Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: So... the fifth chapter is finally here. Sorry it took so long, I got a bit caught up writing Avengers headcanons! It's a bit of a filler – but it is necessary! I got a bit stuck after the fourth chapter, but here goes. Hopefully it's good enough! :)

Chapter 5 – Bull's-eye.

Natasha strolled into Clint's room in SHIELD medical. The doctors had long since realised that she wasn't going to stay away, and so had agreed to let her come and go as she pleased. If they were being honest, it was because the Russian spy scared the shit out of them and they weren't prepared to end up castrated for keeping her from her partner who had been cooped up in that tiny room for nearly 2 weeks now. He was literally climbing the walls.

Carrying two steaming hot coffees she greeted Clint, rolling her eyes once she noticed what he had been up to. The archer had literally pulled apart his cot and made a make-shift catapult out of some spare elastic and some bed springs. He had even started screwing up tiny bits of paper from his medical assessment sheet so he could launch them at a hand drawn target on the wall. He hit the bull's-eye every time.

Upon smelling the rich scent of coffee swirling out of the Styrofoam cups, the assassin's face lit up and he practically launched himself off of his cot and across the room to where Natasha stood. He flashed her an impish grin and snagged one of the coffees, waving his catapult in front of her face enthusiastically. The Russian merely raised an eyebrow at her partner and looked between him and the catapult, a dry expression on her face.

"Come to break me out, Nat?" he beamed at her, eyes hopeful. Natasha tried to ignore the twisting in her gut as she watched his face fall once she shook her head. She hated to disappoint him. She looked at the floor and said nothing. If the roles were reversed, Clint would have gotten her out by now. Sighing, she looked around at the dishevelled room, finally noticing for the first time what a mess it was in.

"Really, Barton. This-" she snagged the tiny little catapult out of his hand and gestured around the room at the hail of paper strewn across the room, disbelieving what she was seeing. "-is what you've been doing with your time? Christ. I knew my partner was an idiot, but I didn't realise he was four years old."

Clint smiled sheepishly and snatched back his catapult and gulped down his coffee, his mood lightening immediately. The Russian rolled her eyes – she was going to end up with whiplash one day if his mood kept switching this fast. In fact, she was kind of surprised his mood swings hadn't killed her already. She watched as he jumped up onto the bed and picked up some more paper, scrunching it up tight before holding it out to her expectantly. "You try." Natasha cocked her head to the side and grimaced, shaking her head.

"No thanks. Unlike some people, I have shitload of paperwork to do." She turned on her heel and went to walk out the door, but stopped in her tracks once she heard Clint speak.

"Come on, Tasha. I dare you," he said, waggling his eyebrows at her all the while. He knew that his partner wouldn't – couldn't – refuse a challenge. He'd learnt that over their last few years of partnership; if you wanted Natasha to do something, all you had to do was challenge her. It worked every time. The Russian cursed under her breath.

"Damn you, Clint Barton, for always being so goddamn infuriating," she muttered, stalking back over to the cot and snatching up the catapult. She stood in front of Clint and was about to take the shot when she felt a strong arm wrap around her waist.

"Ah – Not so fast, Romanoff. That shot is way too easy. Stand over here." Natasha shivered involuntarily as his breath tickled her ear. She narrowed her eyes. Clint had a nasty habit of doing that. She made to smack him over the head, but stopped once she remembered that the doctor had warned her not to. Damn them for ruining her fun. Relaxing slightly, she let the archer lead her over to the far side of the room, next to the door to the tiny bathroom, so that the target on the wall was diagonally away from her across the room.

Grimacing, she whirled around and glared at Clint who was still very close behind her and huffed angrily. She tried hard to keep her face straight, but he was just so close. She was starting to get slightly rattled.

"How in God's name am I meant to hit that stupid target from here!" she exclaimed, throwing one arm out to signal dramatically at the sketched drawing on the wall that now appeared to be a million miles away. Clint smirked.

"It's easy, Nat. See?" he said, sniping the contraption out of her hand and firing the shot instantly, barely even checking to line up his target. Natasha smiled wryly as it hit the dead centre of the target. Furrowing her brow, she held her hand out for the catapult, which Clint placed in her hand gently, a look of sheer amusement on his face.

The Russian growled and muttered something unintelligible. "Well come on then, Barton. Hand me a damn missile then, I'm not going to stand here and play darts with you all day." Clint chuckled and handed her a small piece of paper which she screwed up into a tiny ball violently. The archer watched this action and laughed loudly, finding her venom exceedingly entertaining.

Natasha narrowed her eyes at him. "Go ahead, Clint. I promise you won't be laughing when I wipe the floor with your ass at this game. Make another of those damned catapults; my shooting has vastly improved over the time I've been stuck here waiting for you to get out." The assassin threw her a shit-eating grin and reached down to her thigh to whip one of her many knives out from its holster there. He hopped back onto the cot, and began to slice away at the bedding. Natasha scowled at him.

Finally, Natasha lined up her shot and glanced over at the archer who had momentarily stopped what he was doing to watch. She let go of the elastic and the paper ball shot forwards, never looking away from the archer. Once she had realised that she had hit the bull's-eye (like she knew she would, of course) she turned smug. Clint turned to her and raised his eyebrows, his enormous grin diminishing by only a fraction.

Clint turned to her and held out a brand new catapult to her, biting back a smirk. "Bet you can't do that twice, Tasha."

The Russian rose to the challenge, and the two agents began to absorb themselves in the petty war. Clint would almost undoubtedly win. He was Hawkeye, after all.

Natasha had left Clint to his own devices after she had been beaten at their little game. She knew the moment that he had handed her that second catapult that she would lose, but she wanted to cheer him up and distract him from everything that was going on. Honestly though, it was nice for her to spend some time with the normal Clint again - even if he was a goddamn pain in the ass.

Taking the small lift down to the mess hall, Natasha picked up yet another coffee, setting it down on one of the long, unoccupied tables that sat in the canteen. She stirred the thick liquid with her spoon, propping her head up on her other hand, deep in thought. To her Clint seemed fine to leave, but the doctors had insisted that he was in a very volatile state. Natasha had scoffed at this. They were assassins. Being volatile was practically in their job description.

For some reason, the medical professionals at SHIELD were expecting Clint to flip out again and try and attack someone. I had been weeks since Loki's failed invasion, and the archer had only just had his first relapse, hadn't he? His next could be weeks away, months even. It was just plain stupid to keep one of SHIELDs top agents holed up in confinement like this. She growled under her breath. She could easily get him out of here, sure, but she was worried about how the other Avengers were going to treat him and the repercussions it might have.

She and Tony had spoken to them as Clint's initial assessment had been underway, and they had been very understanding – that was what worried her though. Clint would hate to feel as though everyone was walking on eggshells around him, worried that he was going to trip out if they did the wrong thing. She could be certain that Tony would act normal with him, but the others she couldn't be sure of.

She ran her hand across her face in frustration, not even bothering to look up when she heard a slight crash to her left. Steve was the main problem. It was not in the captain's nature to just ignore a problem, and she had a feeling that he would be overly nice to the archer in an attempt to make him feel relaxed. Well, Natasha knew Clint, and she knew - if anything - that would just make him feel worse.

Sensing that someone was approaching her, Natasha tensed slightly. She made a conscious effort however, to keep her appearance the same. She continued to stir her coffee and lean on her hand as if she had no idea that someone was walking toward her.

"Agent Hill," she greeted, straightening up and sipping her coffee. She narrowed her eyes slightly as the slender agent stood behind the seat opposite her indicating that it would be a fairly brief exchange. Natasha expected nothing less and so remained seated, scrutinizing Hill. If this was about Clint – which it most likely was – she needed to know what was going on, and the only way of doing that was to talk to Maria.

"Agent Romanoff." Hill paused before continuing.

"Can I just ask - what the hell have you done with Agent Barton?" A look of confusion flashed across the Russian spies face momentarily. She narrowed her eyes at the agent stood before her, realisation flooding her brain. Her mood darkened considerably after just hearing that sentence.

"What do you mean?" she bit out, already knowing the answer.

"Barton's gone."

This had Tony Stark written all over it.