Chapter 1
Clint wonders when his job description at SHIELD came to include tracking down rogue spy-assassins.
Technically, he knows when it came to include that: when Phil dropped a file on his desk reading TOP SECRET and then, inside, Natasha Romanoff. That’s when his job started to include finding spies. It doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.
Budapest. He’s been in Budapest for weeks and it’s getting increasingly annoying. The Widow won’t let him close— he attempts to get more than a street near her and she’s disappeared into nowhere— which means two things. A, she knows he’s here, and B, she’s fucking toying with him. How annoying can you get?
Clint’s tempted to give up. Head back to the States, tell Coulson he couldn’t figure it out, take a vacay for a week and come back to a new assignment. This lady is freaky, and unsettling, and surprisingly good at hiding in plain sight for someone with bright red hair. He doesn’t like it. Is willing to just let someone else handle it, let someone else take out this girl who could allegedly topple governments. He’d believe it.
But worse comes to worst. She’s standing in his living room, actually. Silent and still, and she startles Clint hard when he turns around from eating his Chinese takeout. His bow is in his hand in an instant and he seriously wishes he hadn’t turned his hearing aid’s volume so low. They’re both breathing hard. Natasha’s hunched, just a little, and Clint realizes she’s bleeding from a gash in her side that ripped her tac suit up under her arm and looks really fuckin’ bad.
He makes a split-second decision.
He lowers the bow. She doesn’t move. Her eyes are green, so green, and they’re unsettlingly intense as he carefully reaches a hand out. “Hey.” he says carefully. “I’m Clint.” she doesn’t move. “Do you— that looks pretty bad, there. I need to fix that. Can you let me fix that?”
She stares at him for a long moment before suddenly moving, shucking off her tac suit like she doesn’t have a giant gash up her ribs. Clint nearly shrieks, immediately turning around and covering his eyes. “Oh my God. I— okay. Hold on. Hold on.” He turns up his hearing aids, just in case she does decide to say something.
Romanoff follows him into his room. He’s trying not to, y’know, look at her, which is proving fairly hard to do considering she still has multiple guns on her person. He finds her clothes— soft, worn-in, black sweats and a t-shirt— and doesn’t turn back around until he’s certain she’s wearing them. She looks completely unamused when she turns back around.
“Okay.” he attempts a smile. “That’s, um, that’s better. Cool. Thanks. I need you to… sit down? Please?”
She complies. He gets the feeling she’s only doing so because it’s in her interest, but she’s not trying to kill him, so it’s an upgrade. He sits down next to her after finding his first-aid kit in his mess of a room and they carefully work to get the shirt up over her shoulder so he can get at the wound.
He talks, while working. A lot. He’s anxious and there’s a whole entire spy-assassin-person on his couch who’s slowly bleeding out and he gets the feeling she’d probably haunt him after death just to piss her off. She watches him silently. He knows she speaks English— it was in her file— but she’s just… not. It feels like a personal slight. But he keeps up words anyways, filling the void with random stories and thoughts and snippets of SHIELD and Coulson and Fury and Hill and even Barney and the circus, when it comes to it.
Once he’s finished, he wraps her torso. She stiffens as he gets closer to her bare skin and doesn’t relax until the gauze is tied off and the shirt is back on and Clint is back a safe distance away.
“So. Um.” Clint sits, awkward as can be, fidgeting with his hands on the couch. “God, it’s freaky that you knew where to find me— uh. You feelin’ okay? that was a pretty…” he gestures awkwardly at her. “Pretty bad gash, there. Who managed that?”
“None of your business.”
“Oh… ‘kay.”
Clint looks away. Natasha Romanoff is officially the scariest person he knows, and she’s given him exactly four words. He dropped his Chinese food on the floor when she scared the shit outta him, so he doesn’t even have food to eat. Nothing to do except sit there and wait for Romanoff to say something. Or maybe murder him. Or… he swallows hard.
“You don’t have to stay here,” he offers softly. “I mean— not in Budapest. I’d rather you stay here for now. Until you’re… okay. But I could bring you back to America?”
Romanoff glances at him. He takes that to mean she isn’t going to murder him and continues.
“As in, to SHIELD. Not as a prisoner. I mean— you’ve done a lot of bad things, so I can’t promise that, but I can promise that there’s a lot of good people there. That can help you. You— you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
Please, please believe him.
She watches him, face an expressionless mask. He can’t tell what she wants and he very much doesn’t like it.
“…Tell me about SHIELD.” she says carefully, and Clint sighs a quiet sigh of relief.
“Well. Um.” he’s got no clue where to start. “Well— see, I used to be a criminal.” She cocks her head at him. “Not, like, high-level. Mostly a thief. I used to live at a circus, and that kinda went to shit, but I got good at stealing. This guy Phil, Phil Coulson, he found me. Gave me a— a second chance, really. Opportunity to be a better person. That’s what I want for you.”
He prays she believes him.
“We can get you a second chance. A chance to do good things with good people. With people who care. I won’t pretend to know what you went through, but I know that you deserve help just as much as I did.”
Romanoff’s quiet. But she’s obviously thinking. Eventually her eyes move slowly back over to Clint, hands tense on her thighs. “And you can promise I can trust these men.”
Clint sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, you can trust ‘em. I swear. Coulson and Fury are seriously great guys. And there’s this lady, Maria Hill— she’s awesome, too. You’ll love them, I’m sure of it.”
It takes a few more long moments of patience before she nods. “If you’re lying to me, I will hunt you down and rip your spine out through your throat.”
He blinks. “Duly noted.”
That gets a smile. A real smile, and he happily grins back.
“Well, Romanoff,” he stands up to text Phil. “Welcome to SHIELD. Probably. If Fury doesn’t beat my ass for this.”
“…Natasha.”
“Hm?”
“My name is Natasha.”
Clint stares at her for a long little while before letting out a soft laugh. “Alright, Natasha. Clint.”
“I know.”
“…Great!”