Clint woke up in his tent, cold and soaking wet.

"What the h-" Clint groaned, sitting up to see Aries hovering above him holding a now empty glass.

"We're leaving in a hour,get up." She said simply, "Zachary says we're flying to St.Petersburg and then doing a circuit over Russia."

Standing up, Clint sighed and pulled off his sodden shirt. "How long are we going to be gone?"

Aries shrugged, "Dunno. A month, a year, a week. It all depends on how the acts go, you know that." She threw him a white t-shirt from his meager stack. "Why do you ask? It's not like any of us have any family to go back to."

Until now. Clint thought as Barney's face flashed in his mind. Could I go back? Could I just walk back into my life and have my brother back? Have Natasha back?

No. You're a walking dead man. Everyone is safer with you dead. They are moving on, you have to let them. You can't keep showing up and rekindling the flame, no matter how much you miss them.

Clint sighed and looked at Aries, "No reason, your right I have no one to go back to. I don't even know why I asked."

Aries gave Clint a look like she knew he was hiding something, but didn't say anything. "Just hurry your ass up. I'll be in the second van to the end, don't be late or I'll leave you here." Then with a flick of her hair and a turn on her heel she practically flounced out of his tent.

"Don't tempt me." Clint muttered but stuffed his costume into his already packed duffel then began to break camp.

__________________________

Morning in the tower was going normally for the first time in a while. Steve was reading the newspaper and chewing absently on his piece of toast, trying to understand both the politics and entertainment sections without using Wikipedia. Bruce had disappeared into a book on loop quantum gravity along with a cup of tea and probably wouldn't resurface till lunch. Tony,having lost his lab partner to a book was typing lazily on a Stark pad and chewing on a mouthful of cereal. Everything seemed pretty normal and quiet.

That was what made Bruce look up from his book, the tower was never this quiet, if it was something had to be seriously wrong.

As he surveyed the room he mentally checked everyone off.

Steve, sitting at the kitchen counter struggling to understand who these Kardashian people are and why they were so prominent in the entertainment section.

Tony, sprawled on the couch doing something with a Stark pad that would either blow up in his face and create something that the avengers would have to destroy or make him another billion dollars.

Natasha, in her chair by the win-

Natasha wasn't in her usual red armchair, a spot she had claimed for herself in the first week if moving in. Effectively stealing it from Tony by pinning his arm to the floor by the sleeve with a throwing knife.

Frowning he set down his book.

"Has anyone seen Natasha this morning?"

Steve began to fold his newspaper, " I haven't actually, maybe she got up early and went out."

"No, she didn't tell anyone or leave a note." Bruce said. After Clint's death the avengers had started leaving notes for each other if they were going out and no one would see them leave. They had gotten a lot closer in the last year.

"Maybe she's asleep," Tony suggested not moving from the couch. "You know, like a normal person?"

Steve sighed, "Guess we might as well go find her,"

Sighing even more dramatically than Steve, Tony stood up from the couch and began to lead the way to Natasha's room.

The avengers didn't know what to expect of Natasha's flat. Would it be neat? Or would it be cluttered with throwing knives on the counters and clothes on the floor? Would it be like Clint's room was, completely untouched expect for a tiny spot where she slept?

None of them had ever really thought about it,Natasha's room had always been Natasha's room, a space that everyone knew was off limits without being told. Even Tony knew and respected that out of fear of Natasha. I mean if she threw knives if you sat in her spot, you could only dream what she would do if you were in her room.

Yet there they all stood frozen in front of her door, unsure if they should knock or if they should just go on in.

Finally Tony stepped up and rapped on the door with two knuckles. "Natasha?" He said tentatively.

There was no answer.

Steve tried a little louder, "Natasha? Natasha, it's us. It's Steve, Bruce and Tony."

Still nothing.

Steve reached over and gave the door knob a twist, expecting it to turn an centimeter that jam, proving to be locked. Steve expected wrong, the knob turned easily under his grasp.

Unlocked? Steve thought in disbelief. Natasha had never trusted them enough to even leave the deadbolt undone, much less leave her room completely unlocked.

Steve gave Tony a look, should he open the door?

Tony shrugged and motion to him to open the door quietly.

Taking a deep breath he pushed the door open and what he saw surprised him.

It wasn't like Natasha's room was that surprising, it was fairly clean only a few weapons laying on the kitchen counter and a shirt on the floor. What surprised him the most was Natasha. The Black Widow was curled up on her bed,under the covers with her arms wrapped snuggly around a pillow. Her face was relaxed and peaceful, she almost looked like a little kid hugging her teddy bear.

Tony let out a loud snicker, he had never seen look so childish.

Bruce rushed to clamp his hand down over Tony's mouth so he could muffle the snicker, but it was too late.

Natasha sprung up in her bed ready to fight, her hand gun already out and cocked, ready to fire.

That's when Steve jumped in, his hands raised in the least threatening way possible. "Hey, hey. It's just us, we came to check on you and your door was unlocked."

"What are you doing in here?"Natasha's grip on the gun didn't falter, but her eyes were unfocused and wide.

"You didn't show up for breakfast, we got worried."Tony put in hurriedly but didn't move from his spot.

"Breakfast?" Natasha said quietly, her arms suddenly dropping to her sides and the gun clattering on the floor next to her.

"Yah..." Bruce moved over to Natasha, but instantly stopped when the smell hit him and he knew why Natasha looked so out of it.

Natasha smelt like Tony after he pulled his third all-nighter in a row. She had been drinking again.

They had all known that Natasha had started drinking more after Clint died, sometimes even going through full bottles in one night. When it had first started Steve had wanted to confront Natasha and tell her drinking wasn't going to make her feel better in the long run. But Tony had stopped him saying Natasha was a smart person and she didn't need him reprimanding her like she was a child. That she knew what she was doing and that she'll get better soon, she just wants to dull the pain occasionally. And Tony was right, Natasha had gradually stopped drinking. Bruce had found less and less empty vodka bottles each week and soon he was finding them still sealed in Tony's liquor cabinet.

But now he knew she had hit rock bottom again. Seeing Barney had sent her in a downward spiral again.

"Natasha..." Bruce said quietly as he looked at the dead expression on his comrades face.

Silently Natasha walked into Bruce's arms and put her head on his shoulder.

"He came in my room last night...." She murmured into his shirt.

"Who?" He asked softly.

"Barney. I-I thought he was Clint, but th-then he started talking."

"What did he say?"

"He had to leave. He said he was going to find Clint, that he needed his little brother and his little brother needed him." Natasha suddenly pulled out of Bruce's embrace, all signs of last nights drinking rubbed away. "Why did he say he was going to find Clint? He knew Clint was dead."

Bruce frowned, "Steve, you talked to him last night,right? Did he mention something about finding Clint?"

It was Steve's turn to frown, "He said something about Clint being there with him on the roof, that he had talked to Clint. I figured he was shellshocked, he swallowed a lot of tough things that night."

"No." Natasha looked determined now. "Barney wasn't shellshocked when he talked to me, he was basically fine. I've seen quite a few people so delirious that they didn't know what they were seeing, but Barney showed none of the right signs of that. He believed he talked to Clint."

Tony sighed, "he was on the roof, right? I can just pull up the feed from last night and end this conversation."

Steve pointed to the stark pad lying on the bed side table, "Do it."

The four avengers huddled around the small screen and watched as Tony pulled up the feed. To reveal something none of them ever thought they would see again.

A/N) Thanks for bearing with me and my slow updating! I'm really sorry but my volleyball team has three practices a week then league games and tournaments on the weekends. Trying to juggle everything is leaving me with almost no time to write. So I hope that this is enough to satisfy you for a little while.

Also sorry for any mistakes, I'm writing way past my bedtime.

As always please comment what you think should happen next because I tend to suffer from writers block. Thanks again!

-Brokenrook