Disclaimer in chapter one.
So... my law professor decided to push back the deadline of our paper. Therefore I had time to update. I hope you guys like it. Don't forget to review and let me know what you guys think!
Happy reading!
(Sorry I realized I didn't post the right document as the new chapter!)
2356 CET (Central European Time)
Göd, Hungary
They've been partnered for years and while Clint has never really throughout about it, as if they had been partners since the beginning of time, Natasha did. She counted the days, in tick marks on the empty white wall of her room in HQ. It has been four years, to the day, that he didn't kill her. Four years since he single handedly turned her life upside down.
The Red Room fed into the lie that one crafty archer was able to shoot an arrow into the safe house that the Black Widow was using, her body burning down the building before she could escape. It was SHEILD's way of putting the Red Room off her scent as she defected. She wouldn't have to watch her back for Russians, because she sure as hell was watching her back in SHEILD facilities.
But she didn't really have to, again, because of one crafty archer who constantly watched her back.
Never before had she trusted someone so implicitly with her life. In fact, to be honest, the Room taught her that she couldn't trust anyone. It was a rule that she had followed to a tee, until that damn archer broke down all the barriers she had.
That damn archer who was now laying in the street next to her, bleeding to death because the dumb fuck took not one, not two, but three bullets for her.
0800 CET
District XV
Budapest, Hungary
"Clinton Barton!" Natasha exclaimed pounding on the door of the bathroom. While her ex-Delta Force partner usually took three minutes or less showering and getting ready, that morning, he was taking twice as long. They were on a tight schedule, the truck that carried packages that SHEILD was interested in was going to leave at 1450, and they still needed to plant her in the operation.
By plant, what SHEILD actually wants is for her to seduce the truck driver. She was going to be a poor college student bag packing across Europe and lost her way. If the truck driver could kindly bring her to her next checkpoint she would forever be grateful and do anything for him.
Natasha often rolled her eyes at the sappy, cliché, cover stories that SHEILD came up with. At least the Red Room was a little more creative (read: go in, get what you need, kill, get out). She didn't even get to kill on the assignment. It was supposed to mostly be intel gathering and diversion. Clint was to drive a truck, identical to the one she was going to ride in with empty cargo. All she had to do was determine the drop off point for the truck, and make sure that the actual cargo wouldn't get there.
Simple enough. That is, if her partner ever got his ass out of the bathroom.
"Barton! I swear, I will break down this door!"
"Hold your horses, Tasha," his muffled reply came from behind the door. He played around with the door knob before opening it, showing Natasha his disguise. He placed contacts over his usually distinguished stormy eyes, a mustache, and gelled the wig that SHEILD provided him with. "How do I look?"
"Beautiful. Now get out, it's my turn."
Clint sighed. "You have twenty minutes to get ready!"
"Thank you for the reminder, Barton!"
She slammed the door shut in his face. He smirked at the door before walking to the bed to prepare the gear.
1254 CET
District XV
Budapest, Hungary
"Mission is a go," Coulson's voice rang through their earpieces. This time, their ear pieces weren't as subtle as they usually are. Natasha had on pink earphones while Clint had on a Bluetooth device that most drivers have in order to practice "safe driving." He doubted that the people they were dealing with worried about safety, but it was SHEILD's (what he and Natasha called) costume department.
"Copy."
"Copy."
"Spider to Hawk, I'm in position."
"Hawk to Spider, same."
1400 CET
District XV
Budapest, Hungary
"So, where are you from?" Natasha asked the truck driver, in perfect Hungarian. She turned to face the window, rolling her eyes as the truck driver stared at her a little longer than he needed to.
"Around."
"I bet he gets around."
"Really? I have never heard of such place."
"It's coz you live like a nun, Tasha."
"You are a tourist, are you not? You wouldn't have heard of it."
"So, where are you taking me?" she asked enticingly. "I just... I need to get to the train station and..."
"Well we have to make a stop first."
She raised an eyebrow, the perfect actress, "oh, anywhere exciting?"
"Just around, you know. God."
"God?"
The truck driver rolled his big dark eyes, "You are a tourist. You wouldn't have heard of it."
"Copy."
"Oh, it's a city, isn't it? North of Budapest?"
"Thanks."
1420 CET
District XV
Budapest, Hungary
"Widow, please tell me that truck coming in is you," Hawkeye stated as he parked the truck in the intersection that she provided after interrogating and killing the driver.
"Negative, Hawk. I am still at District 15," she replied, static coming through the coms more than their chatter. "Your com working okay?"
Nothing.
Shit.
Natasha started up the truck in Clint's direction.
1425 CET
God, Hungary
"Hello? Widow, report. Widow?" Clint asked tapping the com. link in his ear. "Don't fuck with me like this, Tasha."
"It seems as though, the archer will bring us to our missing Widow," a voice muttered in his ear. causing Clint to turn sharply in the direction of the voice. The barrel of a gun greeting him.
Clint looked up at the owner of the gun.
Ivan Petrovich.
"Turn his coms back on," he ordered one of the men who climbed into the trunk of the truck. "You tell Natalia that the mission is a go, and that she has to pick you up."
"No," Clint spat out at him.
"You do it, Hawkeye," Ivan ordered pushing the barrel further up Clint's temple. "You wouldn't want us to kill her, would you?"
"You wouldn't kill her as much as I would! She's your most prized possession."
Ivan chuckled. "She told you that? Is that what lies she told you?"
"You've proven it, making all this bullshit. If she wasn't that important to you, you would just let her go. You wouldn't go through all this trouble to get her back. "
"Wrong. The Red Room does not like loose ends."
"She's not a loose end," he spat.
Ivan cocked his gun and aimed it at Clint's knee, effectively shooting his left one making him crumble. He then picked up Clint's com and handed it to one of his men. "Turn it on, and give it back to me. No doubt the Widow will come for him."
Natasha's voice entered the com in Ivan's ear. "Hawkeye? Clint? Clint, do you read me?"
Ivan grinned, watching as his men kicked and punched their new toy. "Natalia, it has been a while."
"Who is this?"
"You would forget the voice of the man who took care of you? Who gave you everything you have ever wanted?"
"Ivan."
"Natalia," he smirked. "I understand it is Natasha now, is it not?"
"What do you want? Where is Hawkeye?"
"Do not worry about him, my pet. He is... how do you say? In better hands? Although if you do not come to me, he will be dead."
"Where are you?"
"You know where I am."
1525 CET
God, Hungary
Natasha was shaken. Though she had no idea why. She spent most of her days thinking of creative ways to shut her partner up, and when she wasn't she was trying to hide from him while he insisted on "Americanizing" her.
Yet, the damned archer, with his stormy gray eyes and calloused hands have managed to slip into her, enough for her to care about his safety.
Enough for her to go into the damn trunk of the truck and see Ivan once again.
Natasha parked the truck next to what she knew was Clint. She checked her person ensuring that she had at least one Glock and three knives that Ivan would not be able to detect in a search before proceeding to get out of the car.
The sun was setting, and maybe to someone who was just passing by it would look crazy to see two armed men dressed in all black guarding the back of what looks like a delivery truck but politics and people in Hungary have never been at peace, and maybe for them this seemed like a common occurrence.
She saw one of the guards press his com to tell Ivan that she arrived. She marched past the guards, jumping gracefully into the back of the truck where she was met with a barrel in front of her face making her pause as hands were all over her body taking off the weapons which she had strategically let them. She scanned the room, ignoring the barrel in front of her, she knew that if they wanted her dead, they would have already killed her. She was too valuable an asset to them for them; they wouldn't dare.
In the corner of her eye, she found what she was looking for. A body slumped against the right corner of the little convex, blood oozing out of him.
"We have stripped her of all her weapons," one of Ivan's man stated.
The barrel that was directed between her eyes was lowered, replaced with an even more vile image of Ivan.
"How are you doing, my pet?"
"Well until I saw your ugly mug," Natasha spat out, ensuring that Clint's chest was still rising and falling through her peripheral vision. She wouldn't give Ivan the satisfaction of knowing that she had developed care for her partner.
"You have always been ungrateful, Natalia," Ivan sighed shaking his head. "I would have been.. .less.. what do you Americans call it? 'Pissed.' had you joined another country. But AMERICA? The one country that -"
Natasha yawned. "Cut to the point."
Don't have much time, Clint signed shakily with his fingers.
Ivan smiled at her walking up to a makeshift table with a black suitcase. He pulled out a couple of syringes. "You will come back to us, Natalia. There is no question about that."
"Or so you say."
"I say," he replied walking over to her tapping the syringes he had in his hand. "I always give you what you want, isn't that right, my pet? And what it is you want is this... Hawkeye."
Ivan kicked Clint before bending down and grabbing his shoulder. Injecting all three syringes that he hand in his hand into Clint's exposed neck. Clint thrashed around, his voice coming out hoarse as he screamed in pain.
"He shall be yours."
"What did you to do to him?"
"You come back, and I will give you the cure."
Natasha stood there frozen. It was her freedom or Clint's life. How about both? With her reflexes, she was able to pull out the knife she stowed on her body, hidden in the search, throwing it into Ivan's throat and effectively killing him.
She ran over to Clint, placing the back of her hand against his forehead to read his temperature. 'You're gonna be okay."
Taking Ivan's gun from his back pocket, and ensuring that it was loaded, Natasha walked outside, killing the two guards. The three men who had been inside with Ivan were in the truck that she hijacked. She blew one of the tires of the truck, before running to the driver's side of the truck that she was in, pressing the on the gas and hoping beyond hope that the damn acceleration of the truck would go faster.
"Mother Hen, this is Widow. Requesting extraction."
"Widow, this is Mother. Please confirm."
"I need that fucking extraction, Coulson. He's dying!"
"16 minutes, Budapest District II," Coulson's voice patched through the other line.
"Non-ambulatory, inject with... I don't know, but it wasn't good," Natasha's voice broke over the communication lines.
"Just get him there, Romanoff."
"Copy."
1541
District III
Budapest, Hungary
"Romanoff, we're at the extraction site, where the hell are you?" Coulson's voice piped up on the comm as Natasha weaved the giant truck through the streets of Budapest. If it were up to her, she would have picked a more subtle car. A white sedan, maybe. Something that would blend in. It didn't bode well with her that they could be so easily spotted.
"ETA 3 minutes," she replied. "This thing doesn't fucking go over 50 miles per hour."
"SitRep on Barton?"
"I.. I don't know, he's in the convex of this thing."
Natasha must have been out of it, because the next thing she knows, a shrapnel from the blasted window hits her shoulder causing her to duck down.
"Mother Hen, this is Widow. We have hostiles attacking from the left. Can you provide support?"
"Negative, Widow. The area is too populated, you have to get out of there your own."
"Give me something, Coulson!"
"We have eyes on you, you get two blocks North and we can get you that support, no closer though. There is a religious building near you right now, and we can't afford to blow up -"
Natasha blocked him out of her ear, as she tried to assess the situation. There was no glass protecting her, all the glass were shattered all over the front seats of the car. Her right shoulder had a bullet in it, and Clint was at the back of the truck, no protection given. She drove through the streets blindly, hoping that she wouldn't need anything.
Two blocks, Natasha.
"Coulson you better be there when I cross this street," Natasha muttered into her com. She saw from the corner of her eye, a sniper perched on the rooftop and a man, manning a machine gun on the adjacent rooftop. All trained on the stupid, giant, white truck that she was driving.
"We have eyes on you, Romanoff, just cross this damn street."
Natasha pressed her foot heavily on the gas pedal of the truck, glancing up as she crossed the second block.
"You are in the clear, Romanoff, proceed to extraction point. We have you from here."
Behind her, Natasha could hear the gun shots, and could feel the heat of an explosion.
Please let Clint be alright.
As soon as Natasha rounded the block to the extraction point. She jumped out of the driver's seat, careless of the glass that embed her skin. She pulled herself into the back of the truck to check on her partner, tripping over Ivan's lifeless body.
"Clint?"
"Tasha?" he groaned. his eyes flickered open, taking in her bleeding body. "You hurt, Tash."
The SHEILD medical agents came running into the back of the truck with their equipment, running over to Natasha first. As protocol, they were to treat the person who had the better chance of surviving and from the way the partners looked, Clint was the one who wasn't going to make it.
"You take him, you take him first," Natasha instructed them with a glare. She looked down at Clint who shook his head, weakly pushing away the hands of the medic who was trying to look him over.
"Tasha first," he muttered swatting them.
"Hey, I'll be okay," she said to him, running her hands through his hair.
"Not your fault, kay?" Clint muttered relaxing to her touch. The medics pulled him up while the others laid the stretcher under him. "Promise, you... not blame yourself."
"I promise."
Lie.
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