Clint felt like there was a house pressing down on his chest, all the weight that had slowly accumulated since he left the tower dropped onto him like one huge pile of shit. He couldn't do anything, he couldn't talk, he couldn't breath, all he could hear was one thought running through his mind.

They found me. They know I'm alive, Natasha knows I'm here.

Part of him was excited, they had found him. He could go back to New York,he could go back to Kate and Lucky and Barney!

But the other half of him could see the death and destruction that was never far behind him,if he went back would he doom them all?

Also. Clint thought, his heart twisting. What if they don't want me back? What if I show up at their door only to be turned away? To go back and instead of being an avenger being sent back to SHIELD without my partner, to spend the rest of my life behind a desk?

"Dude?" Zachary prodded lightly, knocking him out of his thoughts and prompting him to answer.

"No." Clint rasped,sounding almost hallow. "I've never heard that name before in my life."

Zachary raised his eye brows at Clint's obviously blatant lie, but didn't press it. Instead he put the phone back to his ear.

"I'm sorry, the only Clint we've ever had on record left when he was eighteen." Zachary spoke so smoothly that anyone who wasn't trained wouldn't even hear the lies twirled into it.

But Clint knew, he knew that on the other end of the phone his used to be teammates were waiting for an answer. Bruce was probably rocking in his chair slightly uncomfortable, Tony is probably fiddling with something and Natasha there was no probably with her. Clint knew that she was sitting in her chair, looking relaxed but in reality she was on high alert and straining to hear both sides of the conversation.

Strangely just thinking about Natasha made his heart twinge slightly.

__________________________

Steve thanked the man and hung up sighing.

"They say there hasn't been a Clint in their circus in a very long time. Do you think he's using alias?"

Natasha snorted, "Clint's aliases are all SHIELD made and are linked in their computer database. Whenever SHIELD creates a alias they put in a Internet footprint, past bill records, they make this person real. They also track that name as well, so they can find out where their agents are and if another person exists with the same name. If Clint was using an alias he would have to make one himself. Something that would be terribly hard to do when he can't talk to any of his contacts or get the fake papers without someone finding out he was alive."

Tony groaned. "Well there goes our only lead! And my chance to see the circus again!"

Bruce rolled his eyes, "Not really, Tony do you think you can take the crackle out of the phone line and play it?"

"Like I haven't already," Tony sniffed, but played the tape anyway.

The message played through, this time missing it's normal crackling that had covered up the sound of one raspy voice.

"No, I've never heard that name before in my life."

Natasha almost smiled, it was good to hear Clint's voice again. No matter if it was denying any connection to the avengers or not.

"So, he is there. How are we going to bring him home?" Tony questioned.

Bruce frowned, "What if we are missing something? Clint obviously didn't want us to know where he was, what if he doesn't want to come home?"

The silence in the room was deafening.

"He has to come home! He's apart of our team, Clint is one of us." Tony pushed out of his chair, sending it wheeling away.

"Tony, Bruce may be right. Why would Clint go through so much to keep himself out of our spotlight? If we drag him back to us and he doesn't want to be here, is it no better than taking a prisoner?" Steve questioned. "If we really want him back, shouldn't we know why he left?"

Tony frowned, he had always thought that Legolas just didn't want to be a superhero anymore or that he was fed up with everyone.

Natasha was staring off into space until Steve finished, then she sat up in her chair and answered.

"None of you guys saw what was happening?" Natasha ran a hand through her hair at their frowns.

"Clint felt useless. Look around the table and what do you see? A man with a suit so powerful it could level a building. A super soldier, capable of surviving seventy years in the ice. A guy with one major alter ego, who can destroy almost an entire city. A girl who was trained professionally since age five to kill. This is not even mentioning Thor, who is a literal god."

"Now see that from Clint's point of view, he's completely human, without hardly any childhood education and can't even hear properly. He didn't think he belonged among, well, superheroes." Natasha sighed and shook her head. "In his mind he was the weak link and he was just here till someone noticed he wasn't important enough to be one of us. Why do you think he was always training or watching people from the vents? He thought that if he trained harder and watched closer that one day he could be a valuable asset."

Deafening silence fell upon the table again,each person lost in a separate world of thoughts.

Bruce was thinking of all the times he swore he saw a glint of something late at night in the vents in the lab. Now he knew what it was. The faint creaking noise was Clint feverishly trying to understand his whiteboard doodles and what he was doing.

Tony thought of how many times he had poked at the archer, making little jabs and jokes at him. He didn't know that Clint had listened to every word and tucked them away inside himself, repeating them in his head during the night and when he sat alone in the vents.

Steve was seeing images, he was on one of the treadmills in the training room (it was raining too hard to go outside.) Clint was a few treadmills down, running at a feverish pace. It hadn't occurred to him then, but it was now. The archer was trying to run as fast as him, as long as him.

Natasha wasn't thinking, she was reliving her memory.

"Clint." Natasha reached for his arm trying to stop his seemingly endless beating on one of the many punching bags. "You need to take a break, maybe get some sleep or at least some water."

Brushing Natasha off Clint almost seemed to hit harder, "No." His voice was steel. " I'm not tired. I don't need water, I need to train."

"It's one in the morning, Clint." She said trying to put him at ease. "Stop, come to bed. You know you need sleep, you can train later."

"No,Natasha. I already told you. I'm. Not. Tired."

Natasha flinched, Clint never calls me Natasha unless something is wrong.

"Tell me what's wrong Clint. Don't bottle it all up, you can trust me. Please."

"Nothing is wrong, go back to bed Natasha. I'll join you eventually, when I'm done."

From the sound of Clint's voice Natasha knew he was never going to be done.

Sighing Natasha stalked over to the stack of mats Clint had thrown his coat and curled up, pulling the coat over her like a makeshift blanket. Breathing in the faint sent the cloth held, she gave Clint one long look and snuggled down deeper.

"I'm not leaving without you,"She whispered, plenty loud enough for Clint to hear and closed her eyes, whispering only to herself "I'm not leaving you alone, ever."

She woke up still in the gym, covered by Clint's coat and a blanket that hasn't been there when she went to sleep. Clint was gone, but she knew he hadn't went to his room. The door of the gym was massively heavy, she would've woken up if someone opened it.

Quietly groaning she let the blanket fall off and she stood up on the mats, quickly twisting the bolts off the vent and slinking inside.

If there was one place Clint would be sleeping other than his room, it was the air shaft that was above the furnace. It was dark and warm enough to be cozy, but not warm enough for Clint to feel like he was baking.

Natasha almost smiled at the memory of when she found Clint curled up in the vent sound asleep, key word almost. She didn't smile because she knew that even if Clint was alive he would never feel safe enough to fall asleep in the vents again.

Finally Tony spoke and broke the silence a second time.

"All we can do is try," Tony looked like he had age a year within hours. "I say we find out where the circus is going to be in America next and go find him, even if we don't bring him home at least we'll know he is safe and happy."

Tony wheeled over to his computer, "I'm gonna encrypt all the information on Clint, we don't want SHIELD or anyone getting a hand on it. You guys go to bed, I'm going to be a little while."

One by one the other avengers nodded and stood, then without saying a word, wondered to their bedrooms to wait out the next couple hours till sunrise. None of them felt like sleeping anymore.

__________________________

-one week later-

The avengers were watching a movie when the power went out. It wasn't a very long outage, maybe a ten minutes , but it was enough for JARVIS to shutdown and Tony need to reboot the power in the lab.

Tony was gone no longer than a minute when he came rushing up the stairs, with a look of horror plastered on his face.

Steve instantly stood up, "Tony what's going on? Why didn't you turn the power back on?"

"We have bigger problems than power right now! My files have been hacked? All of them! Even the encrypted ones about Clint and the circus!"

"Hacked?" Natasha hand was inching closer and closer to her waist where her gun was concealed. "By who? Don't tell me it was SHIELD."

Tony shook his head, " God I wish it was SHIELD. Hydra has every single scrap of information we had on Clint."