Thank you so much for all the reviews and follows from the first chapter. I'm glad you guys like the concept. Here's the next chapter. Enjoy!


Guilty. She felt guilty. She hadn't gotten to him in time and now she felt even worse about giving Clint the silent treatment. She had been so damn stubborn when it came to her feelings about him. She should've just sucked it up and dealt with it instead of giving him the silent treatment and feeling a tremendous amount of guilt over it.

There was nothing she could do now but wait for him to get back. Only Fury and Agent Hill would have contact with him during the mission unless Natasha hacked into the communication feeds and added her phone to the list of devices that could communicate with him. Even though she so desperately wanted to do that, she wouldn't because she knew it would jeopardize her position at SHIELD.

So, glumly, she headed out of the SHIELD base and into her car to make her way back to Avengers Tower. As annoying as she found Tony Stark to be, she was glad she could call Avengers Tower home. It wasn't as bad as she thought it would be – with the exception of Tony's daily antics – and after the two weeks since she moved in, she started to consider the tower her home. As much as she liked living on the SHIELD base, it was nice to finally have a place that was comfortable and welcoming that she could actually call home.

When she arrived at the tower, she tossed her keys to the valet and walked through the front doors. Normally when she had days off like this, she would hang out with Pepper but because of recent circumstances, she wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. As she loaded onto the elevator, she hit the button for the 15th floor, the floor she lived on all by herself. When the Avengers had moved into the tower, Tony had been nice enough to give them all a floor to themselves. However, Natasha was pretty sure it was more along the lines of Pepper's idea than Tony's because he seemed pretty indifferent about it when he delivered the news to the rest of the Avengers.

As the elevator began its ascent, Natasha felt the wave of guilt wash over her once again. Natasha hoped Clint's mission didn't take long. Then again, whenever they were sent on solo missions, they were usually in and out. She just hoped he'd be back soon.

Staring at the numbers on the elevator as they changed with its ascent, she realized that not only was she getting closer to her floor, she was getting closer to Clint's. Clint was assigned the 12th floor when they moved into Avengers Tower. On a whim, she pressed the button for Clint's floor and waited for it to arrive on the 12th floor.

The elevator pinged to signal that it had reached Clint's floor and she stepped into the bright and welcoming room. She heard the doors slide closed behind her and she felt like she could slightly relax. Clint wasn't there, and yet, he was everywhere.

She slowly roamed in and out of the rooms and admired the organized mess. Clint was never a clean person. He rarely washed his dirty dishes and he never put his clean clothes away. His bed was always a tangled mess of blankets, which she liked to call his nest even though his real nest was in the rafters above the training room.

Natasha continued to roam around on Clint's apartment until she eventually settled on the comfortable couch in the living room. As she glanced around the room, it was as if her feelings for him were heightened. Everything about the entire floor he lived on screamed Clint. If she hadn't been so stubborn for the past few weeks, his apartment could scream Clint and Natasha. As best friends, they spent so much time together just drinking and sharing stories about past missions. But no, Natasha had to push him away.

Suddenly, Natasha felt her phone vibrate in the back pocket of her jeans and quickly pulled it out to check the caller ID. She groaned when she noticed it was Tony. She was hesitant to answer it mostly because it was Tony, but she still wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. However, Natasha slid her thumb across the screen anyways and pressed the phone to her ear.

"Spidey, Pepper's looking for you. She says you're not in your apartment and you're definitely not on the SHIELD base because I just got here," Tony said.

"Hello to you too, Stark," Natasha said sarcastically.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Where are you?" he reiterated.

With a sigh, Natasha stood up from Clint's living room couch and made her way over to the elevator. "I just got back to the tower. I'm heading up right now."

"Alright Spidey," Tony said. "By the way, you can't lie to me. Jarvis knows everything." With that, the line went dead.

Natasha shook her head and pressed the button to call the elevator to the floor. Of course Tony would ask Jarvis where she was. He had only called her to let her know that Pepper was looking for her so of course he knew that she was in Clint's apartment.

The elevator dinged to signal that it had reached Clint's floor and the doors slid open to welcome Natasha inside. She stepped onto the elevator and pressed the button for the 15th floor. With one last glance into Clint's apartment before the doors slid closed, Natasha knew that she had to fix things between them when he got back. She wouldn't be able to survive without her best friend.


"Need a sparring partner Steve?" Natasha asked when she waltzed into the gym and spotted Steve mindlessly beating a punching bag. It had been four days since Clint left for Rome and Natasha had been keeping herself occupied by spending the majority of her days in the gym.

Steve ceased his workout, steadying the punching bag from swinging back and forth, and turned to face Natasha. "Oh hello Agent Romanoff," Steve said.

"Steve, call me Natasha. We're teammates after all," Natasha said as she dropped her sweatshirt and bottle of water on the floor. Out of all of her teammates, Steve was the most bearable, besides Clint. Bruce was pretty bearable too, but that was only when he was himself. Bring out The Other Guy and he was absolutely terrifying. Natasha didn't see Thor very often so she didn't really have an opinion about him. And Tony was…Tony.

"Oh okay…Natasha. Sparring sounds good right now," Steve said. He stretched his arms behind his back to loosen up the muscles. Natasha nodded as she, too, began to loosen up her muscles and warm up.

When they were ready, they headed over to the mat over on the far end of the room and got into their respect fighting stances. Staring each other down, Natasha made the first move, choosing to send a right hook in Steve's direction, which he successfully dodged.

They were an even match, believe it or not. Despite the Super Solider Serum running through Steve's veins, Natasha was clever enough to know when to dodge or block the right hit. Natasha thought that they seemed like an even match because Steve was going easy on her because she was a girl but she couldn't know for sure. Either way, she stepped up her game. He may be from another era, but that didn't mean she was going to go easy on him.

When Steve had successfully pinned Natasha to the ground, she growled unhappily and demanded a rematch. Steve chuckled but obliged. So they went at it again, dodging and blocking one another's hits. This time around, Natasha pinned Steve to the ground.

"Best two out of three?" Steve asked once he stood up.

"Definitely," Natasha breathed as she tried to catch her breath. "Only this time, don't hold back."

"I'm not holding back," Steve scoffed.

"Fine," Natasha said with a smirk. "Prove it then."

They got into their fighting stances and Steve was the first to instigate the fight. Dodging a kick to her stomach, Natasha lunged at him. They slid across the floor before Natasha locked her legs around Steve's neck in the thigh choke; it wasn't long until he tapped out.

"Okay, was that fair enough?" Steve wheezed once Natasha's legs unlocked from around his neck.

"Hardly, but I'm hungry so we'll resume after I get something to eat," Natasha said with a smirk.

"Lunch sounds good to me right now," Steve said as he rubbed his throat.

"Oh, don't be a baby," Natasha said as she noticed Steve rubbing his throat. "I was going easy on you."

Steve chuckled. "Alright then, best three out of five after lunch."

Natasha nodded with a faint smile and then headed over to the other end of the gym to gather up her things. She slung her sweatshirt over her shoulder before taking a big swig of water as she headed out the door and down the hall to the SHIELD cafeteria. Natasha pulled her phone out of her sweatshirt, where it was safely tucked away, and began to play around with it.

She was absentmindedly reading about the current weather in Rome when she heard the hushed voices of Fury and Agent Hill echo from down the hall. Natasha immediately looked up from her phone and stopped dead in her tracks when she noticed Fury and Agent Hill talking quietly to one another at the end of the hall. She could barely hear their conversation but she caught a couple words if she really listened.

"…we clearly underestimated the caliber of the mission," Natasha heard Agent Hill say.

"…can't extract," Natasha heard Fury whisper.

"He's alone, Director," Agent Hill hissed.

He's alone. That's what caught Natasha's attention and suddenly she felt like she'd been hit with a ton of bricks. She knew that it couldn't be just any SHIELD agent Fury and Hill were talking about. She knew it had to be about someone specific.

With determination, Natasha walked down the hall with her head held high as she approached Director Fury and Agent Hill. "What's going on?" Natasha asked calmly.

A silence fell among the two SHIELD agents as they turned to face Natasha with blank dispositions. "Nothing to concern you, Agent Romanoff," Fury said.

"I'm not stupid, Director. What's going on?" Natasha asked a little more firmly.

Fury and Agent Hill turned to each other and consulted each other silently before turning back to face Natasha. They looked at Natasha in silence and neither one of them said a word. It was almost as if they were hesitating to tell her.

"Tell me," Natasha growled through gritted teeth.

"Agent Romanoff," Fury sighed. He looked at her for a couple seconds before taking a deep breath. "Agent Barton's been compromised."


Dun, dun, duuuuuuun! A cliffhanger! You know how I roll.

If you guys read my other fic Lucky Ones, take a chill pill. I'll get to updating it eventually. School is really kicking my ass right now. The next five days are going to be really crazy so please sit tight.

As always, thank you for adding this to your favorites, signing up for alerts, and reviewing. Reviews are very much appreciated so leave me a lovely review to let me know what you think!