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Natasha POV
I slipped into my short black dress over my black tights, I wasn't nervous as some consider nervousness but for the first time in a couple months I saw an end to this Russian minefield of a mission, I was anxious as I saw tonight as the one obstacle keeping me from home. I tucked my heels into the black pumps and headed from the hotel, I needed Black Widow's confidence, the one that knows that tonight will be the night I get the information I need and can possible go home.
Home. I know Fury would have no choice but to give me a couple of days off after completing this. Clint would rush me into the passenger seat of a car and play his favorite 1980's hits, I would complain that his singing was terrible or the music was annoying and he'd just laugh because he understood the bigger picture. It was the trips to the farm that made us feel less and less like a pair of mindless assassins that kill when their told to kill without so much as an argument. For that car ride, we were decent humans and by the time we arrived we were anything except Hawkeye and Black Widow. As I arrived at this gala with Luchkov on, my arms I saw my motivation and determination, to get to the passenger seat ride with Clint Barton.
Clint POV
The seemingly simple detail of watching scientists was becoming more complex at an extraordinary rate. I stared down at the lab as I've down for over a month now, I convinced myself that this haywire result couldn't be of fault of me. I knew exactly how many steps it took each scientist to get from the lab entrance to the cube, I even knew how every scientist took their coffee in the morning without having to speak to any of them!
If I wasn't allowed to wish myself to be somewhere else, I could only wish that Nat was here with me, watching these people scramble about, while she referred to me as an idiot incessantly. If Nat were assigned this with me I may have actually considered this detail as something more than just punishment for pissing off Fury one too many times. I'd sit on the rafters as I am now while she mingle and observe from actual interaction. Then she'd climb up to me when she'd finally admit to how bored she really was. Tasha would get restless easily from this detail, when Tasha gets restless she acts like child as I've learned not too long after meeting her. I tell her to sleep when she gets too childish, she complains while slowly nodding off and ends up asleep on my shoulder most times. We'd have fun, I concluded as I observe the conversation between Fury and Selvig. Moments later I was forced to come down to the floor and explain my own theory of this cube from all the intel I gathered.
There was a rumbling and flashes of lights. Shots were being fired then… my last thought was of Laura before everything changed.
Natasha's POV
"Play dumb, play dumb, play dumber" I repeated to myself while "my date" lifted a tool from the table and unknowingly spilled his biggest secrets. Suddenly one the goons' phone rang, causing an awkward silence, well as awkward as an interrogation can get. The man looked at phone, confused. "Why is SHIELD calling?" I question to myself before he brings the phone to his ear. Sure enough, it was Coulson.
"This takes precedence," Coulson explained. No it doesn't! Months of work came down to tonight, months! I came to SHIED to quit being a puppet and now here I stood on the biggest night of my mission after being corralled from one spot to another. Coulson and I went back and forth for a bit, I was standing my ground.
"Look, you can't pull me out of this right now," Passenger seat, '80s music, Laura, the farm. I was staying strong.
"Natasha," That in itself was alarming, Coulson only used my first name when we talked about personal matters, he would never call me Natasha when addressing a new mission, "Barton's been compromised."
The words were plain and not at all hateful but I felt enraged. I only paused for a moment but it could have been a lifetime for all I cared.
My thoughts ran rapid in that single pause, "No, I've been comprised because unfortunately I care about this idiot. Did he do something heroically stupid? Will he be the same? Who can I kill for this? He has a family! Wait, his family they're uninvolved right, no one found out about their existence, right? Please Coulson just tell me anything else!" I was pleading on the inside, on the outside I spoke very little, "Let me put you on hold."
I couldn't rescue Clint at that moment, I had obstacles, and three of them were right in front of me. For a quick moment I pitied them, I knew my anger was about to come out on them.
Thank you for reading! I had this chapter written over a day ago but I didn't like the way it flowed so I kept editing it and removed the entire second half of the chapter. As a result, the next chapter will be up very soon.