[Clint has no way to know what's going through this kid's mind. He doesn't even know where they are--clearly not somewhere physically different, and there's a thought in the back of his mind that if it's the case that they're just out there in the party with their eyes closed having some kind of psychic heart to heart, anyone could just come up and stab them in the back--but in this moment, those aren't important questions.
Whatever it is she thinks, feels, she feels it deeply.
Clint doesn't cry easily. There's just enough distance from the event and now that he can think about her, talk about her, without finding himself turning into a soggy mess every time.
This girl whose name he doesn't even know holds him as tight as her tiny arms can muster, cries for a woman she has only briefly seen, never known in any real way. This girl who saw him in pain and decided to protect him, to bring him somewhere she is absolutely certain is safe. This girl who is a stranger but has managed to skim her fingers along the surface of his pool of grief and love.
And maybe there are only a few place and people Clint thinks of as truly safe, but he will take her at her word, this child with an enormous and bleeding heart. He is gentle when his arms come up around her. Quiet when his breath shudders and hitches. Lets the weight of the moment pull him down before he allows himself to let it go again.
He knows what Natasha did. He knows why. And he is eternally grateful that she understood that a red ledger and a violent history don't make someone unforgivable, a lesson he had tried to impress on her in their years together and a lesson he clearly hadn't thought to apply to himself. She loved him, and his family, and her sister, and everyone the team had lost, so much that she would not, could not allow him to throw away the chance to see them again and learn to heal. It had seen him at his lowest, with only the barest threads of hope blowing in tatters in the wind, damn near everything he ever loved lost and gone. The understanding in Steve's misty eyes, the disbelief in Bruce's, the desperation in Thor's voice.
Wanda had insisted, at the funeral that was ostensibly Tony's but also felt deeply like Natasha's too, that she knew it had worked. Whatever had happened to her soul, wherever it had gone, she knew. And that was going to have to be enough for him to work to do better, be better, be worthy of the permanent sacrifice to grant him another chance at living instead of just existing.
When he eases back, the tears have stopped actively flowing, and he reaches for her face to rub a thumb under one of her eyes to come away lightly black.]
I don't even have makeup to smudge, but I bet I look worse than you do right now.
[It's a way to show he feels better, a little more grounded, a little more solid. Make light fun of himself.]
no subject
Whatever it is she thinks, feels, she feels it deeply.
Clint doesn't cry easily. There's just enough distance from the event and now that he can think about her, talk about her, without finding himself turning into a soggy mess every time.
This girl whose name he doesn't even know holds him as tight as her tiny arms can muster, cries for a woman she has only briefly seen, never known in any real way. This girl who saw him in pain and decided to protect him, to bring him somewhere she is absolutely certain is safe. This girl who is a stranger but has managed to skim her fingers along the surface of his pool of grief and love.
And maybe there are only a few place and people Clint thinks of as truly safe, but he will take her at her word, this child with an enormous and bleeding heart. He is gentle when his arms come up around her. Quiet when his breath shudders and hitches. Lets the weight of the moment pull him down before he allows himself to let it go again.
He knows what Natasha did. He knows why. And he is eternally grateful that she understood that a red ledger and a violent history don't make someone unforgivable, a lesson he had tried to impress on her in their years together and a lesson he clearly hadn't thought to apply to himself. She loved him, and his family, and her sister, and everyone the team had lost, so much that she would not, could not allow him to throw away the chance to see them again and learn to heal. It had seen him at his lowest, with only the barest threads of hope blowing in tatters in the wind, damn near everything he ever loved lost and gone. The understanding in Steve's misty eyes, the disbelief in Bruce's, the desperation in Thor's voice.
Wanda had insisted, at the funeral that was ostensibly Tony's but also felt deeply like Natasha's too, that she knew it had worked. Whatever had happened to her soul, wherever it had gone, she knew. And that was going to have to be enough for him to work to do better, be better, be worthy of the permanent sacrifice to grant him another chance at living instead of just existing.
When he eases back, the tears have stopped actively flowing, and he reaches for her face to rub a thumb under one of her eyes to come away lightly black.]
I don't even have makeup to smudge, but I bet I look worse than you do right now.
[It's a way to show he feels better, a little more grounded, a little more solid. Make light fun of himself.]