Thanks for the reviews :3
Still unbeta-ed work..all mistakes are mine ^^
Criminal
3
It only took Steve fifteen minutes to start grilling her after their departure.
"What was that?" he demanded angrily.
"What was what?" Natasha repeated, annoyed at his lack of precision. She was pretty sure she had annoyed him a few times with some questions and her cool but professional attitude towards Wilson.
"Why are you bringing Colonel Fury into this? I wasn't aware you knew him."
She rolled her eyes. Of all things?
"My man worked under his command. I wanted to see if I could tie a few loose ends I read in the file."
At the words 'her man', Steve's body tensed sharply.
"Where exactly does your man step in?" he asked, voice tight and disdainful. Natasha ignored his tone and went on:
"I just had a hunch. Your former strike team was directed by Alexander Pierce, correct? From what I heard, Fury and Pierce were at odds, and Fury died in a suspicious accident. If this is about revenge, then maybe it could be from inside, someone from Fury's team getting back at Pierce's old team."
"I've met both Pierce and Fury back in the day." Steve interrupted dryly. "They had different means to an end but they were both following the same lane. They were good people. They wouldn't have fought against each other."
"Pierce is a politician and Fury a man of the ground. Both would have different view on things, and different ways to act on them," she corrected. "And each man would have directed their team in their own way. Since the outsider source isn't going far for now, I'm just trying to figure out if someone from Fury's team is a trail worth following."
There followed an uncomfortable silence, only disturbed by the music on the radio. When Steve spoke again, she did not see the subject coming:
"Sharon and I broke up eighteen month after our divorce. The child wasn't mine."
Natasha blinked. She wasn't quite sure what he was after with that kind of confession.
"I'm so sorry for you," she replied sarcastically instead. "Does it mean you broke up with the kid too?"
Steve swallowed hard, either to bite back a snarky comment or out of guilt for admitting leaving a baby without a father. Most likely the second, since he replied:
"Natasha, I should have never left you."
He suddenly looked pathetic. And Natasha couldn't give a care.
"Cry me a river," she muttered. Steve swallowed and added quietly:
"I want you back. That's why I asked to be assigned to your team. I was hoping we could…try again."
Natasha couldn't help it. She laughed wholeheartedly. Steve's expression between upset, hurt and hopeful was just so much irony she could handle.
"Forget it Captain," she retorted, wiping her eyes. "And if you get back on the subject, I'll give you a well-deserved kick in the balls."
"There must still be something, Natasha. I still love you, you know."
What felt like a lifetime ago, she would have probably cried at the confession and forgiven him right on spot. But that was a lifetime before Clint.
"Be glad leaving you on the sideway would bring more trouble than you're worth, or you'd already be outside." she concluded dryly.
The blonde man turned sideways and she felt his gaze resting on her heavily.
"You've changed." He said disapprovingly. That tone use to make her feel like a schoolgirl being reprimanded by her teacher. Natasha decided to set things straight and if he commented again, to hell with the consequences; he'd return by foot.
"I'm happy." She replied. "I have a nice place, a good man who loves me like crazy and a beautiful baby girl." She turned towards him and added icily: "Now Back. Off. Understood?"
Steve's face had turned white at the mention of her daughter, and Natasha felt a guilty pleasure at that. She was having the life he had wanted with her at first, before he screwed everything with his stupid behavior. The man nodded stiffly and didn't speak for the rest of the ride.
In spite of Steve's reluctance, Natasha decided to follow her gut and pay Fury's family a visit. As she had told her ex-husband, Clint had served under the man and held a healthy respect towards him. He had also mentioned Alexander Pierce and although he had remained ambiguous about him, Natasha could tell he didn't like him. Perhaps it was a wild chase, but her guts had never wronged her before. So there she was, standing in front of the porch, ringing at the doorbell of the Fury's household.
She had seen pictures of Nicolas Fury before. Clint had one in the back of his dresser, buried inside a box under other old pictures he had kept from his time in the army. Hence, she knew the man was black. So Natasha was a bit startled when a pretty much white young woman opened the door to answer her.
"Good afternoon; I'm looking for Maria Fury, Nicolas Fury's daughter," Natasha said.
"What's it for?" the young woman replied, face plain bored.
"My name is Natasha Romanoff, I'm with the FBI. Are you Maria?"
The young woman's face remained impassible.
"Once again, what's it for?"
Natasha decided to take it for a 'yes'.
"I'm here to talk about your father's death."
The young woman's frown deepened in annoyance.
"I already was asked questions when he died," she replied dryly. "Feel free to read the reports, everything's inside it."
That was not going to work. Natasha tried a different angle:
"Look, I knew your father from Clint Barton, and he told me enough times he thought he was murdered. I want to hear your version face to face."
At the name, Maria raised an eyebrow.
"You know Barton?" she asked. Hesitated a moment. "You said your name was Natasha Romanoff?"
The redhead nodded. The young women hesitated a moment more, then decided to speak, still not inviting her inside.
"What's your interest in his death?"
"An ongoing case that might or not be related to him," Natasha replied honestly. "It was written off as an accident, but a few people –such as Barton and, I suppose, yourself –suspected it wasn't. What would you say about it?"
Maria's face hardened.
"I know the kind of man father was. He had responsibilities and he chose to endorse them. People feared or respected him or both, and he was a very straightforward man," she left her voice trail off and shook her head. "He was investigating someone, right before he died. I don't know the details, but his last call was pretty clear; he'd found enough evidence to burst that person out in public. And that guy used big means to silence him."
"You suspect someone had voluntarily planned the accident?"
The young woman shifted on her feet uncomfortably.
"Look, I'm not speculating and I'm not crazy. Father's death arranged a lot of people. He tended to kick into the few stones no-one wanted to move. He was constantly watched because of that." her mouth twisted into a grimace. "I know he was murdered, no matter what journalists or reporters or whoever pulled the strings said."
"Was he liked by his people?"
Maria shrugged.
"He had his followers and haters, if you can call them that. But generally people respected him for his results." She paused and stared at her. "If you are asking, would one of his soldiers go on a rampage to avenge his death, I'd say maybe. I wasn't too close with his men." She paused, checked her watch and sighed. "Listen, I was asked thousands of questions back then. Just read the fucking report if you're not happy."
Natasha felt the upcoming unwelcomed tune in her voice and knew she would get no more answers. She nodded.
"Alright. Thank you for your time."
But Maria didn't close the door right away. She stared intensely at the redhead's face, a dark glint growing in her eyes.
"If you find who did this killing, tell me. I'd like to shake their hand."
Natasha raised an eyebrow.
"Why's that?"
Maria's face closed up and she slammed the door in her face without much of an answer.
"And that was all I got from her." Natasha concluded, frustrated, as she reread her notes. She had left the Fury's household with the strong impression that Maria knew more than she was letting on and had shared her impressions with the team. Only Stark seemed to find the tidbit of information interesting and had claimed he would spare some of his precious time to dig deeper before cutting the Skype live feed. Due to his broken leg, the bastard had asked for a videoconference to be kept on the loop. Then, she had returned home and spilled her guts to her lover.
A snort made her glance up. Clint was hiding what was definitively a smirk behind his glass. She narrowed her eyes.
"You think that's funny?"
"No, not especially." He replied, but amusement was clearly laced in his tone. "But honestly, I'm not surprised. Maria was already the most stubborn and secretive kid back in the days; Nick had the hardest times to get her to open up. She must have liked you to say anything at all. I have to consider myself lucky when she ever answers my texts."
Natasha nearly dropped her pencil.
"Wait, you're in contact with her?" she asked in disbelief.
Clint stared at her with a questioning eyebrow.
"I wasn't aware you were investigating on Fury," he defended himself. "You just mentioned a 'triple homicide' and none of the guys killed were with me back then. I would have introduced you if you'd asked."
"Clint…" she started warningly. Her lover sighed deeply and took a seat on the opposite couch. He knew he would be in the doghouse if he tried to withdraw information from her.
"Yes, as you know, I served under Colonel Fury's command." he said, and of course she knew that, but she wasn't aware he had had an encounter with any of her victims. He was right though, she hadn't told him who this was about. "And the only reason I've met Maria was…" his voice trailed off. "I was there when we rescued her and another bunch of pre-teens from being shipped off as slaves." He shook his head, she suspected, to chase away the memories. "They'd been there for weeks. She had actually been trying to escape the building when we arrived. Fury sort of adopted her on spot and made it official when he returned. I would see her hanging around during our training sessions, but that's all."
Natasha tensed, sensing this was a particularly touchy subject. As she remembered the hard face of the woman and with what Clint had just slipped, she beguilingly understood her reluctance to speak.
"That must have been hard," she noted.
"Fury tried to keep that part of her past under wraps, something about giving her a new start." He added with a fond smile. "Poor kid had gone through enough already; I gave her my number if she ever needed anything." His face sobered drastically. "She was devastated by his murder."
"So you definitively think it was murder?"
Clint snorted, meaning yes.
"You've read the file on his past actions, Tasha; you know what he was capable of. That guy would have survived an atomic bomb."
His right hand settled on her shoulder and he slid his left fingers under her chin and pulled gently. Her head was tilted backwards as he leaned forward for a kiss.
"Working with Rogers is tensing you up," he remarked. "You need to trust your instincts more." Both hands cupped her cheeks and his eyes planted inside hers. "And relax."
In spite of herself, Natasha felt the tension leave her body.
"You just want sex," she said with the token resistance in her voice. Clint flashed his boyish grin, the one she still had trouble resisting even after three years of common life.
"I want you bent over the table, shivering and begging me for release, while I pound into you from behind and admire your gorgeous breasts crushed on the surface and your flushed face in the mirror," he corrected with dilated pupils. Natasha couldn't help glancing at the kitchen table and felt the shiver run down her spine and warmth grow in her lower stomach. Sometimes his words were as effective as having his fingers inside her. "You were making such sexy noises yesterday night. I kinda want to hear them again."
She playfully slapped his chest, cheeks slowly turning pink.
"Stop redirecting the subject, I'm trying to be serious here."
He cut her with another kiss, deeper and more passionate. Thoughts fled her brain as she started picturing the next step…And Jordan started crying, awakening from her sleep. Clint pulled back reluctantly. Natasha chuckled at his disappointed groan.
"I'll feed her," she said. "And I won't put my bra back on."
Clint peeked up with clear interest. Natasha rolled her eyes; that man's sexual appetite was unbelievable. It didn't help that he knew every trick to make her beg.
"You know, I think I fall in love with you a little more every day." He said, blowing her a kiss. Natasha laughed, cheeks pink and chest fluttering, and left to feed her daughter.
When she arrived the next morning, Steve was already there. Stark too, typing on his tablet, even though he had a big plaster on his leg. The former looked ready to kill something while the second all too proud of himself. Natasha wondered how much time it would take for Steve to file a report on Stark. Or hit him. The consultant glanced at her upon her arrival and raised his eyebrows high.
"Oooooo-kay," was his first word. "Someone got fucked within the inch of their life," he noticed out loud.
Natasha didn't even flinch over the indignant and furious glare of her ex-husband.
"Clint was thorough," she replied instead. As she should have expected, Clint hadn't stopped at the table. Her knees had burns from the carpet of the living room, her thighs were sore from holding onto his waist in the shower and she had trouble walking straight courtesy of this morning extraordinary performance, but she didn't regret one thing. "Your fault, actually," she added just to spite Steve. She knew he'd hate hearing her taking pleasure with another man. "He wants to make sure I know I have his entire attention. And he likes hearing me-"
"Once again, TMI!" Stark interrupted with a near shout. "Jeez Red, you're like my sister! Hearing your boasting about your man's prowess in bed is not helping."
Natasha felt touched and amused at her partner's reluctance. Steve looked ready to kill. She didn't pity him one bit though; but she did wonder whether he'd remain professional all day or try to ask more about her private life later.
"So, what about today?"
"We were waiting for you, actually," Stark said. "I put a hit on hospital arrivals and a man fitting Ward's profile was found this morning. Not dead," he added before they could interrupt him. "But barely breathing. This time, our army killer used his bare fists to make his point."
"He was nearly beaten to death?" Steve asked in shock.
Stark nodded, more serious now.
"You two go ahead and pay a visit to your comrade; I've been digging after a trail. I need to work a bit more on that."
Natasha raised an eyebrow and tried to peek over his shoulder.
"Anything you want to share to the class yet?"
Stark subtly hid his screen from view.
"I'll probably draw my own conclusions by the time you've returned. See ya."
Natasha didn't push the issue and waved goodbye. Steve followed her promptly, a little lost.
"And you won't inquire further on his research?" he asked midway.
"Tony won't answer as long as he's not figured out something," Natasha replied patiently. "I tried before; it's better to just let him think and hear the results later."
"That's not-"
"Don't get me started on trust and teamwork, Rogers. We have a man to interview."
The interview, as it turned out, was useless. Steve clearly identified the man lying on a hospital bed, but Ward was still under induced sleep and wouldn't be awoken. The doctors were very adamant that he rested to recover from his injuries. Whoever had attacked him had wanted to make sure he would suffer, but the doctor's report was even more interesting.
"He didn't try to defend himself?"
The doctor nodded, running through his notes.
"No traces of drugs in his system, nothing that suggests defensive wounds. He took hits but didn't return them." Pause. "Actually, he's lucky to be alive at all."
Upon those words, they had hit the road back to headquarters, ready to debate some more. Steve was pissed about Ward being hurt while Natasha, who had deeply read the man's background file, was more skeptical on the motives.
"But his attack doesn't make any sense! Ward was just a soldier, who would attempt to go after him?"
"He's not so innocent. If you take each file, they all had suspicious backgrounds and I suspect that Maria Fury believes one of them killed her adoptive father."
"She's eighteen and grieving." Steve snapped back.
"She was raised by a military man who had his secrets and who taught her how to keep them," Natasha took a step forward. "What if you're reading this wrong Rogers? What if you're completely mistaking your target? Do you think this is the work of a man or a woman who decided to strike down a full team just because? Wilson's attitude said it all; he cared about Bobbi Morse but he couldn't give two shits about Rumlow and Sitwell and Garrett. And Morse was found drowned, Garrett stabbed, and the two others shot execution-style. Why such different deaths? Grant's injuries showed he didn't even try to defend himself. Why? Did he feel guilty of something so badly he refused to raise his fists? Did he know whoever came after him?"
"He could have been hit in the head first then beaten up," Steve retorted. "He had a head trauma, probably blurred his senses."
"But why? You still haven't supposed why anyone would come after them."
"He still thinks this is revenge after something the team did before he arrived." Stark interrupted and threw on the desk a recently printed file. "I got my theory. Check this out."
Tossed hastily, the file opened and released some of its content. A written report and various pictures of crime scenes spread over the table. Natasha recognized them right away.
"That's the archers' case." She said out loud. "It was declared cold four years ago."
"One of your rare left unsolved," Stark approved. Steve peeked at the file with curiosity.
"I remember that one," he said, frowning. "It made the headlines for a while. What happened?"
Natasha swallowed hard. When her boss had declared the case closed, she had been upset, but with some distance, also relieved. This had been her first independent one, true, but at the same time…
"Two archers were on a killing spree in town," she explained. "We figured out one was a vigilante and the other just a sadistic murderer."
"How so?"
Natasha silently separated the pictures in two groups. She started by pointing at gruesome and mutilated corpses.
"Some victims were tortured to the brick of death. That guy was a sick weirdo." She grimaced and shivered inwardly. "A creative one too. The other one," she pointed to another set of bodies: "aimed exclusively at people formerly belonging to a former human trafficking ring."
"That ring had been dissembled barely a year before. And guess where?" Stark hit the table with his knuckle. "In Iran, right in the region your old strike team was located at the time."
"I fail to understand the usefulness of this piece of information." Steve snorted sarcastically.
"I dug a bit deeper in your old pals' pasts," Stark went on, ignoring Steve's attempt to cut him. "I had to go veeeery deep but some guy name nicknamed Deadpool tipped me about Garrett's unclear motives to set camp there. He had ties with one of the guys that archer shot down four years ago. You might still believe it's vague, but hear this; the whole time Garrett and the team stayed there, he and the two others there got some pretty cash in a foreign account related to them. And when suddenly the ring got bombed –yeah you hear me right, someone decided to burn that building to bits –the team had to relocate elsewhere –in Afghanistan. But the ring was exposed, lots of people got involved, including some of that team and not in a good way. We never heard of it because the whole thing was put under wraps by none other than Alexander Pierce. He was the top supervisor at the time. And if I didn't think he was one of the biggest assholes I've ever met, he did a good job hiding this. Until I dug it out, that is."
"So Pierce could be involved now?" Steve asked in disbelief.
Natasha was starting to see the big picture.
"You think the vigilante archer is back? That he's the one behind these assassinations? Tying up loose ends? And that Pierce could be his next victim?"
Steve sighed in disbelief and shook his head.
"Okay I think we're overreacting here. This is just speculation. Why don't we just…" his shoulders slumped. "It's close to lunchtime now; why don't we just take a break here? We'll keep going after some rest."
Without waiting for an answer, he left the room, still muttering under his breath. The two partners exchanged an incredulous stare before Stark asked:
"He's got his panties in a twist or what?"
Natasha snorted and shrugged. She expected another snotty remark, but when she glanced at Stark to respond, she was surprised to see him staring at her completely sober.
"Actually, I have something to tell you. Something I didn't want to say in front of mister so-full-of-myself," he said seriously. Natasha raised an eyebrow and waited. "I had to break through archaic archives to go there, stuff that hadn't been on the computers as they were so redacted. But I found out that in the time after Barnes was reported missing and Miss Johnson transferred, there was a guy serving as their sniper. He only stayed a couple weeks, so official records didn't bother writing his name on the team list. Then again, the guy was sent away to –where, I don't know, I kept hitting classified wherever I went."
"And how did you find his trace?"
"Like I said, I followed breadcrumbs. Traced every sniper transfer at the time likely to be assigned on that team and pulled a list of the only people available at the time that could have served in Pierce team for a short while…" he pulled out a sheet of paper. "Tada."
Natasha took the list and read a number of ten names. But her eyes focalized on one in particular. She slowly inhaled and exhaled, then met her partner's eyes steadily.
"Why are you doing this?"
Stark shrugged, his eyes harboring an edge she had never seen on him before.
"My vision of justice is…not in complete sync with the system. I approve what that guy did at the time and if I'm right with my hunches, I'd say he should have been given a fucking medal. Also…I thought it might be best to let you make the final decision. Just let me know whether I have to zip my mouth or allow my brilliance to put your boyfriend in jail for the rest of his life."