She could still remember the first time they met, over half a life time ago, those two scarred teenagers, far too young to hold the weapons they wielded and to wear the haunted expressions they could never run away from.
She was still Natalia then, to everyone but him, and must have been fourteen years old. A child, still blinkered by the ideals pressed upon her, and all the other girls in the Red Room, by angry men and cold soldiers. It was roughly three years before she inherited the Black Widow's title, on a fairly routine training mission. Nothing special. And it still managed to go to shit, spectacularly, after barely four hours.
It began in a dark, dank alleyway, outside of a large, notorious casino in Berlin. Mid October. Fucking freezing. Crouching on a fire escape, three stories up, she sighted her target, exactly as she had been told she would.
The German businessman stood by the left wall, opposite her, and removed his phone from his jacket pocket. Natalia was too far away to see the screen, and the prickling feeling at the back of her neck didn't get her attention fast enough, as she suddenly found herself pinned to the wall by a huge hand at her throat. She struggled to reach her fallen hand guns, the scoped sniper rifle well out of reach. She could feel her vision begin to blur around the edges. The man trapping her was well over twice her size and his hold was starting to constrict her airways. So it was , understandably, quite a shock when he collapsed to the ground, failing over the railings and landing with a thud that would probably been sickening to any one who hadn't heard it all a thousand times before.
Instinct battled her surprise, and Natalia quickly recovered her hand guns, noting that the rifle was broken, presumably by the man who now lay dead from his fall. Or from the arrow protruding from his skull.
Natalia held her Glock pistols out in front of her, searching for the archer. He was stood below her, holding his bow, loaded, with a level of skill that was disturbing in a boy who couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. He called out in clumsy German, staring right at her;
"Are there any more?"
She looked back at him, never lowering her weapons. She had the advantage of height, but he'd already shown what he could do with that bow.
"I did not ask for your help." She could tell from his accent he was American, and his German was awful, so she spoke in English.
"Yeah, but you needed it, didn't you?" The boy was fairly skinny, quite short, and had messy dark-blonde hair. Natalia mentally shook her head. Stop it, you don't make them human. He is a heart and a brain. Take your pick, girl, he dies wherever you aim.
He was talking again.
"Come on, you could at least say thank you! I just saved your life!" Christ, did he have a death wish? Was that it? She should shoot him now, as she had been trained to do.
But now there was a little voice in the back of her head, telling her that this boy was hardly older than her, and he had, quite possibly just saved her life. Jesus, was that her conscience?! Where the fuck had that come from? She hadn't known she'd had one, and anyway, she'd dispatched children younger than herself before. Why did she suddenly care about it?
You used to care, the voice piped up, as the boy was saying something about beautiful, ungrateful girls with scary guns not having any manners. Natalia firmly told the voice to fuck off and considered saying the same thing to the archer standing down on the ground, before he interrupted her thoughts.
"Hey, you know you're bleeding, right?" She hadn't actually noticed the shoulder wound wound until he said that, but she did now, and, god, it hurt like a bitch. The blood, an alarming amount of it, was dribbling down her hooded sweatshirt, soaking it. Natalia began to walk slowly down the stairs of the fire escape, keeping her guns trained on him the whole time. To her surprise, the boy lowered his bow to the ground and raised his hands above his head. She stared at him. Was this kid suicidal or something?
"Will you let me help you?" Okay. That was unexpected. Not to mention weird.
"Why would I do that?" She enquired, the throbbing pain in her shoulder starting to increase with the effort of holding her hand gun up.
"Because, if you don't, you're probably going to bleed out where you stand." He replied, simply.
Crap.
He had a point. She waved the guns at him.
"I'm not lowering these." Not an invitation, but not a rejection either. He gave her a goofy grin.
"I'm not asking you to." He walked over to her, sliding his backpack off of his shoulders. Natalia backed up, eyes widening. The boy chuckled.
"Easy, sweetheart," She glared at him, which only made him smile. "It's a medical kit, calm down."
He put down the backpack and pulled out a plastic box.
"See? No weapons, just bandages. Do you mind sitting down? It'd probably be more comfortable." Reluctantly, Natalia did as he asked, removing her hoodie and sitting with her back against the wall of the casino. The wound was in her right shoulder. The gun in her left hand rested on her knee, pointed at him. For some reason, this made him smile again, as he knelt beside her, removing stuff from the kit. He carefully cut away the blood-soaked material of her t-shirt and put pressure on the cut, causing her to draw in a breath, gritting her teeth. Her glanced at her and she almost had to look away, because the sympathy on his face was so unfamiliar.
"Sorry. As far as I can see, it's not awful, but you'd have been in trouble if you'd left it much longer. Knife wound, clean cut, lot's of blood, not terrible damage."
"Expert, are you?"
"Something like that," He shrugged. " I've had the same thing, at least. It's best if I stitch this up, are you okay with that?" She grimaced, but nodded, wanting to shut her eyes tight. Not because of the pain. He had that sympathetic expression again.
"Do it." He nodded, already getting a needle out of the package that kept it sterile. Natalia watched as he threaded it with an expert hand and brought it up to her shoulder.
"This is gonna hurt." She just rolled her eyes at him, impatiently.
"I know, get on with it." She wanted to cry out when the needle went in the first time and had lost track by the fifth, but could still hear soft words from the boy next to her.
She wished they weren't so comforting.
"Okay, you're good, that should hold it all together." He said, carefully bandaging the newly-stitched wound. He tried to help her back into her hoodie, but she shook him off, protesting crossly; "I'm fine." He chuckled again, putting the medical kit back into his backpack and standing up.
"Right, you're fine, I get it, jeez, " he paused as she pulled herself to her feet, awkwardly. "What's your name? Natalia shot him an incredulous look, one that clearly said: "What the fuck are you on?" He let out a small huff of a laugh.
"Okay, then, what can I call you?" She hesitated for a moment, before answering with one of her favourite names of the ones she used on missions.
"Natasha. You can call me Natasha." He grinned again, the smile far too big for his face.
"I'm Clint Barton. Why are you here?" She glared at him.
"You need to learn to shut up." She told him, looking over at the man he shot with the bow.
"And you need to learn some manners." The boy-Clint-retorted, following her gaze. "I killed the other guy as well, by the way." he added, softly, as he retrieved his bow. This puzzled her, slightly.
"Why?" He shrugged.
"I'm kind of a bow-for-hire. He was my mission." Natalia stared at him.
"Mine, too." Clint nodded, slinging his bag back on.
"You know why he was supposed to die?" She shook her head. " Nah, me neither. Anyway," he turned to face her, " I guess I should be going." She nodded, her check-in time was coming up.
"Yeah, me too." She paused, momentarily. "Um, thank you, I guess, Clint." He grinned again.
"You're welcome, Natasha. Thank you for not shooting me." She gave him a faint smile, a real one and he held out a hand. After a moment, Natalia holstered one gun an shook it.
"Maybe I'll see you again." He said, as she let go.
"I shouldn't think so," She replied. He smiled ruefully and slung his bow over one shoulder.
They walked to the entrance of the alleyway together, stopping a few paces short of the pavement.
"Well," Clint looked over at her, "Goodbye, Natasha." She nodded
"Yeah, goodbye, Clint." He gave her one last smile, before they went their separate ways, each resisting the urge to look back and watch the other walk away.