Phil Coulson and his SHIELD Family

I thought I lost you...

Summary: Nat and Clint are 23 in this. Nat almost died due to a risk she took during a mission, and since their father was away and could not handle the mishap, Clint takes care of it instead.

Clint could not fall asleep. He lay alone on the king-sized bed in his massive room (courtesy of his cousin, Tony), watching as the minutes went by on his alarm clock. The archer excused himself from the communal floor at 9 PM, saying that he was tired after the mission, but it was 2 AM, and he still could not sleep, the thoughts of the event keeping him up and alert.

Ever since they were born, Clint and Nat had been inseparable. They were siblings, of course, family in any way that matters, but they were also much closer than that. They could read each other with a single look and understand each other without a single word - those two were indivisible and would do anything for one another. The team knew how much Nat meant to Clint and how much Clint meant to Nat. In the field and out of it, they had each other's backs, but their relationship was far more profound than just love. As Natasha once told Tony, "Love is for kids". What Clint and Nat had, the bond they shared... It could not be described.

Which is why Clint was still up, shaken by the scare he lived through. In their line of work, they never knew if they would come home again. It was part of the gig, the risks they took for the greater good. But Clint and Nat both agreed that since their SHIELD days, they would do their best to come home and not take unnecessary risks. Their entire family was involved with SHILED in one way or another, but it was generally the murder twins that took risks that endangered their lives. Hence, the agreement between the two (and their dad, of course). And if one of them did not uphold their end of the agreement, the other reminded them. And during their last mission, Nat almost died.

Clint vividly remembered their father's voice through the comm, clearly enunciating that they were grossly outnumbered, that backup was on their way, and that they should have waited. The SHIELD mission was supposed to be a milk run - Clint, Nat, and the junior agents should have been out of the base within a couple of hours. It was a simple run-in and out - until it wasn't. The second the strike team infiltrated the HYDRA base, an alarm went off, alerting the rest of the organisation to their presence. It was a trap aimed at capturing and killing two of the world's deadliest assassins, Hawkeye and Black Widow.

Clint remembered his fear when the bullet barely missed Nat's head, grazing her ear. He remembered the terror that paralysed his body for a moment as he watched the HYDRA goons shoot at her, only missing because the archer launched his arrows at them with remarkable speed, his only objective being to stall for time and save his partner. It was only two minutes until backup arrived, and SHIELD took over the base, but Clint almost lost Nat in those two minutes. All they needed to do was wait for a couple of minutes until the other agents arrived, but Nat did not wait. She rushed in and got the flash drive, but there was no need to take a risk like that. Phil mentioned later during the online debrief that the information was not worth her life. After dismissing the rest of the agents, their Dad made it clear to his eldest daughter that had he not been stuck in a mission in Mexico, he would be dealing with it.

The paralysing fear was still present in Clint's mind, even as he lay just a floor away from Natasha, knowing she was safe and uninjured. And so, he could not sleep.

And Clint was not the only one. His sister, in any way that matters, was wide awake as well, curled up on the windowsill in her room. Natasha did not know why she rushed in, disobeying Coulson's orders. She knew she was risking her life, and it was not worth it, but the thought of wasting time and hiding away seemed ludicrous. Looking back, she knew she should have waited, especially after seeing the terror on Clint's face. Her partner had excused himself to bed, and while the rest of the Avengers did not find that concerning after a challenging mission, Nat knew better. Nat was lucky that her dad was stuck in Mexico and her mom was away with Skye and Grant on a different assignment, so the incident was not brought up. She could see the hurt and pain behind the smile Clint flashed as he bid everyone a good night, and, contrary to the belief that she did not have a heart, she felt terrible about the fact that she had caused that pain. With that thought in mind, she set off to find the archer.