Chapter 3

Flashback

The two were walking down the hall of the Helicarrier after receiving a message to come in for a meeting. They were instructed that the meeting would take place in one of the lesser used rooms in the lower levels of the carrier. The hallways in these areas were never as clean or as nice as the upper since no one really went down to them unless they had to. "What do you think this one's about?"

"Just another mission and an introduction to the new guy," Natasha replied to Clint as the two continued down the halls.

Clint stuck his tongue out in response, "Ugh new guy, I don't like new guys. How did a new guy instantly become the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Fury goes missing for a week and some random guy off the streets gets pick to be leader? Anyone else would have been a better choice than some random guy who none of us have heard of or met. Why has it even taken him this long to meet with us? Shouldn't that have been day one instead of two weeks in?"

"Are you suggesting you would have been a better choice?" Natasha questioned raising an eyebrow.

"Well yes and no," Clint shrugged, "I'd hate the long hours and the paper work. Not to mention not getting out into the field when I wanted. However I would get that chair and that's a really nice chair. Plus I could boss people around, like you and that could be fun."

"Uh-huh, good luck with that. I'd give you two weeks before you lost your hair from the stress," Natasha teased as they rounded a corner. The hallways were completely abandoned. Natasha was used to using the larger meeting room near Fury's room but new Director meant new rules. "How long would it take before you started wearing the eye-patch?"

"The hair loss would be a crime against humanity," Clint replied with a smirk. "Second day for the eye-patch. Can't be a proper Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. without an eye-patch after all! You think this new guy is going to be one of those by the books type?"

"More than likely," Natasha grumbled. The agents who were strictly by the books were painful enough, a Director doing that is far worse. "I can't believe he brought Ross in." By the end of his first week the new Director had made an alliance with General Thunderbolt Ross and it seemed like he would clear the general to go hunt down Bruce Banner.

"You think we should warn Bruce about that?" Clint questioned softly, "I know he wouldn't really want to hear from us but… He should know." They hadn't spoken to Bruce since the incident a few years back which caused him to leave.

Natasha thought about what Clint said knowing there were risks with every answer. She spotted a camera ahead of her on the roof and remembered that no matter what they'd be caught on film and anything they said would put Bruce in more danger. "No, he chose to leave and he can take care of himself. Besides we don't even know where he is. Picking up his trail to track him now would be next to impossible." She glanced at Clint out of the corner of his eye hoping he remembered where they were. He nodded in understanding, feeling like a complete idiot from bringing it up and risking everything. The two approached the room they had told to meet in. The door was locked with the usual key pad beside it for S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel to use to get in. Natasha got out her I.D. card and swiped it punching in her security pin after. The door didn't unlock instead the screen flashed a red "Denied". "Weird," Natasha muttered glaring at the screen, if she could kill it she probably would.

"Let me try," Clint replied, "Sometimes these older things just glitch for certain members." Clint swiped his own card and entered his pin only to be met with the same denied. "What do you mean denied?" Clint yelled at the machine then shook his head, "Well clearly some higher power does not want us to come to this meeting. Let's go back upstairs and scare some of the new agents."

"You realize that means walking all the way back up only for them to tell us to come back after calling tech support," Natasha pointed out.

"Right, I really don't want to make this trip again," Clint grumbled, "Stairs are the bane of my existence more so when you don't let me use a grappling arrow to get down and up."

"If I have to take the stairs so do you," Natasha replied getting out her cell and going through the contacts.

"I'd let you use it if only so you didn't have to deal the stairs either," Clint argued then gave a grin, "Well that and it's a faster way to get back to our rooms for some fun."

"Also leaves a dent in the Helicarrier," Natasha replied, "Fury would kill us when he got back."

"Point taken. Why does this new guy want us to meet in this room anyways? Does he hate our guts?" Clint questioned, "Can't we pull seniority on him and say to meet in a better room?"

"Unfortunately, no we can't. We need to give this guy some sort of good first impression. At least until we know if he deserves it or not," Natasha continued to scroll through her contacts finding tech support and calling.

"Still think he should answer to us," Clint griped, "I don't wanna make a good first impression he's not made a good first impression on me by making us walk down here and the entire Ross thing." Clint waited for a bit glaring at the door, "Stupid door." He kicked it to let some of his frustration out. The door opened at the kick confusing both Natasha and Clint, "Huh…" Natasha lowered her phone with a frown, the line was busy and generally it wasn't supposed to be busy. "This seem odd to you?" Clint poked his head inside the room looking around but not entering. It looked like a normal meeting room but no one else was around.

Natasha looked down the hallways noticing no one else coming, "Extremely. Generally when you kick stuff something tries to kill you."

"Haha, very funny, you know what I mean," Clint lightly elbowed Natasha, "What time were we supposed to meet this new guy down here?"

"1pm," Natasha replied, "It's 1:15 before you ask. So in theory someone else should be here or we should see someone coming down the hall. Or hear footsteps coming, anything really."

"Really don't like where this is going," Clint commented, "I'm starting to think coming back would be a better idea even if it does mean stairs."

"Starting to agree with you," Natasha nodded looking at the room again then at Clint, "Come on let's head up top and see what's going on."

"Agent Romanoff, Agent Barton, please step into the room so we can begin this meeting," A male voice came over the intercom inside the room.

"Why do we need to have a meeting in this room if you're just going to do it over the intercom? Seems kind of like you're wasting our time," Clint called out refusing to step into the room, "Not to mention I'm not stepping into a room where I had to kick the door to get it to open. Considering it keeps denying me everything else. Plus I was promised snacks and I do not see any snack on that table."

"We weren't promised snacks," Natasha raised an eyebrow at Clint, "Not complaining about it but we weren't."

"It's a S.H.I.E.L.D. meeting with the two of us, when have we ever been called into one and not gotten snacks?" Clint questioned back, "Fury knew about needing to leave snacks out for us. There's a system that needs to be followed. Granted I think Fury said that because it's harder for me to shoot things around the room when I'm eating. Not impossible mind you. You'd think someone would tell this new guy about snacks though."

"Point taken, you do tend to shut up when you're eating," Natasha replied.

The voice didn't respond to the two. After a moment there was the sound of footsteps heading down the hall, and certainly a lot of them wearing heavy gear by the sounds they made. "That's not a good sound," Clint commented, "That's a very bad sound unless they are carrying a battering ram to destroy this door so we don't get locked in."

"I highly doubt they're carrying a battering ram," Natasha replied, "Our tech support tends to be a little bit smarter than that. Let's get out of here." Natasha pulled out her gun ready for a fight but knew this wasn't a fight she wanted to have, not with how heavy those steps were or how many there were.

"Great let's see our choices are the room, running towards these guys or going away from them towards a dead end," Clint commented, "I don't like our odds here." He tried to remember the layout of the lower level. He knew there were hidden crawl spaces on all of the floors that connected to the vents. He had been in them many times before but he never had much of a reason to go to the lower levels so finding an entrance was not exactly easy.

"Well kind of obvious something is not right with S.H.I.E.L.D.," Natasha replied, "We need to get up to the hanger and off this thing. As long as we're on the Helicarrier we're in trouble until we figure out what's going on."

"Sounds like a plan just need to find our way up without getting caught," Clint grabbed Natasha's hand and started to run down the hall heading straight for the dead end, anything to put more distance between themselves and the group heading for them. Once at the dead end he started to push against the metal panels of the wall, one by one. The first few didn't budge but Natasha didn't question what he was doing she kept he gun aimed down the hall waiting for oncoming guards to turn the corner. Clint finally felt one of the panels budge just slightly when he pushed against it. He smirked and pushed harder against it though the sound of metal on metal filled the hallway as he did so. Eventually he had opened it enough to reveal the crawl space which hadn't been used in a long while. "Let's go, you first." He nodded for Natasha to head in which she did without question. Clint was right behind her forcing the crawl space door shut again hoping it would slow those after them down. "Any chance you have a light or we're going to be blind."

"Yeah I got it," Natasha nodded reaching into one of her pockets to get out a small pocket light. She pulled herself through the crawl space ahead of Clint. It was dusty making the air hard to breathe with every move. Even with the light it was hard to see where the two were going. Natasha could feel Clint right behind her and kept resisting the urge to look over her shoulder to see if they were being followed.

"Keep moving, we can beat them if we move fast enough," Clint encouraged. The two followed the crawl space until it reached what seemed like a dead end but it quickly became apparent that it went up instead of forward. The two were able to stand up in the tight spaced but were forced to press close together, something they really didn't mind though the circumstances weren't exactly what they wanted.

Natasha thought back to their conversation on grappling arrows but knew Clint didn't have his bow, generally wouldn't need one during a meeting after all. "Any idea where we are?" She questioned.

"Yeah," Clint nodded, "I can recognize some of the ways it branched off." He stared up noticing all the openings to head to different floors, "If we head tow floor up we'll be fine. Getting up there, that's another challenge all together." He stood there looking for a moment longer then looked at Natasha with a smile, "You first. I'll be right behind you. I'm used to climbing these so if you slip I can make sure you don't fall."

"Your lack of faith in my climbing ability saddens me Agent Barton," Natasha teased but didn't argue the decision at all. Biting the flashlight to hold it she started climb pushing against the sides and inching her way up towards the floor Clint mentioned. It took a while, longer than she wished it did. Her arms and legs hurt wanting to stop as she continued to push against the metal with them. She could hear Clint following as she pulled herself onto the floor of the vent he spotted. Taking a moment to catch her breath and let her body relax if only for a second. Clint pulled beside her taking his own moment before nodding down the path and whispering directions to her. Now that they were in a main vent Natasha put the flash light away relying on the minimal light that the vent openings provided. She followed the directions carefully not wanting to make any more noise than they already were. After a moment she realized they were heading for the private quarters rather than the hanger but she didn't argue with it, they needed some of their stuff after all if this was going as downhill as it seemed. To be honest she was surprised that the crawl space connected to the vents like this, looking at Clint questioning it.

"All of the crawl spaces and vents attach at some point, it's why the ventilation system sucks. Then again I don't think Fury planned them to be used as effective vents. Let's just say not many places have vents that can hold one person, let alone two," Clint whispered looking down into his room. Two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in heavy armor were going through all of his stuff, which didn't exactly make him happy. He could see his bow and quiver by the door. "Well that's a problem."

Natasha nodded, "I got this." With that Natasha opened the vent and dropped down into the room. A quick sweeping kick knocked the two agents off their feet fiving her time to find the weak spots in the armor, mainly around the joins. A few quick and hard shots disabled the joints of the Agents making it easy to get a final blow in to knock the two out. She smirked up at the vent where Clint watched with interest, "Care to join me?"

Clint grinned in response and jumped down giving a half-hearted clap, "Very nice." He grabbed some of his stuff, mainly his bow and quiver. "Let's get your stuff." As he said that an alarm started the blare. The two looked at each other panic on both of their faces, the alarm meant the Helicarrier would be locked down soon.

"Or not," Natasha replied, "Come on we need to get to the hanger and get off of here. We are not staying here and living in the vents."

"You make it sound like that would be a bad thing," Clint joked but pulled himself back up into the vents offering Natasha his hand to help her in after him. "Come on, I can get us there quickly just stay behind me." He started to quickly move towards the hanger.

The hanger was covered in agents trying to lock things down as the alarms continued to blare. "Damn," Natasha muttered, "How are we getting out of here?"

"Fury had an emergency escape jet, he takes the secret spy thing more seriously than anyone I've met," Clint commented pointing to a corner of the hanger where it looked like a large metal box, "It's in there. No one ever questions a giant metal box here. Even in lock down you're supposed to be able to use it if you know the codes."

"Great, do you have the codes?" Natasha questioned.

"In theory both of our codes should work," Clint replied, "Sometimes when I hang around in vents, I get to little important facts while around Fury's office."

"He talked out loud about out codes working on the jet but didn't tell us?" Natasha raised an eyebrow.

"I never said he was sane," Clint replied, "He was talking to Coulson about it. I don't know why he didn't tell us himself."

"Would have been nice to know considering our situation," Natasha grumbled.

"Well we can get answers later right now let's just be thankful we do know," Clint replied, "now come on we'll stick to the sides. We should be able to sneak around if we're careful looks like the agents are more concerned with locking everything down instead of finding us." He dropped out of the vent silently and waited for Natasha to join him. The two stayed low, weaving amongst the boxes and planes and sticking to the edge of the hanger to avoid getting seen. He stopped at some point to wait for patrols and workers to pass by and Natasha watched his back for danger. The two fell into a pattern one that they had always been used to they just never had to use it against S.H.I.E.L.D.. Their goal seemed in reach as they moved and that was of course when everything went wrong. Clint heard something heavy jumping around on top of the metal crates and quinjets. He wasn't sure what it was and couldn't spot it. Seemed like each time he looked towards the sound it had jumped again. He could hear it though moving closer towards them. Within moment it was on top of them growling down at them. It seemed humanoid and in S.H.I.E.L.D. gear causing Clint to be unable to tell what it was. It crouched on top of a pile of boxes leaning over ready to jump at them then a loud screech sounded from it alerting everyone to where it was and where they were. "Run!" Clint yelled at Natasha pushing her towards the crate that had the emergency jet. "Get in, get in, get in." Natasha forced the back of the crate in seeing a smaller quinjet inside. "Get it started up I'll hold them off." Clint stood at the entrance with his bow out preparing for a fight as Natasha searched for the spot to enter her code.

"Agent Barton, Agent Romanoff," One of the other agents called out as a large group of them approached the crate, "You are both under arrest for treason. Come quietly and we won't hurt you."

"Treason? You're kidding me, right?" Clint questioned when he got no response his voice filled with anger, "Since when? What proof?"

"All of the Avengers have been charged with treason against the United States. We can work this out just put the bow down, put your hands up and come with us."

Clint saw the creature that had found them among the group that had gathered, watching him. "Like hell I will," Clint replied before he started to shoot at the agents who began to run towards him. He held them off as the creature started to leap towards him. He took aim at it with an explosive arrow head, he wasn't going to take chance against it. Natasha entered her code into the jet and Clint released his arrow as usual getting a direct hit. He smirked as the explosion went off. "Come on, we're good to go." He ran into the jet reaching the pilot seat before something wrapped around his leg pulling him back. He clutched onto the seat knowing what grabbed him was stronger than he was. He looked over his shoulder to see what grabbed him, his eyes going wide with horror. He weighed his options quickly using the last of his strength to pull himself forward enough to hit the auto pilot to the pre-programmed coordinates before the creature pulled him back and out of the jet. "I'm sorry Natasha… Good luck." He was pulled out with enough speed that the jet closed moments after he was out.

Natasha watched in horror as she was locked in, "Clint!" She look out the windows trying to see what was going on only able to see the smoke left behind by the explosion.

"Natasha."

Natasha woke up thanks to a hand on her arm lightly shaking her and the soft voice. She took a few moments to remember where she was, seeing Rick in the driver's seat of the truck and Bruce in the passenger seat leaning over to check on her. She had taken the rather small and cramped back and during the long trip had let herself doze off. She wasn't intending on letting it happen again, not after that memory.

"You okay?" Bruce questioned he didn't look convinced when she nodded in response to the question but at the same time he didn't push any further. "We're here."

((Disclaimer: Do not own the characters as per usual.))