as a friend (as an old enemy)

by andsocanshe

Clint Barton, once an agent of SHIELD turned marksman for the Avengers, has just finished divorce proceedings when one simple question from his eight year old daughter sends the former spy on what might be the most difficult mission of his life — facing his past relationships. [Definitely, Maybe AU]

I will preface this for my Clint/Nat pals with a trigger warning for both Laura and Lila Barton, but they are [unfortunately] necessary in the story and if you've seen Definitely, Maybe (2008), then you understand why. That being said, if you haven't seen the movie, *spoiler alert* it is Clintasha endgame.

This story is set a few months before Captain America: Civil War yet is non-canon compliant with Avengers: Age of Ultron in regards to both the f*rm f*mily and br*cenat, though it is canon-compliant with aspects of the MCU and its' timeline (also non-compliant with the Hawkeye series' disrespect of Bobbi Morse because Laura Barton could never be her). There are also a few Agents of SHIELD name drops.

The title is from the song "Come As You Are" by Nirvana, which is relevant to the film and something that I decided to include because a cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which is also a Nirvana song, is used in the opening credits of Black Widow — they're both actually singles from the same album.

Lastly, enormous thank you to my beta, Sam, for getting through this monster for me. And without further ado...

———

as a friend (as an old enemy)

The crowds throughout JFK bustle with both excitement and haste as departing passengers race for their gates and those who have just landed head for the streets of New York. Luggage rolls past him, duffle bags hitting his legs, and a single stray water bottle bounces down the corridor toward airport security. Clint holds in a relieved sigh, grateful that he's only here for pickup.

Thankfully, it's only a few minutes longer before a little dark head appears amidst the chaos, her pigtail braids bouncing as the flight attendant entailed to unaccompanied minors leads the little girl from baggage claim to her father.

"Daddy!" Lila exclaims as she drops the woman's hand and races toward her father. She looks taller than she was the last time he saw her, and her weight collapsing into him matches the weight of the three months they've been apart. Divorce proceedings were a bitch.

"Hi, baby," he says, kneeling eye level with her to get a good once over before pulling her into his arms.

Lila's escort places her bags next to the reuniting father and daughter, excusing herself now that she knows she has matched the correct child with the correct parent and the reigns of responsibility for the eight year old fall on him — not that he isn't always responsible for her.

They take a cab through the city, passing few landmarks that a child would be interested in. Clint's about to point out the bridge up ahead when Lila, curious as she is, throws him a gut wrenching question.

"Was I an accident?" Her question is so calm and cool, void of emotion and anyone that hadn't raised her might see this as pure curiosity, but her father knows better. He knows that his words have the power to make or break her.

"No, of course not," he replies.

"One of the kids at school said that moms and dads only get divorced if their kids are accidentally born."

"Li, you weren't an accident," Clint insists, telling a little white lie because his daughter is eight years old and for as much of an "accident" as she was, he knows well enough to know that no child deserves to feel unwanted. Besides, "unplanned" doesn't mean "mistake".

"Then why are you and my mom getting a divorce?"

Swallowing hard, he glances out the cab window, "Grown ups… they get divorced for a lot of reasons, but this isn't your fault."

"Then what was the reason?" She asks stubbornly. God, he'd find her stubbornness endearing if he hadn't spent the last ten months arguing with stubborn attorneys, judges, and an ex-wife that was willing to be amicable with everything except for their child. Not that he can blame her — a SHIELD agent turned Avenger who made it home once a month, if that, wasn't much of a husband nor a father, if he were being honest. Even so, he had gotten five weeks of summer vacation, every other holiday, and one weekend a month as long as he was willing to commute for the latter. She didn't want her child raised in the city and truth be told, Clint couldn't blame her for that either.

"A lot of little things that turned out to be bigger than we thought they would be."

"Like what?"

Before Clint can answer, the cab pulls up outside of an apartment building in Brooklyn and the driver signals that they have made it back to his place, which, though it wasn't much — just a shabby little thing in Bed-Stuy with friendly neighbors and the few that occasionally got on his nerves (as he got on theirs), he wanted his daughter to feel the same sense of home that he found there. A sense that had been few and far between over the years. A sense that had never come in the time spent on that farm.

"You like it?" He asks, shouldering her bag as the little girl steps onto the sidewalk by his side. She twists one braid between her small fingers, examining walls of slightly broken brick and steel ladders connecting adjacent balconies.

"It's the tallest building I've ever lived in," she muses in one of those rare moments that remind Clint that she is actually just a child despite her mature questions and calm disposition.

"Yeah, it is," he laughs. "Well, we lived in one about this size when you were born, but—"

"—My mom didn't like the city," Lila croons with an eye roll, fighting the reiteration of a story that she herself had heard many times.

She was born in Washington DC but happily raised in an apartment in Manhattan until she was nearly two, when they — not so much they, but Clint was unwilling to let his ex take the blame for their problems — had decided it was time to relocate to something more practical. Something with a yard where Lila could play, safe streets that she could spend her summers roaming, and above average schools that didn't cost an arm and a leg to get into. He just hadn't known that that meant a farmhouse reminiscent of one that he would have loved to forget somewhere in the middle of Iowa.

"We didn't like the city," he corrects. "It's not very practical to raise a kid here unless you have to."

"Well, we're here now and I'm a kid."

Smart-ass. She doesn't turn back to look at him, instead heading for the entrance without waiting for him to catch up. Then it's up the stairs — first, noting the broken elevator — and finally, to his front door.

—

Bedrooms have been toured and bags have been unpacked by dinner time, which is nothing special after the busy day the Bartons' have had. Not that Clint nor Lila would complain about pizza and table etiquette to begin with, much less in a glorified two bedroom Brooklyn bachelor pad.

Clint hands her a slice on a plastic plate along with a glass of water, settling on the opposite side of the counter with his own food when the first — or rather, the forgotten — question comes back into play.

"What were the reasons that you and my mom got divorced?"

"Why do you keep saying 'my mom' like I've never met her before?"

"Well," Lila takes a sip of her water before continuing, "She's not your wife anymore but she's still my mom. And since she's not yours anymore, I intend to clarify because 'Mom' isn't a name for you to say anymore, unless you're talking about your own mom."

"Well," Clint repeats her tone, "Do you call me 'my dad' whenever you're talking to 'your mom'?"

Lila shrugs, "Stop trying to change the subject. Why did you and my mom get divorced? What were the reasons?"

He could tell her that they fell out of love a long time ago, maybe even before she was born. He could tell her that they had been unhappy for just as long — though, it seemed to imply that having a baby had made them unhappy, which was far from the truth. He could tell her that they had just grown apart, and maybe that was true, but at times, he had felt that they had never really been on the same page to begin with. But the simplest answer, the easiest answer, was that he really didn't know exactly why they fell apart because all he knew was that over time, his career took a toll and long distance took a toll and priorities, well, they took a toll, too. And when you married someone that you loved or at least truly believed you loved amidst confusion, a string of heartbreaks, and in the wake of a past that had once seemed like it could be enough — solid, safe, secure — you almost doomed yourself from the start.

"Honey, I think…" he admits, "I think that maybe we just weren't the right people for each other. But sometimes that's okay, you know, because we had you and you are worth every bit of it."

She accepts that as an answer, he thinks, taking a bite of pizza and another swallow of water but a flick of curiosity flashes through her dark eyes after a minute and Clint knows instantly that he's in for it.

"How many girlfriends have you had?"

"Uhh," Clint hesitates, "Two serious ones. And a few… almost."

"Almost?"

"Almost. Ones that could have been but never were."

"Okay. How did you and my mom get together? And don't tell me the whole thing about grown ups looking at each other and falling in love the first time they see each other because I'm not a baby anymore and I know that fairytales aren't real. Not like that anyway."

"That," he deflects as he reaches for another slice of pizza, "Is a story for another day, Lila."

"When I'm older."

"When you're older."

—

After eight years of parenting, Clint should know by now that children rarely give up. Hell, he should know that after the handful of ops he'd spent with level one agents fresh from the academy. Sometimes the young, overly confident ones were too intrigued for their own good.

"Please, just tell me the story," begs Lila while settling into bed that night. It's not too late to insist on a bedtime story unfortunately, and the one hour time change isn't enough for him to argue that she's too jet lagged for it either. So as she pleads with him for the umpteenth time, big brown eyes full of fake tears that he can't help but let pull at his will, Clint finally gives in.

"Fine. I'll tell you the story but I'm changing all the names and some of the details, so you'll just have to guess who your mother is."

"I'm always up for a challenge," Lila smirks confidently as she pulls her blanket up to her chin. It's a confidence that he recognizes, but it doesn't come from him or from her mother.

"Believe me, I know you are. Alright, where do we start… Let's see… Hmm, it was the spring of…"

. . .

i. blonde

He's confident but not overly confident as he brushes past a crowd of agents, finding humor in the threats made by Director Fury amongst the group stood in the middle of The Triskelion's lobby. They're all new, and most will learn their place here while others will drop out and some… well, some will die before they get the chance. It's a risk they sign up to take. As he pushes past the crowd, a blonde catches his eye and sends a wink in his direction — flirting, maybe, but he's more willing to believe that she's trying to weed out the competition. Figure out which agents will help her succeed and which won't. Either way, Clint's flattered by her but he's got a date tonight and it's not with someone that was just chewed up and spit out of one of SHIELD's three prestigious academies. Still, he'll remember her.

"Agent Barton," Fury barks, spotting Clint as he escapes the group, "You better be headed toward Coulson's office."

"Yes, Sir," he confirms, though that isn't at all where he was headed. He hopes that his little white lie will go over the director's head.

ii. brunette

The bar is crowded by eight; filled with newly returning SHIELD agents, agents on their way out, and several unaware civilians. How these people are unaware that this has been deemed a "spy bar", he'll never know but Clint has seen quite a few assassin style brawls and disavowed goodbyes in this building that have somehow escaped the public eye.

It doesn't matter, though. Tonight, he isn't here for that. Tonight he's here to see someone and well, he's also here to tell her that he's flaking again. Taking another mission. It's the third lengthy assignment in the four months they've been together, but hey, life of a spy, right?

He spots the brunette that he's been looking for at the bar before he can dwell on it much longer, and his feet carry him over in just a few swift steps.

—

"We'll call her…"

"Emily."

"Emily?"

"Yes."

"Emily it is."

He'll tell Lila that her name is Emily, and it's simple enough to fit the brunette's personality, but her real name is Laura.

—

"Laura," Clint says, making his way over. "Hey, sorry I'm late."

The brunette smiles, "No, it's fine, don't apologize. I was in briefings until twenty minutes ago and thought I was going to be the one that was late."

They both laugh it off and fall into an easy rapport, grabbing drinks before grabbing a table. The conversation is easy and though lacking any sort of intense rush, a mild spark flows between the two and after four months, that felt like enough. It felt like a real relationship — or, at least Clint assumes that this is what a real relationship feels like. It's the first that he has ever really been in.

"Listen, Laura," he starts after taking a swig of his second beer.

"You have another op." It's not a question.

"Yeah."

Laura shrugs, "It's the job, Clint. You don't have to feel guilty about it. I'll be here when you get back."

iii. redhead

As a marksman, contact with a target is not exactly prohibited, but it definitely isn't encouraged either and well, he can't help that something about this mission feels… different. He should be hidden up on a rooftop, not ground level in a back alley with the woman that he is supposed to take out. The woman who should have been dead the second she appeared in his sight.

The Black Widow.

It's the red hair that catches him off guard at first. Launching himself over the balcony just a few stories above, Clint takes off on foot until he has her cornered between three brick walls. But he isn't naive enough to believe that a dead end could stop one of the Red Room's best, so he has an arrow nocked before either of them can blink and the tension in the air grows thick, though lacking fear.

She isn't any more afraid of him than he is of her, and frankly, there's a look in her eyes that seems as if she wants the arrow he has aimed at her embedded in her skull. Whatever it is — this… look in her eyes, it's begging, pleading to be free. There's fire and fight within the flecks of green but just around the iris, Clint finds mourning. Grieving her own life before he's even taken it.

He drops his bow.

He'll pay the price of this choice, whatever it is. Whether it's his blood on her hands or his head on Fury's desk, he's sure that he'll pay for it. But not for a second does he regret not taking the life of someone that feels, so deeply, the ghosts of her own actions.

iv.

As it turns out, punishment isn't nearly as bad as it seems. It includes proving to Fury and Coulson and every other agent in SHIELD now looking down on him that The Black Widow is worthy of their agency. Not that it matters to Clint what his employers and coworkers think of him, but he cares that this woman, Na—

. . .

"April."

"April?" Lila confirms.

A soft smile creeps upon Clint's lips, "April."

. . .

But he cares that this woman, Natalia… Natasha… is valued as a person rather than a weapon for what is likely the first time in her life. He had needed that once, too.

And it takes time, it does, but after a few months, her preference to die rather than be subjected to yet another list of demands from an agency that she believed could not care less about their agents nor their targets begins to fade away and their bicker and banter fills the space between pulled punches and ones that, well, hit their mark.

—

"You can't be serious," Natasha complains, "You can't just marry someone because they aren't… What was the word you used? Complicated? Come on, Barton."

"Why does it matter why I want to marry someone? She's a good person, and she doesn't make all of this," he gestures out toward the sky from their spot on the roof of The Triskelion, "Harder for me."

Scoffing, Natasha gives in, "Alright, okay. She doesn't 'over-complicate' things for you, Mister Commitment Issues. How are you going to do it?"

They're six months into whatever this is. Partnership. "A budding friendship", as Coulson had declared. Clint doesn't know. But six months post a mission in a dark alley with his arrow pointed at her head, red curls falling lightly in front of her face, failing to hide the pain in her eyes for them is ten months into his relationship with Laura, and Clint has decided that he's ready to take the plunge. He's ready to be a married man… at least, he thinks he probably should be.

"Well," Clint starts, "She'll be in New York City tomorrow morning, so I was thinking that if I head out in the morning, I can surprise her. You know, night out in the town. Maybe even see a show. Something fun. And once we're out at dinner—"

"God, no." She scoffs in Russian, as if he can't understand.

"What?"

"Clint," Natasha says sternly. "You can't propose in public. It's as good as an ambush."

"What? No, it isn't. It shows confidence. I'm confident that she'll say yes no matter where I ask her."

She drops it, though he can tell that she disagrees. "Fine. How are you going to ask then?"

The blonde archer shrugs before pulling a small black box from the pocket of his uniform. Inside the box is a ring — not one to Natasha's liking, not that it matters — but it's an engagement ring nonetheless.

"Practice on me."

"What? No—"

"Clint, come on," she says, rolling her eyes. "Don't be such a guy, put a little emotion into it."

"Fine."

"Fine."

Standing on the rooftop of their place of employment, the light breeze and the setting sun over Washington DC creating an image contrast to the chatter of the streets below, Clint holds the velvet black box in an outstretched hand toward his newly established partner and says the words that any woman who has been dreaming of their wedding since they were a little girl has been waiting to hear:

"Will you… um, marry me?"

Natasha bursts out laughing. "Um? 'Will you, um, marry me?'"

"C'mon, Nat."

Her laughter falters as she sweeps a strand of hair behind her ear, a fully baffled look on her face. "You expect a woman to buy into this social construct that our society calls 'marriage' because capitalism will cease to exist in a patriarchal-voided world by saying 'UM' during your proposal? You want her to give a piece of her independence to you when you can't be bothered to get down on one knee and tell her the reasons that you want to marry her other than the fact that it feels like some logical next step into what? Two point five kids with a white picket fence in the suburbs? Come on, Barton—"

"—I want to marry you because when I think about the last face that I want to see when I die, I want it to be yours and when I think about my life and how different it has been since the moment we met, I realize that nothing felt real. Nothing felt real before you. So you want to know why I want to spend the rest of my life with you? It's because you're stubborn and you drive me crazy but then I think, my life has always been crazy, so maybe your crazy solidifies mine. Stabilizes it. And I'd never met someone as twisted and fucked up as me until I met you and I think that's why we work." Clint's face is flushed as he says the words, spitting them out at his partner — his gorgeous, stubborn, insane partner stood a foot away from him with a ring held in his outstretched palm between them. He says words that should be meant for the person that this ring belongs to, words that should belong to Laura, but it's then and there that Clint knows one thing to be true.

Those words, they belong to Natasha. And he denies each and every one of them.

The tension between them is once again thick and she looks at him in shock — terror and confusion melting within her irises and it's similar yet entirely different from the night they met. She isn't the one running from something tonight, and he isn't the one on the verge of taking her out. It's heavy, this moment, and Clint feels the weight of two choices that linger in the small space between them.

Take the ring and go or…

The other… the other is far too intimate for someone that he's only known for six months, someone that he isn't entirely sure he fully trusts yet — as much as a spy can trust — and it's even worse given that he's a man on the verge of matrimony. To another woman.

So Clint releases a fake cough, forcing it from his lungs as they both take a quick step back and break tension so thick that he's sure it could be sliced with a knife.

"You should…" Natasha begins but the sentence falls silent before the end reaches her tongue.

"Yeah, I should… uh, I should go pack," Clint replies, and after a moment, the two make their way toward the stairwell, silently vowing to put whatever that was in a compartmentalized box with the words Do Not Touch. Ever. sprawled haphazard across it.

—

Clint takes a last minute flight to New York City that night; shoving his things in a duffel bag before running out the door to catch a plane that felt much more like an escape route than a vacation. An escape from what, he isn't sure, but anxiety riddles his bones, carving names and words in places they shouldn't be and god, if he doesn't get out of The Triskelion, away from her, before they consume him…

So he runs through the airport and boards a ridiculously overpriced flight to a city that he would normally drive to, planning to wait around until his girlfriend — the girl that he plans to propose to — departs her own post-mission flight back to the states. He has a ring in his pocket and fighting the temptation to make it real, to make it official, before they get out of the airport is going to be hell.

But he manages.

Deciding to fiddle around between gates before Laura's flight landed had proved to be the best choice, rather than wait outside of security for her. He surprises her at her gate with a smile and a cup of tea, hoping that he remembered her usual order correctly.

He didn't, she's a coffee drinker like he is but accepts the caffeine anyway and gives him a chaste kiss on the cheek as a thank you.

"This is a nice surprise," Laura tells him with a slight look of confusion double crossing her words, "What are you doing here?"

"It's been awhile since we've seen each other so, I don't know, I thought it would be nice to surprise you. Maybe we can drop your things off at your place here and go for a walk around Central Park? Maybe grab some lunch afterward?"

Laura's smile morphs into one of ease and she takes Clint's hand, following him out of the airport. If she can sense his anxiety — which he doubts, few can — she doesn't say.

—

New York City is somehow different every time Clint has been here. It's one of his favorite cities in the world for short periods of time, at least — a thousand different vantage points and the constant, unpredictable chaos biting at his adrenaline — but he hardly has the time to spend in the city. He thinks that he'd keep an apartment here someday, given that he actually had the time to find one. Maybe something in Brooklyn.

And for all the times that he's been here, he's been to Central Park a lot less but the quiet atmosphere along the water and the lack of onlookers, though the park is not completely deserted, feels like the perfect place to get this question off his mind and this ring out of his pocket.

So as he and Laura walk through the fallen leaves and crisp October air, Clint makes his choice and stops dead in his tracks as one hand reaches for the ring in his pocket.

"Laura," he starts and begins to fall to one knee as Natasha had suggested, "I know that we haven't been together for very long, and I know that maybe you have other plans or that my own might scare you sometimes… and I know that we're still at a point in our lives where our careers—"

Laura looks stunned, unsurprisingly, but what is surprising is the conflict. "Clint—"

"But you know, when it's right, it's—"

"Clint—"

"Will you—"

"I… I slept with someone else," Laura admits in a shout, relief washing over her face. "I slept with someone else and I… I thought that I could let it go but Clint…"

"What?"

"I'm not ready for this, I'm not ready to be committed to you. And I don't think you're ready to be committed to me either. I'm not even sure that you really want to be."

He feels genuinely confused. "So you…? Sabotaged it?"

"I'm sorry, Clint."

Clint doesn't say it, but the relief that washes over him is enough to confirm her suspicions. He isn't quite sure what he wants and hasn't been since he bought the damn ring — first it was the ring, then the pressure of the ring, and then last night, on the roof with Natasha… he isn't ready to be someone's fiancé, let alone someone's husband and it's almost a blessing that Laura gave him, both of them, this out.

Too bad he had to be out a couple grand for them to get here, though.

. . .

"Emily sparred with someone else? How could she?!" Lila gasps, sitting straight up in bed. "I thought you were only supposed to spar with people you trust, Dad? Someone could get really hurt."

Clint chuckled, "Uh, yeah, kiddo. Sparring is best when you both trust each other."

"So, what happened after she sparred with someone else and told you she didn't want to marry you?"

"Well, I went back to work."

. . .

And he did go back to work.

Natasha doesn't ask why Laura turned him down, telling Clint that it's none of her business and she's right. It isn't, not really. But after three days of carrying the guilt that maybe, just maybe, he's letting her shoulder the blame for the demise of his relationship because of their little moment on the roof, he comes clean.

He admits to her that Laura cheated as Natasha pins him on the mats, flipping her — but just for a second — as his own admission of relief comes with just a touch of vulnerability.

"You got the outcome you really wanted," she says, holding out a hand to pull him up.

He takes it easily, his defeat lost in the feel of her skin against his. "Yeah, I guess I did."

If the energy between them is palpable, neither say a word.

v.

The next six months pass steadily. Natasha and Clint officially become STRIKE Team Delta — preliminarily until her defection is complete but that's issue dependent — going off on their fair share of missions with just enough downtime in between; cooking together and sparring and apartment hunting because as much as Clint hadn't minded living in SHIELD's quarters, he feels the urge to get his own place. Not the one in New York, that'll have to wait, but a small apartment in DC is enough for now. Natasha follows suit and gets her own, too, not far from his.

Missions are as successful as they can be, leaving the two with an impressive track record and commodations from Fury himself. Clint thinks that the old man must be kicking himself — eating his words and earlier disdain for Clint's choice to bring Natasha in, but he'll never admit to it. What Fury does say, though, is enough and Natasha proves to be much more than an asset. She's a friend.

She's Clint's best friend.

It's easy; being with her. Trusting her. He realizes this the first night that they spend in his new apartment — a discarded pizza box on the coffee table as some comedy that neither really pay attention to plays on television. Natasha's head is on a pillow in his lap and it's truly the closest, most intimate position they've been in outside of sparring and cover but it's comfortable and she laughs at the stupid story he recounts through secondhand knowledge of Agent Coulson and Agent May's first op together years earlier.

"He did not leave her in the bay for five hours," Natasha groans at their handler's previous incompetence.

"He did," Clint laughs, "She says it was five, Phil says more like four and a half but I'm not one to question Melinda May's account of things."

"Wise choice, Barton. I knew you were smarter than you look."

He scoffs playfully, "Well, thanks, Nat."

Nat. It's become his thing for her, more often used than her full first name.

Nat is his best friend, the person that he can laugh with and joke with. The person that can tease him for his flaws and faults.

Natasha is… Natasha is the name that feels melodic on his tongue. It's the name that sticks in his throat, feeling thick in an energized situation. He can use it easily, he can and does, but the name Natasha comes with a reminder of just how easy she isn't. Easy to be with? Yes. Easy to work with? Yes. Easy on the eyes? That's not even a question. But being in the wake of Natasha Romanoff is far from easy — simple — when he realizes that a year into whatever this is, he would do much more than give up the world for her. He would die for her.

Tasha, on the other hand, is a name that he has yet to use, and Clint isn't quite sure that he ever will. It's intimate — too intimate and the name rings in his ears during moments when they're too close for the boundaries in place between them. It's the ring between them that night on the roof, the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips, the soft smile that settles on her lips when he gets her coffee order — tea, Natasha prefers tea — right every time.

So the six months after his breakup pass easily. Steadily. Without difficulty. It's easy to be with her at the same time that it's hard, but it's much worse to be away from her. Which, of course, is exactly what happens the minute they find some semblance of a routine in their already chaotic lives.

—

Natasha is tasked her first solo mission roughly thirteen months after the different call, and Clint knows the second that she sets the file in front of him that it'll be a long one.

A month, maybe two of establishing cover before the real recon actually begins. The location is classified, the mission itself is classified, and all that he's really able to know is that it involves a drug ring and that it involves him being void of his partner for at least eight weeks. He can live with that, of course, but he hates that he has to.

"Hey, Romanoff," Clint calls, pushing off the wall as Natasha walks past to board a quinjet. "Don't be radio silent."

Natasha leaves him with a smirk and a wink, an unspoken promise to make contact whenever she can. Yeah, she'll be okay. He will, too.

vi.

Three weeks and two minor solo missions leave Clint bored out of his mind, wandering the halls of The Triskelion aimlessly. He almost asks for a short transfer to New York headquarters, or maybe something in Paris or Tokyo solely for a change of pace while he's without the other half of STRIKE Team Delta.

Natasha hasn't called or made any other form of contact. He knows that she has with their handler, but not with him and not having heard her snark in twenty-one — twenty-two — days is a little grating. He feels pathetic.

In fact, Maria Hill tells him that he is pathetic as he wanders the training rooms in search of a junior agent to put in their place with just one good spar session.

"Barton, you can't bully kids that have barely passed their range tests because you miss your partner."

"Why do we keep them around then?" He kidds.

"To take your place when someone finally takes you out," Maria bites, though her tone lacks actual malice.

With a chuckle, he turns the corner out of training room #19 and immediately slams into someone on their way in. A blonde. A blonde that he recognizes.

"Oh, sorry," she apologizes, "I was just—"

"No, uh, you're fine," Clint replies, "My bad. Hey, do I know you?"

The blonde looks at him almost mockingly, like she might laugh at his lack of recollection. He knows that he's seen her in passing and even remembers her first day at The Triskelion, but it's a line and frankly, playing dumb sounds more reasonable than admitting he pocketed that first competitive little wink she threw at him more than a year ago.

"In passing," she supplies, which again, he knew. "You're Clint Barton, SHIELD's best marksman and resident arrow guy—"

"Archer."

"Whatever. I'm Agent—

. . .

"Summer," Lila suggests. "My best friend at school is named Summer."

The name Summer doesn't exactly fit Bobbi, but being the complete opposite of her real name seemed fair enough.

. . .

—Morse. Bobbi. Typically short for Robert, but in my case, Barbara. Which to me, is worse."

"Well," laughs Clint, "It's nice to meet you officially, Agent Bobbi-Short-For-Barbara-Not-Robert Morse."

"Likewise."

—

The same image of blonde catches Clint's eye on Friday night as he sits amongst Coulson, May, and Coulson's bastard of an ex-partner, John Garrett at a small pub just far enough from The Triskelion that they aren't considered locals. He's entertaining the same story that Garrett has told for the millionth time in the years that Clint has spent in SHIELD but really, his mind is on Natasha. Again. When is it not nowadays?

But he sees Bobbi Morse across the room, her demeanor peaking his interest and can't help the way that May follows his gaze with an eye roll. Sue a man for lacking subtlety.

"Great story, John, but I have to…" Clint's words trail off as he grabs his beer, excusing himself from the group of his superiors before making a beeline for the girl playing pool while chatting with a few other level twos that he thinks he knows but can't quite put names to.

To her credit, Bobbi pretends not to notice him at first. She's a spy, and one of the best recent recruits from what May tells him, so of course she senses another person's presence but fails to give him the benefit of her attention until her current conversation comes to a close. Hard to get isn't a game Clint is afraid of, though.

"Bobbi, right?" He asks once it's safe to interrupt the blonde and her friends.

"You forget my name in the two days since you almost plowed me over?" Poor choice of words on her part, he thinks, but Bobbi's challenging smirk shows intent and he isn't about to bite at the innuendo at the start of what he hopes to be their first conversation.

"Nah, just didn't want to be presumptuous."

The look in her eyes — blue, he now notices — is playful yet Clint can tell she isn't one to take shit from anyone.

"Really? So if I asked you to get out of here right now, you'd say no?"

Her assumption is correct. He's just lonely and bored enough that he wouldn't. He doesn't. And maybe that should have been the first sign of just how badly Clint Barton was in over his head.

—

Bobbi-Short-For-Barbara-Not-Robert Morse is a challenge, as he'd suspected. Not as much as… never mind, but it isn't a bad thing, except when it is, yet he plays into her games and her traps like there's nothing to lose and truth be told, maybe there isn't.

It's hot and heavy fast; hardly knowing much more than the others' names before the relationship goes from a string of one night stands to full blown monogamy. Clint doesn't complain, though, and his relationship with Bobbi is so different in comparison to his relationship with Laura that he hardly notices when they've put eight months worth of build up into about five weeks.

Five weeks that he still hasn't heard from Natasha, actually. But deep cover isn't easy to break for the sole purpose of contacting your partner, he decides. Besides, Phil would have come to him at the first sign that she was in trouble.

"I heard Fury's expecting that cartel takedown in Dublin to happen within the next thirty-six," Bobbi says casually as she uses the ridiculously intricate french press in her quarters to make herself a cup of coffee.

Clint sits up in bed quickly, a little too ecstatically, "As in thirty-six hours?"

"Mmhmm. They have a whole STRIKE team ready to go at a moment's notice, so if you wanted in, you're a little late. Mack spilled the beans the second his approval request came through."

Cartel take down in Dublin. Natasha. Natasha was the solo lead on the espionage end of that mission, that much he was aware of. And an end to that mission meant an end to this… separation. He could cry with relief.

—

As it turned out, thirty-six hours had been correct. Practically on the dot. And by the forty-eight hour mark, Clint stood just where he had two months earlier as he waited for his partner to deboard the very quinjet that had taken her away all those weeks before.

The blood beneath his skin vibrates in anticipation as SHIELD analysts and special ops members take steps down the ramp and as each files out, one-by-one or two-by-two, Clint searches for the vibrance of red hair that his own memory fails to visualize in true clarity.

But it never comes. His sharp blue eyes search each individual, looking for her face, her nose, her hair, and skimming past his own handler yet he can't find Natasha anywhere. And the longer it takes to find her, the more the panic begins to settle in his chest.

Has something happened? To her? Why has no one told him?

The cell phone in the pocket of his uniform begins to vibrate just as Clint's feet carry him unwillingly toward the quinjet and Coulson, still looking, searching, begging her to appear. No, no, no.

He picks up the phone, failing to check the caller ID, "Hello?"

"No radio silence, huh?" The monotone voice on the other end says.

"Who is this?"

"We have your partner."

"What—" his question dies in realization, the echo of "radio silence" ringing through his ears and Clint spins around, only to find a redhead with a playful smile and the most mesmerizing green eyes leaning up against the wall in the position he had been before. She pulls the phone from her ear and smirks as his heart drops from his throat back to his chest before collapsing into his stomach as the relief of seeing her, of knowing she's safe, of no longer being without her finds only one word. A name. "Natasha."

"Figured better than to break my promise," Natasha says with humor that he missed more than he was willing to admit lacing her tone. It's sarcastic and dry at the same time that it's so full of every single thing that draws Clint to her.

Clint wastes no time taking the last few strides toward her before pulling her into a hug. They don't do this, but they don't not do this and he gives into whatever boundaries he's just broken as she crosses that line too, hugging him back.

And if he notices the thin silver chain around her neck, it doesn't register.

—

The pair walk around the familiar streets of Washington DC, though Clint is fully aware that Natasha has to be exhausted. But she insists that she's fine, taking him up on his offer for lunch and the promise to carry her bag back to her apartment.

Her first solo mission was a success, as expected and the details of her free time spent in Ireland make him smile.

"Ireland reminded me of you."

"What? Why?"

"Well, for starters," Natasha elaborates, "Your name is Irish, which I hope you knew because it didn't take me going to another country to learn that either."

"Yeah, Nat. I did know that," Clint says with a humor fueled eye roll.

"Good. But I don't know. The people there, the bars. The beer. Something about the way the grass in the fields stands on end looks like your hair when you first wake up. Sometimes it felt like you were with me even though you weren't there." Her smile is a little sorrowful, and Clint can't quite place what that means. That she thought about him. That she missed him. "I'm sorry that I didn't call or try to contact you. I couldn't or when I could, I thought it might be too hard to hear your voice, and then when I realized that that thought had even occurred to me… I needed time to figure out why it did."

I thought it might be too hard to hear your voice.

It's yet another thing that he can't place. That he can't explain. Because on one hand, that was maybe the most vulnerable thing that Natasha had ever said to him and yet… and yet she had said it without so much as a flinch at the thought of expressing her emotions and though Clint knew better than anyone that Natasha was no ice queen, he knew just as well as he knew himself that emotional truths — admissions, acknowledgements — were so few and far between that they were essentially non-existent.

"Did you?" Clint asks before he can stop himself.

Natasha looks up as if the answer is above his hairline, somewhere across the room or in the sky surrounding them. "I don't know. Maybe."

With their food finished and bill paid not ten minutes later, Clint shoulders her bag as the two once again walk side-by-side through the city. Their steps are in sync even now, after months apart and he can't help but get lost in that detail. He wants to laugh as the thought crosses his mind that this deadly assassin next to him is much more an extension of himself, his other half, than a separate entity co-existing in the same space. Natasha is her own self, of course, but each jagged, imperfect edge of hers fits perfectly against his own.

He misses the street that they're supposed to turn down, instead aiming for the next and Natasha stops him with a hand on his bicep.

"Unless I moved in the nine weeks that I was gone or completely forgot the way to my place…"

Clint huffs a quick laugh, "No, I just have to make a stop but it'll only take a second."

They end up outside of a jewelry store; one that Natasha has passed before yet never explored while Clint himself has only been there once prior.

He walks up to the clerk without hesitation and states his name, then waits as the man behind the counter pulls out a ring. He opens the box, allowing Clint to examine the piece of jewelry while explaining the details behind its resizing. Clint fails to notice Natasha step outside.

"Nat," he turns around after a moment, looking for her. He spots her outside of the window and shrugs before signing the receipt, following her once the exchange is complete.

"Hey, Nat—"

"A ring, Clint?" She exclaims; a reaction that's almost unlike her at the same time that it is. "You didn't tell me that you were seeing anyone, let alone that you were serious enough to be buying a ring."

"What?"

"Who? How long?" It's none of her business but then again, maybe it is so Clint gives her the answers that she wants though he isn't quite sure why she cares so much.

"Agent Morse. Bobbi. And I don't know, not that long… after you le—"

"After I was assigned a mission?" She asks. There's an edge to Natasha's tone that she buries and he can tell by the look in her eyes that she's shutting down on him. What Clint doesn't notice is the break in her heart, the way this shattering realization of a relationship that he had kept from her has fallen around her like glass on the verge of impaling her lungs. "You know what, Clint, it doesn't matter."

She says that but shakes her head, picking her bag up off the sidewalk before leaving him there — shell shocked, speechless.

. . .

"Poor April," Lila sighs sadly, laying back against her pillows.

"What? Why?"

"Dad," she gasps as if the answer for her sorrow felt for the April character in his story is obvious, "She's the girl in the story who has always been the friend but she realized that she wants to be the girlfriend but she was too late."

Natasha? No, she…

"I don't think so, honey."

. . .

vii.

To say that things don't go back to normal would be an understatement. Clint and Natasha have hardly spoken by the time that her post-mission leave has come to an end and Clint can't quite comprehend why she won't talk to him.

Bobbi insists that Natasha probably just needs time to readjust to her surroundings when Clint opens up about his concerns, and he passes the same feigned explanation to Coulson when asked why his two best agents are at odds. But all the same, Clint and Natasha aren't Clint and Natasha anymore and Clint doesn't know what to do about it.

So he throws his focus into training and his relationship, sparring with Bobbi instead of Natasha while they spend evenings on the couch and weekends in the city. It's not the same but it's similar enough that the difference isn't fully empty — enough for him to project the true depth of his loneliness onto the woman he's planning to make his fiancé. That's how it should be, right? His commitment should belong to the person he plans to marry.

And in another month of remaining in sync but not in sync with Natasha, whispers of "Hawkeye and Mockingbird" becoming a new partnership begin to form and though he'll never say the words to Bobbi, the idea twists like a knife in his gut. Ridding him of what feels like a limb or a lung or a kidney. The worst part is that it's not Bobbi's fault. It's his.

"I had a thought," Bobbi tells him as she settles on the couch with a glass of white wine, handing the other to him.

"Yeah? 'Bout what?" He assumes that she's talking about his offer from earlier that morning — a wisecracking suggestion he'd made in the shower that they should run off to Las Vegas.

"Well, I thought it would be nice to put some truth behind those rumors of a Hawkeye and Mockingbird team-up."

Clint laughs, assuming that Bobbi can't be serious, "You know I can't just leave Nat like that. She's my partner. Besides, I'm not sure Coulson or Fury would get behind it."

"They already are," Bobbi says with a flirty lift of her eyebrows.

"What?" Clint exclaims, ready to accuse her of something that he can't yet be sure she's done, though it sounds like it.

"I talked to Fury this morning and Agent Coulson this afternoon. Fury said that a change of pace shouldn't be a problem and Phil agreed, even though he said he would be sad to lose STRIKE Team Delta."

She's not being vindictive, and Clint knows that Bobbi has nothing against Natasha nor is she insecure about their friendship, but he can't help but take this personally. "You went to my bosses behind my back to talk about splitting my partnership up?"

"Clint, it's not much of a partnership when you can hardly be in the same—"

"No." Clint says sternly, "This is my job, Bobbi. And I happen to like my job. So now what am I supposed to do? Tell my partner that she isn't good enough for me? Or tell my bosses that my… my… my girlfriend went behind my back and tried to change a situation that I'm happy with just because we're a little out of sync right now? What the fuck!"

"What is with you and Natasha?" Bobbi raises her voice, "Most people would be grateful to be rid of a partner that won't even speak to them."

"There's nothing between me and Natasha!"

"If that's what you think—"

"It's the truth! She's my partner, Bobbi. And the one thing that you learn on this job is that trust is few and far between. Sure, we're not speaking right now but I trust Natasha to have my back. I thought I could trust you to have it, too."

"You can!" She insists.

"Can I? Or are you too concerned with prioritizing however the fuck far your career advances over our trust in each other?"

Maybe there's a misdirection to his anger, but maybe there isn't. Either way, Bobbi's face flushes red as her own boils over and the words "You can't trust me? Then what are we even doing here?" slip from her lips, permitting Clint to walk out the door in a breakup that comes far too easily for a commitment he was sure he was ready to make forever. In hindsight, maybe he should have seen that coming.

viii.

Despite his split with Bobbi, things with Natasha fail to go back to normal and instead, only seem to get worse. She learns through SHIELD's extensive grapevine (Maria, he thinks or maybe Sharon) that there were talks of splitting the two of them up and though she believes his insistence that it was never his own doing, Clint continues to play recon in earning her trust as her partner while telling Coulson ad nauseum that he never wanted to request a new one.

Even so, Phil is concerned but there isn't much time for what the older agent considers 'marriage counseling' before a mission lands on his desk — a single assignment for one STRIKE Team Delta.

Budapest.

—

Budapest, as it turns out, is a shitshow and for very good reason. It's the official last step in taking down Natasha's former agency and will officially, finally solidify her defection to SHIELD and from Russia. Dreykov, her former employer — though "captor" seems more accurate — is the last piece of the puzzle and Clint had known the second he read the words "Budapest" and "Red Room" in relation to each other, that this would be one of the most difficult experiences of his partner's life.

He hoped to every god that he didn't believe in that, at the very least, killing the son of a bitch in charge of the Red Room would relieve her of some of the torment that kept her up at night.

But what he hadn't known going into it — what neither of them had known — was that a child would fall victim to the blast, that her death would confirm the fulfillment of their takedown. And what had ensued afterward had been a firefight in the streets — taking bullets from Hungarian law enforcement as the two agents fired back, trying to make their way through the crowd and chaos to any safe house that SHIELD had set aside in the city. As it turned out, there wasn't one.

They spend two full days holed up in the ventilation system of an underground train station, proximity too close for the slight animosity between them with conversation that would easily become too much of a trigger. Clint doesn't say the words that he wants to with her breath on his neck, and tries to pretend that the brush of her fingers against his as she takes the marker they've used to create childish games on the makeshift walls doesn't send chills up his spine, even now.

Two days in a metal box becomes eight more in a safe house that they find on their own — a safe house that remains theirs to this day, long after SHIELD has fallen — where she patches the bullet wound in his shoulder and he stitches the cut above her eyebrow. It's intimately close, fingers on skin and hands in hair and trust as her past falls victim to her future, yet for seven days, they hardly say a single meaningful word to each other.

It's only on the last day that that changes — a flash of silver catching Clint's eye as Natasha changes her shirt; a chain hanging by a clasp around her neck, inching lower toward the base of her throat.

"What's that?"

"What?"

Clint stands from his spot on the bed in the shared room of their safe house, walking slowly toward her. "Your necklace. I've just never noticed it before."

He looks at it, following the silver chain to the charm held by each end. An arrow. His gaze drifts from the arrow upward, meeting her eyes with a thousand different thoughts and emotions spinning through his mind. Serenity. Confusion. Longing.

The shirt that drops from her hand to the floor goes unnoticed as Natasha holds his gaze.

"Why?" Clint asks.

Natasha's voice breaks. "Clint, I think you know why."

He does, or he wants to believe that he does and before Clint has time to put any thought into his reaction, he reaches for it — fingers tracing the metal before following a path up her cheek, brushing the hair from her face and with no telling who makes the first move, they're suddenly closer. Sharing air in a way that's far too close for who they are to each other. Whatever they are to each other.

But neither pull away — not this time. Because unlike the ring on a rooftop or her weight over his on the training room floor, the tension between them holds more answers than questions and the only validity to them is grounded in his lips on hers or hers on his, her fingers sliding through his hair, pulling him down as his brush her cheeks. It's everything he ever thought it would be, and everything he never imagined, both familiar from cover kisses yet new in the way that this is real.

"Tasha," he whispers for the first time as they pull apart, his forehead coming to rest against her own. It falls from his lips just as intimately as it felt in his mind and god, he can never take it back.

"Clint."

It's crossing a boundary, setting fire to a line that he never intended to cross but Clint can't help it any more than Natasha can. And suddenly, the charge between their mixed and mingled breaths is overwhelming — simply too much — and her mouth is on his again, his moving toward her throat, biting, nipping at her soft, pale skin while her hands move under his t-shirt, caressing his abdomen as she begins to tug it up and over his head. Without thinking, they're taking steps toward the bed, his forward and hers back…

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait," Natasha stops him, pulling away abruptly. "We can't… Clint, we can't. You're… you're my partner and you're my best friend and I can't."

"Natasha, I—"

"I can't. Not with you." Natasha whispers, closing her eyes as she bites down on the bottom lip that had just been on his own.

—

For every heartbreak he's ever had, Natasha is the one that burns the worst. Deep in the trenches of his vascular system and for years longer than he's capable of admitting. Clint promises that it's okay. That they can move on from it, and they do. They go back to the way their friendship was before; before Bobbi even, spending weekends on his couch with her head in his lap and taking close call after close call, hit after hit, as she bleeds out in his arms or he in hers. And it's okay, really, because he has Natasha in the most vulnerable way she can give while kicking himself for thinking that she could ever love him back. Not in the way of self deprecation, but in the way of destruction because their lives are too fucked up and the risks are too high for someone who feels so fiercely and loves so intensely to allow herself the opportunity to fall in love with anyone, much less her partner.

He can allow her to keep him at arm's length. He can live with that. He would never make her apologize for that.

It's just a feeling, anyway. A fleeting possibility. An almost, and he'll get over it. He'll move on.

. . .

Lila's eyes begin to droop, and Clint decides that it's time to call it quits for the night. She's only eight, and even the edited for TV version of his heavy life story is fairing a lot for her little mind — though this isn't the heaviest of his trials and tribulations, but she's far too young for stories of his own childhood.

"Li," he whispers, "It's time for bed."

"No, no. Keep going. I want to hear the rest."

"Tomorrow," Clint insists, following it up with a reminder that though she's in New York to spend the first few days of the new year with him before she goes back to school, her mother's parents want to see her, too, and they have some pretty extensive plans made up for her tomorrow.

ix.

It's later the next day that he finds it; sifting through the last of the unpacked boxes in his apartment while Lila is with her maternal grandparents. A small, silver arrow held together by a chain with a broken clasp falls from an envelope into his palm and Clint is transported back in time to the events from the story told the night before — sans the heavy details — with lips on his and the feeling of the name "Tasha" on his tongue.

He rarely calls her that now; the last time he remembers being after Natasha had brought him back from under Loki's control. Or maybe it was the first time he saw her after the demise of their own agency.

The necklace itself has only been in his possession for a few years now, found in the wreckage of her former apartment in Washington DC. She'd worn it for so long, hardly taking it off unless fully necessary and the last he had seen her with it was in front of congress on national television. But her covers had been blown, as had her apartments and any SHIELD recorded safe houses so Clint had spent the last few years under the impression that she must have left it in a hurry or that it had broken as she escaped. But in all the time since he found it, he couldn't tell her that he kept it, or why he had kept it.

He doesn't know why he kept it either, but maybe it's time he gave it back.

—

The corridors leading both above and beneath Fury's makeshift base of operations are long — sterile walls leading down hidden, decor-less hallways in contrast to the wide open glass paneling of the previous home SHIELD took up in the Triskelion. Not that SHIELD is really SHIELD these days, Clint supposed. Between Fury's secret bunkers and Coulson's cave-like headquarters built of brick walls, there wasn't much to go on.

But as he makes his way through The Wrecking Yard, a New York base that had miraculously survived Hydra, he looks for the familiar red of Natasha and finds her down the third hall, in the first office on the right looking over Stark Industries files with Maria.

"Hey, Nat," Clint knocks. Not that he needs too; the two can sense each other blindfolded from a mile away, even considering the last few years more often spent apart than together.

She looks up with the soft smile that he learned over time exists just for him. "Hey."

"Hey."

Maria glances between them, already annoyed with whatever she senses and excuses herself. She tells Natasha that she'll go over their plans with Fury and get back to her, leaving both former members of STRIKE Team Delta to each other.

And it's easy, as usual, falling back into a rapport with her. They've done it so many times, after so many month or months long missions and now, each time the Avengers meet up or Fury seeks service from both of them. It's different, but they aren't different and any awkwardness is left for people that don't know each other on a cellular level the way he and Natasha do.

She tells him that Fury has her and Maria looking into Avengers expenses for him, trying to find a way to right their wrongs post-Sokovia and Clint informs her that after nearly a year, his divorce was finally finalized. Natasha gives him her condolences but he brushes them off because he knows she understands his relationship on a level that someone not in the relationship shouldn't. But it's the way they were, or, are and he tells her about the custody arrangement with Lila, admitting to her and only her that he knows the attorneys made the right call — he isn't capable of retiring into fatherhood.

"Clint," Natasha insists as she leans back in her chair, scrutinizing his features, "That kid adores you and you are so so good to her."

"I know she does, but I'm not sure that I'm good enough for her."

She tries to talk him down to no avail. It's a conversation that they've had for more than eight years and while Clint knows that he loves his daughter, that he would risk everything for her, he also knows that he wasn't in the right position to have a kid when he had one, and that, in the game of losses that being a hero entailed, he'd rather live apart from her than get her killed in the crossfire. Walking away from the life of someone with his credentials was a lot easier said than done, and he'd often likened the life of an assassin to that of the mafia.

"Anyway," Clint says after a few minutes of catch-up, "I… uh… I have something for you."

Natasha accepts the envelope from his hands with a curious look on her face and all that Clint can do is shrug, watching her open the flap and dump the same necklace he'd held in his palm into her own. A shiny, silver arrow. Hers.

She looks at Clint in confusion, any sign of words hanging on the tip of her tongue.

"I found it. You know that I went looking for you after SHIELD fell and the first place I thought to check had been your apartment, but it was basically gone. But I knew that you had to be alive because that," he glances from her to the necklace, "Was there and I'd seen that you had it on during the hearing with Congress, so…"

"You had it all this time?" Natasha asks, needing confirmation of what she knows to be true.

All that Clint can do is nod, feeling the guilt sink from his throat to his stomach. That necklace — the arrow — is much more than just her love for him and his for her, it's her second chance, her closest connection. The truth, and his, her, their trust. And he kept it from her for over a year, for a reason that he can't explain.

"I'm sorry."

He doesn't get the chance to say another word before Maria comes back to the door insisting that she needs Natasha — an urgent matter — and Clint is left to leave on his own.

x.

"I think I figured out who my mom is," Lila exclaims, skipping alongside her father as they walk through Central Park.

"Huh?"

"In the story, Dad."

Clint chuckles, his breath creating a puff of fog in the cold air, "Oh, yeah? Who do you think she is?"

"Not telling. Not until you tell me the rest of the story." She plays him, and he falls for it after previously hoping that she had forgotten all about this little love story mystery. But of course not.

"Fine, we'll grab some food and get back to it, okay?"

. . .

Things go back to normal, or as normal as they've ever been. Work is great, his friendships are great, and he's left all focus of his romantic life somewhere in the past. So in truth, Clint isn't looking. Not for anything serious, not for anything at all. He sells himself on being content in his partnership with the only woman that'll put up with his shit and considers getting a dog.

But the past doesn't always stay in the past, as he has come to learn because Natasha's busy preparing for an operation with Maria, Sharon, and May that requires as many female hands on deck as they can get so he's alone on a Saturday — not that he needs babysitting to stay out of trouble — when he runs into a tall, familiar blonde with a mocking attitude that he knows just a little too well.

"Clint Barton, long time no see."

"Bobbi, hey."

It's been about a year since they officially called it quits and she set off on a string of undercover assignments led by agents Hartley and Hand right after, so he hasn't seen her around SHIELD nor has he heard of the competitive shenanigans she's been up to.

They talk about her time away for a few minutes, catching up and he tells her about Budapest and the official take down of the Red Room before the conversation slowly begins to fade.

"Look, Clint, I'm actually glad that I ran into you. I'm trying to make amends with anyone I've wrong—"

"Bobbi, you have nothing to apologize for."

She laughs, "No, it's fine. I do. But I'm kind of having this thing tonight at my place and I was hoping you would stop by."

Clint will physically kick himself if he allows even the inkling of the idea of going round two with Bobbi Morse to enter his mind. "I… I don't know, Bobbi. I'm not sure that's a good idea."

Her expression morphs from confusion to hilarity in under fifteen seconds before she insists that no, this isn't about their past. Or their future. She admits that she happened to have met someone while undercover — well, two someones — a British private contractor friend of Izzy Hartley's and someone that might want a second introduction with Clint Barton himself.

And, like a dumb-ass, curiosity gets the best of him so he promises to show.

. . .

"Oh no."

"What?" Clint looks over at his eight year old daughter, now slumped in her chair.

"Is this the part where you tell me that Summer is my mom and her British boyfriend is my real dad?"

"First of all, I am your real dad and no. No, it isn't. I thought you said you knew who your mom was."

"I still think I do," Lila confirms, "But I was a little caught off guard by the Summer character showing up again."

"Fair enough." So was he.

. . .

Clint practically begs Natasha to tag along to whatever little get together Bobbi has planned but she can't, unfortunately. The operation May has tasked her to is set to take off bright and early, and the last thing she needs to do is go to a party thrown by Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter — she had apparently known of Hartley's British private contractor friend, because of course she had.

So instead, he goes alone practically against his own will and completely left up to his own devices, only to spend half the night tucked in a corner of the apartment with a beer while watching Hunter and Agent Mackenzie battle it out over something that he can't be bothered to take part in. He's about to call it a night when yet another familiar voice calls his attention from a few feet away.

A brunette with dark eyes and a kind smile, the kind of demeanor that you would assume of a grade school teacher or maybe a librarian rather than an agent — even a communications operative, as she were — somehow thrown together with the crowd amassing inside of Bobbi's small apartment.

"Laura," he greets, mustering a smile out of the broody one-man band attitude he has going on. "I didn't think I would see you of all people here."

"I know," she laughs, "Not really my scene. But I'm here more out of respect for Victoria and Izzy. Bobbi's nice and she's a talented agent, but…"

"She's not you?"

"No. No, she most definitely is not. Our personalities clash just a bit too much."

Looking from blonde to brunette, Clint nods in agreement, "Yeah, I can see that."

"Iz has taken her under her wing though, so I've learned to play nice."

They talk for another ten minutes, exchanging numbers and the like. Laura nervously scratches behind her ear as she asks what went wrong between them, a question that forces a laugh from Clint's lungs but the past is in the past so maybe… maybe they can start over, too.

. . .

"I knew it!"

Lila practically jumps from her chair in the kitchen, pointing a finger in her father's face.

"What did you know?"

"Emily is my mom."

"What gave it away?"

She thinks for a second, the same pointed finger coming up to tap on her lower lip, "She always tells me that I touch my ear when I'm in trouble, and you used to tell me that I got that from her."

"Smart. Yeah, you're right."

"So if my mom is Emily, then Summer is that Bobbi lady that she has pictures of with the other people from your old work… Izzy and Victoria, right?"

"Right again."

. . .

As it turns out, a drink with an ex at a party hosted by another one of his exes winds itself into a reconciliation after about two months of back and forth, and that relationship results in a baby. A daughter, which leads to talk of weddings and marriage because "it's the right thing to do" and "what's best for her" and for a while, Clint believes that he's doing just that. That he's building a life and a family to the best of his abilities. But there isn't a fix-all for breaks that were there from the start, and it's not until Laura quits her job and he owns a farm in the country that it all fully starts to unravel.

And it's not that they were always unhappy. They weren't. But when Laura tells him one night that she thinks they moved too fast, too blindly, Clint knows that she's right because he would rather be in the city or on a mission than on the farm, and she's not really sure that she was ever in love with more than just the idea of him. So they file for separation when Lila starts school, and try for reconciliation again when SHIELD falls, but when the topic of having another baby to save the relationship comes into play, they know it's time. Clint hires an attorney and Laura hires her own and they settle on alimony and child support and five weeks in the summer, every other holiday, and one weekend a month. It's for the best.

But Clint can't help but feel the regret over the hurt in his wake. He knows that he hurt Laura by never being what she needed or what she wanted, and by proxy, that hurt Lila, and there's an image in his memory that he can never fully seem to forget — it's the look on Natasha's face at his wedding. The same look that had been there the night he'd come to her in panic with the news that he was going to be a father. It's a look of loss, and of longing and full of her own regrets.

"You and I would be like cats and dogs, wouldn't we?" Natasha asks him one night in the early days of their friendship, nudging his shoulder as some song by some nineties band that she happens to like plays in a movie that neither of them are really paying attention to.

"Oil and water," Clint confirms, glancing in her direction. She's in his sweatshirt and her hair is wet from the rain, but god, he wants to deny any excuse as to why this wouldn't work.

"Sandpaper and bare ass," she laughs.

"Gross."

"Yeah, but I'm right."

Maybe she was, and maybe she regretted that.

. . .

"Why didn't you let me pick Auntie Nat's name in the story?"

"What?" Clint redirects his attention toward his eight year old daughter, confused as to how she figured that one out.

"Auntie Nat is April. Why April?"

"Why does it matter, Lila?" Clint asks, "Why is it so important that you know all of this?"

The little girl looks down shyly for just a moment, contemplating an answer that Clint is well aware she already has. "I want you to be happy, Dad."

"I am happy."

"No," insists Lila and Clint can't help notice the heartbreak on her face, but it isn't for herself and it isn't for her mother. Maybe it isn't even because her parents have just gone through a divorce that should have happened long before the damage that came from it. "You're not happy. If you were happy, then you and my mom wouldn't be divorced."

"Honey, that's not…"

"Isn't it? I think that the reason you're not happy is the same reason that you won't tell me why Auntie Nat's name in the story is April, and the same reason that you didn't give her her necklace back."

"I did give her her necklace back." He almost can't believe he's arguing with a child.

"You did today but you still haven't told me why her name is April."

One hand comes up to reach the bridge of his nose while Clint releases a dramatic sigh. The name April shouldn't mean anything, and he doesn't know why Lila can't let it go but on the other hand, he doesn't know why he can't tell her the truth either.

"Natasha and I met in April. That… that was the day I took the biggest chance I've ever taken. Is that the answer you were looking for?"

An enormous grin erupts across Lila's face, immediately replacing the look of annoyance that had been there a moment earlier. "Yes."

"Okay, why? Why is it so important?"

"Because Dad," Lila presses, "Her name in your story is the only name that you cared enough about to choose, and because you kept the necklace that she wore because she was in love with you. Plus, it made her sad that she didn't know you had it and I think that means she still loves you. I think that you still love her, too. Dad, I think if you tell her the story the exact same way you told me, she'll know."

"What? What will she know?"

"She'll just know."

Clint wants to object. He wants to deny the pieces that his daughter — his eight year old daughter — just laid out in front of him but the problem is that… maybe she isn't wrong. Maybe he kept the necklace because he needed Natasha, and maybe he had to choose her name in the story because she couldn't be just anyone. She could be Romanoff or Natasha or Nat or Tasha, she could be the month they met or his partner or his best friend, but she couldn't be some random, generic name with no meaning behind it. Because in his mind, her name meant everything.

"Grab your coat."

xi.

They take a cab into Manhattan and Clint can't help but tap his fingers against his thigh. It's a nervous tick, one that he hides well, but sometimes it isn't worth the attempt. He thinks of Natasha once he notices it — not that he wasn't thinking of her already, but he thinks of the first time she caught onto it and all of the times after that she had watched him drum his fingers against his leg or a table top or the armrest of a seat when he was feeling particularly anxious.

The city lights coming into view only seem to make it worse, and the longer he sits in the backseat of this cab, the closer he gets to her. To… whatever outcome will come of this. Suddenly, he feels sick.

What is he doing? This could ruin… everything. And he could lose her, completely.

The cab pulls up to an address four blocks from Natasha's apartment and Clint climbs out, ushering the eight year old to follow suit. She does so willingly, and when Clint looks up at the building before him, he silently thanks his lucky stars for whatever the hell he did wrong that put him on the radar of Kate Bishop — the maybe fifteen year old daughter of one wealthy Manhattan Bishop or another — who had taken to being his shadow, a role that he hadn't agreed to. But he figures that maybe this kid could come of use as a babysitter for the night, and he'll owe her some sort of penance. God, that thought is terrifying.

Even so, he takes Lila's hand and walks up the stoop, pressing the doorbell maybe a little too hard. And again, lucky for him, the kid answers.

"Clint Barton?" She practically jumps out of her skin, blue eyes growing wide at the sight of an Avenger before her, "What… what are you… Wait, oh no, no. I didn't mean to break your—"

"Kate," he says calmly, "I need your help."

"Yeah, anything. Anything at all. I can go grab my bow—"

"Hold on, what did you mean you br—- you know what, never mind. I need you to keep an eye on her," Clint looks in the direction of the child next to him, a smirk plastered on her little face.

The adolescent archer scoffs, "Babysitting? Really? Hawkeye, The Hawkeye, asks me to do him a favor but all he really needs is someone to watch a kid?"

"Official Avengers business. Look, Kate, I'll… I don't know, take you on a tour of the tower or—"

"Deal."

Easy enough, surprisingly. Clint ushers Lila toward her, allowing Kate Bishop — who he hardly knows — to lead her inside the vast Manhattan mansion and god help him if Laura ever finds out. He'll be losing a lot more than custody if anyone learns that he left his eight year old alone with someone that isn't even old enough to hold a learner's permit, let alone someone he's had less than an actual conversation with.

But he doesn't have time to think about that now, because the next thought — the only thought overwhelming his mind is Natasha. Four blocks away.

A cab will take much more time getting through the crowded streets of Manhattan than Clint will on foot, so he takes off — pace less than a jog but more than a stroll in the direction of an apartment that he hasn't been to in… he isn't even sure how long. That alone terrifies him.

Three blocks.

Two.

One.

He can see her building down the road, half the apartments lit up by Christmas lights and surprisingly, Natasha's is one of them. He would know that balcony anywhere, though, decorated or not, because he remembers the night she moved in — the beer passed between them after unloading her things as they stood against the steel railing. He remembers the cover alias she gave her building manager in an attempt to hide her own burned identity post-SHIELD file dump, and he remembers the easy smile that crept up on her lips and melted into her eyes. It was one of the last times that it had really been just the two of them. Just Clint and Natasha. And after that night and that beer, she had gone on to rebuild while he made his way back to the farm — back to a wife whose favorite word became "retirement" and a six year old whose life had consisted of her father being gone more than he was home.

Taking an agonizingly slow breath, Clint climbs the stairs to her building, hits the buzzer, and says the only thing that he can muster up. "Tasha."

"Clint? What… what are you doing here?"

"Natasha, I need to talk to you."

Before she can say another word, his phone chimes in his pocket. An incoming FaceTime call from an unlisted number and he thinks that maybe he should decline, but he's still a parent and chances are, said blocked caller ID belongs to the person currently caring for his child. He swipes to answer.

"Dad," Lila's little voice booms over the screen, "Dad, remember, you have to tell her the story exactly the way you told me. The same way, okay?"

"Is that Lila?" Natasha asks over the speaker.

"Uhh, yeah," Clint replies.

"He has to tell you the story!" Lila and now… Kate apparently yell in unison.

"Clint, I don't know what this is but… I can't—" Natasha sounds outright confused, and the other end of the buzzer goes quiet as if she's released the talk back, as if she's disappeared.

"Tell her the story!"

The line stays silent for another minute, and a sinking feeling settles somewhere inside of Clint, "Look, Lila… I don't think she wants to hear it."

"Dad. Thirty more seconds."

"Honey, I'm sorry." Clint tries to hide the hurt from his voice, from his face, as he looks back at the two girls over FaceTime. He feels just as bad for himself as he does for Lila; getting her hopes up along with his own.

"Come on, twenty more seconds."

"Lila, honey, it's done. It's over."

He catches Lila's quivering lip as Kate hangs up the call, and he hopes that she can hang on long enough for him to get back to the Bishop estate to pick her up. It's going to be a long night, he knows it. Truth be told, it's been a long decade. Longer, actually.

So he lets his feet carry him away, footprints left on a sidewalk wet with snow and refrains from looking back — at the past, at the apartment, and misses the sound of a door bursting open behind him.

"What story?" An almost frantic voice echoes— a voice that causes Clint's heart to beat harder at the very sound. "What story did you need to tell me?"

Natasha comes closer, her hair swaying lightly in the breeze as she wraps her jacket more tightly around her shoulders. For a Russian, one would think that the cold was normal, that she would be used to it, but he knew better than anyone that she was a blanket hog, a hoodie thief, and that the second her feet felt even the slightest bit too cold, his thigh on the opposite end of the couch became the perfect place to tuck them. She had always looked better than he had in the jacket of whatever suit he wore during undercover operations, too.

So Clint watches her shivering form move toward him, curiosity in the green of her eyes as the lights from both the city and the passing holiday season reflect on each emotion and finally, he takes a step toward her.

"I kept the necklace…"

"Yeah."

Taking a steadying breath, Clint holds her gaze. "I kept the necklace because it was the only thing I had left of you after… after SHIELD fell. After we weren't partners anymore."

And it takes just a moment — her facade crumbling; a thousand questions lacking answers and words far from perfect escaping as the depth of a single sentence washes over Natasha. It's sorrow framed by longing, held together with need.

"Clint."

"I could tell you the story, and I will tell you the story but I just… Natasha. I need you to know… even if we can't come back from this, I need you to know that it was always you. It was you then and now and I'm not sure that there has even been a moment since I chose not to take that shot that it wasn't you—"

His admission falls silent under her fingertips, her thumb brushing his buttom lip as her hands move to his jaw, then to his neck until they're threading through the hair at the base of his skull and she's on her toes, pulling him toward her. And before Clint can help himself, his seals his mouth to hers — their lips meeting, soft and warm against the January air and just like Budapest, it's unlike any cover kiss they've ever shared. Natasha gives a piece of herself to this kiss, gives a piece of herself to him, and Clint finds himself giving just the same to her. But maybe it was already hers to begin with.

She pulls at his jacket, her grip leaving his hair as Natasha tries to pull him closer — flush against her — and it's such a natural reaction; his ability to oblige to her needs as his own hand falls to her waist, holding her against him and the other moves to her neck, trailing upward until he's cupping her jaw, brushing the hair from her cheeks.

And when Natasha pulls back this time, it isn't the same as the first time. It isn't the same as Budapest, all those years ago. It doesn't end abruptly and in place of all of her fears, Clint finds longing, clarity. An epiphany, and the small, shy smile that he loves so much graces her swollen lips, her face flushed from the cold and their kiss. "I want you to tell me the story."

Clint does. Her hand slides down his arm, intertwining their fingers as she leads him up the stairs and into her apartment. But before he can even begin to tell her, Natasha has him pinned up against the wall in one effortless motion — the kiss that follows, also effortless, and before either of them have time to process, he's matching her actions — lifting her, holding her against him. Above him.

"Couch?" Clint asks between heated breaths, and though the words seem presumptuous, they aren't — the look he gives her reading as an out, allowing her to stop this, to end it now. Like she did in Budapest.

"Bedroom," replies Natasha, catching his lips between hers once more and it's permission as much as it is a location, and Clint — following someone else's orders for once in his life — carries her toward her bedroom.

—

Hours later, maybe longer, while he traces the scar on her hip with his touch, following a pattern up her abdomen as they lay, a tangled mess of limbs and exposed skin, he tells her the story. He doesn't change the names or the details as he had in the PG edition, but she would know them already anyway. And he tells her again, as he comes to the end, that he thinks it was always her. That he doesn't believe in love at first sight, but still, he fell in love with her from the start — amidst the fighting and the frustration, during long car rides and even longer flights, while they made dinner in the kitchen of his DC apartment, or fell asleep on the couch nearing the end of a bad movie. He learned to love her as he learned to trust her, and he tells her that he thinks she — Nat, Natasha, Tasha — is the longest relationship he's ever had.

And Natasha laughs into his shoulder as he hovers above her, fingernails carving a lifetime's worth of stories — past, present, and future — into his back and she tells him that she doesn't believe in love at first sight either. But she believes in him, and she admits that she was afraid of him — of this, of them — because she fell in love with him as she grew to trust him, too and that scared her more than nearly anything else in her life.

"I bought that necklace during my first solo mission because I needed something to help me feel closer to you while I didn't have you," Natasha confesses, looking into the clear blue of Clint's eyes, "And then when I lost it, I thought… I felt like I had lost you. Officially. It felt like the end of us, and you were gone and I had blown or missed so many chances…"

He feels her loss more than either one of them can imagine, and it comes out in a whisper. In her name. Tasha. In the most intimate and intricate way, Clint doesn't have to tell her that she never lost him, she knows, and he doesn't have to tell her that he'll get that clasp fixed, because he will, and they don't even have to say the words I love you because those three words have been so deeply embedded in who they are far longer than either of them can pinpoint. And yet, he says them anyway. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

They'll spend the rest of their lives together — not maybe, not probably or possibly. Definitely. Because it's how they've always been. Side-by-side. A sole entity. Best friends and partners, and a part of each other just as much as they are a part of each other's lives. Till death do they part, and even after.

(And yes, Clint sends the kid a text to tell her that Natasha wanted to hear the story. She's staying the night at Kate's, and he's fully aware of the favors he'll owe his future protégé. God, help him.)

End.

———

Thank you for reading! Comments and criticism are always appreciated (but never required).