A/N So like lots of character definition in the last chapter and in this one. You get to see Clint's usual lighter side compared to his dark internal ramblings about his past. Natasha's still kind of a bitch, but let's face it, when isn't she.

SHEILD really kept to protocol when it came to taking on a foreign agent. At the beginning of the 4 weeks of intense interrogations, The Black Widow revealed her name to be Natalia Alianovna Romanova. She told them about the Red Room, Ivan Petrovitch, how he took pretty young girls from orphanages and trained them to be killing machines. She was given countless serums to make her the best she could be, and to make her forget everything about herself. She told Fury that she didn't know what many of them did, which was true, but it took him a while to believe her. He still didn't trust her and wondered every minute of every day why in the hell did Barton choose to let this one live.

Natalia was considered the biggest security risk to SHEILD besides an attack from an outside force. She was monitored 24/7 by means of cameras that were positioned throughout the entire base. She became quite a spectacle walking through the halls of SHEILD. Everywhere she went she was escorted by at least 3 of the best security guards and agents. Long, fiery, curly red hair framed a stone cold face. The way she walked was graceful, silent, yet exuded an inordinate amount of power for someone so small compared to the large men she was forced to walk around with. Her beautiful green eyes were what really caught attention. If looks could kill, the entirety of the base would be dead.

No one particularly wanted to be in her presence, that was, except Clint Barton. He knew there was something different about her that no one else could see. He knew that most of the agents here had had relatively quiet and normal childhoods, but he also knew that she had an extremely painful one, if you even want to call it a childhood. He could relate to that.

The face she wore scared even Fury at some times. He didn't really know if he could trust her, even though Barton had somehow grown attached to the ruthless Russian assassin. What he knew for certain was that he needed someone like her on his side, and if he let her go she could go back to the Red Room and possibly undermine SHEILD altogether. The Council wasn't to keen on the idea of an ex-russian assassin working for them, but when Fury told them his findings, they reluctantly agreed to give her a test run. Fury had told them that while cold, she was the best at what she did, and she didn't want to go back to the Red Room and would rather die before being under the control of Ivan Petrovitch again.

SHEILD knew that she couldn't keep her Russian-given name, so they worked with her to come up with one she could easily adjust to, but also was different enough from her original name to keep the Red Room off her heels. They finally came to an agreement on Natasha Romanoff. Agent Natasha Romanoff. She like the sound of that.

When the newly named Natasha was still in interrogation, Clint was sent out on simple assignments that were close by to occupy his time, but also allowed Fury to be able to contact him if something took a wrong turn with The Black Widow. He was relieved to hear that she would be accepted as a SHEILD agent, under one condition: he had to be her partner, because he seemed to be the only one to be able to handle himself around her. Everyone else would have tried to kill her in fear of her killing them first.

Once it was finalized that she was in fact a true SHIELD agent, she no longer had to walk around with burly men all day. Both Fury and the Council wanted to keep a close watch on Clint and Natasha, just to make sure the seemingly heartless Russian didn't make any moves to kill their best agent. They were allowed to train together whenever they wanted, going in and out of the gym, shooting range, and simulation areas as they pleased. During their sparring sessions is where she got most of her pleasure from, sure she loved shooting guns and hitting the target every time, but to use your body as a weapon was a different feeling entirely.

Their first sparring match didn't go as Clint had planned, Natasha kind of took that one over within 30 seconds of stepping onto the mats.

"Alright Romanoff," Clint said with a mildly teasing tone, "the easiest way to take down a target bigger than you at close range is to hit the-"

He suddenly found himself pinned to the floor faster that he could register that she had even touched him.

"I know how to fight men, Barton, I'm Russian." She replied coldly, letting him pick himself off the ground, no way in hell was she showing him sympathy even if she did owe him a debt. "What we need to do instead of babying me is learn how each other moves so we can actually be successful in the field."

More cold responses from the Black Widow. Great.

They ran drill after drill and whenever Clint did something Natasha didn't like she would pin him and tell him to do it again, "And do it right this time" She would call over her shoulder as she took her place in the ring.

Over time, their sparring matches accumulated quite an audience, mostly junior agents, but quite a few senior agents as well. The way they moved together yet independently at the same time, dodging each others strikes just in the nick of time while throwing an unexpected punch here or there, all at the speed of light. Fury started showing up to watch them more and more. He wanted - no - needed to see these two working together. Never in all his years of being the spy had he ever seen a pair of people so evenly matched but so different at the same time.

Clint was strong and dominant, but that wasn't to say that Natasha was weak and submissive. She was fast and light on her feet, and she knew exactly what Clint was going to do before he did. They were both powerful in their own right, but it did seem that Natasha won the matches most of the time.

She would pin Clint down to the floor and he could feel her press his wrists to the mat and hold his legs down with her own. If Clint Barton couldn't pin Natasha, no one had a chance. Even though he didn't come out on top of these matches, he didn't mind his view from below. Over the months that they spent training before the Council deemed Natasha suitable for missions, Clint tried hard to suppress the thoughts that kept running through his head every time he saw Natasha. She was his partner for God's sake! And she sure as hell didn't feel the same way.

Natasha wasn't stupid, she was always aware of her surroundings and could read people like a book and knew something was up with her partner. Clint was a little harder to read though She could always tell when he was trying to hide something from her but she could never really put a finger on it yet. Or maybe she just didn't want to come to terms with how she knew he felt. She on the other hand, was the Black Widow, Natalia Alianovna Romanova, she did not feel anything but power and anger. There was no way she was going to let herself fall into the arms of the ruggedly handsome archer that she now called her partner. Yes, he did have sandy blonde hair that came up to a point in the center in a way that she had never seen before, and when she pinned him down she could feel every well sculpted muscle in his body. And those eyes, they were so mysterious that if she were anyone else, she would have jumped him the first chance she got. But she reminded herself that she is not normal, she can't and won't let herself be distracted on missions or even on base.

They were both attracted to each other, which was to be expected because neither of them were even close to being remotely homely looking. Though neither of them wanted to admit it. All the women on base wanted a chance to spar with Clint Barton, or to just be close to him for any period of time really. His back was built like no one else's. Rippling yet lean muscles were the highlight of looking at him. His personality had become more lighthearted over the years as he realized that life doesn't always throw you a curveball. The cheery attitude did not help in repelling hopeless junior agents.

Natasha was a different story. All the men on base thought she was drop dead gorgeous, everything about her physique was perfect, but they were all too afraid of her to look at her for any elongated period of time. They knew she knew when people glanced at her and would probably kill them if she caught them making googly eyes at her.

"Hey Nat!" She shot her annoying partner a look that said Don't call me Nat. "Natasha-" He said more warily. "So, lunch today?" God, this guy had a two second rebound rate.

"I not hungry, I'm going to read." She said darkly. She was about to turn around and walk away when he continued to talk. Bastard.

"You need to eat Natasha, we can't just go around skipping meals when we have such dangerous jobs to do." He said with a concerned look on his face.

She though about it for a second and then decided it wouldn't kill her. Without a word she started walking towards the cafeteria with Clint Barton close behind. She really did hate going to such public places where everyone knew who she was. Even after the 6 months she's been on the base, people still didn't stop staring at her with expressions mixed between amazement and fear for their lives. It was stupid that they thought she was going to kill them, the only person who got on her nerves constantly was Barton, and she hadn't killed him yet.

Once they had gotten their two-star-restaurant-food she started to lead them to a secluded corner of the cafeteria, when her partner stopped her by saying, "Natasha, if you don't make a genuine effort to try to be accepted around here, people are going to continue to think you're going to kill them."

"Fine." Was all she said in response. She really hated socializing.

He lead her to where he wanted to sit. They sat at a table right smack dab in the middle of junior agent territory. She made a mental note to kick his ass for this later.

"OHMYGOD guys! That's Natasha Romanoff" One of the newbies said, whispering her name like she wouldn't be able to hear them. Idiot.

"Shhhhh Becca! She can probably hear you!" One of her friends warned her, and she was right to do so. If they kept up this gossiping she was going to have to do something about it.

"Natasha calm down, they've never seen you before and you are quite a sight for most people." Clint said, trying to distract his silent partner with petty compliments. "I think it's the hair."

"Shut up and eat, Barton."

"Not until you have a humane conversation with me Romanoff." He chose his words carefully when he said humane, they usually ended talking about the different missions they've been on and what they were going to do to Fury if he kept them here any longer.

"Why?"

"So people will stop making fun of me for having a Russian robot as my partner." She shot him a warning look. "Not that anyone's ever said that..."

"Nice try Barton, but you'll have to lie a little better for me to believe you next time." Every time she opened her mouth to talk to him it was like daggers, but hey, at least she was talking to him. That's more that you could say for anyone else here.

"Ouch, Tasha." He said with a hand over his heart. What was with all the nicknames today?

"Call me one more nickname, Barton, and I swear I'll throw this knife at your head, and you know I never miss." She said pretty jokingly, instead of her usual threatening tone, but also loud enough for the junior agents to hear. She instantly regretted that statement when everyone around her stopped talking from the shock of what they just heard.

Suddenly, Coulson walked up and put a calming hand on Natasha's shoulder. "Romanoff, if you're going to talk like that I'm going to have to tape your mouth shut." He was too much like her partner for her liking.

"You think that'd work? This one never shuts up, she'd probably end up talking a hole through the tape!" Clint suddenly exclaimed, rolling his head around in an overdramatic fashion.

Both Natasha and Coulson shot him a look as to say, Not funny, asshole. Well, the asshole part was just Natasha but you know, she does what she wants. Clint could tell that Coulson was growing on Natasha, and his presence right now was helping the new kids adjust to her as well.

Turning around to the countless tables of fresh agents, Coulson had a bit of a press release moment. "Alright, nothing to see here, no one's going to die. Today at least." He said with a wink to the two spies he was just conversing with.

Before the room had time to come to terms with what just happened, Clint decided to annoy Natasha one more time and show the newbies that she isn't as insane as they think.

"So Natasha, dinner at my place tonight?!" He basically screamed with a lopsided grin on his face. Her reply was nothing out of the ordinary and he laughed as the words came out of her mouth.

"Go fuck yourself Barton."

A/N So yeah language. These assassins have such dirty mouths. At least we got to see a lighter side of the two, even if she's still coldhearted most of the time. I'm thinking a mission next? Success or failure...choices...

I was going to make that last scene darker but then I figured, it's all been pretty dark so far and we need some comic relief. Clint Barton to the rescue! He actually turned out much funnier than I had planned, but I guess it works.

Sorry for my awkward semantics at the end of this, basically just stream of consciousness on this side of the keyboard.