"Interesting," he mused before yelling down the hall after Coulson. "Will you tell me now?"

"No."

He shrugged and went back in search of the training rooms. Starting small meant working his way up. Target practice was always nice and relaxing.


Three days later, he'd finally gotten Hill to agree to spar with him. He'd quickly tired of training on his own although he still needed a lot of work to get back to where he'd been before HYDRA had almost killed him.

It was a comfortable spar, if a spar could ever be called such. They mostly stuck to off-hours on the mats to ensure there was no audience. She started off slower than usual and he quickly disabused her of the notion that he needed someone to take it easy on him.

Three rounds later and he was beginning to regret that decision.

It was worth it, though, and he felt almost back to normal as he approached the end of the week. Hill had been kind enough to spot him when he worked on other exercises and she sent a recruit to be his shadow when she was unavailable.

It was more than a little satisfying to have the recruit hold the practice bags and kick and punch them as hard as he could. They were usually good sports about it, if only because it got them brownie points with Hill, and Clint usually gave them a pointer or two if they made it to the end of the session with less than three bruises.

Coulson had stopped by to observe him at least once a day, although he hadn't actually trained with him.

He spent his off hours watching Natasha.

He'd borrowed the schedule that Coulson had made when the man wasn't at his desk. Of course, Phil had tracked him down thirty minutes later when he'd returned and saw that it was missing, but Clint had already memorized it by then.

He could tell she was getting annoyed that he was always there although she was very good at keeping it hidden. He kept working at it; she'd snap eventually.

By the end of the week, Clint was starting to think that he'd underestimated her stubbornness.

She'd managed to avoid him every time he tried to corner her. He had patience, though. And if that failed, there was always his mysterious mission that involved her in some way.

His evaluations were tomorrow and he spent the day in the training rooms. He wasn't worried about his fitness, but he knew his best chance of talking to Romanoff was to be there, so he stayed in the gym all day.

He ended up being right. She came in during lunch, when it was empty of anyone else but him and he smirked, wondering if she'd known he was here when she came or if he would get to surprise her.

"Agent Barton," she called out as she sauntered in.

Apparently she knew he was here.

"Natasha," he grinned. There was something very satisfying about calling her by her given name. She never failed to glare and he'd even caught her flinching once.

"Were you waiting for me?" she asked, swaying her hips a little as she walked closer.

He was immediately on guard but answered calmly, "No, just making sure I'm up to par for my reevaluations tomorrow. Happy coincidence to have met up with you."

"I'm sure," she purred, not looking fooled.

"Were you looking for me?" he returned.

She cocked her head to the side, "And if I was?"

He smirked and spread his arms open wide, "Well, you found me."

Natasha was silent; she'd stopped just in front of where he stood by the punching bag. He waited patiently; he knew he could outlast her. She might be a master interrogator, but he was first and foremost a sniper.

Waiting silently was something he could- and did- do all day.

She broke first, although he knew she could have waited longer if she'd wanted.

"How did your talk with Agent Coulson go?" her voice was light but she was aiming to draw blood.

Now that he wasn't in pain or drugged up to his eyeballs he could recognize her tactics. He felt like an idiot for falling for it before, but it was clearer now. It helped that he'd brushed up on her dossier and drilled Hill on her performance evaluations from the last two months of training.

She was trying to provoke a reaction, something to make him slip up.

She was looking for the catch; the real reason he'd brought her in instead of taking her down.

The problem was that he'd already told her the reason. She didn't believe him.

So he'd play along and wait for the right moment to let it out, to make her feel like she'd earned the truth so she could move on.

"Better than yours, I'm sure," he shot back. Her eyes narrowed and the game was on.

"For something that was supposed to be secret he sure broke quick," there was a challenge in her eyes.

He couldn't let the dig at Coulson go unanswered and his voice was hard, "Agent Coulson didn't break. He told you information that he deemed necessary. Mentioned that he thought you'd be better off knowing. Guess you were having trouble adjusting?"

She frowned before covering it up, her voice going softer, "Not like I had a choice. Someone left me all alone in the big bad Helicarrier."

He could see where this was going and he indulged her, "Someone had to take a mission to make sure that you could stay here."

"Heard you weren't doing so good when they brought you back. You looked like one of the new recruits after their first spar when I saw you."

She was changing tactics so quickly it made his head spin. He was slowly losing confidence in his understanding of why she'd sought him out.

"Yeah, getting hit with an energy gun and going through a couple of explosions will do that to a guy, I guess," he shrugged. "By the way, thanks for laying me back down on the floor when you came by. I appreciate that you didn't let me just fall. The ground was much more comfortable after that."

"No problem." She didn't seem fazed. "That was a cute little story you fed me. I almost bought it. Good ol' SHIELD, saving the damned from their miserable lives and giving them a higher calling. So who recruited you? Was it Coulson? Is that how he got your loyalty?"

He was starting to get genuinely pissed, "Don't test me, Romanoff."

There was some tension in her jaw and it looked like she was gnashing her teeth together but her voice was even, "So what is it that you want from me?"

"Want from you?" he tried not to sound as genuinely confused as he felt. Just when he thought he was beginning to understand her she turned a complete one-eighty on him.

"Yes. You spared my life. I owe you a debt," it was the most serious he'd seen her, even more than that night in Warsaw.

He was tired of the mind games and of dancing around the topic. "I didn't do it so you'd owe me anything, Natasha. Just keep doing what you're doing and be a good agent."

She didn't look pleased at that so he cut her off, "How about a spar?"

"What?" she snapped.

"A spar. You. Me. Then we're even," sometimes you had to ignore that little voice in your head that screamed 'this is a terrible idea'.

He turned to grab the gear and avoid her hate-filled glare and chucked the equipment at her as he put his own on.

He heard the gear hit the floor and he turned again, pulling the strap for his headgear. "Problem?"

Her arms were crossed and she was eyeing the protective gear with disgust. "Scared to get beat up by a girl?" her voice was back to mocking but there was still a flash of genuine anger in her eyes.

He scoffed, "Hardly. I have reevaluations tomorrow."

"That sounded like an excuse, Agent Barton."

"Put on the damn gear or leave. I'm not jeopardizing that test tomorrow because of my ego," he took his position at SHIELD and his status as an agent very seriously.

He could see that she understood because she pulled on the gear without a word and followed him over to the mat. The room was still deserted and he wasn't sure if it was better or worse for him.

Clint knew immediately that it would be an interesting fight; he'd never encountered anyone like her and from what he'd heard of her previous spars based on Hill's reports confirmed that her fighting style was as fluid as she was.

"First to yield. Any deliberate or unnecessary attempt to injure is an automatic forfeit." He'd never had to include that last bit with any other sparring partner but it seemed like a no-brainer with her, especially after he'd spent the last couple of minutes winding her up.

She rolled her eyes but didn't challenge him and stood opposite him in a ready position. He took his own stance and waited.

SHIELD had taught him a lot about fighting smart. He'd already known how to fight when he'd been recruited and he had a solid grounding in technique and tactics thanks to his time in the military but he'd never really integrated his skills or developed a reliable style.

It had actually taken him longer to unlearn bad habits and the strict military style he did know than it took for him to learn the new ones.

With his bow he tended to lean towards a style based on bōjustu, which favored thrusting, swinging, and striking movements. He was odd in that most people worked up to the addition of a weapon after starting from an empty hand style of fighting rather than starting out with a weapon and working down.

It had taken some time, and several wisecracks to Coulson, to get used to karate and the absence of his bow. Once it had clicked, though, he found that the style worked very well and he could almost always add a knife to his movements if the situation called for something more.

His own stance was solid, with his weight balanced on the balls of his feet and his arms up in a traditional guard position.

Clint mostly relied on his arms and strength when he fought, although he also incorporated a number of kicks, grappling moves, and locks if the opening presented itself.

Natasha's stance was neutral although he had the slight advantage at the opening, if only because he'd been able to hear about her other spars. He knew she tended to rely more on the strength of her legs to match her opponents who almost always had the advantage of size.

She was phenomenally agile and flexible and used her opponent's weight against him whenever possible.

He suspected that she'd favor several of the same grappling techniques and locks that he used and would be very surprised if she didn't base a large part of her techniques on the Russian martial art style of Sambo.

He could see she was sizing him up as well but her sudden explosion into motion almost caught him off guard.

Clint blocked her high punch with one arm and had to use the other to direct her knee away from his chest. He felt the power behind both and grinned.

He threw his own punch, which she dodged, and shifted his body back in anticipation of her attack. Her roundhouse sailed over his head and he grabbed her leg as it passed him and used her momentum to send her to the ground.

Her leg sweep darted out too quickly to be avoided and he joined her on the mat. Her legs immediately entangled his waist and he rolled into a crouching position, throwing his weight to escape and avoid what he assumed had been her attempt to position herself to get him into a chokehold.

She sprung up from the mat and he grabbed her kick with one hand but to his surprise she dove over him, pulling him down with her and twisting her legs as she rolled.

She'd kept hold of his arm and she extended her back, pushing against him with her legs wrapped around him and he grunted at the stretch.

The lock she held him in suddenly made itself known as she leaned back a little more and he had to bite down on the scream that it pulled.

He was very nervous now and running out of options so he tried to talk, "You know, some people might consider an arm bar to be a rather aggressive move for a spar."

She loosened her grip infinitesimally and her tone was even, "Do you?"

He tried to keep his voice as calm as hers but he knew he was failing, "It's a little excessive for the first time. Maybe after our fifth time I'd think it was ok."

She pulled a little to let her apparent displeasure show but he couldn't resist, "Was this your plan all along? Torture me into answering you?"

"This isn't torture," her voice was flat. "And I'm not really interested in your answer anymore."

"I'd call your bluff but you have the advantage at the moment," he really had to learn better.

Natasha let his arm go a little more and the numb feeling faded into tingling. He wanted to wiggle his fingers but his need to not provoke her any further outweighed his desire to see if he could still use his arm.

Her legs were still tight around him but she'd gone silent. He wasn't sure yet whether he wanted to break her out of whatever thought she'd gotten lost in, when she suddenly spoke.

"I didn't leave because I'd had a change of heart."

He wanted to know what she was talking about; more than anything he wished he could have followed her train of thought to see what led her to that, but instead, he could only ask quietly, "What?"

Clint could almost feel Natasha shut back down and just as he was going to risk it and say something, she released his arm. Well, threw his arm away from her is more like it.

He cradled his arm to his chest as she moved away from him and stood, already tearing off the sparring gear. By the time he got to his feet she was already at the door.

He cursed silently, angry at both himself and at her. He gently stretched out his arm, knowing that he needed to work out the stiffness before it settled. It was just a bonus that it would help him work off his anger as well.


The reevaluation exams were held in the training room, which had been closed to everyone else for the time it would take.

He spared a glare for Coulson, both for the early hour and for his problems with Natasha that were due, in no small part, to his handler.

The tests were routine and boring but it allowed him to fall into a mind-numbing sense of awareness and for the moment it suited him perfectly. The physical reevaluations were always better than the mental ones at any rate so he'd never dare complain even if he weren't actually enjoying the test.

He didn't need Coulson to tell him that he'd passed but it didn't hurt to hear, even if it was delivered in one of the most unimpressed tones he'd ever heard.

"You passed."

"I can tell you're shocked," he grabbed a towel and fell into step behind him as they moved across the gym.

"Not your best scores for a reevaluation. Your arm looked a little shaky."

He scowled, "My arm's fine. Stop digging. I'm sure you knew exactly what happened less than ten minutes after she left yesterday."

Coulson didn't answer.

Clint followed him to Fury's office, the silence between them familiar and unstrained. To his surprise, though, Phil paused at the door and didn't go in.

He didn't ask but Coulson answered anyway. "Director Fury only requested you."

"Yeah, ok," he tried to shrug it off but for some reason he was starting to get a bad feeling about the mission.

He knocked and Fury answered almost immediately, which was another bad sign. Most times Clint swore the Director made it a game to see how long he could make him wait. Coulson gave him that look and then left and Clint walked through the door.

"Sir?"

"Have a seat, agent."

There was a folder facing him on the desk and he pulled it open as he sat. Fury was quiet as he read it over and then read it over again. There were very few times that Clint had ever dared to directly question a decision that Fury had made but this was definitely one of those times.

"It won't work." He threw the folder back down as he stood again, suddenly too on-edge to sit still.

"I'll be the judge of that, Agent Barton" Fury was unrelenting.

"It's too soon!" he insisted.

"Which is precisely why it has to be now."

Clint ran a hand over his head, hating the situation that he was being forced into, "What if she doesn't come back?"

"That's her call. But this is as much for you as it is for her, Barton," it was hard to tell but there was something a little softer in the man's tone.

He cursed lightly, aware that he was in the Director's office, and said, "Fine. Ok. When?"

"Briefing is tomorrow morning, plane leaves at 1600. You have a timetable you need to keep. One week, Barton. That's it."

"Yes, sir."


I don't want to spoil Natasha for when I do her pov story but if you don't like how I'm writing her or are unsure or think she should be acting a different way please feel free to PM me and I'll explain it as best I can. But I promise there is a method to my madness.

And as before, thank you to every reader, subscriber, reviewer and to my core group of reviewers who have been there since the beginning, I can't tell you how much I appreciate hearing from you! Much love!

Always

Sinkme