Author's note: So please be advised that I am playing fast and loose with American immigration policies here. Those who are experts in the green card system may have to suspend their disbelief while reading this story.

Also, I'm really NOT into marriage fic but the first line of this story popped into my head and wouldn't leave.

Natasha plays up her Russian accent a little when she says this: "So I came all the way to America to be someone's mail order bride."

"Well," Clint says. "Not just anyone's." She casts him a baleful stare in response. "But you were my favourite on page 19," he adds.

She ignores his comment, looking up at the ceiling, as if she was pleading with a higher power for strength. After a moment, she asks, "What was the story again?"

"Fury called me in a few weeks ago, said you needed a green card."

She sighs. "I always thought I got some sort of diplomatic immunity."

"You're not a diplomat. And you've been here on a visitor's visa."

"Still, considering what we do, you'd think I'd get to fly under the radar," she mumbles.

"Immigration's been cracking down, what can I say?"

"SHIELD didn't want to sponsor me." It doesn't surprise her, really, but she still wants to know why.

"You have a history of killing their agents," he reminds her.

"I forgot about that," she concedes.

"Anyway," he says. "Fury considered it. But SHIELD answers to a board..."

"...and they voted against it?" she guessed.

"8-2," he confirms.

She chews on her lip.

"Don't take it personally."

She shrugs, already over it. "So what else did he say?"

"That you were less than two weeks away from being an illegal immigrant and that it was time to think outside the box. Why, what did he tell you?"

That conversation had been surreal. "He said it was up to me, but from where he was standing, he could only see one option. Then he actually gave me this list of all the single guys in SHIELD."

She can practically see his jaw hit the floor. "You're shitting me."

She starts laughing. "I'm fucking serious. Hill was standing behind him and you could tell she had told him the list was an awful idea, because she starts rubbing her forehead like she had a migraine."

"What'd you do with the list?" he asks, curious.

"I threw it at him," she snickered. Her aim was impeccable. "It hit his eyepatch. He never saw it coming."

"He was just trying to help," he says, trying to choke back his own laughter.

"I don't need his help finding a man." she hissed, offended at the suggestion. "But..." she hesitates here, trying to figure out how to get her point across, "...I did look at the list. He handed it to me and I didn't know what it was at first," she says defensively. "And 10 minutes later I was in your room proposing marriage."

"Marriage fraud," he corrects her. "It was romantic though, don't get me wrong."

She huffs. "I should have known he warned you first. No wonder you didn't act surprised."

"He just briefed me on your situation. He didn't put me up to anything."

"Bullshit."

"I swear."

"But you knew I'd be looking for someone," she counters.

"I didn't presume it'd be for me." She knows he's lying. For a second, she wonders how he'd feel if she had asked someone else. On a scale between relief and betrayal, probably somewhere down the middle.

"Well, who the fuck else?" she asks.

"You're welcome," he answers in response, and she's immediately contrite.

"Look, you asshole," she says, and she's swearing at him because she's trying to hide the fact that she really, really likes him, and feels bad she got him into this shitstorm. "At this point, I figure I owe you my whole life plus 3 years of yours. Don't think I don't know it. If you had known that was the price of saving my ass, you probably would have just left me to bleed out in that alley. In fact, I would have told you to."

"I wouldn't have listened," he grins.

She remembers that day.

The idiot had started applying pressure to her gushing wound, comparing the act of taking out a long-time rival when she was critically injured by someone else to a sucker punch. The correct term (had he bothered to ask her) would be 'lucky break'.

A fool for entertaining such a sentimental notion, she had thought to herself, warning him that if they had the misfortune of being in the same room again, he would not make it out of that encounter alive. Of course, the way things worked out, it was she that turned out to be the fool, following him around for the next 4 months watching his back in some sort of misguided attempt to protect him.

She initially has to rationalize it - she's making sure no one kills him so she can - right, okay. She had barely even convinced herself with that one. Over time, she stops bothering with the justifications. And then, she had just joined him, first casually part time, then full time, then on an unofficial basis, later still, officially; a string of inexplicable decisions she had yet to figure out.

"Well, you have plenty of time to regret it now. Three whole years." she snaps, and groans immediately after, filled with self loathing. As if it wasn't terrible enough that she has to rely on his goodwill to stay in the country past next Friday, she can't help testing that goodwill by being a total bitch to him. "I still don't know why you're not just telling me to go to hell."

"We're only going to be married on paper," he points out. "It'll be our little secret. You, me, and the US Department of Immigration.

"And I was thinking they'd probably still ask you to keep an eye on me if I was married to someone else. It's easier this way," she rationalizes. He nods in assent and they sit in silence for a couple seconds.

"Is that the only reason?" he finally asks. "That you asked me?"

"No," she admits, but doesn't know how to follow up that statement.

"Miss Romanoff? Mr. Barton?" The doors open and courtroom aide appears, looking hesitantly around at the people milling about in the corridor, and Clint raises his hand to get her attention. "The judge will see you now," she says.

Natasha watches the aide disappear back in behind the double doors. "You ready for this?" she asks.

He snags a bunch of tulips from a neighboring vase and offers them to her. "Born ready." he says, taking her hand, and she can't help herself, she presses a kiss to the back of his hand before rolling her eyes