2000-Partners
After their afternoon in Central Park the two spy/assassins decided that if they were going to eventually be partners they needed to get to know the other better (Clint's idea, not hers, though she had to admit it wasn't the worst idea he'd suggested). Clint had eventually gotten it cleared with Fury who then had to convince even more people that it wasn't a terrible idea (which took quite a while to do, not really that surprising), the two of them had then been cleared to begin training together. The only condition was that Coulson had to be present, which was fine by him, it would give Natasha the chance to show Coulson that he was wrong about her.
He crossed the hall to Natasha's door and knocked 4 times letting her know it was him. He heard her call for him to enter and he did. First thing he saw when he opened the door was a very empty room, except for a very large pile of clothes that covered the back half of the space.
"I take it your shopping trip with Hill and May was a success?" he asked bemused.
"Well now I at least have some clothes that a) fit me properly and b) don't have the SHIELD insignia stamped across them. So yes I'd say it was a success." As she pulled her hair back into a high ponytail and turned to face him.
"Ready to go?" he asked moving towards the door and opening it.
"Lead the way" she gestured for him to take the lead.
On their way down to the training rooms they passed groups of agents lining the corridors who when heard their approaching footsteps turned to stare at them. Quite a few of them still had misgivings towards the assassin but ever since May and Hill had extended their olive branch to her people had stopped making snide comments to her face.
Once they entered the training room they saw Coulson sitting at the far end with a stack of files piled next to him. Without even looking up at them he spoke, "it's about time, thought you'd decided to play hooky today, which to be honest would have been fine by me I have so much paperwork still to do that would be done much quicker if I didn't have to babysit you two."
Even though he sounded annoyed Clint knew better. "Don't mind him, he probably just got out bided on a Captain America trading card he's had his eye on for a while. Isn't that right?" he said smirking at his handler.
Glaring back at his charge Coulson stood and place the file he had been going through in the much smaller pile to his left and made his way over to the pair.
"Fury had tasked me to oversee your training Natasha—"if the slight shock that Coulson knew her new or the fact that he called her by her first name had shown on her face he ignored it "in order to see where in the SHIELD levels you will be placed and what level of security clearance will be given to you. Any questions?" Natasha nodded in agreement and then looked at Clint. "When can we get started?" she asked looking back at Coulson. "Whenever you—" before he could finish he was interrupted by Natasha all of a sudden crouching down with incredible speed and swiping her legs towards Clints legs trying to knock him on his ass. As if sensing this impending attack Clint jumped, tucked a rolled over her legs and stood up on the other side of Coulson.
"Nice try. Come and get me"
Natasha smirked at the taunt at the same time as she side stepped Coulson to get to the archer.
This went on for quite a while, ducking a dodging punches, kicks and any other body part they seemed to use as a weapon. Coulson sat back down with his files but after about 15 minutes of trying to concentrate on them he gave up in favour to watch the two spar.
Everything seemed to be going well until Natasha seemed to go into a trance. As the fight got more intense the less she seemed to be in control of her actions but neither of the men seemed to notice, until she started to fight to kill.
"Natasha, what the hell!" Clint yelled as he dodged a rather vicious attack to the side of his head. Then it just kept going downhill, more and more deadly attacks came his way until he finally realized what was going on. He caught a glimpse of her eyes and noticed they were glazed over and not focused.
Not knowing what to do he kept fighting but trying not to hurt her too much knowing she wasn't in control at that moment. Coulson stood up and reached for his phone to call for backup. "NO Phil! This isn't her, she doesn't know what she's doing. I think it's some sort of programming from when she was being trained in the Red Room, her eyes they aren't focused, just give me a chance to get through to her!" he called to his handler whilst trying to keep her from taking his head off.
Trying to figure out what to do, something clicked. Her 'trainers' must have had some way to control the girls in the program, a word or phrase to get them to stop before they lost too many assets. So he did the only thing he could think of, he started yelling at her in Russian.
"Stop"
"Widow"
"Widow Decease and Desist"
"Widow Halt"
"Widow Control Yourself"
With nothing working Clint had an idea.
"Наталия" he shouted in a commanding tone.
After this she finally snapped out of it, she went from using everything she had to take off his head and snapped to attention. Her eyes came back into focus and she looked him in the eyes fully showing the terror she held in them. She began to back away from and ended up backing right into the training room wall and crumpled to the floor. Head between her knees she began to shake uncontrollably as if she were having a seizure. Clint looked back over to Coulson before rushing to the red heads side in confusion and worry. By the time he had gotten there she had already passed out.
It took a while before she came back to consciousness. When she did the two men sat up a bit straighter and as her eyes fluttered open they went from confusion, to anger and then-
"Natasha?" he asked softly putting a hand on her shoulder. At the gesture her head snapped up and he could see tears forming in her eyes. He knew something was wrong especially because she wasn't the type of person to show any emotion to anyone.
"I thought I beat it, I thought I was stronger than the others but I was wrong. I thought I could control myself, shield my mind against it, I can't be trusted." She said trying to seem calm and in control of the situation but Clint knew fear when he saw it.
"What do you mean beat it? Control what?"
"The Widow's Hypnosis." Was all she said, he knew that's all he would get out of her at the moment.
"You need to put me somewhere that I can't escape, nothing can be put to chance. If you value everything you have created here then you'll do as I ask you. When one of us loses control when in training or even on missions, with everything they put us through they knew there'd be side effects so they came up with a control word that would shut us down temporarily." Natasha paused as if trying to figure out what to say next, or to figure out if she has said too much.
"Yours is your birth name," Clint said quietly trying to help. At that she stood, trying to get her bearings and then moved towards where Coulson sat transfixed at what had just unfolded and took a step around his desk.
"They wanted to make sure it was something that no one would ever consider. We didn't go by our names in the Red Room, we were just numbers to them. So when I tell you I need to be locked away, you should listen."
"Well, here at SHIELD we don't lock our own up in tiny cells just because something went wrong. If that were true Barton would have to take up permanent residence in one." Coulson said with a smile glancing over to his agent, who gave a laugh.
"And what would be the point of having these made just to have you locked up again?" Natasha looked up at the man standing before her to see two things in his hands.
"You're not off probation, you'll be going on mostly small mission for now and Barton and I will be with you on all of them but other than that you are officially one of us."
Natasha took the patch and badge that he was holding out for her. On the patch it was the simple logo of an eagle. On what she assumed was to be her badge held the number 6 on it.
"Coulson you're kidding!" Natasha looked back at him to realize he was standing right next to her.
"When I was brought it I was only given level 5 clearance. See I told you you'd be fine," Clint glanced at her waiting for some reaction but all he got was a slight twitch of her lips.
"You are still going to trust me after everything that has happened. I tried to kill him and you're rewarding me we higher clearance and allowing me to go on missions."
"We aren't the Red Room, Ms. Romanoff, we don't punish people for something they couldn't control. We have technology here that we can try to help you overcome this mind control if you want."
Looking Coulson in the eyes all she could manage was a look of hope that both men were positive hadn't grace her eyes in probably her whole life.
