Hi all! I'm back with my new story, Deceitful Love, the sequel to my other story, I Kill Men Like You. You don't necessarily have to read it to understand whats going on, but I do suggest so because no body likes having those blank spots of a story they don't understand. So check it out, leave a review if you liked it!

Enjoy!

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Natasha's POV

There are a few things that a high-class assassin does not expect to come home to after a three month long mission on the other side of the world.

First, you never really get used to having a home where you can stumble into and dump all your belongings on the floor and walk around in your underwear. However, assassins are trained to be prepared, and there's always a gun hanging by my side in my hand.

Aside from that, you never really expect to find a goddamned dog waiting for you inside. The black and white Border collie had knots all in his hair and was sitting expectantly in front of me, tail wagging and tongue hanging out of its mouth in the dopiest of ways. The only thing that I could muster in my mind; Clint was crazy.

I let out a humourless laugh and walked around the mutt, raising an eyebrow as it followed in my stead and looked up at me like I was his master.

"Oh no, you go give those puppy eyes to Clint. I'm not feeding you." I muttered, feeling slightly stupid for talking to an animal in the first place, but it was late and I was tired and there was a fucking dog in my apartment.

Oh, another thing you don't expect is to round the corner to the small shitty kitchen to grab a bottle of water, only to see the fridge door was wide open and the ass belonging to a slim, tall woman was poking out of the doorway.

Yeah, that gun did come in handy sometimes.

I raised it in my steady hand and waited for the woman behind the door to stand up. She had a bottle of my sparkling water tucked under her arm and had exceptionally messy bed hair, her lacy underwear and bra the only thing covering her slim body.

She let the long blonde locks fall out of her face before turning to close the fridge, and her brown eyes widened in shock as I stood there with an extremely irritated look on my face, gun pointed to the bitch who was drinking my water and a dog wagging it's tail innocently beside me.

"Morse." I greeted flatly, narrowing my eyes as she let the fridge door swing shut with a thump and regained her composure, a blush creeping up her neck at her near-nudity.

"Oh, shit, I'm so sorry, Natasha, I-"

"Just had mad sex with my partner?" I finished, cocking my head to the side and dropping my gun to the table, walking past her and retrieving my own bottle of water from the fridge and downing half the contents. The dog followed happily.

She puffed her cheeks out and ran a hand through her messy hair, fingers getting caught in the knots and tangles throughout the locks. "He didn't tell me you were coming home," she sighed, changing the obvious subject. I scoffed.

"Of course not, why would he?" I said sarcastically, and my irritation rose as she thought I was actually being serious.

Head bobbing up and down vigorously as she nodded her agreement, a very shirtless and bed-headed Clint rounded the corner, paused mid step, let his eyes flicker from Bimbo-Bobbi to me and back again, raised his hands in innocence, turned back around and dashed away. The dog followed enthusiastically.

Clint Barton was a dead man.

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Clint's POV

Two months earlier.

There had only been a few times that Phil Coulson had officially organized a personal meeting in his office with me in all my years at S.H.I.E.L.D.

The first was when I just joined as the hurt and mentally pained high-skilled Carnie boy. Hardly an adult and a ledger soaked red to the core. I had just been through a meeting with Fury, talking about protocol and training and all the important bullshit, and for me to watch my back because I was walking on fine lines in this place.

"Are you comfortable here?" He had asked me when I sat down in the hard chair in front of his desk. I'd looked into his calm eyes, they were always calm, and found curiosity and sentiment buried deep in his irises.

"I suppose." I had replied, confused as to why he had organized this meeting in the first place.

"But are you happy?"

At those words, I had looked away from him and cast my gaze to my hands, which were folded lazily in my lap. My fingernails were dirty and my hands were calloused, a memoir for my choice of weapon and job.

"I'll never truly be happy, sir. This is just a job that saved my life, nothing more, nothing less. Happiness will come when it pleases, but for me, I don't think it ever will."

Coulson didn't say anything after that. No, he looked pained behind his calm eyes; as if he had granted me every wish except the one I needed most but could never come true. Eventually he pulled out a file from the draw in his desk and slid it forward to me. My name was printed neatly with a big 'CLASSIFIED' stamped underneath.

"That's your file. As in, it has all your known records and origin within it. If you have a problem with anything written in there, you need to let me know by the end of the week so we can edit it. After that, it stays as it is until it needs updating."

I'd nodded and taken the file, standing up. "Thank you, sir."

"Please, call me Coulson." He'd smiled. There was nothing in the file I wanted to change.

The rest had all been about missions that had gone bad, and the things that would scar me for life. He'd insisted on me visiting the doctors more then once but I'd refused because who could be so weak? I could live with my nightmares. I'd done it my whole life.

So today was different. There had been no recent missions that had gone down hill. Sure, Natasha had been gone for a month, what, does he think I'm depressed? I'd completed the short solo missions within a day and came home safe and sound as usual, so what was going on?

I knocked on the door, reading the familiar 'Agent Phil Coulson' plastered on the grey wood. There was shuffling behind the frame and the door swung open. He stood there in his usual neat attire, suit well pressed and tie always straight. How many suits did this man own?

He greeted me with a warm smile and let me in, taking back his seat behind the desk and relaxing into the cushions as I set myself on the hard and uncomfortable chair on the other side.

"So, what's up?" I said casually, grabbing the plain black paperweight and playing with it in my hands. He sighed and sprawled his hands on the arms of his spindly chair, rolling his shoulders as if it was him sitting in the hard chair.

"I need to talk to you about Natasha."

Well, Phil Coulson certainly didn't beat around the bush.

"What about her?" I said, raising an eyebrow and continuing my play with the paperweight.

"Your compromised, Barton."

I rolled my eyes and placed the paperweight down on his desk with a thump, bringing my hands to my face to massage my temples and chuckled without humour.

"Not you too, Phil?" I said in dismay, glancing up at the man in front of me. His face was all business.

"I am your handler, Clint. I've been your handler since the first time I called you into this office. You need to realise that I can read you. I'll admit it, you and Romanoff have kept it cool for the past three years, and yes I knew there were always feelings brewing for each other deep below, but ever since the Council have laid off your back, those feelings are spilling over the edge."

"I haven't seen her for a month, Coulson." I defended, frowning as he shook his head and leant forward in his seat.

"Exactly," he said in a hushed voice, as if afraid someone else might be listening into the conversation from the walls of his enclosed office. "The two of you kept up a good act, even when the Council backed off, but ever since she left you've been sulking around like a lone puppy. Sure you do your missions quick and successfully, but as soon as you're left with nothing to do, your walking around with this aura of loneliness and longing that basically pulses off of your skin."

"Maybe I just miss my partner?"

Coulson nodded his head from side to side and gestured his hand in agreement. "That, or the fact that I had to erase the video footage of the two of you engaging in some serious intimacy whilst sparring. You do know that the two of you could be suspended for behaving that way on S.H.I.E.L.D grounds? It's not accepted."

"Are you kidding me?" I growled, throwing my arms out to my sides in sudden anger, and despite all my denials, I couldn't help the panic that was rising in my chest. "We were fooling around, Coulson!"

"Cut the crap, Barton. I just have some serious advice that I need you to follow if you want to keep your head in the game."

I didn't reply, just simply lowered my arms and sunk into the chair a little more, gripping the edges tightly as I tried to remain impassive. When he noticed my silence, he continued.

"I need you to move on. Okay? I know it will be hard, and I know how much you care for her, but you aren't good for each other. I've seen one too many partnerships destroyed because they gave into each other's feelings, and trust me, you don't just get fired in this line of work with the amount of Intel you have on the place. You wont be seeing her for another couple of months, so take that time to push your feelings aside, meet knew people, hell, go to a strip club! Just take your mind off of her and don't let compromise become your only option."

He must have seen the pain in my eyes despite how hard I was trying to hide it, because he stood up and stepped around the desk, stopping beside me to place his hand on my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Clint. Trust me, I want more then anything for the two of you to be happy. You're like the children I never had! But not in this line of work… not now, anyway."

Something about the way he let those words leave his lips, almost reluctantly, sparked interest within me and although I knew he was speaking the truth and although I knew he was right, I filed them away in my mind for later because everything this man says or does has a reason behind it.

So instead of questioning it, I stood from my seat and shrugged his hand off my shoulder, not bothering to say goodbye as I walked out of his office, his sad gaze basically burning holes into my back as I silently closed the door and shoved my fisted hands into my pockets and made a beeline for the car park.

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It had been hours that I had been sitting in my car, just staring out the window at the park around me and watching as the sky turned from light blue, to amber with a golden glow, to the near black starless night. The single light post I was parked under flickered occasionally and I didn't pay any attention to the music that was playing dully in the background of my mind.

Despite the fiery rage burning inside of me at Phil, at Natasha, at the Council and anyone else that got in the way of our partnership (yes, including Natasha and myself) I knew that he was right, and I guess I had seen it coming because people with ledgers like ours don't deserve to be happy.

The hints had only been subtle, but they had definitely been there. When she became a member of S.H.I.E.L.D, officially, we didn't really have time for the constant flirting like we used to because we were so set and focused on making this work. The Council had been hot on our trails for almost three years, and we more then once were put on probation when a mission went bad because they thought Natasha had done it on purpose to try and get me killed. Whatever Fury said or done must've had a great effect on them because seven months ago they'd finally given up and we were finally granted the 'easy assassin life' that we deserved from the very beginning.

But that easier life stopped short because obviously, without the constant threat for our jobs and lives, we had let too much emotion slip through and now the one man I trusted the most was telling me to back down.

But how can you back down from passion?

We'd patched each other up emotionally and physically more times than I can count and despite the lines we had drawn between each other, even we couldn't stand behind them. She was a dangerous woman and she was full of sorrow and nightmares, but she also held compassion and grasped each day as they came because we need to wipe our ledgers some way, right?

I guess it was a privilege to be the only one who could get a read on the most deadly woman in the world, and even better to share an untouchable bond with her, too, but now that had to stop.

Why did it hurt so much to come to that conclusion?

I sighed in frustration and pushed the door open, the cool night air hitting my face as I wondered about the secluded part of Central Park that all the thugs came to do their gambling. Nice place to ponder my thoughts on, hey?

Speaking of thugs, I was well aware of the gang of seven/eight burley men stumbling drunkenly through the trees, shouting and cursing at something I couldn't see.

"Hey!"

As if this night couldn't get any worse, I now how to kick some drunken ass. I sighed and turned around, watching as the men stumbled from the bushes, one dragging a black and white dog on a worn out leash.

"Got any weed? Sticks?" another asked as they came closer, stinking of alcohol and cigarettes.

"Nah, sorry, mate." I chuckled.

"What the fuck are you laughing at?" The man dragging the dog stepped forward, so close that I could smell his rotting breath wafting into my personal space.

I rolled my eyes and easily caught the sluggish punch he threw my way, twisting his arms and sidestepping behind him so I could pin it painfully to his back. He let out a howl of pain and stumbled to his knees, and I roughly shoved him to the ground with my boot before turning to take care of the rest of the men as they leapt for me.

I didn't kill any of them, couldn't be bothered with the mess and hiding the bodies and the amount of trouble I'd get in with S.H.I.E.L.D. so instead I left them in a whimpering pile on the park floor and wiped away the blood that was spilling from a wound on my forehead from when one of them smashed a bottle over my head. There were definitely shards of glass buried deep in there.

I wiped my hands on my jacket and laughed to myself when I imagined their wives faces when they told them what happened, but was bought out of my thoughts when a weak whimper came from somewhere behind me, that was positively not human.

I turned around and saw the black and white dog trot to a stop in front of me and sit down, bowing it's head and looking up at me with his big, sad brown eyes that glinted in the soft moonlight. I frowned and noticed the collar that was wrapped too tightly around his neck, digging into his fur and peeling away at his skin.

Considering how angry Natasha would be that I bought a dog home and where the dog would end up if I didn't, I chose the most selfish of the two and bent down to untie the collar from his throat. He coward away but made no move to attack, and when the old collar was finally removed, I firmly patted his head to show I meant no harm.

He followed me enthusiastically back into my car.

When I got back to the shitty little apartment that was five minutes away from the park, I ordered two boxes of pizza and made a mental note to buy some dog food for my newfound friend as I patched up the wound on my head.

He was scared at first, to be welcomed into unknown property, but when I scraped two slices of pizza onto a plate and placed it on the floor, he dug into the meal and licked up every last crumb like it was the last thing he'd do, before coming to stand by me as I sat on the lounge.

"So, a Border collie, huh?" I asked, and he cocked his head to the side as if he understood every word I said.

"What should I call you?"

Instead of making another animalistic gesture, he trotted away from me and wandered down the hall, and I quickly followed in pursuit because Natasha would not be happy if she came home to her possessions covered in dog piss.

That wouldn't be the case, however, because the dog was actually in my room and was sniffing about the few objects on the floor, and just as I thought he was about to cock his leg on my brand new acoustic guitar that I'd bought last week, he instead sniffed behind it and came back to me with a long object in his mouth.

He sat down; one ear flopped to the side and tail thumping on the floor with excitement.

"Sorry, boy, I'm not playing fetch with you with one of my arrows."

The dog's head perked at my last word, and a fantastic idea popped into my mind.

"I shall call you Arrow!"

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