"I'm not lying to you." Clint mumbled nervously. Natasha glared at him angrily. "I just didn't want to seem weak or anything."
"What do you mean?" Natasha was confused.
"I just spent a whole plane trip crying about my freakin' divorce so I think I've shown enough vulnerability for a lifetime." Clint explained.
"Then how did you get that injury on your arm?" Natasha once again looked at Clint's bruises and the bandage. If she hadn't been an agent who was used to wounds she would have been a little disgusted by the injury.
Clint sighed and began to explain. "You didn't really think catching that guy was as easy as I made it seem?" Clint tried to smile smugly but ended up looking awkward.
Natasha looked at Clint closely. He saw a certain twitch in his eye that she had often associated with Clint lying. She shook her head in disappointment.
"You are not telling me the truth!" Natasha almost shouted angrily
"I am telling the truth." Clint defended himself
Natasha looked at Clint and rolled her eyes. "Fine then Clint." She gave in "I need to go train for my next mission. Don't bother joining me." Natasha walked away from Clint and left him standing alone.
Natasha was hitting a punching bag to release all her anger. One punch was for all the secrets Clint was keeping. Another punch was for her complete failure to catch the assassin. Another punch was for Clint for acting reckless in his marriage. One big punch was for Laura who was causing Clint a lot of pain.
"Natasha are you alright?" she heard someone with a thick accent say. She turned around and saw Wanda Maximoff walk into the room.
"I'm fine Wanda." Natasha responded "I'm just training."
"Do you usually train so hard?" Wanda asked curiously.
"Only when I have emotions to fight against." Natasha took a big punch to the side of the bag and caused a small amount of pain in her fist. She hid this from Wanda and left a blank expression on her face. Wanda shrugged unknowingly and went over to a set of weights at the side of the room.
"I heard from Falcon that Hawkeye has returned." Wanda began conversing as she lifted one of the smaller weights with her mind. Natasha looked in wonder at the red glare coming from her fingertips as the weight went higher and higher. "Is that the reason why your emotions are what you fight?"
"Clint has been acting weird lately. And he has been so emotional." Natasha confided in Wanda. It was nice to finally have a girl in the team to discuss her problems with. Before this all she had to talk to were Pepper or Jane and they saw Natasha as a threat.
"I understand your concern." Wanda empathised "It seems like you and the Hawk have a strong brother-sister relationship. An unbreakable bond."
"That is certainly true." Natasha told her. "You do know why that is right?"
"No." Wanda shook her head.
"Clint was sent on a mission to kill me when I was still a spy for the Russians." Natasha began "But when we met he didn't kill me and instead personally recommended me to Fury to become an agent. Without him my life would be so much…worse."
Wanda stood still and listened as she said this. She then picked up a heavier weight and lifted into the air with her powers. "If your relationship is so good then why are you so emotional right now?"
"Clint is lying to me and I don't understand why." Natasha took a swing at the bag with her other fist and this time felt more pain. Her face showed a little discomfort but she covered it up quickly.
Wanda dropped the weight back down. "If you want I can delve into his mind and see what is up." Wanda said. She threw a gang sign into the air with her fingers like she was trying to be cool. Natasha giggled a little. She had seen Tony Stark say similar slang whilst in Sokovia and she hadn't stopped trying it since.
"That would be dishonest." Natasha shook her head. Wanda looked disappointed. She took a large dumbbell that Steve likes to use for his training and began concentrating with her mind. Slowly the weight began to lift until it was above her head. When it was getting too heavy Wanda set the dumbbell back onto the bar that it had come from.
"Impressive." Natasha smiled a little.
"It is a workout for the mind. Much better than Lumosity ever was." Wanda joked "Anyways I should go as an agent is coming towards this room to speak to you now."
"What?" Natasha was confused but as Wanda left the room an agent in a SHIELD uniform came into the room.
"Fury wants to talk to you." He told Natasha "He is on the video phone right now." Natasha nodded and she followed the agent out of the training room.
Natasha saw Fury's face on a screen in front of her. She was by herself in the room with the door firmly shut and locked as Fury insisted on privacy.
"We finally managed to get some information on the assassin and the results are…." Fury stopped for a second to find a word "interesting to say the least."
"Explain?" Natasha was curious.
"Well we had an analysis of his fingerprints done and got no results. We then did a facial scan and a retina scan and nothing came up either. It was almost like someone erased him from the system." Fury began to explain "So we decided to do an analysis of his DNA to see who it matched up with him the most out of anyone in the database and you'll never guess who that person was."
"Okay if I will never guess you might as well tell me." Natasha looked at him sternly.
"Clint Barton." Fury looked straight at Natasha when he said this "Who was the person who brought him in."
"What?" Natasha said shocked "He matched up closely with Clint Barton?" Fury nodded. "How are they related?"
"That much we don't know as he is in none of ou databases and according to the entry on Clint all his relatives other than his own children are deceased."
"I have to tell you something sir." Natasha began to say "Clint has been acting really strange lately. I think he is lying to us for some reason."
"You don't think he has something to do with this?" Fury asked.
"I think he might but I just can't get my mind to believe it." Natasha felt conflicted. This was her best friend and suddenly she felt like she couldn't trust him. "What do you want me to do?"
"Do you know the location of Barton right now?" Fury asked.
"He is here at the Avenger's base right now." Natasha told him.
"So you just led him into one of the most private bases in the world?" Fury said firmly to Natasha.
"I had no reason to not trust him." Natasha lied. She did suspect a little that Clint wasn't what he seemed back then "And he is kind of an Avenger so going to the Avengers base of operations didn't seem like a risk."
"Natasha." Fury began to say "Clint has been off our radar for months. He is no longer an Avenger and you have to from now on treat him as such."
"But if I tell him to go away he'll suspect something is up." Natasha rebutted. "That is of course if he has somehow turned evil."
"I want you to keep him in your sight all the time." Fury ordered.
"That shouldn't be too hard." Natasha told him. "I think I'd better begin on that immediately."
"Ok good luck Agent." Fury said. "Goodbye." The image of him disappeared and Natasha let out a breath of anxiety. She knew Clint was lying about something but she couldn't believe that he'd turned criminal or anything. She shook her head as if to get her mind back in order. She unlocked the room's door and opened it revealing the base's ground floor. She left the room at a brisk pace to try to find where Clint was.
She was walking through one of the hallways of the base looking around for where Clint would be. Finding Clint could be difficult as she knew he had a knack for going to unreachable places like the top of buildings or crawling through the air vents. Walking around the base searching for him like a lost puppy wasn't going to accomplish much. She saw Steve walking towards her from the other direction and stopped him politely.
"Sorry Steve but I have an important question." Natasha said to him.
"Ok Natasha what is it?" he asked politely.
"Have you seen Clint?" she said "I kind of got angry at him earlier and I want to apologise." She lied through her teeth about that but she needed some excuse for why she wanted to find him.
"I believe I last saw him talking to Stark earlier." Steve said "It was in room A113. Do you know where that is?"
"First floor. Hallway A, Room 13, yeah I do." Natasha said. She smiled at Steve and waved goodbye. Steve went back on his path and Natasha began to take the nearby set of stairs up to the first floor.
She walked towards the room A113 and saw Tony and Clint near the entrance of it. Tony seemed to have told a joke and the two were laughing. It was the happiest she had seen Clint since they first saw each other in Washington. She was a little disappointed that she wasn't the one who made him smile like that.
"Hi…" Natasha interrupted awkwardly.
"Hi Natasha." Clint gulped when he saw her.
"Hey Agent Romanov." Stark said "Did you really accuse this nice, sweet man of lying to you?"
Natasha couldn't believe Clint told Stark. "Yeah that is why I am here." Natasha said "I wanted to apologise. I'm sorry for not believing you and if you are lying I am sure it is for the right reasons." Natasha tried a smile to seem convincing.
"Thanks Nat that means a lot." Clint said. Natasha tried to look at his facial mannerisms and it seemed he was telling the truth for once. "Stark and I were going to get some lunch. Do you want to join us?"
Natasha's mission was to stay with Clint so she replied quickly "Yeah ok." Clint and Tony walked out of the room and towards the stairs. She couldn't help feel suspicious of Clint's behaviour now she knew about the assassin's identity. Why was he getting lunch with Stark? Why did he accept her apology so readily? Why was he even here?
"Stop thinking like that." She told herself. She followed the two of them and took a deep breath to help her calm down. This was going to be hard.
Yay! Another chapter complete! I can't wait to read what you thought of it so please review if you liked it or want to give constructive feedback. Also follow and favourite if you want to keep up with when I update. It will be interesting to see where I take Clint during this story. Is he a bad guy? Or is it all just a misunderstanding? And I know some of you want Clintasha to happen in this story so we'll see where that goes. Thanks Niom Lamboise, katara-zuko1714, Fury-Natalia and Ninja0404 is a fanfiction geek(aren't we all LOL) for reviewing since I last published. Love you all and I hope you enjoyed it :D.
