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1. He's sent to kill her. She's a rival, a menace, and too damn good for SHIELD to ignore. No one's ever turned a Red Room agent before. Don't bother. Get her clean and get away quick. Do not, repeat do not, attempt to engage close quarters.
That was the plan. Things got futzed up, as they do. He faced her in a grimy alley in the middle of the afternoon. He had his pistol drawn, heavy and pointed at her. She didn't react. Didn't go into a defensive pose, didn't try to draw one of her own weapons. Just looked at him, her arms at her sides. Just looked at him. Her mask slipped a bit and Clint saw how tired she was. He could see the bone-deep exhaustion written all over her face.
He put away his pistol, held his hands out wide and inched closer, like he was trying to pet a strange and skittish dog. Murmured gentle, comforting bullshit. Once he got close enough, too close, he saw the real mask drop. The tiredness was gone in a split second, replaced with cold determination. Self-satisfaction. She stabbed him six times and left his body in the alley.
2. It was one of their first missions together. They were still trying to work out all the kinks. He zigged when she thought he would zag. Shit happens. Friendly fire happens.
3. Official cause of death: Blood loss due to enucleation of the eye by Hydra agents in Budapest.
Actual cause of death: He had begged her and she had obliged.
4. Barney came back. He had seen his baby brother saving the world and jumping off forty story buildings and came back. He was in bad trouble, Barney was, and Clint didn’t need to think. Clint didn’t need to hear half the story before his body started moving, reaching for his go bag and an extra quiver. They made one last stop before they disappeared.
Neutralize the threat. Barton had been gone thirty-six hours and it was clear to Fury that Romanov wasn’t going after him. So he gave her the order.
It took her three days to track them down. She followed them for another week, bouncing around through the American west. Just a pair of brothers looking for work and the red-headed shadow they never saw.
Oil fields are dangerous places to work; no one’s surprised. It looked like an accident. It was an accident. She accidentally killed the wrong Barton.
5. Mutated, weaponized H1N1 influenza, the doctors called it. The Captain Trips, the orderlies called it. Natasha had picked it up in a HYDRA base in the Congo. She was still too juiced up from the Red Room's experiments to get anything more than a stuffy nose and upset stomach. But as good as Clint was, for all his training and trying and superhuman shooting, he still had a human immune system. He got more than just the sniffles and the shits. He got pneumonia and cyanosis and a rattling, gurgling final breath.
And One Time She Didn't
1. It was their 74th mission together, not that either was keeping count. He zigged, she zagged and shot. He felt the bullet brush his hair and joked about not needing a haircut that bad.