Hi y'all! It's been a while, but I recently got back into writing and, well, this happened. Based loosely on Second Chances by Imagine Dragons. A little early Clintasha, mostly MCU compliant, rated T for some language. As always, tell me what you think! :D

Disclaimer: If I owned Marvel, AOU would be a bad dream and there would be a Black Widow movie hitting theaters today. AKA this is just for entertainment, no money being made.

I won't break you, I will not let you down. Open up again I believe in second chances.

-Second Chances, Imagine Dragons

Three days.

It had been three days.

Three days since he made a different call, since he spared the life of SHIELD's number one target.

Three days since he gave her a second chance.

And she still didn't trust him.

He had tried to talk to her. He had spent four hours slumped outside her door- he would have been there longer if Coulson hadn't wandered in on him at two in the morning and told him to get some sleep.

Natasha had made her point: she didn't want to talk. Not to him, or Phil, or Maria or Bobbi or anyone else that knocked on her door. She was glad to be alive, and had told him as much when he asked. However, once they arrived at SHIELD and she was carted off for questioning, the walls came down. She didn't want this; didn't want her secrets discovered and discussed and stuffed in a manila folder in a room where anyone with the proper security clearance could see them.

Clint understood that. It was one of the reasons he had spared her life: she reminded Clint of himself. Young, terrified of herself and her secrets, trapped in a world in which she did not belong. And so, there he was, sitting in the air ducts at five AM trying to figure out how to enter the gym without startling the Russian.

Because he had been in her place. Knew how hard it was to learn that there are some people that will forgive.

Hell, I shouldn't expect this to happen so fast. It took Phil months to coax me back into the world when he brought me in, Clint realized with a start. Patience was a large part of his identity (archery was mostly sitting and waiting, after all) but somehow all his training and practice and habits deserted him when he caught sight of the redhead. Though barely twenty, she held a burden that Clint knew all too well: the knowledge that innocent people were dead because of her actions. The lifetime of pain and heartbreak that molded and hardened a person beyond her years. The fear that her deepest, darkest secrets would come to light and she would be considered a monster lived inside of her as much as it did him.

As that thought slipped unbidden into his mind, he unconsciously came to a decision and slipped out of the vent.

"Natasha?"

"Barton? What the hell are you doing here?" she asked quickly, spinning around and dropping into a defensive stance.

"Nat- Can I call you Nat? I'm gonna call you Nat. I, uh, I-" Clint stuttered; his fake confidence dissolving under Natasha's cold glare. Natasha raised an eyebrow and muttered something possibly derogatory in Russian.

"Look, I just want to say that I know what you're going through. God, this sounds pathetic. I guess, well, I get it."

"What?" Aggressive, monosyllabic answers it was.

"You feel like you can't trust anyone, and you have this red ledger that you can't figure out how to wipe clean, and you don't want to talk or interact with anyone, even the person who saved your life, because you think that they shouldn't have done that and you're not worth it. You think that people will agree with your opinion of yourself- that you don't deserve a second chance."

Clint paused in his tirade and looked at his companion.

"Why do you care?" she asked, though her voice carried more wonderment than hostility.

"When Phil, uh, Agent Coulson, brought me in, I did the same thing as you. He ended up giving me an hour long lecture and forcing me to make a friend, but I didn't think you'd appreciate that." Clint finished sheepishly.

"Look, Natasha, I can't promise that every agent is going to like you right away, or ever. I can't promise that Fury will ever trust you enough to let you go off alone on missions. But I can promise something."

He didn't know what possessed him to say these things, but the young woman opposite him was showing the first real emotion he'd seen since he held out his hand to her, so he let the rest spill out.

"I can promise that I will never intentionally hurt you. I won't break you the way they did." Natasha looked down, not letting him see the tears in her eyes. "I'll do whatever it takes to not let you down. I believe in second chances, Nat. I want to give you one."

"Thank you." Natasha whispered, too shocked to say anything more.

"You're welcome. That's what friends are for."

"I am not your friend." Natasha replied automatically.

"Fine. Friends can come later. I can settle for partners for now."

"Partners?"

"Yep."

I can do that."

"Alright, then. Let's go get some breakfast. Do you like waffles?"

It was the first time he ever saw his partner smile.

That was fun! Tell me what you think!