Title: Those Eyes Of Hers
Author: Nagi Kokuyo
Fandom: Avengers (Movieverse) & X-Men (Comics/Cartoons)
Rating: T
Pairing(s): Mentions of Steve/Tony, Clint/Natasha
Warnings: Violence, blood/gore, X-23, cursing
Disclaimer: If I owned the Avengers or X-23, I would be a very rich woman indeed. Alas, I am not, so then logically, I do not. All credit goes to Marvel and miscellaneous other persons.
Summary: The first time he met her, she hospitalized him for over a month and killed hundreds in the process. It was destined to be the first of many, though he didn't know it. The second time they met, it was years later and he didn't realize it until much later. The third time, she saved his ass from being gutted by an alien. At that point, he figured they should just trade numbers and get it over with. 4 Parts Avengers/X-Men Crossover
~A & X~
The first time Clint Barton met her, she hospitalized him for over a month and killed hundreds in the process.
He and Natasha had taken a vacation together in the Mediterranean after a particularly… stressful op involving a car chase, lasers, and a giant exploding teddy bear. It had come to a premature end when they started a bar fight out of boredom and got kicked out. How were they supposed to know that the guy with the funky red shades was a mutant?
Natasha took job in her motherland for the Organizatsiya; he'd been contracted to retrieve a very dangerous piece of technology from a terrorist cell in the Middle East. The same day as he infiltrated the headquarters to retrieve it, a tourist group was taken hostage, including an American family of three.
It was going so well. He entered through a weak spot in the perimeter, easily dispatching the guards and slipping past their embarrassingly inadequate security. It took him all of ten minutes to get to the safe room. That was where everything went wrong.
He barely made a sound as he dashed down the hallways of the compound, his footsteps whispering over the concrete. His black uniform kept him shielded in the shadows, but stealth was not made by dark clothing alone; a truly stealthy person could go by unnoticed in bright red if needed, the dark colors just made things easier. It was only a matter of time before the insurgents found their fallen comrades, most of them with arrows protruding from various body parts; he wanted to get the tech and get out before that happened, because he had to account for every body and every shot fired when this was over.
Hawkeye heard a fight around the corner, he readied an arrow, and when he turned the corner and took aim…he froze. He hesitated, because his mind processed what he was seeing seconds too slow: a small figure in white and red, flashes of silver, and two green eyes boring into his. He didn't fire, and it cost him.
Because that was the point where he got his ass handed to him by a little girl in a skirt.
He was in a coma for two weeks, and out of commission with a busted leg, concussion, cracked ribs, and two slashes across his back for three more. He was told later that the girl was known as X-23, a mutant mercenary for hire. She'd been part of the tourist group, brought behind enemy lines by the terrorists themselves as a hostage. She'd been hired by another party to steal the very same tech that he'd been after, only she got to it first and left a trail of mutilated bodies in her wake. He was lucky she left him in one piece, let alone alive.
Because she got to the tech first and incapacitated him—because Hawkeye couldn't shoot a little girl, even if she was covered in blood, surrounded by dead bodies—that tech fell into the hands of the Al-Qaeda and allowed them to make a strike against American forces in Iraq. 200 good, honorable men and women were meaninglessly slaughtered because he failed to react. Clint would never forgive himself for that. So many people widowed, so many children orphaned because he couldn't shoot.
During his time off, he poured himself into learning everything he could about her. He watched videos, read reports, learned the statistics, until he felt his head would explode. She was a threat, a sociopath with the mutant abilities to indulge her favorite hobby—killing. She'd started with Presidential candidate Greg Johnson and went from there, sometimes dropping off the radar for weeks, months, before another body would show up somewhere in the world: Saudi Arabia, Las Vegas, Japan, Columbia, the Congo, and many other places. Tycoons, drug lords, pimps, assassins, leaders, Mafia, soldiers, political figures—she killed anyone and everyone for the right price; SHIELD kept track of every body, compiling evidence against her.
The only thing they didn't know was what she looked like; the only pictures they had were blurs, enough to know that she was a young girl with dark hair, but that was hardly a description. Hawkeye had been too busy getting his ass kicked to take a picture, but he figured he would recognize her. He knew she had dark hair and pale skin, and he would never forget those eyes of hers, the last image burned into his retinas before he blacked out. The first description that came to mind was emerald green, but no, that wasn't quite right. They were bright, and full of an intelligence that was part smarts and part clever; and they were definitely the greenest eyes he'd ever seen bar the Hulk's.
He studied until he decided that he would be able to take her down for good next time he encountered her.
How wrong he was.
~A & X~
There's the first chapter. Please review! Point out any mistakes I may have made, because I don't have a beta and sometimes I don't catch everything. This is part 1 of 4.