They never left each other's side after New York. Ever. They turned down any solo missions and any undercover missions that would leave them off the grid for a long period of time. They couldn't take them; he was too unstable, and she was too shaken. They didn't let anyone know that though, not even the other Avengers who pretended not to notice them screaming in the middle of the night from nightmares, or repeatedly coming down from the same room in the morning. They were together, forever.

When he first left for a mission on his own, the first since before New York, she was petrified. She spent the whole time he was gone in the gym, pounding a punching bag until her hands bled. Not even Steve could make her stop.

When the day arrived where he was supposed to return and didn't, she seemed okay. After exactly four months passed, she shut herself in her room, not speaking to anyone or eating anything. Word arrived later that afternoon that it had been confirmed that his plane had been shot down over the ocean, that his body had been found, and that they were very sorry.

Sorry didn't cut it for Natasha Romanoff. She didn't react at first, but that night, when she thought everyone was asleep in bed, she sat on the gym floor and cried until she fell asleep. When she woke up the next morning, she was completely exhausted, but comfortable in her own bed. She guessed Steve had pitied her and moved her there.

She spent the next day alone in her room, memorizing the mission report sent in on his last mission. Everything had been going fine, until it wasn't. That night, she fell apart completely on the gym floor again, and the next morning, she was comfortable, back in her own bed.

Pepper came after a few days. She tried to speak to Natasha, but it was like speaking to a brick wall. Natasha would just mumble, or not say anything at all. Tony even tried being nice, but she didn't pay attention, and remained in her funk for the next week. Every night she would crawl to the gym, release every emotion she had bottled up, then find herself the next morning back in her own bed.

If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed the missing food. The missing blankets. The feeling of someone watching you if you walked into a room with air vents. She missed it all.

After two weeks, Natasha surfaced from her room, and the first thing she did was thank Steve for carrying her back to her room each night. He look mildly puzzled. It hadn't been him. She tried Bruce. Not him Either, nor Tony or Thor.

Then she began to notice. The change in air pressure and the slightest noise from the vents. The breathing from no one if you kept quiet enough. The echoing of an arrow hitting it's target in the late afternoon when the tower was noisiest and no one is in the training room. She noticed.

She was mad, of course, but so happy. Oh, so happy. That night, she sat with her back against the gym wall, and she tried her best to stay awake, but she eventually fell asleep.

When she woke up, she was back in her bed, but someone else was there too. She was curled up beside him, her arm resting protectively across his strong chest, his arm draped around her shoulders. She smiled up at Clint, then snuggled back into him, deciding then and there that she was never letting him go ever again.