Black Widow whirled around with lightning speed, her cocked elbow striking a man solidly in the temple when he tried to grab one of her arms. He was a stranger to her. Only a last-minute instinct changed the strike from a killing blow to a stunning one. Even so, he dropped like a poleaxed cow. Assured that he was disabled for the moment, her eyes automatically sought out her next target in the dark sea of shrieking, fighting bodies. They were all rank amateurs, wasting their energy in useless flailing, dealing out bloody but superficial damage. In the row right in front of her, one woman clawed another across the face, leaving behind bloody weals in her victim's pale skin. Where the hell was Hawkeye? He was supposed to be her backup-

The Black Widow didn't need backup. She was the perfect instrument, the ultimate weapon, a miracle of Soviet science. Her mission was her purpose; she had no other. For a moment her eyes closed as she recalled the masculine Russian voice repeating those nine words over and over, waking and sleeping, making her say it, memorize it, believe it. He spoke to her again now, after his long absence. Your mission is your purpose; you have no other. But that was a long time ago, wasn't it? Before-

Another hand touched her. She whirled and snatched it away from her bare arm almost before her skin had a chance to register the heat of it. With a quick levering motion she bent it back, heard the sharp snap of bone, ignored the scream. There was a rhythmic pounding inside her head and another man's voice, guttural and Slavic. He told her what would happen if she were ever taken prisoner, what terrible things the other side would do to her, the tortures she would endure. She couldn't be taken-

NO! Her brain struggled, argued against the long-ago voices. S.H.I.E.L.D. She worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. now. Hawkeye was her partner, her friend-

Friendships were discouraged. They made you weak. She was the best. Uncle Ivan always told her so...

High above the floor, Hawkeye looked down the length of his arrow into the melee, blocking out everything but his target. He had the infamous Black Widow squarely in his sights. Even the dim lighting could not conceal the precise and fluid grace of her movements. The dossier S.H.I.E.L.D. had compiled noted that she had repeatedly demonstrated agility and reflexes in the superhuman range. That was one of the very few concrete details it contained. The rest of the sparse file had been a long list of the murders and acts of espionage credited to her, rather than information about the woman herself. He had studied it nonetheless, trying to imagine how he would have handled those same assignments. The nature of her crimes, if you wanted to label them as such, gave him insight into her psyche and methods - all the better to hunt her down and kill her. She was a threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, queen and country, all that jazz. He'd been ordered by the council to put her down. Though no big fuss or even a mention had been made when Fury had delivered the order, he knew it was a hell of an honor to be chosen. She was-

His friend.

He blinked, muscles in his back losing a hint of their tension against his drawn bow. Before he could question his own thoughts further, never mind the total clusterfuck this mission had become, an ice pick rammed in through his left ear and straight into his skull. It wasn't really an ice pick, of course, but it felt every bit like his brain had been penetrated by eight inches of cold, hard steel. Had he been able to think, he might have wondered if this was what it felt like when one of his arrows punched through living flesh. He couldn't think, couldn't breath, his agonized scream trapped in his throat as his body curled reflexively around itself.

An arrow thudded firmly into the back of the seat immediately to the left of Widow, just as she was ripping her earpiece out. Clint. The thought came to her in a quick flash. She had felt a tickle and then a sharp pain in her teeth before the sound had become audible. It snaked and rattled through her brain until her quick reflexes could remove the source. It hurt, but like so many things in life that were painful, it left clarity in its wake. The earpiece fell to the floor as she kicked off her heels and struck out toward the aisle, knowing without even looking that her partner was in trouble. Her gut was never wrong on that account. The mission now was to get out with their asses intact and regroup.

Hawkeye couldn't tell whether the noise had stopped; the ringing in his head was too loud and everything sounded wrong, like his head was under water. His hand came away from his ear wet and bloody. He wiped it on his pants leg and pushed up to his hands and knees, feeling for his bow. It had landed on the floor off to his right and he felt an instant reassurance once his fingers closed around it. When he tried to lever himself up to his knees he lurched to one side, unbalanced. His hand grasped at the arm of a chair, and with gritted teeth he righted himself. His planned exit strategy wasn't going to work if he fell on his face... or down the stairs, or off the damned roof.

Widow's path was blocked by a burly man whose broad shoulders strained the fabric of his tuxedo. He was busy hiking up the skirt of a shrieking, resisting woman. Her upswept hair had halfway fallen down around her shoulders and her mascara was streaked by tears, shadowing her wide, frightened eyes. Pulling up her own skirt, Widow stepped on the seat of the nearest chair and then onto the narrow back, spinning into a roundhouse kick that caught the man squarely in the jaw. His head snapped to the side, making the woman he was assaulting shriek again in fearful surprise. Her dress had been ripped down the front as well, and with efficient coolness, Widow delivered a second kick that put the man on the floor. Then she was gone in a leap to the back of the next row, and then the next, like some demented game of hopscotch.

Descending into the confused free-for-all probably wasn't the best decision, Hawkeye knew. Objectively, it was pretty a damned bad one, and yet it seemed like the only workable strategy. Along with the dizziness his vision was doubled, like a ghost on an old-fashioned TV, and the colors were faded. He could probably hit the side of a barn, but not much else with accuracy. Giving his bow-grip a few clicks, he felt his quiver vibrate and reached up and behind for the arrow he'd chosen. Blinking, he took in a deep breath and held it, bracing himself against a seat, exhaling softly as he let the grapple fly toward the ceiling. A deceptively thin line trailed behind, and a hard tug confirmed its solid placement. Hooking on, he slung his bow crosswise to free his hands and climbed up to sling one leg over the edge of the balcony. Even without his earpiece (and Coulson would be getting an earful of his own later), he could hear Widow's voice in his ear, calling him an idiot.