Hello dear readers! I'd just like to issue a trigger warning for sexual assault, although it is completely non graphic and all implied.

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"I've seen for myself there's no end to grief. That's how I know there is no end to love."

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Clint did eventually lift Natasha from the floor and carry to her bed. By then she had stopped crying. She wasn't asleep, but she didn't move or say anything. The overwhelming weight of shadows in her past held her down, out of reach.

He sat on the edge of her bed keeping his hand steady on her hair, grounding her to the present as best he could. Nat remained completely still, her body curled up and her eyes squeezed shut. She just breathed. It was all she could do.

"Sleep, Tasha." Clint spoke as calmly as he could, keeping any emotion out of his voice. Although her sorrow was way over her head, his voice broke through it. "I'm not gonna leave you alone with this."

With her heartbeat in her ears and the light pressure of Clint's hand on her head, sleep crowded in and kept her safe.

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She was 13 when she was sent for her sterilization procedure. By that age she had already taken six lives, yet was still unaware of the implications of sterilization. She had known nothing except what her handler and instructors had taught. Life as she knew it unfolded with each lesson, but after the procedure, a new season of training seemed to be looming. She had not been afraid. That wasn't allowed.

Natasha told Clint that much of the story a long time ago. He knew she could never bear children. He knew her handlers had poured on layers and layers of conditioning to make her impervious to pain, fear and most of all, shame. What that meant, he didn't need to be told. She had told him about her training in etiquette, the arts, and all methods of seduction. She never gave details on the latter. Those belonged only to her. What was buried deepest, though, was that last level of deconstruction of her innocence and sense of shame. The Red Room knew that to take was one thing. To be taken from was another thing all together. Clint had always just figured bad things had been done to her, but nothing beyond that vague assumption.

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Natalia looked up as the door to her small quarters was opened from the outside. Her handler appeared, but this time she was not alone. Natalia's eyes shifted to the man standing just behind the woman. She had never seen him before.
"You must be prepared for all eventualities." The woman said to her. Then she stepped aside, allowing the man to enter. Her handler left the room and locked the door, leaving her alone with him. Natalia looked to this new instructor, awaiting direction.

Despite her training his eyes terrified her.

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Natasha opened her eyes.

She lay there just breathing, trying to control the rage she could feel rising in her. Her finger tips were itching with a need to end someone's life. But those she'd ached to kill were all gone now, far out of her reach. Faces she could barely recall, but who's touch was imprinted in the deep places of her mind.

Staring at the ceiling, she realized she had no memory of anything after last night's... episode.

Nat sat up. Her eyes searched the room until they fell on Clint's inert form. He was asleep on the floor beside her bed. Natasha leaned against the headboard and tried to steady her mind. It was swimming with irritation and the agonizing sting of awful things she couldn't name.

Clint must have brought her to bed. She must have cried herself to sleep, or something pathetic like that. Natasha closed her eyes as disgust crowded her thoughts. She was not weak like this. When she opened them again, she rose without waking Clint, packed a duffle and left.

Clint's eyes snapped open with the click of the closing door. He scrambled into sitting position to see that she was gone.

"Nat!" He said aloud. Whether she heard him or not, she was not stopping. He leapt off the floor and followed her into the hallway.

"Nat, where are you going?"

She stopped but didn't turn to face him. She didn't want him to see her hands shaking.

"Away. ...From you."

"Why's that?" He asked, knowing he was already on thin ice or at least she was.

She didnt answer him.

"This is my fault?" He ventured carefully.

She nodded, still not turning around.

"Alright." Clint paused, considering his words. "If it really is my fault that you're human enough to feel pain like this, fine... but I think you've been making the choice for a long time now-"

"Stop talking!" she said it with a harshness in her voice usually reserved for warnings of danger.

She continued, her voice softer but unmistakably weary. "Stop it, Clint."

"I'm not one of your old handlers, Nat" He said. "I'm not gonna pretend this isn't a thing, that you're not in pain."

"I'm not in pain." Her tone dared him to challenge those words, yet she still couldn't look him in the eye and say them.

"Then where are you going?"

"I'm…" Her words failed her. She had no angle and she was attempting something truly desperate; evading Clint Barton. "I'm going…"

He finished the sentence for her, "To hide some place and lick your wounds?"

She said nothing.

Clint stepped closer to her so that he was standing just behind her. His voice was quiet. "Bet those hurt." he said. He knew it was a risk to his personal safety, but he didn't regret it. He wasn't a fool. He knew she couldn't close up on this again and still be the same. The cement carefully poured into place by the Red Room had been cracking and eroding for years, and it had finally come loose. Natasha wouldn't be able to put it back. She was too human now. There were too many vines and flowers growing from those cracks now.

Natasha was bristling with emotions she couldn't get a handle on and couldn't make sense of. Last night, without any warning, memories that had long been kept under careful control and suppression broke loose. The breach was unmanageable. It felt like she was being crushed. Unsteadied by such unexpected and intense distress, she was becoming afraid she would lose control. She needed to hide herself before she did.

"Back away."

"No."

"Clint. …Please."

"Let me stay with you."

"I can't."

"What are you ashamed of?"

Natasha suddenly collapsed. Clint took a step back and gave back her space.

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"Shame. That is what you are overcome with at this moment. Now that you know what it is, you will let go of it. You have nothing to protect but your mission, your objective. Lift your head and look at me."

The gaze of a shattered 13 year old slowly rose to meet the woman's eyes.

"There is no shame. What you have just experienced is unimportant. It may happen again. Your objective remains clear. You have no self to preserve, no self to be ashamed of. You are an agent. You are your mission. You are the identity that serves the objective. Nothing more. But, you are a female. You must now begin to learn the power this entails and how to wield that power."

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Clint wanted to put his arms around her, but he knew she wouldn't tolerate it. She had to feel strong enough and it had to be a strength separate from her upbringing.

He crouched down at her level.

"Hey?" He said quietly.
"This is your fault." She said. Her breath was quick, but quiet.
"Maybe."
"This is your fault." she repeated. She wouldn't look at him.

"Come on." He got up and headed down the hall. Stopping at the end, he waited for her to get up.

She did, and followed at a distance, knowing where he was leading her.

Clint was already seated on the ledge looking out over the waking city when Natasha arrived on the roof. She didnt come to sit beside him but stayed standing, still maintaining the distance.

"I kind of want to push you off." She said.

"I know." He said, not turning around. "Can't say I'd blame you."

He could hear her breathing, but she hadn't moved any closer.

"I'd say we should take this to the mat, but I'm afraid you'll kill me."

"I might."

Clint let silence settle over them. After a few minutes he took a breath and spoke.

"Things they did to you were wrong. You can't avoid the way it feels."

"Why?"

"Because we both know going back to what you were before we met is impossible."

"Why?"

"Because you can't go back to being a little girl."

"I should have killed that little girl."

"I'm glad you didn't."

"You needed a turn to rip me open too."

He couldn't pretend the barb didn't sting, but he could only guess at how much pain she was in.

"Natasha," He said, turning around to look at her, but stopped. She was still standing there, jaw set, eyes to the gravel. He didn't continue. Looking at her right then, he wasn't sure anything had ever felt worse.

He sighed and cursed aloud. Natasha looked up. Swinging his legs back over the ledge he stepped up to her. "Ok. We don't need the mat. This gravel's fine. Right now."

"You want me to hurt you?"

Clint looked down at his bare feet.

"No. That's not what I want."

"Then what is this?"

"Think of what they did to you. And fight me." He knew what he was asking, but he couldn't stand by while she floundered like this.

His words made her look away. "I can't."

"You said you weren't in pain."

"I lied."

"So feel it."

"Stop, Clint. Please."

"What did they do to little Natalia?"

She looked up at him, this time with a terrifyingly blank look.

"Natasha. Don't let them hold onto you anymore."

"I was a little girl!" She suddenly said.

"They took that away from you."

"Shut up, Clint!" She'd had enough and kicked him in the stomach. He didn't block it.

"You think this is fun for me? You think I want this?", he gasped, bent over.

"If I didn't know you, I wouldn't be this way."

"You started this the day you left the Red Room." Clint fired back.

The mere mention of the place sent her into a rage. She came at him and he was ready. Blocking and attacking, until he caught her in a hold. He felt her body go rigid in his grip and it scared him. But before he could even name his own reaction, he was flat on the ground, her knee driving into his chest.

"Don't touch me!" She screamed. It was a sound Clint had never heard her make. Before she could do any more damage, Clint pushed her knee off. They both stood up, out of of one another's reach. Nat was breathing heavily, her hands shaking. "Don't touch me." she said in a more normal tone.

"I won't change how I am with you because of them." He stepped forward and came at her as he normally would. Maybe it was foolish. Maybe it was cruel and indelicate. Maybe a professional would call it insane, but they didn't know Natasha and Clint didn't know another way. So he did the only thing he could for her. He allowed her to fight.

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Clint was laid up in medical for a day or so. The bruises on his face and body were ugly. He'd suffered a fractured rib and 3 broken fingers. It felt like he'd sparred with one of Stark's suits. An angry one. But he wasn't sorry.

He told the rest of the team he'd been mugged on a late night walk in Brighton Beach. He said he'd been there to visit a little Russian grocery store, the only place you could get his and Nat's favorite imported vodka. He hadn't expected them to believe the story and they didn't, but they let him keep his weird secrets. Something about his demeanor told them he wasn't in actual trouble. Whatever had happened was a resolved matter. They all had stuff that was theirs alone. The only person who pressed the issue slightly longer than they should have was Tony, but no one was surprised by that.

Not once did anyone suspect it was Natasha's doing. To the other Avengers, her presence at his bedside seemed perfectly normal. Not once did either of them let on that she was in the midst of fiercely combatting her longest standing, deepest dwelling demon or that Clint had been crazy enough to get in the mix. To the team she was her normal wry self just keeping Clint company. That was true enough. Nobody needed to know about the conversations she would have with him during the coming nights. Not another person on earth would ever be allowed to know the secrets she kept or, rather, that had kept her for most of her life. Clint alone would ever see the tears that had waited years and years to liberate Natasha. There was not another human soul with whom she could entrust this wound and this healing. He knew that, and every time his rib ached or stabbed with pain while it mended in the coming weeks, or he felt frustrated that his broken fingers couldn't wield his bow properly, he took a breath and remembered why.

She did apologize to Clint and, although this had been his choice, he accepted it because she needed him to. Sitting beside him, considering what she'd done and his persistence that led to it, made her realize he been right. So, the months that followed were intense. She made the choice to remember it and feel it. It was ugly and it was far far scarier than anything else she had ever dealt with. But she did it like she did everything else; with intense focus and dedication. She had to force herself to remember, to go back there so that she could look it all straight in its monstrous face. And after letting it wash over her and trying not to drown, she still got up in the morning and faced the world. Natasha maintained her daily confidence, skill, and relationships while inside of her the raw, exposed pieces, desperately waited until the end of the day when she could hide again and try to let the pain continue to burn itself up.

During that time Natasha refused sparring. She would not cause another's injury for the sake of her healing. That was backward and it wouldn't happen again. Clint didn't question that. He didn't hover over her either, or check in on her or ask her how she was. She wouldn't have tolerated it anyway. He gave her the space she needed and if his presence was required, she knew his door was always open to her. She may have believed that she owned Clint a debt, but whatever that was, it couldn't compare to what Clint felt he owed her. She had trusted him once, years ago, and that that single act had lit up his life with friendship and solidarity he always just assumed was for other people. Not him, alone up on perch surveying the world at a distance. There wasn't anything thing he wouldn't do to help Natasha feel whole, or at least as whole as either one of them could ever be. She did not give up in the face of feeling weak, and when the endless aching finally gave way to shedding the last secret of her Red Room upbringing, Clint was there.

He listened. She freed herself.

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I do hope this was a satisfying follow up to "Bury The Dead" and most especially tasteful and reverent toward Natasha's awful experiences.

Also a special thanks to Ani-Maniac494 for her advice on this one shot when I ran it by her months and months ago.

Thank you so much for reading! :D

*Lyric at the beginning is from the U2 song, California*

The title comes from a lyric in the U2 song "Bad". It's about some watching a loved one battle something that holds power over them and wishing you could help them break free. And I take into the half-light as the dawn, coming out of the night.

Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame