The first time they lay eyes on each other, the smoke is stinging and the heat of the fire is beginning to rise. Clint Barton runs through the abandoned office building in St. Petersburg, hot on the tail of five Russian agents. One of whom, presumably the leader, is said to be the infamous Black Widow, Natasha Romanov. The U.S. has been after this gang for quite some time. They're tied up with arms trafficking, kidnappings, you name it.

Agent Barton is young, fresh off a tour in Black Ops, and already renowned for his marksmanship. He's the assassin they send when they want the job done, and the brass really want this one ended. Romanov has been flirting with them for years, since she was a teenager. She's wanted for literal dozens of murders, not to mention other crimes, and Clint's task is to bring her in, dead or alive. He knows, as he creeps down the hallway, an arrow nocked to his bow, that she's got four others with her, all of whom have their own extensive files, all of them deadly, but Romanov is the worst. Pure cunning, and ruthless as they come, they say.

He hears gunshots around the corner. He brings the bow to eye level and darts around, but there's nothing except smoke trailing up through the ducts. He blinks. The first floor of the building is on fire, has been since they made contact, and he's going to have to get out soon. But he isn't finished yet.

Clint kicks in the door, and that's when he sees her. The halo of red hair, the delicate ivory skin, she is unmistakable. She is even more beautiful and terrifying than her file photo. And she's lying on her side on the floor, bleeding profusely and staring right at him. She's been shot three times, very recently. Clint has just enough time to conclude her associates must have turned on her before he realizes she's reaching for a handgun, lying on the floor under the desk next to a scattered set of papers that must be what she was here for. Her jaw is set, and his bow is drawn, and she knows any second now he'll release the arrow into her heart, all but point-blank, and still she struggles to reach the pistol. Blood pools under her and she doesn't take her eyes off him. She is a wounded animal, a wild thing, determined to die with grace and dignity and maybe a good fight, and he can see her sizing him up.

Clint Barton slowly lets the arrow slide back to its resting place and sets down his bow.

Natasha Romanov's fingers curl, at last, around the pistol and she points it at his heart. It costs her, her time and strength are both running out, but she does it. Her finger tightens on the trigger, and now it is Clint who waits for the shot to kill him, and he doesn't care. Anything is better than what he was supposed to have done. He spreads his hands, palms out, and slowly kneels. Meanwhile, her eyes flicker. He remembers from debriefing that the woman known as the Black Widow has been reprogrammed multiple times, been brainwashed into a killing machine, but he could swear that the flat glare of her eyes is shifting with something else, something human.

Maybe it's the fact that she's dying, but the human fights its way out, and Romanov lowers the weapon. "Who are you?" she asks in only faintly accented English.

"My name is Barton," he says. "I'm an American agent. Where are your associates?"

She spits blood. "Fucking cowardly traitors. When they realized you were close they thought to leave me as an offering."

"You let them get away?" he asks, more out of curiosity than anything.

She glares at him. "I didn't… expect my compatriots to… open fire on me. That's usually… up to my enemies." Just then, there is a crash and a roar. The fire is licking up towards them. The floor is hot under Clint's knees, and the smoke is getting worse.

"We have to go," he says. "If I take you with me, do you promise not to kill me?"

Romanov coughs a laugh. There is a dull thud below and they both flinch. There isn't time, so Clint slings his bow over his shoulder and gathers her off the floor. He stuffs the papers in his quiver. At this point, both of their chances of survival are equally tenuous, what's one more risk to take? He carries her down the hall, tries to find the stairs, and fails. He finds a window, and as he looks down, he realizes the whole wing is in flames below them. They are trapped. Romanov winces but says nothing as he sets her down, nocks an arrow and fires it into the wing next to them. It trails a carbon fiber wire, which he snaps into his belt. When he picks her up again, he says, "You'll have to hold on, understand?"

She raises her head and focuses her eyes and nods. He hopes she has the strength, to lose her now would be a slap in the face. He jumps, and she clings to him like her namesake, limbs wrapped around him. He breaks a window, gets them in, and runs down the first set of stairs he can find. The conflagration rages behind them, just on their tails.

When he finally stumbles out of the burning building with the Black Widow in his arms, they are both singed and covered in her blood. She's less than conscious, and for one minute he stands there in the alley in the cold Russian night and has no idea what to do. Then he looks down at her face, her lashes brushing against the front of his Kevlar vest, and remembers the war he saw in her eyes between her orders and the something else.

Four days later, Agent Clint Barton is reading a tiny side note in the New York Times and drinking his coffee black. A St. Petersburg hospital took in an unidentified female with three gunshot wounds early Friday morning. The woman was not seen to regain consciousness after an operation after which she was listed in stable condition, but instead disappeared from the hospital. A nurse and two security guards were found unconscious in a hall on the same floor, but none could explain what had happened to them. Any information about a woman with red hair, approx. five and a half feet tall, with three wounds to the torso, can be given to St. Petersburg police at this number…

"She got away," says his handler bitterly. Barton sets down the paper and looks across the break room table.

"Yeah," he says. "She was there, I know it. But she got away."