#dailyclintasha

[cutterpillow92]

@giftober 2023 + @mcuchallenge | Day 23: hands

Doctor Strange (2016) Avengers: Endgame (2019) Loki (2021-)

[deviant-nomad]

I don't judge people on their worst mistakes.

Maybe you should.

You didn't.

[gifs by dailyclintasha]

[darsynia]

Trust Fall | Ch 24b

ARC image by Eury Escodero | gif by @dailyclintasha

Story Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Summary: Tony/OC, ‘terrorists made us fall in love;’ IM1 timeline. In this chapter, Tony flies to California to get some of the suit parts manufactured, and Emory learns that even Nat and Clint know about SHIELD’s plans to keep her working for them.

Length: 2,580

Taglist: @starryeyes2000 @raith-way @arrthurpendragon @themaradaniels @starksbf @chickensarentcheap @tiny-anne @thorfics

Excerpt:

“You have magical powers. What are you going to do with them? Be a housewife? Is that what you think he wants?” Natasha asks. She leans forward, her eyes locked to Emory’s.

“Cool it,” Clint says, emphasizing his words with what looks to be a heavy hand on the other woman’s shoulder. Nat goes to turn her head to look at him, but her long red curls are caught under his hand. “What are you trying to do here?” he presses.

Natasha rests a light hand on the hand Barton’s got gripping her shoulder. “I like her, Clint. How many missions might have gone south if you’d lied to me right off the bat, hmm?”

He doesn’t move his hand, and without warning, Nat twists her body sideways. After a tangle of limbs that Emory’s booze-fogged brain can’t comprehend, Black Widow ends up sauntering away toward the bathroom, and Hawkeye’s laid out flat on the floor in front of his own couch.

“Yeah, you go powder your face, I’ll be fine,” he grunts into the carpet.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Sundial

As soon as he hangs up, Tony drapes the towel over his lap so he can track down Emory’s personal effects with JARVIS’s help. It takes a half hour for them to find out that Emory’s clothing is in an evidence locker at the base in California. Rhodey’s base.

Rhodey is in NYC right now, but Tony makes the call anyway. He’s going to be in the area tomorrow and can stop by, if his friend will pave the way. The problem is whether anyone will talk; if there’s a chance Rhodey can arrange for a middle man who can keep their mouth shut, that would be ideal.

Phil Coulson immediately leaps to mind, but he is also in NYC.

“Seriously?” Tony gripes aloud.

“I have it on good authority that prolonged periods of nakedness are uncomfortable. Perhaps you ought to get dressed?” JARVIS says dryly.

“No one asked you.”

“Indeed.”

Tony stands up and stretches languorously, just for JARVIS’s benefit. He walks over and hits DUM-E with his towel for not having obeyed and gotten his pants. Donning the boxers and jeans again, he dials up Coulson’s number and prepares to strategically grovel. It won’t feel as bad when he’s doing it so he has leverage over them if they fuck up.

***

The flight to California goes pleasantly enough, but the gaggle of press that greet Tony, Pepper, and Happy at the airport are more than an irritation. There’s a real chance that someone will get creative with their words or worse, their wallet. He doesn’t want anyone to chase down the reason he showed up at the base and use that to break the story that he and Emory are involved. That’s why he’d asked Phil Coulson if he could use one of their agents to act as a go-between, considering their pre-existing tendency toward secrecy. The agent who meets him on-base with her things is clean-cut, professional, and boring, right out of Coulson’s mold.

There will be some sort of price enacted eventually, but that’s a problem for Future Tony.

Obviously, he has to wait to look through them till he gets back to Malibu, since shots of him parked on-base playing around with a red bra would not go over well with anyone other than Emory. Once he’s home, Tony finds the paper with the word ‘Gulmira’ written on it and instructs JARVIS to pull up a map; there are no satellite images, of course.

Pepper shows up in the lab a few minutes later with hot coffee. “Tony?”

“Yes, Ms. Potts?” He swivels in his chair with an easy grin, to be greeted by narrowed eyes of suspicion.

“What are you up to?”

“Well, let’s see,” he says, standing to take the mug from her. “We’ve got the analysis of SHIELD’s strange habit of executing missions at the same time as some really nasty political stuff. Then there’s the address I just picked up that should lead directly to Emory’s mission site.” He picks up the tablet device that sends the contents of his screen up as a wider holographic display so he can point at the various things he’s mentioning. “Oh, and don’t forget the sweep I ran of Stark Industries’ files to find out that my business partner has got his hands on technology that could paralyze a man with a few seconds’ worth of a specific noise tone. Did I ever tell you about that one?” Tony asks her, pointing at the image of the Sonic Taser on the display.

Mutely, Pepper shakes her head, eyes wide.

“Yeah, we were supposed to have destroyed the prototype, but here we are,” Tony says, cheerfully shrugging. “Hey JARVIS? Did we ever get those earplugs?”

“They’ve arrived at the mansion in New York and await your perusal, sir.”

“Excellent. Now, where was I?” Tony sniffs, nodding at each of the things he’d mentioned so far on the holographic readout. “Ah, right,” he adds sourly.

Pepper had already been speaking. “You mean there’s something else?”

“Besides the fact that Obie never halted production?” Tony says, pointing at the factory output numbers. “Or did you mean the chance he might be organizing an all-out mutiny?”

“I think I need to sit down,” Pepper says.

“Oh sure, here.” Tony rolls his desk chair over to her, lifting his eyebrows as he sees something pop up on the screen. “Well, that’s new. J?”

“Sir, Mr. Stane boarded the jet as soon as it was refueled after your arrival. The flight plan is rather sparse, but he appears to be headed to Afghanistan.”

“Obie, Obie, what are you doing?” Tony muses aloud, yanking the chair away from Pepper right as she was about to sit on it. He sits down in a rush and shoves with his feet, rolling swiftly back to the desk so he can tap out some things.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Pepper says in a tone that Tony is completely certain she wouldn’t have managed without his influence on her life.

“Yeah sorry, duty called. But the shock pulled you out of your thing, right?” he says absently, frowning at the screen. JARVIS is right, the flight manifest is slim, but the more worrisome part is the truck that left their factory earlier that morning whose GPS monitoring tag states it was parked at that same airport for a half hour before being driven back. There’s no record of what was put inside the truck, but vehicle inventory has already marked it as empty and parked in its designated spot. “Right, Pep?”

Her silence pulls him away from the computer to see that the room is also empty.

He’ll pay for that later, but for now, Tony wants to both get his tests done (with the added benefit that Stane won’t be on his ass the whole time. It’s not like he can keep his presence on campus quiet) and check up on what could have been in the truck. The idea that Obie might have flown out to Afghanistan with weapons loaded onto their corporate jet in broad daylight is farfetched, but so is the miniaturized arc reactor in his chest. Tony lives on ‘farfetched.’

Nat drops by Clint’s apartment that evening with takeout and some dvds. What follows is a running commentary about spy industry plot holes in Mission Impossible, told between judicious pauses that catch Tom Cruise’s face in awkward expressions.  As they watch the credits, Emory drains her beer, recognizing mid-gulp that it’s too much, but unwilling to back down in front of the two agents. Over the past few hours, she’d experienced an odd mix of camaraderie and intimidation, peppered with the ever-present need to keep her own powers in check. Now she’s full of Thai food, alcohol, and hints about her companions’ exploits.

She’s not stupid-- all three were probably on purpose.

When Barton gets up to get new drinks, Natasha stretches out her bare foot, poking Emory in the leg.

“So which part is fake? Stark’s reckless affection, or the resurgent party animal?”

Emory is buzzed, but Natasha definitely isn’t. Clint is a toss-up, but she doubts he’s actually imbibed at all, though she’s not sure how he could have pulled that off. After thinking about it for a while under the guise of contemplating Nat’s question, Emory suddenly bursts out laughing. The image of Clint Barton using full-sized beer bottles tricked out to fake pour the same as a baby doll’s illusion milk bottle is just too hilarious for words.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she giggles. “If he enjoys the parties, then the answer is probably both. I didn’t really know him before. But I’m pretty sure that Tony wouldn’t do something just because it’s expected.”

“Well that’s bullshit,” Clint says, hopping over the back of the couch to settle beside Natasha. He licks the thumb he’d held over the open mouth of her beer bottle so it wouldn’t spill, and offers Emory the unopened one, nodding at the bottle opener on the coffee table. “Man would have long since told Fury to fuck off if that were true.”

Emory sets her bottle down on the coffee table without bothering with the opener. She’s impaired enough that even simple machines are a no go. Compared to Tony, she’s probably a lightweight. Scratch that-- definitely. A lightweight about more than just a She shrugs the thought off and refocuses on Clint.

“That just points back to the first question, then, doesn’t it? Meddling would risk my life.” Nat has a point, a clear enough one that Emory can see it pretty well through her brain fog: Tony doesn’t like being under someone else’s control, and yet he’s tolerated being under SHIELD’s thumb solely for her benefit. The thought tosses her hair in a spiral as a burst of energy swirls up toward the ceiling.

Okay, Emory thinks to herself. Alcohol means I can’t control my power. Shocker.

“What does it matter?” she asks aloud. “You won’t have to deal with Tony anymore after the mission anyway. Once we get ahold of that serum, aren’t I in the wind? Literally?” The pun makes her laugh. To play it off, she grabs her beer and the bottle opener, determined to make it work. Before she looks up, Nat says something in a voice Emory’s never heard before. It’s a mix of defensive and angry.

“It’s an act, right? For the mission? You’re not really that naive.”

“Natasha,” Clint says sharply.

The bottle opener falls out of her suddenly nerveless fingers as Emory stares at the two agents.

“You have magical powers. What are you going to do with them? Be a housewife? Is that what you think he wants?” Natasha asks. She leans forward, her eyes locked to Emory’s.

“Cool it,” Clint says, emphasizing his words with what looks to be a heavy hand on the other woman’s shoulder. Nat goes to turn her head to look at him, but her long red curls are caught under his hand. “What are you trying to do here?” he presses.

Natasha rests a light hand on the hand Barton’s got gripping her shoulder. “I like her, Clint. How many missions might have gone south if you’d lied to me right off the bat, hmm?”

He doesn’t move his hand, and without warning, Nat twists her body sideways. After a tangle of limbs that Emory’s booze-fogged brain can’t comprehend, Black Widow ends up sauntering away toward the bathroom, and Hawkeye’s laid out flat on the floor in front of his own couch.

“Yeah, you go powder your face, I’ll be fine,” he grunts into the carpet.

They’re fighting over whether to lie to her. Nat’s admonition about naivete circles back to hit her harder the second time, knocking away the blinders that had been preventing her from seeing that possible truth: if fictional stories about superpowers usually ended with their subjects studied in government labs or making some sort of an agreement to serve their country, how could she expect anything different? The panic that she’s already in too deep starts at her toes and lifts quickly, threatening to overwhelm. Luckily that fear has sheathed her in enough layers of energy to feel comforted by their strength. It’s also a powerful motivator.

“Clint,” she says, the word barely above a whisper.

“What, it’s your turn?” he asks, still face down.

“Kind of,” she admits, unsure if he means with words or weapons-- not that she has much of either. She’d been counting on her life returning to some kind of normalcy once she was through the crucible of this upcoming mission. The horrible truth about that hope strikes her: the act of being put through a crucible changes the material forever.

Her old life has blown away. Forever.

“You could kill two birds with one stone and stomp on my spine, see if you can get the crick out of it,” he suggests, oblivious to her mini crisis.

“Clint!” she groans, annoyed at how lightly he’s taking the situation.

He lifts his head to grin at her. “Might be cathartic?”

“Goddamnit,” she mutters, and stands up, reaching over to brace herself on the couch arm. “Is there a technique to this?”

“Start at the lower back and gently--”

The last word comes out as a groan, because she’d already stepped, rolling her socked foot onto his back just above the belt none too gently. She’d expected it to be harder to balance, but anxiety creates a good blank slate for caring if she falls or hurts him… much.

“Will I have a choice?” she asks, placing down her second foot heel to toe on the last word. Clint isn’t stupid enough to think they’re still talking about his back.

“I’ll make sure you do.”

“And when I say no?” She spins some air around herself to help her balance, jamming down another heel on ‘no.’

“I’ll appeal to your humanity,” Clint says, the words devoid of any of his previous inflection of pain or amusement. It’s the most ‘deadly serious’ she’s ever heard a person be. Emory’s not sure whether she wants to thrust all of the air she has access to down on top of him in fury-- or swirl it around herself so she can run, sobbing, to her room and lock the door.

She hugs her arms to her chest, shaking her head no so many times that her neck starts to ache. Emory feels defeated, but for once, her power doesn’t dissipate with the reversal. “I--” she starts, but drops her arms, speechless.

Clint hasn’t spelled it out, but not only will SHIELD want her, they’ll need her.

What had Nat said to her once? ‘I have a very special set of skills.’

She’s trapped again, but there’s no rescue in sight, because the bars are made up of her own morality.

Beneath her, Clint rolls over. “Emory, stop. You’re going to--” He breaks off and launches up from flat on his back, grabbing her foot and pulling her down.

Emory cries out as she feels a horrible pain and pressure in her scalp before it releases and she falls down, landing half on Clint and half on his couch. She reaches up to feel her head, terrified that she’ll be missing a chunk of hair and skin, but everything’s intact, just very sore.

“You okay?” 

“Yeah. Shaken up, is all,” she breathes, dropping an arm over her eyes. 

“Funnily enough that jump I just did fixed my back up real nice,” Clint says, pulling free of her legs and resting his arms and head on the couch cushion beside her. “Landing, though. Ow.”

“I leave you two for five minutes!” Nat says from across the room.

“Recruitment pitch didn’t go well,” Clint jokes.

Without thinking, Emory kicks her leg toward him. The blow lands; he didn’t flinch away from it. There’s something symbolic about that, but she’s completely prepared to ignore it for her own sanity.

Still, there’s a bonfire of fear that Natasha’s words and Clint’s reiteration have carved into her heart of hearts. Its fuel is realism, and she doesn’t know how to put it out yet. There is one comfort, though. Tony is on her side, and he’s a genius with money and has a complete disregard for authority. If, as she suspects, his loyalty is to her, and not to SHIELD, then if SHIELD turns on her, Tony will be on her side, not theirs.

Next chapter, Emory's woken early in the morning and told it's time for the mission, with no way to warn Tony. For his part, Tony's back in NYC, but something feels off.

[elemen]

@creatorsofcolornet event 9: secret santa

Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff in Captain America: Civil War (2016) dir. Anthony and Joe Russo gift for @lenakluthors ♡

[devilofhelllskitchen]

clintnat

it's a subtle thing

[archervale]

“You’re safe”

I love drawing hugs and I’m gonna draw a ton of reunion hugs cause Endgame never happened 

[accioharry]

it was supposed to be me. 

she sacrificed her life for that goddamned stone. 

she bet her life on it.

[clintnatalias]

[clintasha-universe]

The pendant | Clintasha

Ship: Clintasha

Words: 889

Note: This is my little Version how Natasha came to her necklace which we know from "Winter Soldier" but first of all: I am sorry that it is so badly written. English is my fifth language so I don't speak it perfectly but I hope you can read it anyway and it makes sense. Nat and Clint are not quite in character either but I can imagine that Natasha is completely different when they are both alone. I still wish you a lot of fun and would be happy to hear your opinion!

Until she met Clint, Natasha had never celebrated her birthday. If she was honest, she didn't want it either. What for? One became one year older that day and that was it, nothing else happened. Not to mention that one should definitely not celebrate the birthday of someone like her.Nevertheless Clint insisted every year to at least have a drink together and often he even tried to cook something but he was just a terrible cook so they usually ended up only having a few drinks. It was - Nat had to admit - nice to spend this day with someone she liked but still she had made Clint promise not to tell anyone on the team her birthday. In the dossier that S.H.I.E.L.D had created of her was only the year and more than that nobody had to know. Natasha couldn't imagine being able to handle it if everyone would suddenly congratulate her.

But this year everything was different. The world was attacked by a lunatic, godlike bloke with an army of aliens, New York was almost burnt to the ground, many people had lost their lives in this fight and almost the same thing happened to Tony. Tony who wasn't a bad guy, who tried to make up for what his weapons had destroyed by trying to help people, the guy who had a big ego but was actually a good person.That Clint would think of her birthday after all that had happened Natasha hadn't expected.

All the more surprised she was when it knocked on her door in the morning of her birthday and Clint entered the room. With a cupcake on a plate.

"Happy Birthday to you, happy Birthday to you, happy birthday dear Nat, happy Birthday to you" Natasha tried not to grin at the skew singing of her best friend but she didn't succeed very well and so she grinned wide as Clint sat down on her bed. He sang it every year and every year it was just funny. And really cute.

"You look so surprised as if you thought I'd forget your birthday this year," Clint said.

Natasha shrugged her shoulders. "This year has happened so much that you shouldn't even think about it."

"Just because an alien army led by a godlike psychopath attacked the earth, you don't stay the same age." He lifted the plate a little higher and held the cupcake almost under her nose. Like every year it was a red-velvet-cupcake with chocolate butter cream Frosting and a rainbow coloured candle in the middle. "Close your eyes, blow out the candle and make a wish."

With a slight shake of her head Natasha closed her eyes, took a deep breath and blew out the little candle before opening her eyes again. "Thank you. Clint, that really wasn't necessary."

Now it was him who shrugged the shoulders. "But that was it. I know you don't want to celebrate your birthday and you know I don't care," Clint said, taking the candle out of the cupcake and looking at her. It was the gaze that whenever Clint used it made Natasha feel like he could look right inside her and see what she was hiding all the time - the vulnerability she also possessed like any other person.

It felt like hours had passed - it was probably only seconds - Natasha released herself from his gaze and both cleared their throat quietly before Clint looked at her with a slanted grin. Although she had fast reflexes Natasha couldn't stop Clint from pressing the cupcake on her nose and smearing her with butter cream.The moment she took the cupcake off her nose, Clint laughed amusedly and she couldn't help but laugh with him.

"Oh very funny. And so grown-up," she said and squeezed the half-mashed looking cupcake onto his nose.

The little fight went on until the cupcake was just a smashed mess on their faces and they were sitting on the floor. Laughing.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Clint suddenly said and reached into the chest pocket of his shirt.

"You didn't really..."

Her best friend, her rescuer, pulled out a small, transparent bag in which something glittered that Nat identified as a chain.

"I don't even want to hear you complaining."

"Well, I'm complaining. You know I don't want gifts. Hell, I don't even want to celebrate my birthday at all."

"Your Problem, not mine", he just said untouched and pressed the bag into her hand. "Happy birthday." Clint stood up from the floor before she could say anything, pressed a kiss on her forehead and then left her room.

Slightly her lips turned to a smile as she looked head-shaking at the gift in her hands. Natasha didn't realize until she looked closely what kind of pendant the necklace had. An arrow.

Suddenly the meaning of this gift was so much greater. Clint loved his bow and arrows. That was a big part of himself and that an arrow was the pendant of the necklace he gave her for her birthday was so meaningful. Not for outsiders but for her.

Carefully Nat took the necklace out of the bag and took a closer look at it. She normally wore no jewellery, but one thing was certain: she would never take this necklace off again.

[dailyclintasha]

Black Widow Movie posts

Hey everybody, we hope you’ve been enjoying the Black Widow film so far like we have, or get to soon!

We thought we’d just remind you all that we track #dailyclintasha and #clintashaedit and we’d love to see all your wonderful posts!

We’ll also still be tagging posts with ‘#black widow spoilers’ until the 7th of August to give everyone a full month to see the film and blacklist the tag.

Here’s to even more of our Strike Team: Delta in 2021 ❤️💜

[guildfordd]

tumblr tag game

tagged by @milesgmorales, thank youuu! 💜

1. Why did you choose your url?

i was/am an og fan of chuck, in which the title character is named chuck bartowski and the main characters refer to themselves as team bartowski ... i think one day like five or six years ago i just checked to see if @bartowskis was taken and it somehow wasn’t, so i saved it! it was very exciting to get a one-word canon url hahaha

2. Any side blogs?

ohh several over the years (for disney, for chuck, for aaron tveit, etc etc) but the only active one right now is @dailyclintasha with my girl @solisev <3

3. How long have you been on tumblr?

TOO LONG 💀 but actually, i just looked it up and it’s apparently been 11 years........in my defense there were at least a few different periods where i was basically inactive for a year or two but still......that’s wild lol

4. Do you have a queue tag?

always! i change it every little while but currently it’s queue are the music in me

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

does anyone remember when the 365 photo challenge was really popular, where you were supposed to take one photo every day for a whole year? i was on livejournal (wow) at the time and my friends and i decided to do that, so we came to tumblr just to have a place to post our photos lmao

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

nini & ricky 🥺 before tim federle ripped my heart out and stomped on it

7. Why did you choose your header?

same as above 🥺

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

okay i had to use an app to tell me but apparently it’s THIS ONE from 2011, back when i believe the gif size limit was 500 KB..... 500 KB!!! 0.5 MB!!?!?! i can’t even comprehend that when nowadays i get so annoyed trying to get gifs under 10 MB sldkfjdkf

9. How many mutuals do you have?

i have no idea, is there a way to find out??

10. How many followers do you have?

i don’t like to say but more than i deserve!!

11. How many people do you follow?

800 😳 but i think there’s a good chance at least 60% are blogs that have been inactive for years haha

12. Have you ever made a shit post?

i can’t think of one but it’s possible

13. How often do you use tumblr a day?

it varies a lot but of course more often when certain fandoms are more active, so like right now with hsmtmts and black widow 🥰

14. Did you ever have a fight/argument with another blog?

i don’t think so.....

15. How do you feel about the ‘you need to reblog’ posts?

i think i usually just ignore them, i think people should reblog whatever they want and not feel pressured!

16. Do you like tag games?

yeah!! it’s a fun way to get to know people :)

17. Do you like ask games?

same as above!

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

omg idk

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

yes, you 😘

20. Tags!

only if you want to, of course!! 💖

@rickybown @rodrigosolivia @solisev @mikeshanlon @clintnatalias @miriammaisel @gillespiecharlie @brulian @isakvaltzrsen @jonnybaileys

[cutterpillow92]

CUTTERPILLOW92 #GIFTOBER (4/31)

Day 4: Tired/Exhausted. || Avengers: Endgame (2019)

@giftober @mcuchallenge

[spookyblackwidow]

Tagged by @the-adventures-of-clintasha

Rules: tag 20 people (lol that’s a lot, no thanks) you want to get to know better

Nickname: Red Velvet

Gender: female

Astrological sign: Aquarius

Height: ~5’7

Sexuality: tbh still figuring shit out, but most likely ace, biromantic

Hogwarts House: Slytherin, with some Ravenclaw characteristics

Favorite Animals: foxes 🦊

# of Blankets: ALL OF THEM (I have at least 8 in my room right now)

Dream Trip: New Zealand or Ireland

When I created this account: November? Maybe? Idk I wasn’t active on here until about a month ago

Why I created this account: originally, just to have all my reblogged Clintasha things in one place, but then my headcanon took off, and here we are

People I’m tagging: @natashasromanofff @dailyclintasha @incorrectqueereye @tessatompsons @thexploress

[clintnatalias]

[clintasha-universe]

Point of no Return | Clintasha

It was a disgusting, strange and almost even painful feeling when someone strange was digging around in your head and steering you. But at the same time you weren't fully conscious. It was as if you stood behind a veil and had to watch and also feel when you killed someone.

It was an easy one for Loki to enter his head. He had made him kill good agents and attack the woman he had loved for years. To be exact the first woman he ever loved.

When Clint slowly became master of himself again, he lay in one of the rooms on the infirmary and was tied to a bed. He was cold and hot at the same time, his brain was trying to process what it had been going through and seeing that he had blood on his hands and clothes made nothing better or even easier to cope with. Everything turned and nothing seemed to make sense. Whose blood to hell was that with which he had sullied himself? Whom had he so brutally taken his life from? Clint had been a part of Shield for a long time and he had killed many times but whenever he did he did it with one of his arrows and never with his hand. He was very good at close combat but he didn't like it very much. Clint preferred to stay at a distance and also preferred to kill from the same distance.

He was so busy trying to free himself from the cuffs, that he only noticed that somebody was standing in the room when that somebody addressed him.

"Agent Barton. Welcome back. It's good to see you're yourself again."

Comander Maria Hill was standing in the middle of the room, the door behind her had closed and she seemed exhausted. Blood was stuck on her face and there were some slurs on it.

To ask what had happened seemed unnecessary and stupid to Clint. He knew what had happened. At least up to a certain point. But he didn't know how many agents he had really killed.

Nevertheless he first asked the question that seemed most logical to his damaged brain. "Where's Loki?"

"He was able to escape but the search for him is in full swing."

Not exactly satisfying but at least they were looking for him - so there were still agents. He hadn't slaughtered them all.

When he just wanted to ask her to free him from the handcuffs so that he could sit up properly she was already doing exactly that. "How many dead and how many injured?"

The numbers Maria told him were dizzying and for a moment Clint got so nauseous that he felt like he had to vomit. He had killed all those men and women. Their blood was on his hands.

"Fury and Natasha?"

"Fury is fine. He wasn't seriously hurt."

Clint frowned. That was not the answer to his question. At least not the whole one. "And Natasha?

The following silence hung heavily in the air and pressed on his chest. Suddenly he found breathing difficult. No. That could not be.

"Comander? What about Natasha?

When Maria didn't react again but continued to struggle with the cuff of his hand Clint grabbed one of hers with his free hand. "Maria. What about Natasha? Where is she?

"She...was injured," Maria finally said, shaking Clint's world. "She didn't make it Clint. I'm sorry."

With an unbelievable power everything collapsed over him. Pictures that were strange to him and yet so familiar ran in front of his inner eye and destroyed everything in him. Pictures of a fight with Nat. An unfair, dirty fight. Bloody, merciless and murderous. As if remotely controlled, his hands lay around Natasha's delicate neck and squeezed. His grip around her neck was strong, the hate in him devoured everything and every cell of his body was tense to burst. Natasha tried to free herself, fought against his grip and him, but she had no chance. He sat on her, pressed her body to the floor, and when she didn't stop fighting back, took her head between his heads and hit it against the grid floor.

One.

Two.

Three.

When he hit her head for the third time, she became very motionless and he could see her life disappearing from her eyes as a tear rolled down her pale cheek. The red hair became even reder by the blood it was soaked with, his hands were covered by the same and as he dropped her head to the ground one last time Clint could hear her blood collecting to a larch on the floor below.

Clint knew that this time it was not Natasha he had buried under himself on the ground but Maria. He knew that he wasn't choking the woman he loved but another one just as he knew that he was no longer under Loki's spell. He could have stopped when the agents rushed into the room but he did not.

Even then not when they pointed their weapons at him.

Everything it was worth living for was no longer there, so what for to go on?

How to go on at all?

How could he go on knowing that he had killed the love of his life? With his bare hands.

The archer knew that if he would ignore the Agents' requests once more and continue choking Maria then they would shoot at him. He knew and he didn't care.

A man who had nothing more to lose was unpredictable and he preferred to die rather than become something he had been fighting for years.

The loud bang of a firing weapon echoed from the bare walls of the room and a burning pain struck first at his shoulder and then at his chest, throwing him back, freeing Maria from his grip.

Instead of the expected pain, the fear, there was only a feeling of freedom and satisfaction.

Life had given them no chance to be together but death did.

[clintasha-universe]

The Last | #Clintasha

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18386219