This was written for the annual be_compromised promptathon, based on sugarfey's prompt: A while after Natasha arrives at SHIELD, she finally gets approval to live in her own apartment. After her initial excitement, she realizes one thing. She has to go to IKEA.

This is the first time in 3 years that I started writing a story for someone else's prompt rather than my own (don't judge, please...) only to discover when I was halfway through that gsparkle had written one already! I read it, loved it, and decided that her take was sufficiently different for me to finish mine. So here it is, with thanks to Crystal_Litanie for casting a critical eye on this story (which can be read as following on "Ex Marks the Spot").

Some Assembly Required

By Alpha Flyer

"Oh, and here's your 177A. Sign at the bottom."

The efficient, slightly hostile clerk adds another form to the stack of paper she's been piling up in front of Natasha. Medical certification, psych eval, Level 6 security clearance, certificate of competency with firearms, requisition for three tac suits, license to kill, confirmation of assignment, direct deposit form – all there. The formal end to her probationary period, and beginning of life as one half of Strike Team Delta.

But …

"What's a 177A?"

The woman frowns and scans the checklist to make sure it's completed. Satisfied that the Gods of Bureaucracy have been rendered their due, albeit in the face of an unworthy cause, she looks up.

"Sorry, what?"

Natasha suppresses the temptation to say something snarky. Given her record, she can hardly blame the woman for not rolling out the warm and fuzzy welcome mat. The important thing is to get the job done and if the woman is willing to do hers, that's enough.

"That last form. What is it, exactly?"

She could, of course, just look at it and read what it says. But if there is one thing Natasha has learned in her three-month immersion into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s inner workings, it's that what a piece of paper says is not usually what it means, especially if it requires a signature.

"It's your residence clearance," the clerk says, her tone marking her disapproval. "It means the Director has personally cleared you to live off the premises. You hand it in to the property section, and they'll give you a list of pre-security cleared available apartments."

Natasha briefly wonders whether everyone gets a 177A when they've completed boot camp and basic indoctrination - maybe to establish a tenuous link back to real life, to make them more effective? Or is it part of a scheme to control controversial new hires like her, who come with a warning label that reads, Open carefully, may contain Russians?

That S.H.I.E.L.D. even has such a permission slip is building block intel of course … She suppresses that last thought as quickly as it arises. S.H.I.E.L.D. is not the KGB, where internal intrigues can be just as deadly as outside enemies; no need to assess its inner workings for any reason other than to fit in. (For now.)

Besides – if she understands the true meaning of this piece of paper, it spells the end of the windowless, airless metal-walled cubicle she's been calling home for the last three months, ever since Barton brought her in. No more combat boots thudding in the hallways. No more cameras in every corner. No more people staring at her as soon as she leaves her room. And no more HR 'advisors' with their own conclusions as to her fitness to serve.

Freedom.

She carefully suppresses any emotion in her voice.

"And where do I find the property section?"

…..

The list of apartments is categorized by seniority and income, and comes with the stern admonishment that 'Any rent payable in excess of the contractual S.H.I.E.L.D. housing allowance is the employee's personal responsibility'. With a mental nod to the ghost of Ruslan Akhmyradov and the competitor who paid to see him removed from the Sochi Olympic construction bids, Natasha skips straight to the sole offering marked Management, Level 8 and above, single occupant. Natasha Romanoff is not cheap.

Based on previous experiences with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s administrative underbelly Natasha is not exactly optimistic, but the loft in Tribeca, with its private access and closeness to a Whole Foods, green space and decent restaurants, actually looks promising. Plus, after that little basement cell a fifth-story walkup in the Bronx would look like the Taj Mahal.

"I'll take it," she says.

"You don't want to look at it first?" the property clerk is non-plussed. "To see whether it could be … home?"

Natasha looks at the man's hands, marked by a wedding ring, the slight squishiness of lack of exercise, and an absence of calluses. Desk jockey hands, to go with his desk jockey tie and desk jockey paunch. The desk in question contains a little shrine of photographs, a smiling wife and two kids in various stages of growth; there's even a fuzzy dog. Chances are pretty good that this man's idea of 'home' would not be the same as hers.

All Natasha wants from a personal space is privacy, no handcuffs, and no booby traps. No-boil drinking water and granite countertops are a bonus.

"I assume it's free of roaches and other bugs?" she asks in response.

"Of course. And a direct line to S.H.I.E.L.D. in case of emergency," he says, all business again, for which Natasha is unexpectedly grateful. "As vermin-free as you want it to be. You can move in today, if you want."

Today.

"Yes, please."

Two words – can he hear the sound of chains being cut?

Surprisingly, the paperwork is relatively humane, and she finds herself in possession of a set of keys in less time than it had taken to convince Medical that yes, she was a natural redhead. There is only one problem.

The pictures on the spec sheet show high ceilings, a gleaming if small kitchen, a decently-sized sitting room and a bedroom with a full en suite, as well as ample closet space, built-in bookshelves, a guest toilet and a tiny balcony with views over neighbouring rooftops and silhouettes of mid-town Manhattan.

What they do not show is furniture.

Natasha has spent many nights on floors and worse, but also in five-star hotels with canopy beds. Now that she is a government agent with a permanent contract, maybe her concept of 'home' should stretch to include a proper place to sleep?

"I'd need a bed," she says. "Or a mattress. Does S.H.I.E.L.D. …"

"Our employees are expected to own their own furniture now," the clerk cuts her off. "Management found that people kept comparing what we provided, which wasn't good for morale. And no one ever truly appreciated the floral patterns."

His voice drops to a confidential murmur.

"And then, in the last Appropriation Committee hearings, Senator Stern insisted that S.H.I.E.L.D. reduce its real estate footprint. So we sold our warehouse to Wai-Go Industries, cleared out the contents and moved them to our safe houses."

Which explains much about the London flat where she and Barton had holed up during their first joint Op. He'd used the pink flowers on the over-stuffed couch for target practice with his miniature curare darts.

"You'll have to go and buy your own things," the clerk explains, as if she'd somehow managed to miss that point. "Of course, delivery from most places in Manhattan might take a week, so moving in tonight might not be an option."

He gives her a sideways glance, and Natasha has the feeling that he can see her minute feeling of disappointment, as if it were written on her face, and is judging her for it. More likely, he is calculating the negative effect on morale if this former KGB killer were allowed to spend another night on S.H. .D. premises.

But then he says something unexpected.

"I suppose after all you've been through, you really want to get started on a new life."

He scribbles an address on a piece of paper and slides it across his desk.

"There's a place where you can get furniture the same day you buy it - provided you can find someone with a license to drive one of our vans, so you won't have to wait for home delivery. The IKEA in Brooklyn is open till nine."

…..

"Why do you want to buy new stuff anyway?" Barton wants to know when she corners him in the cafeteria. "I got pretty much all of mine curb shopping or from the Sally Ann, including my bed. Only took a week to get the fleas out of the mattress."

"You and I look at furniture very differently," Natasha informs her newly minted partner. Maybe it was a mistake asking Barton, but since S.H.I.E.L.D. lets him fly Quinjets, chances are he's cleared to handle a van. Besides…

"I need a bed, and you need to help me find one. Hill says we're supposed to be a team now."

And you're the only guy in S.H.I.E.L.D. likely to get into a car with me without a direct order from Fury, she doesn't say.

Hawkeye is unmoved.

"And what does that have to do with anything? They say that when you go to the seven circles of Hell, IKEA has taken over the suburbs and parts of the ring road. Not in my job description, lady. No thanks."

Actually, Natasha hadn't heard that, so his reaction comes as a surprise. She'd met an IKEA executive once at a reception in Amsterdam, but had abandoned him to his lecture on the sustainability of pinewood and cardboard packaging when her target walked in. Plus, she'd seen one of their catalogues at the dentist's in Berlin, the time she'd had the tooth with the Red Room tracker removed. The things in the pictures looked serviceable and efficient. Even nice.

Time to confess.

"I've never actually been to IKEA," she says. "Have you?"

"Yes, and I've also done three tours in Afghanistan and just came from a rat-infested jail in Ashgabat, all of which I infinitely preferred."

It's becoming increasingly clear that active measures are called for if she wants to sleep in her own bed tonight.

"I hear they have meatballs," she says. "My treat."

…..

They're over the Brooklyn Bridge just before the rush hour and pull into the enormous parking lot by the Erie Basin just as a late afternoon sun comes out from behind the clouds, giving the Statue of Liberty across the bay a pretty green glow. Barton, full of pent up nervous energy, is strumming impatient fingers on his belt.

"You here to play tourist or shop? Let's get this over with, Widow."

The sidewalk and parking lot are abuzz with people, children and shopping carts stacked high with boxes and blue bags. Every single one of the carts seems to be topped by waving palm fronds or shrubbery in varying sizes. Just off to the side, a dozen or so civilians are trying to load enormous cardboard flats into vehicles far too small to accommodate them safely.

"You sure they sell beds here, Romanoff? All I see is …"

His hopeful voice fades as a young couple comes out wrestling with a small, crib-sized mattress. The man tells his – wife? girlfriend? – to go get the car while he'll try to keep their purchase from flopping over onto the sidewalk. Natasha suppresses a triumphant grin and grabs a shopping cart.

Barton just moves the goal posts.

"You do realize we probably can't get a whole adult bed into that van we brought, right?"

Natasha side-eyes him.

"The guy in property seemed to think a van would do. He has a family and a dog. I'm sure they've bought beds here. Whatever happened to can-do Hawkeye?"

He sighs in resignation. Natasha accepts victory without gloating; time for a tactical assessment.

Beyond the entrance area is a space not unlike an aircraft hangar or the weapons depot in Smolensk, but full of primary colours, cheerful living room simulations and hundreds of civilians, all moving with a purpose. It might as well be the gateway to Mars. Try as she might, Natasha finds herself unable to draw any conclusions from the available data.

"Welcome to IKEA!" a young woman in a yellow shirt chirps at them and pushes a brown clipboard and pencil at Barton. He takes it, but looks over at Natasha with a distinct look of panic now etched on his face.

"Emm," he says.

Natasha tries to project a confidence she doesn't actually feel, but comes up short of something smart to say. Instead, her attention is drawn by a toddler melting down at the sight of a room full of balls, into which his parents have obviously refused to deposit him. She blinks.

Without skipping a beat, the young woman draws her own inferences.

"First time at IKEA?" she warbles. "No worries. We're here to help make your shopping experience a happy one. Any large items you can't put in the cart, just fill in the order number and pick them up in the bins before you get to the cash. Anything really large you get at the warehouse, or ask for home delivery. Easy-peasy! Do you want a couple of bags?"

Without waiting for an answer, the girl drops two enormous blue plastic sacs in Natasha's cart and resumes handing out clipboards to the steady stream of people passing them by.

"Happy shopping!" she says over her shoulder.

Her equilibrium restored slightly by the briefing, Natasha pushes the cart a few meters deeper into the store, then stops again to observe. Hawkeye doesn't move.

"This is about as far as I got last time I was here," he confides with a shudder. A touch of admiration creeps into his voice. "Bobbi went on without me."

Natasha, busy with her survey, elects to ignore him. There are bins and shelves and piles of things with price tags, which people seem to just load into their carts or blue bags. Others engage in animated discussions, followed by inspection of tags and scribbles on clipboards. Just like the girl said.

"I think I got this," she says, reaching for a pack of blue napkins. She tosses it into one of the blue bags and hangs it over Clint's shoulder. "There. Virgin no more. Let's go, Hawkeye."

He glares at her and paws at the bag resentfully.

"I thought we came for a bed?"

"Breaking the ice," she says. "Plus, everybody needs napkins."

Clint rolls his eyes, but he seems a little calmer now that the first deed is done; operation Able Archer may not descend into full nuclear Armageddon after all.

"Look," he says, eyes high and his voice an interesting blend of relief and contempt at civilian transparency. "They have signage. We can find out where we need to go, and go there. Directly."

They'd come for a bed, so Sleeping seems the target they need to acquire. But as it turns out, there is apparently no 'direct' way go from A to B; the signs are mere lures, designed to make people walk onward and past things they had no idea they needed until they rammed them with their cart.

"Holy shit," Clint breathes when they finally reach the Grail – a hall the size of a football field, consisting of nothing but beds. "This is like the bunk hall at boot camp. You gonna try all of those out?"

Now, Natasha has done many things in her life; most she regrets. Some – a purchase of a well-made leather jacket, or a nicely balanced knife - have brought her a moment's pleasure. But in a life of perpetual movement and endless hunt, the one thing she has never been called on to do, is to buy furniture.

"I…" she falters. "I don't know."

Clint looks at her with a curious expression, a mix of sympathy and recognition. Mercifully, he does not comment.

"Well, when I got my couch off the corner at Thompson, I sat on it first," he says instead. "To make sure there were no lumpy bits. Coz otherwise, what's the point?"

He flops down dramatically on the closest bed, and utters a curse.

"You want bounce? Then this thing is not for you. Exhibit one: board of nails."

Natasha pats the mattress. He's right. Stiff as a board, with little buttons sewn into the mattress that would annoy the hell out of even the most resilient sleeper. Try-outs it is.

She scans the battlefield; time to approach this systematically.

"I need at least a Queen, or a King-sized one," she announces and before Barton can raise an eyebrow and ask she adds, "I like space. For myself. No box springs, and no metal headboards. That should rule out at least half of what's here."

To her relief he doesn't ask for an explanation, just wanders over to the closest eligible candidate - a man on a mission to do the necessary and leave as quickly as he can. A pattern of flop-bounce-pronounce develops quickly.

"Why does everything here have a name?" he asks, lifting up one of the labels of something he has declared a prospect. "Going for attachment syndrome? And what's with all the Norse shit?"

A dark, solid frame that looks otherwise promising gets ruled out when Natasha notices the drawers underneath. Who'd want to have to pull open four drawers each night, just to check that nothing or no one has taken up residence inside?

Eventually, though, they find one that meets requirements. Clint notes that its name, 'Undredal', sounds like a place out of Lord of the Rings, which Natasha takes as approval; a short argument over the best choice of mattress (not like it would be any of his business) is resolved by a passing yellow-shirt who points out the limited eligible possibilities.

Clint meticulously notes down numbers, monikers and prices on his clipboard and looks up, hope shining in his eyes.

"Can we go now?"

"Bedding," she commands. "And don't judge what I pick for patterns."

He sighs heavily, but complies.

By the time they head for the cash the cart is piled high with a duvet, pillows, linens (black-and-white, to go with the headboard, and white pillow cases). Their path leads through a major pantry section, where Natasha adds boxes of dishes, cutlery, glasses, mugs, utensils and a set of pots and pans ("You cook?") as well as a glass cafetière.

Clint, for a moment, stops his impatient twitching. He tosses a second cafetière into the bag on his shoulder, muttering something defensive about "good price" and "I've been wanting one of those." A minute later he adds an electric milk frother, with a sheepish grin.

The warehouse looks like the storage room at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, except more heavily populated. On the grey metal shelves areendless rows and stacks of cardboard boxes, packets and flats in all sizes - and no way of knowing where to find Natasha's bed. Another young woman in yellow (how many are there?) explains that Clint should have written down the "bin number" along with everything else, but offers to look it up before he can point out that no force in the universe will get him back in there.

Of course, it turns out that the bedframe and mattress are so big they'll have to go get them from the warehouse around the corner - after payment, that is.

The cash line-up is strategically located between more shelves and bins, resulting in the acquisition of more napkins, some metal hooks that Clint declares to be "extremely useful" (although he declines to specify for what), and a small fern in a ceramic pot.

"Housewarming present," he grunts. "Plus, I'm not sure they let you out of here without a plant. But don't think for a moment I've forgotten about those meatballs."

…..

The ride back into Manhattan is slower than the way out, given that pieces of the bedframe stick out into the front seats, and the mattress on the roof is secured only with a bowstring Clint happened to carry in his pocket.

"I pull a hundred pounds," he had assured Natasha during their strategy session over a double order of meatballs, "so the string should be good to get us through the tunnel. Wouldn't risk the bridge though. Wind."

When they get to Tribeca, Clint puts an "FBI" sign on the dashboard and parks the van right in front of the door, graciously offering to help Natasha carry everything to the elevator before she can bring herself to ask.

"Apartment 13 only" it says on the elevator - the promised separate entrance, that turns out to be a gorgeous box of shiny steel that will hold the bags and boxes, but not the bed parts.

"How many floors did you say it was?" Clint sighs before Natasha can ask.

At least the apartment itself proves to be a success. Reinforced steel door; biometric locks, remotely preset; and excellent sightlines, including from the shower if the bathroom door is open. There's a fire escape that can be pulled up and a neighbouring roof is accessible from the balcony with only a bit of a jump.

Clint reluctantly approves, after opening every single closet and cupboard to check for … whatever. Other Russians?

"No food though," he says sounding disappointed. "So much for all those dishes you bought, eh."

Natasha stares at the pile of cardboard boxes in her bedroom. Maybe she could just peel the shrink-wrap off the mattress and use that? She's slept on worse.

"You just ate, Barton. I saw you, and there's still gravy on your shirt."

He shrugs off his hoodie and makes a show of rolling up the sleeves of his t-shirt.

"That was over an hour ago. I assume you want help putting that bed together? Yes? Then I need sustenance. There's a grocery around the corner. You go there and load up, I'll start."

Only Clint Barton would refer to Whole Foods as a grocery, but Natasha is far too surprised and grateful to argue the point.

By the time she gets back, loaded down with coffee, a bottle of Pinot, three bags of assorted groceries and a stack of towels from the Bath & Bed store next door - good thing that was there, or she'd have had to dance herself dry after a shower - all the bed components are spread out on the floor. The packaging is piled up in a corner; a set of flimsy-looking tools and a number of bolts and screws are meticulously laid out beside a couple of metal slats. The scene reminds Natasha of one of those exploded diagrams the Red Room used to train its students in the building of communications devices: touch the wrong wire, experience the consequences.

In the middle of it all squats Hawkeye, holding a piece of paper the size of a tablecloth and scratching his head.

"Fuck me sideways," he says. "Who knew a bed could be this complicated? And I can take a Winchester Magnum apart and put it back together. In the dark. Under fire."

Natasha looks over his shoulder at the paper, which starts out with the picture of a puzzled-looking man and a hammer, a big "X" slashed through his body. It could be a photograph of Hawkeye, in his current state.

The pictograph beside it shows two people, hammer man and a person with a pen behind their ear; both are smiling now.

"I think they're trying to tell us this needs team work," she announces. "Fine. You do the labour, I'm on tactics. Wait here."

She walks over to the kitchen island and uses her ankle knife to slit open a box of wine glasses, unscrews the bottle of Pinot and pours two generous servings.

"Here, that should help."

Natasha initiates a survey of the parts, establishing everything they supposedly need is there. It is. Clint holds up a couple of rectangular gadgets.

"That's what they call a hex key in Sweden? Man. No wonder that bed was under three hundred bucks. Jesus."

But, surprisingly, it works. By around midnight the bottle has been drained, Natasha's cafetière inaugurated, two bags of organic blue corn chips emptied and the bed looks, well, like a bed, mattress and all. Clint jumps on it – "testing for stability and tensile strength" – and declares it fit for purpose.

He determines that he is o.k. to drive with a quick series of tosses of the maligned hex keys into one of the open boxes, grabs his coffee supplies and mystery hooks, and takes his leave with a simulated fist bump.

It's surprising how empty the debris-filled apartment feels after he is gone.

For a half hour or so Natasha busies herself with unpacking things and putting them into yawningly empty, pristinely white cupboards. The small collections of mugs, wine and water glasses, basic white dinnerware - all in groups of six, what's that even about? - and steel pots make the place look like a kid has been playing house with Momma's stuff.

But they are her dishes, in her cupboard, and for a moment she feels a wave of pride she can neither explain nor justify.

Finally, she collects all the wrappings and folds up the cardboard with a few well-placed karate chops and creative use of her feet. She stuffs everything but the hoodie Barton seems to have left behind in the largest box and moves the lot out to the front hall before making the bed.

Which of course means more packaging to get rid of; surely today's operation has resulted in the single largest footprint the Black Widow has ever left behind at anytime, anywhere.

Still, the place is oddly comforting. Clean, open spaces, uncluttered by voices, people and expectations. There's a lingering smell of coffee in the air; even the somewhat random fern on the kitchen island adds something, although Natasha isn't sure what.

Suddenly tired, she heads over to the bed - and curses immediately: in that sudden lure of privacy, the need for moving her clothes from that dingy little cell in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters had never actually crossed her mind. Silently rolling her eyes at the rookie mistake, she puts her weapons and other hardware on the floor beside the bed - no night table either, dammit - undresses and pulls on Clint's forgotten hoodie. (He'll never know.)

She arranges the duvet over her shoulders and under her chin, resisting the ingrained impulse to pull out her right arm and lift it over her head to be fastened to the headboard. No cuffs here. She takes a deep breath and turns her head into the pillow; the bedding smells new, and there is a lingering scent on her improvised nightshirt that reminds her, not unpleasantly, of Clint.

From the bed she has a good sightline to the entrance and the box of packaging, lit from the kitchen. DELTA, it says on the outside, in a series of small holes carefully drilled into it by her partner in the course of his sobriety test.

Strike Team Delta: First mission accomplished.

Natasha reaches for her smart phone on the floor and picks out a quick text.

"Hey. You free Saturday? I need some bedside tables. Maybe a couch?"