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"When do you leave?" Clint asked, failing to hide the dejection in his voice. He was sitting on her bed, hands braced behind him.

"In the next hour," she revealed, huffing in annoyance as she gathered the last of her clothes together. Clint resisted the urge to pout at her words. Of course she had to go, just when things were starting between them.

"I have to go through a briefing with Coulson and undergo preparation for my alias."

"Undergo preparation?" Clint inquired, eyebrows knitted together with confusion. "What are you dyeing your hair again or something?"

"No, Clint." She rolled her eyes, unamused. "As Stark's assistant, I'll need a full background cover. They're expecting him to check the legitimacy of my story. The man can be quite thorough when he wants to be."

"So, what's the 'preparation' for?" he asked again, continuing his probing.

"I have an appointment with a photographer."

"A photographer? You posing as some sort of model?" he asked with half a laugh.

"Yes, actually."

Clint's face dropped at that.

Stark was the shark and she was the bait. They were using her to reel him in. He stood up from the bed and folded his arms across his chest. "And you're okay with this?"

"Of course not! You think I want my body paraded around just for Tony Stark to ogle over?"

Clint bit the inside of his cheek absently and frowned. The universe was so unfair. He had to stay on base while Stark got to pry over his partner.

This wasn't some lowly gang leader or some gullible corporate macho-man who she could just bat her eyelashes at and they'd come crawling. This was Tony Stark—a child prodigy, a notorious womanizer, one of the wealthiest men in the world, and the creator and owner of the ground-breaking Iron Man armour.

No, it didn't bother Clint at all.

"C'mon Clint, you should know better than anyone that this is just part of the job. I've done this a hundred times before, with you in tow might I remind you. It doesn't mean anything, you know that." She chose to ignore his blatant jealousy and take it as impulsive protectiveness instead. She had to admit, it was endearing in a way.

"Yeah, I know," he whispered faintly, letting his eyes to roam towards the floor. He realised she was right, it was just another job.

Natasha moved forward and looped her hands around his neck, clasping at the soft hair at the back of his head. Clint inched his head down to press their foreheads together.

"Hey, I'll be back in no time, okay?" she whispered and kissed him fully on the lips. Clint hummed in agreement, a low rumble deep in his chest. Before the kiss developed into anything more, Natasha's phone rang, interrupting their embrace.

"Romanoff."

"Flight's ready." Coulson's voice came through the line.

"Yes, sir," she answered before hanging up the call. She picked up the handle of her suitcase and started to make her way to the door.

"Can I at least know your alias?" Clint asked just before she made her way out.

She paused and took in a breath, rehearsing it all perfectly. "Natalie Rushman...from legal." She gave the archer a nod and a wink before disappearing.

3 weeks later

"The infection seems to have cleared up." Dr Adam Briggs narrowed his eyes as he prodded the pink flesh just above Clint's left hip bone. "You finish that last round of antibiotics?" he asked, looking up and eyeing the archer with a careful look.

"Yep."

"Well all right then, everything seems to be fine. You're cleared for duty." The doctor stepped away and scribbled on Clint's chart. He picked up the agent's t-shirt and tossed it towards the archer.

Without looking, Clint caught the t-shirt and breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally."

"That bad, huh?" Briggs chuckled with a crooked smile.

"You have no idea. With Agent Romanoff and Coulson gone for the last few weeks, I've been going crazy being cooped up here," he responded, pulling the t-shirt over his head and smoothing it over his torso. "Thanks Doc," he added with an appreciative smile and jumped off the examination table. "I owe you one."

"No problem," Briggs responded with a smile, moving away as he pulled off the latex gloves. He deposited the gloves in the bin and then studied the agent once again. He threw a half-concerned, half-angered expression at the archer. "Barton, next time you come home with a bullet wound, please let someone know you're not feeling the best before you make it to my infirmary. Don't let me find you passing out, with a raging fever, on the floor of my examination room again. We clear?"

Clint couldn't stop the grin that lit up his face. Okay, so he'd felt hot and woozy after his meeting with Natasha. Who wouldn't after what went down with her?

"I came to you! Wasn't that enough? And, for the record, I did not pass out."

Briggs shot Clint another heated glare. The kid had somehow slid off the table, boneless and jelly-legged before him, when he entered the room that morning. It was enough to brighten up his day, to say the least.

"Whatever you say, Barton. You're the expert here, right?"

Clint offered the doctor a condescending smile and salute before making his way out.

"Nat?" Clint croaked into the phone, blinking to try and clear the grogginess of sleep away.

"Hey, I don't have a lot of time, but I just wanted to see how you were." She was in the middle of applying the last of her mascara to her eyelashes.

Her -if this was your last birthday party you were ever gonna have, how would you celebrate it?- chat with Tony had stirred some thoughts about a certain partner of hers and she couldn't resist calling him to hear his voice.

"I'm good. No complaints here. How are you?"

"I'm fine. Did you make it to medical?"

"Yep, given the all clear. I'm back on duty again."

"That's great. Maybe you could convince Fury to let you out here to lend a hand'?"

"Yeah, I bet he'd take real easy to that suggestion. How is Stark these days anyway? He still dying?" Clint asked, cursing inwardly at how crude his last question sounded.

"Clint.." Natasha warned, her voice low with a scolding tone. She tucked the phone underneath her chin and made her way over to her footwear.

Clint could just feel her heated glare. "What? He is, isn't he?"

Natasha paused for a moment before she spoke, letting out an exasperated breath, and settled each foot into her heels. "Yeah, he is...but Fury's got his teams working on it."

She had to admit, over the last few weeks she had seen another side to the egotistical, self-proclaimed billionaire. Albeit, he was still a pain in the ass-an almighty one at that-but she could see through the façade he worked tirelessly to maintain. She recognised the familiar self-destructing tendencies he displayed through her observations and in her assessment of his suitability for Fury's Avengers Initiative. The man was tail-spinning, parading around like he had a death wish, and was the closest thing to a man-child if she ever saw one. It pained her to admit it, but he reminded her of a little someone she once knew.

"That's good to hear." Clint coughed uncomfortably and shifted to a sitting position in the bed.

"Is that concern in your voice, I hear? You worried about the guy, Clint?"

"Hey, he might be a pompous jerk and all but I don't want the guy dead, Nat."

A smile lit up her face as she picked up her earrings and placed them into each earlobe. "It's his birthday party tonight."

"Oh yeah! How could I forget? Tony Stark's birthday parties somehow never seem to go under the radar. Let's hope it's not his last, eh?"

"Let's," she responded, her voice a soft whisper.

"I assume you're going, right? What are you wearing?"

"Why?" she inquired with an arching eyebrow, intrigued by his questions.

"I don't know...I'm curious," he smiled sheepishly, even though he knew she couldn't see him.

He missed her. Over a month had passed and he ached to see his spider.

"I'm wearing a dress," she purred seductively as she grabbed her clutch bag that lay on the dressing table.

"A dress? Really? And here's me thinking you'd be wearing those dungarees you got in San Diego."

"You're hilarious, Clint, really. But if you must know, I'm wearing a leopard print dress."

"Leopard print? That's—"

"Miss Rushman, your lift awaits."

"Oh, thank you." He heard her respond to the distant voice that trickled through the line. "Clint, I gotta go."

"Okay," he answered, trying his best to hide the disappointment that threatened to invade his tone. He heard rustling in the background. "Nat?"

"Yeah?" Her voice filtered through the noise.

"Be careful."

"Will do. Talk soon," she whispered her goodbye and hung up. Clint tossed the phone aside and sank back into his pillows, willing the ache in his chest to disappear.

End of Chapter 3