A/N: Any thoughts or ideas you peoples have, feel free to send them to me via PM or review. Speaking of reviews, those make me giggly and motivated :D
NATALEE POV
I'm sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. My grey hood is pulled over my curls and I have gold rimmed aviator sunglasses on. My earbuds are playing Team by Iggy Azalea. I've been sitting here for about two hours. Maria's probably called me a hundred times. There's a glass Coke bottle next to me and I'm watching the people walk around the reflecting pool. Footsteps approach me and stop.
"I got your text," Billie's soft, concerned voice says. "I tried to call you."
"Turned my phone off," I say, taking my earbuds out. She sits next to me.
"So your parents...?" She looks at me. "You know who they are. That's gotta be good, right?"
"My parents didn't want me, bird." I turn my head. "But now they want to meet me?" I scoff. Billie reaches over and takes my sunglasses from my face. She doesn't like talking to me when she can't see my face completely. I think it's strange but I haven't asked her about it yet. Must be a spy thing. Having the need to read people's expressions.
"Did Maria say you were given up?" she asks, her voice still quiet and calm. I take a drink from my Coke and look at my hands. "Then how do you know you were given up?"
"Because my parents are part of the Avengers. Do they expect me to believe I was kidnapped from the Avengers?" I laugh dryly. "My life was hell but I'm not going to meet the people that started me on this path."
"Well, they're probably not going to leave you alone until you meet them. So why don't you meet them? You can ask what happened, find out the truth, and then you can decide if you completely despise them." Billie shrugs and nudges me with her shoulder. I laugh lightly. "Hey! There it is! I didn't think you were going to smile." She smiles brightly at me.
"You're a dork, you know that, bird?" I raise an eyebrow. She smiles cheekily.
"You love me anyway," Billie says and takes my Coke bottle from me.
"I paid for that," I protest.
"And I appreciate it." She laughs, drinking from my Coke. "Hey, Nikki wants to go running later," my partner says.
I sigh and lean back to lay on the steps. "It'll help me keep my mind off of my superhero parents so I'm in," I say.
"You're going to have to face it eventually." Billie shrugs. I lean back against the stairs, my arms covering my eyes, and groan. It's loud and dramatic and makes Billie laugh. "You're a dork, you know that?" She raises an eyebrow at me.
"But you would be lost without me." I smile.
*SCENE BREAK*
Natasha and Clint were sitting in a room with a long table with the S.H.I.E.L.D. symbol on it. The fiery haired assassin was drumming her nails on the shiny table, her fist rested against her cheek. They had been waiting for about fifteen minutes. "This is ridiculous," she said to Clint in a hushed voice.
"Be patient, Tash," he said, gently rubbing her shoulder.
"We get a call about our daughter, who's been missing for fourteen years, and they have the audacity to make us wait?" Natasha said in almost a growl, sitting up more to look at him. "Fourteen years we've been kept in the dark. She just disappeared, Barton. Our daughter just vanished."
"And we've waited this long. We can wait twenty minutes." He kissed her cheek and took her hand in his. "Before you know it, our baby will be home."
"Our teenager will be home," Natasha corrected. "We've missed everything." She sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. The door slid open and they separated from each other. Coulson walked in with a smile and a file in his hand. "Hi Phil," Natasha said.
"You made good time," he commented and set the file on the table. "About Natalee..." he started, sitting down cattycorner to them.
"Did you find her?" Clint blurted out.
"Oh, we found her." He chuckled. "Five years ago."
"Five...? What?" Natasha stammered. "What do you mean you found her five years ago?"
"Well, we didn't know. She was kind of on a wanted list," Coulson sighed.
"A wanted list? She would have been ten." Clint snorted in disbelief. "How did a ten year old get on a wanted list?"
"It seems like she takes after her parents." He shrugged and pushed the file forward. "We caught her. She came from Russia. Had the accent and everything. Then we gave her a choice: she could work for us under the junior program of S.H.I.E.L.D. to redeem herself, or we would send her to a juvenile detention facility for the criminally insane and dangerous," he said. Clint opened the file.
"Red Archer?" Natasha pulled it closer to her. "She was trained as an assassin?"
"We don't know the whole story, except that there was an organization in Russia that created child assassins. She won't tell us anything else," Coulson said. "But she's very good at what she does"
"And you let her continue to kill people?" Clint asked.
"Natalee's not someone you really want to upset. Reminds me of someone." The agent cast a sidelong glance at Natasha. "We suspected a similarity to both of you and acquired some of her blood after a recent mission had some complications. A DNA test confirmed it. This is your daughter."
"Why does this say Natalee Hill?" Natasha asked.
"Natalee came to America with her code name and her first name. She didn't know anything else about herself," Coulson explained. "Hill was signed as her supervising officer and she needed a last name, so Natalee took hers."
"Does she know yet?" the blonde man asked, flipping through mission reports and photos from her file.
"Hill told her earlier today. That's actually why it took me a while to come here," he said. "Natalee wasn't very...happy. She took off, and Agent Hill doesn't really know where she went. We think she's with her partner, Billie, but she's not answering her phone so we're not sure."
"Does she do that a lot?" Clint asked.
"Her partner can handle it," he assured them.
"Who's this Billie guy?" the archer asked, feeling an instinctually paternal overprotectiveness creeping in.
"It's a girl, Barton," Natasha whispered, pointing to a section of a page. "It's short for Willow"
"Oh. Good," he said with a nod. "When do you think she'll be back?" he asked.
"We're not sure. She'll need some time to process everything. It's best not to try and push her."
*SCENE BREAK*
NATALEE POV
I'm in a red tank top, black shorts, and red Nike shoes while Billie's wearing a light blue t-shirt, black shorts, and black running shoes. We had run back to the Helicarrier to change. "I thought Nikki was supposed to be running with us," I say, pulling my knee to my chest. My hair is down while Billie's is up in a high ponytail.
"She'll be here. Why don't you put your hair up?" Billie asks.
"I don't know. Doesn't feel natural." I say. "Did you text Nikki? Does she know we're out here?"
"Yeah, I told her," she responds. "Have you thought about what you're going to do about your parents?"
"It's all I can think about. Part of me wants to know what happened, and the other part doesn't really care." I shrug. There's running footsteps and we look over as Nikki approaches.
"Hey, I heard about your parents," Nikki says with a smile.
My shoulders drop. "How the hell did you hear about that?" I hiss.
My friend smirks. "A little birdie told me." Without looking, I punch Billie in the shoulder.
"Ow! What the hell?!" Billie rubs the spot I punched. "How do you know it was me?!"
"One, you're the only person I told. And two, I call you Bird," I say, glaring at her.
"Okay, so I told Nikki," Billie admitted. "She was going to find out eventually and I was only telling her so she would be prepared when Natalee told her." Billie glares at Nikki, her hand still on her shoulder.
"Hey, man, I'm curious." Nikki shrugs and looks at me. "So?"
"So what?" I raise an eyebrow.
"What are you going to do about it?" She puts her hands on her hips.
"What am I supposed to do about it?" I cross my arms over my chest.
"Nat, they're your parents. I know you think it's their fault, but you need to hear their side. You were just a baby when it happened, right?" Nikki asks, cocking her head.
"If it means that much to you two that I go and I meet my parents, then fine. I'll tell Maria, and I'll meet them," I sigh in defeat. Billie and Nikki high five.
"Yes! Okay, now we can start running," Billie says.
"Try to keep up!" Nikki laughs and takes off.
"What the hell?! Nikki!" Billie takes off after her and I laugh, breaking into a sprint after them. Nikki is really fast. She likes to mess with us about it whenever we go running. Now that I think about it, I don't know why we accept her offers. Nikki's very quickly pulling ahead, leaving just her laughter behind.
A/N: YAY! I DID IT! NEW CHAPTER! THANKS STEPHIE FOR BEING MY BETA READER AND EDITING STUFF :D
