A/N: I let Clint tell this his way. I edited out the f-words, which displeased him - there were a lot of those - but I told him I wanted to keep the rating down a bit. And I told him it had to be more or less organized, but aside from that, I pretty much let it all go, which did please him. Has anyone ever mentioned Clint is easily sidetracked? Forgive his bunny-trails. He insisted they were all important. Also, I don't think these cities are in any particular order, really. He hates them all. With great vehemence, apparently.

1: Venice.

Most people think Venice is a beautiful city of sparkling canals, romantic historic buildings, and authentic Italian food. Don't believe them. It's a city of dark alleys and pigeon shit.

July 7, 2002.

We're in Venice. It's about a hundred degrees, muggy as hell, and even here, in more of a residential section, away from the main tourist areas, it smells of salt water, fish, birds, and sweaty people. Natasha's on the ground, blending in pretty well but still easy to spot with that bright red hair. Damn, she's beautiful.

I'm on the rooftops, finding a perch.

This is supposed to be a fairly simple job. The target: Alessandro Moretti, international arms dealer, drug magnate, and general asshole. Interpol hasn't pegged him yet. He keeps his hands pretty clean, covers his tracks, and deals pretty ruthlessly with anyone who so much as breathes near law enforcement. And he happened to kill an undercover SHIELD operative last week in France, so we're done keeping our distance and playing patient games.

He's a dangerous target, but the job shouldn't be that hard. Nat's been assassinating men like him for years. She's already set up with a cover and an appointment – he thinks she's a powerful potential customer. She's managed to get an invitation to meet with him in his Venice home, and she should be able to do this in her sleep. Actually, I think Coulson only sent me along because last month, when Nat had a job and I didn't, I started experimenting with my arrow tips and set off the emergency sprinkler system in half the base. I didn't really ruin anything. Didn't even start any fires, really. Just made a lot of smoke and some burning smells, but it wasn't my fault. Damn wiring got screwed up. I had a good idea going. Just needs some tweaking. I'll fix it.

Anyway, I'm technically backup. But I like watching Nat work, and she does need help at unexpected moments. So I'm finding a good perch. That's not hard in this city; Venice has about a million odd-shaped rooftops at various heights. It's almost like someone was planning for me. Oh, damn, that would be scary. But they can't be, because nobody else knows we're going in on this job. Anyway, they wouldn't have had time to build a city for me even if they'd known; we got called out in a hurry on this one. The hard part of the perch-hunt is getting somewhere with an angle on Moretti's windows. I pinpointed a few decent-looking spots yesterday, but I'm still working out the exact position. Nat's lucky her setup just takes some time for techs to set up a backstory for her cover. My setup takes some actual work.

"You set?" Natasha murmurs as she approaches the man's palace of a house. She's got some kind of wire instead of the usual earpiece.

I can see my perfect perch. Not far from where I am now, crouched carefully on orange roof-tiles. "I will be in a few seconds," I say, making my way toward the next roof.

Her walk doesn't even slow. Out of habit, I check her usual hiding places for any sign of weapons, but, of course, she's not carrying anything. No reason to make Moretti suspicious, and she doesn't need weapons to take down her target anyway. Nat's basically a ninja. Like, literally, she was trained by ninjas for a while.

"I'm going in," she says.

"I'll be watching," I promise. "Careful in there."

She doesn't answer. I'm always watching, and Tasha's the last person in the world who needs to be told to be careful. She's made it pretty obvious that she respects self-preservation as the strongest and most important instinct. She'll be careful, she'll be safe, and she'll come back out without any problems, leaving a dead criminal behind her. We'll be out of town before anyone knows. If we're lucky maybe we'll have time to pick up some delicious Italian food before Coulson makes us write reports on this job.

We're not really together anymore. Whatever we were, it's over now. But in the year since Natasha walked out and left me in – I'll admit it – kind of a mess on the floor, we've figured out how to just be partners. She's still my best friend. I still don't want her to die. Hell, who am I kidding? I want her back, but that's obviously not happening. So I tell her to be careful and once in a while I talk her into things like stopping for food before we leave a job, because it's good to see her relax once in a while.

This is gonna be a long wait. I'm used to that. Back in the circus, there was never a break between shots. The trick-shooting gig meant I was flipping and tumbling and jumping the whole time I was shooting. That doesn't happen anymore unless we get something wrong and wind up in an actual combat situation. These days we work more along the lines of stealth, which I guess makes sense because Natasha's got the whole professional spy thing going for her. So I've gotten pretty damn good at sitting on a rooftop in one position for a mind-deadeningly long time without losing focus.

Natasha's wire is broadcasting over the comms. It picks up the intimidating greeting from the guard at the front door, her businesslike, yet somehow sweetly persuasive tone as she talks her way inside – hell, how does the woman do that? I can barely get Coulson to let me into his office when he has coffee brewing, much less get into some gun-smuggler's mansion. Damn, she's good. …I mean, she has an appointment, but still….

Everything sounds pretty normal in there. I'm still working toward that perfect perch I can see, moving painfully slowly, keeping from knocking any roof-tiles loose, keeping my bow ready, my ears open, and my eyes trained on the house while I move toward that perch.

"Ah, Miss Tremont." The deep voice is tinny over the comms, but unmistakable.

A few more feet. These damn pigeons are everywhere.

"May I offer you a drink?" he says. Whoever he is. Moretti, presumably.

A hot splatter hits the back of my neck, and I can feel something warm and soupy trickling down the muscle along my spine. I freeze. Overhead, the constant warbling croon of the pigeons begins to sound malevolent. Mocking, at the very least. I'd shoot the damn things if I could, but there's something bigger happening right now. I stay still a while, hoping the pigeons will quit making such a fuss.

"You're gonna give away my position," I hiss at them, but they don't seem to care.

"Thank you," Natasha says. I doubt she's actually drinking whatever they give her, but accepting a drink is the polite thing to do, apparently.

Once the pigeons settle down a little, I start moving again. I can see Natasha's silhouette through the window. To me she looks tense, but I'm sure to the guys in there she looks as relaxed as she needs to. I keep my focus on her while I move toward the spot I want. The pigeons are getting worse. One of them dives at me, pecking. I swear under my breath and cover my head.

I can still hear Nat talking with Moretti. They seem to be getting along just fine. I'm pretty sure the plan is for her to get as much information as she can during the business discussion and then to inject a toxin when she shakes hands with him before leaving – something that doesn't act immediately but that moves fast when it does. Slow enough for her to get out without that muscly goon I can see suspecting anything but quick enough to prevent him taking any kind of antidote before it's too late.

Another splatter hits me – on my head this time. I can feel the warm, goopy stuff dripping through my hair and settling against my scalp. I can't help a slight shudder. I wish Nat would get the hell out of there so I can get the hell out of here and maybe – if I get an opportunity without breaking cover – shoot a few birds.

Just a few more feet and I'll be in that perfect place. I've got a better angle on Natasha now. She's smiling, but she still looks dangerous to me.

"That can be arranged," Moretti says, "But there will, of course, be an additional fee." That would suck, of course, except that he's gonna be dead within an hour and we're not planning on turning over any cash anyway.

Another pigeon dives at me. Those things have killer beaks. The damn birds are small enough to be completely negligible, except that those beaks are sharp. I take a swing at it, trying to keep my arm low enough to the roof that I don't attract attention. As soon as I move toward that perfect spot on the roof, though, three more of them attack. I swear again and cover my head as they swoop down, wings flapping, that damn cooing turning into what I swear is the pigeon version of cussing, those damn claws digging for the soft flesh at my neck. It's hard to think and move past the beaks hitting my skull, but I manage to get out a few more unpleasant names and move a little closer to the perch I want.

"But of course," Natasha's saying. "I'll be in touch, then." She stands, and so does Moretti. She's about to leave, then. Finally. She heads to the door as I reach the spot I wanted.

Of course. I finally make my perch, and she's ready to go.

Damn job. Damn pigeons. Damn city. I run a few less polite phrases through my head as I settle into the shadow of the taller roof next door to my perch. I still have to keep an eye out as Nat leaves, so I guess it's not a total waste.

More pigeon shit splatters against my shoulder, somehow managing to drip around my vest and slide under the edge of the sleeve. She needs to get the hell out of there.

I can hear her passing people. The guard at the door still seems unfriendly, but she says goodbye as if she doesn't notice. By the time I see her slip out the front door, settling sunglasses on as she leaves the house, I think this is probably the worst job we've had all year.

"Got about a minute before he goes down," she murmurs over the comms. Great.

"Go. I'll be behind you," I mutter. Mostly the point now is to be sure nobody takes a shot at her back while she goes. As soon as she's around that corner, I'll be off this damn roof and away from these pigeons. Damn birds are still diving at me, three or four at a time, the rest flapping around in some kind of bird-riot. It's a miracle nobody's taken a shot at me yet.

"Get out of there, Clint," she says.

"Coming, coming." I can slide down from here and meet her on the other side, right?

Right. A quick slide, a little tuck and roll, no big deal – damn pigeons are still chasing me. A whole little army of them, whirling in the air, occasionally diving, and still sometimes letting loose another round of nasty, slimy, goopy, hot, wet shit. I've given up keeping track of where all they've shat on me. This is gonna suck. Maybe I have time for a shower before we get picked up and I have to explain this to anyone else. Maybe I can jump in a canal before Nat sees me. Maybe –

"Made some new friends?"

Her voice startles me and I swear again and nock an arrow before thinking. When I realize it's Natasha, standing in front of me with her arms crossed, a look somewhere between disgust and amusement on her face, and her nose wrinkled at the smell, I whirl and manage to shoot three of those damn birds with one arrow. I turn back to pick it up.

"Pigeon-kebobs," she says as I return. "Not my thing."

"Shut up." I have to use my boot to push the damn birds off the arrow, and now it's filthy, and this whole job is hell and fell to shit – literally, but the pun isn't funny at the moment because the damn stuff is running all over me and drying in places and getting crusty and I swear I hate every damn pigeon ever hatched – and we should get out of here.

"Didn't know pigeons were mobbing birds," Nat says. "They recognize a hawk?"

I glare. "Damn birds hate me. Stupid birds. Let's go."

She smirks. "You're wearing pigeon poop," she says.

As if I don't already know this. Annoyed, I reach for her. Hell, if I have to wear pigeon shit, she might as well have to as well. Maybe it'll be slightly satisfying to see some of this shit on her, too. But Natasha knows martial arts I've never even heard of, and ducking away from me is easy for her, and that's just more annoying.

"Let's go," I repeat. The hell with dinner. I just want a shower. I'm pretty sure there's blood on the back of my neck from those damn birds.

"Sure you wanna leave your new buddies?" she asks.

I glare, manage to smack the bloodied arrow against her bare upper arm, and start off toward our extraction point. "Shut up. Let's go. I hate this city. Venice sucks."