Author's Note: So I'm sort of a little bit in love with the relationship between Clint Barton/Hawkeye and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (whether it be platonic or romantic) and I love the way their relationship was shown in The Avengers (GO JOSS!).

Disclaimer: I assure if you, if I owned anything relating to the Avengers, this would be shown in a graphic novel. Not on . Needless to say, I own absolutely nada.

Anyways, read, enjoy (I hope), and review!

Even before he'd brought her to S.H.I.E.L.D she'd respected him. They'd met accidentally twice before and, unlike other opponents, he'd never held back when they fought. She knew because the first time, she beat him. The second time, he beat her.

The third time, the charm, you might say, they met in Sao Paolo, Brazil. This time, it was no accident, not on his part. She was there to kill some important politician. He was there to kill her.

When they fought, he once again managed to best her – something she swore she would never let happen again. He'd had one of his trademark arrows aimed at her throat, his foot on her chest. She'd stared at him with defiance and fury in her green eyes.

One moment, two moments, and a third passed in silence as we, two master assassins, stared at each other.

He lowered the bow and said, "Come work for S.H.I.E.L.D."

She allowed another three moments to pass before saying, "Okay."

The archer pressed a hand to his ear and spat out a quick, "Shut it, Coulson: it's my call," before stowing his arrow, stepping off her, and holding out a hand for her to grab.

For another moment, she considered grabbing his hand and throwing him over her, continuing the fight. She decided against it, grasped his hand, and instead allowed him to pull her to her feet.

It took her another moment to realize it was the first time in a long time she'd allowed anyone to do so. That, perhaps more than anything, is what solidified her decision to return to S.H.I.E.L.D. with this agent whose name she didn't know.

He looked at her for a second before speaking, "They won't be happy you're alive. You'll have to prove to them that you're an asset. Make them realize that you can't be replaced. If you don't, you'll be killed before you can blink, and I'll probably be the one they tell to do it."

Again, he didn't hold back. Her respect for him grew.

The words "don't hold back" never needed to be said. Instead, the unspoken phrase defined their relationship, and, in many ways, it was the code they lived by.

Those three words allowed them to improve. When they sparred, whether it was with an audience or by themselves, they never held back. Sometimes he won, and he'd smirk at her in a way that made her blood boil even as her lips twitched upwards in a smile. And then he wouldn't for a long time after because she hated it when he won. For the last year and a half of their five year-long partnership, he only won once. And it was the last time she saw him before she was assigned to Stark, and he to New Mexico.

When she met him on the helicarrier, his normally green-gray eyes a false, luminescent blue, their dance was familiar. Every punch, kick, throw, flip, dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge, it was a routine she knew by hand though the order of the steps changed every time.

This time, it felt off. The fight didn't last as long as it should have, though part of her thought that, had that bar not been there, it would have lasted much longer. She wondered, for a moment, if the reason it felt off was because he was trying to kill her. But that couldn't be it, because she knew how that felt. Maybe it was because Loki, who controlled his mind, didn't understand hand-to-hand combat. She didn't know how the mind-control worked – maybe it slowed him down.

It wasn't until later that she realized why it had felt so wrong, and, had she been the type of woman to cry, she probably would have done so.

Dr. Selvig, even under Loki's mind control, had recognized the destruction that the Tesseract-induced portal would create. And so he'd installed a fail-safe.

When the realization came to her, she'd been sitting in her quarters on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s helicarrier and almost instantly, she made her way to his room.

He wasn't there.

She checked all of his usual perches before finally finding him on the training mat which, after the week they'd had, really should have been the first place she looked.

He was surrounded by dummies and punching bags and targets, attacking them in a flurry of punches and kicks and arrows.

"Clint."

Her soft call was enough to halt him mid-kick.

"Tasha."

"The last time we fought, before everything with Loki, you won."

He shrugged, unsure of where she was going, "I did."

"You could have won on the helicarrier, too."

He shook his head before explaining, "Nat, you haven't let me beat you twice in a row since before you joined S.H.I.E.L.D."

"You held back."

For a moment, he was silent. Then, he looked up and met her eyes, his mouth twisting in a familiar smirk.

"What can I say? I wasn't myself."

Her lips twitched upwards in a smile.

Author's Note: After seeing The Avengers twice, I decided it wasn't possible that Dr. Selvig could have enough control to install a fail-safe, but Clint Barton didn't have enough control over his own actions to try and protect the only person he trusted and could rely on. So this is what came from that idea.

Now review. Please?