**June 3rd 2008**

The German summer sun beat down on Clint's exposed shoulders, burning his skin a shiny red as he squinted up at the huge red brick mansion. Licking his dry lips Clint took a sip from his water bottle, doing his best not to look too impressed. He didn't know a damn thing about architecture, but Clint couldn't help but admire raw talent when he saw it. It was beautiful.

It also so happened to be directly opposite a public golf course, which was where Clint stood. He leaned most of his weight on his rented golf club, using the guise of a summer golfer to sketch out the perimeter of the building and see what security systems they had in place.

It was hardly the most exciting job he'd ever taken.

"How's it lookin'?" Bucky's voice asked, interrupting Clint's thoughts through the earpiece he'd leant Clint yesterday.

"Like a push over," Clint replied, giving the building another quick once over. "'Course the outside isn't the problem. Old house like that, they've probably got more internal security than Fort Knox."

Bucky gave a low hum of acknowledgment, though he didn't sound too happy about it. "You need to get in closer?"

Clint turned away from the house, bringing his focus to a game of golf he was pretty sure he was winning. Can you even 'win' a game of golf by yourself? Lining up his shot, Clint realised he didn't care. "No need. The owner's holding a dinner party tomorrow night, so, I was thinking we should slip in through the back and act as waiters for the night. You got a suit and tie with you?"

Bucky snorted a laugh. "What do you take me for?"

"You really don't want me to answer that," Clint replied, deadpan while he swung his club. The ball sailed through the air and Clint knew it would land in the hole before it did. Wow he was bored. Mind-numbingly, soul-crushingly bored.

"What kind of person does this for fun?" he grumbled as he stalked off to the next hole. "This is the shit paint watches when drying gets too exciting."

"Good to know you're having fun," Bucky chuckled, his voice quiet so as not to draw attention to his hiding spot.

"I'd be having more fun if I didn't have to listen to your fucking voice the whole way through," Clint shot back, glancing wistfully at the treetops large hawthorns scattered around the edge of the course. In one of them Clint knew Bucky was comfortably perched, watching the whole scene from above. "How come you got to be the eyes in the sky?" he huffed, not sounding unlike a petulant child.

"Because I'm paying you and I get to choose. Stop complaining," Bucky ordered, without any force behind it, his voice light with banter.

In retaliation Clint sent his next ball flying 3 times higher than was necessary before it potted neatly into the hole for the sixth time in a row. Showing off just a little bit.

Bucky whistled low in appreciation. "Not bad, Hawkeye. Not bad."

Clint smirked smugly to himself as he trudged his way towards the next hole.

He'd been a little more selective about his clientele in the past few months, ever since some dudes in Romania tried to sell him into a human trafficking ring. And, while they predictably didn't live to tell the tale, Clint would rather not repeat the experience.

Bucky had chosen him because he had what seemed to be an entire crime syndicate to eradicate off the face of the earth and he couldn't do it alone. He had liked Clint's impeccable success record and his reputation of shooting first, asking questions never. Clint had liked Bucky's lack of connection to human traffickers and his choice of weapon, so it was practically a match made in heaven.

They'd been working together for only three weeks and they'd already destroyed nearly five bases with little to no trouble. Life was good.

Today, the job was considerably simpler. Stealing the information of more bases from whatever aristocrat owned a place that looked like that. Honestly, compared to all the other shit Clint had been through in the past few years it wasn't a very daunting task.

"Hey, there's some chick on the roof of the clubhouse and she's staring right at you, man," Bucky said quickly, his voice tense and wired. Clint knew from his tone that he was already fingering the trigger on his sniper rifle, ready if trouble were to strike.

"She armed?" Clint asked, his muscles instantly tensing as he felt the vulnerability of his position. His back was completely exposed in the plain white vest he wore. The golf course offered absolutely no cover if gunfire was to rain from above. Clint shivered slightly at the thought, his nerves on fire.

"I don't see anything," Bucky said, sounding as on edge as Clint felt.

Taking a chance, Clint whirled to face the clubhouse. Looking up to the roof, Clint found himself instead meeting the narrowed eyes of a teenage girl. The same girl who'd been tailing him for just over four months now.

All at once the tension in his body bled away with the soft sigh of exhaustion that escaped his lips. Though he hated it, Clint proceeded to turn his back to her, all his instincts screaming against it. Unfortunately he knew nothing less would convince a military man like Bucky that Clint's trust in the kid was genuine. And what Bucky didn't trust, Bucky shot.

"It's fine, Boss. Just my little shadow. She's not a threat, ignore her," Clint lied with surprising ease, trying to keep his body language casual, allowing his shoulders to drop with relief.

"What the fuck do you mean shadow?" Bucky bit back, obviously not satisfied with that answer and sounding a little pissed off. "You telling me she's been following us this entire time and you never said anything?"

Clint knew it sounded insane, but though he'd never exchanged a word with the girl himself, he knew she didn't mean him any harm. If she'd wanted to kill him she would've done it two years ago or even 2 months ago when he was resting up from jumping off a five storey building. She didn't want him dead, so it hardly mattered if she tagged along.

Sometimes he even left a plate of food out for her when the weather was particularly harsh, like she was a stray cat or something. Clint never regretted it though. She always looked just the wrong side of skinny and he didn't know how the fuck she would pay for her own food otherwise so he just...kept doing it. The plates were always scraped clean by the time he went back for them, so he assumed she didn't mind either.

One time he'd been in Alaska and a snowstorm had hit in the middle of the night. Clint had woken to find his bedroom window inexplicably hanging wide open, gusts of icy wind blasting into the room. The girl had been huddled underneath it, looking tiny and freezing, her skin unnaturally pale. She'd kept her eyes sharp, suspicious and untrusting. She kept her entire body coiled tight like a spring, ready to bolt at the slightest sense of danger.

Clint had thrown a spare blanket at her, mumbled something about closing the window and rolled over without another word. At the time, Clint was testing the theory that she didn't want to kill him in his sleep and decided this would be the perfect experiment. Anyway, the girl dying from hypothermia wouldn't be of any benefit to him.

Of course, Clint was a risk taker, but he wasn't stupid. He didn't dare sleep the entire night and he was pretty certain that she didn't either, but that was a given. Neither trusted the other enough for that level of commitment. But no one made any mid-night assassination attempts either. All in all, he considered the whole thing a wonderful success.

Obviously, he couldn't tell Bucky any of this. He never told anyone.

"She's harmless, I swear. Just some street rat that's taken a liking to me, that's all."

Bucky made an unhappy noise and it was a few long moments before he let out a soft huff. "Alright, fine. She doesn't look like she'd be up to much. But tell her to stay off the roofs. Next time I catch her up there I might not check before I shoot."

Clint gave a grunt of acknowledgement, ignoring the smile that threatened to curl at the corner of his mouth before he swung his club for the final time, the ball landing in the hole for the 18th time in a row. He lazily spun the club in his hands. "Right, I'm done anyway. Let's get out of here, Boss."

"Finally," Bucky sighed, a series of sharp exhales the only evidence he was climbing down from his perch in the tree.

A few minutes later Clint re-opened the call on his earpiece. "Um, Bucky? There's a guy in the lobby, uh, short as hell, blonde and skinny as a stick currently shouting his head off at the manager."

"So what?"

"Well your name's come up more than once, man. You know this guy?"

Bucky's answer after a few seconds was a long suffering sigh and a soft promise of, "I'm gonna kill him. I swear to God I'm going to fucking kill him."

The little guy introduced himself as Steve Rogers; Bucky's best friend and roommate.

Steve Rogers, as Clint found out the hard way, really didn't take kindly to being referred to as a 'little guy'.

For a little guy, Steve Rogers sure knew how to throw a hard fucking punch.

**June 4th 2008**

By the time Clint arrived the party was already a fucking disaster, well on its way to becoming full on pandemonium.

Guests and staff members alike ran panicked and disorientated through the corridors. A few men and women tried to take control of the situation and utterly failed in the attempt. Beautiful shimmering gowns and staggeringly tall high heels, as it turned out, were not made for running in. Several women sprinted barefoot past Clint, their shoes clasped tightly in their hands.

It was quite a lot to take in.

Clint stumbled his way to the main dining room and was instantly hit with the heavy acrid scent of raw meat. He very nearly tripped over a body that lay in a crumpled heap near the doorway. The final remnants of the crashed party were still there: smashed glasses and porcelain plates all over the floor. Some wooden tables had been overturned, lying in splinters just large enough to look dangerous. A security guard hung limply from the rafters, rope looped tightly around both of his ankles as his arms swung uselessly in the air. His unconscious body spun itself in a slow, lazy circle.

He wasn't the only casualty. Clint counted five bodies, each in the uniform of a security guard, strewn haphazardly across the room. At least four were dead, silver knives and wooden debris protruding from their unmoving bodies. Clint gave them each a nudge all the same, just in case.

Blood dripped onto the wooden floorboards as Clint checked the hanging guard's pulse, a weak but constant beat meeting his fingers. The archer sighed with something akin to relief. It didn't seem right for the guy to die just for doing his job.

Clint grabbed a knife from the abandoned twelve seat dinner table at the head of the room and, reaching up as far as he could, carefully cut the man down. Lowering him to the ground Clint made sure to go slow, trying not to injure the man any more than he already was.

When Clint finally had the guard safely laid out on the floorboards there came a sudden, bloodcurdling shriek from a door at the other end of the room.

"Goddamnit," Clint muttered, pausing in his movements. He gave the unconscious guard a regretful look before he stood, pulling out his gun and clicking off the safety. "I'll be back for you dude," he promised before he disappeared through the door, following the muffled whimpers that echoed off the brick walls. About halfway down the corridor a blood trail appeared, fresh and gleaming on the wooden floor. Clint frowned but followed it.

The gun raised, Clint stormed into what looked to be a luxurious bedroom, coloured with lavish gold and eye catching green. The interior would've been quite tasteful were it not for the man lying trembling in the centre of the room. A woman in a simplistic light blue dress crouched over him, a deadly sharp knife pressed hard into his throat.

Crimson blood had formed a large pool underneath the man and he looked ready to pass out. The woman was shouting at him in a furious quick fire of Russian that Clint didn't understand in the slightest. The little man apparently didn't either; replying with nothing but a cracked, quavering plea in German.

He was an old, rather frail man with greying hair and Clint felt sorry for him. That is right up until the guy pointed a shaking finger in Clint's direction and the terrifying woman turned on him instead.

All the blood instantly drained from Clint's face as he recognised the hard, emotionless slate of his teenage shadow's face.

And Clint was pointing a gun right at her.

Shit.

Without even thinking about it he dropped the gun with a clatter, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. The girl's eyes were glassy, glazed over; Clint wondered if she even recognised him. At his actions her mouth quirked up in a small smile that was equally beautiful and fucking terrifying.

She gracefully rose from her victim. The guy whimpered in terror at her feet but didn't dare move away. Clint wondered if that would be him in a few minutes.

Clint was barely able to brace himself before she was on him.

He did his best with what he had. Clint had thought his hand-to-hand skills weren't so bad, but then again he'd never fought someone like this girl before. Someone he thought might be professionally trained to murder - one theory of his which he wasn't so keen to test out.

She feinted for his head then landed several solid blows to Clint's stomach before he even realised what was happening. Clint took a few test swings at her head and watched as she dodged them effortlessly. She tried to stab the knife into his jugular and he only just managed to block the attack. He earned a jab to the jaw for his trouble, but it was worth it.

Clint focused all his energy on keeping that lethal little knife in her hand as far away from his body as possible. He could take the punches; walk them off just like he always could. But a stab wound? Yeah, not so much.

Trickshot had only taught him how to aim a bow. Nothing else. He'd never explained how to take down someone who moved so fast Clint never saw the blows coming. Who hit with precision and technique and never hesitated even for a second. Trickshot's training was no help here.

But, Barney? Barney had taught Clint how to fight dirty.

He used his greater strength and larger frame against her, forcing her to stop in her unrelenting flurry of attacks by grabbing her bony shoulder and pulling her tight against his chest; trying to restrict the space she had to move just like he'd been taught.

The next thing he knew she'd slammed a sharp elbow into his nose and thrown him clean over her shoulder, dumping him on his back with a painful thump.

Clint reckoned he'd held his own for about two minutes, and he would've been proud of that were it not for the fact he was probably going to die now. The girl knelt heavily on his chest and pressed a sharp line of garrotting wire against his exposed throat. Fuck, that hurt like a bitch.

"You're slow," she said in a remarkably matter-of-fact tone, not even out of breath, her accent Russian but her English absolutely flawless. "And sloppy."

Clint wrinkled his nose in offense. In retaliation he tried to buck her off until it quickly became clear that that wasn't going to happen any time soon. She had thighs like steel.

"Well, you're way heavier than you look," he coughed out, kind of struggling to breathe under the combination of her weight on his chest and the wire at his neck. He struggled a little more though. After all, he still had his pride to uphold here.

Her eyebrows came together, just a little, in a frown.

Clint couldn't help but huff out a laugh, a little grin pulling at his lips despite the situation he was in. He had no idea what she was looking at him like that for but he spoke anyway, "Not that you're fat or anything, you're-" He struggling to draw breath for a moment. "You're not. Obviously."

To Clint's amusement the frown disappeared.

"What are you doing here anyway?" he gasped after a while of listening to the old guy let out wet, agonised chokes. Might as well have a chat if this was going to take so long.

The girl stared at him for a few long moments before the old guy on the ground let out a particularly pained whine. She glanced back at him, her eyes filling with a surprising amount of hatred.

"He knew you were coming here. It was a trap," she spat, her accent more pronounced in her anger. "You would be dead if I didn't make him stop first."

It was Clint's turn to stare at her, only this time in astonishment. He glanced at the dude who suspiciously still hadn't moved an inch despite being left alone for a long time. "Thanks for that, much appreciated. I- uh, what did you do to 'stop' him, exactly?"

Those dead eyes met his unrelentingly, her face a remorseless blank slate. "I slashed his hamstrings. He's not going anywhere."

Clint winced despite himself.

"Hawkeye!" came a panicked shout from the open door.

The girl's weight was suddenly gone from his chest. She crossed the room almost too fast to be human and had her wire digging deep into Bucky's vulnerable neck, forcing him to his knees with a choked off shout. Her eyes empty the girl placed her knee between Bucky's shoulder blades and pulled the wire tight.

Bucky was making wet gasping sounds that made Clint want to throw up. No matter how little time he'd spent with the guy, he'd grown attached nonetheless. Bucky was a good guy. He didn't deserve to die like this.

"Stop!" he yelled his voice scratchy and painful but still more than loud enough to be heard. "Please. Don't kill him, stop!"

To Clint's astonishment the girl froze. For what felt like hours she just stood there, her eyes flickering from Clint to Bucky whose face was turning an awful shade of purple, before she dropped the garrotting wire altogether. Bucky got around 4 seconds to take in a single glorious lungful of air before the girl took her tiny knife in hand and stabbed it deep into his thigh.

Bucky howled. Clint swore, scrambling over to the man and clamping his hand down on the wound, trying to stem the blood flow.

The girl ran, disappearing like a ghost, never once looking back.

The next job Clint did, his shadow never turned up and he didn't miss her, not one bit.