Disclaimer: During a misspent week in September 2012 I mainlined the Avengers and Doctor Who until my brain managed to superimpose River Song and Natasha Romanoff and fuse them into one character. Then she started dictating. Before I knew it, Clint Barton and Phil Coulson had elbowed their way in. That's how this AU 'verse came to be. It's involved some tweaked timelines, altered plot points, a ton of original back story for River, and a lot of fun on my part. I'm having a ball playing in Marvel's and Moffat's sandboxes (and making no money).

Spoiler Note: This series contains spoilers of a vague, AU sort for A Good Man Goes To War and Let's Kill Hitler.

This is a series of vignettes which take place from 2005-2008 and can be read concurrently with a similar set of vignettes, The Girl Who Didn't Make Sense, which was posted a couple of weeks ago. Some vignettes will be spun off into their own full-length fics.

Again, massive thanks to like-a-raven-14 for her amazing betaing skills.

Part 3: The Marvelous Tale of an Agent, an Archer, and an Assassin

Chapter 1

September 2005

There was a certain element within SHIELD that said that the reason Hawkeye had brought the Reaper in alive was because he'd thought she'd be a good fuck.

Only Agent Overby was stupid enough to say it to Barton's face.

River had seen Overby around the base. She'd come to the conclusion that he was used to getting away with saying whatever he wanted because what he lacked in a brain/mouth filter, he made up for in size and sheer brute strength. Overby was an enforcer type, the sort of agent who got assigned to security, protection details, and strike teams where rapidly overpowering a threat by force was called for.

The sort of agent who looked a bit askance at the covert operatives, who did their jobs via sneaking and subterfuge.

That was a pattern that River had started to notice in her short time at SHIELD. The organization was large (multiple bases around the world) and covert. But the true covert operatives themselves were a rarefied breed. The elite. For every ten agents who seemed to hold them in awe and reverence, there was at least one who thought that they were no better than the targets they were sent after, a necessary evil.

River heard an account of the altercation between Barton and Overby by accident. She was tempted to tell trainee agents Taylor, O'Brien, and Weiner that if they didn't want to be overheard, they shouldn't gossip while standing around the mess hall's coffee station. She was also tempted to tell them that if they didn't want to die their first time out in the field, they really ought to work on paying more attention to their surroundings. River walked up to the drinks station and calmly set about brewing her tea while they talked.

"Overby really said that?" O'Brien asked, her large blue eyes wide with half-gleeful shock.

Taylor nodded. "That's what I heard. Now Overby's in the infirmary claiming that he took a header down a flight of stairs."

"He's not going to report Barton?" Weiner asked.

"Would you?" Taylor countered. He shook his head. "He might just take a 'fall' off the roof if he did that."

"Well, do you think it's really true…that…" O'Brien trailed off, spotting River standing behind Weiner's shoulder.

River smiled. "Please, don't let me interrupt."

The other three trainees twitched uncomfortably.

The Reaper's reputation had preceded her to the SHIELD base. People tended to give her a wide berth, even those who didn't know the details of the Nairobi job that had landed her on SHIELD's kill list. River didn't mix with the other trainees much. Coulson kept her on a schedule that had her working mostly on her own, or with him and Barton. River wasn't sure if he meant that to be for her benefit, or for the benefit of the general SHIELD population.

Not that it really mattered either way.

River added a splash of milk to her tea, set the mug on her tray, and started to walk by the others. She saw Weiner's adam's apple bob nervously as she went past. River couldn't resist.

"BOO!"

Weiner jumped, fumbling his tray. River had already moved on when it crashed to the floor, sending the entire mess hall into silence for a moment.

River smiled. Juvenile? Yes. But what was the point of being over seventy years old if you couldn't be juvenile every now and then?

She ignored the glances that turned her way as she walked to her usual table in the back. Juvenile impulses aside, she was far from being a child and light years away from the days when her feelings would have been hurt by something as silly as people swapping rumors in a cafeteria. It wasn't as if she had signed on to SHIELD to have friends.

River frowned. She also hadn't joined with the intention of gaining her own personal protector. If the story about Overby were true, and if that had been any part of Barton's motivation for assaulting the other agent, she'd have to make sure to nip that in the bud. It would be better for all their sakes.

She didn't have to wait long to find out. By two o'clock she had changed into athletic clothes and was jogging through a crisp autumn breeze to the outdoor obstacle course to meet Agents Coulson and Barton.

They were already there, down at the far end where a few benches marked the beginning of the course. They seemed to be in the middle of a somewhat heated conversation when she arrived, one that they quickly broke off when they saw her coming. That, River felt, didn't bode especially well.

"All right," Coulson said. "So, today we're just going to—dammit." He fished his ringing cell phone out of his pocket. "Sit tight for a minute. I need to take this."

While Coulson wandered a few steps away, River sized Barton up under the guise of sitting down on one of the benches and taking a look at the printout of the obstacle course route. Not a mark on his face, and no adjustment to his posture that would indicate blows to the body. But the hands were always the giveaway when you had been fighting, even if your opponent never managed to land a hit.

Sure enough, Barton's were bruised, scraped, and red across the knuckles. As he took a seat on the bench next to her, he flexed them as if they were sore.

River turned her eyes back to the course map.

"I don't need you to defend my honor, you know," she said mildly.

He stiffened a bit beside her.

"Maybe I was defending mine," he said after a moment.

River nodded. That's what she'd wanted to hear.

"In that case," River set aside the map, "by all means, beat up anyone you like."

No complications. That would be the key to surviving this experiment with SHIELD.