A/N: Wow, I want to thank everyone that's been PMing me with advice and such; anyway, I was thinking that this story will be around 8 chapters. I've got it all planned out, but if you're not happy with the way it's going; PM or review me. I would also like to give a shout out to Cyclone227 whose reviews have meant a lot to me :) it's nice to find another fan girl who shares my views; please check out her stuff. It might encourage her to update her story :)

Chapter 3: Diagnosed

The problem with SHEILD is that there was nowhere to hide. Therefore Agent Romanoff decided to do what she always did when she was spying on a fellow SHEILD agent; keep moving. If she paced back and forth from one bridge to another at a normal pace, no one would think about anything out of the ordinary.

The bridges were half a mile apart; any closer and she suspected that others would notice the same woman too frequently.

The worry that she had on her mind was the fact that if she was half a mile away from the medic's office, she wouldn't hear a thing. The other thing was the fact that if she did over hear a conversation, she could hardly stay for long.

Summarising all the problems in less than a second the Widow turned her head slightly to look at the doctor's examination room. This was the fifth time she had passed the room, and nothing was happening. She spoke to herself as she headed back to the bridge, it's what she did when she needed to think, Usually Fury would have had her killed or something by now… it's been nearly ten hours since she let it slip about the patient and nothing has happened yet…? She cursed herself silently, it wasn't her fault but she hated it when she couldn't reach the answer.

It was eleven thirty at night. Agent Romanoff had been pacing up and down for nearly twenty hours. Nothing had happened.

She leant back on a railing in the metal corridor, twenty feet from the doctor's examination room. Only two other Agents were in this stretch of corridor at that moment in time and she was so involved with her own rage at that moment that she didn't care for their opinions.

It was starting to get frustrating.

She took it as a personal insult what Fury had done. After years in the field, Natasha Romanoff had earned the nickname Black Widow. Everyone she interrogated, anyone that she was assigned to deal with died one way or another. Anyone who made a mistake around her was 'taken care of' by their superior. It had started off as a code that her enemies had used to refer to her over comms, but after a while it had become a name she had familiarised herself with. Mainly because certain people found the aspect of what Black Widow spiders actually did amusing, certain people like -

She stopped half way through her thoughts. Something was happening. She adjusted her position so she was as hidden from view as possible; if it was Fury coming out, she'd be in ALOT of trouble.

It was the doctor. She didn't seem fased or the slightest bit worried. Entering the code, she locked her assessment room. Without a reason, or so she thought, to be threatened, she started to retreat back to, what Romanoff assumed, was her room.

The Black Widow waited five minutes before making her way into the entrance room. The door was locked with the SHEILD's usual security; a three stage system; a code, a finger print, and then a clearance card.

She hadn't planned on breaking in into the doctor's room, but it seemed that the change of events was making her plan screwed up. The only problems were 1, she had no back up at base, so she had to make an educational guess at the code, and 2, if Fury caught her, she wouldn't live for long. At all.

Gracefully dusting over the buttons to pick up grease from the doctor's fingers (with the pack that she always kept on her) , she began turning her mind back to what was possibly wrong with Haw- ehem, whoever it was that was ill.

'Tasha.' A voice made a shiver down her spine. The whisper was soft and sounded hurt, even tired. She turned swiftly, looking Agent Barton in the eye. Her hand dropped to her side, still holding the dusting brush. She tried to ignore the slight tug at the back of her throat, as she saw a look of pain in her colleague's eyes.

Not trusting herself to speak she kept quiet, changing her mind; being caught by Barton was far worse than being caught by Fury.

He grinned, laugh lines breaking out around his eyes and mouth. 'Really? You said i underestimated you... but when you crouch in a hidden corner where no one can see you, you expect the Hawk not to get curious?' He chuckled, and she grinned; trust Clint to make any situation light-hearted. She snapped at her mistake.

'Barton...' she began, only to be interrupted.

'Don't. If you want to know what's wrong you might as well let me explain rather than you breaking in to one of Fury's most secure room... there's another four point system inside...' He trailed off before squinting at her suspiciously. 'I mean... you did know it was me right?'

She just lifted an eyebrow.

He laughed, leading her to a more private room.

'When did you know?' She questioned, relaxing onto Barton's bed in his sleeping quarters as he perched on the end.

'Wowa,' he laughed. 'What's with all the questions? I've only just sat down.'

She nodded at his crouched position. 'You've never sat down in your life...' She grinned, 'Well never voluntary...' She smirked.

He laughed, probably louder than the joke deserved, and waited for a while until turning serious again. He ran his fingers through his sandy hair, and sighed. 'They got suspicious... after the Avengers. It started with a simple assessment, to make sure I wasn't still under Loki's... spell... and the doctor picked up an abnormality.' He whispered the last sentence.

Agent Romanoff remembered the 'simple assessment'. The one that she also had to complete. She remembered the questions, especially the ones about Barton and Coulson. The ones about her... feelings...

She took a deep, rattling breath. 'And how long have you... known...?' She tried to explain, straining her face to portray the right emotion. As Barton glanced at her with a puzzling expression, she tried to reform the sentence in her head.

'How long have you felt like this?' She questioned. She was trying to be subtle, but she knew that Fury had more than once made sneaky remarks about the 'friendship' between herself and agent Barton.

She gestured her hand between us, trying to assure him with a smile. But when his confused expression cleared, it was replaced with a humorous one.

He stood up, trying to stifle his laughter with his hand as his eyes darted around the room. He turned back to her, eyebrows raised. 'This?' he asked, a grin spreading from ear to ear.

Natasha felt undermined. Had she got it wrong...?

'Tasha,' he laughed, and she tried not to flinch at her name. 'Do you think I am in love with you?' He mocked Romanoff's gesture and exaggerated it entirely.

She looked at him, eyebrows arching. She did not like to be mocked.

'Tash... I'm ill. Not in love... although you claim them to be the same thing.' His eyes wide with the last sentence. 'It's called Schizotypal Personality Disorder.' He rushed the last sentence.

She smiled, but doubt clouded her judgement. 'Why are you telling me this?' She quizzed him.

He looked hurt. 'I give you some credit.' He winked. 'I know you'll find out sooner or later, and I don't want you to get so obsessed you kill someone...' He grinned. 'Anyway, you'll probably want to know the reason when I suddenly disappear from SHEILD's database...'

Agent Romanoff racked her brains... Schizotypal...Schizotypal Personality Disorder ... she couldn't think. She'd heard about it but... she couldn't concentrate whilst Barton was giving her a look that made her weak at the knees. She remembered how he always assured her...

'He won't get rid of you.' She grinned, through her gritted teeth.

He just laughed and sat down on the bed. His head in his hands. She didn't know whether to comfort him or just sit there and let him enjoy the comfortable silence.

Only it wasn't a comfortable silence.

A/N: So Hawkeye has Schizotypal? If you don't know what it is, don't go find out; seriously, Black Widow discovers it all in the next chapter, so you can learn through her eyes. Anyway; what do you think? A shocker? I know a few people thought it was because he was inlove with him. You're all probably confused, but it is an eventual BlackHawk, but that's not what Fury first suspected from Barton.