Scarlet Widow • Secret Love

Chapter 2

Clint Batron's PoV:

It had been 3 months.

Again and again there were murder cases, but I couldn't find any real connections. Some cases were incredibly brutal and yet others happened in an almost "human" way. The person who killed sometimes appeared female, but with different hair colors and styles. Once in a while it was even a man. "The man" then looked something like he had his chest bandaged with something, so I assumed it was a woman anyway. I believed it was Natasha because the victims were often involved in dirty deeds and I sometimes even believed I could draw connections to the Red Room. What caught my eye was the line that just stretched across cities. The next city on this line would be Paris and I decided to go there and hope to meet her.

~In Paris~

I inquired at a couple of hotels that were very centrally located and looked like they were near places of employment. In fact, I was lucky. One of the hotels had a red-haired woman checked in who was only going to stay for 2 days. Through some persuasion, I got the room number and knocked on the woman's door.

Natasha's PoV:

Again, I had another Red Room client to take out and was packing up my things to leave town. When there was a knock on the door, I groaned in annoyance.

"Yes?", I asked towards the door, hiding a gun behind my back in my clothes. Cautiously, I opened the door and looked into an all-too-familiar face. "Clint," I said dryly, and he nodded.

"Hi, Natasha. Can I come in?" he asked.

"Yeah sure come on in."

"What are you doing in Paris?" Clint looked at me questioningly and I just smiled.

"Counter question, what are you doing in Paris?"

"I was looking for you.", Clint explained and took a step towards me.

"Why? I'm fine," I said, shrugging my shoulders.

"You sure? There's been a noticeable amount of murder cases across Europe lately, starting in Russia... Did you have something to do with it, Tasha?" Clint looked at me warily, and when he saw my expression, he immediately lowered his gaze to his feet.

"What's it to you?", I snapped at him.

"Natasha, I don't know what happened to you, but it's not good." Clint reached out a hand toward me. Immediately I slapped it away and he looked at me in surprise.

"Nothing happened. Leave me alone," I shouted and angrily walked towards him.

"You're killing innocent people," he retorted.

"They're not innocent. They let others kill for them," I hissed.

"What about Wanda, anyway? Where is she and does she know about all this?" asked Clint, setting off a bomb barrel without knowing. I looked down at the ring on my finger and tears formed in my eyes.

"She-", I didn't finish the sentence, but Clint seemed to understand.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Natasha. But that doesn't give you any reason to murder people."

"Yeah? Who's telling me that?", I asked, and I could feel myself getting angrier.

"Your inner values, Natasha. You swore to yourself you'd never look back at the Red Room. We can help you, Nat." he offered and I laughed.