Fire burns out the building like a hollow shell, caving in around the darkness inside it. Natalia stands in the light of it, too close to the burning, too close to look away. She feels the presence beside her more than she sees him. He is close enough to strike her and kill her, and that is what he should not have done had he wished to accomplish the deed.
There is an itch beneath her skin, the bloody instinct instilled by the Red Room that fire cannot extinguish. It ignites whenever a hostile comes within her own striking distance, and hers is always greater than theirs.
Natalia finally exhales into the heat and says to this man beside her, "You work better from a distance."
She can feel his gaze heavy on her face. She turns to him and studies his own. It is not a handsome face, but it is an interesting face and something gentle lurks within his eyes.
"I don't want to kill you," he says at last.
They never do.
But he means something different. It isn't with lust that he looks at her but understanding. He saw her get the children out of the hospital ward and has seen her dozens of times over the last few months as she moves innocents out of the way when she works. It is a freedom she gained when she went freelance. Hawkeye misses little.
Natalia tilts her head and smiles softly, vaguely. She will kill him if she must, though she has grown a trifle fond of this tail of hers. He reserves judgement. He is also persistent.
"I don't wish to kill you either," she says at last.
He reads her face like a book then finally holds out his hand. "I can show you there's another way."
She likes the gentleness in his eyes, the uncompromising professionalism in his work. He has found a way to be one of the world's best assassins and harbor kindness in his soul. She reaches out and takes his hand.