Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers or any of the characters in the story except for Cole Williams. If I did, there would totally be a Hawkeye/Black Widow movie in the works.

Author's Note: This is my first story to post on this site and my husband had to talk me into it. That being said, while I embrace constructive criticism remember this old saying if you choose to leave a review "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

Hugs to SnappleSauce for already figuring out the song the chapter titles come from. After only two chapters too!

Thanks to all who reviewed! I realize I left you all hanging mid-battle, so lucky for you, the next update was quick in coming! I have already started work on my next story which will be Tony and Clint friendship centered. I probably won't start posting with it until its finished so I can do the updates quickly and I can make sure everything is how I want it :) I went back over this story about 3 times before I was satisfied!

Enjoy!

Last Time:

"I'll be fine…you stay here, okay." He instructed, heading towards the door. She nodded silently and watched him leave. Slowly, she stood and walked to the shattered glass, careful to keep her feet clear of it. Shifting her son to one arm she crouched and picked up a particularly large piece of the glass, staring with wide eyes at the red liquid staining it.

"A hero is a man who is afraid to run away." –English Proverb

"Hawkeye what's your status?" Iron Man demanded as he blasted the drones that had fired on his teammate.

"I'm good."

"Then get your ass down here!" Tony snapped, blasting a nearby robot into pieces.

"I'm good." Clint responded. He heard Black Widow say something nasty in Russian. She always got pissed when he scared her. At Tony's reply, he closed his eyes briefly from where he had a hand braced against the wall next to the stairwell entry; the other was pressed against a bleeding wound on his side, just below where his Kevlar vest protected him. He had similar cuts on his bare arms and face. His calf was burning, but he refused to let it slow him down. Pain he was used to, pain he could ignore. He took a deep breath and pushed his way into the stair well. Sixteen flights on a heavily bleeding calf wouldn't be easy. It was a square stair well with about a 3 by 3 foot gap between the flights.

He smiled, pulling a thin nylon rope from a pouch on his belt. He tied it off on the railing and made sure his gloves were firmly in place. He always kept a basic rig on his belt for repelling situations. You never knew when one would need to repel off something. In his case it was often. He locked the rope into the rigging and climbed onto the railing, balancing easily. His years in the circus made the two inch railing feel like it was foot. He turned his back to the gap and pushed off.

Tony had read Clint's file, he'd read the whole team's files, and Clint's had said everything short of actually calling him 'bad ass'. So Tony wasn't surprised when the Hawk came bursting out of the ground floor of the apartment building, wielding two wicked looking handguns. He wasn't fazed in the least that the man had made quicker work of sixteen stories than was humanly possible. He only smirked behind his face mask when the archer turned out to be just as accurate with the pistols as he was with an arrow. And Tony had never seen anybody cycle a weapon as fast as this kid did, not even in the movies.

As if sensing his return to their level, the Widow made her way through the robots to fight at the Hawk's side. Individually, they were both deadly, together, they were terrifying. The fought like they were one being, always aware of the other's movements and instinctively covering each other's weak points. It was like a well rehearsed dance that no one else knew the steps to.

The man smiled when Clint came bursting out onto street level, pleased the Hawk was putting up a descent fight. It would make his victory all the sweeter when it came.

"He survived." The scientist stated, slight awe in his tone.

"I expected nothing less." The man replied, walking away from the screens. He pulled his side arm, concealed at his back, and fired at the scientist, point blank in the head. "Your services are no longer needed." He informed, holstering his M-9 and moving towards the back of the room. He looked at his M-24 sniper rifle for a moment before closing the case and carrying it out of the room.

Game on, Barton.

Hawkeye rammed his combat knife into the neck of the robot before him, watching in detached interest as it crumpled to the ground. When another didn't immediately step up to take its place, he glanced around. Natasha was at his back, looking around as well. Iron Man was landing, and his facemask immediately slid up. Bruce wandered out from behind a wall, his ripped pants clutched at his waist. Captain America made his way towards them, as he secured his shield on his back.

"I'll call it in." The leader announced, stepping away to contact SHEILD. Clint crouched to inspect the robot before him. Dead center in the middle of its chest were painted crosshairs. He looked around; they all had the same symbol printed on their chest. He fingered the symbol, searching his mind for anybody he knew about that favored the design.

He didn't hear the shot; only felt the spray of shrapnel as a bullet impacted the symbol, dead center. Everybody dove for cover; Tony merely slid his facemask back down. Clint's eyes searched the rooftops and windows of every building a sniper could be hiding. Nothing.

"Jarvis, find the shooter."

"No other life forms within my sensor range, Mr. Stark." Jarvis announced.

Clint stood, wincing minutely at the pain in his calf.

"Three people in the world could make that shot in the dark, from far enough away that Jarvis couldn't find them…I'm one…the second's rumored dead, killed by Daredevil in Hell's Kitchen."

"And the third?" Tony asked already afraid of the answer.

"His name is Cole Williams, call sign One-Shot…ex military, we served together in Afghanistan before I was recruited by SHIELD."

"Why wasn't he recruited?" Bruce asked, glancing around warily, expecting another shot.

"I was better." The answer was blunt and succinct. No one dared to argue.

"Any reason he'd want you dead?" Captain America asked from where he'd taken cover in a building.

"Plenty." Clint sighed deeply, walking over to his shattered bow. "But if he wanted me dead, I'd be dead…that's not his play, not yet."

"What is his play?" Natasha asked, crouching to check the wound on his calf.

"He wants to get my attention...he was always testing me…to try and see who was better…everything was a competition…this is another challenge."

"To all of us." Natasha insisted, her eyes hard, daring him to argue. He didn't with words but they could all see the disagreement in his eyes. He believed this was his issue to deal with, no one else's.

"He didn't kill you because he wants to play some sick sniper game?" Tony frowned, his face mask sliding up once again. Clint nodded once, sighing.

"But you're better…so he'll lose, right?" Bruce questioned, struggling a little with his alter ego, who was pushing to make an appearance after the gunfire. Clint didn't answer, his eyes distant as he stared at the bullet hole in the robot.

"Let's get out of the open and go home." Steve sighed. "And you look like you need medical attention." He said to their archer.

"I'm fine." Clint defended absently, his eyes never leaving the crosshairs and bullet hole.

Game on, One-Shot.

"I'm fine." Clint insisted as he tried to dodge Nat and get out of the infirmary.

"Bullet holes don't mean fine." She argued, effectively blocking his way.

"One bullet hole and its stitched and bandaged, the rest are just cuts and bruises."

"A big cut, Clint...with twenty stitches."

"I'm fine." He insisted

"You need to rest."

"I will, later." He tried to dodge her again.

"Clint." She snapped, her eyes hard.

"Natasha, get out of my way." His voice had dropped an octave and taken on a tone she hadn't heard since Coulson had died.

"Let me help." She pleaded, both of them knowing she wasn't talking about his leg anymore.

"You can't." He denied, finally slipping past her and stalking away. She frowned in frustration, her eyes fiery.

This so isn't over.

Steve found him in the shooting range. It had been hours since anyone had seen him, but when he'd asked, Nat had very sharply told him where to find her partner. The archer's hands were shaking, that was the first thing he noticed. There were dark smudges under his eyes, that was the second thing. He loosed an arrow and it fell, exactly center on the target.

He knew Clint knew he was there, but for whatever reason, the archer wasn't acknowledging his presence. Steve decided to take the matter into his own hands.

"Barton." He greeted quietly. The archer didn't pause in his methodical process of notching another arrow. "Who is he to you?" Steve asked, getting to the heart of the matter, as usual.

"No one." Clint answered sharply, loosing the next arrow.

Afghanistan

1 year and 2 months before Clint Barton was recruited by SHEILD

"Double or nothing?" Cole whispered to his fellow sniper across the communications line.

Clint clenched his jaw. Cole was obsessed with competing with him. The older sniper just couldn't accept that a man ten years his junior (though as far as the US Army knew it was only 8 years) was a better shooter.

"We're on a mission, One-Shot."

"Come on Hawk…you afraid you just got lucky in the range yesterday."

"I know it wasn't just luck. Now isn't the time."

"You're not even gonna give me the chance to restore my pride?" Cole was getting angry; Clint could hear it in his voice.

"Save it for the range." Was Clint's succinct reply.

"We'll see."

Clint was about to ask what that was supposed to mean when their targets arrived.

"Hawkeye, One-Shot, you are cleared to fire. Light 'em up boys."

Clint had lined up a target as soon as the truck carrying the Iraqi terrorist cell had come into sight. He squeezed the trigger lightly. Dead center in the temple. He had another target in his sights before the first even fell. Another perfect shot, this time to the forehead. Clint had been assigned two targets, two faces to memorize. His dealt with them turned his attention to One-Shot's assignments. His breath caught. A little boy was in the lap of one of the targets, obviously crying and terrified.

Clint watched Cole's first target go down with nearly the same deadly accuracy as his had. Then before Clint could do anything, a bullet ripped into the little boy's back. He actually cried out, he was so horrified. It would have been easy to kill shot the final target in the head. It's what One-Shot should have done. And he did, a moment later.

"What the hell was that?" Clint growled, shoving Cole into the wall outside their barracks.

"It was a mission."

"The kid wasn't a target! You didn't have to kill him!"

"I couldn't get a clear shot, just like my report said; I had to get the kid out of the way."

"Bullshit!" Clint shouted, shoving him hard again before pacing away, trying to rein his temper. "I know where you were positioned. You could have made that shot easily!"

"That kid was a terrorist in the making! I did the world a favor!" Cole defended, shoving Clint back. Clint shook his head, horrified.

"That's insane…I've got to report you."

"Do that and I'll tell them you lied about your age. You'll be arrested and they won't believe a word you say."

Clint's steely gaze would have brought better men to the ground.

"Don't be a pussy, Clint…I did what needed to be done."

Steve stared at him, hearing the lie in his teammate's words. He decided to let it slide, though, and hit another point he'd been waiting to bring up.

"You and Coulson were close friends, weren't you." He stated it as the fact he knew it was.

"We aren't talking about this." Clint deflected, loosing another arrow. His quiver was empty now and he moved to retrieve his collection from the targets.

"I know how it feels to lose someone that means that much to you…and to feel like it's your fault." Steve insisted, following him down range to the targets.

Clint ignored him.

"I was a soldier, just like you, Clint." Steve's voice hardened. "I led my best friend into a fight he had no hope of surviving. But he followed me because he trusted me to get him home. I failed and for the longest time I thought that it was my fault, that I killed him."

It didn't seem at first like Clint was listening, but then he saw his shoulders tense and pushed on.

"Coulson wouldn't have blamed you, Clint…and neither do any of us. You owe it to him to respect his choice to fight. He chose this life. He knew the risks. Don't take away the honor in his death."

Steve was surprised when Clint snapped the arrow he was retrieving in half.

"There was no honor in his death!" Clint snapped angrily. "And the fight he chose was never supposed to be on his home turf! That was me! My fault! I brought Loki's men here! I bled all of SHEILD's intel like a stuck pig! I failed! I was weak and it got good men killed! I deserve to carry this for the rest of my life!"

Steve stood his ground when Clint invaded his personal space. The man was noticeably shorter, but no less imposing. For a moment he hated that he was such an intuitive person. Because he could hear the pain in his comrade's voice, could see the self loathing in his eyes. For a moment he saw himself, after Bucky died. He kept his tone even and calm when he responded.

"Would you have blamed Coulson?" He asked simply.

Clint's eyes registered surprise and he offered no response.

"You had no control, Barton. Loki stole that from you. By doing this to yourself, you're letting him win even though he lost." With that Steve turned and walked away. He closed his eyes in sadness when he heard a crash and then the sound of multiple arrows scattering across the floor.

End of Chapter 3

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"Next in line for the pep talk?" He questioned harshly.

"No…I know I probably couldn't say anything to help…but I have something for you, from someone who can."

Clint's eyes flew up to meet his and Bruce slid the envelope, unopened, across the table.