CW: Strongly implied past sexual abuse
Chapter 5: Birds of a Feather
Nat's behavior the day before was still bothering Clint. He had immediately sensed something was off when she had walked out of her bedroom. The way she prowled towards him just cemented it. Her behavior in attempting to seduce him was convincing enough. She was doing and saying all the right things, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't really her. Like it was something she had been trained to do and she was just following a script. And after he thought about it, Clint realized that the assassination last year had popped into his head because he'd felt like a mark when she was straddling him. He hadn't been distracted enough for the sense of perilto be lost on him, but he could easily see see how a mark could be lulled into complacency by the beautiful redhead that had been throwing herself at him.
They hadn't connected killings with that M.O. to the Black Widow because she had never been sighted in the vicinity of one. But if that was part of her repertoire then her body count might be a lot higher than they had thought. Clint could think of another handful that might qualify.
When Nat came out of her room for the day he decided to ask her directly. There was no guarantee she'd actually remember for sure or even answer him, but it was still worth asking.
"Nat?" he called, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure." she replied.
"You're credited with 64 kills." Clint began, "But yesterday while you were grinding on me I couldn't shake the feeling of being a mark."
Nat's eyes widened slightly when she realized where he was going with that statement, "What's your question?"
"How much higher is the real number?" Clint bluntly inquired.
"I'm not sure." Nat told him reluctantly, "I don't remember all of them, but if you added another 40 or so you'd probably be pretty close. You said I was credited with 64 over two years? I was active for at least a year before you started tracking me, maybe two. It's hard to say for sure what the actual number is."
"Like, 'too many to keep track of' don't remember, or 'it was wiped' don't remember?" Clint questioned.
"There are at least a few that I know were me that I don't remember at all." she answered with a contemplative look, "So probably wiped."
"Okay." he agreed, "March 23rd of last year. Mark was found dead in a hotel room in Madrid. His throat was slashed, and he was naked with evidence of sexual activity in the room."
Clint had looked up the details of the killing that had tripped his instincts. Now he scrutinized Nat as he asked her about it. Mostly to see if she remembered it or not. He was reasonably sure now that it had been her, but he couldn't explain why he was so certain.
"And you want to know if I killed him?" Nat asked bluntly. She looked uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had gone, but answered his question anyway, "I don't remember specifically, but I was in Spain from March to May. So, yeah, it was probably me."
Clint pressed on, his goal becoming more defined the more he talked to her about this.
"Nat?" he said gently, "You have some pretty significant issues with sex, don't you?"
"What makes you say that?" she shot back defensively. He had definitely hit a nerve.
"The way you were acting when you were trying to seduce me." Clint said bluntly, "It seemed more like something you were trained to do than anything you actually felt. How hard were you trying not to think about what you were doing?"
"Pretty hard." Nat admitted with a heavy sigh, "I didn't want to go through with it, but I probably would have if you wanted me to. I was really hoping you wouldn't."
"Is that something you've been forced to do before?" Clint asked her softly.
When Nat's face fell and her arms moved to wrap around her abdomen he knew the answer. The look on her face told him she really didn't want to answer that question, so he held up his hand and shook his head at her before she could speak.
"Sorry." he said, "You don't have to answer that question. It's obviously traumatic for you to think about, and I shouldn't have asked. Is this a topic you'd like to stay away from?"
She mutely nodded with an unhappy expression.
"Why have you been answering my questions when you clearly don't want to discuss this with me?" Clint wondered.
Nat shrugged and looked down, "Because you're asking them, and I said I didn't want to lie to you anymore."
"You know, you can tell me you don't want to talk about something and I'll respect that." he informed her, "You don't have to tell me absolutely everything. You're allowed to keep things to yourself."
"Okay." Nat replied, looking relieved, "Could we not talk about this anymore?"
"I'll drop it after one last thing, and you don't have to give me an answer right away." he promised, "Would you consider talking to a therapist? Specifically a woman who has experience dealing with issues like that?"
"Maybe." she hedged, "I'll think about it."
"All I can ask."
Nat surprised Clint by telling him she wanted to see the therapist within an hour of their conversation. He figured it was 50/50 on whether she'd agree to it at all, and he wasn't expecting an affirmative answer this quickly. It must have been bothering her more than he thought.
He called Hill and arranged for the therapist to meet them in her office the next day at 10:00 AM. Clint had never met her before, but Hill assured him she was outstanding at her job. In addition to being their in-house therapist she was also a behavior analyst that worked with their profiling team.
Clint knocked on the door labeled 'L. Morse' and shot Nat a quick reassuring look. She was trying to act nonchalant, but he could tell she was nervous about talking to a stranger about something so personal.
The door opened and Clint was greeted with the sight of a very pretty brunette. She had blonde highlights in her hair, warm brown eyes, and smiled like she was genuinely happy to see him.
"Hello, Agent Barton." she greeted him with her hand extended, "My name is Laura, but my friends call me Bobbi. Either one is fine."
"Nice to meet you." Clint said while shaking her hand, "Hope you don't mind me asking, but how did you get Bobbi from Laura?"
"My middle name is Barbara." she laughed, "When I was six I was obsessed with Barbie and wanted everyone to call me that. My little sister couldn't say it, so it came out as 'Bobbi' and it just kinda stuck."
"I think I'll stick with Laura for now." Clint said with a smile, "Maybe I'll be able to call you Bobbi someday."
Out of the corner of his eye Clint noticed Nat perking up a little and watching his interaction with Laura with some interest. She tilted her head a little and arched her brow at him, but said nothing.
"And you are?" Laura asked, turning to Nat.
"You can call me Nat." she offered.
"Is that short for Natasha, or something else?" the therapist asked her.
"Something else." Nat replied vaguely, "I have an...issue with hearing my full name, so Clint started calling me Nat. I think having to avoid my name was irritating him."
"An issue?" Laura asked with a quick head tilt, "Why would you have an issue with hearing your name?"
"I was brainwashed." Nat deadpanned, "Still am, technically. They programmed a negative response to hearing it into me. It was only used when I was being punished, and it was an easy way to disorient me if they needed to stop me from doing something."
"That's horrible!" Laura exclaimed, "Why would anyone do that?"
"I was just a weapon to them." Nat explained with a casual shrug. Clint could tell she didn't really want to discuss it, but Laura was being nice so she tolerated it, "They didn't care how anything affected me. Clint was supposed to kill me a month or so ago. He made a different call."
"You were going to kill her?" Laura turned towards him incredulously, "Why?"
Clint shrugged himself, "She's an assassin. And a damn good one. Orders were to nullify her. I assumed that meant killing her, but I found out after I already did it that bringing her in was an option too."
"Okay." she said, looking a little nonplussed, "What is it I can help you with? Maria didn't give me much detail. She just told me you were bringing me a patient that needed my experience."
"Nat has some things to work through that I can't really help her with." Clint explained, giving Laura a meaningful look, "I'll leave the details to her. She's not really comfortable talking about it with me, so I figured a woman who had training for dealing with those issues might be able to do her some good."
Laura looked back and forth between the two of them for a moment and Clint hoped she picked up on the hint he was dropping. He saw her eyebrows go up slightly when she got it.
"I see." she said after a moment, "Well, we'll see what we can do then."
Laura turned to Nat, "I only have one rule. You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, but if you do choose to talk about it you have to be truthful with me. Fair enough?"
Nat considered it before nodding in agreement and then shot a glance at Clint. He took the hint and started walking back the way they had come. Her appointment was set for two hours and he wanted to get some time in on the range. He hadn't gotten much of a chance to practice lately, so he fit it in when he could. He knew Laura could probably handle herself, so he wasn't too worried about leaving Nat alone with her. She was a SHIELD agent after all, and he had spotted a pair of stun batons mounted on the wall behind her desk next to a signed and framed copy of 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. He idly wondered what the significance of the book was and decided to ask her about it sometime. He glanced at the clock and noticed it said 10:12. For some reason it struck him as amusing that the time was the same as the date and he chuckled a little. He had a couple hours to kill, and his bow was waiting for him.
Two hours later Clint went back to pick Nat up and decided to ask Laura about the framed book while he was there.
Laura laughed when he asked, "Phil gave me the book for Christmas last year because he thought it would be appropriate. He's a thoughtful guy. That book couldn't have been cheap, it's a signed first printing."
"Is there some significance to that book in particular?" Clint asked curiously.
"Mockingbird was my callsign when I was a field agent." Laura explained with a smile, "But I haven't been in the field for almost three years now."
While they were talking Clint noticed Nat eying the batons on the wall with interest.
"Ever use them before?" he asked her.
Nat shook her head no and continued to examine them for a moment before turning to Laura, "Thanks for the help today."
"Absolutely." was her response, "Same day and time next week."
As they walked down the hall back to their quarters Clint noticed Nat glancing at him every so often with a smirk. There was something she thought was funny and she wasn't sharing it with him. Finally, after the fifth time she smirked at him, he stopped and asked her.
"What the hell is so funny?" he demanded.
Nat smiled. She actually smiled. Clint was a little taken aback for a moment and almost got distracted from the question he'd asked.
"Laura thinks you're hot." she told him with an impish grin, "She was looking at your butt when you left earlier and blushed when I caught her."
"What?" Clint asked in surprise, "She was checking me out?"
"Yep." Nat confirmed as they started walking again, "She was pretty flustered for the first five minutes or so of the session."
Clint felt a little blindsided. He thought he was good at reading people but he hadn't picked up on anything from Laura. He didn't doubt what Nat was telling him though, she was as good or better at reading people than he was.
"She's single." Nat continued in a teasing tone, "I asked. She looked like a deer in the headlights when I did. I think she thought I was asking for myself for a second."
"Are you trying to set me up with your therapist?" Clint asked her incredulously.
"Maybe." she hedged in a teasing tone, "She's really nice. I like her. And so do you."
Her tone stayed teasing until the last part, which was delivered knowingly and dared him to disagree. Clint just facepalmed and didn't dispute her claim. Inside, though, he was secretly delighted that she was messing with him. She had apparently taken his teasing the other morning in stride and decided to bide her time to get him back. Nat's personality was starting to assert itself more, and Clint found he liked her even more now that he was getting to know the real her.
"You should ask her out sometime." Nat added after a couple minutes, "You both have bird-related callsigns, it's perfect."
Clint just laughed. There was nothing else he could do. Nat had apparently decided to play matchmaker and seemed pretty determined to have her way. He had to get one last dig in though.
"Does that mean I can set you up with someone with a spider-themed name if we meet them?" he teased.
Nat arched an eyebrow at him, "Spiders eat their mates. Are you sure you want to do that?"
She said it jokingly, but there was something in her tone that told him not to continue with that train of thought. She was subtly referencing the reason she had gone to see Laura in the first place, and Clint dropped it when he picked up on it. She seemed to have made some progress with the therapy already, but she still wasn't ready to talk about things like that relating to herself. His love life was apparently fair game though. He shook his head and they kept walking.
"I want to change my name." Nat stated abruptly the next morning.
"You don't like Nat?" Clint asked teasingly. He knew what she meant.
"No, Nat's fine" she replied quickly, "It was something Laura suggested. She said that if I had a problem hearing my name, why don't I just change it?"
"Why didn't you?" he asked. He had wondered, but assumed she had a reason for it and didn't ask.
Nat shrugged, "I didn't know I could."
"Any idea what you want to change it to?"
"I like Natasha." she told him, "It's close enough that it won't take much time to adjust to, and it doesn't mess with me. When Laura said it yesterday I liked the sound of it...and... "
She trailed off and Clint picked up on her hesitance, "And?"
"And your nickname for me still works." Nat admitted with a shy half-smile, "I like that you call me that so I wanted to keep it."
"Okay, Natasha it is then." Clint declared, a little touched that she had chosen her new name so he could still call her Nat, "I'll talk to Hill about making it official and putting it in your paperwork. There's no real record of you anywhere, so your name to the general public is whatever SHIELD tells them it is. Do you have a last name in mind?"
"Romanoff." was her immediate answer.
"Is that your real last name?" Clint wanted to know.
"It is now." Nat told him with a smirk.
"Your birthday is coming up soon. You're going to be 18." Clint said, changing the subject, "You put any thought into joining SHIELD yet?"
"I've been debating it." Natasha admitted, "I think I probably will. I have no idea where else I'd go if I didn't. Is it something I could do for a while and leave later if I want? It's not for life?"
"No, it's not for life." Clint chuckled, "I think it might be for Fury and Coulson, and maybe Hill. I don't want to do this forever, though. I'd like to retire someday if I'm lucky enough to live that long."
"I think I'd like that then." Natasha told him, "I have a lot of red in my ledger. I'd like to start clearing some of it out."
"Do you think you'll ever get rid of all of it?" Clint asked seriously. Setting herself a task she viewed as impossible didn't seem particularly healthy.
"Not really." she shrugged, "But I have to try."
Ah, now he got it. Reaching the goal wasn't her objective. Putting the effort towards it was. That was a much healthier attitude, and he respected her desire to try to make up for what she'd done. Even though he still maintained none of it was her fault.
"Okay, Natasha." Clint said, getting used to her new name, "Lets go grab some breakfast and we can see Hill about getting your paperwork done."
The next month passed in a blur. Natasha endured eight more sessions before the doctors finally declared that she was as deprogrammed as they could safely achieve. They were quick to warn her that there may be some things that they missed, so it wasn't a guarantee that it was all gone. But they cleared her nonetheless and Hill lifted the restriction on her needing to be escorted everywhere, though she still couldn't access restricted areas.
After she was declared mentally sound Nat accepted Coulson's invitation. She was going to be 18 in a week, so Fury relaxed the usual restrictions and allowed her to start training, albeit unofficially. Partly so she could knock off the rust from not practicing for so long, partly so the trainers could work with her and find out what she was capable of. The file on her previous activities didn't shed a lot of light on that, so they wanted to find out where she stood on the skills a SHIELD agent needed.
Natasha proved to be top-notch at stealth and infiltration, but they had expected that. She was also an excellent marksman. She tied with Rumlow, and surpassed Hill. Only Clint had a higher score, but that wasn't surprising since he had tallied the only perfect score in SHIELD's history. That had been with his bow, with a gun they were just about even. They also learned she was a talented mimic, a natural linguist, and had a giftfor making herself blend in and be forgotten about in practically any surroundings. Fury and Hill sat up and took notice of that. A natural talent for those things would make her an ideal undercover agent.
Then it was time for hand to hand combat.
Clint and Natasha entered the gym for hand to hand combat training early in the morning after breakfast. The new recruit class hadn't arrived yet so they had the space to themselves for a while. Clint wanted to spar with Natasha himself so he could gauge her ability and suggest other sparring partners for her. He knew she was well beyond the recruits and probably surpassed most of the instructors. The only person he could think of that might be a match for her was Melinda May, but she was on a mission and couldn't be reached right then.
Before they started they limbered up in their own ways. Clint spent some time with the heavy bag while Nat ran through a few repetitions of a gymnastics floor routine. Clint stopped what he was doing and watched her for a few minutes. She hadn't shown off this skill yet, and he was impressed by how smooth she was. He wasn't an expert, but to his eye it looked like she would have had a good shot at qualifying for an Olympic team.
Once they were on the mat Clint assessed the young woman standing in front of him with an expert eye. She was six or seven inches shorter than him, so he had a reach advantage. Nat had put on weight since she'd been here and looked much healthier now, but he still had a significant strength and weight advantage. He had seen her move, so he had no doubt she was faster and more agile than he was. Clint wasn't a big guy, but he figured if he could get a solid grip on her some of the wrestling moves he had learned in the circus might be effective.
When they started sparring Clint found out exactly why her warmup had been gymnastics. She used her incredible balance and ability to twist her body around to come at him from unexpected angles and avoid his return strikes. She was ridiculously fast and her reflexes were nearly superhuman by his estimate. Clint gave up on trying to grab her almost immediately and focused instead on just not getting hit, which was easier said than done. Nat shifted styles several times and Clint counted at least five different martial arts she was proficient in. They went back and forth a few times before Nat pulled a move that he had no answer for. Taking advantage of a slight drop in his guard she vaulted onto his shoulders and flipped him into a choke with her legs. Clint tapped her thigh three times and she let him go to jump up and grin at him.
"What the hell was that?" he asked her.
She just smiled wider in answer and bounced on the balls of her feet a few times. She was having fun with this and got a kick out of being able to catch him off-guard.
When Clint looked at her expectantly she shrugged, "It's a takedown technique. It's usually done when you have the high ground and can jump down on someone, but I taught myself to do it from the floor. We're all girls and most of us are small, so we have to use speed and leverage to make up for what we lack in size and strength."
"I'd ask you to teach it to me, but I'm pretty sure I can't do that." he observed drily, "I'm a decent acrobat, but I can't jump that high. Either way, you're good. I can only think of a few people here that might be as good or better. I don't think there's much of anything any of our instructors can teach you, but you're welcome to sit in on a few classes if you like."
"So you think I'll pass the entrance exam?" Nat asked him.
"The physical part I'm sure will be no problem." he told her, "There's also the knowledge and teamwork portions of it. You might need to work on those a bit."
Just then the recruits in the morning hand to hand class walked in the room and spotted them. Clint heard some murmuring coming from the group, and figured they were surprised to find them there. He was known to sit in on classes from time to time and knock some of the cockier recruits down a peg or two. He hadn't done anything with this class yet though, he had been too busy to make the time.
"You still good to go a few rounds?" he asked Nat with a grin, "I like to humble the ones that come in overconfident and think there's nothing we can teach them. You wanna help?"
His answer was an impish grin and a quick nod.
Clint stepped forward and addressed the recruits, "Who here thinks they're already a good enough fighter and this class is a waste of time?" he asked, "C'mon, there's always a couple. Speak up!"
As he expected there were three guys who stepped forward. They all looked military, Army or Marines if he had to guess based on their haircuts. They all professed to be skilled fighters who didn't really need this class, so Clint nodded seriously at them.
"Okay." he said, "You guys think you're already good enough? Prove it. You can each choose to fight me...or her."
Two of them chose to fight Clint and he took them on one at a time. They weren't bad, but he still beat both of them soundly within a few minutes. The third guy chose to fight Natasha and had a nasty smile on his face when he stepped onto the mat with her. He seemed to be one of those types that thought women were inferior and needed to be put in their place. Clint was going to enjoy watching Nat hand him his ass.
The recruit, Riley according to his nametag, didn't waste any time and came at Nat with a lunging side kick. Instead of dodging or ducking, she slid under the kick and swept his other leg out from under him to his front. He hit the ground before he knew what happened and jumped back up with a growl. Nat stood back up and dropped into a fighting stance. She gave her opponent a wink and made a 'bring it' gesture with her forward hand. Clint barely held in a snicker, she was trying to piss him off so he'd be more reckless and embarrass himself worse. It worked and Riley came at her with a barrage of punches and a snarl. She dodged them all effortlessly, almost like she knew where he was going to swing before he did. She stayed on the defensive for a while, gauging how good the guy was. Clint observed that if Riley had managed to stay calm he might have had more of a chance. His technique was sound, but he was too angry to really focus so he was telegraphing what he was going to do. Finally, Nat started fighting back. She was significantly faster than Riley and used it to her advantage. When Riley swung too wide on a right cross she sidestepped it and flicked her right hand into a backfist to his temple. She did the same thing a few more times and Clint realized what she was doing. She was hitting him in the same spot repeatedly and it was starting to daze him. Once he was disoriented she switched her stance and started throwing low kicks at his legs. She wasn't just trying to humble him, she was trying to humiliate him. Clint guessed she had taken his nasty look and arrogance a little personally.
Riley was getting more and more enraged about not being able to land more than a glancing hit on her. Finally he charged Nat with a roar and got lucky, or unlucky depending on how you looked at it. When he threw his third haymaker Nat's foot slipped on the mat when she tried to dodge and he caught her full in the face, and he wasn't pulling his punches. Nat hit the mat with a thud and barely managed to turn her fall into a roll back to her feet. When she stood up Clint could see the blood running from her nose and mouth. Riley had big hands, so when he connected it hit her mouth and nose at the same time. That wasn't what worried him though. Her expression had morphed after she took the hit. Instead of the taunting look she'd worn through most of the match, her face had gone curiously blank. She totally ignored the blood dripping from her face and gave Riley a head tilted look that gave Clint a bad feeling.
Nat held her pose for a couple seconds before she blurred into motion. Clint noticed a stark difference between how she was fighting before and now. Her first strike was a feint that opened up Riley's guard. Her second strike was a palm thrust to his throat. She didn't pull it very much and he staggered back, choking. While he wasn't paying attention to defending himself Nat kicked the front of his thigh right above his knee to force his upper body to tilt toward her. She followed this up with a lifting palm strike to the jaw, a knee to the crotch, and an elbow to the eye socket. She wasn't just trying to embarrass him now, she was trying to hurt him. While her opponent was stunned she snaked around behind him to kick him down to one knee.
When Nat's arms started to wrap around Riley's neck Clint realized what was about to happen and started running towards them. He also realized he wasn't going to make it in time and did the only thing he could think of, and immediately hated himself for it.
"Natalia!" he barked, and then used the opening when she flinched to tackle Nat before she could lock in her hold on Riley's neck. She thrashed against him when they hit the ground, but Clint had trapped her arms at her sides and pinned her with his body weight so she couldn't break his grip. It was the only weakness he had noticed about her fighting style. She trained for speed instead of strength, so if you could actually get a solid hold on her it put her at a disadvantage.
"Nat!" he snapped at her, "Hey! Snap the fuck out of it!"
She thrashed for a few more seconds and then stilled.
"I'm good now." she said from below him, "You can get off me."
When they stood up Nat looked a little shaken and and seemed to just notice the blood covering half her face, "What happened? The last thing I remember is slipping on the mat and getting hit."
"Sorry, Nat." Clint apologized with a wince, "I had to use your old name."
"Why?" Natasha asked him curiously. She knew he wouldn't do that without a good reason, so she waited to hear it.
"Because it gave me the half-second opening I needed to stop you from breaking Riley's neck." he bluntly told her, "If I hadn't intervened you would have killed him."
Nat's eyes went wide at hearing that and she took a couple quick steps backward away from the man she had nearly killed.
"Getting hit like that must have triggered something they missed." she said under her breath so only Clint could hear her, "I don't remember any of what happened between that and you tackling me."
Clint looked out across the assembled recruits who were watching. About half of them had gone pale when they realized what he had just prevented. Riley himself looked pretty shaken and wouldn't meet Nat's eyes, it had sunk in that Clint had just saved his life.
"I think we're done here." he said to them, "Carry on with your class. Riley, go get medical attention if you think you need it."
As they walked toward the infirmary so Natasha could get her face looked at she turned towards him with a curious expression.
"What made you think to use my old name like that?" she asked him.
"It just popped into my head." Clint said honestly, "I wasn't even sure it was going to work. It was kind of a desperation move."
"Well, thanks I guess." she said dejectedly, "It wouldn't have been good to kill a recruit in training before I even officially join. I had no idea that was going to happen. I don't think anyone ever hit me hard enough to trigger that part before, so I didn't even know it was there."
"You think it's gone now?" he asked seriously.
"Hmm." Nat considered, "Probably not. I wish I knew what the triggers were so I could avoid them, or at least know when something is coming. But I'm probably going to keep having things come up randomly for a long time."
"You got this." Clint told her encouragingly, "Based on how far you've already come in two months? It will be a piece of cake for you."
"How are you so good at knowing what to say to make me feel better?" Nat said with a questioning look.
Clint just shrugged and gave her a smile, "That's what friends do."
Nat stared at him in wonder for a few seconds before she found her voice and said with a smile of her own, "Yeah, I guess they do,"