Shoutouts to JWolf28, BlackBay, Jo, ArabianForest, bellapaige88, Guest, MyPerfectEscape, and clarawithfitzsimmonsin221b for reviewing! Wow, you guys, I absolutely loved receiving your reviews! I love all the suggestions and thoughts each of you has to say, and I love reading your opinions, so please keep leaving them!
Quick side note, I don't hate Texas =) Clint doesn't like Texas from his bad experience there, but I do not hate Texas! =)
Alright, finally we even more relationship development and a lot of action. Hopefully you guys like it because this was the chapter I liked writing the most.
Enjoy! =)
Chapter 9
"Nervous?"
Natasha didn't look away from the window of the SHIELD jet. She liked having the window seat best of all, and she'd been glad that everyone else on the small jet had been scared enough of her to step back and watch where she went before they sat down anywhere.
"Ignoring me. How original," Clint remarked good-naturedly from the seat across from her.
"No, I'm not nervous," Natasha said, not taking her eyes away from the window. She could feel the others staring at her, and she was determined not to give them too much to go off of. She wasn't sure which ones were which, but she'd been able to identify Palmer right off the bat. He'd glanced up at her nervously from his computer before looking back down and typing a long thing out at the speed of lightning. Natasha was a fast typist, but damn, Palmer's speed was a thing of beauty.
"How do you like your uniform?" Clint asked. Natasha pulled her eyes away from the passing view outside and looked down at the form-fitting black uniform that SHIELD had scrounged up for her. It was a little loose in some places and too tight in others, but it would work for the simple task they had ahead of them.
"It makes me feel official," Natasha answered.
"You are kind of official," Clint replied. One of the agents snorted in the background. Natasha's face remained cool and level, but irritation passed over Clint's. His blue eyes darted away from her face to shoot a sharp glare in the agent's direction.
"So chivalrous," Natasha murmured quietly, just so Clint could hear her. He grinned his infectious grin at her.
"No, I'm not," he said. "You can stand up for yourself."
"So why didn't you let me?" Natasha asked. Clint's grin widened.
"It's not that I didn't let you," he corrected. "I just thought if I didn't do anything, we probably would lose an extraction team." Natasha gave him a blank look. "Because you'd kill them."
"Is that a joke about me being an assassin?" Natasha asked coolly.
"What? No. No, not at all," Clint said quickly, a look of sudden shock passing over his face. "I was just meaning—"
"I know," Natasha interrupted, her face still calm. "It's called a joke."
Clint blinked. She blinked back. Finally, his wide grin returned, and he chuckled loudly. "You had me. You really had me. That was a good one. I really thought you were pissed because I fucked up and made an assassin joke."
She wanted to smile at him, but she didn't. Instead, she looked back out the window and slowly inhaled and exhaled as she thought about the mission that was ahead of them. The plan was perfectly set—the Level Four agents would distract the guards while Natasha and Clint sneaked inside; once inside, Hawkeye and Black Widow would take back the box and escape through the nearest window in the hall outside the box's room. The extraction team for them would be right outside in a black car while the extraction team for the Level Fours would come via jet. After picking up the Level Fours, Natasha and Clint's car would meet up with the jet at a rendezvous point and then start back to HQ from there.
It was short, simple, and sweet. Natasha didn't even have to go undercover, even though she enjoyed doing undercover work, and she got to make that first step in getting her foot in the door for the Voloshin kill mission. For her, everything would lead to that. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Agent Coulson appeared and eased into the seat beside Clint.
"Agent Barton. Miss Romanoff," he greeted pleasantly. Natasha nodded at him while Clint reached over and shook his hand. "We're about to land at our first location. Your team will drive you over to the facility, and we'll get started."
"Sounds good," Clint replied. "Bing, bang, boom."
"Exactly," Coulson agreed, even though Natasha wasn't entirely sure what that meant. He turned his gaze to the redheaded assassin. "You'll receive your guns when we land right before you go in."
"Oo, I get to be one of the big kids now," Natasha drily remarked. Coulson grinned brightly at her.
"You really are funny," he said appreciatively. He glanced over her shoulder towards the cluster of agents who'd very carefully chosen their seats far away from her. "They giving you any trouble?"
"Not at all," Natasha replied. Coulson gave her a look that said he didn't believe her and looked back at the agents again.
"They're not used to being around world-renowned killers," he said. Natasha lifted her eyebrows in mild surprise—again, Agent Coulson had proved that he wasn't going to tiptoe around her, and she had to admit that she liked that about both him and Clint.
"Could've fooled me," she said nonchalantly. Suddenly, Coulson's face changed, growing more alert, and he pressed a hand to his right ear. Quickly, he nodded and stood up.
"Roger that," he replied. He looked down at both Clint and Natasha. "It's show time, kids."
Natasha unbuckled her seatbelt and stood up, enjoying the feeling of stretching her muscles out. The flight had felt longer than it had probably been in all actuality, and she was ready to move. Clint stood up across from her, grabbing his bow and quiver of arrows, and as Natasha took a glance at him, she thought back to how ironic it was that the first time they'd been on a plane together, Clint had had her in taser-cuffs, and she'd been feeling the effects of a broken arm. Now, however, they were on this plane about to complete a mission together. Were they partners? Natasha didn't know the answer, nor did she dwell on it for much longer. The only thing she was focused on was completing the mission successfully.
Well, she was also focused on how nice Clint looked in his long-sleeved all-black uniform, but she never would've admitted that one in a million years. Something that confused her about Clint was that he'd never given her that typical onceover that always accompanied males who were in her presence. She'd been working with him for close to three months, and he'd never once looked anywhere other than her face or parts of her body that he needed to in order to beat her when sparring.
And Natasha didn't like that. As much as she hated the disgusting male attention she was used to receiving, she disliked that Clint wasn't giving her anything. He was treating her as if she were any other guy, and she was most definitely not accustomed to that. Then again, Natasha knew herself well enough to know that even if Clint did show anything more than what he was, she would hate him and never trust him. Not that she had any plans to trust him.
The wheels from underneath the plane began to descend, and she turned towards Clint to look at him. He had on sunglasses with the lenses tinted to dark she couldn't see his sharp blue eyes. He caught her looking at him, and he cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Ready?" he asked.
"I was born ready," Natasha answered.
"Good thing about daytime missions is that we don't have to worry about all the alarms we'd have to turn off," Clint added. Natasha half-nodded and half-shrugged.
"But we'll have to deal with those top notch security guards," she said.
"True," Clint agreed. "Eh, we've got this."
"It'll be fun," Natasha deadpanned, earning a hearty laugh from Clint. He was always laughing at the things she said, even though sometimes she didn't mean for them to be funny at all. She winced as she felt the pressure in her ears build, signifying that the plane was descending. Clint lifted his head, and she assumed he was looking at the agents getting ready behind her.
"Guns out, Palmer!" he called out.
"Fuck you, Barton!" Palmer called back, but instead of getting mad, Clint grinned. He looked back at Natasha.
"It's kind of our thing," he said.
"How sweet," Natasha sweetly replied. She couldn't see his eyes, but from the way he moved his head, she could only guess that he was rolling them.
"Palmer handles guns as little as possible," Clint said by way of explanation. "When I say he does the tech shit, that's literally all he does."
"Does SHIELD even allow that?" she asked as she and Clint went to the back of the jet where the ramp would slide out, and they would descend. "I thought all SHIELD agents had to be proficient in weapons management."
"Sometimes they make a few exceptions," Clint answered.
"Like me," Natasha pointed out. Clint turned his head to look at her, and he nodded.
"Yes. Like you," he agreed. The two didn't say anything for the rest of the landing, climbing into the black car that would carry them to their destination. Palmer took the passenger's seat, an agent that Natasha didn't recognize took the driver's, and she and Clint were pushed into the back with another agent that Natasha already decided she didn't like.
"GPS up and running?" the agent in the driver's seat asked as he shifted into Drive and started moving down the lowered ramp and onto the concrete outside.
"Yep," Palmer answered, not taking his eyes away from his laptop. "We're in business."
Natasha glanced down at the ID hanging off the agent next to her. Wood, Brendon. So if Agent Wood was the one sitting next to her, the agent driving must be Agent Massey, she deduced. She lifted her eyes to look directly in front of her and caught Agent Massey looking in the backseat at her; for the millionth time that day, she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It was obvious that the agents in the car with her were uneasy because of her, but what they didn't know was that she valued her status in Fury's eyes too much to lash out at them. She wasn't sure what level these agents were, but she was confident enough in herself to feel that she could easily take them down. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Agent Wood place his hand on his gun.
"I'm not going to kill you," she said out loud, keeping her eyes straight ahead of her. She felt Agent Wood's body go rigid next to her. In the rearview mirror, both Agents Massey and Palmer looked back in alarm.
"Habit," Agent Wood shortly replied. Natasha scoffed.
"I wouldn't believe that even if I had a gun to my head," she said. She felt Agent Wood's stunned eyes lift off of her and flick over to Clint. She saw Clint give the young agent a bright, characteristic smile.
"Isn't she hilarious?" he asked cheerfully. "Never a dull moment with you, Romanoff."
The rest of the car ride continued in silence, and Natasha noticed that Agent Wood's hand remained in his lap away from the gun in his thigh holster for the remaining time. As the car drove along, her green eyes scanned over everything around her as she drank in details about where she was and the direction from which they were coming. So far, the biggest conclusions she'd been able to reach were that it looked hot outside, and Texas wasn't just one huge desert full of cacti and tumbleweeds. In fact, this area of Texas appeared to be pretty rural, much to her surprise.
Also to Natasha's surprise, Clint hadn't mumbled one word about how much he hated Texas so far. He'd grumbled about it enough on the plane, regaling his account of sitting on the rooftop for five hours and thereby obtaining a fierce sunburn that would've made an Irishman on Hawaii jealous—his words, not hers—but he'd managed to be a good little agent and not say anything now that they were on the ground.
As the car rolled along, Natasha was painfully aware of how close she was to both Clint and Agent Wood; she made sure that she held herself in such a way that she wouldn't touch either of them without it being obvious that she was trying to avoid physical contact with them. Fortunately for her, both of them seemed to be wary of her space, as well. Natasha had a feeling that Agent Wood's avoidance was more out of caution than respect, though, while Clint was definitely taking the respectful route.
Approximately 10 minutes passed, and the car pulled to a stop in an alley behind a large building. Natasha looked over at Clint and found him looking at her. His sunglasses covered his eyes, and now that she was close to him, she could see that his sunglasses weren't standard sunglasses designed just to make him look like a badass—they were sunglasses with enhanced features on them, though she wasn't sure what they did.
"Ready?" Agent Massey asked with one last glance into the backseat.
"Yep," Clint spoke up, looking away from Natasha. "See you on the other side."
"We'll be parked right out front of that window. Don't fuck up," Agent Massey said brightly. Palmer turned so that he could see Clint, and he held his hand up in a mock salute. Clint returned it, and then he opened the door, his bow and quiver in hand. Natasha slid out behind him and saw that they were standing right in front of a manhole.
"This is it," she announced.
"You're correct," Clint said. He slung his quiver over his shoulders and tucked the bow in place beside it as he knelt down and began to remove the cover of it while Natasha lifted her watchful eyes up and around to make sure that no one was watching them. Her eyes landed on a camera, and she paused.
"Clint, there's a camera," she said. Clint didn't even look up.
"Palmer's already hacked the feed," he said. Natasha glanced back at it. Good going, Palmer, she thought to herself, though she didn't dare say it out loud. She turned back around and saw Clint descending into the street through the manhole. He looked up at her. "You coming?"
She didn't bother gracing his snarky question with a response, and she ducked down into the manhole behind him, carefully bracing her legs on the ladder as she pulled the manhole cover over them. Now all traces of their presence was gone, and they could proceed accordingly. Silently, the two spies lowered themselves into the belly of the sewers; Natasha could smell the sulfuric scent that accompanied sewers, but it didn't bother her. She'd smelled much worse in her lifetime, so the smell of some shit-filled water wasn't exactly going to bother her.
Finally, she heard Clint's soft tread as he dropped from the ladder to the ground. She lowered herself to the very bottom of the ladder and followed suit. Once she was down, too, Clint looked around in the darkness of the sewer, and he pressed a button on his glasses.
So that's what they do, Natasha thought. They weren't the same goggles that he'd worn when he'd caught her in that hotel room—an instance that felt as though it'd taken place years ago when really, it'd only been about three months—but they seemed to do the same thing from the way he looked back and forth in the lowly lit tunnel.
"Bingo," he said quietly and started walking to the left of the ladder. Natasha followed him, noticing how he kept glancing over his shoulder to make sure she was there. In the darkness, she could feel her senses coming alive and taking over as she tried to identify any possible threats in the dark air around them. She could still see a little bit, but she knew that Clint was the one with the fancy glasses and could therefore see a lot more than she could.
"So they don't keep this entrance guarded," Natasha spoke up in a quiet voice.
"Not really," Clint replied, the volume of his voice mirroring hers. "They're supposed to, but they don't."
"It's an escape route," Natasha added. "They can get in and out as quickly as they want without being detected."
"Exactly," Clint agreed. He slowed as he appeared upon a door. "Well, that was easy."
"Level One, remember?" Natasha asked. She caught his grin in the dim light of the sewer. Casually, the archer reached into one of his many pockets and pulled out an earpiece, holding it out to Natasha. Natasha cautiously held her hand out and accepted it. She stared at it. "So I really am one of the big kids now."
"Almost," Clint said, watching her as she brought it up to her ear and positioned it. "Now you can hear the commands. Our Level Fours should be here any moment." He lifted his hand and pressed the communication button on his earpiece. "Hawkeye and Black Widow in position."
She could hear his voice in her ear and in her earpiece, signaling that she was tuned in to audial communication system that the agents had set up. She'd used these numerous times in the past on her own missions, and having it back in her ear made her feel somewhat more at home, more comfortable."
"Gotcha. Agents 20, 30, 36, 22, and 11 are in position. Ready?" a voice said back.
"Ready," Clint confirmed. Natasha's muscles tensed in anticipation. In just a few moments, she would be on the move. She looked over at Clint and saw that he was tense and ready to go, too. Gone was the carefree archer with the snarky comments and cheerful morning disposition; in his place was the SHIELD agent, professional, prepared, and unafraid. She was reminded of how he'd looked when she'd first seen him—she hadn't been able to see his face in its entirety, but as she saw him now, she knew that that was the exact look he'd had then.
"Clear." The voice in her ear was breathless in the way that only fighting can bring out. And with that, Natasha knew it was their cue. Clint lifted a device out of his pocket and held it up to the keypad beside the door. A green light scanned out over the keypad, illuminating the numbers used to punch in the password. After a few seconds of calculating, the light displayed the correct password. Clint punched the numbers in and then stood back as the door popped open.
"Oh, before I forget," he said suddenly. Moving quickly, he ripped a gun from his other thigh holster and tossed it to her, trusting her to catch it. Natasha nearly froze at the feel of having a gun in her hand again, a gun that she would potentially use on a mission, but she didn't let her delight hold her up for long. She moved into place behind Clint with her gun at the ready. From what she could tell, the underground level they were on was full of extra supplies. There was no one down there, and she couldn't detect any immediate or potential threats.
"Hawkeye and Black Widow are in the building," Clint said into his earpiece. As he walked farther into the room, he moved silently and stealthily, not glancing back at Natasha to check in with her now that they were inside. She held her gun up and kept her senses high on alert. According to the map, they were about to come across a stairwell, and they'd have to take that all the way up to the third floor where the box was being held. Faintly, she could alarms sounding in the distance. Apparently the facility already knew about their security guards being incapacitated.
She caught sight of the door, and she nudged Clint from behind to catch his attention. He looked back at her and then looked in the direction she'd pointed out to him. He gave her a thumbs up, and they both began to move towards it. Sure enough, Natasha had been right that that was the door to the stairwell. Guns still up and ready, the two spies began to ascend upwards.
One by one, they passed the first floor, second floor, and then they were at the third floor. Clint stepped to the side of the door, keeping his back pressed to the wall as he turned to Natasha.
"Want to take this one?" he asked.
"I would love to," Natasha replied. Carefully, she peered out into the hall and saw a number of men in black bulletproof vests and people in white lab coats running around. "About 10 people out there. Six civilians, four security."
"I take the passcode to the door, you hold everyone off?" Clint asked.
"Sounds like a plan," Natasha said. She started to move when Clint quickly stopped her by placing a hand on her arm.
"Shit, hold on. I forgot these. You'll want them," he said. She turned to look at him and saw him holding out two familiar bracelets. Her green eyes grew huge with recognition, and she eagerly snatched them from him.
"My Widow's Bites!" she exclaimed, though she was careful to keep her voice low. "I thought Director Fury confiscated them."
"Well, he un-confiscated them," Clint said. Natasha quickly slipped them on and looked up at the blond archer with a look akin to appreciation. She'd forgotten that Clint had slipped them off her almost immediately after having taken her into custody. Now that she was fully prepared, she felt a thousand times better. Without waiting a second longer, she opened the door and started running down the hall, Clint hot on her heels. Thankfully, scientists weren't exactly the type to stay and fight when they saw two people dressed in black wielding guns come running into the hall, but the four guards were exactly the type.
Natasha stowed her gun in her thigh holster and launched herself at the nearest guard. Performing her signature move with ease and grace, she flipped herself upside down, wrapped her thighs around his neck, and twisted him over her so that he was on the ground. With a quick glance, Natasha saw that he was effectively knocked out. One down, three to go, she thought breezily with a casual glance up to the rest of the men who were now running towards her.
She quickly brought herself back to her feet and advanced towards the guards. Her eyes landed on the one who was closest to her, and she sprang towards him. He lifted his gun to shoot her, but she was too quick, latching onto his shoulder and pressing her Widow's Bites into him. The man jerked as the electricity surged through him; right as he was about to fall, Natasha swung herself off his shoulder and used the momentum to knock the next guard hard across the temple with her boot. Three were now down, and she had one more to go. She landed and flipped her hair out of her face; the guard lifted his gun to shoot her, but she pulled hers out quicker and shot him in the leg.
With a loud cry of pain, the guard was down. Natasha calmly tucked her gun back into the holster and crossed towards him, removing his weapons and smirking at him as she did it. She didn't want to kill him, but a leg shot wouldn't necessarily keep him down for long. Coolly, she knelt down beside him and administered another one of her Widow's Bites. Just like that, he was out.
A slow clap from behind her caught her attention, and she whirled over her shoulder to find Clint standing in front of the open door with an impressed smile on his face. She couldn't see his blue eyes from behind his glasses, but she could only picture them. Even though she didn't want to picture them. Nonetheless, she was able to picture the amused glint in his eye.
"Good job, Black Widow," he called down the hall to her.
"You're supposed to be getting the box," she called back, crossing back towards him.
"I am," he replied, though he stood and waited for her until she was next to him. She'd barely broken a sweat, and her breathing was only the smallest bit labored. Being back in tiptop shape had never felt better, she realized.
"Waiting on you," she said as she started to cross into the room. She turned to look over her shoulder to make sure that the window was, indeed, outside the room in the hall just like the exit plan had dictated. Clint passed her to start searching as she swiftly stuck her head back out into the hall. "Found the window."
"Excellent," Clint replied. He pointed to a lab table in front of him. "Found the box."
Natasha looked back towards him and saw the silver metal box sitting in a glass case. "Grab it, and let's go."
"Waiting on you," Clint retorted as he pressed the button to lift the glass case protecting the box. Natasha openly rolled her eyes, and she crossed her arms over her chest as Clint reached out and grabbed the box.
Suddenly, the sound of something whizzing through the air caught Natasha's ear, but it happened too quickly for her to shout out a warning to Clint. The archer clapped a hand to the side of his neck as the little dart pricked his skin.
"Shit," he hissed. "Shit, shit, shit."
His legs started to collapse, and Natasha leapt forward without hesitating.
"Clint," she said urgently as she lowered him to the floor.
"It's a sedative," Clint said, his voice already thick. "I've been hit with this before."
Natasha was not surprised. However, she didn't say that. Instead, she grabbed the metal box, careful to avoid any more sedation darts headed her way, and she shoved it into Clint's hands.
"Clint, look at me," she said firmly. She couldn't see his eyes to know if he were really looking at her or not, but she just guessed that he was, and she shoved the box into his hands. "You've got to hold this. I can't carry both you and the box."
"Ok," Clint answered, though his voice faltered.
"Don't you dare drop this," she said. "Stay awake."
"Nat," he said suddenly, and she turned just in time to see two guards appear in the doorway. Letting out an annoyed sigh, Natasha ripped her gun out of its holster and fired two shots into their shoulders. Again, she didn't want to kill them, but this was enough to incapacitate them. She turned back to Clint and pressed her lips together firmly in determination. She grabbed him around the waist and slung him over her shoulder fireman-style. Already, she could tell that he was going to weigh a lot more than he looked, but she steadied herself, reminding her body to lift from the legs, and then she eased her way up.
Sometimes Natasha hated when she was right, and this was one of those moments. Clint Barton was much heavier than he looked, and she had no choice but to hold his dead weight as she tried to dart as quickly as she could out into the hall and towards the window.
"Shit," she snapped, realizing that they no longer had their way out anymore. Clint's quiver was designed to have special arrowheads, and one of them was specifically designed to turn into a grappling hook-type thing, leaving a strong cable behind that could be used safely lower the archer to the ground. Their original escape route was to shoot it up to the roof, and they'd repel down the side of the building to the parked car, but it didn't look like that was going to be an option. Or did it?
"Clint, how do you use your quiver?" she asked. She could tell he was losing consciousness by the second, and she was about to snap at him again when suddenly, his bow and an arrow appeared in front of her. Running feet distracted her, and she lifted her gun to fire three more shoulder shots into the appearing guards. Carefully, she leaned down and put Clint down, noticing that he was still holding the box, and she smashed his bow against the window, effectively breaking the window.
Thankfully, luck was in her favor because the large shards of glass fell to the ground outside, and she had a clean exit point. She pushed herself up onto the windowsill and leaned out to look up towards the roof to see how far away it was.
"Ok, that can't be too bad," she mumbled to herself, looking up at the two stories above her. She ducked back inside the building and knelt down beside Clint again. He'd somehow managed to shrug his quiver off of him and onto the floor where Natasha presently picked it up and put it on. "Clint, I'm going to have to put you on my shoulder again."
"Ok," he slurred, even though it was clear that it was a huge struggle for him to remain awake. Natasha lifted him up and over her shoulder, trying not to groan at his weight, and she stood up. Awkwardly, she managed to climb up onto the windowsill, and she peered out at the rooftop again.
"Here goes nothing," she breathed, and she held the bow and arrow in her hands, aiming it up at the roof. She wasn't all that skilled with a bow and arrow, but it was the only choice she had. She steadied herself and breathed in and out, and then she let the arrow fly. For several agonizingly long seconds, it seemed as though the arrow weren't going to reach the roof, but at the last second, it latched over the edge, and pulled tight. "Hang tight."
And then she jumped, one gloved hand holding onto the cable as she steadied her feet against the side of the building and walked her way down. She moved as quickly as she could with Clint's dead weight and a quiver attached to her, but before she knew it, she was on the ground. But now that she was on the ground, she had no clue how to get the cable unattached to her. Quickly drawing her gun out again, she aimed upwards and shot at the cable to dislodge it. The part of the cable attached to her fell to the ground, and she ran towards the car.
Agent Massey was right where he said he'd be, and she started out a dead sprint towards it. She could hear shots being fired behind her, and she silently hoped that none of them hit Clint as she ran. The car door swung open, and she lunged forward with Clint still on her shoulder. As she reached the open door, she roughly slid Clint off of her and shoved him over onto Agent Wood. She reached out to close the door, and she fired several shots over her shoulder as she swung the door shut with a loud, resounding slam.
"Go!" she shouted to Massey, who floored it as soon as the door finished shutting.
"What the fuck happened to him?" Massey shouted over his shoulder shouted right as Agent Wood started something else along the same lines.
"Got hit with a sedation dart. He's fine," Natasha said. Clint had passed out right at the perfect moment; his hands had loosened around the box, but they had the box, and that was all that mattered. That and the fact that they were alive, of course.
"Son of a bitch," Agent Wood said with a laugh. "I'll be goddamned."
"The box was rigged. As soon as he touched it, he got hit," Natasha added. Agent Wood looked up at her with a cautious look, though he looked more amused than cautious.
"Son of a fucking bitch," Palmer agreed from the front seat, turning around to look back at the three agents. Natasha silently agreed, but true to her nature, she didn't give anyone the satisfaction of knowing she did.
For the first time in two and a half months, Natasha was without Clint Barton watching her. It was strange to no longer have his blue eyes on her or his presence beside her, but she felt a strange sense of freedom in regards to it. As soon as all the agents had gotten back to the plane, Clint had been whisked off to the Infirmary to make sure that he was ok. Natasha felt awkward with being around all the other agents, but she didn't show it. Instead, she sat calmly in her window seat and looked outside the window.
After they'd been up in the air for an hour, Agent Coulson appeared.
"Good work, Miss Romanoff," he said. Natasha's green eyes stared at him, and she nodded once.
"Thank you," she replied.
"Agent Barton's asking for you," Coulson said calmly. "He just woke up and was asking to see you."
Natasha tried to mask her surprise, and she blinked. Slowly, she stood up and followed Coulson as he turned and started leading her down the hall to another part of the plane.
"Because of you and Agent Barton, we've got our fun little element back," Coulson said. He took a sideways glance at her as they walked through the hall. "That was a good first mission for you, Miss Romanoff."
"Thank you," Natasha said again. "It could've gone better."
"Missions always can," Coulson agreed. He slowed in front of a pair of glass doors and nodded towards an examination bed. Natasha could see a black uniform through the glass, but she couldn't actually see Clint. Suddenly, she felt strangely nervous about seeing him again, and she wasn't sure she could go in. "Director Fury will be pleased to hear about the success of your mission."
Natasha quickly looked up at Coulson, wanting to smile, but she stopped herself. "I hope so."
"He will. Well, this is where I take my leave for now, Miss Romanoff. I'm sure I'll see you again before the plane lands. If Agent Barton holds true to character, he won't want to be stuck in that bed for much longer," Coulson replied warmly. He smiled at her, and then he was gone. Natasha paused for a second, staring after the agent. He and Clint surprised her more than anyone she'd ever met, and to say that it threw her off track was an understatement.
She turned her green eyes back to the glass and saw the top of Clint's blond hair. She was filled with nervousness again, and she even briefly considered leaving. But as she saw him lying there, she couldn't make herself do it. So she took a deep breath, and she opened the door. The medics glanced up at her and paused as soon as they realized who'd walked in.
"Miss Romanoff?" a young woman with brown eyes and dark brown hair asked. Natasha's eyes landed on the woman, quietly assessing her. The medic pointed towards another set of glass doors. "Agent Barton's in there."
"Thank you," Natasha shortly replied—it seemed to her as though she were saying that a lot today—and she slowly crossed towards the second set of doors. She placed her hands on the door and pushed, making sure to be quiet. However, Clint's sensitive ears heard her, and he turned to look at her. His light blue eyes pierced through her, and she swallowed hard, trying to keep the sudden wave of emotions down.
"Hey," he greeted. His voice was a bit lower in pitch than usual, and he still looked pretty lethargic, but other than that, he seemed his usual self. "Good work out there."
"Thanks," she replied. "You, too."
"A compliment from the Black Widow? I'll take it," he said happily.
"I didn't compliment you," Natasha answered, though her tone wasn't as biting as the words were. Clint's grin widened, and he shook his head languidly.
"Yes, you did. Don't even try to deny it, Nat," he said. At the shortened version of her name, Natasha paused. He'd called her that back in the building when he'd warned her of the guards coming towards them. She thought about calling him out on it and telling him not to call her that, but she didn't.
"Keep dreaming," she said, and she did something that she'd never done for Clint before. She smiled.
