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The first time they meet is the Victorian age. He's a charming rake, and she's a sparkling debutante.
Romanova sees right through him, smiles, and mutters, "American," in his ear as they waltz. She feels the slight tension in his shoulder at the word, then he leans down and calls her on it with, "Comrade," and the faintest nod of acknowledgement, the faintest smile back.
She wants to fume, to slit his throat coldly, to tie him down to a chair or a bed and interrogate out of him how he knew her program, but she does none of these things. Americans are hired by so many more programs, and only Red Room agents are called Comrade. She must carefully determine who he is working for.
"What shall I call you, sir?" she asks, lowering her lashes just so.
She thinks he must react but if he does, he has the best poker face she has ever seen.
He flashes a grin that makes her react, but she has perfect composure and she knows he cannot tell she did.
"Barton," he says.
The dance ends. He kisses her hand, murmurring, "Romanova," and vanishes before she can stop him.
He knows her name, knows her handlers, knows… It is unacceptable.
The Strategic History Intervention Espionage and Logistics Division, aka SHIELD, had grappled with the Red Room before, losing Agent Bucky Barnes in the second (now prevented) Ice Age to see him reemerge during the Modern Age (third iteration) as Red Room agent, the Winter Soldier.
The Red Room is aware that the Black Widow has come onto SHIELD's radar. They are not aware whether this is a plot for revenge.
It's not actually.
He has a kill order and a record for no collateral damage to timelines or innocent bystanders. So no one thinks anything of it when he does not kill her the first time they meet.
The second time they meet, she is a female relative staying with royalty in the court of King Richard and out riding when she is stopped by an archer she recognizes and a band of merry robbers she quickly assesses as agents. But agents of what? She has yet to nail him down or locate an Agent Barton on the original timeline. He must be modern.
Romanova allows them to rob her and her companions. She won't be stranded without a gem as the Red Room modifies its agents to time travel natively.
Barton handles the bow with a precision that makes her wonder what other odd talents he's picked up through their work.
"I suppose you're Robin the Outlaw?" she asks, arching a brow.
He grins, sharp and feral, and it makes her wonder where they shaped this asset, for he has the honed competence of the raised, not the recruited. "I suppose you're here to kill John," he counters.
She studies him, his piercing gaze, his amused pleasure. Her expression does not flicker; she waits him out.
"I'll let you." He calls off his band and takes her disguised equipment with him. The Red Room will not be pleased.
She wants to meet him in the Modern Age (fourth iteration), but instead finds him when she's stealing data on genetically nonstandard humans on a far-future spaceship. Her handlers intend to locate a problematic agent before he can become a rogue time travel agent.
She finds herself pinned down under a bow's sightline and suddenly knows exactly who this Agent Barton is, the one-time rogue mercenary Hawkeye. So Robin Hood wasn't just a cover he'd learned to play and his program was SHIELD.
"You know Bishop will change everything," Romanova tells him. "You know that."
"I'm almost surprised they let you remember me," he comments casually.
She flinches—inside, invisibly. Her handlers have been known to give and take memory as freely as blood. "I must know my enemies," she replies smoothly. She doesn't know that the Red Room thinks he is targeting her. She doesn't know if he's here for the data or to kill the Widow.
He studies her for a long time with that piercing gaze of his before he offers, "Come with me."
She stares at him, at his ludicrous words, pointedly at the arrow. "Shoot me if you intend to, Hawkeye," she demands coldly.
He sighs. "SHIELD won't take your memories, and if they lose you, they'll go through time as often as it takes to get you back. They'll let you stop working if you want to."
"Oh? And you?"
"I don't want to." Barton shrugs. He hasn't lowered his bow. "Coulson's died twice, Fury more than a dozen times. I got brainwashed once and your own Soldier works for us again. Might even retire in a year."
She flinches, visibly. She hasn't seen James in… too long.
"I'll think about it," she says.
Red Room agents are modified to travel time natively with just a thought, a set of words to trigger the function. She thought the words, she felt the arrow, and she isn't sure who she is when she wakes.
A series of moments, of timelines twisting and diverging and finally coming together. Natasha Romanoff wakes up in the Modern Age (fifth iteration) and blinks at her partner. "Clint?"
He leans over, grinning, and it still makes her belly do that flip-flop it always did. "Promised we'd get you back."