[AN: Here's the happy ending for Clint and Natasha you asked for and sorry it's so late. Time got away from me.]
{{Disclaimer: My ninja's … they have FAILED ME. I own nothing.}}
CLINT BARTON
"Five… four… three… two… one…" The computer's soft feminine voice chanted up to the timer's buzz.
WHIZZ! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK, THWACK, THWACK… the sound of arrows on targets was like a rapid snare drum until that picked up in volume and depth as the arrows ran out and became bullets, almost two clips… then silence.
"Accuracy... one hundred percent… speed… sixty two seconds… penalty for excessive force… total score…" the computer voice was cut off by the last shot burying itself in one of the many automated targets that now stood still, two arrows or bullets in each bulls eye.
"Please wait for the simulation to begin," the computer reminded Clint and he growled under his breath. The computer that ran the moving targets and lights powered down as he stood, shaking and tense with an empty quiver on his back, an empty gun in his hands, and an empty clip on the floor at his feet. With a shuddering sigh he leaned back against the nearest wall and sank happily to the ground, head in his hands and palms pressed against his aching eyes.
He needed sleep, he knew it, everyone on the ship knew it, but no one would say anything to him. He'd barely spoken six words to anyone since his debriefing. Four perfect missions without trails, messes, or questionable actions and he still got those looks in the hallways. But those he could stand, they were the ones that reminded him of the guilt he should feel, that he'd always feel, and if he ever stopped feeling it he'd hope Fury shot him in the head because he wouldn't be human anymore. It was the guilt they shouldn't remind him of that broke Clint.
He used to dream about what he'd done for Loki, the killing, the things he'd said and the people he'd hurt, but those dreams had faded with time as he came to terms with what he'd been forced to do. Now he just dreamed about the fall out.
"Don't touch me." Her voice echoed in his head and it was so much more real in his dreams.
"I didn't kill you, not because I cared about you…" Those words were like blades in his chest.
"…I didn't kill you because I was angry…" Everything he feared had been thrown in his face all at once and it wouldn't leave him alone even now.
"… and a bullet in the back of your head wouldn't be painful enough!"
"Aargh!" Clint stood so fast it was a blur and threw all his frustration at the wall. It just gave him a throbbing hand and bruised knuckles to show for it. Breathing hard the archer let his sweaty forehead fall against the cold wall and fought back his emotions. How did she do it, keep back feelings like this? How could Natasha fucking Romanoff go on like these emotions didn't exist? The answer was in her words.
"…not because I cared about you…" She'd never cared and Clint was just naive enough to think he might have been different from every other man in the world.
"Thought I'd find you here," Her voice was too real and it was twisting the proverbial knife. She was always the only one who could sneak up on him.
"What do you want?" Clint spat out.
"Fury said you would want to speak to me," She said professionally and he wouldn't turn to look at her composed face, always composed, always in control, even as she left… duffle bag in hand, her Russian novels poking out of the top, twin pistols on her swaying hips as she pulled the French doors closed behind her… it was all too real in his memories.
"Yeah well," he whipped his forehead but didn't turn around, "Fury was wrong." She was silent and for a moment he thought she'd left as silently as she'd come in.
"Really?" She spoke up and she'd only gotten closer.
"Yeah!" He said louder than he intended and turned finally to glare at her. They faced off for a long moment, open fury to closed professionalism till he asked again. "What do you want Romanova?" She twitched at that and he didn't hide his satisfaction.
"Don't call me that?"
"Why not?" He goaded her on, too many sleepless nights cursing all the ways she could make his squirm catching up to him.
"It's not my name," her voice was strangely soft in comparison to his.
"Really?" He questioned with a humorless grin, "Cause I don't know anymore." Clint turned to go with all the intention of gathering his gear and raiding the med bay for sleeping pills. He didn't make it two steps before he felt his feet swept from under him, and small strong hands pushed his head down onto the hard metal floor. Her flexible legs caught his in a lock and his arms was twisted up against his back, the other immobilized between the heal and the toe of her boot.
"Get a hold of yourself, Barton," Natasha warned.
"I'm perfectly in control," He spat, anger continuing to rise.
"I can see that," She knocked his head without warning against the floor and he gasped in pain.
BANG!
"Fuck you!"
BANG!
"Cognative recalibration, worked once it just might the second…" She didn't finish because Clint got his hand free and pushed off the ground to flip her gracelessly but effectively and returned the favor, her red curls spraying out on the gray floors like fire as her head connected solidly.
"Aaugh!" She hissed and brought her knee up into his side. Clint rolled away clutching what he knew would be a nasty bruise and cursed under his labored breath again. Shakily he stood but Natasha wasn't getting up again, she just laid where she'd fallen and stared up at him with the same impassive face she'd worn when she'd arrived, the same face she had on when she left Venice, and the same face she'd worn when they first met. They stared at each other again and a conversation passed without words. Then she said what no one else had found the courage to:
"You need sleep."
Clint just turned away and returned to gathering his things. Over the clink of his arrows and the metallic click of his firearm he almost didn't hear her.
"I'm sorry." He froze.
"Sorry?" He asked as he turned to her, still lying on the floor. "Sorry for what? For leaving me in Venice? For shoving every reason I have to hate myself in my face and walking out?" He advanced on her, hands empty but menacing even without them. "For leaving me alive when I should be in a six foot hole? For hiding everything from me and expecting my trust you in return? For taking that trust for granted? Or are you sorry you got hurt? That you had some psychopath lay out all your fears instead of rummaging around in your mind and rearranging it at will? Are you sorry that I dream about you screaming at me every night as if I could make all those things disappear?" He growled out the last sentence as he stood over her and she just nodded, she nodded and closed her eyes, tears he hadn't seen forming flowing down her cheeks. She didn't try to wipe them away or hide but just cried there in front of him silently.
All the breath, the anger, the tension flowed out of Clint like water and he felt empty standing over the woman he loved as she cried. It was like breaking the surface after sinking but also like being crushed by an avalanche all at once and it paralyzed him. Slowly it faded and he knelt down next to her, not touching her, not even trying to and waited until she could drag in air and compose herself enough to sit up.
They were beside each other but not facing; she was just a red haze in his peripheral.
"Me too," he whispered, and the sound echoed in the large space.
"It wasn't you," She responded, "it never was."
"I know," he admitted. "I took out my anger on you. I wasn't ready to accept… what I'd done."
"Clint…" Natasha tried but he went on.
"I did those things, for Loki, but they were still me. I accept that," he said with assurance. "I hurt you and I will feel guilty about that for the rest of my life. That does not mean the guilt will rule me."
"I did the same… it was unfair after everything you'd already endured." She said softly. Those few words somehow soothed the months of restless waiting.
"Are we gonna make it through this Tasha?" He asked her and turned to see her smiled. It seems she'd missed the nickname as much as he'd missed saying it.
"We've made it through worse," She replied with the smile still in place.
"Yeah?" he was skeptical, "when?"
"Budapest."
"You and I remember Budapest very differently," He returned and she finally looked at him.
"I remember you said I screwed up," She returned.
"And you said the same," He replied.
"And?" She asked, curious.
"You said I loved you," He said with a kind smiled.
"And you said the same," She replied.
He leaned in to brush his lips against hers, delicately, lightly, but lovingly. When he leaned back a tear was making its way down her cheek again.
"Tasha?" His voice was close to breaking as he brushed the tear away.
"I said goodbye… Clint I said… and I meant it," she was nearly babbling so he put a finger to her lips.
"You came back," He replied.
"You waited," she whispered.
"You waited for me when Loki took me," Clint shrugged.
"And you came back," She smiled fully now and leaned in to capture his lips more forcefully with built up passion and heat.
"Always will." He promised and it was as close to 'I love you' as they got but it was how they were. Clint left his arrows buried in the simulation targets and his bow unfolded on the bench but it didn't matter. He was sleeping soundly at last, peaceful and dreamless as he put the last of the Loki incident behind him and held close the part of his life that mattered the most.