After three years and quite a bit of personal growth, I have determined that it is cruel and unusual punishment to leave this story in the limbo of unfinished fanfiction works. I have also decided that it is the ultimate power move to keep going with it now. So… sit back and enjoy!
Natasha sits in a large, regulation S.H.I.E.L.D. locker, staring through the grating on its door. She watches the movements of the two agents currently in the room as they grab their gear and rush out, then checks her watch.
It has been twenty hours. Some of those hours were spent in the vents, some in the training rooms, some in a cramped bathroom stall; she'd moved from place to place skillfully, avoiding S.H.I.E.L.D. agents by sometimes-thin margins. Natasha shifts slightly in her locker, then closes her eyes for a moment.
In four hours, the world will open to her again. It's not that she minds what has happened to her at S.H.I.E.L.D. so far, even as much as it includes this test. She's had worse from the KGB, the Red Room. She remembers not being forced to run and hide, but to fight her way through ranks of comrades. Compared to that, the interrogations and the tests of S.H.I.E.L.D. are child's play.
She isn't used to allowing herself to feel things, but Natasha identifies a nagging worry in the corner of her mind. She acknowledges it: it is an almost-guilt. Not because she has done anything wrong (at least, not in the past twenty hours), but because she is thinking about Clint, and how he might be reacting to the "news" that she has turned traitor again.
She can imagine, more vividly, the harsh words of his handler. If something equivalent were to happen to Natasha – not that she would ever attempt to recruit an enemy agent – she would have most certainly been punished. She's apprehensive of what will happen when she's assigned her own S.H.I.E.L.D. handler, but she expects that she'll experience more leniency than what she's gotten from the KGB masters. Especially considering how much mouthing off Clint seems to get away with.
Natasha rarely gets drawn enough into her own thoughts to become unaware of her situation, and she is not about to lose her focus now. Her eyes snap open as she hears boots come into contact with the hard locker room floor. Two agents. Men, of course – she chose a locker in the men's room for a reason. Americans rarely expect women in men's locker rooms, and vice versa. It is an expectation Natasha is only too glad to take advantage of.
"I knew it was a bad idea the instant I saw her," one of the men says, exhaustion in his voice. "I was supposed to get off five hours ago."
"If I were the Widow, I'd be long gone by now," the other adds. "If she's still around, she's just asking for an unmarked grave."
"Keeneger!" This is new; Natasha can see one of the men turn his head towards the door, towards the man who has just walked in. A man Natasha knows best of them all. As much as she knows she shouldn't, she smiles slightly. It's not like any of them will notice her, obscured by the locker door and shrouded in shadow and draped in training clothes. She's unused to allowing her face to portray her emotions so easily, and it doesn't feel like the worst thing in the world to let it happen in private.
Because while Natasha thinks Clint might be the only S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the building to have a proper chance at "exterminating" her, she has also been hoping to encounter him. She's not quite sure why; it probably has something to do with the challenge. She has noticed that the archer wears hearing aids, which indicates that his sense of motion might be far better than his peers. She intends to stay still, completely still. She wants to hear what he has to say about her.
"Barton," Keeneger replies. "You need something?"
"Cameras caught a sight of a redhead in the biotech wing. We think we've got her. Hill wants you – probably Barrow, too."
The second man groans. "God, Barton, I've been on duty since-"
Apparently, Clint shuts him up with some sort of scathing look. In moments, Keeneger and Barrow have left the room.
The Widow watches Clint's shoulders, the only parts of him she can see clearly through the grating of the locker. She watches him move out of her line of sight, hears the sound of a lock sliding into place, and is suddenly very ready for a fight. She doesn't move, but her muscles tense; in a moment, she allows her hand to drift down to her side, lightly grasping a baton.
She almost expects him to appear out of nowhere and slam on her locker like it's some sort of silly American horror movie, but he steps into her line of sight in the middle of the room again.
"You can come out now," he says. "I don't believe the announcement."
She doesn't move. It is exactly what he might say if he did believe the announcement.
He sighs. "It took me a while. I caught you on camera footage leaving the training rooms." She frowns; she thought she had avoided all the cameras. "After that," he says, "I checked the other cameras. You avoided all of those, so I took to the vents and headed for the men's locker room. You were just getting settled when I saw you."
"Why here?"
He doesn't seem surprised that she's where he thought she was. He answers almost immediately. "When I had my trial, I hid in the women's locker room."
Now this… this surprises her. Apparently, he takes her silence as a request for more details.
"Coulson took a chance on me, too. That's all I'm gonna say for now. Honestly, I'm surprised Fury stuck you with such a long time. I only had to do all this for six hours."
"He said twenty-four," Natasha replies, not sure if it matters. Clint whistles appreciatively.
"Well, that means you've got a few hours left. I wanted to offer you a more comfortable waiting place."
She's still a little suspicious, even if it doesn't make much sense.
"My room," he says, "for when I bunk at the compound."
She hesitates for a moment, but… there's only one reason why she shouldn't take his offer. "I'm supposed to evade all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents," she says, trying not to sound uncertain. She doesn't want to put her chance in jeopardy for a technicality, no matter how flippant she might act with Fury.
"Fine," Clint says. "If Fury asks, I'm quitting. I'll be asking to rejoin S.H.I.E.L.D. as an agent in four hours."
She smiles wide, then takes control of her face and opens the locker from the inside. She emerges like a butterfly from a cocoon, shedding training-clothes-camouflage and stretching out her limbs.
"We'll take the air vents," Clint says, smiling at her.
It's easy for her to follow him, easy to drop down into what must be his room. Again, she is surprised at the standards of one of America's best agencies; every surface in Clint's room is covered with an assortment of discarded clothes, empty bags of chips, and other items that make it look more like the space of a teenager than that of a top agent.
"Oops," he says, snagging an arrow from the top of his unmade bed and slipping it into a quiver. "Sorry. I don't do that often, I promise."
"Leave arrows out?" He nods. "Why not?"
"Well," Clint says, sitting on the now-safe bed. "They can warp if they're left out. Or stab you in your soft places," he grins. "Arrows are dangerous. Especially mine."
"Why'd you leave that one, then?"
"I heard the alarm," he says, shrugging. "About you."
"There are only three and a half hours left," Natasha says, checking her watch.
"You know what," Clint says, bouncing up from the bed, with a smile still plastered to his face. He walks over to a blanket near the side of the room and pulls it away from the TV it covers. "I know a perfect way to spend three-ish hours."
Natasha looks at him quizzically. "How?"
"Tell me," Clint says, a grin on his face, "have you ever played MarioKart?"
So yep. Strike Team Delta is back! I'll be aiming to update at least once a week for a while, so stay tuned for more! The drought is over! Hopefully the writing will have improved in the period I had between the last update and now ;) Happy reading!