Avengers 1. Chapter 1 - Nightmares

Her focus drifted to Clint.

Clint, who was slumped against the wall.

Clint, who was bleeding out onto the floor.

Natasha looked away, the detonation device feeling heavy now in her hands. But she was perfectly capable of what she was about to do.

They both were.

"Well," she whispered, cocking her head to the side.

"'Till kingdom come."

The glass exterior of the hotel facing the apartment block shattered with the explosion.

* * *

**_3 days earlier  
Spain, Northern Hemisphere  
40.3, -3.8_**

Leaning on the door frame presenting the entrance to a large apartment, the former Russian spy stifled a yawn.

"Clint!" she shouted with a hint of annoyance. She didn't change her posture when she heard the distant sound of running water stop and faint footsteps now heading towards her. When the door opened with a mechanical _beep_, she strode straight in.

"You said you'd be out for 3 more days, Barton."

Clint sighed as he shut the door behind her. Why couldn't she just leave him alone? The towel around his waist was secured by his right hand.

"I needed some time."

"No you didn't," retorted Natasha, "In fact, you'll wish you hadn't even thought about taking time off when I tell you the latest goss at the office."

The archer shot her a less than interested look. She was a little giddy, something that was equally as dangerous as her in an earnest manner.

"C'mon, nothing? Not even a 'oh go on then, you never talk about work'?"

Clint's countenance didn't flicker.

"Nat, look. I've had a rough day and -"

But before he could say anything further, he realised Natasha had retreated into the bathroom. He followed her, watching as she dismantled a first aid kit she had found.

"Look," she said, holding up surgical thread. "For stitches."

Clint chuckled, his mood lightening a little. "That cut on your cheek needs a band aid at worst."

Natasha glared at him, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

"That gash on your back's going to need more that a rinse."

Sighing again, he took a seat on the cold floor. For such an exquisite hotel in such a warm country, the bathroom was awfully cold. Natasha took off her coat and stopped to place it by the sink before sitting on the closed toilet seat. Slowly, and occasionally placing her hand on Clint's shoulder for comfort, the spy stitched up his wound.

"Tasha?" he asked after a minute or so in silence.

"Hmm?"

"Don't let Stark find out about this."

"Oh," she said, carefully pulling the thread through. "I don't think he'll get the chance to know."

The archer knew something was hidden in the comment, but shrugged it off. He let her finish fixing him up, then tenderly caught her wrists as she held her hands up to show she was done.  
In the light of the bathroom, it was easy to see the raw and damaged flesh. He'd seen it so many times before; she was so committed to her _play_ that she simply didn't pay attention to it any more.

"Come on, that's nothing." she argued as Clint dropped one of her hands to grab some bandage.

But she knew it could get infected if she wasn't careful. And as their actions spoke more than a thousand words, there was no further conversation between her and him as he carefully wound the bandages over her wrists. When they had finished patching each other up, Clint threw on some pyjamas then led Natasha to the sofa that dominated a large proportion of the living space allocated. The spy wondered why Clint had chosen such an audacious apartment in such a wealthy part of Spain for his part time accommodation. If the HYDRA inhibited S.H.I.E.L.D were to search for their best assassins now, it would take them very little time to find their beloved archer. But then again, where best to hide than in plain sight?

HYDRA.

S.H.I.E.L.D.

She'd forgotten it all, albeit for only a few minutes.

"Clint."

"Yeah?" he replied sleepily; even though the clock on the TV read just past 10pm, both him and Natasha were both worn out. Clint stuck to one side of the couch and Natasha to the other, both sunk back with their heads on the armrests.

"S.H.I.E.L.D's gone."

"Well yeah, I've seen the news."

"No, but really, _gone._" she muttered, but she still carried a bit of sarcasm in her voice. "HYDRA's too far in. That mission you 'finish' in 3 days' time? Weren't doing it for S.H.I.E.L.D."

Clint glanced over at her – her eyes appeared heavy with sleep.

"Aren't you jetlagged?"

"Little bit." she admitted, but with no such tone.

"So what do we do?"

Natasha answered without pause, genuine seriousness in her voice.

"Start from the top."

Clint felt like she had more to say, but he let the faint Spanish chatter from the TV wash over them for a bit. When he looked at her next, her hair was faintly aglow with the light from the TV and she appeared to be sleeping.

"Nat?" he whispered to confirm his observation. Although she didn't answer, he knew that she could well be faking sleep. Despite this, he cautiously rose from his seat and leant down to pick her up. From there, he carried her into the bedroom, the master Russian assassin drooped in his arms. Carefully, he lay her down onto the neatly made double bed, her breathing slow and steady. Clint walked into the other room, locked the door, drew the curtains and switched off the television.  
For some reason, he was quite at ease about this place. He'd been settled here for coming up to 3 months, and was high up enough to feel comfortable without going up to the roof. But something about Nat turning up bugged him. She brought comfort, yes, but she ultimately brought trouble. And trouble, at this moment, was not something either of them could afford.

Navigating through the darkness back to the bedroom, he prepared himself for the night.

* * *

The nights in the Spanish city apartment were hot and stuffy, but the air conditioning functioned well enough in the bedroom for it to be almost cool.

Natasha sat bolt upright suddenly, her fingers digging into the mattress. She gasped at the air, her eyes locked onto the nothingness that hid in the dark.

"Nat?"

Clint gently reached out and touched her arm. She blinked back into existence. Then, exhaling accordingly, Natasha let herself fall back onto the bed.

"What time is it?" she asked. With regards to what she was wearing, the concept of comfort didn't occur to her - she could sleep wearing a potato sack if she needed to.

"Uhm, quarter to twelve."

"Great."

"Long night ahead, huh?"

He could just make out her head nodding amongst the shadows.

"So what was it about?"

The spy considered telling him what the nightmare had entailed. Moments earlier, she was drowning in a lake, gasping for breath, held down by weights. The water was burning her throat as it filled her lungs. She had been weak. _Vulnerable._

"Nothing." she sighed again. "Just, nothing."

Clint inched closer to her and began brushing her hair behind her ear. She tensed up at his touch but he didn't stop, and eventually she relaxed, her body accepting his comfort. Natasha turned over onto her side and Clint nuzzled his head into her neck. She brought his arm around her waist. Lights off, and air conditioning quietly whirring, they settled down to sleep.

_She ducked. Their weapons were on the floor now, their fight restricted to the capabilities of their own hands. He swung round again, missed - and the fighting was now close proximity. It carried them to the railing, and he forced her head back, pulling on her hair. Their bodies were close - intimate - but she felt crowded by his hostile presence. She leant forward to bite his arm, but he was gripping her around the waist now, smashing her head on the railing once, twice, three t–_

Natasha kicked Clint between his legs and struggled as he tightened the grip on her waist and hair. She pulled out a knife that was strapped to her ankle was about to slit his throat when she opened her eyes and realised what she was doing.

"Clint!" she gasped, tossing the knife off the bed and trying to relax so he'd loosen his grip. "_Clint. Wake up._"

She kicked him again and caught his wrists at her waist.

"Barton. Come on."

He awoke at this and promptly released his victim. Natasha let go of his arms, turning over now so she was faced down on the far pillow. Clint lay panting on his back, fingers knotted into his hair.

"Nat, I'm sorry," he began, to which she simply replied:

"Go to sleep."

The time was 1:24 am.

Clint woke up again angry and shaken. Launching himself out of the bed, he pressed his hands onto the window, only just restraining himself from throwing his fist onto it. He shot a glance towards Natasha, who was curled into a ball and quietly drumming her hands on the mattress. He heard slight gasps of desperation from her, but this somehow drove his sudden anger further and he knocked a lamp over. Cursing under his breath, he kicked the wall once and stormed to the kitchen.

Natasha clenched her fists in attempt to recover from the third nightmare of that night; she knew Clint could hurt himself when he was like this. When she could see straight again, she slid out of bed, the darkness not dampening her senses.

"Barton?"

She followed the sounds of breaking glass and angry mumbling to the kitchen. The archer was surrounded by pieces of cutlery and broken ceramics.  
Clint hadn't responded to her, and she stumbled back a little as a bottle of wine shattered at her feet.

"Clint."

He hit the high cupboards multiple times, hardly attentive to Natasha lingering in the doorway - or much else for that matter.

"Look, if you're gonna go all Hulk on me and smash up the wine then I may as well just leave."

He wasn't listening.

"_Clint._"

The thuds on the stained wood of the cupboards were rhythmic now and she could sense the angst in Clint's nature.

"Clint. _Stop."_

Without the need for subtlety, Natasha knew she had several options as how to deal with the archer. It being 3am in the morning, the easiest option involved the frying pan at her feet.

"Not sorry." she whispered as she brought the pan down onto his head. When she was sure that she had only temporarily incapacitated her partner, she grabbed hold of his legs and arms and swung him onto her back. And so, remembering to switch the light off before she left, she made her way back to the bedroom.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Roof

It was relieving to breathe easily in the water. The icy liquid curved around Natasha's body as she let her chest rise up and down, it no longer feeling restricted as if she were weighed down in a lake.

There were faint noises coming from outside the door. _Clint must be up._

She'd left her clothes in the bedroom, substituting them for a bathrobe that was now hanging on a hook by the door. The bandages that were around her wrists were now deposited on the bathroom floor; the burning feeling of the cold on the flesh was satisfying.  
When she was washing, the scars on her body covered her like tattoos.  
Natasha was wary of stripping off without some kind of safety aid, so she still had a knife strapped to her ankle. She'd left her guns in the bedroom too, next to Clint's bow. The archer had been out like a light when she left for the shower.

Out.

_Sleeping._

_He had been sleeping._

She'd been in the shower for less than 5 minutes. Her sense of hearing wasn't immaculate but its accuracy was reliable; there had been no sound coming from the bedroom whatsoever, as far as she could recall.  
Carefully, and with deadly intent, she pulled back the shower curtain and stepped out. The running water would cover any noise she made.  
For now.

As she pulled on the robe, there was a knock at the door.

"Agent Romanoff, we know you're in there. Agent Barton is in our custody. There's no window in there, so you may as well come out."

The sentence was a goldmine. Whoever this speaker was, was an idiot to say the least. She (and the voice sounded female enough) had given away her status, vaguely her employer, her authority and her intel on the location in but 3 sentences. As well as this, she made the mistake of pretending she had Barton.

_He might require hearing aids, but he damn well would know if someone was in his apartment. _

Natasha turned the water off. Grabbing a towel, she assessed how many agents were outside the bathroom door.

"Could you give me a minute?"

Cross referencing the amount of separate shadows with different voices and breathing patterns, she totalled 7.

"Agent Romanoff, I'd have thought you would have been better prepared."

_7 agents at the door. No doubt more further inside the apartment, and some on the street. _

"Well you did interrupt me during my shower."

_Time. She needed time._

"I'd prefer it if we'd talk face to face."

_No guns, no tasers, only a knife. One exit._

"I would come out and kick your asses but the water was kind of cold, so -"

_She could take the ones inside the apartment. Easily._

"The place is surrounded."

_But if Barton were with them, she'd be putting him in danger. _

"All the more reason to wait until I'm decent."

_One exit._

"You have 2 minutes."

_Or was there?_

Something crossed Natasha's mind.

If they had been in the bedroom, they'd have seen her clothes. They wouldn't have allowed her time to redress. So two main possibilities: their first stop was the bathroom, or they were all pig stupid enough to give a master assassin 2 spare minutes. Either way, Barton's safety was pretty much guaranteed. But the actual number of enemy agents in the vicinity of Natasha was nothing but a guess. Clearing the apartment would be easy, but getting out without a fuss?

Unlikely.

The spy surveyed the room.

Shower curtain hanging, various towels, duffel bag on top of cabinet, first aid kit in cabinet, jacket on floor, toilet roll, plunger under the sink.  
Carefully pulling down the bag, she noticed a green slip of paper sandwiched between two of the ceiling tiles. She recognised it from somewhere, from a while back. Something Clint used to do.  
Opening the bag, she realised that it was Clint's and that it had plenty of items residing there. She emptied the contents of the first aid kit into it, then a bunch of medicines from inside the cabinet. Tying her jacket around her waist, and taking a firm grip on the bag, she clambered onto the sink.

_Come on Barton. Give me this one._

There was a click as the agent at the door pulled the handle.

"Time's up Romanoff."

_***i***_

The bow was, to simply put it, as it usually was. Except, it was being utilised with its, say, _tertiary feature,_ as Clint fully well realised while he was dangling from the 30th floor of a Spanish apartment block. He knew that his bowstring was strong enough, but he worried that the wall mounted flag pole would not hold his weight for much longer._  
_

It had been a rash decision for the archer, but Clint trusted himself enough to know that his rash decisions would eventually work out. The sunlight was softened by the presence of clouds but was still overly bright for 7am in the morning. He had managed to get out with 2 of Natasha's guns, his bow and a full quiver of arrows - it was good for the 30 seconds he had to notice someone slip by his bedroom door. But he was struggling to find a spot to swing onto now, and he could clearly hear creaks from the metallic pole above him.

Then he saw his getaway. He would have to be quick, immensely so, and accurate too - just within his specifications. Eye on the glass exterior of the building opposite, he calculated his movements. He needed to speed up - one look out the window from the agents in the apartment and **_bam:_** reflection of Hawkeye dangling from the building you're standing in.

First things first: _grounding._

Clint rooted his feet to the wall.

_Good._

Next: _security. _

Hooking one arm around the bow, he brought it down so it wasn't balanced any longer, pivoting on one side. Clint was angled back far further than he would have liked to be. He selected an arrow from his quiver, and held it in his mouth as he tied the rope that protruded from it around his waist. Clint secured it at a pulley system that was sat on his belt. He was glad that, despite his residence in Spain the last few months, his training regimes were unchanged and the strength of his arms hadn't deteriorated. And that having a full utility belt at the ready came with the job. Now, building up momentum, he swung to have control of both sides of his bow again.

'Okay', he thought, pleased that he had managed that without too much unnecessary flailing.

Step 3: _execution._

Launching himself with all the power that his legs could give him, he flung into the air. While one hand slid down to hold the bow appropriately, the other nestled the arrow into position and drew the string. As this was happening, Clint twisted his body so he could have a clear shot.

30 floors.

30 floors was a fair enough margin for error.

Hitting exactly where he wanted to, the arrow gripped the roof edge of the building opposite. Clint lowered his bow and clutched the rope, the blood rushing to his head as he almost tipped upside down. As he swung to the other building, the pulley system ensuring that he did not crash into the first floor, he braced himself for impact.

_Perfect._

**_*i*_**

There was nobody there.

The floor was wet, the shower had been running, and there were towels strewn around, but apart from that, nothing was out of place.

Natasha Romanoff wasn't there.

Except, she was.

Distributing her weight over 3 of the ceiling tiles, she made as little movement or sound as she could.

It seemed that the Hawk had built himself a nest amongst several pipes and wires that lay between floors. Several wrappers and chip packets littered the space, and there were a few arrows decorating the place too.

Knowing that the agents below her would (eventually) find out where she'd gone, Natasha stopped observing Clint's hiding space and shuffled as far along as she could - until she found herself under a hole in the above flooring. Once she hoisted herself up, she took a moment to stretch and look around. The 'tunnel' led into a cupboard - storage presumably - that bore a ladder in it. Clint was two floors below roof level - it made sense for him to want to explore the roof.

She took the time to open the duffel bag and take inventory. Luckily, she found a pair of jeans and an extra t-shirt in there, along with undergarments for both sexes and other products that they could both use.

_Damn. He was planning for something like this._

Swiftly, she dressed and (despite the heat) put on her jacket. She dumped the towel back in the bag but left the bathrobe by the ladder. Her fingers felt into her pockets and found the silvery outlines of the arrow necklace.

"Okay Clint," she said to herself in hushed tones as she fastened it around her neck. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

Feeling the rope loosen around his waist, Clint knew he had to move fast. Crashing through the glass was less painful than he expected, and after a brief moment, he was up and looking around. The second from top floor of the relatively small building seemed abandoned, the sunlight from outside only just making the eeriness more subtle. To avoid making too much more noise, he picked the lock to the stairwell in the centre of the floor.

There was movement on the stairs heading down. They must have heard when he smashed through the glass - who wouldn't, to be fair - and now be making their way up to meet him.

He had to go to the roof.

When up there, he took a low position. And, for a second, he let his mind catch up to him.  
He had 2 guns, all but 1 arrows and a functional bow. As far as he knew, no-one could tell he was -

A gunshot rang in his ears.

He was lying down in between the roof edge and service 'pod' situated on the roof - it wasn't him who was hit. Rolling into a crouch position with arrow poised, he realised that there was one more body on this roof than he thought. And it was dead.  
Standing up, he caught Natasha's expectant gaze from the other building.

_You okay?_

Her gun was still raised.

_I'm good._

They couldn't hear each other, of course. But the daylight was so that it accentuated their expressions; reading each other was easy at this point.

Now, with a gunshot echoing across the city, the Spanish police were sure to be on their way. But HYDRA wouldn't give up on catching their favourite assassins just yet.

Natasha could hear the cavalry ascend the stairs and the ladder - her makeshift barricade of boxes and a dumpster wouldn't last for long. And sure enough, there were noises now at the entrance. The bag dropped, the hair swished and the gun pointed at where the noise was coming from. On the opposite building, Clint was similarly prepared.

"You want a fight?" Natasha called. "You got one."

* * *

The first shots were always the hardest. Clint didn't want to waste arrows for close range, but using a gun came far less naturally than a bow. Sure, trained assassin and all that meant that he could shoot a target dead on from 200m away, but every time he was about to pull the trigger, he had to consciously travel back to the time of his training, to be told face to face: _breathe, now find your target, okay, breathe again, now shoot. _The first agents, despite being the most careless in their position, were shot in the neck. The next were headshots.

"You're going to regret smashing that wine earlier Barton!"

The shout from across the way was barely audible through the gunfire.

_Just don't waste my ammo. _

The spare magazines and clips in the duffel bag were noticed by Natasha, but she had a small store strapped on the inside of her jacket, so she was set for a while. Unlike Clint who played for good shots, she played a game of strategy, shooting in specific directions when necessary to hold her side of attackers off. It was a better situation, certainly - Natasha had space and the open air to play with now - but the force against her and her partner was stronger than she'd hoped. She might have had enough bullets, but too many of them were denting one agent's S.H.I.E.L.D badge before nailing someone in the throat. Traitors, sometimes, weren't worth bullets.

_And that's rich, coming from me._

"Clint!" Natasha dodged the incoming bullets. She'd taken position behind another dumpster on the roof.

"Kind of busy here, Nat!"

She couldn't hold them off much longer. The scene had split into two, becoming two separate shoot-outs.

_If they had any experience whatsoever, they'd probably have paid more attention to the other rooftop. _

Amongst the gunfire, sirens could be heard now. This stole the focus of the agents, giving the assassins a moment to formulate an exit strategy.

"Actually, Tasha?"

The gunfire had ceased for a single second as Clint spoke. Natasha watched his lips as he mouthed a single word, shot once at an oncoming agent and then slid off the edge of the building.

Clint reeled in his satisfaction for a moment before he could give her sufficient cover.

_Ladder._

**_Thanks for the interest shown so far!  
I'll probably upload on Mondays from now on._**


	3. Chapter 3 - Thomas

Once she was on the ground, Natasha looked around for the duffel bag. She'd thrown it to the ground before she made her way down the ladder, but couldn't spot it from where she was. If she didn't have it, she'd risk leaving behind a bag full of useful items and traces of her stay. She had about three minutes before Clint would start to run into trouble - occasionally she'd hear the clatter of trash cans as someone was knocked off the ladder and onto them.  
She was about to cross the street when she turned suddenly and hoisted her gun. There was no hesitation as she spoke.

"Go now kid and you might stick around long enough to tell the tale."

The boy, who looked to be aged around 18, appeared to be local and spoke good English with a Spanish accent. He was not fazed by Natasha's authority, or by the sunlight settled on his face.

"Your reputation precedes you." he said.

The spy looked him over. In his hand, was the duffel bag, and strapped to his waist (hidden by the thin jacket he was wearing), was a small pistol.

"You've got my bag, I'd like it back please." Natasha had no intention of shooting him. But Clint would need a hand with the agents in the building he was in.

"It's not your bag, it's Mr Barton's."

"Drop the bag, kiddo, and the gun if you please."

"I can hardly help my employer without my gun - I mean have you seen the state of leg?."

He pulled up his trouser leg to reveal a prosthetic leg, one that was lovingly decorated with stickers and marker pen. Natasha fought the urge to laugh a little, knowing it'd be rude and that, if Clint had recruited him, he had to have had worth somewhere.

"How do you know Barton?"

"I sold him the apartment."_  
_

"Uh huh, and how old are you?"

"19. But my father owns the buildings around here."

They both looked up and around them. The daylight concerned Natasha - she wasn't sure about the occupation state of the other building, but she knew that people lived in the apartment block. To be truthful, the residents seemed less than concerned by the gunfire. But she could still be spotted.

"Did Daddy tell you anything about that one?" Natasha asked, motioning to the building where Clint was fighting. "Like, any back entrances or things like that?"

"There's a car p- there's a _parking lot _under that one, for the company cars."  


"Okay, good."

_Well,_ she thought. _If they had sense enough to check one building's plans for windows and other features, likely thing was that they checked a few of them.  
_But, running a few stray HYDRA agents over in the parking lot seemed a lot simpler than having to face a street full of them at the front door.

"We should help Mr Barton. I promised I'd keep a look out for any hostility."

Natasha sighed and lowered the gun. It was her turn to watch her partner's back and, suspicious or not, this black haired, tanned skinned kid didn't seem like the type to cross her over. If anything, she was fairly impressed by how he'd managed to keep his calm.  
Or perhaps she overestimated her party tricks. _  
_

"Alright then, _look-out-boy. _What do I call you?"

"My name is Thomas."

* * *

Clint made his way down the stairs with caution. The bodies slumped in the stairwell made it slightly more difficult to navigate down; he was debating whether to use his arrows to swing down but there were no good structures that would hold his weight long enough for him to make it to the floor (and not through a window again).

As he descended the flight of stairs, he noticed a lack of focus in his enemy. In fact, some of them were stuck on where to go, undecided on whether to stay and fight or to run.

_Although,_ thought Clint. _They could be running from both ways. _

Sure enough, Natasha and Thomas were clearing Clint's exit. When the flow of attackers stopped altogether, there was a shout from below.

"Are you coming or not Barton, cos I got a car waiting."

He took to running the rest and met with the others in the parking lot below the building. Natasha had come through this way, hijacked an empty car and then broke the door to the upper stairwell down to clear the path. As many of the cars had no license plates and the upper levels of the building, at least, were empty, she presumed that this building was not yet in use.

_Lucky us._

"I see you've met Thomas."

"You give him the gun, Clint, or did sonny-boy get it by himself?"

The archer shot her a look as the 3 of them piled into a black Mercedes with blacked out windows and no license plate. It was parked just outside the stairwell, on some sort of metallic disc that seemed to act as a sort of decoration. Natasha took the driver's side, Clint the front passenger seat and Thomas the back. The sirens outside were now a lot closer and the gunfire appeared to have resumed. As they drove onto the street behind the building, hoping to avoid a hoard of enemy agents, a police officer stopped them.

"Is everything okay, Madame?" he asked in Spanish. It appeared that he had not noticed the missing license plate.

"Well we were heading out when we heard gunfire!" Natasha's Spanish was surprisingly good.

"We left our car here overnight." added Clint. Thomas stayed quiet.

"If you avoid the streets for today, it should be okay to return tomorrow. Stay safe, okay?" the officer left them pass. While Clint and Natasha didn't react, a small sigh of relief could be heard from the back of the car.

They drove for a while without speaking.

"We dropping you off anywhere kiddo?" Natasha knew she was probably annoying Clint by not speaking in Spanish to Thomas. She turned onto a road leading out from the city.

"Mr Barton said to stick around."

"Okay then. Got a place for us to hang tonight?"

Natasha watched the road as no-one responded.

"Well I was talking to Thomas but either of you will do."

"Nat, why are you here?"

She glanced at the archer then returned her attention to the road.

"Let's just find a place to camp."

"I _had _a place."

"Well now you don't."

"Natasha."

"I'll talk to you when we're alone."

"What's he going to do?" said Clint, indicating Thomas. "Sell you out to his secret evil employers?"

The mood had turned.

"Shut up Barton."

"Do you seriously think Thomas here will be any contest for you? Are you afraid he'll hit you over the head with his fake leg in the middle of the night?"

"Hey man! Not cool." Thomas was trying to keep out of the conversation. But, heated as it was becoming, he couldn't let someone mock him.  
Clint took the conversation further.

"Why don't you trust me Tasha? And why do you have to turn up where I live and _mess everything up?_"

She tried to restrain herself from reacting. She didn't want a fight, not now, not when she had so little.  
Her fingers dug themselves into the steering wheel, the material heating up under her skin. The lacerations around her wrists did not look pretty.

Clint tried to continue.

"I was _s-_"

"Messing _what _up, Clint?"

She couldn't resist.

"You don't seriously think you'd settle down in a small apartment in Spain, did you?" She interrupted the archer again before he could speak a word in reply. "That's not life! We can't have lives, we can't just _choose_ to settle wherever we want after a mission. That's not how it _works_."

Despite her raised voice, Natasha presented herself as calm and authoritative. But Clint knew her tricks.

"Oh yeah, like you'd know. You're so stuck up in this stupid work of yours that you don't know where your bed ends and HYDRA's starts. There was no _defeating_ them. They've raided my home, almost killed me, and I say almost, because obviously even though they still exist, they only had their reject pile to ship out to us. You'd rather sleep with the maggots that you left alive than kill them - I know you."

Natasha accelerated onto a country road. She didn't dignify his accusations with a response.

"You think you saved us back there?" Clint continued. "And from S.H.I.E.L.D too? You're so pathetic. You can't even save your own skin."

"I must have knocked you pretty hard on the head last night." she said, gritting her teeth. She spun the car and braked so it came to an abrupt stop, the driver side door facing out onto the road. She opened the door and didn't turn back as she cut off the argument.

"Fuck you, Clint."

* * *

He didn't want to argue with her. In fact, he didn't even mind her company, even if she did bring trouble. But he couldn't live with the nightmares, the secrecy and the bossiness. Sure, in part, he liked it. But it suited her for her work, and this wasn't work, this was personal life. She was a catalyst for destruction and fire, and at any push, she'd pack up leave the ash behind. And Clint was tired of sitting in ash.

He kicked the dashboard.

"Mr Barton?" asked Thomas.

"Yeah, yeah, we're getting out." He opened his door and stumbled out of the car. Thomas followed.

"What do we do now?"

"Well, I ain't got any money on me and I'm not dressed for business so I say we go after her."

"Okay." responded Thomas, who retrieved the duffel bag from the boot. "How's your back?"

Clint looked at him in surprise. He realised he had forgotten about the wound, and that it had probably bled a little and wasn't in the cleanest of states.

"I'm doing good, bud. I'm doing good."

**_*i*_**

**__****_Two days before the incident  
_****__****_Spain, Northern Hemisphere  
_****__****_40.2, -3.1_**

The road was slightly dusty and Natasha realised that she didn't have any shoes on. As well as that, she was wearing most of Clint's spare set of clothes, so she doubted that he would have found something else to wear by that time. That wasn't _her_ problem. But it would stick in her mind.  
She felt herself carefully take off her necklace and place it again into her pockets.

He'd be following her.

She was not in the mood to continue arguing with him, but it was inevitable. Seeing a village not far from where she was, she knew that she could find clothing there - and, should Clint want in on another round, he would hopefully be a little more civil around a group of people.  
She didn't enjoy their arguments. But she needed them at the same time, to keep her detached.

No standing still.  
That was her philosophy.

_She would have to find work soon. _

"Natasha!"

The village wasn't far away, but of course, the rest of her company had reached her before she could get there.

"Come on Nat, I'm running around in my pyjamas!"

She didn't bother to turn around, just kept walking.

"Settlement up ahead."

"Do you think they'll have coffee?" Clint asked with all seriousness. His mood had lifted after the short walk.

"You'll only find good coffee in the cities." responded Thomas.

Natasha led the way as they reached the settlement. The people there were fairly welcoming, and the few shops in the area offered sufficient exchange for Clint's clothing. Although she didn't have much, Natasha had a few Euros in her pockets which she exchanged for shoes and a room to sleep in for the night.  
It was still morning, but the group wasn't keen on returning close to the city without resources. So Clint and Thomas, who turned out to have less than protective mother, spent the day meeting the locals while Natasha sat behind the house she would be sleeping in and did some inventory checks on what they had.

The late afternoon commenced with a meal in the house they were staying.

_**Thanks for reading!  
More later on - I started writing Chapter 4 a little earlier than expected so I might upload before Monday. **_


	4. Chapter 4 - Messenger

_**- Just a warning, there's some gore in this chapter - **_

After the meal, Clint and Thomas had traversed around the village a little longer. The archer was planning on talking in private with his partner, but he had not seen her for the last 20 minutes.

Natasha had wandered back to the road to drive the car further out. Now she sat on a lone fence post watching the sky change colours and the sun inch down towards the horizon.

A faint rustling caught her ear.

It was far away enough, so she only took a moment before scanning her surroundings - to see an old well beyond the farmland that lay beside the road. And silhouetted behind that, was the figure of a man.  
Carefully, and making sure to make as little sound as possible, she crossed the farmland to where the man was. Her eyes were searching him and the motorbike that was hidden by the well. Then she saw something. Something that she had avoided for years, something she had almost forgotten.  
_Almost.  
_At least through the daytime.

Natasha placed her hand on the edge of the well and shifted her weight. The stone felt cold under her, which was nice. The well did not appear to be frequently used. When she realised that the man, who bore predominantly Soviet features, had not noticed her presence, she coughed twice before speaking.

"Hey sweet-cheeks, you been following me?"

The man spun round with fear in his eyes. He looked almost child-like with his bearded jaw hanging open slightly. It was obvious that he had heard of the Black Widow.

"I have a message." he tried to keep his nerve as he spoke, his voice heavy in accent but his words English as courtesy. She did not bother to try and belittle him, or even pretend to be below him. She didn't need to bother. The tattoo on his shoulder told her that.

The man looked at her as if she had not even the courtesy to feign interest. He spoke up to clarify.

"From the Red Room."

_The Red Room.  
_There were very few things that would reach deep enough inside Natasha Romanoff to make her question who she was and what she was doing. Some of these grabbed her when she was with Steve not long ago, some she had almost collided with in New York, and some she had not come across for 10 years or more.  
But one of these things visited her every night. If she was lucky, it would not be a significant nightmare, and she'd just open her eyes at 2 in the morning, sigh, roll over and go back to sleep.  
But she was not usually lucky.  
And that's why sleeping next to Clint helped. Because when she found herself screaming and ripping the bedsheets at night in an apartment she'd rented for all but a week, she'd find herself sat at a desk reading case files for fear of waking from her slumber again. But if she felt someone by her side, someone who didn't want to know why she was screaming, she felt safer. It was a strange feeling, one that she could not describe fully. Sort of like coming home.  
_Home.  
_At first thought, that word actually took her back to the Red Room. But she knew better than to stick to her first thought, because those initial ideas, those very first connections that she made, were corrupted. Something broke her inside that complex, in more than one way, and on top of everything, all the things they did to her there, something warped her definition of home. In all the ways they changed her, they focussed on the one thing that kept her standing still.

Home. Where she belonged.

Her real home - her _second thought. _Somewhere with a fire place and no steel walls, and the sound of birds instead of machinery, and her mother's touch instead of -

Natasha tried not to think too much into her past. For the time being, it was best left for the nights.

"So how did you find me?" Natasha asked, her voice steady. But, although you couldn't see it in her eyes unless you looked _very _closely, she felt distracted.

The man in front of her let out a small laugh.

"The Red Room never _loses_ its subjects."

"That so?" her scepticism, which she would normally manipulate to her advantage, was now betraying her usual calm identity. Coming up behind the well, a little off to the right, Natasha saw Clint advancing toward her. Although she was hoping he would not come out to find her, she would be lying to say that she wasn't expecting him to. He was quiet enough so as not to be noticed by the messenger.

The man relaxed. His body language changed completely, fear no longer in his heart. _He had reeled her in. Now he only needed her to bite, and then maybe, just maybe, he would get out of it all without a bullet in his head. _

"The agents we raise," he began, in shaky English. He put out his left arm, his hand palm side up, to show Natasha. "We give them tracker, deep under skin, right_ here_."

He traced a circle on one side of his left wrist. Natasha watched him eagerly.

His information was very specific. Far too much so for a nobody who carries messages. But this was not the first Red Room messenger she had met. It would not surprise her to find that these people knew more about the business than they were worth. But she had never been made aware of any trackers on her person. He could as easily be lying.  
_Then again... _

Clint was making up the distance between them slowly. He was within earshot now, inching closer so as not to alert the man.

"Now, the message." the messenger continued with an equally confident tone.

Natasha cocked her gun, aimed, and shot him between the eyes.

Clint stumbled forward fast enough to be at the scene as the Red Room representative fell.

"Hey! What ever happened to 'don't shoot the messenger?"

Natasha lowered her gun and glared at him.

"I've had a lot of messages from that direction. Mostly party invites. Now's not the time to buy gift wrap or put on a hat."

The archer sighed, crouching down by the body. Natasha kicked the handlebars of the motorbike sulkily.

"He might have had a family." Clint said.

She replied without delay.

"I had a family once too."

* * *

"You know what I could murder right now? A cigarette."

The pair were sat on the floor next to each other by the fence post, a golden light washing over them as the sun began to drop below the horizon. Clint was fidgeting a little, obviously keen to smoke.  
Coffee might have done him a better deal.

"I've got a lot of things trying to kill me at the moment; I don't need another one." said Natasha, with a small smile.

Clint looked at her. The golden rays on her face made her look even more beautiful than she usually did, and the highlights made her appear almost peaceful. But they illuminated scars too, ones that would usually be hidden by make-up or dark lighting.

"I'm sorry."

She turned her head to meet his gaze.

"For what?" she asked, although she knew how he would answer.

"For accusing you of things, for shouting at you, for almost killing you last night, hell, for a lot of things, okay? For not being there when S.H.I.E.L.D fell. When Fury died."

Natasha looked away again. She couldn't bring herself to share Fury's eventual outcome with Clint. The former director of S.H.I.E.L.D had trusted her not to share that he was, in fact, alive and well.  
She had to respect that.  
She had to have some code to stick to.

"I didn't want you there. I managed to take most of the fall, but I couldn't have guaranteed your outcome on top of things. I couldn't - _I_ _wouldn't _- have done that to you Clint. I wouldn't _wish _it on you."

There was frustration in her voice. No, more than that - distraction. It was _unusual_. Clint noticed.  
She pushed herself up from the floor and started to walk away.

"Going so soon?" Joked the archer, who got up to follow her.

"There's something I need to do."

"Alright, alright. D'you think that guy will be fine in the well?"

"Well it isn't the best _solution._"

The archer chuckled at her chemistry joke.

"That's poor, in fact, that's worse than poor, that's just plain terrible Nat."

"Hey, I blew all my covers, are you trying to suggest I can't look into comedy for one?"

"Stick to what you're good at Romanoff."

"Yeah, alright."

She didn't slow down as she reached the house that she and (most likely) the others would be staying in. A lot of the house's residents were in the kitchen, so when she slipped upstairs, she was barely noticed. She felt something rising in her heart, and suddenly she was frustrated and impatient. She was not quiet as she rummaged through the duffel bag for the first aid kit and a towel, nor was she quiet as she came downstairs again, hoping to find the bathroom free. When she was in there, she dropped what she was holding and locked the door as fast as she could. She fumbled around at her ankle to dislodge the knife from its strap. Her breathing was quick and heavy. When it was free, she twisted open the tap and placed her left arm on the side.

Her hand was shaking.

_Stop it. _She told herself. _Stop it, god dammit. _

Memories and thoughts pulsed through her head. As she began to panic, her hand was shaking more and more, until eventually, she just threw the knife to the floor and gasped in frustration.

_Weak. Vulnerable._

She was remembering the nightmares of the night before. Not moving her left arm, she breathed in once, picked up the knife and made a slit in the right side of her wrist.  
She scrunched up her face in pain as the flesh oozed with fresh blood.  
Natasha knew not to cut any major veins or she'd be in trouble, but she continued to make incisions as her sobs became loud and frequent.  
The blood dripping from her wrist was turning the water a crimson red.  
Her eyes were stained with tears of desperation and pain as she dropped the knife in the sink and shakily expanded the wounds with the fingers of her right hand.  
_Nothing, _she thought, as she failed to find a tracker or chip anywhere. She kept searching, her efforts not rewarded. _How can there be nothing?_

"Nat?"

There was a voice at the door - it was Clint's. He knew something was wrong.

"Hey, you okay in there?"

Her wrist throbbed as the water carried the blood down the drain. She clasped it with her right hand to try and slow the flow of blood.

"Yeah," she replied, stifling tears and sobs. "Yeah, I just, uh, cut myself on some glass."

"Uh-huh." he sounded unconvinced. "D'you need a hand, do you want me to get something?"

"No," she responded, almost violently. "No, I took the first aid kit with me."

"Okay, if you're sure."

As he left, Natasha noticed how dirtied the bathroom was. It had been stupid to do it here - it was almost certainly going to get infected. She snatched the towel from the floor and quickly pressed it to her wound, the sound of running water making it hard to concentrate. Her breathing became a little steadier as she carefully turned off the tap and opened the first aid kit. She couldn't control the tears rolling down her cheeks as she placed some gauze over her wrist and started to wrap the remainder of the bandages over it. Every time she pulled it a little tighter, a million tiny needles shot into her arm - it _hurt_ and it _hurt_ _like hell. _

_But it was nice. It was no longer an option for a weak spot; it was one more place that she knew they hadn't gotten into her._

The spy washed her knife off and placed it back into its holder at her ankle. She wiped the blood off the side of the sink and her hands.  
She was angry at herself for crying. She didn't _cry_ at stupid things like this, and she certainly didn't _panic_. At least not since -  
Feeling her fingers trace the circle where the messenger told her the tracker would be, her mind cast back to something Loki had said to her in New York.

'You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers.'

She wasn't the only one in the service. Then her thoughts drifted to what Loki had said regarding Barton. How he would -

_All my nightmares are happening during the day._

Her heart was beating faster than usual. But she was okay. Everything was... okay.

_**Thanks for reading!**_  
_**I'd love to know a few more opinions on this -**_  
_**Any reviews are much appreciated.**_

_**Next chapter will be released on Monday as usual :)**_


	5. Chapter 5 - Scenery

Without air conditioning, the air in the small guest bedroom was dense and humid. It was oppressing and slowed everything that came to touch it, a fact which was not helped by the 3 people residing in the room that night.

Clint figured the time to be around 1am, but with getting up to pull the cord for a singular swinging light bulb being the only way to illuminate the room's clock, he was happy enough lying in the dark without knowing the exact time.  
Thomas, having been asleep for the last 3 hours or so, was snoring beside the archer on the small double bed. Natasha had insisted that he take the bed with Clint, she instead taking the floor where she lay now in a vest, using the duffel bag as a pillow. Nobody had felt confident enough to argue.  
The bed creaked - Thomas had turned over again, and Clint was tiring of the boy's sleeping habits. He much preferred Natasha as a companion, despite the night time disturbances she brought. But he wasn't keen on bunking next to her on the floor either.  
No, instead, he decided to take his chances and endure the inevitably small amount of sleep that lying on a barely-double/double-bed next to the 19 year old boy offered.  
That is, until he realised that he had not managed _any _sleep whatsoever so far.

Thus, he decided to take a walk through the village. He swiped one of Natasha's guns from under the duffel bag for safety measures and slipped out in his boxers.

The unwelcome warmth of the bedroom was shared with the rest of the house, and Clint noticed that the sulky atmosphere had had an effect on many of its residents. Apart from the faint sound of piano from one room, the house was almost silent. He was careful not to disturb the quietness as he slipped out of the front door.

The settlement was a strangely developed one, hence the disused well out back. Most of the houses had electricity, all of them had running water and Clint could hear noises from game consoles in a few of them. Despite the size of the settlement rendering it a village, the housing was fairly advanced and the shops seemed accustomed to visitors, even if their merchandise was mainly traditional. While this was good for the residents, Clint was concerned that the popularity of this mismatched place would spell disaster for his staying there. And if there was one thing he didn't need right now, it was anything threatening trouble.

But the universe was very rarely so kind.

As he sat leaning against a small stall that stood by the shops, he noticed movements in the shadows. And so, suddenly, he found himself knocked to the floor with his gun splayed off into the distance.

* * *

Thomas had heard the commotion outside. He'd awoken when Clint left and was lying motionless in the bed, wondering whether he should get up to assist him or not. On occasion he'd hear Natasha whimper, something that was he had not expected from her in a lifetime. It scared him, almost, but it scared him more so when he considered what she could do to him if he tried to wake her up.  
He'd heard the stories.  
When there was further crashing outside, Thomas decided upon himself to investigate. Reaching over the side of the bed, he fished around for his prosthetic leg, and then got up to head outside. The tiny square window of the room did not allow for much natural light, and he cursed quietly as struggled to find the door.

He found Clint struggling with hand to hand combat against a squad of darkly clad men and women. Neither party had opened fire - especially since Clint's only firearm lay a few metres from his reach - but both sides were struggling to keep the upper hand. The boy didn't recognise the division - his father had taken him and his family to pretty much every part of Spain and he'd seen the majority of groups, illegally involved or not - but this was not one of them. So who the hell were they?

"Mr Barton!" he shouted on impulse, but as soon as the words had left his lips, he realised the mistake he had made.

No weapon.

No protection.

No intel.

_Shit._

Being a skinny 19 year old amputee from southern Spain, Thomas did feel qualified to fight a dozen or so trained individuals. Instead, he dodged the oncoming attacks to get closer to Clint. An arm locked around his waist; another around his ankle (it appeared to Thomas that his employer was rather skilled at pacifying a good deal of an opposing force) but he struggled free until he was about a foot away from the archer - and inches away from the gun. First pulling it to his feet, he kicked the weapon towards Clint before he was dragged back again.

"La ventana!" he prompted, hoping that the assailants didn't know any Spanish.

"A la ventana! _Natasha!_" his screams were becoming distant as he was pulled away. His employer grabbed and fired the gun, hitting the window and thus introducing the village to the attack. But despite the commotion, and the warning shot, Thomas and Clint appeared to be stuck on their own.

_***i***_

_Fuck.  
_Natasha felt herself jolt awake and roll behind the bed on instinct. Her sweep under the duffel bag for a gun remained unfruitful, but she removed the one she had secured under the bed. Professionalism hit her like a truck and she warped into an active state. A quick glance around the room told her it was clear and so she scurried outside.

Clint was nowhere to be seen, but Thomas was struggling against the force of the people restraining him.

_Not a death sentence._ She noted._ Restraint. _

About a dozen more men and women came as reinforcements from the shadows as Natasha fought off her attackers bare handed, not wanting to waste the bullets she had or lose the knife she treasured. She imagined Clint taking down a good few of them, and though that gave her reassurance on his behalf, she knew that she would not be able to keep going for much longer.

_The kid._

"Thomas!" she yelled, briefly taking out her knife to slash at some person's leg. A barely audible _Natasha! _came in reply. As she cleared the distance between them, she raised her gun and started using the bullets. Head shot, head shot, _neck, _and, finally, a hole in the head of the 19 year old's attacker.

"Run!"

And run he did. Natasha was left to attempts of being tackled to the ground or forced still by some butch body builder with a ski mask on - with Clint still not in the picture. As she broke free, she realised that to keep going would only drain her energy.

_There's too many and it's too god damn early in the morning. _

So instead, she ran, the mob comically chasing her as if she were a character from Looney Tunes. There was one person up ahead, looking full on ready to throw himself at her in attack.

_Oh no you don't._

As he lay down a small metal contraption that unfolded itself into a wide metal disc, he widened his stance. Natasha sped up, determined to take him down, and as she launched from the ground, ready to swing her legs around his neck, she -

**Blinked out of existence. **

* * *

**_43 hours before the incident  
France, Northern Hemisphere  
50.5, 2.0_**

The spy reappeared in a small but high ceilinged cylindrical room, where she proceeded to crash into the wall about 1.5 meters off the ground. She fell to the floor in pain and surprise, her face locked in confusion.

Natasha took a moment to stand up and look around. Everything seemed to be made of concrete, something that seemed to explain the aching feeling in her bones at that place in time. There was a singular door that looked like it was made of steel if not stronger, and a small light was embedded in the distant ceiling. Apart from that, there was nothing in there but the lingering smell of vomit.

Coupling over, she began to realise why.

The acidic taste burned her throat as she brought up the little food that she had managed to eat over the last 2 days. Her head spun with nausea and she dropped to her knees, exhaustion suddenly washing over her entire body.

"Bon matin!" greeted a voice at the door, and she shakily stood back up.

"Je suis en France?"

"Oui, mais tu peux parler l'anglais si tu veux. Ca va?"

Natasha took note of the informality of the wording, but didn't reply.

Pressing one hand to the walling opposite her for support, she tried not to throw up again. She hadn't felt this sick for years - had they drugged her? How had she gotten to France? Was it a cage, a prison cell, a car boot - what? It must have been _mobile_ or how else could she explain 'waking up' 1 and a half meters off the ground? And she had been subject to almost every tranquillizer and sedative under the sky. _None_ of them had ever done_ this _to her.

"You know," began the oddly gruff sounding woman, this time in English. "It's rude not to engage in small talk."

Natasha's head swirled as if she were massively jet-lagged.

"I can't say I apologise for all the commotion; you were meant to just be dragged off in your sleep. There must have been some miscommunication somewhere along the line. Anyway, you can see that teleporting has a few nasty side effects."

_Teleporting? _

"That's why whoever you guys didn't kill will be heading back via jet."

_'You guys'. So you got Clint too. _

The spy tried to respond. "What is this? Who's your employer?" The words felt odd in her mouth. Everything tingled, and she was struggling to keep upright.

"My dear, you should really rest before you try to interrogate us. We are not your enemy."

"Who do you-"

Natasha let out a gasp as she felt a pain in her side. Her head was hung and her eyes forced shut to try and stop her vision fading. She grabbed her left side with both hands now, letting herself fall onto the wall.

_Fuck._

The woman at the door laughed. "Side effects."

* * *

With some recollection of being dragged over but little else, Natasha found herself lying on her side on the concrete floor of another small room. She slowly sat up, her head and stomach feeling empty and light. Clint was sat opposite her in better clothing - in fact, she also seemed to be wearing something more professional than the clothes she was sleeping in.

"So this is fun."

Clint glanced over to her, the briefness of his attention suggesting that he had known of her presence for quite some time.

"You okay?" he asked, sharpening what appeared to be her knife. The movements he made were rough but not loud.

"When am I not?" she responded, subtly pulling up her trouser leg to indeed see her ankle strap bereft of knife.

"Well when I find you barely breathing in some Norwegian warehouse with 3 broken ribs and several bullets in your abdomen for one."

"That was one time." argued the spy.

"Of many." retorted the archer, his face stubborn and slightly sullen.

"I'm beginning to think you'd prefer me in that way." she commented with a sly smile. Clint's face was bruised and his nose looked like it could be broken. She did not want to think about him folding over in pain and spewing sick in a concrete cylinder - but the image came to her mind as he sat sulkily at the edge of the space.

"Strike team delta is made up of two people - nowhere does it say that both those people have to be in a reasonable state of health."

The conversation ceased for a while and Natasha took some time to appreciate the coolness that the room offered compared to the stuffy guest bedroom of the village house. She was not immensely surprised when Thomas entered the room - apparently a lot less nauseous than herself and her partner. When he closed the door behind him, he noticed the confusion on his friend's faces.

"Don't ask me, apparently kids are a better at it."

"Everything alright?" Clint seemed concerned.

"I think I lost a bolt off the old leg."

"We have _got _to get you a new one of those. I'll talk to Stark. How far did you get?" enquired Natasha.

"Almost to the city."

"Nice going."

The boy shrugged and came to sit next to the spy. Clint was sat stubbornly and wasn't making eye contact, something that was less than inviting to Thomas.

"Should I talk to him?" he asked Natasha.

"I wouldn't."

"Alright then." He sighed, sinking back against the wall. He fidgeted for a bit, struggling to decide whether or not to pose a question. "Do you love him?"

In response, Natasha laughed, but it was a strange laugh, as if she didn't believe in what would follow. "I owe him a debt. That premise extends down certain alleys that neither of us have the ability to explain. But it's not love." The wording felt wrong in her mouth, and not because she was recovering from the trip to France. With all her covers blown, Natasha suddenly found it difficult to settle on definitions and answers.

As Thomas was looking rather sullen, she sat up to ask him a question.

"Any lovers 'round your way?"

"There is someone."

"She pretty?"

"It's - it's not a she."

"Oh right. He pretty?"

"He's okay."

"See him often?"

"Father doesn't know. Not often enough."

"Damn. You planning to go back for him?"

"What?"

"You've got some choices ahead of you, kid. We've all got to set some grounding somewhere, and you've got to start building up pretty soon. So, are you going back for him?"

Thomas looked innocent and slightly shaken. He took a moment to think.

"I guess."

"Good." nodded Natasha. "Stick to love."

**_Well I hope the French was satisfactory - at least I didn't use google translate!_**  
**_This chapter didn't quite turn out how I wanted it to though, so I hope you guys thought it was okay._**  
**_Thanks for reading! _**


	6. Chapter 6 - Grounding

He worried about her. The Natasha he knew was level-headed, focussed. Even post-nightmare-Nat was hardly submissive; she would fight a lot of the comfort he tried to give her to keep herself composed. But the marks on her wrist were made with a knife. With the one he was holding now, the one he was running down the edge of stone and honing with steel.  
He watched as she talked with Thomas. Did she know that there was an array of tools by his side? Did she realise that the door was unlocked? It wouldn't matter, he supposed. If Natasha Romanoff wanted to get out of the room, it would take more than a lock to stop her.

She was laughing.

What was there to laugh about? She didn't even know where she was; she hadn't even asked. Maybe she did trust him enough to feel safe. Maybe she trusted him enough to _keep _her safe.

Clint sighed.

_Maybe. I ain't no superhero. _

"That bow is going to take a lot to replace." he grumbled. No one seemed to notice. "I mean, I doubt S.H.I.E.L.D's going to be focussing on artillery any time soon."

Nothing.

"See, it would be fun if my employer existed for like -"

Natasha caught him mid sentence. She got up, strode over to him and, fingers clamped under his collar, pulled him onto his feet. Even standing a good couple of inches below him, she was as fearsome as always, a lioness with its prey yet beneath her.  
The knife was on the floor.

"Stop brooding, Barton. My guess is they've brought our stuff over with them."

Without warning, he grabbed her shirt and pulled her back onto the wall with him. Though she did not expect it, she was hardly surprised at his actions. She took a cool step back, giving Clint a look of _and where the hell are you going with this? _He stepped in so that he was closer to her.

They were centimetres apart.

Scoffing, he raised his hand and traced the scars there, both old and new. After holding it up for a few seconds, he pulled up his right trouser leg to reveal recent bruising and a large, odd scar. A key-chain, bearing a small spider charm, swung slightly at his waist. It was secured with what looked like tape and string; Thomas observed with care.

"Clint." began Natasha, looking perfectly unamused.

He continued in faint anger, highlighting several spots that, bearing scars or not, she would know he was once injured in. His fingers lightly danced over his back, then suddenly moved up to his ear to tear out his hearing aids.

_The noise they made as they clattered to the floor was petty._

_'Your turn.' _he signed, watching her flinch as he uncovered several scars and scratches. He moved his hand to the corner of Natasha's shirt to try and reveal her stomach. She stopped him, holding her bandaged hand to his at her waist - to which he responded by pulling it up in front of her face. Clint started to unwrap it, slowly revealing a blood soaked gauze and, underneath it, the bloodied wound. He turned her hand so that she could see it.

"See this?" he said, indicating the cuts in her wrist. His voice sounded awkward and a few decibels over what it was meant to be, something that he knew would show his inexperience of talking without his aids in. "Not glass."

He wrapped it again in the same bandage for lack of any medical supplies nearby, his fingers pulling and moving with ease as if he were carefully wrapping a gift for Christmas.

_'More now.'_ signed Natasha, grimacing as she pulled on her left sleeve to reveal a recent scar, made by a bullet no doubt. Ballistics? (He should have asked.) Soviet slug. No rifling. As his fingers brushed against the skin, she flicked her head to the side and tensed up. He reached now towards her right hand, knotting his fingers into hers. Clint's gaze was icy as he brought it to his chest. He felt the thundering beats of his heart pulse into the palm of her hand, her gaze childish yet also locking it into place. Pushing both their hands to her chest, he hoped her heartbeat would be much the same. Her neckline, however, caught his eye - it was empty of necklace.

"What, you gonna make me recite the pledge of allegiance?" she said with a small smile.

But he wasn't paying attention to her lips.

"Did you lose the pendant?" he whispered; his eyes were settled on her neck. It wasn't his intention to be heard.  
Natasha cautiously moved his hand and lifted his chin so that their gaze was fixed on each other.

_'Jacket'_ she signed.

Clint nodded slowly in return, wondering how often she'd practised American sign language for him. She was obviously not used to using it, never needing to use the language in her line of work and forgetting to use it when she forgot that he could not understand her.  
But it touched him to see how hard she would try.  
He watched now as his partner bent down to gather the hearing aids, then caught her eye as she carefully pressed them back into his ears.

"They'll have our gear or we'll make them go back for it." she said matter-of-factly as she let her hands slink to her sides.

He was tempted to hug her. Hell, he was tempted to kiss her. But it wouldn't mean anything, to either of them. Besides, it would seem out of character. And, with someone at the door tapping their foot impatiently, it appeared to Clint that chance the to respond was gone.

* * *

"Ha, no."

The three of them were slouched in chairs on one side of a large meeting table, Natasha sitting in the middle. A sharply dressed, dark skinned woman by the name of Doctor Natine sat opposite them, accompanied by a thin secretary. They had been in the room for over 3 hours, and, it still being early morning, the mood was caught between half asleep and overly light-hearted.

"I don't understand the premise of our meeting here. Why do you want a bunch of traitor spies to go and break some magic machine of yours?" Natasha spoke in a casual manner, relaxed in the comfortably padded chair.

"Hey, I didn't see my face on the TV - no-one's calling me a traitor." argued Clint.

"Shut it, you."

"I'm just saying, you don't get to speak for me."

"Wanna bet?"

The Doctor rubbed her temples as she began to lose her patience. "If we could please just _focus. _And it's not a magic machine, it's a complex dimension manipulator."

"Yeah yeah, sub realities and all that." Clint waved the sentence away without much consideration.

"No-one's going to buckle down and focus without knowing the conditions of your preposition. What happens if we 'accept your quest'? What happens if we refuse?"

"That's something we have to negotiate and discuss." said the Doctor with a less than enthusiastic countenance.

"Can we do it over coffee?" asked the archer, with all seriousness.

"Are we prisoners or are we free to go?"

"At the moment, Agent Romanoff, -"

"_At the moment, _I'm not working on behalf of an agency."

"You might be working on behalf of ours."

"What, the spacey division of S.H.I.E.L.D's French cousin?"

"We've always been separate from S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Well that's great to know, Doc, but-"

"Look, will you take the job or not?"

The job in question involved infiltrating a nearby military bunker to recover some blueprints for the reality machine, then sailing from Calais to a secure location in England to deactivate it. The task would be dangerous and could only be completed with a minimum of 2 living organisms existing within the sub reality created by the machine - the separate DNA strings acting as a confirmation code for any workings done. Although any organism could be used, most multicellular organisms smaller than a cat would not be able to cope with the conditions inside the pocket world created, and bacteria or other micro-organisms (that were separately existing) would not survive the strange blast emission that the machine would give out when activated. Any bacteria in or on the appropriate organisms would not be affected.  
Due to the blast, the surrounding of an appropriate containment chamber was vital - without it, the blast could endanger anyone within a 6 mile radius, including the organisms attempting to work within the sub reality.  
Upon activating the machine, Natasha and Clint would be subject to several mind tricks and illusions, leading perhaps to vivid and personal hallucinations. That was why it needed to be shut down, explained Doctor Natine; although the machine worked, it was far too dangerous to control and shape. Anyone inside it could survive without complications for just over 30 hours if conditions were stable - but any upset and anything in there would be subject to harsh trickery and attempts on safety - with the time reduced to as little as 12 minutes. And recently, the machine was destabilising rapidly - if it got to a certain point, it could tear a hole in the fabric of the earthly realm, connecting it to a whole bunch of places that it did not want to be connected to. So, while it was stable enough, it was essential that it be shut down before it could cause any damage.  
Of course, the conditions in there would require immense mental strength. As well as this, the instructions to shut down the machine were complex (and, evidently, hard to get by).

It was certainly something to put on the C.V.

"I'm not done talking."

Doctor Natine rolled her shoulders back and started to get up. "We can go for a walk, but it'll get crowded with all 5 of us."

Clint took this as an invitation to chip in. "I'm happy to stick 'round here if we can get some refreshments."

"Yeah, me too." added Thomas, who had been silent for the majority of the discussion.

The doctor smiled a sickly sweet smile and exchanged a few words between her secretary. When the two women of the room had wandered out of earshot, they continued the conversation.

"I need to ask some questions."

"Shoot."

"Why us?"

"You were closest, of course."

_I bet we weren't. And closest what?_

"And how did you find us?"

"We've got some eyes watching out for Avengers."

_Eyes that sell their information to multiple associations, no doubt. _Her mind cast over the arrival of the Red Room messenger.

"Besides, that mess up by the apartment was a pretty good indicator."

"How many people know we're here?"

"There are about 30 members in the apartment. About 10 of these know the exact nature of the situation, no more."

_10's a dangerous enough number._

"There's a lot here that we're gambling on, Agent Romanoff. We need to pay attention to probabilities."

"Probabilities won't cover your ass when you're out in the field. And it's not agent."

"That's why we brought you in to make sure each-other's backsides are covered."

"Those eyes you got, they belong to you or are they an exterior source?"

"Multiple sources. One of them owns the buildings around the apartment site. You might have noticed some of the teleport discs in the interior design."

Natasha took a breath.  
_Thomas' father._

"Right. And I presume we will get some information regarding that particular method of transport soon."

The woman appeared deeply offended. "These are highly classified pieces of equipment, Agent."

Natasha stared at the woman and forced a cough.

"When you accept the job offer, you will be using more traditional methods of transport. You'll have an emergency teleport link to take you back if needs be. That's as far as it goes. That's as far as it _can_ go."

"_When_ we accept the offer?"

"As I said, negotiations had to be made. Most of that will be over payment." She turned towards the spy. "This project, this _experiment gone_ _wrong_? It can't go out into the real world. As far as anyone knows, this stuff doesn't exist. If you take the offer, and let's face it, you will, there's enough risk and temptation in it to make you rather susceptible to running off. We'll be making sure you stay."_  
_

Although the metaphorical anchor that would keep her tied to this place wasn't something Natasha was keen on accepting, the prospect of the work was tempting. And as for running off with the equipment? Well, she would return what she needed to, presumably returning with it, anything that would be worth to potential buyers of this sort of equipment and information. But even if there wouldn't be chance for pitching the teleport and dimension manipulator systems whole, there were ways in which she could drip-feed the information to private buyers or even into the mainstream. It could be handy as leverage.  
_There must be a computer somewhere._

"Alright. When do we start?"

**_We'll be back into some more action soon, I promise._**  
**_Thanks for reading and sticking with the story so far!_**  
**_More on Monday :)_**


	7. Chapter 7 - Security

_**Sorry for how late this is - I started back at school this week and have had a few things to get on top of. Anyway, it's a bit of a short chapter. Oh, and lift in this context means elevator (sorry to my american readers if you get confused, although you've probably seen it often enough anyway.)**_

Natasha watched as the computer's clock changed from 11:59 to 12:00. She turned one of the inactive monitors so that it reflected the doorway - if anyone saw her meddling in the control room, she wasn't prepared to find out what her punishment might be. Besides, she wanted this job, despite her lack of enthusiasm in the board room.  
After another brief outline of The Plan, they'd been escorted to personal rooms - where, among other things, Clint found his bow and quiver, Thomas the duffel bag (and also the missing bolt from his prosthetic.) and Natasha her jacket, wherein she searched now for her phone. It was cheap and disposable, but with so many eyes on her, it seemed better not to dispose of it; she'd cautiously handed out her number to friends alike and kept the device in one of many secret pockets. It vibrated slightly, and she realised that she had received a message from a certain Steve Rogers.  
Rummaging around, she managed to find a lead that would connect the charger space to a USB port and plugged it into the computer. A quick play around with the computer terminal and she was tracking where the message came from.  
It hadn't been long since S.H.I.E.L.D's downfall, and it looked as if Steve had chosen to stick around Washington to look into the files that she had given him before he went off on any adventures.

_The elderly move at a leisurely pace. _

As she took mental note of the location, she turned her attention to the phone.

'Can't read shorthand. Trip to Norway possible. You coming?'

Natasha sighed at Steve's eagerness to get her help.

_It's too soon_ she thought as she typed a one word reply.

'Busy.'

Slightly irritated by the interruption, she tossed the phone aside.

_More pressing matters await._

* * *

Oddly alert, Thomas, Natasha and Clint were settled in the meeting space from earlier. They were each munching on an energy bar that tasted like cardboard but seemed to deliver the energy it promised.

As well as looking further into the reality machine's origins, Natasha had searched around the archives for information on the teleport systems. What she had found breached upon interesting - both machine and teleport technology was found in a meteor wreckage (perhaps Asgardian? It was unlike artefacts of theirs she had seen before) and was worked from there by scientists in this division. As it was not of earthly origin, anything that they developed (there were several projects, it seemed) always developed faults and would only work to a certain extent. The scientists involved had kept these projects secret for close to a century - there had always been too much fault for it to be commercialised - although the scientists did appear to have separated and begun work in different groups.  
_Well, if anything, they seem to have a moral compass.  
_The information they had previously received about the machine seemed to be fairly extensive, but it seemed that she had only breached the tip of the iceberg where the teleport was concerned. After looking through a dozen pages of mathematical equations, she reached the project details and conditions. In short, the teleport required a ridiculously accurate set of co-ordinates and measurements to accurately transport a person from one place to another. As well as this, you could not teleport out without a starting disc - although, by the looks of things, you could possibly teleport into a place without a receiving disc. This would be extremely risky however - and some notes suggested that the side effects of this, in the rare instances that the feat was pulled off, were far beyond the mild nausea the group had experienced upon arriving in France.

She had shared her new found knowledge with Clint and Thomas, hoping that she was doing them a favour by doing so. Clint's hand reached for the coffee pot.

"These guys have got it all pretty well covered." He said. "A lot of my stuff's in lock-up at the moment."

"They even returned my pistol to me." Added Thomas, in the way that he usually just added things. "Oh, and they found the bolt off my leg."

"That leg's going to be the death of you." Natasha mumbled through an oat filled mouthful.

"Nat's right. I'll call Stark when this is over and get something fixed up."

"There's a few things we need to go over with Stark."

Clint mumbled something inaudible in agreement. Thomas laid down his bar and turned to talk to Natasha.

"When I met you, I wasn't expecting you to look like you did on the TV."

"When I met you, I wasn't expecting a 19 year old with a missing leg and a gun. What's your point?"

"From what Mr Barton has told me, I was expecting a cover."

A chuckle came from the other seat. "Kid's got a point."

"You've got _'kid'_ calling you _Mr Barton_ - you don't have much of a say in this. And I don't always need a cover."

"But surely it would have been safer to change your appearance - for all of us."

"Hey, we're having fun aren't we?"

Thomas scoffed.

"Look, give me a rest. I just got back from an errand and the shops ran out of hair dye."

"Sounds to me like you're out of practice, Romanoff." Clint teased.

She tore off a chunk off her energy bar and tossed it at his head. He faked a painful gasp and rubbed the spot as if it was sore.

"How much we getting paid for this again?"

"Enough to get you a place with a guest bedroom."

"Is this the sort of thing we want to be fighting for, though? Keeping things secret for a bunch of people we hardly know?"

"We can get to know them." suggested the 19 year old.

Natasha shook her head subtly. "We've not got a lot of choice in what to fight for. Sometimes our views aren't represented. Now, trade in company work for personal justice if you want. But that's not going to pay the bills."

"You don't have bills to pay, last time I checked."

"I've got a place, I just don't use it much."

Thomas leaned back, feeling more comfortable with the discussion and evidently not missing the sudden opportunity to talk without invoking some kind of disagreement. "You didn't have a lot of things with you before - have you got a store of things around there?"

Natasha's mind cast to the conversation that morning. Thomas' father had been watching. "Something like that."

Clint chuckled again. "When are you visiting Carlos next, Tom?"

"Oh yeah, you said you travelled around."

"Soon, I hope."

"I'll take you down next week if you want."

"That'd be good." he smiled, and it was a sort of odd half-smile that conveyed more happiness than it hid.

Doctor Natine wandered in and ordered them to their separate rooms. When they reconvened, they were all wearing black jumpsuits with half a dozen things hanging precariously from a utility belt.

"There's a minibus that will take you and your equipment to the warehouse where the blueprints and instructions are. Easy enough, you get in, avoid too much noise and get out. We'll get there late, so you'll only really have to deal with night patrols."

Somehow, it seemed that no-one in the room actually believed that.

"So why haven't you got the instructions to shut off your machine?" Natasha asked, a sly connotation to her tone.

"Well, one way we managed to keep the world from getting its hands on this was to compromise with people. Our neighbours have the instructions for switching it on and off, and we have the machine. The so-called blueprints that _they _own show how you can fix and adapt the machine rather than build it, but it seems that one without the other is pretty much useless. Now we have a little bit of an advantage, considering we have the physical device in our possession - but don't let them know that."

With a sickly sweet smile, she led them into a large room where they stocked up on guns and knives and, for Clint, arrows. The ones he carefully selected now weren't specialised like those he was used to, but it was evident that the people here had taken care to produce some that were of the same size and weight.

"Did you find out that Thomas' dad was a source for these guys before or after you hired the kid?" began Natasha, loading a Glock.

"Do we have to do this now?"

"Just don't expect the conversation over dinner not to be heated."

"When isn't it heated in the first place? Okay, let's go."

The team began walking to the door of the store room, but Natasha hesitated.

"Wait, he's not coming." she said, indicating Thomas.

"Why not? He's perfectly capable."

"We're not taking a kid on this mission Barton!"

"I'm legally an adult." countered Thomas, who, although clearly listening to their debate, had grown tired of the archer's and the spy's arguments. Especially the ones over him.

"He wants to come."

"We don't need him."

"It's a simple enough mission."

"To start with."

"We've already planned everything out. We can't do this without him now."

"S.H.I.E.L.D ditched an entire assault team for me once - wanna bet?"

"I'm coming with you." The call from the back of the room was not taken entirely seriously.

"He's coming with us." Clint confirmed.

"If he comes with us now, he's not coming back."

"The amount of times you've said that to me..."

"I'm not joking Clint."

"I'm not leaving him behind. Besides, he can look after himself."

They had moved into close proximity. She stared at him, again standing a good bit above her, and let her big sad eyes do the talking.

He wasn't having any of it.

"Nat. Just let him have this one."

Natasha sighed in response and turned away. "I'm not happy about this."

"Come on. We've got a bus to catch."

* * *

The bus journey left plenty of time for reflecting on the past few days, in fact, it left a good amount of time over as well, time which the trio used to recap the plan.

Clint felt tiredness creep into his veins, but he knew better than to attempt rest. No, it was better to stick to what he'd do on any mission - hold out until complete exhaustion. It would come eventually.  
The lighting of the cramped space was poor at best, and the archer was relieved when he stepped out into the warm, clouded night. Admittedly, the light levels were far worse, but it was, at least, far less artificial.

_And open space. Open space is good._

He regarded the air for a moment longer before he followed his team mates into the warehouse. Even in the dark, it was brutally clear that there was more to this complex than met the eye; platforms, lifts and entrances to deep dark corridors littered the interior with no particular symmetry.

Entering the warehouse proved to be simple - weaving through it in the dark was what would prove to be more difficult. Clint perched on a platform and took down a few lone agents hanging around the entrance to a lift.

"We're clear Widow." he whispered into a comm set that seemed fairly developed, even by S.H.I.E.L.D's standards.

"I copy. Pirate, are you in position?"

A disgruntled murmur confirmed that Thomas was indeed in position, despite his hastily prepared (and not very well liked) codename.

"Okay, go."

And with that, Clint tracked the small figure below him as she rolled gracefully to the lift. As she fiddled with the control panel there, Thomas half emerged from the shadows, watching the space that Clint himself could not see.  
Everything was...

_Right._

On schedule, he dropped to the lower floor and swept the surroundings for security. There was nothing wrong. Except -

He heard a shot ring out from behind him a few seconds after he fired the arrow, and now ran for cover. His elbows scuffed against the rough floor as he skidded behind some boxes. Flicking his head around, he searched for his partners.

They had hidden behind the sides of the lift for cover on instinct. They were poised behind the cold steel doors.

Doors which were now closed.

_**Thank you for reading!**_  
_**I'll get onto the next chapter, but I can't guarantee that I'll get it out by Monday.**_  
_**Likely thing is, I'll have a break and write for a long session, then upload from then on. **_


End file.

Avengers, Adventure, Sci-Fi