"Before I worked for SHIELD I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skill set. I didn't care whom I used it for, or on. I got on SHIELD's radar in a bad way. Agent Barton was sent to kill me. He made a different call."

"Who is your target, Natalia?" A heavy voice blew into her ear, sending goose bumps down the smooth skin on her arms.

"The Scientist is my target." The twenty year old responded keeping her eyes locked on the bare concrete wall in front of her.

Heavy footsteps indicated movement from behind her, but she was trained well enough to know not to look back. "And what must you do with this target?"

"I must kill him."

Clint drummed his fingers on the polished glass table inside SHIELD's briefing room. It was the same procedure each time he was assigned a mission of some sort; they'd call him into briefing, either Fury or Hill would hand him a file and give a run down on the basics, the person who told him depended on how serious the case was, and they'd leave him to sort out whoever had stepped over the line. Nothing was different about this time, and yet he still drummed restlessly.

"Good morning, Agent Barton." Detective Fury said as he entered the room, going to stand on the other side of the large, rounded table. In his hands was a rather thick file that when he put it down it actually hit through the air, making a satisfying sound as it hit the glass. The one eye that Clint could see was hard, nothing light in the black orb to assure him it would be an easy case.

Then again, when did he ever get easy cases?

Orphaned from a young age and trained in the circus, Clint had made some pretty bad decisions early on in life. Once he'd broken away from being a big attraction under the big top he selflessly took the lives of strangers, until SHIELD found him. They'd offered him a second chance, the chance to wipe just that little more blood off his ledger and he'd taken it without a second thought. Now, he was one of SHIELD's best Agents, sent out to kill people like the man he had once seen in the mirror. Through all the blood, sweat and tears Clint couldn't bring himself to ever regret the decision he made. Sure, he was still a killer, but wasn't a killer of killers better than a killer of innocents?

Leaning back in his chair, eyes shifting from the file to the face of his boss, Clint could already feel that this target wasn't going to be easy to take down. The larger the file the harder they were to track, let alone kill. "What have you got for me this time?"

The file was under his fingertips the next second and Clint pulled it into his hands, flipping onto the first page. The picture of a young woman stared back at him. It was blurred as though someone had taken it quickly and ran for their lives, but he could still make out a few of her features, and the cloud of red hair that fell around her shoulders.

"Her name is Natalia Romanova," Fury told him, "She's a Russian spy. Our records show that she has been highly trained from the age of seven by unknown Russian's and she has proven to be extremely hard to catch a picture of."

"I got that." Clint replied as he flipped onto the next page, his mouth falling slack when he saw the number of people's lives she'd taken. "Her death toll is ninety?"

"I didn't say this case would be easy."

Agent Barton read through the rest of her file carefully, not wanting to miss a trick with a killer so talented. She was twenty years old, which meant she had at least thirteen years of intense training under her belt if they started right away, and they called her the 'Black Widow'. That and a lot of names were all SHIELD had to tell him about her?

"It's suicide." He said, dropping the closed file onto the table and crossing his arms.

"For anyone else? Maybe." Fury leant on the table, looking Clint right in the eyes. "But for you; it's an even fight."

"And where do you suppose I find this 'Black Widow'?" The archer asked, raising an eyebrow at his boss, "Should I go and check inside my shoes and under every toilet lid?"

Director Fury slid him a rectangular piece of light blue paper. It was heavy to pick up, heavier than any piece of paper Clint had ever held before, and there was something scrawled in delicate scripture on the front, though he couldn't read it and took a moment to curse language barriers. "You're going to a charity ball."

"What is this?" Clint asked, turning it around as if he expected to find English on the back, "Italian?"

"Pack your bag." The Director smiled at him.

"No." He replied, crossing his arms stubbornly.

Three hours later Clint was seated next to a rather hefty Italian man on a plane to Italy. The man kept telling Clint stories about his life, in very bad English, and nudging the Agent every few minutes with enthusiasm. Getting him a flight to Italy, instead of being dropped there by a Quinjet, was most likely Fury's own little way to punish the Archer.

It was safe to say that flight was one of the longest of Clint's life. He spent the entire time thinking of ways to get back at Director Fury – even if he should have been focusing on this 'Black Widow' woman and how best to wipe her from the face of the planet.

It was late when they landed in Rome, and usually Clint wanted nothing more than to retire to his hotel room to shower and sleep. However, Fury had caught on that Clint didn't do an awful lot of reading up on his targets, and simply slept the research hours away. It was completely careless, but the archer didn't care. He had managed to survive many encounters with targets before, what was one more? So, Fury had arranged for him to arrive in Italy the very same evening of the ball.

The dark car with the tinted windows, and sliding blacked out glass that separated the driver and passengers seats from the boot and backseats, drove him straight to an ancient, though classy, looking building. It had small white steps, covered in a purple carpet, leading up to pillars holding up a very intricate open foyer. Purple and white lights were fixed onto the artwork on the face of the building, what seemed to be a collage of angels and devils grimaced down at Clint as he walked up the steps in his formal attire.

He adjusted his white dinner jacket as he passed a few people standing outside, holding drinks or cigarettes as they chatted in foreign languages. Before he pushed open one of the three glass doors that separated the open foray from the main ball inside, Clint pulled out the wallet the driver had given him from one of the pockets in his jacket.

"Elliot Brandon?" He snorted quietly, looking at the forged drivers licence. Coulson probably got a good kick out of coming up with that one. Elliot Brandon was probably someone off Super Nanny, or something.

Clint pushed open one of the doors and stepped inside the party. There was music, classical of course, and some people were already twirling effortlessly on the dance floor with partners. Others were sitting at some of the tables, while many of the men seemed to gravitate towards the bar. Deciding it seemed like a safe place to look out for the Widow and he wasn't going to get through this night if he wasn't at least a little pissed, Clint found himself ordering a scotch on the rocks and looking around.

Once his drink had arrived, and the bartender was out of earshot, Clint brushed his finger passed his ear. To anyone else he would appear to be brushing his hair back, but in reality Clint was turning on the small earpiece tucked out of sight in his ear. The Agents at SHEILD would have a visual on him, no doubt after hacking into the security systems and watching from there.

"This is Agent Barton," He breathed, so softly no one would have heard him, "I've got a lock on target."

Across the room a beautiful red head woman was being introduced to a table of scientists by her 'date' and sharing a laugh with the table. All it took was a tilt of her head for Clint to know he had her in his sights.

Clint had locked his eyes onto his target but what he didn't realise that beyond the dance floor, Natalia Romanova had as well.

So, I started to read a lot of Clintasha fanfiction lately and I was rather disappointed with the lack of fanfictions about them meeting, though the ones I did read were quite good, so I decided to write my own version.

Please don't badger me if, at any point in this fanfiction, I've written something that doesn't completely correspond with the comics. I've not read them – I'm not a big comic fan, though I have seen the movies.

It's my first time writing Clint and Natasha, so tell me what you think. Tell me if there's anything you'd like to see, any reaction you'd like to see from either, etc. Just give me an overall view of what you thought of my first Avengers fanfiction.

Thanks for reading!

~I do not own anything to do with Marvel, Marvel's character's, or Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner~