Trust
Romanoff says he trusts too easily and it will get him killed one day. Clint only smiles and tells her it will save him, and it already has.
They're stuck in a sleazy motel room on the outskirts of Vienna and will be for a day or two because they missed their evac. Romanoff hadn't trusted him to take the shot, and their mission quickly went to hell and back. But Clint isn't mad. He knows, one day, she'll trust him, and he says that aloud, "You're my partner, Romanoff. I'll always have your back. One day, you'll understand that."
Clint can't see Romanoff's face from where he's lying on the couch, his leg in a makeshift splint because he fell nearly four stories off a fire escape and heard it snap, but he can hear the iciness in her voice when she responds, "Trust is for children."
"Then let's be kids," Clint chirps, and he's not sure, but he thinks that earned him a chuckle.
.
Romanoff hacks into his file. Clint should have seen it coming, but he's blindsided when she asks him how he could possibly trust anyone after Jacques. After Buck. After his own brother left him for dead in a field in the middle of nowhere South Dakota.
They're sitting alone in a conference room back at headquarters after a briefing, and Clint can't stop fiddling with a pen somebody left on the table. He doesn't want to talk about this, but he knows he has to now, and he's just relieved his file doesn't go any further back than his time at the circus. "Didn't you learn your lesson, Barton?" Romanoff asks, and her words cut through him like Jacques's knife, like Barney's silence, had all those long years ago.
Clint sets his jaw and takes a deep breath through his nose. Blinking back the memory playing out before his eyes, he says, "I thought I had. For a few years, I didn't trust anybody. And those were the worst years of my life."
Romanoff doesn't respond, and Clint hopes she's considering what he said. Then, he wordlessly excuses himself to let her think it over.
.
Clint knows Phil isn't convinced they can pull off this mission, especially not after what happened last time, so he's not surprised when he tells them in their final briefing, "If you two don't trust each other completely, this will never work. And, for the last time, Romanoff, Clint earned the name Hawkeye. Let him take the shot."
Romanoff scowls but doesn't protest. It's an improvement, and Clint will take it.
.
Clint feels the bullet tear through his abdomen, but he stays on his feet and loosens an arrow into the guard's head. Swiveling, he stabs a guard who tried to grab him from behind with an arrow before quickly drawing it to shoot one down the hallway before he can put another bullet in him.
By the time Clint fights his way to the room they dragged Romanoff to, his side is slick with blood. He finds her tied to a chair, unconscious, her fake blonde hair stained red. "Black Widow is down," he says into his comm, and his voice hitches as he chokes back a cough. "We need evac. Now."
The consummate professional he is, Phil replies evenly, "Copy that, Hawkeye. Can you get to the evac point?"
"That may be a negative," Clint says, and this time he can't hold back his cough. It's a wet, ugly noise, and a dribble of blood leaks out of his mouth and down his chin. "I'm hit, but I'll try."
He hears Phil draw a sharp breath, but then he orders, as calm as ever, "I need you to get to the roof. We'll pick you up from there."
"Understood," Clint grunts, but his voice sounds far away and his vision is starting to swim. He manages to cut through the ropes binding Romanoff's wrists and ankles to the chair before his knees give out and he sinks to the ground.
As the world fades to black, he sees Romanoff open her eyes. Forcing a smile, he murmurs, "When are you gonna trust me?"
.
Clint wakes up to the harsh, fluorescent lights of a hospital room. He has to blink a few times before he can keep his eyes open long enough to take in his surroundings. And what he sees surprises him.
Romanoff is sitting at his bedside, an unopened paperback in her lap. Noticing he's awake, she says bluntly, "You nearly got yourself killed, Barton."
"Isn't the first time," Clint quips. His voice is hoarse from disuse, and he wonders vaguely how long he's been out. "Probably won't be the last."
They sink into an uncomfortable silence, and Clint lets his eyes fall shut again because the lights hurt too much. Just as he's beginning to drift, Romanoff demands, "Why did you do that? I still had my earpiece, and I heard Coulson order you to fall back."
"Wasn't gonna leave without you," Clint replies without opening his eyes. He's so tired; he just wants to sleep. "I trust you'd do the same for me."
.
When Clint is released from the hospital, he wants to go straight back into the field, but Fury won't let him. One day, after he spent the morning filing papers and making copies like some Level One, Phil calls him into his office to tell him he's going to be assigned a new partner.
"I know you were the one who brought Romanoff in, but she clearly only trusts herself," he explains, his tone, as always, even. "We're going to have her work solo ops from now on."
"And I don't get a say in the matter?" Clint snaps, balling his hands into fists. Without thinking, he continues, "You of all people should know why I brought her in. It wasn't just so S.H.I.E.L.D. could have another asset to run into the ground. When I looked at her, I saw me. And I wanted to show her she could still trust."
Phil regards him silently before smiling, clearly thinking back to the day he brought in an ex-carney with a bounty on his head who couldn't miss or take an order. Finally, he laughs, "You still can't take an order, can you?"
Clint grins cheekily. "Yeah, I can. Just not any I don't agree with."
.
Their next nine missions are resounding successes, and Fury begrudgingly acknowledges they're quickly becoming one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top teams.
Clint knows it works so well because they round out each other's edges; Romanoff operates in the open, drawing their target into her web, manipulating him into telling her all the information S.H.I.E.L.D. could want; he lurks in the shadows, watching undetected the entire time, waiting for her signal to unleash an arrow through his heart. Not one of their targets saw it coming.
"The seductress and the sniper," Phil muses one day during a briefing. "Sounds like the name of a bad bargain romance novel."
"I prefer spy," Romanoff says shortly. But her tone isn't as sharp as it once was, and she even chuckles lightly before adding, "What do you think, Barton?"
Clint can't help but smile before he teases her. "I dunno, Romanoff, the spy and the sniper just doesn't have the same ring to it."
Romanoff shoots him a lethal look, and Clint feigns death, slumping back in his chair and letting his head loll back. Phil laughs but then tells them they really should get back to work in case Fury walks in.
At the end, as always, they go over worst-case scenarios. When Phil starts on the "if Barton misses," Clint is stunned when Romanoff cuts him off. "He won't miss," she says simply. And then she turns to look Clint straight in the eyes. "I trust him."
.
Their intel was bad, and they walked directly into a trap meant for Romanoff.
Now, Clint is kneeling on the ground, blindfolded and bleeding, his hands cuffed behind his back. He's never felt more helpless in his life, not even the night Barney betrayed him. "Natalia," a harsh voice orders in Russian, "We will give you one chance to prove you are still loyal to our cause. Kill him."
"I trust you," Clint whispers after a gun barrel is pressed against his temple. He can't help but remember what Romanoff told him on their first mission together, but he decides he needs to try. "Natasha, I trust you."
"Kill him!" The voice shouts in Russian. Clint braces himself, and then a gunshot rings in his ears before he's shoved to the ground.
The fight lasts less than a minute. Even after everything goes silent, Clint doesn't move until he feels a familiar hand grip his shoulder.
After helping him to his knees, his partner removes his blindfold. Seeing the genuine concern in her green eyes, Clint can't help but break into a wide grin. "See? I told you trust would save me."
Natasha only smiles in response. "It saved me too, Clint."
Thanks for reading! I was actually working on a different story when this popped into my mind, and I wanted to get it on paper. I really like the idea of Clint wanting to teach Natasha to trust again because they share similarly tortured backgrounds. I also feel like it would be really a long road so I tried to reflect that in this story.
Just so you know, my Clint is a composite character. I take from the comics, movies and even other FanFictions. I also tend to put my own spin on events from his past for dramatic effect. Thus, this is likely very AU so please no flames telling me it's not canon compliant.
Anyway, I LOVE hearing what people think. Drop a review if you liked it! Until next time. ~Moore12