Duyên || Clint Barton

023 || found

••••

Natasha was worried. She had been so caught up in the losses during the battle of Wakanda, seeing her comrades, her family, reduced to ash, that she had forgotten.
She hadn't told Clint. He didn't know. Grace didn't know.

When she flew to the Barton farm, her heart dropped at the sight of the abandoned lunch, the baseball laid askew on the grass. After a mad dash for the house, the silence told her everything. She had fallen to her knees in the foyer, sobbing her heart out until Steve had found her.

"Nat?"
Steve timidly stepped into the quiet house, fleeting memories of the last time he was there entering his mind. He could almost still hear the sounds of Lila's giggles.
His eyes were instantly drawn to Nat. The woman was knelt on the floor, her head bowed as tears flowed freely down her face as she clenched and unclenched her fists.
"Nat?" Steve repeated, lightly placing his hand on her trembling shoulder.
"They're gone Steve" She croaked, meeting his eyes, "my family's gone and I never even got to say goodbye. I hadn't seen them in months - if. If I had gone with them -"
"They wouldn't have been any better off, you know that. We needed you fighting" Steve said firmly, not allowing any room for argument.
"They could've helped. We should've reached out - asked them to come -"
"You know why we didn't Natasha. Don't second guess yourself now. We're all grieving, let's not start to turn on ourselves as well"

They had all gone. She hadn't said goodbye.

•••

"Are you sure?" Nat asked, tears welling in her eyes, "are you sure it's them"
"The patterns, they all match up. Think about Natasha, who else could be doing this?"
Rhodey's voice emitted from the hologram, the sound bouncing around the empty room.
"How can you be sure"
"There are two different fighting techniques, meaning two people. He's gone back to what he knows and she's followed him"
"So they're alive"
"Yes - but it doesn't look like they're really living"
Nat slumped back into her chair, her hand flying to cover her mouth to stop the choked sob escaping, "the kids. It's the kids, they must have gone in the snap - Clint - he didn't know. They didn't even know it was happening!"
"Nat it's not our fault-"
"We didn't tell them Rhodey!"
"And they didn't come back to you"
The pair was silenced by Natasha's phone buzzing.
The Russian wiped her tears, reading the messages from the unknown number.
"STEVE!"

Within the hour, Nat and Steve has jumped on the quinjet, flying towards the hotel in Mexico at full speed.
"How do you know it's him?" Steve had asked, Natasha simply waving him off as she urged him towards the quinjet, knowing her partner had done something bad, "I just know"

Sure enough, Steve breaking down the door of the hotel room revealed Grace's unconscious form, the burner phone laid by her side.
"Jesus Christ" Steve whispered, rushing over to check she was still alive, "she's sedated"
Natasha's heart seemed to stop as she took in Grace's figure, moving hesitantly over to her side.
"Clint did this"
"Why?"
"Guilt"
The two worked in silence, Steve carefully draping Grace over his shoulder as Nat quickly searched for any traces of Clint. Unsurprisingly she found nothing, though it didn't stem her anger when she returned to the jet empty handed.
Letting Steve pilot the jet, Nat stayed by Grace's side holding her hand like a lifeline, her mind whirling with possibilities of why and how she was left in that hotel room.
The redhead's head sprung up as she felt Grace's finger twitch.
"Grace?"