A/N: this is a long one, because i decided we needed an extra scene to make this chapter a mind-blowing bazooka! okay, i'm joking! i just promised you a good kick-your-pants-off chapter, right? so here you go! and - We Bought A Zoo was a lovely show with Scarlett and Matt. but i'm still Rennerson all the way!(; and Jeremy Renner can sing like a god!

disclaimer: disclaimed.

Whenever you wear wet socks to sleep, whilst in an air-conditioned room, your feet turn ice cold and you feel sick the next day. Well, that is what's happening to Clint. More specifically, it's the rough condition of what his body is in. A terrible hypothermia that isn't giving him any space for warmth.

The doctor explains to Natasha in layman terms - not that she hasn't been into the infirmary enough times to learn a little bit of anatomy - that his body is frozen and that they're just waiting until he thaws out. It didn't take a medical genius to know that his body was rejecting all that heat.

The Avengers. It's an assemble of superheroes, pulled together by Nick Fury (Director of SHIELD), whose jobs are to save the world from all the terrible things. (A/N: someone should be happy I used the name of your favourite song!) Millions of the public assume that they are untouchable. Fact is, not exactly.

Physically enhanced Steve can very well bust an ankle in a sprint, and Tony without his suit can have his wrist broken from his punch ricocheting off the wall. Bruce might just walk into a moving door and have his nose broken and set, and though very unlikely, Thor can have his brother's knife stuck deep in his skin.

Point is, all these superheroes are equally subjected to harmful injuries like that. So, what had originally made all of them think that someone as human as Clint wouldn't be subjected to the worser kinds of harm? And what makes a person believe that Natasha can't subject herself to feelings? Anyway, it's all that's left when you take away human anatomy, right?

Well, from there, once Tony had undeniably made an accidental comment on how Clint looked like a dead smurf when they revealed him, the whole family has been bugging Fury for the full story. That including the down-to-the-bone details on how SHIELD had found him and how Clint's body was reacting - if it even could - to the heaters.

The team hangs around with Natasha watching over Clint, completely relieving Agent Hill of her duties. Bruce makes an effort to check over his monitors on an hourly basis, in which he will then sigh over Clint's next-to-none heart rate. He checks in with the doctors too about Clint's condition, then does all the research he can do to see if there is any way at all that they can warm him up.

Thor learns to persuade the concerned woman to take a nap, or at least have a change of clothes when she looks like she needs some time away. If she doesn't abide, he carries her away without her trying to resist. His eyes know when she's tired. If he really needs more help, Pepper's always there with her husband.

Then there's Tony and Steve, being Natasha's two greatest pillars of support, whether physically, mentally or emotionally. She always has them to lean on when the chair doesn't provide her with enough comfort to put her at ease. Funny, that is, because there had once been a time when Clint solely played the role.

The whole group of them realise the imminent possibility of change that will soon occur within the woman. She barely even talks now, only conversing in simple nods or the shaking of her head. When Fury calls them all in, and Natasha doesn't follow, they raise their growing concerns. "That's why we enforce rules, rules that apparently our agents don't exactly choose to abide to." He replies with a sigh.

Then, he reveals every piece of truthful information to the team. About his mission. And the lies.

-cookies!-

The door clicks shut slowly, and the disturbing sound of forced ventilation and the incredibly long silence between each beep of the machine invades his ears like gushing water. The shadow of the agent's skin is a shade of grey, since it's late at night and the lights are off.

With the slightest bit of the hallway light peaking through the blinds of the ward, Clint's arm takes the pale colour of white with the tint of blue. Like Tony's injudicious comment, he really does look like a dead smurf. So the man is guilty as charged.

The image of Clint in his head is pretty much the reason why he can't get any sleep tonight. Or any nights before that, and so will the nights after. The very thought of his best male agent, buff and active with his peaked senses and vigilance, finally coming off so weak and struggling for life, it's ridiculous. And the way that Natasha's evidently losing her head over the numbers to his mortality rate instead of increasing her body count makes Fury worry.

Have two of SHIELD's best agents subjected to the terrible things in life, and allow it to impact so greatly on them that they can't control. Even the best can't hold out for long, and these two have been alternately doing it for years. Fury knows he shouldn't be shocked because they are bound to give in.

No matter what the body count that these two hold, even if it's sinful to a point, they are human. Not about the flesh, or the blood, or the lack of chemical engineering part thereof. They are human, which is to say that they aren't isolated from their fears or their emotions.

It's how every human is tied together and packaged to face the world. They just handle it differently, they handle themselves with such care and finesse that it's brutal when it all falls apart. Doing what gets the job done, even if it kills.

Even if it kills.Well, now it's chewing both of them out. Natasha is simply biting the bullet, hard. She's clinging on to dear sanity like that, whether it means chipping her teeth or eventually having the bullet sink through.

Fury knows that she's pulling hairs from its roots and walking around with crosshairs on her back whenever she has to leave the ward, because every second spent away from the comfort of the beeping monitor lets her mind venture into the unknown. Natasha feels that when she goes, their tether is on a risk to snapping, and then Clint will bite the dust.

He sighs, watching the over-clothed man's chest rise and sink out of pure force. He doesn't know if Clint's lungs are even working. Poor Natasha, Fury thinks. Does she just sit here every day and watch Clint's progress peak only a little next to none? Listening to his heart beat less than half the times it should per minute? It's stressing, he doesn't dare to deny.

The agent had wanted to propose, picking up the engraved ring in Mexico before proceeding with his mission. When SHIELD came in a medic hovercraft to retrieve his body (the FBI had said he was most likely dead.), the ring had dropped out of his pocket when they loaded him from the sand to the stretcher, wrapped up in towels. Fury picked it up and kept it, until he made the call to have Agent Bracken send it to her doorstep.

"Come on, Agent. You've been playing dead long enough now. Get your lazy ass back up and get back to work. I have a pile of missions for both of you." Okay, so he isn't good at talking to the technically dead. In fact, he sucks at it. Using all the wrong words and method of approach.

The emptiness of the silence is filled with ventilator gushing and machine rumbling, and it lasts a whole elastic second before Fury broke Boss. He just can't stop thinking of the struggling Natasha. How helpless she is even though she keeps it under wraps. The vacant look on her face already tells everyone that Natasha is gone, or maybe she's lucky enough to have only one foot out the door for now.

"Look." Fury's voice is dead serious. "You left that girl hanging, barely holding on, on a thread. She's waiting for you to come back. Don't give her yet another blow in the gut." Because one touch is all she needs before she crumbles like a house of cards.

"She's driven, and I trust it's all because of you. And for days now, nearly weeks, everyone's watching her turn numb. All that belief when she first started out, and all that confidence, gone." I swear, I'm trying.

"So if you don't come back from this, it's gonna change her. You will change who she is. Can you bear to watch that happen?" No, it kills me. Her voice, the way it always shakes when she talks to me, it kills me. It kills me because it sounds so empty! But she can't hear my conscience. She can't hear how I'm begging her to stop! And you can't hear it too...

Somehow, Clint's heart rate picks up a little. It stays stable for a while, where Fury smirks a little. Genuinely. Then it dives back down to where it usually wavers around. "Try harder, Barton. She needs you. You're not gonna leave her a widow, are you? When all of us can't, you gotta be awake to reel her in if she can't swim."

Exhaling, he leans back into his chair and watches the agent throughout the night. Fury knows that Natasha comes in at five in the morning, so he makes sure he'll leave them alone. He watches Clint for the next two hours, and before the bustle arrives back into the infirmary, he leaves quietly.

You gotta reel her in if she can't swim, agent. I'm not gonna lose both of you.

-cookies!-

TWO MONTHS LATER

Natasha stands right outside the building. She hasn't visited his rickety old building and his common, rickety apartment in ages. She trusts that its kept organised and dusted by the old lady in his block. Auntie Sal. Yes, Auntie Sal. Two months ago, she remembers to have thought about visited his old Auntie Sal. She will now.

There is something that's making her reluctant to walk on further. To come face to face with each and every memory that reminds her of Clint. Like the smell of old Auntie Sal's house that lingers with her favourite scent of his clothing. Or the way the floors of the building creak and the leaking water from the broken faucet plops onto the ceramic sink, like the first time he had brought her here.

(Flashback)

He looks like they're about to make a midnight heist, and his chuckle, along with the goofy look on his face, is priceless. He's barely this childish at work. "Are you ready?" Clint whispers from right outside the apartment.

It's four in the morning and they decided that taking a look at his apartment after an overwhelming mission and extended three days stay in the hospital, and eating rotten mac and cheese on his greasy, untouched couch was a good idea. A great idea! She bites back her ever-feminine laughter and shakes her head at his eagerness with a brilliant roll of her eyes.

Natasha watches her partner as he clumsily fumbles for his key, groping easily at the seemingly empty space over the door. "It's too commonplace, you know. Hiding your key above your door. Anyone could reach for it and rob you." She comments, watching the faint gleam of the key in his hand. She scans it over as she leans against the hollow wall. The complicated intertwining of the metal design and the dull silver implies that the apartment is from the 90s.

He raises his eyebrows in a frown, then gives a half smirk. "I don't come back up here often, so the old lady below me cleans it out. I have to put the key somewhere, right?" Natasha shrugs without reply. "Ouch! Harsh, widow." Clint teases as he sticks the key into the lock.

There is obviously something going on in his head. Something like denial. The way he had gulped down several bottles of chilled beer just an hour ago aroused her suspicions easily. It isn't like Clint at all. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she has a deep, long cut in her abdomen that's patched up with eleven stitches now. Because he didn't take down the armed man fast enough before he reached her.

The lock clicks open, and the door creaks when he pushes it inwards. In the darkness, his home is fairly simple. There are no obvious pictures of him, nothing left behind to leave some memories. She strolls about the house as he fumbles for the light switch. The light burns for a while before the bulb blows and the room sinks into darkness again. "Well, the light's out."

Natasha acknowledges it with an inaudible sound from between her lips and continues about his house. Clint follows her, humming from behind her back, clearly intoxicated with alcohol. She chuckles, then comes across a picture of a beautiful blonde-haired woman and her husband, a dark-haired man. Two younger boys stand beside the couple, one with deep, blue eyes while the other has a distinguished jaw line that she fairly recognises. He's barely ten.

"Is this the only family portrait you have?" Natasha queries, turning to face him. Clint expresses some genuine hurt when he hears her question, one she doesn't miss, then nods with a smile. "Yeah." He replies.

"It's like twenty years ago!"

Clint sighs, clicking his tongue then pursing his lips. "I never told you the duck story, did I? I've known you for three years now, and I've never told you the duck story!"

"Clint!" Exasperated, she huffs. "Don't change the subject. Something happened. Probably when you were eight. Or ten-"

He swallows, avoiding Natasha's piercing glare. Clint's line of vision flies about the room, unwilling to reply. He does, eventually, as he walks to the fridge and pops open a newly stocked in bottle of beer. "Okay! I'll tell you. And listen well, miss. I'm not telling it again." Positively intoxicated. She grins. "Nine. That photo you have there, it was taken a month before the accident. I was nine."

Accident? She has read his file, but it had no record of an accident or any family history. Her brows knit into a fine frown, but the silence from her whispers for him to carry on. He lets the liquid slither down his throat, waiting for ease to kick in.

"July 1983. Dad was driving, and... shouting. He was shouting at me for some reason. And Mom was screaming back at him. Telling him to stop... He just kept hitting her because she was talking back, making sure she was bruised one way or the other."

Clint's voice thickens audibly. "I just kept quiet and looked out on the road. Dad was busy hitting Mom, and she was busy screaming back. He didn't watch the road, and I was shouting in the car that he was about to run a red light."

"'Dad! Mom!' I called. 'Look out at the road!' And all that insane bickering was flying around my head! Dad shoving Mom and threatening to hit her again if she didn't sit down. They fought for a while, and all the time I was just wailing about that damned traffic post in front of us turning red!"

He's shaking, everywhere. His voice is shaking. His body is trembling. The worst thing yet is that Natasha doesn't know what is going on in his head. It's the scariest thing that she doesn't know what he just might do. "Calm down." Clint is just... shaking, shaking his head while it hangs, his elbows on his knees. And his breathing is escalated, sounding as agitated as his voice.

"Nobody was listening to me, and it was just so noisy! And my brother was shouting at me to shut up. Hitting, and punching me in the back seat because I wouldn't stop warning them about the junction. Mom took off her seat belt and held onto my brother's hand, and Dad just pulled at her though she didn't want to budge. She listened to me, finally, but it was too late... He drove right into the junction, full speed, and crashed into the car in front of us."

The hesitation in Clint's voice starts to grow, and he feels a tingly burn behind his eyes. With each able second he isn't speaking, he's brutally chugging down mouthfuls of beer like it's a poisonous addiction. "Mom... Mom flew right through the windshield when the front crashed right in. Both of them were shouting at me, saying that it was me. I caused this. I caused Mom to get into this! And then another truck rammed into our side of the car. Dad died instantly when the truck snapped his neck in half, while I escaped that impact almost freely, having been so small that I was able to cower behind Mom's seat. My brother got knocked out when he hit his head against the window."

"Car sirens were going off from everywhere. I climbed out of the car and I saw Mom... She was my fault!" Clint starts to raise his trembling voice, eyes reflecting volumes of deep regret. "And I keep drilling it into my head, keep saying that there was something I could've done. But I just stood there, recognising every shard of glass embedded in her skin. I remember the... the look on her bloodied face when she was lying on that hood. She was so scared. Hyperventilating as she stared at me with such wide eyes. And I was just screaming, and crying, not knowing what to do."

"Don't do this Clint. That wasn't you. You were just a child. You couldn't have done anything." Natasha warns pointedly. She isn't one for the easy coming anyway.

When he smashes his fist down on the table with a silencing bang and stands up, she jumps a little. A hand flies to the back up knife she keeps at her back on the waist holster. "Hell I couldn't, Nat!" He yells, the rasp in his voice deeper with anger and guilt than she's ever seen before. "You don't know what it's like to see the people you love, die from your mistakes." Clint speaks through his teeth, one hand fisting up into a ball at his forehead. It cracks a little, and his breaths stay shaky.

"Every time you get shot by a bullet, or stabbed by a knife, hell, even strangled till you turn blue! Every time you fall unconscious, you don't know how it's like for me, Nat! You don't know what's going on inside my head. How about I tell you?"

"It's scary. It's really scary when you don't wake up. It's terrifying when I watch you bleed out right in front of me, when you stop breathing. It just makes me feel completely helpless, like the nine-year-old back that day, standing on the street. Sometimes I don't even know if you're going to die... in- in my arms before the medics come, because Mom died before they came. Then I'm just so scared, so afraid, that you're not going to wake up anymore, that you're going to leave me the way she did because I didn't do enough to save you!"

"Three days ago, Nat. That guy stuck a knife into your stomach and you just fell! Did you know how scary that was? I know you think it isn't as worrying as the other time when you got shot it the lung, but it is for me. It is, because each time I do something wrong and you go down as collateral damage, it gets worse and worse! It just peaks a little bit more each time you get injured, and the fear gets worse. It killed me, okay? It killed me because I couldn't do one thing, and that I put you in a hospital!"

The unwilling glassiness - tears - in his eyes speak volumes, and his voice speaks more when it just loses it's edge and goes small. Timid. When Natasha closes the distance and holds his face with both her hands, he can't bear to look at her. He just lifts her shirt and gently traces the sutures with his finger. The tender skin around it is bruised. "I hurt you, Natasha. And I don't know how the hell I'm gonna live with myself if I hurt you too much one day... If it kills you... But that's what I really don't know! I don't know why I let myself- ... I-"

"Look at me." She finally says, firmly. It's just this... odd feeling in her chest that's bugging her to comfort Clint and making him stop blaming himself. For some reason, she can't bear to watch him fall apart like this because this, this isn't the Clint she got to know three years ago.

She gets Clint to look at her. To look into her eyes and lock their connecting gaze so he stays tethered to her. "I'm perfectly fine, okay? I'm patched up, and I'm here. With you. You have nothing to worry about. Nothing else matters, no memories, no worries, no feelings. Just presence."

"No... I still remember every second of your blood on my ha-" Then, as if to shut him up or to satiate the oddly trustful, burning desire in her chest, she kisses him.

She places her lips on his. Even though she's kissed hundreds of men before, whether to tease or taunt or poison, the typical taste of the usual Bloody Mary or hard liquor on any of their lips, fused with the revolting smell of handy breath mint, just cannot compare to this simplicity. Clint's lips just taste of bitter beer and salt, which makes the odd feeling grow, like mourning.

Natasha feels his muscles turn taut, then relax. But his skin never touches hers, as if out of fear or out of guilt. They are assassins, detached and tucked away from the ordinary experiences of the commonplace man and woman. They don't trust easily, so fading and falling into each other like that is a cry of betrayal to their partnership, their friendship.

To be in a job like that, they come and go with territory, and things like that always drive each other apart. So he's trusting too much, she's evolving, and her head tells her that she has to get far away from this man. But things like that put many others in perspective, and it doesn't matter if the world shifts from its axis. They'll move along with the world with a developing tether, if it's a risk they're both willing to take.

"I love you, Nat." He blurts out, voice small and confused, when she pulls away from him. Then, silence. "I love you, and I think that's why I'm afraid of hurting you. I-"

It's only been three years. It may be a long time, and they might be closer than they should, but it's only three years. The risk, she realises she's not willing to take. The love, she knows she's unworthy of being trusted. There was indeed a time where the string of his bow was backed up tightly, waiting for the right moment to make its debut into her chest. But to stay? Judging from the three years working together, she makes the decision that the territory stays with him.

"Shush." She commands, almost amused. "You've had too much to drink, Clint. And I'm loaded with painkillers."

He understands. Maybe she is starting to like this perspective after all, because they've never been more bare to the other. And they don't even need to be together.

(Flashback)

She's never said it back. I love you.She's never said it back.

Even though she's more than happy that she had made the right decision against leaving, it's one thing to avoid admitting you love someone because you don't want to lose your best friend. It's another to already be together and still want to fight, with words, over who dominates the relationship. To prove who handles the line between work and pleasure, better, and who blurs it.

It's all her. He wasn't taught how to speak, or where to walk, or how to kill when he was a child. He wasn't taught how to leave behind his emotions when he had to. He learnt them later, like how normal people do. But her?

Natasha is taught to walk on the pinnacle of her trade. Whether to kill, or to love. Which knife, or which gun, or which poison. Looking back, he only laughs along. Puts on a little smile when he tells her he loves her and she only kisses him back. When it's your best friend, little things like that don't matter, right?

No. He's not just her best friend. He's more than that. Clint is her lover. Clint is the person that puts her world on its axis. Clint is the person that carries her home when she's drunk on her past. Clint is the person that loves her with passion. Clint is the person, if she forgets how to swim, he'll teach her instead of reeling her in to safety.

Clint is who she destines to be. Not Black Widow, the killer with a body count that, if made known, can scare a city into submission to her feet in plead to spare their lives. Not Natalia Romanova, the girl with a handheld past. The altered past. But, Natasha, or better known as Nat, the one that finds comfort in being manhandled. The one that can love and not sin. The one that doesn't need to be the jack of all trades. Not a queen. But, free. Liberated.

So she's never said it back to him ever since that night. Realising only now, there's not enough time. There's barely enough time. Life is slithering from him, and his body is just a shell. She'll give anything to have him back, telling her he loves her so she can say it back just as much. Nobody ever knows, they might not be here tomorrow.

Natasha chokes back her tears. No more crying. No more tears. She doesn't need to make another scar in this town. Coming back with her heart on her sleeve, just the way they'd left it the first time she came here, she walks up the carpeted steps and into the hallway, finally knocking on the door.

Opening the door wide open is a petite old lady, around her sixties, with bushy grey hair tied into a low ponytail. She wears a head dress that matches the woven clothing, taken from the urban-style. The woman looks on with dark, spell-binding eyes but complements it with a warming smile. "What brings you here, dear?"

So that's why Clint loves talking to her. Auntie Sal's voice is fairly inviting, full of comfort and warmth. Clint. It brings a pang to her chest, and a bigger one comes in a bashing wave when the scent of elderflower hits her nose. The smell of his clothing... She downplays a slight flinch and struggles effortfully with a welcoming smile. "Auntie Sal, I'm Natasha." She introduces herself, choking on her next line. "Clint's fiancée. You know, the one that used to stay above you? I'm here to visit you, on behalf of Clint."

Auntie Sal's eyes light up at the sound of his name. It's probably been months since she's heard his name around here. She gestures Natasha in with a pleasant smile. "Please, take a seat!"

-cookies!-

It had been just any ordinary day, with Clint lying motionless in the hospital bed and the ventilators and machines creating all sorts of monotonous sounds that can lull a person to dreadful sleep. Natasha hadn't told anyone where she had went, which was a cause of worry for the rest of the team. Now, they put it as second priority while doctors and nurses turn Clint's room into a complete whir.

The team gets shoved and pushed around and out of the way abruptly as they stand in stun. One second he was fully clothed, and the next, the whole room is tossed into a frenzy of nurses rushing to and fro with medication and equipment, and the doctors are scissoring off all layers of his clothing to leave his chest bare.

The monitor sirens are wailing hysterically, with his usually near inactive ECG suddenly spiking into an overly fast pace. The doctors are screaming about a "V-Tach". According to Bruce's instant reaction, he calls it a ventricular tachycardia. It carries on for a few seconds, soon subsiding into a dreadful asystole. Simply put, as Bruce explains to them, Clint's heart stopped from an arrhythmia.

Should they be happy that his heart is finally responding? Or should they be worried out of their heads that Clint is flatlining right in front of them? The doctors continue with his external defibrillation to no avail, turning up the charges while the nurses keep track of his fifteen minute window of survival.

Several surgeons start to clear the operating room, scrubbing into their gear. Giving up on the defib pads, one of the doctors climb over Clint and does continuous CPR, to start his heart again, as the nurses pull the needles from his skin and wheel him into the theatre.

"Seven minutes down! We need cardio, stat! Patient requires open-heart defib!" That doctor yells out, pressing into Clint's ribs to start his heart again, even if it means breaking them. "Come on, agent. Don't die on us now." She says between gritted teeth.

They all soon disappear into the operating room, leaving the team stranded in bits, outside. Pepper starts to tear up and cry, with Tony glancing at the rest of them as he holds her tightly. "He's going to be alright, Pepper." That's what he says. Thor, Steve and Tony watch Bruce, hoping for some optimistic response.

Maybe all of them just don't believe these words of comfort either.

-cookies!-

Two blonde haired children, with their dazzling blue eyes, twins, squeal as they watch a children's show on the TV. Natasha watches them with a featherlight grin. She can almost feel their optimism radiating into her pores. Soon, Auntie Sal carries two cups of her morning brew out from the kitchen and sets them on the table, one in Natasha's hands.

"So," Auntie Sal rasps with a slight chirp. "How is Clint? I've been keeping his apartment tidy, like I'd promised."

Natasha sips on the lukewarm brew in her hands, deliberating her reply. "Pleasant. He's been overseas at work for a few months now, but he says he's coming home fairly soon. He tells me that he'll come back here again when he's back. Says he hasn't visited you in a long time!" A lie, the only one she can manage because the truth can't reach her lips. Clint's cold, and dead, and obviously not improving in that bed he's been laying in for a little over two months now. He's lifeless, not walking around in the streets of Moscow, tailing his target.

When her voice is about to waver, she sips on the brew again. The diminutive lady chuckles joyfully, sipping on hers too. "It is nice to know that the kid hasn't changed a bit, and that he's doing well." Natasha feigns the same amount of happiness, pulls it off perfectly, and replies with a quiet 'yeah'.

"Auntie Sal? How did you meet Clint?" She asks. The old lady sighs, then shakes her head with a frown. "He was a fifteen-year-old kid, defenceless. It was just by the alley where I found him beaten delirious, blood everywhere. The other kid, the one beating him up, Clint kept saying it was his brother. Kept mumbling 'No! Don't call the cops. My brother is a good man.' and I was worried sick about whether he had a concussion."

"So, I carried him in and set him on that couch," She points at the dull coloured sofa across the room where the two kids are sitting. "and asked him where I could contact his parents. He didn't exactly reply me, but he went on and on about how something was his fault. The way his past collided with such brutality, I have to say, he's actually the survivor. Ever since that night, in which he swore us to secrecy of the night's events after he was well awake, I made him my son. Took care of him for the next few years until he could stand on his two feet without diving back down."

"Well, enough about me, dear." Auntie Sal finally laughs. "Clint always talks about you. So how are you? Is he treating you well?" Natasha smiles sweetly with a nod, heart aching like a throb in her temple. She's feeling horrible. She's feeling stranded, like those characters in Lost. And Clint? Her chest constricts easily. "Well. We're doing... well."

Auntie Sal nods with content. She throws a glance to the two twins sitting on the couch. "Those two are my grandchildren. Clint has seen them before. He loves them, and talks about having children quite a bit." She calls the kids over, calling out their names.

Naomi and Niall. The shaggy-haired four-year-old climbs right onto Auntie Sal's lap, while his twin, Naomi, holds her arms out in front of Natasha. She leans down and picks her up to settle her on her lap, and the little girl smiles proudly, crystal blue orbs reflecting the divine child-like innocence. Naomi then chuckles, bringing a smile onto Natasha's lips itself.

"Yeah..." She grins inwardly, continuing with a tinge of sadness in her voice. "He asks me about it too, but he prefers to stay a man of virtue. He keeps saying he wants to marry me first. But... Yeah, we are, soon." Natasha has seen him with children countless of times, and the joy etched on his face just makes her heart flutter. He has his way with children the way she has hers. So they /have/ talked about it, both the good and the bad.

Both of them live their days by the hour, all right down to the second that distinguishes them from life and death. A second between a bullet shot and when brain matter bursts from the perfect hole in their heads. A second between a beating heart and a still cardiac muscle. A second between breathing and losing.

To be parents, it's every couple's dream. But can people like them, people that roll the dice in every occasion they pick up their weapon and head out, ensure their life to their child? No, they can't, so that's why it isn't exactly an option.

Natasha strokes the little girl's hair over and over, playing with little smirks and grins when Naomi stares intently at her with soulful connection. Slowly, she starts to pull into a playful frown that makes her face muscles ache, and pout her lips ever so slightly. Irresistibly, the little girl engulfs herself in happiness of a new friend.

When her phone rings, she settles the girl down on her seat and walks over to a quieter corner to answer it, away from their eyes. One voice from outside this house just hits her with realisation, and from there, things undoubtedly go south. Before Natasha even knows it, the line ends and her hands are numb, weak and trembling. "Dear god-" She paces, trying hard to keep the feeling in her feet too. The phone almost slips from her hand.

Her breathing starts to quiver, and all her muscles start to turn sore. The one thing about her now is that, somehow, her eyes are dry from tears even though they burn like hell. She's out of tears to shed, and she's at loss of what to do.

"Everything alright, dear?" The old lady calls from the table.

Breathe, Natasha. Breathe. In, then out. In, then out. It isn't helping! The words are just stumbling over each other in her head. "Something came up, and I- I really have to go! I'm sorry!" She does it quick, then runs right out the door without acknowledging her soft goodbyes. There are just more things to put in priority now, if she can find a cab.

-cookies!-

Clint's damage control had went on for 94 straight hours, with doctors stepping in and out by the progressing hours with their gloves bloody and their scrubs bloodier. The somber looks on their faces as they worked in cycles had been undeniably worrying. And for God's sake, it was Clint's blood on their hands! The lifeblood of the person she never had enough time to cherish. Make memories.

If it was called taking a turn for the better, one of the scrub nurses had said on her way out that for Clint to have lasted a day cracked wide open on a table and prodded with scalpels and other materials, it was something to feel optimistic about.

So, after 94 hours of Fate's cruelty, and arguments and silent crying, it was surrender. Fate had surrendered and returned Clint to where he belonged, all patched up and waiting to be opened like a Christmas present.

"His heart is weak, and we've pumped him on sedatives to knock him out for a few days. If he's smooth sailing for the next 24 hours, he's going to be just fine." Says the doctor who has Clint wrapped up in so much gauze that there's barely any skin left to see other than his face. He pats Natasha on the shoulder when her worried expression doesn't change. "He's lived through the worst, Agent Romanov. Although it is a fact that Agent Barton will be in a lot of pain when he wakes up, he's all well and better now. He's stronger."

They all believe the doctor, and watch Clint's monitors closely for the essential hours until the doctor confirms again that he's definitely out of the woods. Tony invites them out to the cafeteria for drinks, knowing that they can only cheers on mineral water and sandwiches, while Natasha doesn't move from her side of the bed.

She finds his rough fingers with one hand, and she smiles at the warmth. Finally, he isn't cold anymore. He's Clint, and that just reminds her of the man that blurted the words out from their third year together. The man with the duck story, in which she will ask him to tell her when he wakes up.

Her other hand travels to his face. She recognises every pore in his skin, every bump and wrinkle. She recognises the way he usually feels warm under her fingertips, and it's just like today.

So they get a happy ending. They get the house on the hill, and the brunette haired children with his beautiful eyes. They get the sweet vows that represent endless love. The happy ending. Natasha, like the rest of the team, is just waiting for him to wake up, and when the family of doctors and nurses are there to watch his eyes finally flinch and flutter open...

"Who are you?" His voice rasps quietly, almost voiceless from inactivity. The feeling in her chest sinks, and her heart drops to her stomach. But... It's just the haziness from the long sleep. She's done these loads of times with him. Even the doctors say so.

"Hey. You're awake." She manages a smile. "I'm Natasha, your partner. Do you remember me?" She speaks in a small, hoarse voice. There is a quick flicker of recognition, which she doesn't miss, in his eyes. "Natasha..." He repeats, nodding. Clint's eyes wander around the blank white room, light bright from the ceiling that it accents the clear, saltwater green colour of his irises. "W-Where am I?" The infirmary, she replies warmly. He jumps at the sound of her voice, and his suddenly alert eyes dart back to stare at her like as if she was an enemy.

"Who are you?"

TBC TBC TBC!

i'm starting to doubt that that flashback was necessary. or that it made any sense at all! but i just reaaaally wanted a kissing scene, and a Clint breakdown and the reason why he's always here and there and everywhere about wanting to keep her safe. so... MR. FLASHBACK was born! and... cliffy(: and it was extra long...

please review if you can! on your favorite line or sentence or scene. what you liked or disliked. (: