A/N: Hey everybody! Some of you said the ending of the last chapter was a bit fuzzy. It was supposed to be vague, but not to the point of being confusing. Sorry! That's what happens when yours truly thinks she's being all sneaky, but is really just causing problems. Anyway, here is a little addendum to the last chapter that hopefully will clear up the dynamic left between Clint and Natasha. Or maybe it'll do nothing. Crossing my fingers for the former. Between this little scene and the chapter to follow, I think it will make sense. If not, please review or PM and let me know that I'm being obnoxious and unhelpful.

After several more afternoons spent staring through the window, Natasha finally managed to force herself over the threshold and into the sterile, linoleum-tiled room. Clint lay quietly in his bed with the thick rosy sheets tucked up tightly beneath his arms. The heart monitor continued to beep, sending a sharp spike across the screen with each pulse. A hanging saline bag dripped quietly into the IV tube attached to Clint's arm. He rolled his head towards her and gave a weak, groggy smile.

Natasha tried to return it but found her gaze fixated on the colorful flecks in the linoleum floor. Part of her wanted to rush over to him and grip his head in her hands and let her expression tell him how happy she was that he was alive. But she couldn't. She couldn't quite look him in the eye.

November 18, 2012

A cool breeze blew off the water, washing over Clint and Natasha where they sat on the deck. It lent a slight chill to the mild Brazilian night, and Natasha pulled her gray jacket tighter against her arms. Waves lapped hypnotically against the Helicarrier's hull, mixing with the dull murmur of men and equipment as the night crew worked to resupply what the dock workers assumed to be a standard aircraft carrier.

Clint and Natasha ignored the sounds and the distant shouts in mixed Portuguese and English, letting all the noise merge into the waves. They hadn't moved since Natasha came to find him. The stars had shifted and the moon had dropped low. Their legs had fallen asleep on the textured metal surface of the carrier, but they remained still.

Neither pair of eyes left the city lights glittering across the bay. Rio de Janeiro sat tucked in an inlet, with low mountains rising up behind it. The sand of a wide beach arced around the water, forming a barrier between the ocean and the city. A row of massive lamps followed the same curve, letting their light flood out over the beach and streak across the water toward the Helicarrier resting on the opposite shore. Behind the lamps, the peppermint blotches of a highway flashed by, bustling even in the early morning darkness. The lights reflected on the windows of the hotels and high-rises that lined the beach, making their surfaces glitter. The rest of the city sprawled out behind them, reaching in every direction until one of the hills blocked its path.

The whole city seemed to pulse with light. Shades of turquoise and emerald mixed with the incandescent orange glow, as if every building was made of glow-sticks.

"Nowhere is ever going to look quite like Budapest did that night," said Natasha, remembering the stately air and moonlit glow of the Hungarian capital.

"No," said Clint. His eyes remained fixed across the bay, flicking back and fourth as they tried to take in the explosion of detail that was the city. "I doubt even Budapest would look like it did that night."

Natasha closed her eyes, imagining that the wind on her skin came up not off the salty ocean, but the river, and seeing the white city lights glistening on the water. The green dress. Clint's strong arms around her. That feeling like she was flying away. "It probably never looked that way. I doubt the lights were as pure or the wind was a sweet or the night was as perfect as I remember it being." She smiled to herself, reveling in the memory. "You know, brain chemistry and whatnot. And it was before . . . everything."

"Yeah. Now the place is tinged with a few too many memories."

Natasha opened her eyes, letting the image of Budapest fade away. She turned her attention back to the bay, but found herself not longer able to focus on the reflections in the water. Instead she turned to Clint and studied the dark shadows on his face as he gazed out at the city. "You must have known," she said after a while. "I'm good, but my mask has never worked on you. Not all the way. On some level, buried somewhere in your mind, you must have noticed."

"Hawkeye or not, at the end of the day we see what we want to see."

"What did you want to see?"

"I . . . I don't know."

"I don't believe you."

Clint tossed his head back. "I feel so stupid."

"Don't. That's not want I meant. You couldn't have -"

"But I did. You're right, I did notice. I saw all these little changes in you, but it never crossed my mind - ." He paused, drawing in a long breath and turning it into a quick, breathy laugh. "I thought . . . God I'm such an idiot."

Natasha placed her hand over Clint's where it sat gripping the edge of the deck.

"I thought you were happy," he said finally. "I thought I made you happy. I noticed things, little quarks, little cracks, but - I thought you were finally letting loose, finally letting yourself be more than the Black Widow. You know, at peace, at home. Or some other optimistic bullshit like that."

"Clint, none of that is wrong. And I was. Happy, I mean. You made me happy. You make me happy. That's something I used to think I'd lost."

"And the . . . the baby. Did that make you happy?"

"Try panicked. More panicked and scared than I've felt on any mission, during any fight."

"So why didn't you let me in? Let me help?"

Natasha reached over and lifted Clint's t-shirt away from his ribs. Even in the dim light on the deck she could make out the scar, an irregular circle bisected with two long surgical incisions. "Because as it was, you almost didn't wake up."

Clint lifted her hand away, letting the shirt fall back over his side. "That's irrelevant -"

"Irrelevant? If I hadn't made so many mistakes, you wouldn't have had to leave the roof to rescue me. You never would have come within Szabo's reach, assuming we were even in that situation at all. I couldn't tell you, not then."

"Not that it would have mattered much, since you were just going to kill her anyway."

Natasha snapped her head away. The sharp shadows on her face told Clint she was clenching her jaw. "Do not say those words to me ever again."

"They're true."

"You have no idea what you're talking about." Natasha stood up, balancing on tingling legs.

Clint winced as she stepped toward the hatch. "Tasha, wait!" he called, reaching out to catch her hand. "I didn't . . . I mean I . . ." He let her hand fall back to her side and stared down at the deck and black ocean waves below. "I don't know how to handle this."

She paused for a moment, then took her seat beside him, tucking her legs up beside her. "Neither do I."

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"Yes, I was."

"If I hadn't come across that file, when? When would I have earned it? When could I handle it?"

"I hope you don't think that's what this is about."

"It's been three years; that's not enough time? What is?"

"I don't know. Honestly, I hadn't thought about it. Maybe it would never be enough time."

"What? You just said you would tell -"

"I said I was going to tell you."

"Well, when?"

"As soon as we got back from Budapest. And I was going to tell you something very different."

Clint paused and cocked his head over toward Natasha. "What?"

"Please, whatever you think of me right now, don't think I wanted this. I was panicked and nervous and scared, but Clint, I was happy. That phony little dream life we were living back in Budapest, it suddenly became real, and I . . . I wanted it. All of it." She shook her head and almost laughed. "I know that must sound absurd coming from my mouth."

Clint placed a hand on her shoulder. "No, it doesn't. Not to me."

"We came so close. So damn close."

Clint grew quite. The colors in his face shifted, and Natasha wasn't sure if it was the moonlight or if he had simply gone pale.

"You okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah. It just kind of hit me. Three years. We would have a three-year-old. Can you imagine that? Our little girl running around with those crazy red curls on her head. At least we don't have any superpowers to worry about, but still, can you imagine the look on Fury's face when we told him?"

"Coulson wouldn't have smiled wider until they fished Cap out of the ice," she said softly.

"And I bet -"

Natasha reached her hand up. "That's enough."

"What, you never wonder what it would have been like?"

"No. I don't need the pain that follows."

Clint only nodded in reply. He understood what she meant. That happy little fantasy seemed to shatter, sending cold shards of pain up through his chest. Clint drew in long, slow breaths until he could focus again. He opened his mouth to ask another question, then thought better of it. Natasha caught the motion out of the corner of her eye.

"Just say it," she said.

"Natasha, what happened?"

"I almost couldn't take it, you know. I wanted to tell you that night, in the basement, but I just couldn't make myself say the words."

"After the party, and the river and the apartment? If that didn't change your mind then Natasha, what happened?"

She remained quiet, waiting for Clint to put the pieces together, unsure she would be able to say it herself.

"It was the girl, wasn't it? The girl Varga killed by the playground."

Natasha nodded.

"But Tasha, other children died in the school, in the smoke. You've - " He cut him self off, not wanting to say the next phrase too bluntly. "You're been party to . . . similar horrors."

"It's stupid really. I didn't even know her name, and I don't intend to find it. Logically she shouldn't have been different. Losing that logic nearly cost us both our lives, and consciously I knew that but . . . I promised I would protect her. I held her in my arms and told her I would keep her safe. I couldn't."

"So that was it?"

"As soon as I registered what had happened, I knew. I knew I couldn't make that promise again. Not if I couldn't keep it."

"On a street halfway around the world with six guns against god knows how many thugs, with no backup and a busted ankle, sure. But later, with the full force of S.H.I.E.L.D. behind us? There had to be a way. Surely if -."

"If what? Zoltán Varga killed a child just to try to shake me. Her only fault was that I was nearby. I refuse to imagine what bigger thugs with bigger guns would try to do to our little girl!"

"Your mind does anyway though, right?"

Natasha clapped a hand to her mouth and mumbled,"It makes me want to be sick."

Clint placed a hand gingerly on her back. He felt the soft material of her jacket rub beneath his fingers as her hunched back rose and fell. He tried not to picture the atrocities her bloodstained brain might be dreaming up.

Her breathing returned to normal but she kept her eyes on the water. "It just wasn't in the cards. Not for us."

She jumped slightly as Clint slammed his hands hard against the Helicarrier's rigid surface. "I hate this!" he screamed into the cool night air. "I hate you, and me and Fury and Varga and S.H.I.E.L.D. and everybody! I hate these bullshit lives we've been given! I hate what you did and I hate seeing you hurt! I hate that I was too stupid to notice! I hate -"

"Clint."

He settled back down and his voice grew quiet. "I hate that you're right."

Natasha shifted closer, closing the gap between them. She touched his shoulder, and when he didn't shake her off, she wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his arm.

"How did you make peace with it?" he asked.

"I didn't. I doubt I'll ever make peace with most of the things I've done. But I've made quite, made calm, made acceptance, made it so the blackness doesn't swallow me whole. You know, what we do."

"What we do too often."

"Until we can't do it anymore." Natasha paused. "I never thanked you."

"We agreed a long time ago, we're always even. I save your life; you save mine."

"I mean off the field. When we arrived in Budapest, I felt like I was drowning . . . in the blood, in the lies, in what I've become. You held me up until I could breath again. Thank you."

"God knows you've since repaid the favor. After New York . . . " Clint shuddered. "The aftermath of Loki's spell messed me up. You got me through."

"I guess that's what we do, huh? Hold each other up. Fill in the gaps and patch the broken pieces."

"That's why you'll never compromise me Tasha. You make me function, make me whole."

Natasha lifted her head. "Really? 'You complete me.' Is that what you just said to me?" She threw a playful smack at his arm.

"Too tacky?"

"By a long shot," she said, though her mind drifted back to all the art books that had gone up in smoke so long ago. Gustave Klimt's 'The Kiss' resonated in her memory, the young couple kneeling in embrace, the shades of yellow and gold in their clothing blurring into one mass of color. "By a long shot."

Clint smiled. "I bet you I could make that shot."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "What am I ever going to do with you, Clint Barton?"

Clint opened his mouth, a snarky reply on the tip of his tongue, but he stopped short.

"What is it?"

"I just remembered something. During New York, when there was so much chaos in the streets and aliens pouring out of the sky, you mentioned Budapest."

"Right, I guess I did. So?"

"Well you compared New York to Budapest, said they seemed the same to you. I remember thinking that was weird, because to me a botched terrorist takedown is very different from an alien invasion. But now? After all this? Then I was surprised; now I'm just confused."

"It's not the two situations that were similar. New York is, and hopefully will stay, in a category all its own. What was the same was that feeling. That feeling of being completely surrounded and overwhelmed, knowing that you're outnumbered and under-equipped and probably won't come out alive. Knowing that this time, so much more than yourself is at stake if you fail. "Believe me, I was as surprised as anyone when those words came out of my mouth. That was the last thing I needed to be thinking about during a battle for the entire planet. Somehow though, maybe it helped me.

"Listen, I know I have no right at all to ask this but -"

"Do I think we'll be okay?" Clint finished.

"Yeah."

"I want to know as badly as you do."

"But you're not sure."

"No, I'm not. This is a lot to process, Natasha, a lot to work through."

She hung her head, nodding. "I understand."

Clint grabbed her hand. "Knowing us, though, we'll make it through. Somehow."

Natasha smiled and stood up.

"Don't you want to stay and watch the sunrise?" asked Clint as he gestured to the lightening sky. "What too symbolic for you?"

"I've seen more sunrises than most people would care to count," she said. "Right now though, I feel like I might actually get a few good hours of sleep."

He watched her disappear down the hatch, then turned back to gaze at the city glittering across the bay.

A/N: I don't know if these chapters are starting to feel kind of final, but this is NOT the end. : )

Thanks for reading!