PRESENT DAY: WASHINGTON DC
"God, I missed real food," Katherine hummed as she shoveled in another piece of steak. She had to be careful as she delicately balanced her plate on her knee while she sat cross legged on her couch with Angie.
"You were barely gone a week," Angie said.
"You try eating freeze dried food for more than a meal then get back to me," she said, drenching her next bite of steak in A1 sauce.
After a few more minutes Angie pulled her plate away.
"Enough. Take a breath. I want to know all the details of the mission."
"Well, for starters, Clint was there," she said dodging Angie and grabbing a spoonful of her baked potato.
"You met Barton?" she asked, her eyes lighting up. "Did he live up to your hype and expectations?"
"He exceeded them," Kat said, trying and failing at hiding what she was sure was a sappy smile.
"Tell me everything!" Angie squealed, pouring more wine into Kat's glass. She talked more if she was a little tipsy, and she wanted all the juicy details.
Taking a sip of wine, Kat obliged. She told Angie everything, from Clint telling Coulson about her to him saying she hadn't disappointed him before he had to leave.
"It's a perfect match," Angie said when she'd finished. "Seriously, you two are made for each other."
"So, what did I miss here?" she asked, changing the subject. Just because she hadn't disappointed Clint didn't mean he thought anything more about her.
"Nothing, it was incredibly boring without you here. I was so bored I even went to the gym with Jensen." She'd been desperate to hang out with someone, so she tagged along with Jensen to one of his training sessions. Never again.
"Is that really the only reason you're walking funny?" Kat teased.
"Shut up and stop changing the subject. What's your next move with Clint going to be?"
"I don't have any next moves planned, Angie." Everything about their interactions was spontaneous luck. That's worked for them.
"Then it's a good thing I'm here and that I brought two bottles of wine," she beamed, pulling the second bottle from her purse and setting it on the coffee table.
PRESENT DAY: NEW YORK
"So, an 0-8-4, huh?" Natasha said, choosing two handguns and a semi-automatic before slapping on a vest and following Clint into the tactical room.
"Yep, some magic, alien hammer," Clint said as his eyes adjusted to the dark. "I didn't even have to fight anyone on this mission. And, best part, Kat was there."
Natasha's interest peaked at the mention of Lee being there. If the 'best part' didn't settle it, the smile when he said her name did.
"That doesn't sound like a mission. It sounds like a vacation," she said, leaning against the wall as they waited for the other agents to file in and scoping out the layout of the room for the best vantage points.
"It was definitely worth skipping my weekend off," he said, adjusting the holster on his leg as the warning alarm went off and the doors shut. "So, what's the bet this time?"
"Loser has to give the speech at the academy," she said. They were up in the rotation for an academy visit despite neither attending any of the schools and neither being particularly good at giving inspiring speeches.
"You're on," Clint said, bumping his fist with hers before going their separate ways.
Immediately, he went for higher ground, letting the agents battle it out down below while he took free shots at them from above. He jumped from rafters to the walls, balancing along the edges of the dividers set up around the room, when he was spotted. With the shots he made, he had the bet in the bag. That was until five seconds before the drill ended and Natasha came out of nowhere, hitting him dead center in the back.
"Do we even need to count the others?" she asked with a smirk when he turned his disgruntled stare on her. "You'd need, what, ten kill shots just to match that shot?"
"Side bet?" He offered, hoping he could at least get a consolation prize for his other shots.
"What'd you have in mind?" she asked.
"If I beat you in kill shots for the other agents, you do the paperwork for the next mission of my choosing, including any incidentals."
"Fine. If I win, you work my next rotation with black-ops," she countered.
Used to their antics, the other agents stood in varying degrees of exasperation while Barton and Romanoff argued over what was a kill shot or not.
"That is definitely a kill shot," Clint said, pointing to the smattering of purple paint on the agent's vest.
"How?" Natasha asked.
"It perforates his right lung, and he drowns in his own blood."
"Or, his rib deflects the bullet and he's on leave for a few weeks as he heels from a broken rib."
"I'll take the leave," the agent said.
"But rib fragments could puncture the lung," Clint countered, ignoring the agent's input.
"He would die hours later, and that's if he didn't survive it. Kill shot is instantaneous. You don't get the point for this one," she said, shaking her head.
"Fine. I'm still winning by ten," he said, waving the agent free as they moved down the line.
They were scrutinizing the last agent when Coulson walked by.
"Coulson, weigh in. This is a kill shot, right?" Clint asked.
"This drill is supposed to be about teamwork, not petty competition," he said, eyeing Barton and Romanoff with mild disapproval. "But, yes. That's a kill shot."
"Ha! I win," Clint said, causing Natasha to roll her eyes. "Wanna go for lunch?"
"I'm feeling Thai today," Nat said, following behind him as she undid her safety vest.
ONE WEEK LATER: TRISKELION
SHIELD barely waited a week before calling Kat back into the field. Once again, they didn't tell her where she was going, but that time she made sure to bring black tees, a pair of black jeans, and a black leather jacket in an attempt to fit in with the all-black SHIELD uniform worn by the other agents in New Mexico.
Leaning against the wall just inside the doors to the landing pad with her travel bag in one hand and her phone in her other, Katherine texted Angie while she waited to board the plane. She straightened up when the elevator dinged open at the end of the hall and boots scuffed against the floor. She hadn't been informed there'd be other agents from the Triskelion flying out with her. Pocketing her phone, her greeting died before she even opened her mouth when she saw Rumlow, Rollins, and a couple other black-ops agents walking towards her. Great. As if it wasn't excruciating enough to work with them through the coms.
"Lee," Rumlow greeted as the agents stopped before her. "Johnson's already putting you on a big league mission? I'm not sure you're ready for that."
"I dealt with an 0-8-4 last week, I think I can handle you and the rest of the B-team."
The mission in New Mexico was classified. Only agents directly involved, minus Angie who officially didn't know anything but unofficially knew everything, knew about it. Technically, Kat wasn't breaking protocol by mentioning it was an 0-8-4. That gossip train had taken off well before she'd returned to DC.
"We'll see," Rumlow grumbled.
When the pilot gave them the okay to board, Rumlow and Rollins pushed past her to board first.
"By all means, ladies first!" She called after them, making the other black-ops members who still stood beside her chuckle. At least some of them had a sense of humor. She wasn't sure if it was enough to outweigh the misery of working with Rumlow and Rollins.
Thumbing through the files on the tablet provided took up the first half hour of the flight. She fell asleep during the rest of the flight, and due to possible time zone changes, she wasn't exactly sure how long that was. All she knew was she was jerked awake by Rumlow kicking the back of her seat.
"I still don't understand exactly what my job is," Kat said when Rumlow handed her a bullet proof vest, helmet, and a com. The file hadn't said anything that would lead her to think she needed any bullet proof items.
"It's simple. Follow us and don't get shot. Romanoff will fill you in from there," Rollins said.
Debarkation started before she could ask any more questions. Scrambling to put on her vest and helmet, she paused when the plane door opened to reveal a few meters of sand then a sprawling jungle. And not the concrete kind.
"I don't think getting shot's going to be a problem," she said. Who could possibly shoot at them, monkeys?
"Think like that and you won't survive the mission," Rumlow said, pushing forward and leading the way into the jungle.
Kat was wrong about the whole 'no one going to be shooting at them'. Very, very wrong. As soon as they stepped into the trees, highly camouflaged men rained bullets down on them. She wasn't too proud to say she cowered behind Rumlow as they raced through the trees in a tactical formation—with Rumlow and the others shooting some of their adversaries down—until there was a momentary pause in the gunfire. To her complete horror, the team spread out for a perimeter check leaving her alone in the middle of the jungle. When the floor beneath her gave out, she shrieked, her scream sealed in the underground bunker she fell into when the door she fell through clanged shut.
"It's nice to officially meet you, Katherine," Natasha said, holding her hand out to help her up.
"Agent Romanoff," Katherine greeted, dusting off her pants after rising to her feet. "Want to fill me in why I fell through the rabbit hole?"
"The tact team is trying to access an abandoned bunker where two of our undercover agents are being held."
"And the guys with the guns?"
"Hired mercenaries from the Nua Blanco Cartel who now own the island and the bunker where they conduct most of their human and drug trafficking."
"That's gotta cut down on tourism," Kat said, her stomach turning at the mention of human trafficking. "What do you need me to do?"
"The security system is surprisingly complex. Not only will it self-destruct if we go in guns blazing, it has a Gemini cyber failsafe."
So that's why they needed her even though they had Romanoff. They needed to hack in at two different locations, using the same code at the same time, or else the whole thing would go kaboom. Incredibly hard, near impossible, considering every hacker had a different style.
"Where's my access point?" Kat asked.
"Depends. How are you with heights?"
Following Agent Romanoff's directions, Kat used the tunnels to make her way East while Romanoff headed West. Her access point required her to climb a rusty old ladder and scale the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean.
"I regret saying I'm okay with heights," Kat said when she finally made it to the access point. Pulling the laptop from her bag she plugged it into the port connected to the security panel of the base.
"It was the cliff or a pit of vipers," Natasha said, plugging in her own computer.
"Never mind. The cliff was fine," Kat said, shivering at the thought of snakes. "I'm ready when you are."
It was slow going. They had to discuss their plan of attack before actually typing the code. Synchronized hacking was not easy under any circumstances, let alone when your partner was on the other side of an island and one mistake could kill everyone on said island.
ACCESS GRANTED
Kat let out a long sigh when those words flashed across her screen.
"Now what?" she asked.
"You sit tight for the helicopter while the meat heads and I retrieve our agents and the rest of the people being held against their will."
If Kat hadn't felt like an operative agent before, climbing a rope up to the helicopter while dangling over the side of a cliff sealed the deal. Working in the field was the best and worst kind of adrenaline rush.
Nat had to admit, working with Kat in person didn't disappoint. She was every bit the badass hacker Clint built her up to be. She was impressed.
She refrained from calling Clint until she landed in New York and she was on her way home. Well, to her home base. She rarely stayed there long enough to call it home. She'd been on missions longer than she'd stayed in her apartment in New York.
"It's three in the morning, Nat," Clint said. The vibration of his phone under his pillow woke him up even without his hearing aids in.
"Sorry, my body clock is all screwy. I just got back from a mission."
"How'd it go?" he asked, rubbing his hand over his face and shuffling to the kitchen. He needed coffee.
"Smoother than anticipated," Nat said, smiling. "I got to meet Katherine. I can see why you like her. She's cute, smart, and funny. Not to mention she performs well under pressure."
"Kat was there?" Clint asked. Natasha's smile widened when he didn't refute her saying he liked her. She didn't care if he was still half-asleep, she took it as an admittance that it was true.
"Don't be jealous, I'm sure you two will have more missions together in the future. Or you could stop using work as an excuse to talk to her," she teased.
"I'm hanging up now," Clint grumbled, before ending the call. Since he'd already made a pot of coffee and he wasn't one to let good, or crappy, coffee go to waste, he poured himself a mug. Sitting at the counter, he sipped his coffee as he opened Kat's file from his phone, flipping through to her photo.
JULY 2011: SHIELD'S COMMUNICATIONS ACADEMY
Iced coffee was a godsend. After working a week of night shifts, Johnson sent Kat off to the West Coast to give a speech to each of the SHIELD Academy's when the analyst who was supposed to do the speech came down with the stomach flu. He called her at 0400 letting her know the SHIELD plane would be waiting at the Triskelion at 0600. And now she walked across the front lawn of the Communications grounds in the dry heat of a California summer with a too perky tour guide. As if she needed to be shown around campus. It hadn't been that long since she graduated.
Clint was jet lagged and cursing Nat for winning their bet. The last thing he wanted to do was explain his job to the academy students. That was, until his tour guide led him to the auditorium where the speeches were to be conducted and he found Kat sitting on the steps to the stage, playing on her phone.
"You got suckered into this too?" he asked, causing her head to snap up from her phone.
"Clint," she smiled at him, pocketing her phone and inconspicuously checking him out. He looked good in a grey tee, jeans and black boots. Simple, but she was a sucker for a guy wearing jeans and boots. "Yeah, I got the call this morning that they were sending me out here. What about you?"
"Lost a bet to Nat a couple months ago. I still don't know what I'm gonna say to the students," he said, his gaze sweeping over her when she stood, before resting on her face. He mentally retracted his previous cursing about losing the bet.
"Hopefully the agent from Sci-Tech has something planned because I'm winging it. That's the best Johnson can expect of me with less than 12 hours' notice."
It ended up being agents, plural, from Sci-Tech. Katherine's engineering guy, Fitz, and his lab partner, Simmons had their speech planned down to when they finished the other's sentences. Unless they were just so close, they did it naturally. She hadn't spent enough time around both together to know which it was.
"We definitely should have gone first," Kat said to the crowd when she and Clint stepped up to the podium. Since they've worked together on multiple occasions, they figured it'd be kosher if they combined their unplanned speeches into one gigantic cluster fuck.
"My names Agent Katherine Lee and this is Agent Clint Barton. I'm a data analyst for SHIELD and Clint is a field operative. We've worked together on numerous missions. In fact, my first mission in the field was with Clint."
As soon as the communications students heard she had field experience, their speech turned into a Q and A. Much to Clint and Kat's relief, as they didn't have to think of talking points to fill their timeslot. Instead, the students did the work for them, asking questions about how Kat got into field work, what her first mission was like, and how she and Clint ended up working missions together.
"It all started when she called me an ass," Clint said with a fond smile.
That started a whole new slew of questions. One of the professors had to step in when it was time for the students to return to their classes.
"Well, we have some free time before our speech at Sci-Tech. Want to show me around your old stomping grounds?" Clint asked.
A/N: hope y'all liked the latest chapter. I had a lot of fun writing it :) Thanks for everyone who reads, favorites/follows, and reviews!
Onto guest review responses:
Lizzy B: Glad your loving Clint and Kat. I'm having a blast writing their evolving relationship.
To the guest who thinks this is a fantastic story: Thanks! I'm having fun with it. It's a different style than how I normally write chapters so It's kept things interesting for me. Hope you continue to like it.
Kam: Hope you liked this update as much as the last
To the guest asking me to please update: here ya go. Hope you liked it!
Wieda: your personal message was disabled so I'm responding here: So happy you loved the last chapter. Hope you felt the same about this one!
Rach
xoxo