Frozen Web

Chapter 3

Clint Barton steadied his bow, finding the target in his sight. He exhaled and let the arrow fly. It shot out of his crossbow and sank into the target two hundred feet away. From where he was standing, it looked like a perfect bull's eye. But as he approached it, he noticed it was just half an inch lower than the target's actual center.

"Dammit," he muttered as he yanked the arrow out of the foam target. "Clint, you're not focusing."

It was true. He wasn't focusing, at least not on the target. He was focusing on a certain red-headed assassin, the same assassin he'd been focusing on for several weeks now.

"Don't be an i***t," he ordered himself as he gathered his arrows and started walking back towards his cabin—God, it was great having his own personal archery range. "Remember what happened in Budapest?"

He still winced at the memory. Oh, it had started promisingly enough. He'd been sent to protect a certain Middle Eastern warlord—not because the guy was so great, but because he was just a tad better than the guy who was trying to take power away from him. The U.S. had been supplying this certain warlord with arms and artillery for years in the hopes that he'd keep some semblance of control instead of letting the country crumble into a bloody revolution—which might cut off some of America's precious oil supplies. The guy was coming to Budapest for another arms deal, and there'd been rumors of an assassination attempt. There had even been rumors that a certain Russian assassin was the one who'd try to off him.

It hadn't been the first time Barton had run into Natasha Romanov. Usually, they were on different jobs and only traded barbed comments if they spoke at all. Once in a while, they'd been up against each other, and then they'd traded a lot more than words. She was surprisingly skillful, and he'd learned long ago not to underestimate her. She was cold, clever, seductive, and disarmingly beautiful-a beauty that hid her deadly abilities.

She had managed to sneak into the warlord's gigantic mansion on the edge of Budapest, which had been emptied of everyone except the warlord's security detachment and Clint. They were all waiting for the arms deal the next day. Natasha easily plowed through the armed guards, leaving a bloody trail of broken limbs and bullet-riddled corpses in her wake. But when she'd pushed through the doors to the master bedroom, she hadn't found the warlord. He'd be stashed in another location. Instead, she'd found Clint.

"Mr. Barton," she said, an amused smile tugging at her lips. "I knew I'd run into you eventually."

"Ms. Romanov," Clint replied over an arrow pointed straight at her heart. "I wish we could meet under more pleasant circumstances. But as it is, I have orders to bring you in."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Natasha answered, and before Clint knew it, she had executed a back flip kick that knocked his bow from his hands. Clint recovered quickly, quickly enough to dodge the knife in Natasha's hand that was slicing at his throat. He grabbed her wrist and flung her into the wall, but she bounced off with hardly a delay and was already kicking his legs out from under him. It was a familiar dance they'd done before. If they needed to, they'd kill each other, but until now one had always subdued the other with non-lethal force: she'd knocked him out, he'd handcuffed her to a pipe… There was some unspoken understanding between them, a mutual respect that held them in check. They enjoyed each other, even if they were on opposite sides. Killing each other would ruin the fun.

Even as they were used to each other's blows, something was off this time. And when Clint had managed to slam Natasha up against a desk, pinning her arms to her sides, she reacted in quite a different way than he expected: she leaned forward and kissed him.

At first, he stiffened, expecting a trick. But then Natasha looped a leg around his waist and pulled him into her even closer.

"Natasha," he said against her lips, "this is fighting dirty."

"Shut up and kiss me," she replied.

So he did. He kissed her hard, delighting in her tangy taste and the way her tongue flicked into his mouth so skillfully. He was a hardened SHIELD agent, but his knees felt as weak as a stupid school boy. He loosed his grip on Natasha's arms, letting his hands wind around her waist and pull her up into his arms. She wound her fingers into his hair, moaning against him as he lifted her up and carried her over to the king sized bed in the middle of the floor.

He lowered her carefully, almost reverently, suddenly painfully unsure of himself. She pulled at him impatiently, and he could feel her heat and softness against him.

"Natasha, what are we doing?" he asked. "This is crazy."

"We can go back to killing each other tomorrow," she said. "I think we've been putting this off too long."

Somehow, they'd managed to shake off all their weapons and armor, littering the floor with knives and guns and arrows. God, she'd looked so beautiful lying there naked on the satin sheets, all her attention on him. They had made love several times, each time better than the last, and he had marveled at how perfectly they'd fit together.

When he woke up in the morning, she was gone. He hadn't really expected it any other way. They'd run into each other again that afternoon, once again on opposite sides as they fought over the life of one oil-rich warlord. It almost seemed like a dream instead of a real memory.

Then special mercenary forces showed up, courtesy of that warlord's biggest enemy, and everything had gone to s**t.

Clint still marveled that he even got out of that one will all his skin. It had been a full scale civil war, compacted into one Romanian villa, with four sides fighting four battles. Suddenly, he found himself fighting alongside Natasha instead of against her as they both struggled to just get out of there alive, mission be damned. Let the Middle Easterners settle their own disputes. The Americans had packed up and high-tailed it out of there, though their weapons hadn't made it out with them. And the last thing Clint wanted was to be shot up by guns from his own country. He'd hitched a chopper and taken off for Germany. When Natasha jumped into the passenger seat next to him, he hadn't protested. He only asked her where she wanted to be dropped off. He had never asked her about the night before; they both knew it was only going to be a one-time thing.

And yet…

He had never been able to look at her the same way again. He'd bucked SHIELD's orders to kill her when he had the chance, bringing her back and offering her a spot working for Fury. And slowly but surely, they'd carved out a friendship. They had never again acted on that underlying passion they both felt, which made Clint wonder if maybe he was wrong. Maybe she didn't feel anything for him except friendship. Maybe she thought Budapest had been a mistake.

He knew that would be the smart thing to do. The last thing he needed was to let something distract him from his job. It was already happening, as his marksmanship showed; he would never have missed that shot if he'd been concentrating. But it was so hard to not think about all the great times they'd had together in the last few weeks, whether it was sparring or shooting or just going for a run. Natasha understood him, and he understood her. It was comforting to find someone who could know him so well, who could know what he was thinking when he didn't say anything at all. She soothed him.

But there was no way he'd jeopardize their relatively new friendship. He wouldn't push her; he knew how skittish she could be about relationships. She'd have to explicitly show interest, or else he would just force himself to be content with the way things were.

Still, he couldn't help be a little excited when he got a phone call that afternoon from her. "Clint? Care for an evening work out?"

Of course he said yes. And then he spent the next twenty minutes furiously cleaning his cabin. It wasn't a bid task-it wasn't a big place. But he didn't want to look like a slob when Natasha showed up.

He had just finished wiping off the kitchen counters (Why would she even notice that?) when there was a knock on the door. He glanced at the clock-she was earlier than he expected. She must have blown off some speed limits signs-not that he minded an early appearance.

He trotted over to the door and swung it open, calling, "You're earlier than I-"

But when the door opened, it wasn't Natasha standing there.