A/N: so a LITTLE spicy in this chapter, apologies!

Bagel Thursday

PeechTao

Chapter 8

Clint was always light on his feet. Years of acrobatic training under the tutelage of tight rope walkers made him a master of his own body long before most teenage boys could figure out how to aim at a urinal. Dancing, though he seldom had the opportunity for it, was a genuine pleasure. When his partner was as lithe as he, it became more than a dance. it was a typhoon of unbridled natural beauty.

"Clint, what the Hell are you doing here!" Natasha seethed. Her head moved slightly to look for Rumsy, only to find him in the arms of a strange brunette in a blue dress. "Did you just set me up to get me to dance?!"

"Um, yes and no, and my name for tonight is Renner." Clint replied. He twirled her in a small circle, flicking his wrist at the end to bring his body against hers. "And I could ask you the same thing. Since when did you have to play mistress in the bed?"

They turned away from each other as the music (Clint presumed) played. When they were facing again he caught only the word Cairo. He assumed her assignment in Egypt must have been linked to Rumsy somehow.

"Since when did you let me lead?" Natasha asked dragging Clint into another few moves as they flowed among the other dancers. Barton and she had only danced on one other occasion two years ago at a social event in Dubai. Back then he was determined to force her to submit to his moves and when she didn't what started as an elegant waltz broke out into a show-stopping tango. There was no prize for best dance that night, but that didn't stop the onlookers from showering their praise.

"Since I don't want to make a scene." He replied smoothly.

Taking advantage of her position, and in an effort to get a better look at her date, she took Clint off balance and threw him sideways. The effect was Natasha Romanov in a dress dipping Clint into a low arc against the floor. Not one to squander his fun, Clint pointed one toe, threw his head back and looked like the perfect feminine partner.

"You're horrible." Natasha growled bringing him up.

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming?" Clint asked.

"Maybe because I've been on about a thousand missions without you, dad?" Natasha shot back. "And as far as I knew Clarkson considered you a leper. You weren't supposed to be out of your room."

"Sorry, mom, but dad said I wasn't grounded." They twirled again. Clint was finding it terribly difficult to keep a proper rhythm to the music he couldn't hear. If Natasha didn't realize before that something was wrong with him, she sure was going to suspect something soon! He changed the subject. "I'm tailing Gregory. The brunette is Morrissey."

"And I'm late, so let go of me and get lost." Natasha replied.

He imagined the tone of her voice was stern, but the look in her eyes made him know that she was enjoying their dance as much as he was. Morrissey was almost beyond her ability to distract Rumsy any longer from his stolen date. Clint didn't want to relinquish the moment he'd stolen with Natasha, but the Black Widow could see that he was also being reasonable. He pirouetted her to the edge of the dance floor and continued to spin her even after the music had stopped. She eventually had to force his hands to be still.

"Slow down, hound dog." Natasha told him. "You're missing out on your meal ticket." Her head tipped to the side.

Clint looked over to see his target slipping through the crowed. That meant it was time to get back to work.

"See you back home. Stay safe." Natasha whispered. Clint didn't reply.

By the time Barton turned back to Natasha, she was gone. Now that he was following Gregory's trail, and he knew what Natasha's part was, he intended to swiftly brief Morrissey. But that ended up more difficult than he assumed. The level 5 agent had disappeared and so did Rumsy. Clint mounted the stairs to the balcony, he could always see better from a distance. His eyes scanned the crowed with a trained precision. Natasha was off toward a hallway. She fixed him with a steady look before walking into the darkness unaccompanied. Clint picked up Gregory cutting through the people and hovering at the same hall. A minute after Natasha went, Gregory followed.

Clint cursed to himself. He didn't know what Morrissey was thinking letting the Senator take her off someplace. She was supposed to distract him, not to switch places with Natasha in an effort to bed him. Clint wished he'd taken that two-way ear piece if only to shout into Morrissey's about how reckless she had behaved by taking off.

The agent wasted no time. He stuck to the outside of the floor, passed the bar, cut through a group of men speaking and entered the hall way. There was the slight reflection of a man's boot making a left turn at the far end, so Clint rushed to catch up to it. Behind him the group he broke through was shouting at him, but Clint couldn't hear it to be insulted. At the next left he saw Gregory take the first turn right. Clint followed stealthily.

The place was like the dark hallways of what Barton conjured the Bruce Wayne mansion might look like. That or a haunted house in the middle of a horror film. The halls were long and marble tiled, their centers covered in a long red carpet that seemed as old and ornate as an 18th century castle. Banisters lined the hall at certain intervals, housing large bouquets of new flowers or busts carved by Michelangelo. A rounded banister was at the second right where Clint peered into the hall to check his target. Clint was more than surprised to see what the arms dealer had. Gregory was standing outside a room. His ear was pressed against the closed door and a colt .38 special was in his hand. Upon first reading the mission brief, Clint wasn't of the mind to write the guy off as the violent strong arm sort. He expected that Gregory was going to corner the senator, either black mail him or bribe him, and take over the US weapons contracts that way. Apparently SHIELD intel was right for once. This guy really did just want to kill Rumsy.

No wonder SHIELD didn't specify dead or alive, Clint thought to himself.

In a place packed with security and fat cats drawing his own SHIELD Beretta to take out Gregory wasn't exactly an option. He had a silencer. It wasn't his typical favorite bow as it proved difficult to conceal a quiver of arrows beneath his suit. For this case, a little finesse getting his silencer screwed on in quite was called for.. Clint tucked behind his corner and pulled out his his weapon. Using the flap of his jacket he concealed his gun as he judged hos quietly his silencer was slipping over the barrel of his gun. If Gregory was in a hurry, he had no time to get this done.

:(:):

Even without the ability to hear, a new sort of sense ticked away at the back of Clint's mind. His hair stood on end, his body got jumpy, and his heart sped up inexplicably. He heard a muffled explosion, just faint enough to surprise him before the vase across from him exploded. Shards of pottery, water, and flowers hit the floor soundlessly and Clint knew at once something had gone wrong. He turned back to the hall, watching Gregory with the gun lifted squeeze the trigger again. What does he think he's doing?! Clint wondered. He ducked around the corner, protected from the fired bullet. He finished with the silencer and pulled his gun. He dropped to one knee and took aim in the hall, the target was already running the opposite direction. Clint dropped him in a single round. Barton pushed to his feet and ran for the door he assumed the senator was behind. He pulled it open, his Beretta aimed and ready on whatever he may find. The scene was nothing like SHIELD had planned.

Morrissey was on the bed, her dress askew and torn. Her hair was mussed out of its pony tail and her hands were clamped tightly around her gun. She was pointing the barrel at Senator Rumsy. The man was lying on his back across the floor with a puddle of blood circling his torso. Natasha stood by the senator's neck though she didn't touch him. No reason to waste a set of finger prints on a man she knew was dead.

"Nice timing, Barton. Didn't you hear me calling you?" Natasha said angrily. "Man was a pig. His wife'll be better off with a dead husband than what he was in to."

Clint knew she was talking but couldn't understand a word of it. He looked down the hall. So far no one was coming down after them. He pulled the door closed behind him.

"Morrissey, report." Clint said.

"Leave her be." Natasha told him nonchalantly. "Guy deserved it."

But Clint ignored her. He couldn't hear her. He went over to Morrissey. The agent was shaking, holding her gun as if to let go would mean Rumsy would start crawling back up to life like a zombie.

"Agent," he said to her. "What happened?"

The woman didn't look at him, but he could understand her. "Came at me. He said he liked my dress. I'm sorry, I panicked when he—"

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Look, I've got this, Clint. Leave her be. If a guy's a rapist he deserves get shot by his victim. I only wish she aimed lower first."

"I never killed anyone before." The woman said. She was shaking, her finger on the trigger. "I'm just surveillance. I never had to—"

"Welcome to level six security." Clint slowly reached forward and peeled the gun out of her hands. He flipped the safety switch and unchambered the round from the barrel before handing it back to Natasha. With a gentle look he picked the girl up from the bed. He motioned to Natasha and the body on the floor. "You handle this?"

"If I say I have it, then I have it." Natasha replied. "I told Clarkson not to trust you with the noobs."

Clint shot her a glare that only lasted a few moments before it crumbled into a bit of understanding. She had a point whether he wanted to agree to it or not.

:(:):

Agent Morrissy was tucked into the small booth, her hands wrapped tightly around her cup of coffee. She was wearing Clint's suit jacket. A pot of coffee sat between them on the laminate table of the Maryland diner Clint pulled into beside the mainline Amtrak station outside the city proper. The destruction of the senatorial gala was long behind them now. Clint considered going back to make sure Natasha didn't need a hand with the cleanup but one look at the agent across from him changed his mind.

"It's fine." Clint said. "SHIELD's going to have to get a little better on their in field training, but you did good."

She looked deeply into her cup, fingers laced across each other. She didn't immediately respond.

Clint put his hand over her cup. She met his gaze.

"You going to be ok?"

She pressed her lips together in a thin line. "Yeah. I don't know why I'm acting like this. I'm an agent. I'm a senior agent. I did two tours in Iraq. I've been in this situation. I—"

Clint pulled the cup out of her hand and set it off to the side. He held her hands in his and looked very seriously into her face. "When you were in Iraq did a sixty-four-year-old white guy with a face that bulldogs cry over hold you at knife point and attempt to rape you?"

She slowly shook her head.

"Exactly. And let me tell you, if some sixty-four-year-old white guy held a knife to me and attempted for force me to have sex with him, I probably would have shot him in the chest too."

She smiled, it was difficult to tell if she was laughing or not.

Clint let her hands go and went over to the diner's counter. He paid the check and returned to the table with a slice of apple pie topped in a piece of sharp cheddar cheese. He set it in front of Agent Morrissey with a fork.

"Now, do me a favor and eat your feelings. When you're done start that SHIELD report. Don't leave anything out. I need to get to the train before it takes off without me."

Morrissey picked up the fork. "Thanks, Agent Barton. You know, when I first met you I thought you were probably the biggest SHIELD jerk there was. I heard the stories. Everyone has. The ones about the Helicarrier and the New York attack. Id know you're an Avenger. I know about a thousand agents that would want to take that spot and the fact that you're probably bitter for that. They say you don't deserve it. After everything you did you shouldn't have anything you've been given. But you know what?" She stood up, her arms wrapped around his neck. He didn't know what she was saying now, but he supposed it didn't matter. Into his deaf ears she whispered. "You do deserve it. Nobody gave it to you, you took it. You're the best agent I know. Thank you."

Clint held her back, squeezing her hard like a brother might do to his kid sister. "Hey, no crying in spy-school. Didn't Director Fury ever tell you that?"

She grinned. She pulled away from him then on a whim closed in again. Her lips pressed against his and suddenly they were two SHIELD agents standing in a Maryland diner, both wearing their best and kissing over a slice of southern apple pie. Clint pulled away first. He was appreciative, but he knew there was nothing good that could come from stringing the agent along in that way. He pulled his fingers through her hair and kissed her forehead.

"See you around." He told her. Clint turned away from her and waved lightly to the waitress behind the bar.

Behind him, Agent Morrissey called his name. When he didn't reply, she turned to look at him, but he was already disappearing for the door.

"Barton?" She called a little louder. "Barton?"

Clint never replied. He pulled open the restaurant door and struck out into the dark early morning alone.

so yes, a little darker subject. Sorry! didn't intend it to go there, but it was fitting. I like this Morrissey character and I may bring her back in another book at some point.

Please review!