Chapter Text
"Romanoff," said Barton, sideling up to Natasha and matching her brisk pace with his own curiously graceful slouch, hands stuffed into the pockets of his cargo pants, the faint swishing noise of the fabric rubbing together his arrival's only announcement.
Natasha didn't answer him. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. His dusty blond hair, as usual, was carefully molded into spikes atop his head in what he surely hoped would come across as a devil-may-care look. He was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves torn off, revealing his heavily muscled, sculpted arms. His feet, clad in combat boots, made no noise on the white linoleum floor as he walked.
Barton looked over and his upper lip quirked in a faint smirk that told Natasha he knew that she'd had been watching him. Well? He seemed to ask her. She felt her lip curl in a sneer before she could stop herself but still she didn't say anything.
Well, what, Barton?
"Headed anywhere special?" said Barton. He seemed to have an annoying habit of not knowing when to keep his mouth shut.
"Fury tell you to keep tabs on me?" Romanoff asked instead. Mr. Eyepatch himself, the top dog in these parts. Probably the one who'd ordered her head on a platter in the first place. Also the one who's scissors were poised on the very thin and fraying thread of her continued existence.
She'd met him only once, in the empty, save for a blanketed cot, pristinely white holding cell she'd been led into before being released from the cuffs on her wrists (Barton, she recalled, hadn't been the one to cuff her). She'd been able to think of ten ways to kill him before the trail of his black trench coat had cleared the threshold (1. Strangle him with the blanket, 2. Smother him with the overly plush pillow, 3. Choke him with the strap of his own eyepatch).
He'd demanded to her in Russian what exactly she expected from SHIELD. She'd answered back in her native tongue that she expecting them to kill her. Whereupon he answered in English, "Sorry, Red, don't speak the language."
"Can't a body ask an innocent question?" said Barton, yanking Natasha abruptly back to the present.
"The bodies I've met never did," Natasha murmured, so low she doubted Barton could hear her. His auditory perception, she had noticed, didn't seem to be nearly as attuned as his ocular. Had she been in any position to tell him, she'd have suggested he work on that, try shooting at moving targets with a blindfold on, seeing if he could track their movement accurately with just his sense of hearing. It didn't do to ever become too reliant on any one skillset. If there had been anything drilled incessantly into their minds in the Red Room it was to be versatile and thereby unpredictable. Had she ever the opportunity to go against him in the field, she'd have gone right for his eyes – if she couldn't get a clear shot at his jugular, that is.
They wound through the white walled, white floored, and white lit section of the SHIELD base that surrounded the living courters and broke onto a series of steel catwalks and corridors shrouded in more shadows. Natasha liked it better here. Yes, it was harder to read Barton's expression in the dim light then blank fluorescent but it would also be harder for him to read hers.
They walked in silence, passing a handful of agents and crisp looking SHIELD employees wearing attire that varied from business casual to tight black spandex drenched in sweat from training. Their heads swiveled on their necks to follow her as she passed and eyes bore into the back of her head accusingly, wondering why she hadn't been thrown into a maximum security prison yet or sent to the electric chair. Some met her gaze head-on (most darting away again as quickly as they came). Others even fondled firearms or knives strapped to their belts, ugly curses muttered under their breath and twisting their lips into scowls.
She followed their movements carefully, calculating how quickly it would take her to retrieve the knife she had hidden in her sock and chuck it between their eyes as opposed to how many seconds longer it would take Mr. Cowlick to cock his gun or Ms. Cherry-Red-Lipstick to remember she was supposed to duck.
She had swiped the knife after the latest of the numerous aptitude tests she'd been made to endure over the past three weeks, along with psych evals and health examinations. Natasha had noted with interest that, while making up their mind of whether or not they were going to keep her, SHIELD hadn't wanted her skills to get rusty. Mostly her many assessments and evaluations had been overseen by Barton – along with Mr. Eyepatch, Mr. Clipboard, and Ms. Flat-Chest-and-Steaming-Coffee from behind one-way mirrors and over balcony railings, faces too far away to distinguish any particular features. She'd found the tests to be unexplainably frustrating.
She wasn't a damned rookie and SHIELD knew it.
"So," Barton started as though weighing his words carefully, "Just came from a briefing with Coulson. Some arms dealer in Nicaragua."
Natasha didn't say anything. Wherever Barton was going with this he'd get there in time, with or without prompting from her.
Shame really. She wished he'd just shut up.
Instead she thought of Coulson, Mr. Clipboard, Barton's handler, who'd nearly burst a blood vessel when Barton had arrived at the Quinjet with her in toe when she was supposed to be already attracting flies in that alley. Coulson didn't seem capable in opening showing emotions on that blank canvass face of his, but Natasha could still tell he'd rather she was decomposing under the hot sun then living in the same building as him.
"It's a pretty run-of-the-mill operation but – well – you've got to start somewhere. If you'd like to tag along…."
Natasha tuned rapidly back into Barton's voice, worked hard not to let it show on her face how much his words had captured her attention, and caught her off-guard.
"You're asking me to come?"
Barton shrugged, "It'd be a good way for Fury to truly evaluate you in the field, find out exactly where you fit in –"
"Whether or not I'm going to turn around and stick my knife in his other eye?"
"Well, yeah," Barton shrugged again and Natasha thought she could detect a hint of amusement in his voice, "That too."
"I don't know Barton," said Natasha gruffly. "I've never been a fan of being babysat. Least of all by you."
"To tell you the truth it isn't exactly how I'd like to spend my time either, Romanoff," Barton answered. "But Fury isn't a big fan of blind faith so that means someone has to watch you and –"
"–You're the only one willing to do it," Natasha finished for him.
"To be perfectly blunt," Barton answered, "willingness didn't have anything to do with it. Fury wants me to have a taste of my own medicine."
Natasha didn't have anything to say to that. They walked in silence for a moment. The metal floor clanged softly with each of her footsteps, not that she was trying particularly hard to walk silently.
"You're going to have to decide sometime, Romanoff," Barton sighed. "Can't keep leaching off SHIELD benefits forever. I mean, nice as they are…"
There was a teasing lilt to Barton's tone that set Natasha's teeth on edge. She took a deep breath, trying to soothe herself. Usually people who used that kind of tone of voice with her ended up with a knife wedged between their shoulder blades.
"I wasn't aware that was my choice," Natasha answered stiffly, eyes trained straight ahead, tracing the scratched surface in the metal floor, scuffed by rolling carts and women's high heels.
"Come on, Romanoff," Barton rolled his eyes in a way that was irritatingly charismatic, almost engaging, as though he was trying to goad her into snarking at him. Or smiling. "Don't think I haven't realized why you take a different route to the cafeteria each day. You've probably scouted out more exits to this place in three weeks than I have in three years. You could leave any time you'd like and we couldn't stop you – even if we wanted to try."
The way he said we like it was an inseparable entity rather than a body made of detachable parts and individuals with all their separate agendas. Natasha wondered if a person could really be so credulous. Damned tool.
Then again, Agent Barton did not strike her as inexperienced, nor incredibly naïve.
"You're telling me you'd let me just walk out?"
Barton shrugged, muscles of his back rippling under the cotton of his tank top, pulled tight over his shoulders. "The doors in this place are supposed to work both ways. Land of the free and all. That's sort of the point of America. We can't very well have disgruntled employees working behind our desks. Might foster a negative work environment."
Natasha almost snorted at the ridiculous patriotism of it all, or perhaps Barton's incongruent suggesting that an employee disgruntled enough to slit the director's throat while he slept qualified as a negative work environment.
"Don't make me laugh, Barton," Natasha said. "Everything has a price. Freedom the highest of all." Even the Red Room had made it clear that Mother Russia would only do for you as much as you were willing to do for Mother Russia.
"What's your price, Romanoff?"
"What's SHIELD's?" she asked levelly, coming to a stop and wheeling to face him. He mirrored her almost perfectly, turning on his heel as she did, eyes finding and holding her own.
Barton didn't bother shrugging this time, but the air of dismissal was clear in his voice, "I guess just your word that you won't go back to the career path I interrupted you in. Or, if you can't promise that, then the understanding that the next time I don't stop to ask questions before I let my arrow fly."
Natasha kept her face flat and expressionless, but she wanted to frown. Incredulous was a look she'd perfected. "So I'm to understand you won't be burying an arrow between my shoulders when I walk out of the door? Rather, you expect me to believe that? And don't give me any bull about not shooting people when their back is turned, Barton."
"You can believe anything you'd like Romanoff," said Barton. "But believe this. You walk out now, you're never coming back in unless we want to experiment on your corpse."
"Real convincing recruiting spiel," said Romanoff dryly. "But that's taking for granted my greatest wish is to not be dead. You already know that's not true. The real question you haven't answered yet. What's in it for me?"
"Try this one on for size then," said Barton. The color of his eyes was strange, once gray, then blue, then green. They now looked almost wholly black, swallowed by pupils enlarged in the dim lighting that reflected dully off the gray steel floors and walls. "You're right. Freedom isn't free. Someone's got to pay for it and I sure as hell don't think it should be a bunch of innocent civilians, and neither does SHIELD. We've got a long list of debts and an even longer memory and our aim is to make sure the right people pay collect. And it's a damn sight more satisfying than racking up the bills yourself. So what do you say, Romanoff? Take it or leave it, this is your final chance to wash some of that red you've written into your own ledger."
"What makes you think I want to wash it out?" What makes you think that's even possible? Natasha had to fight to keep the words from leaping out of her esophagus. She tried to ignore how deeply her heart was hammering in her chest. Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance, Barton? I wasn't fighting you. I was willing to let you do it. What made you stop? What could you have possibly seen that made you think I could be worth it?
The right side of Clint's lips curled upward ever-so-slightly, digging into his cheek in what couldn't quite be called a smile, "When I faced you in that alley, Romanoff, you didn't even reach for your knife, even though you could have had it spinning into my forehead before I'd finished nocking my arrow. I'd only ever seen that kind of submission in a person of your caliber once before – in a crummy dive south of the Rio Grande with about a pint of whisky in him – and I swear to God it was like looking in a mirror."
He paused, not breaking eye-contact. Natasha half wished she would. She was almost angry at herself for somehow lacking the strength to pull away by herself. There was an unexpected candor in his voice and Natasha was taken aback. After all, in their profession, vulnerability was a weakness that meant almost certain death. For him to suddenly let down his guard to her, still as much of an enemy as she had been when her face had shown up at the top of his hit list, it was akin to giving her the handle of a blade already pressed to his windpipe. Then again, there was no possible way Natasha could tell whether or not he was being genuine. It could all be an act. Natasha had been playing this game long enough to recognize a fellow artist if not his actual craft.
"How can I trust you, Barton?" Natasha asked finally, voice sinking to a whisper. "How can I trust any of this?"
"You've been running all your life, Romanoff. I know myself the kind of exhaustion that kind of lifestyle breeds. I'll even take a gander that it was that same exhaustion that kept you from reaching for your own weapon when I confronted you in Sao Paulo. It was certainly what made me stay my own."
Natasha shook her head. "You were sent there to kill me, Barton. You've probably knocked up a list of marks at this place that rivals my own. What makes SHIELD any different from the Red Room?"
"The knowledge that at least if you have to kill someone you're killing the right person, for the right reasons," said Barton quickly, like he'd rehearsed. Like he actually believed it.
"Who figures that out, Barton?" said Natasha, trying to keep the sheen of frustration from coming through her voice. "How can you possibly know the people you're sent to kill deserve it?"
Barton cocked an eyebrow, "Really, Romanoff, I'm supposed to take a lesson of morality from you?"
Natasha didn't answer. She ran her tongue over her teeth. He had a point and she knew it. She had no right to ask these questions, to make these demands. Hazily, achingly, she wished not for the first time in the three week of her strange and uncertain limbo between captivity and safe haven that Barton had embedded his arrow into the back of her neck when she'd first arrived at that alley, blood of her mark and his sixteen-year-old maid still wedged in her fingernails.
"Trust isn't free, either, Romanoff," Barton was whispering now, voice so low Natasha had to strain her ears to hear him. She was half-way annoyed with herself for being unable to walk away. "It might have a price tag even higher than freedom's."
"And you're asking me to pay up?"
"SHIELD has a good credit policy," said Barton with unexpected levity, although his voice was still low and intense. "We're willing to wait if you're willing to give it a try. We could use you Romanoff, if only you'd let us."
Natasha had been tossed around in the gray tide of good and evil for her whole life. She'd been thrown about by the wills of superiors with bigger guns and bigger checkbooks, told where to go, when to eat, what to think since before a time she could remember. This freedom Barton spoke of was unprecedented, beyond comprehension let alone existence. Natasha didn't trust it. She didn't trust anything.
"Besides," he added, softly, lips parting to show a glint of his top row of teeth, "I can almost guarantee that we've got better coffee than anything Russia managed to serve up."
"Well, if you've got coffee," said Natasha, not smiling, not blinking, not moving at all except to stretch out her hand for him to shake, "Show me the dotted line where I can sign my damn name already."
He took her hand in his own, a firm, brisk shake and she could feel his calloused fingers rough on her palm. His lips split into a bigger grin than she had seen those three weeks and it seemed to her that his face had been strangely lacking before, but she couldn't have guessed for what.
"Let's grab a cup of that coffee first. On me, Agent Romanoff."
Natasha nodded, arm falling back to her side. Barton broke eye contact with almost an audible snap and led the way down the hallway.
He said without turning his head over his shoulder, "And then we'll see what we can do about finding you a holster for that knife. Can't imagine it's very comfortable in your sock."