Clint rolled over in his bed. That's all he seemed to be able to do lately. He barely ate, he never slept, and if it weren't for being too old for children's diapers and too young for old people's briefs, he wouldn't need to leave his bed at all.

It had been three months since the Registration Act had been abolished and four months since Clint lost his wife and children because of it. The damn piece of paper that the government had wanted powered people and others like the Avengers to sign had started a war. A war that began between two allies: Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Both with a firm stance on their beliefs. Tony believed in being open with the world, almost in a freedom of information kind of way, unless it came down to sharing his tech. Steve believed in privacy and the right to it. Tony thought the people that the Avengers protected had a right to know who was watching over them. Steve did not disagree, but thought that if the heroes didn't want to share their names and lives, they shouldn't have to. "They already put their lives in danger; they don't need to place a risk on their personal ones." Steve would say. Many thought Tony had a point. Many thought Steve had a better one. Others didn't know who was right. Clint was one of the few in the middle of the fight, the mediator. At least for a while.

See, there is never only one battle in the world. Conflicts arise consistently. Couples still argued during World War II, and gangs still killed each other on September 11th. Steve Rogers and, his wingman, Sam Wilson while continuing their search for Bucky Barnes had started another conflict with Brock Rumlow, as known as Cross-Bones. Tony Stark had not known this due to the riff that had developed between him and Captain America, for if he had he may not have done what he did. Tony Stark wanted to get the heroes in the middle of the civil war debate on his side. He thought that if he forced one of their lives into the open, the rest would see how nothing bad would result from joining him. That is how Clint Barton's life wound up on the internet, how Cross-Bones found where to locate Barton's family, and how he managed to torture and kill them all on live television while Clint could do nothing, but stare, horrified, at the flat screen in the cafe where he was stopping in for his morning brew. His children were duct taped to metal chairs, while their mother was dragged by her hair into the frame. Cross-Bones was giving some sort of speech, but Barton could not hear a word, as he watched the man that he went into extraction-less missions, who he fought side by side at S.H.I.E.L.D. with, pull the trigger and blow Laura Barton into the unknown. When the shot went off, the noises of the cafe felt as though Clint had plugged ear buds into a device with the volume at full blast. The screams echoed around the small shop, until they were silenced by the leer of Brock Rumlow. He was threatening Steve for messing with things beyond control. Finishing the broadcast with a smile, "Remember: there are no prisoners with Hydra, and there sure as hell ain't any ransoms." Before he turned away and shot each child.

The end of the war came a month later. All of the heroes and enhanced that were in the middle joined Cap, many from Stark's side followed. Blood spilled, but not many died thanks to the Scarlett Witch who, with minimal persuasion from Steve, helped preserve the lives of friend and foe – Rumlow was not one of the ones saved, Clint made sure of it. The government had never apologized for causing pain to the people who had spent their time protecting their citizens, but not many expected empathy from politicians.

Clint Barton didn't expect anything.

From anyone.

So in his bed in his room at some cheap hotel is where he spent his days. Clint hadn't paid for the room since he first showed up and shoved enough cash into the manager's hand for five weeks. He would've been surprised if he actually cared about being kicked out, or money, or life. The only reason he knew it had been four months since was because of the analog clock resting on the night stand to his right. With a sudden jerk and use of all of his energy, Clint's hand shot out from under a thick comforter and whacked the clock of the table and into the wall. It was broken. Clint knew it was, but he couldn't force himself to give a shit.

The knock at the door didn't make him give a shit either.

The knock became pounding, which made Clint laugh, not out loud, more of a choke. You're not getting in here, he sang in his head. But then his song ended when he heard a key slide into the door handle and click. Suddenly Clint began to worry about being kicked out. He couldn't go to his farm and he sure as hell was not going back to the Avengers facility that was funded by the murderer himself, Tony Stark.

But when the door opened, it wasn't with the power of a pissed off manager, or even the energy of another customer accidently entering the wrong room. When the person entered the room, they carried an air of purpose. Clint didn't care if it was an assassin coming to kill him, but when he checked who it was through the crack in the pillows covering his face, he wished it was. He couldn't say the red head quietly closing the door wasn't an assassin, she just wasn't the kind that was in his room to kill him. She probably wanted to talk.

She reached the foot of his bed and sat down.

"Hey."

That was all Natasha Romanoff said. She didn't pull at the covers and demand he do something more important with his life. She didn't ask how he was doing, to which he would have to decide whether lying was the route to go or not. She didn't say anything, anything but hey.

Clint didn't like this version of her. He didn't like it when she was acting like a normal person when he was ... Upset? Depressed? He didn't want her – anyone – near him at the moment, especially her. So, Barton rolled over pulling the pillows tighter around his head and groaned.

"Nice to see you, too." Usually when Nat said that, Clint could hear a sense of a smile in hear voice; sometimes a small one, sometimes a big one. There was no smile in her voice today.

Weight lifted off of the bed, before Clint could thank God that she was leaving, weight reappeared on the empty side of the bed. Slowly, pillows began to disappear and light showered Clint's face. He blinked a couple of times and his eyes refocused on a set of searching green ones. Nat's eyes looked odd. They weren't worried, or condescending, or even sad. Her brows were tilted together and slightly raised. Her eyes were somehow rounder than usual, slowly moving across Clint's forehead to his eyes, then his nose, finally landing on his lips.

Nat's mouth began to move as though she couldn't find the shape she needed for the words to she wanted to ask. Instead Clint asked her a question in a dry voice. From not speaking for quite a while, the first few words could not be heard. "How did you find me?"

Nat smiled, which made Clint's head jerk back in confusion. "Your 'friendship' spider dog tag chain thing... It has a tracker in it." The archer's mouth opened ready to argue, but the Widow cut him off. "Don't you dare complain, Barton. I know you did the same thing with my arrow necklace. Why do you think I only where it when we're separated?"

Sighing and rolling his eyes, Clint tried to pull the covers over his head as though he were a young boy who still believed in 'if I can't see you, you can't see me', but Nat stopped him by placing her hand on his cheek. Grumpily, he said, "Well, you should change that. Finding you when you got kidnapped by psychotic robots would've been much easier."

Natasha was taken aback by Clint's answer, which just confused him further. "What do you mean finding me? I thought...You didn't ... Bruce-"

"Bruce went and got you, but, Nat, do you really think the scientist was helping me with tracking you down? He was too busy helping Stark –" he spat the name "–build another evil robot... Well he's not evil, the Visions fine, but he COULD'VE been evil..."

Nat was still looking confused, but after a few moments, she looked up at Clint with watery eyes. "Thank you," she whispered. The archer was nodding his recognition of her appreciation, but she just shook her head. "No, thank you." She paused, searching Clint's deep blue eyes with her own lost ones. "I tried so hard to be ... normal and love him, but it never felt right. And then he left. Or the other guy left. Who cares, any more really? I truly adored Bruce, but it wasn't love. I wanted so badly for it to be love. I tried..." Barton pushed himself up on his elbow bringing his face closer to Nat's to hear her better because her voice was bordering on non-existent. "Remember in Budapest, during the bullets shot across no-man's-land like shooting stars, how there was a man trying to cross to-"

"-To save his wife. Yeah, we both thought he was insane." Clint had released a real laugh this time, loud and clear, and Nat joined him.

"Exactly! But, all he kept on telling us was that he had to make sure his wife was alright."

"He was shot, wasn't he?"

Nat was giggling, nodding her head. "He- He just wouldn't stop! 'I must go!'" – she mimicked a foreign accent – "That's all he would tell you! That was love." Clint was looking at Nat, but she looked down at the sheets on the motel bed. "That is why I thought Bruce loved me, because he was the one that found me in Sokovia. But, it was..."

Clint knew what she meant. She meant that Bruce wasn't the one that found her, it was him. She meant that she never knew and would never know what love was, but she was wrong. Clint was in no mood to tell her the truth. He had just lost his wife and children, it would've been a betrayal to them all to come forward now; to admit that her assumption of 'Bruce's' act of finding her did convey love, just not from the knight in shining armour, but the boy in the purple underwear. The boy who stayed up late with her watching 'the Classics': the Goonies, Jurassic Park, and Toy Story, and was up early the next morning with a cup of coffee with her name on it – two sugars and a lot of milk, just the way she likes it. The boy who gave her the arrow with the tracker in it to make sure she was always safe.

But, he could not say that. He could not tell the woman he met – saved – on the same day his first child was born, that he loved her more than the woman he married. So instead, he brushed her red locks back behind her ear, and told her, "Nat. Tasha. You do not need Banner. You do not need Steve. I am pretty sure you don't even need me." She tried to disagree, but he cut her off. "Forget him. Go kick ass. Love is never what you want or expect it to be. For the man in Budapest, it was risking his life for his wife. For some it's... I don't know, saying, 'have a good day at work' or maybe just calling their other half to hold the phone on to the radio speaker when their song comes on."

Meeting his gaze, Nat asked in another quiet tone, "How did you know Laura loved you?"

He did not smile, he did not frown, he just plainly said, "She tried to make my favourite drink."

Nat nodded, "Black coffee in a giant ass cup." Hawkeye lit up at her assumption. "What?"

"Actually," he unsuccessfully tried to conceal his smile. "She thought it was tea."

Nat feigned vomiting. Clint playfully shoved her, and she hit him in the face with a pillow. He grabbed her and rolled over bringing her along. She wound up straddling his back, and she reached behind her to smack his butt. Clint lifted his hips and sent Nat for a ride. She landed on her side facing him, laughing. After a few deep breaths, her laughs slowed

"You must miss them."

"You have no idea."

Silence engulfed the two assassins. Eyes locked on each other. They stayed still for so long, that eventually the light seeped from the room, bringing in the night. They both slipped into dream land, and for the first time in for months, Clinton Francis Barton did not relive the nightmare that was his life, but dreamt of the alternate universe where he and Natalia Romanova were together. When Clint jolted awake around three o'clock in the morning, he pulled Natasha closer to him, as an anchor, buried his head in her hair and slipped slowly away, once again.