A/N: Ahh... This obsession is starting to be quite disturbing. Damn those two for being so incredibly tense in the movie. If only they had kissed or something then I wouldn't be soooooo obsessed. Well... I lie, I'd probably end up being a lot more obsessed. Can't win no matter what I do. Enjoy.

There's a truth in his eyes when she looks at him.

It's was there the day she met him. He looked ready to kill, ready to finish his mission, add another red line to his ledger and call it a day. But yet he looked ready to forgive, to forget and to let live too. She remembered having stared back at him for the longest time as he held the arrow between her eyes and simply stared back at her unmoving too. She remembered the way he looked at her, as if somehow he and seen straight through her façade to the real woman underneath. It only took a moment. Only a tiny split second moment for her to know everything there was and is to ever know.

She will never be able to comprehend it, but there was something about his eyes that day that told her that no matter what, come hell or high water, he was going to be the one standing right there beside her. He was going to be the one that'll sit beside her bed when all hope is gone and where all he can do is wait, hope and wish for her to wake up. He'll tell her later that a life without her isn't one that he can imagine and at first she won't understand, but eventually she'll come to realize what it actually feels like to need someone. He was going to be the one that'll spend the next few years and probably, the rest of his life with her, as a friend or as whatever it is she wished him to be.

It was all right there in that moment that told her that he'll be the one that'll tell her giving up is never an option. He'll be the one that she will let hold her hand and tell her things would be okay, because he's there and the world is always a better place with him in it. She'll laugh and only with him, she'll tell him not to be so self-centred because the world didn't entirely revolve around him. Although she won't tell him that she'll be thinking that her world was him. Not at least until after a good number of missions, a few near death experiences and one in particular where they were actually sure she was not actually going to make it.

He'll be the only one that she'll ever let her call Tasha because she didn't do nicknames, never did and never will. But for him, she'd make just that one exception. For him she'll learn so much more than how to depend on someone, how to need someone and want someone. She'll learn how to put a meaning and a purpose to why she did things one way and others another. She'll learn that every now and then it was okay to let her guards down and just be human, because really, that's what they were at the end of the day.

With him she'll also learn that what they share is so much more than love. He'll teach her that they didn't just need each other or want each other. He'll show her that what they have is when one soul needs another to belong too and to know that no matter what they'll never be alone because they'll always have this.

Eventually, he'll offer his warmth and protection at night even when he knows she hardly needs it. But she'll never say it because for once it's actually nice for someone to offer it to her without asking for anything else in return. He'll be the one that she'll willingly give her heart too because she knows that he'll keep it safer than she ever will.

It was right there, right in front of her when she had taken his hand and accepted his offer. It was the truth in his eyes and the honesty in his words. It was in the tone he had used when he said he knew her name was 'Natasha Romanova' and that sometimes men referred to her as 'Black Widow'. It was the way he introduced himself as 'Clint Barton' and then told her that some others knew him also as 'Hawkeye'. It made her feel like he was showing her what it was like to be equal with someone. It made her feel like this man was worth a chance because he had shown her kindness when he could have so easily taken her life from her. He would never know it and she will probably never tell him, but all those years ago, his offer really did sound a lot more like a promise. The kind of promise that children made.

But in that moment she wouldn't know that there'd be a day when everything between them would come so close to an end. She wouldn't know that when she heard those words from Coulson that she'd finish her mission in exactly 2 minutes and 48 seconds, without caring whether she had actually completed everything she had been instructed to do. She wouldn't care what Director Fury would say or what Coulson would write on her report later. She would only know what it felt like to need, to want and to desire. She would only know how greatly she cared for him that nothing except him mattered.

She wouldn't know that when she tells the enemy 'love is for children' she's being completely honest because whatever it is that they share is so much more than love. It is the type of thing that extends further than the existence of men. It is the thing that crosses the boundaries of what is known and unknown. It is the single most complicated yet simple thing that one will ever come to know and feel and live for.

She wouldn't know that there'll be a time in her life when she'll want to be a soldier, to fight along men for the greater good, all because she wanted to clear the red in her ledger. She wouldn't know that when she hears that call over the comm she'd accept the order because she'd know that after everything they had ever been through, he'd rather have his life end by her hands than by anybody else.

She wouldn't know that when she looked into his eyes, she'd see, for the very first time, everything other than the truth. She'd see silver, hollow familiar eyes staring back at her as if everything between them was nothing but a non-existence memory. She wouldn't know that with every punch and with every kick, she's still loving him, still wanting him and needing him. She wouldn't know that with every minute that passes she's still trying to save him even when hope quickly wears thin. She wouldn't know that with every hit she deals she's dying a little bit inside knowing that sooner or later, it is either to live or let die. She wouldn't know what it is like to feel compromised, to feel what it feels like to fight the only man that has ever understood her, loved her, needed and trusted, her.

She wouldn't know how relieved she would feel when by a fluke, she manages to kick the enemy from his mind. She wouldn't know the love that'll run through her veins, or the hope she suddenly had for the world that she was sure was doomed to perish.

But when she does, it doesn't haunt her dreams or haunt his either.

It doesn't make her love him any less and it doesn't make him love her any less either. Instead, it only makes them love each other even more. It only develops into something so much more than what they already have.

It only reminds her that even if they had shared a few years or a decade or decades of years more together, there'll always be this belonging that they'll feel with each other. There'll always be his hand on her heart and hers on his. There'll always be his soul and hers, together intertwined. There'll always be that honesty in his words and that softness in his tone when he speaks to her or calls or whispers her name. There'll always be that gentleness in his touch and his love that'll always be hers and hers alone.

She knows all of this because it'll always be in that truth she sees when she looks into his eyes.