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Chapter Twenty Nine
Natasha was gently nudged awake by a large hand holding hers gently. The calloused fingers cupped her fingers while a thumb rubbed her palm. It tickled. She grunted a little and the thumb brushing against hers stilled. Just when she about drifted off again, it started again. Natasha responded by growling which surprised who-ever was holding her hand because it abruptly dropped it.
"Clint Barton, What did you do?" an accusing voice spat into the air.
"Hi Mel, Did I wake you up?" Hawk Eye teased the menacing looking Asian who appeared who appeared in just a sports bra and pair of short shorts. "Did I wake you?" he asked her innocently knowing full well he had. Clint had offered to take the night watch of Natasha and let the others sleep. He wanted to spend time with Romanov, even if she was asleep.
"Shut up Barton," Melinda whispered in a low crisp voice. "What did you do to make her growl? I told you I had not told her yet she was now a shifter. That's not the way I want her to find out. What if she shifted in the bed?"
"Oh, that would be something to see" Clint tried to imagine stroking the stubble on his chin. "Think she will be able to pin my ass? Honestly Mel, I was just trying tickling the only spot on her body that is ticklish"
"And you know this why?" Phil Coulson whispered from the door carrying Skye cradling her to his chest. He came in the room with the other agents and sat in a chair beside Melinda. He purposely slumped in the chair a little so Skye could lay against his bare chest. Skye used Coulson as a bed, her head on his shoulder and little body sprawled upon totally across his upper body. Melinda had called it bonding when she suggested it. He said the baby needed to "scent him", to "know him" intimately and as a shifter she needed skin to skin. So she lay blissfully asleep in only a diaper a blanket draped across her and Coulson's upper body.
Clint Barton's cheeks blushed bright red and Phil Coulson could not suppress a smirk. Melinda May just raised her eyebrow.
"So on those long missions, you had tickle fights?" Coulson chuckled amused implying it was something more.
"Are you implying," Barton answered embarrassed. "No, No, it's tickling only. She does it after she pins me to the mats when we work out. I accidently found the spot on her hand when I tried to pull her off me one day," Barton defended himself to the two life partners across from him.
"Phil, stop teasing him," Melinda finally spoke up masking her amusement and delight that Barton may finally after all this time realizing he might feel something besides friendship to the Black Widow. He just was not ready to admit it to himself. "And Barton, no tickling Romanov, don't be fooled by her appearing to be asleep, she can still clip you and toss you across the room." she told Barton masking her amusement.
"She's right Barton, She has already proved that during her convalescence," Coulson told his good friend dryly. "Simmons found that out when she got here when she tried to sneak up on Natasha with a needle to sedate her. And I got a trip flying into a wall last night."
The three agents sat with the fourth injured agent in silence for a while then Barton spoke up.
"I just tickled her because I wanted her to wake up," Barton admitted to his friends. "I got to leave at dawn and I wanted to speak with her."
"Ok Barton, but remember no talking about her being a shifter due to the blood I gave her and do not speak to her about the mission," Melinda spoke to him in a maternal warning. Melinda raised an eyebrow and just sat staring at him until he nodded his head. It was only then that Melinda leaned over and started to purr. She sat up briefly and told him simply start purring by her other ear. Moments later, Natasha's green eyes blinked open everything seemed fuzzy. "
Mel?" she whispered liking her lips. On Natasha's left side, a cup with a straw appeared coming from the opposite side from where Melinda sat. Romanov's green eye caught someone sitting on her other side. "Barton," she whispered. "Come to spring me out of here?" she asked him her voice hoarse from lack of use.
"No way Romanov," Clint answered putting up his hands up palms out. "And sick "The Calvary" on me? No way. Fury made nice and told me I could come visit and see how Coulson and his team were treating you."
Natasha just nods at him not really feeling good and not talkative. "I have missed you Clint," she told him attempting to squeeze the hand holding hers. "To long," her voice trailed off fighting to not drift off.
"Tasha," Melinda leaned over and started stroking the Russian's forehead and stroked her eyebrows. "Go back to sleep. Clint will be meeting up with us in a few days." Melinda promised pleased that Natasha easy slipped back into an easy slumber.
Melinda leaned back in her chair and looked over at Clint and gave him a half smile.
"Thanks Melinda," Clint told his friend. "I just could not leave without speaking to her. Even knowing I will see your team in Nepal in a few days."
"I understand," Melinda told him. "And she is getting better. She should be up to threatening you if you don't spring her from medical next time you see her."
"Phil, Mel, Skye being my daughter is so wonderful but scares me" Clint admitted to the couple. "I want to be in her life but Melinda you are her mother and Phil she already sees you as her dad."
"Skye will need you in her life," Phil told then man across from him as they spoke man to man. "In what-ever way you feel comfortable with. But remember Clint, we are all family here and I am sure we could figure something out for her to call you."
"Bottom line Barton," Melinda told him gently. "She is going to need you and you are going to need her. You just might not totally grasp that yet." She reached across the bed and grasped the other agents hand and squeezed it.
An hour later, at daybreak, Clint left Macau with his spirit soaring as high as the plane. He had a beautiful daughter and Natasha was on the mend. He could not wait to show the team all of his new pictures.
Dr. Malus did not speak the entire plane trip riding along with Sitwell and the other men. He had enough sense of direction to know they were not going to Ghana. It turned out to be a very long plane ride. They flew through the night so he totally lost of sense of where they were headed. He hoped Ms. Peters was with his precious shifters. He was sensible enough to know that these men, who-ever they were, held his shifter cub's hostage. It was an incentive. But he also knew if the cubs were killed, they could not control him. So it meant for now he was safe.
He still did not speak when the group of men escorted him to a waiting S.U.V. at the airfield at dawn. Nor when they pulled up to a huge Vila and escorted him inside and to an open balcony. He surmised he was somewhere in Europe.
"Ahh, Dr. Malus," an older gentleman looked up from his breakfast and bid him sit with him at an empty chair. "Coffee? Toast?' he asked politely.
"Coffee, is fine," he told the older man wondering why he seemed familiar. Then he knew why, he recognized the voice. He had spoken to this man several times when arranging for funding and then man-power at his Chinese facility. "Baron Von Strucker?" he finally spoke up.
"Ahh good, so now introductions are necessary," the older gentleman said taking a bite of a scrambled egg followed by a sip of coffee. Neither man spoke as Sitwell appeared with a plate of eggs and toast and a cup of coffee for Dr. Malus and set it down in front of him. "Let me get right to it," the German speaking man dropped his fork and looked into Dr. Malus's eyes. "I have been a patient man. I have given you a year to work on your shifter research." He motioned Rumlow forward. The double agent dropped down two pictures, one of the cloud shifter and the other of the snow leopard shifter. "And this is all I get? Do you think I have years to wait till they get old enough to use in an army? "Von Strucker spat at him pointing a finger at the pictures on his breakfast table. "I gave you money because of Bahrain with the Shield Agents and my expectations a year ago were made clear."
"And I have met them," Dr. Malus defended his program, "You see the results. We have produced two naturally born shifters. You can train them from infancy to be the type of soldiers you want them to be."
"Do you think I want to wait 18 years Doctor?" Von Strucker countered icily. "I am an old man who has waited a long time to see a super soldiers mass produced as an army for Hydra. I have a platoon of Hydra Agents in the Alps who are waiting for your serum."
"Where are my shifters?" Dr. Malus demanded. "I cannot work without my shifter cubs."
"They are no longer your concern Doctor, you give me my serum, enough dosage to change 500 men, and then we will discuss your precious shifter cubs." Von Strucker told him. "And you no longer can be trusted to work independently. Your distraction from completing the task given to you has led me to realize that you need more direct supervision." Von Strucker pointed at Stillwell and Rollins and they pulled Dr. Malus from his chair while Rumlow pointed a gun at the doctor and took the case Dr. Malus clutched to his chest. "You are going to go with your escorts to my Hydra base in the Alps. You have the best chemists at your disposal. I want the serum and I want an operation established to mass produce it. "Von Strucker informed him taking the case from Rumlow. "I will see you in a month. If I am not satisfied with what I see, I will ransom your precious dna to Shield and when agents you turned come for it, I will acquire them and start my army with them." Von Strucker vowed dismissing the doctor and his men with a wave of his hand. He watched Dr. Malus on the lawn below the balcony an added. "If your results are unsatisfactory, that male shifter cub will become my pet."
Walking back to the plane, Dr. Malus could only ask himself, "What about the female shifter? Von Strucker never mentioned the female?"
