DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING. ALL CHARACTERS AND ORGANIZATIONS BELONG TO MARVEL COMICS/STUDIOS.
Clint sat on the cold tile floor and began of scoot his way across the room. He looked pretty dumb—he could picture the faces of the psychs behind the one-way glass— but if he was being honest, this wasn't even close the stupidest thing the high-ups at SHIELD had seen him doing.
He stopped in front of the girl in the corner. Well—she wasn't a girl, really. The file said she was somewhere around eighty years old, but she didn't look any older than twenty-five. And now, crouched in the corner of the observation room, she looked like a child.
Clint met her eyes. They were vivid green and wild, like the stray cats he saw sometimes outside his apartment.
"So," he said, with a little wave. "The file says your name is Natalia."
She said nothing, but her eyes hardened.
"I'm gonna call you that, okay? My name's Clint. Clint Barton. But you knew that already, didn't you?"
Natalia stayed silent.
Clint wasn't unsettled by her lack of cooperation; he'd dealt with worse during his three-year career at SHIELD. And he had a feeling about this girl. She was good inside. He'd only known her for a couple of days now, but he could almost sense it.
"I talked to the bigwigs around here, and they're willing to give you a chance. You're gonna go to the Academy for a while so they can evaluate your skills—I couldn't talk them out of it, sorry—but if that goes okay you can be an agent here."
That finally got him a reaction, though not the one he expected.
"Why didn't you kill me?"
Clint blinked, startled. "What?"
Her voice was low and raspy. "I'm not a fool. Your mission was assassination, but you had me and didn't finish it. Why not?"
Clint tried to remember what he'd been thinking at that moment. His memories of that day were blurred with exhaustion and pain. He could only recall flashes: blinking blood out of his eyes, his arrow at Natalia's throat, the fear in her eyes, his fingers shaking on the bowstring.
"I don't kill innocents," he said. "You deserve a second chance."
Someone less observant than Clint wouldn't have noticed the trace of emotion that flitted across Natalia's face. Pain, sadness, regret.
"I don't."
Something about the sureness with which she said it made Clint sad. He knew what she'd done—it was all on the file—and it was bad, but he also knew it wasn't all her fault. Her full story was written in the white scars on her wrist that didn't come from any fight; in the nightmares that woke her up screaming on the quin-jet; in the way she flinched now when Clint reached out and put his hand on her knee. She wasn't a weapon. She was a person.
"It's gonna be okay, Natalia," he said softly. "You're not alone anymore. I know what it's like to live as a weapon. You don't have to do that anymore. I promise."
"People have made me promises before."
"I keep mine."
Natalia studied him appraisingly. "I believe you."
Clint smiled and stood. "Oop—almost forgot." He dug around in his pocket and pulled out a thin, silver necklace with a tiny arrow pendant. It had been a white elephant Christmas gift from Coulson a couple of years ago, but Clint sure as hell wasn't using it.
"To new beginnings, yeah?" He held it out to Natalia, who accepted it wordlessly. Clint turned to leave, but her voice stopped him.
"You can call me Natasha."
He turned, surprised, and Natalia shrugged. "New beginnings."
Clint smiled.
The Redskins won yesterday (thank god) so I was in the mood to write something happy. Comments are appreciated.