Leaving the recesses of the opulent hotel, Clint felt replenished; his mind rung clear as a bell, his senses were lucid, and his body felt lighter than air. He'd had the most restful night of his life, which he suspected owed to the mint condition of the hotel suite. Landing on the duvet, he thought the marshmallow mattress, dense duvets and puffy pillows would swallow him up; it made a change to the starchy covers at S.H.I.E.L.D., or the threadbare and mothbitten ones back in Iowa. Perks of the job, Clint smiled to himself as he stalked down the sludge-soaked pavement, squeezing between the morning bustle.

"How are you feeling today, Barton?" Coulson's voice fuzzed in his ear, like an irritating wasp.

"Relaxed until you spoke," he grumbled, wincing at the quality of the sound. "What've you got for me today, M?" Clint quipped.

He heard something that resembled a chuckle in his ear, signal interference distorting it. "We have a lead on Miss Romanoff," Coulson reported. "I'm going to need you to get yourself over to the Obuda side of the river, and then follow the directions on your PDA to find a vantage point; assuming you have your weaponry?"

Clint's feet skidded to a halt in the slush. "Yeah, totally..." He about-turned to make back for the hotel, splashing through puddles of pollution-stained snow-sludge, 

"Funny, the tracker for your earpiece says you're headed back for the hotel," Coulson said deadpan.

"Not a word of this to anyone," Clint replied sharply. "Especially not to Bobbi." He stomped back through the foyer with his snow-damp boots, trudging damp into the carpet, the gold chandelier - spilling diamonds above his head and refracting rainbows onto the wall - swayed with the gusts overhead as the doors open and shut.

"She already knows you're a jackass, Clint, you've got nothing to lose," Coulson's voice mocked him. "But I have everything to gain with a hilarious story over breakfast."

"With all due respect, sir, I'm going to have to request you shut the hell up," Clint muttered, aware of other residents looking at him funny for talking to himself.

"Request denied."

~

"Glad to see you're on the ball, Barton," Coulson teased, a collection of a duffle bag and a cup of coffee later - three quarters empty just to wake him up, his daily shot of caffeine.

"Yeah, yeah," Clint grumbled, setting up his snow-camouflaged rifle; removing each mechanical part and slotting it together with satisfying clicks and locks; the actions had become muscle memory and his hands moved fluently.

Clint's dwindling coffee cup was resting in the compacted snow, the fluffy and crisp coating around it melting, wisps of roasted-coffee bean scented steam twirling into the icy air. The tantalizing smell was more than a distraction, as was the beckon of the hospitable coffee shop with it's beige walls and quaint tables.

Clint unfolded the sniper stand and stabbed it into the snow before balancing the barrel on the rest. Everything was in order.

"Got me any news on the proximity of Romanoff?" Clint asked, rubbing his hands together, friction thawing the frigid frost out of his fingertips; the leather gloves were no barrier to the hostile conditions, and his hands felt confined to the cold trapped in the gloves. He tugged the baggy sleeves of his thermal coat over his hands, and tucked his neck down to his chest until the collar shielded him from the chilling wind. "I'm gonna get a frostbite at this rate..."

Reluctantly, he curled his hands around the nozzle of the gun - the metal icy to the touch, even through the gloves - and pressed his eye to the optic lens.

He panned around, the eyepiece allowing him to scope out unsuspecting people. Some children played in the snow, bowling balls of ice at one another and ducking behind piles of snow-topped rubble; making play they were the revolutionaries with their homemade projectiles, fighting the state.

Clint smiled, he remembered Thanksgiving with Katie. He thought to himself, that would be his Thanksgiving again if it all went well.

"Romanoff should be intersecting you, two streets over-"

Clint traipsed the crosshair about, then a shock of red rushed past his eye.

"Hold on!" Clint swept back, scanning the streets, then he got a lock, lining her up in the markings of his sights. "Well I'll be damned."

She moved with such fluid grace, slinking like a cat on the prowl, her broad curved hips swaying as she sauntered.

Her figure was an hour glass, rounded and pert at her bottom, which drew into a toned small waist and then bloomed into a full and plump bosom; he traced the outline with the line of the cross hair, whistling appreciatively as he did so.

Her skin looked like silk in the pale morning light, silvery, smooth to the touch and alabaster in colour; it beckoned to be touched, and Clint felt the distance like an ache. The crystalline translucence of her clear pale skin only served to contrast more severely with her red hair. Every flaming auburn lock was a wavy tendril that pirouetted on the breeze, and he yearned to toy with every curl, loop them around his finger like a child fascinated.

Her eyes were pure emerald green, shining with cunning and ablaze with modest seduction: to be studied by that gaze would to be like a butterfly pinned on a plaque, displayed, spread bare.

Her lips were full and bow-like, like an artisan had carved them for the simple pleasure of the onlooker. They were plush like a cushion, and drew into a pair of lush arches; glossed in racy scarlet. He wondered what they would feel like under fingertips or tongue - he was transfixed; wondered what accented syllables they hosted and how they danced as they did.

A stern look was affixed to her face, her eyes boldly outlined with a cobweb of weaved dark lashes, harshening her stone set features. There was determination in her tight lips and focus in her eyes. The sheer iciness of her face only made her look more beautiful. A challenge, Clint thought, the thrill was in the chase, and anything easy to earn was never fun.

"My god..." Clint's lips involuntarily spilled the sacred words. "She's beautiful..." He declared, breathless with awe. He suddenly felt as though he paled in insignificance, basking in the radiant proximity of such a divine being.

"That's the whole point, Barton. That's why they call her the Black Widow; wickedly enticing with a fatal bite..." Coulson's voice crackled through his earpiece. "And they didn't pick her just for her skill set, that's for sure; don't let her reel you in."

"She can bite me all she likes for all I care..." Clint responded, infatuation tainting his tone.

"Don't get too close, Barton. Focus. Your job is to kill her, not to dote upon her. The moment you get aboard that train of thought is the moment you're completely and utterly screwed. If she's got you mentally, she's got you in her web. And then there's no escape once you're there." Clint heard the words, but rather ignored their meaning.

As quick as she'd intercepted his line of sight, she strode right out of it, disappearing down a nearby alley. "I'm gonna tail her," Clint certified him, packing up the rifle, disassembling it with the same fluidity and packing it all away.

Caution thrown to the wind, Clint sprung across to the next building, catching the gutter with his fingertips, before scaling the black pipe down into the streets.

A homeless family huddled in a doorway of a wrecked building watched him as he brushed off the snow and tried to massage the sensation back into his fingertips. "Hi!" He saluted them before dashing off after Romanoff.

"Making more friends, Clint?" Coulson teased.

Clint just chuckled in return before stalking down the streets, sticking to the shadows like a spider. He dashed a couple streets over, losing his footing where the snow had frozen over into flats of ice, and staggered into a walk as he caught sight of the back of her; her auburn hair was unmistakable, even in the overcast. She was a beacon of colour in the labyrinth of beige brick walls and grey rubble. He realised then and there that the bulging lens of a scope did her no justice.

Even in heels, she took the cobbles like she was walking on air, not a single thing drawing her attention from dead ahead; she was like a heat-seeking missile. Clint struggled to keep up.

She took the bends sharply, weaving between the flow of people; overtaking dawdlers and slipping by the oncoming procession.

She stopped suddenly at the facade of an abandoned building; the windows boarded up, the outer wall sprayed with an anti-soviet propaganda: a rudimentary bust of Gorbachev, his throat being slit with a sickle, and a hammer being taken to his head by the silhouette of a rebel.

Clint hung back as she looked left, and right, and tapped out a rhythm on the decrepit door. To his surprise, the door creaked open, and a shadowy hand beckoned her in.

As she slipped into the interior, Clint crossed to the building, and lingered by the slightly ajar door.

"Gorbachev sends his regards."

Listening close, he heard scuffing, muted thumps, the discharge of a silenced pistol. Once. Twice. Three times. A muffled groan of pain.

Then the unmistakable thud of a body hitting the floor. Clint flinched. A trickling approached, and following the grooves eroded into the concrete floor in the inclement weather, scarlet bled from under the door. It streamed between the cobblestones and followed the gutters down the street.

Curiosity piqued, Clint peered in through the crack in the door.

Within, he could see her shadowy figure amongst the band of rebels - or so it seemed - as she dispatched them one by one. She moved with poise, pirouetting into kicks, leaping into choke-holds, and extending her wrist to fire off the pistol.

She did it silently as the night, becoming one with the darkness of the shivering shack, not a single fist or foot making contact with her as she darted about balletically.

As the last rebel hit the floor, Natasha plucked the one misplaced hair out of her face and stormed to a wall in the building to face a poster, stepping over the bodies like sandbags on a battlefield. She tore it down, and the tattered edge of the paper revealed a strongbox hidden in an alcove.

The paper fluttering in the draught, she fired off two consecutive shots at the lock - metallic clinks sounding as the bullets ricocheted - and the sparks of light as they glanced off the metal illuminated her sheer features.

The lock dropped to the floor, split open by the high calibre bullets, and she flipped the box open and began to rummage.

Snapped out of his mesmerisation, Clint reached for the gun resting in the elastic of his standard issue trousers, and flicked off the safety.

Her ears were attuned to the sound like Pavolv's dogs to the ringing of the bell, and she pivoted on her heel, pistol pointed at the door.

Clint froze. Staring down the barrel of the gun, and holding his breath. After assessing the silence, Natasha retracted her aim and clipped it back into her holster, beneath the beige trenchcoat she was enrobed in.

She stalked towards the door, her glossy heels clicking on the floor, and Clint scampered.

"She's lethal Coulson..." Clint breathed, making a getaway down an alley, and into a crowded streets. "And the most exciting thing I've seen in all my-"

He heard the slam of the creaky wooden door as she exited the building, having flushed out the band of rebels like rats from under the floorboards -- the floorboards being the foundations of the Soviet States, being scratched and bitten through by the proletariat scrambling beneath the oppressive power.

Clint took his finger off his earpiece and stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. "Life..." He whispered, captivated.

He stole one last glance over his shoulder, seeing leaf-green eyes surveying the streets and a swish of fiery strands as they went their separate ways.

"Shoot on sight, Barton," Coulson reminded him. But he felt more like he'd been shot by Cupid's arrow.

A/N - This message goes out to a very select few. You know who you are.

Comments akin to "God how long does it take to update?" Are exceedingly impolite, ignorant, and impudent. My writing is neither a service, nor commodity, and it certainly isn't a compulsory enterprise.

Concept: the author is in fact a real human being. A pioneering thesis! An innovative notion! An inconceivable philosophy, I know! And that person, a particularly vulnerable girl of sixteen years old.

I stick to a schedule, yes. I am on the featured list, yes. I have a decent following, yes. These are facts, all of which are a product of dedication. But no matter how much I adore enveloping myself in a sea of words, and fishing out stories from the tides of ideas, leisure must be secondary to school. I remind you again, writing this is not compulsory.

I am in my twelfth year of education, and fast approaching on the horizon are the hardest examinations of my life so far; I cannot be pouring an ocean time into fanfiction when I have qualifications to focus on: a tremulous mistake I made with my GCSEs; though I passed to a decent standard nonetheless.

Chapters take me two hours to write at a minimum, and have taken up to ten (never consecutive) hours to write at the most. That's time I should be investing in 'Explaining the difference between Bentham and Mill's Utilitarianism'. But I'm not. It's a miracle I've gotten this far, and that I'm continuing to write.

May I also remind you that a friend of mine recently passed away, and his funeral and birthday have both passed in the mere weeks that have gone by.

I've never been one to discourse personal matters on here, but it's important you know that I do suffer chronic anxiety, and my writing - broadcasting it on a public platform and opening all channels of communication for criticism - does contribute to that; though I couldn't survive without it.

I digress... anyone who takes me, or this fic for granted can stop reading for all I care, I don't want an ungrateful readership.

I could stop it all in a heartbeat.

But I won't.

Because as much as there are insolent people like the aforementioned arses, there are wonderful people too. Most likely the person who is reading this is in the glorious majority, thank you, if so.

Respect writers. They're people too. And remember fanfiction writers don't get paid, they do this for the love, and the minute that love turns sour, is the minute they stop writing.

So again, sorry for the delay; but I hope that explains it. I try not to respond to these things, or rise to negative criticism that isn't even constructive, but a line had been crossed. And in speaking out, I know I speak for other writers too. Thank you for your patience and understanding.