Light the Dark

*This is probably going to bring this series on Clint and Tasha to a close, at least for now, as I move on to writing stories for other members of the team. If you have not done so, please visit my profile and vote in the poll there. I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it. I'm sure to include them in other stories, and I may have more to tell about them someday soon, but for now they're going to take a little break and have lots of kinky PRIVATE sex and just enjoy each other. Thanks much for all your input. Oh and in case it isn't obvious, rather than look up lots of Russian words, I have put the parts where someone is speaking Russian in italics. Enjoy!*

He's a man of few words most of the time. Since talking about her fucking feelings lands somewhere on her list of favorite things in between "elective oral surgery" and "evisceration by spoon," this suits her down to the ground. They communicate just fine, thanks. Often violently. Often carnally. Mostly the line between the two blurs. Which ok, also suits her. There have been men who thought they got her, thought they understood her, knew her. Some of them are dead. Some of them have no memory of her anymore. None of them were right. She has always had too many secrets, too many nightmares for anyone to know her.

Hawkeye knows her. Christ, the man knows her in ways she doesn't know herself. She'd struggled with that, with realizing how totally he had violated her, how naked-under-a-blazing-white-lightbulb she is in front of him, because of what he's done. For a while, she couldn't bear it. It wasn't the things he'd done to her under hypnosis. That had been…grueling. But compared to other days she's had, it was a walk in the fucking park. No, it was knowing that he knew EVERYTHING. She's never felt so exposed in her life, not even when she was eleven and her parents had just died and "Uncle Ivan" found her shivering in the streets of Stalingrad, crying. Hawkeye hasn't stripped her naked. He has stripped her to her soul. This is vulnerability she cannot bear. It's why she ran, why she left him in that abandoned orphanage and flew away. She hadn't known where she was going, hadn't cared that she was possibly stealing a multi-million dollar machine from Fury. She simply had to go.

In the end, after she had run for a while, then come to her senses and stopped behaving like a panicked deer, then tied off some of the loose ends he'd showed her…in the end she'd realized she had only one place to go.

She sleeps with him now, most nights. If the nightmares come, and they do because now she remembers so much, he wakes her with his whipcord and steel arms around her, and his voice in her ear. "Tasha. I've got you." He does. He always does.

Thus she sits back in the bed and watches him dressing through half-closed lids, enjoying the simple moments of meaningless things before they begin their days. They never know what these days will bring, and since he has ripped away the shadows before her eyes, these simple moments shine. He's beautiful to her. His body is compact, his hips and waist lean and agile, his arms and shoulders and back corded with muscle. He's incredibly strong for one not gifted with godlike powers. She will never be able to pull his bow. She isn't sure there are many who could. She knows Tony couldn't, not without the suit. She even thinks Rogers would have to strain a little. Clint's body is wrapped in more than muscle. Scars mar the surface of his skin. She maps them in her head as he bends to put on socks. The one on his left forearm was a knife fight in El Salvador. The twisted, ropy scar that curves across his ribcage under his left arm is from a broken tree limb during a botched parachute drop in Brazil. The round, puckered scars on his chest and arms are cigar burns, acquired in North Korea when she broke her ankle. Though he's wearing fatigue pants now (and if he doesn't button those top two buttons soon she's going to lick him, right there, and see how far he gets in putting on the rest of his damn clothes…bastard…he knows she likes him half-dressed) she knows there is a deep and terrifying scar on his right inner thigh where a bayonet nearly tore out his life, left his blood pumping from his femoral artery into the sand of Afghanistan. His back is crisscrossed with whip scars, also from North Korea…and, she admits, a few new ones she gave him. After having undergone a beating like that for torture, she has no idea how he can be such a greedy pain slut, but he is, and she's not going to poke at it too much because he's just so goddamn hot when his body is curved, trembling, in a tight bow of agony and need, and his grey eyes go ice blue with desperation and his voice, strained to an agonized whisper, begs her for mercy, begs her for more, tells her what he'll do when she unties him (and oh, he's fucking inventive). There are more scars, and she knows them all, and was with him when he got a lot of them. Since he still hasn't buttoned his pants, she reaches out and snags him by a belt loop as he walks past her, turns him to face the bed, and presses her mouth to the triangle of skin framed by his half-open fly, licks his warm flesh just below his belly button. His fingers drift through her hair. His head goes back, eyes closed, and he sucks in a breath. She hopes he doesn't have anything important on his schedule this morning. He's going to be very, very late.

When they lie, tangled and sated and warm, the bed a wreck and his clothes once again strewn about the room, she brings up the thing that's been niggling at her, the feelings she doesn't really want to discuss because she likes everything just fine the way it is, and the way they DON'T have to talk about every little thing.

"Do you want to come to Russia with me?" she asks, casually. He props himself up on one elbow, traces idle circles on her belly with his sensitive fingertips.

"Damn right I do," he says softly. She's a little startled at the tone in his voice, and looks up at his face. His jaw is set, the bones in his face seem to stand out like he is momentarily etched of glass. His eyes are cold rage. "I just thought you'd…already gone."

"I did," she admits, and feels his body sag a little at her words. "But not in the way you may be thinking."

"I thought you'd gone to pay off some old debts….and I thought you'd gone to….Shostakov."

Oh. That. She realizes suddenly that he's been living in dread of her not-so-late husband, that he expects her to leave him, to go back to what she had with Alexei.

"I already knew about Shostakov, Clint," she tells him, feeling a twinge of guilt that she didn't let him off this emotional tenterhook sooner.

"Wait, what now?"

"Fury told me about Shostakov years ago. I went looking for him then. He's still alive, I guess. I haven't heard anything different. Haven't heard anything at all, actually. When I found out he hadn't died in that plane crash, oh yeah, I went running to him. I was so goddamn young when they married me to him. Thought it was the love of the ages, that he was my sun, moon and stars, all that. Thank god I was older when I learned his death had been faked, because I was able to see him for what he is now. He's cold, in ways that make me look like June fucking Cleaver."

She has to stop talking and punch Barton in the stomach because he's laughing so hard he's going to pull them both out of the bed. He chokes, and subsides, rubbing his belly and glaring resentfully. He's not very convincing.

"Serve you right if I meet you at the door one day in a flowery dress and an apron and make you eat what I've cooked for you, asshat," she says comfortably.

"How about just the apron, and I'll eat you instead," he offers genially.

"You're a sick man," she says, laughing a little in spite of herself.

"Yep."

"Jesus, ok, shut up, I'm talking here."

"Yes Ma'am."

She rolls her eyes, but he makes her fall a little bit harder for him every time he says goofy shit like that. How he manages to take all of their absolute shit and turn it into simple, and lovely, and dirty and fun…she doesn't know. If she could bottle and sell him, she'd give Stark a run for his money.

"Anyway, I looked for him, and I found him, and realizing that he was a stranger, and a bastard, and that there is nothing left of the man I thought I loved when I was nineteen…well that sucked large, but since I'd already buried him once, it wasn't so hard to do it again. We'll probably end up facing each other over the barrels of our guns one day. I don't think either one of us will hesitate. But I'm faster."

He takes a breath and for a minute she prepares herself to kill him where he lies if he offers her sympathy over this. She doesn't want it, and it's going to piss her off. When she says she's buried him, she means it. It's not some tragic love story you cry over in a movie (well, she hears some people do, and she's pretty sure Thor cried when he watched Old Yeller with Steve, but ew. Just no.) and she hates being pitied, will certainly not tolerate pity from Hawkeye!

"If you're not faster, I will be," he says easily.

Since she's already tensed to do him serious harm, this takes her aback for a minute, and she just stares at him.

"You thought I was gonna feel all sorry for your ass dintchya?" he says snarkliy.

"What I *think* is that you're a dick," she says irritably. He leans down, swirls his tongue in her belly button. She makes an entirely undignified noise and is then forced to yank his head back by his hair and stop him as viciously as possible from repeating such actions. When his eyes roll back in his head and he groans, this causes an abrupt shift in plans. Which delays the conversation even more.

He's lying beside her, boneless as a landed trout, and she can feel his heart pounding like a triphammer under her hand. Well, she thinks pensively, at least they're not going to have to worry about getting out of shape any time soon.

"So," he gasps. "Russia."

"I need to go back," she says quietly. If he'd been Fury, he'd be making pointed comments about the difference between want and need, and reminding her that it's her job to be objective.

There's a reason she's never fucked Fury.

Hawkeye accepts her words as a foregone conclusion.

"Okay. When?"

"Tomorrow."

She borrows one of Stark's jets, because this isn't sanctioned, and she won't risk losing one of the SHIELD helijets. That crazy guy in R&D, Pym or whatever his name is who designed them, is really proprietary about them. It's a little weird. And Stark can afford the loss, if it comes to that. She glances over at Barton beside her in the copilot's seat. It won't come to that.

There is something about the headsets that gives one a sense of privacy, even above and beyond being alone in an airplane together. Going Mach 2 and gaining speed. She loves to fly. There's a freedom to it she doesn't feel unless she's alone behind a stick, screaming across the sky like hell for leather. She's never felt it when there was another person along for the ride, and is surprised to feel it now. She realizes she feels the same when they're together. It's a little weird for her to realize it doesn't even matter who's calling the shots. They soar, the two of them, just like this. He's looking out the front windshield, but she can feel his attention on her. Hawkeye doesn't have to look at anything to be totally aware of it.

"You said you'd already been," he says. "What did you do?"

She faces forward also.

"Actually…first I went to Boston," she says quietly. A corner of his mouth lifts almost imperceptibly.

"Elaine Davidson?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"How is she?"

"She's fine. She remembers me. I wasn't sure she would."

"Of course she would. You saved her life."

"I…yes, ok, I did. But I didn't remember doing it. I only remembered killing her. So…I had to see her. We had coffee. She thanked me. She cried. She'd never known, all these years, what happened to me. She thought I was dead, because she never heard from me again. It was…weird. But good. I…well, I knew what you showed me was true, but I needed to see her. With my eyes. Hear her voice, shake her hand. She wouldn't let me. She hugged me!" She knows her voice sounds a little aggrieved, but she can't help it. She doesn't hug.

"Raving bitch," says Clint easily.

"I know, right? Anyway, it was…yeah it was good. She's happy, she dances, and she teaches little girls to dance. There were all these tiny ballerinas bouncing around like pinballs at her studio. Why would somebody's parent want to cram a kid who can barely walk into pink spandex and frothy crap and make them lurch around and tell all their friends how talented it is when watching it dance is like watching drunk bowling pins slam dance?"

He looks at her in fascination.

"Romanoff, your mind is a terrifying place," he says finally. "And I have no idea. But you can be damn sure I'm going to have nightmares about bowling pins in tutus trying to crush me to death now."

"Good. Anyway, after THAT I went to Russia. I thought I knew why I was going, when I left…"

"To burn them to the ground," he whispers.

"Yeah. But when I got there…then that wasn't why I was there after all. I looked for…for the shopkeeper's family, and the kids of those people who were laundering money…"

"The innocent ones," he murmurs.

"Right."

"Like you," he says.

"I don't think I qualify for that anymore, Barton," she says, trying to make it light. It comes out bitter.

"Fuck that, Tash," he says fiercely. "Just fuck that. You are. In this, you are. Just like they are. No," he snarls when she opens her mouth to protest.

"They had their childhoods irrevocably changed. You had yours stolen. There are people to blame here. You don't get to put yourself in the same column, not anymore."

"I get that. Some dick who keeps wanting to get in my pants went to a lot of trouble to make sure I got it."

"I hear he keeps hoping to get in your pants on a daily basis."

"He's a freak like that," she agrees, and smiles. Just a little bit. She can't let him know how often he makes her want to grin like a loon at him. It would be terrible for his ego. "But no, I just meant I haven't been an innocent kid in a long time now. I just wanted to know what happened to them."

"And?"

"Prenko's family got out. They live in Austria now. Mrs. Prenko remarried 5 years ago. Her name is Werner now. Her husband's a banker. She was his secretary. Their kids went to school, grew up, got jobs. The oldest daughter's getting married soon. They're okay."

He smiles, and she sees he feels the same flush of relieved delight to know that these innocent victims of her past have moved on to better lives.

"And the launderers' kids?"

She sighs.

"They became wards of the state," she says. There is some bitterness there. "You'll know a little what that's like."

He nods. He does know. He and his brother lived in an orphanage for several years, until they ran away and literally joined the circus.

"It's worse in Russia," she says softly. "There are never enough funds. And it's not like not having enough funds in America, where it means crappy food and clothes that don't fit, and broken toys and lousy education. It means NO food and clothes that are mostly holes, and sharing a blanket with three other kids, and no toys and not learning now to read. Both places there's not anyone to hold you or care if you cry, but in Russia you do it in the dark, and the cold, and with an empty belly."

"Tasha…you don't have to tell me."

"No, it's okay." She sighs. "The youngest of the Slavsky kids died of tuberculosis two years after I killed his parents. The other three survived. The oldest ran away, joined a gang in one of the ghettos. He's in prison for stealing cars. The middle two remained wards of the state until they became adults, but they both got jobs. Crappy jobs, but they work, and they have crappy apartments, and one of them has a girlfriend. I…" she blushes, stares out the window.

"You helped them," he says softly.

"Yeah," she whispers. "I left ten thousand American dollars each with one of our agents in Russia with instructions to see it got to them and that it couldn't be traced. They'll have it by now. It's not enough, for what they went through, but in Russia, that's like a hundred grand to us." She feels defensive about this, feels annoyed that she does.

"It was good," he says firmly. "You did good. I'd have done the same."

She's silent for a long time, just flying, and he lets her be. This is one of the reasons she tolerates him. One of the reasons they've been partners so long. They don't have to try to fill the silence. She knows damn well she's not being honest with herself with words like "tolerate" and "partners." Fuck if she's gonna act all gone over him like a stupid kid. They've saved each other. Yippy fucking skippy. He's her goddamn hero. So what. Doesn't mean she's gonna fall down and kiss his feet. She doesn't even know why she's arguing with herself about it so ferociously, except that she has very recently had her entire world yanked out from under her. His fault, by the way, and who asked him to.

"So why are we going now?" he asks eventually.

"Can we not just be fucking going?" she snaps. He raises an eyebrow.

"Tasha, we're assassins. Would you go in without a briefing?"

Shit. Leave it to him to be reasonable. Tie a guy up, beat the shit out of him, sexually abuse him, what does he do? Does he shut her out of his life like any other normal, sane heterosexual guy should have done? Does he set about proving his manhood afterwards in such a way that turns him into a raging asshole so she can walk away without looking back? Does he avoid her like the plague for the rest of their lives like a not-crazy person should do? Does he try to kill her the second he's loose like any self-respecting spy OUGHT to try? No. Fucking no. He bleeds on the floor at her feet, makes her come so hard she can't stand up anymore, and THANKS her. And keeps doing it. The making her come thing, not the thanking her thing, because then she could have killed him in good conscience. And does he stay out of her blacked-out past like she clearly expects everyone to? No, fucking no he does not. He blasts through it like a claymore mine through packing peanuts and does THIS to her. Makes her look at him and want to just bite him all the damn time. And Jesus, in a GOOD way too! Not even in a "draw back a bleeding stump way." He makes her…fucking bastard makes her soft on him. And on top of that he's fucking reasonable. She has killed for fewer reasons than this. She really has. She sighs.

"Well shit Barton. Is it going to rock your world too hard if I tell you I don't know for sure?"

Both his eyebrows go up a little at this.

"Little bit," he says.

"I want to know where they are. If they're alive. And what they're doing now."

He doesn't ask who. He knows the names as well as she does. Petrovich. Dubrovsky. Rodchenko. The last was her handler, the one on the other end of the electricity that paralyzed and burned and made her piss herself and who did it again if she cried. She remembers them as they really were now. The kind, loving uncle who saw she got a superior education which brought her to the attention of her government…he'd murdered her parents and turned her over to a monster with a smile, then visited every time she was debriefed or her conditioning needed a little work. Oh, she remembers the shine in his watery blue eyes when she screamed, and recognizes lust for what it is. He never touched her, she was too valuable for that, but he got his rocks off plenty watching them hurt her. When she was twelve. She also remembers that he stopped coming once she hit seventeen. Just didn't do it for him anymore. Dr. Dubrovsky, the wise and gentle psychiatrist who had helped her through the trauma of her parents' deaths…he had brainwashed, hypnotized, drugged and tormented her for years, getting fat on the payroll of her handlers. He had known what was being done to her, with her, and he hadn't cared. Viktor Rodchenko, her proud teacher and mentor, who had tortured and beaten and driven her like a prized greyhound while she, believing she adored him, begged his forgiveness when she failed him, and knew she'd never be good enough.

She's fucking good enough now.

"Are things gonna get wet?" he asks. She recognizes there's a little eagerness in his voice. He hides it, but she knows him too well. He wants to kill them. Wants it badly. The funny thing is, she isn't sure it's that cut and dried for her.

"That's the part I'm not sure about," she admits reluctantly. She expects this to surprise him, for him to argue, tell her why they all need to die. He doesn't.

"Okay," he says. "I'll just follow your lead then. We'll find them."

"And then we'll see," she says.

"And then we'll see," he agrees.

Russia is different for him this time. It's certainly not his first trip. They've even been here together before, on more than one mission. He actually kind of likes it, she thinks. He even bothered to learn to speak the language a couple of years ago, which, since he's almost always just the eyes and ears…and final solution…on missions, he didn't have to do. Russia has been a disturbing place for her for a very long time. Before her memories were restored, she had thought it was because of her defection, and feeling like there were eyes on her all the time, every time she's had to come back since then. Now she knows it was because the weight of those memories was pressing down on her like unseen, smothering piles of wet wool. She is a little more able to appreciate it though his eyes this time around.

Russia is a little funny, in that Communism did its best to eradicate most signs of the proud history of its nation from before the revolution. So much of it is no older than that first Communist regime, under Lenin, less than a hundred years ago. And yet signs remain, a few churches and other buildings, some art, and most importantly, its history and legacy remains in the minds and hearts of its people. There is also still a great deal of paranoia remaining, despite the fact that Communism no longer grinds the people under the boot of its iron grip. Russia is a study in contradictions. Some of it is quite beautiful. Its people are at once both generous and suspicious. Its politzia and military are often confused by whether they are still supposed to drag people off in the night, never to be seen again, or to help old ladies cross the street and be a comforting presence.

They're not here to sightsee though. They book a room under one of their many false ID's and get to work. Somewhat to Natasha's dismay, they discover rather easily that Ivan Petrovich is dead. He died less than a year ago, which is why, she supposes, she hasn't heard about it yet. He was accidentally killed when his small boat capsized in a storm off the coast while he vacationed in Georgia. Since she knows Petrovich suffered from crippling seasickness, she finds this story dubious at best. He'd either outgrown his usefulness, or had made a mistake with a price too high for him to pay. Except with his life. She's not sorry he's dead. Feels nothing at all about it, in fact, except a twinge of disappointment that she doesn't get to look him in the eye and see the expression on his face when he realizes she remembers everything. She supposes it's poetic justice though. That the people he served are the ones who ended him, and that his death is as much of a lie as his life had been.

Dubrovsky, too, proves relatively easy to track down. He had never been an operative, and maintained a private practice outside the auspices of the organization she'd been created for. His name and personal information are matters of public record, such as they are in this country. Dr. Yuri Dubrovsky's current address is at a convalescent hospital outside Novgorod. It's a residential facility for the infirm and the incurably insane. It's far removed from the school's location (if indeed it still exists in any form anymore and if it's still in the same location) so she wonders if he has perhaps retired from the brainwashing gig.

They rent a horrible little black car that smokes and rattles and seems at any moment to be ready to up and die on them, but somehow they make it to Novgorod. The hospital is nicer than she'd expected, with decent lawns, and a garden, and patios where patients in wheelchairs and walkers sit or wobble about, attended by nurses and orderlies and visiting family members. There is security, but it's discreet, and the guards look competent rather than menacing. The receptionist at the front desk is friendly.

"How may I help you?" she asks in Russian.

"I would like to see Dr. Yuri Dubrovsky," she answers.

"Are you a member of the family?"

This strikes Natasha as a strange question.

"No," she replies. "A patient." The receptionist eyes her a little suspiciously.

"I…am not sure of the appropriateness of your request to visit the doctor. He normally only receives family members," she says hesitantly. People are generally not overtly rude to Natasha. She makes them nervous. She doesn't mind this, actually. The receptionist's behavior switches on a lightbulb in her head, and when she eyes Clint, she sees he's picked up on what's happened as well.

Dr. Dubrovsky isn't on staff here. He's a patient.

"Please…" says Clint, stepping forward and smiling disarmingly at the young woman, who smiles back. "My wife was one of Dr. Dubrovsky's patients some years ago. He…well you see he really saved her life. We would not be here now, together, had it not been for him. When we heard what had happened, she couldn't bear the thought of not having a chance to thank him for what he did for her. May we see him? Please?"

The girl smiles bigger, punches something up on the computer. She informs them the psychiatrist is in the garden at this hour, being taken for a walk by one of the orderlies, and that she doesn't see a problem with them paying him a visit. She warns them that the stroke almost completely paralyzed him, and that speech is extremely difficult for him, and as a result he seldom communicates, but that his cognitive function is still fine. He will recognize his old patient, they can be assured.

Oh good.

It isn't easy to convince the orderly, who has parked the old man' wheelchair in front of a small koi pond and is smoking a foul-smelling Russian cigarette some feet away, that they will be glad to return the doctor to his room for him when they conclude their visit. The orderly shrugs, as though it is of no consequence to him, and wanders off. Hawkeye takes the handles of the wheelchair and pushes it around the pond to a little copse of fruit trees, which will never bear fruit in Russia's colder climate, but which are nevertheless pretty. The trees screen them from view of the hospital. Natasha steps in front of Dubrovsky and looks down at him. He peers up at her in confusion, and she relishes the moment he recognizes her. The muscles of his face are mostly paralyzed too. He makes a grotesque-sounding noise of negation and alarm, and a shiny line of drool falls from his mouth to darken a spot on the shoulder of his gray sweater.

"Oh good," she says, in English, knowing full well he speaks it like a Native, and not wanting anyone who might wander by to understand her. No one does, but they might. Hawkeye keeps one eye on the nearby grounds, and one on Natasha and Dubrovsky. "You know who I am."

Dubrovsky's hands scrabble uselessly at the grips of his chair. He doesn't have the strength or coordination to grasp the wheels and try to run away, but it's clear he wants to. He makes a choking sound, and then, gutterally, rasps out "Lamp Post," in Russian. She sees Barton tense a little behind the chair. She realizes he's not sure her conditioning has actually been broken by the restoration of her memory. When her throat closes and her heart rate triples for a few seconds, she realizes she wasn't sure either. Except nothing happens. She remains solidly herself. A tiny smile quirks at the corner of her mouth.

"Ooops," she whispers. Clint leans down and hisses in his ear.

"She doesn't belong to you anymore, you bastard." His voice is both triumphant and so full of malice that he shocks her a little. Clint has always been a nearly emotionless killer. He has no objectivity on this one. It should alarm her, but it doesn't. He wants to kill them, for her. That's so sweet. And some guys just send flowers.

"I just wanted to come by and let you know that I remember all of it, Doctor," she says softly. "Everything you did to me, every hypnotic suggestion, every implanted memory, every drug you pumped into me. I came here to kill you, but I'm not going to. You're nothing now. Just a useless shell of a man who shits and pisses himself every day and has to have his diapers changed, who can't feed himself or dress himself, who can't fight or flee or fuck, and you can never hurt me or anyone else, ever again. I'm really okay with that. Well…except I think I'll inform my contacts in your government that the price for my silence is to have you stripped of your degrees and every honor you ever earned, and to have you discredited and your license to practice medicine revoked. Not that you can, of course, but I want you disgraced. I'll have it too. " She will, and easily. She knows people, and SHIELD knows even more people, and none of those people will want the threat of her revealing even a hint of what was done to her by their government to reach the public. All those interviews they're still doing, you know. He's finished. She finds this pleases her more than simply killing him would have.

He's turned an interesting shade of purple, and spittle flies from his mouth as he tries ineffectually to curse at her. She stands and watches impassively while he rages. Then she nods to Hawkeye and they walk away. Except Barton pauses, puts a hand on her arm, and turns back.

"Agent Romanoff is a better person than I am, Dr. Dubrovsky," he says. She has never heard that particular tone of ice in his voice before. "She's content to let you live, because you're no threat to anyone anymore. In fact, you're nothing. I find I'm just not as forgiving."

He reaches in the sleeve of the jacket he's wearing, and pulls out an arrow. She raises her eyebrows. She'd missed it. Nerves over confronting her torturer, she supposes. Still, it's sloppy of her.

"Do you see this arrow, Doctor?" says Clint in a low voice. "It has your name on it. See, right here? Dubrovsky." He slaps the side of Dobrovsky's face with the shaft. There may be a lot of nerve damage, but he feels it, she can tell. He makes a small fear sound. "One day, it's coming for you. You'll never know when. Could be tonight, could be tomorrow. Could be next week, or next year. I just want you to know, that every bite of food that crosses your lips could be your last. Every corner you turn, every window you pass, every walk in the park…it might be waiting. She may be able to walk away, Dubrovsky. But I'll come for you. Remember that." He stands, runs the feathers of the flight through his fingers, kisses the tip of the arrow's head, and salutes Dubrovsky with it. Then he turns, takes her hand, and they walk away. The acrid smell of urine fills the air. The doctor has pissed himself in fear. Barton is smiling.

"You can be one scary motherfucker, you know that?" she asks as they get in the crappy little car.

"Yup," he says cheerfully.

"Are you really going to come for him?" she asks curiously. She doesn't know if she'll try to talk him out of it or not.

"Nope," he says, just as cheerfully. "But he thinks I will. And he'll think about it every day for the rest of his life. I wanted more than his reputation to be ruined. This is good."

She looks at him admiringly.

"It was good. I almost believed you," she says sincerely. He grins fiercely.

"The important thing is…he believed me."

They drive away. She doesn't look back.

Yevgeny Rodchenko is a very hard man to find. They have to pull a lot of strings, call in a few favors, phone Tony in America and harass him into hacking some records, which he does with enthusiasm he hides behind annoyance. They're interrupting important work for this bullshit, don't they know that. Clint offers to bring him 5 ounces of beluga caviar, fresh. Natasha offers not to kill him. He finds these deals acceptable. They get their data.

Rodchenko goes by the name Yeltsin now. His current cover is as the manager of a bank in Minsk. All the layers of secrecy convince her that he's very much still in the game. They fly the helijet to Minsk, and go into surveillance mode. It isn't easy. Rodchenko was more paranoid than most back when paranoia was an art form in Communist Russia. He hasn't lost his flair for it. He uses his cover as an affluent banker to account for his reclusive and secretive habits, apparently. If this is, indeed, their man. He looks qute a bit different from how she remembers him. She can't be sure they even have the right guy, because he almost never goes out in public. He enters and exits his home through an interior garage. He enters and exits the bank through secured underground parking. Someone else shops for him. They watch for four days and are unable to get close enough for Natasha to even confirm that they have the right man. If it is him, and he's living his life this secretively, then it means he's still in the game. She decides that unlike Dubrovsky, Rodchenko needs to die. If he's still on the inside, then he is still doing to other children what was done to her. This can't be allowed. Barton agrees. But God damn it, she won't risk killing an innocent man, so a clean shot from afar isn't going to do, not until she finds a way to look in his eyes and be certain it's him. She thinks it is, but there are plenty of paranoid people in Russia, and his reclusive habits aren't enough to condemn him, on the off chance that Alexsandr Yeltsin is an innocent (if slightly crazy) man. And, she admits to herself, she wants him to know who it is that's killing him, if she's right. She wants him to see her, and know her, and know she remembers.

They try to make an appointment to see the bank manager about a loan, and are told Mr. Yeltsin is not taking appointments. They try getting a kid with a package to ring his doorbell and insist he has to have a signature when a housekeeper answers. She takes the form and disappears inside, returning with the signature. They visit the bank a few times, hoping to catch him out of his office and interacting with customers or employees. They're unsuccessful.

She doesn't mind the delay. Much. The nights in their hotel room with Clint are diverting enough to take her mind off the frustration of not being able to pin down Yeltsin. They're watching bad Russian television (truthfully, most of it is bad) and eating blinis from a corner café with their fingers. Barton's chin is resting on her ass.

"I think I may have an idea," he says. She licks sweet cream cheese filling off her fingers and looks over her shoulder at him.

"What's that?"

"You're not bad with security systems, right?"

Thus it is that they find themselves locked in a bank vault a few minutes after 5 p.m. the next day. The bank's security cameras have a number of failsafes built in so that if they go offline for more than a few seconds, the police will be notified. The failsafes even have redundancies. It's a good system. But she'd been able to insert a flare of static for a few seconds, long enough for them to slip down a hallway and into the vault without being caught on camera. It had been just a few minutes before closing time, and they'd noticed that it wasn't uncommon for one of the clerks or tellers to pull the vault door closed near close of business. It was to be assumed that Yeltsin checked it before he left for the day, but fortunately for them, it was a common enough occurrence for someone else to have shut it that the door being shut won't raise and red flags. Hawkeye's idea was brilliant in its simplicity. Yeltsin arrived for work at least a half hour before everyone each day, and he was the one who opened the vault. The interior of the vault is the only place in the bank that has no security cameras. All they have to do is wait for him to open it in the morning and they will be face to face with their target. Or an innocent but paranoid stranger. She doesn't know what they're going to do if it isn't Rodchenko. Call Fury and have him pull some strings to avoid an international incident, probably. That will make him happy.

It's a great plan. All they have to do it wait fourteen and a half hours for the door to open in the morning. Hawkeye is lying on the floor with his head on his backpack. His eyes are closed. He looks relaxed in the dim light given off by the lumastick they've stuck in its holder like a candle. Content, even. The vault is small, probably no more than 10x10 feet. She paces. Five steps, corner, turn. Five steps, corner, turn. Five steps, corner…she stops to avoid stepping on Barton. What the hell is he doing anyway? Taking a fucking nap? She goes back the other way. Five steps, corner, turn…

"Tasha."

…Five steps, corner….

"Tasha."

….turn. Five step…

"TASHA!"

His hand closes on her ankle. She's not ready for it and stumbles. She falls hard on her hands and knees. She twists her foot free of his grasp, scissors her legs around his neck, flips him, and comes down on top of him heavily, her forearm pressed against his throat and her other hand drawn back in a fist.

"Tasha," he chokes softly. She lets go of him, leaps backwards and stands glaring at him, rubbing her arms. Bastard shouldn't have surprised her like that is all. He sits up, rubbing his throat a little. Coughs, looks up at her with a rueful smile.

"You're really having a hard time with this, aren't you?" he asks.

"No," she says defensively. "I'm just bored is all."

"Tash. I've seen you sit in one place for eight hours on end waiting for a mark to be in the right place. Without moving a muscle. If I'd known you were claustrophobic, I'd never have suggested this. We'd have figured something else out."

"I'm not claustrophobic. I've been in spaces smaller than this before. I just…" She hates it that there's no windows, no ventilation shaft, and they cannot open the door, no matter what they try. They don't have any plastic explosives. Hawkeye's arrows would only explode INSIDE the vault and hurt them, not the door. They're not designed for that. It cannot be picked, or overridden. It's a little bit like being buried alive.

"You can't get out," he murmurs. He's looking at her thoughtfully. She knows the look. It's the one that says he's thinking something dirty. What the hell, she thinks. No cameras, nobody to disturb them for over 14 hours, it's a great way to take her mind off being trapped like a fucking rat. And he never minds when she needs to work some frustrations out on him. His eyes take on a predatory gleam as he steps close, and his hand flashes out, fists in her hair. What the fuck? No, this isn't part of the plan. What the hell is he thinking? He knows her. He has to know the way she's feeling, what she needs right now, and it's control. He always gives it up to her so easily. Knows instinctively when she needs it. She snarls at him when he leans close, starts to protest, but he cuts her off with his mouth. And does he give her the chance to bite him like she's fucking well gonna if he doesn't stop this? No, he does not. His lips brush hers, a whisper-soft tease, and his tongue barely tickles her mouth, lapping at her almost daintily like a kitten at a saucer of cream. It's maddening, quite exclusive of the fact that it has lust coiling hard in her belly like a fist in silk. Jesus. He kisses her like this for what seems like an hour but is probably only a few minutes, until she's disturbingly close to making a noise that sounds a lot like a whimper. He forces her head to the side, tugging backwards on her hair, and his body crowds her, bumping against her, so that she is forced to give way or fall, until her back hits the wall of the vault. His hand in her hair doesn't let go, despite the fact that she tugs against him, and she knows he can see she's getting seriously annoyed.

"Barton," she snarls warningly.

"Shut up, Tasha," he says, his voice like the crack of a whip. Her eyes widen in surprise. "You just shut your fucking mouth, and you listen to me."

She's too surprised by the menace in his tone to say anything in response, and gapes at him. He leans in close, his breath tickling the skin of her throat, his voice low and rumbling in her ear.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" he asks her silkily.

"What?"

His fist in her hair twists painfully.

"Do you?" he growls.

"No, of course not, don't be an asshole," she says hotly. He's going to start pissing her off in a minute. Never mind the fact that she can feel her panties getting wet. Completely irrelevant.

"Then how could you think I've never noticed that you're holding back on me?"

"Huh?" The observation completely baffles her. What the hell is he talking about?

"Who holds the reins in this relationship? And don't mouth off to me about equality and shit. I don't mean in the day to day. You're my fucking partner in everything, Tash. I mean in one thing. Who holds the reins in bed, Tasha?"

"It depends," she says, confused. "Whoever…fuck Barton, whoever wants to or needs to that day, I guess. We take turns, you know that."

"Bullshit," he spits, and bangs her head against the wall a little bit. It doesn't hurt, but it startles the shit out of her. "Bull. Shit. YOU do."

"That's not true," she protests, really lost now. "I let you top me all the time."

"Do you really?" he whispers. "Can you answer me honestly, or are you lying to yourself too? When have you let go of your control Tasha? When have you let me really have you, all of you? And," he continues, his mouth so close to her throat that she feels his teeth graze her skin and she shivers. "I do not mean when you're my bad little girl. I mean YOU. When, Tasha?"

Well hell. She hadn't thought he'd noticed. She's certainly been abandoned enough, enthusiastic enough, in bed with him that he shouldn't have been able to tell. But he's right. There's always some part of herself she holds back from him, some little kernel she keeps protected. It isn't a big deal. It's not like they don't both enjoy what they do. Every deliciously naughty nasty bit of it. What the fuck does he have to complain about anyway? She doesn't bother to deny it, she just looks at him and shakes her head as much as she can when he's holding it FUCKING HOSTAGE and she's going to put a stop to that noise any second now. Any damn se…oh God, she moans when he rams his knee between her thighs and presses against her center. She makes a strangled noise and grinds her hips down hard against him. The pressure is delicious, but it isn't enough. His free hand encircles her throat, strokes gently, applying no pressure.

"I won't have it, Tasha," he whispers, and she shivers. "It ends now. I'm going to make you surrender to me. Here. Now. Tonight. You can't run. The only way you can stop it is to damage me bad enough that I can't keep going. If you are prepared to do that, then you better do it, because that is the ONLY way I'm going to stop. You'll give yourself to me, Tash. All of you. I'm going to make you beg, and whimper, and cry for it. It's going to be here and now, and do you know why?"

"No," she gasps, and her brain is reeling because she's honestly trying to decide if she can break his wrist right now. She knows she's capable, she's trying to decide if she can.

"Here and now, Tash," he breathes. "Because…baby…you're completely safe."

Wait, what? She's locked in an inescapable vault with a crazy man and she's safe? This is clearly some definition of the word she's unfamiliar with. She looks at him incredulously and he laughs. He takes his hand out of her hair and wraps his arms around her, pulling her close to him.

"Yes, I mean it. Think about this, Tash. Ok it's true that we can't get out. But for probably the first time since the night your parents died…nothing can hurt you."

Well, that's a startling fucking realization, isn't it? She goes very still in his arms. And despite the fact that the way they love each other often leaves bruises, she knows he will never hurt her. And they are the only ones in this room. They can't get out, which has been eating at her, but all of a sudden he's made her realize that nothing can get IN either. Not even if Rudchenko realizes he forgot something at the bank and comes back in the night. Because the safe is on a timer and it simply can't be opened until morning.

"Well I'll be damned," she says softly. This makes him laugh some more. He pulls back a little and looks in her eyes. The humor still dances there, but he is intent, and he's serious.

"Try, Tasha," he says quietly. "For me."

She says the only thing she can possibly say under these circumstances.

"Yes."

He lets go of her and steps away, backs up until he leans on the opposite wall. Crosses his arms and one ankle over the other one, leaning back casually. He studies her. She takes a step towards him and he points one finger at her.

"Ah ah…I don't remember telling you to move," he says chidingly. She fists her hands at her sides, uncertain and not liking it one little bit. "Now…take off your clothes," he orders, his face and voice expressionless. She isn't shy, is perfectly comfortable with her body, and god knows he's seen her naked too many times to count (some of them long before they started boning each other like weasels), but there is something unsettling about taking off her clothes by the strange greenish light of the lumastick, while he stares impassively at her and remains fully clothed. When she's naked, she stands with her hands at her sides and refuses to clench her fists or do anything else to show him how strangely vulnerable this makes her feel. He just stares at her, silently, his eyes huge dark hollows in his face due to shadows cast by the 'stick. They glitter faintly when he blinks.

"You're hating this, aren't you?" he finally says, sly humor in his voice.

"I'm good," she says calmly. "We can stand here all night if you want."

"If I want…if I want…" murmurs thoughtfully. "Oh it's ALL going to be about what I want, Tasha. What I want now is for you to lie down on the floor, on your back."

Ohhhkay, she thinks. Getting to the point awfully fast. But whatever. She's pretty damn horny now anyway. She lays down obediently. The floor is carpeted in that universal cheap berber carpet you find in every office in the world. It's scratchy under her skin. He takes a few steps towards her until he's just outside of arm's reach and crouches down on his heels, looking at her.

"Touch yourself," he whispers.

"What?"

"I said," he growls, and he leans forward and one of those steely arms snakes out and pinches her on the nipple, hard. She hisses through her teeth when the sharp pain lances into her belly. It shocks her, because it really hurts, and yet it feels good too. "Touch yourself. You will take your hands and you will reach down between those amazing legs and you will play with your pussy while I watch you. Do it now."

Flushing a little, she obeys him, and her fingers fumble a little. She runs her pointer finger up her slit, feeling the moisture there seeping out, and brushes her clit. It's already swollen. She sighs. But damn, this feels weird. She wishes he wouldn't just crouch there like a damn gargoyle, staring at her. Still, if this is how he wants to play, fine. She strokes herself gently, sighs softly as the pleasure of it hums in her blood.

"No," he whispers. "You can do better than that, Tash. I want you to masturbate like you do when you're alone, when no one can see you."

Well Jesus, nothing embarrassing about THAT at all. She squirms a little, but after all, this is Clint. They've certainly done weirder things. Besides, if she's touching herself, she's in control, and though she can't see how it gets him what he wants, it doesn't make her feel too threatened, once she thinks about it. She closes her eyes, decides to just sort of pretend he's not staring at her, and does what he asks. With one hand, she uses her fingers to spread herself open. She slides her first two fingers of her free hand down the slippery flesh of her own sex and slides them inside her. She hums softly, tonelessly, at the feeling, then slides them back out and begins to rub her clit up and down. So nice.

"Tell me what you think about, Tasha," he says quietly, but there is steel in his voice that tells her he will not be denied.

"You," she whispers, still rubbing. "I think about you."

"That's a cop-out," he snaps. Before she even has time to open her eyes, he has flipped her over onto her stomach and he spanks her, hard and fast, with his hand. She's still drawing breath to yelp from the first hard spank when he's smacked her a dozen times and flipped her back over again, ordering her to continue. She can feel the outline of every one of his fingers branded into her ass. It throbs. Good lord but he's strong. She blinks back tears, not that she's ready to cry, but just because her eyes are fucking watering it stung so much and startled her so badly. Badly disconcerted, she fumbles as she reaches back down between her legs. She's even wetter than before now, and she presses her bottom into the rough carpet a little as she continues.

"Tell me what you think, Tasha…the truth," he says harshly. This mortifies her, because though there are things they don't tell each other, they're as honest with each other as they can be, and she knows she owes it to him to be honest now. But what she thinks, in the dark quiet of her own mind, when they are apart and she yearns for him, and her fingers strum pleasure from her own body because she can't wait…those things are private. And embarrassing. She turns her face away from him, keeps her eyes closed, but she does as he's asking.

"I…I'm alone in a dark room. I'm naked, and blindfolded. I'm…my hands are tied, above my head. I'm…"

"Are you afraid?" he whispers.

"Yes…"

"What happens?"

"I hear a door…it opens and closes. F…footsteps. I feel his body heat…he walk around me…close. I can hear him breathe. He…he says my name…"

"Taaasshhhhaaa," Clint whispers, and it's so exactly like in her fantasy that she shivers.

"It…it's your voice," she gasps.

"Does that make you stop being afraid?"

"N..oh..no," she sighs. "You touch me, just a little, just…your fingertips…all over my body, and it makes me shiver. You whisper…in my ear…how bad I've been…and I pull on the ropes but I can't get free. I try to fight but you've done something to me, so I can't. You…you have a whip…and you rub it on my body…let me feel the leather. You hold it under my nose so I can smell it. You…you tell me how much it will hurt…"

"It will," he whispers. "Oh Tasha…it will hurt so much."

"God," she gasps, and her pussy clenches hard. "You…you step back, and I hear it…you crack it, in the air, all around me, and I can't see where it is. And then…then you whip me with it..not like a torturer…like….not on my back…"

"I punish you with it like a bad girl, not a spy, not an enemy," he says, his voice so rich and soft.

"Yes. God. Oh fuck…you use it on my ass, on the backs of my legs…and…oh…"

"And it hurtsss," he hisses.

"So much," she pants, her finger rubbing furiously on her clit, which feels as though it will burst. His voice in her ears added to the fantasy in her head is driving her mad. She doesn't turn her face away anymore. She looks at him, and his eyes are hot and fierce on her face and flicking down her body. She throws her head back, closes her eyes again, continues.

"You…you don't stop…and it…it…the tip of the whip…it slips between my legs…and between my cheeks…"

He makes a low sound in his chest. "Does it hurt," he breathes, "when it snaps on your poor sweet little pussy and your poor tight little asshole?"

"Jesus Clint," she gasps. "God…yes…hurts…so much…"

"Do you scream?"

"Yes," she says harshly, teeth clenched. "I…I beg…and I cry…"

"I like that," he growls.

Her pussy is throbbing, aching. She wants to reach for him, pull him to her, take him inside, but she knows he won't let her. She moans softly.

"Y…you do…and while I'm crying…you unfasten your pants…and you push me forward and let the rope out…so I'm bent over…and you ki…kick my legs open…and you ram into me…and I'm sore from the whip…and it hurts…"

Abruptly, taking her completely by surprise because she didn't hear him move, she feels two of his finger spear into her drenched cunt. She cries out in shock and then whimpers when he presses them hard up inside her, the force of his powerful shoulder behind it as he finger fucks her cruelly. She whines and gasps. His other hand spanks hard on the inside of her thigh, making her cry out again in shock and pain.

"Did I tell you to stop talking?" he snarls.

"I'm sorry," she pants. She's dazed, aching, lusting hideously for him, and positively shaking with the welter of emotions she feels. The tender skin on the inside of her thighs burns where he spanks, and his fingers inside her are fucking fantastic and she never wants him to stop, can feel her inner muscles clenching down on them like she will never let go, and she's dizzy. And god, she's about to come so hard she may shake this fucking place down around their ears.

"Y..you fuck me…so hard…and I scream…and…god…ohh…you like it. You like me screaming for you…and…"

"And?" he prompts when she hesitates.

"Ah…after a little while….you take your dick out of…of my pussy…and you p…press it up against my…"

"It's going up that tight little asshole now," he says, his voice is steely and cold.

"No," she gasps. "No please…."

"Is that when you come, Tasha?" he purrs. "When I spear your quivering, tight, punished little asshole with my cock?"

She makes a strangled sound and her thighs shake with effort as she swirls her finger on her clit, feels her body drawing tight as release approaches.

"Yes," she gasps, "Oh god, yes…"

"Then we'll have to try it sometime," he says, and he pulls his fingers out of her, and grabs her wrists and yanks them away from her aching pussy. She moans, an anguished sound of frustration. God, she's so fucking close! But fuck if she's going to let him beat her this easy. She pulls herself together, ignoring the small voice in her head that's trying to tell her the only person she's beating by not letting him all the way in is herself. It's a much bigger struggle than it should be, but she calms her breathing, quiets her rampaging pulse, and waits.

He ignores her self-defeating display of self-control and rolls to his feet. He stands above her, looking down, unapologetically staring at her nakedness for several seconds. She stares back, impassively. He won't get to her THIS way. Then he unbuckles his belt, a move which always clutches at her breath in her throat, but all he does is open his pants, pull himself out.

"My turn. On your knees," he says curtly. Oh yeah, this is gonna conquer her. She so hates going down on him. No..no…not that. She only rolls her eyes inwardly while she kneels up and reaches for him. And what the fuck? Bastard isn't even hard. Watching her like that, naked and pouring hot smut in his ears while she played with herself, while she very nearly came undone for him…and he's not even hard? She takes his cock in her hand, slides her mouth over him. In reality, she likes going down on him before he's all the way erect. It's a huge charge for her to suck him while he pants and gasps and groans for her, but when he isn't fully erect, she can get all of him in her mouth. She sucks him down until her lips are pressed to his groin, and she swallows, working him with her throat and tongue. He makes a small humming sound of approval. His fingers stroke through her hair. He's pretty damn helpless for her when he's like this. She sucks gently and feels him growing harder, starting to fill her mouth. Holds him like this until it starts to be too much of a strain, then backs off. She licks around the head, darts her tongue at the hole at the end of his cock, licks the underside, scrapes gently with her teeth. She's a little sorry it's over, because it was hot, but thinks it's better this way. She'll give all to him, someday, she's just not quite there yet. And this is the part of their sex life where he loses control himself, and either comes in her mouth or throws her down and fucks her blind once he can't take anymore.

But…what the fuck is he doing? He's TALKING to her. In a calm voice. Like she's not down here on her knees with his cock in her mouth, making him nuts for her.

"Can you see, Tasha?" he asks calmly. "I don't come undone for you when you use that fantastic mouth on me because I can't help it. I come undone for you because I'm able to let myself be completely open to you, completely vulnerable, and to give up control. I can have just as much self-control as you do if I choose to. How good do you feel about yourself right now, knowing you're doing something I love, while I'm standing here like it's nothing? Like it doesn't touch me?"

Oh god. She suddenly feels like he's hit her in the head with a board and then kicked her in the stomach. Her irritation and frustration and disbelief that he can stand there and be unaffected fly out the window as he drops this grand piano of a revelation on her head. She feels tears welling up in her eyes, and doesn't try to stop them. She pulls back, needs to tell him that she's sorry. The fingers drifting through her hair make a fist, and hold her head just where it is.

"You're not finished," he snarls, and he starts to fuck her mouth. He knows exactly how much she can take without him hurting her jaw or causing an oxygen issue, and he uses every last millimeter of that room. He uses her mouth roughly, something he would never have dreamed to do before, she knows. She wouldn't have let him. She lets him now, and finds to her immense surprise that she's getting off on letting him. She has no control over how fast or how deeply he fucks her mouth. He could break her jaw, or choke her, or suffocate her. He does none of these, but she feels the strength of his grip in her hair and the slide of his cock over her tongue and she whimpers. He may be using her like a two dollar whore, but in letting him, she feels how despite his rough treatment of her, he's taking great care to not go farther than she's able, and realizes that she TRUSTS him not to, and so she just stops *thinking* about sucking him off and enjoys it. He keeps talking, but it's different now.

"God, Tash…you're so fucking hot with my cock in your mouth like that. Have I ever told you I love watching you like this? You're the most gorgeous beast and if you didn't make me so damn hard I'll probably explode in a couple minutes, I could watch you all fucking day."

She moans a little, feels the head of his dick bump the back of her throat, tastes the salt of him on her tongue.

"When I come in your mouth, I'm going to lay you back down on the floor and use my tongue on you for just ages. I'm going to eat you like you're ice cream. I'm going to suck your sweet little swollen clit between my teeth and flick my tongue on it until you scream. I'm going to taste every bit of your sweet pussy and do you know what Tash?"

She makes an incoherent sound around his dick and he laughs a little.

"I'm not going to let you move while I do it, and I'm not going to let you come. Because if you move, I'm going to stop, and I'm going to punish you. And then I'm going to go down on you again. You won't come Tasha, not until I let you, and I won't let you. Not until you come unglued for me, Not until I've wrecked you. Not until you beg." As he finishes, she feels the rhythm of his strokes falter, feels his balls draw tight under her chin, and he comes, his body shuddering. His hand in her hair fists convulsively and he hisses through his teeth, and sighs, and pulls himself out of her mouth and refastens his pants. She swallows the hot salt of his pleasure, but feels a little bit bereft. He's usually so into it when he comes. He holds nothing back. It makes her feel like an asshole.

He pushes her back down on the floor on her back, orders her harshly to hold herself open for him. Her fingers shake a little when she does it. He drops to his knees between her legs and looks at her. She tries not to, but she's so damn hungry for him now that she can't help rolling her hips up towards him a little in invitation. He's just so fucking GOOD at eating pussy, she can't stand waiting for him to get on with it. He pulls his belt out of the loops and lays it on the floor beside her, a menacing black coil of leather, like a sleeping snake. She stares at it for a minutes, and jolts in surprise when his warm, wet mouth covers her pussy. His tongue glides long and slow up the whole length of her sex, between her fingers where she spreads herself for him. She sighs, then catches her breath when his tongue flickers over her clit. He only touches her there for a few seconds though, then continues to flick his tongue over all the slick rubbery flesh of her pussy. She groans, and tries very hard to be still. He suckles her clit gently, swirls his tongue AROUND it but not over it, nibbles and even bites a little, but he never stays with one pattern long enough or applies enough pressure to push her over the edge into orgasm. He pushes his fingers into her, spends several minutes finger fucking her deep and slow, avoiding her g-spot carefully. She's completely lost track of time. He pussy feels like a mindless starving thing that is going to eat her brain if it doesn't get what it wants. She whimpers and lifts her hips desperately towards his patient and ruthless mouth. He backs off, whispers harshly at her,

"This is your only warning, Tasha. Don't move again."

Fuck. Just…fuck. He's going to kill her. He'd better, or else she's going to kill *him*. A little teasing is fine but god, she needs to come. Needs it bad. Every square inch of her skin is buzzing. She pants and gasps and whimpers and she tries so fucking hard not to move but SHIT. His MOUTH. And she growls and presses her pussy up against his tongue and her hands reach for his hair. He sits up abruptly, leaving her bereft and whining for him wordlessly. He reaches for his belt. She doesn't care, do it, spank her, she deserves it, needs it. She starts to turn over and he stops her, sitting between her knees and forcing her legs open even wider. The belt snaps down hard on her inner thighs. She cries out in pain. Her skin is so soft there, so tender, and he's not gentle. Hot stinging pain erupts on her thighs as he spanks one side, then the other. When he stops, she's gasping and mewling and on the verge of tears, which isn't as long a trip for her as it should be, because he's opened her eyes to what an asshole she's been to him. But he stops. His sensitive fingers gently open her pussy, spread her wide, and the second her eyes fly open wide in realization, the very tip of the belt spanks her open pussy and she squeals in alarm and fear. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck…it bites, it burns and…god help her…it feels amazing. Dimly, she's aware he's being careful not to hit her there too hard, just enough to shock and sting. And shit, it does, but when she whimpers and cries out for him, it isn't only pain. She's confused, alarmed by her reaction. And feels utterly subjugated by his will. Yes, fuck, yes, spank her there, anything you want, just don't stop, you bastard, you fucker, she needs it, do it. God. He stops just this side of agony, leaving her trembling and shaken. There are tears rolling down her temples, wetting her hair. He leans back down, softly and tenderly kisses her hot burning pussy, licks and kisses the pain and sting away until she is once again consumed only by need. She clenches her fists and trembles against the need to move.

"Clint," she whispers urgently.

"Mm?" he asks inquiringly, but doesn't remove his mouth from her dripping pussy.

"I need to come," she says, and there's a whine in her voice. And right now she finds she just doesn't hate that like she would have a few hours ago.

"No," he says shortly, and goes back to his work. His fingers twist and press inside her, then slide slow and tormentingly between her cheeks to slide up her ass, while she shudders and groans. His wicked tongue laps sotly at her clit with no pattern or rhythm at all, just short then long then tiny faint touches then circles that surround her clit but don't touch it. The frustration becomes the driving force behind her entire existence. She can't control her body's vicious need for him.

Christ. She does. She needs him, like breathing. There's nothing protecting her anymore. He has not only exposed her, he has dragged that which he's exposed out into the street in broad daylight, and made her look. And she sees that what she's been protecting all this time is stupid. Because inside her, down deep where she hid it even from herself….It's him.

She breaks. She starts to cry in earnest, not tears of frustration but tears of release. Her body softens, muscles cease their desperate tremors. He senses it and his tongue swipes slow and sweet over her clit. She gasps for breath, and she cries for him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she gasps. "Clint…oh god, forgive me. I'm…ah…I'm an idiot."

His honey sweet tongue glides over her again, just right, and she cries out, frantic.

"I..I…I…oh please!"

"Tell me, Tash," he whispers against her pussy.

"Hnnh…oh god…please…I need to come, oh please…please let me!"

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, his tongue.

"No Tasha…tell me."

"Fuck! Ah…I…oh…Clint! I…"

"Hm?"

"I…yield," she whispers, and the tears are hot on her face and she finds it doesn't hurt to say it at all, and his tongue flickers on her clit *just right* and her hands grasp desperately at the cheap carpet, and find no purchase, and then his hands slide into hers and she grips him like a life preserver and her orgasm crashes into her like breakers on a reef and she shatters. She screams and screams and screams, and she holds onto his hands so tight she feels their bones grinding together. Then suddenly, he is inside her, where he belongs, still holding her hands, and he moves in her like he's always been here, always part of her, and she cries while he rides out her orgasm and then pushes her up and up and up.

"Again," he gasps as he works deep inside her. "Go over again."

She hears him dimly through her own ragged cries, and she turns her face towards his, blinded, and she begs him,

"This time…come with me….please…"

His breathing hitches and falters and his hands in hers clench and she feels him shudder all over like a dog shedding water and he gasps.

"Always"

The man calling himself Yeltsin arrives at the bank at precisely 7:30 in the morning. He goes to his office and takes off his coat. Hanging it on a hook on his door, he goes and boots up his computer. He enters in a complicated series of characters, and the Bank of Minsk wallpaper screen vanishes, replaced by an entirely different one. He spends a few minutes, as he does every morning, checking on the progress of his newest pupil. Her instructors say she still resists them. He frowns, emails instructions, and resolves to pay her a visit himself tomorrow. He had hoped she would be farther along by now. She has such potential. Not unlike…ah, but that one is dead to him now. He makes it a policy never to think of her. He finishes, restores the computer to normal operations, and goes to open the vault before any of the other employees arrive for the day. He enters the code, swipes his identification, places his palm on the screen and waits for the green light. Then he spins the heavy old wheel and pulls the titanium door towards him. Another fake day, another ruble. He holds Yeltsin's life in contempt, and yet he plays the part flawlessly. There is very seldom such thing as an old spy. He intends to become one.

The irony of this thought being followed so closely by the alarming appearance of a silenced Sig Sauer pistol and a long recurve bow nocked with a menacing black steel and carbon arrow is certainly not lost on him. He looks at the pair who stand inside the vault, their weapons trained unwaveringly on him. The woman is lovely. She seems hardly to have aged a day since he saw her last. Always, before today, when those lovely blue eyes looked upon him, he was pleased to see fear and respect in equal measures. He sees neither now. Her eyes are cool. She gazes on him with contempt. Her partner, a rather alarming fellow with a sleeveless leather armored shirt, has a much more expressive gaze than does she. In his eyes. Rudchenko sees hot rage, a hatred so intense he feels compelled to step back from it lest he be consumed. He does not waste time with pleas, or attempt to distract them with conversation. He trained her. He knows this would be pointless.

"What do you want?" he asks. There is always a price. Everyone has one. He'll simply meet theirs.

"Just this," says the man softly.

They walk out of the bank casually, arm in arm, their backpacks slung casually over their shoulders. The disabled cameras will summon the police soon, but the tapes of them stepping over Ruchenko's body out of the vault, down the hall and into the security office are in Natasha's pocket. They head straight to the small private airstrip where they have left the helijet. By the time the police arrive to find the body of the man they believe to be Yeltsin, they are in the air and headed for home. They stop in France to refuel before continuing their trip. Sunset is approaching. Clint asks if she'd like to get a hotel and spend the night here, so that she doesn't have to fly in the dark. She looks at him and smiles.

"Let's go home," she says contentedly. "It looks plenty light to me."