Notes: Aww, thanks guys, for sticking with this story. As I've said before, this one takes me a little longer to write because all my plans got upended when the MCU so horribly deviated from who Clint is (this was going to be MCU-canon-correct but... well... now it's not). But yes, Fury needs to give Clint some ground rules about maybe not bringing home dangerous assassins :P

Mission 7: Phil, I'm Not a "People" Person

Clint had been cleared by two psychologists and a medical doctor, so he was finally considered to be "safe" to let back out in the open.

Still, it was obvious that his little stunt in Russia hadn't won him any friends.

It was all in the little details, in the way some of the younger agents skirting around him in the halls, the way the older agents gave him this sort of triumphant look, as if he'd just managed to prove them right in all of the suspicions they'd had about hiring an ex-carnie, former criminal to an organization like SHIELD. Word had gotten around that Clint Barton was compromised, that he had brought home an assassin bent on destroying SHIELD—and even if Clint had two psychologists and a doctor saying otherwise, the rumors were juicier than the truth and much, much harder to fight.

Not that Clint tried to fight them, mind you. Anyone who believed that crap, who really thought for a second that they had anything to worry about with Clint—well, they just weren't worth his time. Besides, he kind of liked the space and the solitude.

It also made things a little more fun when he'd drop in on the new recruits during their target practice and screw with them. He could tell quick enough which ones had been around long enough to hear the gossip and which ones hadn't—and he knew he wasn't doing himself any favors, but it was fun.

"Barton."

Clint paused in the middle of explaining to one of the new recruits just exactly why a bow was so much better than a gun and turned Coulson's way. The girl he'd been talking to looked halfway relieved to see Coulson, and Clint smirked for just a moment before he headed over to where Coulson was waiting with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised.

"Is that really the best use of your time right now?" Coulson asked.

Clint snorted. "What else am I supposed to be doing?" he pointed out. "Hill grounded me, and even then, nobody wants on a team with me when they're worried I'm some kind of Russian plant."

"They'll get past it."

"It's an organization full of spies, Coulson. Real suspicious types. I'm sure they're all about forgiving and forgetting," Clint deadpanned.

At that, Coulson stopped and fixed Clint with an incredibly dry look before he shook his head and resumed his brisk walk down the hall with Clint.

Seeing as Coulson wasn't exactly coming forward with anything after that witty rejoinder, Clint had to smile to himself for a moment at his temporary victory before curiosity won out. "So, what, did you just come down to tell me to stop messing with the new kids? Because if that's all, no offense, but the jumpy greenies are way more interesting right now."

Coulson shook his head at him and did a great impression of someone who wasn't trying very hard to keep from rolling his eyes. "Actually," he said in a patient tone that Clint had heard him use on wayward newbies all the time, "we've hit a small snag with your Russian friend."

"Define 'small snag'," Clint said with a frown, the crooked grin disappearing instantly. "What's up?"

"You were right to assume that someone else has been pulling her strings," Coulson told him, still walking at that brisk pace. "The more our psychologists and doctors have dug into what was done to that girl…"

Clint winced when he saw that Coulson's normally stoic expression had faded into something that looked a lot more like concern. That had to mean that whatever that girl was facing, it had been bad. "So, what can I do?" he asked.

Coulson turned to face him, pausing in his efforts to speedwalk all the way across the base to give Clint his most serious expression. "Honestly, Clint, at this point, just getting her to relax enough that we can work with her while she's conscious would be an improvement," he said in a tired sort of tone. "She's absolutely convinced that we're going to 'reprogram' her for our own ends."

"Reprogram?" Clint repeated, his voice ringing with distaste.

"Her words, not mine."

Clint just stared at Coulson for a good long time, searching for anything he could in an expression that never gave him much to start with before, slowly, he nodded his understanding. "So you need a friendly face."

"I need to prove to her that we're not like her old handlers."

"Who were…?"

Coulson raised an eyebrow at him. "That's above your paygrade, Barton."

"Wasn't above my paygrade to go kill her. Or save her. Or come hold her hand," Clint pointed out, but already, Coulson was shaking his head.

"This group has been around since before I was in SHIELD, Barton," Coulson told him frankly.

Clint snorted. "Right. So just go in there and do as your told—and tell the girl in there we're not all mindless machines who do as we're told."

That earned him a dry look. "You know that's not—"

"C'mon, Coulson. Even you have to admit that we're one bad director away from being—"

"Clint."

He stopped and turned toward Coulson, who had on his deepest glare, arms crossed and everything. Clint let out all his breath and rolled his shoulders as he did so. "Fine," he bit out. "But it's not gonna be easy. It took me forever to trust you, and I was just a mixed up kid. Not…. 'programmed.'"

"I'm not asking you to work miracles," Coulson said. "Frankly, I don't even know if this will work."

"Your confidence in me is touching."

Coulson gave him a dry look. "You haven't had to deal with her for the past two weeks," he said. "You don't know what you're getting into."

"Sir, I'm pretty sure that's my life motto."

Coulson just shook his head as he turned a corner and finally came to a stop. With one hand, he gestured to a closed door. "Before you go in, you should know that you are higher priority than she is," he told Clint seriously. "If she becomes a threat—"

"Gee, Phil, I go to all the trouble of bringing her back alive, and the first time I see her again—"

"Barton, stop messing around," Coulson said irritably. "I'm serious. She's already attacked a couple of doctors and four different psychiatrists."

"Doesn't prove anything," Clint said easily, even though he could already feel his muscles tensing as his body prepared for a possible fight. "I wanted to put a couple docs through the wall myself."

Coulson shook his head, and Clint had to wonder if he'd ever get a proper eyeroll out of the guy. But instead of a huff or even a dry look, Clint got a device that he recognized as a panic button, and it was that more than anything else that Coulson had said leading up to then that had Clint on alert.

He waited for Coulson to key in the code to open the door and somehow wasn't surprised to find that the girl was behind a sturdy force field, lightly humming. The horizontal patterns of energy cascading down its surface were actually a little distracting at first, slightly distorting his view of the girl, though he adjusted for it quickly enough.

She looked up when the door opened, and when she saw that it was Clint, her eyes narrowed the slightest bit, and she tipped her head to the side, studying him carefully without saying a word.

Clint honestly wasn't sure what he was supposed to do—he wasn't exactly the best guy for a sales pitch—so he just grabbed the nearest chair and sat in it backwards, resting his arms on the back of the chair and his chin on his arms as he met the girl's penetrating stare with his own, even tipping his head to the side to match her expression.

Maddeningly, she just held her silence, watching him with that same look on her face until finally he picked his head up. "Alright, so you win at staring contests," he said.

Her expression hardly shifted, though he thought he saw a flicker of something, just for a moment, at the corners of her mouth.

"Are you just going to stare at me the whole time?" he asked as he rearranged the way he was sitting so he was a little more comfortable. "Because I gotta tell you—if that's the case, we're going to have to set some ground rules about where and how long you can look before I start calling HR about the harassment."

Again, just the slightest flicker, but no real change.

Clint let out a breath. "Come on. You gotta give me something to work with." When that was still met with nothing, he shook his head. "If you don't, I'm just going to have to start making things up."

Still, she watched him, though this time, there was a flash behind her eyes, almost like a challenge, and he decided to run with that.

"Let's see…" He studied the way she was sitting, her posture entirely defensive and her gaze never lingering too long in any one place as she seemed to be aware of all the exits at once. "I know what it is," he said, drawing her attention his way for a brief moment. "You just like starting fires, right? That's what that whole business was before at the hospital—that was your version of a Valentine, right?"

She pressed her lips together but said nothing.

"Of course it was," Clint answered for her. "What better way to say 'I love you' than with a big ol' fire? I mean, it's the right colors and everything…" He watched her for any sign of a reaction, and when she was still just watching him, that same something just barely tugging at her mouth but never turning into anything resembling an expression, he let out another long sigh and shook his head.

"Or I could be totally off base," he said, waving a hand lazily. "I've been told I'm dumb as rocks."

There—something like a smirk.

He grinned at that. Alright, he could work with that. She wasn't going to give him anything on herself, but he could give her bits and pieces about himself. Not like she was going to learn anything she didn't already know.

"Name's Hawkeye, by the way. We weren't ever properly introduced."

"And we still haven't been," the girl replied—and he had to try hard to contain the grin. That sounded suspiciously like a sense of humor and looked tantalizingly like a smile.

"Well, yeah, I don't know you're name."

"And I don't know yours."

Clint tipped his head to the side and nodded slowly, twice. "Yeah, that's true. You do have me there. I gave you a code name, didn't I?" He glanced up at her, and when she just held his gaze once more, he laughed. "Do you have one of those?"

"Would it help you if I had something like that?" she asked with one eyebrow arched up.

"Well, if you don't give me something, I'm just going to make something up."

"Something like my being in love with you," she said, and though that hadn't been at all what he'd meant by the Valentine's comment, he felt himself flushing pink at the look she was giving him.

"Ah…"

"Didn't think it that far through?" she asked in a tone of pure amusement as she watched him flounder.

"I didn't mean for you to take it seriously," he said.

She leaned back, her hands carefully intertwined in front of her, still studying him with that same impenetrable gaze. "Hawkeye," she said slowly and carefully, "I take very seriously the things that are said by people who would imprison me."

"That's not what's going on here."

"No?" She arched up on eyebrow and held it there like a dare.

For a moment, he thought about trying to argue it, but he realized that she was right, after all. It wasn't like they had been gentlemanly about bringing her in. "Well, you sort of tried to kill me," he pointed out.

"It wasn't personal."

"Sure felt like it."

"If it had been personal, you would be dead," she said with such a tone of finality that he almost did a double-take, sure that there was some kind of joke hidden in the well-concealed sense of humor that he was sure he'd managed to uncover. But no, she was completely stoic, her expression giving nothing away. It was have been maddening if it wasn't also undeniably attractive.

Which was maddening in and of itself.

But he quickly recovered something like a poker face as he leaned back. "Come on," he said in a cajoling, relaxed voice. "Are you telling me you wouldn't have returned the favor? Spared my life?"

"You wouldn't like it at all if my orders had been to bring you in, I promise you that," she said, and okay, it was definitely a little bit creepy that that, of all things, was what got her to crack a little smile. Definitely, definitely creepy.

"Okay, fair point," he said. "But counterpoint – doesn't that mean you're being treated better here than… wherever it is that you were before?"

The girl stiffened. It wasn't anything obvious, just a stillness that moved through her spine. Most people wouldn't catch it – though most people didn't have his eye for details. She turned his way, her mouth pressed together into a thin line, her gaze sharper than before as she took him in with an entirely new expression.

He was going to have to start keeping a mental catalogue of her expressions, seeing as that was apparently the only way she was going to communicate with him.

"And you said that you were dumb as rocks," she said at last, and he saw, again, that flicker of something in the corners of her mouth that had him holding out hope for a good sense of humor.

"I am."

She tipped her head to the side and shook her head just the slightest bit, letting out a little hum that let him know she disagreed with his assessment.

Finally, uncomfortable with the long and lingering gaze, he said, "Doesn't count if I'm just pointing out the obvious."

"I make it a point never to be obvious."

"Must just be obvious to me, then," Clint said, shrugging lightly. "Just part of being—"

"Hawkeye, yes," she said, the corners up her mouth upturned. "They chose your codename well."

"Actually, that one was mine," he said.

She raised an eyebrow. "It wasn't assigned?"

"Well… it's… sort of a long story," he said, running his hands through his hair as he tried to figure out how to explain it, though she wasn't helping things at all as she clearly settled in with her chin in one hand, watching and waiting for him to go on. "I didn't exactly join SHIELD the usual way, y'know? No fancy recruiters at my high school or whatever."

"Is that the usual way?" she asked with a trace of amusement. "High school recruiters?"

"I really, really couldn't tell you," Clint admitted.

She tipped her head to the side as she watched him for a moment longer before she nodded, slowly, just once. "So you thought the same methods might work on me."

"Honestly, I wasn't trying to play recruiter," Clint said, holding up both hands.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"No, really." He rubbed the back of his neck, letting out all his breath as he tried to explain—it wasn't like he'd been able to explain his reasoning to anyone else who tried to get it out of him. Coulson, Hill… he figured Fury probably understood, because the guy had more or less defended Clint—or at least kept him out of a court marshal. But he still couldn't explain it. There wasn't anything to explain—it had been instinct, not a logical conclusion. He'd just… acted.

And he wasn't sorry about it either.

"I just… figured no one should have to work for anyone that made them happy to get shot," Clint said at last. It was the same explanation he'd tried to give to Hill, but he hadn't been able to quite word it in a way that made sense. He probably tripped over the fact that there were psycho-analysts or whatever in the room watching him like they just wanted to find something they could write a book about. He knew he was pretty screwed up; they weren't helping things.

Her entire expression twisted into one of disgust. "I don't need your pity."

"No, that's not it," Clint said quickly. He swallowed hard, trying to figure out how to make her see. It wasn't pity—it was that he'd been in the same place.

"I don't need to be saved," she sneered before launching into a string of Russian that really didn't sound nice at all.

"Hey, let's get one thing straight," Clint said, breaking in with a little heat to his tone. "I'm not a hero, and I'm not pretending to be. I just call it like I see it, and you were happy about getting shot at. Not my job to pass judgement on what that means—that's just how it was."

She was swearing at him now. He was pretty sure that's what those words meant.

I should really learn Russian if Coulson's gonna keep locking me in here with this girl, he thought to himself as he held up both of his hands again. "Hey, don't get mad at me. I'm the one telling the truth here, and you're the one hurling insults."

She narrowed her eyes at him and spit out another Russian word before she pressed her lips together into the deepest scowl he had ever seen. For a good long time, she just glared at him before, finally, she broke out with, "Get out."

"I'm supposed to—"

"Get out," she said again, her eyes narrowed. "You are supposed to be such a free agent—leave. I don't want you here."

"Not really your call—"

"Leave." Her voice was dripping with venom, enough so that Clint knew there was just no reasoning with her at this point. He'd heard it before and gotten the heck out of Dodge.

"Fine," he spit back at her as he got to his feet, though he couldn't help adding, "Not my fault you can't handle a simple, honest statement of fact."

She glared at him all the way up until he reached the door, and when he closed it behind him, he somehow wasn't surprised to see that Coulson was waiting for him on the other side. He threw up both of his hands before Coulson could start in on him, though, and said, "I tried."

But Coulson had almost a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth as he nodded. "You did more than that, Barton," he said. "That's the most responsive she's ever been to anyone we send in there."

Oh no. He recognized the tone Coulson was using and shook his head quickly. "You're not thinking of—"

"I think if you two continue to interact, we could have a real chance of getting through to her."

"If you wanna call getting yelled at getting through—"

"It is," Coulson insisted, this time in a tone that suggest the argument was over.

Clint let his shoulders fall as he tried for a more approachable look. "Phil…"

But Coulson just shook his head. "You'll be back here at the same time tomorrow. And if you keep arguing with me, it'll be twice a day." When Clint straightened up at that and shot him a death glare, Coulson smirked his way. "I thought you liked people, Barton."

"I do," he said. "I don't like getting yelled at."

Coulson's smirk was still firmly in place as he nodded. "Well, maybe if you two can work together, the yelling will stop."

Clint shook his head. "You're a sadist, Phil."

"I've been accused of worse things."

"It's going in your record. Don't think I won't find a way to do it."

"I'd be disappointed and accuse you of going soft if you didn't."

Clint shook his head at the stoic older agent before he finally had to let out a long breath, dragging both hands over his face. "Fine. But don't blame me if she stays hostile. I'm not a shrink."

"I'm just asking you to try," Coulson assured him as he held the door open for him. "That's all."

…..

The second day that Clint had come to see the redheaded Russian, he had gotten absolutely nowhere. She'd just glared at him with her arms crossed on the other side of the glass, and not a thing he said got even that hint of a smile that he was sure he'd merited a few times before.

So this time, he'd come prepared.

Beth from R&D had sent him another few arrows along with a note—which he honestly appreciated, since the gist of it was that she didn't believe the rumors about him. It was just about the only thing anyone in all of SHIELD had done for him, and he was going to have to come up with something to thank her for it. He wasn't sure what yet. What was an appropriate thank-you for weaponry?

But the most recent batch of arrows included one with a net. An actual net. Which was great, but Clint liked to be able to reuse his arrows.

Which meant there was an entire net that he was trying to figure out how to stuff back into one small arrowhead. It had gotten in there somehow, right? So surely he could get it back in there…

He had the netting, the arrow, and a book—some Captain America kind of biography that he'd grabbed from Coulson's desk just to see how long it would take the guy to notice it was missing—as he sat down in the seat across from the redhead, nodded a curt acknowledgement, and then ignored her just as hard as she was ignoring him as he set to work on the netting.

Ten minutes stretched into fifteen stretched into thirty stretched into an arrow before, to Clint's utter surprise, she was the one to break the silence.

"You do realize you won't be able to get the netting back in without the proper compression tools."

Clint looked up at her to see that she was watching him, her head tipped to the side and her lips pressed together. The very corners were moving. "No, no, I think I can get it. I'm pretty close."

"You're going to be 'very close' for a long, long time," she said. She didn't move at all, still wearing that same expression and still with her head tipped sideways. Except he was sure the corners of her lips moved, if nothing else.

"Hey, I like to be able to reuse my arrows."

"Then ask for the tools for the job," she said as, finally, he saw the smirk move her expression. "You can't do it by hand."

He watched her for a moment, and when she held his gaze, he let out a sigh and set the arrow down. "So, what, the hour before that was just for your entertainment?"

"I was curious to see if it was just a ruse to have something to do with your boredom, but when you never went to your book…" She shook her head. "You have intelligence. Use it."

"I'm an eighth-grade dropout. I don't think they teach you about air compression until at least high school."

"I wouldn't know," she said, the smirk widening. "I didn't go to high school in America."

"Well, lookit that. Something we have in common." He grinned as he readjusted the way he was sitting in the chair so that he could rest his arms over the back of it as he faced her, sitting backwards. He gestured between the two of them. "We're not so different, you and I."

Her smirk disappeared and turned into something more like a glare as she leaned back from him. "Ah. And this is where I'm supposed to trust you, right?"

Clint swore under his breath as he held up both hands. "Wow, you're worse than Hill at taking a joke," he said, though that didn't seem to move the needle as she just narrowed her eyes at him further. "Seriously. If you're looking for someone to play double-wheeling SHIELD agent, I am the last person on the list. Whatcha see is whatcha get."

Her eyes narrowed further at that, and her lips were pressed into such a line that they might just disappear into the lines of her face for the rest of time.

"You're gonna get wrinkles that way," he said when the narrowed-eye look and silence got to be too long.

She smirked. "I highly doubt that."

"That's what everyone says until they get wrinkles," Clint said, resting his chin on his arms as they were crossed over the back of the chair.

She shook her head at him, but the smirk stayed on. "Do you take anything seriously?"

"Never if I can help it."

She let out a breath that was so close to being a laugh that Clint couldn't help the fact that he was grinning like he was. "And this is what SHIELD has to offer?"

"I already told you," Clint said, slower this time so she wouldn't miss it. "I'm not here for the pitch. I'm not here for the recruiting and the big picture. I'm here because my handler said you wouldn't talk to him, and that hurt his feelings."

She tipped her head to the side, studying him behind long eyelashes. "I almost want to believe you."

"Great." Clint shook his head. "Wouldja let me know when you move on from 'almost want to' into something else, because I'm getting real tired of this dance."

She did actually laugh this time—just a short affair, a breathy, single note that escaped through thin-pressed lips, but it was definitely a laugh. "Clearly, you don't work in infiltration."

"I told you already, I'm just the guy who shoots arrows," Clint said. "I'm really not good for anything else."

"Except sitting in here with me in order to preserve the fragile feelings of your handler," she said with a spark of trouble just behind her expression.

Hey, I was right. She does have a sense of humor. Clint broke into a huge grin that he simply couldn't reign in as he leaned even further forward. "He's a softie," he said with real relish to his tone, especially because he knew Coulson was going to review the tapes.

She smirked, but this time, there was a slightly more dangerous glint to it, the playfulness from earlier seeming to disappear as she nodded. "And that's typical of SHIELD?"

Clint stopped, evaluating her more closely, the pointed nature of her smile and the way her banter had turned from playful to prying in a matter of seconds. She's good. "Not really," he said. "The more I see of the place, the more I'm convinced I just lucked out with the handler I've got."

He saw her lips part for a second as if she might argue with his assessment, but she seemed to think better of it and instead let out a little hum. "If you say so."

"I do say so," Clint said with a crooked grin. "Not everyone gets the 'join SHIELD' speech shouted up at them while they're on top of a diving tower in a public pool."

"No, some of us are shot and dragged back to SHIELD itself."

"Actually, I think that's a little more typical," Clint said with a crooked grin.

"That's not a good recruitment strategy," she said, watching him carefully with a tone that told him she couldn't decide if he was joking or not.

"Really, we get a whole buncha greenies from the usual places. Other agencies. Law enforcement. Really stubborn teenagers who shoulda probably been arrested."

"I thought you said you were unique."

"Hey, I'm not versed in the entire history of SHIELD. I'm not ruling it out," Clint pointed out, holding up both hands in a totally open gesture.

She let out a breath that could have been a laugh if he thought about it sideways long enough and then fell silent as the two of them returned simply to watching each other.

The silence wasn't so bad, though, because it gave Clint a chance to observe her a little closer. Already, he could see the difference in the way he held himself from the last time he had been there. It had been much more obvious then that she was waiting for a reason to bolt, tensed for a blow that she didn't know wasn't coming. He'd seen the same look often enough in the mirror to recognize it, and while it had certainly relaxed, she hadn't dropped the tension—and she probably wouldn't for a good, long while. There was no reason for her to trust any of them yet, after all.

"Do you like what you see, Hawkeye?" the redhead asked suddenly and in a tone that he hadn't yet heard from her.

He blinked out of his thoughts in pure surprise, his eyes a little wider than before as he realized that she had softened her smile, her lips slightly puffed out. He had been examining her posture—and that hadn't changed, not the tension and the readiness to run—but the expression didn't fit with the rest of her anymore.

He couldn't help it. He barked out a laugh. "What?"

There was the slightest pause as she seemed to reevaluate him, and he realized it must have been the staring—he must have been looking too hard; she must have thought….

He burst out laughing. "Yeah, alright, so, the codename happened to me for a reason," he explained, still laughing as she watched him through wary, narrowed eyes. "If I was getting an eyeful, I'd be a lot more obvious about it."

She almost smirked. "Yes, I've noticed that subtlety is not a specialty of yours."

"Not when it doesn't matter, no," Clint allowed, shrugging slightly. He eyed the tension in her shoulders. "I don't like to be constantly on."

She frowned—just the slightest downturned movement at the corners of her mouth, though with this woman, that was the equivalent of a full frown—and seemed to rearrange herself for a moment. "You are either entirely lucky or incredibly stupid," she said at last, after a longer moment of silence than Clint had expected—or was entirely comfortable with.

"Or both," he pointed out.

"It must be both," she agreed, and he let out a little laugh as he shook his head at her.

"Is that your approach to everything?" He waved his hand at her and the set of her shoulders. "Everything's dangerous?"

She glared at him, something flashing just behind her expression. She leaned back and away from him, making it clear in her body language that she was through with him. "I would tell you it is the best chance of survival, but you seem to care absolutely nothing about your own survival."

"Yeah?" He raised an eyebrow at her. "What makes you say that?"

She leaned forward, that same something flashing. "You didn't kill me when you had the chance," she said, her voice low and dangerous and enough to send shivers down his spine.

He met her gaze for a long moment, refusing to look away, and when her words didn't seem to have stopped him in his tracks, she frowned a little deeper, more obviously.

"Right," he said at last, leaning back in his chair. "Let's do this again sometime, huh? Nothing like good conversation and death threats." He got to his feet, shaking his head, and went for the door. He could feel her gaze tracking him the entire time and paused. "For the record," he said slowly, "I don't kill anyone I don't want to. Got nothing to do with a death wish if it just doesn't sit right with me." He didn't turn her way. "But maybe that's just the kid trapped in a public pool talking."