Chapter Text
Natasha doesn’t know when it started, when she started taking more risks on missions, started to drink herself into a stupor and wake up with new cuts on her wrists and arms. She knows it's a problem but for once the red room isn’t there to force her back into being their perfect killer. So she keeps moving, keeps trying to leave her memories behind. Deep down, Natasha knows that this will only end up with her dead but she can’t force herself to care. She should have died long ago as far as she cares. So she keeps taking odd jobs, keeps killing more, keeps waking up in an alleyway with someone else's blood on her hands. It doesn’t surprise her when she starts to notice someone tailing her, the Red Room already broke her, what could anyone else do that would be worse than what she's already been through? So she waits, prepares for them to take the final shot that will let her rest. Will let her escape from the Red Room. Natasha doesn’t bother to lose the operative tailing her, just walks into her apartment and waits. It’s only after a few moments that she decides she doesn’t deserve a peaceful death, a clean shot to the back of her head, so suddenly she’s rummaging through cabinets and pressing a blade to her arms. The pain is almost a relief, a reminder that she can still bleed, that the Red Room hasn't taken that away from her yet. So she sits back down, making cut after cut for each person she’s killed. Then someone barreling through the door, brown hair and medium build. Natasha thinks she could kill him in seconds if she wanted to but just raises an eyebrow to who enters, not bothered to acknowledge the blood dripping down her body and empty bottles scattered around the apartment.
“Took you long enough”
The figure looks almost confused but keeps his weapon trained on her (A bow? Odd, Natasha wonders) as he looks her up and down, eyes landing on her arms and then suddenly Natasha falling to the floor and losing consciousness and she realises that the sheer amount of blood she’s been steadily losing would probably do that. It isn’t a dignified way to die, but it's a way.
When she wakes up the first thing she feels is disappointment, disappointment that she can't even die correctly, and then she's schooling her features into a mask of neutrality and looking around. She’s in a cell, that much is obvious, and it looks like they’ve bandaged up her injuries. For one of the first times in her life, Natasha can’t understand what’s happening because she should be dead. That operative should have killed her and instead, she wakes up in a cell? She doesn’t know what he’s trying to play at but it's thrown her off and that's one of the worst things that can happen to a spy. So once again, she sits and waits, eyes trained on the door until she can hear footsteps coming down the hallway and the same man reappears
“I’m Clint Barton- or hawkeye, you can call me either.”
She thinks he's an idiot
“How would you feel about working for SHIELD?”
That wasn’t what she was expecting. Still, Natasha doesn’t reply just keeps an eye on “Clint” who rubs the back of his head
“Y’know an answer would be great, or just your name. I kinda got in trouble for bringing you back here”
“Why didn’t you just kill me then?”
Natasha's voice is raspy from disuse and she cringes at how harsh her words come out, that tone would have resulted in punishment in the Red Room. So when Clint raises a hand toward her, she almost instinctively moves backward and then he gets closer and Natasha can’t breathe because he’s going to hurt her and she can’t take much more of this and then his hand is on her and- and then he’s almost stumbling back with his hands above his head and he looks almost, guilty?
“Hey- hey breathe. Shit, I didn’t mean to set anything off- You’re fine I’m not gonna do anything, SHIELD don’t pull that bullshit-”
“How can I trust that?”
She replies in between hasty breaths and then Clint without a second of doubt slides his bow across the floor until it sits in the middle of the cell
“See? No weapons, I’m not in the practice of hurting people who already seem to have been hurt, Widow.”
Natasha doesn’t notice her nails digging back into her arm until blood is starting to seep back through the bandages and Clint speaks again
“Maybe lay off your arm for a while- it seems pretty busted up.”
“Fuck off”
“Polite”
“Fuck you”
Clint snorts
“Mean”
Natasha decides that he's an idiot she likes
“No shit”
Clint laughs slightly but his tone slips into something more serious
“But really, lay off your arm. Hurting yourself isn’t going to help in the long term”
Natasha huffs, but she moves her hand off her arm.
Clint keeps coming back, day after day, and each time he just sits across from her and talks. Natasha rarely replies but after a while she can’t shake the feeling that he really isn’t there to hurt her and she has no idea how to handle that because everyone had always wanted something from her. So slowly, she opens up to him. He introduces her to more people, someone called Fury and then someone called Hill. She doesn’t know what to expect from them, but they’re like Clint, they seem genuinely worried about her. They explain that she can join SHIELD and that they won’t hurt her, they say she can pick what missions she goes on. They keep coming back, Hill brings her a postcard with a black cat on it. When Natasha asks about it Hill just says Natasha seems like a cat person. Natasha tucks it into her pocket and keeps it, even though she’d kill anyone before she had to admit that. Maria starts to visit almost the same amount as Clint. Natasha likes it, Hill is quiet compared to Clint, less irritating as well. When Hill asks Natasha to join SHIELD she says yes, if SHIELD means more people like Clint and Maria then she thinks it’ll be better than staying in this cell for the rest of her life.