Patience. Just have some patience. God damn patience. Natasha mentally repeated to herself. Again. She was sitting in an overstuffed arm chair pretending to read a book while armed men pressed around her. Dr. Z had summoned her 15 minutes before the train was to make its scheduled stop. He made it clear that any remotely suspicious behavior would result in deadly consequences for both her and the teenagers in the next train car.

As the train slowly began to regain speed the car was given a thorough sweep before the men were ordered back to their posts. Natasha made herself a strong drink at the bar, enjoying the burn in her throat as she swallowed the clear liquid. She'd be lying to herself if she said she wasn't a little disappointed. That was really the best window for an escape and she was leaving it behind. It was possible that her clue had gone unnoticed, that there was no one on her trail at all. Shame, really, since she thought it was a pretty clever message.

There was still time, Natasha knew. From the train there would be one more leg of the journey, usually a black flight to the training center. The problem was, she would be drugged for that portion of the trip, so any great escape maneuvers would have to happen prior to that. Otherwise she'd wake up in some room, strapped to a chair with white sterile walls blinding her from all sides. She'd have to feel the icy cold of a chemical compound pumping through her veins as reality was taken from her. She either needed to find a way out or get herself killed, because there was no way in hell she was going through reprogramming.

Taking another shot of- what was she drinking? Rum? Natasha made her way back to her sleeping quarters. She had all night and half of the next day to figure out what she would do- right now she needed a hot shower and a few hours of sleep to clear her head. Her two armed guards let her pass into the room , shutting the door behind her with a definitive click. She decided not to push her luck by locking the door behind her.

"Shower now or later? Hmmm..." Natasha mused aloud, realizing that alcohol on an empty stomach was not a wise choice. The sound of the shower turning on in the bathroom wiped all haziness from her brain, replacing it with cold focus. She scanned the room for any changes, but found none. She tried to remember the last time she saw Dr. Z- hadn't he been checking on his machine? But after that, where had he gone? Panic was slowly rising in her throat when a new sound reached her ears from the bathroom. A whistle, three soft notes just loud enough to be heard over the water. The notes she had heard a hundred times before- they could only mean one thing.

Clint.

Natasha crossed the room in two silent steps, shutting the door behind her as she entered the bathroom. There he was, out of breath and holding his side in discomfort. She barely saw the smile spread across his face as she threw her arms around his neck. When he grunted in pain, she brought her lips to his ear playfully.

"Man up, Agent Barton."

Clint wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. His wound was already in rough shape from climbing around on a moving train, so a little more damage wouldn't make much difference. In fact, the feeling of Natasha's body against his was a nice distraction from the pain. He buried his face against her neck, trying to replace his guilt over letting her go with relief for her safety. He was just glad his com had "accidentally" turned off when he jumped the train, because he didn't enjoy the thought of Tony and the rest of the team overhearing this conversation.

"I'm so sorry Nat," Clint murmured into her skin. "Just tell me you're okay."

Natasha pulled back, surprised at the emotion in Clint's voice. Sure, she wasn't thrilled with the situation, but they had been in tighter spots before. She could see how concerned he looked, almost as if he expected her to be pissed off about the whole thing. Not knowing how to convey it in words, Natasha leaned in to gently brush her lips over his before moving back into his embrace.

"I'm okay, Clint. How's that bullet wound?"

"It'll heal."

That sounded more like the Clint she knew. Stepping back, Natasha lifted his shirt to see a dark pink patch of skin that was clearly infected. It didn't look anything like a gunshot wound, but knowing her partner he did something stupid to avoid going to the hospital.

"Do I even want to know how you patched this up?" She asked, running her fingers along the edge of the irritated skin. Her partner shook his head, but there was a gleam in his eye that immediately brought Tony to her mind. Of course.

When Natasha pushed a little harder on the edge of the wound, Clint inhaled sharply in response. She didn't know if it was from pain or pleasure, but she was interested in hearing it again. Smiling dangerously, she traced over his stomach where the outline of his abdominal muscles stood out as a testament to all his hours spent training. Noticing that the haunted look in Clint's eyes was being replaced by something hungrier, Natasha decided to take things one step further. As her hand drifted down to run along the edge of his belt Clint did it again and this time she knew it wasn't because of any injury.

"Nat..." There was a growl in his voice that typically meant trouble. Of course, this kind of trouble she was more than looking forward to.

"Hmm?" She replied innocently.

"Do you think we could maybe focus on getting off this train alive first?" Clint asked, knowing that he was a few minutes away from losing any decision making ability. It didn't help that Nat was still toying with his belt buckle.

"I say we multitask. The shower is already running, Clint- we should take advantage of the background noise. And don't you already have a plan for getting off the train?"

"Nat, I'm not saying I don't want to. I'm saying that when we do this I have every intention of hearing you scream my name. Since they don't make showers loud enough to cover that kind of noise, and I'd prefer that your Russian friends don't interrupt us again, how about we take things one at a time. Besides, I don't have a plan. We knew this was our best window for reaching you, so we took it. But I haven't come up with a strategy to get us out of here without ramifications. Take my com and patch through to Captain Rogers. He needs your intel to figure this out."

Natasha groaned; talking tactics with Captain Purity wasn't what she had in mind at all. Not the type to lose without a fight, Natasha gave Clint's belt a tug, closing the gap between them once again. She made sure this kiss was anything but sweet and innocent- her tongue teased and tempted, baiting Clint to give in and play back. After a few long moments, though, Clint pulled away with that grin back on his face as he slipped the com into her hand.

"Call Steve. I'm going to follow your advice and take advantage of this shower. Don't peek." Clint wasn't at all surprised that Natasha didn't even pretend to look away as he stripped down, set his weapons by the sink, and jumped into the stream of hot water. He made sure the shower curtain was pulled shut before switching the water to icy cold. That woman could push his buttons in all the right ways.

As he wiped the grime of the past few days from his body, he tried to hear Natasha on the com. It was a good sign that her words were too muffled to make out, since that meant the Russian agents didn't stand a chance of overhearing them. She would just have to fill him in later. Though once they ran out of plausible reasons to make noise it would be tough to communicate. For the first time since finding Natasha's breadcrumb, Clint began to worry. Now he was trapped in a single compartment of a high speed train with a few guns, knives, and his bow. They could fight if they had to, but it really wasn't plan A. At this point they would need a whole lot of good luck on their side to keep him hidden and her safe. Based on their recent track history, this seemed practically impossible.

Deciding that they couldn't keep it going any longer, Clint turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. There was a towel waiting for him, but Nat was no longer in the bathroom. He dried off and pulled on his cargo pants before silently opening the door to the bedroom. His wounds had a telltale itch to them that meant trouble, but other than scrubbing them raw with bath soap there wasn't a whole lot he could do. His mind was on possible locations of a first aid kit when he noticed Natasha sitting on her bed. Her face was all wrong; composed and set in that way he knew meant she had made up her mind about something and he wasn't going to like it.

She stood up and walked past him into the bathroom without making eye contact. With a growing sense of unease, he followed. Natasha stood in front of the sink, staring at her fingers where they pressed into the black marble. After a tense minute she plugged in the blow dryer and turned it on high, filling the room once again with white noise. Clint immediately stepped up behind her, pulling her back to his chest and wrapping his arms protectively around her waist. Although she accepted his embrace, she kept her eyes planted on her hands. Clint was about to break the silence to ask a question he didn't want an answer to when she spoke.

"Clint, I'm staying with Dr. Z."

Guys, you rock. Just thought I should say it. I loooooove your reviews!

Also, this chapter did not happen willingly. In fact, I had to drag it kicking and screaming from my brain and still rewrote it 3 times. Not cool, story, not cool. I hope you liked it, short as it is, since our favorite spies are together again. Sorry for a lack of steamy shower sex, which would have been my personal preference, but Clint's logic got the best of me.

I will try oh so very hard to write faster, but I make no promises. None. Other than that I promise to finish this story- I won't leave you guys hanging, even if I am the slowest writer in the history of writing things...