The archer awoke to his dark room; a sliver of moonlight pierced the veil of blinds covering the window. His awakening wasn't sudden, it was more of a slow realization that he was dreaming as he was pulled back to reality. Clint Barton sat up and rubbed his eyes with the back of a hand, the other behind him and digging into the mattress as it sunk under the hand supporting his weight. His eyes wandered the room though were only spared the images of his mind's eye when they were open and focused. Clint stopped focusing on what he saw at let his mind stagger through his memories and the dream that he'd just live through. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood, walking over to his desk on the other side of his small room as he turned over a picture sitting on his work space.
"I don't want to forget…" He was almost apologizing to the image of the redheaded woman and the blonde agent standing side by side; a training exercise, Tony had taken the picture. Clint was showing her how to use his bow as she held it in her hands, his own hands over hers as he helped her draw the arrow back and aim it at the target down range. She was laughing, obviously unfocused on the task at hand while his eyes were fixed on her the entire time; he knew where the arrow would go. The archer sat down and took out his phone, the light of the screen illuminating his face as he opened a blank message.
"I can't erase you from my mind, Natasha. Your words replay themselves in my mind, I can't forget them and I've tried. The nights are so loveless but I know I could never give you what I hoped for."
Clint didn't read over his message again, there were enough words that didn't belong to him crossing his thoughts with each passing second. His finger flicked over the send button as he closed his eyes.
Shadows settled over the ground Natasha's body and porcelain skin had just been lying over. Clint propped himself up on his elbow, turning onto his side to watch as his partner walked a few meters away, "Natasha, listen, I know I'll regret saying this bu-" the archer was silenced as the redheaded woman raised her hand and shook her head. "Don't, Clint." She knew what he was going to say, the words had been playing on his lips for weeks, months even. Natasha had never seen someone's expression go from such openness to accepted rejection so quickly; her archer's eyebrows knitted together as he swallowed his own words back and looked down at the ground in front of her. "You know my feelings are dead and gone, Clint." Natasha looked apologetic, she could never tell him how it felt as though her chest broke as she spoke her words, as though it felt like she was setting her insides on fire to lie to him, to deny him the feelings she knew she wanted and he had to give.
Clint's mind was disturbed by its new emptiness as he was pulled from his past and back into his room as his eyes opened. He knew what to expect when he picked up his phone as he saw the memo "no new messages" written across the screen. He nodded to himself, "at least you're still breathing, Barton." The archer stood up, he'd fallen asleep at his desk, lost in his own thoughts and his eyes damp from the words that had been ringing through his head.
"It's just medicine, think of it as a second chance, Mister Barton." Clint walked out of the S.H.I.E.L.D medical bay and threw the small bottle of pills in the nearest bin, he wouldn't be taking anything to make himself feel better, he would get better and he would try to forget. He would forget how she'd asked him to take her home, how they had promised each other that they would be together without saying a word to anyone else and how Natasha had stopped sleeping with a weapon when he was by her side. She would become a faceless silhouette of his past and that would be how he would survive.
"Does your heart beat faster when you're with him?" A small smile plagued at the side of his mouth, only because he was happy to see Natasha again. His old partner had met someone on a mission, they worked together for some time and he wasn't at risk of being targeted. Natasha held her tongue and nodded, she remembered how Clint had held his thumb against her neck as they were together so he could feel her pulse while he held her thumb against his own. "You're not that different to me, Tasha, everyone has their pasts but what matters is what you are now." Their heart rates had matched while they touched. Natasha's eyes focused back to the S.H.I.E.L.D agent standing in front of her, "don't stay bitter over me." She smiled reassuringly though every fibre in her body told her to go to the archer before her, that he could protect himself from any danger she put him in. She stayed where she stood.
Clint stopped his car, he always zoned out on long drives but they'd spent so much time in the country when they had the time off. The archer walked towards a small building, looking long abandoned though it was an old archery shed. There'd once been a circus on the land, Clint hadn't told Natasha the history of the area but she'd fallen in love with the openness of the space and the free blowing leaves of the trees. She never took the time to watch the natural world around her but Clint's observant eye was good for things other than deadly accuracy.
"Remember when we first met? You told me about that person you wanted to be and the person you were trying to leave behind?" Clint nodded as he spoke; his words were laced with affection just as the dart in Natasha's leg had been laced with poison. "Clint, there was never anyone else. I tried to distract myself from you, to protect-" The archer held a finger to the assassin's lips as she tried to speak, his finger smeared with blood. "Don't fight it, Tasha." He tried to sound hopeful for her though he knew the tears in his eyes and his quivering lip would give away the hopelessness of her condition. He went to open his mouth again to speak but was silenced as another bloody finger was pressed against his own lips, "you need to forget me." The redhead's eyes closed, she'd always said love was for children.
Clint sat at a small marker, looking over thousands of text messages which were never read by the person who they were meant for. "I wish you knew how much I adored you." The archer dug a small hole and buried his phone, a thousands of messages left to be unread by anyone. "Good bye, Natasha."