Before and After Part 1
A/N: So…I am finally pulling upon all my courage and putting my own story out into the ether for others to look at and, hopefully, enjoy. I am a newbie, and I hope you will take the time to review and let me know what you think. Please don't flame. I am a sensitive soul. ;) I have to say thanks to authors Sinkme and Cookie-Stories for their encouragement and feedback! If you haven't read their work, do it. They are amazingly awesome story-tellers. Give me a bit of a complex if I am honest. Well, here you go. Hope you like!
Disclaimer: I own many things, some useful, some not, but I don't own any of the characters, situations, or places I have played with in this story. But oh, to dream.
The life of an assassin, though filled with action and danger, can provide a person with many moments of quiet. Many killers have gotten themselves lost in those moments, allowing for memories and introspection to eat away at their will, their souls. Delving too deep into the past can be more deadly than an enemy's bullet, leading to liquor, recklessness, or even a single shot in the night. Which is why she avoided contemplating her life as a general rule.
But sometimes, when her current mission was stalled by insufficient intel or bureaucratic red tape, she indulged in the desire for some perspective on what brought her to her current life. Choice. As an orphan, recruited and trained for the Red Room program, choice was never an option. They beat all free will from her early, taking even the simplest of decisions out of her hands. She was told where to walk, when to talk, what to eat, then who to hit, cut, kill. As she grew older, they molded how she walked, talked, danced, until she was as alluring as she was deadly.
With such control, the concept of choice was as foreign as the concept of companionship or trust. One should never rely on another, for there lays weakness. And weakness is how one fails. Failure is death. Failure shames her program. Looking back, she knew how very warped her view of the world was, but her younger self knew nothing more that orders and their completion. She spilled so much blood during those early days, but she had never felt the burden of guilt over those lost lives. Without choice, she was simply a weapon, one that the Red Room wielded with lethal efficiency. Do weapons bear the guilt of the dead?
And so she lived for years, before him. Her days were marked with an apathy and emptiness. She simply moved forward, using her training, following orders. His arrival marked a shift, a bright line in the map of her existence. She had a sense of something different, a feeling of being observed, for days before. But observation was something she was accustomed to. People paid attention to her. Her fiery hair and womanly curves were one of the reasons she was so affective, an appealing lure for her targets. Her first instinct was evasion, changing routes, changing safe houses, until she felt sure no one could know her location or target.
He arrived the next day, slipping past her defenses, in more ways than one. She had arrived at her cheerless apartment in downtown Pristina after a long day of manipulating state secrets out of the local official she was tasked to, when she heard his voice from the darkened corner of her bedroom.
"Good evening."
To say that she was shaken to her core would be an understatement. No one had ever been able to sneak up on her, not since she was a little girl. As she turned, the man stepped out of the shadows and she saw her new target. Immediately, she shifted her features to display fear, dismay. Men were suckers for a fearful young girl, and she planned to play the role, letting his protective instinct give her an opening. Poor man, he wouldn't know she played him until her little hands snapped his neck.
But his posture didn't change, his handgun didn't lower as she cowered back and whimpered.
"What do you want?," she whispered in flawless Albanian. "Please, take what you want, just don't hurt me."
The man smiled and leaned back against the wall, the posture that of relaxation and ease, but his grip and aim never wavered. "I know who you are, ma'am. No need for gamesmanship." American. Not a stupid thug, someone here for her.
She shifted posture, straightening her body and coiling her muscles in preparation for any window of opportunity he might gift her. "I suppose you are here to kill me."
His head tilted slightly at the hint of resignation in her voice, but she could see that this assassin was not fooled by her seeming lack of resistance. "Those are my orders. Been on you for a while. Must say, I was impressed with your counter-surveillance efforts. You have a talent."
She smiled sadly. "I am so glad you took the time to admire my skills before you complete your kill orders. It is good to be appreciated for one's talents, even if they haven't served me well enough to escape you. And I suppose you will try to extract information before you complete those orders." She wrapped her arms around herself, feigning distress, as she slid her hand towards the small knife tucked in her waistband.
"Now why would you want to ruin our pleasant conversation by going for that knife?" He straightened up, but did not move closer to her. Smart man. Before he could say another word, she had the knife out and up to her own throat. She knew what this man meant. She was compromised, her training was clear. No way out. No choice. Preserve the mission, preserve her program. One quick pull.
"What's your name?" Her hand paused. The man had not moved when asking the question, but a look of genuine concern seemed to flash in his eyes. Now it was her turn to tilt her head in confusion.
"What does that matter?" she hissed, tightening her grip on the knife as her mind whirled to find what angle he must be playing.
"Well, I want to know the who and the why if I am going to live with watching you take your own life," he sighed.
"Live with it, you are going to torture and kill me, why would you care if I accomplished your mission for you?" Her body was cold, she was ready, but once again her hand was stilled by his words.
"Now don't be putting words in my mouth. I never said I was going to kill you." His lips quirked, like he had just played a little joke on a friend. "I said those were my orders."
"I don't understand the distinction." Internally, her mind was spinning, trying to get a fix on this smirking, riddling, enigma of a killer. Everything in her screamed that he was telling the truth about not wanting to harm her, something that did not fit in to her understanding of the world.
"Well, I don't imagine my boss will be overly thrilled, but he didn't recruit me because of my ability to follow orders. More my aim." He gestured to the corner behind him, and she kicked herself for being so focused on her guest that she didn't notice was laying at his feet. A bow and a mechanical quiver of arrows.
"Hawkeye. SHIELD." Not an assassin. A sniper. A man who killed from a distance, not in the confines of a small bedroom, up close and personal.
"So you know my codename. I suppose I should be flattered. But you also know that I am telling the truth now. So back to my question. What's your name?"
He wasn't here to kill her, at least not right now. He was right, she did know now. He could have killed her at a distance, at any time. Somehow, knowing this made her feel as if the world had shifted on its axis, as if he was shattering the laws of physics.
For the first time, she really looked at him. His eyes, which never seemed to stop moving, looking, were a cool grey, and his short hair was a bit disheveled, as if he was prone to running his hands through it. He had a boyish face, but weathered a bit. The corners of his eyes creased when his lips curled in that infuriating half-smile. He was a person. Her training balked at her sudden notice of his humanity rather than his weakness as a target. She had to get back the upper-hand.
"My name is Widow," she growled. She knew what her name meant in the world of espionage. She was deadly, skilled. He should fear her.
"No. I didn't ask your codename, that is what I do know. I want your name." She gave him a dirty look, but he only seemed to be amused at her anger.
"Ana."
This time he outright laughed at her answer. "You are a stubborn one, aren't you? Not your cover. Your real name. The one your parents gave you?" He looked at her with the same half-smile he had worn since he greeted her in her own room.
"Natasha." The answer came so suddenly, unexpectedly, that it surprised even her. The answer came from a part of her so deeply buried she had thought it was rotted and decayed, beyond recognition.
"Well, then, that's better. Nice to meet you, Natasha. My name is Clint, and I am here because I would like to give you a choice."
And so began her after. After him. After Clint. Amazingly, she took to making her own choices exceptionally well. Sure, she had orders, but she also had knowledge, information, free will. She had a purpose and a code. He gave that to her, and she owed him her entire world. Never one to bear a debt well, she had spent the last six years making payment to him, first grudgingly, then with a sense of mutual admiration of skill, and now, with commitment reserved for the most devoted of friends.
'He even taught her what the meaning of that word was, damn him,' she thought fondly as she pulled her mind back to the present.
She stared at the ceiling of her room, much cleaner than that run-down apartment that lingered in her mind's eye. They had been separated for several months, her to Russia to manipulate a stupid and loose-lipped corrupt General and him to a babysitting job at their base in the middle of the desert. Somehow, being so far from him left her feeling … uneven. Hopefully, after her "blown cover" interrogation tonight, she would be headed there, back to watching his back while he watched that damned glowy blue box. She sighed wearily when her phone rang, pulling her from her memories. The mission was on. Time to put on the pretty dress and the look of a clueless amateur. With a slight smile, she imagined herself on a plane to him in less than 36 hours.
A/N…again: Part 2 will be from Clint's perspective, if you guys would like to see that done. Please take a moment to give me some feedback. Giddy happiness will ensue if you do. *sits at my computer and watches clips from Avengers, replayreplay*
