A/N: I do not own anything you recognize.
Summary:Blood runs thicker than water.
Note: So, I'm continuing this story. As for Elisabeth, three pages are successfully done, but more is there. My brain has the habit of popping up new ideas at any given times and not letting them go. *shrugs* Anyways, R&R!
Warning: There is violence near the end, so if you want, you can skip from where I've noted.
Quote: "You and I remember Budapest very differently."
Chapter 1: Budapest
Natasha (she is Natasha Romanoff now, one of SHIELD's best agents, and nothing can change that) does not like familiarity. It is like a pest to her, she finds it annoying but something she can't get rid of.
As for why she can't rid herself of it? Her partner.
The minute she defected to SHIELD, he made it something of a lifelong goal to break through her walls. All the agents – save Director Fury, Agent Coulson, and Barton – didn't even bother, for they believed the Black Widow was heartless.
That was not true.
Under five metaphorical layers of concrete and ten metaphorical layers of iron, there was a tiny little thing called her heart, which has only had space for two people: Alyosha (Alexei) and Katya. And that was how it would stay for the rest of her life, if she had any say over it.
Clint Barton, however, seemed determined to break her out of her shell. And he'd succeeded at one point, before a mission to take out a man named Lev Lebedensky, who was part of an illegal smuggling ring. Natasha reverted back to that cold, stiff and professional agent again after nine years, and vowed to herself that she'd not be a warm, joking friend so easily again.
Lebedensky threatened her daughter: "Fires are so simple to put if you know the correct places, isn't it, blue eyes?" Agent Barton may not have understood it a single bit, but she did.
If he found and burned down the Yekaterinburg orphanage...well, suffice to say, Natasha had no regrets disposing of him. No one hurt her baby girl. And if they did, they died a very painful death.
She and Barton were walking and trying to blend in, when she saw a redhead. A fourteen-year-old redhead with blue eyes, to be exact. "Blue eyes..." she murmured to herself.
The archer that was her partner found a new topic to talk about, "I wanted to ask this for a long time: you have green eyes, why did double-L call you blue eyes?"
"I wear contacts."
"All the time? I understand for missions and such, but never revealing your eye colour for the past fourteen years to anyone?"
"I have enemies by just being myself as well."
"I thought you were a super-secret, hidden assassin and spy; how did someone get hold of your real identity?"
"Russia." is all she tells him, because there they know of the Romanov eyes, Romanov eyes that she and her daughter have, that could very well give her away as the lost Tsaritsa. That could make observant people come to the conclusion that Katya is the Tsarevna, the equivalent to a Tsarevitch in these times.
Clint Barton does not like his partner's short, clipped answers. It is easy to guess that there is a piece of information that she is keeping. He files away the "blue eyes" thing in his brain as something important to finding this secret, but he doesn't want to betray her trust so he won't find it anyway. If she told him herself, it would be different.
He remembers five years ago, when she would be joking with him, retaliate with pranks for his own, when she behaved like he was her friend. Then Lev Lebedensky happened. Natasha Romanoff was like his sister, and no one liked it when one's sister suddenly turned cold and stiff towards oneself. But he still protected her from those agents who were still wary of her and her loyalty, not that she couldn't do it herself, but still.
He knew that that Lev dude had said something that threatened her – even scared her, to an extent; it was clear in 'Tasha's body language. It caused her to grow distant from everyone, living in a world of caution, as if a single wrong step could cause someone's death – someone very important to her.
Hey, he isn't called a hawk for nothing. He observes and strikes, that has always been his style.
Tsarevna
It had taken her a good long eight years before finally admitting that the Red Room were wrong. The seeds of doubt had been there, they'd always been there, but she never acted on them, for fear of being caught.
Eight years of working dutifully for them, eight years of being trained to personally take down the Black Widow. But now they trust her enough to send her to Budapest, Hungary for a single mission: take down Black Widow.
Idiots.
Did they honestly think she didn't know? She knows just who the Black Widow is, and there is no way she'd ever do that. No, this is a perfectly calculated plan to get out of their clutches.
The matron of the orphanage she used to live in insisted that she turn into a grey-eyed brunette, and that was just what the Red Room thought she looked like.
They would be searching for grey-eyed, brown-haired Kristina Nikolaevna Petrova, while she – Romanov-blue-eyed, red-haired Ekaterina Alexeyevna Romanova – lives her life. The minute the matron, Petra Ivanovna, found out the Red Room chose her orphanage next, she began devising this plan, because the late Gospozha Petra had promised to protect her.
She herself began devising the rest of her plan when she turned twelve.
Tsarevna (violence begins)
...Bang!
"Gunshot." Natasha identifies.
"I thought this was a no-weapons area." Clint says, in response to which his partner pointedly looks at the knife in his back pocket and the bow under his shirt, and he blushes.
Bang.
"Bozhe moy!" 'Tasha curses some more colourful curses before taking out her gun, as Clint does the same with his bow.
Within minutes and a few more bangs, it turns into a full-blown gunfight in the lobby of a hotel. Fantastic.
The hawk notices as one of the men tries to unbalance Natasha by literally pulling her leg; bad move, Clint thinks to himself: Natasha's calves frighten him even on the best of days.
True enough, a cartwheel later there is a concussed, passed out male on the floor. His comrades seem to think he is dead because now most of the fire is on the redhead. This is probably where she puts her agility and stealth to use, instead of plain shooting with a gun.
Speedier than he'd ever thought possible, 'Tasha runs to the middle guy, jumps over him, somehow ties her legs around his neck, deprives him of oxygen enough to knock him out, and gets off to stand straight.
"Behind you!"
Clint turns around and swiftly shoots an arrow that pierces right through the man's shoulder.
Strike Team Delta of SHIELD has one very important policy: only injure any opponents other than the ones they are asked to dispose of or the ones that are almost about to kill their partner.
Suddenly, a mini-Natasha jumps from the sixth floor with a rope, and hits one of the two men his partner was fighting with with the butt of her gun. Another thing he notices is that mini-Nat has the same frightening calves and thighs, if her almost-suffocating of the fifth bad guy as well as shooting the seventh bad guy in a very sensitive place while sliding through the floor and then getting up to shoot the eighth guy in the same place while doing some awesome acrobatic move which's name he forgot is anything to go by.
He himself keeps shooting while keeping an eye on the two terrifying redheads.
Quite quickly, the three of them are the only ones in the lobby left conscious and aware. Then, Natasha and mini-Natasha face each other.
Now, he expects them to shake hands or something, because what happens next permanently freezes him in his position for the next three minutes.
'Tasha punches mini-Nat who dodges and kicks back, 'Tasha knees her, mini-Nat twists 'Tasha, and then there is a whole lot of kneeing, punching, twisting, kicking and cursing for the next two minutes and thirty seconds.
After that, they're both holding pistols to each other's faces, panting heavily, and bang! They both miss and then Clint realizes they deliberately missed, because the bullets hit and kill two of the remaining bad guys on the second floor, and he has to admire that aim. This happens in thirteen seconds.
(Violence ends)
"Natalie Rushman," his partner offers.
"Christina Peterson." is what she's given back.
And within the next ten seconds, they smile and hug, and then one of them chokes a bit, and then suddenly they're full-out sobbing on each other's shoulders.
Clint unfreezes and can form only one thing:
"What the hell is going on?"
A/N: Well, that's done. Next chapter will possibly include Fury and definitely include Coulson, with a still-confused Clint. Tell me if you liked this chapter!