Because Bruce woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, he decided that he'd head upstairs for a long breakfast. No one would be awake at this hour and that meant he could be on his own for a while. He was thus genuinely surprised to find Pepper Potts already seated at the dinner table.

"You rise early," Pepper remarked when Bruce entered the kitchen.

"Jetlag," Bruce yawned, "I couldn't sleep any longer."

"Me neither," Pepper sighed. Bruce sensed that she wanted to talk about something. Somehow, everyone seemed to believe that he is the perfect person to talk to when they have problems. Bruce always tried to listen to them – just to be nice. Up till now, no one noticed that he actually wasn't interested in their problems at all.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Bruce offered politely. Pepper looked relieved and immediately started to ramble about Natasha's cold behavior and attitude. Bruce ate at least four sandwiches with chocolate paste and drank two cups of coffee before she was finally done.

"Maybe you should leave her alone for a while," Bruce told Pepper wisely, "Some people like to deal with things on their own." Pepper snorted: "Tony does that all the time. And it doesn't work that well." Bruce shrugged: "It's Natasha's problem. She'll talk about it if she wants to. Just, don't force yourself upon her. Besides, she's not a talkative type, so I wouldn't be too worried if I were you." Pepper seemed a little offended, but didn't respond and just stared at her cup of coffee instead.

A welcoming silence fell and Bruce enjoyed it for a while. When his third cup of coffee was empty, he wanted to grab a newspaper, just like he usually did at mornings. But as there was no newspaper yet, he looked for something else instead. Almost instantly, Natasha's folder caught his eye – Tony'd left it behind in the sofa. Bruce opened it and started to read the things he hadn't read the day before. He was intrigued by the information about the twins and was dying to meet those two, but Natasha had yet to mention when they were going to look for them. Bruce also read the other files in the folder, but they weren't nearly as interesting. When he finished reading, he put the folder on the table and noticed that something had fallen on the ground. It was a paper not larger than a business card which contained a phone number. "This will only work once," was written above it in a sloppy handwriting.

"What did you find?" Pepper was looking in Bruce's direction. Before he could answer her, someone snatched the card from between his fingers. It was Natasha. To Bruce's surprise, her hair was once again shining red. How she managed to get her hands on hair dye overnight, was a mystery to him.

"It's a phone number," Natasha told Pepper with an uncharacteristically gentle smile. Bruce presumed that Natasha'd eavesdropped and that she was trying to make up for it.

"Oh," was all Pepper dared to say.

"It's Clints," Natasha added while she poured herself a glass of orange juice and sat down. Pepper didn't say a thing. Bruce frowned: "Why does the note say it will only work once?"

"Because it will only work once. I can call him once, and afterwards, the number won't work anymore," she explained, as if it was as obvious as 1 + 1 = 2.

"How's that even possible? Will his phone blow up after you call him?" Pepper asked carefully.

"I don't know, does it matter?"

"You sound like you find all of this pretty normal," Bruce remarked.

"It is, isn't it? It means that it's too dangerous to call the same number twice. I thought you were would have figured that out by yourself." Natasha picked a cookie out of the jar that stood in front of Pepper and sat down on the counter and started to eat.

"So, Pepper was right. This is all about Clint." Bruce waved his hand in the direction of the folder.

"Uhu." Natasha took another bite from her cookie.

"Is that everything you have to say about this?"

"Yes."

Bruce slowly began to understand why Pepper got so annoyed by the Widow's cold behavior.

"Listen, Natasha," Bruce explained to her in his calm voice, "It doesn't work this way. When you want us to trust you, we'll need more information. You can't expect us to blindly follow you to Kazachstan because you feel we have to."

Natasha raised an eyebrow and sighed. She carefully nipped of her orange juice before she said: "Fine."

"What do you mean with that?" Bruce asked her, but Natasha ignored him. Instead, she raised her head and spoke directly to JARVIS.

"JARVIS, will you wake the others for me please?"

"Yes, madam."

"Thank you."

She turned her head towards Bruce: "Just wait until the others are here. I don't want to explain everything twice."

Tony was absolutely not happy when JARVIS woke him up and became even more grumpy when the AI told him he'd done so because Romanoff asked him. By the time Tony reached the sofa in the communal living room, he had considered at least four times to throw Natasha out. She was lucky that he was too tired to do so.

Apparently, Bruce and Pepper had already been awake, and Steve and Thor did not seem bothered by the early hour. Tony had hoped that at least one of them would have shared his anger, so they could shoot angry glares at Natasha together. Because that wasn't the case, Tony decided that he would not make a scene, but just this once – he didn't need a second woman who believed she could boss him around.

"Please enlighten me, why did I need to leave my bed alone at this hour? It's missing me already," Tony snarled. Natasha, who was standing in front of the coffee table, looked at him. If he didn't know better, Tony would have sworn that she looked a bit sad.

"Maybe," she sighed, "Maybe I should apologize for yesterday."

Tony almost choked on his tea. Getting an apology out of Romanoff was a rare thing. He shared a look with Bruce, who did not look surprised. "This is not good," Steve whispered next to Tony. Tony agreed wholeheartedly – Natasha must have been feeling sick.

"I was a little distracted yesterday, " Natasha went on, "I wanted time to think things through, before I said another word."

"It might have been better to discuss things with us," Steve said, "We're your friends. You can trust us."

"I know, but I was confused about something you mentioned. I needed to figure out what it meant first. For myself," Natasha told them.

"The file I showed you, was given to me by Clint, …"

Natasha started to explain how she met Clint and what he told her about HYDRA and the twins during their brief encounter in Russia.

"Clint's been working for HYDRA all this time. He told me that he lost contact with SHIELD after the Winter Soldier attacked, even with Fury. Yesterday, when Steve mentioned that Fury told him that he was heading for Eastern Europe, I didn't understand. If that information is correct, Fury should be where Clint is. Or he should be able to contact him at least. But he didn't. I just can't understand why Fury let Clint down. On top of that, Fury told mé that he was heading for Germany. That's not exactly Eastern Europe, is it? So I figured that either Clint lied to me, Fury lied to me of Fury lied to the Captain."

"The odds of Fury lying are apparently higher," Tony counted on his fingers, "So, what do you think about this?"

"I am convinced that Clint didn't lie to me that night. So that means Fury lied to either me or the Captain."

"Why would he do that?" Steve wondered aloud.

"I don't know. I got some ideas, but none of which I'm sure. But he must have a good reason for it. Maybe he doesn't want us to know what he's up to."

"But you always seem to know when someone is lying to you," Thor remarked.

"Fury is one of the few people who can lie to me without letting it on," Natasha confessed.

"But why doesn't he want to be found? What's his play?" Tony asked, but he didn't get a response. It was obvious that Natasha had no idea, and that it was bothering her.

After a moment of silence, Steve asked: "What are you planning to do now?"

Natasha looked from Steve to the others and back: "I am going help Clint. He asked for my help, Fury didn't. If I cause trouble to whatever Fury is trying to do, that is his problem. He should have been honest with me. I'll be heading for Kazachstan as soon as I can, to get Clint out of the mess Fury put him in. And I hope you guys will join me."

"Of course," Steve and Thor said in unison.

"After the incident with Loki, I owe Barton a debt," Thor added.

Natasha smiled faintly and looked at Bruce and Tony: "Stark? Banner?"

Bruce sighed: "I'll see what I can do. But it's me that you're getting. Not the other guy. That's …"

"That's alright," Natasha interrupted quickly, "I don't need the other guy. I need you and your brains. Those twins are very special people, you'll need to study them. We'll have to find out about everything they are capable of."

Bruce nodded solemnly: "I can't deny that I am interested in them. I'll see what I can do for you."

Everyone turned around to look at Tony, who raised his hands.

"I don't have a suit anymore," Tony tapped his chest, "I am just 'regular man' now. You need my brains too?"

Pepper suddenly snorted: "Don't pretend to be so innocent. I know about the suits in the basement."

Tony groaned: "No, you don't."

"Yes, I do," Pepper retorted.

"You're not supposed to."

"I've been on to you for weeks, Tony Stark, and you know that. I always knew that you'd find a way to be Iron Man again. I guess I'm also not supposed to know about the prototypes you made for Captain America's shield and about the trick arrows you developed and … about several other things you've hidden down there."

"No, you don't, so just go back to pretending you don't know about any of that."

"Fine."

"I love you, Pep."

"Love you too."

Tony looked at the others: "Alright. The monkey is out of the bag. I guess I can't say no to you now, can I?" His question was answered my a smile from Steve.

"What do you intend to do?" Thor asked Natasha

"Do you still own a yet?" Natasha turned to Tony.

"Yes?"

"How long will it take to reach this location?" Natasha gave him the address of the HYDRA facility.

"JARVIS?" Tony asked, pointing at the address.

"About 10 hours, sir."

"There you go," Tony clapped his hands.

"That's all I need to know. I'll call Clint to tell him that you're in. He'll give us further information."

Natasha picked a cellphone out of her pocket.

"What, you're calling him right now?"

"Is that a problem? Clint asked to call as soon as I convinced you guys to come."

"Now did he?" Tony whispered scornfully.

Natasha picked the bussinesscard and dialed the number. She put the phone on speaker and laid it on the coffee table. The phone didn't even go over.

"This number is no longer in use. Please contact your provider for more information."

Natasha stared at the phone in horror. The others all looked bewildered, except for Thor.

"It there a problem?" he asked.

Natasha dialed the number again, but she got the same message as before.

"Something is wrong," she whispered.

So, I haven't updated in a while... I couldn't get this chapter right. It still isn't a very good chapter, but it's just the kind of boring set up stuff for the rest of the story. I hope that my future chapters will be more entertaining. I actually wanted to upload this on friday, but the website refused to do so (I still don't know why). Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this a little bit - although it was rather boring. I already wrote the outline for the next chapter, and it will be more eventful as this one.

Bye for now,

Ellyn