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"You can make a different call," the archer had told her, the American, always so certain of his ground.
"I'm not a child," Natasha growled back as they walked down a narrow alleyway in Budapest. "Don't appeal to my innocence."
He stopped, leaned back his head, and counted to ten in... Latin?
She decided at that moment that she needed to learn Latin.
"How long are we going to do this dance, Widow?" he finally asked, dropping his head to stare at her intently but somehow imploringly.
They had met a few times when he was still a freelancer, once or twice on the same side of an operation, once or twice on opposites. They'd only met twice since he joined up with SHIELD. Hawkeye was a colleague she tolerated, despite his odd proclivity for finding her if she happened to be anywhere in the same area.
He stepped forward, his gaze and nearness suddenly palpable.
She stepped back.
"I could appeal to your affections," he said easily, mouth quirking in a small but noticeable grin.
Natasha sniffed. "Love is for children."
"Your friendship then," Hawkeye countered. "We are friends, right?" He leaned an arm on the brick wall beside her.
She looked at him and sighed. "You never give up, do you?"
"Nope."
He had always liked it when they fought on the same side of an operation. She hadn't. He bumped into the ghosts and spaces left inside her that the Winter Soldier had used to fill. Natasha may have put aside love, but she was not so heartless as she let on.
"When you have me dead to rights with an arrow and I cannot escape," she told him, "I will accept your offer."
"Either that or the other country, huh?" He smiled, couldn't seem to even help himself. "You like me better than death."
She liked him better than almost anyone, but Natasha only smiled, stepped on tiptoes, and murmured in his ear, "In your dreams," before she left him chuckling behind her.