Shoutouts to Lilybear3121, BlackBay, JWolf28, kissmyquiver, clarawithfitzsimmonsin221b, bellapaige88, Jo, MyPerfectEscape, ArabianForest, the-window-of-regret, Denim, and eirini for reviewing! For those of you who leave long reviews, y'all making me cry with happiness. Shit, any reviews make me cry with happiness, though.

Just as a heads up, I'm shipping out to North Carolina bright and early tomorrow, and I'm not sure when I'll have the chance to update again. Hopefully I should be able to stay on schedule, but I just wanted to let y'all know so it doesn't seem like I've dropped off the face of the planet!

So the romance factor and the attraction levels be rising, for real. Also some more complexities and developments, and it looks like we've got another mission up ahead of us.

Also, if you keep up with my Captain America series, I've got the first two chapters of the new story up, so feel free to go check it out. It's called Falling Slowly =) If y'all haven't read it, but you'd like to, start with Healing Touch and then move on to Shaped by Things to Come.

You guys are seriously the best. I swear I say that every chapter, but it's true. This chapter's a little shorter than usual, but I wanted to get something out tonight before I headed out, and this is all I was able to produce. Let me know your thoughts and opinions! I included a little bit more of Clint's perspective at the end since everyone had positive feedback on it =)

Enjoy! =)

Chapter 11

"Morning, sunshine."

Clint slid into place across the table from Natasha. Natasha paused, her spoonful of cereal halfway up to her mouth.

"How'd you find me?" she asked.

"I'm smart," Clint smoothly replied. He picked up the knife and fork on the plastic red tray and eyed his omelet happily. "How you like your room?"

"I almost didn't know what to do with myself knowing that there weren't any armed guards outside my door," she quipped. Clint's blue eyes lit up with amusement as he started cutting into his omelet. Natasha could smell it from where she sat, and she had to admit that it smelled good; she wasn't terribly fond of omelets, but Clint's definitely looked appetizing.

"Oh, you'll get used to it," he answered, his tone playing off of hers. "Almost like a security blanket, isn't it?" He paused and tilted his head to the side. "Pun not intended but fully applicable."

"Angry men carrying guns are exactly my definition of a comforting security blanket," Natasha replied, her tone unreadable. She felt Clint's blue eyes on her, and she could feel his cautious stare as he tried to figure out if she were being serious or not. As much as she wanted to smile to let him know she was just fucking with him, she didn't. Instead, she kept her eyes on her cereal and took another bite of it.

"So Black Widow likes Raisin Bran," Clint said. "That doesn't surprise me."

"Oh, yeah?" Natasha asked with a smirk. Clint smiled and nodded.

"You don't stay fit just by working out a lot," he said.

"What are you, my nutritionist?" Natasha quipped good-naturedly.

"Yep," Clint happily answered. "Didn't I tell you that? I'm here to make sure you eat healthily. All that junk you've been eating…the damage it'll do to your body…" He shook his head to make his point. He didn't bother to include the fact that he didn't think any amount of healthy eating could damage Natasha's perfect body—that was just something he'd keep to himself.

Natasha allowed herself to give him a small, genuine smile, and she ate another spoonful of her Raisin Bran. She actually hated Raisin Bran, but she knew it was healthier than Froot Loops or any of the other cereal options SHIELD had in their cafeteria. She really wasn't a fan of Froot Loops, either, but at least it had more flavor than Raisin Bran.

Clint was wearing his black SHIELD uniform again, and she had to admit to herself that she kind of missed seeing him in his other clothes from yesterday. Sometimes Clint was so human that it pissed her off, but other times it was nice to see him looking like every other person. Though every other person wasn't quite as good-looking as he was. Discreetly, she studied him from behind her glass of water as she took large gulps from it.

She'd studied Clint Barton many times in the past, and she felt that she had studied him enough to really know his face, but she hadn't studied him—she hadn't truly looked at him, and she used the opportunity to do so then. He had a wide-set face, and normally she didn't think that that would be attractive, but on him it was. His sense of humor was practically written all over his round, widened features as well as a degree of honesty she wouldn't have expected from him.

Thinking back, she remembered the first time she'd seen him. He'd been in the doorway of the hotel room with his gun drawn and cocked, ready to land a bullet in her skull. It'd bothered her that she hadn't been able to see his face behind his goggles—she'd wanted to look at his face even then. But at that time in her life, he'd been a stranger. A stranger sent to kill her. As she looked at him now, she found it hard to believe that this man had ever sought her out with the intentions of ending her life.

And yet it didn't really seem all that impossible. She still didn't know much about Clint's background, but she knew that he was every bit as much of a killer as she was—had she been in his place, she would've pulled the trigger on the spot and then hightailed it out of there to avoid whatever negative repercussions had come next. But then again, she wasn't sure if she could've killed him. Not when he'd looked at her with those stunning eyes of his. She liked to think that she would've been able to keep her wits about her long enough to blast him to kingdom come, but she really wasn't convinced of it. Clint Barton really, really got to her.

"What are we going to do today?" she asked.

"More training," Clint replied. "I think we have another basic mission coming up."

"Will it be as ridiculous as this last one was?" she asked. Clint smirked.

"Probably," he said. "Remember, Fury only wants us doing Level One work."

"I know," she drily replied. "I hate it."

"Trust me. I do, too." Clint sighed. "If I had my way, we'd be working at our own levels."

"So what's your level?" Natasha asked. Innocently, she lifted her spoon to her mouth and put it between her lips. She was purposefully doing this in order to get some kind of reaction out of the sarcastic archer, but he kept his gaze on her face, totally unfazed.

"Not letting that one go yet?" he mused. She shook her head.

"You said we're partners," she countered. "Wouldn't partners know what each other's levels are?"

"I hate when you're right," Clint deadpanned. "I'm Level Six."

"Oo, impressive," Natasha answered as she lifted her red eyebrows at him. She lowered her eyelids slightly as she ducked her head down the tiniest bit to spoon another mouthful of cereal into her mouth. She never thought she'd be seductively eating Raisin Bran at a cafeteria in Washington D.C., directing her bedroom eyes towards someone who'd tried to kill her only several months before.

Clint merely shrugged and hacked another piece of his omelet off onto his fork. He lowered his blue eyes towards his plate and ate it. Natasha tried to figure out if he'd looked away from her because he'd noticed she was trying to seduce him via Raisin Bran or if he genuinely wanted to look at his omelet so he didn't cut a finger off.

"When do you think we'll ship out?" she asked.

"I don't know. Coulson'll probably call us up to his office sometime soon," he said.

"What exactly does he do here?"

"He leads missions—he's the main guy who supervises us all. Figures out the plan, maps it out, explains it to us, answers any questions. Basically, he's the reason we're all not dead yet." Clint smiled. "He's cool."

"He's one of the only people here who hasn't acted afraid of me," Natasha remarked.

"He's a big believer in the second chance thing," Clint explained. "He worked a lot with me back when I was dabbling in my days of crime."

It was then that Natasha realized she really didn't know very much about Clint Barton. She knew he liked classic rock; she knew he could turn anything into a joke; she knew he didn't like talking about his past; she knew he had nightmares and loved the sound of rain and views from the tops of buildings. She knew all of these little things about him, but she didn't actually know him. She wondered how badly she'd be fucking herself over if she did get to know him. And then she realized just how badly she'd been compromised—the Black Widow had never been interested in learning about anyone else before.

Suddenly overwhelmed, she looked away from him and down into the milky mess of her abhorred Raisin Bran. Natasha Romanoff was many things, but vulnerable was something she'd never been before. Until now.

Natasha grinned at the final product of her shooting practice. She peered into the booth beside her to take a look at Clint—he had absolutely perfect form whenever he shot a gun or a bow and arrow, and for the thousandth time, Natasha found herself appreciating his physicality and his musculature as he shot. He seemed to feel her green eyes on him, and he paused, turning over his shoulder to look at her.

"You good?" he asked.

"It was a successful round," Natasha replied. "Almost as good as yours."

"Gee, Nat, at least buy me dinner before you start trying to woo me," he said dramatically. Natasha lifted her eyebrows in an almost bored expression, and the corners of her mouth tilted up into a smirk.

"I woo much better than I shoot, Barton," she said dismissively. She noticed the muscles around Clint's jaw tightened, and she inwardly smiled to herself; however, she didn't show any signals of triumph on her face. "But I'm almost as on point as you are."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to compete with me," Clint said. He finally lowered his gun and turned around to face her completely. Natasha stepped around the wall of the booth and folded her arms across her chest as she leaned against the side of the wall.

"I'm not used to someone being better than me at something," she said honestly. "I mean, I'm good, but you're good. Your aim…your eye for it…"

Clint shrugged with a half-modest look on his face. She waited for him to say something, but he didn't. They were there in the same small booth, and they were close, and they weren't speaking. The tension wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but it wasn't comfortable, per se.

"Where'd you learn how to do it?" she asked. Clint stared at her with his sharp blue eyes, but he didn't say anything, though she saw the muscles of his mouth twitch a little bit. "Hey, you know where I came from."

"The circus," he said shortly. Natasha tilted her head in surprise—out of all the answers she would've expected from him, that was the last one.

"The circus," she repeated. "Color me surprised."

"I know. Hard to believe," he answered.

"You don't look like a circus boy," Natasha remarked. She allowed her eyes to drift over him head to toe. "You look liked a military man."

"Just because I started out in the circus doesn't mean I didn't get any military training," he said vaguely. Natasha's green eyes stared hard at him as she tried to figure him out.

"What's your full name?" she asked.

"Why do you want to know?" he countered. She paused. Why did she?

"We're partners, aren't we?" she returned in a matter of fact voice. Clint didn't do anything a few seconds, and then he slowly nodded.

"Clinton Francis Barton," he said finally.

"Clinton," Natasha repeated. "You should go by Clinton."

"Should I?" he asked back with an amused smile settling onto his lips. She nodded earnestly.

"It's nice." In that one compliment, she felt as though she'd been more honest with him than she'd ever been in these three months. Clint sat on the ledge of the booth that stuck out from the window, and he looked at her.

"Thank you," he said. Then he grinned. "You really should take me out to dinner before showering a boy with too many compliments."

"You're right," Natasha agreed with a conceding shrug. "A boy. Not a man." Before Clint could respond, she started talking again. "Were your parents with the circus?"

"How does this help us be partners?" Clint asked. His tone wasn't defensive or accusatory—it was genuine and curious all at once, as if he were really trying to understand her motive for asking.

"The more I know about you, the more I can figure out who you are," she said, another honest statement pouring free from her lips.

"A good spy never gives away his secrets," Clint said, that same amused smile passing over his mouth again.

"Touche," Natasha said. They were at their millionth impasse, but this one wasn't out of a challenge—they were circling each other as they tried to figure out who they fit in with one another. Natasha tried to picture herself becoming an agent of SHIELD, becoming an American who used her skills for good.

She thought about her past, even though that was something she generally tried to avoid. She'd killed more than she'd saved—hell, she'd barely saved anyone, if she'd saved any people at all. She'd been trained to be a weapon, and that was exactly what she'd been. She'd been a lethal, cold-blooded weapon with no emotions, no control, and no choices; it hadn't been until the past year or so that she'd really started to wonder if what she was doing was right. And every time those thoughts had started to rise up in the back of her mind, she'd shut them down because those were the kind of thoughts that got you killed.

Technically, the KGB had collapsed in 1991. Voloshin had been a powerful leader involved with the Russian organization, and when the KGB had fallen, he'd kept his people together. He'd taken his followers and worked secretly, slowly turning into a Russian mob, an agency that killed and took and did whatever the fuck they could to stay afloat. To stay in control.

And that was what Natasha's role had been; she'd been raised and trained in the Red Room to be one of those who killed for the KGB, and they'd even loaned her out to allies as a "weapon." Several times she'd even worked silently for opposing agencies because they'd offered her quiet money that she just hadn't been able to turn down. In fact, the mission that she'd been working when Clint had intervened had been for an opposing agency.

That was the real reason why she was so afraid. Voloshin had found out, and that was the real reason why he wanted to kill her. She wanted to tell all of this to Clint, but she couldn't seem to make her mouth move. So she stopped trying. She kept her eyes on his face and her mouth shut as they looked at each other.

Natasha was a firm believer in the saying that actions spoke louder than words, but eyes spoke the most of all. Finally, she stopped leaning against the wall and lowered her arms from over her chest. "I'll let you finish."

"Ok," Clint said.

"I'm probably going to try another gun. See if I can get my scores up," she said, and then she ducked back around the wall of the booth so she didn't have to look at him anymore. Clint could see through her—she knew he could. Those addictive eyes…it was unfair how he could see straight into her like that. Or at least that's how it felt, and Natasha could only take being naked for so long.

Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff spent the next month pulling back-to-back Level One missions. They were quick, they were efficient, and they were everything Fury could have hoped for them to be. Neither of them felt challenged by the simple things they were assigned to do, but they never complained about it to either Coulson or Fury; instead, they complained to each other, moaning about how they could work so much better than the others.

However, that all came to a stop one day when Agent Coulson called the two of them into his office.

Natasha was wearing her black SHIELD uniform that'd been custom-made for her—to say that she was ecstatic to be out of the one they'd originally given her would have been an understatement—and Clint was in his own specially outfitted black uniform as they both eased into the two seats in front of Agent Coulson's desk. Natasha noticed Agent Hill in the corner of the room—she didn't know Agent Hill as well as she would've liked, but she'd heard amazing things about the woman, and she knew she already liked the sharp-looking brunette.

"Congratulations," Agent Coulson said. Clint and Natasha stared at him with blank looks on their faces.

"Sir?" Clint asked, the pitch of his voice rising up at the end to indicate his question.

"I'm congratulating you two on your happy union," Coulson replied by way of explanation, and he placed a set of wedding bands on the desk. Again, the two spies gave him blank looks. "Well, I should probably back up first."

"That'd be appreciated," Natasha spoke up.

"Your next mission," Coulson said. He pushed the manila folder stamped with the SHIELD emblem on the top of it towards the two. "You're going undercover."

"Undercover?" Natasha repeated. She was unable to keep the happy tone out of her voice and the sparkly look out of her green eyes. She'd always loved going undercover—there was a reason she was so fucking good at espionage, and it wasn't because she knew how to handle a gun.

"You heard correctly," Coulson said. Eagerly, Natasha reached out and snatched up the file before Clint could, and she started reading over it. Words on the page jumped out all over: England, gallery, Derek Carnegie, biochemist. She raised an eyebrow and glanced up at Coulson.

"A biochemist who's into art?" she asked. "If that doesn't sound like a contradiction, then I don't know what is."

"Let me see," Clint said. She glared at him.

"I'm not done."

"You've been looking at it for 10 minutes."

"It's been more like 10 seconds."

"Same difference."

"No, it's not."

"Can you just give me the file?"

"You're so impatient."

"See, you're already falling into the parts of a married couple," Coulson said, beaming brightly at the two spies as if they were his own children. Natasha paused, and Clint jumped on the opportunity to take the file from her hands. Coulson nodded towards the rings on the table. "Hence my earlier congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Blake."

"Honey, I'm home," Clint smartly quipped, meriting a scowl from Natasha. He leaned back in his seat and skimmed over the file. "So Derek Carnegie likes planting human genes into animals to see what they can do. Nasty son of a bitch."

"Precisely," Coulson agreed. "And he has a penchant for art. This weekend there's a soiree at The National Gallery. Carnegie's on the guest list."

"And so are Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Blake," Natasha confirmed. Agent Coulson nodded again.

"Oo, I'm the CEO of a very successful medicine company," Clint announced out loud. "And Samantha Blake, my vivacious wife, is an accomplished polo player with all kinds of medals and awards. Wow, we are quite elite."

"Oh!" Coulson exclaimed. He reached down and opened a drawer, pulling out a slip of paper. "Miss Romanoff, you have a hair appointment bright and early tomorrow morning."

"Hair appointment?" Natasha asked. Coulson nodded.

"Your red hair makes you stand out a bit," he said. "We're going for something a little more…subtle."

Natasha didn't need to ask what subtle meant—she'd been through enough dye jobs that it no longer fazed her to hear that she was going to need to die her hair again. She just hoped that it wasn't platinum blonde; the last time she'd had to dye her hair blonde, it'd come out almost whitish and had ruined her hair for a long time. She absentmindedly brushed a hand over her long red hair. Her hair was her pride and joy, one of her favorite things about herself. After all the care she'd put into it to get it healthy again, it sure as hell had better be one of her favorite physical features. Off to her right, Clint was still scanning over the file. Suddenly, he frowned and glanced up at Coulson. "This is a Level Four operation."

"You're correct, Barton." Coulson barely bat an eyelash.

"I thought we were only supposed to do Level One," Clint replied, still looking confused.

"Every single mission has been successfully completed," Coulson said. He leaned forward onto his desk, his sincere eyes quietly regarding the both of them. "This is it."

Natasha glanced over at Clint and saw him looking just as confused as he'd been before.

"I don't understand," she said.

"This is it," Coulson slowly repeated. "The last mission."

"And if all goes according to plan…" Clint's voice trailed off as he began to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Natasha's green eyes widened, and she felt her breathing stop—she understood.

"Voloshin," she said. Coulson nodded.

"Yep," he said. "When you get back from England, we'll go into specific details and discussion regarding the mission. Your knowledge of the organization will be essential to understanding how we're supposed to get straight to him."

The feeling had left Natasha's body, and she found her body moving without realizing that her brain had sent the commands. She was nodding slowly with huge eyes as she understood precisely what Coulson was saying. If she and Clint were able to capture Derek Carnegie and bring him in for questioning, she'd be good as gold—she was going to kill Voloshin. She slowly inhaled and then exhaled as her heart started beating again.

Coulson nodded towards the file. "Look over that file. Spend the next 48 hours studying the plan. We'll meet again in two days, same time. If you have any questions, ask them then. If you have any suggestions or corrections, we'll talk about them. You have five days until you ship out."

"Yes, sir," Clint said. He leaned forward and picked the set of wedding bands off the table before looking down at Natasha. She was still rooted in her seat, her body almost completely frozen. "Nat?"

At the sound of her shortened name, she looked up at him as if she'd suddenly remembered he were there. She blinked, and then she quickly stood up. She could hear Clint exchanging pleasantries with Coulson, and she was pretty sure that Coulson said something to her, but she was so busy thinking and planning and trying to remind herself to breathe that she didn't know what he'd said or what the words that came out of her mouth in response were.

She followed Clint out of Coulson's office with stiff, robotic legs. As soon as Clint closed the door behind him, he turned towards with a half-concerned, half-excited look on his wide face.

"Are you ok?" he asked. Stiffly, she nodded.

"I passed," she breathed.

"Of course you did," Clint said, his tone showing that he hadn't thought there'd be another option. "You want this bad enough."

"I do," she said. He saw her green eyes slide off to the side and grow distant, and he moved himself so that he was right in front of her.

"Hey. Hey." He bent his knees so that his face was in front of hers. As always seemed to be the case, the shocking blue of his eyes was what brought her back to Earth, back to him. "Nat? Come on, we've got to stay focused all through this weekend. If we're not focused—"

"I know," she interrupted quietly. Finally, she gave him a tiny half-smile. "It's actually funny that this mission's so important."

"Why?" Clint curiously asked, his eyes searching over her face. She forced herself to inhale and exhale again.

"Last time I was in London, I was working a mission for Voloshin. I was undercover for three months trying to infiltrate this—this gang that'd been sending threats to him," she explained almost breathlessly. "It's funny. I was there working a mission for him, and this time I'll be working a mission for him again. But for him in a different way."

She'd never willingly opened up about her past to Clint before; she'd never talked about any of her past missions or her past kills—hell, he still didn't even know the real reason that Voloshin would strip the skin from her piece by piece if he got a hold of her. And as she looked up at him, she suddenly realized that he couldn't know that about her. Everyone at SHIELD's main concern about her had been her loyalty towards the KGB; if they found out that she'd been taking jobs outside the KGB, they'd question her loyalty and thereby question how much they could trust her. She needed any amount of trust from them because she needed to be in on this mission.

"That's irony for you," Clint said. "Bites like a bitch."

"It does," Natasha murmured in agreement.

"Let's go back to the training room, and we can figure out what exactly we're going to be doing," he said. He started to walk down the hall to the elevators, Natasha falling into step beside him. Every sense of her body was simply tingling with anticipation. This was it. This was really it. One more mission, and then she'd be in.

The mission sounded simple enough—it was like a thousand other missions she'd done before. She would be bringing in someone for questioning, an arrogant jackass who thought he could fuck around with genetics and animals. Well, the KGB hadn't been all that big on catching people who did shit like that, but her part of the mission was the same: catch him. And that was precisely what she planned on doing.

"Do you know how to ride a horse?" Clint asked.

"Of course I do," Natasha answered in a bored tone.

"Do you know how to play polo?" he followed up. She looked up from the sheets detailing the persona she was supposed to play, and she considered his question.

"I can learn," she said. "I know the basics of the game, but I've never actually played it."

"So you know terminology and everything?"

"Terminology's my middle name." Natasha flipped the page. "You know anything about medicine?"

"I know a shit ton about pain medicine."

She glanced up from her file again. "I bet you do."

"Is that supposed to imply something about my character, Romanoff?" Clint raised a cheeky eyebrow towards her.

"It's meant to imply that I'm sure you get hurt a lot," she returned. Clint narrowed his eyes playfully at her, and he shook his head.

"I'm not going to grace that with a comment," he said.

"Oh, thank God."

"Watch it." He looked down and started reading again. Natasha took a sneak peek over her sheets of paper and saw that Clint wasn't looking at her. She couldn't see much of his face, but she could see the top of his blond head. His hair wasn't completely blond—the kind of blond that obviously set him apart as being blond. It was a dark blond, so dark that it could almost pass for a light brown. But in the lights of the SHIELD facility, the blond glint of it stood out.

She could imagine what he must have looked like as a little kid. All blue eyes and light blond hair—he'd probably been much blonder then. She wondered how long he'd been wielding a bow and arrow. Would he have been five years old running around with a toy bow and arrow? Would he have been a pro at shooting by the time he was 11? She wondered all of these things about him, all the while scolding herself for allowing these dangerous thoughts to creep in.

"You're staring," Clint bluntly pointed out. Her first instinct was to shift in her spot and make up some excuse, but she didn't. She used a different tactic instead.

"Cookie Crisp," she said out loud.

"Hmm?" Clint tore his eyes away from his undercover profile and met Natasha's.

"I like Cookie Crisp cereal. I actually hate Raisin Bran," she said. The muscles of his face softened, and he lowered the file down to the top of the desk.

"You eat Raisin Bran almost every time you have cereal. If it's not that, it's some kind of other disgustingly healthy, fiber-filled cereal," he said.

"It's healthy," she replied. "I don't like it. I actually hate Raisin Bran. I think it's bland and has no flavor. I love Cookie Crisp. I've got a bit of a sweet tooth."

"No Trix or anything like that?" Clint asked. She made a face and shook her head, her red hair swinging down past her shoulders.

"No," she said. "I hate fruity cereal. Actually, I hate fruit-flavored anything. I only like fruit when it's fruit."

"I've noticed." Clint smiled when he saw Natasha tilt her head to the side with a confused look on her face. "Yeah, I pay attention to the food you eat. You seem to forget that I'm a spy."

"I don't," Natasha answered quietly. "I never do."

Suddenly, the mood got strangely serious, and the playful moment was gone. Natasha wondered what the hell that'd been, but she couldn't come up with any answers. Clint nodded slowly.

"Neither do I," he replied.

He lowered his head, and she lowered hers, and just like that, they were studying their undercover profiles with a brand new kind of ferocity.

When Clint slept, he always had vivid dreams. The detail to his dreams was astounding, so precise that he often wondered if his dreams had been real; however, this fact was disturbing when it came to his nightmares because they were filled with the same kind of vivid detail.

He'd gotten pretty good at managing his dreams. Coulson had figured out about them back when he'd been working with Clint to bring him over to the good side, and Clint had wound up in a few therapy sessions to talk them out with a therapist who specialized in dream psychology. He'd been surprised when his nightmares had abated, slowly fading until they just kind of simmered on the back burner of his brain. Every so often they came back in full force for a few nights, but for the most part, he was nightmare free.

Lately he'd been dreaming about something completely different, something he'd never dreamed about before. A woman. Specifically Natasha. Even more specifically Natasha Romanoff. For the past month or so, she'd been popping up in his dreams. At first it'd just been brief little appearances. Usually the dream version of her showed up just to make a smartass comment and eye roll before leaving. But as time had passed, her role in his dreams had expanded.

Now she was always with him. It was kind of a cruel reminder of his increasing…something for the woman. He wasn't sure that what he felt was attraction. Well, that wasn't true; Clint definitely felt attraction towards Natasha. For Christ's sake, he felt a shit ton of attraction towards the redheaded assassin; however, he couldn't say that he was having increasing feelings towards her. He hated that term, anyway. Feelings? That was such a vague description. Then again, so was the term attraction. Neither of those terms could explain what exactly it was that the Russian stirred up in him.

He was with Natasha all day every day, and now it seemed that she was with him at night. He wasn't sure if he were taunting himself or if it were fate that was taunting him. Clint didn't even fucking believe in fate, and yet there he was contemplating if there were some greater force out in the world that were tempting him with this damn woman.

And to make matters worse, Natasha loved to try to get a reaction out of him. He hadn't officially decided on whether or not she knew that he picked up on what she was doing, but he definitely did. She tried to get as many reactions out of him as often as she could, and that was just another complex layer of confusion for him. She was always so guarded but other times so open; was she honest? Could he think of her as honest? After all, she was Black Widow. Black Widow had never had a reputation amongst her enemies as someone who oozed honesty and sincerity.

But Clint couldn't help but decide that yes. She was honest. Maybe she wasn't with everyone, but the way she looked at him sometimes…he couldn't see anything but honesty in her. But only sometimes. Most of the time he had to struggle to figure her out and even then felt as though he were coming up flat.

There were times he felt like she was really letting him in and then other times when he felt like he'd never been held at a farther distance. One thing about Natasha Romanoff was that she was a goddamn mystery, and he'd always been attracted to mysteries.