Uzbekistan, August 2011.
The Black Widow was lucky.
Just last week, she had put a bullet straight through Christoph DeFalco's skull. As she glared at her target, who had been bound helplessly in a chair before her, she met his eyes.
Natasha saw fear. Fear and maybe a little bit of remorse as he pleaded for his life, but not enough.
She made it quick. He barely felt any pain before he died, which probably was not fair to the hundreds of people he made suffer.
Maybe she was growing soft, Natasha thought, as she radioed Coulson for an extrication team.
She snarled at the thought.
No, she was just doing her job. Her days of making people suffer were over – Phil said to kill the target simply and quickly, so that's exactly what she did.
Natasha sighed. She wished Clint was with her. But of course, Fury needed him in New Mexico at the moment.
She looked over at DeFalco's lifeless body. Just a few seconds ago, he was begging Natasha for mercy, apologizing incessantly for the bomb attacks in Atlanta that had killed over a hundred civilians.
Natasha didn't really care. She knew her ledger was dripping with far more red. She might have even felt a little pity for the guy. His hair was the same sandy color as Clint's.
Dammit, she really was growing soft.
I'm lucky, she thought, as she collected her weapons, which were mottled across the floor around the bodies of the ten or so guards she had taken down. At times like these, she wondered what on earth Clint saw in her that made him make that different call in Budapest. Absentmindedly, she rubbed the faint scar on her arm where Clint had cut her with his knife six years ago.
She looked at the dead DeFalco in disgust – no way would she have ever thought to give him a second chance.
Clint was different. The Black Widow and Hawkeye were very similar, but Clint believed in second chances. Natasha was a machine due to her upbringing in the Red Room, but Clint was brought up by Phil. Halfway, at least – Clint was twelve when Phil found him, broken and beaten and abandoned. And Phil believed in second chances.
Natasha knew she would never be trusting enough to give a target a second chance, especially one with so much blood on his hands. But slowly, she was learning to trust – and that was enough. She opened up to Clint first, and then Phil. Gradually, she unraveled, and Red Room became less of a lifestyle and more like a memory. The scars would always be there, but she was learning.
Red Room had taught her to kill. Clint had taught her to live.
She was lucky.