2012 – After the Avengers

The group of 6 walked, well more like stumbled, into the Shawarma shop as the owners were attempting to sweep away the dust and debris that were the results of the battle. Steve and Thor started to clear a path, moving the larger chunks of concrete and scaffolding out onto the streets leaving more room for everyone to move around. As they were assisting the shop owners the rest started to pull chairs up to what seemed like the only surviving table in the place ad slumped down. A few moments later the owners, upon recognizing who had come in, came over to offer them the food and drinks they had remaining.

"Whatever you have would be great, I've never had Shawarma before but it sounds like just what the doctor order, ain't that right Bruce?" Tony told the older woman as she retreated to the back to start collecting plate of food. Steve and Thor had made their way over to the table after clearing the rest of the larger pieces from the room and took the remaining seats next to Natasha and Clint. The group sat in silence for a long time, only speaking to thank the owners when they brought the food over and they proceeded to devour the Shawarma that was placed in front of them.

After a few minutes Natasha had noticed the Clint hadn't touched his food and was griping his leg trying not to show the pain he was obviously feeling after his swan dive off the skyscraper. Without saying anything she placed her wrap back down in front of her, shifted in her seat and bent over in order to take a hold of his ankle and carefully lifted it so it was propped up on her chair. His eyes met hers and she could see the gratitude in them, she in return shifted her eyes from his face to the food he'd left untouched and back again, raising and eyebrow. With a small smirk her started to pick at the food he'd been given. Seemingly satisfied, Natasha returned her attention back to her food and those around her.

Before today she had only read or hears stories about the men sitting around her, aside from Stark of course, but after his display earlier she was starting to think she'd have to change her first assessment of him. She'd once labeled him as selfish to a fault but after seeing him use the remaining reserves of his suit to divert that nuke away from the city up into the rift above showed her a side she hadn't previously seen from the self-proclaimed genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Her eyes shifted from him to the legend that Coulson could never shut up about, the man out of time. Waking from 70+ years in the ice only to find himself, not only in a new world, but in another war with an enemy even worse some could say than the Nazi's he had fought all those years ago. She has seen him fight today, had seen him take on the role of leader and had actually managed to take this rag tag team of misfits and get them to work together when only a few hours previous it seemed like a laughably hopeless feat to take on, but he had done it he had managed to do the seemingly impossible. At that moment she wished Coulson could be there, the man he had idolized for decades had once again save the world from destruction and conquering and he wasn't there to see it.

Next, the doctor with, as Stark had put it "with breathtaking anger management issues." She knew even less about the doctor, had read the reports about his time after his lab accident that lead to the destruction of Harlem however after those events he had "disappeared." What she had told him in Calcutta was true, SHIELD had kept tabs on him but left him to his own devices but as he never truly piqued the interest of SHIELD in the years previous she hadn't bothered to learn anything else about the man.

Moving lastly to the literal God of Thunder, she remembered what Clint had told her about Thor's time in New Mexico, had even read every report she could get her hands on at the time because unlike green rage monsters in New York, a man, or god for that matter, from another world had interested her way more. Plus after much digging Clint had managed to find the video footage of him tearing through the make shift compound SHIELD had built in the dessert and kicking the absolute shit out of Braxton much to her delight. To say there hadn't been many, many viewings of said footage would have been an outright lie but no one needed to know that.

An hour passed before Natasha's comms came to life in her ear and she heard Fury's voice come through, to anyone watching her they wouldn't have noticed any changes in her demeanor, but she stilled ever so slightly at the message she had received which caught Clint's attention. Raising his own eyebrow at his partner in question she responded with a slight shake of her head before starting to stand up.

"Well gentlemen this has been great but we're needed elsewhere at the moment." Following her lead Clint finished off his food in a hurry and made to stand but he stood too quickly and his knee gave out slightly. Moving to her partner's side she ducked under his arm and the two master assassins made their way to the entrance, or where it would have been, and onto the street. Taking a right they walked to the corner and stopped.

"Hill is sending a car to get us, figured it would be easier than trying to get ourselves back with all the blockades still in place." She said in response to his sideways glace at her abrupt stop.

"I'm honestly more surprised a team hasn't already come to take me away after everything I've done in the last –" Before he could finish Natasha spun out from under his arm so she was standing directly in front of him. The sudden loss of support caused Clint to stumble again but he managed to catch himself before he could reacquaint his face with concrete.

"Listen to me and listen good Barton because I'm only going to say this once, everything that has happened since you were brainwashed and taken WAS NOT YOUR FAULT! Do you hear me? We already agreed that this whole situation, monsters and magic and literal Gods is not what either of were trained for or could have ever anticipated in this line of work. What Loki did to you, no one could have resisted. Take it from someone who spend most of her first 2 decades on this earth being routinely broken and remade, there was nothing you could do. That is unless of course you've been taking anti-brainwashing by alien god courses somewhere and failed to tell me about it." Raising any eyebrow in challenge at the archer she continued. "You never once judged me or held me accountable for the things I did when with the Red Room because you knew what they did to me. I seem to recall you saying something very similar back then to about it not being my fault or within my control, so if you don't want to take my advice, how about you take your own huh?"

He stayed quiet for a few moments before nodding.

"So, what does Fury want with us? Couldn't he give us more than an hour after saving the world before needing us for some mission or whatever else he has planned for me?" He asked looking down the street trying to spot the SHIELD issued vehicle that was supposedly on its way to collect them. After everything they had witnessed these past few days, Clint honestly thought there wasn't much that could shock him at this point, but this was Natasha after all and she prided herself on keeping him on his toes even after all these years. So when with a smirk on her face and tears glinting in her eyes the following two words almost floored him.

"Coulson's alive."