Chapter 1

April 3, 2006 – 8:45am, Los Angeles

"Ah, Ms. Matthers, please let me introduce you to Alvin Benton. He will be joining us in the R & D division as head of security. Benton this is Mr. Cross' personal assistant Laura Matthers."

Natasha smiled sweetly and extended her hand, taking a moment to give the man her full attention even while she seemed to be glancing off to the side with disinterest. He was certainly built for security. Broad shoulders, athletic build. She noted that he had particularly strong looking arms. It was his smile that caught her attention though. It was really something approaching a shit-eating grin, though turned down just enough to almost avoid giving offense. His obvious interest in letting his gaze rest on her for what was at least 20 seconds longer than decorum would permit was neither surprising nor particularly worrisome. It wouldn't be the first time she'd had to fend off the interest of a man in the pursuit of her mission objectives. Sometimes you had to feed the fire, at others you had to know how to douse it.

"Mr. Benton, a pleasure," she drawled, sounding none too sincere and taking her hand away almost as quickly as she had offered it. Benton just widened his smile, the crow's feet at his eyes crinkling slightly as he said, "Believe me, Ms. Matthers the pleasure is most definitely all mine."

"Yes, well," broke in Keeshan before the awkward situation could continue, "we do have a lot to see, so if you don't mind following me, Mr. Benton?"

Benton nodded, giving Natasha one more quick glance, his eyes taking her in from her Louboutin heels to her fiery red hair, one more smirk dancing across his features before he turned to follow Keeshan towards R & D. Natasha watched him move. Definite military training. There was a quickness and smooth sureness in his gait that belied the somewhat flippant air he had presented. That wasn't unusual in a head of security by any means, of course. Still. Natasha watched his back and narrowed her eyes as Benton turned the corner. Perhaps he would be worth keeping an eye on after all.

Clint let out a sigh as he eased into the chair in his new office and looked around at his surroundings. Not a bad size, though certainly not a prime location. The head of security of R & D was obviously a position that garnered some perks, but not enough to make it cushy. It was ground floor for one thing and the view was unimpressive to say the least. He was expected to work at this job. Fair enough, it was likely to be the hardest assignment of his life, so he'd definitely be putting in the hours, they just wouldn't be centring around security for Cross Technologies. He thought back to his meeting with 'Ms. Matthers' and smiled. It was by no means his first glimpse of the infamous Black Widow, or even the first time they had been in the same room, but it was definitely the first time she had been aware of his scrutiny. By all appearances she wasn't terribly impressed. "Well darlin'," he drawled to himself under his breath, "there's plenty of time for that." In the meantime he had a cover to establish and intel to collect before he could even begin on his mission proper. It was definitely going to be a long day.

Clint spent the next week with his head to the ground. He acted the way he thought any new head of security for a fast rising tech company on the cusp of making an international name for itself ought to. He introduced changes that would 'improve' the way things were done, since of course his ideas had to be better than any protocols established by forebears that had ended up on the street. He got into the face of every subordinate he had, riding their asses until they followed these 'innovations' whether they liked them or not. He sucked up to his superiors, especially Keeshan whenever possible, but did it in such a way that it didn't quite look like sucking up. His eye was on every project currently under way in R & D, and given that he was instituting brand new security protocols across the board he was able to get up close and personal with details on all of them without raising any alarm bells.

As a final grace note to the persona he had established, and quite frankly to make the days less interminable, he also made sure to allow his eye to wander across the bodies of every attractive female in the office who wasn't his superior (Cross wasn't exactly forward thinking in his organizational politics so there weren't any) without allowing things to get anywhere near probable cause for a harassment suit. He made sure to pay special attention to the devastatingly beautiful Laura Matthers.

So far that last bit wasn't panning out at all. Apparently she had decided he wasn't worth any of her time, so she gave him the ice queen treatment. He shrugged it off. That meant he wouldn't have an easy time getting any direct intel from her, but at least it also meant he didn't need to be 'on' all the time around an operative much more highly trained in deep cover than he was. In a way he was relieved, albeit a little bit put out.

At the end of the week he decided it was time to bring Coulson up to speed. He used his burner phone to leave a short message on the dead-drop machine. "Hi mom, things in the new job are going great. I hope we can have dinner soon. My love to dad." He smiled as he hung up.

Nine hours later Clint walked into the unassuming restaurant and sat at a convenient booth, smiling at the waitress as she gave him the menu.

"Can I get you something to drink, Sweetie?" she asked glancing appreciatively at Clint as she held her pen above her notepad.

"Just ice water," said Clint flashing his most winning smirk.

"You got it, Sugar," she said with an alluring smile of her own as she took in Clint's biceps. "Our specials are on the back. Don't hesitate to call if you need anything." She put some special emphasis on the last word.

Clint watched as she sashayed away from his table, assuming the extra sway in her step was for his benefit.

"You're incorrigible, Barton," said a voice from behind him, "I swear it's a full-time job keeping you on point."

"C'mon Coulson," he murmured with a grin as he looked down at his menu, "you can't really tell me you're complaining. I mean that *is* your job after all."

The voice from the other booth sighed, but Clint could tell there was more behind it than a weary desire for more professionalism from his often wayward agent. "What's the problem," he asked sharply, "new intel?"

"No, just a re-adjustment of your mission parameters," said Coulson evenly, pretending that he was talking on the cell phone he was holding. Clint's hands tightened on the menu.

"What do you mean 're-adjustment'?"

"Fury wants you to look into some work going on at Cross. It looks like there's some kind of bleed-out between something Cross has just started developing and high level Stark-tech that that's been under wraps for the last year and a half."

Clint supressed a groan. "Look Coulson this assignment is going to be tricky enough without any other bullshit getting in the way. Trying to neutralize a threat like the Widow's going to demand *all* of my attention, I can't start sticking out my neck further than I already have to start sniffing into some damn top secret research project because Stark can't keep his tech in his pants."

"What's the matter Barton, can't you multitask?" asked Coulson dryly. Before his agent could reply he continued, "Look, you're the one who requested that you be inserted into the op site. You could have done the whole thing from your normal vantage point, but for some reason you wanted to get up close. Well, now you're up close and personal and as head of security for R & D you're in the ideal position to get SHIELD what it wants. Not to mention the fact that getting closer to Romanoff can only help. She's Cross's PA and who knows what dirt she's already dug up? We don't know what the Red Room already knows, or even why they'd go to the trouble of inserting their top agent here given the intel we've had on them and Cross already. We also don't know how the bleed-out occurred. We don't know if it's Stark, or Stane, or just garden variety corporate espionage. That's way too many unknowns for us to let it lie and we need to get this thing sewn up. This isn't a request Barton, it's an order from on high."

Clint blew a long hiss from between his teeth, but smiled when the waitress returned with his ice water.

"See anything you like?" she asked with a knowing smile on her full lips.

"Yeah, just give me the special…to go," he said no longer interested in continuing the flirtation. "I just remembered that my boss is an asshole and I left a shit pile of work at the office."

The waitress' face fell slightly, but she only shrugged as she walked away. "Your loss, Sugar." Clint sighed.

"Cross is former CIA," said Coulson as he stood up, leaving a few bills on the table as a tip, "keep your nose to the ground."

"CIA," scoffed Clint, "those assholes are pussies. The day a former CIA operative even makes me sweat is the day I need to hang up my bow."

"I hope you're right Barton. Regardless watch your six."

"I'm a big boy Coulson, don't worry about me," replied Clint with a grin.

Natasha tailed Benton after he left the office late that evening. She had pretended to leave at her regular hour, there was no reason for her to stay late tonight, but had doubled back and found a comfortable vantage point from which she could see his office. Like a good new employee he had stayed past regular business hours, holed up in his office, the light from his computer screen playing across his chiseled features until he had finally decided that he had had enough for the day. She didn't know what he had been doing, but to all appearances he had simply put in some extra time to make sure he had a handle on everything that was now under his purview. Certainly he had not bothered leaving his office, even when there was no one left in the building aside from the maintenance staff, and he appeared to be engrossed mostly in the stack of files Keeshan had left on his desk and whatever he was viewing on his computer.

Natasha relaxed slightly the longer she watched him. Maybe he was just the new head of security. Of course it was far too early for her to jump to any conclusions. At the very least he was good at playing his part without looking like he was playing.

After the office Benton drove to his apartment, a nondescript one in Echo Park, and stayed inside for an hour before leaving to go to an out of the way diner. He sat down in a booth and, after apparently making eyes at a waitress who looked more than a little interested, he proceeded to peruse the menu, his hand often cupping his jaw or moving back to run through his hair as he turned his face away from the window. Natasha straightened immediately. He was good. But she was better. A casual observer might buy into the motions Benton was telegraphing, but Natasha saw it for what it was, a way of hiding the fact that he was actually speaking to someone. She took in the area immediately surrounding him and noticed the man in the booth behind him. Dark suit, short haircut, nebbish appearance in general. He was looking off in the opposite direction and apparently talking on his cell phone. So, Mr. Benton had a handler did he? This changed things considerably. Maybe she would have to turn up the heat after all.