When they'd asked him where the Avengers were now, Fury had told the Council that he wasn't currently tracking their whereabouts. It was only partially true. He wasn't tracking Stark or Rogers because it was pretty obvious that Stark was in the process of rebuilding New York's Stark Tower, and with the plans to make it a sort of "Avengers Headquarters," Steve was there more often than not, too. As for Banner and Barton, Fury knew more or less where both of them were anyway. He didn't constantly check up on them or keep them under surveillance, and he didn't want the Council, the media, or the general public pestering or harassing the two men, so he kept their locations between him and his informants only. Barton had high-tailed it to one of his safe-houses in the mountains, and Banner had jetted off to a tiny African village to do medical work with missionaries. If the need ever arose for Fury to call either of them back in to work with S.H.I.E.L.D., he wouldn't hesitate, but only if the situation was truly dire. He had a whole organization of agents and spies and techies and engineers at his beck and call. Banner, Barton, and Stark and Rogers, too, all deserved a break.

Clint shoved the door of his small cabin open with one foot while one hand held his bow and the other held the dead deer steady over his shoulder. It was a good haul and would last him a couple weeks. He unloaded the animal onto the countertop and then went back to the door, hanging his bow and quiver on a couple of hooks next to it, and then sliding the heavy metal lock on the door into place. It was more for protection from bears than from people. There weren't any other people out this far. Clint had settled in a safe-house in the Coloradan Rocky Mountains. It was about 75 miles away from the nearest town. He'd occasionally journey back to civilization for certain necessities (bandages, toilet paper, hard liquor, etc) or to pick up a newspaper so that he wasn't totally lost as to what was happening in the world, but for the most part, he kept to himself. He didn't have visitors, and that was fine. He did have a satellite phone in case S.H.I.E.L.D. ever needed him, but it never rang. Clint was alone, and alone was how he dealt with the grief that threatened to overcome him.

He spent his days hunting game for food or training with targets on trees. At night he would pore over maps and books of information about the area. He got to know all of it by heart, but with no television or internet or missions to keep him busy, he had to occupy his mind other ways. If he didn't focus on something mental, he would often find himself sitting in the one armchair and flipping his combat knife around in his hands. Eventually, he'd feel the need to use it and the rips in the fabric and scars on the chair were a testament to the times when he hadn't been able to hold back the feelings anymore. He'd carve into wood, into cushion, into the game he brought back on hunting days. The desire would even strike him now and then to use that knife to carve into his own flesh. Maybe the pain would settle him down, give him something to focus on when the thoughts wouldn't go away.

Some days, he didn't think about her at all. Clint had been trained to shut down his emotions and clear his mind, and so he would immediately push away any thought of her the moment it occurred to him. These were the good days, or what passed as good. Maybe they were lonely, but it was better than the alternative because some days, she was all that he thought about. Some days, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't push the thoughts away. Natasha would have appreciated that shot, after putting an arrow through a pheasant's eye. Nat would be rooting for the littler one, watching two elk clash horns over territory. I wish Tasha could see this, sitting in a treetop and watching the sun touch down over the mountains in the evening. The red of the wildflowers was reminiscent of her hair and he could see the clear depths of her eyes in the blue water of the snowmelt streams. Some days, she was everywhere. But though the memories were sweet, these days invariably ended in bad nights. Grief, denial, anger, resignation, the feelings would filter through him and wreck him, and Clint would drink, downing bottle after bottle of whatever alcohol he had around and eventually, he'd imagine her there with him. He'd almost see her, leaning up again the counter with her arms folded and that pouty scowl on her face.

You're filthy drunk, her memory would whisper to him.

"So? It doesn't matter," he would slur. Clint had never been much of a drinker before because he always hated the thought of his senses being impaired in any way. Turned out that though he wasn't a lightweight, he would steadily work his way through enough alcohol until he was totally smashed.

Yes, it does, she would say, disapprovingly. You look like shit, Barton, you need to get it together.

"Who cares?" he would mumble, taking another swallow.

I do! Her look would change to concern.

"You're dead. You're not real." Bitterness. Regret. Another drink.

The image of Natasha, born of his drunken stupor, would move closer to him. You can't keep living like this, hiding away out here, shutting everyone and everything out. Put the bottle down, Clint. You're stronger than this.

"I'm stronger?!" and he would jump to his feet as quick as he could manage, screaming at nothing but memories. "I'm stronger?! You're dead, Tasha, you're fucking dead because I wasn't strong enough! I wasn't strong enough against Loki, I wasn't strong enough against the Tesseract," he would slur and shout, "I wasn't strong enough to protect you!" And then the tears would come. "The one good thing I did, the one good thing I ever did was to not take that shot when they sent me to kill you. The one good thing I did was to give you a chance. But then I wasn't there. I wasn't there when you needed me to be there. I left you alone and you died alone and I wasn't there."

It wasn't your fault, her memory would whisper to him, channeling some part of his subconscious that refused to accept full responsibility for what had happened. Clint knew deep down that Natasha had been a trained agent and that she had known the risks of her mission. Accepting any mission from S.H.I.E.L.D. had always meant accepting the fact that death was a possibility. She had known that, and he had too.

But this rational thinking, the part of him that knew he shouldn't blame himself for her death, would drown in whiskey and gin and he would end up screaming, "I should've saved you!" And usually here, a bottle thrown against the wall would shatter into a hundred pieces.

Sure, the conversations he had with the alcohol-induced memory weren't always the same, but they usually followed the same pattern. His missed her. She would be disappointed in him. His brain replayed his initial encounter with Loki over and over, trying to figure out what he should've done differently, how he could've gotten away, not gotten sucked into the mind-control, how he could've managed to be there to protect Natasha. Hell, one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had told him that Romanoff had only agreed to come in on the Loki mission when she'd found out that he'd been compromised. If he'd only been smart enough or quick enough to evade Loki in the first place, she probably wouldn't have even been on the helicarrier. But Clint hadn't been smart or quick. He'd been weak and she'd paid for it. He so hated himself that he almost couldn't even stand to live with it. Had he thought about ending it all? Sure. He still had his S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued gun, loaded and waiting for him to make a decision. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. Maybe in addition to being weak, he was a coward too. He wasn't sure what he feared more: knowing how disappointed Nat would've been if she could see him give up, or the fact that, on the off-chance there was some sort of afterlife and he met up with her there because of something he deliberately did to himself, she'd kick his ass all over the place probably for the rest of forever.

Of course, all of Clint's self-hatred, intense and certainly real though it was, only barely masked the fury he still felt at Bruce Banner and Hulk. It was the Hulk's hands, after all, that had actually… These thoughts, Clint pushed away even more vehemently than the memories of Natasha. He had seen what the desire for revenge could do to a person, and though he wasn't exactly doing well, he knew that letting himself succumb to that would be far uglier than him holing up in the mountains and getting drunk off his ass every now and then. He still wanted to rip Banner apart, kill him as violently as the Hulk had killed Natasha, but he tried to convince himself that it was better not to. It wouldn't prove anything, Natasha wouldn't approve, he didn't know where Banner was even if he could figure out how to kill the bastard… Clint gave himself these reasons, but they still didn't seem good enough. So instead he just banished the thought of Banner altogether.

The nights didn't make anything easier though. Clint didn't sleep much anymore because when he did, his sleep was haunted. Dreams of himself murdering agent after agent while seeing the whole scene through a sickly sheen of blue and not caring whose blood he spilt. Nightmares of Loki's cold grip on his arm, his throat, his chest, crushing his bones with the smallest movement, stifling his breath and shifting through his brain like it was child's play. And the night terrors of watching Natasha being ripped apart by the Hulk. Seeing her face in pain, seeing the fear in her eyes, the tears on her cheeks. Many mornings he would awake with her bloodcurdling scream still ringing in his ears.

But Clint pushed through this way. Out alone in the woods, hunting and training. Not having to fake a smile for anyone, not taking orders, just being alone, he managed. To be honest, he wasn't sure what else he could do besides wait for S.H.I.E.L.D. to call him back in. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. Would he be ready if and when they did? He honestly had no idea. All he could do was wait and see.

Imagine his surprise when he actually got a knock at his door instead of a ring on the phone.

Meanwhile…

"For a man who's supposed to be avoiding stress, you picked a hell of a place to settle." That was what she had said to him. And he had told her that avoiding stress wasn't the secret, though there were times that Bruce wished it was as simple as that. After what he'd been through in New York, there was nothing else that seemed even remotely dire enough to truly stress him out. Concern him maybe, worry him even, but not cause him real stress. Mostly he just felt underwhelmed and a bit resigned. There were challenges on the African plain that he hadn't had to deal with in Calcutta. Cleanliness was even more of a concern here, not to mention the large predatory animals that made missionaries and villagers alike wary and jumpy. But Bruce – or, rather, the other guy – had spent hours fighting an alien army on the streets and rooftops of New York City. A hyena wandering a little too close to camp wasn't exactly going to strike terror into his heart. Those he worked with were astonished at how easily he kept calm, but it wasn't that Bruce was some Zen master who was at peace with the world. He had just been drastically desensitized to the feeling of terror.

That didn't stop the self-loathing or the depression, though. When he was alone for too long, with too much time to think, his thoughts would become darker than the savannah nights. He would sometimes find himself sitting up alone at night, wishing one of those hungry predators would leap out of the darkness and rip him apart, but he also knew better. If a bullet to the head, point blank, wasn't enough to kill him, then nothing the wilds of Africa had to offer would stand a chance either. Things would just turn ugly very fast, he was sure, and no one that Bruce was working with had any idea about the other guy. He planned to keep it that way. If he knew of a way to end his life, he might've taken it, but it just wasn't a plausible option, so he tried to not dwell on those thoughts.

In Africa, he was starting over again, or at least trying to: trying to be a good person, to help other people, to make his life mean something positive. But no matter what he did, he couldn't forget. He couldn't forget New York, he couldn't forget the aliens, the wormhole, the damage that had been done. He couldn't forget Natasha Romanoff. As far as S.H.I.E.L.D. had been able to deduce, the Hulk really hadn't hurt anyone else in the helicarrier fight, nor had he injured any humans during the battle in the city. He was grateful for that, but it didn't atone for what he'd done to Agent Romanoff. Because of his failure to control himself, she'd lost her life. How many lives would Bruce have to save before he felt redeemed? A hundred? A thousand? There was no high enough number. He'd live out his days and never forgive himself. That's why he hadn't been able to go to her funeral. No eulogy, no words he could have offered would have made anything any better. He couldn't face it. He couldn't even face Agent Barton, and less because Barton wanted to kill him in cold blood than because he knew that losing Natasha had been extremely difficult for the agent. If it was possible that anyone hated Bruce more than he hated himself, it was probably Barton, and Bruce didn't blame him a bit.

A year quietly passed him on the Serengeti and though Brue remained largely disconnected from the real world, he didn't forget about it. He wondered vaguely what the other "Avengers" were up to these days. He'd heard something about a terror threat in the US, and then something more about aliens in London. Nothing in detail of course, just the dregs of information passed by word of mouth from the ports of the big coastal cities to the herders on the plains. And then, for a while, there was no news, no big crises. Bruce decided that this was probably the best time to do something he had thought long and hard about.

He got up extra early one morning and found the satellite phone that he and his companions used in case of emergencies. Calling early helped to ensure he wouldn't be bothered, and also there was the time difference to consider. Bruce had kept S.H.I.E.L.D.'s number on file in his head for a long time and when he punched it into the phone, he was redirected from department to department, being asked again and again to confirm and reconfirm his identity. Finally, what must've been at least an hour later, he heard a familiar gruff voice on the other end of the line. Director Fury didn't seem very surprised that Bruce was calling, actually. The conversation wasn't lengthy. Bruce explained what he was hoping to do, if S.H.I.E.L.D. would give him the information he needed.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Dr. Banner?" Fury asked skeptically.

"No, no I'm not," Bruce said honestly, "but… I need to do it. For his sake and mine. Closure of some sort."

Bruce could almost picture Fury's expression, his lips pressed together as he tried to decide whether or not to agree to this, but after a long pause, the S.H.I.E.L.D. director just said, "Do you need transport?"

"No, no, I can take care of that," Bruce said quickly, "I just need the address."

Now…

Clint stiffened at the knock on his door. He didn't get visitors. This was a safe-house. It was specifically placed to be remote and isolated – that's why he'd chosen it. Who would show up at his door? There were no neighbors and S.H.I.E.L.D. would've just called him instead of making the tedious trek up the mountain. No hikers out this way either. In two years, Clint hadn't gotten a single knock on that door. Maybe he had imagined it? But no, he paused long enough and the knock came again, slow and deliberate. He approached the door, pulling his quiver and bow off their hooks and slinging them across his back. Then he took his gun from the holster strapped to his thigh. He hadn't used it all since New York, but he kept it cleaned and loaded just in case – plus he'd learned that strangers took him more seriously when he had a gun than when he had his bow. (Anyone who wasn't a stranger knew that his arrows would be just as lethal as any bullet). With his gun in one hand and aimed at the door, he slowly slid the metal lock back. Then, after a deep breath, he threw the door open. And standing there was the last person he expected or wanted to see. "You," he growled.

Bruce Banner's hand were held up in a gesture of peace. "Agent Barton," he said quietly.

With his gun still pointed at Bruce's chest, Clint hit a button on his bow that loaded up an explosive arrowhead in his quiver. He took a step back and in two swift motions, he holstered his gun and armed his bow. "I'm going to kill you," he said, his eyes locked on Banner's.

"Barton, look, if I thought that-" he gestured at the arrow, "-would help, if I thought it would make you feel better, if I thought it would work, I'd encourage you to do it." He sighed and shrugged. "Hell, I'd probably beg you to." Clint's only response was to draw his bowstring back just a bit farther. "But I think we both know," Bruce continued, "that it would only make a mess. I would make a mess. The other-…" he paused. He was here because of what the Hulk had done. The least he could do in respect for Natasha and acknowledgement of his responsibility was to call the creature as it was, not hide behind that meaningless phrase. "…the Hulk would make a mess. That's not what I want." He met Clint's eyes and took another deep breath. "Not again."

A muscle in Clint's jaw twitched. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to let the arrow fly, but something stopped him – perhaps the knowledge that Banner was right. Clint was unprepared to fight, let alone kill the Hulk. If S.H.I.E.L.D. had to construct a steel trap to drop at ten thousand feet to kill the creature, there wasn't a chance that Hawkeye could do it with rage and an arrow. "Why are you here?" he snarled, barely able to contain his fury.

"To apologize," Bruce said, and it was true. He couldn't apologize to Natasha for what he'd done, but he could still apologize to Clint for the devastation. Not that it would help much, but maybe it would give his guilty heart a little bit more rest at night.

"I don't want your apologies, words are worthless."

"I know," Bruce nodded, "I know. Look, nothing I can say, nothing I can do will ever bring Natasha back–"

"Shut up!" Clint shouted, his anger getting the better of him. "Shut the fuck up, Banner! You have no right to talk about her, to say her name, you have no right! She was the best damn agent at S.H.I.E.L.D., she was a good person, she– " Clint's jaw clenched as he fought the grief that was quickly rising in him and threatening to spill out of his eyes. He swallowed, forcing the sadness down. "She was a better person than you will ever be," he said, his voice quieter but still just as angry, "and you, you and that fucking monster, you killed her."

"I don't deny– "

"Why are you here?!" Clint was shouting again, and Bruce just closed his eyes and let the verbal assault fall over him. "Why the fuck would you think it was ok to find me? Why the fuck would you come here? She is dead and it is your fault and NOTHING will ever change that!"

"I know," Bruce said, waiting for more shouting but when there was only silence, he continued. "And I know that you won't forgive me, and I know that it won't change anything, but I am sincerely sorry, Clint. She didn't deserve to die that way, at the hands of something so brutal. She tried to help me stay myself but… I was weak." Bruce looked unfalteringly into Clint's eyes. "It was my fault. I was weak, too weak to control the Hulk, and it's my fault she's dead. And I'm sorry." Bruce dropped his hands and his eyes, ready to accept whatever Clint would respond with, be it accusations or arrows, but neither were forthcoming. He looked up again to see that the archer's hands were shaking just slightly and he seemed to be holding back tears. "She was worried about you," he said quietly, hoping to offer some sort of comfort, "the whole time we were on the helicarrier. She kept asking them if they'd been able to locate you yet– "

"Get out," Clint growled, his voice thick.

"Clint, I'm–"

"Get out!"

"Ok," Bruce conceded, taking a step back. "Ok. I'm leaving." He turned to go and then looked back over his shoulder. "Thanks for listening," he said. Then he got back in the rental car he'd driven up to the cabin and drove away. The encounter hadn't gone particularly well, but Bruce couldn't have hoped for much better. At least Clint had heard him apologize. He knew he would never earn forgiveness, he would never forgive himself, but he would still try.

If either of them had been listening, they would've heard the sound of a helicopter retreating into the distance. "Call off all units," Fury said into a two-way radio. "They're done."

Clint kept his arrow pointed at the car, tempted to blow out one of the tires or a window, or the engine, but he refrained and finally, the car was out of sight. With trembling hands, he relaxed the bowstring, disarming the arrowhead and replacing the bow and quiver on their hooks. And then, he sank into the nearest chair and for the first time in a long time, he, being sober, just let himself cry.

I've found that revenge is never worth it, Natasha had once told him. You get stuck on it, thinking that this will end the pain, this is justice, this is right, this is what I deserve, what they deserve. But it never is any of those things, and it never ends the pain. You just wind up angrier and more hurt and more broken. Clint remembered it clear as day, as though she was sitting right there next to him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. You'll never forget, but you have to learn to let go.