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"

Special shout-out to all my reviewers of Chapter 6 - unfortunately I'm camping at the moment and posting from my phone and anyone that's tried to use this site from an administrative standpoint on a iPhone knows that it is EXTREMELY difficult to do anything lol. So I'm so sorry, but I won't be able to name everyone. I am SOOOO grateful for every single review though. I check for them with religious frequency.

As always - thanks to Kylen my amazing beta ;) She really is awesome ya'll...

Now on to chapter 7


The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi


By the time Romanoff seemed to have arrived at her next safe house, Clint was absolutely certain that the second assassin trailing his target was preparing to make her move. If you were in the business long enough, you learned the look of an assassin preparing to strike. He was sure even he had his own tells that gave away when he was about to go for the kill.

From a perch on a building across the street, Clint's practiced eyes scanned the new building with expert efficiency – looking for any weakness he could use as an entry point. There were several other buildings on the street, but he knew this one was hers, if for no other reason than it was the one he would have picked.

"Clever girl," he murmured when nothing was immediately obvious. Romanoff was smart – and her choice of safe houses reflected that. At first he didn't think he'd be able to get in without going in the same door Romanoff was headed towards now.

Then he saw it.

He could see how she would have looked the entry point over, written it off as inaccessible. It was three stories up with no way to climb to it. But Clint wasn't planning on accessing the broken window by climbing. The building next door was almost too far away to jump from. For anyone other than Clint, it probably was too far. But Clint had survived this long because he could do things that very few would even think of attempting.

He shifted his gaze towards the other assassin tailing Romanoff. He had wondered – once the effects of the concussion Romanoff'd given him had started to settle down – if she had been the one that Romanoff had actually caught following her. Clint had been on the rooftops until their little meet-and-greet and he wondered if he'd just had bad timing.
He wasn't sure now if the second assassin even knew he was there. So far she hadn't given any indication of realizing anyone else was targeting her prey. He wasn't going to count on that, though. He'd learned long ago to hope for the best – but realize the worst was probably going to be what actually happened, and be ready for that instead.

Realizing that Romanoff was doing her usual paranoid casing of the area that always preceded her entry into any safe house, Clint knew he had precious little time to get to that rooftop next to her building so he could make his entry. It took him less than 90 seconds to cross three rooftops, and rabbit over an alley via a rickety board.

Now only one building separated him from her building. It was the building he would make his entry from, but it was also almost as difficult to access as Romanoff's. Getting to that rooftop would be tricky. Right now, he was two stories lower than he needed to be and there was nothing for him to use to climb the wall but two window sills and jagged brick. And that only mattered if he could jump the alley gap between the two buildings and stick his landing on the three-inch-wide window sill directly opposite him.

Clint ran his tongue across his lips and backed up, eyes glued to the window he was aiming for. And then he ran for the edge.

Most people would find the moment after his foot pushed off the rooftop to be the most terrifying – nothing but three stories of air beneath him, a solid brick wall rushing quickly towards him. Those few heart pounding moments were Clint's favorite. He felt like he was defying gravity.

No, his least favourite part was the landing.

The toes of his boots found purchase on the sill and his right knee cracked into the window as his momentum carried him forward. He caught the edges of the window frame with his hands just as the wooden sill cracked and his left boot slipped. For one breath-stealing moment, he was sure the window frame was going to prove just as unstable and he was going to fall.

But the frame held – even with his vice-like grip digging into it – and he was able to get his footing again. He blew out a deep breath, sent up silent thanks that Phil hadn't seen that, and started climbing. Finding hand and foot holds in the old brick wall wasn't particularly hard, but finding hand and footholds that wouldn't crumble under his weight proved a little trickier.

It took him longer than he would have liked to make it up the two stories and over the roof ledge, and once he was on solid footing again he beat it to the opposite edge and peeked down at his target.

Romanoff was already pushing the door open and stepping inside.

"Shit," he muttered as he backed up once again. The window he was going through was nothing but half-broken glass and it was two stories lower than where he was now. He didn't have time to plan any further than making the jump. He'd worry about what he'd do when he confronted her if he managed to clear the alley at all.

He mentally visualized Romanoff's trek up the stairs and knew his time was up. It was now or never.

He tapped his comm to life.

"Overwatch, I'm going in."

"Be careful."

Clint couldn't help a grim little smirk at that. If Phil could see the jump he was about to make, he'd have a stroke. If was even a little off, he was paint on the wall and then pudding on the ground below.

His smirk widened and he ran for the edge.


Natasha closed the door to her safe house firmly, clicked the four deadbolts into place and then slid the bar lock across to the locked position. She still felt like she was being watched, even though she hadn't caught sight of the man from the alley since she'd warned him to stop following.

Silently she started up the stairwell, pressing her hand gently against her right side and the ribs she had cracked a couple of weeks ago on the job just before she took the contract on Moreau.

She should have killed the blonde assassin. She had been stupid not to. But there had been something about the way he'd looked at her, like he wasn't afraid. She couldn't remember the last time someone had looked at her, known who she was – because she had no doubt he knew exactly who she was – and hadn't been afraid.

She'd known someone had been following her for more than a day, tailing her by sticking to alleys and side streets. She'd doubled back, hoping to catch the pursuer by surprise. She just hadn't expected to come face to face with him and then to issue nothing but a warning.

Something about him had been fascinating – unreasonably and unexplainably so – and it had struck a curious chord in her. In that moment, she hadn't wanted to kill him. So in a moment of uncharacteristic mercy, she'd let him live. She just hoped she didn't live to regret it.

No sooner had the thought floated through her head than a crash sounded from the top floor and there was a heavy, rolling thud.

She had her gun out a breath later and led the way up the stairs with it. Apparently her warning had gone unheeded. She wouldn't be so merciful this time. She'd kill him and then she'd go into hiding until it was safe to go after Moreau again.

She moved silently to the third floor and peeked around the doorway. She wasn't sure what she expected.

To see him standing in the middle of the room, maybe. Lying on the floor bleeding, because that was the only condition which someone who made it through that window should be in. She hadn't expected to see nothing but broken glass.

Her eyes narrowed cautiously as she scanned the room but she couldn't see him anywhere. Her other senses tuned and for a moment she thought she heard a faint breath. It was the only indication she got before her senses screamed in warning and something came whistling through the air towards her.

She pulled back in time to feel the air shift as a black arrow passed a breath from her cheek and slammed into the wall inside the stairwell. She was about to turn and open fire at the rafters – the only place he could be – when the arrow suddenly exploded with a yellow gas. Coughing, she dove into the room to escape the fumes.

Another whistle of air and she rolled to the side, eyes widening as an arrow impacted the floorboards where her body had just been. She raised her gun and nearly growled in frustration when another arrow knocked it from her hand.

Crab crawling backwards, she took cover behind a wooden column. The room went absolutely silent and she waited, carefully sliding a knife from the sheath on her thigh. A beam above her creaked and she spun around the column throwing the knife at the sound and reaching for her other Makarov, holstered at her shoulder.

She saw a shadow flip across the rafters and to the ground across the room, dodging her blade with unreasonable ease. She brought her gun up at the same time she saw the shadow stretch a bow to the firing position.

She fired, he rolled to the side and came up to his knee with an arrow already being released. She drew her hand back with a hiss as her second gun was knocked from her hand, leaving a long gash on her palm.

"Enough." She hissed the word lowly and ran at the shadow.


Clint knew the moment she decided to charge him. Her posture shifted slightly and then she was coming straight at him. He started to knock another arrow – it'd be easy to put it right through her eye. With the weight behind his bow string, she wouldn't be able to dodge it again.

But something in his gut – some instinct – had him dropping into his combat stance instead, brandishing his bow like a staff. He had barely a moment to realize this might have been a bad idea before she was on him. A new knife, produced from a hidden sheath in her sleeve, arched towards his face.

Clint brought his bow up to block the blade, and he used his free hand to knock it from her grip. Romanoff was already spinning, putting her back to him briefly and hooking her leg behind his knee. She continued to spin, slamming her elbow into his ear. He felt his ear piece slip out and fall away.

She would have had him then, but when she moved to pull his leg out from under him, Clint brought his own elbow into her briefly-exposed right side. He felt a rib shift, heard her hiss in pain, and then he jerked his own leg back, pulling her leg out from under her instead. He slammed his hand into her collar bone and watched her hit the floor with a crack.

Romanoff gasped, went white as a sheet and pressed her hand into her right side for only a moment before rolling away and to her feet. She came up already spinning into a high crescent kick that Clint only barely ducked under. He swung his bow at her injured right side, determined to exploit the weakness – however slight it was. She knocked the bow away with her hand and slammed a hard right cross into his cheek.

Even as his head snapped to the side, she jumped, bringing both of her feet into his chest and kicking him back. His back hit the wall with a crack that stole his breath and she landed back on her hands and shoulders, her body coiled and a moment later sprang back to her feet.

She ran at him again, just as he was stepping away from the wall. She planted one foot on his thigh and brought the other foot up and around, aiming for his head. Clint brought his arm up and folded it against his head to protect him from the blow. Even so, he was knocked a step to the side and then her legs were scissoring towards his neck.

He dropped, her legs brushing against the crown of his head. He swung his bow at her hands, which were supporting all of her weight and sent her tumbling to the ground. Just as she came to her feet, his bow slammed into her right side. She paled and a boot to her chest sent her to her back.


Natasha gasped air back into her lungs, pressing her hand into her right side. Damn it, he was fast – faster than anyone else she'd ever fought. It didn't help that she hadn't really been able to catch her breath since he got the first hit to her injured ribs.

She looked up to see the metal point of an arrow aimed at her heart. Everything in her froze and she knew it was over. This was the end. He had her – whoever he was – and in that moment there was nothing she could do to save herself.

In that moment, all she could feel was fear. She'd never been one to let fear in – she'd learned long ago that fear was weakness. That fear lead to defeat. But that's exactly what she was right now – defeated. That alone made her more afraid than she ever had been in her life.

Afraid she was going to die.

Afraid she was going to die at nineteen with nothing left behind but blood and death. This was all her life was ever going to be. A short life filled with blood that would end at the point of an arrow wielded by a man she didn't know. She had escaped them and that life and was going to die no better than she had been.

He stepped closer, his own breathing ragged. Hard blue-gray eyes bored into her and seemed to see right to her very soul. He held the bow like it had been crafted for him alone and she knew that when he fired he would not miss.

But he didn't fire right away – instead, he just stared at her, his storm-colored eyes giving nothing away. Suddenly something that looked like confusion swept through his gaze and his eyes focused on her so intently that she was certain he was seeing every thought that was racing through her mind.

And then there was something else in his eyes – a flash of understanding. Like he had read her thoughts, had seen her fear. His shoulders tensed in hesitation and emotion swept through his expression.

And he didn't fire.


Clint was confused. He had her. All he had to do was release the arrow and his job was done. But something stopped him.

He couldn't get the alley out of his mind. She should have killed him then. But she hadn't. Why? Suddenly that was the most important question in the world, because some instinct deep inside him was screaming at him to wait – to wait and just look.

So he looked. He really looked at her and in the next moment he knew he couldn't kill her.

She was afraid – not of him, not even of dying. She was afraid that this – The Black Widow – was all she would ever be. That this life was all there was. She wanted more – dammit, he could see it. He could see a light in her. A light trapped in a sea of darkness.

Every fiber of his being hesitated. He could be wrong. He needed to know why.

"Why didn't you kill me in the alley?"

She blinked at him and remained silent.

"You could have – you had me dead to rights."

That their situation was now reversed went unsaid.

"But you didn't. You let me live. Why?"

She didn't answer, just stared at him – waiting. Waiting for him to kill her. Instead he found himself speaking again.

"Did you know I wasn't the only one following you?"

Her eyes widened slightly in surprise.

"A woman – brown hair, taller than both of us and lean with a nice tan."

Recognition lit Romanoff's eyes.

"She's one of you." Clint had expected as much.

"I am not one of them." The defense was surprising, its level of bitterness even more so. Clint was mostly just glad she finally said something because the one-sided conversation had proven less than informative.

"Yeah, word is you went rogue not so long ago, started taking contracts on your own. That's what got you on our radar. Bet that pissed them off too. Why's she here? To kill you?"

Romanoff shook her head. Clint nodded. Someone like Natasha Romanoff was entirely too valuable to them to just kill. The Black Widow Program was going to try to bring her back in first. He couldn't have that any more than the Program could have their namesake running around taking independent contracts.

"I can help you get out of here – out of Paris."

Her eyebrows rose in mocking doubt.

"I'll even help you kill her once we have a chance to come up with a plan."

"I don't need your help." Her green gaze was full of anger and hate in that moment. Whether it was meant for him or for the other female assassin, he wasn't sure.

"Looks to me like you don't have a choice."

"Why would you do that? You're here to kill me. Just do it."

"Because I think you're more valuable to the world alive."

He hadn't been positive he believed that until he said it out loud. A mixture of things passed through her eyes at that declaration. Confusion and a pain-filled emotion he couldn't identify. He knew what it was like to think the world might be better off without you, but to be too much of a survivor to just go quietly. He also knew how it felt to have someone tell you it wasn't so and to wonder how they could believe that when you didn't.

God, Phil was going to kill him.

His spine tingled suddenly – instincts flaring in warning. His eyes cut to the stairwell for barely a breath. He saw Romanoff move out of the corner of his eye – her hand going for her ankle – and heard a gun fire just as his eyes went back to her. Pain seared through his right side a moment later.

He loosed the arrow and knocked the third gun away.

"Goddamn it, Romanoff!"


He had another arrow knocked before Natasha could blink, his eyes ablaze with annoyance. She thought it might have been the first time someone was only merely annoyed that she'd shot them.

Three floors below them her front door exploded inwards.

He hadn't been lying. They'd found her.

"You choose, Romanoff. You can die right now or you can come with me and live. What's it gonna be?"

She met his stormy eyes and realized all hesitation was gone – he would shoot her now without a second thought. She held his gaze for a long moment. She'd never seen such sincerity in a gaze before.

She nodded.

"You have any more weapons?"

Natasha couldn't blame him for asking. She'd probably burned any good will she had when she shot him. She knew she'd have to earn some of that back if she wanted to keep that arrow out of her heart. She produced two more knives only to be shocked when he nodded.

"Keep them. Just don't stab me. If I was going to kill you, I would have." He cocked his eyebrow a little and gave her a wry look. "Try to remember that."

She nodded and watched him hurry around the room collecting arrows and her weapons. She wasn't all that surprised when he slid her guns into a cargo pocket on his pants and didn't offer them back to her. His tenuous trust in her not to try and kill him again only went so far.

He urged her towards the window as they heard feet on the stairs. She was curious what his plan was, since they were three stories up with no way to climb down. He pressed a button on his bow and then waited a beat before drawing an arrow. A moment later, he had a thin rope pulled from one of his cargo pockets and tied to a ring on the arrow. He nocked it, aimed down across the wide alley and fired. The arrow anchored itself into the brick about eight feet above the ground, the rope stretching across the expanse back to where they were standing.

He used his hand to slam another arrow into the frame of the window and tied the rope off on it.

The feet on the stairs stopped and he turned, pressing a button on his bow and then drawing another arrow. A stair creaked near the doorway and he fired. The arrow landed in the exact spot as the first arrow he'd fired at her – it had been collected in his dash around the room.

Natasha was suddenly certain that if she went to look, the arrow would be filling the same hole as the first. He turned back to her climbed into the window and threw his bow over the rope, holding both ends – a brief flash of pain showing when he tested his weight against it. He jerked his head at her a moment later, making her wonder if she'd imagined that look.

"Time to go."

Without giving herself a moment to over think it, she wrapped her arms around him and hung on. He pushed off the window sill and down they went, sliding very quickly down the rope towards the brick wall.

"Drop." Even as he issued the order, Natasha was letting go, dropping to the ground and curling into a roll to soften the landing. He let go of his bow with on hand a moment later and rolled as well. He came up to his knees and pressed a button on his bow. Then he pushed her head down roughly as the room they had just been in exploded in a ball of fire and wood shrapnel.

"Let's go. That should slow her down a little bit."

Natasha nodded and stood, following him to the mouth of the alley. Something wet on her hand had her looking down at it. Blood. She looked at her assassin-turned-rescuer.

His blood.

He didn't even seem fazed by the bullet she'd put in his side. Something in her memory tugged – the memory of another man taking a bullet from one of her guns, and then continuing after her much more quickly than should have been possible.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him around to face her. His hand went for something at his back so she released him quickly.

"You're him – the body guard from the gala."

"We gonna do this right now?" He sounded more amused than impatient, which made her want to hit him. She had a feeling he tended to have that affect. She looked him up and down – knew they were wasting precious time but had to know – how had she not seen him, noticed him, realized the threat he presented before he intercepted her.

"How did I not see you?"

He smirked, an expression that looked at home on his face, and didn't answer. His eyes drifted up and widened slightly.

He pulled her forwards around the corner of the alley as a bullet bit into the wall where she'd just been. He'd just saved her life.

"You guys are a persistent bunch, aren't you?"

Natasha ignored him and thought for a moment.

"The train station." She issued the suggestion confidently, hardly believing she was working with the man sent to kill her. He nodded and they took off just as they heard their pursuer sliding down the rope to follow them.

They ran down the block and then Natasha turned right while the archer continued straight. He pulled up suddenly and motioned her to follow him.

"This way is quicker. The nearest Metro is three blocks away." She motioned him to follow her instead.

The other assassin arched a blonde eyebrow.

"Actually there's a stop a block and a half away – if we go straight."

Natasha's eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth to argue. The archer held up a hand to forestall her.

"As much as I would love to dig my heels in and argue this until you see that I'm right – your little friend just caught sight of us."

Natasha's head whipped around and she glared down the block at the woman chasing them – Sophia. The red-haired assassin lunged forward and wrapped her hand around the archer's wrist. She pulled him after her and they sprinted down the street to the metro station three blocks to the right.

She took the stairs leading underground two at a time and rolled her eyes when the archer went sliding down the rail past her. He jumped the turnstile like it wasn't even there and she followed with the same ease.

Just as she cleared it, a bullet pinged off the metal behind her.

The blonde assassin was suddenly there, pulling her back and drawing an arrow.

"Get on the train headed east. I'm right behind you."

The metro wasn't crowded – as expected at nearly midnight – but the people that were there started screaming. Whether it was the gunshot or that there was a man in black wielding a bow that caused the panic wasn't clear.

"Why east?" Natasha shouted over the chaos erupting around them as she watched him loose the arrow. A moment later, the area the shot had come from filled with thick smoke.

He turned and glared at her. Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Fine."

Natasha led the way through the station, the archer a step behind her. She resisted the urge to glance at him when his breathing grew steadily louder and more labored. If he slowed them down because of his injury, then Sophia would catch them for sure. Whether you were as physically fit as his physique suggested or not, a bullet in your side should put a hitch in your step. But somehow he kept pace with her without any issue beyond the ragged breathing – didn't once fall back or stop to rest.

He gestured towards a train to their left with his bow and she veered in that direction. He pulled to a stop and turned, bringing his bow up, even as Natasha made her way through the doors and onto the train.

She knew what he was doing – why he'd stopped and turned. He was guarding their escape, hoping to catch a clean shot at Sophia or at the very least prevent her from following. But Natasha knew he would never get a clear shot. Sophia wasn't that careless. And with the civilians still running around in a panic and alarms going off, Sophia's advantage grew even more.

She heard the doors chime and knew they were about to close. Her eyes shot to the archer's back but he didn't move, didn't seem to hear the only warning he'd get before the doors closed him out. She saw him shift suddenly, drawing the bow string back to his cheek and angling his body off towards the right.

Natasha followed his trajectory with her gaze and saw a flash of black clothing and brown hair. Sophia was hunkered down behind a concrete column with a gun drawn. Natasha looked back at the archer.

She could leave him.

He was locked in a stalemate with Sophia, likely wouldn't notice the doors were closing until it was too late. She could leave him and Sophia to kill each other and get away clean. Who would blame her? They had both tried to kill her at one point in the last hour.

But he hadn't killed her, even when he could have – maybe should have.

"Because I think you're more valuable to the world alive."

Damn it.

Natasha lunged forward, hooked her fingers in the collar of his jacket and pulled. The doors slid closed even as his body passed through the gap and he grunted as they both tumbled to the floor when his boot got trapped between the doors.

Natasha slid out from where she had been pinned under him and grabbed his ankle, pulling sharply in hopes that the trapped foot would slide free before the doors automatically opened again. She got his boot free, but too late, and the doors slid open.

She saw Sophia spring up from behind the column and run towards them, bringing her gun to bear. The doors started to close and Natasha turned to push the archer out of the line of fire. The air next to her cheek shifted as a black arrow whistled by. The archer was mostly on his back, with his bow drawn over his abdomen. Natasha whipped her head around to watch the arrow pass through a gap barely big enough for it as the doors closed.

She couldn't spare the time to see where the arrow fell. Bullets shattered the windows and bit into the metal around them even as Natasha forced the other assassin into the aisle and to safety. She risked a glance out the window as they finally started moving, eyes widening in surprise when she saw a black arrow shaft protruding from Sophia's thigh.

The dark-haired assassin was gripping the arrow in one hand and firing her gun with the other. Natasha saw her mouth move in a curse as the train took them away.

She blew out a deep breath and pushed to her feet, watching warily as the archer did the same. He had the hand not gripping his bow pressed into the wound on his side and he looked pale. Blood was dried down the side of his face from a cut in the hairline of his temple, and she realized he hadn't even taken time to clean himself up from the concussion she'd given him in the alley.

She was lucky he hadn't. Lucky he'd been so dogged in his pursuit of her. Lucky that he was apparently nothing like what he seemed.

"Who are you?" She watched him flinch minutely at the question – whether for the tone or the question itself she couldn't tell. He sighed deeply and seemed to consider whether or not to answer. He folded his bow and stored it somewhere at his back then his free hand drifted to his ear.

"Shit."

The curse was quiet, but she heard it and wasn't quite sure what it was for.

"Well?" She prodded.

"Barton – Clint Barton."

She rolled the name over in her mind but it didn't sound familiar.

"You were sent to kill me."

He sighed deeply and eased himself into one of the hard plastic seats.

"Yeah."

"But you didn't."

"Wouldn't seem so." He absently glanced at the blood on his hand and then pressed it back against his side without even a twitch of pain showing on his features.

"Why?"

He sighed again and fished a cell phone out of his pocket.

"That is the million dollar question, isn't it?"

He felt guiltily relieved when he didn't have any service. The powers that be would find out what he'd done soon enough. He certainly wasn't going to stress because he couldn't rush along that particular conversation.

He glanced across the aisle as Romanoff sat in the seat opposite him and a heavy weight settled on his shoulders as the true gravity of what he'd just done hit him.

Romanoff – the Natasha Romanoff. Who had tried to kill Moreau. Who had shot him – not once but twice now. Who he'd promised to hunt down and sworn to kill and then hadn't – had helped escape instead.

Holy hell.

Phil was going to shit kittens. Again.


End of Chapter 7

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She stood with a frustrated – and if he wasn't mistaken, slightly offended – huff.

"And what makes you different then every other man in the world?"

"I see through bullshit – it's a super power of mine."