Thank you so much for all the reviews, follows and favs for the story!

This is a filler chapter. The next chapter is the end, bum bum bum. I just wanted to give the story some calmness to get over the drama from the past few chapters. I promise your questions will be answered in either this chapter or the concluding chapter.

Also this chapter is dedicated to IcarusOwl who makes me laugh with reviews.

fixed a wording issue, thanks Anon! (updated)

Mistakes on this are all mine. See Chapter 1 for disclaimer.

Happy reading!

Chapter 11

Clint broke his promise to Natasha.

As soon as they landed on the carrier, he was shipped onto a million briefings and debriefings of what had happened, what would have happened and what was going to happen and what should have happened. The briefings span four to eight hours long for a whole two weeks.

Then there was the issue of completing their operation. Strike Team Charlie had taken over and completed the mission successfully. He was in charge of overseeing the interrogation of the leader of the group that was found in the tunnel and find their connection with the Winter Soldier and any future operations that they had.

He was busy, to say the least. He barely had time for some shut eye, never mind have the time to be able to see Natasha. He heard that she had woken up from her surgery via Pepper who had tried her best to get Fury to reschedule one of Clint's briefs in order to go to the infirmary and visit Natasha.

Pepper's plan had semi-worked. Clint was assigned to conduct Natasha's debrief and report any and all instances where she could still be the reprogrammed Natalia who helped Bucky. Like a good soldier, Clint nodded his head at the order and busied himself until Natasha was medically cleared for debrief.

In all honesty he was actually avoiding any and all interaction with her because of what she had said.

He never thought in his life he would hear (see) Natasha say those three words, but he did.

On the rare downtimes that he's given between briefings and overseeing operations, Clint would think about it. How she had looked him in the eye and told him that she loved him. Well, not him. She had admitted in that dingy one star motel in Hong Kong that she loved the Winter Solder. "Was a child for him" if Clint remembered her words correctly. He wasn't surprised that after all the man had done, she would still love him. Natasha was loyal. She may have defected to the United States but he knew that it was her flaw. Those she loved, she would love forever. Those rare friends she had made she would protect with her life.

Just as she protected him.

And he didn't even send her flowers.

There was a knock on his door, "Barton, Fury wants you at command center."

"Be right there."

Clint composed himself and followed the agent to Fury.

"Sir," Barton stated dropping the reporting formalities that usually existed. He figured with the past few weeks he's had, he's allowed to do so.

"Romanoff has regained 95 percent of her lung capacity. Her doctors are allowing her to be debriefed. "

"Yes, sir."

"I want this thorough, no bullshit or covering up for your partner. I need to know if she can still be trusted."

"Yes, sir. That it, sir?"

Fury turned his back and Clint took it as cue to go to the infirmary and get this debriefing over with. He didn't know how much Tony and the rest of the Avengers had told Natasha. Clint knew that the team all visited, that they tried to cheer her up and the first thing she wanted was to know what had happened. The second thing they wanted to know was where he was.

A part of him felt bad for not being there for her for the weeks where she had been hospitalized, but he rationalized it with work. He had work, and it wasn't like the bad guys were going to suddenly stop popping out of nowhere.

He stood at her door and steadied himself, taking a breath before knocking gently once. He was hoping that she wasn't asleep.

He knocked on the door again before opening it knowing that Natasha wouldn't tell anyone to willingly enter her room.

She turned her head when she sensed his presence.

"Hey," He greeted her with a small smile looking at the white chair next to her bed, silently asking permission to sit there. She nodded her head in approval then stared at the purple and yellow flowers that sat on her bedside.

Clint surveyed her room. Unlike all the other times where they found themselves in infirmary after a mission, and those were a lot of times in the past decade, there were get well soon cards, flowers and bears that were all around Natasha's room. Courtesy of the team, or at least Pepper, Jane, Darcy and Thor, he presumed.

Tony Stark would not be caught delivering flowers and get well cards if it was not for Pepper, or with a hidden motive behind it.

It was tradition, or at least it used to be, that whenever he would be in town and she found herself in the infirmary, he would bring her by white tulips; because roses were overrated and white was her favorite color. The flowers would sit on her bedside for as long as she was confined in the room and once the flowers would wilt, he would bring by new ones for her to be able to take to her quarters.

White was a symbol that every time she was there, she replaced the red in her ledger with white. He glanced once again at the yellow and purple combination of flowers with a sigh.

"Fury send you here?" Natasha asked him, her voice was rougher than he was used to but that was understandable since she hadn't been allowed to talk for the past few weeks.

"I have to debrief you," Clint said opening the notebook that he had brought with him and clicking his pen ready to write down what she says. He looked up at her hoping to meet her gaze but she wouldn't turn to look at him. "I don't know how much the team's told you..."

"They told me about Steve. What he did to Steve and how he almost died. How I almost killed you... They told me that he's dead... that SHEILD has the people who ordered him here to infiltrate," Natasha stated reading the events as though she was reading it in front of her.

She paused looking Clint in the eyes. "That all they wanted was to get me back."

Clint nodded. "Do you remember anything about that morning? What he said; what you did?"

Natasha tentatively nodded her head. "I don't remember being compromised. I don't remember what I did when I was programmed into... into myself. For whatever I did, I'm sorry Clint."

"He reprogrammed you, Natasha," Clint stated. "What you did when you weren't you, it wasn't your fault."

Those words were familiar. It was the words that Natasha had used late at night as Clint held onto her for his life dreaming of the blue, the tesseract, Loki's control over his mind and actions. Those nights lasted for months and Natasha did nothing but hold him and tell him that it wasn't his fault. That the body count wasn't his, it was Loki's. That his ledger wasn't irreversible.

"I know," Natasha replied flinching at him calling her name. "I should have known. He kept calling me Natalia. Like it was supposed to mean something, and I should've remembered that I was activated as the Black Widow when he said that love was for children. I went crazy after that, I just... I didn't realize it, I didn't think it mattered at the time. I'm sorry."

Clint wrote what she was saying down then glanced at her when she paused. "Was there anything else you could tell... I mean about the re-programming so that SHIELD can try to find a way to prevent it."

"The first time he said that to me, I went crazy. That's how they knew I was ready for larger operations like Alexei and then the killings started and they didn't stop and I just... How did you get it out of me?"

She finally met his gaze. Her voice was small, her gaze was tentative.

"I didn't, Natasha. You did it."

Natasha looked at him confused. "I don't know what you're talking about. I did it?"

"You saved my life," Clint stated putting the pen in his pocket. This was a conversation that didn't need to be recorded. This was between the two assassins. Friends. Partners, or whatever the hell they were. "You don't owe me a debt, not anymore. Not after that."

She leant back onto the pillows, her eyebrows curved together in confusion and thought. Natasha shook her head.

"It was you."

"What?"

"You called me 'Nat.' Nobody has ever called me that before you," Natasha admitted. "I…You were the one who made me think that I wasn't Natalia. I was Nat. I liked being Nat... So I..."

"You don't have to tell me, Natasha," Clint stated, shaking his head. "This isn't part of the debrief."

Natasha nodded her head and started at the flowers beside her. They were the wrong flower, the wrong color. She looked at the room around her. Everything felt wrong.

Clint had never sent her a card. A flower. He never came to visit with his American music to play to her and make her life.

If she really did save his life, why did everything feel wrong?

"Where is his body now?"

"We have it," Clint stated going back into business mode. "Fury is having people look over it; test and see what serums were used. Analyze his brain so SHIELD can see how the programmings happened and what it did to the brain... Normal stuff."

She nodded her head in understanding.

"Did I kill him?" Natasha asked him her voice was small. Clint shook his head standing up from his heat and tentatively wrapping his arms around the redhead.

"I did," Clint whispered. "I'm sorry, Natasha."

Clint held onto Natasha, giving her a tight squeeze. He wasn't sorry. Wasn't sorry that he killed a man who used Natasha, who wanted to own her like she was a possession and not a human being. He wasn't sorry that he killed the man who tried to kill Steve, no matter how short of a time he knew Steve; Bucky had been his best friend and Clint made a mental note to talk to Steve about what happened. Give the guy some peace.

He was sorry though, that he took Natasha's one chance of love away. For weeks he was haunted with her voice. Her declaration of love to the man who Clint had killed without second thought.

"I'm sorry, Natasha."

She held onto his arms and melted into his embrace. She could feel the brace on his shoulders that was placed in order to help him recover from his dislocations. Proof that she had hurt him, and yet he was still there trying to comfort her. Sheburied her face in his neck inhaling his scent.

That was her last thought when she fell asleep.

Clint slipped out from her embrace a few hours after Natasha had fallen asleep in his arms. He laid there for hours just cherishing the moment. She was alive, so was he; and at the end of the day that was all that really mattered to him.

All that should matter to him.

It didn't matter who it was that she really loved, she deserved peace and happiness in her life. Him being there as her friend gave her that. So Clint put aside his feelings; the ones of guilt for killing the love of her life. The one that wished he was the love of her life. The one that hoped, somewhere deep inside, that it was him she was talking to when she told him that she loved him.

Clint looked back at her bedside table, the yellow and purple flowers. He vowed to replace them with white tulips. He vowed to stay her friend.

Like I said, filler chapter.

Let me know what you guys think! (Pretty please!)

And look out for the final chapter which should be up by the end of the week (if I don't get buried in work etc.)

Comments and Criticisms, welcome!