Chapter 5
She doesn’t fight.
She doesn’t run.
She just looks at him, exhaustion woven into every line of her face, and tells him the one thing he wasn’t sure he’d ever hear from someone like her.
“Yes.”
The words don’t waver. They don’t shake, don’t hold any of the desperate edge he’s heard from defectors before, and he’s heard a lot of different voices and stories in the past few years. There’s no bargaining in her tone, no hopeful lilt like she expects him to grant her some kind of mercy. It’s just a fact, something she’s already decided.
She’s done.
The silence between them is heavy, thicker than the night air, stretching long and taut like the string in his grip. There’s no taking this back. No undoing this moment. Whatever happens next, it’s set in motion now.
Natalia watches him, wary but still. He sees the way her fingers flex slightly, a near-instinctive motion like she’s resisting the urge to reach for a knife, a gun — anything — because standing here unarmed, unmoving, waiting for someone else to decide her fate is against everything she’s been trained to do.
She’s choosing to be here, and that’s not a choice people like her — or like him — get to make often.
“You come with me,” Clint says, voice even, giving her nothing but the truth. “You don’t go back. No second chances, no halfway out. You either make the call now, or you walk away, and I stop chasing.”
A part of him expects her to hesitate. To calculate an escape, to try and determine if he’s worth trusting — he’s still anticipating for the Black Widow to show her true colors. But instead, she just listens. She doesn’t let her face betray much, but he can see the way her focus sharpens, taking in every word.
“You think they’ll just let me walk?” She asks, her voice measured. Not skeptical, just pragmatic.
“No,” Clint says simply. There’s no point in lying to her. “But you don’t have to do it alone.”
Natalia’s jaw tenses just slightly. Not out of anger, not out of fear — just something else. A weight she’s carried for too long pressing heavier on her shoulders.
Clint knows that weight. He’s carried it before, too.
“You don’t have to keep being what they made you.” The words come out quiet, steadier than they should be, too familiar. He remembers them, feels them in his bones, because they were said to him once, in a moment a lot like this one. Phil Coulson, standing in front of him, offering something that sounded a hell of a lot like a second chance.
It hadn’t been easy to take.
It had been even harder to believe in.
But it had been real.
And Natalia — standing here, looking at him like she’s staring down something she doesn’t quite know how to name — needs to know it’s real.
She exhales through her nose, and for a second, her gaze unfocuses like she’s looking past him, past the alley, past the entire life that’s led her here. When she looks back at him, something shifts in her expression — not relief, not hope, but maybe the first step toward it.
Clint waits.
Finally, she nods.
“Okay.”
She doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t need to.
He doesn’t lower his guard entirely, doesn’t let himself think for even a second that this means it’ll be easy. But she’s making the choice. She’s standing here, accepting the offer, and that’s more than most people in her position ever get the chance to do.
“Then let’s get out of here,” Clint says, and for the first time since this night started, they move together.
Later, neither of them will admit whose fault it is.
Clint will insist she’s too twitchy. Too high-strung. That for all her legendary skills — he even air quotes, that prickly вредитель — she should have learned the difference between a real threat and an idiot with bad timing.
Natalia will argue he’s too quiet. That after years of sneaking and stalking, he should know better than to creep into an assassin’s safe house without announcing himself.
And Phil Coulson, as Natalia will soon meet, will simply sigh, drag a hand down his face, and shake his head, mumbling what sounds like a prayer under his breath.
In the end, it doesn’t matter.
Because the gunshot has already gone off.
The silencer muffles the sound, but the force still punches through her arm, instinct carrying out the action before thought catches up.
The intruder grunts, low and pained, but doesn’t collapse. He stumbles back, slamming his shoulder against the nearest wall, his free hand clamping over the wound.
She’s already moving. Her pulse is pounding, breath sharp as she scans for other threats.
But there’s no backup. No ambush. No enemy forces storming her location.
Just Clint Barton, clutching his shoulder, looking more annoyed than anything. Though, she wonders if she saw a flicker of amusement pass through his eyes.
And it hits her — shit.
Her jaw tightens. She steps forward, kicks his bow out of reach, then grabs his wrist and yanks his hand away from the wound. He doesn’t resist, though he sucks in a sharp breath when she presses down hard, stopping the blood flow.
The bullet’s gone clean through. Upper shoulder, just below the collarbone.
Not fatal. But messy.
This was not how the night was supposed to go.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” She mutters, her voice flat, fingers digging into his skin.
“You shouldn’t have shot me.”
“You shouldn’t have let yourself get shot.”
Clint exhales sharply through his nose, something close to amusement flashing through his pain. “You are the worst person I’ve ever tried to save.”
She ignores him. Keeps her focus on the wound, the warmth of blood against her fingers, the way his muscles tense and shift beneath her grip. His breathing is controlled — steady, measured. He’s used to this.
And that unsettles her more than she’s willing to admit.
He shouldn’t be here. No one has ever found her safe house before. No one has ever tracked her without her knowing.
No one has ever offered her a way out.
That’s what disturbs her the most. Not the gunshot. Not Clint’s pained smirk.
The fact that he found her at all.
“How did you find this place?” She asks, her voice carefully neutral.
Clint groans, shifting slightly, wincing when the movement jostles his arm. “I’m good at my job.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I followed you.” His lips quirk up, dry amusement bleeding through the pain. “And you are good, but you’re not the only one who’s that good. If you’re going to be mad at me for showing up, be mad at yourself for leaving a trail.”
Her fingers tighten, just briefly, and Clint hisses.
She ignores the flicker of satisfaction curling in her chest.
This is bad.
The whole point of a safe house is that it’s impossible to find, impossible to track. The only people who ever knew about this place are dead.
And yet Clint Barton, a man she barely knows, has walked in like he belongs.
It should terrify her.
Maybe it does.
She exhales through her nose, forcing the unease away.
“You’re lucky I hesitated,” She mutters.
Clint smirks, but it’s faint, pained. “You’re lucky I’m still offering you an out.”
She doesn’t answer. Because they both know he’s right.
And that realization scares her more than anything else tonight.
Clint has been shot before. Plenty of times.
Most of those times, it’s been because of bad intel, bad luck, or bad choices. This time? It’s because he underestimated just how twitchy Natalia Romanova could be with a gun in her hand.
He props himself against the peeling wallpaper of her so-called safe house, his shoulder screaming in protest as he balances his phone between his ear and his good hand.
Phil picks up on the second ring.
“Barton. Tell me the job’s done and you’re already halfway back to HQ.”
Clint snorts, wincing as pain lances through his arm. “Yeah, about that…”
A beat of silence. The kind that means Phil knows he’s about to hear something profoundly stupid.
“What happened?”
Clint shifts, casting a glance toward Natalia, who is currently pacing the length of the room like a caged animal trying to figure out whether to fight or bolt. “Well, the good news is, I found the Black Widow.”
“And?”
“And she shot me.”
Another silence. This one heavier.
“She shot you.”
“Yep.”
“And yet you’re still alive to tell me this. So either she’s lost her touch, or I’m about to regret this conversation.”
Clint smirks. “I’m bringing her in.”
There’s an audible inhale on the other end. Then:
“I’m sorry — what?”
“You heard me. Change of plans. She wants out, and I’m offering her a way in.”
“Clint.” Phil’s voice has that particular you absolute disaster of a human being tone to it. “Please tell me you are not currently sitting in a safe house, bleeding out, while the world’s deadliest assassin considers whether or not she should finish the job.”
Clint tilts his head, considering. “Well. She’s pacing, not glaring, so I’d say the odds are in my favor.”
“You’re a moron.”
“Hey, this was your pitch to me five years ago, remember?” He lowers his voice, mimicking Phil’s steady, recruiter-friendly cadence. “‘We can offer you protection. Resources. A second chance. And let’s be honest, Barton — you need it more than you want it. All we ask for are your skills and loyalty.’ You know I remember everything from that night, word for word.”
Phil exhales sharply. “I hate you.”
“No, actually, you love me.”
“Not at this moment.”
Clint shifts his grip on the phone, his fingers sticky with half-dried blood. “Look, I know this is crazy—”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you think this was the part where I needed you to clarify that?”
Clint ignores that. “—But I’m telling you, she’s done. I watched her tonight, Phil. She’s been trying to claw her way out of this life for a while now. No one’s ever given her a chance. I say we do.”
Phil doesn’t answer right away. That’s either very good or very bad.
When he does finally speak, his voice is quieter. “You’re sure about this?”
Clint glances at Natalia again. She’s stopped pacing. She’s watching him now, something unreadable flickering in her eyes.
“I’m sure,” He says.
Phil sighs. The long-suffering kind. “You’re cleaning this up.”
“Wouldn’t dream of making you do it.”
“And if she kills you, I’m putting ‘I told you so’ on your tombstone.”
Clint grins. “Deal.”