A/N: I've been thinking about this story line for weeks, but my writing doesn't do it justice. It played out so much better in my head. But, nonetheless, here it is for your consideration. Conclusion of the story to follow in the next week or so, as time permits. I do not own these characters - all hail Marvel. Thanks for taking the time to read. On with the show...

She hated private security details. Hated them. With a passion. She'd not given it much thought, but rather figured those days were behind her after the incident in Manhattan. She had managed to fly pretty far under the media radar and was not nearly as recognizable as some of the other "Avengers," but she still required much more in the way of physical disguise if she were to be involved in anything other than a completely covert, in-the-dark mission.

This private security mission was anything but dark. She couldn't even consider it a mission. It was punishment. This was her penance for her momentary lack of judgement and Fury was throwing his weight around as a reminder who was really in charge. And, truth be told, SHIELD was going through some growing pains trying to adjust to life after Coulson.

So, where did that leave Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, at the moment? Escorting a mid-level SHIELD psychiatrist from a safe house in Los Angeles to an unmarked facility in San Francisco. In a car, no less. No Quinjet, no helicopter. On a good note, she sweet-talked (some may say threatened) Stark into using his convertible Audi. She would pocket the car rental stipend. Maybe use it to acquire a few bottles of her favorite Vodka. Yep, so there was that.

As she tucked her curly red hair up under a Dodgers ball cap, Pepper entered the garage. Dressed impeccably as ever, she walked over to Natasha and smiled. "Good morning, Natali-, I'm sorry, Natasha. Tony said you were here and I wanted to come down and say hello. If you have a chance to do lunch before you head back to New York, I would love to catch up with you."

Of course she would. Natasha knew Pepper was a hard-core business woman who could pick apart arguments in a board room like Hawkeye could pick off targets in the field. Yet, she was genuinely a nice person. "That would be very nice, Pepper. I'll give you a call when I'm back to drop off the car. Thank you."

"Good, because I wasn't taking 'no' for an answer. Here's my cell number…" She held up her Stark Industries phone to transmit her number. Natasha held up her phone to exchange numbers. Normally she wouldn't share her number, but she was certain that Pepper knew everything Tony did. And she trusted Pepper with that information way more than she did Tony anyway, so an unregistered cell phone number was the least of her worries.

JARVIS had already programmed the routes into the GPS unit. Natasha revved the engine once and sped out of the cavernous garage on her way to pick up the good doctor.

As she crawled along with the morning freeway traffic, she allowed her thoughts to drift to the few personal topics she kept in the forefront of her mind. Clint was still involved in heavy-duty counseling to overcome the trauma of the Manhattan incident. She visited him every day and they exchanged text messages from time to time. She was concerned that he seemed a little worse than he was when he went in. She supposed that once the activity level went from full throttle to sitting around all day being immersed in the memories of the event, there were bound to be set backs. But she also knew how strong he was. Now that she had time to really consider the past few weeks, she was getting a very uneasy feeling.

*ring ring*

Pepper told her assistant to hold all calls today. She had quarterly reports to review and her own to write. Why was her phone ringing?

*ring ring*

Better to answer and get rid of whoever it was. She picked up the receiver and let out a clipped, "Hello?"

"Hello, Pepper. Did you forget about our lunch appointment?"

"Lunch? But, I thought -"

Without allowing her to complete the sentence, Natasha quickly broke in. "Yes, lunch. Ah, I guess you did forget. Well, that's ok. I'm on my up now." And with that, the line went dead.

Pepper sat with the phone in her hand and mumbling, "But I don't have time today…" With a heavy sigh, she stood up and smoothed her navy blue pencil skirt. She knew there was no lunch date. What was her former-assistant-turned-spy-turned-Avenger up to? She began to feel nervous.

Natasha didn't even knock, just stormed right in. Pepper could tell she was here for a reason. "So, Pepper, how is it that you're too busy for lunch? Tell me what's going on here at Stark Industries." As Natasha spoke, her eyes bored into Pepper's and she rolled her right hand in circles as if to encourage her to keep talking. Pepper might have thought that Natasha looked like she was pleading, but the Black Widow didn't plead with anyone.

Taking Natasha's lead, Pepper began going over her schedule and listing all the items on her to-do list, adding details as she thought appropriate. As she spoke, Pepper watched Natasha absently pick up a pen and casually lean backwards onto her desk. As Pepper paced back and forth in the office talking about the latest press releases, she watched as Natasha began scribbling on a legal pad. Curious, Pepper meandered passed her desk and glanced down. Really? She can write backwards? There were three lines of words and numbers, all straight and neatly spaced. Perfectly legible.

"Under surveillance" read the first line. "Need your help for Clint" was the second line. Two strings of numbers filled the third line: 34.034491 - 118.492363 20:30.

Still babbling about market position, Pepper looked up from the perfect script and found a pair of intense green eyes pleading with her. Definitely pleading. Wow. Pepper slowly nodded her head and quickly brought her rambling to an end.

"Wow, Pepper, I am so sorry for barging in on you today. No wonder you forgot our lunch date. Let's just reschedule and I'll see you soon, OK?" She was out the door before Pepper could even wave goodbye.

Pepper slowly walked over to her desk, afraid to further analyze the expertly back-handed written note. Why was Natasha under surveillance? If Clint was involved, though, that would easily explain the seriousness of the situation. Not that Natasha was ever light-hearted, but Pepper was quick to learn that when Clint was involved Natasha was at her deadliest. As she stared at the note, she wasn't sure if she was impressed or terrified that she instantly knew the numbers represented latitude and longitude coordinates and the time to be there. Had she really become so comfortable with this super-secret Earth's mightiest heroes business that she was easily reading spy code? God, she hoped not. She carefully tore the page off of the pad, folded it up and slipped it into her briefcase. Then she shredded the next four pages on the pad. Wouldn't want anyone being able to read the indentations on the subsequent pages.

She sat back down and just stared at the stacks of reports. "Really? You think you're going to get any work done now?" she whispered to herself. She bent down, picked up her briefcase, and pulled out the note. She memorized the numbers and headed to the 17th floor, the accounting department. If Natasha was being watched and they saw her with Pepper, chances were good that Pepper's computer was being monitored now. There's no reason, however, why the spare desktop computer in the accounting department would be monitored. As she breezed through the department, she greeted everyone she passed by name. Being "one of the guys" even though she was now CEO would always play to her advantage. Nobody gave her a second glance as she sat down and typed in the coordinates. Montana Ave, Santa Monica. She knew the general area of the neighborhood. What was she getting herself into?

As Pepper pulled up to the nondescript house, she noticed that it was brightly lit and looked very "lived in." Her imagination had clearly gotten the better of her as she had pictured a dark, gothic mansion like something out of an old Scooby Doo cartoon, complete with spinning book cases. There was still the possibility of that. She chuckled to herself as she walked up the sidewalk. Dressed casually in fitted jeans and flat-healed shoes, she kept her right hand hovering over the unzipped top of her shoulder bag. Her senses were on high alert and she had become proficient with the Smith and Wesson M&P Shield 9mm that sat in the bag just below her hand. She knocked firmly on the door with her left hand.

The door opened, though she could not see who had done so. They were in the shadows behind the door. "Come in, Pepper," spoke the tense but familiar voice of Natasha.

There were no pleasantries exchanged in the foyer. Natasha led the way into the small, modern kitchen and offered Pepper a seat. "Pepper, I'm very sorry to have to involve you in this. I truly had no one else to turn to. All the Avengers are being monitored - even Tony - and things are moving so quickly that I needed someone on the outside, but someone I could trust. I know you won't find it shocking to hear that I don't have many friends. And even fewer that I trust. You have to know that I would never ask you to do something like this if it weren't a matter of life or death. Not my life, Clint's life." Pepper would swear that she heard a slight crack in the agent's voice as she spoke Clint's name.

"Natasha, I don't play spy games, but you can trust me to help you with whatever needs done. If Clint, Tony, you, and the others are in danger, I could never sit by and do nothing. Please tell me what's going on." Pepper spoke passionately and confidently, but Natasha wasn't sure exactly who Pepper was trying to convince - Natasha or herself.

"I can't go into all the dirty details, but here's what you need to know. When I showed up to pick up my mark this morning, he was incredibly chatty. Turns out somebody got the dates confused. He thought his ride was planned for tomorrow and figured I was a lab tech for AIM making one last pick up of "pharmaceuticals" before he bugged out to San Francisco. So, I played along to see how much I could get out of him. The good doctor was very pleased with his work so he had no problem filling me in on AIM's double-cross of SHIELD. The meds he handed me were formulated specifically for each member of the Avengers and their unique enhancements. These formulas would cause irreparable damage to each of us."

At that Pepper felt light-headed. A well-respected company, a company Stark Industries occasionally consulted with, was plotting to - what? - kill the Avengers? This was no spy game or corporate espionage. This was someone trying to hurt Tony. Trying to hurt people Pepper had become very close to, if not in proximity certainly emotionally. This crap just got real.

"Stay with me, Pepper. You can handle this. Let me finish," continued Natasha. "So, the connection on the inside at SHIELD already is working on Clint. They're using his counseling as the cover. Every dose of sleeping pills they give him is working to send him further into depression, further away from recovery. They are making him crazy. What I intercepted today was meant for Bruce. I can only imagine the devastation that could have caused. The mole already has Tony's and Cap's formulas. The good doctor was still working on Thor's and mine and he didn't know how they planned to administer the other formulas."

"Are you sure?" asked Pepper. "Did you try to ask the right questions to pull it out of him? I know you have persuasive techniques. If this guy was showing off, surely it would've been easy to get that info out of him. Right?" Desperation was taking over. They had to stop it before Tony was effected.

Natasha glanced at a closed door. "Believe me, I got every ounce of information the little weasel had any knowledge of. He was helpful to a point. When he became useless and irritating and a liability, I put him out of his misery." Pepper thought she would throw up. Is there a dead body behind that door? "Too much information, Pepper?"

After thinking about it for a few seconds, she realized that if she was going to see this through to the other side - to the side where Tony, she, and the Avengers were safe - she was in for a penny, in for a pound. It was kill or be killed. She shook her head, looked Natasha Romanoff dead in the eyes and said, "Agent Romanoff, I'm on a need-to-know basis. And all I need to know now is what my next move is."

That earned her a small but approving smile from the world-weary assassin. "Careful Potts. You play hardball like that and Fury might end up recruiting you, too." Pepper returned the smile and nodded her head at the thinly-veiled compliment.

"Here's our play. Clint's in immediate danger. I don't know what the threshold is for a point of no return - a build up of meds that renders a reversal impossible. So I need you to get into the facility asap and get him out of there."

"How?" Pepper asked immediately.

"That's your department. If I'm involved in any way, the whole thing will be blown and we'll never get to the bottom of it. I'm going to continue on to San Francisco. Any major deviation from the original plan will look suspicious. If the good doctor thought we were leaving tomorrow, chances are good that his connection in San Fran isn't expecting us until then. That gives me time to plan and prepare. We'll hit the road tomorrow according to his plan." So, Pepper thought, the good doctor isn't dead? Or was she pulling a "Weekend at Bernie's" scenario? This spy business is too confusing. Natasha was still explaining, "I'm going to work on figuring out who, exactly, our moles are. From this point forward, YOU are the only person I trust. So help me," she whispered, almost to herself, "if Fury is involved in this any way, I will kill him. I would bet money the Council somehow has their filthy corrupt fingers in it, but that will be damned-near impossible to prove."

Pepper continued to nod her head as if she understood what Natasha was ranting about.

"So, I need you to get to New York, get Clint out of the facility and to somewhere safe. I don't know if there will be any reaction as his body works to rid itself of the toxin. He'll need constant supervision, but he can't seek medical attention anywhere near New York. Get him out. Get him…" she had to halt her speech and turn away from Pepper. She cleared her throat, took a breath and turned back to face Pepper. "Excuse me. Keep him safe until I get back. Please."

Pepper placed her hand on Natasha's wrist. "I will do everything in my power to get Clint somewhere safe. We will be waiting for you. I promise. You stay safe and don't do anything stupid. I have a funny feeling that what Clint really needs to get better… is you."

At that the red-haired spy slightly tilted her head and looked at Pepper with a genuinely perplexed expression. Seriously? Did Natasha not realize the depth of her feelings for Clint? Or his feelings for her? After everything Pepper had to deal with in the previous few hours, this left her speechless.

"Well, I'll be able to do my job knowing that he's safe. I trust you to make that happen." Any hope Pepper had of a declaration of feelings was gone in an instant. "And, I think you know this already, but you can't mention anything to Tony. If I need to bring him in on this, I'll contact him directly, but if he thinks I've endangered you in any way, he'll, well, you know him. The whole mission will be blown. And, again, we won't get to the root of the problem. Can I count on you to keep him out of it?"

"Of course. I can use my power of persuasion to keep Tony out of danger. As far as this issue is concerned, anyway. I never take responsibility for things too far out of my purview. He's tied up with Rhodey for the next few days, so we should be ok."

With that there was a deafening silence that settled over the kitchen. "Well, I guess I'm heading to NYC tonight. Keep in touch however you can. And be safe," Pepper said as she stood from her chair and turned toward the front door.

"I'll contact you as necessary. You can send me a text - coded of course - when you've cleared the facility with Clint." Natasha sounded all business but her eyes had a dull glaze over them. Clearly this was a weight she needed lifted before she could proceed full force. She needed to know he was safe and couldn't be used as leverage by AIM, SHIELD, Fury, or anyone. Once he was out of harm's way, Pepper would be glad to be on the other side the country from Natasha.

"You can count on me, Natasha."

With that Pepper placed her hand over her bag and confidently walked out the door and got in her car. "Not yet, not yet, not yet…" she chanted as she started the car and pulled into the street. She held on until she merged onto the mostly clear freeway. And then the tears poured from her eyes. How in the hell was she going to pull this off?

To be continued...