Natasha's POV

"Natasha, don't move. This looks bad. Just don't kill me please."

Clint's hand was clasped over my mouth, I couldn't see his face in the dark whatever we were in, but that was distinctly Clint.

I had been drugged, that thought was nearly shouting at me. It took significantly longer to drag myself out of sleep only to be met with Clint frightfully silencing me.

"Clint," I whispered. I wasted no time gathering myself and opted to begin accessing the environment.

"No evidence of an exit, no light source, the metal appears sturdy and solid, no recollection of the events leading us here, no leads, no suspects…" Clint rambled on about his pessimistic ideals.

Respectfully, he was technically right. We awoke in a packed rectangular prism, a metal box where the ceiling couldn't have been higher than four feet and even while sitting against opposite walls were at most a meter apart.

"Clint, I can't think myself out of this one. There's too many variables and what ifs. I mean anyone could have put us here we don't have a single clue. Isn't it delightful that the last thing I remember was our conversation in the hotel after we completed our mock mission? Remind me why we didn't just go home?"

Clint scoffed, "Something about a challenge, I believe is what we reasoned."

"Wait, did you hear that?" I began feeling the sterile cold walls.

"What is it?" Barton was significantly quieter.

"Like a hum and vibration," I pressed my ear to the metal straining desperately for a clue.

My body protested, it wanted sleep more than ever wanted anything before. "Clint! I think it's a sleeping gas," I peered over to my partner's dark figure who was blissfully snoozing.

Clint's POV

"Argh!" I twisted my body trying to situate myself upright, "God, is this what forty feels like?" Every muscle felt sore, everyone cried at each movement I attempted. "Nat?" I asked the empty air while mustering up the control to turn my head to face her. Tasha released a short, pathetic whimper from where she uncomfortably laid out against the opposite walls. My head snapped in that direction, I registered light was now glowing from the walls and could see clearly.

I prayed for adrenaline to lessen the pain as crawled to her and pulled her upper body into my lap. Her appearance was one of which who was determined to find death.

"Tasha, can you speak?" She was pale but sweating profusely, here bloodshot eyes and agonizingly slow breathing gave away the sort of severe pain she was combating.

She didn't respond, she was stiff and as I soon pieced together, was paralyzed. Her eyes struggled to meet mine then promptly gave up.

Tasha was going to die in my arms. I couldn't let her down, I needed to save her. First, I needed to sleep again.

Natasha's POV

I bolted upright the moment I came to. I didn't waste time clutching my chest and gasping for air. Clint lay unconscious, thankfully unable to witness me close my eyes and collapse to the floor convulsing violently.

I had the heavy urge to fall asleep again, I fought it strongly and kept jerking my body until I went completely still. All together it took eight minutes from when I awoke until I felt the floor shift from under my legs and stronger hands lower my limp body to a sound of chaos below.

"Where's the crash cart? Bring me an AED now!"

"Her vitals keep dropping! She'll be dead within the minute!" The hands placed me on a cool stiff cot. Panicked voiced rushed to me, feeling my pulse, opening my mouth and tilting my head back. They yelped when my body went into convulsions again and dispersed to retrieve the proper tools.

The moment I sensed a hand hovering over my arm I grabbed the wrist and forced my eyes open. I didn't waste a moment. My thighs were grasping the woman wearing a lab coat as my legs swung to head kick the man next to her. I rolled onto a table of supplies just as the rest of the doctors filed from the lab and were replaced with five guards.

I crouched below the table waiting for my attackers to come to me. Above my head, suspended from the low ceiling was the box. From the outside it appeared to be a glass box where my dozing partner could clearly be observed by the entire lab.

I needed to find a release switch so Clint could assist in taking down the guards, he would loathe missing a good fight for a catnap. The guards were advancing on my position but I steadied myself waiting for the absolute last moment to strike.

I made light work of the work of the attackers and focused on the bright red button with the words 'enclosure latch' on the other side of the room.

I managed to scale over the table while striking the head of a now conscious guard. I heard shouts down the hall and I knew my time was limited. I took advantage of the momentary peace and released Clint, who proceeded to drop unceremoniously from the floorless glass box. His back hit a metal table with a sickening bang. To my relief, my partner released his classic groan and blinked awake.

The voices and footsteps were gaining on our location, I didn't have a luxury of waiting for Clint to recover making him an easy target. In an effort to protect him I disarmed the closest unconscious guard and leaped over to Barton and straddled his chest.

"Natasha?" He asked slowly. Before I opened my mouth to respond the door busted and didn't hesitate delivering kill shots to the armed targets. Five men went down without even a chance to fire their glocks.

My focus went back to Clint, carefully examining him for injuries. His eyes were wide now, waiting for me to offer some sort of explanation. Without missing a beat, he grabbed my wrist dragging me down while heaving himself up, covering my body. Without removing my own gun from my hand he issued three carefully placed bullets near the doorway. To confirm his kill I heard the sound of three bodies slumping to the floor.

Clint looked down at me smirking partially from our comically compromising position, "You missed a few."

I stared at him baffled at his sudden surge of energy and precise abilities. I grinned back at him shaking my head, "I would be lying if I were to say that I wasn't impressed."

Barton pushed himself off of me and lowered himself to the floor before offering me a unneeded hand to follow in suite, "We really need to stop taking Fury's bait."

"We'll never learn," I sighed, "Vent shaft, wide enough to escape through," I quickly shifted topics eyeing the grate on the opposite wall.

Clint nodded and picked up a laptop and a few files scattered amongst the lab. I collected three more guns gifting two of them to Barton.

"Let's move."

Clint lead the way through the stuffy vent groaning irritably at each surroundings.

"So, Nat, care to enlighten me on how you pulled us out of this mess."

I rolled my eyes, "I hardly call crawling our way in an unknown building without any knowledge of what just happened as pulling through."

He scoffed, "Considering there was a moment I believed you were going to die in my arms, I think it would be appropriate for you to start there."

"Well, as you know I have pretty stable control over how my body functions. When I paralyzed I realized that were were being experimented on, my body was negatively reacting to whatever medication they were putting in us. I had a hunch when I started falling asleep the second time that whoever was doing the testing needed us alive so, I tried my own theory."

"What did you do? How did you get them to release you?"

""Easy, when I woke up I controlled my breathing and relaxed my pulse. Then I spiked both and pretended to go into convulsions. After a few minutes, when I throughly convinced those science monkeys that I going into cardiac arrest they finally had no choice but to attempt to revive me. "

"That was a bold hunch to rely on." He responded simply.

"Like you wouldn't have taken the same risk?"

"I absolutely would have if I was smart enough to think it." I smiled to myself and allowed myself to bask in Clint's praise.

I trusted his twist and turns in navigating through the shafts, he seemed fairly confident he knew how to find an exit so when he paused in front of a vent gaping at whatever he saw through the grates.

"Tasha," he began slowly, "we were in the basement."

I studied his perplexed face, wondering. "I figured that, why do sound so surprised?"

"We were in the the basement of the Bellagio Casino."

Well, well, well our two assassins just landed themselves in the fanciest casino in Vegas. Perhaps we might see a glamourous end to this mission after all. I will put up one last chapter on Vegas before I put this mission to bed.

So, I' back! I know, I know! I went on an unexpected hiatus but it's over now! This past month has been incredible, stressful, and very new either way I missed writing so much, I missed my amazing reviewers and followers. I'm so glad to be back!

If you are following my other story 'A Broken Union' expect a new a chapter by this weekend. We are back in buisness everyone!