Bruce squinted at the sun glaring through the airplane window as he felt the plane begin its descent into New York. He looked outside for a moment then slid the window cover shut and looked around the cabin. Tony was asleep with one of those silly eye masks covering his eyes. Steve was more or less just sitting there, staring off into space. Natasha was tapping her toes anxiously on the headrest and playing with her seatbelt, she wanted to be off the plane more than Bruce did.

It seemed to take an eternity, but finally The Avengers loaded into a cab and without any of them really paying any attention were dropped off at the front door of the tower.

No one said a word as the elevator climbed the floors stopping first for Tony at the lab, second for Bruce in what he called the quiet room (Tony wasn't aloud in), Steve was let off on his personal floor claiming that he was tired. It was a half hearted lie, but no one tried to argue. Soon the elevator was empty, save one very, very lonely Natasha Romanov.

Natasha wasn't ready to give up like the others, she was a product of the red room, the home of Russian's most dangerous and terrifying spies. There was no giving up when you were sent on a mission from the red room. You were given your mission and you finished it, by any means necessary.

But right now Natasha didn't know what means were necessary. She was lost.

The last time she felt this lost she ended up in Budapest and almost killed Clint.

Still standing in the unmoving elevator Natasha clicked the button for Clint's room. It felt so natural to her, even after two years her first instinct when she was lost in her own mind was to see Clint because he knew her better than she knew herself.

Clint's room was clean, like he had left it. It was also empty, the sniper SHIELD had sent to replace Clint all those months ago had hardly lasted four nights in the tower before he transferred somewhere else. No one really knew why, Pepper had joked that Clint's ghost had came back to haunt the sniper because he didn't like him touching his stuff. No one had laughed.

After the stand in sniper left Natasha put Clint's room back to how it was before. She set up his bunk in the closet, hung up his uniforms and SHIELD issued clothing, sorted his arrows into their boxes and put his cardboard box of memories back in its hiding place.

Now though as she stood in the main part of the room she couldn't bring herself to open the closest where Clint had made his nest. Instead she stared around at the vast empty walls of the apartment and felt a little chill. She didn't feel at peace in his room anymore, it was like being in a morgue, even though Clint wasn't dead.

She needed to see his face again. Her fingers quivering she dug a hand into her pocket, but when they closed around the piece of paper they were completely steady. In her hand she held a world worn photograph that had been in her pocket ever since she found out Clint was alive. The image was of Coulson and Clint hugging after Clint had been deployed as a sleeper agent and couldn't contact anyone from his life in New York, not even his SHIELD handler. Clint had been pretty lucky actually, his mission didn't last years like most did and he had been deployed in Ukraine. Since he already spoke fluent Russian, Ukrainian wasn't much of a challenge.

Natasha remembered the day Clint was chosen to be the sleeper agent. Running her nail over the photo, she recalled the memory.

It was way before either of them had even heard of the Avengers initiative, Clint and Natasha were still just SHIELD operative agents. They couldn't say no to a mission that was assigned to them and usually right after i was given to them. That was what stopped Natasha when Clint came into the firing range after he had been summoned to main office for a debriefing. Natasha had just finished emptying a round into one of the many paper targets when Clint slouched in. He paused only for a second to drop his mission file on the gun rack in front of Natasha before he flopped down onto a pile of punching bags.

"Weren't you just getting a mission?" She asked.

Clint nodded.

"Then why haven't you left yet?"

Clint ran a hand through his hair."They gave me an hour to pack a bag."

Natasha paled, SHIELD never let you bring your own gear on missions, they always supplied it. Unless..... Natasha felt her stomach tighten.

"What kind of mission did you get this time?"

Clint motioned to the file, hardly moving "See for yourself."

Natasha had a sneaking suspicion she already knew what kinda mission Clint had, but she opened the file anyway. It took her under a minute to slam the file shut and wheel around to face Clint.

"Clint, this mission is deep cover!" She said, getting a bit worked up.

"I know." He replied calmly.

"In Northern Ukraine!"

"I know."

"They don't have an extraction plan!"

"Natasha, none of our missions have extraction plans you know that."

"Clint! This is a sleeper agent mission. Do you know what sleeper agents do? The go under cover,for years! No contact with anybody! You aren't a sleeper agent!" Natasha was waving her arms now.

"I'm whatever kind of agent Director Fury wants me to be."

"Director Fury? He was the one who assigned you to this?! He knows we are partners, he knows better than to assign one of us to a deep cover mission without the other!"

"He did it because he thinks we are getting too dependent on each other!" Clint stood up and crossed the floor so he was standing across the gun table from Natasha. "And you know what? I think he maybe right!" He hit his hand down on the table and was about to storm away when Natasha grabbed his arm. She knew he wasn't angry, not really, he was just scared of never coming back to New York.

"Come back soon, I don't think Coulson could handle it if you died under some strangers name across the globe without him squawking in your ear." Natasha said it like a joke, but Clint knew it was true and knew what she was actually saying. She was saying I'll miss you and I love you the only way she knew how.

Clint gave her his best smile. "Don't find a new partner too quick," He said pulling her into a brief, but loving hug. "I'll be back before you know it."

Clint was gone for seven months. And for seven months Natasha sulked around SHIELD like a ghost without anything to haunt. Since most agents still saw her as a KGB killer no one wanted to be her partner or even be assigned with her on missions. Natasha did two quick and dirty solo missions but after that Fury more or less turned a blind eye and let her roam on her own. Natasha became a lot like Clint in a sense when he was gone, she crept around and hid in vents and slept in the furnace rooms or in an empty cubicle. She even started hanging around communication control, almost like she was waiting for Clint to make contact and say his mission was a success. When he finally contacted SHIELD he was sporting an Ukrainian ascent so perfect you would swear he was native and a new scar down right wrist. The first time he came into headquarters he looked like he hadn't slept or eaten the entire mission and was in dire need of a shower. But she didn't care because she was too busy snapping photos of Clint and his handler hugging in the middle of SHIELD headquarters. Of course she only snapped maybe three then she was right next to Coulson, squeezing the breath out of Clint.

Natasha smiled at the picture then looked at the blank wall in front of her, an idea slowly took form. Without a second to waste Natasha rushed over into the closet and came out with two things Clint's cardboard box and the tape he used when he broke fingers. Measuring out about an inch of tape, Natasha ripped it off the roll and used it to paste the photo of Clint and Coulson to the wall. That wasn't the only photo Natasha had plans for though, she dug through Clint's box, pulling out all of his photos and pasting them on in random order.

As Natasha stuck pictures on she wasn't really thinking, she was more just reliving each of the stories as she tacked them up. It wasn't till she put her hand in the box to grab another image and her hand met cardboard did she slow down and look over the wall.

There wasn't a bare spot to be seen, Natasha had covered the entire wall in Clint's story. Putting her hand to the wall she ghosted her fingers over each of the images. Barney, Kate Bishop, Coulson, Me. All the lives Clint touched, and so many more unknown.

"Natasha?" There was a knock at the door that interrupted Natasha's road trip down memory lane.

Turning she came face to face with a rather unamused Tony Stark.

"What's up Stark?" She said quietly dropping the finger tape into the cardboard box.

Tony eyed the wall, but said nothing. "Little Hawkeye is here and wants to chat with all of us."

"Little Hawkeye?" Natasha echoed.

"Kate Bishop, she's Clint's apprentice. Remember? Now hurry up, she brought her dog and if Steve spends anymore time with it I think he's gonna ask for a puppy. And I don't do pets."