NEW YORK CITY
Katherine's phone buzzed with a text from Clint as soon as she landed in New York and took her phone off airplane mode. Coulson called him into headquarters for a debriefing. He wouldn't be able to pick her up at the airport, so he sent Nat instead. She almost wished he hadn't, and she could just take a taxi or an uber to his place. After finding out Natasha and Angie have been discussing their relationship and sex life, she was a little hesitant to hear Natasha's end of it.
"So…" Natasha said as they awkwardly stood waiting by the conveyer belt for Kat's checked bag.
"I'd think, as a spy, you'd be better at small talk," Kat said, making Natasha to smile.
"I'm trying not to treat you like a mark." She recognized it as a default of hers around new people. Which was partly the reason Clint was her only friend. He saw right through her BS.
"Right. Well, thanks for that. And for picking me up today."
"Oh, I volunteered for this. In your endlessly unsubtle competition to convince the other to move to each of your base cities, I wasn't about to let a New York Cabbie make your case for you."
"I strike my previous thank you and replace it with the more appropriately sarcastic 'thanks a lot'" Kat said, moving towards the belt when her neon orange suitcase circled towards her.
"Subtle," Natasha said, nodding to her suitcase.
"At least I've never accidentally grabbed a stranger's bag or had the airline lose my luggage," Kat said, pulling up the handle and wheeling it in the direction of the parking lot.
Continuing in silence, they'd just made it to the first lot when Natasha threw her hand out to stop her. In quick succession, she yanked Kat's bag from her hand, tossing it as far as she could before pulling Kat in the opposite direction. They just reached the front of the nearest car when a loud explosion shook the ground and shrapnel burst through the air.
"What the fuck," Kat shouted, stumbling after Natasha, who pulled on her arm again, urging her to keep moving. She hissed when pain radiated from her upper arm and glancing down, she found a piece of the shrapnel embedded in her arm.
"Keep moving," Natasha ordered, shoving car keys into her hands. "Third row, last car."
"Why can't you," Kat started to ask as Natasha launched herself to the right, knocking the gun out of the hand of the woman exiting her car.
Forgoing any other questions, she sprinted towards the end of the row, zig zagging when gunshots echoed behind her. She dodged between the cars, bullets hitting the cars as she ran by, missing her by seconds. Sliding between the last two cars, she unlocked Natasha's car, climbed into the passenger side and slammed the door just as a bullet hit the window.
"Thank God for bulletproof glass," she muttered, sliding over the center console into the driver's seat.
Revving the engine, hand on the stick shift, she smiled as she pulled out of the space. The vibrations of the engine thrummed underneath her seat. Racing down the row towards the shooter, he retreated when she got too close. Cutting the wheel sharply to the left at the end of the row and shifting gears, Kat drifted around the corner, coming to a stop beside Natasha who now fought two new opponents; the woman from earlier lied unconscious on the ground. As soon as Natasha disengaged from the men, she hit the unlock button, peeling out of the parking lot as soon as the passenger door closed behind her.
"Take the next left," Natasha said, snapping on her seatbelt.
"What was that," she asked, maneuvering around cars before turning left on a yellow light.
"An assassination attempt," Natasha said.
"On me? I'm a faceless techie." Her targets didn't know who she was. She wasn't some newbie who left electronic fingerprints behind.
"Cut right," Natasha said, noticing motorcycles weaving through traffic behind them. When Kat maneuvered the turn without hesitation or any damage to the car when they cut through the alley, Nat was impressed. "Headquarters is southeast of here."
Katherine thought they were home free until two motorcycles cut off her route. Holding automatic rifles, they released fire on the car, hammering the windshield with bullets. With no other choice, Kat threw the car into reverse and floored it. Using her mirrors, she pulled the emergency break and cut the wheel, taking an intersecting alley until she was going backwards down Amsterdam, a one-way street. Natasha did say headquarters was southeast.
"Damn," Nat said, staring at Katherine in awe. "Clint wasn't exaggerating your driving skills."
Snapping out of her fleeting girl-crush moment, she directed Katherine down a few side streets to SHIELD headquarters. As soon as the doors to the underground garage shut behind them, Kat rested her head against the headrest.
"I like your car," Kat said, turning her head to face Natasha, who sent her a crooked smile at the comment. "Lucky it's bullet proof really."
"It comes in handy in my profession."
"Do you get in car chases with assassins often?" She asked.
Natasha shrugged.
"How did you know about the bomb back there?" She'd been none the wiser about anything being amiss with her luggage. It had her wondering why Natasha suspected anything out of the ordinary.
"I smelled acetone, and your nails were free of polish, so I assumed you hadn't packed any nail polish remover," she shrugged as if the act of deduction was simple. Looking down at the metal sticking out of Kat's arm, she opened her car door. "Come on, I'll take you to the med bay."
The adrenaline of the chase had stolen her attention from her wound, but Natasha's reminder brought her attention back to the pulsing pain.
Leading her through the maze of hallways, Natasha messaged Clint, who'd want to know Kat was there, and Coulson, who'd want to know about the assassins at JFK. They were barely in the med bay for a few minutes, Kat letting loose a string of curses as one of the nurses removed the shrapnel to send to analysis, when the door whizzed open as Coulson and Clint arrived.
"What the hell happened?" Clint asked, making a beeline towards Kat. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, it's just a cut," she assured him, grunting when the nurse consecutively jammed three needles in her: an antibiotic to prevent infection, a tetanus shot, and then a numbing agent so they could stitch her up.
Clint looked to the nurse for confirmation. When she subtly shook her head, denying Kat's claim it was just a cut, he turned to Natasha in hopes of getting a real answer. "Nat?"
"Someone swapped her suitcase for one with a bomb in it," Natasha said, hopping up on the end of the bed beside Katherine. "And sent several assassins to make sure the job was finished."
"I'm pretty sure they'll be out of a job soon," Kat said. Natasha smiled.
"Jesus Christ," Clint said, running a hand through his hair. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"Yes. I'm sure." Kat said. "I just don't understand who'd want me dead."
She was a data analyst. It wasn't like she made many enemies. At least, none who would know who she was on the other side of the computer.
"We've got forensics going over the shrapnel from your arm, and analysis combing through your past missions," Coulson said. "I would recommend staying on premises until we figure out what's going on."
"Any suggestions on how to pass the time?" Lee asked Clint, not seeming at all perturbed about the threat on her life.
"Are you hungry?" he asked. "We've got a cafeteria that put's the Triskelion's to shame."
"I'll be the judge of that," she said, hopping off the hospital bed.
"Do they not grasp how serious this situation is? How can they think about food?" Coulson asked Romanoff as the pair exited the med bay. For someone to identify one of their best data analyzers, and care enough to target her with such force, was unheard of. Normally such an aggressive response was reserved for the field agents.
"Clint stopped at a food cart in Budapest during our shootout in the bazaar." Natasha shrugged. Him wanting to take Kat on a lunch date at headquarters in an effort to convince her to transfer to New York was very on-brand for him. Kat being chill despite the attempt on her life solidified Natasha's opinion not only of her, but of her being a good fit for Clint.
PARIS
"What do you mean she got away?" Slater said, clenching his jaw. Lee was a data analysis. He'd sent highly trained hit men after her. There's no way she should have survived.
"Lee isn't just some simple techie. She knows how to handle a car. She gave us the slip," one of the hitmen said, his voice buzzing over the speaker phone.
"A genius with code and a kickass driver?" Jeffrey asked, looking up from his keyboard. Could she get any sexier?
"Did I tell you to stop?" Slater asked him, snapping his fingers at the destroyed shell of a weapon his tech guy was sifting through. Turning back to his call he asked, "What about Barton?"
"He wasn't there. Some redhead picked her up from the airport." So, their intel was unreliable.
"Jeffrey, stop what you're doing," Slater ordered.
"But you just said," Jeffrey said, only to be cut off.
"Forget what I said. I need you to get me reliable intel on Lee and Barton. Dig up anything you can. No detail is too small. I want to know when they take a piss. Got it?"
Cyberstalk the sexy genius and her muscleman partner? "You've got it boss."
NEW YORK CITY
"Well, what do you think?" Clint asked, reclining back in his chair. Lunch had long since ended and they had the cafeteria to themselves after their smorgasbord of a lunch.
"It's comparable," she said, not wanting to give him the advantage in their little competition. In truth, lunch was delicious, but seeing as she rarely used the Triskelion cafeteria it shouldn't really be a selling point.
Clint signed 'bullshit' at her with a smirk. He'd eaten at both cafeterias, New York definitely had the Triskelion beat.
"You want New York to impress me?" Kat asked, before signing 'show me the tech department.'
Clint stared at her, making her crack her knuckles for something else to do with her hands.
"Did I sign something wrong? I've been practicing but YouTube isn't always reliable."
"It's not wrong," he reassured her. "You've been practicing?"
"It passes the time between files," Kat shrugged, trying to brush it off as nothing.
"What else did you learn to sign?" He asked, leaning forward and placing his chin in his hand as he studied her.
"Why don't you show me the tech department first?" she countered, signing the word 'please' after, making Clint smile.
"C'mon. You'll love it. You get the penthouse here," he said, taking her hand as he led her to the elevators.
Glancing down at their entwined hands as Clint gave her the tour of the floor, she knew he had no idea he was the most alluring aspect of New York. Though the banging tech set-up wasn't half bad either. Walking into a room where every desk had at least dual monitors, some with four screens, not to mention the computer models weren't even on the market yet, had her releasing Clint's hand to do a full turn to take it all in.
"You like it?" Clint asked with a wide smile as he watched Kat's awed expression.
"This is my Disney princess moment. I now know how Belle felt when Beast gave her his library," Kat said, moving towards the nearest free station that happened to have four monitors.
Taking a seat, refraining from sighing at the lumbar support of the chair, she booted up the system, turning towards Clint with a giddy smile when the system hummed to life. He pulled the chair at the next station over and he sat beside her, leaning close to her as she brought up a blank webpage. She quickly went into concentration mode as her fingers flew over the keyboard.
"Are you working on your weekend off?" Clint asked, realizing she wasn't performing a simple google search to check out their internet speed.
"Wouldn't be the first time," Kat said, copying the few lines of code she wrote into a new window on one of the other monitors. "I'm trying to find out who's gunning to kill me."
Clint squinted at the computer screens.
"How are you going to do that?"
"Someone knew what flight I'd be on and probably tracked my bag through the luggage tag. There's no way they got through my home laptop firewall. I built that baby myself. Which means, they hacked the airline. I'm going to see if I can find the loophole they used and set a tracer to follow the breadcrumbs back to the server they used."
"I never thought tech talk would do it for me, but I find your mind incredibly sexy," he said. Her fingers fumbled over the keys. "Even when I only understood half of what you just said."
"So, it's like me whenever you use rapid fire sign language," she let slip as she focused back on the code.
"You only understand half of what I say, or you find it sexy?" he asked with a playful smirk.
Pausing mid-code, she signed as she verbally admitted, "both."
"I'll have to start signing more often," he said, signing as he spoke, causing her to bite her lip.
Pushing her glasses up with her right hand, her gaze darted towards Clint before zeroing back in on the screens. She needed to focus. She had several windows of code working, her gaze flitting between each screen as her codes did the work for her, sifting through anyone who accessed the airlines information in the past few days.
When the text stopped, and coordinates popped up, she turned to the fourth monitor to type them in, cursing under her breath when the location popped up. Leaning over her shoulder, Clint let out a long sigh when the address of the auction in Paris popped up.
"Slater," he muttered.
"We need to talk to Coulson," she said, closing out of the windows.
Clint flipped his hand palm up to check his watch.
"He's probably in his weekly admin meeting. Fourth floor conference room."
They waited outside the conference room, leaning against the wall on either side of the door, until the meeting ended and agents filed out of the room, dispersing down the halls back to their offices. Slipping inside after the last agent, Coulson glanced up from the files he shuffled together.
"Biotech and analysis haven't found anything yet," he said, turning his attention back to the files.
"I have," Kat said, sliding her phone across the table to him with the coordinates she'd found. "Seems Slater didn't appreciate my virus."
Pulling his phone from his pocket, he double checked the coordinates she provided. He didn't bother asking how she got the coordinates. He probably wouldn't understand her explanation anyways. It didn't matter how she got it, it mattered what they did with the information.
"Good work," he said, handing her phone back to her. "We'll put together a team to counteract and eliminate the threat."
"It's my job to eliminate Slater. I want in." Clint said, leaning against the conference table.
"That was before. If he found out Lee's identity, he very well could know yours as well. I'll be assigning a new agent to Slater's case."
"You're not serious," Clint said. Slater was his assignment. Did Coulson really think he'd let a blown cover keep him from tracking and eliminating the man who tried to kill Kat? "Whether I've been compromised or not doesn't affect my ability to eliminate him."
"It removes the element of surprise and puts you at a disadvantage. As your senior agent, I'm taking you both off his case."
"We've studied his files for weeks and now you're benching us?" Kat asked. Putting a new agent on this could prove to be as much of a hindrance as keeping them on even with their identities known.
"Your part in the mission was completed when you destroyed the weapon. And I'd rather catch another agent up to speed than let two of our best get picked off like sitting ducks," Coulson insisted. "Slater's proven to be resourceful. He obviously recruited his own hacker and can monitor your movements. Taking that into consideration, I think it's safer for you both to go off grid."
Kat hugged her phone to her stomach. She knew 'off grid' meant no tech, no internet, no communication with the outside world.
"I'm a data analyst. I don't do 'off grid.'" Her whole job centered around computers and technology. "I don't know how to do it."
"Barton's been off-grid before. He can help you adjust."
"I don't agree with your decision." Clint crossed his arms. "Let me handle Slater."
"You don't have to agree. But I do expect you to follow orders. Can you do that?"
Silence met his question as Lee and Barton shared a heavy look. With a sigh, Lee's hands started moving in what Coulson recognized as sign language, though he had no clue what she was saying.
'There goes our weekend.' Kat was really looking forward to seeing Clint's place and hanging around him in his everyday setting. Getting a glimpse at his life in New York.
'At least we'll be together.' He signed back.
Coulson looked between the two. Did that mean they were on board with the plan?
Reluctantly, Kat set her phone back on the conference table.
"I still think I could tech-block Slater's hacker, but we'll try it your way first."
A/N: Hello everyone. My goodness I feel like it's been ages. I really hope it doesn't take me that long to sort out how to write the next update. And I hope everyone enjoyed this update. I had fun with it.
To the guest who found this story by pulling up my profile so you could reread Rehabilitate for the fifth time: I'm glad you found this story and took the time to read it. It's so so lovely to hear how much you love both stories and my writing. Thank you for reading and say you think I'm an amazing writer. It means so so much. Hope you enjoyed the update.
Rach
xoxo