lxtrodectusism:

For years now, there had always been ONE person that she could
depend on when it came to honesty and that had been him. The
business they were in, it didn’t offer up the most honest of men
and women but for a reason that she had never been sure of; he
had been honest with her from the day that he’d brought her in.
She never had to ask him if he was being honest with her and
yet – here they were, in an all too familiar setting and she couldn’t
bring herself to LOOK at him for longer than necessary.

She wanted to believe the apology that she had seen in his eyes
and yet she couldn’t. She hated that.

“Are you? SORRY? If you were, you would have said something
to someone – anyone, but you DIDN’T. You’ve been lying for –

We tell each other everything, or I thought we did. I’m supposed
to worry about you, that’s what FRIENDS do.”

When she pulled herself to her feet, she moved to the small window
 in the door to look out – she didn’t need to see them to know that
there were guards posted nearby. While a stay in Medical had been
prevented, she only had so much pull. “You thought you caught a BUG,
do you even HEAR yourself? You were making excuses even then
because you knew that it wasn’t something simple – you’ve been
hiding it and if today hadn’t happened…”

She turned then, her arms crossed over her chest to put up a physical
wall between the two of them. She wouldn’t leave him on his own, she
couldn’t do that – not to him. “After what happened before – the second
you suspected something, you should have TOLD me or told SOMEONE.
This could have been PREVENTED.”

“I don’t know if I can help you.” She swung an arm in the direction of the
 door. “I was barely able to convince them to put you here instead of having
you strapped down to a bed in Medical – this isn’t something that can be
ignored anymore.” This time, her arms fell to her sides and her shoulders
slumped as though the weight of the ENTIRE world had just fallen on them
( and if felt like it had ). “What if it hadn’t been ME you had run into? What
if it was someone that couldn’t fight you off, what then? Clint, you would
have been –"

The words trail off and she lowers her gaze to the ground. That was a
thought she hadn’t let herself think because she HAD been there to stop
him, but there was a lingering this time in her thoughts.

                   “How do I know you’re not LYING now?”

   Honesty was something Clint valued greatly, though in varying amounts
   depending on who he was with. Very, very RARELY did he ever outright
   lie, at least to his friends and allies. Altering the truth or leaving out certain
   facts, yes; it was a necessity at times. No one was completely honest all
   of the time, to anyone; not even Steve fucking Rogers. People just didn’t
   WORK that way; the world didn’t work that way. And no, Clint had never
   told Natasha everything; they were both spies after all, assassins. Loners.
   They were secretive and internalized, and there were some things that even
   they kept to their chests. It wasn’t out of a lack of trust. There was just no
   NEED, with a mutual awareness that whatever either of them didn’t share,
   it wouldn’t change what they did share: a very powerful, deep bond.

   And that was what the archer had violated. But he’d done it for her; for
   everyone. For the team, for SHIELD, for even himself.

      “M’sorry tha’ I did wha’ I felt I had t’do. I felt, out of all th’SHITTY
      fuckin’ decisions I had before me, it was th’BEST one.

      Friends don’ tell each other everythin’, Nat– y’know this, I
      know this. We all ‘ave our secrets, th’skeletons in our closets
      tha’ we don’ share wit’ anyone. We’ve never ‘xpected everythin’,
      jus’ trust, ‘n–”

   His own words SMACKED him right in the face before he even finished.
   Natasha had deserved to know; he KNEW that, and the thought pierced
   him like a sharp stab of glass. She was his fucking best friend, the only
   one he really, truly trusted, and she deserved to know– FUCK everything
   else he thought or worried about. And he had been too panicked, too scared,
   too ashamed to tell even her. In his vulnerability, in his fear of being so
   exposed and out of control of himself, Clint stopped trusting everything and
   everyone. Now they stopped trusting him.

      “Goddamn it, I jus’… I wan’ed t’PROTECT you. After–,” he swallowed
      thickly, throat clenching, “…after th’Helicarrier incident, ‘n then learnin’
      this shit wasn’ gone, I– I was so scared, so fuckin’ terrified of it
      happenin’ all over again, tha’ I migh’ actually…”

   ‘Kill you.’ Even the thought rang in his ears like something so WRONG, so
   utterly blasphemous, and yet beneath the surface, underneath the normal
   ‘him’, Barton could feel the excited flutter of something else, of that alien
   presence that just wanted to break his friend in half and let her _{l e a k} all
   over the goddamn floor like a morbid oil painting—

      “I thought distance was safer, fer both of us. ‘N I didn’ wan’ ya t’SEE
      me, not like tha’, not again. Not you.”

   His emotions were a hazardous mess, a TOXIC chemical mixture and
   something bubbling and churning within him, just burning his insides
   and threatening to ^{S P I L L} everywhere. But his face refused to show it,
   though those stormy blues betrayed him easily enough to someone who
   knew him well. The archer scoffed, though; when she said that if he told
   someone, it could’ve been prevented.

      “Prevented? How? By LOCKIN’ me up, like some fuckin’ psycho
      – like th’bastard who put this thing in m’head?? By strappin’ me
      _down again, puttin’ me behind bars, feedin’ me DRUGS ‘til I can
      no longer move or speak or think or BREATHE—”

   Before he realized it, Clint had pushed himself off the bed and was standing,
   glaring at the redhead, and his voice had raised, ^higher, and ^higher, from a low
   growl to almost a yell, almost DISTORTED and so unlike the Clint Barton
   everyone knew– until he stopped himself and just stood there, in stunned,
   poisoned silence. He could hear the hard SLAM of the door, a warning
   from the guards posted outside, to calm himself; and he could feel that sick,
   HUNGRY pulse in his mind; wanting to fight, again. Finally, the hawk let out
   a shuddering, breathless sigh, and collapsed in a seat back on his bed, arms
   hanging limp at his sides, back facing Natasha.

      “…NO ONE can help me. I can barely help me. D’ya ‘ave any damn
      idea wha’ I’ve done, Nat?” No, of course she doesn’t, you bloody idiot.
     You kept this a secret, remember? Even from her; your best friend.

      “Precisely fer tha’ reason. As soon s’I realized, tha’ th’thing hadn’
      fuckin’ gone away, y’know wha’ I did? I prepared. I planned. I was
      s’cautious as any SHIELD agent could possibly be. Every nigh’
      I slept by CUFFIN’ myself t’th’fuckin’ bed. If I felt like I might lose
      it, I blocked m’self in; I took drugs t’knock m’self out, or I used
      a wall, a pan, anythin’. I QUARANTINED m’self, ‘Tasha. It was
      goddamn torture, not jus’ doin’ it, but in silence too– but fuck, I don’
      regret it, I never regretted it, because th’thought of hurtin’ anyone
      else was even more painful.

      ‘N believe me, I wan’ed… I wan’ed t’tell you, t’tell everyone, so badly,
      so fuckin’ badly, it HURT. I almost did too; so many times, I came
      so, SO close t’spillin…”

   But he didn’t; he couldn’t. He’d rather suffer in silence, would rather
   DROWN alone, than drag the rest of them _down with him, even if they
   might be trying to pull him ashore. He was stupidly selfless like that;
   but it was also kind of selfish, too. The barb about him lying now, too,
   stung; deep, sharp and vivid, yet familiar, and all-too expected. And
   he LAUGHED, dryly; the kind of laugh that sounded like something
   tearing inside, and his body sagged.

      “Lie? Fer wha’ reason? Y’ve already seen me at m’basest, Nat;
      TWICE, now, y’ve already seen me… completely unmade.

      Wha’s there t’hide? Where can I hide? Please, TELL ME—
      because I feel very, very naked righ’ now.”