Clint felt his body being dragged over what had to be concrete as he began to come to. He groaned, or rather, he felt himself groan, but the sadly familiar sound never reached his ears. Which was also sadly familiar.

Thin, barely noticeable vibrations through the ground informed him someone – likely multiple someones – was speaking. His hand went to his head; first his right ear, then his left. His aids were in place, but something was very obviously wrong. A heavy, calloused hand smacked his arm back down before roughly yanking him vertically. His head swam and stars dotted his vision as the heavy blackness began to clear.

He was kneeling in what appeared to be the unfinished basement of a normal, two-level house. The lighting was dim, and his vision still shaky, but he managed to make out what little furniture there was. A few folding chairs against the near wall, with a cheap television set against the opposite one. Both the television and the few lights scattered around seemed to be hooked up to a small generator in the far corner. As far as he could tell, the house itself didn't even have electricity.

A heavy-set man made his way behind the archer, yanking him up by a fist full of blond hair. "The Administrator will be most pleased." Clint fought down a yell of pain, once again raising his hands – which he realized were now cuffed together. The man peered at him intently, and at such close a range, Clint couldn't help but shudder at the sick amusement in the man's eyes.

"You brought us S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Natalia." He sneered, roughly shoving Clint's head away. Clint felt the faint rumble through the floor, but otherwise, couldn't hear a thing. He did, however, spot a familiar slender figure emerge from the hallway ahead.

"…Nat?..."

S.H.I.E.L.D. Washington Headquarters

May, 2004

"Identify confirmed. Agent Barton, Clint." The terminal drawled, reading Barton's fingerprint. The double-doors slid apart, and he strode into the debriefing room, one of many aboard SHIELD's most popular flagship, the Helicarrier.

"You sounded serious over the comm, Nicky." He slid into a seat at the large, polished table in the center of the room, regarding Fury with some amount of curiosity. "Like…more serious than usual."

"I always sound serious." Fury remarked dryly, unimpressed. "And get your feet off the table, before I have you clean it." He dropped a plain-looking manila folder on the table in front of the agent. Barton reluctantly pulled his feet off their resting place, reaching for the document.

"You're no fun."

"Read it." Fury crossed his arms over his chest. He had little patience for Barton's attitude, today.

Clint snorted and opened the folder. His eyes were immediately drawn to a photo of a sharp-looking, hawk-eyed woman with startlingly red hair. He blinked, furrowing his brow, before giving a crooked grin.

"Not a bad looker."

"Save it. I'm not setting you up on a date. She's your next target."

The agent returned his eyes to the photo, than let them linger over the text off to the right.

"The Black Widow. Says she's credited with over thirty-seven…" His eyes widened. "Thirty-seven assassinations?" Clint closed the folder, pushing it away. "Never knew you to have bad intel, Fury. This can't be right."

"It is right." The Director reopened the file before sliding it back in Clint's direction. "You should know. You gathered a considerable amount of the information we have on her, yourself."

"Au contrare, Nicky." Clint smirked. "I think I'd remember a face like that."

"Save the accent – you're not French. You mean this one?" Fury pulled out another photo, this one detailing a blond woman in a ponytail with a scar on her mouth. And another one, showing a brunette with a bob and glasses. Each photo had a different name and birth date, but side-by-side, there was little mistaking who each woman actually was.

Natasha Romanov.

The Black Widow.

"You're shitting me…" Clint stared at each photograph in turn, then at the accompanying text. Eleven assassinations, here. Seven more, there. She never seemed to stick with an identity for very long. Just long enough to get on SHIELD's radar, and then disappear. Presumably for good.

"Our intelligence puts her in Kosovo 's capital city, Pristina, as of two days ago. You're shipping out in four hours."

Clint frowned at the packet of information, leafing through the glossy photos. He stopped at the red-haired one, the one he had originally seen. It could be just one more disguise in the Widow's arsenal of deceit, but for some reason, one he couldn't quite put his finger on, he suspected this was the real her. The real Widow.

"Want me to put together a team?"

"I've already taken care of that." Fury replied, dismissively. "It was pretty easy, considering I don't want anyone else in on this at all. You're going in solo."

"It's about time." Clint murmured, still staring intently at the photos. While he usually took on larger missions with a small team, he always preferred running things alone. It was far more dangerous, but to be perfectly honest, he was the only one he trusted to keep himself alive. It could be a lonely existence, but it was the one he wanted.

He offered Fury the packet, but the Director shook his head. "Keep it. Catch up on your reading during the flight. You'll need something to keep you busy for seven hours."

Clint snorted, tucking the packet under his arm. One of the photos slipped out, and he crouched to grab it. He slowly stood back up, eyes once again drawn to the woman's shockingly red hair. "…maybe I'll show her my incredible skills at darts." He raised an eyebrow.

Fury somehow managed to appear unimpressed. "Maybe you should practice your pick-up lines instead, Barton."

"Making the drop in three minutes." The voice rumbled over the comm. Clint hunched down near the rear of the carrier, just a foot or two from the hatch. He checked and double-checked his gear, making sure everything was secured tightly into place. Little good it would do him to have spent forty minutes packing, just to lose it all because he was careless during a dangerous drop. Not that he didn't always have a duffle bag ready to go in case a mission sprang up, but this time was different from most others. He was going in solo. There was no relying on anyone else to watch his six. And with a target as dangerous as the Black Widow, he had to be prepared for anything.

"Remind me again why you couldn't fly me in, commercially?" Clint keyed into his comm, leaning back against the bulkhead of the jet. "First-class, a drink or two… Extra peanuts. Wouldn't have killed you, Nicky."

"It'd take you another two hours to reach the city, and we don't have that kind of time to spare." Fury's voice crackled momentarily. "But if you keep this up, I'll make sure you spend the flight back behind the sickest kid on the plane."

"Sorry Nicky, my hearing aids are cutting out. I missed that!" Clint complained, before cutting the transmission. While it was mostly a hassle, being roughly 80% deaf had at least a few minor benefits…including the ability to selectively tune out whoever happened to be particularly annoying, on any given occasion.

Usually it was Fury, but…what the Director didn't know certainly wouldn't hurt him. Although Clint suspected Fury knew more then he let on. Directors of shady, pseudo-governmental information and logistics agencies were like that, Clint figured.

"Initiating drop sequence." The pilot's voice droned from the intercom. Clint felt the engines slow as the jet started to descend, as well as his stomach rise alongside the g-forces.

"Remind me to bring you back a joke book, or something!" He yelled back to the pilot, over the rumbling discourse of the engines. The pilot ignored him – either that, or he had the same selective hearing benefits Clint did – and the jet reached its new altitude of two-hundred meters.

The bay of the jet rumbled to life, and the hatch swung slowly open. A sharp gust of cool, Mediterranean air splashed across the archer's face. He inhaled sharply, than slowed his breathing. The trick to pulling off a successful drop was to relax, beforehand… Tense up too early, and a mistake was bound to happen. Three years at S.H.I.E.L.D. had taught him a lot, but that one lesson was probably the most important of them all. Clint shouldered the duffel across his back and stood up, keeping his feet spread apart for maximum balance. Raising his favorite weapon – a custom-built, 250-lb draw weight compound bow – he aimed down through the murky fog at the edge of the city, below.

"We're one-hundred, seventy meters over the suburb of Podujevo. Roughly three and a half miles from the center of Pristina."

"When I get back, I'm bringing you a joke bo- "

"Heard you the first time. Save the jokes for your target."

Ouch. "I doubt she'd appreciate them."

"Then that makes two of us."

Clint grinned, squinting through the fog. "Everyone's a comedian…" He murmured.

"You're cleared for infiltration."

"Don't wait up!" Clint called back, before stepping off the hatch and into the calm, still night sky.

Perfect…

The air felt amazingly good, rippling past him like an ocean current. The engines from the S.H.I.E.L.D. jet roared over-head, although they felt nothing like the roar of blood rushing through his head. He forced himself to stay upright and oriented, watching as the village center rushed toward him.

There was nothing like stepping out of a spy plane in the middle of the night, and letting yourself fall the equivalent of forty stories. Anyone who said otherwise was kidding themselves.

Then, it was time. Clint's back muscles tensed to the point of rigidity. He let out his breath, and relaxed his fingers. The bow released, and the grappling arrow flew through the air, cutting through the murky fog like a hot knife through butter. It impacted against the side of the moderately-high bell tower in the center of the village – the highest landmark in the outskirts of the city. Clint gripped the bow with every ounce of strength he had. The grapple cable ran through a specially-woven seam in his right shooting glove, to the quiver he wore across his back. The remaining length of tether coiled tightly at the very bottom, all one-hundred and fifty meters of it. Not that Clint had any intention of letting it get to max length – all he had to do was hit a button on his bow to apply an effective break to the cord. He could free-fall without holding on if he wanted to, but who in their right mind would dare take that chance?

The cable grew taut. Clint swung easily from the slack end, his feet impacting with the heavy brick of the bell tower. He bent his legs to soften the blow, but it still ached every single time. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he stared down at the street below. A few street lights dotted the strip, creating an eerily dim atmosphere. He couldn't see a single soul. Which was fortunate, as he had no idea how he'd even begin to explain this to the average passer-by.

He climbed up the tether, letting the slack coil itself back up at the bottom of his quiver. About three-fourths of the way up, he came across the front window. Clint never ceased to be amazed with how well his previous of crime had actually prepared him for a career with S.H.I.E.L.D… Although even in his crime-ridden days, he hadn't typically resorted to breaking and entering.

Funny, how S.H.I.E.L.D. was turning him into more of a criminal now than he ever had been, before.

Clint climbed up a couple feet past the window. With two-three well-aimed kicks, the panel of glass shattered and rained down over the side of the building, and the sidewalk below. Clint carefully climbed into the tower, resting briefly on the sill before touching his boots to solid ground, at last. At the same time, he triggered the grapple tip of the arrow to dislodge from the brick, and wind its way back to the bottom of his quiver. Clint backed away from the now-open window, taking a few steps into the interior of the tower.

It was another successful landing.

The young woman stared out over the calm, cool night sky. She had heard the faint rumble of jet engines overhead not fifteen minutes before. It had been enough to pique her curiosity, and she reminded herself that the Pristina airport was to the north, not the south.

So what was a plane doing this far out of its typical flight path?...