A clawing at her skull.
He pulls her back from the mirror and holds her, stopping the harm that’s coming in waves.
She’s crying as she feels him behind her, a stuttering in her words.
“I can’t sleep,” she starts, “I can’. I can’t. I can’t.”
The words come over and over.
Clint doesn’t know what to do.
She’s still covered in vomit, still needs a shower, still needs sleep.
In this state nothing can happen.
She’s not present, not enough to do anything.
So he waits, holds her and hopes it’s enough.
.
Natasha can’t catch her breath. Every time she tries, she seems to only breath in smaller amounts. Even as she feels Clint surround her, it becomes almost a chore to suck it in and remember to push it out.
“Sedate me,” she breathes.
And as she says the words, she feels it’s the only way out.
“Sedate me,” she repeats.
If they drug her, she’ll really know then, when she wakes; if she sees the woman’s face or, if she’s back here.
She can’t breathe anyway.
Even as she’s encouraged by Clint.
Was she not loud enough in her request?
“Sedate me!”
The words louder now, even as they fall on deaf ears.
She struggles against Clint, trying to get a breath, black spots in her vision.
“Se..da..” she moans, pushing against him, running out of air on the words.
Natasha knows he’s talking, saying something to her but she can’t hear him, there’s a piercing white noise that overrides it and she can’t even hear herself, even as she repeats the same words over and over again.
At least, she thinks she is.
In a last ditch effort, she reaches for Clint’s face.
“Help,” she whispers.
He nods, his eyes glassy.
Holding up a syringe, he appears to ask her consent one more time as she nods pitifully back at him.
She can’t hear his words but longs for the black nothingness of drugged sleep.
She doesn’t care what happens to her body.
She just needs to stop thinking, stop moving… stop being.
To be held in the abyss for as long as possible.
Natasha knows she can’t keep going, not like this, not being able to tell the difference between awake and hallucination.
Clint encircles her again, holds her in a body lock as there’s a pinch on her left arm.
She looks over to it, and already the needle has been removed.
Clint holds her tight, rocking her gently and counts, knowing the repetition soothes her.
Only Clint knows that.
She’s home.
There’s no doubt now.
She starts to count with him, the abyss surrounding her.
.
Tony stares at the screen.
The van is parked not far, he sends out two drones to get real-time footage, and then triangulates all cameras from the time it dropped Natasha to follow the Van.
He wants to tell Clint, maybe Bruce too.
Turning his attention, he sees Clint lead Natasha into the bathroom.
He can’t reconcile her shaved head, even as he watches their movement.
Shaking his head, he sets Jarvis to keep an ear if Clint needs help and leaves the room to find Bruce.
He doesn’t go far into the bowels of the tower before Jarvis stops the elevator.
“Sir, they’re fighting.”
He doesn’t need to ask who is, because it’s obvious.
Tony detours back, opens the door to the infirmary and smells vomit and cringes.
He must have missed it whilst he was concentrating on the van. Tony hovers outside the bathroom, hearing a Clint tell Natasha to stop.
He wants to go but his feet don’t move.
Voiced pleas that are inaudible but he can tell what they are by the cadence and fear behind them, the way that the response is nothing.
He hears Natasha’s calls to sedate her, and Clint trying to talk her down as he goes through the options of what’s going happen next.
Tony pushes the door ajar and looks inside.
Neither of the spies notice him, and Natasha’s distress is clear as she struggles against Clint, repeating the words to sedate her.
He closes the door and stares for a moment.
“Sir?”
Jarvis’s voice breaks through his thoughts.
He leaves the room quickly, finding Bruce with a syringe in his hand.
“Jarvis..” Bruce says, by way of explanation.
Tony nods.
“What happened? He said that Natasha needed propafol?”
Tony takes the syringe, offering no explanation and heading back into the room. He knocks on the bathroom this time and opens the door.
Clint looks up at him, he has Natasha in a hold and holds his hand out for the syringe.
Natasha’s eyes open and close.
Her breath stuttering.
“Help,” she whispers, reaching aimlessly for Clint.
Clint holds her head, uncaps the syringe and injects her. He rocks her slightly, counting with her.
Tony feels like a voyeur.
They both watch as her body fights it, then, she goes limp.
Clint looks exhausted, as he stares up at Tony.
None of them have slept, but Tony is used to it.
He also didn’t have to watch Natasha and be vigilant for her.
“What’s the time?” he asks, not moving.
Jarvis responds.
“It’s 6.16am.”
Clint nods.
“She threw up, I don’t know what happened next, but she started to fight me, then seemed to realise something was wrong when I didn’t fight back.”
Clint touches her arms, almost unwrapping himself from the hold position.
“She started pulling at her hair in the mirror,” he says the words monotonously, like telling a story.
“She said she couldn’t sleep, then asked me to sedate her.”
He seems to come to the realisation that he’s injected her with a drug that he doesn’t know.
“Propofol,” Bruce supplies, seeing Clint’s confusion.
Tony doesn’t even know when Bruce came up behind him.
If Clint is also surprised, he doesn’t show it.
He just nods slowly.
“How long do you think we have?” He asks, lifting Natasha.
Bruce shrugs.
“She shouldn’t have been given it in an injection like that. Jarvis just said it was an emergency and I didn’t think we wanted a reoccurring incident like last August; so it was this or nothing.. Someone will need to stay with her, just to monitor her breathing…”
Tony looks up and Jarvis responds in kind.
“I am monitoring her vitals,” the AI tells them, “she is stable.”
Bruce nods.
“How long do you want her drugged for?”
Clint carries her to the large arm chair, the one that reclines back and places her gently on it.
“As long as possible,” he says.
“We need to find out what’s happened, and then maybe we have a chance at helping her get over whatever this fear is.”
Bruce nods and leaves, Tony presumes to get more drugs, or maybe a way of sedating her further.
“She needs a shower, or to get her changed. I don’t know!”
His voice escalates.
Tony feels he’s never been in a situation where he’s had to be the one to make decisions for another. Perhaps another reason why he doesn’t want children, the responsibility weighs heavily of taking care of his friends.
“Okay,” he says, raising his hands.
“Let’s get her changed, we’ll do it together. Bruce will get her sleeping for a bit longer and you’re going to go to bed. I’m going to follow the leads of the van and we will work this out.”
Clint stares at him.
Tony feels he’s said too much.
“Go have a quick shower, and get the supplies for changing her, get her clothes and maybe some wipes.”
Clint still stares.
“Now.”
Tony says it as gently as he can, but the urgency in his voice makes his friend move.
Clint takes one last look at Natasha and leaves her with Tony.
.
Continued…
Your ex-husband was just a phase but you don’t see us banning straight marriage SHARON!
“what if kids identify with something and it ends up just being a phase-?” good. stop teaching and expecting kids (and adults honestly) to formulate permanent traits and ideas of themselves. everything in life is a phase. that doesn’t make it any less legitimate while you experience it. let people explore themselves and know it’s okay if what you think about yourself changes.
reblog to give somebody a fucking hug because we are all struggling to get through it. solidarity in this tough ass world.
It’s Fourth of July Eve so make sure to leave some milk and cookies out for Captain America
Not what I expected coming from John Green
If you like the word “queer” reblog.
Nicole W. Lee, from "Even the Dust"
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Look buddy, i’m just trying to make it to Friday.
🦔
This is Charles. He wants to go on a journey around tumblr. could you show him around?
no third option you have to pick one, reblog after voting <3
One thing that's likely not visible to all younger queers is that little kids shows have gotten radically queerer in the last 10 years.
I'm not just talking about Owl House, Kippo etc, much as I love them.
I mean like stuff for kindergardners.
Characters in Strawberry Shortcake and Superhero Girls and more have gay parents just unremarkably in the background. That was unthinkable 15 years ago.
But the thing that shocks me utterly is the casual inclusion of nonbinary characters.
Dee and Friends in Oz, Polly Pocket, Craig of the Creek...it seems like half the shows my daughter watches have nonbinary characters just seamlessly included. Not even a Very Special Episode. Just...here's the scarecrow in charge of scarecrow village who uses they/them pronouns that everyone just uses without comment.
I was almost 30 before I found the word nonbinary. For my kid to just grow up with this is astonishing.
Conservatives are so mad because it's INCREDIBLY hard to just put this kind of inclusion back away. Once something is normal, and clearly not causing anything bad to happen, it's hard to convince people to be scared of it.
reblog if you would give cheeses to these meeces
"Every time someone steps up and says who they are the world becomes a better, more interesting place." 🫶🏳️🌈
My tribute to Andre Braugher, thank you for Captain Raymond Holt ❤️✨
Whumptober Masterlist 2023
Masterlist of fic
(Warnings at the start of every chapter, please be kind to yourself. Gif not mine; I do not possess that kind of power. This will be updated with links as we go and when placed on ao3 will be updated with the link. A lot of these can be read as one shots (I’ll try and mark the ones that can be read as such with a *) but together make a whole story; the story of how Clint and Natasha got married.)
the language of flowers and silent things.
2011 - Kashmir (how many fingers am I holding up) *
1984 - Russia (I’ll call out your name but you won’t call back) *
1984 - Iowa (make it stop) *
2012 - New York (shock)
2012 - New York (it’s broken)
1999 - Iowa (made to watch)*
2013 - New York / Wichita Falls (radio silence)
2013 - New York (it’s all for nothing)
1994 - Ohio (Polaroid) *
2014 - Budapest (you said you’d never leave)
2014 - Singapore (Captivity)
2014 - Singapore / Malaysia (Red) <now with amazing art by @oceanspirit9 >
2009 - New York (I don’t feel so good) *
2010 - Okinawa (just hold on)*
2010 - Okinawa (I’m fine) *
2014 - Rome (don’t go where I can’t follow)
2007 - Russia/France (leave me alone)*
2014 - New York (I tend to deflect when…)
2011 - Iowa (floral bouquet)*
2013 - New York (found family)*
2014 - New York (vows)
2012 - New York (watch out)*
2014 - New York (Shadows)
2014 - New York (I thought they were with you)
2014 - New York (buried alive)
2014 - New York (you look awful)
2014 - New York (scars)
2014 - Berlin (aftermath of failure)
2014 - New York (what happened to me)
2014 - New York (borrowed clothing)
2014 - New York (take it easy)
Elevation - Charles Baudelaire
Above the lakes, above the vales,
The mountains and the woods, the clouds, the seas,
Beyond the sun, beyond the ether,
Beyond the confines of the starry spheres,
My soul, you move with ease,
And like a strong swimmer in rapture in the wave
You wing your way blithely through boundless space
With virile joy unspeakable.
Fly far, far away from this baneful miasma
And purify yourself in the celestial air,
Drink the ethereal fire of those limpid regions
As you would the purest of heavenly nectars.
Beyond the vast sorrows and all the vexations
That weigh upon our lives and obscure our vision,
Happy is he who can with his vigorous wing
Soar up towards those fields luminous and serene.
He whose thoughts, like skylarks,
Toward the morning sky take flight
- Who hovers over life and understands with ease
The language of flowers and silent things
Translated by - William Aggeler
the language of flowers and silent things
Whumptober 2023: Day 3 - Make it stop
Warnings: child abuse, domestic violence, brief touch on car accident that killed Clint’s parents and CPS
Word Count: 1.8k (Image not mine)
Summary: Clint Barton didn’t have an easy childhood, but one safe person made all the difference.
A/N: please read warnings attached to the chapter. There’s a reason there’s not too much before the cut starts, as it starts heavy and stays that way. Please take care of yourself.
Masterlist
Whumptober Masterlist
.
1984
IOWA
“Make it stop,” he whispers to Barney.
Drunken footsteps are loud as his father shouts for more.
Clint can hear his mother opening and closing the fridge and the tirade of abuse continues.
“We can’t, okay?” Barney’s fists clench, his black eye from the week before still not healed and Clint knows it’s an unfair request.
“Not tonight, Mum will have to deal with him,” Barney looks scared and Clint doesn’t understand.
“Why?”
Barney looks down at his little brother and sighs.
“He’s not going to work tomorrow. He got fired.”
Fear and adrenaline dumps it’s poison into Clint’s veins.
“But…”
“Yeah; he’ll be here all day now.”
Barney finishes Clint’s thought.
A slap reverberates through the house and both boys cringe.
Clint can’t take it, he hates the thought of anyone touching his mother.
He’s at the door before Barney can stop him.
Opening it, he finds his father standing over his mother and they both turn to look at the movement and noise. His mothers face is red, hands touching the swelling of her cheek.
“Stop it,” he growls, smelling the alcohol and poison on his father.
The laugh of derision and dangerous smile that follows, makes Clint take two steps back, almost regretting his bravery.
“Stop it?” his father laughs as he repeats Clint’s words, picking him up and throwing him to the side.
“Fine,” he smirks dangerously, “I’ll ‘stop it’ but you need to go get me more beer, okay boy? She says we’ve run out.”
Clint feels like he’s been thrown a lifeline, a chance to get out of the house and away from danger; even if it’s at the expense of his mother.
He scrambles, Barney close behind him.
“We don’t have any money?” Clint asks.
His father raises a hand and Barney pulls him away.
“It’s fine,” he yells, as he pushes Clint out the door.
They run, only stopping when Clint pus his hands on his knees, out of breath.
“If he doesn’t go to work, he’s going to be at home with Mom,” Clint mutters, dragging his feet.
Barney grabs his hand.
“It’ll be okay, he’ll get bored and go out to the pub.”
Clint can’t see how that’s better, using their money to buy a drink that only leads to raised voices and sharp hits.
The shopkeeper stares at the two boys as they enter.
“Go distract him,” Barney urges, “and I’ll go get the beer.”
Nervously, Clint walks to the front of the shop.
“Can I help you?”
Clint nods and tries to smile.
“I.. uhhh.. Need something,” he starts, unsure what to say.
“You need something,” the man asks, suspiciously.
“Yeah,” Clint looks around, “I need those,” he points.
The man chuckles.
Clint shrugs.
“Do you know what I should buy?”
He knows nothing of the product he’s pointed too, knows that he’s seen it in his bathroom before, and there’s many types on the shelf; so the stab he’s taken doesn’t seem like a bad one.
“You need.. Pads?” The man questions, still smiling at Clint’s ignorance.
“Yeah?”
Clint thinks he can keep it going, make the man distracted enough; until…
There’s a clink and a crash and Barney swears as the man moves to back, Clint hot on his heels.
Spilled beer cascades and Barney looks up, guiltily.
Standing frozen, Clint doesn’t know what to do. The man takes a step forward.
Clint weaves in and stands between his brother and the shopkeeper protectively.
“You’re the Barton brothers aren’t you?”
They both look at the floor, and Barney speaks for the both of them.
“Yes sir,” he says softly, “please don’t call the police.”
The man shakes his head.
“Your father is not a good man, is he? Hmm? He send you out here?”
“He hit our mum because we ran out of beer,” Clint tells him, only to get shoved by Barney.
“Is that so?”
The man motions for them to move out of the glass.
“It shouldn’t be like that,” he tells them, handing a beer to Barney.
“You didn’t get that from me, okay?”
Clint’s relief is palpable, and Barney can’t stop staring at the gift they’ve been given.
“Thank.. Thank you,” he stutters, stuck on the spot.
Clint smiles, “yeah, thank you,” he repeats.
The shopkeeper it seems isn’t done in his generosity.
He hands them each a chocolate bar, and then on a whim throws Clint a box of pads.
“Give them to your mother,” he smiles, “she’ll be thankful you got something for her too.”
.
Gus the shopkeeper is wirey, thinning hair with dark eyebrows.
Clint finds him funny and kind and when walking home from school, he always gives him a piece of fruit to munch on.
Barney doesn’t like it.
“People don’t do things out of the goodness of their hearts, baby brother.”
Clint ignores the warning, trusting his own instinct of people. He doesn’t agree.
He does things out of the goodness within him, why wouldn’t others?
He tries not to impose on the man’s friendship, wanting to always be around Gus but knowing he probably shouldn’t be.
Sometimes his piece of fruit is all he gets for dinner.
The summer comes too quickly, and Barney gets a job delivering papers. It leaves Clint with too much free time, which he inevitably spends at the shop.
His mother encourages it.
She kisses his forehead and tells him to remember their code.
If his father is on a bender then she’ll put flowers in the window, if he’s not the window will be clear.
It’s a system that’s saved both boys a black eye or concussion a few times. Sometimes though, no amount of code words and secrets saves them from the wrath.
Gus seems to understand.
In the heat of the summer, he finds Clint sitting on the side walk, and invites him in.
Cold drink in hand, Clint grins at the pictures on the wall.
“You used to be in the circus?”
Gus nods, a wistful look on his face.
“Acrobat,” he comments, pointing to picture.
Clint looks in awe
“Those days are long gone now.”
“Can you show me something?”
Gus laughs.
“Something acrobatic?”
He shakes his head, “no, but I can show you something useful.”
Suddenly, there’s a coin in his hand and then it’s gone.
“Magic?” Clint scoffs.
“It’s a skill,” he defends.
Clint’s wallet is suddenly in his hand and Clint’s brain almost short circuits in how useful learning pick pocketing might be.
“You have to teach me,” he exclaims.
“Please!?”
Gus laughs.
“Okay, fine, come back tomorrow.”
.
They start easily.
The summer nights pass quickly with Gus.
Barney notices it, and he seems glad that Clint has somewhere to go.
He rubs his little brothers head and encourages it.
“Hey Barney,” Clint asks, one night, “teach me how to fight like you?”
Barney shakes his head, “nah, little bro, you’ll fight like someone different. But I can teach you the basics.”
Clint’s heart leaps.
He hugs him spontaneously and Barney pushes him back.
“I’ll catch you later okay?”
Clint nods, his smile big.
.
“Try again,” Gus tells him.
The watch sits on his wrist and he holds it out.
“It’s harder if you know it’s coming,” Clint complains.
Gus laughs.
“Fine take it, you need the practice anyway.”
Clint nods, taking it off his friend’s wrist.
“Same time tomorrow?”
Gus nods.
“You better practice,” he waves, and Clint nods.
Clint walks off, heading home, playing with the watch on his wrist, the clasp coming away easier.
He walks to the door and hears it, his mother shouting, his fathers fists hitting wood.
He cringes as he opens the door and tries to sneak in.
He forgets the second stair squeaks in his haste and the sound of footsteps makes him freeze.
“Boy,” his father bellows, “where have you been?”
Before he can even answer, he’s back handed into the stairs.
“Where’s your brother?”
Clint grabs at his face.
He’s better now at not letting the tears fall, even when he wants them too.
“I don’t..I don’t..” he stutters.
“You don’t know?”
Harold seems to grow twice as large as he points to the garage.
“Get in the car, we’re going to go find him.”
Clint can smell the toxicity of his breath, but is powerless to say no, as his mother gathers him up, kisses his cheek and tells him it will be okay.
It’s not though.
The red light.
The other car.
Screams.
Blood.
His head hurts.
He thinks there’s a bright light coming for him.
.
“They’re dead,” he opens, the shop doors opening for him as he stares through Gus.
The older man runs to him, and gathers him in a hug.
“Where’s Barney?”
Clint holds the watch in his hand.
“They’re taking us, but I stopped them because I needed to give you this.”
He holds it out.
“Oh Clint,” he holds him at arms lengths, sees the kindly lady step out of the car, and Barney deliberately not looking towards them.
“Keep it, borrow it, and when we see each other again, you can give it back to me.”
Clint’s eyes well up with tears and hugs Gus again.
“Can you take us?” he asks.
Gus shakes his head.
“Not yet,” he whispers.
“But this is not the end of our friendship, okay?”
Clint steps back, unable to look at him, disappointment radiating off him.
“Keep practicing and come back when you can.”
The woman calls for Clint to come and he backs up slowly.
“Goodbye,” he whispers.
“Good luck,” Gus whispers back.
.
Gus growls.
“I tell you, he’s got potential, get him out of foster care and you’ll see.”
Swordsman hums, contemplating his words.
“And you’d vouch for him?”
Gus swallows, knowing the heaviness of his words.
“And his brother, yes.”
He pauses.
“Clint has aim like I’ve never seen it, has a reason to fight and his brother just needs a mentor to channel all his rage.”
“Aim huh?”
Gus nods into the phone.
“Trickshot would do wonders with him.”
He wonders as the words come out of his mouth if he’s further dooming the Barton brothers.
Swordsman thinks on his words.
“Fine, but he’s in foster care now, how do you propose we find him?”
He shrugs.
“He’ll find me again.”
“Okay, then keep him with you and we’ll come to you, it can’t be now, we still have the operation to finish here, give us a year, and then, if he’s willing and able and maybe can add to the crew, then we will take him.”
“Thanks,” Gus sighs in relief.
Clint has his watch. He’ll come back.
“Oh and Gus,” Swordsman counters, “don’t forget to send the money through.”
He swallows, “uh. Yeah. Of course.”
Swordsman laughs, “you have to pay to stay out, otherwise we’ll welcome you back when we welcome the two boys you so desperately want us to save.”
“I’ll have your money, when you come get them.”
Gus hangs up, deal done, and gets the deposit ready in savings.
A year.
Clint just has to survive the year.
.
the language of flowers and silent things
Whumptober 2023: Day 2 - “I’ll call your name, but you won’t call back”
Warnings: despondency, discussion of murder
Word Count: 1.9k (gif not mine)
Summary: Natasha’s mother tells her stories on borrowed time.
A/N: can be read as a stand alone, this one is a lot in a way I’m not so sure how to describe.
Masterlist
Whumptober Masterlist
.
1984
RUSSIA
“You are so loved,” her mother whispers to her, brushing the small wisps of hair away.
“I’m sorry I won’t be there for when you take your first steps, or for any other milestone,” she breathes.
The baby yawns, sleeping soundly, unaware of the tears on her mother’s face.
“Not for your first words, not for first friend, or first love.”
Again, she caresses the girls face, softly touching down the ridge of her nose; “not for your wedding, or for your children.”
She sniffs and sighs.
“Not for anything.”
Tired eyes open and close as she’s jostled in position.
“I’m sorry, my love, I am so sorry.”
Gentle kisses along her fingers, the small chubby hands of an infant, as they reflexively curls to hold onto her mother’s hand.
“I carried you into the world, I didn’t want you the whole way, and now you’re here, I can’t let you go.”
Slowly, she places the baby down in the makeshift bassinet, their meager belongings around them.
“We have tonight though,” she says, laying next to the box, their only blanket surrounding the baby as she suppressed a shiver.
“And I think, I want to tell you all the stories I know, about me, about the man who is your father, about where you’re going and your history. You’ll have to remember all of it, because I fear they’ll never tell you.”
She takes the baby back out, backing into the corner, wrapping the blanket around the both of them.
“Natasha, your father is dead, I killed him.”
She kisses her again, unable to look at her.
“I wish it was different, that half of you wasn’t tainted by him, but maybe it’s not such a bad thing, maybe you have the good parts of him, his tenacity, his fight; maybe his good singing voice.”
She draw the girl closer, glad that she doesn’t understand.
“It’s why they’re coming for you, you see, as punishment, I kill their son, his family takes his only heir. Even if half of you… is me.”
The woman closes her eyes.
“I wish I made better choices, my love, I wish, he was a better man; born to a better family; but they are not good, I don’t know what they are going to do with you; but I’ll come for you; that I swear.”
Natasha’s eyes open, the darkness surrounding them.
Eyes closed again to soft words and a lullaby.
“Sleep, my love, sleep.”
Eyes watch in the darkness, opening and closing as the voice lulls her back.
Continuing the song, gently she touches her girl’s face, memorising her cheeks.
“The house lights go out; the birds are quiet in the garden, fish fell asleep in the pond.”
Eyes close again, the pull of sleep too much for her little body.
“The moon shines in the sky, the moon is looking into the window,” she continues.
She looks up, no stars, no moon in reality.
“Close your eyes now; sleep, my love, sleep.”
Her eyes close as she says the words, knowing sleep won’t come for her on their last night together; she wants to be awake for every moment of it, tell Natasha everything she can think of, make up for a lifetime in a night.
“History is important, my Natasha. I wish I could give you something to remember me by, but all I have is words. I hope your memories hold me, maybe my voice or words.”
Waiting for the tears to dry in her eyes, she sniffs and continues. Maybe it’s because she wants her daughter to know that she’s not alone in the world; even if she’s not sure that’s true.
She wants her to know that she comes from a strong line of women.
“My mother, your grandmother, was a seamstress. She was a hard woman, but not bad, I think, or at least she didn’t mean to be. She could mend anything. We used to sing together, and I’m sure it’s what brought your father to the shop. She could tell a story, and would tell this one much better than I can.”
She wishes the world had been kinder; that her mother was here to tell her what to do next, to maybe tell her to fight and not give up, not be a quitter.
She just doesn’t have it in her. Not when she’s still suffering from birth, can’t walk more than a few meters without pain, let alone take on his family.
“My father, your grandfather, died when I was little. It seems fathers have not served either of us well. I met yours, or rather he came after me, seeing me working in my mother’s shop.”
She breathes.
“I was flattered at first.”
Stopping as the memories of him following her home, the unwanted attention, and the courting.
“Until I wasn’t.”
She sighs.
“By then, my Natasha, it was too late. I was his, and he treated me as such.”
She pauses.
“I had no family, no friends, to help me. So I went along with it. I didn’t know. I didn’t know his family trafficked children. I didn’t know they collected girls for the Red Room…I didn’t know.”
Natasha moves as her mother tightens her grip, almost unconsciously holding on tight to her baby.
“I think they’re going to put you in there.”
The fear of her child being placed in the company of monsters pains her in a way she’s never felt, and she doesn’t quite understand it.
“But if I run, they’ll find us. So our only option is to play along. I give you to them, and I’ll come for you, okay? I’ll figure it out, I’ll get you out, buy your freedoms, but if I’m dead, no one can do that. Do you understand?”
She wishes she did, she wishes this could be tattooed on her skin.
Her grief deepens.
Reality catching her in the likelihood of being able to take down the Red Room, of being able to find her daughter in the shadows of Russian hegemony.
“But if I don’t, I hope you make better decisions than I did and not give your love to those who don’t deserve it. Only those who deserve your greatness, my love.
Where you’re going…. They do not love Natasha, don’t fall for their lies as I did.”
She can’t help the tears that fall.
“Try to stay true to yourself, protect yourself.”
She takes the photos the nurse took of them out. The two small Polaroids the most precious of possessions.
“I’d write this in a letter if I knew it could stay with you, but it’s just a photo of me and you. It’s a reminder. I’ll come for you.”
She removes the blue ribbon from her hair, the thick velvet of it soft as she wraps the picture inside.
She tucks it into the swaddling, hoping in any way that she’s able to keep it. Anything to keep a part of her close.
“I’m so sorry I failed you, and you’re not even a week old.”
All the tears she’s been holding back, all the grief comes flooding through her, pain like no other at the hopelessness of the situation.
The sounds wake the baby and they cry together; grief enveloping them.
.
The baby girls of the Red Room are so small.
Katerina has a specific job, take care of the little ones. She hates it here but doesn’t trust anyone else to do it. Torn between care and wanting to help the girls who have no hope, and leaving; knowing all she does, she comes to work each day with dread and longing.
She sees the bigger girls in their lines and matching uniforms and she wonders if they ever have a chance to just be children.
She doubts it.
They tell her to leave the babies in the cots. They don’t want them to be attached to adults. They need to learn to stop crying at an early age.
It a part of an experiment; a barbaric one, Katerina feels.
The new girl comes in a swaddled blanket, it’s threadbare and worn but seems well taken care of, darned in patches. Carefully she unwraps her, finding a small blue ribbon and a photo.
She doesn’t know the woman, but she knows love when she sees it, the blanket, the ribbon, the photo. Carefully, she wraps them all together and places them into a cupboard, if she can hide them well enough, maybe she can keep them for the little girl, tell her one day that she was loved.
She knows the lies that the Red Room tells the girls, how they are unwanted, abandoned, given up, but for almost all of them, it’s not the case.
She knows for this little one, this is also not the case. Katerina knows love when she sees it.
She changes her nappy, and gently places her into the cot, then turns to tend to one of the other twenty children in her charge.
.
The wet nurse has always been kind to her.
Though only technically for the babies, five year old Natasha runs into the baby room to find her.
“Miss Katerina,” she sobs.
Katerina turns, the girls stops short in front of her, and her heart sinks, she knows that any other five year old would seek a hug.
“What’s happened, Natashka?”
Fat tears drop down her face, bottom lip wobbles and she cries silently.
Only children who have been taught not to cry out loud, cry silently, Katerina has learnt.
She kneels so she at the little girl’s level.
She brushes red curls out of her face, and offers a hanky.
“Take a deep breath.”
Natasha does exactly what she’s told.
“Does everyone have a mother and a father?” she sniffles, sad eyes looking up, like she knows the answer.
“Did I?”
Katerina doesn’t know what to say.
But she has the right things for it.
Looking into a cupboard for something she hid years ago, she turns her back on the girl and finds what she was looking for.
“You had a mother,” she whispers.
“She left these for you.”
She hands Natasha the picture and the ribbon.
“Natashka, look at me.”
Sad eyes look up, tears still falling as little fists hold onto the ribbon.
“They can’t know.”
She holds the girls shoulder tight.
“They can’t know.”
She takes the picture and the ribbon away, and Natasha reaches for them angrily.
“They’re mine!” she exclaims.
“And what do you think they’ll do with you, with these, if they find it?”
Angry fists clench again, and her face goes red.
“I want to see them again.”
Katerina feels likes she’s done something wrong here.
“I shouldn’t have shown you.”
She puts the picture and the ribbon away.
“You have a mother and she abandoned you,” she reframes. “Forget about her. She’s not coming for you.”
Natasha stares.
“No,” she growls.
“I won’t.”
“You need to,” she insists.
She sighs.
“You need to be combat class now, they’ll come looking for you.”
Natasha crossed her arms.
“Yeah, use that anger.”
She pushes her towards the door.
“Whoever told you about mothers and fathers, go punch them in the face.”
Shutting the door after her, Katerina takes a deep breath.
She’s fucked up.
Small girl comes to her crying and she does the one thing that might kill them both.
.
Here we go!
the language of flowers and silent things.
Whumptober 2023: Day 1 - How many fingers am I holding up
Warnings: perceived death (no death I promise), panic
Word Count: 2.3k (gif not mine)
Summary: The marriage of Clint and Natasha.
A/N: there are people that stand with you in darkness, brave the shadows and not shy away, if you have friends like that hold them tight. This is for you @broken--bow .
Friend, without you there would be no whumptober, there are no words for the consistency of friendship you have supported over the last month, and thank you doesn’t seem enough. I wish it were more, but thank you all the same.
Masterlist
Whumptober Masterlist
.
KASHMIR
2011
“It’s cold,” Natasha grumbles.
“Yep,” Clint replies, popping the p, and trudging on through the snow.
“How far?”
The snow is white and endless, and Natasha is sure they aren’t going the right way. Her rifle, slung across her shoulder, rubs and feels heavy, as it hits the back of her thighs; even though likely it’s her backpack that has the weight.
Clint glances at the gps, a small look of surprise on his face.
Natasha stops.
“What?”
“It’s less that two hundred metres,” he says, pointing to the left.
He adjusts his pack and trudges forward, giving Natasha places to put her feet as she grumbled again.
“You’re Russian!” he says, exasperated as the safe house comes into sight.
She throws him a look a rolls her eyes.
“I don’t like the cold,” she deadpans.
Approaching the house, they both split up, covering the front and back and simultaneously breach the door way.
Covering the rooms in a pattern, Natasha is first to call all clear, followed by Clint, as she beelines for the generator and sets up the heater.
.
The white noise of the generator infuriates Clint as he keeps the first watch; more snow falling. He
wonders if it will ever stop.
The cold that penetrates is icy, even though they’ve used spare blankets under the doorways and old newspapers on the window.
Natasha was finally asleep.
He knows by the soft breaths, slow and even.
She doesn’t like sleeping in the cold, and he knows why, it reminds her too much of the barracks of the Red Room.
She berates herself about becoming too soft, even as she makes their apartment and their rooms a constant temperature.
Less nightmares.
He tells her it’s not a bad thing to protect yourself from bad dreams, but it never seems to stick.
She sighs audibly and he wonders what she’s dreaming.
If the snow continues to fall at this rate, they’ll be snowed in. The trek here all uphill, and he hates Maria a little for directing them to this one.
“Hydra,” she’d said, “they’ve taken advantage of the political climate, and infiltrated the region.”
It’s a shame; he think idly, Kashmir is beautiful, but the evil that has infiltrated made it unsightly.
The man that they had killed was wanted by Interpol, crimes against humanity and all that.
Natasha’s kill shot hitting him between the eyes, as Clint had done the calculations quickly around wind speed and elevation.
One shot, one kill.
They made it look easy; isn’t that why Fury sent them?
Now, stuck in the snow, in a quaint house, Clint has too much time to reflect and worry about the repercussions of not being extracted until the snow stops.
His grip tightens on the gun, and he adjusts his position.
.
Natasha focuses on the landscape, the parts she can see anyway. Snow covers the door, just reaching the window and she feels vulnerable at not being able to see all the ways around them.
She knows if she looks at Clint, she won’t be able to hide her disappointment.
He won’t be able to hide his fear.
The satcom phone lays inert, as they await the next call.
Any way out.
Any opportunities for exfil.
Not likely for the next twenty four hours anyway.
The tension in the room is palpable. The generator has enough petrol for the next five hours, and the temperature is far below zero.
.
Clint focuses on the bowl of cereal, the snow still around them.
This was supposed to be easy.
He suppresses a shiver and pulls his coat around him trying to gain any heat he can.
The one room they’d kept heated, now growing colder.
He knows they both feel it.
Natasha pushes away her bowl, half eaten.
“You gotta eat, Nat,” he murmurs.
“We need to leave,” she argues, “the generator is done, the food almost gone, and the pipes are frozen. We have no water apart from what we have in that bucket.”
He shakes his head.
“It’s cold outside, no one is coming here in that weather; plus where are we gonna go? We have to wait for them to come.”
She’s knows he’s right. Standing and staring out the window, she shivers.
It’s not a good sign.
“Clint.”
The seriousness in her tone has him on edge as he joins her.
“It’s stopped snowing.”
They both know, when the temperature drops the snow stops, the sun, or what was left of it, hides behind the dark as the black starts to descend, night approaching; though the hour not late.
“What are we going to do?” she whispers.
.
They move to the smallest room, a tiny broom closet, big enough for the both of them. No windows, blankets piled in.
“I hate the cold,” she gristles, her teeth gnashing.
Clint pulls her closer, trying to stay warm, even though he’s sure it’s not helping.
“Talk,” he asks, “take my mind off this.”
The request isn’t lost on Natasha, the beginning of the third day had begun and they still had no way out, the sat phone silent, stood next to the door.
“Mmmm,” she says; trying to stop her teeth chattering.
“If you changed around this house, what would you do to make it better?”
It’s an old game, one they used to play when nightmares would keep either of them awake and neither wanted sleep.
Clint bites, he wants nothing more than the deep dread that fills his body to go away.
“Thicker windows,” he starts, “and for there to be a better security system.”
Natasha grunts in agreement.
“Insulation,” she continues, “the bedroom, I’d move to the back of the house, maybe another bathroom.”
Clint snorts.
“Like our house?”
She laughs, shivers hard and suppresses another.
“What’s that like again?”
He sits up a little straighter, and starts talking about the blueprints he’s sketched out when they’d first started dating.
“You know, you’ll have a library, and I’ll have a target room, the kitchen will be big, and the bathroom always warm.”
“The house is always warm,” she corrects.
“Heated floors?”
He nods, “definitely heated floors.”
She rests her head on his shoulder.
“”It sounds nice.”
.
The night passes slowly.
Both in and of consciousness, eating where they can and bodies shivering hard against the cold.
“My lungs hurt,” she grunts, forcing herself to take a breath.
Clint can’t answer, he agrees, but can’t do anything but nod his head.
She’s terrified; not because she’s going to die, but because he is.
“Talk to me,” she says, her teeth chattering.
She remembers Russia, the coldness of the room and the lack of heat in their dormitory rooms. The blankets thread bare.
She felt it then, but had no context about how warm the world could be.
“You think the world is warm?”
Natasha hadn’t realised she was talking out loud.
“It’s different, here, don’t you think?”
He swallows, trying to readjust his position but finds his limbs uncooperative.
She’s not making sense and he’s worried. He can’t think straight though and maybe she can’t either.
They won’t die here.
Someone will come.
.
“When we get married,” she starts.
They both laugh.
But it’s the silence that hangs.
“What are we going to do, Clint?”
She can see their breath, and movement is getting harder. Natasha knows this cold, Russian winters this biting, freezing kind of bitter. If they die….
If they die it’s not a bad way to go, here, safe with someone she loves and a life she curated for herself.
If she dies…
“What kind of wedding will it be?”
Clint stops her train of thought.
Desperate to change the subject to anything apart from their imminent death, he hugs her closer, trying to not be unnerved by how cold her skin is.
“Small,” she considers, indulging him.
“I’ll wear white, you’ll wear a tux, but it’ll only be our closest friends.”
He nods.
“Who are we inviting?”
“Maria.”
“Coulson.”
They take turns naming their friends.
“Pepper.”
Clint frowns, “really?”
“Yeah, why?”
The shiver stops him from answering, and she tries to pull the blankets more around him.
“If you invite Pepper, we’d have to invite Tony,” he says grumpily, disliking the fact that someone who heavily objectified Natasha would be invited.
Natasha’s head rolls over to him, a smile on her cracked lips.
“We’d make him sign a NDA,” she almost laughs.
“He wouldn’t be able to talk about it, and it would destroy him.”
Clint laughs, a cough bubbling as he sucks in too much cold air.
“He’d probably get a good present anyway.”
“Fury?” Natasha asks, and Clint nods.
“Yeah I think so.”
He sighs.
“Is it sad it’s such a short list?”
She shrugs.
“Who else would you invite?”
Clint knows.
Family. Isn’t that who you’re supposed to invite for your wedding? For you brother to be your best man? Or for your mother and father to sit in the front row and cry?
“Who’d walk you down the aisle?”
She ignores the question.
“I’d invite Yelena,” she decides, looking wistful.
Clint rubs her leg.
“Yeah. I’d invite Barney,” he agrees. Even though it’s likely his brother and her sister as long since dead, it’s a nice thought to have.
“Your mom,” she opens the thought.
Natasha stops but continues after a moment.
“I think I would have liked our mothers to come, even if mine abandoned me.”
Clint doesn’t know what to say.
“I would have liked that too,” he breathes.
“I think you’d walk me down the aisle,” she whispers, coughing into her gloves.
“Where?”
He knows where, he just wants her to say it.
“Okinawa,” she smiles, knowing he loves the shores of the tiny island as much as she does.
“Of course,” he smiles back.
They sit in silence
“We can find them, I think.”
Clint says it with conviction.
Natasha looks at him intensely, breath white, nose red.
They’re going to die here, he thinks idly. Why not give them another mission, even if it only gives them hope.
“Our parents?”
He shakes his head.
“Our siblings.”
Natasha sees Yelena standing at the door, sad eyes, hands waving goodbye.
Her eyes open and close languidly.
“Okay.”
She knows what he’s doing.
Offering hope when there isn’t any.
Gloved hand reaches out under the blankets and takes his.
“If we survive this, and if we find Barney and Yelena, we will get married. You just have to ask,” she proposes.
Clint nods, his movement slow, his voice quiet and somber.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Natasha? Will you marry me?”
Head against his, she kisses him slowly, purposefully; like it’s the last draw of breath she’ll ever take.
“Yeah, Clint, of course I’ll marry you.”
.
Maria panics at the empty house, wondering where her friends are.
If they thought she wasn’t coming, maybe they left to find safety; it would have been a death sentence.
Temperatures outside so cold it had taken far too long to trek anywhere for safety, the snow too deep.
As it was, it had taken too long for the helicopter to land anywhere safely.
Maria looks around.
Two people that already have so much trust issues, she’s not sure what they would have done.
She’s sure they would have thought no one was coming.
In the instant, Maria feels panic.
She clears the first room and the medic clears two more rooms; then — Maria finds them.
Huddled together, Natasha’s head on Clint’s shoulders their faces pale and they look half dead.
She calls the medic over, unwrapping them from the blankets.
“Thready,” the man tells her, assessing Clint, then Natasha.
They drag them out, laying them down on stretchers as they both call it in on the sat phone.
Maria places the warmers over their chests, as the medic works on placing an IV for both of them.
They work quickly and efficiently; slowly working to warm their friends, hoping against all hopes that the hypothermia has no permanent effects.
.
Natasha hears before she sees, the whir of the plane, the pain in all her muscles as life starts flowing back into her.
“Clint,” she tries.
Voice cracking, not loud enough, she can’t see him or hear him, her heart hurts and her thoughts race.
They’re going to get married.
They’re going to find Yelena and Barney.
They’re going to…
Breath comes fast, alarms blare and she panics; sitting up, eyes now open she finds herself connected to machines and monitors.
Clint lays next to her.
Laying back, doctors surround her.
“Clint,” she says again.
Maria appears in her field of vision, a stoic face.
“He’s okay too,” she clarifies.
Panicked eyes greet her.
“Natasha,” Maria says, “look at me.”
Wild eyes look her.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
She sticks two fingers in Natasha’s face, and predictably, her friend rolls her eyes.
“Two.”
Maria puts three more.
“Three.”
She nods.
“He’s okay,” she assures.
Closing her eyes, Natasha grunts and sinks back into a deep sleep.
.
“God you’re both so predictable,” Maria grunts, half holding him down.
“She’s fine, look, okay?”
Clint gives her a goofy smile, clearly still delirious.
He sees Natasha, oxygen mask on, eyes closed.
“She’sgonnamarryme,” he tells her, words mumbled.
“What?”
Maria thinks she misheard, because neither Clint or Natasha feel like the marrying type.
He nods, “jus’ gotta find Yelena and Barney.”
Clint’s eyes slip closed.
“She’sgonnamarryme,” he says again, falling back into a drugged sleep.
.