So to start off, I'm not really feeling this chapter, it's a filler chapter.

I promise the story gets better (just finished writing it!)... So let me know what you think! It's never too late to change stuff up in the chapters I've already written.

Happy reading!

Chapter 3

She was beautiful. Though he always thought that she was although bloodied and bruised, that she was one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen in his life; only comparable to sunrises over the mountains and oceans or a chicks first flight.

Clint had not seen Natasha since a week after their last mission where she all but professed her love for the bionic man who was going through his defection phases at SHIELD. He needed to put some space between them, and he had done so by going up to Maria Hill and asking for back to back solo missions, his reason: to ensure that he was back to himself and competent enough after being compromised with the whole Loki stint.

Maria had willingly obliged his request knowing that the archer wouldn't ask for no reason. For the last six months, he has been away doing two week stint missions that were easy enough for someone of his particular skill set. The few times he was back in the Avenger Tower, he made sure to spend some time with Tony who had been feeling lonely with Bruce had gone back to India for humanitarian efforts and Rogers busy with the return of his old friend.

Tony had been curious as to why he was taking missions without the Black Widow, but he explained that as the Winter Soldier's handler, Natasha was required to oversee the progress he was going through as he defected to the United States. It was an excuse and Tony knew it, but he accepted it.

After all, everyone knew the truth about why he was avoiding her at all costs.

Everyone but her.

Tonight, she was especially beautiful in her olive colored gown that left the back open and exposed her pale skin. His fingers itched to place his hands there and feel her smooth skin as he had done countless times before.

She had gone up to him, all smiles, a bionic arm around her waist as they both greeted him. Welcomed him back after half a year away. He could spot the changes between the two, how they whispered in each other's ear and invaded each other's personal space.

Currently, the two were down in the dance floor and he was up at the bar drowning sorrows that he knew he shouldn't have.

"Barton," Bruce greeted him walking up to where he was standing at the bar, a perfect view of the dance floor and its dancers in front of them.

"Doctor," Clint greeted back.

Bruce shook his head. "It's just Bruce."

"Well in that case, Clint."

They've only worked together twice since the Avengers had been formed together on that faithful day in New York City. Since then the good Doctor has been doing Pro-Bono around Asia and South America after the series of natural disasters that hit the world.

"You don't look like you're enjoying the party," Bruce noted observing the archer's body language and form.

"I don't enjoy being in a suit."

Bruce shook his head, "it's more than that."

"Look Doc-Bruce, if I needed a psych eval, I'd go to SHIELD and get one."

Bruce nodded focusing instead on the drink that's in front of him. HE watched Tony and Pepper down on the dance floor. This was, after all, the couple's engagement party, which had turned into an impromptu wedding party with Tony's spontaneity.

"They seem happy," Bruce stated a motioning towards the couple on the dance floor.

Clint nodded in agreement. "Yeah, they do."

"Are you going down there to join them?" Bruce asked him. "The blonde over there is trying to get your attention."

Clint shook his head avoiding the direction of the blonde that Bruce pointed out. "I don't dance. That's Natasha's thing."

Natasha. He no longer referred to her as "Nat" or "Tasha" just like he had since he brought her in to SHIELD. She was now strictly Natasha or Agent Romanoff. Not that he talked to her or about her to anybody. But when he's sitting on the rooftop of a building, with nothing to do but look through his scope, he would think of her. Their adventures together. And in those hours, she would no longer be "Nat" or "Tasha," but Natasha.

"Right, Agent Romanoff," Bruce said using her proper name. He was never told to call her Natasha, so he just simply hadn't started. Unlike Tony, Bruce liked all his appendages where they were. "She certainly knows how to dance."

Clint nodded his head finishing his drink off. "It's her job."

"Is babysitting the Winter- Barnes a part of that job?"

"I wouldn't know," Clint shrugged. "Not her partner anymore."

Bruce looked at Clint surprise on his features. He turned to Clint with one eyebrow raised.

"Fury split up his best team?"

"I asked for them to be partnered," Clint admitted. "They would work well together."

"You're just going to push her into his arms?"

"It's where she's always been."

"Why don't you just tell her how you feel?"

Bruce and the rest of the team had figured when they met the two assassins formally after the battle that the two were an item. After a few months of observation, and Tony starting up a betting pool in which they all were secretly a part of, they found out that the two were in fact unattached to each other. They were partners and best friends, but the underlying tension and desire was evident to anyone who glanced at the two.

After convincing Tony, and getting Pepper into the argument, they all agreed to just leave the two alone because they would eventually work it out.

It turns out they were all wrong.

"It doesn't matter," Clint stated motioning for the bartender to come over ordering another drink. "She, out everyone in this world, deserves to be happy. She's happy with him. I don't want to get in the way."

"In the way of what?" Bruce questioned. "Tony told me to talk to you about this. You haven't gone on missions with her. You haven't been yourself lately, we're all just worried."

"You have nothing to worry about. It's just taking me more time than i thought it would."

"For what?"

"To get over her."

The bartended served Clint his drink, as well as an Appletini. He excused himself from Bruce with a short nod over at the blonde's direction carrying his drink.

Bruce lifted his glass at a toast to the archer. Barton needed all the luck he could get.

Reviews please?

Comments and Criticisms, welcome!