I
“Barton, is there a reason you’re on this trajectory of diverging from all of my orders? Or is it just because you like annoying me?”
“Listen, last time was an accident.”
Natalia is-…
Natasha now.
She’s watching from the seat she’s strapped into as the archer’s handler reprimands him, though it’s surprising to her, the lack of violence that comes along with it. She's watching in mute curiosity.
There are two agents guarding her and she can sense their discomfort as easily as she could escape these bindings if she wanted to. It’s comforting in a way, to know that they’re cautious of her. It's nice to feel like she has an upper hand despite the cuffs around her wrists, but then that isn’t what she’s here to do and she isn’t going to ruin whatever this chance is that she’s been given.
She realizes she’d stopped listening – she’s still weary from the tranquilizer she’d taken barely an hour ago – when she feels Clint’s gaze fall on her again. He must have been saying something about her, though she’s not sure what. Something about “giving her a chance” and how it “could end up being a good thing”, both of which could be true she thinks.
She also understands his handler’s caution.
Not too often a Red Room spy defects to SHIELD with little more than a shrug of the shoulders.
If Madame could see her now...
Natasha looks up and meets the archer’s gaze and she thinks she sees tenderness there before he’s looking back at his handler again, explaining that he’s going to take full responsibility for her, he’ll train with her and supervise her. See if they can’t get her ready for field work. He insists that she’ll acclimate just fine, that she doesn’t have a reason to stay loyal to the KGB.
“And just what do you think Fury’s going to say when you stroll into debrief with the Black Widow?” His handler, Coulson she thinks, is crossing his arms in front of himself.
She shifts, putting one leg over the other, which ends up being a mistake because she’s suddenly startled several of the agents on board and now she has five guns trained on her, any words silenced with the cocking of the pistols
Clint is putting himself in front of her then, holding up his hands and deescalating before it ends badly for everyone. She can still see Coulson ten paces away, shaking his head as though this is truly the biggest mistake he’s ever had an agent make.
It fills her with a vigor to prove him so wrong that he won’t ever think of underestimating her again.
“Okay, guys... Let’s not get too trigger happy here. Why doesn’t everybody just take a deep breath and let the girl adjust? I can’t see any of you sitting still on a place ride across the Atlantic.”
Well, she could sit still if she wanted to, but she doesn’t think this is an atmosphere where friendly competition is appropriate.
Natasha notices that the agent to her right is the last to lower his weapon, and the disdain on his face doesn’t fade into disinterest like the others’ do. She captures his face in her mind to keep an eye out for him, though she’s sure she could take him out in ten seconds flat if he ended up trying anything. His grip on his gun isn’t hard enough and his stance would have sent him off balance if he’d tried to take a shot. Chances are he wouldn’t have even hit her. Her brow cocks at him as he lowers his weapon and tucks it away.
“Wouldn’t she be better off transported in a steel box, Barton?” he says, jerking his chin and not looking away from her.
“Depends on how mad you want her to be when we land, Kensley.”
“She is right here and unless you want her to exercise her ability to get out of these restraints, I’d suggest you stop referring to her as though she can’t hear you, as much as she wishes she couldn’t,” she throws at the both of them.
Clint at least has the decency to look a little ashamed, and she thinks maybe she hears Agent Coulson snort. She leans her head back against the seat and closes her eyes. She’s exhausted, though she remains hyper aware of the people around her. She doesn’t trust any of them even close to as far as she could throw them. She has no reason to. Clint may have gotten her out of Russia, but he hasn’t proven anything to her yet, not really. Grateful as she is to him, it’s entirely possible that he has another angle here, and truthfully, given her track record with being used for other people's personal gain, it’s more logical for her to believe that he does.
Agent Kensley doesn’t take his eyes off her until they land, and she hopes he leaves before they unstrap her from the seat, because if there’s one thing that makes her uncomfortable it’s visibility. The vulnerability of having his eyes on her for hours riles her to the point where she’ll have to restrain herself from injuring him out of sheer force of habit if he stays anywhere near her.
Barton is there when they unstrap her, standing between her and Kensley. She’s cooperative, though they don’t seem to be expecting her to be. Their grips on her arms are like vices and she can’t resist playing with them.
“Hey, I bruise easily, loosen it up, da?”
The woman on her left narrows her gaze and the young man on her right looks like a ghost as he looks at Clint, eyes wide with fright, only to see him trying to hold in laughter. Coulson huffs past him and mutters something to the archer about being inappropriate, upon which Clint's gaze meets hers and her lips turn up at the corner.
She likes him.
They continue to walk her along, Barton following behind them.
Natasha takes in the space around her, cataloguing it for later. She wonders briefly what city they’ve brought her to until she hears someone make a passing comment about how the Potomac looks at four AM.
SHIELD Headquarters in DC then. It’s stories tall and they lead her deep into it, until the windows start disappearing and she’s positive they’re forty feet into the depths of the building.
She’s put in an interrogation chamber and the young man who’s grip really had loosened is quick to go, leaving her there to wait with Agent Barton. He leans back into the table she’s been seated at and crosses his arms.
“You got to the hard part. Once you get through Fury it’s smooth sailing from there,” he says.
“You sound more like you’re trying to convince yourself of that, Agent.”
He meets her smirk with a half grin of his own and shrugs, “It is what it is. I just hope you prove that I made the right call on you.”
“Hm.”
There’s a click at the door and it slides open, Coulson entering with his annoyingly perfect hair behind a tall man with an eyepatch. Interesting. The way he walks into the room demands attention and he takes a seat in the chair on the other side of the table before Barton even has a chance to straighten up.
“Hawkeye. Want to explain who is sitting in front of me and why?”
“Ahh… Yeah, sir. This would be-“
“Natalia Romanova, sir. Natasha. Though I hear they’ve been calling me the Black Widow. And I can speak for myself. I’m perfectly fluent in English.”
The silence that follows scares even the crickets away. She arches one brow as he holds a staring contest with her, and true to nature she doesn’t let her gaze falter until he does, leaning forward and rubbing his hand over his mouth as he studies her.
“So, Natalia Romanova-“
Her nose scrunches with the way his accent butchers her name. She’d have to Americanize her last one too it would seem, but that was fine. He continues.
“Born in the Red Room?”
“Not exactly.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Not really. Unless being orphaned is pertinent to whatever work I might be able to do for you here at SHIELD, I’d be more interested in explaining to you my skill set, and I'd think you would be more interested in that as well.”
“What I’m interested in is figuring out whether or not this is a conflict of interest that this organization can afford. Because I have the list of our agents that you’ve taken out memorized and I can assure you, I won’t be forgetting it any time soon.”
“Well then, with all due respect, sir, I think it might be more helpful to ask me about my time following the Red Room. The academy made me what I am, but I don’t work for them. You’re just being nosy.”
Clint snorts and the glare Fury sends his way brings his hand to hide his mouth and prevent any further slip ups.
“Okay, Miss Romanova. What, pray tell, do you have to tell me about your time working with the SVR?”
~
Their conversation seems to last for hours. Agent Coulson had been called away at some point and they’re still talking when he returns. Agent Barton looks like he wants to use the links between her cuffs to garrote himself. Fury has barely let him get a word in edgewise.
“So with all the work you’ve done for your country throughout your life, Black Widow, you’re telling me you want to just switch sides? SHIELD is different from what you’re used to. Humans aren’t just expendable no questions asked. Four months ago, you set fire to a fully functional Children’s Ward just to get one man. Do you wanna explain that to me?”
Her hard gaze falters and for the first time since he’d come in she averts her gaze to her lap after a moment. Clint is watching her as she shakes her head, nails digging into her palms.
“I didn’t…”
She wants to bury herself for the tears forming in her eyes in front of them. She blinks them away.
“I was made to serve them. I wasn’t… You only have two options in the Red Room, with the KGB. You do as you are told or you die.”
Natasha looks up at him again.
“I am not a spectacle. I will not share everything that I’ve experienced in the fifteen years that I have served Russia because you don’t need to know. All you need to know is that I came with Agent Barton because he gave me the chance to-”
She stops short and shakes her head. Fury is listening, his gaze flat, but she can still see his mind racing.
“You can take my word or leave it, but I refuse to return to Russia and to who they’ve been forcing me to be. I don’t owe a single thing to any of them. I’m just looking for a chance to be better than what they made me.”
The silence is palpable as Fury studies her. She can practically see the gears turning in his head, and beside her, Barton is shifting. She imagines it’s uncharacteristic of him to be so fidgety. Snipers didn’t tend to be in her experience.
The director stands up then, motioning for Coulson to undo her handcuffs as he addresses Clint.
“She’s on a trial run, Barton, walking on a very thin line. She answers to you and you answer to Coulson and I, understood? You don’t let her out of your sight.”
The archer is quick to grin.
“Of course, sir. You won’t regret it.”
“Yeah, I’d better not. We’ll get a new bed up to your on-site quarters. Your bow doesn’t need the entire second room in your apartment.”
Clint’s jaw drops, “How did you-“
“Oh give me a break,” Coulson mutters.
The Director looks back at Natasha.
“You’re skating on thin ice, Romanova. Impress me and we’ll see what we can do.”
She watches him go with surprise sparking in her eyes, rubbing her wrists as Coulson follows him out. Barton is quiet for a moment, but he leans back against the table and grins.
“Well congratulations. You got through the hard part.”
“Da? I guess the rest of my life should be a breeze, shouldn’t it?”
He smirks.
“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”
He jerks his head and she rises from her seat.
“Let’s go. You have to be beat. I’ll let you sleep awhile and I can show you around when you wake up.”
In the months that follow, she begins adjusting well enough.
It’s jarring, still, despite her ability to adapt. The Triskelion is large and Clint’s apartment is a very comfortable size, though she can’t help but feel a little trapped now that she’s gone from field work back to living in a facility. Where she is now in no way compares to what the Red Room had been, but it’s the idea of it that makes her stir-crazy.
What really drives her nuts is the people. The sheer, astounding amount of agents that seem to be scared of her when she has yet to do anything here. Reputation precedes and all that, she guesses, but it’s incredibly juvenile to her, the fact that she can clear out a hallway just by walking down it, and she can tell Clint feels bad, which just makes it even worse.
She does her best to ignore it, gives them the benefit of the doubt because truthfully she can’t blame them. She wouldn’t trust her either. Not yet anyway. And she’s not one to cry about not making friends.
Clint seems to enjoy her company well enough, and it doesn’t take long before they have a banter going that makes it seem as though they’ve known each other for years. It started right away if she’s being honest, after she’d discovered that Fury hadn’t been making a joke about his bows and arrows having their own room. She can’t remember ever laughing so hard, uncharacteristically so. Even as he’d muttered and grumbled and started clearing out the spare room she hadn’t been able to stop her chortling. He’d cracked a smile eventually and she’d realized that maybe this would be okay, as long as he stayed around.
The problem doesn’t arise until November.
Following three months of good behavior, Coulson – Phil, as she enjoys calling him, because it makes him huffy, and because Clint gets her into the habit – takes her off of hawk alert.
By the end of September she’s allowed to do things separately from Clint, which is nice, because as much as Natasha’s grown to enjoy his company, she’s so accustomed to having alone time that it’s a lot of work to spend every hour of the day with people watching her and to not lash out in aggravation.
It doesn’t mean they’re apart from each other much more than they were before, more so that she has the freedom to walk to the gym alone when Clint decides he wants an extra hour of sleep, or when Natasha decides that she’s ready for lunch and that it’s “not my fault you didn’t get out of bed until noon.”
However, it does mean that Clint is returned to semi-active duty, more so meaning that when a mission arises in mid-October, they send him out. It’s not a long mission, and he stays stateside. Homegrown terrorist cell in the Midwest is as much as he can say to her when he returns four days later.
In those four days she notices that people are much less inclined to contain their hostility towards her when Clint isn’t around, and that makes her angry. Angry enough that he catches onto it as soon as he returns and sits down across from her to eat at the kitchen island.
It’s in the way that she almost stabs her fork through the cardboard takeout box.
“Still haven’t gotten the hold of chopsticks?” he raises his eyebrows.
The glare she offers in response almost sends him off the stool.
“What’s wrong?” he shifts gears and presses his middle fingers hard into the space between his eyes as she smacks her fork onto the concrete of the counter.
“What’s wrong is that I can’t seem to function in this place without you around, which really shouldn’t be the case, should it? I shouldn’t have to wait however many days you’re on an op to practice hand to hand with someone because you’re the only one who isn’t a pretentious baby. These people are so annoying,” she sends the toe of her boot to take out her frustration on the black painted wood of the cupboard.
He looks like he doesn’t really know how to respond, probably because she’s fallen into her mother tongue and he only understands the gist of what she’d said. He sighs and leans forward, rubbing his forehead.
“I’m sorry, Tash. I really wish that was something I could change.”
She starts at the nickname. He's never called her that before. She likes it.
She take a moment before releasing a quiet sigh, “It’s fine. Just needed to… I don’t mean to throw it on you. It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, I know it’s not. But I get it.”
She hums and picks up her fork again, “Also fuck off, I’m Russian. I’ve never used chopsticks in my life.”
He laughs at her and shakes his head, “I don’t think being Russian and not using chopsticks are mutually exclusive.”
“Yeah, well, the Red Room wasn’t ordering us Chinese takeout on Friday nights, so back off before I find a more creative way to use them, probably on you.”
But she’s smirking, and he’s grinning at her and then everything is fine until the day before her birthday.
Natasha’s grown to hate her birthday.
All of the worst things happen near her birthday and this year is evidently no exception.
Clint just disappears.
Nobody – nobody – will answer her questions. Not Phil, not other agents, especially not Fury. He’s just gone. A day turns into two, turns into a week, turns into a month, turns into two until she’s positive he really must have gotten sick of her and just quit his job. She tries to write it off. The world most certainly does not revolve around her and she’s not under an illusion that it does. He’s probably doing something important.
But god damn it she wants to know.
He's the one person here that she can stand, that she feels like she can call her friend. The only person who doesn't make her feel like slamming her head into a brick wall.
She’s been walking around in a limbo, keeping up with training, alone. Eating, alone. Teaching herself about computer programming, alone. And though she’s used to being alone and prefers it most of the time, now it makes her realize that she’s grown close enough to someone again to miss them, and that dredges up some intensely painful memories that she wishes she could ignore.
~
By the time January rolls around she’s grown weary. As she hits the punching bag in front of her until her wrapped knuckles are bleeding, she wonders, really wonders, what the point of all this is. Wonders how hard it would be to get out of the Triskelion and off of SHIELD’s radar. Maybe she could find someone to do freelance work for. Maybe she’ll go to Australia. Not a lot of covert SHIELD presence there she doesn’t think. She’d have to be careful though. After the work she’s done for the KGB, Fury’s not letting her just fade into the background. They’d be after her in a heartbeat.
Something like hope makes her stick it out for a little longer. Something like longing. She hasn’t felt that since James. But he’d always told her to hold out hope, to remain relentless in her achievements. It’s the only coherent memory of him she’s retained through the Red Room’s brain stirring mind control. She wants to honor it.
~
Some day in early February, she walks into the apartment and Clint is standing up from the kitchen counter. He’s not smiling but he does seem to have a glow about him, though she doesn’t know why.
Natasha almost injures herself, biting her cheeks hard enough to keep the anger that overwhelms her at bay.
He’s got a little map clutched in his hand and she realizes from the red marks on it that it’s hers, the start of her plan to get the fuck out of here because she’s over sitting around, done being the Russian stereotype that nobody trusts enough to give the time of day.
She crosses her arms and stares from the map to him again before taking off towards her bedroom.
“Natasha, what the hell is this? SHIELD is trying to help you.”
She whirls around and explodes.
“Are you kidding me? You left me here to sit for two months and you have the audacity to question my escape plan as if I’ve done something wrong? I don’t know if it slipped your mind but I’m not just free to do whatever I please! Just because I’m not here against my will doesn’t mean that I’m allowed to do whatever I want and you know that! And the only person who ever offers me the time of day just disappears and then what?
"Do you want to maybe explain to me what I’m doing here, Clint? Because it seems to me like I’m doing a whole fucking lot of nothing. Eight months is a lot of time to sit around and I’m sick of waiting for someone to tell me why, because I'm trying to do everything right and everyone is still afraid of coming near me! Don’t you dare come in here and act like it’s me who’s doing something wrong because so far SHIELD hasn’t done anything for me! You gave me the opportunity to defect. Your agency wanted me dead, and it doesn't seem like that opinion has changed!”
The glow she’d sensed when she came in fades as his fist clenches harder around the paper. He stares her dead in the eyes as he rips it apart, and she’s positive it’s on purpose, the asshole, because Clint could absolutely be that petty when he really wanted to, she's seen him do stupid shit like that to Phil a hundred times in the months following her arrival. She watches the pieces flutter to the floor, electricity sparking in her veins as the room stills for a moment.
She jumps at him with a frustrated growl and has no qualms with giving up all of her anger.
He meets her hit for hit and neither of them lets up. Not in their nature, and the spar doesn’t end until they sit panting on the floor, hip to hip, leaning back against the refrigerator. Neither of them are injured, that's not what it was about, and damn if they don't both feel better from it.
“You were pulling your punches,” she mutters, brushing her hair from her face.
“Yeah well, forgive me. This wasn’t quite the welcome I was expecting.”
“Really? Ty idiot.”
“I didn’t think they wouldn’t tell you anything. Shit, Natasha, I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot going on. A lot that I can’t talk about. SHIELD hasn’t been my top priority,” he says through a huff.
She sighs and her head lazes against the fridge.
“I don’t want you to think you’re my babysitter, Clint," she shakes her head, "I really don’t, and I don’t see you that way. I’m capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need entertainment. I can look over my own shoulder. But everyone keeping me in the dark isn’t making it easy to believe that this was worth it. That this isn't just a convenient way to lock me up. If they want me in prison, tell them to put me there.”
“God, Tash, that's not... I know what it seems like. And I really am sorry. It wasn’t my intention to keep you in the dark. This isn't to keep you locked away. I promise, I'm going to try harder to make this worth your while. For now, can you forgive me?"
He turns to her and gives her half of a lopsided grin, which she has to roll her eyes at. Even when he aggravates her he can’t fail to bring a smile to her face. She huffs and shakes her head again.
“Nothing to forgive. I just don’t know if I’m worth all the trouble,” she manages to take a deep breath and closes her eyes.
When he slips his hand into hers, she opens them again and meets his gaze.
“I think you are. You should too. Stop wallowing. You’re the strongest agent here, but you’re not always going to be a threat. People are intimidated by you. They’ll get over it, especially once you start getting on track for field work.”
She searches somewhere for a lie and doesn’t come up with one, but she also knows how that’s worked out for her in the past.
“And I’m never going to force you to talk about the Red Room, Tash. But it might help to stop internalizing how you grew up. I’ve seen the reports before. They do a lot of fucked up shit. You’re not at fault for that. I won’t pressure it out of you but I will always listen. If you want me to.”
He offers her a smile, sincere this time, and full of the unspoken promise that they’re going to be together for a good, long time. In a refreshing bout of lightness, she finds herself thinking that she’s glad life led her here. Fortunate. It’s a good feeling. She smiles back at him.
“I’m sorry for beating you up.”
He furrows his brow and turns to her.
“You’re talking like I didn’t return the favor.”
She laughs and raises her hands, “You said it, not me.”
He snores and rolls his eyes, “Okay, got it, Russia. You’re cold.”
Her jaw drops and she really almost hits him again as she stands up.
“After such heartfelt conversation, I can’t believe I’m going to have to kill you now on account of you making a Cold War joke to me, Clint. It’s been nice knowing you.”
He’s heaving so hard with laughter she thinks she might need to take him to medical, but she decides that for that he doesn’t even deserve her help, and really, she thinks, things could be worse, couldn’t they? She doesn’t try to hide her grin or the shake of her head as she stalks off to steal the shower.