It took nearly another three weeks for Annie to be discharged from the hospital. During that time she had worked so hard to rehabilitate herself and get over the flashbacks she still had of the moments prior to being shot. She had not realised just how much she would have been impacted from having been in the medically induced coma. Yet as she still walked on slightly shaky legs, she had never been more excited to step foot in the farmhouse she called home. 

Clint had done a lot of work on the house in the time she had been in hospital. He had fixed the broken front porch and seemed to have worked on anything that was creaky or could possibly trip Annie up. He had also repainted some of the rooms downstairs, ones of which she could recall Natasha picking the colours out for into something that just seemed a little more the two of them rather than what had once been for the three. 

"It looks incredible in here, Clint you didn't have to do all of this." Annie spoke in awe as she looked at the newly refurbished living room. Gone were some of the bad memory educing photos and all she saw now were those of the pair of them and their loved ones. Her eyes trained on a photo she could remember clearly being taken and was unaware that they even owned. Her hands went to pick the frame up as she studied it before turning towards her partner sat beside her on the couch. 

"I didn't even realise we had this photo." Annie ran her fingers over the glass covering the photo. As she waited for Clint to respond. 

"Probably because 'we' didn't. I had it in my room at SHIELD finally got it back about a week or so ago. He smiled as he watched Annie turn to him fully. 

"You had a photo of us back in your room?" He only nodded at her question a small blush rising on his face as Annie realised that there was probably a little more to it.

"This was the only one where the frame was still intact, I had more but many of them seemed broken slightly." 

"You are such a hopeless romantic." Annie paused taking her eyes back to the photo. The one that had been taken at the first annual SHIELD ball of which her and Clint had attended as dates. When they had gone from colleagues to partners. Their relationship had been so fresh at the time, and she could see in both of their eyes just how excited they had been by the new relationship, an excitement that hadn't really every died down. "I love you." She added on as she returned her attention from the photo back to the man sat beside her. 

 It would be a few days later when Annie stumbled across something in the bedside cabinet, she was unsure what to do with. It was in the back of the drawer she had been searching through for spare hearing aid batteries. Which she still had yet to find. And it was a box she had almost forgot they even owned. Something she couldn't believe they had forgotten about considering just how expensive it was. Pulling the box out of the drawer she held it in her hands. A mixture of emotions taking over in that very second. There was a part of her ready to throw the box across the room, crush it and its contents under her foot and then destroy and remains in an open fire. But there was also a part of her that identified that there were some emotions underlying that she hadn't gotten over. For the longing for what could have been took over. As she realised what the ring inside signified. And what had been lost. 

'Did you find any?' A tap on her shoulder brought her attention towards Clint who was the person in need of the batteries. Annie's hearing aids were still working, the batteries in his had been dead for about an hour or so. 

'No, I have no clue where you've put them. I found this though.' Annie shook the box, knowing that the expensive piece of jewellery inside probably was not appreciative of what she was doing to its box but not really caring. 

'I kind of forgot we had that.' Clint itched his nose, a clear sign that he was lying. Clint knew where it was, and Annie was sure he had not forgotten about the ring. She didn't blame him; she knew just how much he had felt like it had been the right decision and that the time was right for them to take the next step. And she could only assume just how hard it had been for him to come to terms with the reality that they had entered. 

'It's okay we just need to work out what to do with it.' Annie signed to him, knowing that in her own head that she couldn't just sell the ring onwards. That just maybe there was a part of her that was still hoping that maybe Natasha would just walk back through the door apologising and wanting to give them another go. And she was sure if she was thinking this way that Clint the more optimistic of the pair of them was also thinking this. Even if neither of them admitted it aloud. Even if neither of them admitted it to themselves. 

The two locked eyes as they both pondered on what the correct next steps would be. Annie was right about not keeping the what would have been engagement ring in the bedroom the two of them shared. They were having to adjust to a relationship without Natasha, something they had been doing incredibly well, and having a reminder of that old relationship so close to them was not something that probably wasn't going to help in their adjustment period. 

'We could leave it in her old room.' Clint suggested all of a sudden, his brain working out that for now it would just be easier to lock everything that Natasha had left behind in one place, where they could work out later on what to do with it all. Especially considering Natasha had never turned up to take anything that she had left in the farmhouse away. There was a lot of things, and it was easy enough for now to just leave it all in there. Afterall, it had been what he had been doing the last few weeks every time he found something of Natasha's he couldn't just throw away he just left it in her room. 

'Let's leave it there for now, we can sort things out later.' Annie agreed with his idea, knowing that there would become a time where they would be able to move past what had happened and perhaps get rid of anything they found that belonged to the red haired woman. Considering in the few weeks since the end of the relationship between the three that Natasha had made no move to come and collect any of the items she had kept in the farmhouse. It was sad but a harsh reality that the older woman wanted nothing to do with the life she had built with them. 

Annie set the box down on the tope of the bedside table and stuck her hand into the very back of the draw once again. finding the small cardboard packet she had been looking for in the first place. Pulling it out, she passed it over to Clint the pair of them settling back into silence as he reactivated his hearing aids with new batteries. The thoughts of what had amounted more than enough to occupy both minds.