Lost in translation
A/N: If you guys read Rumor has it you're going to have whiplash from how I change the team roles in this story. Haha. I love Steve – I can use him for so many Clintasha plot devices. From the jealousy pawn to the supportive friend. Evil laughter. If you don't know what I'm talking about…don't worry about it. It's an inside joke. ;)
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Chapter 9
Reset. Release. Bang. Reset. Release. Bang. Reset. Release. Bang.
Clint steadily kept up the rhythm in his well-practiced motions as the glisteningly sweat poured down his crinkled brow. His sharp blue eyes scanned the moving targets in front of him as he shot arrow after arrow without even having to think about where his hands needed to go – he had drilled the techniques into his head years ago and had long since perfected the art of act first, think later. In the field there was sometimes never any time to think and quick split second decisions were the only thing that could save him or his partner in a tight spot. Archery had always been his first love - but right now it was just a plain old fashion distraction. He needed to focus his razor sharp mind on something that didn't have red hair or a runaway mouth full of sass.
"You know, you only become this military-like in your training when you're trying to ignore something," a familiar calm voice said from behind him. Clint promptly snorted.
"What are you? My damn shrink?" he said without slowing his perfectly synchronized shots. He didn't look away from his rapidly moving targets, but he was able to make out the rather buff figure of Steve Rogers in his peripheral vision. He had not been there a moment ago. The Captain was leaning against the wall beside him as he continued the vigorous training session he had started so that he could blow off some steam after his rather eventful day full of angry assassin, stubborn assassin and cowardly assassin.
Yeah he needed a better distraction. This clearly wasn't working.
"Working yourself into exhaustion is a great way of solving nothing," Steve said warily. Clint scoffed and would have given the blunt Captain a dirty look if he wasn't busy blowing the targets boards in front of him to pieces. There was a certain level of primal satisfaction behind being able to blowing a perfect hole through a target board with the speed that he had managed to build himself up too after thousands of hours of practice. It was his art. It was his one special skill on the team that no one else shared.
"I'm not trying to solve any world ending problems Steve – I am just shooting some arrows," Clint said indifferently. He was actually actively trying not to think of solving anything at the moment – he didn't even want to think.
"Just shooting arrows for an hour is recreational fun. Just shooting arrows for 2 hours is maybe sharpening your best skill and good exercise routines - abide a very energy consuming one. Judging by the state of the repeatedly abused target boards you've been here for a grade total of 5 hours," Steve said eying the horrifying condition of the half dead looking stands. Clint didn't even spare him a glance. Nosy team leader had done it again. Well score one for Rogers.
"Brilliant deductions Cap – you sure you're not a detective or something?" Clint asked sarcastically. Steve gave him a serious look that made Clint feel like he wasn't going to like where this conversation was headed.
"Where is Natasha, Clint?" Steve asked slowly. Clint tensed but didn't stop his perfect firing pace.
"Not here," Clint said steadily, letting go of his current arrow and allowing it to sink into the target just a bit deeper than all the others. If Steve was looking for his partner she was clearly not in the room. Natasha and Clint weren't magically glued to the hip - despite what everyone believes. If Clint could have his way she would be – but we all know how much Natasha likes being confined to one space for too long. There was no way to contain her – all Clint really cared was that she was safe – as safe as an assassin with the kind of enemies they had could be. Steve narrowed his eyes.
"Clint she just recently came home from her accident after our mission – she's still injured and she can't talk. Where is she?" he asked with a bit authority laced into his voice. Clint twitched as he took one last bull's eye shot and lowered his bow. Natasha was not an amateur. She wasn't even life threateningly injured. She was one of the best assassins in the world and she didn't need codling. He really hated when people underestimated her. His partner was one of the best – insult her and you were automatically insulting Hawkeye.
If Steve was anyone else other than his good friend and team mate he would have lashed out at him. But there were so few people who genuinely cared about Natasha in the world he had to force himself to cool his irritation and give Steve the respect he deserved. Not many people could forgive a pair of assassins with ledgers as red as theirs – it was a miracle a man as righteous as Steve could even look at them.
"I know where she is Steve," Clint muttered as he stared at the bow that suddenly felt like it weighed 50 pounds more than it really did as it rested in his grasp. He knew his partner like the back of his hand. He would bet his best, most treasured bow that he could track her down without the use of all the fancy Stark tech. He was an old style spy – a true hunter. He could predict patterns in his marks better than a computer ever could.
And there wasn't a person in the world he knew better than Natasha Romanoff.
"Then why are you here? Shouldn't you be watching her after just being released from medical?" Steve asked carefully. Clint shot the captain a sharp look.
"She doesn't need a babysitter Steve. She'll kick your ass if you ever say that to her face," Clint said warningly. Steve shook his head. He wasn't here to start a fight. He was here to give Clint some vital information.
"We don't know all the facts Clint. We don't know if the only thing wrong with her is the inability to speak. We don't even know if it's permanent or not yet," Steve said carefully. Clint tightened his grip around his bow and finally had enough.
"So what do you know?" Clint asked started to get just a tiny bit frustrated with the Captain. He was already feeling edgy after his confrontation with his partner earlier today – he didn't particularly want to have another clash with a different Avenger within 6 hours his last rumble. Steve took a steady breath.
"Tony hacked SHIELD files again," Steve started carefully crossing his arms. Clint gave him a blank look – and he was supposed to care because…?
"When is Stark not sticking his nose in places it shouldn't be?" Clint asked indifferently as he bent down to pick up his fallen arrows. He had laughably little interest in Stark's need to know everything – until Steve made him care.
"He hacked into Natasha's files," Steve continued staring at the wall over the tense archer's shoulder. Clint suddenly stopped moving with several arrows sitting neatly in his expert hands as he burned holes into his team leader's head.
"And why the hell would that warrant such a dramatic tone Steve?" he asked dangerously advancing towards the Captain. Steve held his ground and gave Clint a steady look that said he needed to calm the hell down and listen to him before jumping to conclusions.
"He found level 10 classified files. SHIELD is launching an investigation on Natasha's voiceless problem without telling any of us – especially her. They think it's revenge. They think her condition was staged and planned," he said carefully. Clint narrowed his eyes.
"We have a lot of enemies Steve – most of them would like nothing more than to see my partner's dead body lying in some forgotten back alley. But this? Why would someone go to this much trouble to create a method to strip someone of something as painless as voice loss?" Clint asked in frustration. It didn't make any sense. Steve gave him a look that said he had an idea why. She wasn't the Black Widow for nothing.
"You know she is suspended from the field until we find out how to fix this right?" Steve said carefully. Clint reflexively clenched his fist around his arrows. He didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to acknowledge the truth that his partner was essentially compromised – and not the in the way he would like her to be.
"What do you think is going on Steve?" Clint asked stiffly instead of answering the Captain's rather rhetorical question. There was no question about her field status and they both knew it.
"Someone is trying to break her," Steve said slowly. Clint suddenly chuckled darkly and shook his head.
"Natasha doesn't break easily – trust me I've tired," Clint said as memories of their tussle in the alley flashed across his mind. His partner was beyond stubborn and a world class coward to boot. But she was firm in her beliefs and Clint knew she believed without a doubt that they were not supposed to work. He knew her. He knew how her cold calculative brain worked. And he was going to make it his personal mission to prove her wrong – right after he took out the person that was trying to take her out. Steve suddenly gave him a grave look.
"You learn something after years of service Clint. If there is one thing that can break a spy – it's the inability to be one anymore," Steve said carefully. Clint tensed. That was not was he wanted to hear.
"What do you want me to do?" Clint asked swiftly picking up his bow and retracting it into its collapsed form and shooting across the room to grab his gear – he didn't want to do this so soon after their fight but if things were getting serious on SHIELD's end he needed to find her - before someone else did. Steve shifted into his natural controlled stance and crossed his arms as he watched the Hawk load his guns – now he was wondering where exactly Natasha had gone. Where does a volatile Russian assassin go when she is obviously not with her partner? They all knew Clint kept her tame – they just never said it.
"Bring her back to the tower. Tony and Bruce want to run some tests and take a crack at her scans themselves. If anyone is going to spot something that best doctors in the world missed - it will be those two," Steve said confidently. Clint didn't stop in his swift arming and he didn't stop to answer the questions lurking in the Cap's eyes. Clint desperately wanted to believe Steve's hopeful words – but he was never the optimistic type.
"She doesn't really want to be found right now Steve," Clint said elusively as he stuffed his loaded gun into his back pocket. Steve furrowed his brow.
"Where is she?" Steve finally asked with his voice instead of just his eyes – Clint ignored how he was getting dangerously good at reading an entire conversation in just someone's eyes. It was scaring him slightly. He didn't want to have to read all the words in someone's head through just their eyes for the rest of his life. He felt something painful tug at his chest. He wanted to hear her again. He needed to hear her again. He missed her voice so damn much. Clint paused with his back to the Cap as he stared at the ground.
"I told you I know where she is," he said firmly. He wasn't going to say another single word. Steve has known the SHIELD agent long enough to see something was not right. He narrowed his eyes as something suddenly clicked.
"What did you do Barton?" the super soldier asked carefully. What stupid thing did you say? was left unsaid.
"I cornered the Widow in between a rock and a hard place," Clint muttered as he walked away. He didn't regret it. He would never regret it. He slid a pair of dark sunglasses that doubled as night vision lens over his sharp sniper eyes. Missions, assassinations and piss poor pathetic criminals got real boring, real fast. He got bored easily – it was one of his flaws and he knew it. She made his life interesting. She kept him on his toes. While she was still the enemy or after she became his partner – it didn't matter. Natasha Romanoff had always fascinated him and captivated his attention. He didn't regret having feelings for the most dangerous woman in the world and he wasn't afraid to accept that she wasn't falling to her knees returning his affections with open arms.
He wouldn't be in love with her if she did sappy shit like that. He was the sappy one thank you very much.
He was on the hunt for a Widow – he would run after her for the rest of his life if she let him. He felt the edge of his lips pull up in a cocky smirk as he slipped out of Avengers Tower and disappeared into the night as silently as a ghost – a highly trained ghost.
He wondered at what point in their longstanding partnership their little hit and run rumbles had become sort of like a game.
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Clint silently ran across several flat apartment roof tops along the shadier side of New York. The farther you got from the rich and classy downtown region the dark and dirtier the streets became – as least in the neighbour he was moving through. He was no stranger to shady neighbourhoods – he grew up in one himself.
He didn't completely lie when he told Steve he knew where she was. He knew where she was most likely to be. Natasha was a wild card – but he had a lucky streak like no other. He knew he had probably pissed her off to unimaginably proportions with his words and she was simmering in silent rage. He knew what she wanted at the moment. He knew what she was looking for.
She was looking for a fight. Usually when she was this wound up she would spar with him and get it out of her system – but seeing as he was the butt of her apparent problem at the moment she was hunting for a quick stress release somewhere else.
Somewhere like an underground unregistered boxing rink on the outskirts of the city that never sleeps. Natasha was angry at him sure – but she was angrier at her inability to cuss him out he knew for certain. She was angry enough to want to go a few rounds with the dirt that crawled under the scum of New York. She didn't need to talk to kick some poor criminal's ass. Clint suddenly felt his thoughts turn to the one other option – the one that made him want to kill men slowly and painfully.
He really hoped she wasn't looking for the other type of release – the one that didn't involve blood, sweat and broken bones. He was proud of himself when he only faltered slightly in his step as he grabbed the edge of a roof and flung himself onto the next roof top. He's only known Natasha to ever take 3 men to her bed in the last 10 years of their partnership. None of them were him. One was a drunken mistake. One was a stress induced mess. One was a ruthless assassin still on the wrong side of the law. And only one of them was currently still alive.
Take a good guess at which one was still breathing. Clint clenched his jaw as he grew closer to his destination.
God damn it if he ever saw James Barnes the pain in his ass American super soldier turned soviet brainwashed assassin in New York again he would kill him. He ignored the logically side of his brain that reminded him he had already tried to accomplish that goal and how it nearly caused his own demise instead.
Yeah going head on with super soldiers was not a smart idea. He may rumble with the supers of the world but he was far more lethal at far distances and with a pack of his favourite exploding arrows – not up close and personal with only his fists as weapons. To say it frankly – he got his ass whipped and an unimpressed Russian spy sitting beside his hospital bed when he woke up 2 days later. She had slapped him the moment he opened his eyes and walked away. Coulson had told him later that she hadn't moved from her chair from the entire 2 days – things like that gave Clint hope that he could break her icy walls.
He was nothing if not persistent.
Clint finally stopped running and leaned against a wall to catch his breath as he caught sight of the bar tucked into the side of an alley that led down into what he knew for a fact was the most dirtiest fighting rink in the city. From the ruckus he could hear echoing through the thin door today there was a truly spectacular fight. If his partner was in there – he was sure it was a spectacle indeed.
"To engage the furious Widow in battle or not to engage the Widow – that is the question," he muttered to himself as he watched the entrance like his namesake. He could let her work the anger out of her system and wait her out until she left on her own– or he could speed up the process by giving her a little incentive to leave by showing up and catching her in her secret anger management rituals. No one else knew the type of trouble she got herself into during her off time – of course he knew. He was her partner after all. He paused as he watched the bar door suddenly bang open and out walked a dark haired woman dressed in ripped jeans, a tight black leather jacket and something that looked a lot like blood dripping from her clenched fists. She was no average street thug.
He paused as she passed under the dim street light and he suddenly got a clearer look at her build and the familiarity of the way she carried herself hit him right in the face. He took a closer look at the black hair - it was a wig.
Busted.
"Man I missed the show!" Clint huffed childishly as he watched his disguised partner stalk down the alley and roughly rip the black wig off her head and fling it into a dumpster without ever once breaking her brisk pace. Her red curls gracefully fell across her face and for a moment Clint was mesmerized by her beauty – he always had been. But then he quickly shook those thoughts out of his head and followed after her – he had to get her to come home. Regardless of her ill feelings towards him at the moment they needed to get her checked out by their resident geniuses. He didn't want to go on a mission without her. He doubted she wanted to be left behind either. She'd come along – but she would give him an icy shoulder through the whole thing too.
"You run away from confessions with style Romanoff – I'll give you that one," Clint muttered under his breath. He had the strangest sense of déjà vu as he trailed his partner to wherever she planned to go at 11 pm at night.
She suddenly went completely still and that put Clint on high alert. Was there a threat down there? Was she in trouble? Was she being followed by someone who knew she couldn't even verbally alert her team if she got into real trouble? She suddenly looked over her shoulder and stared right at his perch that was completely hidden from view.
Beep. Clint froze as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. No fucking way she knew. There was no god damn way. He flipped open his phone anyway and angrily glanced down.
'Stop following me hawkboy.'
- N
Clint stared at his phone for nearly 3 whole seconds.
Dear god she was messing with him. It was exactly like his initial assignment to take her out in Rio. Clint narrowed his eyes and typed something back without looking away from her piercing gaze.
'Stop running like a coward and maybe I will.'
- C
He watched the tension suddenly drain from her posture as she glanced down her phone and read his reply. He nearly slapped his hand against his forehead. The reckless idiot had sent that text as a hunch. She had no idea if it was really him who was trailing her. He watched as the barely visible relief on her face suddenly turned to irritation. Uh oh. Beep. He glanced down warily.
'Piss off and go get a life.'
- N
Clint scoffed and edged closer to the fire escape that he had a feeling he would need it in the next 60 seconds.
'I already have a life. She's currently being a pain in my ass,'
- C
Natasha tensed as she read the bold message and her eyes flashed up to lock with his. They both stood as still as stone - the only movement between them was the barely visible motion of her fingers flying across her phone screen. Beep. Clint narrowed his eyes as he was forced to glance down.
'Hope you can run with that arrow up your ass,'
- N
She was flying down the alley before he had even finished reading her message.
"Romanoff you sassy asshole!" Clint growled under his breath. He was in love with an escape artist! Fantastic. He instantly got to his feet and chased after her over the roof tops. He needed to get down to the ground to catch her, but following her from up above gave him the advantage of gaining on her.
"So we're playing this game eh?" Clint called out to her as she skirted around the corner, not without shooting an annoyed glare over her shoulder first though.
Beep. He glanced down again as he kept up his fast pace.
'I'm not the one who plays dirty games with circus animals.'
- N
Clint stared at the message. She was cruel.
"Oh that is just mean Tasha," he muttered under his breath. She was clearly still pissed at him. Why did it have to be him? Why was he the only one in the entire world who got this messed up response from a girl when he told her that he was in love with her?
Two can play at this game.
"At least I'm not the one who has a creepy relationship with her pistol and sometimes caresses it lovingly like a new born baby's butt.'
- C
Natasha stared at her phone screen with a blank expression as she ran across a deserted street with her partner only a few meters behind her. What kind of insult was that? She narrowed her eyes. She hadn't expected him to try and find her so soon after she ditched his ass. She suddenly clenched her jaw. Why was he here? Shouldn't he be drinking himself into oblivion after she shot his affections down the drain or something?
She didn't even know how his brain worked sometimes. Well actually she knew exactly how it worked – she just didn't know why it worked the way it did. She typed out her brisk response and wondered if she should give him the slip at the subway entrance that came into view 20 meters ahead of her.
'LAME. What type of dignified assassin calls their bow a stripper name like roxxie jonna?'
- N
Clint gaped at her response and nearly fell right through the gap between the two roofs he was in the middle of jumping across.
"Low blow Romanoff! Low blow!" Clint bellowed down the otherwise silent alley. He watched her raise her hand as she gracefully flew down another alley - and promptly gave him the finger.
Well. She was a delicate soul. Clint scoffed.
Delicate his ass.
He was about to end their little chase when something suddenly changed in the whole atmosphere. He froze in his pursuit of his partner when he suddenly saw her freeze as she stared at something down the new alley to her left she was about to run down. He felt something like fear spasm in his chest when he saw her take an unconfident step back and if she wasn't Natasha Romanoff he would say she almost stumbled. She looked back up at his current location of only 2 roofs behind her – he wasn't even trying to be invisible. She swiftly reached up and pulled her hair out of its loose ponytail. When he saw the barest hint of uncertainty flash across her face he knew they were done with games. He was already scaling down the side of the building before her hair band had hit the ground.
She used one of their mission signals. She needed him down there – she needed him right now.
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A/N: Now things are getting interesting! They might be 10 years as partners – but the dynamic is still so volatile! Haha. Some action is overdue right? I wonder what Natasha found? Maybe it will speed up her current phase of wanting to be far away from him.
Review and let me know what you thought!