Nat stared at Clint like he had just grown arrows out of his ears. He had a farm? Clint? A farm? The even possible thought of it was insane. Clint turned back to his house and looked proud of it.

"How the hell did you get farm?" Nat was confused beyond explanation. Sure, she didn't know Clint's life story but she knew enough. His parents died when he was young and he and his older brother were orphaned and thrown into foster care. After nearly 3 years they ran away to the circus where they stayed until Barney was 21. She didn't know what happened after that, all she did know was Barney (Clint's older brother) died in an accident and Clint started working for SHIELD not long after.

"It was my families…" his voice trailed a bit and Nat could tell that he was thinking about his family. "We used to come here during the summer. It's my favorite place in the whole world." Nat walked up next to him and stared at the house. "Common I want to show you the inside." He gave her a shove and started up the wooden stairs. Glancing back she noticed that the car they had come in was gone and only their lone suitcases stood in the drive way. Turning back she quickly grabbed the relatively light suitcases and brought them up to the porch. She set them down and let herself in the screen door.

Walking inside her nose was filled with the smell of campfire smoke; inside to her right was a small kitchen table that looked like it hadn't been touch in years- it was connected to more of an open kitchen whose appliances hadn't been updated in at least 15 years. To her left was a little square of the room that had an old green couch with a box TV, stepping into the room she noticed a coffee table- with dents and scratches with magazines and books on it like the person just left for a minute and intended to be back.

"Nat?" she heard her name called through the house.

"Yeah?" she answered.

"Come upstairs, you'll want to get settled in!" Clint informed her. Nat turned back to the door and brought their bags inside. Walking upstairs she noticed that the stairs gave the tiniest of squeaks. Another think she noticed was how the house seemed to resemble Clint; it wasn't big and fancy like something Stark would, it wasn't grand and big like Thor described Asgard, and to Nat's view it didn't seem all that clean like Bruce's apartment and wasn't organized like Steve's. It truly reflected Clint in every aspect, or Clint's family for that matter.

When Nat reached the top of the stairs she noticed that there were miniscule holes in the wall from where nails had been taken out, and by the faint lighter coloring in square shapes- she could tell Clint had taken down family photos. She didn't blame him- then again she had nothing she could compare that too. Upstairs there was a small hallway with several doors. Nat saw Clint moving behind one and decided to join him. Stepping in the first thing that struck her was the set up of the room. She expected a small bed with a handmade quilt on it, maybe a chair and a small shelf of books; instead of a bed there was a hammock swinging from the corner of the room, under it were a pile over over-sized pillows. Yes there were books in the room but they were stacked horizontally and stretched up to the ceiling. There was a desk with paper and pencils scattered and a few drawings pinned above it. The room had 2 walls that were majority made up of huge windows that streamed light in. On the 2 remaining walls there were posters of bands; ACDC, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Guns n' Roses, Queen and more smaller bands she didn't recognize. She didn't even realized that Clint turned around and almost bumped into her.

"Jeez Nat," he looked surprised. "I thought… never mind." He shook his head. "Well I guess you got a glimpse to how I was in my younger years." Clint smiled. "I originally had a bed but after begging my parents finally got me my own personal hammock, however they insisted on the pillows after I fell out of it, and that was more than I would like to admit. And most of those books, are archery books, novels and just some weird ones I've found over the years." His cheeks were a little flushed.

"Are those yours?" She pointed over to the fading pencil drawings hanging off of the walls. There was one of a lion, one of a dog running through an unfinished field, one filled with doodles of eyes, mouths, ears and lips.

"I forgot all about those," he walked over and started pushing papers over on the desk. "Yeah, when I was younger I wanted to be the greatest archer/artist there ever was. Obviously that's changed." There was a sadness in his voice that Nat understood. Even when the Red Room was training her she had a desire to be a dancer, but teaching it under her fake identity was probably the closest she was ever going to come. "I haven't been in this room since I was probably 10 or so…"

"Their beautiful," Nat complimented his drawings.

"For a 10 year old I guess." He was snarky at his own drawing. "Buy, anyway- let me show you your room." He walked out of the room and she followed him; he pasted 2 doors, he mentioned one was the bathroom but she didn't quite catch it. "And this, right here," he opened a door. "Is where you shall be staying," he made a grand gesture and opened the door. Looking in Nat decided that if she ever had to describe her perfect room- this was the spitting image of it.

The room was a light pale yellow that reflected the sun perfectly. There was a nice sized iron rod bed that was snug in a corner with a bed side table with a reading lamp and a clock that was way out of date. To the left there was a window with a little reading nook that looked out over the farm; and to the right there was a desk that resembled Clint's except this one was nice and clean. She was honestly surprised how organized and nice the room looked despite no one being in here she guess in more than 10 years or so.

"This was our guest room for anyone who decided to come over. Not that a lot of people came, mainly just my parents friends." Clint informed her.

"It looks so nice and warm." Nat slowly made her way in. "I'm surprised it stayed this clean."

"I come up here at least once a year to make sure it stays in shape," he kept himself in the doorway.

"You do a good job, I didn't know you were such a handyman." She smiled.

"Like I said Nat, we all have our secrets- even between us." He winked and walked out allowing Nat to adjust to her new fake life.

The next couple of days were a bit hectic. Natasha and Clint had to rehearse their lives before they felt comfortable going into town and buying food and such; as they predicted people asked them questions and they answered flawlessly.

-Where do you live?

-In the white house just outside of town.

-The Barton's old place?

-That's the one!

-They died years ago, how did you manage to get it?

-We inherited it, after we married earlier this year we decided that we wanted a place of our own. After we found out our family was the owner we knew we just had to move here!

-Oh that's so nice! Well I'm [insert name here] and I live [insert address here]. If you newlyweds need anything just let me know!

-Thank you so much! We will!

Meeting everyone was overwhelming for Nat, although by the time they got done grocery shopping, her and her 'husband' had met at least 85% of the town. Most of them were couples that retired recently, a good portion were farmers who had lived here their whole lives and were now raising their families there; they were in the small portioned of the younger people in the town without extended family here.

After a day of shopping and lying to nice people they headed home and parked their truck and walked up to the house with bags in their arms, they were greeted by a loving German Shepard. Funny thing about the dog was that it just showed up at their door- on a leash with a SHIELD symbol on the collar. Nat remembered that she was suppose to like animals so she guessed having a dog would be more convincing. Nat hadn't been a big animal person but she absolutely loved this dog; he was fun and loving and would always stay close to Natasha (she swore it made Clint a bit jealous). They had also come to acquire 2 cars- one was an older truck that they used all of the time, but then parked in the shed was a black SHIELD car that would make for a quick getaway if they really to.

As for their jobs- Clint actually did farm and sold his products at the local market. The local high school would start in a couple of weeks and he would be their athletic director; Nat agreed- if Clint hadn't been recruited to SHIELD- he would most definitely be at a job that involved sports. She herself would start couching the dance team there and even one at a small dance studio that had a maximum of only 30 dancers. Their jobs would start in less than 2 weeks.

Back in the house Clint turned up the radio which played a song she didn't recognize but just went along in. Nat was putting away groceries while Clint was outside planting some flowers to make them actually look like a happy couple. As the sun was slowly descending into the horizon. Clint came back in and Nat heated up two personal pizzas that they had bought. Neither of them were cooks and Nat knew for a fact everything she made- she burned.

Sitting at the table she saw that this specific piece of furniture had seen a lot. It had stains, dents, and scratches and seemed to wobble a bit. They ate in silence for the first few minutes, both of them starving from their day of shopping. But something wasn't sitting right with Nat and she had an idea of what it was.

"Clint?" she finally asked. He looked up at her with his round eyes and pizza half-way stuffed in his mouth.

"E-yeah?" he gave a partial smiled and pushed the rest of the pizza into his mouth. "What's up?"

"I have to ask- what did you do while I was working with Steve?" Nat asked. Besides the mentioned of the terrorist she had nothing to go on- she knew from experience that a lot can happen between partners when they don't work together for a long time.

"Well," he took a sip of water. "Not going to lie it kinda sucked. First the... nightmares, started getting more intense and were mixed in with missions that I don't like to think about. After about a month of that Fury made me go see someone, um Bobbie Mores. She helped me through and in time I was all patch up- figuratively of course. And in no time I was back to missions, cracking heads and taking names. Had a few missions- drug lord, rescue a kid, just general things. I got with that terrorist thing quite early but I decided to stay to help get some civilians resettled and then when I came back…" he didn't say that he saw the only home he had ever known blown up. He didn't say that he was told Fury died by the hand of the Winter Soldier (although Nat would later tell him the truth).

Out of everything that Clint did and didn't say, the thing that bothered her the most was him confiding in Bobbi to tell his dreams about- honestly she felt a little betrayed; Bobbie was a SHIELD agent who decided halfway through her training to be an agent she decided that she wanted to become a consoler instead. Of course there was nothing Nat could do at that time to help Clint and he needed help but she always felt protective over her partner. Nat didn't have a lot of friends or even colleagues within SHIELD, but from the seldom ones she did have- Clint was the best.

"Wow, well I'm glad you're ok," she swallowed her feelings and put on a happy face. "Anything else big?" she pushed a little further to see how far he would let her into his life.

"Oh common were not going to have one of those emotional sessions were we cry and feel sorry for ourselves are we?" Clint complained. Nat felt a sting of embarrassment but it quickly went away.

"Well not anymore." she got up from the table and threw her plate in the sink and started walking off.

"Nat, I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Clint started to go after her.

A sudden anger pierced through her body. She suddenly regretted coming on this lay-low scenario. She whipped around and looked up at Clint, he was a whole head and a half taller than her but she stared like a lion stares at a gazelle- angry and full of rage.

"It takes a whole lot more than you getting quick with me to hurt my feelings." She yelled at him a little more loudly than she would have liked. "Like you said- we haven't been together for over a year. We're both different now."

Clint was going to say something but Nat didn't stay around to hear it. She heard him call her name but she ran upstairs and closed the door to her own room. Sliding down the door she balled her hands into fists and thought about how her and her once close partner now seemed like they were back in their 1st month of working together.