AN / Maybe, just maybe, I will post 9th chapter today too - I'm working on it atm. (no promises, though)

You placed the folder down on your bed with a sigh, gaining Natasha's attention.

"Too many rules?" she mused and you sent her side glance.

"Not really." another folder landed on your knees, as you started to read about agents' levels.

"You can go to sleep and leave the rest for tomorrow." the Russian proposed. "It's late anyway..."

"Am I making it hard for you to sleep?" you looked up from the file to see the read head blink.

"Uh, no. I can sleep just fine in many situations." she shrugged and your lips curved up in a ghost of a smile.

"I see." your eyes moved once again on the letters. "Then if you don't mind, I won't stop reading yet."

Natasha's brows rose.

"Aren't you tired? You had a lot of exercise today..."

You snorted.

"Hey, I was a member of army just yesterday." you sent her amused look. "I'm used to exercise."

She rolled her eyes.

"Right. Captain."

There was a longer moment of silence, as you both went back to what you were doing - you reading and her cleaning two pistols.

"Goodnight" you glanced up from your lecture, to see Natasha crawling in her bed, her pistols already folded and safely placed on her nightstand.

"Night." she switched off the small lamp, she had standing on the previously noticed piece of furniture and turned to the wall.

You went back to reading the document, willing to finish everything before next day. You noticed how eagerly, you read a thing that for many people, probably including the lawful agents, would be the most boring thing in the world. Not to mention, that you had to read all the documents in one go, while they had few sessions in their whole training.

Well... it may have been the fact that you were absolutely destined to any work you did, but also, you were disturbingly excited to start in another field.

You felt like when you were about to start your career as a lieutenant after officers' school, eight years ago.

You smiled to yourself, turning over the page.

In your private moment of happiness, you didn't notice Natasha once again turning her back to you, light smile gracing her lips.

Three days later, you were assigned on your first mission as operative. After that three more weeks passed and you were sent in field ten times in total already. Now, you were on your eleventh mission and to your delight, two of your partners were finally once again Natasha and Clint. That meant, you didn't need to work with newly met people. And you wouldn't be treated like an actual newbie. That was a good thing, basing on the fact that there were agents that unlike the Black Widow and Hawk, thought you could be used as a servant. Seriously... you thought that such things happened only in the army.

"Hawkeye on place." you heard Clint's voice in your earpiece, so you glanced at the roof on the opposite side of the road. He waved at you and you waved back, rolling your eyes at the same time.

"You have too much fun with checking out my eyesight, Hawk." you moved your attention back at the road, where a group of five people was moving in the shadows.

"Well, you have to admit, it's quite thrilling that there's another person capable of killing you from hundreds of meters with the use of bow only." Clint responded in a matter of fact tone and you snorted.

"Come one, love birds. Quit the date part and focus on the work." Natasha joined in on the talk, gaining a scoff from the Hawkeye.

"But we didn't have the dinner yet!"

You smiled at their small play, scanning the area Nat's group was entering. As for now, everything was going smooth. You and Clint had already switched your nests twice, while saving the backs of each other and Nat's group, but none of you had shot yet. It was really calm - a little too calm, you thought. Although you couldn't do much about it, but just wait for the enemies to show.

"How's the quarter?" Nat stopped the bickering between her and Clint, that went a little longer than you bothered to listen.

"Clear." you responded shortly, moving your gaze up to the roof, where Hawk was stationed at that moment and back to the street. But before you once again focused your attention on the quarter Nat just entered, you once again looked where Clint was. "Wait." the group on the ground froze, as you frowned.

There was a moment of heavy silence, as you waited for this movement to repeat.

Just as you started to doubt your eyes, the shadow moved and you immediately lifted your riffle.

"What-" you heard Clint's startled voice the exact moment, you saw him turn around. "Shit, they found us."

"Yeah. It might've been a little quiet." you retorted, glancing back over your shoulder.

"We can't back off though." Natasha joined in and you sighed.

"Let's change location." Hawkeye proposed.

"You go first. There may be more of them on the floors below." you said, scanning the area below you carefully.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Now hurry up."