Silently exploding out of his position, he reached her with one step, his knife resting on her throat. She tensed and he didn't try to restrain her, although she shifted her right arm back towards his center and forced him to catch her wrist to avoid taking a knife to the gut.

His grip was firm and he added a little more pressure to the weapon at her throat. "Easy there," he said softly.


She was breathing loudly, angry now. "Drop the knife," he said firmly.

Romanoff tensed again so he squeezed her wrist and forced her to drop it to the floor.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" he kept his tone light, unthreatening, and even to avoid startling her anymore. He knew how dangerous this woman could be.

"I'm not here to kill you Natasha. I'm just here to talk."

"So talk," she bit out, still tense against him.

Deciding to take a leap of faith he moved the knife off her throat slowly and released her wrist. He knew she had at least one gun and used his now free hand to remove the one he could see at her hip.

At the touch she spun around, pushing his arm and the knife away from her completely as she turned to elbow him in the stomach and jump back.

He groaned softly but held himself in check, unwilling to devolve into a fight now.

She stood in the middle of the room while he was still by the window. He held her eyes the whole time as he crouched down to place the gun on the floor and kick it under the couch to his right. His knife he returned to its place on his chest and he put his hands up to show he meant no more harm.

He could see her eyes darting around the room so he said quietly, "I moved your backup weapons. You can't reach them. I just need you to listen to me."

If looks could kill he definitely would have dropped dead but he got worse from Coulson on a good day. "SHIELD has been watching you for awhile, Natasha. You've pissed off some pretty dangerous people. I know you hate working for the Agency-"

Her body tensed again and he wondered if he overstepped but she remained silent.

"I'm here to offer you a way out. A position with SHIELD."

She laughed and the sudden sound caught him off guard. "You have no idea what's really going on here."

"I know you could use a friend," he returned. He paused to take in her posture; still tense, still looking around for a weapon but also checking each of the exits obsessively.

His mind raced as he watched her, trying to pinpoint what had been bothering him this whole time and he took a chance.

"They're coming for you, aren't they?"

Still standing as taut as a strung bow she favored him with an eye roll, "Took you long enough. I thought SHIELD prided itself on its information. Obviously Fury overestimates himself if you didn't already know that I left the Agency."

She paused mid-thought, "Who are you, anyway; why did SHIELD suddenly decide to approach me now?"

He couldn't help himself; despite the seriousness of the situation he allowed a wounded look to cross his face as a hand came up to his heart, "I'm hurt you don't recognize me. I thought the Agency had intelligent assets."

He could feel her sizing him up and he said mockingly, "Let me give you a hint."

Keeping his right hand held out to placate her, his left hand retrieved his bow and snapped it into place.

"Barton."

A cocky smirk lit up his face and he inclined his head in a sardonic salute before returning his bow to its place and getting back to business. "So what are we dealing with? Why have they waited so long to get you?"

"First of all there's no 'we,' Robin Hood," her voice was like ice but Clint hardly batted an eyelash at the tone or the nickname. "You can turn right around and go back to SHIELD alone because I'm not joining your little club. I can handle this."

He continued to ignore her words and focused again on the way her body was positioned. Everything hit him at once and his voice cut across her, serious and calm.

"You're scared. Don't deny it, any idiot could tell. You've been running for a while, that's why we haven't heard anything. The Agency's trying to keep this quiet, they're trying to hide the fact that they lost you and they want to fix this before it gets out. You hate working for them and you hate being alone and on the run so stop fucking pretending to be strong and in control because I'm standing here and I'm offering you a chance to start over."

She didn't reply but her eyes bored into his, trying to see something. Her voice, when she spoke, was quiet but full of venom, "You know nothing. Don't pretend to know me. I'm not some little girl in over her head that needs someone to rescue her. And you're definitely not white knight material."

Movement in the corner of his eye silenced any response he might have given and he automatically crouched and turned to the window to assess the situation. Watching carefully he counted four men coming down the alley, each of them moving precisely and keeping to the shadows to avoid detection.

"They're com- Fuck!"

He realized as he ducked too late that he had wrongly categorized Romanoff as a friendly and she had taken advantage of his lapse. She was already coming out of her crouch as she picked up her knife and launched her attack.

The only reason his throat hadn't been cut was his reflexes; the instant he noticed her movement he launched himself to the side to create more space and moved his head out of range. As it was, the knife had caught him on his unprotected shoulder as his arms had come up to protect his face and neck.

"Fuck, Romanoff!" He delivered a solid roundhouse kick to her stomach to push her back and give him time to recover.

By the time she looked back up at him he had an arrow loaded and aimed at her. "We don't have time for any more of that bullshit. The Agency is here and whether or not you decide to come with me after, we both need to get out of here," his tone was deadly. "Your weapons are behind the sofa. Take what you need and then we'll head to the roof."

She was unapologetic even though she did as he instructed. "The roof isn't the best escape route. We'll be easy targets from up there."

He lowered his bow although he kept the arrow in place and replied, "There's at least four men in the alley and probably more than that coming up the stairs and guarding the elevator. We won't get past them in the hall once they set up so the best chance we have is to get to the roof and assess the situation from there."

"Unless they have agents on the roof as well," she commented as she grabbed another gun. "Why the fuck did you take out all the ammo?"

He just smiled, "For my part I think I can handle the couple of agents they might have on the roof. Plus there won't be any worry about civilians getting in the way if we do it on the roof."

She was doing a final equipment check and snorted, "Boy Scout." He reached under the couch and picked up the gun he'd kicked there earlier. Holding it out to her he watched her brow furrow in confusion.

"Practical," he returned as he looked back out the window to the alley.

"Here," he turned at her word and barely caught the bandages she threw at his head.

He cocked an eyebrow, "For me? You shouldn't have."

"You're useless if you keep bleeding and like you said- we're stuck together for now."

"I'm touched," he replied sarcastically. He wasn't thrilled about putting his bow down after she had already attacked him once but he didn't show it.

After a minute he had the still bleeding cut wrapped as best he could. "Ready?"

She rolled her eyes again and went to the door. He watched as she disarmed the trip wire and what looked like a small explosive attached, he rolled his eyes at her over-the-top design, and then she pushed it open. The door swung open silently and she peeked out cautiously, checking and then double-checking before making her move.

He followed silently, unconsciously alternating positions at her back to cover her if an enemy were to appear in the hall.

From her irritated look she'd caught on to his movements but said nothing as they made their way to the roof via the small stairwell.

There was no movement from below, so either the Agency was incompetent and didn't have this set of stairs covered- unlikely- or they had already reached the room and were setting up from there to cut off potential escape routes.

Again she took the lead and glanced through the crack as she opened the door. He covered the stairwell entrance they had come in through, ready for any movement or threat.

She hissed quietly to get his attention and motioned with her hands. Seven fingers went up and she shot him an annoyed look.

He just smirked and whispered, "I bet I get more than you."

Romanoff didn't answer, although Clint could see she was considering the challenge. The distant sound of a door being broken down reminded them of the urgency and he let her jump through the door first.

She charged the closest target and he took down one guy before he even cleared the door. He was reloading and picked a man further away who looked to be raising a comm. device.

He quickly silenced the threat and turned to engage another one who approached him. He didn't feel like wasting an arrow so he went hand-to-hand, using his bow as an extension of his arm.

He couldn't see Natasha, but from the grunts of pain he could hear she was handling herself just fine. Clint saw an opening in the man's guard and pulled back a step to get enough room to draw his knife. The guy stepped in, thinking he had the advantage, and Clint calmly dodged the punch and opened the man's neck.

He turned to look for what had to be the last man or two, assuming that Natasha had managed to get at least as many as he had.

She was about to get the last one when an arrow sprouted from his chest. Annoyed she looked at Clint.

He just smiled wide, "I win."

"Moron."

He had scoped the building out enough to know the best escape route from the roof and obviously Natasha did as well. She went to check the other sides of the building while he set up on the side they would make their jump.

From his perch he cleared the alley below, carefully and quickly picking off his targets to reduce any potential noise that they would make- either from falling dead or from calling to a fellow agent after seeing one of their own drop dead.

Natasha finished her recon on the other sides and joined Clint. He could feel her behind him as he made his last shot and lowered his bow. "Shall we?"

They jumped to an adjoining roof and took off running, jumping several more roofs and putting as much distance as possible between them and the building that was now sure to be crawling with Agency guns.

When they made it as far as they could on the roofs they climbed down a fire escape to the ground, quickly concealing their weapons and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

They remained in the alley as Clint pulled out his earpiece and brought it to life. "Barton here."

"Mission completed?"

"Yes sir, I have Romanoff. We're awaiting pickup and- oof!"


I wanted to take a quick second to thank everyone who read and especially if you subscribed in some way or reviewed! I PM'ed everyone I could but for those of you that I couldn't- including my three anonymous reviewers and one who I couldn't message- thank you!

And I wanted to clear something up because it was asked- this is not going to be Clint/Coulson slash. It probably won't even Clint/Natasha. I suck at writing romances so this story is solely focusing on the backstory and friendships. I'm sorry if people wanted the romance- I promise it would be awful if I wrote it but I hope you still enjoy the story anyway!

Always

Sinkme