Title: The Screams All Sound the Same

Author: Syntyche

Rating: T, for adult situations, language, slight non-con, violence. In other words, pretty dark in places.

Revised: 10/14 … just cleaned it up a bit. Added a bit more Steve and Bruce, took out some of the really gratuitous language, fixed some of the choppiness but not all of it, I think, though I tried. Little things like that.

Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own what Marvel does, so anything recognizable is probably theirs. Some of the concepts come from Fraction's Hawkeye series, which I have a love/hate relationship with because Clint is a BAMF … except that he needs saving by a teenaged girl in pretty much every issue. Damn it, Kate. Siiiigh.

Disclaimerx2: The Screams All Sound the Same is by Of Monsters and Men and features alternating lines by a male and female singer. It grew on me after it launched the Muse that's writing this story.

Reviews: Please review! It's extremely encouraging, and often affects how much gratuitous whump and/or naked Clint shows up. XD I also like to whump Tony and to a lesser extent Steve and Bruce, so remember that your reviews make a difference there and comment accordingly, nay or yea, for those extra bits of whump and more. ;)

Okay. That is all. Please (hopefully) enjoy! I'm pretty sure that Clint gets whumped in every single chapter, so just a head's up on that. If it's your thing, great, if not ... I'm ... sorry...? ;)

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The Screams All Sound the Same

By: Syntyche

One: This Old and Empty House

Her: I don't like walking around this old and empty house…

Natasha Romanoff often finds herself with the occasion to wonder exactly how smart these guys think they are: that they, miraculously using only their woefully ill-equipped brains to perform her interrogation, have actually fooled themselves into believing that they've managed through spectacular bumbling sloppiness and sheer dumb luck to capture and extract useful information from the notorious Black Widow.

It's actually offensive to the Avenger on so many levels that more people aren't terrified of her reputation as the Black Widow and outright turn down the job of attempting to capture her. And yet these … dumbasses - she can't assign the ignoble moniker without hearing Barton's derisive scoffing the apt descriptor - think that they have been somehow gifted and clever enough to bring down one of the top assassins in the world without a hitch. It's a thought that amuses Natasha despite her earlier sneer, in a condescending good job, look what you big boys did all by your little selves! sort of way.

Even as they attempt to interrogate her she smirks at them with lips painted crimson, because thugs like these geniuses would rather paw at her through her little red dress than even attempt any sort of useful questioning techniques. Natasha tilts her head regrettably at the man standing before her, almost wishing that he were going to live long enough that she could give him a few pointers out of pity, but she has a job to do, and despite whatever these men might think, Natasha always has the upper hand.

And, after all, this evening's entertainment via comprehensive and complete ass-kicking will be provided not just by herself, although she could of course do the job fine alone, so she resolves to wait a few more minutes for her partner as promised.

A jolt of pain startles Natasha from her bored and wandering thoughts and she glances down in annoyance to see that the bastard before her has literally prodded at her with a glowing hot poker. Amateur, the Widow sniffs disdainfully. He obviously has no idea how to torment someone effectively, and the Russian assassin is even afraid of fire if the circumstances are right … in fact, the shifting embers in the hearth attract much more of her guarded attention than moron #1...

Deliberately Natasha regroups and refocuses on her surroundings: the creaking of the old roof as the wind blows across the patchy shingles, the loose rattling of dirty glass in weathered wooden windowpanes, the clawing branches of overhanging trees scraping against the side of the abandoned two-story lodge that somehow is nowhere near the pristine romantic getaway her lovely hosts had promised her in sniggering tones. All of these sounds she pulls into her mind to resettle her mental balance, and once ready she transfers her irritated look back to the blunt, overeager face staring at her with a leer and Natasha wonders if Barton would mind terribly if she started without him.

And then the sound of shattering glass fills their ears and suddenly Barton's here, smashing through the east window, rolling into the center of the room and rising to his feet as he tosses his jacket back from protectively covering his grinning face. Natasha sighs, wishes he wouldn't do that because she's told him countless times with a sardonic roll of her green eyes that one of these days he's really going to hurt himself with his overly dramatic entrances, but she supposes it's the carnie in him because he just gives her a cocky shit-eating grin and a shrug, and Natasha knows with a well-hidden fondness that Clint loves the ridiculously surprised looks on the faces of their targets when they realize that holy-shit-motherfuckin' Hawkeye has shown up to literally crash their party.

The SHIELD agents sync effortlessly and make quick work of the half-dozen or so thugs who may have actually all pissed themselves simultaneously when a clearly insane man wielding a weapon from the Paleolithic era came hurtling through the second storey window, and when it's over Natasha shrugs off the remainder of her bindings that aren't wrapped around the throat of moron #1 and greedily embraces her partner to kiss him fiercely. Clint looks at her in surprise, laughs, calls her a trollop and a tease and stalks away to scout the rest of the lodge. He's barely broken a sweat at their exertions, and the way his fitted leathers cling lovingly to his sculpted musculature catches Natasha's breath huskily. She easily admits - to herself - that she could look at his ass for hours. She's not as ready to confess that she actually did once, on an op where he'd lain immobile on a balcony across from his target's window half the night, waiting patiently for the right shot.

They're not lovers. They have too much to risk for that.

But that doesn't mean that Natasha doesn't want it sometimes.

She thinks, in quieter moments she rarely allows, that Barton might even go for it, the relationship thing, thinks they might have even been close to that particular cliff before Clint had gotten shipped off to the desert, before the jaw-dropping horror of Manhattan and Loki and monsters and mind control, but if her partner was habitually and stubbornly reserved before, he's almost unreachable now. It's ironic, really, that all the time Clint has been forced to spend talking about what had happened - and he'll keep talkinguntil SHIELD's psych department is satisfied and the World Security Council gets off his back for something he couldn't have prevented - has made him more withdrawn than before, and although he laughs with Stark and converses amiably with Banner and relentlessly pranks Steve and Thor for their amusing lack of technological comprehension, the archer still keeps his own cheap apartment in Bed-Stuy, still politely turns down participating in nearly all of Stark's continual attempts at team-bonding extravaganzas, and repeated offers of a free room in Stark Tower.

Clint's drifting farther away, intent on silently working through his own issues, and it's exasperating and a little hurtful for the woman he helped sort herself out that he doesn't seem to want her to be there for him. Natasha gets the loner thing, she really does, but it doesn't seem at all fair that he should be able to work his way past her defenses to help put her back together once but refuses to let her do the same for the partner she's grown rather attached to.

It's also frustrating for Natasha, as the Black Widow is used to taking what she wants. Clint is so close, so touchable, but she can't help feeling like she'll break him if she's not careful. It's an odd kind of fragility that he carries now, buried deep under layers of his grim, sarcastic I've-got-this attitude.

The small lock she's been expertly picking even while her thoughts wander clicks and opens, and Natasha rocks back on her heels with a satisfied smile as she slides her lockpicks free. Inside the black satchel is a sheaf of papers that Natasha retrieves with gloved hands; she scans the information quickly and nods in approval as she sees that it confirms what SHIELD already suspected about this seemingly-small time operation not being quite as low-key as they appear. Fury has already pegged her to follow where this intel leads - 'follow' meaning observe, infiltrate, take down. Which means, she already knows, that she's off to some little town-that-time-forgot, where pies are cooling on windowsills covered in red-checkered dishtowels and everyone knows everyone. She hates those kinds of places and wishes Barton would be assigned along with her - or even Steve, who would haplessly and guilelessly blend in even a little better than the archer, and Cap wouldn't be acting - but Clint's part in this particular job is done for now. He already has his next assignment lined up: protecting Stark during some cushy conference in Switzerland, a detail that amuses both the archer and the inventor greatly. Natasha not-so-secretly suspects the boys are gleefully looking at it as an opportunity to cause a little trouble on SHIELD's dime.

The newly scorched skin across her thigh pulls painfully when she climbs to her feet and as Natasha looks around, brow furrowed, sunlight streams in the broken windows, igniting patches of the wooden floor in a brilliant orange glow. Something about the way the light from the setting sun dances and flickers across the floorboards tightens the assassin's chest anxiously, and coupled with her fresh burns it flashes her back to memories she's buried so deep she should never have to encounter them again. But here they are, licking at her brain like slowly building tongues of fire -

Fire! the voice in her mind screams, Run, run, run!

But she can't move.

She's rooted to the spot.

The sun sinks deeper into the horizon and the orange glow comes closer.

"Barton," she growls in a hiss through clenched teeth. "Clint!"

Barton is beside her in an instant, his heavy black boots thumping across the old floor as he slings his bow over his shoulder in a smooth, well-practiced motion. "Nat?"

He almost only calls her Nat when he's concerned, and just that little trigger helps pull her more back to herself, back to the present and away from the screams of her devastating and horrible past that even SHIELD's attempts at remaking most of her mind can't quite cover completely. Natasha shakes her head. "I can't … I … "

Clint immediately sees the terror in her hooded eyes, feels the slim, rigid arm under his callused hand trembling beneath his lightly grounding grasp.

"It's okay, Natasha," he says calmly, his voice pitched soothing and low. Clint's quiet drawl always manages to reach her on a level no one else can, and Natasha feels her breathing slowly start to calm.

"You've got this," Clint says gently, in a murmur that barely stirs her red hair but she hears perfectly. "Natasha. You got this."

Natasha swallows hard, focuses on her partner's voice and the familiarity of his body pressed against hers. With a strangled gasp she buries herself against the archer's chest, burrowing into his solidly reassuring warmth. "You got this, Natasha," he says again, the litany familiar and she slowly comes back, pressed against his strong shoulder, and Clint tightens his grip carefully, adding, "And I've got you."

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Him: So hold my hand, I'll walk with you, my dear…

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Six weeks later, the assembled Avengers - minus Thor and Natasha - are sitting around Tony's huge common room going over 'mission reports' - meaning that Clint is covering a grin while Tony regales a wide-eyed Bruce and a slightly aghast Steve with details of their exploits in Switzerland: it turns out that 'trouble' doesn't even begin to cover the damage, and Fury has strictly forbidden Barton from being assigned to any more of Tony's security details any time in the next hundred years or so.

The elevator pings innocently and Natasha strides into the room, glancing at each of the men in turn. Clint offers a genuine smile, pleased to see her; Steve and Bruce nod politely; and from where he's leaning against the bar Tony gives a half-bow that's somehow both gracious and slightly mocking.

"Well," Stark announces, lifting his drink in a welcome-home toast. His glass has been filled and emptied several times by now, and the mostly melted ice cubes rattle at the bottom as he moves with extra flourish. "The fair Natasha has returned to us - "

Natasha calmly produces one of her pistols, and fires three rounds into Steve's chest.

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