Thank you so much for all the reviews, follows and favs for the story!

This update is for somuchforu because their birthday yesterday, and also because the Giants are going to the World Series!

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. I received a comment about the lengths of the chapters and how it should be longer, so this is my longest chapter. Ever.

Oh and also, Please vote on the People's Choice Awards 2013 for Clintasha Best On Screen Chemistry. Yay.

Mistakes on this are all mine. See Chapter 1 for disclaimer.

Happy reading!

Chapter 7

Natasha Romanoff walked down to the common area kitchen after spending a long morning training in the gym with Clint. She was glad that after their talk, they were seeing each other more often. It took the loneliness and confusion away for her.

Tired and hungry, knowing that the fridge at the common area was always stocked up with food, she decided that it was where she would go. In her usual style, she walked up to the kitchen but paused at the doorway hearing the hushed tones of people. Tony's voice.

Something must have been wrong for Tony to be, for once, using his inside voice. Calculating her choices, she decided to stay hidden at the doorway and listen. She didn't like it when people kept secrets from her.

"Are you sure?" Banner asked Stark as they were huddled over on the kitchen counter with their StarkPads, Tony flipping through the slides.

"No," Stark replied sarcastically landing on one slide in his tablet and expanding it so Bruce could see. "I went down there and took some samples with Jarvis. He ran it in the network. It's the latest biochem weapon that's made to paralyze someone before they die."

"Why would it be in the garage?"

"You are anything but stupid, Banner."

"Without proof, we don't' really have anything, Tony," Bruce responded shaking his head at the chemical contents in front of him. He and Tony were still working on the

"You really need more proof that someone wanted Barton dead?" Tony asked Bruce his whispered voce rising. These people were the only family he had, and he'd be damned if he let anything happen to them.

"I'm sure Clint has had a lot of enemies in his lifetime," Bruce stated. "He used to be a hired marksman before this."

"You and I both know that there are only three living people besides Clint who has knowledge of where Clint keeps his cars," Tony stated. "I know you and I didn't do it. There's no motive."

"So you think automatically that it's Natasha" Bruce accused him.

Natasha shifted in her spot straining to hear more of their conversation, trying to process and store everything that she had just heard.

"Who else would try to kill him, without actually making it look like they killed him?" Tony asked him. "You're a genius. Those people that Barton made enemies with would be proud to put his head on a stick and parade it through the streets. His enemies would want people to know who finally killed the famous Hawkeye."

"But why would Natasha want to kill him?" Bruce asked him. "They've been partners for years."

"Were partners," Tony pointed out. "She's with Barnes now."

"That isn't motive, Stark."

"You're the one with the psychological degree here. you figure out what's changed with the two of them. Romanoff isn't acting the same. She comes back from her missions with Barnes with no care for how many causalities they leave in their wake. That isn't how she and Clint did it. They were a get in, get out, only kill those who deserve it."

"I understand where you're getting at Tony but..."

"Her ledger is dripping more now than when she started," Tony stated. "If the Council ordered her to kill Clint, you really think she would care?"

Bruce looked at Stark in the eye then behind him. There was a fait difference in way that the light was brought in from the hallway into the kitchen.

"Someone's listening into our conversation," Bruce type on Tony's keyboard.

Tony nodded his head in affirmation, typing a command onto the tablet to Jarvis to figure out who was out in the hallway and how long they have been there.

"Vital Scans: Natasha Romanoff. Duration: 10 minutes. Location: Floor 27. Eastern corridor."

Tony met Bruce's gaze on the screen.

"You might be right," Bruce responded typing it on the device.

Tony nodded before turning back to the device. "We need to figure out the hell is going on."

They both picked up their Stark tabs and moved out of the kitchen using the doors in the west corridor of the floor heading to the living room where she knew everyone was gathered.

Natasha walked in twenty minutes later, after sitting in the kitchen drinking four cups of tea and trying to process what she had just heard from Stark and Banner.

There was a time in SHIELD that nobody would dared cross her or Clint for fear that the other agent might take them and use them as target practice. There was a time when a recruit had thought that it would be a good idea to dare someone to take black widow spiders and line them inside of Natasha's room. To make the long story short, Clint was able to take the spiders out before Natasha was back from her mission and the recruit no longer had three fingers and a thumb from his shooting hand.

Since day one, when he had brought her back to HQ to talk to Fury about the possibilities of defection, she and Clint always had each other's back. Everyone knew that from the way they acted to the way that where one of them was, the other would be. She knew that since Bucky was back and she had rekindled her romance with her former mentor, that things have changed. While the talk on the rooftop certainly brought them back a little more to where they were before where they sparred or went out to dinner, it wasn't the same.

The redhead didn't find out about the hospitalization that her former partner had gone through while she was with Bucky on a vacation until she ran into him in the infirmary where they gave him the last dose of medicine that would get rid of all the long term effects that being exposed to carbon monoxide and various other gases would do to him. Clint had brushed it off as if it was nothing, made it sound to her like it was coincidence.

"Gas burst on top of the garage," he told her nonchalantly before going to his briefing room for a short mission.

She didn't think that things have changed that drastically for her to be accused, by people who were supposed to trust her, of attempted murder on her former partner. After all, she hadn't done anything.

Natasha forced herself to focus on the task at hand. It was Movie Night for the team and it was Clint's choice to pick the movie. She was surprised to hear the surround sound blasting the 007 theme as the night began. She sat at the back of the room, observing the people around her. She wasn't in much of a mood to socialize with her team knowing that in the back of their minds, they saw her as a threat.

Steve was back, he and Bucky were on the side playing a game of chess, apparently it had been something that they loved to do back in the day.

Bruce and Tony were sitting on the couch exchanging notes about science or what not as the fourth James Bond movie played in the large screen in the background. Clint was the only one engrossed in the movie, his hand in the bowl of popcorn, a can of soda by his feet.

She has come a long way from the little girl in the corner of the Red Room who forced herself to feel nothing as she killed the girls around her, followed instructions on killing, seducing and interrogating.

All because of that one man sitting on the couch, looking all of ten years old as he watched his favorite, second favorite after her he always used to say because she was his favorite, spy running around and shooting bad guys.

Since they had their talked almost a week ago where he promised that he would always be there for her, she made sure to spend more time with him. She did miss her best friend, the jokes they would make and the silent way that they communicated with each other. He, in turn would always be there when she called him asking him if he wanted to spar, or to go to the mall where they sat on one of the benches, back to back, just observing people.

It was like the old days.

Except it wasn't.

She remembered the way he would lead her in and out of doors, a small hand on her back while he held the door open for her showing some of the American mannerisms that she had learned to embrace. She remembered how he would let her reach over and steal the tomatoes that he would take out of his disgusting burgers and order bleu cheese for her to dip his fries in because she refused to order something so fattening but secretly loved.

While they still went out to eat after an occasional sparring session, he would order burgers without tomatoes and forgo the fries. He would open the door for her but he wouldn't touch her anymore. There weren't any slight awkward hugs, hands on the small of her back, or the occasional brush of their hands. He made sure to keep his distance and it was starting to piss her off.

Even the way he smiled and looked at her was different.

She wondered now whether it was because even he suspected that she had done it. That she had wanted to kill him.

Natasha shook her head at that thought. Clint had made it a point to always be honest with her, even when it hurt. If he thought that she was out there to kill him, he would have made a comment about it already.

"Hey Red! Why don't you come join us and watch the movie?" Stark called out to her from the giant black leather couch he was sitting at. Pepper had finally come down from their penthouse after having an online conference with shareholders or something and was snuggled in Stark's arms.

Bruce was on the Lazy Boy, his notebook is his hand, occasionally looking up when he heard gun fight in from the extremely large surround sound.

"Yeah Natasha! You know you secretly love double-oh-seven!" Clint exclaimed smiling at her then turning back to the big screen.

Natasha stood up and took a place on the other extension of the couch away from Tony and Pepper and beside Clint, reaching over to the bowl of popcorn that he had and stealing some.

Natasha saw Bucky and Steve from the corner of her eye almost finishing the game and Bucky tensing up as soon as he saw how close she was to Clint. She knew that Bucky had issues with the archer, if only about who she belonged to as he phrased it. Clint was none the wiser, he was still his out-going type B self who had no care in the world.

"Natalia, make room for me," Bucky ordered her in Russian while he stood up from his defeated chess game.

Clint glanced at Bucky then Natasha and stood up, moving to the Lazy Boy, parallel to where Bruce was sitting and resumed watching the movie.

Bucky turned to Clint, "you speak Russian."

Clint barely nodded his head as he turned his attention back to the movie.

Bucky settled in next to Natasha, placing his arms around her while and Steve sat a small distance away from his childhood friend, turning his attention to the screen.

It wasn't an hour later when the elevator dinged open and a blonde woman stepped out. Natasha's body instantly went on attack mode as did Bucky's. Everyone else glanced at the elevator and turned back to the fifth James Bond movie, this time critiquing what the spy was doing and whether it would be scientifically accurate for a car to be able to jump from one side of the bridge to another or not.

Natasha didn't take her eyes off the stranger who had just invaded the room and was curious as to why nobody even said a word when she got there. She saw as the blonde surveyed the room and walked towards them, finding her destination.

Clint shift in the Lazy Boy and the woman plop herself down, half on top of the archer, half on the chair taking the bowl of popcorn into her arms while Clint wrapped his arms around her, his hands ending up at the popcorn.

The blonde looked back at Clint with a smile which he returned, she took a handful of popcorn and stuffed in his mouth with a giggle. He shot her a glare, whispered in her ear and they back to back to watching the movie.

Natasha felt Bucky's arms tighten around her, his mouth brushing against her ear.

"You want me to kill her, Natalia?"

Natasha shook her head and used her peripheral vision to observe Clint once again.

He was looking at this stranger the way he used to look at her, smiling the smile that he never gave anyone but her.

"Watch the movie, Natalia."

Bucky's whispered in her ear once again.

She nodded her head and melted into his embrace.

She would deal with her feelings later.

Bruce looked up at Tony who had messaged him to meet them in the kitchen

"It took a while since they just switched security companies," Tony started flipping his StarkPad over to Bruce. "This is the surveillance video from Clint's garage. I forgot that I had installed the place with infrared since Clint made me promise that I wouldn't put cameras in there."

Bruce nodded his head watching the surveillance video.

"Upper left corner," Tony motioned. "That's the vent that was compromised."

The metal in the vents weren't enough to shield the person who was in the vent from being detected by the camera. When the person stepped out of the vent and into the garage it was obvious from the body language that it wasn't a man, but a woman.

It was the Black Widow.

UHOH! Who saw that coming?!

Let me know what you guys think!

Comments and Criticisms, welcome!