That Which you Love || Clintasha One-Shots

He's Gone

Tony Stark awoke in the middle of the night to a scream. His sixth sense for danger kicked in and he quickly got out of bed and opened his room door. Stark Tower was silent at two in the morning and he crept around softly when he heard footsteps. Steve was behind him, followed by Bruce in the darkness. Thor was off-world, delivering Loki and the Tesseract to Asgard and away from Earth, hopefully forever. 

"Uh, anyone scream?" Tony asked them and the others shook their head immediately. It was silent as muffled sobs broke through the night from Natasha's room. The spy/assassin/Avenger/S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was secretive and hadn't smiled at all since moving into Stark Tower with the other members of the team. The only thing that they knew about her past was that she didn't want to talk about it. The others obviously knew where the sound was coming from and Steve carefully knocked on the door.

The crying stopped immediately and there was a soft sniffle as Natasha opened the door. She had red-rimmed eyes and looked like she hadn't had a moment of rest all night long. With a quick swipe of her hand, she brushed something away from her cheek and looked up them. "Uh, hey, guys," she stammered, suddenly unsure of herself. "Do you need something?" 

"Uh, are you okay?" Bruce asked. Natasha nodded quickly and went to shut the door, but Steve stopped it. A hint of anger flashed across her green eyes, but she stopped and allowed it. 

"You can tell us anything," Steve said kindly and she looked down. Natasha cleared her throat quickly and nodded again silently. 

"Nat?" Tony asked, trying out a new nickname for the assassin. That was the final straw for her. Natasha's eyes were fierce and her voice lethal as she spoke again. 

"Call me that again and I'll kill you," she replied coldly and her eyes glimmered with something in them and she slammed the door loudly and marched off into her room. Bruce's eyebrows raised in surprise as he began to walk back to his room, but was stopped when they heard another sound. 

Heart-wrenching sobs were sounding from Natasha's room, but Tony was not going anywhere near her again, especially not after the death threat from a nickname. Steve gestured for someone to see what was happening, but Tony immediately shook his head no, as well as Bruce. The Super Soldier sighed and walked off back into his room. 

The following morning, Natasha was silent as she ate her breakfast, and the biggest elephant in the room was not being spoken about. After a silent and icy morning, Natasha finally spoke as she grabbed her jacket and walked towards the doors. A silver necklace with an arrow pendant was at her throat and she said, "I'm going out." 

The silver elevator doors closed on her emotionless face as the usually stoic and cold woman was plagued by past memories of the person she had lost exactly three years ago. A tear slid down her cheek and she wiped it away as she exited Stark Towers and pulled her hood over her bright red hair.

"So are you here to kill me?" she asked, pointing the pistol at the man in front of her. Three arrows were stuck in the wall behind her, narrowly missing her head. Blood poured from a slice on her right arm made by a knife and  her mission was to kill this man. She would complete her mission. 

"Thought that was obvious," the man said. He was around her age with dirty blonde hair and grey eyes and wore a black uniform with English letters on it. A bow was in his hands, a quiver filled with arrows slung over his back and another loaded in the black weapon. Drops of dark red blood rolled down the side of his face and his arms were visibly bruised, but he was still ready to kill her. 

"Then finish the job. I'm not going back there. Kill me and I'll be finally free," she replied, fighting the control in the back of her mind for just a moment. Her fingers trembled on the trigger, and a voice in the back on her head urged her to finish the mission immediately.