"I love you."

That night had been replaying in her head for the past week. She couldn't seem to get those words out of her head, no matter what she did. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that those were the words Clint had said that night. And the more she thought about that, the more she realized that she loved him too. Natasha had no idea what to do. She desperately wanted to talk to him, but work had been getting busier lately. And Tony had been asking Clint to help him with some of his inventions, so they really never had the chance to talk about it yet.

The pregnancy was starting to take its toll on Betty. She tried to convince both Natasha and Bruce that she was fine, but she was clearly exhausted. Natasha knew how stubborn Betty could be sometimes, but finally they were able to convince her to take a few days off. It made things harder since they were now a nurse short, but Natasha knew that it would be worth it once the baby was finally born.

One day towards the end of her shift, Natasha saw that Pepper had come in for a checkup. When she came out of the examination room, she walked over to Natasha.

"Everything's good?" Natasha asked.

"Yes, everything is fine, thank you." Pepper said. "I was wondering if you would like to come over sometime later today."

"Oh, alright." Natasha said, a little confused. "I can come over in about an hour."

"I'll see you then," Pepper said. Natasha stood there for a moment, trying to think of why Pepper wanted to meet with her so suddenly. But then she heard Bruce call her name and she ran to go see what the new problem was this time. She hoped that Betty was feeling better.

Natasha had never been to Pepper and Tony's house before. She had seen it when she went to Tony's shop, but she never paid very much attention to it. It looked like a very nice house, but she wasn't prepared for what was inside. There were tons of inventions in the house. All kinds of machines that Natasha had never seen before. She wondered how much time Tony had spent down here working on all this. Pepper must have seen how shocked she was because she simply said, "He likes to build things. All kinds of weird machines that sound crazy and they probably shouldn't have been made in the first place. But it calms him down. Especially on bad nights."

Natasha knew what she meant. They all had their own ways of dealing with the war. She and Betty would throw themselves into their work. Clint would shoot arrows until his hand was bleeding. She wasn't going to judge him on how he gets through the night.

"Well, it seems like he puts a lot of work into it," Natasha said.

"Yes, he does," Pepper said with a small smile. They both heard the front door open and saw Tony and Clint both walk inside.

"Hey Pepper," Tony said when he saw her.

"Hello Tony," she replied. "Blow anything up today?"

"Nope!" he said with a large grin on his face.

"Oh Clint, come over here, you'll want to hear this too," Pepper said.

"Hear what?" Natasha asked.

"The reason why I wanted to invite you over is that I have some good news for you," Pepper said.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't have to worry about Mr. Pierce anymore," said Pepper.

"What?" Natasha asked, getting more and more confused.

"After you told me about the problems you were having with him and after Clint told Tony about what had happened, I decided to do a little research." Pepper said.

"It's a good thing too," Tony said behind them. "Because he wouldn't shut up about it either."

"Tony, be nice."

"I'll try my best, dear."

"Anyway," Pepper continued, "I used to live in New York and worked with some big businesses. It was my job to cover up anything that made my company look bad and find anything that made the other companies worse. So I'm very good at finding information on people. Especially on things that they don't want people to know. And it turns out that Mr. Pierce was a Nazi supporter during the 1930s."

"What?" Clint said. Natasha simply stared at Pepper, wanting to hear more of the story.

"There were some people who sided with Germany in the beginning," Pepper said. "This was before Pearl Harbor and some wanted the US to support the Germans since-"

"They were enemies with Russia." Natasha finished.

"Exactly."

"So what exactly did you do?" Clint asked.

"Well I wrote a couple of letters and once I got what I needed I told him that he needed to find a new town to stay in or everyone will learn about his secret. He should be gone in the next few weeks."

"Pepper, I don't know what to say," Natasha began.

"You don't have to say anything. I wouldn't want to be forced to leave because some crazy old man was spreading rumors. Also I think Clint might go crazy if you did leave."

Natasha smiled and grabbed Clint's hand. "I don't plan on leaving anytime soon." She said.

"Well that's good," Pepper said. "You two go enjoy yourselves. I have to go make sure Tony doesn't destroy anything else."

"I heard that!"

Natasha walked through the small town with Clint and it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. She had spent so long being judged and ridiculed for where she was from and now she had people who cared about her. People who were willing to fight for her and defend her against the ignorant. And that that thought made her heart swell.

"So have you eaten yet?" Clint asked. "I'm starving. We could go get something to eat and then maybe-"

"I love you," she blurted out before she could really think about it. Clint suddenly stopped walking and stared at her. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he hadn't said those words to her that night. She was terrified that she had just ruined everything when he pulled her in close and kissed her with such passion that it took her breath away.

"I love you too," he whispered before kissing her again. They stood out in the cold for a long time just holding each other and Natasha realized that she planned on staying in this small town for a very long time.