Part Two
"Hey, Barton," Bobbi Morse said as Clint dumped his tray on the table in the cafeteria and slid into the seat opposite her. "Oooh. Who rearranged your nose?" He had two black eyes and a beak-shaped splint over his nose.
Clint pointed his fork at Sharon Carter, sitting beside Bobbi. "Her relative."
Sharon laughed entirely without sympathy. "I thought Aunt Peggy liked you?"
"So did I. Apparently not as much as we'd hoped."
"She hit you? Thought you were better than that, Barton," Bobbi shook her head.
"She didn't hit me," Clint said, then muttered something around the pasta he'd just shoved into his mouth.
"I'm sorry, Barton, I didn't hear that," Sharon's eyes were dancing.
Clint swallowed the pasta. "I said she roofied me, all right? Apparently I was cramping her style. One minute we're chatting over a nice pot of tea I'd just made according to her very exacting specifications. The next minute the whole room was swimming sideways. I think I broke my nose on the coffee table on the way down."
Sharon collapsed laughing on the table. Bobbi swallowed her laughter. Barton had set a record for managing to keep Peggy Carter out of trouble for almost a whole month. As a reward, he'd been allowed to pick agents for her protective detail. Bobbi Morse had no intention of being the featured agent in the next 'Did you hear what Peggy Carter did this time?' story.
"Where is she now?" Bobbi asked in an admirably calm voice.
"Osaka."
"Osaka!"
"Yes. Apparently she rocked up at Jim Morita's house – thank God his son still lives there – and tried to get him to go to Vladivostok with her."
Sharon almost wet herself laughing. Bobbi allowed a few chuckles to escape – these ones weren't at Clint's expense, after all. "So now what?"
"Isobel Hartley was in Tokyo, Peggy likes her, so Hartley's been sent to escort her back."
Sharon sobered instantly. "Check her thoroughly for knives when she gets back, Clint. Hartley's the best knife-fighter in the Agency and Peggy taught her everything she knows."
"I'll pass that on," Clint nodded.
"What do you mean, you'll pass it on?" Sharon frowned.
Clint put down his fork and met her eyes. "I need a break, Sharon. I'm exhausted. Bionic battle grannies apparently don't need much sleep. Or they catnap at weird hours in the middle of the day. I've kept her out of trouble by being constantly vigilant and it's taken a toll."
He did look exhausted, the black rings around his eyes not just bruising from the broken nose. Sharon tried hard not to laugh. "So who's going to mind her now?"
"I don't know." Clint looked down into his food. "I'm not going to say I don't care, because I do; I like Peg a lot, Sharon. She's like the grandmother I wish I'd had. But – I didn't sign on with SHIELD to be a twenty-four-hour aged care nurse. Coulson understood."
Sharon nodded. She understood too. Clint had been a bit too good at his job, had ended up taking all the burden and exhausting himself. She didn't doubt that he wouldn't have given Peggy a chance to drug him if he'd been on top of his game.
"What are you doing now, then?" Bobbi asked with interest.
"I've got a week or so to heal up and brief whoever they pick to replace me. And then I've got an assignment in Iran." He didn't say any more, and Bobbi and Sharon didn't ask.
"Thank you," Sharon said instead, with deep sincerity, "for putting up with her this long." She offered her hand over the table, and after a moment Clint took it.
"For the most part," he said, "it's been a genuine pleasure. I kind of wish I'd known her back in her heyday."
"If you ever let her hear you say that it isn't still her heyday, she will make you suffer as no man has ever suffered before," Sharon said with a grin.
Clint grinned back. "Actually, I think a whole lot of men have suffered that way at Peggy Carter's hands. And I'm pretty sure she's not done yet. I'm counting myself lucky to have escaped with only a broken nose."
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
"You're what?" Peggy snapped. "I didn't take you for a quitter, Barton!"
"I can't keep up with you, Peg." He knew her well enough by now to know that she'd see through lies and call him on bullshit. "Give me nice quiet assassinations and chasing evil masterminds over rooftops in Tehran any day."
She grinned at that, looked at him penetratingly. "You owe me those archery lessons."
"I won't forget, I promise." He was quite sincere, though he suspected Fury would kill him if he found out. Well, both he and Peggy were skilled at sneaking off and not being found for a while. "When I get back, I'll come see you. But you know you won't be able to draw mine. I'll order one in a suitable weight for you."
"I'll hold you to that," she said with a sharp nod. Rather to his surprise, she grabbed his face in her gnarled hands, pulled him down and kissed him firmly on the cheek. "You be careful."
"Yes, ma'am, and you, don't terrorise my replacement too much."
She cackled. He wasn't at all surprised that she pinched his ass as he turned to leave.
"Behave, Peg."
"Oh come on, I've been wanting to do that for weeks. It wouldn't have been appropriate while you were working for me." She grinned at him, eyes alight, and he shook his head.
"I'm sorry you broke your nose," Peggy said, as Clint was on his way out the door. He paused and looked back at her.
"You're not sorry you slipped me a mickey though, are you?"
She only smiled.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
I should have stayed with Peggy, Clint thought. At least she only broke my nose.
He was fairly sure he'd broken at least three ribs in that fall off the rooftop he'd arrested a bit too late with a grapple arrow. And he suspected one of said broken ribs was really unfortunately located very, very close to his left lung. Moving was not advised.
Regrettably, not moving would definitely end up with him dead. He picked himself out of the dumpster very carefully and staggered along the alley, reaching back over his shoulder for another arrow. God only knew if he'd be able to draw his bow, right now, without killing himself, but if he didn't…
A small, slight shadow detached from the blackness of the alley and stood before him. What little light there was glimmered off her hair, the colour of blood in the night. Clint couldn't see her eyes, but he knew they were green, like emeralds.
He'd been hunting her through Europe for three months. At first he was following only rumours, a ghost. He'd come face to face with her in Rome, all unknowing, wearing a blond wig and a blood-red dress barely covering a form that had fuelled his night-time fantasies for a good week. Until he saw that unforgettable face in a long-range sight just two days later in Moscow – as she pulled a knife out of the back of the target he'd been sent to prevent her from killing.
Frozen with shock, he hadn't taken the shot. And the Black Widow had smirked in his direction before disappearing through a hidden door he'd had no idea was there.
From that moment on, Clint had the unsettling feeling that he was in a game of cat-and-mouse and he'd somehow become the mouse. Tonight, in the back streets of Budapest, he was quite sure of it. The bitch had been waiting for him when he climbed the building to set up his sniper nest. She'd set up a cunning little ambush he'd had no hope of escaping; only his willingness to jump off the damn roof rather than die on the spot had kept him alive thus far.
Apparently, his luck had now run out. Because he couldn't draw his bow. He tried, but the ribs he'd shattered were on his left side, and he quite simply couldn't pull the string back. He breathed shallowly, praying his lung hadn't collapsed. Stood ready, arrow in one hand, bow in another. He'd used them as hand to hand weapons many times before and would again. Not that they'd be much use against the Black Widow's twin pistols.
"You are beginning to annoy me, archer," a soft voice said. She was speaking Russian, which he understood well enough but spoke badly.
"I annoy most people," Clint replied in English, and she gave a short, barking laugh. Took a couple more steps forward, a glimmer of light falling across her face.
"That is not something to be proud of," the redhead said. Still in Russian.
Clint would have shrugged, but he could tell it would hurt way too much. "It kind of is, if you're me."
She didn't smile, but he thought she might have been amused. "You are a strange man, American."
"You seem like a pretty strange woman," he riposted. Watching as she drew another step closer. Her hands were empty. Where the hell were her guns?
"I am almost sorry that I must kill you."
"I'm sorry about that too. Must you? Really? I heard you'd gone rogue from your organisation. That you're an independent now. Natalia Alianovna Romanova."
She stilled. "That is true. But the fact that you know my name means you must die anyway."
"Damn, I shouldn't have mentioned that, huh?" Every second that he was still alive was a win in Clint's book right now. He kept talking. "I used to be an independent too. Quite an expensive one. Got myself onto SHIELD's radar in a bad way, though. Much like you have, now. There'll be more after me. They'll keep coming. Until you make a mistake. Nobody's perfect."
The Widow was just watching him, head cocked very slightly. Actually listening, he thought, until he said the last two words. And then that smirk he'd seen in Moscow curved her lips again.
"That is where you are wrong, archer. I was made to be perfect. Formed from childhood to be the perfect weapon. Your SHIELD will never find me. Especially now that you have warned me they are looking."
She stepped forward, soundless, light and graceful as a dancer in her movements. Clint saw his death in her eyes.
He struck first, feinting with the arrow towards her face while he swung the bow at her ankles. She sprang over it without even looking down, one slender hand snapping up to grab the arrow, wrenching it from his hand with astonishing strength.
Fuck, she's gonna stab me to death with my own goddamn arrow… he kept fighting, though, because Clint Barton had never learned how to stop fighting. Kept fighting until he was on his back, with her kneeling on his chest, and oh shit his lung was definitely collapsed now, he could feel the blood bubbling in the back of his throat as the arrow came down towards his eye…
"Oh no you don't, girlie, he's one of mine," a voice said, and Natalia's head snapped up in shock, she hadn't heard anybody move – and a garbage can lid collided with her face.
For a moment Clint thought he'd seen a ghost. White hair, a pale face – and then he saw the slash of red lipstick, the grin she flashed him.
"You pick your moments," he choked.
"Sorry I'm late, dear. Coulson set that nice Maria Hill on me. She's quite sharp. I had the devil of a time giving her the slip."
Natalia moved, groaning groggily, and Peggy was on her in a moment, aged fingers encircling a slender, scarred wrist.
"I knew a woman like you, once," she said softly in perfect Russian. "I hunted her down and I killed her. We can go two for two, or you can apologise to this nice young man and come work for me."
There was a gun in Peggy's free hand. Pointing right between Natalia's eyes. The Russian stared up at the old woman for a long moment without blinking.
"Will I have to put up with him annoying me?" she asked, tilting her head very slightly towards Clint.
"If I have to, I'm afraid you do as well," Peggy replied with a grin.
"I daresay it won't be boring," Natalia said after a long moment.
"Oh, I guarantee that." Peggy smiled. Tilted her head. "You remind me of my friend Angie. She was a good actress, too. The best I ever knew."
There were sirens screeching nearby, getting closer.
"Are they coming for me?" Natalia asked.
"Oh, no, dear. They're here for him." Peggy stepped back, slipping the gun inside her woollen cardigan in one smooth movement. Stooping over Clint, she unfastened his quiver harness, held the quiver and the bow out to Natalia. "Here. You take this, meet me at the Intercontinental Hotel in two hours. Room 519."
An ambulance screeched to a stop at the mouth of the alley.
Taking the bow and quiver, Natalia stared at the little old lady incredulously. "Aren't you afraid I'll kill you now?"
"No." Peggy stared her in the eye, unafraid. And then she turned and walked towards the ambulance, calling "Over here! Quickly!"
Natalia looked down at Clint, and spoke for the first time in English, her voice completely unaccented. "Who the hell is she?"
Clint laughed, spat a mouthful of blood. "Boudicca, reincarnated."
She had to look up who that was, once SHIELD finally let her near a computer again. In the meantime, she said;
"If you ever tell anyone I was taken down by a little old lady with a bin lid, I will kill you."
Clint gave her a weak, bloody grin. "You'll have to let me tell people I took you down, then."
Natalia considered, for a moment, which was the lesser of two evils. At last she nodded, shrugged, and said "I can live with that," before fading back into the darkness.
"Don't be late," Peggy called into the night, "You won't like what happens if I have to come looking for you!"
What REALLY happened in Budapest.