I've changed the title, as it's a series now. Hope I didn't lose/confuse anyone. :3
Lead with the holes in Fury's intel, Natalia thought, eyes fixed on the grey tile of the hallway. Establish superiority.
A man had been executed in the courtyard the morning she left for Munich. The mole who had passed Barton the details of her mission, if she had to guess. Bruised and bloody and with six messy amputations where fingers should have been, he had begged for his life in English. Very fluent, unaccented English. S.H.I.E.L.D probably didn't know what happened to him.
A decent start, but she needed more.
"Good morning to you, too," Barton said beside her.
Right, Barton. Clint. She'd forgotten about him, so fixated on the impending interrogation.
He stopped walking and laid a hand on a chrome doorknob, but this couldn't be Director Fury's office, situated down the middle of an antiseptic-smelling corridor.
Antiseptic?
She darted out of Barton's reach and flicked her eyes to the frosted glass door. Radiology was stamped across the glass in tall black letters.
"What is this?" she demanded, and oh, every instinct screamed for her to run.
"You didn't hear a word I said, did you?" he accused.
"You said 'good morning'. Sarcastically," she bit back.
"Before that."
She came up blank. She recalled the quiet drone of his voice, but hadn't been listening at all. She'd been careful to nod and hum noncommittal little noises at him, but the greater part of her attention had remained distracted with finding an angle to gain the upper hand in the interrogation.
"I told you I was taking you to have your ankle looked at. And you shrugged and went 'hmm' and I assumed that meant you were okay with it. Obviously not, if the murder-face is any indication."
"I'm not giving you a-"
Barton arched one eyebrow.
She acknowledge the tension in her shoulders and the spread of her feet, the slight bend in her knees and the way her nails dug into her palms, and okay, maybe she did give the impression she wanted to kick his ass again.
"You have a thing with doctors?"
The question wasn't sympathetic, just a succinct straight-to-the-point assessment.
"Yes," she admitted, because one of Clint's rules was no lying, and if he knew anything at all about the Red Room he shouldn't have to ask why.
"Me too," he said, surprising her once again with his open honesty. "Well, probably not the same way you do. But when I was a kid I got real good at hiding things, pretending I didn't need to go to the nurse or the clinic or the ER. I got real good at making up excuses and convincing myself I'd be okay. That's not usually how it worked out."
He gave her a pointed look and an encouraging little smile. Despite his easy demeanor, the admission probably cost him something, and even though she realized that, it still didn't make her any more inclined to go into the exam room.
"Do I have a choice?" she snarled, and could guess the answer.
No.
"Sure. You wanna walk around on a broken foot, that's your business, but we won't have time for coffee if you keep this up."
He pushed through the door and left her standing alone in the corridor.
A test? It had to be a test. If she took off, she proved she wasn't sincere about wanting a second chance with S.H.I.E.L.D., that she wasn't willing to adhere to their rules. If she followed Clint they would know she had a weakness in him, that the trust could be used to manipulate her. She couldn't see any cameras in the corridor, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Someone was always watching.
She leaned against the wall and rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. What if she just stood in the hallway until Clint came back? She liked the idea for a moment, but that wasn't any good, either. Waiting around for orders gave the impression of compliance, and that was the last idea she wanted S.H.I.E.L.D. to have about her.
She was fairly certain the ankle wasn't broken. It throbbed and it was swollen and an interesting shade of purple, but that was just from running down alleys and picking fights with Clint. She couldn't think of a single reason to fraternize with S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors and sit for an x-ray.
Except Clint was supposed to escort her to the interrogation, and he wasn't supposed to leave her unsupervised down empty corridors. If anyone came along and caught her...
She growled a frustrated noise and followed Clint into the radiology lab.
"-and I'm benched, anyway," Clint was explaining disconsolately to a man in a white coat. "You don't have to give me the restricted activity speech. They're just fingers-hey, it worked!"
Barton - Clint, he was Clint now, they were friends - beamed at her with an expression half surprised and half relieved, and of course leaving her in the hallway hadn't been a S.H.I.E.L.D. conspiracy, just another one of his attempts to win her cooperation without force. Annoying, but also somehow appreciated.
They were in a small waiting area, rows of chairs against the walls to the left and right, a receptionist counter and a closed door straight ahead.
No exam room, Clint explained, because he had anticipated her being weird about it. She sat on one of the plastic chairs instead and the doctor crouched on the carpet to examine her ankle. Clint leaned against the counter with crossed arms and begged her with his eyes to behave and not kick the doctor in the face.
She obliged, but only just. The unfamiliar hands made her want to squirm and pull away, and the waiting area was too small for a confrontation, and she couldn't see what was happening on the other side of either of the frosted glass doors.
The diagnosis was 'probably not broken but let's do an X-ray anyway', so she forced down the anxious twisting in her gut and followed Clint and the doctor deeper into the medical wing. More closed doors, an unnatural silence, and a noticeable lack of staff. She had been preoccupied as they left her room and caught an elevator earlier, but got the impression they hadn't met anyone then, either.
A new swoop of nerves, and this time she wouldn't ignore instincts.
"There isn't anyone here," she accused, as Clint pushed open the door beside a plaque that read X-ray Lab 2. There were no technicians inside, nobody to run the machine or give instructions. The doctor stepped into the room and began prepping for the x-ray.
"Did you want people here?" he countered, genuine confusion drawing his brow together.
"Did you tell them all to get out?"
"Yeah, what'd you think?"
She chewed her lip and didn't want to share the conclusions she'd so easily jumped back to, S.H.I.E.L.D. conspiracies and tests of her self-control.
"Aw, come on, Nat. You know I wouldn't let anything bad happen. I asked all the staff to leave, figured you wouldn't go for it if we were outnumbered."
"What about the elevator and the other hallways?"
"Coincidence. It's eight-thirty, everyone's either working out or in the cafeteria already. Look, two minutes here, and we can wait for Price outside."
The name meant nothing, and her confusion must have showed.
"The doctor," Clint prompted disbelievingly. "Dr. Price, I literally just introduced..."
He trailed off and clenched his jaw, blew a deep breath through his nose.
"Natalia?" he asked softly. He leaned in closer and tilted her chin up, searched her eyes while his thumb absently traced the bruise he'd left on her cheek in the containment cell.
The unexpected intimacy startled her so much she almost missed the way he reached behind with his free hand and retrieved the phone from the back pocket of his jeans. Almost.
"It's not that," she told him quickly, and pushed his hand away.
He had every reason to keep his guard up. She couldn't blame him for having a twitchy trigger finger. But his suspicion still stung, and the tracking bracelet was suddenly a heavy weight against her wrist. That was the real reason he'd asked the medical staff to clear out. He didn't trust her.
Clint gave his friendship freely, and was willing to give her second and even third chances. He was honest and genuine and he made a real effort. She believed him when he said he wouldn't let anything bad happen. For the first time she could recall, she trusted someone to watch her back. She felt secure enough with Clint to pull down at least some of the barriers and rules she used to keep herself safe.
She had done very little to earn that same kind of confidence from him. She had assumed being civil was enough to win him over. For all his talk and kind gestures, she was still the Black Widow to him, she understood that now, and a track record like hers was hard to overcome. It would take more than an impromptu book club to forge a real relationship with Clint.
She didn't know how to do that, and the realization that Clint meant more to her than she probably meant to him left her feeling hollow and a little sad.
"It's not my programming," she reassured him, and there was a sullen echo to the words that she didn't entirely like, but didn't bother to mask, either.
"What's up with you, then? You've been a million miles away all morning."
"I've been thinking about the interrogation," she said, and immediately wished she had said interview instead, when Clint gave her an admonishing little frown.
"Okay," he said, although he continued to frown and scrutinize her. "Let's get this done, then we'll worry about Fury."
He waited beside the door while she had the x-ray, then led her silently back down the corridor, through the waiting area, and into the hallway outside.
"So what's bothering you about the interview? Besides how you think Fury's gonna beat the shit out of you, which he isn't, because S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't operate like that."
All intelligence organizations operated like that, but she wouldn't bother trying to convince him. Maybe she was a special case. Maybe if Coulson was still siding with Clint, if she had two agents vouching for her, the interview wouldn't degenerate into threats and violence. She couldn't retaliate if it did, not if she wanted S.H.I.E.L.D.'s help.
"I need to know what intel to give up, when to talk and when to deflect, how much to save for later, that sort of thing. I need to you tell me what Director Fury wants to hear."
"This isn't that kind of meeting, Nat," he said gently. He sat on the cold tile floor, back against the wall and legs stretched across the corridor. She found herself sliding down the wall to sit beside him without thinking, and he smiled. "Fury isn't bringing you in so he can play games. He just wants you to tell your side of the story. He's going to ask why you took the offer to join S.H.I.E.L.D."
"So what do I tell him?"
"Everything you've told me, even the bad stuff. Stuff you haven't told me. But Fury's sharp, he'll know if you're lying or playing it up for sympathy, so don't bother."
"I don't think anyone's going to buy the sympathy angle. Not after yesterday."
"You can take care of yourself," Clint agreed, "but that doesn't mean you don't deserve help. So, why do you want to work for S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
A practice question, and her reply was still the same as it had been the night before.
She was staying because of Clint, for the kindness he showed her and how if she tried, she could almost understand what he saw in her, the part he was trying to save.
She couldn't tell Fury that. She didn't even feel comfortable saying it again to Clint.
"Not a very compelling answer," he pressed.
She gave him a halfhearted "Shut up, Barton."
He moaned at the response and let his head fall back to rest against the wall, and they sat silently until the doctor stepped into the corridor with a file full of x-rays.
The ankle wasn't broken, only badly sprained, and she almost gave Clint a triumphant told-you-so before she realized she hadn't voiced her thoughts on the matter. She hadn't said much more than necessary all morning, except while they sat in her new quarters and had a quick breakfast, and that was mostly pleasantries.
Clint thanked the doctor and stood and pulled her to her feet, and she chewed her lip as she followed him back down the corridor. This was why he didn't trust her, why she would end up losing him before it was all over. He spent most of their time together dragging her through basic social interactions. He would grow tired of the way she hid behind moods and silence, grow tired of showing her patience and getting nothing in return.
"I told you last night, I'm staying because of you."
She watched from the corner of her eye, but Clint only nodded and kept walking. His non-reaction inspired a little prickle of disappointment she didn't care to examine.
"What's the problem then? If that's the truth, that's what you tell Fury," he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Naive idiot.
Director Fury wouldn't care about her feelings for Clint. He would want to know how she intended to benefit S.H.I.E.L.D., long term, after her intelligence was exhausted.
"It isn't enough."
"Of course it's enough, if that's how you feel about it. Nobody really expects you to give a shit about S.H.I.E.L.D."
They stopped at an elevator bank and Clint pushed the down button, made a pleased noise when the doors opened immediately. He made to step in but she gripped the sleeve of his jacket and held him back.
"Then what's the point of this interrogation?" she demanded.
"This isn't the glory of Soviet supremacy. Fury isn't gonna make you pledge allegiance to the flag or whatever's the American equivalent of your mantra-"
A cold dread dropped into her stomach, and a numbing little shock rippled through her and made her breath catch. She crossed her arms tight over her chest and couldn't quite meet Clint's eyes anymore.
"Where did you hear that?" she asked.
"From you," he said softly, a note of hesitant regret coloring the words. "In the cell."
What else was in the parts of the surveillance footage he hadn't shown her? Who else had heard?
"I didn't mean to throw that at you," he added. He took a step closer and rested his hand on her arm, withdrew when she twitched away rather than accept the gesture. "I know it's just what they say in your head. It's not you."
He understood, at least. The rest of them wouldn't.
"It's fine," she said, and tried to sound like she didn't care that he was learning all her secrets. She stepped into the elevator, making an immediate left and standing with her shoulder pressed into the corner next to the long row of numbered buttons. She didn't want to stare out at the city with Clint again and hear more empty promises about sightseeing.
"We're going down to one," Clint said. "You can push it if you want to."
He offered it like a treat, like it was supposed to make her feel better somehow. Odd, but she pressed her finger against the round number one and watched it light up red. When nothing exciting happened she made a halfhearted effort and arched a brow at him.
"You're such a killjoy," he groaned as the elevator dropped. He was joking, he was always joking, but the assessment stung, and she wasn't entirely sure what she'd missed. She didn't like the feeling, the sensation that she'd skipped a step walking down stairs.
"Did I do it wrong?" she challenged.
"No," he said, and rolled his eyes, "but you were supposed to enjoy it. You got to push it and I didn't. It's like calling shotgun, or punching someone when you see a Volkswagen, or...or doing the little buttons on the lids of fast food cups. It's something boring and inconsequential, but you turn it into fun. You've got something like that, right?"
This was Clint trying to make the awkward better, so she cast her mind around for something that lined up with his description. She wouldn't push him away and sulk like she had in the containment cell, no matter how uncomfortable the interaction felt, or how tempting it was to keep quiet and feel sorry for herself instead.
"The shooting range," she said after a moment, although she wasn't certain it was the concept he was going for. "It isn't challenging but it's necessary to practice."
"Okay, so what do you do at the shooting range?"
Intimidation tactics probably weren't his idea of fun, but he had asked, so she drew a breath and steeled herself for his response.
"Stare down the other operatives while I shoot their targets," she admitted. "I like watching their reactions. They always look scared and leave."
Clint's expression shifted into disbelief, then he laughed and rumpled her hair. The gesture was becoming obnoxious and pleasantly familiar all at once, and she found herself warming to it.
"I knew I liked you, Red," he said. The easy approval made her feel better in a way pushing the elevator button hadn't. "Too bad Fury's banned you from the range, huh?"
"You said I could have a shotgun," she replied with feigned disappointment, not entirely sure how to identify the impulse that spurred her to speak, besides a curiousity about how far he would go to compensate for upsetting her.
"I said call shotgun, it means-" He broke off, narrowed his eyes at the hesitant smile she could feel pulling her lips up. "Playing dumb isn't cute, y'know."
"I didn't know about the Volkswagens," she conceded, and shrugged a little. "You should have mentioned it. We were just in Germany, it would have made the ride to the airfield more interesting."
"You don't get to hit me for every Volkswagen," Clint shot back, "just the beetles. And if I see it first you don't get to hit me at all, and I'm Hawkeye, so you'll probably never win."
He gave her a grin, but before she could think of a retort the elevator slid to a smooth stop and the doors opened. The corridor beyond was drastically different from the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. base she'd seen, brightly lit with natural light from tall windows and crowded with foot traffic, people in suits carrying files and agents in tactical gear.
"Atrium's that way," Clint told her, and pointed toward a pair of glass double doors at one end of the hallway, where most of the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel were coming from. Atrium equaled exit, and she again got the impression that Clint was giving her more information than he was strictly allowed to. "Access to the parking garage, too."
They went the opposite direction, keeping to the edge of the hallway, and none of the other agents gave them more than a passing glance. The doors on this floor were thrown open in invitation. Natalia caught quick glimpses of pool tables and televisions and clusters of sofas and armchairs, wide sunny rooms filled with tables and empty workspaces, and a library of sorts with Authorized Personnel Only stamped on the door.
That piqued her interest, and she nudged Clint's shoulder to draw his attention.
"What's in there?" she asked.
"That?" Clint said dismissively. "People like government agencies to be transparent, right? That's S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attempt. Anyone can go in and read declassified mission logs, look at a bunch of made-up files, S.S.R. microfilm from the 40's, whatever. If you're on base, you're authorized. Nothing interesting. Fury likes to lure bureaucrats in there and then he disappears to deal with an emergency, so they get to look around unsupervised and leave feeling good about S.H.I.E.L.D. when they don't dig up anything incriminating."
It wasn't interesting to Clint, maybe, but it was a good indication that Director Fury had off-the-books projects and dealings he'd rather keep hidden. Her interest shifted to the files and documents that had been excluded from the little reference library. The folder Clint had showed her in the safe house, full of her photographs and statistics, was probably among them.
The quiet drone of blended conversations met them around the next corner, and the agents in this corridor stared a little longer than necessary, whispered to their friends as she and Clint passed, one even stopped dead and retreated back the way he'd come.
"So everyone's probably talking about us. Gossip's been crazy the past couple days," Clint said, and she could have guessed as much. She had expected it.
They rounded another corner and faced a set of open double doors, and Natalia froze.
What she hadn't expected was the sheer size of the SHIELD base, or the excessive number of agents, or how they all seemed to be armed.
She recalled the agent on the roof, the one whose finger had tightened convulsively against the trigger of his gun as she stepped off the plane. How many more of them had been unsettled by rumors and fearmongering?
"No," she told Clint, and planted herself firmly in the middle of the corridor, arms crossed and scowling.
"No?" he repeated blankly. "What d'you mean, no?"
"I don't care about your coffee. I'm not going in there."
Clint looked quickly into the cafeteria then back at her, brows drawn together, the question written plainly in his expression. She stared coolly back, unmoving.
"Chicken," he accused at last. He couldn't possibly expect that to work.
"Prudent," she countered. "But you can call it whatever you want."
"What, you think we're gonna get jumped?"
"I think you're the only one who cares enough not to shoot me on sight."
Clint shook his head and blew out a sigh.
"That's not true. Coulson-"
"Coulson wanted me put down in the safe house," she reminded him, and he had the grace not to argue the point.
"Just trust me, okay? You're fine as long as you're with me. I've got your back, and this is important."
"Coffee's important?" she asked skeptically, but she could feel her stubborn resolve wavering. Friends were supposed to trust each other, and if she didn't put a little faith in Clint this time, it would be another impediment to him learning to trust her. "Fine," she relented with a grudging little snarl. Barton and his stupid feelings….
"Fine," he parroted back, matching her tone with another dumb grin. "Everything's drama with you, huh?"
Their goal in coming to the cafeteria - the branded Starbucks counter beside the hot line - waited on the opposite side of the room.
She stepped a fraction of an inch closer to Clint, imperceptible to the other agents, but it brought her close enough that the sleeve of his jacket brushed against her arm in a reassuring sort of way. He cut a quick glance in her direction but didn't comment.
The stares followed them along the aisle between tables, conversations stalling in a hushed ripple as they passed. Natalia lifted her chin and fixed her eyes on a point on the far wall, to stop herself fidgeting or giving the assembled agents challenging glares Clint would have to admonish her for later.
She couldn't match Clint's relaxed stance, but made an effort to keep her hands loose at her sides and put on a neutral if not pleasant expression. He began talking at her again, and again she kept pace beside him and made only the necessary acknowledgements as she surveyed the room from her peripheral vision.
Four exits, three leading into corridors and one to a courtyard outside. Row of floor-to-ceiling windows on the courtyard wall. Fire alarms by each exit, adequate distraction if they-
"Natalia," Clint said insistently, real annoyance to his tone now. Both he and the man behind the counter were watching her, the barista with polite interest while Clint's expression leaned more toward furious.
"Just make it two," Clint told the man behind the counter. "Don't give hers the third espresso shot."
He took her arm and dragged her away. The agent behind them waited until they were safely at the other end of the counter before stepping forward to place his order.
"Pull it together," Clint muttered softly. He leaned with one elbow on the counter and ducked his head a little, and she mirrored his position to keep the conversation private. "What're you doing, assigning everyone individual threat levels?"
"No," she shot back sarcastically, only because she hadn't made it past the part where she evaluated the room for escape routes. Threat assessments were next on her list, but Clint didn't need to know that.
"This isn't a field trip, okay? I didn't drag you down here to be nice. Don't look, on your six, guy with the Belgian waffles three tables back. He's personal assistant to Councilman Nielsen. You're here to make an appearance, prove you can behave, and be so fucking boring that guy won't have anything to report.
"We're gonna go sit at Coulson's table and have a conversation. Five minutes. Pretend we're all marks, pretend this is a mission, I don't care, but don't be a jerk and don't zone out again. The Council doesn't know what happened yesterday and we'd like to keep it that way."
How? was her first thought, followed by Why would they bother? There was surveillance footage, witnesses, there was no way her behavior could be covered up, at least not without a massive effort and a lot of favors.
The barista slid two cups of coffee across the counter.
And Barton, the asshole, had dropped the information in a place she couldn't dare ask for clarification, not when the Council's spy was watching. So much for not lying and not keeping secrets. Her only choice was to play along.
She trailed obediently behind Clint to where Coulson and a woman sat alone at a table, sipped her coffee to hide the scowl she longed to direct at him, sat in the chair he pulled out for her. She watched from the corner of her eye as the Council's man laid a small device on the table beside his tray and slipped an earpiece in.
She had been isolated, insulated, from the Council's scrutiny so far. Clint, Coulson, Garner, their escort of guards off the plane, all of them were loyal to Director Fury. Clint hadn't mentioned playing a part because there hadn't been a part to play. But now-
"How's the foot?" Coulson asked in greeting, and gave her a smile that was a little too forced, too bright, especially considering the terms they'd parted on in the containment cell.
She hitched up a smile of her own, tentative and a little shy, playing overwhelmed at finding herself in a big impressive S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. Easy enough. Wide-eyed and innocent always got the mark.
"Just a sprain," she said, and because she could feel the man watching, she let her accent peek through. It was what they expected, what they wanted, a Soviet defector. "It was kind of you to ask."
Clint relaxed beside her, although he cocked his head just a fraction at the cadence of her words.
Coulson introduced his partner and she resisted the impulse to point out that she recognized the agent from the short exchange she'd overheard in the containment cell. Coulson carried the conversation, peppering them both with inane questions - How did you sleep? and Clint, did you file that report? - until Agent May shoved her elbow into his ribs.
"We're clear," she said, and Clint immediately slumped low in his seat.
"Finally," he groaned. She privately seconded the sentiment, and let her smile fall away. "Think they're satisfied?"
"Disappointed," May said with a little smirk. She turned to Natalia. "You noticed he was listening."
She shrugged and sipped her coffee. Any idiot trainee would have noticed the man's audio enhancer and behaved accordingly. Probably why he was a personal assistant and not a spy.
"And she's back," Clint muttered, and kicked her under the table. "Don't be an ass. I get to call you out now, remember?"
"I noticed," she confirmed to May, and the woman mirrored her offhanded shrug from a moment before.
"We don't have to be friends," Agent May said. She took out her phone and began tapping the screen. "Barton just asked me to make an effort."
Coulson gave his partner an exasperated look while Clint frowned, and Natalia thought maybe she liked Agent May best out of all of them. For a moment she was afraid Coulson would try to mediate, but he let it drop and turned to Clint instead.
"Did you have breakfast?"
"Cereal and Poptarts," Clint said.
"Was the cereal cookies?" Agent May asked, grinning smugly down at her phone.
"No," Clint scoffed. "Cookie Crisp is disgusting."
"Did the cereal have marshmallows?" Coulson tried next. She got the impression it was a good-natured pastime, riding Clint about his eating habits.
"They weren't real marshmallows," she interjected, because she was in a mood to take a shot at him, after he'd dragged her into the cafeteria.
"Hey, I didn't hear you complaining while you ate 'em straight from the box," Clint said defensively. Coulson gave her an incredulous look and she threw Clint a scowl. Maybe she should add another rule to the friendship, bar Clint from relating anecdotes that painted her as anything but the Black Widow.
"Don't get her hooked on caffeine and processed sugar," Coulson warned him, and shook his head. He passed her his apple and a container of Greek yogurt from May's tray, then dropped a banana in front of Clint.
Clint snorted.
"What, you think she has a refined palate because she's European or whatever? Go on, Nat. Tell him what you told me this morning."
They definitely needed a new friendship rule.
"No," she said, and sampled the Greek yogurt. May gave up her phone in favor of listening to Clint.
"Okay, so we're having breakfast and she goes 'Your Poptarts are wrong, Barton,' and I think she's gonna complain because they're not fresh baked pastries or something, but she follows it up with 'Nobody likes strawberry, the s'mores ones are better'. There's something wrong with her, Phil. Frosted strawberry is a classic."
Agent May laughed, or executed what was probably her approximation of a laugh, a short exhale through the nose and a little smirk.
"Good luck," she said. She stood and gave Coulson a pat on the shoulder while he gaped at them across the table. "I didn't sign on for this."
Natalia watched her leave, an uncomfortable, anxious twisting in her gut. She had grown accustomed to being respected, or at least being feared enough that people pretended to respect her. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were weaker than her ex-colleagues, poorly trained and easily intimidated, and she hadn't expected this.
She'd thought Barton was a fluke, his fearless bravado a character flaw that just hadn't managed to get him killed yet. But Coulson was watching her with a weary, resigned expression and Agent May had actually laughed at her. Her reputation didn't seem to be enough here, despite what she had initially feared before entering the cafeteria, and it made her feel vulnerable in a way she didn't like at all.
"Can you keep your mouth shut for five minutes?" she snarled at Clint. He rolled his eyes.
"That's the kind of thing that makes people like you, sweetheart. You have to be Natalia out here just like when we're alone, or this won't work."
"I don't care if your friends like me," she retorted.
"Well make an effort anyway. Like you said, so far I'm the only one who doesn't want you dead. Those are pretty shitty odds, if something goes down."
"Time out," Coulson interjected. "Why are you antagonizing her?"
"I'm not-"
He broke off with a growl and a muttered 'whatever'. Coulson looked between them for a long moment, brows drawn, then made a concentrated effort to direct the conversation to arrows and the R&D department.
It worked, at least on Clint, and Natalia was free to drag the spoon through her yogurt and tune out again. It was true, Clint had shown a little less of the careful kindness she'd come to expect, but she wouldn't go as far as calling him antagonistic.
"You should leave," Coulson said suddenly. His eyes focused on a point behind them. Natalia heard the same rippled hush that had washed over the room for her and Clint. "Don't want to be late for Director Fury."
"Walked right into this one," Clint muttered. He made a show of glancing at his wrist, shook himself after staring blankly at bare skin for a beat. Coulson threw him a questioning expression. "Lost it," Clint shrugged. "Forgot. We'll go up the stairwell and circle back to the elevators on the west side. That oughta shake 'em, if they bother coming after us."
He smiled as he spoke, casual and unhurried as he slid his chair back and stood. Natalia longed to look behind, but hitched up a smile of her own and matched Clint's tone.
"Thank you for breakfast, Agent Coulson," she said sweetly, and Clint gave her an approving little nod. He collected their empty coffee cups and canted his head toward the closest exit, not the obvious safe one that would take them to the opposite side of the room.
Natalia let her eyes sweep over the group of suited Council members and personal assistants and S.H.I.E.L.D. hangers-on as she pushed away from the table and turned to follow Clint. Three men and two women, each with a simpering intern at their heels, led by a young S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with sharp eyes and dark hair twisted into a knot at the base of her skull.
She wanted to have a longer look, but Clint's escape route took them dangerously close to the group. She concentrated instead on maintaining the vapid, pleasantly neutral expression she'd worn for the first part of their conversation with Coulson, while Clint tossed their cups in the trash and pushed the door open for her.
"We had the courtyard renovated last spring…." the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent playing tour guide explained as they passed, with enthusiasm that could only be feigned. The Council members dutifully directed their attention to the opposite side of the cafeteria while she and Clint slipped into the corridor.
She tried to hold her tongue until they were a safe distance away, but only managed one corridor and a left turn before the urge to round on Barton won out.
"When were you going to tell me the real reason we were going to the cafeteria?" she demanded.
"When I had your attention," Clint shot back easily. "It's your fault you walked in there blind. You've been ignoring me all morning."
So he was upset about that.
"What if I didn't play along?"
"You caught on fast enough," he shrugged. "You're the Black Widow, after all."
He rolled his eyes as he said it. She had a weak urge to slug him in the arm for being such a smartass, but mostly she found that she wanted to go back to her quarters and be left alone. He led her down the corridor and up a stairwell, and by the time they emerged upstairs a new realization had settled in the back of her mind.
"You wish you hadn't brought me in," she said softly.
"That's not it, but if you aren't going to try, why should I bother?"
She was trying very hard to win him over, but he probably wouldn't recognize it in her single attempt at honesty and the decision to follow him into the cafeteria, so she kept her mouth shut. They caught another elevator, and this time he didn't offer to let her press the button. He didn't look at her at all, choosing instead to watch the digital display over the door count up the number of floors.
"I can't hold it together by myself anymore, okay? We need people on our side, and it isn't going to be as easy as I thought." He turned to her, and when he spoke again the words were tinged with frustration. "I need you to try, Natalia."
She chewed her lip and considered him, his overbright eyes and the desperation behind them, his pleading expression, the exhaustion written plainly in the lines of his face.
"They've been interrogating you, when you're not with me," she guessed. He shrugged one shoulder, went back to watching the floors count up.
"Yeah," he mumbled, grudging agreement.
She recalled his uncharacteristic frustration and impatience, the three shots of espresso in his coffee.
"They took you last night. That's why you're strange today, they didn't let you sleep."
He didn't confirm or deny, just blew a sharp breath through his nose and frowned and muttered 'I'm not strange' under his breath.
If they were still interrogating him, her behavior hadn't been covered up as thoroughly as he'd led her to believe. They were waiting for him to slip up, waiting for her to slip up, and there was a very high probability of it happening if he didn't start filling her in on situations like the cafeteria. She felt sorry that he was enduring repeat interrogations for her, but she couldn't make the sympathy extend very far. She hadn't asked him to keep up a happy front and shield her from the truth. Wasn't he supposed to do the opposite? Wasn't he supposed to trust her?
Clint claimed they were friends, and he had imposed the rules, but she still wasn't sure it was her card to play. She gave it a shot anyway.
"What happened to not keeping secrets?" she asked. "Or does that only apply to me?"
"You really need to find a way to connect with Fury," Clint said evenly, as if he hadn't heard her.
Annoyance and anger flickered in her chest, tempered by disappointment, and she felt a little sorry for herself now. Exactly why she didn't work with partners.
The elevator opened onto another grey corridor, but Clint didn't move.
"Second on the right," he said. "He knows you're coming."
"You're not-" she began, then forced herself into silence, ignoring the way her stomach dropped at the prospect of meeting Fury alone. Barton was a weakness. She didn't need him.
Even though it would have been nice to have him, as Garner had mentioned he could sit in on her interview with Director Fury if it would make her feel better. Their friendship didn't seem to be that kind of friendship however, more a mutually beneficial acquaintance, she understood that now.
She put on an old mask, neutral and blank, quiet confidence and lethal determination. She squared her shoulders and stepped from the elevator, long quick strides that usually had the other operatives veering out of her path.
She didn't look back as she reached the second door on the right, or as she pounded her clenched fist against the metal hard enough to bruise. She didn't falter when the door swept open and a giant of a man with an eye patch and what appeared to be a permanent scowl stared down at her. She met his eye and stared haughtily back, again ignoring the uncomfortable swoop of nerves in her stomach, and didn't follow his gaze when he leaned around the edge of the door to peer back down the corridor.
She could feel the archer's eyes on her, but didn't look back, not when Director Fury gripped her shoulder with one scarred hand and pulled her into his office, not even when she heard the archer's voice echoing down the corridor after her.
Wait a minute, Red!
The archer was a weakness, and she didn't need him.