2010-Iron Man

"I am Iron Man."

"Well that didn't go to plan" Clint said starring at the TV screen in his room.

"Oh Fury is going to be pissed" Natasha said walking into the room carrying a bottle of vodka and two pizza boxes. "How long do you think it'll be before someone gets assigned to Stark to make sure he doesn't kill himself?" Clint asked. "How much do you wanna bet it's going to be me?" she retorted, sitting down next to him on the bed flipping the pizza box open. Clint didn't say anything to that, just reached over to grab a slice, he didn't want to think about what methods Tasha would have to resort to in order to keep Stark in line. They'd been partners for 8 years at this point and even though he knew it was stupid to fall for his partner, but after being in love with her for the past 3 years he was starting to have trouble concealing those feelings from her. He had a feeling that Coulson knew, that man knew everything, but as far as he could tell Nat had no idea or she would have shut him down with her whole "love is for children" mantra. So he was safe for the time being.

At that moment both their phones went off. "Ten bucks it's Coulson."

-Meet me in briefing room 417.—Is what Clint's phone read.

-NOW!—Is what Natasha's read.

"How the hell could he have known we were together?" Clint asked moving the pizza boxes to the fridge in his room and grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair. Natasha grabbed her gun and slipped her shoes back on. "Because he's Coulson, I swear that he might be clairvoyant, but to be honest it wasn't much of a stretch, when aren't we together during down time?" she asked him moving towards the door way.

She had been noticing over the past three years since Clint had ended up in hospital for 2 weeks and a coma for 5 of those days that they basically spent all their free time, when not on missions, together. She would never admit to herself that it was due to the revelation that she had feelings for her, she always rationalized it back to the fact that he was the only one besides Coulson, Fury, May and Hill who weren't afraid of her, even after 8 years. But seeing as Fury and Coulson were their bosses, Hill was always on duty and May had been deep undercover for the better part of the past 2 years trying to bring down a Chinese underground drug/human/gun trafficking ring, Clint was the only person she felt comfortable enough around to let her guard down and do things with.

"Well let's go see what he wants before he takes his frustration out on us."

-10 Minutes Later—

The two agents walked into meeting room 417 to find Fury pacing and Coulson doing his best to look calm. The next 30 minutes was made up of Fury ranting about how ignorant, stubborn, egotistical and frustrating Stark was and another 20 of Coulson recapping the mission and what was going to happen next.

"Let me guess" Natasha started, "I'm going in undercover in order to get close to him, gain his trust and monitor him to make sure he doesn't end up killing himself or causing trouble with the government?"

"Now whose clairvoyant?" Coulson asked with a smirk. At that Clint spat out his coffee, looking wide eyed at his handler. "But yes, that is the gist of what will be done."

"What about me sir?" Clint asked wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

"You are heading to France for the next 2 months gathering intel on a business man we believe has been selling weapons to known Hyrda cells across Europe." Fury said passing him a folder with the mission details inside.

They were used to getting sent on separate missions, but they were few and far in-between. They grabbed their separate files and left, making their way back to Clint's room to study them and eat the rest of their pizza.

-2 months later—

"I swear to god if he makes one more pass at me I'm going to end up throttling him. Well unless Potts gets to him first, then I wouldn't have to explain to Fury why his pet project is dead."

Clint chuckled over the phone as he made his way back to the hotel he was currently staying at.

"Oh come on Tasha it can't be that bad"

"Oh, I bet you a months' worth of Chinese that it is."

"Well it won't be much longer, right? I've just finished up and will be back home by tomorrow. Maybe I can convince Coulson to let me come visit, play the part and get him to back off."

She laughed at that, ignoring the twisting feeling in her stomach at the idea of Clint being her boyfriend, even if just to get Stark to back off. "Even though that sounds great, I'm heading to Monaco as we speak for some car race with Potts and Stark."

"Why do they need Natalie from legal to go on a trip across the world?"

"They don't, but Coulson and Fury want me there monitoring his vitals, so I managed to convince Potts that I could be valuable."

"Ooo fun!" the sarcasm dripping from his voice was comforting to Natasha, she had missed it since they'd been split up.

"Well I need to get this guy's blood off me before SHIELD comes to get me in the morning."

"Well enjoy your time off and I'll see you when I get back to the States."

"Night Tasha."

"Night Clint."

-The Next Day—

"Barton, good to see you." Coulson said as he got off the quinjet.

"You to sir. And from the look on your face I'm not heading home am I?"

"No, we're heading to Monaco. Romanoff needs back up."

"Why? What's happened?" he said making his way up the ramp quickly and tossing his bags to the side.

"She's fine but it looks like Stark is about to do something stupid."

"Well let's go."

-1 Hour Later—

"Well I never would have thought the next time I would be in Monaco, the first time I get to watch the Grand Prix live would be because Tony Stark decided to fight a guy with electric whips." Clint said suddenly appearing behind Natasha who was too preoccupied with the figures and numbers flying across the tablet in her hands that was monitoring Stark's vitals.

Her head whipped around to look at him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked. To any other on looker they would have thought she was pissed at him, but he knew her better than that, he could see the shock in her eyes at his presence there.

"Heard you were having all the fun so I asked Coulson to let me tag along." Smirking he moved to stand next to her, looking out over the race track where Stark was being led away.

She looked back down at her tablet, trying to get her focus back to the mission and not the fact that Clint was standing next to her after one of the longest periods of time apart since she started at SHIELD.

"Ya, well it's not as much fun as you'd think. Basically, I've been helping Potts keep the company going and keeping her boyfriend alive long enough for him to find himself a cure, unless the white coats at SHIELD can find one first."

Seeing his partner shocked was a rare treat. The first time he saw that look in her eyes was when he had gotten her a set of custom made throwing knives, all perfectly balanced, weighted and the perfect lengths for multiple situations, and all to her specifications. She has no idea that he paid that much attention to her and her weapons that he'd be able to get her such a gift.

"Well it looks like you didn't need back up after all Romanoff." Coulson said walking up to the pair.

"When have I ever really needed back up sir?" she asked with a smirk. She turned to her boss/friend as she had begun to think of him over the past couple of years. Besides Clint, Fury, May and Hill he was one of the few people she had ever considered close enough to grant with that title. When growing up in the Red Room she never had friends or father figures (like Fury had become once he realized that she was more than just an asset to SHEILD) she had handlers who mistreated her and competition from the other girls, all of whom were trying to be the best.

"True, but you never know Natasha, one of these days something might surprise you. Anyways now that Stark is still alive and the threat has been neutralized for the moment we will be heading back to the States. You have 5 minutes Barton." With that he walked towards the exit closest to their quinjet.

"I can't believe he brought you out here for no reason."

"Oh, I think he had a reason, just never took him for the sentimental type."

"What do you mean?" she asked moving her eyes from the tablet to look at her partner.

"Well to be honest I was not the best behaved agent when I was in France. I forgot what it was like not working with a partner so I guess I started to get on Coulson's nerves. I think he realized before I did what was missing and probably thought bringing me here, seeing you…" he trailed off when he realized how much he had just confessed to her.

"I felt it to. Like something was off about the mission." Natasha said quietly, anyone else would have missed it but he didn't. Looking down at her he met her eyes. He knew her feelings on love and he would never do anything to screw up their partnership and more importantly their friendship but at that moment he almost didn't care. He reached over and wrapped his arms around her petite frame and pulled her towards him. For the second time that day she shocked him when she went willingly into the hug, wrapping her own arms around his middle.

"Someone, most likely Stark will figure out a cure and we'll be back in the field taking out Hydra cells and puffed up politicians trying to take over their countries and everything will be back to normal."

"Well as normal as things can be for two assassins." She retorted leaning away from him slightly, looking up at him.

They both saw something in the other's eyes, but neither willing to bring it up.

"Come on Barton, times up. Just got a call from Fury. Looks like we're off to New Mexico for the foreseeable future." Coulson said through the comms.

"So much for back to normal." Natasha said somewhat glumly, slowly pulling away from her partner, but he held her in place.

"I give it a week before Coulson is begging for us to be sent to some backwards country to take out a dictator just to get away from me." With a smirk and before he could stop himself he leant forward and kissed her forehead.

"See ya later Tasha." He called as he ran towards the exit. Her eyes flew open, only just realizing that they were closed, processing what had just happened. Bring a couple of fingers up to the spot where his lips had met her skin she could still feel the heat from them, the first genuine smile in a long time creeping its way across her lips.

"Natalie! There you are. I've been looking for you everywhere, where have you been? We need to get back to the jet and back to Stark Industries to deal with this mess." Pepper Potts exclaimed as she hurried into the room.

"Sorry Ms. Potts, I was trying to get as many civilians out of the building as I could incase the building got hit." She said, her Natalie Rushman mask sliding back into place. As she followed her 'boss' out of the building she looked up to the cliff side to her right and saw the flicker of what she knew was Clint turning the Quinjet's cloaking mechanism being turned on as it took off. She just hoped that this mission would be over soon so life could go back to the way it was supposed to be, her and Clint against the world.