Alrighty...let's do this! Completely new story...enjoy!
CHECK OUT THE QUESTION OF THE DAY AT THE END! :D
Natasha was tired of hiding behind pot plants on the top of some ass's house. It was a hundred degrees out and her sorry excuse for a partner decided to go a bit more undercover by sitting in a damn coffee shop while inconspicuously looking at a menu for over fifteen minutes. He didn't have a god damn clue on how to be an assassin.
"Barton, report," she whispered.
"Nat, nothing is going to change since the last time you asked five damn seconds ago,"
"It's Romanoff, not Nat or Tasha or anything other bullshit you've got. Do you copy?" She hissed.
The distinct static on her communicating chip terminated and she growled deeply in the back of her throat. The bastard had gone silent without even the slightest bit of acknowledgment.
Natasha placed the rifle down by her side. It was her turn today to play sniper and have a shot at Valeria Gonzoli. They had tracked the same woman for three days, and it was wearing on Natasha's already impatient temper. Fortunately they had managed to stalk the thief from her motel in the early hours of the morning. Through many heists and exploits she'd finally landed her ass on Shield's radar, and which from experience-in Natasha's mind, was not a particularly great honor. She herself had had the unfortunate luck of being partnered with World's Greatest Marksman, even he was such a bastard. Valeria sat, latte in hand, admiring the mosaics of the Greece. It was far too crowded for Clint or Natasha to make a move, they would've been compromised almost immediately. But if Natasha got the chance up close, she would've kicked her ass for being such a pain.
Valeria placed down the newspaper she was reading. The barren coffee cup was left without being conspicuously wiped. What a clunk, Natasha thought. All the evidence in the world was there, but seeing as they already knew everything about her, it would only be the Greek officials' loss. She daintily tucked in the chair and stalked off into the crowds. Natasha kept an eye on her and Clint at the same time. Clint had picked himself up and was dawdling along, dangerously close to their target. Valeria took a quick route towards the north side of the court and disappeared behind an old woebegone structure. Clint waited about ten seconds and then cautiously rounded the building. From where Natasha was, she couldn't see what was going down in the dark corner, but Barton could handle himself. Hopefully. No, miracullously. If Natasha had to count on her ten fingers how many times she'd saved his stupid ass, then it was beyond all possibilities. At first, when they'd started working together, he'd been a bit of a trip up. Clint did claim that Natasha was a stick in the mud, but after countless one-sided banters, Natasha caved and sometimes gave him the small satifaction of hearing her own vicious humor. He was the paragon of bastards, idiots and assholes, and she was the ultimate pinnacle of perfection and class. For the most part Natasha was always professional, but when she rose to the occasion of playing seductress, not a hair on her head was out of place. Clint had once wolf-whistled while she was enticing their prey in. She actually ditched him and went after Barton, clad in evening dress and all. Hell broke loose when he did stupid shit like that.
Greece was so white in such a way that it was almost too bright. All the monuments and houses and buildings were white and variants of it. People in flashy colors looked out of place, but not the two master assassins. Shops populated the crowded streets selling gaudy items that had 'Greece!' plastered all over and what Natasha stereotyped as 'Americans' reaching into their back pocket.
Her earpiece buzzed to life again and Natasha folded herself back into reality. She'd hoped he handled things without drawing any attention– apparently not.
"Hey Romanoff," he said, a little out of breath, "Was she a liability?"
Natasha was about to fucking strangle him. The fucking insane idiot had been to all the same briefings, read the same files and was still mucking up their assignments.
"No. You f—"
"Thanks, Tasha, that's all I needed," he said quickly, disconnecting the line. Natasha waited a few seconds before a futile rage swept over her.
"You fucking son of a bitch! You god damn idiot! Asshole! Shit bag! You douche! I swear to god I will kill you!"
Clint had turned on his com link in time to hear the last statement.
"I thought you weren't religious,"
She was practically frothing at the mouth like an angry hound.
"Barton, I am going to rip you apart, limb by limb, stuff you in an oven and make Fury eat you," she spat.
Clint feigned mock hurt over the connection,
"Can you at least eat me Natasha, that way I'll always be apart of you,"
Natasha gagged on her non-existent lunch.
"You'd probably pass right through my digestive system Barton, since you're one hundred percent fat and contains no morals,"
"No morals? Didn't I not kill you?"
"Barton—just don't," she said.
Clint prolonged the silence for a good minute then said,
"Meet me at the ferry station, extraction team will meet us there, do you copy?"
Natasha highlighted the lingo Clint had used. He was never really into the whole spy jargon thing, he only did it to either mock Natasha, or if he genuinely wanted to prove he wasn't a scummy bastard that filled the role of her partner on a day-to-day basis.
This time the latter seemed more obvious.
"I copy,"
Natasha took the communicating chip out and hid it in her pant leg pocket. It was bad enough that Coulson had made then wear the basic Shield ops uniform-but it wasn't even fitting. It looked like Natasha and Clint were professional dumpster divers. They even had a zip in the suits if they needed to take a really wicked piss and couldn't be bothered to whip down their pants. The thought amused her as she made her way along the tightly packed rooves of two storey buildings, running parallel to the tourists and local civillians. Imagine that, going on a high priority mission and in the middle of it, busting to go to the toilets. It was something Clint would do, maybe that's why it made it so funny.
Natasha reached the smallest boat and cautiously stepped into it. It gave a gentle rock in reaction to the added weight, but it was holding steady. The paddle boat was a bit dingy, Natasha would've assumed that Shield could've at least have pulled off a motorized boat, but oh no, it was too attention seeking. Natasha grabbed the spare oar and spun around with it, consequently hitting Clint on the head.
"Watch it," he growled.
Natasha ignored his childish defense and pushed the oar into place.
"Where's the extraction team?"
"Change of plans, they're meeting us there,"
Natasha was slightly puzzled. Something she seldom was, and if she did happen to be in this specific state of mind-she never showed it and it never lasted longer than a second or two.
"Why? What happened?" She said slowly.
"Coulson's here, they're sending us on another mission,"
"Another shit opertaion? Where to?"
"Don't know, Phil said he'd brief at the chopper,"
Clint started pulling and pushing his oar, getting it in sync with Natasha's.
"Coulson," she corrected, "Not Phil,"
"What Phil doesn't know, won't hurt him,"
"Please Barton, just shut up, know when to stop arguing,"
"Woman, you break my pride and expect me not to fight back for it?"
Natasha steeled her eyes and glared at him, even through his neural structure that had zilch mental capacity.
"Don't make me shoot you,"
"You can't, that goes against Shield protocol,"
She snorted, "What would you know about protocol?"
"Depends," he said.
"On what, Barton?"
"Who's protocols they are, for example you have protocols,"
"Tell me, what had your Einstein brain foretold about my regulations?"
"Don't piss you off,"
She gave a hollow laugh,
"And you're doing a tremendous job at that!"
"Romanoff, don't hate the brains, they came from my mother's side," he said in a serious tone.
"I thought your mother was a drunk?"
Natasha was cold, she knew very well about Clint's equally tragic past, he had no idea about hers, but everybody knew it was the sheer reason that she held guns to people's heads when they brought her sparkling water, not mineral water. She had been detained a couple of hundred times for that alone. Through the two months of continuous questions and paperwork, Natasha had said everything, but any questions relating to her parents were detoured and not even an angry Hill could get a word from the ex-soviet spy.
"Whatever, but point is I'm still world's smartest, it probably says so on my birth certificate,"
"Birth certificate? Barton, your birth certificate is probably an apology letter from a condom factory," she snorted.
"Cold Natasha, very cold, try to see things from my point of view,"
"I would try to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my ass,"
"Are you always a cold fish, or just when I'm around?"
"Barton, surprise me—say something intelligent," she sneered.
"I'm the brains of this team."
"You're also the disappointment," she snapped back.
Twenty minutes later, two very pissed agents pulled their row boat ashore and sought out their crumby handler.
"Coulson!" Clint yelled, "You make us row our fucking asses—"
"Agent Barton, please refrain from loud volumes. I don't give a crap if you had to swim three miles just to get here, if it means the protection of Shield and not having the heat on my ass if anything goes wrong-then yes, you will row your ass here in a paddle boat. Now," he said, "We have come into contact with Swiss intelligence, and they have a job for you, get in,"
Coulson pulled himself back up into the helicopter and waited for his top dogs to get settled.
Minutes later they were up off the ground, watching Greece's blue and white terrain fade away into a dull grey. With the sound cancelling headphones firmly planted on their ears, Clint and Natasha listened carefully to what the superior had to say.
"Agents," Phil said easily, handing them their mission packs and documents, "This is Professor Serge Ferraris,"
Both Clint and Natasha flipped to page one. Clint nearly laughed at what he saw on the black and white photocopy, Natasha gave him an unimpressed look. He turned and gave her a customized glance that read, not everybody is trained as perfectly as you in espionage.
"And he's a threat?" Clint said, giving the elderly, white tufted haired genius a disbelieving look.
"A major threat and an apparent pain in Switzerland's ass. The professor teaches at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, he is greatly known for his studies in DNA experimenting but nothing too serious, nothing illegal. That was until recently lab rats weren't his only way of testing. Several students from his class have been reported missing and we had a hunch it had something to do with him. We believe he is...altering their DNA, changing them to his specifics, when he succeeded in that he changed the red blood cells and white blood cells into a combination, it served as a virus-to the brain's blood cells. The drugs would affect the brain severely and its control would basically leave you paralyzed,"
"So wait," Natasha said, "It's a neu-"
"Yes it's a neurotoxin, worse-a possible mind control drug. We don't know his intentions, but I'm sure that I am not the only one with ominous feelings. I hope that you two know enough about science to make it through the 72 hours because you will be going undercover as international geniuses. Agent Romanoff you will be Dr. Carrie Drilmore, a highly respected professor from the Boston Univeristy of Directed Science, as for you Agent Barton," Phil said, "You will be Dickson Bowden, Ms. Drilmore's personal assistant and distinguished teaching aid,"
Clint looked warily at his handler then turned his nervous gaze towards his partner.
"Dickson? Honestly that's the damn best you could come up with?"
"I'm sorry Agent Barton, it's Fury who organizes your profile and I have no input, if you wish to consult him, I'm afraid that's going to have to wait till after the mission,"
"Consult? Consult? I'm going to fucking insult!"
"I don't see why," Natasha said, "You're making such a big deal of it...Dick,"
Her face was one of utmost seriousness but one eyebrow was raised an eighteenth of a fraction higher than the other. It grew him weary of having to second guess her feelings by two strips of hair that sat above her eyes, but this look was of pure smugness.
"Go take a long walk off a short pier, Romanoff," he said begrudgingly, why the fuck was he her assistant and had a name that gave people twisted ideas.
"Only when you get some originality Barton," she muttered callously.
He threw off her snide remarks and shot her one final warning look. At the end of the day the only person he was fooling was himself. He would never even go so far as threatening his partner for fear that whatever he did might make her mad. He would've liked to have thought that by now they were just off the mark for being decent associates, but everybody, even Fury could see with one eye that they were a long shot. Numerous times he had nearly turned into a tempestuous wreck to have everyone disregard their team. He used to be a high flying, cocky, solo act. But not until he met her. She had yanked his eyes wide open. She had shown him the bigger idea, she had shown him how not everything was always going to be picture book perfect, how Shield couldn't protect them from aspiring gangsters that had constellations of weapons and ammo even plastered to their ceilings. But he knew that somehow if they could be each other's equal then maybe he would stand a chance of actually getting more than ten words out of her at a time. She kept him light on his toes and defined sense so clearly to him. Shame she just didn't feel the same. Whenever blue and green irises clashed it left a muted World War III. Clint couldn't draw a conclusion as to why she would never let him even touch her coffee cup. Her idea of being distant partners but working so closely was impractical. She was a problem of her own Widow nature. She was a question left hanging right in front of him. The answer was so damn close, but not within his reach. It made him feel like shit.
Two hours later, two assassins pulled their two fit bodies through one hotel door.
"Fuck Barton, doesn't Shield have enough to get two rooms?"
Clint slumped down on his bed and dropped his bags by his feet.
"This is probably a radical notion for you to even comprehend, but we like to save," he said slowly. Natasha whipped her head around and gave him her beady eyes.
"I can save, Barton, your fucking ass,"
Touché.
He forced himself unwillingly to not challenge her. It was coming around to their time of the month. The time when the deadly killers would snap back at practically anything the other said. They were about a month overdue, so it was inevitably coming their way, this time bigger and more badass than ever before.
"Tasha, the info says he's doing a lecture tomorrow,"
Natasha sharpened her daggers that flew towards her excruciatingly annoying partner.
"Barton, don't use that fucking name, or I will cremate you alive on a damn luau fire,"
Venom spewed from her mouth as she threatened belligerently. Clint's blue eyes didn't waver for a second, albeit centrally located within the pulp of his brain, the foreboding dark humor held promise. If her threats were writing on the wall then he was doomed for failure. Her sadistic nature should've left him shitting himself like the other pieces of scum that stuck to her boot, but it gave him more substance about her. It was a menace to have the most amazing woman by your side, insulting you twenty-four-seven and still bearing with him. Clint wasn't going to allowing daunting horrors of what might've not been his if that nook had left his fingers.
"Well Romanoff, I am bored as shit and I refuse to be held captive to you or Shield, so we are going out to see how great Swiss coffee is,"
Natasha raised a solemn eyebrow at him. He was never this assertive with her.
"Barton, you are abstaining - aren't you?" She asked warily. Clint stared at her in anger.
"God damn it Romanoff, I'm not fucking drunk!"
Natasha rolled her head back as if considering this. She could easily drink gallons of firewater and still say she was one hundred percent sober to drive. The smell of vodka, Russian Vodka, just nauseated Clint.
"Alright Barton, but we have to be back here by 9pm-the latest,"
Right now she could use a good coffee. A triple shot extra hot would be greatly appreciated.
Clint had already grabbed his jacket and leaned against the doorframe waiting for Natasha gather her belongings. "You're such a killjoy," he muttered heavy breathed.
"Barton, this line of work isn't meant to be fun, if you want 'fun' then go find a fucking circus, paint yourself up as a clown and shoot endless streams of arrows aimlessly, but if not then pull your head out of the damn clouds and shut the hell up,"
Totally there time of the time.
Clint gave her a lopsided grin, "Have I finally broken Natasha Romanoff?"
Her body instantaneously went rigid and she stiffened. Natasha glared at him, her height might've lacked, but she was superior to him. She would always be unbroken an superior to him.
"You will never break me," she whispered darkly.
His face stilled, and with the cheesiest play of words she'd ever heard he said,
"Challenge accepted."
And there we have it! Yes! Finally! So PLEASE review and tell me if you would like me to continue or not. thank you guys for reading and I am open to all critics and their feedback!
Just for fun let's do a competition, QUESTION OF THE DAY:
Which Marvel Character-they can be from the comics-would you choose to be and why?
PM or review your answers in less than 50 words and you could get a mention in the next chapter or a shout out at the beginning of it.
Off to write the next chappy, oh how Clint and Natasha love the nightlife! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE! This shud be fun!