Just decided to take us all on a little feels trip because thats the type of person I am :~)
He is sixteen years old when he first falls in love. Her name is Renae and she had pretty blonde hair and clear blue eyes. She is an acrobat and performs dangerous stunts every single night when the circus lights are trained on her and she leaps from one side of the tent to another, suspended by nothing but the hands of the other performers.
Clint finds companionship with Renae, and it is nice to have a friend in a place where everyone is only concerned about themselves. Barney laughs at him and calls him lover-boy but Barney is an idiot and drinks too much so Clint doesn't take it to heart. Barney has changed in the short years spent with the circus, has morphed from a loving, protecting older brother to an adult who's mind revolves around the money he earns every night and the alcohol he spends it on. Just like everyone in the circus, Barney puts himself first before anyone else.
Renae lets Clint cry on her shoulder after a particularly bad beating, and her soft voice in his ear takes away some of the pain. At night, they sneak out of their caravans and run to the hills where the grass grows long and the night sky is vast. They lay on the highest hill they can find and they find pictures in the stars and talk about their dreams for the future. Renae wants to be famous; a performer known all around the world. Clint wants to have a big family and become a parent that supports his kids instead of beat them in drunken rage.
Renae disappears for a few months during the winter and Clint spends his nights lying in his bed wondering where she was. There are rumours that she is ill; some people say her hair is falling out and she is too weak to walk for long. Clint doesn't believe that because when he saw her last she was so healthy and vibrant and everyone must just be teasing him because of his little crush, but when she finally returns and knocks on his caravan late one night, Clint sees that all the things they said were true.
She wears a spoiled beanie on her head and when she takes it off, there is no more pretty blonde hair in sight. Her eyes are dull and grey and her cheekbones are sunken and hollow. He ushers her inside and he hugs her so tight that she begins to sag against him in exhaustion. They cry together and she tells him that she is not getting better, that cancer is a son-of-a-bitch and has spoiled everything she ever dreamed to become in life. He tells her that's not true and that they are going to get married and have kids and she is going to be a star – she kisses him, and Clint has never kissed a girl before and its strange but exciting at the same time.
Renae pulls away, face streaked and wet from both their tears. She is breathing heavily and her eyes are drooping and she is so tired. Clint wraps his arm around her and guides her to his bed. He spoons her tightly, wraps her in his warmth and they fall asleep together. She has to leave again the next day, and that was the last time he ever saw her.
He doesn't go to her funeral. He can't. Barney doesn't comfort him, calls him weak for not showing up. Clint runs to the highest hill he can find. The grass is damp with rain, and the sky is clouded in a cloak of grey. Suddenly, his dreams don't seem so real anymore.
Clint is twenty-two when he falls in love for the second time. He is weary, doesn't want to get hurt again, but Bobbi is everything any man wants. Tall, slender, blonde. She's got a bit of a mixed personality and gets angry if he does something wrong like iron the clothes badly or doesn't say he loves her every night, but he looks past that because they both have their flaws (though hers don't involve waking up every night from the nightmares of his life).
They move into a small apartment a few months into their relationship and buy cheap, second hand furniture and utilities that will make do. Sometimes, when Clint is sent away on missions for a long period of time, he'll come home and the place will be lit with candles and Bobbi would be lying in bed wearing scrappy lingerie and deep makeup. He enjoys the sex, until one day he comes home and Bobbi is in the bathroom crying with a pregnancy test clutched tightly in her hand.
Clint had always wanted to be a father but the dream of wanting a big family hurts him and he has to shake the memory of long grass and vast skies and a young girl with pretty blonde hair and clear blue eyes.
They decide to keep the baby and Clint works double-time so save up money. Bobbi takes pictures of a baby bump that hasn't really grown yet and spends all her money on baby clothes and booties and toys. Five months into the pregnancy, Coulson asks Clint if this is really what he wants – so early, anyway. Coulson is the only one who knew about the heartbreak of Clint's past and he really is greatfull for the support because he feels like he can't open up to Bobbi even when things have become so serious.
Clint tells Coulson that deep down, he doesn't want this and isn't prepared for this life with Bobbi, and it's like his words worked as a jinx because a week later Bobbi drops to the floor in the middle of the super market with blood oozing from between her legs and she is gasping and crying in pain. He rushes her to the hospital, and the doctor tells him that he is sorry for their loss. Clint feels empty – he has killed hundreds of people in his lifetime, but the death of something so young, fragile, unborn that was purely his, hurts, even if he wasn't ready.
Bobbi is distraught. When she is released from hospital, they drive home in silence. She tells Clint that she is packing her stuff and that she wont be there in the morning. She blames him, thinks that his genetic code or whatever is the reason for their loss, and he sits on the bed and watches as she cries silently and throws all her belongings into her bags and leaves. He locks the door behind her and looks at the shitty apartment and he growls in anger and drives his fist into the plaster wall. He gathers every single baby toy or piece of clothing and stuffs them all into a bag. He storms out of the apartment and it's nearly midnight and its raining but he doesn't register how cold he is. He walks to the salvo bins and dumps the bag inside. If he was never meant for having a family, he will do what he can for those who are.
Clint doesn't fall in love again. He has learnt through the pain that a life with a woman he loves will never work for him. He is too fucked up, can't find himself in another 'half' and no one wants a man who is sometimes afraid of himself.
But Natasha… she teaches him not to be afraid anymore.
He loves her, but not in the sense that he wants to get married and have kids. He is not in love with her because she isn't capable of that type of relationship, either. They are both two beaten and bruised souls, and what they share is deeper than what any relationship could muster.
She sees right through him when he lies, and she always knows how to make things better when he is upset. She comforts him when he wakes up from his nightmares; something Bobbi never did because she thought it was a 'phase'. She doesn't have to speak to calm him down, and he often finds that being with her in absolute silence is like having the best conversation of his life.
She has her own nightmares, too, and he knows that what she has experienced in life is written in blood in her mind. She doesn't like to talk about her childhood, and almost shuts down if someone questions where she got her training from.
In the field, they are an unstoppable force. She's got his back and he has hers, and they rank as the very highest team in SHIELD. People assume they are sleeping together, but those people are idiots because all they care for is gossip and a reaction to their whispers.
Clint tells her of Renae, and the conversation reopens old wounds. She rocks him gently in her arms while he cries, but she doesn't say anything, and it's the best form of therapy he could ever have. He tells her of the baby he lost, and it hits a nerve in Natasha too because her life before SHIELD made sure to tear away any hope of a family of her own blood.
He is not in love with her, but he loves the little things about her that no one else sees. Like how she must always brush her teeth as soon as she wakes up, even on a lazy Sunday when there is no work to see too and no errands to run. Or how she combs her hair, like it is a rare thing to do, to actually take the time out of her life to tend to small things. Or how she hates the snow because whenever she sees it, she can also see stripes of bright red blood staining the white glare. She sings old Russian songs that Clint can't understand, but he enjoys it anyway, and sometimes, if they have had a little too much to drink one night, she will light all the candles in the room and force him to dance with her. The light from the flames flicker on her pale skin, reflects in her bright green eyes and illuminates her hair, and she is so damn beautiful that Clint can't help but kiss her breath away.
Through love, Clint has been broken and rebuilt like a china doll, but at the same time, it has prepared him for a life where love is not needed to show how much one person means to him, and if it weren't for Natasha, he would have never discovered what he was capable of feeling in a life tinged with red.
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