Someone tell me when

I can start again

and rewrite this story

How long can I stay

lost without a way

to rewrite

I wish I could rewrite this story.


Make me someone new

tell me what I do

to rewrite this story

How long can I stay

lost without a way

to rewrite

I wish I could rewrite this story


She stared up at the face above her. Looking into the stormy blue-gray eyes, she knew this fight was over and it was ending with her on the ground. It's all over. The thought ran like cooling water through her mind and she relaxed as she accepted her fate. Staring down the shaft of the arrow that was aimed at her heart she found the blessed release that she had been searching for for so long. She released the breath she had been holding and closed her eyes, ready for what would happen. What she wasn't expecting was to hear the sound of the arrow sliding back down the rest as the assassin in front of her let down his bow. She opened her eyes, uncomprehending. His eyes were full of something she couldn't quite understand and her shock held her paralyzed while he bound her hands and feet. Her voice finally caught up with hat her eyes were seeing.

"What are you doing?" She whispered the words, almost afraid of his answer.

"Something I wasn't sure I ever could," he replied softly, "I'm giving a second chance."


Natalia Romanova sat incredibly still; perched on the edge of the wooden chair that was the only furniture in the room she was being held in. Her mind was still spinning from what had happened; she needed to just shut down for a moment. She focused her sharp hearing on the voices that were coming through the wall in muffled bursts.

"What the hell were you thinking Barton?!"

Barton. That must be the man with the arrows.

"I was thinking of myself, sir."

Huh?

"Dammit, Barton! She is not you! This is not even close to that!"

"Isn't it though?" What might have been a snarky comment under different circumstances was instead an actual question. What is this guy playing at?

"Why do you have to be so goddamn stubborn Barton?"

"Because I saw her eyes."

What?

"She was ready to die; she had accepted that she was going to die-and she didn't care." The other voice was silent. Then a new voice spoke, one that had obviously been listening without comment to the conversation.

"Sir, with all due respect, we have always trusted Agent Barton's judgment."

So this is an agency.

"Maybe you have Coulson, but there are plenty of times when I have called his judgment into question." The tone of the voice clearly implied that this was one of those times.

"Sir," Barton's voice was back, "do whatever you will with me, but give her a chance. She has it, Phil, whatever it was that you saw in me-" Here Barton's voice tightened noticeably, "-I finally understand it because she has it." The absolute certainty rang strongly through his voice, echoing in the air. Natalia sat back, stunned. What is he talking about? What could I possibly have, other than a hell of a lot of blood on my hands? She tuned out of their conversation, blood pounding in her ears, drowning in her own thoughts. She was so lost in her mind that she flinched, startled when the door swung open. She immediately stiffened, sitting straight up on the edge of her chair. Two men stood there and neither was the one who had brought her in. The taller of the two men, an African American with an eye patch, stepped forward.

Obviously the leader.

"Miss Romanova." The tension and anger in his voice was barely hidden below the surface. Natalia recognized his voice at that of the first man from the earlier discussion but didn't reply; she merely lifted one eyebrow at him.

"You understand that it was our intention to have you crossed off," the man was blunt, "so you'll also understand our extreme hesitancy to do anything else with you." Natalia graced him with a single stiff nod.

"I don't know what you did to Agent Barton that convinced him to abandon his mission, but whatever it was; it has brought about a turn of events." Whoever this man was, he was clearly troubled by what he saw as a betrayal from Barton.

Barton must be fairly high up in whatever this agency is.

"As such, Agent Coulson-" The man gestured to his companion, "-has requested permission to question you himself." Surprise jetted through Natalia, but she was careful to keep her face neutral. And what is so special about Agent Coulson?

"Right this way Miss Romanova." Natalia found herself guided by a surprisingly strong pair of hands, being ushered away into a different room, one that she knew well: an interrogation room. She sat down in the chair on one side of the table. Agent Coulson leaned nonchalantly against the wall, looking relatively calm for being alone in a room with one of the most notorious assassins in the world.

"So," he started, "Natalia Romanova?" She nodded slightly in confirmation of her name.

"But better known as something else, I think." Again Natalia nodded, not saying anything. Coulson didn't speak either, simply watched her with a steady gaze. This held for several minutes, the two of them watching each other, neither staring the other down, both simply observing.

"The Black Widow." Natalia finally broke the silence. Coulson nodded slowly, recognizing the barrier that had just been lowered.

"Do you know where you are, Miss Romanova?" Natalia shrugged.

"Somewhere in America, I assume, based on the accents." Coulson shook his head.

"I meant this building, the people in it. Did Agent Barton tell you where he was taking you?" Now it was Natalia shaking her head. Coulson pushed off the wall and meandered over to the table, starting a little pace in front of it.

"Do you know what S.H.I.E.L.D. is?" Natalia hesitated, debating what to say. For once, she decided to drop her persona and go with the truth.

"I've heard of it, but never needed to know."

"The Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division." Coulson rattled off the ridiculously long agency title like he had said it a million times-well, he probably has.

"We are a…specialized division of the United States Government," Coulson wavered over his next words, as if uncertain how to phrase something. "You could say that we are the line between world and a much weirder world." Understanding spiked through Natalia. These are the guys that deal with abnormalities, the 'gifted' criminals. That must be why they got my case.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. is the deepest buried of any United States agency, the best kept secret. Many U.S. citizens aren't even aware of its existence. It takes years of training and testing to even become a level one agent." Coulson paused and Natalia waited, uncertain where this was going. "So imagine our surprise when our top agent comes back from a mission with the target in tow and tells us to let her join S.H.I.E.L.D." So Barton's their top agent. Natalia filed that piece of information away for later use. That's probably the only reason I'm still alive, if one of the other agents had tried what he did-she shuddered internally. Coulson had stopped pacing and was looking at Natalia straight on.

"What did he see in you?" he whispered softly, "Did he really see…" Coulson let the sentence drift off and his eyes sort of slid out of focus. Seconds later he pulled them back and drilled them into Natalia's.

"This is not a light thing for us, and not just because it's you," Natalia was surprised. "Agent Barton has been with this agency for five years. He's been sent on countless missions, majority of them assassinations." Coulson stopped and Natalia finished his sentence for him.

"I'm the first one he's brought back alive." Coulson nodded.

"That is a very heavy thing for Agent Barton to do. Not just as an agent, but personally, for him." Natalia saw something in Coulson's eyes, a hidden history that wasn't his own, dark secrets that he was keeping for someone else. Whoever Barton was five years ago wasn't pretty.

"What did you say to him?" Coulson wasn't accusatory; he didn't seem to think that Natalia was manipulating Barton. He was honestly curious.

"Nothing," answered Natalia softly, "I didn't say a single word." Coulson watched her face carefully, scrutinizing every word she said. "I thought he was going to kill me," she continued, "There wasn't much to say." Something new filled Coulson's eyes, a cross between understanding and contradiction.

"There's always something to say," Coulson told her, "even if you can't say it with words." He turned abruptly and left the room, leaving Natalia alone again and thinking, what the hell does that mean?


Coulson left the red-head sitting in the interrogation room and went to the observation room where he knew Fury and Barton were watching. He stepped inside and looked at his boss and his protégée. Fury raised the eyebrow of the eye that wasn't hidden behind the eye patch in question. Coulson looked at him and said,

"Sir, after my analysis of the target in question, I am recommending that she be allowed to enter S.H.I.E.L.D. should she choose to do so." Barton broke into an ear-to-ear grin, vibrating with happiness like a five year old. Fury stared hard at Coulson, and then relaxed.

"Alright Coulson, but she's gonna be a problem for you and Barton to handle. I'm assigning her to you Phil," he spun around and fixed Barton with his one-eyed glare, "But she's going to be your partner." Coulson grimaced-that poor girl, no one lasted long as Barton's partner. Well maybe he'll finally meet his match in this one. Coulson chuckled to himself. With that, Fury left in a whirlwind of trench coat, muttering something about better things to do. Coulson looked at Barton.

"You saw it too, didn't you?" the younger man asked. Coulson shook his head.

"I didn't have to," he said, "You already did. Now get in there and stop her from over analyzing the situation."

"Yes, sir." Clint gave his handler a mock salute and a trademark grin before dashing off into the interrogation room.


The next time the door opened, Natalia was expecting to see guards there to drag her away. Instead she was shocked to find herself facing the one who brought her in-Barton, she reminded herself. She was a bit wary, uncertain as to why they would send him in here and as good as she was at reading a situation, she was not at all expecting what he did next. Barton swung the extra chair over so that he was sitting right in front of her, a grin splitting his face.

"So," he said, "How're you doing?" She stared at him in disbelief, confusion written all over her expression. He sighed and rolled his eyes.

"You passed," he said, "Coulson 'approved' you, or whatever." A bit more surprise colored her face-she hadn't been expecting that.

"So you have a choice to make," Barton had turned serious, as though someone had flipped a switch. "You can join S.H.I.E.L.D. or we can throw you into one of our holding cells until we move you to a more secure facility." Natalia frowned.

"You're not going to kill me?" she asked. Barton snorted.

"Please. As if after all the trouble I went through to keep you alive, that included dealing with Fury's shit, mind you, as if I would let them kill you." Natalia furrowed her brow, a thought bugging her at the back of her mind, something she wasn't quite sure how to phrase. Oh what the hell.

"Why do you care so much?" she was quiet, "I'm not worth any of this-I don't deserve your…kindness or whatever this is."

"You're wrong," Barton told her simply, "you're dead wrong." Natalia's face hardened; he didn't understand.

"So, S.H.I.E.L.D. or no S.H.I.E.L.D.?" She didn't answer him right away. Can I do this? Can I walk away from what I was? Become something new? Something better, even? She looked at the man sitting across from her. He seems to think I can; he even wants me to, for some reason and just like that her decision was made, clicked into place in her mind. She looked up at Barton and his stormy blue eyes again and when she gave him her answer she watched those eyes light up with some inexplicable happiness.

"S.H.I.E.L.D."


A/N: So I hope everyone enjoyed the first chapter...reviews are always appreciated :) Also just wanted to say that the title for this fic comes from a song that I find to be very Clintasha...it's called Sunrise and it's by Rascal Flatts. All of you should really go look it up because the lyrics are just so perfect...anyway yes that's enough of my blabber for one chapter.