… Clint PoV …
Hours later, after the sun had set, he crouched at the window for several minutes watching her breathing. The room was dark but he could still see the side of her face and the expanse of her naked back over the sheets. One hand lay under her head, the other under the pillow- on her knife no doubt. I should do it from here, he thinks. He imagines the arrow piercing the center of her forehead or her back and knows he can't use the bow for this. She's too young, too good, too careful to kill in her sleep.
He slips his bow over his head and shoulder, the curtain barely shifting as he slides inside. Feet whispering over the hardwood floor, he might've felt like a child sneaking around for a peek at Christmas presents, if the woman wrapped in the bed before him were less lethal. I'm an idiot. I'm going to get myself killed. He fingers the knife at his thigh.This was more like lassoing an angry crocodile. As he crept closer, reaching out for the gun on the nightstand, the hair on the back of his beck began to prickle. Too easy, he thought. The second his fingertips touched the gun, her body snapped.
The hand under her pillow flashed out, knife held backwards. He wrapped his fingers around the gun just as she slammed the blade into his belly. The blade didn't pierce his knife vest but still hurt like hell. He let out a hoarse grunt and chucked the gun over their heads toward the window, while reaching for her knife hand. She grinned at him, all teeth and malice and shoved the heel of her other hand into his nose. His head whipped back as he slapped her knife hand away.
She brought her knees up, the sheet tangled around her legs and kicked out. He grunted, landing further away than he expected but rolled to his feet easily. She was already off the bed and halfway to her pistol, the sheet sprawled over the floor in her haste. He reacted fast, yanking his own handgun from its holster and leveling it at the back of her head. "Freeze." She stilled immediately at the sound of his voice, her naked back framed by the window, the gun a meter or so from her toes. She slowly raised her hands and looked over her shoulder at him, her face splitting into a wicked smile. It set him on edge.
She's good, he thought, keeping the gun trained on her head. He wanted to ignore her body and focus on her face. After all, it's dangerous to leave the other head in charge when in a dark room with a woman who just tried to shank you. But his training told him that he needed to watch her body language carefully. He expected her to make a try for one of the pistols or to even try to make a move on him- he briefly wondered how the hell he'd react to that. She did neither, simply turning to stand before him, hands in the air, smiling and unmoving. "Drop the knife." He still sounded winded and this made her eyes crinkle and her smile grow a bit. She drops the knife. "Kick it over." She did so gracefully. The blade gently bumped the tip of his boot. She rolls her shoulders a bit.
"So. You're the one who has been following me?"
He nodded. "You were damned hard to follow-"
"But not hard enough?" he wonders if there was an innuendo there or if he's just imagining it. She cocks her head. "American. Unusual. You're too good to be with them."
"I'm not. With them." Her eyebrows rise. He doesn't move.
"And you know who I'm talking about?" she asks, condescendingly.
"The men from Nysa." Her eyes narrow. "Twelve went in. Two came out. You left at dawn." Her fingers twitched and he was suddenly very glad he'd revealed that after the knife left her fingers. "Now, I enjoy life as much as the next guy, but I'm not alone. You kill me and hundreds more will be after you." For just a second, she scowls at him dangerously before it quickly washes away. "You are a threat to my organization. I was told to eliminate the threat."
"And yet we stand here."
He nods. "You're good at what you do. Leave this behind and-" she lets out a bark of laughter, throwing her head back.
"And what? Sit in an underground prison for the rest of my life? I'd rather go out fighting." And with that, she threw herself behind the bed, arm snapping out for her gun. He leapt on the bed in a single step and fired. She lay on her back on the crisp white sheets covering the floor, her hand just ghosting over her gun, a fist sized hole in the floor just to the right of her temple. It seemed to him that she was looking at him as a real threat now, for the first time.
"This isn't a come on, Romanov." Her eyelid twitched. He leveled the gun on her face. "I'm an assassin. You've got two choices. You run from here and they will send others to kill you. Or-" her eye twitched again, "you leave the private business. Commit to my organization and work for us."
"And if I refuse?"
"Not even we can force an assassin to do a job. But you would have to start over. Be under our watch, abide by our laws, try not to kill anyone-" she smirked. "and if you betray us, you won't be able to hide."
She said nothing, eyes running over him for a few moments. After several dozen heartbeats he began to feel a little ridiculous with his huge boots crumpling her white sheets, her on her back buck naked. He cleared his throat and her eyes snapped back to his. "I've said my piece and don't really want to shoot a naked woman on her back," her eyebrows rose again, "but I will if I have to. Take your hand off the gun." She complied, but locked her jaw angrily. Her small hand fell over her stomach and for a fleeting second he followed the movement. God damn. When he looked back up to her face she was smiling. She'd noticed. He cleared his throat again and stepped off the bed and to the floor, his boots landing beside her pale hip. He noticed her eyes sharply moving up his leg and around the room- assessing her surroundings. His training told him she was looking for ways to escape. His brain reminded him that he reacted the same way when he went to the bar. She's not so different. She just picked the wrong side. When he sat down on the bed and lowered his gun slightly, she lifted her head and her eyebrows drew together in confusion. "I just asked you to leave the dark side, Romanov. Don't you have any more snide remarks?" her face twitched again. "Or questions?" Her eyes flash to his again. She laid her head back lightly, staring up at the ceiling.
"Romanoff." She said quietly.
"Excuse me?"
"I go by Romanoff now." He shrugged.
"The report wasn't very specific."
"Undoubtedly." A small smile played at her lips as she glanced at him. "I assume you cannot tell me the name of this organization of yours?"
"Not yet."
"Yet?" he shrugged
"Your decision."
"Does your organization often send their people on missions like this one?" he laughed.
"You're my first of this kind. So, no. Not often."
"Should I feel flattered?"
"Either that or threatened. Maybe a little of both." Her eyes flicked to the gun in his hands and back to his face. He shrugged again. "Just saying." She nodded slightly.
"You said 'work for you'. What kind of work?"
"That depends on how trustworthy you are. You're a spy and an assassin after all."
"And how do you determine how trustworthy I am?"
"Interviews. Tests. Psychologists. After you clear those they'll send you on a mission."
"What kind of mission?" she asked staring at the ceiling again.
"A small one. It won't be too dangerous or too important. You'll be with another agent. Probably me." Her eyes fly to his. "When we return we'll both give a report. It will be up to me to recommend or oppose your going on another mission…" she noticed his pause and turned her head to face him. His eyes seemed colder than before. "If your loyalty sways I will be ordered to take you down." She almost shivered in the breeze from the window.
"And if it doesn't?"
"If I find you valuable to the mission you'll go on more. They'll become more dangerous, more difficult and more important. After a determined amount of time, you'll be entrusted with your own."
"This doesn't sound rehearsed." His brows lowered in misunderstanding. "Did someone say this to you once?" she noticed his jaw clench.
"A version. I wanted to be a good guy. Wanted to help people." He expected her to scoff but she remains silent. "Got involved in some crime. Got out of my league. I got on the government's radar in a bad way. I was cuffed to a table in an Atlanta police department when they sent an agent in to talk to me. They gave me a way out. A place to live, a job, a way to make a difference."
"And you do make a difference?"
"We do what we can."
"And how can a spy help the good guys?"
"Hey. I said good guys. I never said we play fair." She nods, grinning, staring back up at the ceiling. He waits.
"There's really only two options here that end well for me isn't there?"
"Pretty much." She nods and sits up. His finger tenses on the trigger for a second and she notices.
"I just want to put on some clothes before we leave. You are taking me back to the states, I assume?" he nods and moves to the window. He watches her out of the corner of his eye, his pistol pointed down and watches the streets outside for several moments. He freezes when he notices the man on the roof across from them.
"You expecting company?"
"No, why-" her sentence is cut short as the door slams open and into the dresser she'd just been emptying. Two people make it through the door before she kicks it shut with a crash. He crosses the length of the room, pulling his knife from the sheath on his calf as she kicks one of them, ducking a punch from the other. He sinks his knife into the calf of the closest one, following him to the floor where he slams his head down.
When he looks up she's got her thighs wrapped around the other guys face and with a twist of her hips she sends his face flying at the floor and lands on her feet, arms up, ready for more. He's about to compliment her when the door slams open again and gunfire sounds. Before they even cross the threshold, she has someone's arm twisted backwards and jams her elbow into the bone with a crack. The gun clatters to the floor and as she follows it the butt of a heavy pistol slams into her skull. She slumps the floor as the last man advances on Clint, shouting something in Russian. He holds his hands up in surrender- live today, fight tomorrow. And then she moves. Before the Russian has time to turn on her, she's swept his legs out from under him with her own and has a gun at the base of his skull and a knee on his spine. "Who sent you?"
Clint gets to his feet rolling his shoulders and watches the other men. The man she first dropped is reaching for his gun when Barton's foot lands on his fingers. "You'll want to answer the lady. She fights dirty." She pressed the gun barrel further into his skull and he sputtered out a few sentences in Russian. She thanks him before slamming his face into the floor. He knocks out the other two while she gathers their weapons. It's not until he turns to her then that he realizes, she's only wearing jeans and a bra. She smirks at him and goes back to her dresser, stepping over the unconscious men on her floor like she did this everyday- hell, she probably does. He clears his throat. "While that's impressive and I'm grateful you didn't let him shoot me, I'll need those weapons." She stills and turns to him, one of their guns dangling from her fingertip.
"Still scared of me, then?" she asks grinning.
"You wish. I just watched you drop 4 armed men without breaking a sweat. Even if I can handle you, I'm trained to be cautious."
"Cautious? Or paranoid?" he shrugs.
"Same thing." Her grin widens and she sets the gun on top of the dresser and backs away, hands up while he collects the guns and knives. She leans against the wall watching him as he fills every knife strap and gun hostler he has and still has two knives tucked into his belt and a gun in each hand.
"Looks as if you're ready to start your own war."
"I might have to if we run into anymore of your old friends." He says, stepping back to the edge of the window while she yanks on a large sweater and shoves everything else into a duffel bag on the floor.
"Am I allowed any of those weapons or will I have to use the ones I was born with if we run into more friends?"
He shoots her a skeptical look and says "Like you really need anything else." But he tosses her a knife anyway. She catches it easily and straps it to her thigh under the oversized sweater. He points to her, allowing the barrel of the gun to swing down to the floor, "I like you, but as soon as we get to my vehicle you'll need to give that up. If you give me any reason to fear you, I will kill you." He expected her to shudder at the threat- he'd never given one like that to a woman. But she didn't even blink.
"Then it's a good thing you're not afraid of me then, hmm?" her smirk was gone but he would bet she was still laughing at him in her head. And then she's pulling on socks and shoes, gathering her laptop bag, duffel, and coat and staring at him. "Shall we?"
"Ladies first." He says, folding his bow up using one hand and his thigh and tucking it in his jacket.
"You just don't want me behind you." She says smiling at him over her shoulder.
"Just move, Romanoff." He says, nudging her in the back with the butt of his gun. She heads to the stairs, surreptitiously watching the doors along the hall. When he closes the door behind them he grabs her arm. "You have anything to cover up with? You kind of stand out." She shrugs into her thick coat, pulling the hood up over her head. As they emerge from the back door, he tosses his arm over her should and leans in close "Play along". She tenses for a second before leaning in to kiss his cheek. He blinks at her once before falling back into character. "There's a sniper on a roof at 3 o'clock. Christ, woman, what did you do to these people?" she shrugs.
"Can't remember." He's pretty sure she's lying but doesn't care. He leads them down the street, one hand over her shoulder, the other on the gun in his pocket. When they reach the old home several blocks away she raises her eyebrows. "I imagined Headquarters would be more impressive."
"Shut up." He tells her, pushing her in and locking the door behind them. He checks the windows and back door before pulling her up the stairs and into the bedroom with him. She hesitates at the doorway, glancing from him to the bed.
"But, I don't even know your name, handsome." She says coyly. He wonders if she's just fucking with him at this point. He rolls his eyes, moving to the window to gather his things. He manages to shove all the files (her files, as it were) into a folder before she notices them. He lays his bow and quiver on the table. She picks it up, lightly. "You any good with this?"
"Wouldn't you like to know." He says, taking it from her to pack away. "The knife?" she hands it to him and he packs it away with his bow. He turns to her, pointing. "Now, sit down, shut up, and try not to give me more reasons to shoot you." He presses a finger to his ear. Coulson answers immediately.
"Hawkeye. Did you finish the job?" Clint sighs, grateful Hill isn't around.
"Didn't go quite as planned, sir. She's good at what she does. I think we could benefit from her… skill set." She flashes him a smile. "I'll vouch for her."
"You plan on telling Nick Fury that you want him to hire the assassin we've been chasing for six months?"
"Sounds about right." Clint imagined Coulson pinching the bridge of his nose. "I know the consequences here. I'll deal with them if it comes to that. Where can we meet you?"
"Passports, a rental car and directions are on their way to you now. They'll be delivered tomorrow by an unrelated party. I hope you know what you're doing, Hawkeye."
"Me too. See you soon."
"So it's my skill set that impresses you so much, huh?" she asks, shrugging out of her heavy coat. He sighs, heavily.
"Look, lady. You're testing my patience. I didn't stay alive this long by being stupid enough to fall into bed with a woman nicknamed Black Widow so you can cut the shit." Her eyes narrow dangerously. "I'm still not one hundred percent certain you aren't going to backstab me and steal off into the night the second I turn away so it isn't going to work." She sits back to watch him evenly and he briefly wonders if she's fantasizing about taking him out with her thighs- damn sure he is, even if he'd never admit it. He shakes his head and sighs. "I'm starving. You eat pizza or just the bodies of your enemies?"
She blinks at him a few times before smirking. "Pizza sounds fantastic." After he dials the number he drops into a chair at the table, propping his leg up on the opposite one.
"So," he says, twirling one of his arrows around his fingers, "where'd you lean to do the gymnastic tricks?" she raises an eyebrow, confused. "You know. The flipping-guys-over-with-nothing-but-your-thighs-thing." She smirks looking away and sighing.
"To be honest, I don't remember." He looks at her, confused. "I've been an acrobat for as long as I can remember. I used to be a ballerina and was in gymnastics too… well… at least I thought so." He holds up a hand.
"Sorry, I'm completely lost." She looks away from him, at the wall and takes a deep breath.
"I suppose your organization will need to know everything about my past?" he nods, "Very well. My memories are blurry, faulty. I can remember my parents and ballet classes and a terrible fire but… one day I woke up after a concussion and had all new memories. I was trained by a secret organization. They did things to make me stronger, make me heal faster and age slower. They deploy each of their agents with false memories to protect themselves. I've never been able to find that organization again. I can't tell which memories are real and which aren't." when she looks back at him, it's kind of a wonder his jaw isn't on the floor.
"My people can help you." She lifts one foot up to rest on the bed, resting her chin on her knee.
"Maybe. But there you go. That's why I'm so good at what I do. I was raised to be what I am. I don't know how to do anything else." He stares at her silently for several long moments.
"My code name is Hawkeye. I ran away to join the circus when I was six." Oh my god, I'm a fucking idiot. Her eyes snap back to his. "I was an orphan." Well, might as well go on and say it now. Can't do much more damage at this point. "That's where I learned archery."
"This is a harsh field for a circus performer."
"It's a pretty harsh field for a ballerina." She snickers and relaxes a little but when the doorbell rings, she's got her knife in hand. He peeks out the window. "Pizza. It'd be less hassle just to pay the man." She sighs, shaking her head.
"I suppose so." She says, as he follows her down the stairs. She translates for him and pizza boy and then let him nudge her back up the stairs. He thinks she's laughing that the fact that he doesn't like her behind him but doesn't really care.
After finishing a few slices of pizza, she wipes her hands and looks up to him from across the table. "Do you really think your organization will want me?" she asks suddenly. He chokes on his pizza a little.
"You don't go for small talk do you? And yeah. The second they see what you can do they'll want you." He yawns, closing the lid on the pizza box. "Now, I'm getting tired and our tickets out of here will be here in a few hours. Please tell me I don't have to worry about you stabbing me while I'm asleep." She snickers and his eyes narrow. "I'm not joking, Romanoff. I'm risking a lot bringing you back alive. Don't make me regret it." She stares at him for several long seconds before nodding.
"I understand." He nods curtly.
"Good." He strips off his shirt before lying down. She's still sitting at the table, her head resting on her fist. "Aren't you tired?" she nods. "The bed is big enough for us both, if you're interested." Her eyes snap to him and he shrugs. "Up to you." He stares at the ceiling as she pulls off her sweater and shimmies out of her jeans, before pulling on a tank top. She slides in the bed next to him lying on her side facing him. He turns to her. "And don't even think about putting a weapon under your pillow tonight." She nods, staring at him. "You could really confuse a man, you know?"
"How so?"
"I get the feeling you flirt because you're a spy, not because you're interested." Her face remains neutral. "but then you stare at me like that and I can't tell if you're counting the ways you could kill me or wondering what I look like naked." She snorts. He just made the most deadly assassin in the world snort- because he suggested that she might wonder what he looked like under his shorts.
"Would it comfort you to know that it's a little of both?" his brain stalls for a few seconds.
"I'm not sure how I should feel about that." She shrugs.
"Me neither. Good night, Hawkeye." And she rolls over and is asleep almost instantly.