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To say that Clint Barton had made a mistake was the biggest understatement of the decade because it indicated that he had made only one, and anyone who knew him would laugh at the ridiculousness of that statement. No, Clint Barton had made many mistakes, and lately he had begun to think that the number of mistakes he made increased exponentially with his age. He at least felt like he’d made more mistakes in the past year than the previous one, but then this year had definitely been... challenging.
Back to that mistake, though, because while he had made many, there was one in particular that stuck out at the moment: he had cheated on Jessica.
Clint wasn’t a cheater, and while he might flirt shamelessly when he was single, and maybe partake in a one night stand or two, he was definitely a serial monogamist. He had never cheated on a girl in his life, so why start now? A lot of reasons flooded his mind as he tried to justify it to himself.
Lately he hadn’t really been feeling like himself. He had been feeling useless, unwanted, and so very freaking mortal. He didn’t have super powers, he didn’t have some fancy suit; he just had his bow, his arrows and his skill, and with all these the super villains around what if that wasn’t good enough anymore? What if he wasn’t good enough? On top of all that, a person could only die and be brought back so many times before he started to question his existence full stop.
He was in a bad place, in a dark place, and nobody could see it, or maybe nobody cared to see it. But what did that have to do with Jessica?
Overall, their entire relationship was probably another one of his big mistakes. He liked her a lot, they had a lot of fun together, but when he had first gotten involved with her, as much as he tried to deny it to himself, she had been nothing more than a rebound. He was still hurting from his marriage’s ultimate failure and Jess had been there and she had been interested and he had just... gone for it. The problem was that she wasn’t Bobbi, but then nobody was, not even Bobbi anymore.
God, he had loved that woman. They had just seemed to compliment each other in every way, a perfect fit. They really got each other, they were happy, but it seemed the universe was determined to destroy it all. Death, Skrulls, eventually it had been too much, no matter how hard they had tried. And they had tried, they had tried so hard, to make it work, but in the end they had just become too different, they had changed too much. With her Clint was becoming someone he had never wanted to be, someone he couldn’t live with being, and Bobbi was spiraling down into a darkness he couldn’t save her from. He had loved her so much, he still did and probably always would, but she was no longer the woman he had fallen in love with, and he was no longer the man who had fallen in love with her.
So that explains why he shouldn’t have made the mistake of starting a relationship with Jessica when he was still so hung up on Bobbi, but what did that have to do with him cheating on her, except to point out that maybe he wasn’t as into this relationship as he should have been?
Absolutely nothing, that was what. No, the real reason he had cheated on Jess, besides being so low and utterly down on himself lately, could be attributed to another ex completely.
Natasha Romanoff was something else; she was beautiful, sexy and mysterious, and Clint had fallen head over heels for her the second he had laid eyes on her. She was older, more experienced; she had him wrapped around her little finger and he would have done anything for her. He had turned criminal for her, but eventually she had turned hero for him. Their relationship had been complicated, unhealthy at times, but they had also been good for each other in many ways, though probably Clint moreso for Natasha than she for him. It was because of him she had reformed, he had helped her discover who she wanted to be, but in the end his only reward had been a broken heart. Neither could deny how important the other had been in their lives, though, and they had been able to build up a strong friendship from the ashes of their romance. They fought side by side, she had been supportive of him through both his marriage and his divorce, and even Clint didn’t realise how much she had mourned his deaths.
Over the years they had formed an easy camaraderie, as well as a way of silently communicating in the field that nobody else could match. It was a perfect partnership... until Natasha had gone and kissed him. Since then he hadn’t been able to get her off his mind. It was part of why he had tried to take some time off, to spend more time away from her and Jess and the rest of the Avengers. Okay, so that decision had been helped a little when he had landed himself in the hospital after doing a swan dive onto the roof of a car, but that wasn’t the point.
What was the point, then? Surely there must be one to this story, right? What does Natasha have to do with him jumping into the sack with some stranger? Everything, actually. Finally, right?
Cherry was a knockout, and nobody could deny that she bore a striking resemblance to a certain former Russian super spy, though Clint didn’t think about that at first. In truth, he hadn’t consciously been thinking about anything, but his subconscious had certainly been doing a number on him behind the scenes. It was only when he had Cherry in bed that he realised he had been noting the differences between her and Natasha while trying to pretend that they weren’t there at all. She mentioned it once, how he seemed to have a hair fetish, but he didn’t tell her that while he was running his fingers through her vibrant red locks that in his mind it was someone else with him.
In the end Clint had been left feeling like a complete and total heel, and he had to accept that these reemerging feelings for Natasha weren’t something he could just ignore. It was time to man up and start dealing with his mistakes head on.
First thing was first: he had to break things off with Jessica. She was a great girl, he really liked her, but she deserved better than that. She deserved a man who loved her and was faithful to her, and that man was not Clint Barton. Once that was done he had some real thinking to do. Obviously he couldn’t avoid Natasha forever, and he couldn’t continue to use women like Cherry to try to forget her either. What, then?
He and Bobbi hadn’t worked out because they had changed too much and drifted apart. No, they had been torn apart, more accurately, but the end result was still the same. With Natasha, though, they had only grown closer over the years, from lovers to teammates to best friends. Maybe the timing had been all wrong, maybe they hadn’t been the people they were meant to be yet. Maybe... maybe now was their time. Why not? Why not give it another shot?
The very idea of it was terrifying, but at the same time he couldn’t help but feel excited at the prospect. Of course there was the very real possibility that she would shoot him down, but Clint was no stranger to rejection, and he knew that even if that happened it wouldn’t ruin what they already had, they were stronger than that now and he would just deal with that if it happened.
Ultimately, as scary as the whole thing was he hadn’t been this sure about a decision in a long time so he couldn’t help but believe it was the right one and that everything would work out.
Of course fate never seemed to like him on the best of days, at least when it came to anything beyond keeping his sorry ass alive, so it wasn’t long after he had started to set this plan into motion that he’d discovered that Natasha had been taken and brainwashed. Again.
Oh, and Bucky, her boyfriend, was still alive.