A/N: Hello! I hope you all had a great holiday :)

This chapter sort of carries on from the chat Clint and Laura had in the last chapter and this time Laura has more to say.

I also wanted to mention that it delves ever so slightly into what Clint remembers from Vormir, so it includes mentions of blood and mentions/alludes to Clint's mental state.

As always, thank you to everyone who's responded to this story. There's still a long way to go, but I never expected any sort of reaction when I first started writing this and you've all definitely blown me away.

Happy New Year!

Clint skidded on the leaves, drenched in the morning dew. Waving his arms in the air, he scrabbled at the nearest tree to keep his balance. Fingers and nails digging into the moss and bark.

It hadn't been an easy night.

For that matter, it hadn't been an easy morning.

His fitful sleep was full of flashes of purple and chill air. Memories he wanted to bury down, memories he avoided during the day but was hounded by at night. They tried to creep their way out, now, but he wiped them away on his jogging bottoms along with the dirt from the tree.

When he left the house it was still dark. The birds not even warming up for their dawn chorus. He was left to himself, only the trees witnessed the lonely run of a man desperately looking for something familiar to cling to.

But instead of the calm he expected, he was stabbed and jabbed and poked and prodded with every footstep. Attacked by the emotions he used to be the master of. Was getting older weakening his control? Or was it the turmoil of a traumatic few years?

It didn't matter. Either way, when he started running again he was still assaulted by the memories of his dreams. Night time echoes of a nightmare he had lived.

A stone jumped away, his foot catching it. His quick eyes followed its movements as it tumbled over the edge of the raised path.

Then he was back, hanging on the side of that cliff. Not quite sure how he ended up there and not on the alter beneath. Clinging on for dear life. Not his, though. It wasn't meant to be his.

The dip in the path crept up on him in his distraction. He took a wild leap, the sort you'd find in action movies when they have to cross some impossible distance, or if they're running away from an explosion. All things that were pretty commonplace in a job like his. A complete overreaction, but he didn't much fancy twisting his ankle.

As it was, he lost his balance and scraped one of his knees as he landed.

"You really are losing it Barton," he said into the still air, rolling up his trouser leg to see the damage. It wasn't much, the fabric had taken the brunt. But there were a couple of drops of blood forming.

So small.

But still two ruby reminders of all the blood he saw on that planet. The smell of death. All the stuff that should have been flowing through her body splashed across the ground. Bright red soon to fade into the dull rust coloured stains that already painted her grave. Evidence of all those who had come before. The unwilling sacrifices.

Was she the first to go by choice?

A bird trilled nearby, ignorant of his wet cheeks and tightening throat. He wiped the blood from his knee, though not really doing more than smearing it across the broken skin, and he carried on. Determined to finish what he started, despite the slight twinge. He'd suffered worse.

More birds soon joined in and the warmth of the rising sun made itself known. The natural song of the animals around him was beautiful and the morning was everything it should be. But the calmness surrounding him could not ease his mind.

He tried to get out of his head and appreciate what was there. Appreciate what he still had left. He had come so close to never seeing any of it ever again. To not returning.

But she was always good at turning the tables. Doing the unexpected. Doing what needed to be done.

He still wasn't convinced it was the right choice.

She uttered her words to him almost every night. Nothing penetrating the calmness she wrapped them in. Trying to soothe him. Her face relaxed as if they were on any other mission and there was a simple way to get them both out of there. The only hint of it being otherwise was the glint of terror in her eyes. It was tiny but it was there.

She knew death well, more than most. But even she couldn't prepare for what awaited her.

His hands were like thick clumps of ice and his fingers just as bad. He felt her move and couldn't do anything. Saw her fall and couldn't do anything. His eyes burned with the tears that followed her.

Clint had to stop again, this time to catch his breath. To try and get his head back on straight. A run usually did the trick. But then, he'd managed to keep that world separate from this. The life of Ronin away from the life of Clint.

Telling Laura had taken away that sanctuary. The two worlds were crashing into one and that became so apparent last night when he jolted awake in bed as Nat's body broke against the ground.

His hands clasped at his mouth, even half-asleep his brain had reminded him of the full house. Too many people with too many questions. So he kicked and he flailed and he writhed, silently. He had dragged himself away from the desolate planet with its mournful horizon and into his depressed household and its shroud of misery.

The sheets twisted around his legs, holding fast as he tried to free himself from the last remaining clutches of sleep. He couldn't breathe properly, heart beating far quicker than it should, the terror of the memory always worsened by the untold power of imagination. Something in the back of his mind told him the other side of the bed was cold and that had made the panic flare.

He almost flipped himself out of bed until finally there was no more cold. The chill of Vormir receded back into the past as a small, warm hand rested against his shoulder. Telling him to calm.

Laura.

One look at her had told him everything he needed to know. He might be sleeping badly but she hadn't slept. Her mind still chewing over everything he had revealed.

Thinking back on it now, surrounded by trees and wildlife, he should have figured she was struggling. His wife was a fan of sleep. A firm believer of eight hours every night. If she didn't get it she was a self-confessed nightmare the next day. The only time she ever willingly went without it was when there was thinking to be done.

And Clint had interrupted.

Once he was properly awake and no longer being attacked by the bed sheets, she'd padded across the room to settle back onto the windowsill. It wasn't particularly deep, but Laura had the uncanny ability to make the smallest of spaces look welcoming and comfortable.

Loneliness prickled at him, her absence and refusal to look him in the eye the main offenders. It was a feeling that hadn't left, even though they'd spoken it over in whispered words through the night. It was the other reason he was out here. Hoping the solitude would temper the panic rising within.

Yes, she'd said she wouldn't leave. But that didn't mean things wouldn't change between them.

He was an idiot to think she'd be able to rest after everything he'd confessed. He could see that as clearly now as the new sun on the horizon. He might have felt slightly better for owning up to the sins he'd committed but she had yet another burden added to her plate. She wasn't just sharing a house with an assassin anymore, she was sharing it with a murderer.

The difference?

One got a pay cheque.

That was something Nat had said to him once.

With the guilt setting in, Clint decided to head for home. She didn't deserve waking up to find he'd abandoned her to a full house. Not when she'd been around to help him get his shit together. He needed to be there for her.

So, this time, as he ran, it was memories of her words that floated after him. Nipping at his heels and reeling him home.

"Did you ever stop to think? To really think?"

It was the first thing she'd said from the windowsill. There had been something in her voice, a tone he hadn't recognised. He didn't hear it often, at least not from her.

"No, of course you didn't, it was stupid of me to even ask."

Clint continued putting one foot in front of the other, not sure if he really wanted to replay their conversation from the night before. He tried to focus on the strain of his muscles as they propelled him forward, the burn of his lungs as he kept his breathing even. The air fresh and cold wherever it touched. Mingling with his sweat to cool him down.

It worked for a few seconds here and a few seconds there, but he always ended up sliding back into his thoughts. Almost like it was inevitable.

Inevitable.

Oh how much he hated that fucking word.

"We're partners, Clint," the memory of Laura's voice dragged him from his misplaced anger at a single word in the English language, "married. Husband and wife. We're in everything together. You jump in feet first I'm right behind you. That's how it's always been because we're a team. We promised to share everything with each other, no matter how small or how dark. That was always how this was going to work between us. Because I can tell you, being married to an assassin turned Avenger hasn't exactly been easy."

It was then, as their house came into view through the trees, as he remembered Laura's chiding about his secret-keeping, that he placed the emotion in her voice. It wasn't anger, even though there were occasions when she shook with it.

It was disappointment.

And that hurt more than anything.

He stopped on the outskirts of the trees, hidden in the shadow. There was movement behind the windows, some of the others already up. Would she even want him there? In the end they'd fallen asleep holding each other.

Him whispering apologies into her ear.

Her clutching at the hand resting on her stomach.

Both desperate to make it all go away.

When he'd woken up only a couple of hours later she looked exhausted, even in her sleep. He snuck out, not wanting to wake her, though still risking a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

"I'm so angry, you know," her voice reached him from behind and he almost jumped clear out of his skin. When he turned around he found Laura leaning against a tree, a small half-smile playing on her lips.

"I was just on my way back," he said, trying and failing to cover up the fright she gave him, "I was hoping to get back before you woke."

"Not about that, you dummy," she stepped forward and took both his hands in hers, "about what you've done to yourself. My Clint from before would never start such a dark thing. I mean, I know your childhood wasn't great, but you never would have done this. You're a strong man, but there's a sensitivity there that most don't see. But I do. It's both my favourite and least favourite thing about you. With it, you do incredible things like give Russian spies and telepathic witches a second chance. And because of it, when you're at home and switch off your spy side, you beat yourself up over all the things you had to do and all the things you think you could have done better. Knowing that about yourself, how could you have ever started on this rampage? It makes me think that, all along, you expected to be dead by the end of it."

They stared into each other's eyes, neither really knowing what to say next. She'd hit it pretty spot on and they both knew it. And it was Laura who carried on.

"What was going through your head. Did you just not care? Is that it? You just stopped caring?" She closed her eyes against the pain that brought her. He saw the anguish for a moment and it took his breath away.

"Laura-"

"No, don't. Just, be quiet. You've said your bit already. And I'm trying to get my head around it," she took a deep breath and opened her eyes again, "you threw yourself away. The first sign of difficulty you gave up and that isn't the man I know. You go out and you do all that stuff and you don't think about anything else."

"Laura-"

"And then you just go and do it all again. Without a care. Month after month. What were you thinking? I need to know, I need to know the actual thoughts that were going through your head when you decided to do all of that."

"Laura," he said again, taking full advantage of the breath she was forced to take, "I wasn't thinking. I just saw a path and followed it because it was the only thing I saw. I thought that's what I was meant to do and I know forgiving me for taking those lives is more than I deserve-"

"Jesus, Clint," she dropped his hands and grabbed the sides of his face, stopping him from looking away as he tried to do. What he saw there was something he didn't fully understand, "they were bad people. They were doing bad things. Yes, I question your coping mechanism but that's not what worries me. Imagine, for one moment, that we all came back and you weren't here."

Her voice broke on the last word and Clint gathered her up in his arms. Pulling her close so there was no space left between them. Those last words made him feel like complete shit as his stomach lurched and he remembered the freefall before ramming into the side of the mountain. Slender arms wrapped around his body, one going to his belt to make sure he was secure.

Stopping him from achieving exactly what Laura feared.

Something in his silence snagged his wife's attention. She pulled out of his embrace and stepped back ever so slightly, they were still close. But she needed to look him in the eye again.

"What do you need to tell me?" She said, her tone flat as she warred with the emotions running through her, sensing what he was going to say.

"On Vormir," he paused as Laura sucked in a breath. "I'm not talking about all of it. I can't. Not yet. But you should know that it wasn't just that I wouldn't let her make the sacrifice. She wouldn't let me. I jumped off the mountain first, and she followed."

A long silence settled over the two of them and Clint fancied the birds had quietened so they could listen in. He took a deep breath as he closed his eyes and remembered what he could from those empty five years. Birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, he couldn't even drag himself out of bed on those days, crippled by the grief that tried so hard to drown him. The very definition of pain.

"I survived the Snap, but I didn't live a single day," he said again, "not until Tokyo. Not until she picked me up and brought me back. She came to me with that look and those words and I came crashing back into myself. I woke up and I hated myself for everything I'd done and turned my back on."

Clint blinked a few times, clearing his thoughts. He looked Laura in the eye and despite her anger he knew he'd never be alone again. It made his heart soar.

And knowing the cost of having that certainty also made his heart plummet. Constantly heading in two different directions.

He supposed that's what a broken heart felt like.

"Honey, you turned your back on yourself," she whispered, "on everything and everyone you had left. But the damage came when you left yourself behind."

She brought a hand to his cheek, a tender touch for a wrenching moment.

"I don't know, maybe these journals will help fix some of that," Clint said.