Disclaimer: I own a pair of socks with a hole where my big toe should be. That is all.

Everyone has different interpretations on Clint and Natasha, or Clintasha, or BlackHawk, or whatever the suave kids call it. Mine is much more platonic and always has been, but AoU reinforced the ideal. So let's say we slip into the past, hm? See how we get from a Red Room Murderess to Auntie Nat?

One Step At A Time:

They weren't friends. Not really. Truth be told, she didn't know a single personal thing about her partner, Clint Barton. She only knew that one truly bad night where she was being chased and hunted by multiple organizations, she had been sloppy.

Two years prior...

Contrary to popular belief, being her own boss wasn't as cracked up as most people would imagine. Her boss sucked. Natalia Romanova was someone who spent her whole life following orders to a tee. Always perfect. Always better. She learned to not just be the best, but to be the unexpected. When everyone wanted you dead then you simply couldn't run forever. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, yet before the end of the year she had let the best of the bunch finally catch up because, well...running was just so damned exhausting.

The truth about that truth is that it hurt. People lie to make things better and she was no exception, but when Clint came down that alleyway on a rainy night, she could tell that he could see the lie. She wasn't simply giving up, she was going down with a fight and she merely wanted to make sure that if, in fact she did die then at least it would be a worthy death. She knew it and he knew it. It was the only way that people like themselves would ever let their life slip through their fingers.

She left her guns on either of her hips and he left the bow on his back. They were like two opposite forces of nature colliding. Her arm met his arm in a clash. Her knee met his thigh. Blows upon blows, each one being blocked and returned with equal fervor. The game seemed endless. She trained for these moments and eventually people slipped up, but the only problem now was that it turned out to be her. Nearly a year of running had given him the advantage and she realized it too late as her fist met his face and then his gut. He allowed those blows to land. He allowed her to think she caught him off guard and instead it turned out to be her who was caught off guard. Suddenly his hands caught her ankle and her leg twisted at an angle that caused it to snap within seconds under the constant pressure.

Not that she was so easily ended. She swiped her viable leg out and took him to the ground next to her, then she pulled an arrow from his sheath and slammed it full force into his thigh. It turned out that he wasn't so easily ended either. She had rolled over, knees on either side of his legs as she pulled the knife from her boot and raised it up above his chest. Before she had a chance to land the attack, he arched up and his forehead hit her nose. Her head reared back and hit the brick wall. For just a moment the outer edges of her vision went black and by the time she could focus again he had yanked the arrow from his leg and the bloody tip was dangerously close to her throat.

She took a shuttering breath, quirked an eyebrow up, and then waited as she looked him in the eyes. It was everlasting and uncertain but his eyes were studying her without reprieve. It wasn't the typical way men looked at her. There wasn't lust or desire lurking within shadows of his eyes...there was just a brief moment as he seemed to have an internal debate inside his mind. The reality was that it was probably only a minute of both of them breathing heavily before he finally spoke, "There's a reason you didn't win." It caused both of her eyebrows to raise up almost indefinitely but she didn't bother to respond to the comment. Instead she merely waited for whatever explanation he planned to give. "You have nothing left. You're hollowed out, bled dry." There it was. "It doesn't have to be that way." The brief flicker of confusion must have crossed her features before she narrowed her eyes and drove it behind the mask because he continued, "You have red in your ledger. But you can wipe it out." Her head tilted ever so slightly and caused the bloody tip of the arrow to touch the skin of her neck. She watched him staring and she supposed he was expecting her to say something. The look that flashed over his features looked like one of minor frustration when she only answered with further silence. "You're not dead, not yet, so you could at least do me the courtesy of listening."

Her lips slanted into a coy smile at his words. "I am listening," she replied curtly. She watched the way his brow ruffled in response. "I just don't believe you," she tacked on for good measure. She rolled her shoulders and blew out a small sigh before she rested her head back on the brick wall lazily. "But please, do tell me how one wipes out the red from their ledger," she requested in a too polite tone that caused his eyes to narrow further, "I'm waiting, Agent Barton."

If he was surprised by the fact that she knew his name then it never showed. "One step at a time," was the answer he gave her. It wasn't the answer she was expecting and her smile quickly diminished at the words. She was expecting him to give some hilariously drawn-out answer about the greater good and doing the right thing, not five syllables in just as many words. The confusion only grew greater when he removed the arrow from where it was pointed at her neck and then he sat down beside her with his own back against the wall. "I'm thinking you at least have enough honor not to stab me with that knife like you're thinking about," were his next words. She supposed it was effective because it caused her twitching fingers to lower the knife that she had begun to lift.

"Honor?" she questioned with a cold laugh, "what makes you think I have any?" A smirk was the only reply that she received and she huffed out another sigh before she gave a slight sideways nod of her head. "Very well. I'm listening," she assured him with only the tiniest amount of interest. She watched him stare at her out of the corner of her eye and she finally turned her head to face him before she spoke one more word, "Sincerely."

He took her answer for what it was worth, which she assumed really wasn't all that much, and then he shrugged. "It's not easy, in fact I've been at it for years. The grim fact is that people like you and I may not ever wipe out the entire ledger," came his honest explanation.

It caused another raise of an eyebrow from her and she gave a curt smile. "Is that supposed to convince me to join the clean ledger crusade?" and her tone was nothing if not mocking, "because you may want to work on your pep talk, it's pretty crappy, Agent Barton." He seemed at least mildly amused by her words. "Why are you doing this?" she finally asked.

"Doing what?" She glared at him now and he was smiling just a tiny bit. If he was trying to annoy her then he was certainly succeeding. "Alright, it's because I think people should get at least one chance to be somebody else, to be something different."

"I take it someone gave you that chance," she stated. His nod of agreement was near imperceptible. "Then tell me this. Why me?" she asked next.

"You were making a last stand, Romanova. That's what this was, right?" She entertained the thought, shrugged, then gave another sideways nod. "Then stand a little longer." He made it sound so simple. "Join SHIELD."

She couldn't help the sardonic look that plagued her face after that. "That's hilarious," she mumbled out with a tiny and sarcastic laugh. He didn't smile. Didn't laugh. "You're serious?" and apparently he was. She closed her eyes for a moment as she shook her head in sheer disbelief, "Your job is to kill me and where I come from, if you make another choice then you're forfeiting your own life."

"Oh I'll be in trouble, but they won't kill me."

"Is that so?"

He smirked. "They value a good asset, so unless you go in there and start a massacre then I'll be just fine." She watched him stand and then he held a hand out to her. "The question is, do you want to keep running or start living?" He was the first person to ask her what she wanted to do; to ask her what she wanted.

She took his hand and got to her feet, ignoring that pained ankle that was either broken or fracture. "I'll try to contain myself," and she was only half-kidding but he smiled nonetheless.

Changing from Natalia Romanova to Natasha Romanoff was simple given that she changed names like most people changed clothes. It didn't bother her in the least, in fact she preferred the Americanized name if she was being completely honest with herself. It was a choice she made for herself rather than one that had been made for her. It had been a year and a half since Clint brought her to SHIELD and although the organization was wary of her they had kept her. He hadn't been wrong. They valued assets and she was one of the most valuable they could ever get their hands on. She hadn't hesitated to let Nick Fury know that she knew that and apparently...he liked her 'spunk'. Later on she had admitted to Clint that she didn't even know she had spunk. The archer had actually laughed aloud at her.

They were partners of circumstance because SHIELD didn't trust her on her own. Clint was stuck with her until they deemed her trustworthy enough for solo missions, not that the irony of 'trust' wasn't lost on her in a house of spies and killers. They were an effective combination. Fire and ice. Earth and wind. She was close-proximity and he was long-range. Even Nick Fury couldn't deny that they were a force to be reckoned with, but she didn't feel different and it didn't seem like anything at all had changed. Espionage. Assassinations. Seductions for the sake of interrogations or assassinations. She did the same things but for better reasons, or at least that was how she saw it. She wasn't wiping red from her ledger, she was adding to it. She was carving herself more hollow and she was still being bled dry.

Day, after day, after day.

And she sincerely hated Budapest, Hungary. It was mid-June and the temperature was in the triple digits even in the midst of the night. Never before had they had any real problems on a mission and yet suddenly here they were, running from a lab in the middle of the night with a shower of bullets spraying at their feet behind them, or at least she thought it was at their feet. She tucked her head into her arms and dove through a window that brought her out of the building, but when she rolled to her feet and she looked around, Clint wasn't there. Clint wasn't there. She looked around wildly and then back up at the window just in time to see his face disappear as he was yanked away. He had been motioning for her to keep running.

At first she did run, but just far enough to enter, or break into a building depending on how one chose to word it, so that she could use the distress button on her wristband to communicate with SHIELD. "This is Agent Romanoff, Agent Coulson, do you copy?" Nothing. She grunted and shook her wrist to try and make it work, ignoring the searing pain that reverberated through her shoulder as she did so. "Base, this is Romanoff, do you copy?" Again, she got no response, not even static. She tapped the stupid wristband as if that would actually have some miraculous effect on the piece of shit technology. "This is Agent Romanoff, does anybody copy?" After the third round of silence she threw the useless thing down on the ground, then leaned against the wall to take a deep and shuttering breath. She glanced down the silent street before she looked back to the supposedly abandoned lab. Clint was still in there, captured most likely, given that he still wasn't down here with her.

No, they weren't friends, not really. They had an amicable partnership sure, and what it lacked in friendship and trust was made up for in respect. The simple fact of the matter was that whether she believed he had actually saved her back then or not, she owed him a debt. She couldn't justify it to herself to leave him in some Hungarian lab while she ran away. Her eyes flickered again to her safe escape down the street and then back to the lab one last time. He believed she had at least a little bit of honor even if she couldn't find it herself. "Bozhe moi..." she murmured in her native tongue as she checked the clips of her guns. It wasn't much but she supposed that it was going to have to do. She kept the guns gripped in her hands at her sides and walked her way back to the front door of the lab. It wasn't as though stealth was necessary at this point. A moment later she booted the door open with one swift kick and aimed her guns to either side of her, firing a shot from each without hesitation. Both shots rang true as the guards to her immediate left and right both dropped to the floor with blood dripping from the small holes in their foreheads.

Natasha ran through the hall, firing again when the next assailant came around the corner, and she dropped him without issue as well. Two more men, two more shots. She tossed the gun in her left hand aside, knowing it was already finished and she was left with only one gun with one bullet. She slipped it back into the holster at her waist, saving that single bullet for an emergency as she rounded the corner, slipping two knives from the sleeves of her catsuit and jumping the man who aimed his gun at her. She planted the knives in his chest and forced him to the ground with her full weight as she did so. She yanked the knives back out of him and quickly got back to her feet, continuing down the hall at a quick pace. She heard the footsteps and she paused at the T-intersection and waited. The moment the next guy came around the corner she slammed the knife into his chest in a clothesline maneuver. Then another man rounded, she used another knife and another clothesline maneuver.

Before she got the chance to retrieve her weapons another two men came from each direction. She raised an eyebrow up as she glanced between them both. "Easy boys," she said softly, raising both bloodied hands in surrender. She could see them visibly relax as they came up on either side of her and before they had a chance to react she had her arms around one guys neck and she swung her legs up around the head of the second. She used all the force that she could muster to twist her body and drag them both to the ground with sickening snaps of their necks. It took half a second to catch her breath and untangle herself from the two men and as she did so she glanced in each direction of the T-intersection, trying to decide where they might have brought him...if they hadn't killed him already. At this point leaving without him wasn't an option, not when she had come this far.

He isn't dead.

She would just have to check every room.

That's all for now...