Time to go

Memory Collage

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.