The first time I held Clint's hand in was in the cafeteria at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s New York base. I had timed it just so that the maximum amount of agents would notice and fake hid it just enough to look as though we were trying to be discreet. Within one hour almost everyone on base had heard about it and had taken it as confirmation that Barton had only brought me back as a piece of ass for him to fuck. It was exactly what I wanted everyone to think.
It gave me the two things I wanted most: to punish Clint Barton for trying to play with my head and to keep everyone else the hell away from me.
He had been startled when I did it, looking at me with questioning blue grey eyes as though he had no idea what the pretty obvious gesture could mean. I didn't back down though, giving him a twisted, menacing smile and dragging him to an empty table with me, though I knew bothered actually speaking to him while we ate. If he wanted to play games with my head fine. I'd bite.
I had another psych session after lunch for the idiots upstairs to try to figure me out, just like every day since I'd been on base. Sometimes, if they sent in someone who could speak Russian, I'd tell them whatever I knew they wanted to hear. Sometimes I'd simply sit and say nothing. The one they send in today made it clear that he was painfully obviously straight out of training and not much older than me. I smile at him just barely and look up through my lashes and keep both of my ankles crossed politely. He bumbles through his Russian with a thick, Texas accent and clearly devotes two thirds of his energy mentally translating my words and the other third desperately trying to control his pathetic hard on, or at least keep it hidden under his notepad.
"Умм . Итак, как вы приспособиться к жизни здесь, на базе?" Umm. So, how are you adjusting to life here at base?
I roll my eyes. It's the same set of questions everyday from a different therapist. Smart of them to try to see how many variations of the same story I make up, how I react to different personality types, whether I cooperate at all under any circumstance. Of course, it would work a lot better if I didn't already know what their game is.
It's been over five months and I'm sick of being stuck on base. It's the longest I've ever spent in one place since graduating from the Red Room. Today I don't feel like bothering to regurgitate up my memorized responses so I just lean back into the cushions of the stereotypical therapist's couch and cross my arms.
"Это пойдет намного более гладко, если вы сотрудничаете, мисс. Романова" This will go much more smoothly if you cooperate, Miss. Romanova.
Yeah. I'm sure it would for him. I set my eyes on a blank stare right into his own and can practically feel him waging a mental war between fighting his simultaneous arousal and fear and trying to maintain calm professionalism.
When I am finally excused an hour later I find Barton waiting for me outside in the hallway.
"What do you want?" I demand, point blank. I'm in no mood for his bullshit right now.
He's leaning up against the wall wearing civilian jeans and a t-shirt with a smart ass grin on his face. "Coulson thought I'd like to be the one to tell you you've been cleared for active duty. Supervised, of course, but it gets you out of here. You have an appointment with Fury tomorrow at eight."
I suppress my smile and give him a curt nod, turning in to walk in the direction of my bunk. His hand grabs onto mine from behind though, gently pulling me back towards him. "Where are you going?"
"My room." I state in a tone that should make it clear to him exactly how unneeded this whole conversation is. I begin walking again, but instead of taking the not so subtle hint and letting go of my hand he keeps hold of it and moves forward to catch up to my stride.
"Don't…I- I want to show you something."
I raise an eyebrow at his hand, but don't pull away, too interested in where this is going. What does he want to show me? His room? He grins at me and leads us down a seldom used side hallway and then up to a large air duct cover which he immediately removes. I follow him inside and through the duct tunnel for about five minutes, all the while silently memorizing every twist and turn and counting how far and in which direction he's taking us in case I need to find my way back out quickly. Keeping a brisk pace and ever hesitant about where he's turning, it's clear he's comfortable in here and knows these ducts well enough to have them all memorized.
Finally, we come to another vent from which I can see what I'd guess to be headlights passing by. Expertly, he removes the cover so we can exit and I climb out behind him into a parking garage.
"My S.U.V. is over here." He states with mild excitement in his voice and attempts to take my hand again. I shrug away from it, giving him a look that tells him exactly where he can shove it. Unfazed, however, he simply retrieves his keys from his jacket pocket and unlocks a silver S.U.V. remotely parked across the lot. "You coming?" He turns back to ask once he reaches the driver's side and looks back to see me still standing in front of the vent. I quirk an eyebrow up at this and give him a purposely sly grin.
"Where are we going?" I ask with a smirk as I allow him to open the door on my side for me and climb inside. The fact the he felt the need to open the door on my side is telling.
"You'll see." He smiles back as he shuts my door and walks around to the driver's side.
I press my head back into the seat and push my chest out towards him just a bit, subtly sending all the signals I'm used to using to my advantage. So far, Agent Idiot hasn't taken the bait, but I still want to know what his game is and the best way to do it is to treat him the same as any other person I've ever wanted intel from. It isn't any different, really.
"Well, judging by your interesting exit route, I assume this little excursion is hasn't exactly been cleared." I comment while paying most of my attention to where we're going. Left.
"Not…exactly. But it's important." I grin at him. Important. Sure. Deciding he's unlikely to make a move until we stop I keep my eyes on the road. Half a mile straight, right. Two miles. Right. Quarter mile. Left.
He parks us near the door in the parking lot of a smallish restaurant with a giant lizard on the bright green sign reading "B & D Burgers". It's an interesting front anyway…I'm sure.
"Told you we have cheeseburgers…and today, you are going to experience your first better."
I shoot him a doubtful glare as I follow him in.
"Trust me, Natalia, this is the kind of place that's going to make you love being an American. You'll want to fight for the good guys just to protect places like this once you get a taste of these amazing burgers."
"Uh huh." I cross my arms, feigning boredom as we walk to a booth and a hefty blonde waitress comes to hand us our menus. I take a good look at her while Barton orders some nonsense for the both of us then turn back to him.
"Just as long as being an American doesn't lead to me looking like one, I guess." I keep my voice purposely critical and sigh. I was used to strict dietary restraints from the Red Room. It didn't include carbs, let alone bread, and I could smell the grease this stuff was cooked in from here.
Barton chuckles as the waitress comes back with our sodas. It's coca cola, I think. I've had it once before, while undercover in Mexico. This stuff tastes just as overly sweet as that had before and I place it back down on the table after only one sip in distaste. Maybe I should just play the character he wants and drink it. Normally I would. It would be the smarter thing to do…to just play the character. It's what I'm used to, but for some absurd reason I can't help but get the feeling that he'd see through the act. Meanwhile, he downs half his fizzy soda in a single loud, long slurp. I sigh. This is the man to whom I'm stuck with to try to keep from being all out murdered by the Red Room? I look down at the table. This is the same man who swore he could offer me protection from them? It's almost comical.
I'm going to die.
Oh well, I might as well just eat the damned burger then. It's not like I'm going to have time to get fat with this idiot as the only person in between me and them. The burger looks like a huge greasy mass of bread buns and a large hunk of meat, probably beef, from the smell, in between with melted yellow cheese all across the meat. The lettuce and tomatoes and onions still look good and fresh though. I pick it up only to realize that Agent Idiot is staring at me again from across the table with a hugh grin spread wide across his face.
I just barely refrain from rolling my eyes at him again before taking a small bite and then have to swallow back a moan at the shock of how good it tastes. No wonder these people are fat. I take a bigger, much more enthusiastic bite. He's smiling at me like a jackrabbit.
"Told you. Worth it to you now?" I don't answer him other than to take another bite. He's slathering his pile of fries with a bright red sauce from a glass bottle labeled 'ketchup' and then leans over the table to pour some on the empty part of my plate as well where the burger used to sit. Honestly, I didn't care what he wanted to stick on there, however unappetizing it looks. I'm much too content to devour the burger.
We sit, mostly in silence, as I try the fries in the red sauce and end up eating most of those as well as the whole of the burger. I'm not used to eating this much and my stomach was already beginning to hurt, but I don't care. It's worth it.
"So, Coulson told me I could give these to you now." He produces a couple of I.D. cards from his pocket and pushes them across the table to me.
I pick them up to study them. One is an American driver's license with the name Natasha Romanoff. The second is a S.H.I.E.L.D. I.D. badge under the same name.
"Natasha Romanoff?" I read out, letting my voice communicate the question.
"Coulson picked it. Thought that you needed a name change if we wanted to keep you under the radar for a bit. The office squibs that usually handle this stuff were going to go with something really different- I think Coulson said they were gonna go with Madison Farmer or something like that but he stopped them. Said he thought you'd appreciate something a little more…"
"Yeah...Tell him thanks." I look up and force myself to meet his eyes for moment. It wouldn't have been the most ridiculous cover I've ever had to use, but the name Natasha felt more like something I could genuinely live with.
"Yeah. Sure." He stands and shoves his hands in his pockets. "I should get you back."
Standing up from my seat at the booth and following behind the man, I take the time to really study him once again, still trying to figure out his play.
I had been spending an absurd amount of time with the idiot agent since I got here. He's the only one I've been allowed to spar with in the gym since the first time I went in and tore up a few other random agents to let out some steam. I've been spending more energy than I should have trying to figure out what game he's trying to play and that carries over into our first real mission a few days later.
By that point I don't even sleep without wondering what I'm doing anymore. Especially not with him in the room. They like to insist on doing that. Putting us together as if he owns me. As if bringing me in makes me automatically his. They all seem to forget I came in on my own free will. He didn't drag me. He didn't force me. He couldn't have if he wanted to. Yes, he could have killed me when I was completely unaware of him, but once I came to from that sedative, I could have gotten away. Could have killed him. Could have left. Could have escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. if I had really put my mind to it. It's just that I feel so exhausted around him. The unvoiced expectations of blind loyalty from him. That look he gives...like he knows something about me that I don't. Like he thinks I'm something other than what I've always been trained to be.
I'm not a good person and I sure as hell don't need him to save me from anything. There is nothing left to save. Everything that can be taken has been took…really since before I was even old enough to know the difference. The only thing that remains is the only thing I am: a set of unparalleled killing skills. So he wants to use those skills to his advantage. Fine. I'm used to that too.
What I don't get is why he doesn't just fuck me already and get it over with. He's not gay. I could tell that as soon as he saw me after the shower in that shit motel room in Moscow. He's very attracted to me, just like everyone always is. And, again, S.H.I.E.L.D. basically treats me as though I'm his fucking property.
It bugs me on a level I'm not used to. I don't care if he uses me like that. Everyone in charge of me always has. Sexual contact means nothing to me. I've fucked and been fucked in every physical way known to man. It would be easy if he would just do it already. I would be able to rest then. I would be able to understand him then. But this whole holding onto me at night like some damned stuffed animal thing is bizarre. I can't fall asleep this way. Who the hell could? His arms are wound around my torso and his warm chest is up against my back and his head is close enough for my hair to be only inches from his face. His grip is weird. It's tight, but not physically uncomfortable. One of his hands is resting on top of my wrist in front of my ribs. The sensation feels oddly secure, like the handcuffs used to when I'd go to sleep in the Red Room. It'd taken me a while to break that habit, but ultimately it just isn't practical out in the real world. You have a half a second to react from dead sleep to keep from just being plain dead sometimes. Voluntary restraints, however comforting and familiar, don't play a part in keeping you alive in those scenarios.
I don't like the physical comfort that results from him. I don't like the assumption that I trust him enough to sleep here. I don't trust anyone enough for that. It's an advantage I'm not willing to give to anyone. I can't kill if I'm asleep...he must understand the difference. Fucking him doesn't involve giving him that advantage. I can kill him in the middle of that. I have killed in the middle of it before...a few times. Sometimes while they were still hard inside me. I try to picture doing that to Agent Barton but end up stopping short as soon as I try picturing his piercing blue eyes losing that annoying look to them. For some weird reason I don't really like the mental image, though the ones that came before it of him sliding into me and us meeting thrusts against some wall or doorway don't bother me.
Eventually I just fake it. Acting like I fell asleep is nothing new, though I'm more accustomed to faking other things in the beds of men. Still, it's all about figuring out what they want and pretending to give it to them. Most men want to feel like gods in bed, so I fake like they are and moan and clinch and beg them whatever their pathetic little minds want to hear me beg for. Agent Idiot wants for me to trust him blindly enough to sleep here. With him. In his fucking arms. So sure. I can do that. I can fake anything.
Weirdo.
I slip out and away slowly in a process that takes at least thirty minutes after he's reached REM sleep. First I work my wrists away from his hands, repositioning them temporarily to the side of my breast, then my ribs, then my hip before working them to rest in the warm spot of the mattress where my upper body had been just seconds before. It takes longer to dislodge my lower body without making the mattress lift or dip from the change of weight too quickly.
Finally, when I'm up and free of him, I find myself just standing beside the bed. My eyes are well accustomed to the dark and I can see his figure. His face is pouting and it looks akin to a child's. I cross my arms after a moment, realizing that the air is colder in the room than I would have thought with his body heat surrounding me before. At first, I just planned to go back to the other room assigned and go to sleep there. Then a different thought hits me. Why hasn't he fucked me? Seriously? Is it a power trip? Is it disgust from my past? Does he think he's too good for me somehow? Almost instantly, I mentally laugh at the thought. Yeah...right. I'm the Black Widow. I could seduce him if I wanted. But that doesn't play into this little game he has going on. Pretending he doesn't want me. Acting and talking like this is in order to try to trick me into some deeper level of trust that no one will ever be intitled to. He wants to control me without me knowing it.
Well fuck that. And fuck this whole thing. I'm sick of being brainwashed and if he wants to control me he could at least have the decency to come out with it.
Without a second thought I walk out of the room and leave him to do his own dirty work on this stupid mission. He'll finish the mission or get killed. If he does manage than he'll live to show his end game when I show back up at pick up.
Except he doesn't.
He lies his ass off and makes it sound like I should get most of the credit.
He doesn't know it, but I sneak into his bunk that night back on base. He sleeps weird...there's something between a pout and a childish smile on his face. It shouldn't surprise me, really. He's just as childish during the day, trying to play games with my head. What he doesn't understand is that he's playing with someone far beyond his league.
For a while, I just stand there and watch him, knowing I wouldn't get any satisfaction from cracking his neck this way. Not until I know what shit he's trying to pull and why. Not until I've seen him cave and try to fuck me just like everyone else. But this is taking too long. Playing by his rules aren't working.
Let's see what he does when I don't play along with his stupid little mind-fuck game.
He wants to play games with me?
Fine.
Let's see how this idiot likes playing on my terms instead of his.
The next day during our sparring time I finally let loose on him. No holding back. I want him to know exactly who he is dealing with. So we go at it. He catches on pretty quickly, sensing my shift in intensity and doing his best to block me. I have him down from a thigh scissor move in about four seconds, but he punches me in the stomach from the matt instead of tapping out and I know that it really is on between us. Other agents start gathering around the peripheral of the gym to watch, but I ignore them, pulling out move after move and barely being touched by Barton at all until he switches tactics to make me come to him. Smart, but I still slither out of every hold he manages to grab me into until he resorts to grabbing me by my long curly ponytail. Low move, but effective. So I pull out my knife to play dirty back and he jumps out of range just in time for me to rip open a punching bag instead of his flesh. Of course, even if I had cut him, it wouldn't have been serious…maybe just a few stitches, because this was a friendly sparring, but the use of my knife clearly intimidates all the agents who have come to watch. He takes that second where I'm pulling my knife back out of the punching bag to knock it out of my hand and land a roundhouse kick to my knee, which forces it to bend and I fall to the matt in the pile of sand that has escaped the bag. Still undeterred, however, I simply grab him down with me and roll us over so that I'm now on top of him in a straddling position and with my elbow over his neck.
Grinning as though he'd won instead of me, he taps his hand down three times on the matt to signal his loss and I let go of him, but still stay where I am for a second. That felt good. I needed to let out some steam and I realize that I'm smiling at him from the relief of if all. Quickly, I wipe the expression off my face and set it back to my standard blank and fight the urge to scramble off of him. Everyone is watching. I lean down, pressing my chest against his and grinding my hips just a little, before slowly standing up and extending a hand down to him. He looks at me a bit incredulously, but takes it as another look of disappointment clouds over his face. It didn't start when I broke contact though, but before that when I remembered myself and quit the stupid smile I hadn't realized I was giving him.
Now, eight years later I find myself smiling at him much the same, with that sense of relief only a good fight or…lately, a good orgasm, can ever give me. Of course, the office we're standing in is a mess. There's blood everywhere…all from the former leak that had been both greedy enough and profoundly stupid enough to sell me out. I bend down, coolly collecting my knife and cleaning it off on the dead man's jacket that's still hanging by the door, and look over to Clint who has the same grin on his face now as he stares back at me as he did on the mat eight years ago.
This time I don't hide my relieved smile. It feels better. Everything feels better now that I'm back on my own two feet in my tactical suit. I finally feel like myself again…finally feel useful again. I don't say anything to Clint as I'm fairly sure at this point he's on the same page as me and my thoughts are only confirmed when he steps over the dead body to clap a friendly arm around my shoulder. "So…you think any burger joints around here will be open on Christmas?"
"I think we should be able to find something." I reply, strolling casually with him out of the office.
