Disclaimer: Own nothing!

Okay, for everyone who's been yammering at me, here's the second part. I'll probably do a rewrite sometime later, I'm still not satisfied with it but I just wanted to put it up for everyone who's been asking. Based on the song Whiskey Lullaby.

"Who are you?"

Something large and solid flew into her, knocking her back several yards and a woman screamed. Before she could get her bearings straight, Steve's hand was at her throat. She could have easily thrown him off if not for he whining of a Stark gun next to her ear. She froze.

Steve grabbed her by her collar, hauling her up while Tony kept the gun trained on her. Instinct made her remain still instead of twisting out of his grip, sensing that something was terribly, dreadfully wrong. Steve's voice was rough, stressed, his eyes wild with some intense emotion. "Who the hell are you? What are you doing here? What do you want from us?"

"Steve, Steve, its me, Natasha!" She didn't understand, they looked like they had seen a ghost. And the anger. Tony and Steve stared at her with such hostility she felt a stirring of anxiety in her gut. "Guys…"

Steve only shook her. "Natasha's dead. Don't you lie to us. Tell us what you know!" The last word was finished with a shout. Natasha glanced desperately at Tony, but only found cold loathing in his eyes. "Tell us!" Steve roared, shaking her again.

"I swear to you I am Natasha. I had to go to Russia to clean up some loose ends…please, didn't Clint say anything to you?"

"Hold out your hand then." Natasha turned her head a fraction of an inch to see Bruce, his face pale but determined, holding out a small electronic pad. He must have seen the confusion in her eyes because he elaborated. "This will take a sample of your tissue. If you are Natasha, this'll tell us."

"Do it." Steve ordered harshly. Natasha shakily extended a hand over the pad, feeling a sharp stabbing in her palm as the machine sampled the skin and blood in her hand. After a few moments, the pad pulsed green.

Bruce took off his glasses, wiping his face. "Good God…Natasha?"

Steve dropped her on the ground, backing away as the others did the same. Natasha eyed them warily. "Yes?"

Strangely enough, it was Pepper who spoke first, her eyes unusually sharp. "You've been gone for three years without so much as a phone call. Do you have any idea how it's been for all of us, how awful its been?"

"I left Clint a note, where is he he can tell you…"

An uneasy silence settled over the group, and Natasha felt an uncomfortable twisting sensation in her stomach. The others glanced at each other, exchanging silent messages and Natasha could take it no longer. Her voice was tight. "Well?"

Steve stared at the floor, while Tony suddenly found a display on one of his tablets incredibly interesting. Pepper stared at her with a look that could only be described as accusing. Finally Bruce spoke, bracing his elbows on his knees as he clasped his hands together. "Clint is dead Natasha," he said finally, gazing at her evenly. "He died four months ago. He never got any note."

"No! I left …No!" Natasha gasped. It was all too terrifyingly clear now. She remembered writing the note, sticking it into her pocket to leave in Clint's weapons locker. She'd thought she had swung by there before she left. No she didn't. She remembered now, evading security cameras in Stark Tower had taken longer than expected and she had been running behind. Instead of stopping by the weapons cache with the note, she'd simply disappeared into the streets of Manhattan. "No…" she whispered, the knish she'd eaten for lunch threatening to come back up. She glanced up at the rest of the team, her vision blurred by a film of tears. "I meant to leave him a note." she said straining to keep the emotion from her voice. "But I forgot." There was a curious roaring sound in her ears, though the room was so silent she could hear a pin drop.

"How...how did it happen?"

She could see the silent conversation between the others. Steve gave an almost imperceptible nod. Pepper turned to her, a strange look on her face. "Nat...he was killed while on a mission. Doing his job. He miscalculated the amount of security on a job"

"O..oh." Her thoughts whirled. Killed on the job through a miscalculation? Impossible. Clint was the best of the best. He was so careful it annoyed her. He would never take on a job where there was a possibility of…casualties. Something wasn't right.

Bruce stood up suddenly, his eyes full of pity. "Come on Natasha, you must be tired. We'll get everything sorted out in the morning okay? You need to get to bed."

"No, I need-"

"Bed." he said firmly, pointing her to the elevator that would bring her to her old quarters. She obeyed without question, feeling their eyes on her. However, once the elevator doors closed she kicked open the top hatch and shimmied up the wire to hang just outside the doors she had passed through moments before. The others were hiding something before, something about…She swallowed hard, forcing his face from her mind. Something was off about their story. They had excused her way too quickly, were way too eager to have her gone.

Leaning closer, she strained to hear.

"…tell her the truth?"

"No," Steve's voice drifted out to where she clung. "What's done is done. Telling her won't change anything."

"But to lie to her?" That was Bruce's voice, Natasha mused. It seemed he was in favor of telling her whatever the others wanted to hide. "She deserves to know the truth."

There was a harsh laugh, a clinking of a glass set down on a table. "What, she deserves to know what she did to him?" Natasha could hear Pepper murmuring, trying to sooth Tony but he kept talking in the same harsh, blunt tone. "Tell her how her little plan to get revenge made him blow his own brains out? No no I'm fine Pepper!" Natasha had to clutch the wall, her mouth suddenly dry. Clint had shot himself? No! He was lying! Clint was too good….he wouldn't have just…

Tony seemed to have shrugged off Pepper because he was louder, voice slurred slightly. "Sure, fine, let's tell her. Let's have her own up to what she did to us."

"Tony." Pepper's voice was sharp.

"Let her know how she effectively killed her own partner. Offed him, just like that." Tony was clearly drunk now, his stumbling footsteps echoing up to where Natasha clung in horrified shock to the wires. "Let everyone know! How about that Banner?"

"We don't know the exact circumstances of Barton's decision, Stark." Steve's voice sounded closer, more clipped. "Only he knew what was going through his head that night."

"He loved her! He had her damn picture in his hand!"

Steve's voice swelled, deepened into the authoritative tone of Captain America. "And there's reason to believe that the truth could have a similar effect on Natasha. The decision is made. We stay quiet."

Natasha only caught only a small bit of his declaration. She was already gone.

Natasha was a master at concealment. Compared to her, Clint was an open book and that's how she managed to keep her own alcoholism under wraps for close to two years since that night. The others never even suspected anything, how she subsisted on almost nothing except whiskey and energy bars. The alcohol was good, took the edge off the searing pain she felt whenever she pictured him, but never quite erased it completely. It was always there, a dull ache.

She went on missions, interacted with the others and to anyone on the outside she was no different from the Natasha whose partner hadn't committed suicide. Careful to the extreme, the others thought her fine. She managed to hack into SHIELD's database and collect information on how he died, how he was holding her photo, a note. Why Clint why? She'd had nothing but vodka and whiskey for a straight week after that.

She was starting to crack, she could feel it. Visiting the small meadow where SHIELD buried Clint helped some, though she had needed a bottle of Jack in her hand the entire time. Alone in her room, she simply sat and stared at the wall, occasionally taking a swig from her bottle. Forget, forget, forget. She never could though. She always replayed the same scenes over and over, the last time she saw him laugh, the moment she forgot to leave the note.

The night he confessed how much he loved her.

That'd only been two weeks before she left for Russia, and the memory was crystal clear. They'd been laughing over something, relaxing in their makeshift foxhole while out on a job.

"You ever think about retiring, Nat?"

She had glanced at him, smirking in dismissal. "What, like some senior citizens? People like us don't retire Clint."

"But have you ever thought what it would like?" He had persisted. "If you could be...normal for once. You could get married, have kids."

"Kids?" She had turned to him with a skeptical look on her face. "You're getting soft there Clint." for a moment, they had sat there in silence. "Why? Have you thought about it?"

"Yeah."

The casualness of his tone had surprised her. "Oh?"

"Yea. Of course that plan hinges on if you retire too. Can't have my wife running all over the globe without me."

The implications of that statement had hit her like a ton of bricks, and she had turned to face him, shock evident on her face. "Wha…?"

He lowered his bow, eyes fixed on her face. "If I asked you, would you marry me?"

"What?" She had spluttered, trying to make sense. Where had all this come from?

"Because I would if you asked me," he said easily, conversationally. "I think you'd be a beautiful bride."

"…Why?" she had gasped. It seemed that she was only capable of one word questions, she was so shocked.

Clint had leaned forward then and grabbed one of her hands with one of his, his hand warm and comforting against her own. "Because I love you Nat. Always have." A slight color had then risen in his cheeks, the only sign of self-consciousness he had shown during the entire conversation. "I know you're probably surprised…Shit." he had muttered to himself.

She had studied him while he berated himself. True, she had been taken off guard by his declaration, but she felt surprisingly happy as well. She considered what she had with Clint. They were partners certainly….but more? Well, she felt more at ease with him than anyone else, safer and more secure. He was funny, could always make her laugh, held her more than once after a mission gone wrong. She considered his eyes, kinder than any others and his every expression. They talked together, laughed together, fought together…

He had continued talking. "All I'm saying is that I love you Na-"

Clint had stopped talking because she had leaned forward, pressing her lips against his. She leaned back, eyes searching his. They stared at each other for several minutes, the silence deepening. Her breathing became more ragged under the intensity of his gaze. "We should get back to surveillance." she whispered.

He had nodded, the silence broken, but one corner of his mouth curled up in a half smile. Though they returned their attention to the building they were staking out, his hand once more held hers tightly in the cover of darkness.

She had smiled.

"No…"

Natasha finally understood what Clint must have felt like that night two years ago. She retched, vomit splattering onto the floor, the bottle of whiskey still clutched fast in her hand. Blearily, she gave it a shake and frowned when there was no comforting sloshing sound. She tried to stand, to reach her dresser where she had more of bottles of the stuff, but the floor tilted crazily and she only managed to make it to her bed before she collapsed unsteadily onto her mattress. Natasha fingered the pistol strapped to her leg. There was a way to make to pain stop, to finally forget him. Raising it shakily to her head, she paused, her mind vainly trying to make sense. Was this what she wanted? Was Clint there watching her, trying to stop her? If he was there, then if she did do this then they could be together. She wouldn't have to forget. She fished out the picture of him she always carried with her, studying his eyes, the way his skin wrinkled at the corners of his mouth when he smiled.

She pulled the trigger.