Well, the Avengers obsession has settled in for me. Seriously though, how awesome was that movie? But I will admit I have not read most of the comics, so this story will be following by the movie canon. Sorry if anything is wrong according to the comic universe, but some things just had to be changed. I don't care how slowly she ages, there is not way that the Black Widow is over 80 years old, which she would be if we were following the comics. So anyways, please read and drop me a line after to let me know what you think! P.S. This is my first story written in present tense (I usually write in past tense), so let me know what you think, give me tips, or let me know if I should just go back to past tense. Thank you!
Summary: Clint wants to save Natasha from herself. She just wants not to be a chess piece anymore.
Disclaimer: Yeah you see there's this man named Joss Whedon. He wrote the Avengers movie. He's a god. I on the other hand, am a teenage woman with less than $200 in my checking account.
Tabula Rasa
It's true, Clint's never been one for following orders. His only training was received at a circus, so it wasn't exactly formal. And Barton takes pride in the fact that unlike most other spies and agents, he thinks for himself, and doesn't just blindly do as he is told. It is for this very reason that he so readily takes on the Black Widow assignment. While he never takes kill orders lightly, this has been one of the more simple choices for him to accept. After all, Natasha Romanoff is known as a very cold-hearted Russian spy who always follows orders, and never seems to care who she takes out in the process. She has killed innocents, and for that, she needs to be stopped.
Yet Clint can't help but have a grudging respect for her. He was given her kill order two weeks ago, and it's taken him this long to find her, longer than any target before. Now, watching her walk the streets of Paris from a rooftop, he can't help but wonder about her. For someone he's targeting, he knows surprisingly little about her. It's not like S.H.I.E.L.D. neglected to tell him. They just don't have very much on her. There is record of a Natalia Romanova living in Russia as a child, but after her family's house burnt down when she was five years old, the entire family was reported dead.
And then she resurfaced eight years later as an apparently mindless, soulless killing machine going by the name of the Red Widow. Since then, it took her only a few years to get on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar. They'd already sent one agent to kill her, but he'd been compromised and killed, and she'd disappeared. When she'd finally reappeared on the map, Fury had come directly to Clint, and now here he is, watching the small red-headed woman turn the corner of a street where several drunk men are just leaving a bar. It's late, and there's no one else around to see. The men approach the Widow, and begin to harass her.
Clint momentarily contemplates waiting to see if they finish her off for him. After all, she's just going back to her base after a strenuously completed mission, and is quite clearly not in top condition. But no matter what this woman has done, Clint knows that he at least owes her a clean death. No one deserves what these men have in mind. So he strings his bow, and takes aim, alternating between his target and the people harassing her. The drunken leader makes a grab for her, and suddenly she's moving before Clint can choose. The Black Widow twists her attacker's arm, swings her body around to wrap her thighs around his neck, and throws him to the ground.
The other men converge on her, and now she's moving far too fast for Clint to really tell what's happening. What he can tell is that she's wiping the floor with these guys. And to be honest, he's impressed. He knows he should have expected more, with her reputation, but she's small and tired and in pain and far outnumbered. And yet not once does she reach for any weapons, though he knows she has several. But then suddenly, one of the larger men gets in a lucky hit, but it's enough to send her to the ground, and before she can react, the men are all over her, tearing at her dress. And now Clint finds himself taking definitive aim at the men assaulting her.
She breaks free before he can release an arrow, and this time, the man whose neck she wraps her thighs around is not as lucky as the first one. Clint can hear his neck snap from his spot on the roof. Now she does bring out a weapon. A knife, as guns would surely make too much noise for her purposes. It's over in seconds, and Clint finds himself relieved that he's a long-distance shooter, because he's pretty sure he wouldn't stand a chance in hand-to-hand combat with this woman. Now she is standing within a circle of dead men, blood pooling at her feet. She hardly seems affected by any of it, and Clint knows that this is his chance. But he can't do it just yet, he wants to know a little more, wants to watch her just a little longer. He's not quite sure why, but he can probably attribute it to her beauty, and her mystery, and her astounding skill. He's curious. So he follows her from rooftops as she walks calmly and stoically.
Clint finds himself surprised again when she stops a block before reaching her base. She stands still, staring at the building in front of her for a moment, and then goes inside. Peering over the edge of that same building, he sees that she's entered a dance studio, and is more perplexed than ever. What business could a ruthless assassin have within a dance studio? Everything's closed at this time, so there would be no one there to kill. So now Clint finds himself breaking his cardinal rule by leaving his safe perch, and climbing to the ground to get an up close and personal look at his target.
He kneels by the window, and peeks into the studio. His jaw drops when he sees what she's doing, when he sees that this infamous assassin, known for her coldness and deadliness, is dancing. Alone, she is twirling, leaping, and pirouetting her way around the studio, and doing it quite skillfully, he might add. He supposes it makes sense. Combat has often been compared to a dance, and it's not a stretch for her obvious skill in the former to carry over to the latter. Now that he's close to her, he can see that she's very beautiful, despite the blood splattering her face and the bruises marring her body.
He's got to stop. There is a mission to be carried out here, and if he keeps this up, he'll never be able to do it. So he strings his bow, and takes aim, sure to make a direct hit, so at least it will be quick. He pulls the back on the bow, and is about to release when he notices something else. She's crying. From what Clint Barton knows of Natasha Romanoff, she's not one to cry. Ever. But she is crying now. And seeing her vulnerability, Clint realizes just how young she is. He saw her age as 17 when he first received the assignment, but until now, she's seemed much older. But now, she is just a child. A young girl who's just nearly been raped. And now Clint's is wondering how she got here. How did she get from the five year old who lost her family and home, to a teenager who's been killing people on orders since the age of thirteen?
He can't help feeling a connection to her. He too lost his parents at a young age, and spent some time in his late teens and early twenties on the wrong side of the law until S.H.I.E.L.D. got a hold of him and turned him around. And now it's settled. He knows he can't carry out the mission. Not when's there's a chance that this girl can be saved. He clicks on his comm, and contacts Coulson.
"Agent Coulson come in. This is Hawkeye. Reporting change of mission."
"What is it, Barton?" Coulson asks quickly.
"I can't kill her, Coulson. I'm bringing her in."
"That's a negative," Coulson replies. "The Council wants the Black Widow dead. She's too big of a threat."
Clint shakes his head. "So was I. But you brought me in. Helped me. She's just a kid."
"A kid whose kill count is over fifty."
Clint ignores him. "I'll make contact again once I've got her cooperation."
With that, he interrupts Coulson's reply by clicking off the comm He glances again through the window to see that the Widow is still dancing, and with a tight grip on his bow, enters the studio.
She never stops dancing. "Why didn't you kill me?" Her voice is unwavering, and Clint guesses her tears must have stopped while he was speaking with Coulson.
Leaning against the barre, he shrugs. "I have a better idea."
She says nothing, so he continues. "The people I work for could really use someone like you."
Her movement stops abruptly, and she whirls around to face him. "I'm quite tired of being used."
He blinks. "That's not quite what I meant. We want you to work for us."
She gives him a dubious glance. "You've cleared this with your boss?"
He shrugs. "We'll get to that eventually. I'll convince him."
She picks up her knife and gun from the ground, bringing them home sharply into their holsters, hidden beneath her rather sparse dress. "And why would I come work for you?"
"Well for starters, the benefits package. Somehow I doubt your getting much reimbursement from your current employers. Plus where I work, we only take down the bad guys. No killing innocents."
She shrugs apathetically.
"Oh and you also won't have people from my agency trying to kill you all the time. I can assure you that if you don't come in with me, even if I don't succeed, my employers will send someone else after you. And they will keep sending people after you until you are dead. Really, it's in your best interests to come with me."
She frowns. "If I join you, my current employers will send people after me. They do not take defection lightly."
"We'll keep you safe. You'll spend the first few months training in a facility anyways. It'll be a new start. You can erase your ledger and start over."
She shakes her head. "No. My ledger is far to dirty for that. But I can begin to clean it up."
Clint smiles. "Natasha Romanoff, welcome to the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."
She raises an eyebrow.
"Yeah," he sighs. "You can just call it S.H.I.E.L.D."
There you go! Now I want your opinion. Should I keep going with this story? Or just leave it here as a one-shot?
