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Clint opened the door to the apartment he shared with Natasha and looked around tentatively for anything out of place. Everything seemed perfectly calm and in order. He had thought that seeing evidence of her rage would be the most disconcerting thing, but it wasn't. That she had disappeared from the hallway without any trace then vanished like a ghost in sunlight was not just unsettling, it was terrifying. Clint worked as a spy with her but the truth was that he was a bumbling clown compared to her. She was like smoke; she was light, she could get into any opening and she just was there. Natasha was the soft scent of a flame's destruction...she was glowing and beautiful, drawing you into her trap with pleasantness before she set your world on fire and left nothing but ruin and loss in her wake. The flaming beauty of her hair was a warning that few heeded.

But while she was the smoke that accompanied flames and destruction to the masses, she was the sweet, cool air of a spring afternoon to Clint. Her smiles gave him life: the way her skin stayed smooth except for one dimple in her cheek and two little lines appeared beside her eyes made his jaded, bitter heart flutter every time. So many of her smiles didn't reach her eyes, and he's fairly certain that no smile got there from the time she was a little girl until long after he found her. The first real smile she gave him nearly stopped his heart.

Her teeth were perfectly straight and when she smiled big enough to show them, Clint felt the warm rays of the sun thawing his heart all over again. When she laughed at something, he became her slave.

Nobody else ever got to see this Natasha. This was his Natasha; the beautiful woman that had blossomed from the scared girl he rescued in Hungary all those years ago. The girl he saved was a cold, ruthless machine with no remorse, no pity. This woman now - she loved him. And he loved her.

So why the hell was he such a dumbass sometimes?

Jealousy. Insecurity. Stupidity.

Prior to joining The Avengers, the only people who ever saw this side of Natasha besides him were Maria and Phil. She had let down her guard enough with them to laugh and joke sometimes, to let them see what he saw. They were allowed to see her when her guard was down, and he had been so proud. Proud of her, proud of them for being accepting, proud of himself for making the right call (not that he'd ever doubted himself, really, validation is just nice, you know?). Maria and Phil had each been friends to her - to them - and both had been a part of their tiny, informal wedding when Natasha came out to New Mexico before she left for Russia...before Loki.

Before the Avengers.

The Avengers were amazing. Wonderful. He was so happy a part of this team, but it was hard not to feel inadequate next to literal gods. Still, though, everything had been fine. Nobody knew about he and Natasha, he was a forgiven and accepted member of the team and everyone seemed to like him just fine. Natasha really seemed to like everyone, too. Stark irked her, but they clearly had a sibling-like bond that neither of them could name since neither of them had siblings. Thor was rarely around but she enjoyed sparring with him when he was. Banner had become a fatherly figure to her (which was unsettling to Clint, since he was her husband and a year older than Banner).

And then there was Cap.

Cap was the closest member in age to Natasha, biologically, and immediately the two found a rapport. Clint didn't know what it was that made the two of them click, but they really did. She didn't open up to him right away, but it was faster than she'd ever opened up to anyone else. Clint couldn't contain his bitterness. Steve was Captain America. He was tall, athletic, classicly handsome - a goddamn supersoldier. He was engineered to be the perfect man. Clint was in his 40's, a former carnie, and had no superpowers except for loving his wife to distraction.

It simply wasn't fair.

Since nobody on the team knew that he and Natasha were married, they started playfully nudging Steve and Natasha towards each other. Clint tried hard not to imitate the Hulk and smash everything in sight every time they did. For their part, Natasha simply ignored it or rolled her eyes and Steve just shuffled uncomfortably. But nobody - nobody - could deny that Captain America and Black Widow worked well together as a team, that they made each other laugh, that they were great friends.

Clint's heart burned with jealousy.

>>----->

Thier apartment was quiet, and the familiarity of it wasn't comforting to him this time, it haunted him. That was the couch they curled on and watched movies together - before he fucked up. That was the kitchen she threw flour at him and then laughed at his white powdery face when she was teaching him to cook and he was being willfully obstinate - before he fucked up. That was the bedroom he spent so many nights curled around her, his nose buried in her hair inhaling her soft scent and thanking God for his wife - before he fucked up.

Clint gave up on sitting in the quiet of the apartment they usually shared after a while and heaved himself to his feet. He gave himself a couple of minutes to make sure that he wasn't going to cry - he was an assassin, for God's sake - before trudged to the spare apartment that he kept for show with slow, heavy steps. Jarvis unlocked the door for him upon his arrival and he mumbled his usual thanks mindlessly.

"You're a dumbass, do you know that?"

Clint's head jerked up and the ghost of a smile that played at the corner of his lips couldn't be stopped, but it died quickly at the fury in her green eyes. He raised his hands low, in a gesture of surrender. "Natasha..."

"Clinton, I am a spy. I am the best goddamn spy in the goddamn world. I cannot believe that you thought for one second that I would not notice a tracker on my person." Natasha's anger couldn't be contained. She took a couple of steps, gesticulating wildly before realizing that something about the position she now found herself in angered her and taking a couple of steps in another direction, still gesturing forcefully.

"I know..." he said miserably, head bowed.

"I am your wife, Clint Barton, not some fucking mark. How dare you try to track me? What in the hell posessed you to try to follow me? You had no right!"

Clint took a couple of shuffling steps to the kitchen counter, perching on a barstool with his slumped shoulders and head still pointed towards the fuming Natasha. He kept his mouth shut: there was no defense.

"And then Steve comes to me and says that he found a tracker in his shoe. He thinks that S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers have been compromised, and he didn't know who to trust, so he comes to me. And of course -"

Clint found his voice. He cut in, sardonically, without moving, "And of course he comes to you."

Natasha stopped her pacing, her gestures and all motion frozen except a rapid swiveling of her head towards her husband, who seemed to be rising like a phoenix from the ashes. His body was stiffening and his head was raised now, his eyes flashing.

"Of course he comes to you, Natasha, and why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't he come to my wife? He can just kind of take whatever he wants, right? So why not my wife?"

Natasha's auburn brows knitted and she crossed her arms, turning her body to face Clint. "Clint, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you and Captain goddamn America!" Clint stood up, and it was his turn to puncture the air with his finger.

Natasha, in turn, was completely calm. Her arms remained crossed and there was the tiniest note of amusement in her voice. "What about me and Captain goddamn America?"

"You love each other," Clint spat out, and as soon as he said it he felt like a child. Too late, doesn't matter, he thought, it needed to be said.

Natasha smiled, one of those bright smiles that usually made him all warm inside but this time left him feeling more miserable than he had ever felt in his life. "Don't laugh at me, Natasha," he said, plopping himself back down on the barstool and going back into his slump. "It's been hell inside my head the last couple of months."

"I just bet it has," she said, still smiling, "and you deserved it - at least part of it - for not coming to me and talking about this."

"Oh yeah? So you could break my heart sooner?" Clint didn't look up. He was afraid to see the truth on her face.

Natasha was silent for a minute, and each second that ticked on Clint's wristwach felt like a cut directly into his flesh. This is it. This is the moment. This is how every supervillain gets his start - they have their lives ripped away from them by the good guy. Oh God, am I going to be an asshole from now on? he thought wildly.

"You're a damned fool, Clinton Francis Barton," Natasha said, breaking into his thoughts. Clint shook his still-bowed his head and she continued, "how did I ever fall in love with such a damn fool?"

He shook his head again, taking another moment to remind himself that snipers and assassins don't cry - but if they did, the moment that their wives left them for Captain America was probably the appropriate time.

"Did you hear me, Clint? I love you, you big dumb asshole. I married you. I never want to be with anyone else."

Clint looked up at her and opened his mouth to speak. "Cap -"

"Cap and I have a lot in common," she interrupted. "We have similar backgrounds, we have similar experiences. It took me less time to open up to Steve because of that. But Clint," she stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder, running it up to cup his cheek. "I don't love him." She put her other hand on his other cheek and used her thumbs to stroke small circles. "I love the man that saved me, that gave me a new life. I love the man who brought me to life." Clint slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, between his legs as she continued. "I love the man who taught me that my body was mine and I didn't have to give it away to do my job. I love the man who woke me up after years of being the Red Room's slave."

Clint lay his forehead against Natasha's shoulder and she carded her fingers through his hair. "I don't want you to love me because you feel like you owe me, Nat. I want you to love me because you love me. And I don't see how you could. I'm old, I'm not some superhero adonis..."

Natasha applied enough pressure on the sides of his face to raise it and force him to look at her. "You know everything about me, Clint. You know everything I've done, everyone I've killed, every mark I've seduced, every crime I've committed. When you found me, I was a shell of a human being. But you saw something redeemable in me. You stopped everything to save me instead of tossing me aside like garbage - instead of taking me out like you were ordered to do. You should have killed me, Clint, but you didn't. And then after you saved me, you should have never looked at me again. I wasn't worth it. The fact that you fell in love with me in spite of what a twisted and broken person I was...I am forever in awe."

"I don't love you because I'm indebted to you," she continued. "I love you because you are the most amazing man I have ever known or ever will known. I love you because you're Clint Barton. And if I had more than one heart, more than one lifetime, more than one soul to mate with yours, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I am yours. Always."

Clint huffed out a breath and pulled her close, tight, absorbing the warmth that radiated from her and luxuriating in the way she held him close. He inhaled her scent: the spicy/flowery scent that was distinctly Natasha and was more of a home to him than any building had ever been. Everything but this moment fell to the back of his mind, an indistinct sound easily tuned out in favor of the woman he had lived his life searching for without knowing it. If she loved him, if she really loved him, then they would be okay.

"Forgive me?"

"Always. Just talk to me, okay?"

"I swear."

"And love me."

Clint huffed a laugh into her neck and held her closer, strong against his chest and between his legs. He breathed her in and felt her pulse against his nose, reminding himself that she's his, she's there, it's real, she loves him.

"Until my very last breath, Nat," he said, adjusting her in his arms to pull her closer. "I love you to my last breath."