2013-12-05 - SDR: Truth and the Art of Healing

As soon as it was safe to bring her down from a morphine-induced haze, the good doc sends a message to Hawkeye-- given the content of Natasha's previous morphine-addled report, perhaps Clint would be a better person to talk to her.

Perhaps.

Natasha dozed, sore, but healing. Had she still be suffering the effects of the Silencer, she'd have been dead. She knew that, and not for the first time was she grateful for the super soldier serum the Russians had pumped into her.

Clint enters the medbay looking tired, as usual. He'd had a sleepless night on the lookout for Russians, Italians and Irish killers on his trail. Coming to stand next to her bed tucking his hat into his pocket and rubbing his head. For a moment he's silent, not wanting to wake her, then he speaks "Nat, hey, it's me Clint," Clint says as he pulls a chair over next to the bed.

Nat's eyes open, her head turning slightly to look at him. "I must look like hell," she says quietly. "Certainly feel like it." She shifts a little. "You do too-- what is wrong? No sleep?”

"A little," Clint says to Nat, joking lightly, and without a smile. Then about himself, he shrugs as he sits down. "I've been busy," he answers not wanting to worry her with his own problems, of which there are many. "So, feeling better though right?" He changes the subject.

Natasha gives Clint the slight half-smile he should recognize well enough by now. "Healing. It's been a few days, apparently. He deserves a medal," she says, referring to Pym, her eyes glancing back towards the office where the man is working. "When I woke up, he told me how much damage there was." Her bandaged hand flexes. "I am sick of being in medlabs, though."

"I know that feeling," Clint says a smile finally appearing on his face. "It's usually me on the bed, and you out here checking on me," he rubs his head. "So what happened Nat? They pulled an arrow out of you, one built like I make them, but harder core, and you were talking about Skrulls killing children."

Natasha's face is blank. Except someone with good perception and intimate knowledge of her could tell, before her face went blank, there was something-- a flash of something. Horror? Fear? Regret? ...pain.

"An arrow?" she asks. "And skrulls? Are you sure you did not mistake me for a target?" Her tone is light. Too light, almost. "I do not..." the slightest hesitation. Fury could catch it. Could Clint? "Recall."

Clint is tired but this is Nat he's dealing with, he knows her as well as he knows himself, maybe better. "C'mon Nat. Don't shut down on me, just be straight. What happened with the Skrulls, where are they? Pete said America dumped them into another dimension, but I need to be sure Nat."

"Clint." Natasha's voice is rough and tired. She turns her head away from him, not looking at him.

"Let it go."

Clint's voice becomes tight, insistent. "Nat, I know you read the reports, know everything I spilled to the SHIELD shrinks when I got back from the ship. You know what they did to me, and I need to know they're gone, that they're not from here and they're not going to be a threat."

Natasha looks back over at him. She sighs softly. "Privacy screen, up, visual and audio." A holographic privacy screen envelops the area around the bed and chair. She closes her eyes. "I read the reports. I know what the Skrulls did to you." Not they.

Clint nods sharply not able to look at her. There's anger there and shame, he wasn't able to stop them. "Then please Nat, just tell me the truth, if they're here tell me, if they're gone, tell me but I need to know."

"Why did Pete say there were Skrulls?" Natasha asks softly. Her hand reaches out lightly towards him, the one closest to him. offering him something to hold.

Clint doesn't take the hand he just stares down at the floor. "I dunno, he said that's what America told him, that it was the Skrulls that got you," he says and looks over at Nat and then reaches for her hand. "That's what happened right?"

Natasha draws in a breath. Slowly. She still winces as the expanding of her lungs pulls against the laser stitches. "Ah." She doesn't say anything for a moment, sucking on her lower lip. She could lie. She could tell him the truth. She had promised him honesty-- but that was, in part, a ploy of its own. But it was not completely.

Clint squeezes her hand. "Tell me, Nat," he says to her quietly. "Please."

Did he have to sound so damned-- ...Natasha lets out a soft noise that could almost be a whimper. Almost, except, she is Natalia Romanova, and she does not make such noises. "It was my fault." she says finally. "All of it."

Clint frowns at that answer it's clearly not what he wants to hear. "What happened Nat, what's your fault?"

Natasha looks back over at Clint. "It was not skrulls. That... is all that is important." She gives him a weak smile.

Clint's eyes narrow and he stands up so he can get a better look at Nat's face and hopefully tell if she's lying or not. "What happened?" he repeats.

"We... went elsewhere. It was not the world I think she was expecting." Natasha looks calm on the surface, but a slight twinge around her eyes, the too-blank stare... "There was a suit. Like Tony's. It came down, killed a woman near where we were speaking." Her tone is emotionless. Dead. "...there were soldiers. They... they killed the children as well. We tried to make it, to save them. We were not quick enough."

"/I/ was not quick enough. They screamed so loud... and then they did not anymore."

Clint squeezes her hand again, supportive. "I am sorry Nat," he says to her quietly.

Not from him. Those words from anyone else would be all right, but from him, she flinches. Visibly. Her hand is shaking within his.

He puts his other hand on hers as well to try and stop the shaking. "It's okay Nat, it's okay," he says.

"No," Nat murmurs. "It's not."

Then she says three words that are likely to chill his blood entirely. "They were yours."

Clint steps back again looking down at Natasha with a horrified expression. “What were mine?” he asks, dreading the answer.

Natasha just looks at him, her face ashen. She doesn't want to say. Or maybe she can't-- not with the look Clint is giving her. She squeezes his hand helplessly. "Please don't make me tell you any more, Clint," she murmurs. "Just let it go."

Clint stumbles back into his chair and nearly falls out of it. “God,” he breathes. “What in the hell…” he shakes his head. “I won’t ask any more,” he says, he really doesn’t want to know. “I am sorry Nat.”

Natasha draws another deep breath, looking at him. "We got her," she says finally. "America... ripped her suit off, her mask. We..." she pauses. "I killed the soldiers. I know we shouldn't... but I had to, Clint. And we got /her/." She is shaking a little bit, her eyes closing. "Bozhe moy... they were so /little/."

Clint looks up, shoulders slumped “I don’t really want to know, Nat. I really don’t. I am just sorry-” he says then a thought occurs and he opens his mouth to speak “Wh-” then he shuts it again. For once he was going to take America’s advice and not ask too much about what happened in other dimensions.

"So." Natasha sighs softly. "I suppose we're even," she says off-handedly as the IV hisses quietly, feeding her another dose of whatever it is Pym has her on after the surgery.

He blinks. “Even, what?” then it comes together. “Right, I shot you, and no, we’re not even, that wasn’t me. That was that guy.”

She chuckles darkly. "I was trying to make a joke," she replies tiredly. "I suppose is not good time for such." She chuckles again. "He is not so good of a shot as you. I prefer you, I think."

"You were right, not a good time for a joke Nat," Clint says, frowning then pushes up from his chair. "I'll talk to you later," he says as he starts for the door.

"Dammit, Clint." Natasha sits up. She knows that tone, that look. A warning tone sounds from the diagnostic bed. "You are going to do something stupid."

Clint keeps walking "I already did, got to fix it now, rest up okay, and try to forget that other world," he says without looking back.

She collapses back onto the bed, cursing in her native tongue. When she gets up...

...yeah. She's probably going to have more paperwork to do and more messes to clean up. Dammit. "I knew I should not have said anything."