'Love is for children'.
Natasha lived by those words. They were wonderful assets when she needed to put her walls up, a predicament she often found herself in around Clint.
Barton was her partner, a man she'd trust with her life, and she supposed that was why she'd fallen for him. Sadly, it seemed not to have worked- she'd fallen faster and harder for him than she supposed she had for anyone before. Even Barnes, a man who had been there, trapped like her during the darkest part of her life hadn't captured her heart as quick as the archer.
(Somehow, it made Stark's cupid jokes less funny)
But she knew she couldn't let herself be with him. That would be to welcome disaster into her life; and Natasha Romanov was not one to willingly put herself in a difficult position. Each time she did, she'd find a way to worm her way out of them- and in this particular situation, the only logical solution was to find a way to avoid Clint without offending him in some manner. That was difficult, despite his tough exterior Clint was incredibly easy to break, and she knew that if she left without any kind of explanation he'd find a way to track her down and demand answers.
Oh, how often people did that. Wanted answers from the Black Widow. It was a good thing she was so highly trained, or she would likely have been killed several times over- both by those questioning her and whoever was in charge of her at the time.
Barton, however, she wouldn't be able to lie to. Every time she did, he'd furrow his brow and give her this assessing look that had her breaking. Even if she did manage to lie to him, he often looked so hurt by what she was saying that she'd break anyway. However, if she told him this truth, it would be the honesty that would hurt him. 'I'm too afraid to love you' wasn't exactly a compliment- she'd offend him and then she'd have to watch each of his carefully placed walls break down in front of her as he incorrectly assumed that he wasn't good enough for her.
She wasn't an idiot. She knew Barton had feelings for her, had known since they first started to develop. The easy physical contact, soft touches and stolen glances he thought she wouldn't notice, they were his downfall. Little smiles at the things she said, a flush high on his cheeks when they had to sit too close to one another or he was patching her up after a mission- Barton wasn't as good at hiding his feelings as he thought he was. And it frustrated her no end, because he deserved better, he deserved someone good, someone who wasn't as broken as she was.
Feelings were complicated, like a ball of rope so tangled it was impossible to unravel. She couldn't get a single piece to grab onto and hold onto, she couldn't find where it ended and where it began, and she couldn't cut a piece out because it was knotted and made her life more difficult than before. Ever since she joined SHIELD, ever since she'd had the chance to show emotion without fear it would get her killed, she'd been focused on trying to unravel the rope. But she couldn't, because she didn't know how. She'd never been taught, never been allowed to feel, and that meant that she couldn't do anything about it. Feelings were her poison; eating her from the inside out, but she gladly took it. The feelings reminded her she was still alive.
Being alive was important to the assassin. She'd realized this early on, that any mission gone wrong would end it. At the time, she'd been a scared little girl in Russia, with no life to speak of. Nevertheless, the idea of death, the fact it was so uncertain frightened her further. She made every effort to remember she was alive, even when she was punished for a mission gone wrong. Even when it felt like she was empty inside, when she forgot why she lived, she remembered that she was alive and tried to believe there was a reason. Tried to pretend to herself that there was a God even though he'd clearly abandoned her. Late at night, when all the other girls were asleep, she'd whisper prayers to every God she knew in every language she could speak until her throat was raw from crying and her hands numb from being in one position for too long. She stopped in her tenth year, after watching another girl die in front of her. She knew that if God existed, he wouldn't let that happen to her.
Love was too foreign a concept for her, and it was late one night in the summer that she made her plan to leave without Barton knowing, to make an escape that he wouldn't be able to follow, even with his many contacts and decent tracking skills. She wouldn't be caught by him, and she hoped that one day he'd understand why she did it. Maybe she'd even be able to talk to him again, after he'd settled down, found a nice wife, had a couple of kids. At least then he'd be off-limits, at least then she'd know that he wouldn't return her affections. It was too hard at that point in time for her to know that he loved her and that she wasn't good enough for him, that she'd never be good enough for him.
The balmy air made dewdrops of sweat stick to her skin, made her palms clammy and her hair stick to the back of her neck. At one point, she was sure she heard someone shouting her name- either Barton or Rogers, but she couldn't tell who. She kept on walking, leaving, going on to a new life where she'd neither be happy nor loved, but where she wouldn't have to face the risk of falling in love again, of putting herself at that fatal weakness. Perhaps one day, she'd be able to look at the members of the team and nod, in a manner that suggested they knew each other but didn't talk, in a way that acknowledged their existence but not the depth of caring she held for them. But that day wouldn't be any time soon.
The night after she'd landed in Moscow, she sat down in the most uncomfortable chair she'd sat in in a while, and she cried herself to sleep with the taste of vodka on her tongue and the sound of laughter in her mind.