Shoutouts to Eva7673, BlackHawk's Child, Black Widow and Hawkeye OTP, kissmyquiver, Jewelz1642, Karjaleinen, Guest, buh-dum-tss, yornma, Black Betty, Jo, Amelia Skellig, beverlie4055, bellapaige88, MaddieFayeth96, nikki, Hofherrp, MyPerfectEscape, pengineer, lovelydove21, hopelessromantic1599, Schnalfu, Sparky She-Demon, PossibleAvenger, JWolf28, Guest, IAmAwesome-MusicListener, Guest, Lanaa Taurof, and EpicPackage for reviewing! If I missed anyone, I'm so, so, so sorry. For some reason, not all of my reviews are showing up on here, so I had to go look through my emails to make sure I got the reviews that weren't showing up on here for whatever reason.

Alright, guys, this is the end. The final chapter. It's shorter than all the other chapters, but it's a happy one. Lots of good fluff in it, so hopefully, I ended this story with a bang.

And moving on to our next part of housekeeping: the sequel! The sequel to Girl, Compromised will be called Hawkeye, Compromised. (Mad shoutout to MaddieFayeth96 for helping me decide on a title!) Today's Sunday, and I typically get the first chapters of my sequel out within 24-48 hours. However, I just got back to school to do some training for the job I have here, so if it's a little longer than 48 hours, please bear with me! If you want to get an email notification for whenever I do post it, feel free to Follow/Favorite me =) For Hawkeye, Compromised, I'll be sticking to more of a schedule for that, so that means (aside from the first chapter), I'll be updating on Mondays and Thursdays =)

For extra emotions, listen to "Lost Stars" - Adam Levine from the Begin Again soundtrack. By the way, if you haven't seen the movie Begin Again, watch it. It's so perfect. If you're interested in the playlist I have for Girl, Compromised, just send me a message, and I can give you a list of all the songs I referenced in the Author's Notes!

Thank you all so much for following, favoriting, and reviewing this story. It's meant so much to me, whether you just discovered it or have been following it from the beginning. I had no idea the kind of response I'd get when I started writing it. It was literally an idea I got in the middle of the day, wrote the first chapter, and uploaded it. You guys are absolutely amazing, and your support and encouragement has meant the world to me.

Let me know what you think of this last chapter!

Enjoy! =)

ONE LAST THING. I know that some people like to unfollow a story after it's completed, but I'd like to ask y'all not to! I know it's silly, but it'd mean a lot to me if you guys didn't unfollow!

Chapter 32

"You know, about a month ago, Natasha was sitting there with that same look on her face while she waited to hear about you."

Clint looked up from the chair he'd claimed as his in the waiting room to look at Coulson. The older agent crossed into the room and sat down across from him, crossing his legs once he was seated.

"How's Agent May?" Clint asked, changing the subject. "Is she out of surgery?"

"Yes. Thankfully, there wasn't that much damage. It was a shoulder shot, and she's had plenty of those before," Coulson replied. "She gave me all the information she had on the Omega. I thought you'd like to know."

And in an instance, Clint's entire attitude changed. His back straightened, and his mouth lifted, and he looked at Coulson with a new look of interest in his eyes. "What'd she say?"

"Andor Miklos. That was the Omega's real name," Coulson said quietly. "His brother was killed when SHIELD went in to neutralize the Sankos four years ago. She was able to give us a lot more detail on how the whole organization ran than Andor Miklos himself, but I thought you'd like to know his name."

"Thank you," Clint sincerely answered, his gratitude showing on his face. "I'll sleep a little better knowing he's dead."

"I'm sure this is a difficult time for you," Coulson said, his calm eyes regarding Clint in such a way that made the archer feel as though he were being pushed out into the open. Tiredly, he nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "I just want Nat to be ok."

"I think she will be," Coulson reassured. "The Omega wasn't able to stab a vital organ the way he'd been planning on doing when your arrow hit him. So congratulations, Agent Barton. You saved the Black Widow. Again."

"I wish that were true." Clint's face was solemn as he thought about the guilt swelling up in his chest. If he'd made the shot sooner, even before Palmer had made the call, he would have been able to save both Natasha and Agent May. Because of his insecurities and lack of confidence, he'd gotten Agent May a shot in the shoulder and Natasha a stab in the side. To say that he wasn't feeling like a hero was an understatement.

"Barton…when I first brought you into SHIELD, I knew you were worth something. You were the best marksman I'd ever seen. Hell, Barton, you're still the best marksman I've ever seen. But if I'd thought you weren't capable of being something more, I wouldn't have fought so hard to get you a second chance. Fury was tempted to send you to prison, but he also saw something in you, too." Coulson paused, and he uncrossed his legs to move forward a little farther to the edge of his chair. "We all make mistakes. We can't always be the perfect agent all the time. We're going to be the reason why people get hurt, that's true. But we're also going to be the reason people get to see another day. Natasha very easily could have been killed back there in that warehouse. Agent May, too. Sure, they got a little banged up in the process, but they're alive right now because of you."

Clint felt his chest grow tight the way it always did whenever he felt an overwhelming surge of emotions—sometimes he got like this whenever he held Natasha. It didn't matter when it was; it could be after sex, a comfort hug, or even just spooning behind her with one arm lightly placed over her body, careful to make sure she didn't feel trapped down. He got this tightness in his chest when he thought about how much he loved her because God, he loved her. He loved her enough to go grocery shopping with her and push the cart. He loved her enough to let her be big spoon in the middle of the night because she loved pressing her forehead against his back while she slept. For Christ's sake, he even loved her enough that if she'd asked him to paint her damn fingernails, he probably would have done it.

He looked down at the floor and nodded. "Thank you, sir." He cleared his throat to keep the emotion down. "Did you find out how the Omega was figuring out where we were headed? It seems strange that he was always able to keep one step ahead of us."

"Hacker," Coulson replied flatly. "I have no idea how this guy managed to get past all of our encryptions without our notice, but he did. Somehow, he did. Agent Palmer's next mission will be to figure out how to improve our systems in addition to tracing the hack itself."

"Good," Clint said, nodding once. "He'll be good at that. He enjoys that kind of stuff more than field work, anyway, I think."

"Family of Miss Romanoff?" A male voice rang out. Clint's head snapped up, his heart pounding, and he looked over at a male doctor with a long white coat and a white cap on his head. Instantly, he and Coulson both stood up and walked over to the man.

"Agent Romanoff," Coulson gently corrected. He pulled his badge out and flashed it. "We're with SHIELD—Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."

"Right. My apologies," the doctor said with a polite nod. "I'm Dr. Taylor, and I was the surgeon assigned to Agent Romanoff. Long story short, she's a lucky woman. There wasn't any damage to any of her organs, just the muscle in her side, but she's going to pull through."

"Thank God," Clint breathed, and he closed his eyes for only half a second. "She's ok."

"She will definitely pull out of this alive," Dr. Taylor said with a gentle smile. "In fact, she was waking up the last time I saw her."

Clint's eyes went wide. "What room? Can we go in and see her?"

"Room 349. If you'd like to go visit her, I can't see any harm in allowing you—" Dr. Taylor didn't get to finish his sentence. In a flash, Clint was walking swiftly around the corner with one thought on his mind. Natasha. She was waking up somewhere, and he knew he had to be with her—he had to see her to know that she was ok. If he couldn't believe his own ears these days, he had to make do with believing his eyes.

His precise eyes scanned each and every room number as he passed by, and then he was at Room 349. He didn't even pause to think of how he was going to enter. He just took the initiative and walked through. And just like the doctor had promised, there was Natasha. She looked drugged to hell, but she was alive, and she was awake. Her head snapped to the door as she heard him walk in. For a few seconds, Clint didn't breathe as he looked at her. She really was alive.

"Nat," he said out loud. Her green eyes focused on him, and she wrinkled her forehead in mild confusion as she registered his presence in the room with her.

"Clint?" she rasped out. And that was all it took. One word—just his name—and he was by her side. He walked over to her and stood beside the hospital bed as he looked down at her.

Goddammit, he thought silently to himself. She'd just been stabbed, and she'd just woken up from surgery, and she was still the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. She blinked several times as she drew herself together, pursing her lips and trying to sit up as if she were going to move towards him. Clint stretched a gentle hand out and placed it on top of hers.

"Nat, stay in bed," he said, watching her wince and sharply inhale. Her other hand went to her side, but the hand beneath his curled around his fingers and held on tight. "You're ok. You just got out of surgery."

"Son of a bitch stabbed me," she murmured. Clint couldn't help the quiet chuckle that melted out of his mouth as he watched her close her eyes and ease back against the bed. It was so Natasha to swear over the man who'd stabbed her than to ask if she were going to live that he could barely stand it.

"Yeah, he did," he quietly replied. "You scared the shit out of me. Like, really scared the shit out of me."

"Thought I was dead?" Natasha asked. Her voice was thick with sleep and drugs, but he could hear her fighting the grogginess to stay there with him. Just listening to her made him fall more in love with her, and he couldn't even say that he minded.

"For a second there, yeah," he admitted.

"Wouldn't leave you like that," she mumbled back.

"Good." Unable to help himself, he reached out and stroked her hair back. Sleepily, she turned her face into his hand and breathed deeply. Even just feeling the warmth of her skin beneath his hand was enough for him.

"Got your back," Natasha said.

"And I've got yours."

Natasha blinked her eyes extra hard, and she nodded a little more emphatically than she probably should have. "You shot him. Arrow."

"Yeah, I used my bow."

"Knew you were lying. Knew your eyes were bad."

"I know. I know you did. I'm sorry I lied to you."

"Do it again for outside work reasons, and I'll kill you."

"The most coherent sentence you've been able to string together so far has been about you killing me. Our relationship knows no bounds of perfection," Clint quipped. Suddenly, Natasha smiled, and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. She smiled, and she nodded blearily, her red hair rubbing against the pillow.

"We're in a relationship," she said with a slight goofy tone to her voice. "You and I…are in a relationship."

"Yeah…yeah, we are." Clint's grin widened. "Those painkillers are doing wonders for your personality, Nat."

"I wish I could tell you I hate you, but I don't," she said. Her hand tightened a little bit around his, and he took his cue to sit on the edge of the bed, the way she'd done with him the day he'd woken up to discover that he'd been deafened.

"I don't hate you, either," he said.

"Good," Natasha answered with a slight scoff. "Because I love you."

"Ok, we need to get a whole bunch of these pills to keep back at HQ because you openly just admitted that you love me," Clint teased. Again, she smiled, and he felt his heart melt into a thousand disgustingly drippy puddles.

"Hey," she said suddenly. "I know you're doing that thing where you beat yourself up over what you did or didn't do this mission. So stop."

"Nat—"

"Stop," she insisted sharply, giving him a hard look that still had the ability to make Clint feel as though she could take him down in a spar session right then and there. "I mean it. I never once doubted that you'd come through for me."

Clint processed what she was saying, and he looked down at their joined hands. Their skin tones were different—she had a bit more of a pink undertone to her skin while he had golden undertone to his, but sometimes he had trouble telling which part was her and which part was him. It was times like that that he wanted to say stuff like this to her, to express himself and get it off his mind, but he knew how she was, and he knew he'd never be able to find the right words. So he decided to just fuck it. He wouldn't try to search for them. So he opened his mouth, and he simply spoke the first words that came to his mind.

"I'll always come through for you, Natasha," he said earnestly, lifting his eyes to meet hers. "Any chance I can, I'll take it. If there's any way possible in the world for me to come through for you, I will. I promise you that. I'm not very good at many things. I can fight, and I can shoot arrows, and I can make a good pot of coffee, but I can be good at this thing with you. I can be your partner however you want me to be. Hell, if you told me there was a mission in Texas tomorrow, I'd accept it because I'd be with you. You're the other half of our STRIKE Team: Delta, and I wouldn't want to go anywhere without that half with me. As long as Fury signs off on it and says that it's ok."

"Always with Fury's permission," Natasha confirmed with a head nod. She looked steadily at him, and her face grew serious. Slowly, she took a breath, and then she quietly exhaled, her expression becoming almost fearful. "Clint…Hill asked me over lunch the other day what I would do differently if I could do this all over again. And at the time, I wasn't sure. But I wouldn't change anything. If I got the chance to go back to the beginning and do it differently, I wouldn't do anything differently."

Clint's heart stopped beating. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She blinked a few times, her eyes less glassy now that she was more awake. "When I was in the Red Room, we were told that we were things. Machines. A means to an end. We weren't treated like people because we weren't. So I didn't think that anyone would ever love me, and I didn't think I would ever love anyone. Could ever love anyone." She took a shaky breath as she paused. "But then you didn't kill me when you should have, and now look at me. I'm sitting in a hospital bed holding your hand feeling like I'm going to die because my chest hurts so fucking bad, and it's not hurting because I'm having some kind of medical problem, it's hurting because I just—God, I love you, and I didn't think that was even possib—Christ. I just…I really…I really don't want you to go away, and I really just…love you."

Her words trailed off as she realized that there was nothing left for her to say. She wasn't used to expressing her feelings, and Clint knew that—he knew that this little outburst of emotion she'd had was rare and unheard of, and he felt bad for reveling in it when it was most likely the influence of the painkillers taking down her barriers, but he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead.

"Tasha…I really, really love you, too," he said softly as he pulled away. He felt her put one hand on his cheek, and he put his forehead lightly against hers. "I'm in love with you, Tasha."

I've been compromised, Natasha thought.

I don't do complicated, she repeated to herself.

I can't stay away from you, her brain screamed.

"Do all the other agents who started out as partners and wound up being something more get all like this?" she asked, trying to make sense of his blue eyes merging together into one Cyclops eye due to the fact that his face was right up against hers. She caught the corners of his lips turning up into a smile, and he shook his head.

"No," he replied. "This isn't what they do." His smile widened, and he gave her the answer she didn't know she'd been looking for until it passed from his mouth and into the pores of her skin.

"It's what we do."