Knives.
While I'm fixing up songs on my phone, here, have some fic while I'm sitting at the computer. :)
Title: Knives
Series: #5 in The Secrets of the Red Room
(#1 - Bloodlines, #2 - Soldiers, #3 - Memories, #4 - Legends)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: R to be safe
Pairings: none
Disclaimer: Not mine! Takes place within the MCU with nods toward comic books. Warning for torture, Black Widow style. Summary from "I Come With Knives" by IAMX.
Summary:
Kinder und sterne küssen und verlieren sich
greifen leise meine hand und führen mich.
Die traumgötter brachten mich in eine landschaft,
schmetterlinge flatterten durch meine seele in der mitternacht
(Children and stars kiss and lose themselves
they grab my hand and lead me softly.
The gods brought me in a dream landscape,
butterflies fluttered through my soul at midnight)
"Who sent you?"
The man gurgled, pain making it difficult to focus on the question being asked. His hands no longer worked; tendons had been severed when she sliced open his forearms, and he was bleeding out. He couldn't staunch the bleeding, and she was making no effort to save him. It probably didn't matter to her one way or another.
She was so goddamn young. Practically a child. The intel had stated correctly that the Black Widow was going to make a drop exchange, and she had shown up exactly on schedule to leave the package and pick up her pay. It should have been easy to tail her back to her hiding place if she didn't know anyone else was there, but she seemed to have preternatural sense of what was going on around her at all times. Maybe she really was part spider. Russians were rumored to do all sorts of crazy things in the Cold War era, and he was nothing but a merc needing to get paid and get out.
Neither were happening tonight.
Flipping the blade in her hands idly, the Black Widow stared at him with cold green eyes. Blood and gore didn't faze her in the slightest. That expression on a teenager's face was utterly chilling to behold. Was that why no one ever said how young she was?
He gurgled a little; the stab wounds in the chest punctured his lung and made it hard to breathe, let alone talk. She was vicious and ruthlessly efficient, and wasn't afraid to come in closer to her victim if it allowed her to get the job done.
Good god, no wonder she was such a good assassin. She had no soul.
Impatient, she reached into his pockets, brusquely turning his pockets inside out. She pocketed the cash and looked at the various identities he carried around dispassionately. Then she held his SHIELD ID between two slim fingers, her lips curling in derision. "I should have known."
"SHIELD's the good guys," he managed to wheeze.
"No, they are not," she replied, venom in every syllable. The flickering light in the room was reflected off of her knife. "Your agency may not have directly killed my mother as I thought they did, but they may as well have. They are like every other agency out there, and would control all players on the field."
She pitched the ID into the fire raging beside them as he tried to deny her words. "You won't need that anymore," she said, a malicious joy in her eyes. "The fires are burning hotter, and they continue to grow. They will consume you and leave nothing but ash behind."
He tried to reach out, but she was backing away.
There wasn't really time to contemplate her or her knives. Unfortunately, he didn't lose blood fast enough to lose consciousness. Being burned alive was a horrible way to die.
***
Separating from the mercenaries he was running with, Clint Barton opened up a secure line to his handler, Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD. "This better be good," Coulson said as greeting.
"Jesus, Coulson. She's just a kid."
"What are we talking about?"
"The Black Widow. She's a fucking child!"
Coulson was silent for a long moment, weighing the words and Clint's agitation. "Start from the beginning, Barton."
"The Vory is hiring her to take on a diplomat."
"That we knew," Coulson said when Clint paused.
"They met up with her a little while ago to give the particulars of the mission. She knew where the meeting was, had the correct code words, matches the description we have on file on her physical features. But what they left out is that she's freaking fourteen or fifteen years old!"
"She's a black target," Coulson reminded him.
"I know. But she's a child. To have a rep like this as a teenager? Can you even imagine it? How could she even get the training? The girl moves like a killer."
"Don't lose sight of the fact that SHIELD has her listed as a black target."
"They want me to be a child killer," Clint said, voice flat with displeasure.
Coulson sighed. "Barton. Clint. You've seen the kill list. You know every name on it, everything that she's done. Whatever her age, she's no innocent."
"She had to have been raised in it to be that good and have that long a kill list at this age," Clint replied, voice tight. "Do you think she would've had a choice? Do you think she even knows any better? If someone sticks a gun in a kid's hand and tells her to pull the trigger, how the hell is she supposed to know right from wrong?"
"It's not my call to make," Coulson said with another sigh. He didn't counteract what Clint was saying, so at least they didn't have to argue about this.
"No, it's not."
"Please don't do anything stupid."
Clint wanted to laugh, partly in relief. Coulson would back him up if Clint went off book, but it would have to be for a damn good reason.
"You know me, Phil," Clint replied with a flippant tone and wide grin.
"I do. That's why I'm asking you not to do anything stupid."
"I'm reckless, not stupid. I know what my file says."
Coulson heaved a long suffering sigh. "Stay alive, Barton. You know how much I hate the paperwork to declare an agent dead."
Clint snorted. "That's what you get for working in a bureaucracy. No paperwork in street gangs."
"Ah, but I have credibility, a 401K, health insurance, disability..."
"Boring," Clint declared. "I'll be all right, I promise. But... It was a shock, Phil," he said, voice dropping into soft and serious tones as he frowned. "It's different now."
"No, it's really not."
"Yes, it is. You know it is."
"You can't save everyone, Clint," Coulson replied gently.
"Watch me."
***
The Black Widow sat across from Hawkeye, and the two of them watched each other warily. "So. Truce?" he offered.
Her lips had thinned in pain and mistrust. "You could have sent them."
"Sweetheart, those assholes were shooting at me, too."
She actually growled at him, teeth bared in anger. "The better to match your cover story. And I am not your sweetheart. Don't call me that."
Clint tossed her the belt from his short trench coat. "Here, then. Use it as a tourniquet. We're not going to be able to get medical attention for your leg."
"I can still walk on it," she replied coldly, barely wincing even as she cinched the belt brutally tight around the bleeding wound.
"I don't doubt that," Clint said. "Doesn't mean you should."
"I know how to take care of myself."
They fell into an uncomfortable silence, and Clint stared at her impassive façade, looking for any chinks in her armor. He couldn't find any.
"How old are you?" he asked finally.
"Why?" she asked in return, suspicion in her tone.
"Just answer the damn question."
She remained stubbornly silent for long enough that Clint thought she wasn't going to answer. "If I live long enough, I turn eighteen tomorrow."
Her voice had been soft, without inflection. If I live long enough. Jesus, for a child her age to have so bleak an outlook...
"Happy birthday," Clint offered.
The Black Widow glowered at him and pushed herself up to her feet. Despite the agonizing pain, she stood as if uninjured and checked her weapons. One semiautomatic, two knives, a garrote and a taser. By the unhappy compression of her lips, Clint could tell that she was smart enough to realize that the Vory would easily kill her with so little ammunition.
Still, by the tight set of her jaw, Clint could tell that she was going to try it anyway.
"It's suicide if you go out there."
"I've faced impossible odds before. I have survived."
"What's the point?" Clint asked. "Why do this?"
"What else is there?" she asked in return, not even looking at him. She was testing the strength of the tourniquet and how much pain she could stand from her wound.
"You're going to be eighteen. You should be dating and complaining about your senior year of high school or something."
"High school is overrated."
"Somehow I doubt you've ever been to one."
"I've been to six," she replied coldly. "They're all the same."
"Six assassin schools? I'm impressed."
She swung the semiautomatic in his direction. "I don't need you alive. You're worth more to me dead, whether as a shield or a scapegoat, it doesn't matter."
"Funny how you say shield like that..."
The redhead's green eyes narrowed as she took him in, and Clint resisted the urge to squirm. "Your organization must not like you very much."
"Sometimes I don't think they do."
That surprised her, and she paused. "Why?"
"You know there's a kill order out on you?"
"Of course there would be."
"Your kill list goes back three or four years."
"So?" she asked, disinterested as she hobbled to the window to peer outside.
"It's really freakishly long for a three year career."
"They missed a few years," she replied. Though her tone was still fairly flat, Clint thought he could detect amusement and pride in her voice, too. That made sense to him, after a fashion. If killing was an art form, she was a virtuoso. Coulson had told Clint not to admire her handiwork, but he hadn't been able to help it.
"It doesn't bother you?" Clint asked, curious.
"Why should it?"
"Killing women and children?"
She turned away from him abruptly, too much weight on her injured leg. Ah. That must have struck a nerve somehow. She didn't answer, but stared out of the window, looking for Vory members that weren't there.
"So what does the infamous Black Widow want?"
Silence. She tried to remain standing at the window, but it was obviously difficult to do so. The tourniquet wouldn't hold forever, and she had to know that.
"I could help you. With getting medical attention. Maybe even amnesty."
"I will not turn to SHIELD. Not after all they've done."
"What did they do?" Clint asked, confused. SHIELD was the good organization. They saved people, they contained the radical elements, they kept the darker powers in check. Clint had been proud to get his agent's badge.
This woman held herself so stiffly at attention he thought he could hear her spine creak. Behind the impassive expression, she was still a child. A murderous child, but a child nonetheless. He still didn't think he could do it.
"Why doesn't your organization like you?"
"Because I'm a pain in the ass." Clint shrugged negligently. "Because sometimes I don't follow orders. Because I don't show the proper respect. Take your pick."
"Ignoring orders will get you killed."
"And sometimes following orders will get you killed."
She nodded, conceding his point. "So why stay?"
"They're the good guys. As far as an intelligence agency goes, that is. But there are worse organizations out there, and they're fighting against them. Hydra, Ten Rings, Black Spectre, you name it, there's a SHIELD agent out there trying to take them down."
The Black Widow looked at him steadily, as if weighing options. "SHIELD agents led to my mother's death. They seek mine. Why should I consider you good?"
Clint frowned at her. "Your mother?"
She turned away. "You know nothing."
"Well, no. I'm not high enough clearance for that." He leaned against the wall and kept his eye on her stiff posture. "So tell me what they won't."
Now she turned back toward him, frowning fiercely. "Why?"
"Well, obviously the intel is lacking in a lot of areas. If someone fucked up, I wanna know the truth. I already don't want to kill you."
"SHIELD does. You're SHIELD."
"Yeah, well, I already told you I don't always follow orders."
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why wouldn't you follow this one?"
"Jesus Christ, Widow! Have you looked in the mirror?" Hatred oozed from her even though her expression didn't change, which was downright eerie. "You're not even eighteen. You're still a child as far as I'm concerned. I don't kill kids."
"I could kill you. There's at least a dozen ways I could do it right now without wasting any of my ammunition," she said. For some reason, she seemed less angry.
"Are you even listening to yourself? You're talking about killing me like it's no big deal. You should never have had to grow up that way. You never should have experienced that." Clint paused, taking in her rigid stance. "You said SHIELD's responsible for your mom's death. Is that why you went on to kill? To get even?"
She turned away, hand still on her semiautomatic. Clint wasn't sure if she was angry with him or if she was upset over her mother's death.
"Hey," Clint said quietly, trying to get her attention. "What happened? You can tell me. We're not going anywhere for a while anyway." He laughed a little at her scornful expression. "What? I don't have any other way to pass the time. I can tell you about me if you want."
"How will I know you're telling the truth?"
"I guess you'll have to trust me. Like I'll have to trust you're telling me the truth."
She pondered that, then nodded. Gingerly, she eased herself to the floor. There was a grunt of pain and a wince as she landed hard, but otherwise she didn't show that the pain was affecting her in the least. "My mother is dead. She died in a fire. She chose death rather than being auctioned off to the highest bidder."
Clint blinked in surprise. "Holy shit. Seriously? I'm... I'm sorry, Widow. That sucks."
She flashed him an irritated expression, obviously not needing or wanting his sympathy.
"My mother died when I was a kid. I kinda remember her. Sort of. It's... vague, the way old memories are. I remember she was sick a lot, and didn't always go to the hospital when she really should have."
"Why not?"
"My asshole father drank away his paycheck and hit us all for kicks. They would've seen the bruises and wanted to do something about it." Clint's voice was rather flat and emotionless. He had made his peace with it a long time ago, but that didn't mean it wasn't still a source of pain.
"A true father would protect his children. Would sacrifice anything to keep them safe."
Nodding, Clint sighed. "Yeah. Like I said. The man was an asshole. Didn't want to stay, so we ran away as soon as we could."
"We?"
"I have an older brother Barney." Clint gave her a bittersweet smile. "After a while he took after our dear old dad. But for a while, he wasn't so bad."
She frowned at him. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why wasn't he so bad? Why did he change?"
Clint chuckled. "Uh-uh. Your turn first. Any brothers or sisters?"
Her features tightened. "No."
"That's cheating, Widow. There's a story there, I can tell that much."
A deep breath, contemplating her options. "I am Natalia Alianovna Romanova."
"Huh. Nice to meetcha. Clinton Francis Barton."
"Clinton Francis, I-"
Clint winced and waved his hands at her to stop. "No, no, just Clint. God, I hate my middle name. I only told you because you told me yours."
"It's a patronymic. So you would call me Natalia Alianovna."
He blinked at her in surprise. "Oh. I didn't know how that worked."
"You don't know how it works, but you work with Vory."
"They didn't hire me to talk, they hired me to be a sniper," Clint pointed out. "They didn't exactly appreciate the fact that I didn't want to sell you out, remember?" He shrugged and looked at her pointedly. "So. You were about to tell a story."
Natalia Alianovna didn't flush, but she looked away with a pained expression. "To tell that story is complicated. I did not have genetic sisters."
"But girls you considered sisters."
Clint watched her slow, pained nod. "Had," he said quietly.
"All dead because of me."
Her voice was flat, and she looked back at him with an expression that startled him. She was weary, ready to die. She would fight because it was all she knew, and she would kill anyone that tried to kill her. But if she succumbed to her wound, it wouldn't upset her. Natalia Alianovna was aware that she was a killer, that organizations around the world wanted her dead. She was aware of her body count, and didn't bother arguing that she was a good person worthy of being saved. If anything, she absolutely didn't think she was worth saving.
She wasn't even eighteen yet. It broke whatever was left of Clint's heart.
"Are you ready to tell that story?" He wasn't surprised when she shook her head. "My turn anyway," he offered, tilting his head back to lean against the wall. "When Barney and me ran away, it took the third time for it to stick. Authorities kept sending us back, the idiots. So we ran away to the circus, as cliché as that sounds. But it worked. Three square meals, place to sleep, moving around constantly so our old man never found us. If he even wanted to look. Don't know if he did, and I never bothered to find him."
Clint drummed his fingers on the floor absently. "Barney was a hothead worse than me. Didn't want to listen to anyone, didn't want to do the drudge work. I was pretty nimble, so then I got taken in by the archer. I practiced for hours every day, tried making up trick shots of my own." He looked back at her with a wry smile. "Because I figured if I was good enough so that I never missed, they'd want to keep me. Then someone would think I was worthwhile."
"You didn't think you were?"
"My old man hit me for kicks and my older brother turned out to be almost as bad. Wouldn't you think there was something wrong with you?"
Natalia Alianovna paused to think about that. "My worth had never been in question. I had top scores. I did what was asked of me. I completed my missions."
Clint didn't outwardly react that, but the spare sentences told him more than he wanted to know about how she grew up. It confirmed his gut instinct not to kill her, that she had been trained as a child and really couldn't know any better.
"So what'd you do for fun? I got sick on taffy and cotton candy a lot."
Her smile was wan. "It doesn't matter now."
"Sure it does. When everything goes bad, those are the only things that matter."
She closed her eyes and let out a sighing breath. "They taught us dance and art and music."
"Probably to help with covers and spy type things."
"Yes."
"But what did you like to do?"
There was a flash of pain before her features smoothed again. "No, it doesn't matter now."
"C'mon, I told you about my junk food. There's got to be something you had like that."
"Knives."
"What?" Clint asked, confused.
"My mother had a special knife. She would let me look at it, tell me stories. Later, I would practice throwing it. I'd remember her, the stories."
"What were the stories about?"
"My father. I never knew him. I was never supposed to."
"But she told you about him."
Natalia Alianovna's smile was sad and bitter. "Little rebellions. Those we could get away with."
We.
Clint smiled. "Sometimes the little ones give the most satisfaction. Like filling forms out in green ink instead of blue or black."
She laughed. "You're a wild one, you are."
His smile grew wider. "Huh. You can laugh. You have a sense of humor. Files never said that."
Her laughter faltered and died. "They just say I should die."
"Your kill count's pretty damn high. Nobody higher up knows anything more than that, I don't think." Clint eyed her carefully. "So why do you do it?"
"Killing?" At his nod, she shrugged. "What else could I do? I have a very specific skill set."
"There's got to be more to life than that. Like the stories. Or your knives. I'll be you're pretty damn good with them."
Natalia Alianovna gave him an assessing look, then picked up one of the knives by the tang, bounced it a little, and then threw it in his direction without breaking eye contact. It hit the wall a scant inch from his ear, the dull thud loud enough that he could hear it even with his partial loss.
"Yeah, I'd say that's pretty good."
She smirked. "Can you do better?"
"I'm a carnie. Of course I can do better."
He pulled out the knife without even looking and flipped back toward her. It was also only an inch from her ear, and she grinned at him, a sparkle in her eyes. "We need a target."
It felt crazy to be playing with knife throwing in an abandoned warehouse while Vory goons were trying to hunt them down. But he carved a crude target into the wall and then plopped down on the floor beside her. She tensed fractionally, her left hand over the taser, but didn't say a thing to him. Clint handed over the knife with an easy grin. "Too bad about its weighting, though."
"I still have the knife I liked as a child," Natalia Alianovna murmured. "It had been my father's favorite one." At Clint's surprised look, she shrugged her shoulders. "He was a soldier. Is a soldier, if he is still alive."
"You don't know?"
"There are many secrets in Russia. It did not end when the KGB was dissolved, you know."
"I had an idea," Clint replied dryly, watching her toss the knives she had. Perfect bullseyes every time. "And I suppose you've collected them all."
"Quite a few," Natalia Alianovna agreed.
"They could buy your freedom. Allow you to go anywhere."
"Or nowhere," she pointed out, watching as he got up to retrieve the knives.
"If you could go anywhere, where would you go?"
There was a faraway look in her eyes, and she barely paid attention as he threw the knives. He had no illusions that she was completely unaware. If he thought to try to slit her throat, Clint was certain she would turn the tables and slit his.
"Somewhere I have never been before. As myself, whoever that is, not as anyone else they've ever had me be."
It was such odd phrasing that it stuck with him. "Meaning they had you pretend to be other people, right? A cover identity."
"I had those. And they implanted those into my mind."
Clint stared at her. "Is that even possible?"
"Yes," she said simply. He didn't doubt her sincerity. She didn't carry the air of a liar at the moment, even though he knew she was a well accomplished one.
She seemed more like someone aching to be known, to be seen for who she really was, whoever she turned out to be.
"Then how do you know who you are? What you're even fighting for?"
"I'm a killer. I'm alive. That's all there is."
Shaking his head, Clint handed her the knife. "There's more to life than that."
"Not mine."
"Then maybe you need to figure out what else you want out of life," he suggested as she took the knife. There was a wariness in her movements now, as if she was trying to gauge his intentions. "I joined SHIELD because I wanted to see the world, make a difference, keep douchebags like my old man from taking charge."
"Admirable. Foolish, but admirable."
"Maybe. But that's my reason for joining up."
"We are not the same." Lips thinning into a compressed line, she tossed the knife across the room, hitting the center again. "There's nothing admirable in what I do."
"See, that's where you're wrong," Clint said, shrugging. "It's not considered acceptable, sure, but there's some kind of grace in how you do what you do. I mean, watching you in action has been pretty awe inspiring. Your work is flawless."
She shot him a wary, unhappy look. "So you think to recruit me."
"I think you're fucking young. I think you should've had a choice whether or not you wanted to learn these things. I think you should've gone to some stupid high school and dated a loser or two and broken his heart. I think you shouldn't be here, waiting out the fucking mafia that wants to kill you, acting like getting shot and maimed is no big deal. I think you deserve better than the steaming pile of shit you've landed in."
"You know my list of the dead. What you know is perhaps only half of the deaths we can lay at my feet. I am not good."
"You're good at what you do."
"Not the same thing," she replied with an inelegant snort.
"Good is relative. You have to decide what to do with that skill set," Clint told her. "You have to decide if you're going to be more than just a list of the dead."
"To what end?"
"To whatever end you want, really. Do you want balance it all out? Like an accountant's ledger?"
She abruptly paled, and her hands seemed to shake. "I cannot. It will not balance. Too much death, too much debt. I cannot repay it."
"How do you know until you try?"
Now she snorted again. "You think you are clever. But you aren't as smart as I am."
"Maybe not. But I'm not the one with the black target on my back."
She huffed and scooted away from him, making Clint feel like he squandered this moment. It would be impossible for her to want to join SHIELD in that state of mind.
Before he could say anything else, she pulled herself up to her feet. "The Vory must be gone."
"SHIELD isn't the enemy, Natalia Alianovna. They try to do good. If that's what you want to do, then maybe you should look into it."
"You will not force me to join your people?" she asked in surprise.
"I don't force little girls to do things," Clint snapped in reply. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm not. I guess I want you to have the opportunity I did. To do something with those skills you have, and not worry about whether or not you'll live to see your birthday."
Something in her expression softened a bit. "Because of you, I may live to see tomorrow."
"Happy birthday, Natalia Alianovna," he murmured, watching her rise to her feet. She was a bit unsteady, and there was a smear on the floor where her leg wound had been.
"You may call me Natasha," she said softly. There was a slight warble in her lips, and she smiled. "I don't always like being the Natalia."
Clint tilted his head and contemplated her. "You think you'll tell me the story behind that?"
"Not today."
He nodded and watched her retrieve the knives. "You think it's safe enough for you to leave?"
"Maybe not. But I will still go."
"Where will you go?" he asked out of curiosity, not thinking she would really tell him.
"Budapest is no longer good for me. Elsewhere. A different country."
"There might still be dozens of assholes shooting at you. And I might not be there."
Natasha contemplated him for a long time, long enough to make him feel uncomfortable. But he didn't squirm under her gaze, merely held it as long as she stared at him.
"That would be a shame, Clint. You are a good soul."
"If you want to come in, join SHIELD, then find me. I'll make sure they don't kill you."
"If I deserve to?" she asked quietly.
Clint nodded toward the knives she was putting away. "Do those deserve to be destroyed? You don't blame the weapon for what the handler does with it. Those people that trained you to kill and fucked with your mind and messed around with who you are? Those are the ones to blame. Not the kid they abused."
She managed to slam an impassive expression on her face, but not before he saw the surprise in her eyes. "I am the Black Widow," she murmured.
"And I'm Hawkeye," Clint returned. "But I'm more than my code name. I'm more than just a guy with a bow."
"Because you save people."
"Because sometimes, you need to save someone. Even one person matters. One person, in the right place at the right time, and they can save the world."
She stared at him for a moment, then nodded slightly. "One like you would say that."
"What would one like you say, then?"
"One person in the right place can shape history. But that shape may not always be what you wanted it to be."
"I'm sure you've done your fair share of that." She nodded sharply. "In my own way, I have, too. It doesn't mean I can't make up for it, if it doesn't turn out right. If I fuck up, it's my responsibility to fix it."
"Bold words."
"True ones."
Natasha breathed slowly and deeply. "Don't let the Vory kill you, Clint Barton."
"And don't let them kill you either, Natasha."
She grinned at him fiercely as she moved to the door of the office. "It will be a hard fight, but I will survive. The Widow always wins."
Clint absolutely could believe that.
The End
Title: Knives
Series: #5 in The Secrets of the Red Room
(#1 - Bloodlines, #2 - Soldiers, #3 - Memories, #4 - Legends)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: R to be safe
Pairings: none
Disclaimer: Not mine! Takes place within the MCU with nods toward comic books. Warning for torture, Black Widow style. Summary from "I Come With Knives" by IAMX.
Summary:
Kinder und sterne küssen und verlieren sich
greifen leise meine hand und führen mich.
Die traumgötter brachten mich in eine landschaft,
schmetterlinge flatterten durch meine seele in der mitternacht
(Children and stars kiss and lose themselves
they grab my hand and lead me softly.
The gods brought me in a dream landscape,
butterflies fluttered through my soul at midnight)
"Who sent you?"
The man gurgled, pain making it difficult to focus on the question being asked. His hands no longer worked; tendons had been severed when she sliced open his forearms, and he was bleeding out. He couldn't staunch the bleeding, and she was making no effort to save him. It probably didn't matter to her one way or another.
She was so goddamn young. Practically a child. The intel had stated correctly that the Black Widow was going to make a drop exchange, and she had shown up exactly on schedule to leave the package and pick up her pay. It should have been easy to tail her back to her hiding place if she didn't know anyone else was there, but she seemed to have preternatural sense of what was going on around her at all times. Maybe she really was part spider. Russians were rumored to do all sorts of crazy things in the Cold War era, and he was nothing but a merc needing to get paid and get out.
Neither were happening tonight.
Flipping the blade in her hands idly, the Black Widow stared at him with cold green eyes. Blood and gore didn't faze her in the slightest. That expression on a teenager's face was utterly chilling to behold. Was that why no one ever said how young she was?
He gurgled a little; the stab wounds in the chest punctured his lung and made it hard to breathe, let alone talk. She was vicious and ruthlessly efficient, and wasn't afraid to come in closer to her victim if it allowed her to get the job done.
Good god, no wonder she was such a good assassin. She had no soul.
Impatient, she reached into his pockets, brusquely turning his pockets inside out. She pocketed the cash and looked at the various identities he carried around dispassionately. Then she held his SHIELD ID between two slim fingers, her lips curling in derision. "I should have known."
"SHIELD's the good guys," he managed to wheeze.
"No, they are not," she replied, venom in every syllable. The flickering light in the room was reflected off of her knife. "Your agency may not have directly killed my mother as I thought they did, but they may as well have. They are like every other agency out there, and would control all players on the field."
She pitched the ID into the fire raging beside them as he tried to deny her words. "You won't need that anymore," she said, a malicious joy in her eyes. "The fires are burning hotter, and they continue to grow. They will consume you and leave nothing but ash behind."
He tried to reach out, but she was backing away.
There wasn't really time to contemplate her or her knives. Unfortunately, he didn't lose blood fast enough to lose consciousness. Being burned alive was a horrible way to die.
***
Separating from the mercenaries he was running with, Clint Barton opened up a secure line to his handler, Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD. "This better be good," Coulson said as greeting.
"Jesus, Coulson. She's just a kid."
"What are we talking about?"
"The Black Widow. She's a fucking child!"
Coulson was silent for a long moment, weighing the words and Clint's agitation. "Start from the beginning, Barton."
"The Vory is hiring her to take on a diplomat."
"That we knew," Coulson said when Clint paused.
"They met up with her a little while ago to give the particulars of the mission. She knew where the meeting was, had the correct code words, matches the description we have on file on her physical features. But what they left out is that she's freaking fourteen or fifteen years old!"
"She's a black target," Coulson reminded him.
"I know. But she's a child. To have a rep like this as a teenager? Can you even imagine it? How could she even get the training? The girl moves like a killer."
"Don't lose sight of the fact that SHIELD has her listed as a black target."
"They want me to be a child killer," Clint said, voice flat with displeasure.
Coulson sighed. "Barton. Clint. You've seen the kill list. You know every name on it, everything that she's done. Whatever her age, she's no innocent."
"She had to have been raised in it to be that good and have that long a kill list at this age," Clint replied, voice tight. "Do you think she would've had a choice? Do you think she even knows any better? If someone sticks a gun in a kid's hand and tells her to pull the trigger, how the hell is she supposed to know right from wrong?"
"It's not my call to make," Coulson said with another sigh. He didn't counteract what Clint was saying, so at least they didn't have to argue about this.
"No, it's not."
"Please don't do anything stupid."
Clint wanted to laugh, partly in relief. Coulson would back him up if Clint went off book, but it would have to be for a damn good reason.
"You know me, Phil," Clint replied with a flippant tone and wide grin.
"I do. That's why I'm asking you not to do anything stupid."
"I'm reckless, not stupid. I know what my file says."
Coulson heaved a long suffering sigh. "Stay alive, Barton. You know how much I hate the paperwork to declare an agent dead."
Clint snorted. "That's what you get for working in a bureaucracy. No paperwork in street gangs."
"Ah, but I have credibility, a 401K, health insurance, disability..."
"Boring," Clint declared. "I'll be all right, I promise. But... It was a shock, Phil," he said, voice dropping into soft and serious tones as he frowned. "It's different now."
"No, it's really not."
"Yes, it is. You know it is."
"You can't save everyone, Clint," Coulson replied gently.
"Watch me."
***
The Black Widow sat across from Hawkeye, and the two of them watched each other warily. "So. Truce?" he offered.
Her lips had thinned in pain and mistrust. "You could have sent them."
"Sweetheart, those assholes were shooting at me, too."
She actually growled at him, teeth bared in anger. "The better to match your cover story. And I am not your sweetheart. Don't call me that."
Clint tossed her the belt from his short trench coat. "Here, then. Use it as a tourniquet. We're not going to be able to get medical attention for your leg."
"I can still walk on it," she replied coldly, barely wincing even as she cinched the belt brutally tight around the bleeding wound.
"I don't doubt that," Clint said. "Doesn't mean you should."
"I know how to take care of myself."
They fell into an uncomfortable silence, and Clint stared at her impassive façade, looking for any chinks in her armor. He couldn't find any.
"How old are you?" he asked finally.
"Why?" she asked in return, suspicion in her tone.
"Just answer the damn question."
She remained stubbornly silent for long enough that Clint thought she wasn't going to answer. "If I live long enough, I turn eighteen tomorrow."
Her voice had been soft, without inflection. If I live long enough. Jesus, for a child her age to have so bleak an outlook...
"Happy birthday," Clint offered.
The Black Widow glowered at him and pushed herself up to her feet. Despite the agonizing pain, she stood as if uninjured and checked her weapons. One semiautomatic, two knives, a garrote and a taser. By the unhappy compression of her lips, Clint could tell that she was smart enough to realize that the Vory would easily kill her with so little ammunition.
Still, by the tight set of her jaw, Clint could tell that she was going to try it anyway.
"It's suicide if you go out there."
"I've faced impossible odds before. I have survived."
"What's the point?" Clint asked. "Why do this?"
"What else is there?" she asked in return, not even looking at him. She was testing the strength of the tourniquet and how much pain she could stand from her wound.
"You're going to be eighteen. You should be dating and complaining about your senior year of high school or something."
"High school is overrated."
"Somehow I doubt you've ever been to one."
"I've been to six," she replied coldly. "They're all the same."
"Six assassin schools? I'm impressed."
She swung the semiautomatic in his direction. "I don't need you alive. You're worth more to me dead, whether as a shield or a scapegoat, it doesn't matter."
"Funny how you say shield like that..."
The redhead's green eyes narrowed as she took him in, and Clint resisted the urge to squirm. "Your organization must not like you very much."
"Sometimes I don't think they do."
That surprised her, and she paused. "Why?"
"You know there's a kill order out on you?"
"Of course there would be."
"Your kill list goes back three or four years."
"So?" she asked, disinterested as she hobbled to the window to peer outside.
"It's really freakishly long for a three year career."
"They missed a few years," she replied. Though her tone was still fairly flat, Clint thought he could detect amusement and pride in her voice, too. That made sense to him, after a fashion. If killing was an art form, she was a virtuoso. Coulson had told Clint not to admire her handiwork, but he hadn't been able to help it.
"It doesn't bother you?" Clint asked, curious.
"Why should it?"
"Killing women and children?"
She turned away from him abruptly, too much weight on her injured leg. Ah. That must have struck a nerve somehow. She didn't answer, but stared out of the window, looking for Vory members that weren't there.
"So what does the infamous Black Widow want?"
Silence. She tried to remain standing at the window, but it was obviously difficult to do so. The tourniquet wouldn't hold forever, and she had to know that.
"I could help you. With getting medical attention. Maybe even amnesty."
"I will not turn to SHIELD. Not after all they've done."
"What did they do?" Clint asked, confused. SHIELD was the good organization. They saved people, they contained the radical elements, they kept the darker powers in check. Clint had been proud to get his agent's badge.
This woman held herself so stiffly at attention he thought he could hear her spine creak. Behind the impassive expression, she was still a child. A murderous child, but a child nonetheless. He still didn't think he could do it.
"Why doesn't your organization like you?"
"Because I'm a pain in the ass." Clint shrugged negligently. "Because sometimes I don't follow orders. Because I don't show the proper respect. Take your pick."
"Ignoring orders will get you killed."
"And sometimes following orders will get you killed."
She nodded, conceding his point. "So why stay?"
"They're the good guys. As far as an intelligence agency goes, that is. But there are worse organizations out there, and they're fighting against them. Hydra, Ten Rings, Black Spectre, you name it, there's a SHIELD agent out there trying to take them down."
The Black Widow looked at him steadily, as if weighing options. "SHIELD agents led to my mother's death. They seek mine. Why should I consider you good?"
Clint frowned at her. "Your mother?"
She turned away. "You know nothing."
"Well, no. I'm not high enough clearance for that." He leaned against the wall and kept his eye on her stiff posture. "So tell me what they won't."
Now she turned back toward him, frowning fiercely. "Why?"
"Well, obviously the intel is lacking in a lot of areas. If someone fucked up, I wanna know the truth. I already don't want to kill you."
"SHIELD does. You're SHIELD."
"Yeah, well, I already told you I don't always follow orders."
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why wouldn't you follow this one?"
"Jesus Christ, Widow! Have you looked in the mirror?" Hatred oozed from her even though her expression didn't change, which was downright eerie. "You're not even eighteen. You're still a child as far as I'm concerned. I don't kill kids."
"I could kill you. There's at least a dozen ways I could do it right now without wasting any of my ammunition," she said. For some reason, she seemed less angry.
"Are you even listening to yourself? You're talking about killing me like it's no big deal. You should never have had to grow up that way. You never should have experienced that." Clint paused, taking in her rigid stance. "You said SHIELD's responsible for your mom's death. Is that why you went on to kill? To get even?"
She turned away, hand still on her semiautomatic. Clint wasn't sure if she was angry with him or if she was upset over her mother's death.
"Hey," Clint said quietly, trying to get her attention. "What happened? You can tell me. We're not going anywhere for a while anyway." He laughed a little at her scornful expression. "What? I don't have any other way to pass the time. I can tell you about me if you want."
"How will I know you're telling the truth?"
"I guess you'll have to trust me. Like I'll have to trust you're telling me the truth."
She pondered that, then nodded. Gingerly, she eased herself to the floor. There was a grunt of pain and a wince as she landed hard, but otherwise she didn't show that the pain was affecting her in the least. "My mother is dead. She died in a fire. She chose death rather than being auctioned off to the highest bidder."
Clint blinked in surprise. "Holy shit. Seriously? I'm... I'm sorry, Widow. That sucks."
She flashed him an irritated expression, obviously not needing or wanting his sympathy.
"My mother died when I was a kid. I kinda remember her. Sort of. It's... vague, the way old memories are. I remember she was sick a lot, and didn't always go to the hospital when she really should have."
"Why not?"
"My asshole father drank away his paycheck and hit us all for kicks. They would've seen the bruises and wanted to do something about it." Clint's voice was rather flat and emotionless. He had made his peace with it a long time ago, but that didn't mean it wasn't still a source of pain.
"A true father would protect his children. Would sacrifice anything to keep them safe."
Nodding, Clint sighed. "Yeah. Like I said. The man was an asshole. Didn't want to stay, so we ran away as soon as we could."
"We?"
"I have an older brother Barney." Clint gave her a bittersweet smile. "After a while he took after our dear old dad. But for a while, he wasn't so bad."
She frowned at him. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why wasn't he so bad? Why did he change?"
Clint chuckled. "Uh-uh. Your turn first. Any brothers or sisters?"
Her features tightened. "No."
"That's cheating, Widow. There's a story there, I can tell that much."
A deep breath, contemplating her options. "I am Natalia Alianovna Romanova."
"Huh. Nice to meetcha. Clinton Francis Barton."
"Clinton Francis, I-"
Clint winced and waved his hands at her to stop. "No, no, just Clint. God, I hate my middle name. I only told you because you told me yours."
"It's a patronymic. So you would call me Natalia Alianovna."
He blinked at her in surprise. "Oh. I didn't know how that worked."
"You don't know how it works, but you work with Vory."
"They didn't hire me to talk, they hired me to be a sniper," Clint pointed out. "They didn't exactly appreciate the fact that I didn't want to sell you out, remember?" He shrugged and looked at her pointedly. "So. You were about to tell a story."
Natalia Alianovna didn't flush, but she looked away with a pained expression. "To tell that story is complicated. I did not have genetic sisters."
"But girls you considered sisters."
Clint watched her slow, pained nod. "Had," he said quietly.
"All dead because of me."
Her voice was flat, and she looked back at him with an expression that startled him. She was weary, ready to die. She would fight because it was all she knew, and she would kill anyone that tried to kill her. But if she succumbed to her wound, it wouldn't upset her. Natalia Alianovna was aware that she was a killer, that organizations around the world wanted her dead. She was aware of her body count, and didn't bother arguing that she was a good person worthy of being saved. If anything, she absolutely didn't think she was worth saving.
She wasn't even eighteen yet. It broke whatever was left of Clint's heart.
"Are you ready to tell that story?" He wasn't surprised when she shook her head. "My turn anyway," he offered, tilting his head back to lean against the wall. "When Barney and me ran away, it took the third time for it to stick. Authorities kept sending us back, the idiots. So we ran away to the circus, as cliché as that sounds. But it worked. Three square meals, place to sleep, moving around constantly so our old man never found us. If he even wanted to look. Don't know if he did, and I never bothered to find him."
Clint drummed his fingers on the floor absently. "Barney was a hothead worse than me. Didn't want to listen to anyone, didn't want to do the drudge work. I was pretty nimble, so then I got taken in by the archer. I practiced for hours every day, tried making up trick shots of my own." He looked back at her with a wry smile. "Because I figured if I was good enough so that I never missed, they'd want to keep me. Then someone would think I was worthwhile."
"You didn't think you were?"
"My old man hit me for kicks and my older brother turned out to be almost as bad. Wouldn't you think there was something wrong with you?"
Natalia Alianovna paused to think about that. "My worth had never been in question. I had top scores. I did what was asked of me. I completed my missions."
Clint didn't outwardly react that, but the spare sentences told him more than he wanted to know about how she grew up. It confirmed his gut instinct not to kill her, that she had been trained as a child and really couldn't know any better.
"So what'd you do for fun? I got sick on taffy and cotton candy a lot."
Her smile was wan. "It doesn't matter now."
"Sure it does. When everything goes bad, those are the only things that matter."
She closed her eyes and let out a sighing breath. "They taught us dance and art and music."
"Probably to help with covers and spy type things."
"Yes."
"But what did you like to do?"
There was a flash of pain before her features smoothed again. "No, it doesn't matter now."
"C'mon, I told you about my junk food. There's got to be something you had like that."
"Knives."
"What?" Clint asked, confused.
"My mother had a special knife. She would let me look at it, tell me stories. Later, I would practice throwing it. I'd remember her, the stories."
"What were the stories about?"
"My father. I never knew him. I was never supposed to."
"But she told you about him."
Natalia Alianovna's smile was sad and bitter. "Little rebellions. Those we could get away with."
We.
Clint smiled. "Sometimes the little ones give the most satisfaction. Like filling forms out in green ink instead of blue or black."
She laughed. "You're a wild one, you are."
His smile grew wider. "Huh. You can laugh. You have a sense of humor. Files never said that."
Her laughter faltered and died. "They just say I should die."
"Your kill count's pretty damn high. Nobody higher up knows anything more than that, I don't think." Clint eyed her carefully. "So why do you do it?"
"Killing?" At his nod, she shrugged. "What else could I do? I have a very specific skill set."
"There's got to be more to life than that. Like the stories. Or your knives. I'll be you're pretty damn good with them."
Natalia Alianovna gave him an assessing look, then picked up one of the knives by the tang, bounced it a little, and then threw it in his direction without breaking eye contact. It hit the wall a scant inch from his ear, the dull thud loud enough that he could hear it even with his partial loss.
"Yeah, I'd say that's pretty good."
She smirked. "Can you do better?"
"I'm a carnie. Of course I can do better."
He pulled out the knife without even looking and flipped back toward her. It was also only an inch from her ear, and she grinned at him, a sparkle in her eyes. "We need a target."
It felt crazy to be playing with knife throwing in an abandoned warehouse while Vory goons were trying to hunt them down. But he carved a crude target into the wall and then plopped down on the floor beside her. She tensed fractionally, her left hand over the taser, but didn't say a thing to him. Clint handed over the knife with an easy grin. "Too bad about its weighting, though."
"I still have the knife I liked as a child," Natalia Alianovna murmured. "It had been my father's favorite one." At Clint's surprised look, she shrugged her shoulders. "He was a soldier. Is a soldier, if he is still alive."
"You don't know?"
"There are many secrets in Russia. It did not end when the KGB was dissolved, you know."
"I had an idea," Clint replied dryly, watching her toss the knives she had. Perfect bullseyes every time. "And I suppose you've collected them all."
"Quite a few," Natalia Alianovna agreed.
"They could buy your freedom. Allow you to go anywhere."
"Or nowhere," she pointed out, watching as he got up to retrieve the knives.
"If you could go anywhere, where would you go?"
There was a faraway look in her eyes, and she barely paid attention as he threw the knives. He had no illusions that she was completely unaware. If he thought to try to slit her throat, Clint was certain she would turn the tables and slit his.
"Somewhere I have never been before. As myself, whoever that is, not as anyone else they've ever had me be."
It was such odd phrasing that it stuck with him. "Meaning they had you pretend to be other people, right? A cover identity."
"I had those. And they implanted those into my mind."
Clint stared at her. "Is that even possible?"
"Yes," she said simply. He didn't doubt her sincerity. She didn't carry the air of a liar at the moment, even though he knew she was a well accomplished one.
She seemed more like someone aching to be known, to be seen for who she really was, whoever she turned out to be.
"Then how do you know who you are? What you're even fighting for?"
"I'm a killer. I'm alive. That's all there is."
Shaking his head, Clint handed her the knife. "There's more to life than that."
"Not mine."
"Then maybe you need to figure out what else you want out of life," he suggested as she took the knife. There was a wariness in her movements now, as if she was trying to gauge his intentions. "I joined SHIELD because I wanted to see the world, make a difference, keep douchebags like my old man from taking charge."
"Admirable. Foolish, but admirable."
"Maybe. But that's my reason for joining up."
"We are not the same." Lips thinning into a compressed line, she tossed the knife across the room, hitting the center again. "There's nothing admirable in what I do."
"See, that's where you're wrong," Clint said, shrugging. "It's not considered acceptable, sure, but there's some kind of grace in how you do what you do. I mean, watching you in action has been pretty awe inspiring. Your work is flawless."
She shot him a wary, unhappy look. "So you think to recruit me."
"I think you're fucking young. I think you should've had a choice whether or not you wanted to learn these things. I think you should've gone to some stupid high school and dated a loser or two and broken his heart. I think you shouldn't be here, waiting out the fucking mafia that wants to kill you, acting like getting shot and maimed is no big deal. I think you deserve better than the steaming pile of shit you've landed in."
"You know my list of the dead. What you know is perhaps only half of the deaths we can lay at my feet. I am not good."
"You're good at what you do."
"Not the same thing," she replied with an inelegant snort.
"Good is relative. You have to decide what to do with that skill set," Clint told her. "You have to decide if you're going to be more than just a list of the dead."
"To what end?"
"To whatever end you want, really. Do you want balance it all out? Like an accountant's ledger?"
She abruptly paled, and her hands seemed to shake. "I cannot. It will not balance. Too much death, too much debt. I cannot repay it."
"How do you know until you try?"
Now she snorted again. "You think you are clever. But you aren't as smart as I am."
"Maybe not. But I'm not the one with the black target on my back."
She huffed and scooted away from him, making Clint feel like he squandered this moment. It would be impossible for her to want to join SHIELD in that state of mind.
Before he could say anything else, she pulled herself up to her feet. "The Vory must be gone."
"SHIELD isn't the enemy, Natalia Alianovna. They try to do good. If that's what you want to do, then maybe you should look into it."
"You will not force me to join your people?" she asked in surprise.
"I don't force little girls to do things," Clint snapped in reply. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm not. I guess I want you to have the opportunity I did. To do something with those skills you have, and not worry about whether or not you'll live to see your birthday."
Something in her expression softened a bit. "Because of you, I may live to see tomorrow."
"Happy birthday, Natalia Alianovna," he murmured, watching her rise to her feet. She was a bit unsteady, and there was a smear on the floor where her leg wound had been.
"You may call me Natasha," she said softly. There was a slight warble in her lips, and she smiled. "I don't always like being the Natalia."
Clint tilted his head and contemplated her. "You think you'll tell me the story behind that?"
"Not today."
He nodded and watched her retrieve the knives. "You think it's safe enough for you to leave?"
"Maybe not. But I will still go."
"Where will you go?" he asked out of curiosity, not thinking she would really tell him.
"Budapest is no longer good for me. Elsewhere. A different country."
"There might still be dozens of assholes shooting at you. And I might not be there."
Natasha contemplated him for a long time, long enough to make him feel uncomfortable. But he didn't squirm under her gaze, merely held it as long as she stared at him.
"That would be a shame, Clint. You are a good soul."
"If you want to come in, join SHIELD, then find me. I'll make sure they don't kill you."
"If I deserve to?" she asked quietly.
Clint nodded toward the knives she was putting away. "Do those deserve to be destroyed? You don't blame the weapon for what the handler does with it. Those people that trained you to kill and fucked with your mind and messed around with who you are? Those are the ones to blame. Not the kid they abused."
She managed to slam an impassive expression on her face, but not before he saw the surprise in her eyes. "I am the Black Widow," she murmured.
"And I'm Hawkeye," Clint returned. "But I'm more than my code name. I'm more than just a guy with a bow."
"Because you save people."
"Because sometimes, you need to save someone. Even one person matters. One person, in the right place at the right time, and they can save the world."
She stared at him for a moment, then nodded slightly. "One like you would say that."
"What would one like you say, then?"
"One person in the right place can shape history. But that shape may not always be what you wanted it to be."
"I'm sure you've done your fair share of that." She nodded sharply. "In my own way, I have, too. It doesn't mean I can't make up for it, if it doesn't turn out right. If I fuck up, it's my responsibility to fix it."
"Bold words."
"True ones."
Natasha breathed slowly and deeply. "Don't let the Vory kill you, Clint Barton."
"And don't let them kill you either, Natasha."
She grinned at him fiercely as she moved to the door of the office. "It will be a hard fight, but I will survive. The Widow always wins."
Clint absolutely could believe that.
The End