Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers or any of the characters affiliated with them. If I did, there would totally be a Hawkeye/Black Widow movie in the works.

Author's Note: While I embrace constructive criticism, remember this old saying if you choose to leave a review "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

Thanks to all Chapter 6 reviewers: Sam M. Holmes, mellbell12123, Guest, Phoenix Aurorean, Blackwindmill, ziggy488, CiaraXx, LivinJgrl123, Susan M. M, Tsukinoko1, VoldieBeth, the frozen cherry, Smilingeyesandpixiedust, bookworm1517, snitch-bewitch, Shanynde, discordchick, Fyroni, ArabianForest, CyanB, Reteka Hyuuga, GregsMadHatter, clovely-littleme, Liliththestormgoddess, Moi92, Sam Mayer, Sinkme, animexluva13, liberated vulcan, Danie9513, OB ob OB ob OB, TheNightFury, yevguine, authorunable, RonWeasleyismiking, Mirabilem Electo, Drake.12, Lollypops101

I won't spend a bunch of time rambling this go 'round :) Suffice it to say, several of you knew exactly who was behind this and several more had some wildly good guesses that would have thrown everyone for a loop if they were correct :) This chapter, Clint figures it all out too.

Last Time:

Natasha could almost feel the emotion rolling off her partner in waves. Every fiber of her being wanted to comfort him. They'd been through a lot together, she and him. They'd seen tragedy, they'd flirted with death, they'd taken pain in every form, they'd bled together, they'd fought together, they'd mourned their closest friend together, but they'd never faced anything like this before. She turned, resting her unbruised temple against the wall and pressing her hand flat against the smooth surface of the grey paint, wishing she could make it better.

An eye for an eye would make the whole world blind. -Mahatma Gandhi

"This is the address for the SHIELD safe house Natasha would have been using," Tony announced. The four men stared at the hand print reader next to the door and frowned.

"How did you find this address again?" Bruce asked warily.

"I hacked SHIELD. This is the only safe house they have active in the city right now." Tony shrugged. Honestly, SHIELD needed to install new firewalls if they wanted him to stop doing that.

"How do we gain entry?" Thor asked, shifting his grip on his hammer. He seriously considered just hitting the door as hard as he could.

"It might open for any SHIELD agent." Tony glanced at Steve. "Why don't you give it a shot, Stars and Stripes?"

Steve immediately raised his hand and flattened it against the palm reader. They all stared with bated breath as the scanner processed Steve's handprint. Just when they thought it wasn't going to work, the device lit up green and the door popped open.

They released a collective breath.

Steve led the way inside only to stop just inside the door. The other three filed in quietly, all taking in the destruction of the room with wide eyes.

"Do you think Natasha fought someone here?" Bruce asked as he nudged a piece of a broken wooden chair with his foot.

"It does seem as if a great battle was fought," Thor agreed.

"There was," Tony spoke up from where he was fingering a fist sized hole in the wall. "But not by Natasha and not against any tangible enemy."

"Clint," Steve realized quietly.

"The archer did this?" Thor's eyes widened.

"He'd just lost the love of his life," Tony explained. "I'm surprised this place is still standing."

"Barely," Bruce muttered, shifting the half hanging sink in the bathroom.

"He's obviously not here anymore," Steve pointed out. "We need to try and find any clue of where he went."

"We won't find anything." Tony shook his head. "Clint is the best at what he does. He doesn't want to be found so he won't be. He won't have left any trace for us to find."

"Then what is our next course of action?" Thor wondered, pushing at the fallen fridge with his foot.

Nobody had an immediate answer. Finally Steve sighed.

"We know he's in this city. So we'll turn over every rock until we find him."

"That sounds terribly inefficient." Tony frowned at him.

"What else do you suggest?" Bruce challenged.

"Clint is here on a one-man mission of destruction." He motioned around the destroyed room demonstratively. "So, we follow the destruction."

Clint didn't know he'd fallen asleep until he flinched awake at the sound of his door unlocking. He blinked blearily at the ceiling, wondering when he'd laid down on the floor. He quickly forced his arms underneath his body, pushing himself up with a stifled groan.

He hurt. His wrist, though he maintained that nothing was broken, was nastily bruised and stiff. The muscles in his back ached with deep bruising, especially across his shoulder blades. And his head was foggy, a sure fire sign of a concussion. He could feel the stiff dryness of old blood on his face and wondered if he looked as terrible as he felt.

He'd just made it to a wobbly standing position, his knee reminding him that it had been abused as well, when the door opened. Three guns led the way and then a large burly man stalked forward with handcuffs. Clint backed up strategically, forcing the man to move deeper into the room and farther from the guns. He was big enough that he'd serve as a suitable shield until the three guns ran out of ammo.

The burly man stopped two steps in front of the guns.

"You make a move and they kill the girl," he informed Clint in surprisingly good English.

Clint watched one of the guns pull back and move to the left in the hallway. Natasha could take care of herself, but Clint wasn't willing to risk her just yet. Not so soon after getting her back.

Clint glared at him. The man tossed the handcuffs at his feet.

"Put those on behind your back and then put your face against the wall."

Clint hesitated for only a moment before leaning over gingerly to pick up the cuffs. He snapped one ring around his bruised wrist and then slid his hands behind his back, clicking the other closed around his other wrist. He left them loose, but not so loose that it was obvious. With some doing he should be able to slip them. It wouldn't be fun, but he'd done it before. He'd rip up the skin on one of his hands, but it was definitely possible.

He turned and faced the wall. A foot kicked his legs farther apart and a strong hand pressed his head against the wall. He winced when the cuffs were tightened roughly, biting into the tender skin of his wrists. Suddenly there was a rope being forced under his bicep, over his back, and back under the other bicep. It was pulled tight, forcing his arms and shoulders back and restricting his arm movement to almost nothing.

"To make sure you don't go making any poor choices," the man hissed in his ear. Clint wasn't entirely surprised they were taking the precaution considering how easily he'd fought back last time they thought he was subdued.

Then Clint was pulled roughly around by his elbow and dragged towards the door.

Natasha perked up when she heard heavy feet on the stairs. She heard keys in the lock on Clint's door and stood, staring hard at the vent to hear what was going on. She and Clint had talked quietly for a good while before he'd almost abruptly stopped responding. It had only taken her a few moments of calling his name with no response to realize he'd either fallen asleep or passed out.

She heard the door open and felt her muscles tense even though she wasn't in the room.

"You make a move and they kill the girl," a rough voice nearly growled.

There was no response she could hear but the sound of metal hitting the concrete floor followed a few moments later. She scowled. It was already starting. They were already using her against him.

"Put those on behind your back and then put your face against the wall."

She heard the slight rattling of handcuffs being snapped into place. Then there was relative silence save for some rustling and the sudden sound of handcuffs being tightened. She strained to hear anything else as silence reigned for a few more moments.

"To make sure you don't go making any poor choices."

She wished she'd known what the hell that guy was talking about. Clint didn't offer any verbal response or any audible resistance as they forced him out of the room. Natasha slammed her open palm against the wall as she heard their footsteps fade away and she was left to wait again.

Clint forced his features to remain stone cold as he was slammed forcefully into an armless wooden chair. The tie was left around his biceps and looped over the back of the chair, forcing his bruised back against the hard wood. A second set of handcuffs was used to link the pair around his wrists to the cross bar between the back legs of the chair.

Effectively restrained, Clint could do nothing more than glare heatedly at the floor and force his breathing to remain calm and even. He listened as footsteps that could only belong to expensive shoes approached him from behind and came to stand in front of him.

He glared at the shoes. In his experience, people with expensive shoes were bad news.

"I have heard of the great SHIELD assassin known as Hawkeye, but I must admit, you are not what I was expecting."

"Everybody expects me to be taller." Clint smirked lazily as he raised his glare to pin on Baskov.

"I was simply expecting more."

Clint didn't let the intended slight get to him. The number of bodies Baskov would be getting rid of after their first encounter spoke effectively to his defense.

"Sorry to disappoint." Clint shrugged in disinterest.

Baskov ignored his nonchalance and moved to sit casually in a chair across from him.

"Let me guess," Clint titled his head thoughtfully, "this is the part where you ask me a bunch of questions and threaten to hurt her if I don't answer."

Baskov smiled as if he knew something Clint didn't.

Clint's eyes narrowed at another set of footsteps approaching from behind.

"You have it all wrong, Hawkeye," Baskov explained casually, "You see, this was never about you and I."

"It was about me."

Clint couldn't help the sudden widening of his eyes as the deeply accented voice that rose from behind him. He knew that voice. He'd spent the nearly four years remembering the last time he'd heard that voice.

Josia Fourie.

Shit.

December 2009- approximately 3 years and 8 months ago…

Mission Number: D-15728

Code Name: Zion

Location: Cape Town, South Africa

Agent In Charge: Phillip "Overwatch" Coulson (ID: 235987YT)

Field Agent(s) Assigned: Clint "Hawkeye" Barton (ID: 494762DZ)

Threat Level: High

Level of Force: Lethal

Target: Abrehem Fourie

Clint bounced his feet where he had them propped against the back of the empty co-pilot's chair, silently keeping beat with the song he was listening to on his iPod. He flipped to the next page in the brief, staring at the picture of Abrehem Fourie standing in a café with a young man. Clint knew it to be his son, Josia Fourie. As he stared at the picture, he memorized every detail of Fourie senior's face, from the distance apart his eyes were set to the hint of grey in his short cropped hair. He had to be able to identify this man in possibly extreme conditions with very little time to deliberate.

"Cape Town is beautiful this time of year," Coulson commented idly as he looked over his own brief.

"Are you saying I'll get to work on my tan?" Clint asked with a smirk.

"We have a two week window…if we happen to complete our mission before that time has expired, we may be able to arrange some R&R. Didn't you say there was a local place you loved last time you were here?" Coulson shrugged as if it didn't matter to him either way.

"I promised Tasha I'd take my next R&R with her," Clint sighed.

Coulson glanced at his twenty four year old agent.

"You and Agent Romanoff seem to be growing increasingly intimate," Coulson observed delicately. Clint gave him a withering look.

"Why don't you just ask me what you want to ask me?"

"You're sleeping together?"

"Is that mission relevant?" Clint taunted.

"Clint," Coulson sighed, "You know there are rules about that…"

"What's Fury going to do? Fire me? If he didn't fire me for bringing her in against orders, he won't fire me for sleeping with her." Clint waved away his handler's concern.

"She's dangerous," Coulson reminded.

"Yeah, well so am I."

"In a different way…she's a manipulator, Clint."

"I know." Clint gave up all pretenses of reading his brief. "She's with us, Phil…trust me."

"What the hell happened with you two in Vietnam three months ago?" Phil shook his head bemusedly.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Clint grinned.

Phil sighed in exasperation and gave Clint an annoyed glare.

"Would you relax?" Clint laughed. "I know what I'm doing. Just trust me."

"I do," Phil assured. He let the subject drop and reached for his mission file. "Abrehem Fourie runs a large international smuggling operation. He uses his shipping company as a front. As you know we've recently received intelligence that he's been providing his services to terrorist groups and he's become a confirmed threat to National Security."

"All you have to say is he's on SHIELD's shit list, Phil." Clint smirked as he flipped through his file.

"He's on SHIELD's shit list," Phil parroted obligingly.

"And that's where I come in."

"Orders are to take him out with prejudice."

"I do love doing things with prejudice."

Phil huffed a slight laugh.

"I know."

"So," Clint flipped his file closed and sat back, "you ever been to Cape Town, Phil?"

"Once or twice."

"I took a sort of vacation here. It was a cake-walk hit that only took me two hours. Anyway, there was this little place…"

Phil held up a hand to stop him.

"Why don't you just take me there when we arrive and I'll just try the food for myself?"

Clint blinked at him.

"Okay." He shrugged.

"Dankie." (Thank you) Clint offered their young waitress a smile as she put their food on the table. She nodded in response and moved away.

Clint wasted no time diving into his chosen dish eagerly. Coulson, who had just ordered the same thing as Clint, watched in amusement.

"Phil, you've got to try this," Clint hummed in enjoyment as he chewed.

"That was my intent when I ordered it," Phil teased. He took his first bite with a bit more restraint than his agent had. Clint watched him like the hawk he was named for.

"Well?"

"Can I chew first?"

Clint rolled his eyes and waited a few moments for Phil to chew with exaggerated slowness. He swallowed and made a show of deeply considering his opinion on the food.

"It's very good," he finally admitted.

Clint smiled, looking unreasonably pleased. They ate in silence for a few moments before Phil snuck a quick glance up at his agent and ventured to speak.

"Are you happy, Clint?" he asked carefully.

Clint froze mid chew and looked up at him. He didn't have to ask what he meant by that.

"Yeah, Phil, I am."

Phil nodded, still looking troubled.

"She's not going to hurt me."

"I hope not."

"She won't."

Phil nodded once, unwilling to argue about it. He knew Romanoff wouldn't hurt Clint on purpose, that much was obvious in how she treated the archer. But she was a manipulator by trade and whether she'd done it on purpose or not, she'd gotten Clint to fall for her. He hoped Clint was right. He hoped she never decided Clint wasn't what she wanted.

Because Phil knew his agent better than anyone. He knew how to read Clint's eyes when the rest of the world would only see a blank wall. And he could see the truth even if Clint didn't want him to. Clint had given everything to her. His whole heart. And Phil was terrified that one day she would decide she didn't want it anymore. He'd picked up the pieces in Clint's life once before and it had been a heartbreaking and emotionally exhausting journey. He didn't want to do that again. But he would. He always would.

"Can we focus on the mission?" Clint sighed.

"Of course," Phil allowed with a small sigh. "You'll start your surveillance today. We've got a two week window, so take your time deciding when you want to make your move."

Clint nodded and they ate in silence for a few minutes.

"This might be one of my favorite local cuisines you've introduced me to," Phil announced suddenly.

Clint perked up, a smile lighting his features.

He watched Abrehem Fourie for nine days.

He came into their safe house at midnight of the ninth day with a plan.

"I'll take him out while he's at his shipping office tomorrow morning." Clint pointed to Fourie's ship yard on the map and traced his finger back to a building on the corner. "That's his building. I can get good line of sight on the door from an alley here." He pointed at a gap between two buildings.

Phil nodded.

"Timeline?"

"Short," Clint responded. "I'll take him out and haul ass."

Phil stared at the map and nodded approvingly.

"Looks good, let's get this done and go home."

"I've got eyes on his car," Clint announced, pulling back a little farther into the shadows of his alley. His hand twitched towards where his bow was stored at the small of his back, but didn't reach for it yet.

"ID on Fourie confirmed?"

"Not yet."

Clint waited patiently for the car to pull to a stop. He watched his target and his son Josia step out of the car.

"Confirmed, Abrehem Fourie."

"Take the shot."

Clint pulled his bow and was about to snap it out to full form when it happened. He decided, as the little boy ran out of the building he was standing next to, screeching in joy, that he really had the worst luck.

Only one of Fourie's men looked over, seeing the little boy and then looking beyond to the alley, but one was all it took. Clint knew the exact moment he saw him, standing in a shaded alley watching them closely. The man shouted and suddenly six men were running towards him. A man dressed in black, standing in an alley, watching a man like Abrehem Fourie was obviously cause for great alarm, because they pulled side arms as they ran.

Clint cursed and backed into the alley, sprinting away.

"What's going on?"

"I got made. I'm bugging out."

Clint ducked instinctively when a bullet bounced off the side of the building next to him.

He cursed again and ran harder, sprinting across a road and into another alley. They were sticking with him and he'd seen a car racing down a side street to get ahead of him.

"I'm gonna get caught," he announced to his handler. He cut down another alley and stashed his bow in a small trash dumpster and kept running. He'd let Coulson know where it was, because there was no way he was letting these guys get their hands on that fine piece of weaponry.

"It'd be really nice if you could avoid that."

"You're telling me," Clint huffed sarcastically. He glanced around hopefully. Of course there wouldn't be a fire escape when he needed one.

He turned left only to back pedal when he came face to face with four men with guns. Bullets sliced into the air around him and he ducked to his right, cursing when the alley came to a dead end. He spun around. He had to go back across their line of fire if he had a hope of getting away.

"Have I mentioned how much my luck sucks?" he asked his handler with a sigh as he ran back the way he'd come. He sprinted across the open area, his body jerking when a bullet bit into his left side. It tore through the muscle and out the back. Not the worst bullet wound he'd ever gotten, but still a bullet wound.

Clint stumbled, but made it across the area and kept running. He rounded a corner only to see his original pursuers running towards him. He turned back, pulling up short when the men that had shot at him rounded the corner.

"Dammit," he muttered, raising his hands in surrender. He watched them move closer, though none of them got within striking distance. They were smart. That was new. He saw the two darts from the taser out of the corner of his eye and barely got out a curse before they bit into his right side. There was pain for several moments and then unconsciousness glided in and swept him away.

End of Chapter 7

The next chapter will show the rest of the original Fourie mission and then we will rejoin the story in real time. I hope every body enjoyed checking in with the rest of our heroes at the beginning. They're closing in...but will they be in time? *cue tense music*

For all of you that have been waiting to hear just what the heck happened the first time Clint was sent to South Africa by SHIELD, now you'll get to know.

I know some of you were hoping it would be Barney orchestrating this whole thing. Alas, it is not so. Barney will be returning to our favorite archer's life, but that's a story for another time and will have a whole different emotional toll to take on our Hawk. Because honestly, thinking Natasha was dead and having to face his estranged brother that tried to kill him when he was just a teenager...who can emotionally survive that...our Hawk? maybe, but I'm not that cruel (at least not consistently :D) There was another fascinating guess that it might be Trick Shot, one of Hawk's old mentors from his circus days. While we know how he parted ways with his original mentor, Swordsman, (mentioned in Youngest in History) we don't know the story behind his fall out with Trick Shot, just that the two parted ways on bad terms...that will all be revealed in "The Amazing Hawkeye" which is coming soon. Check out my profile for a summary.

Reviews make me happy! :D

Here's your preview

"So are you this Fourie guy everybody keeps talking about?" Clint asked curiously, hoping to drive home that he wasn't a threat. Fourie smiled the most patronizing smile Clint had ever seen.

"Do not play games with me. You know who I am."

Clint let his wide eyed, innocent expression melt away into his stone cold mask. To an observer it would be wildly disconcerting. Abrehem Fourie was no exception, but he hid it well.