What Would It Take (for things to be quiet)

Clint hated the quiet. Most people thought it was the opposite, that he loved the silence. That all archers were somehow born with an innate adoration of the utter silence required in those still seconds, minutes, hours, days spent lying in wait for the target to appear and the shot to be made. But those people weren't Clint Barton and they had doubtlessly never shot a bow in their lives. Because bows sang. And that slippery hiss-twang of the string as it released its deadly burden? That sound was what Clint loved and what he lived for.

And Clint knew the simple truth that only those who had schooled their bodies into complete muteness knew. That the world was not a quiet place. There was always a nearby tree with rattling leaves, there was always a creaking joint in a platform, a buzz of feedback from a com, a click as the hooves of a distant deer met stone, a sigh, a snap, a sound. Always sound.

Only once in his life was Clint in a place with no sound.

It was blue and cold but burning at the same time.

A place where he controlled nothing, least of all himself.

A terrible, numb place that even now his mind shied away from acknowledging even as he cracked yet another lame joke about being a mind-control survivor and watched the other Avengers laugh.

And they did laugh. Even Natasha. And Natasha never laughed.

And Clint? He was pathetically, hopelessly grateful to them for laughing.

That sounded unhealthy, didn't it? His therapist would be Concerned that he was so happy about other people 'laughing at his pain' or some other psycho-babble bullshit. Because that's what it was, bullshit. Clint wanted them to laugh, needed them to laugh.

Thor's enthusiastic bellow of good humor, Bruce's soft chuckle, Tony's head thrown back in a merry (but not unkind) cackle, Steve's wry chortle, and Natasha's silky purr that was really more of a smirk given voice than an actual sound. These were the balms his soul needed.

He needed sound. He needed to not be numb.

And that night, after dinner (Clint loved dinners at the Avengers tower, no matter how much he bitched and moaned about cleaning up afterward), after Thor cleaned up the mug he had accidentally broken in a fit of high spirits, after Tony had sprayed Steve in the face with the faucet (an accident, really) and gotten his head dunked in the soapy dishwater for his troubles, after Natasha had proved that dish-drying towels were, in fact, deadly weapons, after Bruce had fished his glasses out of the sink (Steve and Tony's water war had involved some collateral damage), after Clint had won twenty bucks for being able to juggle seven plates and a spork (where that had come from no one could say), after all that, Clint sat in his room and tried to fight off the silence. Well, he perched on the dresser and tried to fight off the silence.

Clint liked the dresser, it was the high point in the room; from it he could survey his slice of the tower in peace. But Clint didn't really want peace right now. He fiddled with his iPod, trying to find the right sound to slay the silence. Nothing fit, nothing worked, every tune and jingle merely emphasized the yawning auditory void all around him. Not for the first time Clint regretted letting Tony give his room soundproof walls. No, maybe he didn't really want to hear everything his teammates did, but the quiet buzz of life outside these walls would be nice.

And then the door swung open and there she was. There was no 'she walked into the room'. She was just there. Standing in front of the dresser, an over-sized SHEILD t-shirt that might have once been one of Clint's hanging off her shoulders, loose black shorts on underneath it, hair hanging around her face in lazy red curls, wet from a late-night shower. Relaxed and casual and so stunningly beautiful it would have taken a lesser man's breath away. And really, did it matter if Clint took a moment or two before inhaling after she first appeared? No, no it didn't.

He didn't break the silence. He didn't know how, and that was the problem, wasn't it?

Instead, she did, reaching out her hands until they were both flat against the top of the dresser, bracketing his feet. Her body language all but screaming 'hello, hi, here I am, I'm not going to hurt you, I have no weapons, it's just me.'

"What are you doing." she asked him. And it wasn't really a question, was it?

"Hi Nat," he sighed, and look at that, sound. He dropped back off his heels so he was fully seated on the dresser, folding his legs underneath him, and slowly lowered his hands so they now ran parallel on either side of Natasha's, flattened palms-down on the smooth wood.

"Did you know that the eighth of August is National Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day?" Natasha delivered the information flatly, with a dry twist to the inflection that most people would miss. Most people weren't Clint Barton.

"Really?" Clint breathed, seeing the distraction and seizing it.

"Yes," Natasha didn't need to say it. She could have easily nodded, been as taciturn as ever. But she didn't. Clint was glad.

"That's messed up."

"Yes. Tony wanted to celebrate it by hiding zucchini in all our rooms. I was prepared to deal with the threat accordingly. Steve had a better contingency strategy. He simply waited until Tony was in the workshop on the seventh and made zucchini muffins. Steve hates zucchini."

Clint chuckled; it came out a dry croak.

"Bruce loves the muffins. He's addicted. He claims they calm The Other Guy down. I think they're health hazards and The Other Guy is afraid of food poisoning," this was also delivered with the same wry deadpan. If the conversation were judged on vocal intonation alone a listener might assume they were discussing something banal and mildly boring like the weather or Tolstoy (not that Clint would ever admit his dislike of Tolstoy to Natasha, for fear of violent death).

This time when Clint laughs it sounds more like actual humor.

"Tell me more about Zucchini Day," Clint asks. And dammit, he does not beg.

"Okay," Natasha agrees. And she stands there for another hour, hands flat on the top of the dresser Clint is still sitting on, staring up at him and telling him every stupid fact she knows about zucchinis in her dry, raspy, goddamn beautiful voice just to fill up the silence.

And with her sharp, subtle wit and taciturn turns of phrase she pushes back the smothering quiet that had threatened to consume Clint.

After time has slipped and slithered and whispered past the two of them, Natasha breaks her never-ending narrative to really look at Clint. There's no sappy staring-into-each-other's-eyes. There's no heat, no sex-crazed passionate eye-lock. There's no demanding, interrogating boring-into-your soul glare. She's just looking at him, seeing all the moving pieces and parts of Clint Barton and somehow that's deeper and more intimate than all of the above rolled into one.

"Ready to come down now?" And this one is a question, but it's a question she already knows the answer to. She saw it in him before it even floated to the surface of his conscious mind.

"Yeah," and he grins, cocky and at ease in a way he hadn't really been ever since…well, then. Clint doesn't really like to think about it much. It's one thing to joke about surviving mind-control when you're wrapped in the happy clatter-bang of your friends (and family, let's face it, they're more his family than anyone has ever tried to be). But it's another to think about it in the privacy of your mind where everything is soft and squishy and easily torn up by stray jagged thoughts of horrible, silent, blue-frosted times where nothing was yours not even you.

Natasha steps back and he jumps easily off of the dresser to land in front of her. He revels in the flex and catch of his own muscles and tendons. He likes the soft patter-thump of his feet sinking into plush carpet. He likes ordering his body to do something and it doing it and no one getting hurt.

Natasha stands very still, watching him. On anyone else he would call that sort of still attentiveness 'wary' maybe even 'afraid'. But not Nat. On her it's warm.

Clint makes as much noise as possible getting settled into bed. But when the lights are out and the silence begins to drape itself around him, once more trying to smother him in its cold blue embrace, a soft sound slices through it, neat and sharp as a stiletto blade in the night.

The rustle of blankets as Natasha slides into bed beside him.

Chest full of something warm and soft and probably dangerous (but that just makes it more fun, doesn't it?), Clint rolls over and wraps his arms around her. She threads her legs through his, fitting just right, just like she always has and always will. He buries his face in her cloud of red hair, resting his cheek in the crook where her neck meets her shoulder. Natasha's hands come up and her fingers tangle in his hair and stay there.

It isn't silent in Clint's room. And for that he is so very, very, embarrassingly grateful. He can hear three things: the whisper of his and Natasha's breathing, in and out, in and out, the thud-thud-thud of her blood running through her veins (no matter what anyone says, Natasha is not heartless), and the steady thrum of melody as Natasha hums a Russian folk tune so old Clint isn't entirely sure she knows where she learned it. Either he falls asleep or Natasha hums all night because Clint does not remember a single moment of silence in his room until morning.

No, Natasha is not heartless.

And the next day the irreverent good cheer Clint liberally douses his teammates with is a little less for show. And the cycle repeats, over and over and over again until there comes a morning when Clint wakes up and none of his optimistic and occasionally offensive attitude is fake.

He still wakes up with Natasha the day after that, though.

Author's Note: I love the Avengers so much. This piece was written largely as stress-relief, I don't normally write the Avengers, but I was in a mood and this idea sort of bludgeoned me over the head, demanding I write it. (for anyone for follows my other fics, I was honestly trying to update my other stuff when this ficlet accosted me).

Random fact time: August 8th is National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day, I did not make that up (unfortunately I was unable to celebrate it, but I like the unusualness of it enough to include it here).

If you read (and have the time to do so) please review, I do so love hearing from you lovely people!