Here is the next chapter! This came to me while investigating the show they call 'Agents of SHIELD' :) Hopefully I can come up with some other good chapters for you guys! Feel free to leave suggestions! Hill returns for her second appearance!
Natasha had finally gotten the courage up to go into SHIELD again. Steve was accompanying her to the base, where Maria Hill, Coulson, and Fury were going to meet them. He had been promised that they would do no mission-related items. She would be able to train in the facility and adjust slowly to the life of an agent of SHIELD. Natasha had not been in the field for several months now, and the agents were hoping that she would return to service.
"You ready for this, Nat?" Steve asked her, his hands on the wheel and eyes firmly on the road. "I can turn around right now if you've changed your mind." Natasha was sitting in the passenger seat of the Mercedes that Tony had lent them.
"It's got to happen sometime." she replied, her voice a little tense. Steve looked over at her. It was four days after Christmas and she hadn't had a flashback for a week now. He was almost beginning to hope now. "I can't sit around and do nothing. Agents have trauma all the time, but I was the only one who was given leave."
"What happened in Russia was a far cry from trauma, Nat. It was torture. You needed time to get used to what your mind thinks, and Fury knows that." Steve told her firmly. "You're not going to be assigned a mission yet. They just want to make sure you're safe and happy."
"Fury doesn't understand the concept of happiness, I'm fairly certain." Natasha said with a hint of humor in her voice. "If he did, SHIELD would be a better organization. There would be more vacation and less killing."
"Maybe his idea of happiness means killing."
"If that's true, we're all being led by a psychotic killer who enjoys it." Steve rolled his eyes. Natasha had never lost her twisted sense of humor. He wondered how she even came up with her witty comebacks without pause.
"Welcome back to SHIELD, Agent Romanoff." the artificial intelligence system of SHIELD said when she swiped her card at the door. "Agents Hill and Coulson are waiting for you on the main deck, along with Director Fury." Natasha nodded and pushed the button on the elevator. Steve followed her.
"What are they supposed to talk to you about?" he asked her once they were on their way.
"They're going over the legal papers regarding my absence and also informing me of future missions that I could take up in the future. They're also reviewing promotion guidelines and the rules for an agent in the field, like I've forgotten." Natasha said somewhat bitterly. "Apparently there's been a big push in SHIELD ranks to move me up in the clearance level."
"But you love being in the field." Steve said. "You're going to take some sort of desk position like Hill?"
"Actually, they were more thinking about moving me to Coulson's agent team and taking me off the normal agent call list. Barton's already been given the privilege of refusing offered missions." she told him. "Coulson's group is the elite. Being moved up in clearance is just code for 'Elite SHIELD Agent Club.'"
Steve couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Then again, most of the times she talked to him he questioned what mentality she said things with.
"So Hill is in the Elite SHIELD Agent Club?" he asked her as they stepped out onto the deck of the SHIELD base. The floors below them were opened up so that those on the deck could see down to the first floor. Since there were only five floors, it wasn't too difficult. Even for Fury's one eye.
"Sometimes. She's taken missions with me sometimes, and that's a step down from her level of authority." Natasha told him. They stopped in front of Fury, Coulson, and Hill. All were in their standard uniform. Fury in his black gangster/gung-ho jacket, Coulson in his suit, and Maria in her standard-issue SHIELD uniform.
"Welcome back, Romanoff."
"Agent Romanoff, you are expected to return to the field in four months exactly. On April 29th you are expected to report to duty with Agent Hill. Your mission will be in Nepal, tracking down a wayward SHIELD defect. Upon completing your mission, you are to return to the helicarrier and you are to join Coulson's team. I expect you to work with them as you would work with the Avengers. As such, if the need should arise you are permitted to leave Coulson's team if the Avengers' service is required. The Avengers takes precedent over the rest of your work." Fury told Natasha as they sat in a conference room. Hill was across from Natasha. Steve, sitting next to Natasha, was across from Coulson. Fury sat at the head of the table.
"The team has been notified about what I am about to tell you. Sometime in March you are expected to return to Russia, this time accompanied by Hill and Coulson, along with the rest of the Avengers. There you will eliminated all of Alexei's team and Alexei himself. According to the paper you just signed, you cannot refuse this mission. Your clearance at that time will not permit it. You must complete this mission." Fury continued. Steve could see the shock and anger playing on Natasha's face.
"And if I refuse to do it?"
"I'll strip all of your privileges and you will return from Russia as a normal citizen. You will be monitored by our agents to make sure that you are not engaging in any missions or spy-related activities. You will be reduced to nothing."
Hill must have seen the flashback beginning to come before the rest of them. She was standing up as Natasha threw a previously unseen dagger across the room at Fury. The knife, meant to strike Fury, pinned Hill to the wall through her upper arm. Coulson was the next to spring into action. He whipped a gun out of his pocked and aimed it at Natasha, who stood up, her eyes dark.
"Nat, listen to me, it's not what you think it is." Steve pleaded with her, also standing up. "Come on. It's alright. Just sit down and let's talk this through calmly."
"They're manipulating me, Alissa!" she shouted back at him.
"Alissa?"
"Just like they've always done. You know how controlling the Red Room commanders are, and now they expect me to return to Budapest and finish off the rest of all those people-?"
"NATASHA, WE ARE NOT THE RED ROOM!" Steve shouted at her. Fury was beside Hill. Blood was streaming down the Agent's arm and her eyes were tightly closed against the pain. "Come back to us, Nat, and we'll think this through in a civilized manner." Hill was beginning to turn pale.
"Severed an artery. Coulson, call medical. Rogers, get Romanoff out of her, detain her, I don't care." Fury snapped to the room. Rogers seized a hold of Natasha's arm and dragged her into the hallway. Down the elevator, into the wintery sunshine, and to Stark Tower.
"I fell apart, didn't I?" Natasha said a few minutes later as the drove through the Lincoln Tunnel to get to Stark's tower. Steve was clenching the wheel, his eyes dark and angry.
"Yes, you did. Fury was trying to explain to you the mission and you threw a knife at him. If Hill hadn't intercepted it he would be dead. You need to control your flashbacks, or one day, it's not going to be able to be fixed! Hill was seriously injured!"
"How bad was it?" Natasha whispered in a small voice.
"You caught an artery. She was getting pale within thirty seconds of you throwing the knife." Steve said mercilessly. "Why did you even bring that to the meeting? If you hadn't been as foolish, maybe we wouldn't have to think about the fact that Hill could lose her arm?"
"Anything can happen in SHIELD! Loki got to Earth through a SHIELD base. I needed to bring something to make me feel more confident." Natasha spat back. "Stop shouting at me! She'll live, I've gotten worse injuries."
"We all care about Hill, and when that happens right in front of me it-"
"And my worse injuries didn't happen in front of you? What about the whippings? What about the hour spent jacketless in the cold? The cut from collarbone to stomach? All that was in front of you, Steve, and you don't seem to care at bit!"
"Of course I care, or else I would have dunked you in SHIELD's pool for your reckless behavior!" Steve growled. They had reached the Tower. Pepper was waiting for them, a platter of cookies in hand. Steve wrenched the keys out of the ignition and threw himself out of the car. He didn't even bother to see if Natasha had gotten out. He stormed past Pepper and went straight to his floor.
How was it? Maybe it is a Captain Hill fic... I can't decide which!