To Go Unseen (A Natasha Romanoff Story)

44 [hospital room]

Nat looked awful, lying there wrapped in bandages, her eyes closed. Clint was looking away, taking deep breaths and holding them and telling himself that he wasn’t going to cry in front of Captain futzin’ America, but it was becoming a difficult task.

He folded his arms tightly across his chest.

Barnes dropped back down into his chair near her and he was staring at her, too, Clint noticed. He took her hand and swallowed. Clint stared at him and tried to make sense of a hundred emotions that came up on him.

“Doctor’s said she’ll be okay,” Barnes told Clint and the Captain quietly. He’d met them at the entrance of the hospital and brought them up here, to where Nat had been lying all night. He looked pretty terrible too, with his slumping shoulders and his dark, emotionless eyes. They were red-ringed now, those eyes. Clint looked down.

“What happened?” Clint asked and he leaned himself up against the wall, away from where Natasha’s boyfriend sat. He wanted to be near to her, but he found he didn’t quite trust himself, not with the explosion of overwhelming emotions inside him.

Futz, Nat. She devastated him. He looked at her now and wished he’d been there to help her, wished he could have fought at her side. Wished she didn’t have to be on a hospital bed. He looked at her now and he felt all that regret of the things he should have said and the things he should have done that might have kept her with him years ago. He looked at her now and felt that lingering love for her, all that camaraderie and all that admiration and all that… Aww, geez. She was beautiful, even with gauze around her head and a splint across her nose. He’d kick himself if he could. How come you can’t keep anythin’ good around, Barton?

And Barnes. That guy made him so mad, and not because of any rational reason, but just because he was loved by Natasha. It was stupid, Clint thought, and he berated himself for it. He couldn’t blame Barnes. After all, him and Nat, it didn’t work out and it was for the best and Clint was more than grateful for her friendship and Barnes made her happy. Bucky wasn’t even a bad guy, Clint knew that much. They’d had a few encounters before, worked together on a couple Hydra missions and they’d never gotten to know each other personally, but Clint could tell he seemed decent. He even liked him, despite everything. And if Nat was gonna date anyone, why not let it be someone that even Cap loved?

But all the rationalizing in the world couldn’t stop Clint from feeling so much jealousy.

And another thing, about Barnes. Something that had wracked at Clint since the beginning. He hated to put it into words, because that made it all the more real, hated even to relate something to it, but… Bucky Barnes… Knew what it was like. To… To be… Clint ground his teeth and forced himself to think it. Brainwashed. Bucky was like him. Clint had never met someone quite like that, someone who could share that experience. He’d always imagined saying something to Barnes about it, but any old idiot could tell him that was a grade A, Barton-patented bad idea.

“Dunno,” Barnes said, and Clint, lost in the thoughts of everything he had felt had almost forgotten that he’d asked a question to begin with.

“What do you mean, you don’t know what happened?” Clint demanded and Barnes looked up angrily.

“I mean I don’t know,” he replied. “She disappeared in the middle of the night and I found her like this.”

“Yelena,” Steve said.

“Who else,” Barnes said.

“Am I the only one left out, here?” Clint said loudly. He had no idea what was going on. After all, Natasha had made him promise a long time ago. When she said no questions, there were no questions. He looked over at Steve. “She told you?”

“No,” Steve said and nodded towards Bucky. “He told me.”

“Well,” Clint said spitefully. “Fill me in whenever it’s convenient for you.”

He reprimanded himself in his head for being so difficult. He knew he shouldn’t be; after all, he wasn’t the only one in the room losing sleep over Natasha Romanoff’s wellbeing. He had no good reason to be surly, but he was anyway. Clint remembered the last time he’d spoke to Bucky, over the phone a few days ago. They’d gotten into a shouting match then and Barnes’ yelling right into his ear had upset Clint’s hearing aids for the rest of the day. He should at least be trying to apologize for that as well, but he and Barnes hadn’t spoken about it since.

Now Bucky sighed.

“Yelena Belova, Red Room assassin after the title of Black Widow,” Barnes said. “She’s dangerous, and she’s got thugs at her disposal in case she doesn’t wanna take on the both of us at once. She’s been tailing Talia and I for the past, I dunno, week or two.”

“Guess that explains the guys we ran into on the way here,” Clint said.

“What?” Bucky said and Steve made a face.

“I wasn’t gonna say anything, cause it wasn’t a big deal,” he said. “Clint and I took them down before they could even do anything, but there were a few hitmen.”

“I told you!!” Barnes cried.

“No one told me!” Clint said.

“Well consider yourself told!” Barnes said back.

“She’s sleeping, would you keep your voice down?” Clint said and Barnes glared, then looked back down at Natasha.

“Yeah,” he finally said and let out a breath. A minute of silence passed and Clint rested up against that wall and looked away.

Then, after a time, Steve said something more in a quiet voice, and Clint reached up and turned up his hearing aid before he realized the conversation wasn’t for him.

“... -at happened yesterday?” Steve said. Bucky shifted.

“Yeah, I was gonna tell you,” he replied. Then, he shrugged. “Didn’t go as planned.”

“Well…?” Steve replied, nudging him to go on and Bucky rolled his shoulders and let out a breath. He ran a hand through his hair and let it fall back into his eyes.

“I’m getting bad about keeping my hair short,” he commented nonchalantly and Steve dug his elbow further in Bucky’s ribs. “Hey, geez, chill out!”

“Don’t change the subject,” Steve said, and then lowered his voice again. “This is serious. Especially if it could have… affected Natasha’s thinking.” Clint looked over and watched them, now really intrigued. Bucky looked sick now. He stared at the ground, but his face was still angled high enough for Clint to read his lips in addition to hearing with the aids. What did Bucky do??

“Wasn’t supposed to be a bad thing,” Bucky said.

“I know,” Steve said and he leaned himself up against Bucky’s shoulder almost comfortingly. Bucky pursed his lips and then took a deep breath and spoke again.

“We went down to the beach,” he said. “Just for fun. We were supposed to be having fun. And, uh, it just… Came out. She was tellin’ me she loved me and suddenly, it just seemed like a good idea.” Barnes groaned. “I didn’t say it how I wanted to say it at all. I wanted to just bring up the idea, mention it say, ‘look at this possibility!’ But instead, we got down on our knees and I asked her to marry me right there.”

Clint froze. He was almost sure he’d heard him wrong. Marry him?? He asked her to marry him?!

“Then what,” Steve said and Bucky shrugged.

“She freaked out,” he said. “Shut down. And she turned around and sat on the sand and refused to look at me.” Bucky put his head in his hands. “I completely ruined it because I had one moment of impulsiveness.”

Steve seemed at a loss. Clint, still reeling, looked away.

He felt as though the breath had been knocked out of him. Nat? Married? He couldn’t even imagine it. But then again, apparently, neither could she.