"For the love of god, Brock. I need help."
Rumlow looked up from his desk as I barged into his office.
It was three weeks after the four of us had done our first interview. Surprisingly, it had gone over quite well with the general public. People were especially fascinated with me and Jared. With that came a lot of press requests. I had to see Constance every day which never put me in a good mood. I had done two further interviews, one for Vanity Fair and the other for Vogue.
I was going to be on the cover for Vogue for next months' magazine. It was terrifying.
Currently, I was hiding from Constance. Natasha and I had an interview this morning with a panel of mixed reporters. Each was being given a few minutes to ask questions. Constance was trying to pin me down so she could control the narrative of my personal life. This was also a good excuse to try and get into Rumlow's good books. I hadn't been able to do much for the last few weeks.
"We have very good psychologists at SHIELD for that," Rumlow said sounding very unamused. "Go bother one of them."
"I'm serious," I said, sitting down in the chair across from him. "I need a mission. I'll do anything."
Rumlow looked up at me with a curious expression.
"Just get me out of this building in the next 15 minutes."
"I can't do 15 minutes but if you're desperate, I do have something coming up," Rumlow said, turning back to his computer. "You're going to have to be really desperate though."
"Come on, man. Not even weapon cleaning duty?" I tried again, trying to give him a charming smile. "I'm sure you could come up with some punishment I can do that."
"No."
This time Rumlow laughed. He turned away from the computer, shuffling some files around on his desk. He handed me a slim folder. I eagerly reached out to take it from him.
"This is still a few days off coming together," he warned, keeping a hold on the file so I couldn't fully take it. "If you're that desperate, I'll do what I can to get you on the team. I doubt you'll be able to do much more than be a pilot."
He finally let it go, letting me take it off him.
"That's more than enough for me," I said eagerly as I flipped it open. "Constance is driving me nuts. They want me to do something for a women's fitness magazine which means I'm basically wearing nothing. I had to remind her I have been stabbed and shot several times and my diet consists of booze, bagels and bad decisions."
Rumlow snorted but said nothing else as he went back to doing whatever it was before I'd rudely interrupted him. Evans was going to kill me for doing this but I needed it.
The mission was nothing more than a surveillance run. A weapons dealer in Bogra, Bangladesh, a smaller player in the grand scheme of things. It was going to be a lot of sitting on a rooftop watching the comings and goings.
In a way it was perfect. There'd be no action. I could even sell it to Evans. I'd also be away for two weeks, giving me some much needed breathing space. Constance would be furious.
"Thank you." I put all the gratitude I had into that word. "This is perfect."
"I know you're bored when you're thanking me for a rookie surveillance mission," Rumlow said dryly. "I'm putting the two new guys from my team on it too. You have to play nice."
"When don't I play nice?" I gave Rumlow a wicked smile.
"Just now," Rumlow grumbled. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
Reluctantly, I got up and left his office. Just because I had somewhere to be didn't mean I wanted to go.
The amount of attention I was receiving was fucking insane. I got recognised while getting coffee this morning. Thankfully it was only through the drive-through. But me and Clint had to pose for a selfie, half hanging out of his car. It was before my first coffee and I looked terrible. Then once again, we were trending on social media.
Luckily Natasha was our resident stalker and well versed in all types of social media because I had no clue. SHIELD had to approve anything we posted. After the first week I had to turn all of my notifications off because anytime something was posted, my phone wouldn't stop buzzing for hours afterward. The comments could keep me entertained for hours. Me and Natasha enjoyed trolling them far too much.
My phone started to ring as I walked into the elevator. Sneaking a glance at the screen, I saw the name Miranda Priestly on my phone. It was Constance's number.
Ignoring it, I stepped into the elevator and took the floor to the conference room. Nose in my phone, I walked into the room. Rumlow had sent me to mission brief file via secured email so it was easy to pretend to be reading that.
"So nice of you to join us," Constance said icily. "Where's Natasha?"
"Probably still in bed with Jared." I sat down in one of the waiting chairs. It had only been me and Clint in work this morning, beating the crap out of each other. "Did you see my awesome photo this morning?"
It had gone up surprisingly quickly on Instagram. Usually, it took a few hours before SHIELD approved it. But this morning I had clearance within five minutes and there it was. It had gotten something stupid like 10,000 likes in the first half hour.
"Yes, I did." Constance sounded like she was speaking through gritted teeth. "You couldn't have covered up that enormous hickey on your neck?"
My hand reached up to cover said hickey. It was rather big. Clint had put a lot of teeth and force into it last night. The thought of it made me squirm a little. It had been very hot at the time.
I was also worried about Clint today. While we had worked out together this morning, he got to go to the range with Bravo team this morning. Sam had promised me that he'd keep an eye on him. It was the first time we'd been apart since we'd come back.
"I forgot about it," I lied, rubbing the bruised skin. "It's nothing a bit of concealer won't fix."
I glanced up to see Constance's face turning red once more. I quickly put my phone down before I got into massive trouble.
Luckily Natasha chose that moment to walk in.
From there it was the usual insanity of activity. Constance's people who were in charge of the wardrobe trusted both of us to be dressed correctly. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to choose from the mass of clothes that I was first presented with. As this was a little more casual, I got to wear my super skinny jeans with a nice top and leather jacket. Every time we did these interviews, I'd end up freezing with the air conditioning always turned on too high. As predicted, the makeup people easily covered my enormous hickey.
Barely an hour after I walked into the room, me and Natasha were being whisked away in a limo. This was one thing I could get used to. The only bad thing was that Constance made sure the bar wasn't stocked in them. Still, I had a coffee and Natasha to keep me company.
Another fancy hotel. I'd been in a lot of these lately. It was another perk of all of this bullshit I had to do. We were sent up to the good suite, just like every other time.
Getting comfortable in the over stuffed chairs, we both watched the cameras being set up. Natasha's and I talked about nothing in particular, switching to Russian in the busy room. Constance came in when the cameras were nearly set up.
"Do I need to remind you both to behave?" Constance said icily. "And no drinking on the job either."
Well, that sent our fun morning out the window.
"No, of course not," I said quickly answering for both of us. "This should be fun. Is there a list of things they aren't allowed?"
"The usual classified stuff," Constance's icy tone softened slightly. "Just be warm and friendly. This is meant to show off your personality in a good way."
Constance was a braver woman than most with the glare she leveled at Natasha. Without another word, she turned on her heels and left us.
We waited until the door was closed before dissolving into obnoxious laughter.
"I really dislike that woman." Natasha lounged back in her chair. "But it's so much fun to push her buttons."
"I know," I said with a grin. "Evans told me we're driving her to drink and that we should behave."
"Notice he said should behave and not that we have to behave," Natasha pointed out. "Speaking of Evans, why isn't he here this morning?"
"He had to do some stuff with Bravo team while it's all still up in the air who's taking over for them," I explained. "They've got a big mission coming up."
Natasha's wrinkled nose spoke more than words could. Everyone had a big mission coming up. Except for us. Then again, we'd just had one of the biggest missions SHIELD had ever seen. We saved the world.
It still didn't feel like we'd done that. Clint and Jared were both still hot messes from their time under Loki's influence. Nothing I was doing seemed to be helping Clint. He was still awake at all hours of the night. It wasn't uncommon he'd wake me up while he was having nightmares.
Then again, I did the same thing to him. Not a night goes by that I didn't dream of things turning out very differently than they had. Most of the time was Clint actually pulling the trigger when Loki ordered him to put the gun under his chin when I wouldn't cooperate.
I managed to shake myself from that train of thought right as our first person came in.
I hated him on sight. He openly stared at Natasha's chest as we were introduced. He was from an entertainment magazine. I barely paid attention to his own introduction.
I hated him, even more, when the first question out of his mouth was about our diet. Then what we wore under our uniforms, even though that was mostly aimed at Natasha.
If there was a part of this I detested, it was this. People seem to fixate on my and Natasha's looks. It was creepy. I knew we weren't unattractive by any means. But I was getting annoyed that it was the only thing some people could concentrate on.
When the second and third person did the same thing I was sure Constance had set us up trying to get a reaction out of us.
"I swear if the next person does the same thing, I'm going to throw something at them," Natasha muttered as misogynistic asshole number three left us.
The fourth person seemed to be a little more down to earth. He came in wearing much more casual jeans and a t-shirt. He was kind of cute in a nerd type of way.
"Hi, I'm Adam from the Superhero Network YouTube channel. It is such an honour to meet you both."
He actually smiled enthusiastically and shook both of our hands firmly. I instantly liked him better than anyone else that morning. He didn't leer or lean in closer to sniff our perfume either.
Natasha and I exchanged a coy smile with each other.
"So, we're going to do something different," Natasha took the lead, holding her hand out. "Give me your questions. If they're bad we're going to ask you the questions instead."
Adam didn't protest, he handed them over with an easy smile.
I looked over Natasha's shoulder as she flipped through his cards. They were messy handwritten notes. There wasn't one sexiest question in there. It was mostly about work and our skills. Natasha happily handed them back after our quick perusal.
"Okay we actually like you," Natasha said with a flirty smile. "Ask away."
That made a blush crawl up his neck. Adam managed to stay composed with a laugh as he sat back in his chair. The next moment the signal was given that the camera was rolling.
"So, first of all, I want to say this is an absolute honour to meet you both," Adam started easily. "Kari, you were Air Force before you joined SHIELD. Even then you were smashing the norms. First female F-22 pilot. Was it always your dream?"
Finally. Someone who didn't want to know how many calories I ate.
"A hundred percent," I said with an easy smile. "That's all I ever wanted to be. As I was joining, the Air Force was getting rid of its direct entry program. I was determined to get in that way before it stopped."
"Something that was notoriously hard to get into," Adam said with a nod.
"Well, I am the smarter twin," I said smartly.
"And the better looking one too," Natasha added.
That made all three of us laugh. Natasha and I had started to flirt with each other on camera just to mess with people.
"What made you go down that path?"
These were the kinds of questions I wished people asked. Not the shallow bullshit about what I ate or wore.
"All of my family is involved in SHIELD," I explained. "But I wanted to do something else with my life. My own grandmother was one of the founders and I never wanted to feel like I was riding on the coattails of the family name. So I went out and did my own thing. I loved every second of it."
"Then you realised how much more money we make in SHIELD," Natasha joked with a laugh.
"It's okay, you were a drawcard too," I joked as well, reaching over and patted Natasha's leg affectionately.
Adam was laughing hard at our banter as well. I was proud of myself for handling the question so well.
"But seriously, I loved my time in the Air Force," I said once the laughter had died down. "But I was starting to feel at loose ends. People think you spend your days flying and doing crazy fighter pilot shit. But the reality is for every hour in the air you spend about 20 hours in paperwork or flight training. All of my dates were so disappointed that my job wasn't more exciting on a daily basis."
"So, I have to ask," Adam said while nodding along. "What's it like flying a fighter jet?"
"It's like nothing you'll ever get to experience," I said wistfully. I really did miss it sometimes. "It's like being strapped on a rocket and just pushing your body to the limit. There's nothing easy or gentle about it. You feel every bump of turbulence which is terrifying, to begin with. You're about two seconds from dying if any concentration lapses happen while doing it. But the feel of the jet around you becoming an extension of your body as you twist and turn through the air at the speed of sound? That shit right there is the real deal."
Fuck I missed flying sometimes. I doubted I'd get any airtime in the F-35's within the next year. Maybe I could get Constance to do something with me flying for PR reasons just to give me an excuse.
"Besides the paperwork," Natasha chimed in.
"Besides the paperwork," I repeated with another laugh, pushing away the wistful thought. "I'll have to upload some of my GoPro videos from the SHIELD fighter pilot training. There's some pretty awesome footage on there."
Off to the side, I could see Constance motioning for one of her assistants to come closer to her. She actually looked pleased for once in her life. I had no doubt that footage would be on social media by tonight.
"GoPro videos would be awesome. What do you do on a daily basis? Like your fighter pilot life, I'm sure it's not all excitement and blowing stuff up?" Adam continued.
"Well, we're a small group so our days are a lot less structured than most people," Natasha started, as she uncrossed and recrossed her legs. "But we all hit the gym first thing in the morning. The majority of the time we'll do hand to hand training…"
"Which usually means Natasha beats my ass on a regular basis," I said seriously. "If people see me walking around with a black eye it's because of her."
"You like it though," Natasha's off-hand comment was thrown with a wicked smile.
"Only sometimes. The STRIKE guys make the weirdest comments to me when I come in walking funny when I've been with you."
Natasha burst out into obnoxious laughter, as did Adam. I was very proud of myself for the witty comeback. Glancing over, even Constance looked mildly amused. There was a definite double innuendo to it. At least we were charming and funny.
"After I get beaten on a daily basis," I continued through my laughter. "We usually have other training. Me and Barton train in archery nearly every day. Other times we'll hit the range. SHIELD has a lot of other training we have to do as well."
"Yeah, I'm due to do my HALO course," Natasha said easily. "I'm pretty sure you've got that awful Arctic survival course coming up again."
My good mood fell, though I managed to keep a smile on my face. I knew that was creeping up soon. It was always in autumn. But it was going to be a very hard reminder of Riley.
Adam had asked something else which Natasha answered. I quickly forced myself to pay attention. This interview had been going well. I didn't need to zone out.
"So your job looks pretty awesome to most people on the outside, what's the best and worst part?" Adam asked.
"The people," Natasha answered for both of us. I nodded in easy agreement. "You don't trust the person beside you if they aren't like a brother or a sister to you. STRIKE is no different. You want to punch some of the guys in the head some days but they're family and you trust them with your life."
Natasha gave me a quick smile. I knew she hadn't missed my Riley moment.
"And that's also the worst part," I forced my voice to stay level. "When you lose someone, you lose a brother."
I had to stop and swallow hard.
"And it happens in our line of work far too often." I was very proud of how steady my voice stayed. "Whether it's from a mission or those missions people can't leave behind. We do a rough and messy job. Every loss is a tragedy."
I paused for a moment. I had to lighten the mood. I couldn't have this on my mind for the rest of the day.
"And we get to shoot really big guns," I added with another grin.
"I saw your really big gun," Adam said with a laugh. "Do you want to tell us about it? I don't know much about guns but it doesn't look like anything I've seen before."
"It's a custom make."
This was a topic I could talk about easily.
"My dad is a weapons developer, so he designed it to have the same firepower as a Chey-Tac but it needed to be as lightweight as possible," I explained. "Because I'm skinny and I have to carry three quarters of my body weight in armour, weapons, and supplies, I need to try and cut weight down somehow."
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see one of Constance's people motioning for us to wrap it up. It was a shame. This was actually a good interview.
"I don't have that problem," Natasha said smoothly. "I travel light. Though your dad did make me my awesome Widow Bites."
"I love it," Adam said. "Now one last question. What's something about both of you that no one else knows?"
"I can't cook," I said instantly, with another laugh. "I lived off takeaway and frozen meals until I moved here and Barton started feeding me. He's the best cook of us all."
"Do you remember that time we tried to bake a chocolate cake?" Natasha turned to me. "And we got impatient and decided to turn the oven up to make it cook quicker?"
I remembered that very clearly. It was sometime last year. Clint hadn't been home and we were too lazy to go to the shop for the chocolate cake we were craving. So we used a box mix. Then turned the oven up to see if it would cook quicker. We set off all the alarms on the floor of my apartment."
"For two smart people we are really, really dumb sometimes," I said dryly. "It took a week to get the smell out of my apartment. My neighbors were so pissed off with us."
Adam couldn't stop laughing.
"Well thank you ladies for one of the best interviews I have done in a long time," Adam said through his laughter. "It has been an absolute privilege to do this interview."
He stood up and shook our hands before leaving. Over the top of his head, I could see Constance giving us a thumbs up. There was an actual smile too. Seeing her smile was scarier than her being angry.
"Well that wasn't the worst interview we've ever done," Natasha said under her breath as we sat back down. "Let's hope the rest of them are like that."
They weren't. It was a lot more of the same questions. We were both irritable and tired by the time we were being driven back to the Triskelion. Clint was waiting for us in the locker room.
Clint was looking a lot more relaxed. A day at the range had taken the tension out of his shoulders.
"Dinner?" Clint asked, pushing himself off the lockers. "You two look ready to murder someone."
"Ugh, it was nothing but sexiest assholes," Natasha said with an unimpressed snort. "We only had one good guy. What are you cooking?"
"Whatever my favourite assassin's want." Clint slung his arms over both of our shoulders as we walked out. "Where's Jared?"
This was another good sign. Clint wanted to cook. We'd been living off takeaway since coming back. I missed his cooking.
"Mac and cheese," I said instantly, ignoring the question about Jared. "The weird way you do it, not the packet stuff."
"And steak," Natasha added. "Let's make Kari buy the really good wagyu rib eye from that little butcher. I left Jared in my apartment this morning. He was meant to meet you at the range."
As Natasha spoke, I could see her brow furrowing in concern. She ducked out from under Clint's arm and pulled her phone out of her handbag. We all came to a skidding halt as she frowned at her phone screen.
"The lazy shit is still in my bed," Natasha said, rolling her eyes. She turned her phone around to show us what was on the screen.
It was a photo of Jared lazing in Natasha's bed. He had a book next to him. He had mused hair and was shirtless. He had a near identical hickey to mine.
"Tell him to get his ass over to us for steak," I said with a snort. At least Jared looked very relaxed.
"I'll come with you two," Natasha said. "I don't want to drive."
It was like any other afternoon. Clint ducked into the store and got what he needed. He had a hat on and out of all of us, he was the one who got recognised the least. I choked on the price of the steak that Clint got from our favourite butcher.
Walking out of the elevator in my apartment building, we were all joking around. As we got to my door, Clint stopped short.
"Can anyone else smell that?" Clint asked, dropping his voice.
I stopped as well. Sniffing the air, there was something in the air the smelt really good. It was something I had definitely smelt before but I couldn't put my finger on it.
Jared appeared in front of me, making me jump. I punched him on the shoulder for his sudden appearance.
"What are we doing?" Jared asked, laughing as he clutched his arm.
A noise came from inside the apartment. All four of us froze. In the next second we all went for whatever weapon we had on us. Clint had a P30 in his jacket. Jared had a Glock. Natasha and I both had knives on us. The groceries went to the floor, quickly forgotten.
After weeks of inaction, every single sense of mine was in overdrive.
"Cover me."
Natasha and I both nodded. Clint crept forward and tested the doorknob. It opened easily under his grip. Clint looked back at us with a nod.
Pushing forward with his gun raised, Clint stalked into the apartment with his P30 raised. I was right behind him and I ran straight into his back as he stopped short. His gun landed on the floor with a clatter.
"Coulson."
Clint's whispered word made my head snap around to see what he was looking at.
There was a ghost standing in my kitchen.
A ghost dressed in his usual casual slacks and button up shirt that he wore on his downtime.
The smell of Coulson's spaghetti and meatballs was what we could smell. It was bubbling away on the stove.
The ghost had a smile on his face. He looked pale and drawn. But he was real.
"Hey, guys."
Authors Note
First of all, you are all incredible. Every single one of you. From the bottom of my heart thank you all so much for your incredible kindness in the last chapter reviews. I know this chapter was still slow getting out but I feel like I do have Kari's voice back.
Updates will still be slow. But I'm still chipping away at it. You're all incredible and I'm so happy to start getting back into action now.
I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. Sometimes as a writer you really want to skip Part A and B to get to C. The end of this chapter was definitely C for me!
Again, thank you so much everyone!
Until next time.