Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers or any of the characters affiliated with them. If I did, there would totally be a Hawkeye/Black Widow movie in the works.
Author's Note: While I embrace constructive criticism remember this old saying if you choose to leave a review "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"
To answer Avelly Allen's question: I'm assuming the part you're talking about was "...using him and the Kevlar vest he was wearing as a shield..." It wasn't Clint that was wearing the Kevlar, it was the man he was using as a shield. I'm so sorry my wording wasn't as clear as I'd intended :)
Thanks to all who reviewed! :D
Last Time:
"So we have three arrows, two guns, a handful of knives and two agents that haven't eaten in two days, have been on the run and in numerous fights, shot and concussed…" Natasha outlined doubtfully.
"Should be fun." Clint smirked arrogantly.
Natasha responded with a smirk of her own.
It was time to make it right.
I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best. –Marilyn Monroe
They didn't sleep.
They sat in their tree and they watched, they planned, and they waited. They watched another twelve man team return to the compound. They planned what might have been their most reckless plan in a while since they had no idea how many men were in the compound. And they waited for the light to fade to darkness.
Clint dropped silently from the tree, wincing, stumbling slightly, and pressing his hand against his side when his landing jarred his battered body. Natasha followed a bit more gracefully, landing in a light crouch and rising fluidly.
"This probably won't work." Natasha muttered as she passed one of her two guns to him and he looped the strap over his head, sliding it around to rest against his side.
"It'll work." Clint assured. "Meet you inside the gate."
He moved to shift away, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"Стреляй метко, мой сокол." (Shoot straight, my hawk.) She whispered fiercely.
He blinked in surprise and then smiled that warm smile that melted her.
"Береги себя, мой огненный паук." (Be safe, my fiery spider.) He whispered back and then with no warning at all, he leaned over and kissed her. It was intense, and passionate, and ended before she was ready for it to. Then he was strolling away, disappearing into the trees.
Natasha took a deep breath to regain her focus and looked at her watch. It would take him a few minutes to get around to the other side of the compound. There were sixteen guards on duty, split into four different points around the compound. Eight were on her side, eight would be on his.
Taking out eight men with one gun wasn't going to be easy.
Taking them all out before anyone from inside figured out what was happening was going to be harder.
Getting through that gate, killing those men, meeting up with Clint, and breaching the compound without getting killed.
That felt impossible.
Clint knelt behind a tree, wiping sweat off his forehead and twisting his wrist so he could see his watch. Twenty seconds until Natasha would be making her move. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply, mentally preparing himself. They were about to attempt an impossible mission, with inadequate weapons, weakened and exhausted bodies, and no way to call for help.
He'd succeeded in worse situations.
He needed to succeed now. Because if he didn't, Natasha would be left to face insurmountable odds on her own. Not that he didn't think she could do it. He'd just like to be there to see it happen. He looked at his watch. Ten more seconds.
He pushed away his exhaustion. He pushed away his pain. He wouldn't let her down. Not now. Not after everything. He pulled around the gun Natasha had given him, switching the fire setting from automatic to semi automatic. The fewer bullets he fired, the less chance of someone inside hearing. He slid the gun back to his side.
Five seconds.
He snapped his bow out to full form and nocked an arrow.
He stood and stepped around the tree, loosing the arrow after taking only a moment to pick a target. His last two arrows were following swiftly, felling three of his eight guards before they'd even found him in the tree line. He collapsed his bow, stowing it away with one hand even as he brought up his gun with the other.
He aimed and popped off one shot, downing the last of the first guard unit. He turned his attention to the four at the other end of the compound, all aiming at him with their semi-automatic rifles. He ran, dropping into a roll as bullets bit into the dirt around him. He brought the gun up to his shoulder and fired two shots, downing two of the guards before he was forced to roll to the side to avoid more shots. He came up on his knees, already firing. One more guard down.
The last one was taking cover behind the guard stand.
Clint sprinted for the gate, firing at the lock as he ran.
He watched the chain drop and barreled into the doors with his shoulder. They burst open and he threw himself to the side as the guard ventured out and fired. A bullet slammed into his Kevlar and threw him onto his back.
That was a cracked rib.
He rolled to his feet, already bringing his gun up. Kevlar was great at stopping bullets. That's why he made it a habit to aim for the head. He fired, even as another round slammed into his vest. Not being mid roll, he had his balance and this time all it did was send him back a step. He was already moving towards the decided upon meeting point before the man even hit the dirt. He picked up his pace when he realized he hadn't heard gunfire from the other end of the compound for several moments.
Natasha didn't need guns to be lethal though.
Natasha moved when her watch reached the time they'd agreed upon. She didn't possess the same deadly aim as Clint, but to be fair, no one did. So where he could kill with one shot, she tended to use two or three at this range, still effective, just not as awe inspiring. She'd been careful to set her weapon to the semi-automatic setting, knowing they needed to keep the shots fired to a minimum.
Her barrage of gunfire brought down all four of the first unit of guards. She had been running while she fired and was already at the gate by the time the second unit realized what was happening. She fired at the lock, kicking the gate open when the lock and chain fell away. She was inside the yard, sprinting to the cover of the first guard stand when the first of the returning bullets started peppering her trail. She slid down behind the wooden stand and checked her gun's ammunition. She had enough bullets to take all four of them. But she hesitated. She could do it without the bullets just as effectively and it would be much quieter. She tossed the gun away and rose with a grin.
"I'm out of ammunition." She shouted. "I'm coming out unarmed."
"Put your hands up." One of the guards replied.
Men. She smirked. All the same.
She stepped out, hands up, and sauntered towards them.
"I give up." She smiled coyly, hoping she didn't look as horrible as she felt after two days on the run and a night of sitting in a tree.
"On your knees, hands behind your head."
She slowly knelt, thinking back to the last time she'd knelt in front of one of these men. Her partner had gotten shot during that scuffle. She tuned her ears, listening to the firefight going on across the compound. She smirked when she could pinpoint which shots were Clint's. Single, precise shots amidst sporadic bursts of fire.
She needed to end this quickly. If their attack was going to be heard, that firefight was going to be the reason. They were running out of time.
One guard came to stand behind her and reached for her wrists.
It was almost too easy.
She curled in on herself, kicking out with one leg and hearing a crunch as her boot hit bone. She dropped to her butt, spinning her legs to rest in front of her. She rolled to her back, stretching her legs up and linking her feet behind the man's head. She rolled forward, using her legs to throw the man over her and into the ground.
She rolled into a backwards somersault, a move taught to her by her favorite archer, and came to her feet. She ran at the nearest man, jumping up and wrapping her legs around his neck before throwing herself into a back handspring and pulling him with her. She landed in a stretched crouch, and spun in the dirt, sweeping the next man's legs from beneath him. When he hit the dirt, she cartwheeled over his body, wrapping her legs around the last man and curling her body up wrap her hands around the back of his head. Then she unwrapped her legs, twisted her body in the air, using her hold on his head as an anchor, and threw herself over his shoulder, twisting his neck sharply as she went. She landed on her feet as he fell and she moved to slam her boot into the head of the man who she'd cartwheeled over as he crawled to his hands and knees.
Then snagged one of their guns and ran for the meeting point.
Clint leaned back against the wall, his gun at the ready, when he reached the appropriate door. He winced, sliding his hand inside his vest and feeling the area where his fabric bandage was. His fingers came out wet.
Damn it.
He quickly wiped the blood off on his pants as Natasha rounded the corner at a sprint. She scanned him with her eyes, looking for any serious injuries. Her eyes focused sharply on the two bullets lodged in his vest. Green flashed to meet blue.
"I'm good." He assured. "If anybody heard all that gunfire, we need to haul ass."
She nodded sharply, reaching for the door handle.
Clint led the way into the hallway, shooting her a surprised glance when they found the immediate area deserted. They moved quickly forward. The hallway split to the left and right ahead of them. They moved to opposite sides of the hallway and locked eyes. Clint bobbed his head to count down.
3-2-1
They spun to face opposite directions, backs pressed together.
Clint was faced with three men walking away from him. He fired the quick shots and they all dropped with a bullet to the back of the head. Natasha saw only one man, coming out a door at the end of the short hallway. She fired quickly and the bullet tore into his unprotected chest, ripping through his black t-shirt. She reached back and tapped Clint's hip, heading towards the room her target had come out of. She felt, rather than heard, him walking backwards to follow her, covering their backs.
The door burst open suddenly and two men came rushing out with guns up. Natasha fired quickly. She felt Clint spin around next to her and fire as well. She stumbled back a step when a bullet slammed into her vest. The two men collapsed to the ground.
"You good?" Clint demanded as he led the way towards the now open door.
"Fine." She assured, breathing around the pain of what she was sure was a cracked rib. She moved to his shoulder, watching him shoot the man that tried to come out the door next. She followed him into the room, turning so they were aiming opposite directions. Clint took down the guard rising quickly from his chair. Natasha shot the one that was going for his gun at the back of the room.
"Clear?" Clint asked.
"Clear." She responded immediately.
Clint moved towards the half dozen TV screens at the front of the room, using his boot to push the chair the dead man was in back and out of the way.
"I'll be damned. I think our impossible mission just became possible." He smirked, eyes scanning the security feeds from all over the compound.
"They're not moving." Natasha noticed.
She was right. While they could see dozens of men in different parts of the compound, none of them seemed concerned about the current attack their compound was under.
Clint's eyes narrowed and without warning he fired his gun at the back wall. Nobody on the screens showed any reaction.
"Soundproof walls. They'd need to be right outside the door to hear the gunshots." Clint surmised.
"Meaning they didn't hear the firefight outside." Natasha added, smiling slowly. "We just got the upper hand."
"How did these guys not see us coming and raise the alarm?" Clint wondered, looking around at the dead security personnel. They both studied the screens, neither seeing any shots of the yard or the gate. Then suddenly shots of both gates flashed on different screens for only a few seconds before they were gone.
"How the hell did we time that so perfectly that we were through the gate in time not to be seen?" Natasha asked in shock. "I don't even see any shots of the yard."
"I told you after my first surveillance run that it was about keeping people out, not in. They expected their guards to be enough."
"Carter is too confident." Natasha surmised. "That's our advantage."
"It's about damn time something went our way." Clint grumbled, still studying the screens. "There." He pointed. "Does that look like a landline to you?"
Natasha squinted at the screen, barely discerning the shape of a cordless phone on a desk in what looked like a bedroom.
"I think so. You want to use it to call Coulson."
"He's probably frantic and we'll need an extraction."
"I didn't know Coulson got frantic." Natasha smiled slightly. Clint laughed.
"Trust me. I bring it out in him."
"How do we play this?" She asked, already running through scenarios in her mind.
"It'd be easier if…" Clint trailed off as he scanned the room and his eyes fell on something on the back of the door. "I'll be damned." He smiled, moving to the door and ripping off a building map with highlighted exit routes. "Safety first." He held it up so she could see.
"We can actually do this." Natasha stared at the map in disbelief.
"Bet your ass we can. What do ya' say we go kill some bad guys?"
Natasha smirked.
They studied the map closely, Clint learning the layout in under two minutes and spending the next few, while Natasha memorized it, studying the TV screens, counting men and placing them in the rooms in the mental map he'd created in his head.
"Ready?" Natasha asked, coming to stand next to him. "Got a solid count?"
"Think so." Clint nodded.
"What's our route?" She asked, pushing the map in front of him. If she were on her own, she'd rely on the shock factor, burst into a room and take out six guys before anyone else looked up. Clint didn't operate that way. He planned and strategized. He left nothing to chance.
"The phone is our endgame, but I don't know about you, I'm itching for some payback. So we'll start here." He pointed at a room labeled Gym. "There're two dozen guys in there right now. We get them and we take out a chunk of Carter's manpower."
"How do we get in?"
"Well, my fiery spider, I thought we'd take a page out of your book and just stroll through the door." He was deadly serious.
"I can handle that." She smiled.
"After we finish in the Gym we move to the Bunkroom. Now it's just across the hall, so it's very likely that they'll be ready for us. So for them we'll take a more subtle approach." He smirked, "They'll be looking for us at the door and we'll come in through the vents."
"After that? How many men are left?"
"Six. Must be the big dogs because they're all in conference with Carter here." He pointed at the room labeled Office, which was just outside the bedroom with the landline.
"I like it." Natasha smirked. The plan was a perfect blending of their two strategies.
"I thought you would." He returned the expression.
"I'll relieve these men of their extra ammunition and then we can be on our way."
Clint nodded and turned back to the screens, his eyes going to the suddenly visible feed of the prison the Malik and the children had been held in. As if sensing the sudden turn in his thoughts, Natasha was suddenly at his side, pushing a fresh magazine into his hand.
"We did the best we could with the information we had." She insisted quietly.
"We never stood a chance." Clint shook his head. "The only reason we got as far as we did is because they needed time to amass the small army they sent after us."
"Second guessing won't help us now. We can't change it, Clint. But we can make it right."
He nodded, tearing his eyes from the screen.
"Let's go kill the sons of bitches."
They didn't come across any of the mercenaries on their way to the gym. The whole compound was running in a state of complacency. They thought sixteen guards and security cameras were enough to keep them safe. They thought Clint and Natasha were running for their lives through the jungle of coastal Vietnam.
That was probably why no one reacted right away when Clint and Natasha strolled into the gym and moved to stand in the center of the room, back to back, guns down at their sides. Only a few of the mercenaries even looked up at them.
"They don't have weapons." Clint murmured over his shoulder.
"Old fashioned way is more fun anyway." Natasha smirked.
"Old fashioned way it is." Clint ejected the magazine from his gun, cleared the chamber and tossed it aside. He heard Natasha do the same. As if that was a cue, the men in the room swarmed.
Natasha wasn't surprised after two years of partnership, that she could sense Clint moving behind her. She was surprised when she her own attacks ended up complimenting whatever movement he was making. If he advanced on a mercenary, Natasha's next attack involved stepping backwards, her shoulder's brushing Clint's as she used a crescent kick to down the man in front of her.
She leapt at the nearest man, wrapping her hands around his head and swinging her body up and over his shoulder, twisting his head sharply even as she wrapped her legs around another's neck. She twisted her body, dropping her hands to the ground as the man's neck broke. She flipped back to hear feet, eyes searching for her next target. Clint's hand was suddenly on her bicep, jerking her backwards even as he used his grip on her arm as an anchor to twist himself into the air, scissor his legs around a man's neck and drive them both, twisting the ground. The man had been coming up at her left and she hadn't seen him. Clint released her arm as he fell and she heard a slight grunt of pain when his body slammed into the ground.
The middle of a fight wasn't the time to worry about it.
All she could do was cover Clint's rise by jumping at the man nearest him, planting one foot on his thigh, the next on his stomach, and then snapping her boot into the underside of his chin. Then she spun, landing gracefully and latching on to Clint's wrist. She pulled him up, letting him use her arm as an anchor once again as he jumped and slammed one boot into a man's chest and then swung his boot into the man's jaw. He followed the momentum of the kick to the ground, planting his feet and snapping out a sharp and high side kick.
He made to let go of Natasha's arm, but she held on and met his eyes briefly. He nodded and spun, swinging her around. She used the momentum of his pull as leverage to swing her whole body into the air. He boot cracked into one man's jaw, and she twisted, hooking her other heel around the next man's neck and slamming him to the ground as she landed.
Clint released her and knocked away a boot headed towards his head then ducked under a fist coming from a different direction. He bent at the waist, planted his hands on the ground, scissored his legs around one man's torso, and then spun to the ground, breaking the man's back under the torque of the move. On his back now, Clint slammed his elbow into the nearest kneecap, brought his leg up and around the same man's chest. He slammed the man to the ground and drove his fist into the man's neck as he rose. He felt Natasha's back brush against his.
He ducked a fist, wove to the left and hooked his elbow behind a man's head, forcing him to double then he drove his knee up into his sternum. The man coughed and Clint held him in place while taking a moment to snap a high side kick into another mercenary's chin, snapping his head back and taking him out of the fight. Then he drove his knee into his captive's chest again, gripped the side of his chin and twisted.
Natasha drove her assailant to his knees and snapped his neck, then planted her hands on his shoulders to give her a base to twist herself into the air once again and snap a kick into a temple. She planted her feet and spun into a low leg sweep, taking out the legs of two men. She felt the air move as Clint roundhoused over her head to knock back a man moving up from her right.
She chopped her hand into the throat of one of the men she'd brought to the ground and then somersaulted over him to slam her heel into the other man's sternum. She glanced to Clint, saw him exchanging blows with one of the few remaining mercenaries. She also saw a man coming up behind him. She ran straight at her partner, planted her hands on the shoulders of the man he was fighting and vaulted herself up and over his head, Clint, ever attuned to her actions, ducked down. She brought her boots together and straightened as she slid over Clint's back and met the man sneaking up with the soles of her boots.
Clint straightened and consequently propelled her upright as well. She finished the man in front of her and turned to see Clint smash his elbow into his man's neck. They looked around, breathing hard. Bodies littered the immediate area and none of them were moving.
"Okay?" Clint asked breathlessly, searching her for any visible injuries. She had a bruise sprouting on her cheek and her lip was split.
"I'll be fine. You?"
"I'm good." He assured, though he could feel blood from his bullet wound soaking into his pants. Her eyes were on his face though and the bruise blossoming across his temple, the cut on his eyebrow, and the blood flowing from his nose. He wiped the blood from his upper lip and smeared it on his pants.
"Shall we?" She smirked, motioning at the large vent cover on the wall.
"After you."
The collected their discarded weapons, reloaded them, and moved to the vent.
The next scuffle went easier. There were fourteen men in the bunk room. Clint had been right. About the time they got into position in the vents the men started getting restless and shifting to the door. Their fight in the gym had been fairly quiet, but it had lasted several minutes. That was a long time when you were two people taking down an entire compound. Either a cry of pain had been heard, someone hadn't come back when they were expected, or someone had gotten out of the gym to give them warning.
They'd planned to ambush them at the door. The entire group was standing, weapons drawn, eyes on the door when Natasha crawled silently out of the vent behind them. She just stood staring at their backs as Clint climbed out behind her. The stood, side by side, guns raised.
Clint cocked his head to the side curiously and shot a glance at Natasha. He wondered how long it was going to take these guys to realize that while they huddled around the door, their targets stood at the back of the room between the two rows of bunk beds.
It just didn't seem right to open fire on their backs.
Natasha arched a questioning eyebrow at Clint and he inclined his head in agreement.
"Looks like you boys are waiting for something." Natasha announced suddenly.
The men spun and just stared at them for half a second. In that second, both assassins smirked.
Then it was chaos for the next three minutes and 37 seconds.
Clint dropped three of them with precise head shots before anybody in the group could squeeze a trigger. Natasha downed another two. Then they were both ducking to the side and behind the metal bunks.
Natasha hissed as she slid to the ground, protected for the moment by the bunks. She resisted the urge to tear off her Kevlar vest to release the pressure that had mounted as soon as the bullet had slammed into her abdomen. She heard Clint firing and glanced over at him. He was on the floor, firing at someone's feet from under the bunk, then at their head when they hit the floor.
The shooting stopped for a moment and footsteps approached. Natasha looked at Clint again. He held up three fingers. She nodded. They kept their eyes locked as they both mouthed the numbers. Then they leapt to their knees and fired. The three men in the front of the line went down, and the five remaining split to the different sides of the room, taking cover behind the bunks just as Clint and Natasha had.
Natasha and Clint moved almost as one.
They both stood, tossed their guns on the top bunk, and climbed up after them. Natasha left her gun there and dove forward, hooking her hands on the edge of the next metal frame and threading her body through the opening between the bunks. She landed between the next set and planted her hands on the lower mattress, propelling her body through her arms and over the mattress. Then she slid across the floor under the next bunk. Her boots cracked into the ankle of the man on the right, bending it inward. She kicked out at the second man and watched his feet fly out from under him. Still partially under the bunk, she grabbed the edge, pulled herself back and pulled herself into a roll onto the mattress. She ended up seated on the bunk, her right boot slamming into the chest of the man whose ankle she'd broken. Then she brought her left foot up and across her body to snap into his jaw even as she grabbed the other man's arm and pulled him forward. She rolled across the bed with the momentum of the kick and wrapped her left leg around the front of the other man's throat and pressed her right against his back. Then she twisted the arm she had in her grasp and jerked her left leg back, snapping his neck.
Clint dove from the top of his bunk to the top of the next, somersaulting across it with ease and letting the roll take him off the edge. He reached for the top edge of the next bunk as he fell and threaded his body in the same fashion Natasha had. He landed on his feet and grabbed the support pole for the next bed. He twisted his body up and through the opening between the support poles at the foot of the bed. He scissored his kick, catching one man's face with his heel and another man's with the toe of his other foot. When his feet hit the ground, he was between them. He grabbed one man's gun hand and forced it up to slam the gun into the man's face before ripping it from his hands and tossing it away. He snapped his elbow back into the other man's nose and then put his hands on the first man's shoulders, using him as an anchor to jump into an aerial side kick at the third man who was nearest the open area. His boot slammed into the man's sternum, forcing him backwards. Clint spun his anchor into a head lock and snapped his neck, reaching for the support poles on either side of him. He lifted his body and swung forward, driving both boots into the second man's face and finally driving him into unconsciousness. Clint kept his hold on the support poles and flipped his body backwards, and catching the final man's head between his knees. He locked his feet together and let go of his supports, letting gravity take him to the ground. He tucked his head and curled into a roll, jerking the third man over his body and slamming him onto his back. Then Clint rolled to the side, keeping his knees and ankles locked into place. He heard the bones in the man's neck break and kicked away, looking around.
Natasha was stepping over two bodies towards him. She offered him a hand up and he gratefully accepted it.
"You okay?" He asked, eyeing the fresh bullet burrowed into her vest.
"Good enough to finish this." She stated confidently. "You?"
"Hard part's over." He smirked. The way her eyes narrowed told him she'd noticed he hadn't answered her question. "Let's finish this." He encouraged before she could call him on it.
She nodded hesitantly and followed him towards the door. One of the men twitched, a post-mortem nervous response, but it drew her eyes to the floor. It was then that she saw the blood. Blood where her partner had been lying.
End of Chapter 9
Only one more chapter to go :) I proofed this after a rather exhausting two days of moving my little brother in law Friday and then being in an all day training session Saturday. So please forgive any errors there may be :)
Reviews, as you all know by now, make me very happy
Here's your final preview
"Do you ever learn to forget them, the names in your ledger?" She asked quietly.
"No." He shook his head, "But it's not about forgetting, мой огненный паук, it's about learning that you can't change it. All you can do is hope that one day you can make it right."