Chapter Text
3 months before recapture
He stands in the shadow of a column, wishing there was a fan out here to control the temperature in this heat-containing metal structure. Not wanting to sweat through his newly purchased suit, of a shortened jacket and flat trousers creating the fresh and quite hot, if he were to admit to himself, look. The building itself is not breathtaking, he’s had higher expectations for something that is known around the world as the most romantic place in the universe. There is a small bar that focuses on serving champagne and a few tables filled in with happy couples. He’s been waiting here for over thirty minutes and his patience starts to run short. He’s about to grab his phone and check for any messages when the targeted audience steps into his view.
A man in his fifties walks towards the same viewpoint that every tourist before him walked up to. The woman dressed in a red dress, with a corresponding copper, shoulder length, wavy haircut steps in with him. The woman holds the man by the arm with one hand and slowly, seductively maneuvers her other one over the man’s biceps.
“Wow.” The woman exclaims. “You can see the whole of Paris from up here.” The man looks at her. Smiling. They walk around the place exploring the views, commenting on the other structures scattered around town, recognizing the ones they have already seen. The man in the suit steps out of the shadow and walks towards them. He isn’t surprised when the woman turns around with a gun pointed at him once he reaches them. He did try to sneak up on them from behind. Her small caliber pistol is at her hips, she smiles when she sees him.
“Long time no see Hawkeye.” She states. Not lowering the gun yet. “Looking good in that suit.” She claims. Hawkeye returns the smile.
“It was my lady’s purchase, I can’t take credit for that I’m afraid.” He replies. And it’s true. If it were his way, he would put on a simple blazer and call it a day, not knowing much about the clothing styles and the meaning behind them. But it mattered to her. “I thought that today’s occasion required something fancy to wear. I’m hoping to take my woman to dinner after this meeting.” The woman in front of him raises her eyebrows.
“Hawkeye.” The man at her shoulder acknowledges the man in the slim suit. When he saw him, he quickly let go of her hand and made a few steps back. Clint didn’t make a comment. Clint nods in his direction. “If you’re here, does that mean that the job is done?” Clint nods his head again.
“You’ve been followed by a man called Fabian Pakura and two of his assistants. They planned to assassinate you earlier today in the Louvre. I took care of them. You’re safe now.” Archer states. The man in front of him takes a few deeper breaths and proceeds to walk towards the view point, resting his hands on the railing.
“I’m not dead…” He states, clear relief in his voice. “I’m not dead.” He says again. They give him a moment. Waiting until it will properly sink in. After a few minutes he straightens up again and looks at the two people standing in front of him.
“Thank you very much for covering my back in those last few weeks Natasha. I had a really good time. Your presence was a charm.”
“I was only doing my job Nicolas.” She says with a smile on her face but no emotions in her voice. The man nods with understanding.
“Alright, you will get the money by transfer by the end of the day.” He states and tries to walk away. The woman steps in front of him. This time, a gun pointed at the French man.
“We did not want money Nicolas.” She says. Hand with the weapon unwavering. Clint tries not to smile seeing her in action.
“I will pay you with an equivalent of the worth of what you have asked for.” He states.
“No. You will pay us with what we asked for.” The woman says. They eye each other. Clint stands next to them but doesn’t intrude. This is Natasha’s specialty.
“Okay then.” The man responds after a minute. “You will receive it in the evening. Tell me what address to deliver it to.” The woman smirks at him.
“It’s in your right pocket Nicolas. I want it now.” The older man opens his eyes wider, his jaw drops. He touches his right pocket and takes a glance.
“How did you…”
“I was just making sure you keep your end of the bargain.” She claims.
“It was heavily guarded…”
“Clearly not heavily enough…”
“But you could have just... If you had it…” The man rubs his beard. “Why didn’t you just steal it?”
“Because we don’t steal from our contractors.” Barton interrupts both of them. Growing impatient. “Now, give it to us and leave.” And that’s what the man does. He pulls out a small, stick-like device and hands it to Clint. Archer accepts it and quickly places it in the inside pocket of his suit. He gets a millisecond of an urge to lower his gaze but it quickly passes. Instead he nods towards him, takes Natasha’s hand and starts walking away. They don’t leave the tower. But instead go to the lower level. They are not impressed by the second level. But staying on the upper one would remind them too much of work. Natasha suggests a quick exit strategy but he denies it asking if they can hang out here a bit longer. She’s holding the railings with both of her hands, he steps behind her and hugs her, resting his head on hers.
Birds are chirping in the distance. Slight wind tickles his face. It’s a peaceful day.
“What are you thinking?” The woman asks.
“That it’s pretty boring.”
“What’s pretty boring?”
“The Eiffel Tower.” He says and expands, “Every person I’ve ever spoken to made it seem like a breathtaking experience but it really isn’t. It’s not even that tall.” She laughs softly.
“Then why didn’t you want to leave? We can go somewhere else. I’ve heard they serve great pizza around the corner.” Natasha asks. Clint doesn’t respond at first. She doesn’t shift, letting him think and instead leans into him.
“That’s what free people do, isn’t it? They go to the tower, drink some champagne. They have this whole romantic thing planned out.” He feels her giggle.
“Yes that is true and do you know what they do next?” He doesn’t respond. “They propose.” Clint doesn’t respond.
“Would you like to be proposed to on an Eiffel tower?” He asks. He is met by silence. The woman he’s hugging isn’t smiling.
“Let’s go.” She coldly states, slipping out of his embrace she walks towards the stairs. He sighs and starts walking down behind her.
Most of the fancy, five starred restaurants operate on slavery. Clint once reserved a table for them in a place covered in renaissance paintings, and all was great, Natasha looked breath taken when she first walked into the room, not able to comprehend the talent it took people to cover the ceiling and the walls of the room in such complex paintings. Clint didn’t really care, he just wanted something good to eat. But seeing her smile so freely brightened his spirits up, made him want to read every book about the art in front of him.
Both of their smiles faded once they saw a group of slaves on display, frozen like a stone, in the main room. All holding intricate poses, covered in gray paint. Resembling paintings on the wall. Clint’s hand unknowingly shot up to massage his neck, free of the collar for quite some time. Phantom tightness appearing out of nowhere. Neither of them felt the taste of what was on their plate that day. From that point on, they both did an extensive read on all restaurants and discovered that the cheaper options are going to be better for their sanity.
He takes Natasha to a small food serving café, their fancy outfits standing out, but neither of them caring. Clint, classically, orders pizza. Natasha looks at him, as she always does, with a small amount of pity regarding the age of his taste buds. But she doesn’t say anything. She is not going to tell him what to eat. It’s not her place to do so. She instead orders Soupe à l’Oignon. The waiter takes their order and leaves them be.
“I like your copper pocket square.” She says whilst sipping the wine. She refers to the cloth in his suit. Clint blushes.
“I wanted it to match your hair.” He shyly says looking at the plate.
“I appreciate the effort,” Natasha responds. “I also appreciate your timing at the Eiffel tower.” Clint raises his eyebrows. “You got them at the Louvre. You could’ve grabbed us at the alley leading up to the tower or even at a hotel room we stopped at in between. But instead you waited.”
“I just wanted to…”
“Be romantic?” Clint looks down, not able to look her in the face, wishing the food would have already arrived so he would have something to do with his hands.
“That’s what free people do.” He whispers.
“No, that’s what free people wish someone would do for them. They rarely do it.” Natasha states. Her hand rests on his. He looks at it.
“Thank you.” She says. “It’s really sweet of you.” And Clint thought he couldn’t blush more. He slowly looks at her, leans over the table and touches her lips with his own.
The waiter brings in the food not much later, they sit back and focus on their meals. Clint continuously has to stop himself from swallowing the whole pizza in one go, used to it disappearing from in front of him.
“Before you escaped,” he asks her, “what was the one thing you wished you could do? That you felt jealous of the free people for doing every day, a thing you weren't allowed?". He asks her after they satisfied their hunger. They still have food on their plates but there isn't much left. Pain crosses her face. As if he struck her where it hurt. He notes it down but doesn’t comment on it.
“I think…” She starts. “I think I always wondered how it’s like to stay in bed the whole day. Without a fear of repercussions.” Clint nods in understanding.
“We’ve just got ourselves a plan for tomorrow.” He states enthusiastically.
“I don’t mean sex Clint.” She says scowling.
“I know.” He responds innocently. Natasha’s sight softens, she takes another sip of wine.
“But maybe I should have meant that” She responds. Lips quirked up. Clint laughs.
“Speaking of sex, ”Clint asks. “Was he any good?”
“Nicolas?”
“Yeah, anything to learn from the guy?” Natasha laughs. She continues laughing for a disturbingly long time, and Clint starts to regret asking the question.
“What?” He continues to look at her confused. The red haired woman wipes tears away from her eyes.
“Oh I’m sorry. I just…” And she starts laughing again.
“Okay, sorry for asking.” Archer sips on his beer.
“Clint.” He looks at her again. “No. There is nothing you could learn from a man who never had to serve anyone for a minute of his life. He thought that size was everything, came in a few thrusts and didn’t even think to ask me if I enjoyed it. Do not, and I repeat, do not ever compare yourself to these men. They know nothing about pleasing anyone but themselves. No, sex was not good and after having it once, I denied all of his future advances” She says. Clint feels relieved. She has a point. He’s not really a jealous type, she chose to be with him, sex with another person isn’t going to change that. It’s not like he’s a saint. He’d be more concerned about an emotional connection and bonding than a physical one. “And anyways, he rented a slave girl every night since.” Natasha states coldly afterwards. Clint’s smile fades.
“Did he treat them well?” He asks.
“He wasn’t a sadist.”
“That’s well in my book.”
“You don’t have high standards about being treated well.”
“Yeah, you’ve got to be realistic. One doesn’t rent a slave to make them a lover. When I was a bed slave, an hour without being smacked around was an hour I was happy with. Didn’t happen that often either.” He says taking another sip. “Wasn’t it the same with you?” He asks.
“I wasn’t really in rent by the hour, business. Spies are not going to find out much in an hour. It was more of a few weeks or months business and the only thing that mattered was if I got the information out of my target. I just tried to avoid being beaten at home, it was always worse than the one on the job.” Natasha responds. Clint takes a minute to answer.
“We’ve lived some pretty sad lives, haven’t we?” he asks, looking at his plate.
“Never again.” Natasha says holding up a glass of wine. Clint looks at her eyes, they are determined. He raises his beer bottle and clinks her wine glass with it.
“Never again.” He agrees.
“Shall we have a look at our purchase?”
“I was thinking the same.” Clint takes out a small device out of his pocket. It looks very unassuming. As unassuming as Natasha can be when she plays the innicent victim. “How does it work?” He asks her. She lays her hand out flat in front of him. Clint hands it to her without a question. Natasha opens a small flap at the front of the stick. Clint can see some numbers on it.
“You’ve got to set it with the correct frequency. States use a different frequency to Russia or Europe. And once you’ve set the frequency you lock it. And then you’ve got to set the registration number you want to interfere with.” She explains.
“Do we know the US frequency?”
“Yes. Do you know your registration number?”
“It’s been used as my name for all of the formative years of my life Nat, yes I know it.” She puts a number in, presses some buttons. “Would you rather let me put the reg number or do you want to do it yourself?” She asks unceremoniously. As if the question was insignificant. As if it held no weight. She lets him choose if he wants to share his identity with her. If he wants to open those wounds. He takes a moment to think but in the end feels like he wants her to know. Wants her to be there for him when, finally, they will close a very bad chapter of his life.
“One” he says out loud. She does not look up but her face softens. “Zero”, it’s difficult to say it out loud. Bringing the bad memories back, “six”. All of them, the programming he went through, dehumanization, the sheer humiliation of being stripped of his own name... “Five” would it really be it? Would he never hear those numbers again, was he truly and undeniably free? “Seven,” He finishes. Natasha stops typing. She gets up from the chair and slowly walks towards the toilets. He follows her. They choose a random cubicle, she points at a toilet making him sit on it. He does so without a question and bends his head forward, exposing his neck. This might be the last time he ever does it. No one to tell him to grovel for them, no one to put their collar on him, no one to read his chip. This is going to be it.
“Is it going to hurt?” He asks.
“You’re supposed to get an unpleasant sensation. Like an electric shock but not a strong one. We have to kill the frequency and demagnetize it. It’s gonna be itchy for the next few days. Grab my hand.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Grab my hand Clint” He does. She doesn’t ask him if he is ready or if he wants her to count to three. She places the device and triggers it. Once it’s done he is not going to be identifiable, he is going to be a dead man walking. The bounty hunters, government, everyone will believe that he died. The chip has controlled his life since he turned 11, since he became a slave. Having all of the information on him including his current owner. Unable to remove from the body, placed dangerously close to the spine. Disabling it would be the only way to make himself free, undetectable. And in order to do so one would need to have an illegally constructed devise, almost impossible to get. Freeing a slave seems unthinkable for most of the population.
He waits. Nothing happens. Five minutes pass and nothing happens. No electrocution, no itchiness, no tingling sensation. Both Clint and Natasha look at each other.
“Maybe I set it wrong. Give me your number again.” He does, not letting go of her hand. They try again. Nothing happens again. Natasha pulls out her phone, makes a few phone calls, double checks the country's code.
“I don’t understand, it should have worked.”
“Maybe it did? Maybe I just didn’t feel anything?”
“We are frying a device inside of your neck Clint, you were supposed to writhe in pain.” Natasha admits and throws it out there.
“You didn’t tell me that.” Clint meekly mumbles.
“So you’d stress? No Chance.” She explains.
“So it didn’t work?”
“No.”
“I am still, I can be still…”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand, I thought…”
“That’s why he did not want to give it to us. He had a fake one all along. That’s probably why he had people on his back.”
“He tricked us.”
“I can’t believe this.” Natasha doesn’t let go of his hand. She leans in on the cubicle's wall. They are both speechless. He’s been so close.
Natasha doesn't have a chip. The red room deals with the girls in a different matter. A matter that isn’t considered legal. They don’t need a proof of belonging or a scar or a tattoo or anything like that. Some girls react to code words, some to a serum, other girls to certain faces and voices, some to nothing. If a wrong girl is caught by an accident, tough luck, she’s killed. But every girl that ever became a black widow has one thing in common. They lack uterus. Natasha was marked for life in ways much worse than Clint can ever imagine.
“Tough shit.” He says after a while, “I’m still identifiable, it doesn’t change a thing. Not like you can do anything about your situation. We’ll suffer together.” He quickly tries to cheer up. It doesn’t matter. It doesn't make sense to mourn over a thing that could be. He still feels the sharp pain of disappointment in his chest but it will pass. Everything always passes.
“You don’t have to pretend that it’s fine,” Natasha responds. She is tense “I had a bad intel. I made a mistake. That’s all. We will find a device that works. A device that will grant you your freedom.” She says determined. Veins on her neck protruding, her breath fastened.
“It’s okay Tash really.”
“It’s not okay Clint!” She screams. “It’s not okay! Don’t. Don’t say that it’s okay when it’s not!” Her eyes fill with tears, they start flowing down her face uncontrollably. She shakes her head as if trying to get them to disappear. “It’s not fair.” She says. “It’s not fair.”
“Hey.” He starts, “Hey, we will figure it out. We will figure it out, Tash.”
“You asked me earlier what I dreamed of, as a slave girl.” She says. “My real wish, my wish that can never come true because I will always be marked, is to have a family. It is to have a husband and a child and… a life. That’s what I want. I don’t care about the rest. I don’t care about staying in bed for a day, or tourism, or good food, fancy clothes, any of that! I want a family.” She explains to him. Clint looks at her with understanding. He squeezes her hand. “We can’t fix me Clint. But I thought that... I thought that we could give you a chance. To have that life. To not be stained.” She professes. “To give you a chance to have a kid. With no slavery dangling over your head, you could have a kid that would never be sent to slavery alongside you. Can you imagine that?” Clint gets up from the toilet and hugs her. Not really sure what to say.
“I love you so much Nat.” He whispers. “I love you so much.”
“I wish you could have proposed to me on that Eiffel tower. I wish we could be a family.” Natasha weeps out. “I wish we could be untraceable.”
“It sucks.” Clint says after Natasha calmed down a bit. “It sucks it didn’t work and it bothers me. I’m not gonna lie, it was very disappointing.” Clint says. He tries to wipe some of her tears off of her face and then kisses her cheeks. “ But disabling that chip wouldn’t get me what I want.” He says. “Because I want you, and I’d rather choose you over any other family in the world.” Clint puts his hand inside of his suit, he searches through a pocket. He pulls out a Swarovski box, covered in velvet casing.
“I tried to do it on the tower. I wanted to do it before we tried decoding my… but it didn’t seem like the right moment.” Natasha looks at him, red faced, makeup smudged.
“What are you doing?” She asks him.
“I had this small speech prepared and everything. Like people in the movies do. And I even thought of going on one knee in front of you, damn I’d go on two knees for you. But I don’t think any of these things are going to work at the moment. Nat. I want a normal life. I want you. And if we have to be together on the run? Not ideal but so be it.” He opens the box. Inside is a very delicate, oval cut, rose gold ring, with a diamond inside. Natasha freezes. Clint freezes with her, too scared to breathe.
“What?” She eventually asks. “We can’t…”
“I think we’ve been told that we can’t do things too many times, Nat. I think it’s time for us to decide what we can and cannot do. I know it’s cheesy, and I know as hell that I shouldn’t have done it in a cubicle, in a public toilet that stinks like someone just had a shit. But we’ve both just had a moment. It’s not like in the movies, I don’t think that free folk do it this way. But it seemed right. So…” Natasha thinks for a moment.
“You’re proposing to me in the public bathroom.” She says with a serous face. Clint cringes. He understands the ridiculousness of this. But after a moment Natasha starts laughing. He joins in on the joke.
“You can’t get more Clint Barton proposal than this, can you?” He asks her after a moment. She takes the box into her hands and looks at the ring.
“You know…” She says, “You could’ve given me a gummy ring and I would've said yes. When you asked about it on the tower... I didn’t think… I didn’t know… I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. It gave us this moment.”
“I’m really sorry we didn’t manage to disable the chip Clint.”
“Let’s not think about it right now. Let’s think about this ring on your finger.” Natasha smiles. The tears froze in her eyes.
“You know, I’ve gotten proposed to a couple of times when I was undercover.”
“Have you?”
“Yes but it was always fake. It was always disappointing.” She puts the ring on her finger. “Neither of them could ever compare to this moment” She says enthralled. Clint can’t stop looking at her. He never imagined getting this lucky. Not only to be in a position where he can propose to someone but also to propose to someone who gets how it makes him feel. He closes the distance between their lips, giving her all the passion he has.
“You know what?” He breaks for a moment.
“What?” She asks and immediately kisses him back. Too impatient to wait for an answer.
“When… you’ve ordered… onion… soup… I was worried… I'd need to… wait… before kissing you.” He jokes in between their smooching. Natasha laughs.
“Oh, did you, now? Is my breath so bad after all?” She asks and pulls away slightly.
“No.” He responds. “It’s delectable.” He dreamily states and to prove it he takes a few deeper breaths. Natasha laughs and kisses him again.
“Let’s go and spend that day in bed.” She says and leads him out of the cubicle, out of the restaurant and back to their hotel room.