A/N: This one-shot came about after a conversation I had with Black' Victor Cachat regarding an AU Marvel comic-verse, The Ultimates.

Spasibo!

Sunny

Avengers

What if…

Black Widow

Standing on a rooftop, thumbs stuck in his belt, Clint Barton, SHIELD agent, AKA the Amazing Hawkeye, watched as the woman moved with a cat-like grace into the dim light from the building across the street. She was dressed head to foot in skin tight leather, double thigh holsters slung low on her hips. If the rumors were true, they held a cherished set of Makarovs. The glow of electricity around her wrists confirmed the presence of her signature weapons, the Widow's Bites. "Thanks for accepting my invitation, Widow."

"Chego ty khochesh', eblan?" she demanded in Russian.

Two could play at this game. "I'm not an idiot. I just want to talk." He held in a smirk at the slight widening of her green eyes in surprise when he responded in her native language.

"How did you know I would come?" she asked in English.

Clint shrugged, and switched to English as well. "A hunch. You know who I am? Who I work for?"

She nodded, her wavy red hair swaying with the movement. "Da."

Shifting his weight, he grasped the bow string where it pressed into his chest. She hasn't tried to kill me yet. This is going better than expected. "You've gotten on SHIELD's radar in a bad way, sestrenka."

The Widow's expression tightened angrily when he called her little sister. He hadn't used it as an insult, and he knew she knew. His use of the term was to let her know that his interest was strictly business. That he had no intentions of getting into her jumpsuit, despite the sultry glances she aimed in his direction. She probably thought he was gay. Whatever. As long as his idea worked.

One side of her mouth twitched upward into a contemptuous half-smile. "Why should I care what SHIELD thinks of me?"

The air of camaraderie Clint had cultivated faded with his smile. "Because Fury wants you dead, and he sent me to do the deed."

"You're here to kill me?"

Taking two steps to the right, Clint hitched one hip onto the corner of the A/C unit. "No. At least not yet. I'm here to make you an offer."

Turning to keep him in sight, the Widow-whose real name he'd only learned that morning was Natalia Romanova-crossed her arms and leveled those green eyes at him in warning. "What sort of offer?"

Keeping his hands in sight, Clint gathered his thoughts. "SHIELD could use someone with your skill set and knowledge of the inner workings of the KGB. Have you given any thought to joining the good guys?"

"You're asking me to defect?"

"Don't think of is as defecting, Widow. Think of it as carving a new path for yourself. One that doesn't end with an arrow through your heart." She moved a few steps closer, telling Clint he was getting through to her. That she was actually listening gave him a good feeling in the pit of his stomach, like this might just work. Still, she hesitated, though he could see the wheels spinning in her head, weighing all the options, examining the ramifications. Hell, she could be deciding to stop for Chinese on the way home for all he knew. He used two fingers to take a card from his vest pocket and held it out.

As though they were two friends meeting on the street, she boldly closed the distance between them, until they were less than an arm's length apart. She accepted the card, giving it a cursory glance before sliding it into her cleavage.

"Call me by this time tomorrow night. And if the answer is yes, you pick the place and time, and I'll make the arrangements." Clint held up one finger. "Also think about this while you're at it: If you say no, the next person Fury sends probably won't be as open-minded and charming as I am."

Her head tilted to one side, those green eyes never leaving his face. Then, she nodded. Just once. "We should leave separately to keep from drawing attention."

Clint made an after you gesture. "Ladies first. I promise not to follow."

Her scoff made him chuckle, and when he glanced up again, she was gone.

~~O~~

Natalia reached ground level without incident, as expected. The man who was known to the intelligence community as the Amazing Hawkeye had been true to his word. He made no attempt to follow her. Not that he would've succeeded had he done so. She'd been trained to be the best. It wasn't ego. Just a statement of fact.

She dived into a clump of bushes, and emerged pushing an all-black motorcycle. The widow's bites were deactivated, and a comm was stuck in her left ear. She straddled the bike, started the engine, and put on her helmet before pulling into the street.

During their talk, Natalia sensed that Hawkeye found her attractive, though he would not act on it. Too bad. Pillow talk after a night a passion often brought information to light that could not be found elsewhere. But there were other ways to get what she wanted.

She activated the comm, and the call was answered on the second ring. "Da?"

"It's just as we suspected, Madame. SHIELD sent Hawkeye to assassinate me."

"Then why are you still alive? Hawkeye never misses a target." Despite the words, her handler's voice betrayed very little surprise that she'd come away from the meeting unscathed.

Natalia shifted into gear and headed north toward one of the safe houses. Unless she was on a mission, she never stayed at the same location for more than a few days, always choosing the next one at random. Not even her handler knew where she would be at any given moment when off the clock. "He had something else in mind."

"Oh?"

"Against orders from Nick Fury, Hawkeye's asked me to come to work for SHIELD." Natalia's derision for SHIELD and its members dripped from her voice. "I told him I would think about it."

There was a pause that Natalia didn't like. It meant that her handler had something up the sleeve of her plain cotton dress. "Don't be too hasty to decline, Natalia. As a member of America's intelligent community, you would be privy to many secrets that have eluded us thus far."

Nodding, though the other woman couldn't see, Natalia agreed that the idea had merit. "Then tomorrow night, I'll accept his proposal."

"What if he doesn't believe you?"

"He won't have cause to question my sincerity."

"What is your plan?"

She turned down a dark alley, coming to a stop behind a house that resembled all the others on the block, and shut down the bike.

"Once I'm a trusted member of SHIELD, I'll offer Hawkeye the hand of friendship, and soon, he'll begin to think of me as an ally and a confidant, someone with whom he can share his deepest, darkest secrets. He'll tell me all about those he cares for, and I, in turn, will use them against him." A smirk turned up the corners of her mouth as she let herself into the safe house. "Soon, we'll know all of SHIELD's dirty little secrets, and will use them to bring the American government to its knees."

The End?