Chapter 7
The room is quiet, save for the steady ticking of the clock on the far wall. Natalia sits stiffly in her chair, hands folded in her lap, her expression carefully blank. Across from her, Phil Coulson flips open a file and glances at it before setting it down on the table between them. He’s been watching her since the moment he walked in, his gaze analytical but lacking the predatory edge she’s used to from handlers, interrogators, and overseers alike.
It’s unnerving.
And even more so is Clint Barton’s absence.
Despite it being just a few days, she’d already gotten used to his presence, his sharp observations, the way he watched her without ever looking like he was. He had an irritating way of speaking — too casual, too confident, like he knew something she didn’t. But at least with him, she had some sense of what to expect.
Now he’s gone — off somewhere dealing with whatever fallout his decision to bring her in has caused. That leaves her alone, sitting across from a man she knows nothing about but who somehow already seems to know everything about her.
“You hungry?” Coulson asks suddenly.
Natalia blinks. That’s not the question she expected.
“No.” The answer is automatic, her default. She can’t remember the last time someone asked her that without an ulterior motive.
Coulson shrugs. “Fair enough. Let’s get started, then.” He leans forward, clasping his hands together. “I’ve already read your file. Or, well — what little there is of it.” His eyes flicker with something like dry amusement. “Your previous employers weren’t exactly generous with documentation.”
She doesn’t answer. They weren’t actual, sane employers, anyway.
“I’m sure you’ve figured this out already, but this isn’t an interrogation,” He continues. “I’m not here to break you down or get you to confess anything. I just need to get a sense of who you are. What you can do. What you want.”
That throws her off. What I want? No one has ever asked her that before. Wanting is a weakness. Desire makes people vulnerable. She was trained to act on orders, to erase the part of herself that would hesitate or question.
She keeps her face neutral, but the question lingers in her mind.
Coulson flips to a fresh page in his file. “Let’s start simple. Languages?”
“Russian, English, French, Italian, working on my Mandarin, and some more.”
“Combat specialties?”
She hesitates, but only for a fraction of a second. “Close-quarters combat. Knives, firearms, improvised weapons.”
“Hand-to-hand?”
“Master-level.”
“Firearms?”
“Expert marksman.”
Coulson jots something down. “Tactical analysis?”
She tilts her head. “If I wasn’t good at it, I’d be dead.”
He smirks. “Fair point.”
It’s surreal — answering these questions like she’s interviewing for a job rather than being assessed as a potential threat. No accusations, no threats of punishment if she answers incorrectly, no punishments at all. Just... questions.
She doesn’t know what to do with that.
Coulson sets his pen down. “Here’s the thing, Natalia. You’re an exceptional operative. That much is obvious. But SHIELD doesn’t just need weapons — they need people. So tell me. Why are you here?”
She stiffens.
Because Barton didn’t kill me when he had the chance. Because he said there was another way, and I was foolish enough to believe him.
She swallows. “I don’t know.”
Coulson studies her for a long moment. Then he leans back, considering.
“Well,” He says lightly, “You’ll figure it out.”
That throws her off balance more than anything else so far. She expected skepticism, suspicion. But certainty? That she would belong here, that she would find a place in this organization?
She has no idea what to make of that.
Before she can think of a response, Coulson pushes the file aside. “We’ll start with the basics. Protocols, procedures, what it actually means to be a SHIELD agent. You’ll train. You’ll be evaluated. And if you prove yourself, you’ll earn a place here.”
He meets her gaze, expression unreadable but not unkind. “If you want it.”
Do I?
Natalia has spent her entire life being told what she is. A soldier. A weapon. A killer.
No one has ever asked her what she wants to be.
She doesn’t have an answer for Coulson. Not yet.
But maybe, maybe at SHIELD — maybe she could.
Coulson stands, gathering his file, clearly ready to move on. But as he reaches for the door, something compels her to speak.
“I need a new name.”
Coulson pauses, glancing back at her.
Natalia exhales slowly. She can’t be Natalia Romanova anymore. Natalia was trained in the Red Room. Natalia was conditioned to be a weapon. She was a ghost of the Soviet Union, still following orders from men who should have lost their power long ago.
But she’s here now. She’s leaving that part of herself behind, starting anew.
She lifts her chin. “Natasha,” She says. The name feels foreign on her tongue, but it’s hers to claim. “Natasha Romanoff.”
Coulson watches her for a long moment, then nods. “Alright, Natasha.”
He opens the door, leaving her alone with the weight of her own decision.
She repeats the name in her mind. Not Natalia. Not the Red Room’s creation.
Natasha Romanoff.
A new name for a new life.
And for the first time, she thinks — maybe she actually wants it.
“So, Natasha Romanoff, huh?”
Clint keeps his tone easy, like it’s just small talk. Like they’re just two agents walking through the halls of SHIELD’s New York base instead of what they really are — two people who have spent too many years covered in blood that won’t wash away. One of them choosing to stay. The other still deciding.
Next to him, Natasha walks like she’s expecting an ambush. It’s in the way she moves — shoulders squared, weight balanced perfectly, attention flicking over every passing detail. The security cameras, the placement of guards, the way agents seem distracted with their own work but still glance their way. She’s taking it all in, the way she would any new battlefield.
She doesn’t answer him right away, but he catches the way her fingers twitch slightly at her sides, like she’s still feeling out the weight of her new name.
“I needed a new one,” She finally says.
Clint nods. “Good a choice as any.”
She doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t push.
Because he understands.
Natasha doesn’t know it, but Clint gets what it means to have a name that doesn’t belong to you anymore. To be stuck with something shaped by your past, something soaked through with blood. Hawkeye had been his long before SHIELD ever found him, long before Phil Coulson gave him a better way to use it.
Phil never told him to let go of it. He never asked Clint to be someone else. He just looked at the mess Clint was, looked at the wreckage he had left in his wake, and said, Fine. Let’s see if you can hit something worth aiming for.
Clint had taken the shot.
Now, he wonders if Natasha will do the same.
They move deeper into the base, past rows of glass offices and too-bright overhead lighting. The sterile efficiency of SHIELD is a stark contrast to the world she’s coming from — nothing like the covert KGB bunkers or the Red Room facilities that tried to make her into something less than human.
She’s quiet, but it’s not the silence of someone comfortable. It’s the silence of someone waiting for the ground to shift under them.
Finally, she speaks. “Why did you do it?”
He glances at her. “Do what?”
She stops walking. He turns to face her fully.
“Give me a choice.”
Her voice is steady, but there’s something else beneath it, something Clint recognizes because it once lived in his own bones — still does, but it isn’t as fresh as hers. She’s looking for the catch. Because there’s always a catch.
Clint exhales, dragging a hand over his jaw.
He could tell her the truth. That it’s because he’s been where she is, because he knows what it’s like to live with nothing but orders — or a paycheck — and blood and no way out. That someone once looked at him and didn’t see a weapon, didn’t see a killer, just a person who might still have a shot at something else.
But he doesn’t say that.
Instead, he shrugs. “Seemed like the right thing to do.”
Natasha narrows her eyes, studying him like she’s trying to pick apart a lie. He wonders how many people in her life have ever done something without expecting something in return. Probably none.
She doesn’t press the issue, though.
Clint gestures ahead. “C’mon. Tour’s not over yet.”
Natasha falls into step beside him, still guarded but not unwilling.
She might not believe in second chances yet.
But Clint does.