Once she was on the ground, Natasha looked around for the duffel bag. She'd thrown it to the ground before she made her way down the ladder, but couldn't spot it from where she was. If she didn't have it, she'd risk leaving behind a bag full of useful items and traces of her stay. She had about three minutes before Clint would start to run into trouble - occasionally she'd hear the clatter of trash cans as someone was knocked off the ladder and onto them.
She was about to cross the street when she turned suddenly and hoisted her gun. There was no hesitation as she spoke.
"Go now kid and you might stick around long enough to tell the tale."
The boy, who looked to be aged around 18, appeared to be local and spoke good English with a Spanish accent. He was not fazed by Natasha's authority, or by the sunlight settled on his face.
"Your reputation precedes you." he said.
The spy looked him over. In his hand, was the duffel bag, and strapped to his waist (hidden by the thin jacket he was wearing), was a small pistol.
"You've got my bag, I'd like it back please." Natasha had no intention of shooting him. But Clint would need a hand with the agents in the building he was in.
"It's not your bag, it's Mr Barton's."
"Drop the bag, kiddo, and the gun if you please."
"I can hardly help my employer without my gun - I mean have you seen the state of leg?."
He pulled up his trouser leg to reveal a prosthetic leg, one that was lovingly decorated with stickers and marker pen. Natasha fought the urge to laugh a little, knowing it'd be rude and that, if Clint had recruited him, he had to have had worth somewhere.
"How do you know Barton?"
"I sold him the apartment."
"Uh huh, and how old are you?"
"19. But my father owns the buildings around here."
They both looked up and around them. The daylight concerned Natasha - she wasn't sure about the occupation state of the other building, but she knew that people lived in the apartment block. To be truthful, the residents seemed less than concerned by the gunfire. But she could still be spotted.
"Did Daddy tell you anything about that one?" Natasha asked, motioning to the building where Clint was fighting. "Like, any back entrances or things like that?"
"There's a car p- there's a parking lot under that one, for the company cars."
"Okay, good."
Well, she thought. If they had sense enough to check one building's plans for windows and other features, likely thing was that they checked a few of them.
But, running a few stray HYDRA agents over in the parking lot seemed a lot simpler than having to face a street full of them at the front door.
"We should help Mr Barton. I promised I'd keep a look out for any hostility."
Natasha sighed and lowered the gun. It was her turn to watch her partner's back and, suspicious or not, this black haired, tanned skinned kid didn't seem like the type to cross her over. If anything, she was fairly impressed by how he'd managed to keep his calm.
Or perhaps she overestimated her party tricks.
"Alright then, look-out-boy. What do I call you?"
"My name is Thomas."
Clint made his way down the stairs with caution. The bodies slumped in the stairwell made it slightly more difficult to navigate down; he was debating whether to use his arrows to swing down but there were no good structures that would hold his weight long enough for him to make it to the floor (and not through a window again).
As he descended the flight of stairs, he noticed a lack of focus in his enemy. In fact, some of them were stuck on where to go, undecided on whether to stay and fight or to run.
Although, thought Clint. They could be running from both ways.
Sure enough, Natasha and Thomas were clearing Clint's exit. When the flow of attackers stopped altogether, there was a shout from below.
"Are you coming or not Barton, cos I got a car waiting."
He took to running the rest and met with the others in the parking lot below the building. Natasha had come through this way, hijacked an empty car and then broke the door to the upper stairwell down to clear the path. As many of the cars had no license plates and the upper levels of the building, at least, were empty, she presumed that this building was not yet in use.
Lucky us.
"I see you've met Thomas."
"You give him the gun, Clint, or did sonny-boy get it by himself?"
The archer shot her a look as the 3 of them piled into a black Mercedes with blacked out windows and no license plate. It was parked just outside the stairwell, on some sort of metallic disc that seemed to act as a sort of decoration. Natasha took the driver's side, Clint the front passenger seat and Thomas the back. The sirens outside were now a lot closer and the gunfire appeared to have resumed. As they drove onto the street behind the building, hoping to avoid a hoard of enemy agents, a police officer stopped them.
"Is everything okay, Madame?" he asked in Spanish. It appeared that he had not noticed the missing license plate.
"Well we were heading out when we heard gunfire!" Natasha's Spanish was surprisingly good.
"We left our car here overnight." added Clint. Thomas stayed quiet.
"If you avoid the streets for today, it should be okay to return tomorrow. Stay safe, okay?" the officer left them pass. While Clint and Natasha didn't react, a small sigh of relief could be heard from the back of the car.
They drove for a while without speaking.
"We dropping you off anywhere kiddo?" Natasha knew she was probably annoying Clint by not speaking in Spanish to Thomas. She turned onto a road leading out from the city.
"Mr Barton said to stick around."
"Okay then. Got a place for us to hang tonight?"
Natasha watched the road as no-one responded.
"Well I was talking to Thomas but either of you will do."
"Nat, why are you here?"
She glanced at the archer then returned her attention to the road.
"Let's just find a place to camp."
"I had a place."
"Well now you don't."
"Natasha."
"I'll talk to you when we're alone."
"What's he going to do?" said Clint, indicating Thomas. "Sell you out to his secret evil employers?"
The mood had turned.
"Shut up Barton."
"Do you seriously think Thomas here will be any contest for you? Are you afraid he'll hit you over the head with his fake leg in the middle of the night?"
"Hey man! Not cool." Thomas was trying to keep out of the conversation. But, heated as it was becoming, he couldn't let someone mock him.
Clint took the conversation further.
"Why don't you trust me Tasha? And why do you have to turn up where I live and mess everything up?"
She tried to restrain herself from reacting. She didn't want a fight, not now, not when she had so little.
Her fingers dug themselves into the steering wheel, the material heating up under her skin. The lacerations around her wrists did not look pretty.
Clint tried to continue.
"I was s-"
"Messing what up, Clint?"
She couldn't resist.
"You don't seriously think you'd settle down in a small apartment in Spain, did you?" She interrupted the archer again before he could speak a word in reply. "That's not life! We can't have lives, we can't just choose to settle wherever we want after a mission. That's not how it works."
Despite her raised voice, Natasha presented herself as calm and authoritative. But Clint knew her tricks.
"Oh yeah, like you'd know. You're so stuck up in this stupid work of yours that you don't know where your bed ends and HYDRA's starts. There was no defeating them. They've raided my home, almost killed me, and I say almost, because obviously even though they still exist, they only had their reject pile to ship out to us. You'd rather sleep with the maggots that you left alive than kill them - I know you."
Natasha accelerated onto a country road. She didn't dignify his accusations with a response.
"You think you saved us back there?" Clint continued. "And from S.H.I.E.L.D too? You're so pathetic. You can't even save your own skin."
"I must have knocked you pretty hard on the head last night." she said, gritting her teeth. She spun the car and braked so it came to an abrupt stop, the driver side door facing out onto the road. She opened the door and didn't turn back as she cut off the argument.
"Fuck you, Clint."
He didn't want to argue with her. In fact, he didn't even mind her company, even if she did bring trouble. But he couldn't live with the nightmares, the secrecy and the bossiness. Sure, in part, he liked it. But it suited her for her work, and this wasn't work, this was personal life. She was a catalyst for destruction and fire, and at any push, she'd pack up leave the ash behind. And Clint was tired of sitting in ash.
He kicked the dashboard.
"Mr Barton?" asked Thomas.
"Yeah, yeah, we're getting out." He opened his door and stumbled out of the car. Thomas followed.
"What do we do now?"
"Well, I ain't got any money on me and I'm not dressed for business so I say we go after her."
"Okay." responded Thomas, who retrieved the duffel bag from the boot. "How's your back?"
Clint looked at him in surprise. He realised he had forgotten about the wound, and that it had probably bled a little and wasn't in the cleanest of states.
"I'm doing good, bud. I'm doing good."
*i*
Two days before the incident
Spain, Northern Hemisphere
40.2, -3.1
The road was slightly dusty and Natasha realised that she didn't have any shoes on. As well as that, she was wearing most of Clint's spare set of clothes, so she doubted that he would have found something else to wear by that time. That wasn't her problem. But it would stick in her mind.
She felt herself carefully take off her necklace and place it again into her pockets.
He'd be following her.
She was not in the mood to continue arguing with him, but it was inevitable. Seeing a village not far from where she was, she knew that she could find clothing there - and, should Clint want in on another round, he would hopefully be a little more civil around a group of people.
She didn't enjoy their arguments. But she needed them at the same time, to keep her detached.
No standing still.
That was her philosophy.
She would have to find work soon.
"Natasha!"
The village wasn't far away, but of course, the rest of her company had reached her before she could get there.
"Come on Nat, I'm running around in my pyjamas!"
She didn't bother to turn around, just kept walking.
"Settlement up ahead."
"Do you think they'll have coffee?" Clint asked with all seriousness. His mood had lifted after the short walk.
"You'll only find good coffee in the cities." responded Thomas.
Natasha led the way as they reached the settlement. The people there were fairly welcoming, and the few shops in the area offered sufficient exchange for Clint's clothing. Although she didn't have much, Natasha had a few Euros in her pockets which she exchanged for shoes and a room to sleep in for the night.
It was still morning, but the group wasn't keen on returning close to the city without resources. So Clint and Thomas, who turned out to have less than protective mother, spent the day meeting the locals while Natasha sat behind the house she would be sleeping in and did some inventory checks on what they had.
The late afternoon commenced with a meal in the house they were staying.
Thanks for reading!
More later on - I started writing Chapter 4 a little earlier than expected so I might upload before Monday.