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Natalia Romanova was not unobservant. She was an agent of the Red Room and her skills were best described as ‘deadly’. She had her charm and allure; like a spider, she lured targets into her web and annihilate them, sucking them dry of information or disposing of them as necessary. Thing is, she was resilient like a spider too. Observe any spider and you will realized that just hours after its webs were destroyed, it would have built itself a complete new onw.
Such was the Black Widow. She was an independent operator, only needing to return after a mission to receive another mission. If she was injured or compromised, she was expected to retreat and after that, to rebuilt her web. Failure was not within contemplation. Any hints of weakness was a death sentence in the Red Room and she did not want to die.
Still, she was very tired. So very tired. Although she looked and moved as though she was in her twenties, she was in fact much older. Much like the Winter Soldier, she had been put into cryo-freeze (storage) when her particular skill set was not needed. In recent years though, with the collapse of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, her skills had become much more important. She had been thawed. She never knew what she exactly was nor who her masters were. She was but a gun they point at targets and shoot.
Perhaps this was why on that fateful mission she had deliberately slipped up. Natalia had let herself be photographed by an ATM camera (predictable, she could have avoided the camera with just a slight turning of the body). She knew full well that no one from the Red Room will come after her to collect her. It had always been the understanding that you pay for your mistake with your life. Or not.
She waited to see who will show up. Natalia Romanova was not a a fool. She knew her exploits as the Black Widow would have attracted the attention of interested forces around the world. Her next step depended on who found her.
She did not have to wait long. Less than 24 hours later, Natalia found someone on her tail. She waited a bit, played a little mouse-and-cat with them, nearly got caught and found out they are SHIELD.
Natalia cocked her head, trying to puzzle out whether it was ok to go ahead with her plan using SHIELD. There had been two of them, a stocky man with muscular arms and a man so bland and boring that she had difficulty remembering him. Yes, she decide, SHIELD can do the job. They have ridiculously strict rules of ethics.
She left a very light trail, leading them to an old disused training bunker of the Red Room. The very bunker she had first trained in in fact. It had felt fitting, ending in the place she began.
But the stocky guy surprised her. She looked up at him (of course she knew where he was) and minutes later he was disarming his rifle and throwing away his comms. Then he was climbing down off the ‘nest’ and trying to convince her to go back with him to SHIELD.
No, she thinks. It is a trap. “Yes, I will go back with you, Clint Barton,” is what she said instead. She was drained. If he was not willing to kill her, then she will follow him back to his agency.
It was only later that she found out that his handler, the unassuming guy in the off-the-rack suit, was angry at Barton because he had not followed orders. He had ‘gone rogue’ in trying to bring her to SHIELD.
Natasha Romanov (the Anglicized version of her name she had chosen) then spent few tense weeks waiting for the punishment to be handed down. She wasn’t sure how bad it would be or how she could save Barton (Clint, her mind said), but she knew that it would be a harsh punishment. In the Red Room. operatives do not go off on their own jaunts as they liked and she couldn’t imagine SHIELD being any much different in that respect. They were militiarized as well.
She waited. And waited. Still there was no news of punishment. When one month had passed, she went to ask Barton. Even the most incompetent Red Room handler would have already handed down punishment due after one month.
Natasha found Barton easily enough in the lounge room (why would SHIELD prepare such a room? It is so wasteful, neither useful for training or otherwise, only consisting of a television and soft couches). For once, he wasn’t on the range. For some inexplicable reason, he was banned from the range for more than two hours for three months. Enough time to practice but not so much to enjoy. She wondered at that.
“Barton,” she said once she sneaked up on him “EEEEK!” The man jumped three feet into the air. “Gods, Romanov! You scared the shit out of me. Call me Clint, I am only Barton when it is formal or when I am in deep shit,” he grinned, putting aside the stick and string that he had been trying to fashion a bow out of. “Clint. What is your punishment?” Natasha would not be deterred from her question.
“Punishment?” Clint looked bewildered. “Had I done something again? I am pretty sure I had not done anything recently?” “Don’t play ignorance, Clint. Your punishment for not obeying your handler,” Natasha said (she definitely did not growl). “Huh? What?” Clint looked honestly confused and now she was confused too. Had the rumours been wrong then?
“Have you been disobeying me again, Barton?” Natasha did not startled at the voice appearing behind them (okay, she might have had a small flinch). She whipped around and saw the man from the bunker. The unassuming man. Clint’s handler. Coulson.
Natasha did not speak, rather she observed Coulson. Same off-the-rack suit, same boring glasses, same boring hair cut, same unassuming air that made it so easy for the man to slip into places unnoticed.
“No sir, i don’t think so?” Natasha realized that both men were looking at her. “I was talking about Barton’s punishment when he went against orders to shoot me.” In for a penny in for a pound. Natasha took an imperceptible deep breath and continued, “I volunteer to take his place in lieu of the punishmen, sir.”
“Oh,” Clint appeared flabbergasted. “Oh indeed,” Coulson said, his eyes narrowed. “Agent Romanov, I must inform you that your concern, although justified, is unfounded. Barton has been punished and unfortunately that punishment is not something anyone can help him with.”
“Barton had been punished?” she asked, feeling as though she was in a dream. “Yeah, Romanov! I had been suspended for a month and I have lost all range privileges for THREE months!”Clint moaned dramatically. “And that’s all?” she asked, incredulous. So light a punishment for so serious a breach!
“That’s all for this time. Next time, Barton will not be so lucky.” Coulson looked up at her and gave her a small smile as though he had guessed her thoughts. Perhaps he did; after all, he had her file. “If that’s all, Agent Romanov. I will be taking Barton with me. He has paperwork he had misfiled and mis-filled from at least 5 months ago.”
“Aww paperwork, no!” Clint groaned but with a glance from Coulson, he rolled off the couch and made to follow him. Natasha watched them walking out of the room together, trying to make sense of the new world she was in.
Then she saw it, the way Clint’s eyes keep straying to Coulson and lighting up with delight; the way Coulson unconsciously turned towards Clint while walking. Do they know of it, she wondered. Unlikely, she thought to herself. Otherwise, it was unlikely that she would have seen any of the tells. Both men were jealously guarded of their privacy and would not have allowed their lovelife to become common knowledge.Of course, the fact that only the Black Widow would notice did not make any difference. Very well the, she shall keep her eyes peeled for the developments.
In Coulson’s office, Clint starfished out on the couch pushed to one side. “You gonna recommend her to our team, Coulson?” he asked languidly. He knew the answer before Coulson confirmed it for him. “Yes, her skill set would be highly beneficial to the team I want to set up,” Coulson replied, not even lifting his head from his paperwork. They have a familiarity cultivated from years of teamwork. In fact, they have worked together exclusively as handler and agent for almost three years, starting from the day that Coulson had picked him out of the probies’ training class.
At that time, Coulson had had a pretty good team and adding Clint had only increaseed their efficiency. They did so well that the members of the team were gradually tapped for other vital positions until it is just him and Coulson from their original team. Clint knew Coulson had wanted to put together a team again, only he want to pick them out himself this time ‘round. Still, he had been around the man long enough to known when an asset may attract or repulse the man.
Clint was broken from his musings when Coulson said, “I had just completed Form 101(B) to requisition another specialist. I am going up to meet Fury. You finish up your stack of paperwork before lunch. After that, you can use the range for 2 hours.” With that, Phil left the room to meet Director Fury to request a team member.
Clint stared after the man in dismay.Then he turned his attention onto the stack of the computer printouts. Resigned, Clint began to fill out the forms. However, he knew for sure that they will have a new team member by the end of the week. Coulson was just that good.