The New York Assignment

Seven

Natasha parked the car a block away, and made her way swiftly and silently to the apartment building. The heat scanners showed a life form on the second story. Sticking to the shadows, taser drawn, she made her way up the rickety stairs. The door at the end of the hallway was cracked open. She crept to the door and eased it open, holding her gun in front of her. The whole room was bathed in shadow.

"Clint," she called, knowing that startling him could end very badly for both of them.

A low moan reached her ears, followed by a whimpering. She flipped the light switch, but the lights didn't come on. She pulled a flashlight from her belt and shone it into the room. The beam of light fell on a puddle of blood, and a body hunched over, too small to be Clint. Keeping her guard up, she moved toward the body.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"P-please," he whispered. "Call an... an ambulance."

Natasha moved around to get a better look at him. He was in his forties, stockily built, and held his bleeding hand to his chest. A bump on his head indicated that he'd been previously unconscious.

She made the call for an ambulance, and knew her time was limited. She had to be out of there before the paramedics came.

"What happened?" she asked.

"A... a man cornered me and... dragged me in here."

"What did he look like?"

"He was... tall. Wore some kind of... uniform, like a mercenary. He had... a bow and arrow..."

Natasha cursed under her breath. Clint.

"Where did he go?"

"I... don't know.... He knocked me out..."

Natasha pulled a knife from her belt. In one fluid movement, she cut the man's shirt. She grabbed his hand and wrapped the torn shirt around it. "Keep pressure on that." She dashed out and got back in her car.

A feeling inside her told her that she should have killed him. Clint was being reckless. That man could ruin everything if he told anyone else about what Clint did to him.

All that time working beside him had dulled Natasha's sense of respect for what he was capable of. He was a trained assassin, the world's greatest marksman, and a formidable enemy. She had forgotten what it felt like, years ago, being hunted by that man. The miracle of his sparing her life had made her forget the terror of seeing his shadow across an abandoned street with an arrow pointed at her heart.

Behind the jokes and loyalty lay a man hardened by tragedy and sharpened by betrayal, and all he needed was a little push to send him over the edge.

____________________________________________________________

Clint stared at the mirror. The cleaning crew hadn't been able to erase all of the blood from the surface. His name still smeared the glass.

He swallowed hard. It wasn't him. He knew it wasn't him. This didn't feel like Loki. It stank of something worse.

His past. It reeked of his past. That stupid circus and those crazy jobs. That high-wire where he'd learned how to move like a cat burglar. The tent where he'd learned how to plan robberies and assassinations. The targets where he learned to shoot a bow and never miss.

Most of all, it reeked of him. The man who had taken him, broken him, and rebuilt him into what he was today. Trick Shot.

He shivered. Trick Shot had been furious when Clint had joined SHIELD. He swore vengeance, vowed to pay Clint back, the whole bit. Clint hadn't seen him since. He'd disappeared into the shadows. Every once in a while a report would come in of some job having connections to the guy, but even SHIELD couldn't find him. Clint had assumed some other criminal had taken him out. He should have known better.

He walked back into the main room. Blood stains refused to be removed from the walls, carpet, and headboard of the bed. No clues. No finger prints. Nothing. No one but someone who had known the man could possibly know this was Trick Shot's work.

Retribution was coming. Trick Shot had always possessed a strong, if warped, sense of justice. Clint had wronged him. It was time to pay.

Man, what Clint wouldn't give for a good team right about now. People to stand up for him, give him some sort of chance against his crooked past. But the Avengers barely knew him, Coulson was more or less out of it, and Natasha... well, even if he could trust her, he couldn't drag her into this.

The pain of her betrayal was like an opened wound, and each hour without seeing her it got more infected. He wanted to scream, cry, kill something. He was furious and guilty and saddened. He knew that he could never trust anyone again; it wasn't worth it.

He swung out of the open window, climbed down the siding, and landed in the back alley. He couldn't stay in one place too long. Not with SHIELD on his tail.

He wracked his brain for something that could help him find his old mentor, or someone who had connections to him. No one that he could think of had mentioned him, excluding the mentions of his crimes. He had to think outside the box. Trick Shot was too crazy to use regular means of screwing with someone.

Wait. There was someone. He hadn't thought about her in at least a year. She'd disappeared, just like her boss had.

Clint would find her. There was no where else to start.