I knew that my love life, just like every other relationship, wouldn't be happy forever.

At least, my logical-198-IQ brain knew that, but the more emotional side of my brain – it really hadn't kicked in until my love life took off – was in complete denial. I didn't want to fight with the second most important guy in my life; I didn't want to believe we even could fight.

As it turns out, we could.

The 'honeymoon' period, as Darcy calls it, ended for Clint and I after a particularly grueling mission involving two married psychos, their non-psychotic innocent children, and the fact that we all felt guilty – a five year old boy and his three year old sister were dead because we weren't fast enough, didn't get there quick enough, didn't do anything-

Anyways, we were all on edge afterwards and it exploded in a bit of a nasty lover's spat (named so by Betty).

I keep a brisk pace as I quietly follow my boyfriend out of the stairwell, emerging onto his floor, heading to the kitchen as he disappears into his bedroom.

"Clint," I call softly, hands clenching the counter of his minibar as images of little crushed skulls flash behind my eyes, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine," comes the clipped, hard reply.

I blink at the tone. "It doesn't sound like it."

"I. Am. Fine," he almost growls. "Drop it."

I tighten my grip on the counter almost imperceptibly. "Well excuse me for worrying about my boyfriend."

"You're excused," he replies in a monotone voice as he emerges into his personal, slightly small living room, still not looking at me.

"Clint, come on," I urge, "what's going on? Please, just tell me what's wrong."

"Figure it out, genius," he snaps, the normally endearing term holding only mockery.

"Hey!" I retort, crossing my arms defensively. "I'm only trying to help-"

"Don't bother."

"-so there is no need to get all irritated at me!" I finish, never once raising my voice.

"Well then stop," he states as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

I tilt my head slightly. "What?"

"Stop trying to help," he growls. "I don't need your help."

"Clint," I snort, amused, "we've been dating for over a year now and we were best friends for three years before that. There isn't a switch you can flip that'll just get me to stop caring."

"Well then, you can make one, can't you, Miss 198 IQ?" Again, only mockery in his words.

"I'm a mechanic, not a sorceress," I snap, clenching my fist. "And you know that, Clinton Francis Barton-"

"Ooh, the full name treatment!" he drawls. "I'm so scared! What're you going to do Mom, ground me?"

I grit my teeth and take a step forward. "Look at me."

This catches him off guard. "Huh?"

"Look. At. Me. Hawkeye." I order.

He does, and something breaks inside when I see his eyes are only a slightly darker grey color. "What are you doing?"

"Checking for external influence," I deadpan. "Because this isn't you. I know you."

"Really?!" he rounds on me, eyes flashing steel. "Do you?"

I stay silent, pursing my lips and giving him a calculating look.

"Don't look at me like that," he snaps, turning away from me. "I'm not just some puzzle you can just solve."

"Well life would be a hell of a lot easier if you were!" I scream. "You're not acting much like the Clint I know right now!"

"Stop saying you know!" he roars, rounding on me again. "You know! I get it, genius, you're smart! I get it, I really do! But that's machines – cold, hard, heartless metal! This is people, and you don't understand! You don't understand people! I do, and you don't! You don't know me; face it, genius. You don't know me, and you never will! I don't need your help, Stark, and I DON'T NEED YOU!"

I feel like I've been slapped. Hurt throbs through my veins, and I watch regret immediately flood my – Clint's eyes as I take a step back. "Taylor-"

"Fine, Barton," I whisper shakily, turning on my heel and fleeing the room, ignoring his cries and pleas as I sprint through the hallways, barely noticing as I slammed into someone along the way.

"Jarvis," I gasp as I burst onto the landing pad, "static deployment Beta III."

"Ma'am-"

"Do it!" I howl as I near the edge of the platform and take a deep breath before letting myself fall over the edge, only freefalling for about five feet before I'm caught from behind by metal and gears and familiar black and purple metal. I immediately shoot of in a random direction, flying essentially blind and putting all my faith in Jarvis.

"J," I mutter quietly, shakily, "take me home."

Exactly three hours, forty one minutes, forty six seconds, and thirty eight milliseconds later (my brain goes into overdrive when I'm upset) my boots touch the roof of the Malibu Mansion, technically home since I lived here until I was about fourteen.

I quickly let the suit fold into a briefcase behind me, grabbing it just as the last piece falls into place and hauling it inside, setting it on the kitchen counter before collapsing onto the nearest couch.

What the hell had just happened? What was that?

That was you and Clint fighting, a little pessimistic voice reminds me, you knew it was coming.

Obviously I did, couples aren't sunshine and rainbows 100% of the time – what little I knew of my mother could prove that. Betty and Bruce had broken up ("Extraordinary circumstances!" she claims. Yeah, those circumstances were called Hulk and Bruce disappeared.) Jane and Thor, as far as I knew, had never fought, but that might be because a) They were rarely in physical proximity to each other, b) Thor was like a big puppy, and c) you'd have to do something extremely stupid to make Thor mad at you, and Jane was no fool.

But Clint and I? Darcy one depicted us as the 'it' couple: the couples everyone envies, everyone wants to be like. We were perfect in the eyes of the press, the world, and even the majority of our teammates; even my dad wasn't extremely worried about us, and that was saying something.

But now…

Now everything had just…broken.

I shudder as images of the little mutilated corpses from this morning flash in my head, shaking my head both to clear those images of the ones of Clint's angry eyes and snarl.

I grab one of the many StarkPads that are stashed around the house and tap a few buttons opening both the diagrams to a new repulsor gun that probably going to go nowhere and a recent article by Forbes magazine, somehow managing to focus on both equally.

And then I lose myself in the numbers, the equations.

Because math doesn't yell at you.

Math doesn't need you either, the pessimistic little voice remarks.

Shut up, I tell it.

I eventually emerge from my headspace, when it's dark outside and a quick look at the clock reads 10:32 pm, Pacific Standard Time, which meant it was past midnight at the Tower.

Was Clint asleep? Was he thinking of me? Did he even have any regrets at all?

Don't be idiotic! My conscience admonishes. Of course he did, did you not see the look in his eyes before you ran?

But what if-

"Miss Stark, Miss Ross is on the line," Jarvis informs me. "She informs me it is urgent, or she would not have called."

I scrape my teeth over my bottom lip, hesitating slightly before deciding. "Put her through."

"Taylor?"

"Betty."

"Okay, alright; first, are you okay?"

"I've been better," I admit. "Did Clint tell you what happened?"

"No-"

"Good," I sigh.

"-but I heard everything."

"Oh," I groan, dragging a hand over my face. "Who else did?"

"Bruce, Thor, Steve…Tony."

I groan again. "…excuse me for a second. Jarvis, mute the call."

Once he's done so, I let out litany of curses to rival some of my dad's foulest and throw the coffee mug on the side table at the wall, watching with a grim satisfaction as it shatters into countless pieces. "Unmute. Betty?"

"Yeah, I'm here. You good now?"

"Better," I correct. "Better. Not quite good."

"Yeah, I get it. I've been in your shoes."

"Your boyfriend has a convenient green rage monster he can blame. Mine – I mean, Clint – has what?"

"The stress of seeing two little kids murdered," she suggests. "And he's still your boyfriend."

"I haven't been able to determine that, not since…ah, ten this morning."

"Don't give up that easily," she insists. "And he hasn't had a chance to reaffirm himself."

"What do you mean?" I ask, confused. "Was there a mission no one told me about?"

"Unless you count playing keep-Clint-away-from-Tony a mission, no, there wasn't."

I sigh. "How bad is it?"

"DEFCON 1 bad."

I swear again. "Okay…how fast can Clint be here?"

"Three and a half hours, if Jarvis helps copilot the jet. Are you sure?"

"I'd rather he not be murdered, thanks."

"Aw, you do care."

I roll my eyes. "Shut up."

"Alright, I'll send him over. Bye."

"Bye." I signal for Jarvis to cut the call and settle back onto the couch. I turn back to the StarkPad, idly tapping out the rhythm to a Russian lullaby Tasha taught me.

The jet touches down at 2:14 am, and I'm still absorbed in the tablet.

Soft footsteps (he's being purposely loud) alert me to another presence in the room. I do not, however, look up or attempt to do anything.

"Taylor?" Clint calls softly, not even trying to disguise the desperate note in his voice.

"We were on last name terms last time we spoke," I muse quietly.

"I know." He sighs miserably. "I know…and…I…"

I suddenly stand and cross the room, still not looking at him as I walk out onto the balcony and take in the cool salty air and the calm seas. "Why?" I whisper. "What did I do?"

"Nothing!" he yelps quickly. "Nothing…it wasn't your fault."

"Was it yours?" I question slyly.

"No…Yes…Maybe…I don't know okay? First it was the kids, and the psychos, and I realized how much red I've got on my ledger, Taylor!"

"Clint, didn't I tell you four years ago that I didn't care about that? I don't care about your red, not about Natasha's, nor anyone else's."

'"You're too good for me, you know that?"

I allow a small grin to appear on my face. "So you've said."

"Seriously," I hear a scarping noise as Clint drags a chair over next to me and plops down in it. "I don't deserve you."

"Don't say that," I hiss. "That sounds like a break up line. And unless we're already broken up…"

"Hell no," he asserts quickly, then pauses. "Unless you want to be?"

I shake my head violently, and I see him grin, relieved, out of the corner of my eye. "Good."

"I still don't know why," I admit. "Why?"

My boyfriend falls quiet for a long while before finally answering, "The psychos. Mr. and Mrs. Blaydon."

"Are those their names? I've just been referring to the as the psychos."

Clint chuckles softly before becoming serious again. "I researched them. They were happily married for six years before today. I turns out the mister is an ex-KGB operative, with a 300 kill-number. A doctor diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, but he refused to see anyone or take anything for it. He injected him wife with a serum that pretty copied his own disease, and they both killed their children today." I hear him swallow thickly. "Little Brandon and Elsie."

I swipe a hand across my eyes and banish the images of blood, bone fragments, oh god a finger-

I shudder and turn around to face him. "Stop torturing yourself, Clint. Stop drawing parallels."

"But don't you see?" he begs, staring up at me with tears – tears – welling in his beautiful grey eyes. "I could snap at any moment! I could hurt you, and what if we have kids?! I don't want to end up like them! I don't want you hurt!"

"So your solution was to push me away?" I ask incredulously. "You should've know your brilliant plan would never work."

"Yeah, well," he smirks, "you are clearly the brains in this outfit."

I turn sideways to look at the moon. "You're not going to, by the way."

"Not going to what?"

"Turn out like him," I clarify. "You're not going to snap, Clint; you're stronger than that."

"Am I?"

"Yes." I nod sharply. "You are. And I promise that I knew what I was getting into when we started dating. That also applies to marriage, should that ever happen. Marriage is just the more grown up, more responsible cousin of dating."

He snickers softly and leans forwards against the railing,]. "But what about-"

"And if we ever have kids – can you imagine me pregnant?" I pause. "No, don't answer that. But whatever – if we ever end up with a kid somehow, I'm not going to lie; the poor kid will be the farthest thing from normal, because, um, have you met us?" He laughs, and I grin as I continue. "But they won't be hurt by our hands. They're going to be the baby of the team, even more protected than I am."

He gives me an amused look. "Baby of the team? There something I should know?"

I roll my eyes and whack him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry too, you know."

"Huh?"

"I overreacted," I admit. "I pushed you over the edge, I nagged you, and then when you blew up I blew things out of proportion and ran."

He gives me an easy smile and presses a soft kiss to my temple. "It's alright. Besides, Bruce said this was healthy."

"Darcy said the same thing," I agree. "Something about true love and butterflies…"

We both wrinkle our faces in disgust, and I manage to go ten seconds before bursting into laughter. "We…we are idiots."

"I beg to differ, 198," he teases, brushing his fingers over just where he knows I'm ticklish.

"Stop, stop!" I squeal and shove him away, laughing. "So we're good?"

"We're good," he promises, pecking me on the cheek. "Now, who's going to explain this to your dad?"

"I'll do it…" I sigh. "Tomorrow. For tonight, go find a guest room, and remember that Jarvis is always watching."

He shivers. "Oh, I have no doubt that you'd filet me if I tried anything."

"Good," I smile smugly. "Goodnight."

"Good morning," he corrects, leaning in to give me a kiss.

"Yeah, yeah," I wave him off and watching him go.

We were good. We were okay. We weren't going to fall apart – not because of this. We were stronger than that, if we didn't know it.