May 2014, Washington DC

The first sign of life was a twitch of a hand, then a deep breath, and then finally - finally - his eyes opened.

"On your left," Sam said softly.

Steve groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. "What happened?"
"You dropped your shield, failed to defend yourself, and nearly got yourself killed," Peggy said sharply, her voice at odds with the tender kiss she bestowed upon his forehead. "You idiot."
"Bucky?" Steve asked hoarsely, because of course that was the first thing he thought. "How long …?"

"You've been unconscious for four days," Sam answered. "No one's seen him. We found you on the bank of the river."

"I specifically told you to get clear," Peggy said.

"Yeah, well, he had other ideas," Steve said. "I fell into the water; he must have pulled me out. He remembered, Peggy. Just before I fell - I saw it in his eyes; he remembered."

Sam and Peggy exchanged a look, and he got to his feet. "I'll go and track down your doctor before you start pulling the monitors off."
"He won't if he knows what's good for him," Peggy muttered.

Steve gave her a sheepish smile as Sam left, and she softened a little. "I swear you're trying to give me a heart attack."

Steve's smile faded, and he squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry. Are you alright?"

"The whole point of SHIELD was to take out HYDRA," Peggy said flatly. "Well, take out HYDRA and find you. I thought we'd done it. That's why I faked my death when I did the first time; I thought it was over. And instead I apparently handed the keys of my office over to a HYDRA agent. I trusted Alex, Steve. I went to his wedding, to his children's baptisms and their birthday parties. And then if that weren't bad enough, I sent Captain America off with a HYDRA strike team as back-up!"

"Nat and I were our own back-up," Steve said, squeezing her hand again, and it sounded like he and Natasha had formed their own bond over the last year.

"I'm glad you get along," Peggy said softly.

Steve froze, a look of slight panic crossing his face, and she contemplated letting him flounder for a bit for how to tell her, before taking pity on him. "She told me about the mall, Steve. It's okay."

"I wouldn't have done it," Steve said. "Even without you, she's like my sister."

Peggy chuckled. "It's fine, Steve. Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable, and it got you past HYDRA. I wasn't lying; I am glad you get along."

"In my defence, the last time I kissed another woman you shot at me."

Peggy pulled a face. "In my defence, that had more to do with you thinking I'd ever stoop so low as to date Howard than anything to do with her. And with hindsight, you were trying to get rid of her without hurting her, which I appreciate wouldn't have been easy."

"She surprised me," Steve admitted, and Peggy assumed he meant Private Lorraine and not Natasha. "Short of shoving her away, there wasn't much I could have done. You were the only woman I wanted to be kissing."

Even now, after two years, he still sounded shy telling her something like that, and she smiled. "I know." She sighed, her mind returning to the issue at hand. "I was supposed to have taken them out."

"It's not your fault, sweetheart," Steve said. "I shouldn't have confronted you like that at the safe-house."

"Sam and Nat filled me in," Peggy said. "You were reeling; I completely understand. And I don't blame you."

The remainder of Steve's tension seemed to leave him. "I love you."

Peggy smiled, leaning down to kiss him. "I love you too."

Sam returned at that moment, and she stepped back to let the doctor check him over.

Peggy had called Tony as soon as they reached the hospital and asked him to do a full background check on the doctor, just in case, but he had, thankfully, come up clean.

Still, she was getting them back to New York - and Stark Tower - as soon as Steve was fit to travel.

Steve, of course, looked ready to move as soon as the doctor left.

"No," Peggy said sternly. "You're staying put until the doctor gives you the all clear. He knows about the serum," she added, forestalling that argument. "He's not going to keep you in longer than he has to. You nearly died, Steve. I don't think you appreciate just how close he came to killing you."

"But he's MIA?" Steve asked.

Peggy considered trying to stick to talking about Steve, but she knew well enough that he wouldn't focus on anything else as long as he was worried about Bucky. "No sign of him," she confirmed. "Comm chatter suggests HYDRA doesn't know where he is either though, so that's something."
"He'll turn up, Steve," Sam added. "I'm sure he just needs time to get his head on straight."

Peggy nodded. "Nat says the longer he's out of cryostasis, the more his memory comes back."

"Cryostasis?" Steve repeated, raising an eyebrow. "All Nat told me about the Winter Soldier was Odessa."

Peggy winced. "She knew him before that, Steve. Whether HYDRA had a hand in the Red Room - most likely - or the Soldier was at one point handled by the Soviets - also likely - there was a … crossover. Between ops, they put him in cryostasis. They freeze him," she clarified, seeing his confusion. "Put him on ice until they need him again. I suppose that's why they called him the Winter Soldier."

Steve looked like he was going to cry. "Seriously?"

Peggy rubbed her thumb against the back of his hand. "He and Nat ran a couple of ops together. One ran longer than expected and he woke her in the middle of the night and they went AWOL. They were in Italy by the time they were caught. After that, she never saw him again, until he shot her." She suddenly remembered something else Natasha had told her about that op. "He gave her a name. Yakov."
"Jacob?" Sam asked.

"James," Peggy corrected. "Generally speaking, James. And they were heading west, so … He could have been aiming for New York, I suppose."
"So there's hope?" Steve asked.

"There is," Peggy said warily. "But you need to remember that this was over twenty years ago, Steve. Natasha was about sixteen, I think."

Sam frowned. "No way Natasha's in her thirties."
"She thinks she has a variation of the serum," Peggy said. "We don't know how old she is. The point is that they could have done anything to him in that time, and there's no way we're going to find him until he's ready to be found. I know," she said with a sigh, "we're going to look anyway."

Steve heaved a sigh. "If Bucky's away from them, we should probably prioritise HYDRA."

He sounded so reluctant, and that would be such a hard thing for him to admit, she wanted to kiss him.

Well, it wasn't the forties anymore, Sam wasn't going to judge them, and her whole world had fallen apart over the last week, so she did it anyway.

"We do have people for that," she murmured when they parted.

Steve frowned. "We do? You mean Fury?"

"Well, officially, he's still dead," Peggy said. "He's scouting leads in Europe. Maria and I will be holding a funeral in due course. I still think he's going to restart SHIELD, but the rest of the world isn't going to go for it. I mean the Avengers Initiative."

"That was a SHIELD idea though, wasn't it?" Steve asked.

"Initially," Peggy agreed. "But after the Invasion, it turns out Tony and Pepper prepared everything in case it needed to be a reality. They've confirmed that the secretary general of the UN has no HYDRA ties - didn't think he would; doesn't fit the profile - but they've reached out, and the UN has given the Initiative clearance to act as an independent emergency relief and counter-terrorism team."
"What's that in English?" Steve asked.

"It means that officially we will respond to alien threats and any disasters that need immediate manpower," Peggy answered. "Unofficially, we're taking out HYDRA. That stuff we're not going to be overtly public about, obviously."

"But we are going to be overtly public," Steve said dubiously.

"Sometimes you need to do PR," Peggy said gently. "I know you hate it."
The dancing monkey sketch was something of a legend back in the day.

"This whole thing has shaken the general public," Sam added. "No one knows who to trust, and nowadays just being Captain America ain't gonna cut it."

Steve cracked a smile. "I guess. I still don't like it."
"I don't need you to like it," Peggy said. "I just need you to do it." She leaned down to whisper in his ear. "I'll make it worth your while."

He brushed a kiss to her cheek and she straightened up, completely ignoring Sam's smirk - there was no way he could have heard her, but he also wasn't stupid.

"So independent," Steve said. "Not connected to any government?"
"That's the plan," Peggy said. "It was the plan with SHIELD as well, but it never quite worked. Obviously we'll be based from here, because Stark Tower is an excellent starting place. We're hoping that the Initiative will be public enough that most countries will be happy to have us in and out without issue, whereas they might be a bit more worried about letting the US armed forces in. No offence, Sam."
"None taken," Sam said. "I bet the US is thrilled about that decision. They consider Captain America as belonging to them."

Peggy snorted. "They are not thrilled. But they are also part of the problem. Pepper's still exposing various senators as HYDRA. Or taking bribes from HYDRA."

"We're taking them down, right?" Steve asked.

"Tactically," Peggy said. "One of them is the older brother of my mole in HYDRA, and I don't want to risk blowing his cover. I mean, it probably wouldn't, but I don't want to draw attention to him."

Sam nodded. "That makes sense."
"He's unlike to have deep system access," Peggy continued. "They're too paranoid. But sometimes system access leaves gaps and that's where your spies come into their own." She saw the look on Steve's face and patted his hand. "They will all be taken out, Steve. Just in a way that makes sure that HYDRA doesn't just fill the vacuum with another one we don't know about."

May 2014, Manhattan

True to her word, Kate was being exceptionally understanding about her 'grounding', and Clint felt a bit bad about that, considering that none of it was her fault.

He wasn't stupid; he knew that half the reason she was being so good about it was that she was scared - it was obvious in the way that she hugged him just a little tighter, stayed just a little closer to him - but she was also not talking about it.

Pepper had spoken to the school for him, using her considerable influence to convince them to allow Kate to take virtual lessons for the last few weeks of the spring semester. After school, she was still shadowing Pepper, which he would have worried about, except Pepper seemed to have taken Kate under her wing as a kind of protégé, and he wasn't going to complain about that.

Kate had been bugging him for a while about teaching her trick shots, and he had been reluctant to do so, in case it encouraged her to put the suit back on, but she was so obviously scared - and so obviously pretending she wasn't bouncing off the walls - that he relented.

She took to it like a natural, just as he knew she would.

With the at-risk SHIELD agents identified and passed over to MI5 for extraction, Clint had taken a step back from data crunching to step back in as Pepper's bodyguard.

The Stark Industries board had panicked over the whole HYDRA mess and Pepper's subsequent press conference in which she announced the Avengers Initiative and announced war on HYDRA - she couched it in much nicer terms but that was more or less what she had said.

So Pepper had constant meetings, trying to soothe ruffled feathers, and Clint was even less inclined to leave her to deal with them alone than he had before.

When he started, the gig was mainly to make Tony and Pepper feel better - he had not considered her to be in actual danger, not after Tony's very overt show of what Iron Man did when she was threatened.

Now, things were different, so he spent his days shadowing her, and not even bothering to hide the handgun strapped to his hip.

It had been a week since the data dump, and Natasha was still in DC. She was being spectacularly cagey on the phone - even for her - so he had no idea what she was up to, but she had promised him that she was returning to New York and would be home soon.

The word 'home' had startled him and warmed him simultaneously.

A knock on his door jolted him from his thoughts and he turned off his welding iron. "JARVIS, who is it?"

Clint and JARVIS had an understanding. The cameras in his apartment were all turned off and JARVIS only listened enough to hear his name if Clint needed him.

Being a spy, it was something that Clint had been constantly aware of when he moved in, but he was so used to JARVIS by now that he barely thought about it. He didn't completely understand how JARVIS worked - and he doubted that he ever would - but he had come to the conclusion over the last few days that he trusted JARVIS implicitly.

Hell, if JARVIS ever went SkyNet and tried to take over the world, Clint would be right there backing him up.

"Darcy would like a word," JARVIS said. "Would you like me to let her in?"

"Yeah, go ahead; thanks," Clint said.

"What are you doing?" Darcy asked in greeting. She had a tablet tucked under her arm, which suggested it wasn't a social call.

"Arrow heads, "Clint answered. "I make my own."
"You know Tony will do that," Darcy said.
"He's got enough on his plate," Clint said dismissively. Although Tony would probably be more receptive than SHIELD R&D, who always shot down his more interesting ideas. "Plus, that's kind of like telling him that he hires enough people to work on the armour for him."
"Fair," Darcy said.

Clint started to pack the equipment away. "So what's up? Regretting your life choices yet?"
Darcy was quiet for a moment. "I just wanted the extra science credits."

Clint chuckled. "Yeah, I know."
"Not regretting it though," Darcy said. "If I did, I wouldn't have gone back to Jane after graduating."
"Congratulations on that, by the way," Clint said sincerely. "I remember you saying that you were worried about it."
"Well, presenting my thesis was just as crappy as I expected," Darcy said. "Trying to get a load of old men to take you seriously when you look like this is really not easy. Wait, how do you even remember that? We were playing beer pong!"
"I'm a spy," Clint said. "Do you honestly think I'd get drunk on the job?"
Darcy's jaw dropped for a second. "Well, when you put it like that, of course you wouldn't."
"Normally I do it to get intel," Clint said. "In your case, I didn't want to make you suspicious but I also didn't want to leave you there because there were some really creepy guys in that bar."
"There were," Darcy agreed. "I was very confused. Normally when guys pay that much attention to me, they're trying to get into my pants. That's why I asked if you had kids. You obviously weren't married. And I couldn't figure out a polite way of asking if you were gay."

Clint chuckled. "It's nothing personal, Darcy, although you are way too young for me. Even if you weren't …" he pulled out his phone and pulled up a picture of Natasha. "My girlfriend."

Darcy let out a low whistle. "Okay, yeah, fair. That's Natasha, right? She coming here?"
"Eventually," Clint said. "She's a master at the non-answer."

"Yeah, so are you," Darcy said. "Although now I've met Kate everything makes a lot more sense. You were totally giving off Dad vibes."

Clint rolled his eyes. She had asked if he had children before he had really allowed himself to concede how he felt about Kate, but answering in the negative had still felt wrong. "If you say so. What's bothering you? You find something?"
"Yeah, I did." Darcy took a seat in the armchair and placed the tablet in her lap, although didn't turn it on. "First of all though … I haven't read the files about the Invasion. But I have heard bits and pieces from Tony and Bruce, and … I get the feeling the Invasion hit you harder than the others."

Clint knew he had stiffened up as soon as she said the word. "It hit us all."

Darcy tilted her head a little. "Yeah, but you were different."

"I'm not talking about it," Clint said bluntly.

"I'm not surprised," Darcy said. "This isn't Therapy Hour. Although if you ever want Therapy Hour, you know where to find me. I'm a good listener. It's a long story, but Jane and I ended up on Asgard last year."

Clint raised an eyebrow. "I feel like I want that long story at some point. Are you going to tell me he's locked up?"

"He's dead actually," Darcy said bluntly. "Figured you deserved to know."

Clint sucked in a breath. "Are you sure? Thor thought that before, right?"

"That time he fell from the bifrost and no one knew what had happened," Darcy said. "This time there was a stabbing and dying in Thor's arms and … Yeah, it was messy."

Clint gave a nod. "Good."

Darcy raised an eyebrow, but didn't respond, and he realised there had been a bit more venom in his voice than he had intended.

"You know Dr Selvig, I guess," he said. "Did he tell you what happened to him?"
"Yeah, it sounded …" Darcy trailed off, understanding dawning in her eyes. "It happened to you too."
"I planned an attack on SHIELD that killed a lot of people, including one of my best friends," Clint said softly. "I tried to murder the love of my life - and he wanted me to, purely because he knew it would destroy me, and he found that amusing. So you'll forgive me if I'm not shedding any tears."

Darcy stood up and came over to hug him.

She was a hugger - Clint wasn't really (Kate didn't count) - but he had gotten used to her over the last few days, and he wasn't complaining at the moment anyway.

Bless her, she knew the moment he started feeling award, and stepped away with no hesitation whatsoever.

"About what I found," she said, "what do you know about the Red Room?"
"Enough to know I'd rather talk about Loki," Clint muttered, sinking on to the couch. "Why do you ask?"

"I've found a few files," Darcy said. "I haven't read them. I mean, I started reading the first one, and then decided that it was way above my pay grade. And also that I didn't want to read any more."

"I don't blame you," Clint said. He had learned a little about the Red Room before finding Natasha; it had convinced him to take the op to try and bring her in, and also convinced him that he didn't want to know any more about it.

Natasha had told him a lot, and he had always listened, but he was also fairly sure that even she had shielded him from the worst of it.

"The Red Room was a particularly nasty part of the USSR. Natasha grew up in it; she took it out when the KGB fell."

There was something about the look in Darcy's eyes that he didn't like.

"What?"

"She didn't," Darcy said. "I mean, she probably thought she did, but according to what I've read, they're still going under HYDRA."

"Shit," Clint groaned. "What was the question exactly? About the Red Room?"

"What do I do with the files?" Darcy asked.

"Collate them and flag them," Clint answered tiredly. "I'll speak to Nat; she's … she's the best person to look at them."

But dammit hadn't she been through enough?

"Clint?" Darcy asked softly. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I just …" Clint heaved a heavy sigh. "I was supposed to be getting her away from all that. Turns out I just put her right back into it."

May 2014, Manhattan

Standing up to Congress in front of the world's media was the last think Natasha ever thought she would do., but someone involved in the whole mess had to do it, and Peggy deserved some time to decompress before she had to answer questions like that.

After her fantastic (if she did say so herself) parting line to Congress, she had to face the hoard outside. She didn't flinch, ignoring every question screamed at her, reporters parting to let her through, apparently too apprehensive of her to try and block her in.

"Will Lady Liberty and Captain America be answering to Congress as well?"

At that, Natasha paused, turning to face the woman who had spoken. "Given they had to act to prevent an act of mass murder being committed by a terrorist organisation who apparently have half of the House in their pocket and taking bribes from them, I'm not sure it's Lady Liberty and Captain America who need to do the answering. I would take another look at the data leak; there was quite a bit in there."

She had intentionally included some of the financial information in the initial data leak purely for situations like this. She knew that Peggy wanted a more tactful approach, and that was normally what Natasha favoured as well, but it wouldn't hurt to have the American public up in arms. At the very least, it might force them into transparency long enough for the Initiative to untangle the web behind them.

It also had everyone rushing for their smartphones, which gave Natasha a chance to slip away. She knew she wasn't followed from DC, but all the same it was with some relief that she entered Stark Tower.

Or Avengers Tower, she supposed it was now - which went some way to explaining why Stark had never bothered fixing the sign after the Chitauri knocked out the other letters.

She didn't believe that Tony Stark was psychic, but he was definitely a futurist. She knew from her brief conversations with Clint that Stark had seen at least the need for the Initiative a mile away.

Not bothering with the receptionist, Natasha strode straight to the centre elevator - the one without a call button - somewhat unsurprised when it opened upon her approach and security didn't bat an eyelid.

"Welcome home, Ms Romanov."

Right -she wasn't an agent anymore.

"Thank you, JARVIS," Natasha said. "Where's Clint?"
"He is in the archery range, ma'am," JARVIS answered. "Would you like to take me straight there?"

Natasha glanced down at her duffel bag. "My apartment first please. Then I'll take you up on that."
"Very good, ma'am."

There were two doors on the 79th floor, but JARVIS opened one of them for her as she stepped out of the elevator, so Natasha assumed it was hers.

Then again, there was a one-eyed dog lounging on the couch, so maybe she was wrong.

When he saw her, he jumped down and ran to her, tail wagging with excitement, and she set her bag down to fuss over him. "Hi Lucky. JARVIS, this is my apartment, isn't it?"

"It is indeed, Ms Romanov. You and Clint have a connecting door, and Lucky appears to have decided that both apartments belong to him. Kate normally calls him back, but she is currently attending a math class."

The phrasing seemed a bit odd, and Natasha glanced though the other open door she now realised led to the next apartment to see Kate sitting at a dining table with a laptop. She had a headset on, and appeared to be listening intently.

Natasha gently closed the door, so she didn't disturb her. "JARVIS, shouldn't she be at school?"

"Miss Potts has arranged for Kate to attend school online for the time being," JARVIS answered.

Translation: Clint was too scared to let her leave the building.

Lucky nudged her hand, and she scratched his ears, somewhat flatted by his happiness at seeing her when she had only met him twice. "You're a good boy. Have you been looking after them?"
Lucky made a little huffing noise and licked her hand.

"Good," Natasha said, straightening up. "Alright, JARVIS, to the archery range."

The elevator went down, which was to be expected, considering the fact that she knew the top floors were all science based, but then it kept going until she was sure they were underground.

"JARVIS?"

"Sir found that he was unable to install a proper archery range above ground," he said, proving her right. "Clint tends to lock down the range when he is in there, but he has been waiting for you to return, so I have been asked to allow you access."
Natasha smiled. "Does he know I'm here?"
"Clint prefers I keep to high privacy levels in the range," JARVIS said. "I do not interrupt unless there is an emergency."

That was a no, then.

Excellent.

Natasha let her into the range silently, not wanting to interrupt 'the process' as Clint called it.

She was sure he would welcome this particular interruption, but she did so love watching him shoot.

Against the back wall next to the door was a long shelf underneath cases holding a variety of bows and ammo. Natasha hopped up onto the shelf and settled in to wait.

Stark had outdone himself. The range was huge and must have spread under at least the next three buildings, but it also included perches, ropes, walkways, openings …

It was perfect for Clint, and thank goodness he had Kate, or he might have moved in down here.

At the moment though, he was not taking advantage of the scale of the room, standing stock still and firing arrow after arrow at a stationary target.

It was too easy for him, and something he usually only did when he was trying to clear his mind. He had told her once that the process was meditative.

Ever a sniper, it wasn't often that stress got to him, but she supposed that the last week would do that; she knew that if she had been stuck on security duty while he took down a terrorist organisation, she would have been climbing the walls.

There were ten targets set up in a row. Eight of them were covered in holes, and he was working on a ninth, so he had been down here for a while.

They needed to talk, she knew that, but she bided her time, waiting for him to empty his quiver - he tended to get a bit jumpy when he didn't finish a set.

While she waited, she watched, her eyes following his gloved hand as it plucked an arrow from his quiver and lined up the shot; the bowstring was drawn back to the anchor point at the corner of his mouth; the arrow flew, the muscles in his back and arm rippling in that familiar pattern that still, after all these years, stirred something deep inside her.

She didn't bother watching its path - he had already filled the centre of the target, and was currently creating a perfect circle around the outside ring, and she knew he wouldn't miss.

Two more arrows, and his quiver was empty.

His shoulders sagged and he walked forwards to retrieve his ammo.

The second his quiver was refilled and he turned in her direction, he saw her.

She had wondered if maybe he had known she was there - his situational awareness was second to none.

But, no, his eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and then he was striding towards her, unwinding his quiver and throwing it aside in favour of pulling her off the shelf and into his arms.

His combat gear was stiff and abrasive, and his bow was pressed uncomfortable against her back (because of course he hadn't dropped that; that was his baby), but he was kissing her, and so she found she didn't care about any of that.

When he finally pulled away, he only did so far enough to set the bow aside, pressing his forehead against hers. "Hi."

Natasha smiled. "Hi."

"I'm really glad you're here," Clint murmured, lacing their fingers together. "I … I've missed you."
She was fairly sure that hadn't been what he was going to say, but she let it go for now. "I've missed you too. How's everything been here?"

Clint shrugged. "I mean … Quiet. I was kind of expecting some kind of backlash, but it seems to have stalled."

"People are digesting," Natasha said confidently. "We'll get there. The Avengers merchandise is already seeing a resurgence."

"Oh, that was already there," Clint said. "Peggy bought Kate a teddy bear in a Hawkeye shirt in London. Well, you know, a 'mysterious archer' shirt." He sighed. "We need to talk, Natasha."

Natasha felt herself stiffen up. "I know. What I said …"
"Not about that," Clint interrupted. "I mean, if you want to talk about that, we can, but what I meant was … Up until now, the longest we've spent in each other's company is two weeks in Florida. Not undercover," he added.

Natasha hesitated, thinking it through. "I'll agree with that."

"There are some things that have bothered me over the years," Clint admitted. "I've never brought them up, because we've only got a few hours before we fly out, or because one of us could die tomorrow, and … I feel like if we don't talk about them now, they're just going to build and build until one of us explodes."

Natasha faltered. "Um, okay."

"I bet you've got things," Clint said. "It's not just me."

There were, actually, but …

"I'm not sure right this second is the best time to do it," Natasha said. "You've still got a target to go, and you get twitchy when you don't finish. I've just come from Congress and I feel slimy. So you finish; I'll go and shower, and then we can talk. Okay?"
Clint sighed. "Alright." He glanced at the clock. "Kate's just finished school."
"I'll look in on her first," Natasha said. "She and I should probably have a chat."
"Be nice to her," Clint said softly. "She's a bit nervous that she's going to screw the two of us up."

Natasha was oddly comforted by that, since she had similar concerns about Clint and Kate. She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. "I'll see if I can put her mind at ease."