Natasha didn't blink when Clint didn't return alone. Beside him strode Steve Rogers. Like Clint, he was in civilian clothes. Both men carried bags that presumably held their gear.

Beside her, Michelle Hanna stiffened. "Were you expecting -?"

"No," Natasha admitted. "But I'm not surprised. Rogers is a good man."

Still, Michelle stepped forward to meet him. "I can't ask you t0 -"

Steve smiled. "You're not asking, ma'am. I met Agent Callen when he brought Clint's family here. It's the right thing to do."

"Don't argue, Michelle," Natasha said softly. "He's stubborn. And we can use his help."

Michelle blew out a breath and managed a smile. "I don't mean to be rude, Captain."

"You're not," Steve assured her. "You're worried. Perfectly understandable. Shall we?"

"Ever the gentleman, Rogers," Natasha murmured and preceded him onto the quinjet.

Then she was in the co-pilot's seat, Clint next to her, and the familiarity of the positions was more comforting than she wanted to admit.

"So," he said. "You and Callen."

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He said it as a statement of fact, not as something he needed confirmation for. She finished the pre-flight check and said, "How did you figure it out?"

"Michelle."

It took a moment for the pieces to fall into place, then Natasha shook her head. "I already knew her, which meant I've spent enough time with Callen to meet not just his partner, but his partner's family."

"Very good." Clint threw her a wicked grin, then sobered as he leveled the quinjet out. "Serious?"

"Serious enough."

"Huh." Clint studied her for a moment. "I guess I figured you and Cap."

"Oh, no," Natasha replied. "I didn't need to try to lift Thor's hammer, and I don't need to try to measure up to Steve Rogers."

Clint chuckled. "Guess it's my turn to give Callen a shovel talk when we get him back."

Locating Agent Gibbs turned out to be easier than Natasha had expected, from simply asking Hetty Lange for a photo and contact information for the man to, when he didn't answer his phone, tracking him to a hotel near the beach thanks to a check of government-approved hotels.

The hotel Gibbs had selected was clean but had no amenities beyond a basic breakfast and wi-fi service. It certainly wouldn't be a draw for families, except in the busiest of seasons when other fancier hotels were fully booked.

Thankfully, it was the end of summer, so the hotel wasn't fully booked. Natasha booked two more rooms for herself and her companions, merely raising an eyebrow when the check-in attendant gave the party a speculative look.

"What now?" Michelle asked after they'd collected their room keys and stepped away from the desk to talk quietly.

"Have you met Gibbs?" Natasha asked.

"No. Sam told me about the one time they worked a case together, but that's it."

"So calling him's right out," Clint observed. "We'll have to wait until he gets back. There's a bar over there, we can watch for him."

They'd barely taken three steps toward the bar when Steve stopped. "I can't go in."

"Why not?" Michelle demanded.

"This hotel's been standing since before the war," Steve said. "And they have some war memorabilia on the walls. Including pictures."

Natasha got it, even if she couldn't see the pictures he'd seen. "Of you."

"I'll wait in the room," Steve said.

Clint flicked a glance at Natasha, then said, "I'll wait with you. No sense drawing attention to any of us until we have to."

Steve gave a mock groan. "You're not going to try to teach me more card tricks."

Clint grinned and started toward the stairs. "Nah. Just a friendly game of poker."

"I suck at poker." Steve's voice trailed off as he followed Clint.

"Does he really?" Michelle asked as she and Natasha moved toward the bar.

"Couldn't bluff his way out of a paper bag," Natasha said. "We all agreed to penny ante. Otherwise, he'd be broke."

Michelle laughed, and Natasha was glad for that. This mission was too stressful, too personal, for both of them. A moment's levity sometimes would help them stay focused.

"Wine?" Natasha asked as Michelle selected a seat at a table that gave a good view of the lobby.

Michelle appeared to debate the question. "One glass. White, whatever they have."

"Sweet?"

"Dry."

Natasha quirked her lip in an almost smile. "I knew there's a reason we get along."

Minutes later, she approached Michelle with two glasses of Fetească Regală and took the chair to Michelle's right. Her view of the lobby wasn't quite as good as Michelle's would be, but it would be enough.

Michelle stared at her glass for long moments, then looked up to meet Natasha's gaze. "It feels strange to sit here with a glass of wine while God only knows what's happening to Sam."

Natasha took a sip of her wine and regarded her … friend? Maybe. If she let herself have friends, besides the Bartons and her Raven … seriously. "You're an operative. You know the importance of gathering intel before acting."

"I do," Michelle agreed. "It's just never been Sam's life on the line before. Not like this."

"We'll get them back," Natasha said, and Tony Stark's words during the Chitauri invasion came back to her. "Or if we can't, we'll damn well avenge them."

Michelle started at the vehemence in Natasha's tone, then smiled grimly. "Yes," she said. "We will."

One hour and a game of rock, paper, scissors (to decide which one of them got to handle a too-pushy guy trying to pick them both up) later, Michelle straightened.

"That's him," she said.

Natasha followed the other woman's gaze and, yes, that was Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. If the silver hair hadn't confirmed his identity, the man's near-military posture and air of command would have.

Natasha finished the last of her wine and followed Michelle as she approached the other man.

"Agent Gibbs," Michelle said.

He turned to face them, icy blue eyes sparkling, and said in Russian, "I don't know what you mean."

Natasha smiled and answered in the same language, "I'm certain you do. Just as I'm certain you've been hunting for Agents Callen and Hanna."

Those blue eyes blinked, and Natasha's lip twitched. She switched to English. "This is Michelle Hanna, Agent Hanna's wife."

"And you are?" Gibbs asked.

"A friend of Callen's. As, I'm told, are you."

"We should continue this somewhere more private," Gibbs said.

"We have rooms upstairs," Michelle said.

"Lead the way."

Michelle started toward the stairs. Gibbs made an after-you gesture, but Natasha only smiled. "I insist."

"Flanking," Gibbs said. "Good tactics."

But he followed Michelle, and Natasha fell into step behind him.

Natasha only wished she'd been in front of Gibbs so she could see his face when Michelle opened the door to one of the rooms they'd gotten to find Clint facing them with an arrow nocked and his bow drawn.

"It's okay," Michelle said. "We found him."

"Yeah, I can see that." Clint lowered his weapon and offered his hand. "Clint Barton."

"Gibbs." The two men shook hands, and Gibbs looked over his shoulder at Natasha. "Another friend of Callen's?"

"I owe him," was all Clint said.

"Brief me," Gibbs said.

"Actually, you're supposed to be briefing us," Clint pointed out. "What you've found about Callen and Hanna, that sort of thing."

"Why you?" Gibbs countered. "Why not an NCIS team, or the CIA?"

"They've been ordered to stand down," Michelle said, and Natasha assumed it was fury that made her voice shake, not fear. "Orders from SECSTATE himself."

"So we went outside the box," Natasha said, her sentence punctuated by the sound of a flushing toilet from the next room. She quirked an eyebrow at Clint.

"Storceag didn't agree with him," Clint said, and Natasha had to hide a smile. "He should be back to normal now."

The bathroom door opened. "I like storceag," Steve said as he emerged from the room. "They used bad fish."

"Likely story," Clint teased, but Steve's attention had focused on their guest.

"Agent Gibbs." Steve offered his hand. "Steve Rogers."

Gibbs recovered quickly, Natasha gave him credit for that. He offered his hand. "An honor, Captain. You're a friend of Callen's, too?"

"Not really," Steve answered, shaking Gibbs' hand. "But he did the right thing for a mutual friend. I'm happy to help him however I can. What have you learned so far?"

"Nothing good," Gibbs replied. "I reached out to some contacts and found out that Callen and Hanna were detained at the request of our Secretary of State."

Steve's lips thinned. "Ross."

Natasha blew out a breath. "So it is my fault."

"Don't, Nat," Clint ordered. "Just don't. I would've asked him if I'd thought of it." He managed a half-grin. "You always were the brains of our partnership."

"So there's nothing we can do." Michelle's tone was as bleak as a Siberian winter. "Not if the Secretary of State's involved."

"There's more," Gibbs said before anyone could move to offer Michelle any comfort.

"What?" Natasha asked. One benefit of being Russian was that she expected the other shoe to drop. It always did.

"Three days ago," Gibbs said, "a man called Mihai Vadim, some political bigwig, ordered that Callen and Hanna be handed over to him."

"Why?" Michelle sounded stricken, and Natasha rested a hand on the other woman's shoulder. It was the only comfort either of them could afford right now.

"I don't know." The admission seemed torn from Gibbs, confirming Natasha's suspicion that this was a man who liked to be in charge, or at least in control, and who hated not to be.

"Who is this Agent Callen?" Steve asked.

Michelle snorted. "Good question. He was in the foster system, in and out of foster homes. Thirty-seven between ages five and eighteen. He doesn't even know what the G stands for."

"He knows a little more than that," Natasha said slowly. "I don't know that any of it is relevant now, though."

"We don't know that it's not," Gibbs pointed out. "Tell us."

Natasha turned the request - though he'd phrased it as an order - over in her mind. G, her Raven, had told her things in private moments, things that she suspected he never told even Sam Hanna. What right did she have to reveal those now?

Then again, keeping his secrets might cost his life.

Viewed in that light, there was only one choice Natasha could make.

"Callen's family is the object of a blood feud by the Comescu family that dates back to World War Two," she said.

"The Second World War?" Steve took a step forward. "What happened?"

"After your time, Rogers," Natasha said. Then she met Michelle's eyes. "I don't know how much of this even Sam knows."

"He won't hear it from me," Michelle promised.

"Or me," Gibbs added. "But if it'll help us save them, we need to know."

Natasha took a breath and let it out on a silent prayer to gods she'd been taught not to believe in, asking for the wisdom to say the right thing, and for the forgiveness of the man whose trust she betrayed. Then she spoke. "Callen's grandfather was OSS."

"Precursor to the CIA," Michelle said.

Natasha nodded an acknowledgement, then continued, "After the war, he hunted war criminals. He found several, including members of the Comescu family."

"What's special about the Comescus?" Gibbs asked.

"Nothing," Natasha said, "aside from their penchant for human trafficking and, ultimately, loan sharking on a global scale. And their blood feud with Callen's family."

"And this has anything to do with Mihai Vadim?" Michelle asked, her tone impatient now that they were so close to action.

"It does." Clint looked up from the tablet computer he held. "The Vadims are cousins to the Comescus."

Natasha swore softly in Russian, not surprised when Gibbs echoed her, nor even when Michelle did. That Steve Rogers echoed her told her that this had likely gotten more serious than she'd planned for.

"Do we know where they're holding them?" Steve asked.

"On a remote military base, as far as my contact knows," Gibbs replied. "Beyond that, he wasn't sure."

"So we'll have to incapacitate them all," Natasha said.

"Incapacitate, Nat," Steve reminded her. "Not kill."

"If they're hurting either Callen or Sam," Natasha said, "no promises."

"How are we going to play this?" Clint looked to Steve, and Natasha wanted to be annoyed, but Clint was right. Steve was the best tactician of the three of them, after all.

Steve stared at the floor for long moments, and Natasha hid a smile at the frown creasing his forehead.

"As quietly as we can," Steve said finally. "Nat, Clint and I will distract the soldiers and secure the base while Gibbs and Michelle search for Agents Callen and Hanna."

Natasha wanted to argue, to say that she should go with Michelle, but she knew Steve was right. Michelle was, Natasha assumed, a competent fighter, but she wasn't Avenger-level, and she'd need to be Avenger-level to keep up with Clint, let alone Steve. So, much as Natasha wanted to go straight to her Raven by the shortest route possible … this time, as so many others, she had to do what was right, not what she wanted.

"When?" Gibbs asked.

"Now."