Author's Note: This is a sequel to "Escort Mission," which I hadn't intended to write, but when Natasha Romanoff demands a story, I give it to her. I've messed with the NCIS: Los Angeles timeline to the extent that while this takes place during season two, G already knows about ravens and swans as described in the season four episode "Raven and the Swans."

Translations appear at the end of the work.

As always, all rights are given to the respective copyright owners.

Sam Hanna took another sip of the beer he'd been nursing for the last half-hour, using the movement to cover his quick scan of the bar the team had agreed on for tonight's outing.

Besides himself, Kensi, Deeks, Hetty, and Eric sat at the table. Nell was out of town at a conference, and G had said he'd be a little later than their agreed time of seven p.m.

The early hour meant that there were only a handful of others in the bar besides the team, and the live music hadn't started yet, so conversation was still possible - and ongoing next to him, as Hetty debated the finer points of Errol Flynn's swashbuckling style compared to more modern cinematic swordfighting with Deeks. Kensi appeared to be listening attentively, occasionally throwing in an observation or two of her own.

To Sam's right, Eric stared across the room to the bar proper. Sam followed his gaze to the lone woman sitting at it. From this angle, he could only tell that the woman was a redhead with an ivory complexion and she wore her leather jacket and jeans very well. Still, there was something in the way she sat that set his instincts on high alert.

"Out of your league, Eric," Sam concluded.

"How do you know?" Eric countered. "She might like the intellectual surfer type."

Kensi looked over her shoulder then back at Eric. "Twenty bucks says she doesn't."

Eric's jaw dropped. "Wait - what? Are you asking me to hit on her?"

"Sounded more like a dare to me," Deeks put in, his conversation with Hetty obviously on momentary hold.

"No," Eric said. "I mean, I'm not -"

"Confident?" Sam grinned at him. "Only way to get better is to practice."

"Mr. Hanna has a point," Hetty put in. "Although I don't foresee many circumstances in which you might need to go into the field, you should be able to on a moment's notice."

"The field?" Eric repeated. "Oh, no - no. I mean, you remember what happened the first time I went into the field."

"G and I saved your skinny ass," Sam said.

"Exactly, thank you, Sam." Eric paused, then, "Well, you did, but that's not what I meant. I meant, I'm perfectly happy in the ops center."

"We don't always get our druthers," Hetty said.

"Oh, man - too late." Deeks nodded toward the bar. "Too bad, Eric - but you snooze, you lose, man."

Sam followed Deeks' gaze and saw a man in a well-cut suit approaching the redhead.

"What I wouldn't give to hear that," Deeks muttered.

Sam admitted to a similar curiosity - and his beer was mostly gone, so he indulged that curiosity. He rose and crossed to the bar, deliberately choosing a spot a couple of places down from them before he waved to the bartender. "Another Sam Adams."

The bartender nodded an acknowledgment and Sam focused his attention on the conversation to his left.

"That's a stunning jacket," the man was saying in a deep voice with a somewhat oily undertone. "Takes a special woman to pull it off."

"Oh, I won't be pulling it off anytime soon," the redhead replied in a seductive purr, and Sam choked back a laugh. The man might be trying to run game, but this redhead set her own rules.

The game-runner recovered quickly. "Of course not. You're far too special for that."

Whatever the man might've said next was cut off by another, familiar, voice.

"Is this guy bothering you? Because if he is, I want popcorn."

Huh. So G was into running game sometimes, too. Sam filed that information away as he accepted his beer from the bartender.

"If he was bothering me, there wouldn't be time to make popcorn," the redhead replied.

Game-runner sputtered a bit, and Sam finally turned to lean against the bar and watch this play out.

"Fair enough," G replied, then clapped the game-runner on the shoulder with just a little too much force to be friendly. "Next time, ask if she's waiting for someone first."

The friendly clap on the shoulder had apparently become a go-away-now shove, Sam decided, based on the game-runner's abrupt exit.

Then G met his eyes. "You can laugh now."

Sam let out the chuckle he'd been keeping in thanks to years of training. "I expected him to crash and burn, just not that fast. You two know each other?"

G slid his arm around the redhead's shoulders as she turned to face him. Now that he could see her up close, Sam realized she wasn't just attractive, she was stunning. Trust G to find a beautiful woman. "Bella, this is Sam. Sam, Bella."

"Pleasure." Sam offered his hand and she took it with a surprisingly strong grip.

"I've heard a lot about you," she said.

"I hope I'm not too much of a disappointment," Sam said, and she laughed, a low, throaty sound.

G looked to the bartender. "Another one of whatever she's having."

Bella slipped off her barstool and slinked - there was no other word for it - over to Sam. Even in heels, she was at least a head shorter than he was, and when she trailed a fingertip up his arm, he swallowed hard.

"The only way you could be a disappointment," she murmured, "is if you don't have his back."

With that, she turned away, sliding her arm around G and picking up her drink with her free hand.

Sam followed G's shit-eating grin to their table and settled in for the show.

"So," Natasha said later, after the bar and after the sex. "Since that wasn't about messing with your partner, what was it about?"

"Messing with Sam is always good." G shifted position, cuddling her closer to his side. He'd never admit it aloud, but he could relax - truly relax - with Natasha in ways he couldn't with other partners. With her, he could trust that she wasn't there to kill him in his sleep.

Or, he amended, even if she were here to kill him, she'd at least do him the courtesy of telling him so.

"Mm," Natasha agreed. "His expression when we traded insults in seven different languages was amusing."

G chuckled at the memory. "Mostly because he didn't understand most of them."

"You won't get out of answering the question."

"I wouldn't try." But that didn't mean the answer came easily. He'd have to build up to it. "I wanted you to meet someone."

"Sam?"

"The whole team," G said. "One person in particular."

"Not Eric?" Natasha's tone held a careful neutrality.

"No." G smiled at the memory of Eric's awkward stammering. "But thank you for going easy on him."

"Not going easy on him would be like kicking a wounded puppy. No fun and certainly not a challenge."

"Still, you dancing with him made his night."

"He should have higher standards than that." Natasha shook her head against his shoulder. "Who, then?"

"Hetty."

"It was an honor to meet a living legend," Natasha said. "Why did you want me to meet her?"

G stared at the ceiling, grateful for the semi-darkness that engulfed them. Even at night, Los Angeles was never quite dark unless the power went out, but this was as dark as it got.

He was a good undercover operative - hell, he was one of the best - but if what he suspected about Natasha Romanoff were true, she'd be able to read him no matter what front he presented. The darkness offered at least the illusion of distance.

"A while back," he began, "we had a case involving an old woman."

"You know you're supposed to say elderly these days."

"I don't do PC. Sue me." When Natasha chuckled, G continued, "She'd worked for the Army's medical unit back in the 60s on bacterial purification. As she got older, she got dementia."

Natasha blew out a breath - a reaction G assumed to be genuine, since they were alone. "Not good for someone with sensitive knowledge."

"No," G agreed. "Because that made it easy to dupe her, to pretend to bring her back into the fold so she could work on other projects. Like C. Botulinum."

"Would she? Knowing that it was a weapon?"

"They told her it was for antidote research, so our boys in uniform would be safe."

"A lie, of course."

"Of course. Long story short, we stopped the release of a botulin toxin that would've killed half the city, at best. At worst…" G let the sentence trail off, knowing that Natasha would finish it in her mind.

After a moment, Natasha said, "What does that have to do with Hetty Lange?"

"After the case was over -" G broke off, swallowed hard. He knew this needed to be said, that Natasha needed to hear it before he got to the real reason for bringing it up, but that knowledge didn't make doing so any easier. "Afterward, Hetty and I talked. She said she didn't fear the loneliness. She feared spilling all her secrets into a world that should never hear them."

"There's a reason she's a living legend," Natasha observed quietly. "That caution is just one facet of it."

G could only nod, even though she wouldn't see it.

She must've felt the movement in his body, though, because she added, "There's more, isn't there?"

"She said that when the time comes, I should smother her with a pillow."

There was only a slight hitch in Natasha's breathing to indicate her acknowledgment. "Why would she ask you?"

"Because I'd offered to bring her good tea, not the stuff in paper … whatever she needed."

"And she took you at your word. Why are you telling me?"

"Because I'm scared," G admitted quietly. "I'm scared that when the time comes I might not be able to do it."

"Of course you will," Natasha assured him. "You feel deeply, but you will carry out your mission however you feel."

"That's not the part I'm worried about."

"Then what -? Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

"I'm your backup plan."

G tugged her closer briefly. "Just like I was yours for Laura and the kids."

"My backup plan was far more pleasant."

There was a conversational land mine if he'd ever heard one, so he took a different route. "I got a photo from them last week. Lila's birthday."

With his free arm, G reached for the cell phone on the floor by his head and found the correct picture before showing the phone to Natasha. He had no idea who'd taken it, but it showed the entire smiling Barton family gathered around a table surrounding a birthday cake. In the center of the photo, Lila's cheeks were comically round as she made to blow out the candles.

Natasha smiled at the photo, then rolled on top of him, meeting his eyes in the dimness of the room. "How close did you get, exactly?"

"I told you before," G said evenly. "No closer than you and Barton."

G thought Natasha's expression eased, just a little. "Good."

"Explain?"

"Laura's never been jealous of Clint and me - never had any reason to be. But sometimes I think she's envious of us, a little. You give her something to balance that scale. Thank you."

She leaned down to kiss him, and he accepted the end of the conversation as well as the invitation for more than just a kiss.

G was up with the dawn, as was Natasha. He accepted her invitation for a workout - "Not that kind" - with a grin. One advantage of not having much furniture was that there was plenty of room for sparring.

Afterward, they showered together, enjoying the last minutes of relaxation before he went to his job and she returned to wherever she'd come from. He didn't know and knew better than to ask.

"Can I drop you anywhere?" he asked as they stepped into the morning sunshine.

She shook her head. "I'm good."

Of course she was - she probably had mapped half a dozen egress methods already. So the only thing he could do was say, "Stay well."

Natasha smiled, a wry upturn of one corner of her mouth. "I will if you will."

G chuckled. "I'll try if you try."

That got him a more genuine smile. "Deal."

Natasha turned to go, but turned back before she took a full step. "Why Bella?"

"Why not?" G grinned, but her expression made him sober. "In-joke - you know the heroine of that book?"

"I read it. How is it an in-joke?"

"Because you're a лебедь."

Her eyes widened, just a little. "Am I?"

"Aren't you? Or the closest thing to, since the Soviet Union disbanded."

"Mm." Natasha appeared to debate with herself for a moment. Then she met his gaze. "There are still вороны and лебеди, but there are others… the most promising. I started as a лебедь, but became a черная вдова."

It was G's turn to be surprised. He'd thought Black Widow was just her Avengers codename, like Hawkeye was Barton's. Huh. Learn something new every day.

What he said aloud was, "So next time I'll call you Charlotte."

She laughed aloud and then looked surprised that she had. "I'll see you soon, Raven."

Of course she knew - or figured it out from threads of hints he hadn't realized he'd dropped. "Soon, Black Widow."

"Bella, huh?" Sam prompted the moment G came into the bullpen.

"Bella," G agreed neutrally as he dropped his go-bag on the floor beside his desk. He suspected where the conversation was going, but occasionally Sam surprised him, so he gave his partner room to lead it.

"Not like you to bring a date to a team outing," Sam said. "Even Michelle only joins us once in a while, and she knows us."

And that's where the conversation was going - not quite where G had expected, but in the same general direction.

"She's one of us, an operator." That much G felt comfortable saying. He wouldn't tell anyone, not even Sam, any more. "We met years ago, recently got back in touch."

"Another joint op?" Sam asked. "I don't remember you going on one of those recently."

"It wasn't an op," G said. "Or not an official one. She asked me for a favor."

Sam frowned. "What kind of favor?"

"The kind I can't talk about, but it resulted in Captain America's autographs for your kids."

Sam's eyes widened, but before he could say anything else, Hetty's voice rang out.

"Mr. Callen - a moment, if you will."

That didn't sound like a we have a case summons, or even a you're behind on your expense reports again summons. G traded a curious glance with Sam, who gave a brief roll of his eyes and shrugged, then started for the alcove that served as Hetty's office.

"Good morning to you, too, Hetty," he said.

Her sharp gaze, made owl-like thanks to the circular frames of her glasses, pierced him.

"Perhaps you would care to explain why you chose to invite the Black Widow to our outing last night?"

How does she always know? But G blew out a breath before he met her gaze and lied straight to her face. "She wanted to meet you."

Her eyes widened briefly. "Mr. Callen -"

"She called you a living legend." That much, at least, was true. "And she was here, and we were going out, so I invited her along."

Her eyes narrowed. "There's more to it than that."

"There is," G admitted freely. "But that's all I'm going to say about it."

She gave him a shrewd, assessing look. "I'm not going to like the more, am I?"

"You'll never know about it." G gave that assurance with confidence. It was absolutely true, even if it wasn't true in the way Hetty would take it.

She relaxed, just a little. "In that case, the next time you speak to her, give her my regards. She did excellent work in Budapest."

Translations:

Лебедь - Swan

Вороны - Ravens

Лебеди - Swans

черная вдова - Black Widow