I never intended on extending this, but I've had a couple requests to write some more. So, without further ado, here's another chapter! Please review to let me know what you think!
Contrary to popular belief, Natasha never disconnected her SHIELD phone; more than that she always kept it charged, and on, and with her. It's just that, nobody ever called her on it anymore. It had been nearly five years since that phone rang, since she left SHIELD, since Clint died. Not a day went by when she didn't think of him, of their life, of the hole he'd left in her when he didn't come home, it still hurt and she knew it always would. And yet Natasha wasn't the type to dwell on pain, to let pain dictate her action or to let it rule her life. Yes she hurt, but yes she was moving on with her life.
Shortly after she left her job at SHIELD, she found a new one; she needed to, idleness didn't suit her well at all. Instead of working outside the government, she started working for it with the US Military. Despite their reservations, her track record with SHIELD spoke for itself and the big guys over at the Joint Special Operations Command looked on her and saw everything that she could bring to the table and how much a woman with her skills could benefit them. So with JSOC she began a new life, again.
It was new and it was different and though no one could or would ever match Clint in her eyes, she got the unique privilege of working alongside the best men and women special operations had to offer in the most desperate and deadly parts of the world. What could she say? She'd always been an adrenaline junkie. She'd retired her black cat-suit in favor of cammo and traded the agents of SHIELD for battle worn brothers in arms. They all knew Natasha well, she was a legend really among them. The lone-wolf woman, fire in her hair and her spirit, an unmatched warrior and a survivor and a savior to many of them, and despite all their time together, despite all they'd been through together, she was still a mystery to the men she worked with. And worked for.
She's just gotten home from another trip to Afghanistan a few days ago and settling back into her civilian life was proving more difficult than usual. Her bed was too soft, the sound of bullets still rang in her ears, the feeling of dirt and sand still clinging to her skin even after all those burning hot showers. Yet for all the pain it caused her, she wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.
Natasha was making herself a drink in the kitchen, despite the early hour, when she heard a knock on her front door. Curious, she set her glass down and replaced it with the .45 she kept on her at all times and cautiously approached her door. When she opened it, ever so slightly, she was immediately taken aback by the man she saw on the other side. Grabbing him roughly by his jacket she pulled him inside and hastily slammed the door behind him.
"What the fuck are you doing here, Fury?" She hissed through her teeth, stowing her gun back in the waistband of her pants.
"You really think we ever lost sight of you Natasha?" He straightened out his coat, the same man he always was.
"No." She admitted grudgingly. "I guess that was just wishful thinking."
Fury followed her as she headed back towards the kitchen, poured another glass of amber liquid and slid it across the marble island to him. They both stood tensely opposite each other though Fury seemed, for the first time since she'd known him, uncomfortable.
"Not to be rude or anything here, boss, but why the fuck are you here?" Natasha cut right to the chase, both of them had agreed to forego all the bullshit years ago.
"I'm so sorry Natasha." Fury sounded almost ashamed, piquing Natasha's curiosity.
"Nick, we talked about this." She said dismissively. "We always knew SHIELD wasn't permanent for me. Yes the circumstances of my leaving were a bit...strained, if you will. But, we always knew I wasn't going to stay forever."
"I know, I know. It's not that I'm sorry about." He knocked back his drink in one go, slamming the glass somewhat roughly back down onto the table.
"Then what is it? What is so important to say that you'd fly to North Carolina just to tell me, five years later?" Natasha, as grateful as she was to see her old boss again, was just as frustrated too. Before either of them could talk again there was another knock at the door.
"That." Fury said grimly, half cringing at the sound, Natasha cocked her head out of curiosity and walked back to her door, her hand back on her weapon cautiously.
"Romanoff, it's nothing like that." Fury insisted, knowing Natasha was assuming the worst at this point, as he moved to follow her. She was prepared what she thought would be the worst kind of betrayal from Fury, arrest. That finally, after all this time she would be taken and prosecuted for what she did while she was working for the Russians, information that JSOC wasn't privy too. In her mind, that was the worst thing she imagined Fury could do to her.
She was wrong.
This betrayal was something else entirely, something that cut her more deeply that she ever could've imagined. A hurt so bad she never believed, not for one second, that her allies and her friends would or even could inflict it upon her. God she had been so wrong, and she knew it the moment the opened that door and was faced with none other than the man she had spent five years grieving.
She knew it the moment the saw Clint Barton.
"Natasha-" Clint started but was swiftly and mercilessly interrupted by Natasha's right hook connecting violently with his jaw, and not for the first or last time at that. Blood poured into his mouth and his brain rattled in his skull, he'd almost forgotten how strong she was.
"No." She snapped, fists clenched in anger. "Don't you fucking say a word."
Turning sharply to face Fury, she drew her weapon and leveled it evenly at his head.
"You know I knew you were a liar from the start, I figured it was the reason you and I got along oh so fucking well. But, this? This is low even for you, Fury." Both men heard that razor sharp edge in her voice, a deadly sound that neither of them had ever been on the wrong end of until now.
"Natasha please you have to let me explain." His hands were up in front of him in a gesture of surrender very uncharacteristic of the calloused director, but his voice was even and calm.
"I don't have to let you do anything." She snapped. "After everything I did for you, after every sacrifice I made for you this is what I get? You told me he was dead Nick!"
At first Clint wasn't sure if Natasha was actually going to shoot Fury or not, it could've gone either way. But then he saw something that he'd never seen before, not on any of Natasha's weapons anyway: the safety was on. In all his years working with her, Clint had never seen Natasha point her weapon at anything she wasn't prepared to shoot, until now.
He spat the blood that had pooled in his mouth into some bushes next to the stairs and wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand before stepping inside, closing the door behind him.
"Nat," he kept his voice steady, not letting the flood of emotions he was feeling upon seeing her again seep into his voice. "Please can we just talk?"
"There's nothing you could say to me that will make me forgive you for this, you know that Fury?" She asked, ignoring Clint, her eyes still fixed on her target. Fury could talk his way out of anything, she'd seen it before, even helped him do it more than once, but not this time.
"What if there was something I could say?" Clint asked before Fury could respond. "It was my idea, Nat." His words felt like a punch in the gut, she felt the heat of her anger leave her in a rush and she let her arms fall heavily back to her sides. Calmy, she set the gun she was holding onto a small table that was just inside the door, next to her car keys, unopened mail, and some loose change.
"Get out." She told them, her voice dead flat.
"Natasha…" Both Fury and Clint started to speak.
"Get out." She repeated, more forcefully this time. Pushing past Clint she opened her front door, a not so subtle hint that let them know she meant business.
"Please." Clint begged, reaching forward just to touch her again after so long, his own pain palpable in his voice. She batted his wrist away and, grabbing his shirt by the collar, pushed him roughly up against the wall.
"You." Natasha spat, inched from his face. "I trusted you. With my life. I loved you. I wanted to marry you. How could you do this to me? I spent the last five years thinking you were dead, mourning you. Do you even know how it felt for me, to think you were dead? To carry that feeling of failure, to carry the responsibility for your death for five years? And you think you can just show up at my door and expect me to pretend that never happened. Get. Out." She pulled his collar and now shoved him roughly past the threshold back onto her porch.
"You too." She ordered, turning back to Fury. Heeding her orders, he left without another word.
Reaching under her collar she pulled out the necklace with an arrow and her ring on it, the memento of her partner she'd kept closest to her. With a sharp tug, the thing silver chain snapped and she, rather unceremoniously, threw it at Clint's feet. She ignored the broken and pained look on his face, she couldn't even bear to look at him. The last thing Clint saw was his own emptiness mirrored in her eyes as the door slammed shut.