He had a bad feeling about this.
“Hey.” a husky, female voice sounded from the door of the training room. Clint turned around to Natasha standing in the doorway. Her reddish, blonde hair was up in a low, messy bun, her well-trained body clad in her signature tight, black leather suit.
She looked as tired as he felt.
“Hey Nat.” he replied, looking back to his hands as he unwrapped the boxing tape from his fingers.
“A penny for your thoughts.” she murmured as she stood next to him, her dark, green eyes roaming his sweaty face.
“You ok? You have been awfully quiet since we got our briefing in order to retrieve the Soul Stone.”
Clint scoffed, his muscles tight under his tanned skin. Despite having trained like a maniac for over two hours, he felt cold inside. It felt like a fist made out of ice was gripping his heart in an unrelenting grip. Making it hard to breathe.
“Retrieve the Soul Stone. Beat the bad guy. Save the world. Try not to get killed. Again.” he whispered with sightless, numb eyes.
“Bring back your family.” Nat added softly.
Clint turned his head to look at her. Beautiful, strong and kind Natasha Romanov. Deadly, ruthless and highly skilled Black Widow. To him, she was Nat. His favourite person. His most beloved pain in the ass. His family. His confidante.
His….everything. And at the same time, nothing.
They had known each other for over 10 years, since he had made a different call, took her in and stood protectively and patiently by her side as she moulded into the glorious woman and Avenger she was today. At some point he had thought that he had simply fallen in love with her, only to realize that it was so much more. So much more all-encompassing and desperate than he could have ever imagined. He had felt like a red thread connected them. As if one soul had separated into two bodies. As Hawkeye and Black Widow they had battled through countless missions, death hovering over them like a dark cloud. But they had never crossed a line.
That line.
He knew that everybody around them believed that they had hooked up at least at some point during their decade long partnership. People around them tended to get uncomfortable with the raw, brimming passionate tension they radiated to the outside world. This bone deep intimacy reflected by their wordless communication, with only their eyes talking to each other.
Clint had been scared as well and did what he did best. He ran. Ran into the arms of other women. He had met Laura. Gentle, easy and predictable Laura. Who had been more than willing to build a home and a family with him. Who had become his second best friend, a pillar of strength and patience. A loving mother to their four children. For a period of time, he had believed himself to be happy. Content. Nat had become part of that family.
It had been essential for him to have her around him and in his life.
She had been great with the children and build a respectful friendship with his wife. It should have been perfect, had it not been for the looks Laura gave him when she thought him unaware. The looks she had given him when she had seen him with Nat. He knew that she knew. The long looks, the small touches and the warm but tired smiles between him and Natasha. Saw him going crazy with worry when Nat got hurt during missions. But they had never talked about it.
Then the snap had happened, ripping his family out of his arms in a cloud of dust. Hawkeye had turned into Ronin, a lawless killer out on a five year long killing rampage. Only brought back when Nat stood before him in the rain and took his hand into hers. For the first time in years he had felt hope and his violently suppressed feelings for her had been flooding back in like a avalanche. But he welcomed it, finally feeling alive again.
Clint had thought his family to be lost and dead, only to learn that the Avengers had found a possibility to go back in time in order to retrieve the Infinity stones, to undo the past.
To bring back his family.
Nat and he had been tasked to retrieve the Soul stone from Vormir. They would leave tomorrow and ever since he could not get rid of this horrible foreboding feeling in the deep recesses of his heart and mind.
Why did he not feel happy? All he could think about was that he would be without Nat again. Living a normal life. Away from her.
“Clint. Talk to me.” Nat pulled him out of his thoughts. They never lied to each other, so he told her the truth. At least most of it.
“I have a bad feeling about this. Something is just not right.” he replied, his calloused hands gripping his short blonde hair.
Unbeknownst to him, Nat looked at him with loving eyes. Her Clint, her Hawkeye. Clad in a tight, black sleeveless shirt, his defined arm muscles on display, and his long legs in black combat pants, he looked every bit the deadly killer he was. But at the same time his light, blue eyes were alight with feelings.
She loved him so much. He was her first love. And her last love.
She wanted him to be happy, to be not alone anymore. She knew that she could never give him what he needed.
Children. A family.
Whatever would happen tomorrow, she would do everything in her power to get him back home safely.
“Come on.” she suddenly said, grabbing his arm and pulling him along. “Let’s take a walk.”
“Nat…”
“No. No Nat. You need to get out of here. Let’s get some fresh air.”
He could never say no to her and he could not shake off the feeling to make every second with her count. So he followed her to the rooftop and sat down with her, the dark night sky spanning above them. They sat close to each other, touching from shoulders down to their legs.
It had always been like that. Wherever they were and no matter how dire the situation had been, she gave him peace in a lifetime of war.
He caught the faint flowery scent of her skin and had to curl his hands together in order to suppress his raw need to touch her.
Suddenly he felt her head in the crook of his neck and all he could do was to turn his face slightly to bury it softly in her hair.
“Don’t be scared. I will make sure to bring you back safely.” Nat whispered.
Clint felt tears prickling in his eyes.
“Just make sure that you come home with me, okay?” he hoarsely said. “There is no me without you.”
He only realized later that she had never had replied to him.
Next day
Rhodey looked at them with wary eyes as they boarded the ship.
“Watch your six, you two.”
They nodded at him solemnly, shoulder to shoulder, a united front.
Once they were inside, they checked each other’s gear, faces guarded but their eyes were drinking each other in. Every wrinkle, every lash and every dimple. As if they had never seen each other before.
“Ready?” he murmured.
“Let’s do this.” she answered, her lips only millimetres away from his.
Once again, words were left unspoken.
Just like Budapest.
Vormir
Their foreheads pressed together, their breaths mingling, he whispered hoarsely “You win.”
Nat smiled a relieved smile.
She would take the jump. She would get rid of any red in her ledger. She would make sure to bring him home.
But just as she was readying herself to break into a run, Clint rammed her to the ground, her breath exploding painfully in her chest.
“Tell my family I love them.” he calmly said.
No. NO.
Nat twisted her slender body and wrapped her legs around his hips, causing him to lose balance and tumble backwards to the ground.
“Tell them yourself.” she tenderly hissed at him.
She saw the moment he realized what she was going to do, reflect in his eyes. The betrayal. The acidic fear. The rising panic.
His lips formed a toneless No.
But before he could move, she pinned him down with her Widowbites, his body shaking from the electric shocks.
Nat turned around, forcing herself to not look back, and broke into a run when one of his explosive arrows ripped her off her feet. She tumbled to the ground, only to see Clint running past her, his face calm and serene as he took the jump into the deadly abyss.
A hoarse cry ripped from her throat as she pushed herself up and propelled forward, following him as she took the leap.
Her body slammed into his as she ripped out the grappling arrow on his belt out of his holster. Once activated, the tip exploded onwards, gripping onto the dense wall of stones surrounding them.
Clint yelped as the brunt force of it pulled him back and catapulted him into the rocks.
He blindly and desperately reached for Natasha , only able to catch her by one hand as they dangled over the darkness below them.
Clint cried out with pain and fear when he saw the grappling arrow get loose.
“Damn you…” he growled full of anguish.
She looked at him with gentle eyes.
It was time.
“Let me go.”
“No!” he begged, his voice suffocated with tears and panic.
“It’s okay.” she said, her face soft with love and adoration.
“Please. No. Don’t do this to me.” Clint whimpered.
The grappling arrow gave loose once more.
And with one last look into the eyes of the man she loved more than her own life, Natasha Romanov pushed her booted foot against the stones and catapulted her body out of her partner’s grip.
“NAT!” Clint screamed as he felt her hand being ripped out of his, her lithe form falling into the darkness, her long reddish hair dancing around her in a macabre dance.
“NOOOOOOOO!”
He saw her body slamming into the ground, heard the sickening crunch of the impact. Saw the blood pooling around her head as her once beautiful eyes looked up sightlessly into the sky.
Pain, worse than anything he had ever felt before, exploded in his heart, his eyes, his head. Tears flowed freely as he sobbed her name again and again.
And when everything around him exploded into a blinding, white light, he welcomed it.
He woke up, the deafening stillness around him howling in his ears. Clint rose to his knees, submerged in water when he felt his gloved fist exploding with gentle warmth.
He opened it, only to see the warm orange light of the Soul stone.
But he felt nothing.
He was alone. Stripped off his soulmate.
And Hawkeye collapsed into despair, sobs ripping from his chest as his head hung low with tears streaming down his face.
When the time machine activated and he was ripped into the tunnel of light, he felt nothing.
Once back at the travelling platform at the headquarters, the excited and happy faces of the other Avengers around him, all he could do was to drop to his knees, his face haggard and his eyes empty and dead.
He did not hear anything anymore when he crumbled and darkness surrounded him. He did not hear anymore his own screams nor did he feel the trashing of his limbs.
“Clint. Wake up.”
The bright light blinded his eyes when he clawed himself out of unconsciousness.
He saw a blurry, female face in front of him, surrounded by reddish hair.
“Nat? I had the worst nightmare ever. I told you I have a bad feeling about this mission.” he groaned and tried to lift his hands to rub his eyes.
Only then he realized that his arms and feet were restrained.
Restrained to a hospital bed.
“What the hell?” Clint growled, flexing his arms.
“Barton.” a stern and tired male voice sounded from his left.
Steve Rogers.
Clint turned his head, his vision clearing up.
It had not been Nat talking to him.
It was Wanda Maximov, aka Scarlet Witch, who was looking at him now with sad and understanding eyes, which seemed too old in a young face like hers.
Clint looked around the room.
Rogers. Banner. Stark. Even Pepper was watching him anxiously.
No Natasha.
“Nat? Where is Widow?” he demanded to know.
“Barton…” a pale looking Bruce Banner said and approached him cautiously.
“Where is she?” Clint’s voice turned shrill.
“She is gone. She died on Vormir. She sacrificed herself for all of us. We had to restrain you. When you came back, you had a breakdown.” Banner replied gently with glassy eyes.
And suddenly the mental images came crashing down, invading his memory like a raging beast with claws, ripping apart his heart and mind.
“No.” he whimpered. “No. God, please no. She can’t leave me behind like that. Please no.”
“Barton. She sacrificed herself for you and your family. We will win this war and you will get you family back. You won’t be alone. I promise. You have…” Steve Rogers started.
“FUCK YOU and your stupid war!” Clint screamed at the top of his lungs. “You have taken everything from us. Our lives. We were doing great but you had to come in with your intergalactic shit, ripping apart every dreams Nat and I ever had. You took her away from me!!!! Give her back to me. I want her back!”
Heartwrenching sobs echoed through the room as Clint wrestled with his restraints, desperate to lessen his pain.
Pepper pressed her hand to her mouth, choking back the tears. Everybody in the room was at a loss what to do. Hawkeye had been on a rampage after his family’s deaths, but never like this.
His pain had been deep and fundamental, harsh enough to make any normal person crumble. But once he had been back with Natasha the light had returned to his eyes.
Nothing of it was left now.
The day after the victory
Bruce looked at Hawkeye with worried eyes. It had been a day since the Avengers and their allies had changed the course of the universe by beating Thanos. Great losses had been suffered, but the light had prevailed against the dark once more.
People had been reunited with their loved ones.
Except one.
Clint had been a fundamental part of the battle, but ever since his return from Vormir without Natasha, there was no trace left of snarky, playful and warmhearted Hawkeye. Left behind was a highly skilled assassin, without any remorse or light in his eyes. Some thought he just went back to how he was after the snap, but his close companions knew better.
Losing his family had been devastating. But he would have cherished their memory. Would have lived on in their honour.
Lived on his life with Natasha by his side.
With her gone there was no Clint. No Hawkeye.
“Barton.” Bruce said.
Looking up from his arrows that he had been cleaning mechanically, Clint silently gave a robotic nod, his light eyes revealing nothing.
“It’s time. Your family is waiting.”
Emotion rippled through the Hawk’s eyes. When he wanted to say something, Banner interrupted him.
“There is something I have been wanting to give you.”
Clint looked at him without any expression.
“Natasha gave something to me before you two left for Vormir. She told me to give it to you in case….”
Banner’s voice halted and came to painful halt.
Clint’s eyes shot aflame with pain, but he still did not say anything.
But when Bruce held out his hand, a dainty necklace with an arrow charm dangling from it, glinting gently in the artificial light of the armoury, Hawkeye’s face contorted in agony.
With trembling, calloused fingers he reached out and once his fingertips touched the warm metal, a silent sob clawed its way out of his throat. With tears leaking from his closed eyes, Clint pressed the arrow charm to his lips.
“Barton.” Banner tried again. “It’s time. Time to go back. They are waiting for you. Your family is waiting.”
“I know.” Clint replied. But he did not move.
“Clint…”
“I have been dying a bit every day, since I lost her. Going back to my farm, to Laura and the kids, should make me happy, right? Instead all I can think about is Nat’s hand in my hand, her voice, her laugh, the warmth of her body.”
“You need to let her go.”
Let me go. It’s okay.
Clint got up from his seat abruptly. He stayed mum for a long time.
“I miss her. You have no idea how much. How can I go back to that life without her beside me?” he whispered.
“You have to. That’s what she wanted. For you to be happy with your family. To live a normal life. Something she thought she could never give you. She loved you that much.”
“Stupid woman…” Clint whispered, while gently caressing the necklace. “All I ever wanted was to be beside you. To be worthy of you. To love you.”
Weeks later, Clint stood on the porch of the farm, his shoulder leaning against the veranda pillar with a faraway look in his eyes. The arrow necklace warm against the skin of his neck.
Above him millions of stars were twinkling in the night sky.
And with a quiet voice Clint whispered “In all the other universes, the other timelines, we are together. I am yours and you are mine. No war, no pain and nobody else. Just the two of us. The Hawk and his spider. Like it was always meant to be.”
Even softer he added “I love you. Forever.”