He watched the heavy wooden door as it opened slowly, but not silently. Whoever his unexpected visitor was didn't seem to be too concerned with covertness. Given his particular skillset they must not be here to kill him, because he could have easily taken them out by now and they had to have known at least that much to know where his loft was.

Any assassin worth their salt wouldn't dare be cautious and deliberately loud when out for a kill. It was like inviting death to your doorstep.

He had nimbly swung himself up into the rafters of his living room when he heard the first footfall outside his door. In his modest opinion, everything is viewed better from above. And even though he was ninety-nine percent sure that whomever was here just wanted to talk it didn't hurt to exercise a little cautiousness of his own.

He didn't understand why people just couldn't let him be. Why they couldn't let him heal. Why they couldn't let him, well, grieve. There were still little flashes of ice in his veins here and there – times when his vision goes sideways and he loses himself for a moment before snapping back to present and hating Loki and hating himself all over again.

He had turned off the safety on his pistol when he first moved from his chair, and a bow was only five feet away, a full quiver at its side. He didn't draw the weapon from its holster just yet, but his hand hovered over it, steady and calm.

"You would think you would recognize my footsteps by now, Barton."

He exhaled slowly and silently, moving his hand away from the gun. He didn't dare move and didn't dare speak. Not yet.

Her hair was a red as he remembered from three months ago, when they had parted ways at HQ with promises to regroup in two week's time. Truly, Agent Natasha Romanov, AKA Black Widow, AKA Nat didn't look much different at all, if you dismissed the long skirt, delicate shirt, and flat sandals. When a lady wears head-to-toe black leather almost every day for work, one tends to notice immediately when she's dressed as a civilian. An ill-at-ease civilian. It was hard to think of his partner as anything but an expert spy and master assassin, but if he squinted she looked almost harmless. Almost. Maybe. Not really.

She looked up then, right at him. They silently contemplated one another for a long moment before she tilted her head to the right and softly sighed.

"Come down off your perch, Hawkeye."

Agent Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye, lowered his body down feet-first, dropping down softly into a crouch.

"Why'd you come, Natasha?" Clint asked her as he moved around the room to close and lock the front door.

"It's been three months since your last contact with, well, anyone. I got curious. You weren't hard to find." Natasha moved slowly through the space, ending up in front of a large window that overlooked the city. "Once a bird, always a bird," she murmured softly.

"I wasn't hiding. You could have called, texted, sent a carrier pigeon… Be straight with me: why are you here?" He could see her large eyes reflected in the glass of the window. Natasha was improbable to read on a good day, but in this moment Clint swore that her veil was thin – thin enough for him to see exhaustion, frustration, and genuine worry on her face and in her demeanor.

"I had a dream," she said after a long pause.

"About?" Still watching that reflection.

"You didn't come back."

The glass reflected what Natasha wouldn't let anyone see directly, and Clint felt as if he were getting a rare glimpse underneath her skin. Her voice, although clear as a bell and firm as granite, carried a whispering undercurrent of doubt and fear. He knew how much she hated talking about how things made her feel: when one is reared by strangers and trained to be a cold-blooded killer, feelings sometimes weigh more than lead.

"I came back. Cognitive recalibration, remember?" Even to himself it sounded like a lie.

"Not in this nightmare. The coldness and darkness took you away, and even though I chased you and fought you and killed for the sake of saving you it wasn't enough. You didn't come back, and all I saw was red."

She was shaking. Even though her eyes were trained straight ahead Clint could tell that she wasn't seeing the city spread out in front of her. She saw red. She felt red. Darkness and coldness lived by her side too.

Clint walked over to his partner, his best friend, his… he didn't know. Right after Loki everything was so confusing and they didn't have time to talk about it, but he saw it in her eyes: her fear. Fear for him. He put his hands on her shoulders and felt her muscles tense.

"Nat…"

"I try not to dwell in the land of 'what-if', Clint," she took a deep breath and turned around to face him, "but what if?"

Large green eyes looked at him, doubtful and scared. He wasn't usually one given to romanticism, but right then he couldn't look away from her. That gaze held him.

"It didn't, Natasha. That's all that matters. You fought me and you saved me. I'm here."

Natasha cast her eyes down for a long second before bringing them back up to meet his.

"If you came back – all the way came back – then why has it been three months? If I saved you, why didn't you meet me? Two weeks, Clint! Two weeks and I was there, and you weren't! I didn't understand why you didn't keep your promise. I still don't."

Clint moved two paces away and sat down on a stool. "There are… times. Flashbacks. It still flickers on and off a little every once and awhile. It was enough for me to worry. It was enough to stay away. Everyone was hurt. People died. You… you were hurt. I couldn't risk it, so I stayed here: the hawk in his nest."

"People didn't die because of you. They died because of Loki. When will you stop hating yourself?"

"When will you stop hating yourself, Nat?"

After a long pause she replied, "Probably never."

"Exactly. I can't forgive myself. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't undo it. I can't bring them back. I know all of this. I know the mechanics of grief. I know that I need to forgive myself and move on, but it isn't guilt that lays that burden on me."

Natasha knelt in front of Clint, her face a mystery. "It's betrayal. We both betrayed ourselves, and we will pay the price for that the rest of our lives; but the answer isn't to hide up here, licking your wounds and avoiding anyone who ever cared about you."

"We're spies, Nat. Assassins. Hiding is what we do: it's part of the job description," he paused and ran his fingers through his short hair, "You tell me: if the answer isn't hiding… then what is?"

Clint trained his eyes on her, looking for an answer – needing an answer. If anyone knew how to get through this it was Natasha Romanov.

Natasha looked away and stood, brushing her hands on her skirt before looking down at him once more, "At first, I just made my work my life to where all I did was work and sleep when I finally passed out from exhaustion. There were nightmares almost every time I closed my eyes, so I just kept myself busy. I took missions and assignments that only insane people take. Everyone has a breaking point though, Barton. Even me."

Clint felt like they were doing some intricate dance around his loft that he didn't quite know the steps to. Natasha was back at the window, looking out at the city.

"Look," she said suddenly, turning around quickly with troubled eyes, "there were nights when I didn't think I'd make it. I locked myself away whenever possible because I thought the answer was to hide. When the sun came up in the morning I was always amazed I had made it through one more night. Then one day I sat up and realized that the sun was going to come up every day with or without me. One day at a time. I stopped living like my wounds were fresh. I started to recognize that I was slowly healing." Natasha came closer and ran her fingers through Clint's hair. "You're healing, Clint. One day at a time. Every day that you make it through without hurting yourself or someone else is a small victory. I know we're usually in the business of big victories, but sometimes the smallest personal victories mean more."

Clint watched as Natasha walked toward the door. "Where are you going, Nat?"

Green eyes looked over a slim white shoulder.

"I'll see you in two weeks, Agent Barton. HQ. 0900 hours. Don't make me come find you again."

Clint watched her walk out the door, leaving it wide open. He took a full minute to think before he walked across the room, shut the door, and locked it. There was no use refusing Natasha's command: the Black Widow makes no idle threats. He had no doubt that not only would she find him again but that it wouldn't be as kind of a visit as this one was. He would even be willing to admit that it would be downright violent.

There was only one way to find out if she was right, though, and that was to be at HQ in two weeks at 0900 hours.

He would heal.

One day at a time.

Small personal victories.

-END-