It had been a few days, and Clint was pretty sure, his skin and body had adapted, as long as he didn't have such brilliant ideas as walking and sitting under the raw noon sun. He just stole a small dollop of Natasha's sun screen for his face and neck to not risk another escapade of his body and hurried to the water then. It was still warm enough from the heat peak of the day to be comfortable, so he wasted no time wading in, impatient to leave the shallow coast with playing toddlers and splashing adults behind. He wasn't feeling awfully social today.
The embarrassing incident by the house still on his mind, he took it easy, making his way to the border of the buoys, with calm, long strokes instead of a mad crawling pace. He shut his senses down and relied on his instincts, small irregularities and noises in the waves around him to avoid other swimmers, until he left them behind. Going slow but without stopping, until the thick rope connecting the buoys finally bumped against his fist and he brought his body to a halt.
Immediately the memory wanted to emerge how Natasha and him had made out here and he grinned. But when he turned his head to the beach, he could hardly make out her pale shape in the distance. Not paying attention on the way, he hadn't even realized how far the tide had carried him west, away from their remote little family beach. No wonder he was a little out of breath. He was half way on the far arm of Naxos. Well, that would be a long swim back.
"Any more bad ideas for today, Barton?"
With a half amused, half unnerved sigh, he forced his body to relax and lay back with one arm lazily slung around that rope, until only the waves carried him. The sun was too bright, too stinging, so after a few seconds he rolled around just as drowsily. Might as well use the chance to get his eyes used to salt water again. It was embarrassing how little he could see between these masses of blue and green.
After a minute or two at least something like relaxation kicked in, in spite of the growing tightness in his chest, and he could make out more than blurry shapes of fish and sea urchins around. Not that much too see that close to the coast. He remembered that boat trip Natasha and him had talked about and wondered if they would actually get around to do that. Somehow he had a feeling, her stomach wouldn't agree.
He had done a lot of diving and breath control exercise when he had been out with the Seahorse, he remembered. Not much else to do when you were bordering an Italian island, to wait for some dealer's meeting that would probably never happen.
Promptly, that damn scar between his shoulder blades began to tickle as if it had just waited for his brain to go to this place. He could swear to have felt a touch right there where he just couldn't fucking see, just a fingertip... Before he could reach back, it was over and he huffed at his own paranoia, wasting precious oxygen from his lungs. It didn't matter. The heaviness in his limbs felt good, the pressure wasn't painful yet. Maybe this was a good day for a new record.
He closed his eyes and wrapped his arm tighter around that rope, giving in to the dancing lights and flickers before his closed lids. This time it was his own inner ocean he tried to see through, tried to set into shape, without much success. Was it in there? This one face he could never place, so awfully young and helpless looking and yet...
Again the touch right along his scar, but this time he knew it was memory and ignored it, instead tried to hold on to this single outstanding moment he could see clear this time. Why was she touching him? Had she tried to help when they had come from behind? She shouldn't be here anymore. He had sent her away, to freedom, to safety, along with the others, her and her baby...
You have no business here.
Really, again? Maria and him had gone through this. As if he would leave a bunch of young girls in the hands of Sicily's worst underground scam. If she wanted him out of here, she would need to send a fucking extraction team.
Only when he turned around - in truth it was just a labored, weak tilt of his head - he saw that it hadn't been Maria talking to him at all. The girl looked at him with her cold, dead eyes and wiped her blood-stained fingers on his cheek, while the first wave of pain rippled through his chest and his lungs started to protest against even the smallest breath.
You should have stayed away, signore. Living at the foot of a volcano teaches you how to survive. We don't need your kind for that.
She was fading again, he couldn't make out half of what she was saying - or maybe he was just feeling too dizzy - but what he did see was that bloody blade suddenly much too close to a helpless wriggling tiny body. A terrifyingly trained, swift stroke...
He wanted to scream, to order, to control, the way he had been taught, but there was no air for that in his lungs. He felt himself reach out and slip, slip away like that whole mad, fucked up, blurry scenario, salt in his mouth and the deafening drum roll of his own heart in his ears...
Then he found himself spitting and wheezing back in the heat without really remembering how he got there. Nausea was sitting in his stomach, from swallowing water or too much bullshit in his head or both. Leaning heavily on the underwater rope, he tried to get his shit together enough to swim back. Enough fun in stranger tides for the moment.
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It had been a few days, and Clint was pretty sure, his skin and body had adapted, as long as he didn't have such brilliant ideas as walking and sitting under the raw noon sun. He just stole a small dollop of Natasha's sun screen for his face and neck to not risk another escapade of his body and hurried to the water then. It was still warm enough from the heat peak of the day to be comfortable, so he wasted no time wading in, impatient to leave the shallow coast with playing toddlers and splashing adults behind. He wasn't feeling awfully social today.
The embarrassing incident by the house still on his mind, he took it easy, making his way to the border of the buoys, with calm, long strokes instead of a mad crawling pace. He shut his senses down and relied on his instincts, small irregularities and noises in the waves around him to avoid other swimmers, until he left them behind. Going slow but without stopping, until the thick rope connecting the buoys finally bumped against his fist and he brought his body to a halt.
Immediately the memory wanted to emerge how Natasha and him had made out here and he grinned. But when he turned his head to the beach, he could hardly make out her pale shape in the distance. Not paying attention on the way, he hadn't even realized how far the tide had carried him west, away from their remote little family beach. No wonder he was a little out of breath. He was half way on the far arm of Naxos. Well, that would be a long swim back.
"Any more bad ideas for today, Barton?"
With a half amused, half unnerved sigh, he forced his body to relax and lay back with one arm lazily slung around that rope, until only the waves carried him. The sun was too bright, too stinging, so after a few seconds he rolled around just as drowsily. Might as well use the chance to get his eyes used to salt water again. It was embarrassing how little he could see between these masses of blue and green.
After a minute or two at least something like relaxation kicked in, in spite of the growing tightness in his chest, and he could make out more than blurry shapes of fish and sea urchins around. Not that much too see that close to the coast. He remembered that boat trip Natasha and him had talked about and wondered if they would actually get around to do that. Somehow he had a feeling, her stomach wouldn't agree.
He had done a lot of diving and breath control exercise when he had been out with the Seahorse, he remembered. Not much else to do when you were bordering an Italian island, to wait for some dealer's meeting that would probably never happen.
Promptly, that damn scar between his shoulder blades began to tickle as if it had just waited for his brain to go to this place. He could swear to have felt a touch right there where he just couldn't fucking see, just a fingertip... Before he could reach back, it was over and he huffed at his own paranoia, wasting precious oxygen from his lungs. It didn't matter. The heaviness in his limbs felt good, the pressure wasn't painful yet. Maybe this was a good day for a new record.
He closed his eyes and wrapped his arm tighter around that rope, giving in to the dancing lights and flickers before his closed lids. This time it was his own inner ocean he tried to see through, tried to set into shape, without much success. Was it in there? This one face he could never place, so awfully young and helpless looking and yet...
Again the touch right along his scar, but this time he knew it was memory and ignored it, instead tried to hold on to this single outstanding moment he could see clear this time. Why was she touching him? Had she tried to help when they had come from behind? She shouldn't be here anymore. He had sent her away, to freedom, to safety, along with the others, her and her baby...
You have no business here.
Really, again? Maria and him had gone through this. As if he would leave a bunch of young girls in the hands of Sicily's worst underground scam. If she wanted him out of here, she would need to send a fucking extraction team.
Only when he turned around - in truth it was just a labored, weak tilt of his head - he saw that it hadn't been Maria talking to him at all. The girl looked at him with her cold, dead eyes and wiped her blood-stained fingers on his cheek, while the first wave of pain rippled through his chest and his lungs started to protest against even the smallest breath.
You should have stayed away, signore. Living at the foot of a volcano teaches you how to survive. We don't need your kind for that.
She was fading again, he couldn't make out half of what she was saying - or maybe he was just feeling too dizzy - but what he did see was that bloody blade suddenly much too close to a helpless wriggling tiny body. A terrifyingly trained, swift stroke...
He wanted to scream, to order, to control, the way he had been taught, but there was no air for that in his lungs. He felt himself reach out and slip, slip away like that whole mad, fucked up, blurry scenario, salt in his mouth and the deafening drum roll of his own heart in his ears...
Then he found himself spitting and wheezing back in the heat without really remembering how he got there. Nausea was sitting in his stomach, from swallowing water or too much bullshit in his head or both. Leaning heavily on the underwater rope, he tried to get his shit together enough to swim back. Enough fun in stranger tides for the moment.