From Amsterdam

Amsterdam:

The city of sin; a perfect meeting place for a couple of sinners.

She's barely seventeen and he's not quite twenty and they're on opposite corners of the street; him on a rooftop, bow in hand and backpack stuffed with wads of cash, and she leaning against a lamppost in a far-too-short dress, a multitude of knifes hidden down her boots.

The target meets her death quickly; a knife in the chest and an arrow through the head, and they're both gone before she's even hit the ground, nothing to connect them save a curt nod and a police report that speaks of two unaccounted witnesses: A girl with flame red hair and young man perched high on a balcony overlooking the square.

Helsinki:

They meet again just over a year later to show off the darker elements of design in a city famed for just that.

Two separate hits. Two dead men. Two people (can you call them people? Or is machines a better description?) designed, moulded, sculpted into killers by hours of carefully conditioned training.

The intention a little different perhaps; but the end result is the same.

Sofia:

It's in a derelict hotel room that their paths cross for a third time. She's been on the run for ten months- working for the highest bidder, and he's been with SHIELD two and a half years – long enough that when the orders for her termination come in he's the one on the plane to Bulgaria.

He's been following her for several days (and he's not the only one – there are a lot of people with a grudge against the infamous Black Widow) when he sees the opportunity; an open window, but no clear line of shot, which leaves him with only one option – up close and personal.

She's barely recognisable as the girl from her file – that picture was old, a blurry CCTV shot taken at an airport in Zurich (they don't have an exact age on record, but they estimated that she was only twelve or thirteen in that photograph – and that was nearly eleven years ago) – but, he starts with surprise, even after six long years he remember her – the only person ever to have beaten (or at least equalled) him to a kill.

The moment of hesitation costs him, a cloud passes behind the flapping curtain and she cracks an eye open, drawing a gun from seemingly nowhere and pointing it at his head, just as he aims an arrow at her heart.

"Stalemate." Her voice is softer than he expects, with only the barest hint of an eastern European – her file says Russian – accent.

He nods once, "It seems it is."

She jerks her arm slightly and he pulls his bowstring tighter, ready and waiting for her to make the first move. It never comes; instead she shrugs slightly, "Sorry about that, bullet through the shoulder," she adds, "My informant got a little ahead of himself – he's no longer a problem…obviously." He stares at her, wondering what her play will be – he has absolutely no doubt that this woman can and will kill him without a seconds hesitation. She gives him a tiny half smile- one that goes all the way to her eyes, as she slowly lowers the gun and drops it onto the floor. "Can I at least enquire as to the name of my killer?" she asks tiredly.

"Hawkeye." He answers, "Clint Barton." And then, making a spur of the moment decision that he'll probably live to regret, he lowers his bow, "But I'm not here to kill you – I've come to offer you a job."

Belgrade:

They meet up with Coulson two weeks and a whole lot of telephone shouting matches later.

Phil, to his credit, doesn't say much- simply rolling his eyes and letting out a long suffering sigh in Barton's direction, before turning to SHIELD's newest and most controversial recruit, "And you are…?" he's almost certainly read her file which must, she imagines, be hundreds, if not thousands, of pages thick (and dripping, no, gushing with red), but probably less than a paragraph of meaningful information.

She doesn't lie. "Natalya Romanova." The words sound foreign on her tongue.

He stares down at her, "And does anyone else know that name?" he asks.

She nods once, "The Red Room."

Coulson notes something down on a piece of paper, "I'm going to have to ask you to take a new name then," he says, before looking up at her again and elaborating, "Effectively we're killing you, wiping you from all the official records." She looks mildly impressed as he continues, "Of course that's not going to do anything about word of mouth," he gives her the slightest of smiles, "Your reputation precedes you Black Widow."

Barton grins at her over his handler's shoulder, a completely different man from the one who offered her another chance at life just a fortnight ago, "Any ideas?"

She thinks for a second, "No…"

"How about Natasha, then." Barton suggests, "It's close enough to the original – and you could anglicise Romanova."

Both men regard her for a moment, "Okay." She says slowly, "I like that."

Barton punches the air in silent victory and Coulson makes another note on the sheet, "Welcome to the team Agent Romanoff." He says handing her the sheet of paper to fill in the remainder of the details.

"Yeah," Barton echoes, "Welcome to the team, Tasha."

Kiev:

He doesn't trust her until their tenth mission. They're on a simple smash-grab-and-kill (smash the building, grab the Intel and kill the Mob boss guarding it) when they're discovered and all hell breaks loose.

He gets stabbed, a simple in-and-out wound (honestly, he's had worse training) but it's enough to take him to the floor. He rolls over to find a giant man standing over him holding a knife stained scarlet by his blood. The man raises the knife for the fatal blow, then, suddenly drops to the ground, a small black hole in his skull.

'Thanks.' He mutters slightly surprisedly as she appears from the shadows, gun in hand – a natural extension of her arm.

'Don't mention it.' She says it like an order (and he's pretty damned sure it is) as she walks passed him. She only goes a few paces before turning back, "Ever heard of 'honour among thieves', Barton"

He looks at her quizzically, "Yeah…"

"I'm pretty sure that goes for Assassins as well."

Ghent:

The hit on Alexandr Dreykov goes pretty well. For the first five minutes.

After that it goes pretty badly: A moonless night with bullets flying everywhere and no night vision (The SHIELD technician who was responsible for that particular fuck-up will probably spend a considerable few months in pain if Tasha's mutterings are anything to go by)

They win in the end – if you can call it a win- but when it comes to collecting the body, proofs needed with this one; Dreykov's faked his death too many times for any chances to be taken, they walk through the maze of dead bodies until they reach the far wall of the compound – the final resting place of two people.

Anya Dreykov was eight years old and now she has one bullet lodged in her chest and another in her brain. She is tiny in death, lying just feet away from her father's corpse. Natasha kneels down on the ground and closes the girls lids over glassy eyes as Clint bends over her father, swabbing DNA from the inside of his cheek.

Then they walk away.

Seville:

For a couple of master assassins they sure seem to end up in a lot of shootouts. And for once this one isn't even their fault - the CNI have an uncanny ability to mess with SHIELD's operations and screw up the six months' worth of intelligence that they've collected.

Luckily for them (and Coulson's sanity) SHIELD manages to get them out of their before someone thinks to ask why the 'lovely couple' at the end of the street managed to get past the police lines, shoot the target and make off with a couple of laptops and the CCTV reccordings.

It's their first time playing a couple and they do a pretty convincing job.

Salzburg:

He kisses her for the first time on a mission in Austria. It's born out of desperation and an If-I-don't-make-it out-of-here-alive type need.

It confuses the hell out both of them.

So, in an effort to understand, they kiss again. And again. And again.

Dublin:

She talks in Dublin. He's been shot (again) and he's lying in a bed at St. James hospital; pale and motionless with a multitude of tubes and wires attaching him to bleeping machines.

She has Coulson in her ear, talking slowly and calmly as always, telling her that they've hacked his medical reports and they'll transfer him back to SHIELD as soon as he's stable.

So she talks (she's not even sure if he can hear her and even less sure if she wants him to be able to). Talks about where she comes from and what she's done. She talks about The Red Room and having a ledger that bleeding out almost as fast as he was not an hour ago. She talks about how alone she was before SHIELD and, well, him.

Paris:

He talks in Paris. The roles are reversed and she's been injected with some kind of slow-acting poison, the last ditch attempt of a dying drug lord. The evac's ten minutes away and he's got some busy-body medic in his ear telling him that he's got to keep her conscious, so he talks. Talks about where he comes from and what he's done. He talks about the Circus and betrayal. He talks about how alone he was before she came along.

Tirana:

Sonic arrows, as it turns out, should not be messed with.

But being him being deaf is just another thing in the increasingly long list of stuff they'll deal with together.

Oslo:

'.-.. - ...- . .. … ..-. - .-. -.-. …. .. .-.. -.. .-. . -.' (Love is for children) " He taps against the wall, as they sit, leaning against the outer wall of the cave their sitting in waiting for SHIELD to get their act together and scramble them a quinjet

She responds in sign language, first touching her thumb then second finger (then)before moving her hands up and down repeatedly, palms facing up (maybe), then pointing at her chest (I), before making a fist (am), then holding up her hand, finger curled over (a) and finally raising one hand and moving it up and down once, palm facing down (child).

There love, much like them, is quiet, ever so watchful and entirely without words.

Zagreb:

Natasha is reported KIA after a solo op in Sao Paulo.

Clint is in Croatia, just finished a job, when the news comes through and Fury (son-of-a-bitch) won't let him finish what she started.

"I'm sorry Barton; it's the hazard of the job. We need you in Kenya - there's some shit going down here that I really don't like the look of."

He's so, so tempted to tell Fury where he can stick his job.

Prague:

The mission is so nearly a disaster. It's been a month and he keeps forgetting that she no longer has his back; which, in this case, equates to him missing a quite possibly fatal bullet wound by about half an inch and crashing through a fire escape.

After, he sits in a bar with Phil, systematically downing shots of vodka and staring down at the table. The door to the bar clangs open and he looks over. It's her.

"I'm not dead." She walks over and grabs his drink, downing it in one gulp, "Jesus Barton! What are you drinking, Smirnoff?"

He just smiles.

Budapest:

Natasha Romanoff marries Clint Barton in the middle of a gun fight with a knife strapped to her thigh and two broken ribs. They're both bloody, bruised, breaking about a hundred different SHIELD protocols and neither of them can summon up the strength to care.

Coulson officiates over the coms in an uncharacteristic display of 'Rules? What rules?', shows some pretty fantastic hacking in commandeering a military satellite to take their wedding photos and some equally awesome leadership by managing to bring them both back alive (though admittedly with a grand total of three bullet wounds, two broken ribs and a fractured wrist between them)

Later on, in a SHIELD medical facility somewhere of the coast of New Jersey, they share a secret smile. Everything is different now, but in a way, everything is the same.

Avignon:

A little boy is left strapped to a bomb in a hospital in the centre of the city. They try their best, but eventually there comes a time when there is nothing they can do but follow the trail of screaming bystanders out of the door and into the street where they can only watch the bricks explode outward and the roof burn, slowly collapsing in on itself.

They're in a hotel bar that night, he's nursing a whiskey on his knee and she's downing shots of vodka in the way that only a Russian could, when a news report comes on, showing the hospital burning; streams of acrid smoke billowing from the roof as the little boy's mother sobs uncontrollably, lashing out at the police officer restraining her.

London

On Phil's 35th birthday they kidnap him from his office and, with the aid of a stolen Quinjet, (Fury is not going to be pleased with them when they get back) fly him to London to see the newly unveiled waxwork model of Captain America at Madam Tussauds.

They have dinner at a tiny, family owned restraint. Clint has his arm hooked around the back of Natasha's chair and she's leaning into him ever so slightly as the three of them talk about everything and anything, laughing, and smiling real smiles that reach their eyes.

For ten whole hours there are no secrets and none of them have to hide.

Sofia II:

This Sofia is not a place, but a person – a child.

Their child.

Their greatest weakness and their best kept secret , she's born (thanks to Coulson) under the pretence of an elaborately set up and, of course, entirely fake mission in Romania, and nobody – not Fury, not anybody – will ever, can ever, know about her.

She has her father's eyes and her mother's red curls and they vow to do anything, anything, to protect her.

Bucharest:

"We could leave." It's not so much of a suggestion as a statement. They could leave. It is well within their rights, no-one could make them stay and no-one in their right mind would try to. They could leave, tonight they could run, take their daughter somewhere safe.

"We could." She responds, "But we won't". They could leave, they could relocate and start a new life, they certainly have enough money – millions stashed in overseas bank account and safe houses all over the world, a relic of their freelance days – but they won't. They can change everything except who they really are.

They go back to SHIELD and Sofia goes to live with Coulson's mom - a formidable woman in her early sixties whom even Fury wouldn't dare tangle with. She'll be safe there, away from prying eyes, yet close enough that her parents can see her whenever they want.

St. Petersburg/Copenhagen:

She's been away for two weeks when the package arrives in their Denmark safe house. It's small -wrapped hastily in brown paper and tied with string. He opens it carefully, peeling back the paper until it's revealed to be a snow globe – a perfect replica of The Church of Christ's Resurrection.

He laughs as he reads the tag tied round the base, the words spelled out in Natasha's cursive scrawl, 'From Russia, with love xxx'

Athens:

They part ways in Athens- her for a stint as Tony Stark's P.A and him for a op in Nigeria (which in time will turn into a routine infiltration of a Peruvian drug cartel, then an extremely odd month and a bit in New Mexico investigating some strange happenings with Phil)- and before they know it, a year's passed and they're back in Greece, sitting at a café hidden away in a maze of side streets, drinking coffee and smiling at photos of a nearly two year old Sophia.

Volograd:

Killing someone is a feeling like no other, it has a terrible immediacy, but she is almost certain she has never stopped a heart as quickly as hers does when she answers the phone and hears Coulson's voice speaking at her, softly delivering the death blow;

'Barton's been compromised.'

'Let me put you on hold.'

Stuttgart:

Piloting a Quinjet seems so odd without him sitting next to her, making some stupid joke or fiddling with the head of one of his arrows.

It's all that she can do to remain in her seat and let Stark and Rogers (seriously? This is the guy that Coulson's been fanboy-ing for so many years?) take down Loki, because personally she can think up some pretty imaginative and painful things she could do to make him cease to be a problem. But she stays, clutching the consoles, because Phil's in her ear; conforming that he's relocated Sofia – that she at least is safe- and reminding her that Loki might be the only way to find Clint and bring him back.

Rome:

After the events in New York they take off, Fury tells the council that they've earned some time off but in all truth even he doesn't know where they are. He wouldn't believe it if he did. Two of the world's best assassins, their handler (Phil met them at Fiumicino airport with the same ever so eloquent words Natasha had used in Prague almost seven years earlier) and daughter are sitting on Capitoline Hill – well Natasha and Phil are sitting, Clint's playing a game that looks like a cross between football and 'attack of the tickle monster' with a nearly four year old Sofia whose loving every minute- watching as the sun goes down in a blast of golden yellows and reds.

They know, all of them, that in a week or so everything is going to go back to normal and this evening will simply be a fond memory, but until such time as it has to they're going to pretend it will never end.

First ever fanfic so please review and tell me what you think!