Save Me From Myself

It's not so easy, loving me / It gets so complicated

I'm amazed by all your patience / Everything I put you through

"Love is for children," I told him softly, brushing his cheek with the back of my hand. His baby blue eyes blinked, with a childish glint. He was a man near his thirties, but he acted like he had the mental age of five. Not in the field of course, but in a daily basis this man would be a goof. He would make me smile at the most ridiculous of times without any effort. Laughter with him came easily even if we were both two damaged souls.

"Then I'm glad you think I'm a child most of the times," he replied, one hand coming up to brush my bangs from my sweaty forehead. "Isn't that so?" He prompted huskily, leaning down to kiss my bare shoulder.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. We were currently in Budapest and after three years of playing cat and mouse, we gave in to our deepest desires. I wanted him. He wanted me. After almost getting killed by a good couple of dozen armed men, your adrenaline would reach a pick and the fear that I had of losing him made my self-control take a walk in the park.

"Don't be hard, Tasha," Clint said, lips turning into a small pout.

"I never promised you to be easy to love, Hawk," I returned with a quirk of my eyebrow.

He leaned down and lazily, we kissed, and kissed, touched, kissed, teased…

"I'm a man of patience," he whispered against my lips. "Mark my words, Romanoff! One day I'll have you saying those three little words to me easily."

I know it's crazy, everyday / Well tomorrow may be shaky

But you never turn away

"Fuck, Tasha, that was completely unnecessary," Clint said hitting his fist in the nearest wall.

I looked up to him but he wasn't looking at me. "It needed to be done," I told him coldly.

"You broke protocol!" He yelled, flailing his arms around him, looking like a bird shaking his feathers in annoyance.

"Since when do you care about protocol? It's all we ever do, Clint, break the protocol," I observed.

"Yeah, and usually we both know we're going to break protocol, we have each other's back, we do it together," Clint talked slowly, like I was a child.

"I didn't have the time to tell you anything. If I didn't act that moment, those children would die in the fire and I wasn't going to let that happen…again. I saw a chance of saving them, so I did."

The mission, in theory, was easy. A couple of arms dealers trying to sell government issued weapons to some really bad guys. These people had dirty business all over the States an even some countries in Europe as Clint and I came to find. We've been working on this mission for the past year, and the judgment day arrived only to have our plan backfire. These guys brought innocent children, orphans, to the warehouse that we sabotaged. I couldn't do the same I did with the Hospital all those years back. I had to save them and it almost cost me my life, but I didn't care. Apparently, Clint didn't share of the same point of view…

"You almost died," his voice was strained and I was instantly a pile of imaginary mush at the pain and worry in his blue eyes.

"One less assassin in the world," I shrugged it off, trying to make it a joke but I kind of knew that it wasn't going to work.

Clint shook his head and approached me in quick strides. He cradled my face in his calloused hands, rubbing his thumbs through my cheeks, matting his forehead to mine. "Don't say that," he begged. "You're my whole word, Natasha. You're my whole, crazy, unpredictable, world, but I love you anyway."

My mouth was closed like someone glued my lips together. The only thing I could do was hug him close.

I know it's hard / But You've broken all my walls

You've been my strength, so strong

"What the fuck, Barton?" I yelled in rage, flattening my palms in his chest and punching him back.

As he fell back on the floor he eyed me amused.

"Don't do that again, you moron," my rage fit was not going to end soon.

"It was necessary to get the mission done," Clint replied, calmly I add, standing up again and straightening his shirt. "Don't get your catsuit in a bunch, Widow!"

"Blowing up your own car? Giving everyone the impression that you were still inside?"

"Yes," the bastard was so damn calm. I was going to give him calm. With my fists! "I needed the emotion to be real and I've got to say…I'm so flattered that you feel so strongly about me," Clint gave me a cheeky smile, fueling up my anger.

"Don't poke the beast," I heard Phil mutter somewhere around us.

I growled and launched myself at him again. Easily he caught me, holding my wrists. I fought against him while he just raised his eyebrows. Phil said something about paperwork and left us alone in Clint's room. Soon after, my anger cooled down and something broke inside of me, making me stop my movements and just plainly burst into tears. What. The. Fuck!

I felt his strong arms wrap themselves around my midsection. My hands grabbed fistfuls of the back of his shirt while I cried into his chest. What was wrong with me…?

"I'm sorry, but I needed your emotions to be real, Natasha. They had to believe I died so you could get the job done," he explained softly, near my ear.

"I thought I lost you. I really did. I don't want to describe what I felt but it was painful. It hurt. Don't do it again. Don't leave me. You are not allowed to. You made a different call and now you're stuck, got that?"

"Tasha…" he breathed with a small smile.

"I love you," I mumbled cuddling into his chest. "If you pump your fist in the air and yell 'success' I'll leave you unconscious," I threatened and he just laughed but nodded. I knew this man too damn well.

Don't ask me, why I love you/It's obvious your tenderness

It's all I need to make me/ A better woman to myself

"Ms. Potts, I want to apologize for misleading you, but it was my mission," I started formally, sitting across the intimidating business woman. I don't fear people. But I knew Pepper wasn't to joke around with.

"Natalie, or Natasha, or whatever you are called," started Pepper coldly. "You mislead me, and Tony. Do you know how hard is to trust people these days?"

"I do," I replied.

"It was a rhetorical question," Pepper announced without missing a beat. "I trusted you, Tony trusted you and the way you betrayed that trust was disgraceful. If Tony already had trust issues, imagine now."

"So you're not mad because I tricked you, you are mad because I betrayed Tony's trust," I realized. "It makes sense, you are trying to protect him. We do that to the ones we love."

Pepper tilted her head to the side. "Do you even love someone, Agent Romanoff? It's quite the reputation you have," she said dryly.

"I'm not even going to take offense," I chuckled lightly. "But yes, I do love someone, Ms. Potts," I nodded with a brief smile.

"Oh?" Prompted Pepper.

"My partner," I simply said. "He's everything to me. I'm sure you can understand when I tell you that he's my world, as cliché as that sounds. I am capable of love, even if my reputation is not one to show it. And I'm only capable of it because of him," I briefly explained, getting up and straightening my skirt.

"Maybe one day we'll meet again," Pepper said.

I thought of SHIELD and the Avengers Initiative. Smiling, I addressed her one last time: "I have no doubts that it's in a close future. I will now clear my desk. It really was a pleasure to work with you Ms. Potts."

Turning around, I left Pepper's office and went to my own so I could finish packing my stuff. My phone vibrated and I picked it up.

«Got a break from New Mexico. You have no idea of the crazy shit that's going around here. Pretty sure it'll beat all of Stark's drama. Dinner?»

«Dinner sounds good. Is that so? Dying to hear it. Stark's drama is pretty out of this world…»

«Babe, out of this world will have a whole new meaning to you when I'm done with my tales!»

And that was the only time he got away with 'babe'.

You're gonna save me from myself

They say two wrongs make a right. I didn't believe popular beliefs until now, when I'm holding solid proof that two wrongs do make a perfect little right.

If anyone had told me, twelve years ago, that I would be fighting with the good guys, that I would meet a God and a legend, that I would fall in love with the goofiest, sweetest and deadliest man in the planet and that the both of us would wind up having a family…I would have killed that person on the spot and scoff over that vision. It was too unreal to be true, and yet, here I was. I knew a kind hearted God; I met Coulson's hero/idol, the great Captain America, one of the most honorable man walking the earth and I was in love, and I had a family.

Her name was Anna Grace Barton. The perfect baby girl! She had my natural vibrant red curly hair but with big blue eyes. Lips like two petals of a red rose, her little nose was so Clint's and she had inherited the stubbornness from us both.

Getting pregnant was the last thing I expected to happen to me but it was also the best.

"She's been sleeping for the past ten minutes," Clint's voice was soft and echoed through the nursery.

"Quiet, I'm admiring the perfection that we created," I hushed him with a smile, not taking my eyes off of my beautiful sleeping daughter.

He chuckled and approached quietly. "She takes after her Mother," he said kissing the top of my hair.

"Oh God, I hope not!"

"You're a great person, Tasha!"

"Now I am," I retorted.

"Better late than never!"

A silence fell upon us as we watched her sleep. Finally, with a sigh, I gently got up and placed her on her crib. This piece of furniture had been enhanced by Tony. It had Jarvis incorporated in it – don't ask, I didn't. The AI would monitor her vitals, her needs and instead of having a baby monitor buzzing at our ears, Jarvis was a much more efficient way of warning us about Anna's night activities.

"Good night, little birdie," Clint whispered tucking the blanket around her small body.

"Sweet dreams, Anna," I smiled brushing a wild curl from her face.

Outside the nursery, I sighed deeply.

"What's on your mind, Widow?" Clint asked me, putting an arm around my shoulders.

"That I never thanked you," I simply said.

"What for?" He asked genuinely confused.

"For saving me, from myself."