Chapter Text
She said she wanted out, so she got out. But for people like Natasha, it at a steep price. She couldn't just walk away, she couldn't just leave. Natasha knew too much.
So they took everything. Not just all of the pertinent SHIELD secrets, they took him from her. He watched it happen, standing being glass and clenching his jaw. How was this any different from what Hydra had done to James Barnes? Because Natasha wanted this. Clint constantly reminding himself that this had been her choice. That in reality she had taken herself from him.
She didn't want to watch people die, to live in fear of the things she could never take back, to see people she called friends turning on each other and die over and over again. She just wanted something quiet. She just needed everything to stop.
When they were done with her, she was no longer the man eating Black Widow, she was just a woman. A beautiful woman, with blonde hair, and a love for comfortable clothing. Her name was Nadia Petrova, and she turned heads everywhere she went. She was born in Russia, but raised in the US in the foster care system. She excelled in school and had recently received a master's degree in language and a job with HSBC. It was a promising life, a simple, and beautiful life. One that allowed her work, food, shelter, a startling amount of comfort. The travel would keep her from getting too bored, she'd never been good at staying in one place. Clint had made sure everything was perfect. Natasha could pretend to be anyone, but she had to become Nadia. There had to be nothing left of Natalia Romanova. Nothing that would make her dig too deep.
Clint tried to keep his distance at first, but Natasha had made enemies, and his feelings for her wouldn't allow him to take faith in her safety. She didn't even know what she was up against, and he couldn't be certain that she would realize how capable of defending herself she was.
Nadia first noticed him as she landed in Europe, travel had become something she was overly accustom to. six months she had lived as if this was the only life she's known, and in some ways it was. But when her eyes landed on Clint Barton her head tilted, her gaze lingered. He looked so familiar. Like a face she'd dreamed about a hundred times a night. As she passed him, she laughed to herself. He wasn't even her type.
Clint turned his head, spotting her, the look in her eyes made some part of him long for her to remember, to remember anything. But she passed by him just the same. She wouldn't have wanted to remember anyway. This was the life she'd chosen. For six months he'd checked in on her around like an idiot, making sure no harm would come to her. He could have kicked himself if he hadn't been busy continuing to discreetly tail after her.
That was the last she would see of him that trip, Clint made sure of it. The next brief contact they had was her birthday, not Nadia's birthday, but Natasha's. Clint left a small gift outside of her hotel room door, but was gone before she could answer his knock. She spent the rest of the trip asking her co-workers about it.
She caught glimpse of him in Hong Kong. Nadia wasn't stupid, she knew his face, she'd have known it anywhere... like a piece of herself. She ran after him, but he lost her at baggage claim. Now it was a mystery. Now it was exciting. And while Nadia had this sense of hesitation, something in her that told her to leave it alone, she also knew that this mystery man showing up, watching her, had been no coincidence.
She was going to think up a plan to catch him, and when she did, she would find out why it was exactly that he was watching her.