No, I'm not dead, and yes, I have a new chapter. We left Clint and Natasha unconscious in the middle of a burning building. What happens next?

Please, review, I'm happy to see that someone read this.


Chapter 7: Spy, not a soldier

Natasha was lying on her stomach and the smell in the air was certainly hospital. That was the first thing she realized when she woke up. After that her thoughts took a less pleasant direction. Her back was on fire and her throat was dry as a desert. She tried to move, but it hurt too much.

A nurse appeared at her side.

"Lie still, agent," she said. "You don't want to hurt more than you already do."

"Clint," Natasha managed to croak.

"Agent Barton is alive and the odds of his survival are very auspicious. Now stay still and I'll get the doctor."

The doctor came five minutes later. He was a middle-aged man with big fake smile.

"What happened?" she asked hoarsely. "I remember the fire, Clint passed out..." I kissed him on the forehead, a goodbye kiss, because I was sure we were going to die, "and that's all."

"You lost consciousness and you rolled down the rubble. The rescue team found you just in time. You sustained severe burns on your back. We've kept you in artificial sleep for four days, during which we began with plastic surgery."

"Plastic surgery?" Natasha was confused for a moment.

"Director Fury made it very clear that he wishes us to repair your skin as much as we can. To quote him, he told us that he wants a beauty, not a beast," said doctor in an awkward attempt to cheer her up.

"The old liar," Natasha sighed, not caring to explain herself to the doctor. Fury wanted the beauty because it concealed the beast beneath. "Can I see how bad it is?"

The doctor sent the nurses for two mirrors and she could look at her back. They told her it was bad, but she didn't expect it to be this bad.

The upper half of her back and the back of her neck were burnt to various degrees from just a very red skin on the right side, to blisters somewhere in the middle, to pieces of blackened skin on the left side. Most of the hair on the back of her head was gone too, but the skin there remained relatively intact. They cut the rest of her hair very short.

The person in the mirror looked like some kind of an alien. Even when the hand in the mirror moved like hers, her brain refused to accept that the marred skin is part of her body.

What's Clint going to say when he sees this? It was vain, but she couldn't help herself. There were going to be scars – a lot of scars. She was going to get herself some turtlenecks and scarfs to cover up the neck until her hair grows back. And buy a wig so she can keep working. No more backless dresses.

"You said something about plastic surgery?"

"We have orders to make you skin look like before. It's going to take time, but we have some new technology that might save you your looks and us the pleasure of being fired by the director." The doctor made a nervous face and Natasha could imagine, how creative Fury had been in his threats.

When she looked closer, she could see tiny scars in places where they had already started to work on her. She ran her hand through her painfully short hair. Her body was her weapon of choice, the best one she had, and nobody messed with Black Widow's weapons. Scorpio was going to pay for this.


The door of Clint's room opened and he saw Terence standing there with a girl Clint didn't know. It was his first visit after he had woken up that morning.

"Hey," he said. "Come in."

"Hey. How are you doing?" smiled Terence and pulled a chair to the side of Clint's bed. "This is Verity Sherman," he gestured to the girl, who sat next to him.

"Good to see that you got out all right," Clint told her and looked at her more closely. So this was reason why he and Natasha almost died. She looked so normal, just a girl of twenty two. The same age Natasha was in Budapest. He couldn't help but compare those two. It wasn't fair to compare any woman to Natasha, but he tried. Verity looked nice, seemed pleasant, the kind of girl he had dreamed of all those years ago, before the red pigtails.

"Thanks to you," said Verity, interrupting his thoughts. "I'm glad that you are okay."

"Well, okay is not the term I'd use, but thank you," he faked a smile. Inside he kept wondering about the comparison between Verity and Natasha.

"What's wrong?" Terence frowned.

"Legs. Burns all the way up to knees. Won't be walking for a few weeks," Clint made a face. Fury apparently bribed the whole Health Department to get the best surgeons to work on him and Natasha, but not even Fury could speed the healing process. "Do you know something about Natasha? They just told me that she'll live, but nothing else."

"That's what they told us when we asked. She woke up yesterday, so I guess that means she's better than you," Terence shrugged.

Suddenly the door opened and a slim figure in a hospital robe entered. She looked a little unsure of herself, something not usually associated with Natasha Romanoff.

"Speaking of devil," Terence got up and offered her his chair.

She sat down, looking straight at Clint. "How are you?" she asked. "They told me you can't walk." She acted calm, but he saw what Terence and Verity didn't. She was wearing a wig.

"I'll be fine. It'll heal eventually. What happened to your hair?"

"What do you think?" she smirked. "I was inspired by you haircut. Terence, Verity, can you leave us alone for a moment?"

"Sure," Terence headed to the door, but Verity hesitated.

"Thank you both," she said. "I'm sorry this all happened because of me."

"It didn't," said Natasha. "It could have been anything, you, some other daughter, or even a piece of equipment. You just happened to be the one Scorpio chose."

Verity wasn't sure if that was a good thing, so she muttered a goodbye and followed Terence out of the room. Clint turned back to Natasha and allowed himself to be relieved that she was alive.

"So, what now?" he asked.

"Well, Scorpio's gone and he's done an amazing job covering up his tracks. The analytic team can't find him. I didn't have much time, but I tried a couple of Janet's tricks. No success either," Natasha shrugged. "I guess it's his move."

"You are not that indifferent. You want to find him," Clint observed.

Natasha's unconcerned attitude disappeared in a second. She frowned and sighed. "I can't keep a secret from you, can I? I need to find him. I need to talk to him, I need to find out who he is and why did he know Dreykov so well. But I have to heal first and I have no idea where he is. So I suppose we do some community service for not being inconspicuous enough and chase him when we know which way to run."

"Community service?"

"Rookies."

"What?"

"Coulson thought that until they make us pretty again, we can be useful in the basic training." Natasha was smiling now. "Apparently the rookies can gain a lot from our field experience."

"So... we are on a teaching duty?" Clint couldn't believe it. "And Fury actually signed this?"

"Yep." There was a mischievous gleam in Natasha's eyes and Clint knew that his expression mirrored hers. He threw his head back and laughed.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun!"


Natasha chose a simple red tank top, black cargo pants and combat boots. She left her wig in her room and made sure her burns are clearly visible. She wasn't going to spare the rookies and she knew that Clint was going to help her the best he could.

They met in the gym. Coulson and Hill were already there. She stood next to them just as the gym door opened and Terence pushed in a wheelchair with smirking Clint.

The rookies were lined up and they tried to look as impressive as they could. There was eleven of them, three girls and eight boys, all in their early twenties. A couple of them was pale as death and one of the boys looked like he was going to throw up. Natasha could feel them staring at her burns and she could almost hear their thoughts. How did she get them? She wondered if they knew who she was.

"Welcome to SHIELD," said Coulson. "I'm agent Coulson, this is agent Hill, and feel free to forget it, because you're probably not going to see us again until the end of your basic training. That is going to take three months and it's main purpose is to give you an overview of SHIELD's activities and prepare you for advanced training. If your instructors don't think you're ready, they won't let you to the next level. And you are very lucky." The last word had a slightly ironical tone. "You are the only newcomers in history that are going to be lectured by our best operatives – agent Romanoff and agent Barton. They are going to teach you the basics of the undercover, combat, and other field work. They have agent Holzmann," he pointed at Terence, "to help them with some lessons concerning technology. Now I'm going to leave you in their capable hands. Good luck."

Coulson and Hill walked past the line and when they got to the end, Coulson stopped and turned to the rookies.

"And don't piss them off," he told them quietly.

Hill shot him an angry look and steered him out of the room. Natasha suppressed a smirk.

"Okay, kids, you can call me the Black Widow or simply the Widow. This is Hawkeye and Terence. We expect you to do your best and if you do that, I don't see why we shouldn't get along." She made a pause to let her words sink in. "Of course, yours and our opinion on what's your best might be slightly different."

"We have suffered some minor injuries recently," Clint added. "So it's going to take a while before we can participate in the combat training. But there is a first thing you all need to be able to do. Does anyone know what is it?"

The rookies looked at each other uneasily.

"Feel free to speak, we're not in first grade," Natasha encouraged them. There was a moment of silence and then they started to give ideas.

"Shoot a gun?"

"Work with a computer?"

"Keep calm?"

"All useful skills," Natasha nodded, "but the most important thing is to know when to dodge." Suddenly she pulled out a gun and shot all the rookies. They stared at the paintball stains on their shirts and in some cases skin.

"We'll have to work on that," she commented. "Remember, we can shoot you any time during the training. You always have to expect a paintball or a blunt arrow. Hawkeye, can we get the ring, please?"

Clint shot a single blunt arrow at a control panel at the wall. He hit the right button, the floor opened and a full training ring appeared.

"And don't count on a lucky miss," she added.

After a couple of hours Natasha realized that she was enjoying the training. The rookies were strangely pure in the way she had never been. They were normal. She saw them chatting during the breaks, laughing together, and even exchanging tips during the exercise. In a couple of years they would all have their missions and their eyes would gain the slightly distant look of people who know too many secrets and can't share them, but right now they were just a group of kids.

And Natasha was determined to teach them how to survive what was ahead.


"I tried a couple of Janet's tricks." - Janet Kirk taught Natasha about hacking and breaking computer security.