The first time he saw her it was raining. It was a perchance meeting in a run-down coffee shop off the main drag of the crowded city streets and here she stuck out like a sore thumb.
It started with a flash of red hair from the corner of his eye and ended with her staring at him with a curiosity in her eyes. They were green, Clint remembered because they clashed with her hair and her pale skin. Even in the dim lighting he knew she was trouble and he also knew she was the one, the target, the mark; however you wanted to phrase it.
He knew because he was trained to pinpoint people like her, could feel the tension roll off of her in waves that hit him like a freight carrier. He knew because she stared back at him with the same look in her eyes, a look that promised she'd already worked him out before he'd even seen her.
Coulson had promised him this would be his 'big break'. Natalia Romanova was wanted in connection with several political assassinations and many more attempts. That was, if this woman was even Natalia Romanova to begin with. Clint had become confused shortly after reading her files and finding over twenty different aliases listed. Then again, Clint became confused a lot.
He realised with his lapse of concentration that the woman with the startling red hair and vibrant green eyes had disappeared from the coffee shop and only picked up the trail from the flames hurrying past underneath an umbrella outside.
He was in no hurry. He'd catch her up later.
The second time he caught sight of her it was sleeting. She was leaning against the counter top, pearly whites flashing at the shop assistant who threw her head back and laughed. Clint vaguely remembered wondering what his target had said to make the woman laugh in such a manner, but at the time had shrugged it off and focused his gaze to the brassier in her hands. Red with trimmed black lace, fitting for her lifestyle, fitting for what they called her, The Black Widow, Spoken in passing like some horrific myth passed down from generation to generation. The kind of story Clint would have liked as a child, not that his memories extended to bedtime stories.
He'd done it again. Only noticed the woman had left when a shop assistant asked him whether he was buying for himself or his lady friend. Clint had thrown the lacy panties at the woman and escaped the shop before the blush had spread to his neck.
The third time they met her red hair was stuck to her forehead framing her face, her fingers clasped around the handle of an expensive looking knife with the blade pressed against the pulse in his neck. Clint remembered the fear on the tip of his tongue, the way her pupils dilated in the light, the sound of the rain pouring through the broken skylights and hitting the concrete with force.
He remembered her broken English, the way her lips curled into a predatory smile, how she'd flipped control of his domination like she'd done it her whole life. It made him believe her files and the reports he'd carelessly smeared pizza sauce over the night before flying out to Russia to find her.
He also remembered reaching to smooth the curls back from her face, whispering that it was all right, that he wasn't there to hurt her before sliding his own expensive looking blade to the hilt into her stomach.
The fourth time they'd been soaked through to the skin. He'd half carried her back from the warehouse by the docks to the crappy motel with cheap rates and even cheaper bed sheets he'd been staying in. Clint had set her down on the bed, had radioed through to tell his handler that there was going to be a change in the plans that had been set in motion the minute he'd originally got the call.
Clint had put the phone down long before Coulson could protest and had turned back to the woman with the vivid red hair and the clashing green eyes. Except this time there were no crashes of tension hitting him like waves on broken rocks there was just Natalia breathing steadily and watching him with a careful grace.
Clint somehow had managed to stitch up the wound, had peeled clothes off her body when she refused to do it herself and had even taken a kick to the face for his troubles.
Now she was sleeping, the warm weight of her pressed into his side while she lay in that red and black bra and a pair of his boxers. The knife wound had long since stopped bleeding, somewhere between her convulsing on the grotty bathroom floor and him stopping the blood flow from his nose.
"So tell me Barton, why you disobeyed orders and didn't complete your assignment."
"Because a friend once told me that we're all just as imperfect and frail as the next person. Killing her would have been the easy way out and hell, I just like a challenge."