Well…another chapter this week. Hope it was enough to interest you guys to continue following me with this story. Never thought this is going to be along series.

Thank you to all who had fav and followed.

TheNaggingCube – that would be awesome right. In fact is there any new news on Avengers 2. And sorry about the wait….I'm working on another H&G fic but this time I'm gonna finish it first before posting. Thank you for your patience….

All disclaimers still stand.

All mistakes were mine.

Shila1378

Chapter 9 – Beating of my heart

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The corridors were crowded with groups of recruits and agents alike scurrying by the briefing room. The reasons were because of the sound that were coming from the room could be heard until the end of the long passage way. Those that had option to reroute their way had chosen to do so. Unfortunately, few needed to pass the 'hot spot' to reach their destination. So, they would paused in their stride, took a deep breath and hope that their timing was impeccable to avoid unnecessary incidents, if so happened the door was open on their faces.

A group of young recruits and technies were contemplating of taking a detour when they reached the area. However, the urgency of their tasks did not allow them to do so. With their grips on the folders tighten, they took a deep breath and prayed that their journey will continue unhindered. They quicken their pace when they almost reached the door. Their eyes darted to each other and short of running. they lightly jogged in order not to make so much noise.

But alas, their luck did ran out.

Their timing was impeccable.

The door slammed opened at their face and out came the infamous SHIELD operative and assassin, 'Hawkeye' Barton, most feared agent, aside from his partner, Agent 'Black Widow' Romanoff. The recruits stopped on their track and the technies crashed behind them disengaging their already slacken grips on their folders.

An array of documents showered the angry looking Hawk who immediately had his 'talons' on one hand – big serrated 7 inches purple-handled army knife – out of seemingly nowhere, planted right on the wall beside their heads. One of the folders met its 'death' when the knife's deadly tip pinned it on the wall with a loud shlingg and thud. The terrifying shriek from the group was suddenly silenced when another 'talon' made its appearance in front of one unfortunate recruit. She promptly passed out and drop like a stone on the Hawk's feet.

The Hawk glared at the girl on his feet and raised his cold blue eyes to the terrifying group who whimpered and slowly flatten themselves on the wall. He pulled out his knife from the wall and the folder dropped on the fainted girl. Behind him Coulson, having rushed out from the same door, examined the scene with worried eyes. He looked at the girl on Hawk's feet and the recruits plastered on the wall.

'Clint? What happened?' Coulson quietly asked. Clint looked over his shoulder and snickered.

'She passed out.'

That was all the explanations he gave before he started to walk away. Sets of eyes followed him and the moment he turned the corner, a collective sigh was heard from the recruits. Coulson turned his attention to the recruit standing in beside him.

'Is everyone ok?'

One young recruit answered, 'Maybe', in a small voice and Coulson gave him a small smile and nodded at the poor girl.

'Take her to the infirmary and have the doctor checked her out. Then return to your section.'

He stepped back into the room and shut the door slowly. The recruits quickly attended to their fallen teammate and thanked their lucky stars to having survived encounter with the Hawk. Few even had a timid smile knowing that they were lucky to get a sneak peak at the Hawk's elusive blade and dagger. They have heard story that the blades were only rumors and since those who happened to see them probably did not live to tell their encounter, they now hold evidence about the existence of the blades and yes, the blades' handles were purple.

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Clint walked aimlessly through the corridor. His mind was a jumbled mess. The information given by James and Cross was undeniably and ridiculously farfetched that he had to leave the room to think. He did not expect to stumble to the group of recruits when he stormed out the room.

So lost in his thoughts, Clint didn't realize that his walk took him up to the rooftop. He opened the door and took a deep breath of the crisp air and savored the feel of wind on his face. He closed his eyes and mentally calming himself to replay the discussion he had in the briefing room.

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Agents James slowly took his seat on the table and Cross gave him a questioning look asking whether he was alright. James silently nodded to him and gave him a small smile. Cross sat beside him and eyed Agent Barton who sat opposite him and had his heads in his hands. Coulson was seated beside him, probably feeling that it was safer to sit near his charge, just in case he had his outburst episode again. Director Fury had returned to his seat at the head of the table and was talking slowly in his phone. His computer in front of him flashing some information and the light reflected on his expressionless face.

'Send the information to my computer, Sitwell. For my eyes only.' Fury ended his phone call and focused on the screen. A fleeting glance to Clint and then Coulson had Cross at the edge of his seat. The look Director Fury had on his face was – terrifyingly forbidding. Cross tapped James hand under the table and signaled him to be ready for anything—again. James exhaled slowly, rubbed his sore neck and nodded, closing his eyes briefly and prepared for the worst.

Clint heard the deafening silence and except for the sound of the keyboard, he cherished the moment to rearrange his muddled thoughts. He put his throbbing heads in his hands and waited for Fury to break the silence. He wanted to know who they had identified that was so important that the briefing was called for. He lifted his head and sighed heavily. He felt Coulson's hands – again – on his shoulders and felt relieved that at least there was somebody that he trust with him in the room.

He raised his head to him and nodded his thanks. Coulson gripped his shoulder once and removed his hand. Clint shifted his glance to Cross and James. Seeing the bruised forming at James neck had him winched inside and regretting his burst of uncontrolled emotion. The emotion that shouldn't even existed for a sniper assassin. He kept on scolding himself for the lack of control and warned himself that the actions wouldn't help him finding Nat.

Nat.

It has been 16 hours since she was taken and he was no closer in finding her. Now the agents in front of him had mentioned a lead – someone they identified at the site - that could assist them in finding her, was almost killed by his hands. Clint took a deep breath and berated himself then something Coulson said popped up in his confused mind. He raised his head and sit back in his chair and about to ask Coulson when Fury, all of a sudden spitted a colorful curses that all in the room raised their eyebrows, surprised at the unprecedented action by their leader.

'Cross, James. I want you to wait outside for a moment.' Fury barked without raising his heads to the two agents. Confused, the two agents looked at each other for awhile.

'NOW!' The intensity of the order made then scrambled from their seat and out from the room in a blink of an eye. Clint threw Coulson a worried look but Coulson had his focused on Fury.

'Agent Barton.' Whenever Fury addressed him like that, Clint instinctively knew that something terrible was up, either it was a difficult mission or that he had undoubtedly shit Fury in whatever it was he had done. Clint sat straighter in his chair and waited for Fury to continue.

Fury looked at him behind his computer. His eye was narrowed and glinted dangerously that made Clint gulped down nervously. He punched in few keys on his laptop and the briefing table lighted up with screens in front of him and Coulson. It showed the area of the accident taken from, probably, Cross and James helicopter. The area was dark and the circle of light from the copter was the only illumination seen. All of a sudden, something dark flew across the screen and the image tilted sideways and upward for a few seconds before it righted itself. That must be the owl Cross was talking about. Clint squinted at the screen and focused on the road on top of the hill.

'Let me replay that once more and I will freeze the image for you Barton.' Fury offered before the screen went blank. This time Clint sat closer to the screen and focused his attention to the monitor. The image tilted and then froze. Clint looked closer at the image.

'Could you please magnify the image, sir.' Clint requested faintly and the image magnified few times until a clearer picture was shown on the screen.

'This image had been cleaned by our team and the resolution had been enhanced.' Fury explained to Clint. However, Clint did not hear other than a roaring noise in his ears. He placed both his palm on the table and focused on the monitor. His eyebrows scrunched together and his nostrils were flaring. He shot a glaring look at Fury who calmly returned the glare. Clint turn to his left and looked beside him at Coulson who had closed his eyes and massaging his forehead. His sigh told Clint that he had seen the footage.

Clint inhaled slowly and addressed calmly to Coulson.

'Have you seen this?' Clint posed the question slowly, 'and you did not even consider of telling me earlier?'

Coulson turned to look at Clint. 'What would you do, Clint, if I told you then. We have to get more intel before we can formulate a plan to rescue Natasha.'

Clint closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. 'How long have you known that he is still alive, Phil? How long do you want to keep me in the dark about this?' Clint voice was controlled but his body was shaking.

He couldn't believe that after all these years; his past had once more collided with him, painfully. He stood and walked to the window, hoping that the view of space would calm his nerves.

'All these years, Phil, I thought that he was dead and that I was responsible for his death. And now you telling me that he's alive and most probably responsible of kidnapping Natasha?' Clint had a difficult time to digest the info that his brother, Barney, was alive and in fact looking quite well.

The image was very clear. There was no mistaken that it was him.

Barney is alive.

He closed his eyes. He heard Coulson came up behind him. He heard Director Fury cleared his throat. 'Coulson only knew about this few hours ago, Barton. The intel matched his picture with you personal file. The moment it flashed, I've directed Sitwell to place all information gathered to Level 9 and for my eyes only. No one knew about this and not even James and Cross.'

'I'm sorry Clint.' Coulson's voice behind him was heavy with worries and concern. Clint nodded and turned on his heels and faced him. 'I know you have my best interest, but this is fucking shit, Coulson. We will talk about this later.' Clint shook his head and he walked pass Coulson and sat heavily on his chair. Coulson silently follow suit and revert his attention to the Director. He saw that Fury had a trouble look and his fingers were hovering on his keyboards.

'SHIELD received this in one of our cover site. I want both of you to have a look at it and tell me how best to go about it. I want you, Barton, to have a clearer mind before I show you this.' Fury directed his attention to Clint who immediately snapped into attention.

'Yes. Of course, Director.' Clint nodded and glanced at Coulson.

The monitor flickered to life and the image of Natasha came to life. Clint sat up and practically had his face on the screen, checking his partner for any injuries. The image showed Natasha bound on to a metal chair with a metal handcuff. Both her feet were also bound with cuff and her eyes were covered. Few bruises on her face and her clothes were torn at the shoulder showing some blood stain. Clint couldn't see any bleeding wound and so it was safe to assume that the stain was from the accident. She was sitting rigidly and had her head tilted to left and right, perhaps trying to listen to her environment.

A shadow passed in front of the screen. The silent masked intruder stood right in front of her and Natasha head was snapped to the front. Without any warning, the figure backhanded her hard and she gasped in surprised, elicited a Russian curse from her split lips and he smiled at her colorful languages. Again the intruder backhanded her and Clint was shaking with anger. The intruder walked behind her and she turned her head at the sound. Clint gripped the table hard anticipating the intruder's moves. A glinting blade materialized in the intruder's left hand and with his right, he grasped a handful of Natasha hair and pulled it back exposing her neck. She cursed the intruder again in Russian, German and a language Clint did not recognize but stopped her cursing when the blade touched her neck. Clint almost smashed the monitor with his hands but was hold back by Coulson's grip on his forearm. Coulson did not look at him. He had his eyes locked on the monitor and Clint realized that this is the first time he viewed the video.

Clint returned his attention to the image but inwardly cursing in all languages he knew. The intruder did not remove the blade from Natasha's neck until another person walked into the screen. He had yesterday's newspaper in his hand and a bold writing was scrawled on it.

B728 - H437

Then the screen went blank.

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Yupp…think I better stop here. Turned out this chapter was quite long so I'm splitting it to 2 chapters. Gonna post the second one very soon provided I got reviews for this one.

So click that cute little icon that says 'Review' and part 2 will be on its way to you..

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Luv uols… so please don't kill me…

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Shila 1378