This is largely inspired by the song 'LONESOME RIDER' by Volbeat, which is where the title of this fic comes from.
Hurt!Clint is my little baby, and seeing him broken and hurt is a thing that I love too.
He's not mine, though, I'm just borrowing him to make him go through a little hell.

"Tasha?"

He knocked again. "Natasha?" he asked, once more. No answer.

Shifting his weight to his right leg – where it didn't hurt too much – he sighed, as he pulled out a set of keys, and juggled with them in one hand, trying to find the right one. He couldn't move his other arm, as it was bandaged in a surgical cast.

"Damn!" he barked as the keys dropped to the floor. He sighed as he stood, defeated in front of the door, watching the keys lie, down there. The silence behind the door was unnerving – even more so when he hadn't heard from anybody for days.

He pushed his left leg back so he didn't have to bend it as he bent forward to pick up the keys, and he puffed when he felt what seemed to be a knife hurt his lungs. He didn't worry too much, though, since it was just his chipped rib.

He was banged up. Pretty banged up, actually. As he caught the keys with his fingers, he managed to find the right one, and soon opened the door to Natasha's safe-house.

He'd been undercover in Europe, had managed to get the twins out of the Baron's custody, but at a price. Unlike the Hulk, Clint was just a regular human being. Actually, he was more or less the only normal human being on the Avengers team: Steve had the super serum, which made him strong and big and just too fit to be real. Tony had the arc reactor in his chest, which made him special but vulnerable too. But it made him more strong than vulnerable, actually. Bruce, well, he had the Hulk. Thor was a God from another world, so he didn't even qualify as human. Natasha had been under the radar of the scientists of the Red Room, and he wasn't even sure if she qualified as human.

All he was, was a regular guy who got beat up a little too much on a mission, and ended up in a regular hospital for a couple of weeks until they let him take a plane home. A fractured rib, that had perforated his lung when the damage had happened; the radius and the ulna (the bones of his forearm) had been broken in two and had rendered him unable to nock an arrow off his bow for a little while; a sprained ankle that made him limp around when he didn't act like he wasn't in pain; and more than everything, he'd gotten two black eyes, one of which still roamed around, even weeks after the damage.

As he walked into Natasha's flat, he noticed that everything was covered in a slight coat of dust. She hadn't been here for a little while. This was odd. Pulling out his phone, with a slight wince, he dialled her number.

"This is Natasha Romanoff's number, please leav-"

He hung up before she reached the end of voicemail. Frowning, he sighed again. "Where are you, Natasha?"

He looked around, and down at his phone. It had been issued by SHIELD, but somehow had stopped working about two weeks prior, so he'd had to buy a new SIM card in France to make it work (even though they'd been able to keep him his number). And the same had happened when he'd had to book the flight home – nobody had been there to extract him, or bring him back, or even tell him to get on this or that plane. So, he'd booked a flight home to New York, and when he'd wanted to make the payment with SHIELD's business card, as usual, it had been refused. After two tries, the lady behind the counter had asked if he didn't have any other methods of payment, so he'd paid cash.

There was something wrong. Moving further inside the flat, he tried to notice anything, just, anything, that would indicate where she'd gone. Where his life had gone, actually. There were some SHIELD issued clothes on the floor, where they'd been left behind, in a bundle. But some of her stuff was still here.

Where was SHIELD? Where was Natasha? Where was Fury? Or any of the other agents?

Heaving, Clint had to sit down on the edge of the sofa, to catch his breath again.

"Fucking hell, where are you all?" he seethed through his gritted teeth, as he looked up, around the flat, looking for just one little clue. He could feel the pain through his body, cursing in his veins, and he could feel his heart shudder at the thought that maybe he'd been pushed out of SHIELD.

Maybe the mission had just been a way for Fury to get rid of Clint, dumping him in the middle of a mission in the middle of nowhere, and then they'd cut the ombilical chord. Maybe that's what he'd deserved.

After New York. After Loki. Maybe they didn't trust him, even though they'd all said they did. Even if he'd gotten the job done, and gotten the twins to safety. Maybe that's why all of his SHIELD technology was failing him.

Why he'd had to abandon his bow with an old friend in France because safety measures for civilians didn't allow weapons on board. Even in the suitcase.

He'd come home completely naked.

Sitting on the edge of Natasha's sofa, he felt pain rise through his chest. Spreading like a sore hurt, out to his knuckles, and the edge of his fingers.

Pushing himself up, he moved to Natasha's bedroom. The bed was perfectly made, probably from the last time she'd been there.

Where was she?

Nobody was answering any of his emails, texts, calls... Hell, he'd even sent a postcard from Paris to SHIELD, hoping someone would answer him. It was complete radio silence.

Just like that time his brother had helped him get to the circus, and had abandoned him. Leaving him all alone.

Miserable.

Lonely.

But most of all, feeling betrayed.

He could feel his heart move up his neck, and his throat, to the edge of his mouth, and he could feel the sadness limping, crawling its way from his heart, where he knew it to be true, all the way to his head.

SHIELD had banished him. They'd moved headquarters, Natasha had gone with them, and nobody wanted anything to do with him anymore.

There was no other explanation.

He limped towards the bed, and sat down, gently on it, afraid to disturb the heavy silence in the room. The keys fell from his fingers, down onto the floor, in a sweet jingle. He bent forward, ignoring the pain and the strain in his chest from his broken ribs.

And, he let it all out. He'd come home in the hopes that at least one SHIELD agent would greet him.

One.

Just one little agent.

He wouldn't have cared if it had been a trainee.

But he'd come home to nothing.

The silent sobs that shook his body pulled at his stitches, and he could feel the tears come. Clint wasn't the type to cry.

He could be tortured, he could be stabbed, he could be on the verge of death, and he would never cry.

However, right now?

Right now he had nothing.

He had no money, no home (his safehouse was in Chicago), no friends, no contacts, no food. Not even his bow.

He felt the tears trickle down his face, as he suppressed the sobs, knowing full well that it wouldn't help to cry.

But the pain, during the last months, the effort, the pressure of being good enough for SHIELD after Loki, the effort of fitting in, of doing his best, of hitting every single target, of getting the twins out, of getting home...

For nothing.

SHIELD was gone, and he was alone again.

In his head, the thoughts moved too fast for him to think clearly. He could already imagine himself on the streets, wondering around, trying to figure out how to work a day job, how to get to Chicago, get his stuff. But what if SHIELD had condemned his safe-house? They probably had.

If they'd cut him out, they would've emptied all his stashes, taken all his stuff.

He inhaled deeply, as he pushed himself up, so that he could lie down on the bed, face first into the pillow.

Grasping it with his healthy hand, he pulled the pillow closer, all the way to his face. His pushed it against the fabric, inhaling the faint scent that he recognized as Natasha's. When he pulled the pillow back from his face, he saw that the wetness of the tears had darkened the deep blue fabric even more, and he closed his eyes.

He didn't say a word. He curled himself up in foetal position, holding the pillow as tight as his body allowed it, and he stayed there.

Crying silently, he thought back on everything. Loki. Coulson's death. His mission. SHIELD. Disappointment. Weariness. Distrust. Natasha. Jokes that now made sense.

It all made sense.

And it hurt so much more than a broken arm, a chipped rib, or a black eye.

So much more.

Sorry for this 3
Reviews, kudos or about anything else (including slapping me in the face) are greatly appreciated 3