AN: I've been inspired to add a chapter. Please please review. They make me happy. They make me write :)
Clint sat in Coulson's office, looking over the file he had been handed. It was pretty brutal, the information inside.
"How did we get this intel?" Clint asked; it was pretty detailed and it was definitely not anything that would be easy to come by.
Coulson nodded grimly, "We've captured a few and gotten it out of them. The younger they are, the more likely we can get something useful."
Clint grimaced. The files were about a training program in the former Soviet Union that took very young girls and trained them to be weapons. "It's not even their fault. They never signed up for it." He definitely didn't feel good about this upcoming mission. He wasn't a fan of straight out assasinations unless the person on the other side of his arrow was exceptionally deserving.
His handler understood the expressions on his face. "I know, Clint. But the only girls we've managed to bring in? They end up committing suicide, often taking agents with them. They've been programmed so deep, they don't have the capacity to be anything else. This is a mercy, if anything." Phil also hated how the op looked on paper, but he had been involved with a few of the other girls that had been brought in. It still gave him nightmares occasionally.
A deep sigh, "Their handlers deserve this, not the girls." The archer had a strong moral code and while it was not conventional to many people, he still stuck to it resolutely.
"I agree, but we've never been able to get that far. This target has nearly as many kills as you, and she's not been operating nearly as long. She's a weapon, pure and simple. They point her at people and she doesn't ask why, she can't ask why, they've taken that from her."
Clint couldn't argue with that. The target had killed many people, some of whom were truly good. She'd killed children, wives, friends of her targets. They suspect she may have burned a hospital to the ground to terminate a mark, killing every patient and staff member in the building at the same time. He knew Phil was right, that this was needed. It still made him uncomfortable though. He finally looked back up and nodded. "Alright."
"Are you sure?" Phil wasn't going to force his operative to take this mission. It was an ugly one and if he wasn't 100%, there was a good chance his mark would kill him.
"I'm sure," Clint confirmed. "What do we know?"
Getting back to business, Phil pulled up details of the mission. "We don't have any photos of her, but we know who her next target's supposed to be: Ruslan Mazur. He's a Ukranian official who has been working to de-escalate tensions between the two countries. Intel says he is a strong voice of cooperation in many of the former Soviet Bloc countries."
Clint took all this in, formulating a plan. From the intel they had, she tended to infiltrate prior to assasination, likely to gather all the intel she could. That gave him time to watch Mazur and anyone around him. His gut instinct was pretty good, and he felt that his keen observational skills would ensure that in the end, he would be able to ID the target.
He and Phil talked more about the details, and then Clint stood to leave, going to head directly to a plane for Ukraine from the office. Phile stopped him; he cared about the archer like a son and knew that this was going to be harder than he would want it. "Be careful, Clint. She hasn't earned the name 'Black Widow' for nothing."
Clint smirked, "I got this, Phil. Don't worry."