Chapter Text
She opened her eyes to see the black clad assassin in her room. He was seated in the chair in the corner, a hard sided case on the floor at his feet. He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor, motionless.
Natasha sat up and mirrored his position.
“How did the op go?” she asked quietly.
“It’s done. I got all of them,” he said, still staring at the floor. “The one that did that to you, he went last.”
She nodded, then looked at him more closely. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Debriefed, showered, got hungry so I grabbed a cheeseburger before I came here. You didn’t wake up when I came in, so I figured you needed the sleep. Just been sitting here, thinking.”
“Anything good come of that?” she asked. Sometimes when she asked that, her tone would be teasing. In the cold dark hours after midnight, the question was sincere.
“I killed six people, Nat. Then I came back and ate a cheeseburger.” His eyes met hers. “What the hell does that say about me?”
She reached out and grabbed his arm, pulled until he sat down on the bed next to her. He kept his gaze on the floor.
She looked at him. “That you thought those deaths were justified.”
“Who the hell am I to make those kinds of decisions?” he asked.
“That’s why we don’t. There are whole teams who make these decisions, you know that,” she chided him.
“But in the end, it’s my call. My hand on the string. And I put an arrow into every one of them, and…it’s not that I enjoyed it. But I just…didn’t care. It’s a sense of satisfaction, that I got the job done. That’s it, that’s all I feel for them. Shouldn’t I feel something, for killing six people?”
She thought he was asking the question of himself, more than her, but she still answered him. “Are there deaths you’ve felt something else for?”
She sat quietly, while he took a long moment to collect his thoughts. When he spoke again, she could hear the cadences of his youth, the not-quite-an-accent that he sometimes had in his private moments. She knew he was back in his past.
“This one day, when I was fifteen, we were settin’ up the big top. It was one of our longer hauls, and we’d been drivin’ all night, pulled in just after sunrise, some town in Missouri. Even though it was mornin’, the grass was dry and the ground was baked hard, dust risin’ up at every step. No breeze – you know how it can get in summer. Everyone was kinda cranky and tired, and wantin’ to just get their jobs done so we could get some sleep.”
He shifted his weight.
“Sally and Angela and Marcela are all rolling out the canvas, and Marconi and Gary and me are gettin’ the hammers and poles and stakes. Everyone else is settin’ up caravans and booths, Elizabeth and Grizzie are settin’ up the horse corrals, things we’ve all done a thousand times. Normal settin’ up day for us. Darko and Svana bring up the elephants, like always. Marlene starts wanderin’ off, and Darko just reaches out with the elephant hook and pulls her back, like normal.”
He looked around the room, not meeting her eyes.
“Only she doesn’t react like normal. She doesn’t come. She swings around and faces him. He’s talkin’ to her, but there’s so much noise around that I can’t hear what he’s sayin’. Bangs and rattles of poles bein’ pulled out of the trucks, someone must be in the wrong spot in the Back Yard because horns are blarin’, Marconi’s yellin’ at Mike ‘cause he’s sittin’, I’m comin’ up with the stakes.”
“It’s all normal stuff, yeah? Stuff that’s happened hundreds of times. I don’t know what it was, I don’t…”
Clint took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, deeper, his words chosen carefully.
“Marlene turned to walk off, and Darko moves up with the hook again. And she reaches out with her trunk and just…grabs him. She pulls him up in the air and…she slams him down on the ground. And again and again.”
Clint was staring at the far wall. She was certain he only saw that hot, dusty morning.
“There must have been noises, then, but when I remember it, it’s like this silent film I’m watchin’. No yellin’, no horns, no bangs and rattles. I was meters away, I can’t… there’s no way I…” He looked down. “When I remember it, the only thing I can hear is the thud of his body hittin’ the ground.”
He went quiet for a long moment, until some conversation in the hallway outside intruded, shaking him out of his reverie.
“I used to share my bread with Marlene. I brought buckets of water for her, helped bring her hay. There were nights when I slept on her back.”
Light from the digital clock on the nightstand glistened on his cheeks.
“She threw Darko, and he just spun through the air like a rag doll. She trumpeted, and just came runnin’ at us. Mike ducked under the truck he was sittin’ in front of, and she ran past him. She hit Gary with her trunk, and he just…crumpled. She put her foot down on him, and … pushed. Then she looked around and went after someone else.”
“I started runnin’ for the prop trailer, while everyone is scatterin’, tryin’ to get out of her way. I grab my bow, and my quiver of hunting arrows, because I know there’s no way one arrow is bringing her down, not with the bow I’m usin’. People nowadays take elephants with one arrow, but they’re pullin’ over 80 pounds. I was shootin’ 40 at most.”
“And then…then I run towards all of the screamin’.”
“I came up behind her. Grizzie was on top of a truck, and Marlene had her head down, pushin’ on the front of the truck, pushin’ it backwards. I was usin’ another one of the big trucks as cover, so I stepped just enough out to sight, nocked and drew and put an arrow as deep into her side as I could.”
“She spun towards me, but I was already duckin’ back behind my truck. I ran down along it, but I can hear her catchin’ up to me. I can hear her feet and I can feel the ground shakin’. I don’t know if that was real or not, but I would have sworn it was true that day.”
“I dropped to the ground and rolled under the truck, all the way under the trailer, came up in the row in between the lines of vehicles. Got to my feet and started runnin’ faster than I’ve ever run in my life. I get a bit of a head start, then she must have figured out what I did. I hear her trumpet and she’s comin’ after me again.”
He started bouncing his leg up and down.
“I turn around and put an arrow into her trunk, but it doesn’t stop her at all, and it slows me down a lot. I dropped and rolled under another semi trailer, but she’s got this figured out, now. She starts pushin’ on the trailer. I didn’t even have time to stand up, just did this scrabblin’ run on all fours towards the front of the truck.”
“I’m just clearin’ the cab when the whole trailer comes crashin’ over, and she’s pushin’ on the bottom, just … if she’d been human I’d say she was yellin’ with rage. I come around the front of the truck, and I’ve got a side view. Lined up the shot, put an arrow in her eye.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “She…I don’t know how to describe the sound she made. I’m thinkin’, this will make her run, she’ll run off and I can get someone to drive a truck for me so I can try to finish it. But she doesn’t run. She turns so she can see me with her good eye.”
“I’m out of room to run. We’re in the carnival midway, with trailers and booths half set up all around us. There’s supposed to be an aisle perpendicular to the one I’m in, but it’s a dead end, with a truck that wasn’t in the right spot yet. I’ve got nowhere to run, nothin’ I can climb under or over that she can’t push over faster than I can make it.”
His breathing increased, and she could see sweat on his brow, his hands clenching and unclenching, looking for his bow.
“I turn around, and there she is. She’s standin’ there, maybe seven meters or so away from me. She’s lookin’ for me with her good eye, and just as she sees me, I take that shot and put an arrow in it.”
“We’re in this box made of vehicles, and it’s maybe ten meters or so square, which sounds big until you put an elephant into it. I duck and run along, just to not be in the same spot I was before. I’ve only got two arrows left, two arrows to take down an elephant, and I’m shootin’ a bow with twisted limbs that I bought at a yard sale.”
“She pushes over a concession stand, one that sells cotton candy and popcorn. Everything smells like that fake butter and sugar, and it’s so quiet, all you can hear is both of us breathin’ hard. She fans her ears out and turns to face me. I try to hold my breath, but then I hear Carson.”
“He’s squeezed between two of the trailers, it’s a tight fit, even for him. He’s got no chance of makin’ it out quickly, and he’s got one leg that gives him trouble. He can walk just fine, but he can’t run. And there he is, callin’ out to her.”
“She turns to face him, and I’ve got the shot. I’m already runnin’ up to her, and when I’m maybe three meters away I put one into her lungs. She flinches, and it gives me enough time to put my last arrow into her heart.”
His voice catches. “It’s not enough to drop her.”
“I manage to make it past her, and head back down the aisle we came up. I’m yellin’, tryin’ to pull her away from Carson. She follows me most of the way before she stumbles and hits this truck. I can hear it, so I turn, and I can see her just sort of lean on it, then slide down.”
“I kinda slid down too, ended up on my ass in the dirt, lookin’ at her. I stayed there with her while she bled out. Everyone came up behind me, stood there, and we all watched her die.” His voice stuttered to a halt.
She took his hand in hers. He squeezed it, as if it was a lifeline. “I killed six men yesterday, and felt nothing. But I still cry over that elephant.”
She wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I think that was the first death you regretted. I know it’s not the last. I know you, Clint. You aren’t an indiscriminate killer, not any more. You don’t deal death lightly.”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “I thought you were going to die, Nat. I thought I’d lost you.”
She leaned against him. “I did, too. But I heard your voice, and I had something to come back to.” He relaxed his grip, but didn’t let her go.
For long moments, their breathing was the only sound in the room.