No smut in this chapter, just another truckload of sexual tension, yay.
"Sir, I don't think there's much you can do about it. Hell, I don't think there's much I can do about it."
It had been almost two months, and S.H.I.E.L.D. had finally noticed that their top assassin had been performing better than usual. As in, pulling stunts by himself that should have taken two people. They had investigated. And they hadn't liked what they found. The two assassins had been in St. Petersburg at the time, and Barton had been ordered to move to a secure, albeit deserted, S.H.I.E.L.D. facility in Siberia and await further contact. Which, apparently, meant an irate call from Nick Fury himself.
"If she were dead, like she's supposed to be, we wouldn't have this problem."
"She came to me with a peace offering, sir. What was I supposed to do, shoot an unarmed woman?" He heard a scoff behind him. Natasha was listening to his half of the conversation, and didn't care much for being classified as unarmed. She hadn't been happy with the idea of following Clint into a real live S.H.I.E.L.D. base either, but when she realized he couldn't be dissuaded, she had reluctantly come along. Clint didn't like to think about all the weapons she must have been carrying to make her comfortable in this place.
"Perhaps I did not make it clear to you how dangerous this woman is, Barton. She's killed twice as many people as you have in half the time. And she does it by charming idiots like you. Five years ago, she single-handedly infiltrated the Wallenquist Organization on a grudge."
"I've never heard of that, sir."
"You're damn right you haven't, you want to know why?"
"Because they're all dead, sir?"
"Because they're all fucking dead. And I will not have my—" This was the last Clint heard, because at that moment Natasha snatched the phone away from him, while simultaneously twisting his wrist in such a way that he had to drop to his knees to keep her from breaking it.
"Colonel Fury? This is Natasha Romanov. Listen to me very carefully. I currently have no intention of harming Agent Barton or your organization. No, don't interrupt me. I've been impressed by Agent Barton's competency, and I've been studying how he works for my own personal reasons. If any other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are sent to neutralize me, don't doubt that I will kill them without a moment's hesitation. You'd do well not to fight this, because what you have to gain if this goes your way is far more valuable than anything you have to lose." She paused for a moment to listen to Fury's question. Then she said, "Me," and closed the phone with a snap.
Clint was on his feet by now, and held his hand out for the phone.
"Got to admit, that was much more truthful than I expected you to be."
"That presumes you knew the truth about her to begin with," came a voice from behind them.
There was a snap of movement, and Natasha had a gun pointed at the intruder before Clint could even turn around.
"Whoa, whoa," he said, stepping between them. Then he turned to acknowledge the man who had just walked in. "Coulson."
"Barton."
"Natasha Romanov, Phil Coulson. My handler."
"Miss Romanov. I'd say pleased to meet you, but under the circumstances…"
Natasha lowered her gun. "Understandable."
"Would you mind if I had a word with Agent Barton in private?" Natasha blinked. Phil's politeness threw people off, especially people who had just been shouted at by Nick Fury. Finally she nodded and walked out, heading for the training room.
When the door shut, Coulson turned back and looked at Clint. It was amazing how this man's disappointed look could make him feel a hundred times worse than Fury's worst verbal abuse.
"Are you sleeping with her?" They weren't going to beat around the bush, apparently.
"No."
Coulson sighed. "You've put us in a very difficult position, Barton. We've got a lot on the line and very little understanding of the situation. Could you please explain what exactly is going on between you and the Black Widow?"
Clint opened his mouth, but couldn't find the right words. It was a strange situation all the way around. Finally, he said, "I trust her." It may not have been the explanation Phil was looking for, but it was really all he needed to know.
"Okay." Coulson sounded resigned. "I'll try to put Fury off for a while. Meanwhile, while we're here, there's something in Moscow we need taken care of."
Initially, Natasha didn't ask him how his talk with Coulson had gone. Clearly she knew that she was in control of the situation, that if she wanted to follow Clint around for the rest of his life, as long as Clint didn't mind, S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't do anything about it. But when Coulson began treating her—not nicely, exactly, but cordially—she had to ask.
"That's just the way he is, Romanov. I've never seen Coulson be anything but polite to anyone."
They were sparring, taking advantage of the first real training space they'd had since they met. Fighting her was just as exhilarating as Clint remembered, an exercise in strengths and weaknesses.
"But what did you tell him?"
"You aren't going to like it."
"What?"
"I told him I trust you."
Her eyes hardened, and she stepped back, her body language indicating that she was done fighting him.
"Idiot," she said, but it didn't sound as angry as he'd expected.
He shrugged. "Maybe. But it's true."
"And that was enough for him?"
"Phil's known me a long time. He's my friend. If I tell him you're not planning to kill us all, he believes me." He turned away, walking toward his bag and pulling his shirt over his head. When she didn't respond, he turned back to see her watching him with a surprising degree of interest. He couldn't help but smirk.
"See something you like?"
The change in her expression was instantaneous and almost imperceptible. He had to admit, she really did have a much better handle on herself than he did.
"I was picturing you bleeding to death," she deadpanned.
"Oh yeah?" He tossed his shirt aside and approached her, watching with amusement as her pupils dilated. "How's that?"
She reached a hand out to his chest, laying her fingers delicately against his collar bone. As she spoke, her hand trailed down and her eyes followed it. "I was imagining digging a knife in right… there." On the last word she twisted her hand and dug her nails upward, right under his ribcage. It didn't really hurt, but it did make him suck in a sharp breath through his nose. "Puncture a lung, your liver, maybe a kidney. Then I'd slice this way…" She dragged her nails slowly across his abdomen, noticing how his muscles twitched under her touch. "Watch you get dissolved by your own digestive juices."
"You sure know how to sweet talk a guy, don't you?" he murmured, his voice husky. Her eyes flicked up to his, and there was definite arousal in them.
Her hand moved to his wrist, still by his side, and slid up his forearm. "Or maybe I'd just slice all of your arteries and let you bleed out." He felt the bite of her nail at the very top of his bicep, almost at his underarm. Then her hand wrapped around his neck and she scraped her thumbnail down his jugular.
"If you wanted to go for the femoral, I certainly wouldn't complain." He watched her eyes as they dropped down and took in the bulge in his pants. Her tongue darted out to wet her lower lip. She met his eyes again.
And suddenly, it was over. She stepped back, and the tension in the room evaporated in an instant. When she turned away he drew a shuddery breath.
"I've got to say, Barton, you've got an insane amount of self-control. It's almost as good as mine."
"Sniper," was all he offered in reply. He wished his voice didn't sound quite so weak. He cleared his throat. "Uh, S.H.I.E.L.D. wants me to go to Moscow tomorrow to run a couple days' surveillance on a suspected human trafficker. All long distance stuff, should be very low-key. It's up to you if you want to come, of course."
"The low-key ones are usually the ones where people end up dying. Of course I'll come."
It ended up being incredibly handy that Natasha was there. Because although Clint could understand Russian, and he could read lips, reading lips in Russian was difficult.
So he was the eyes, and Natasha was the ears, so to speak, and together they perched on a rooftop to watch a building where a large party was taking place. It was remarkably similar to the one Clint had been attended in Barcelona, and he couldn't help but think that criminal dealings were getting a bit cliché. Mercifully, this event took place in a ballroom with an entire wall of windows so surveillance was possible from a distance. Just the way Clint liked it.
They were in place early, before anyone but the caterers had arrived in the room, and they were sitting together in comfortable silence. Actually, it wasn't that comfortable, since she had been looking at him contemplatively for a while and it was starting to worry him. Finally, she just came out with what was on her mind.
"What does it mean to have friends?"
He wasn't surprised she didn't know, but he was surprised she asked. "It means you talk about things besides work. You know things about each other's lives. Coulson's told me about his family, for instance, and I've told him about mine."
"So you don't consider me a friend."
He didn't know whether she wanted to hear a yes or a no, and in such situations he usually opted for the truth.
"No." Not yet, he thought to himself.
"That's something, I suppose. But you trust me?"
"I do. Do you trust me?"
"Of course not. I don't trust anyone. Trust is foolish and gets you killed faster than any other mistake you could make."
"So you're saying I shouldn't trust you."
"Yes."
"Can you give me a reason that doesn't boil down to a rejection of trust in general?"
"Every man who ever trusted me is dead."
"How many of them would still be alive if they hadn't trusted you?"
She was silent a moment. "Two. Possibly three, it's hard to say."
"There you go. I make my decisions about who to trust based on the person. So I'm going to continue to trust you until you prove I shouldn't."
She might have kept arguing, but people were starting to trickle into the ballroom across the street, and their mark had just walked in.
"There she is. Olga Lebedev. Supposedly here to negotiate a human trafficking deal."
"Well, right now she's talking about wine. Which she has terrible taste in, by the way."
"It's okay, where she's headed they don't have much in the way of wine anyway."
"We're putting her in jail? Seems a bit of an underreaction."
"I was actually talking about hell." She shot him an amused look, then immediately went back to scoping their target.
An hour went by, and it was starting to look like bad wine was the most interesting thing Olga Lebedev was going to talk about, when the doors to the ballroom opened again and Clint felt Natasha stiffen next to him.
"What is it?"
"It's- it's nothing, probably. I know that man."
"From where?" he asked. Considering the life she used to lead, it was pretty likely that anyone that Natasha knew from Russia was a criminal. And a dangerous one at that. She didn't answer, though, just watched the man closely. Time passed, and he made no move toward Lebedev, and finally Clint turned his attention back to the person they were actually supposed to be watching.
"Oh, look, we have suspicious behavior." Indeed, the woman was tucked in a corner with an older man, and even without being in the room Clint could tell they were speaking in very low voices. "Can you tell what they're saying?"
He felt a change in Natasha's posture as she snapped out of whatever flashback the mystery man had put her in. The person Olga was meeting with had his mouth to her ear, at such an angle that they couldn't read his lips, but hers were visible.
"She says she'll have the girls Friday. They're arriving at the docks Thursday night."
"Alright. I'd call that due diligence. Let's stick around for a while longer, just in case, but I think that's all we need." Natasha didn't answer, just trained her binoculars back on the man she'd said she knew. "Who is that?"
"Ivan Koslov. The head of the Red Room."
Clint turned fully to stare at her. "The Red Room, you mean the group that—"
"That killed my parents, kidnapped me, and turned me into a killing machine?" Clint stared at Koslov again, scanned the room for any indication that he was in communication with Olga Lebedev. There seemed to be none; they hadn't even glanced at each other. "Is it just coincidence that he's here?"
"I think it must be. He likes to rape little girls, but he doesn't need a human trafficker to get them." Clint stared at Natasha for a minute, thinking. Then he reached for his bow.
"I'd offer you the shot, but I don't have a rifle and I don't think you're a strong enough shot with the bow."
She tore her gaze away from the ballroom to look at him. "You're going to kill him?"
"Of course. I told you when I met you; I kill people who make this world a worse place. And men who rape children and turn them into weapons definitely fall into that category."
"But you haven't seen for yourself." Clint looked at her speculatively, pulling an arrow out of his quiver. It was true, this would be the first person he'd killed in a long time on the word of someone else. But he'd told Natasha he trusted her. She was testing that trust now, exploring its limits, and if he couldn't do this for her, it wasn't worth much at all.
He drew his bow and took a breath. He dropped his heartrate to a slow thud, took aim at the man who had destroyed Natasha Romanov's life, and released.
Glass shattered, people screamed, and Ivan Koslov was dead before he hit the ground.
"Let's get out of here."
That night, there was a knock on Clint's bedroom door. He opened it, and Natasha slipped in, dressed casually and looking as gorgeous as anything Clint had ever seen. She seemed stiff, uncomfortable as she stood by the door and searched for what she wanted to say.
"I lied to you."
He turned back to her, raised an eyebrow. "About what?"
"The man you shot today. He wasn't the leader of the Red Room. I'd never seen him before in my life."
