DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Avengers, Black Widow, Hawkeye, or anything else related to them. That is all on Marvel (lucky ducks).
Author's note: So hopefully this isn't too terrible. So crap is going down IRL for me right now so this might be one of the last chapters I have up for a little while until things have settled down a bit. Unfortunately this isn't a very action-packed chapter but I hope it is still enjoyable. So…enjoy!
Natasha couldn't believe how bad the situation was when she arrived. It was bad enough that a S.H.I.E.L.D agent was dead but Clint had to go and make things worse by getting himself drunk. He didn't drink, ever, so he was practically useless like this. He hadn't even noticed the man watching him across the bar and was sitting across from a mirrored wall which gave him the perfect view of the entire place. More than likely he sat where he did on instinct and didn't really understand the benefits behind it. She could see he was a little shaken when she found him, his German accent sounding as far from German as one could go without completely obliterating the accent. To say Clint was in trouble had been an understatement on Fury's part. Natasha had known Clint was pushing himself beyond his limits ever since the Loki incident but this was one push too far. And now she had to yank him back over the ledge so he wasn't free-falling anymore. Perfect.
She hadn't planned on having a hostage on her first night in Beijing but as it turned out their tail had been all too eager to engage them in the elevator. So she'd taken him down and now he could be useful to their mission. Plus, if they simply knocked him out and let him go back to Nutian she would be compromised and it would be pointless for her to have even come here. She already had a meeting set up with Nutian tomorrow and she wasn't about to blow that because some low-class thug thought he could fix all his master's problems with a few weak threats and a gun. She could get information out of him and maybe even use him at the meeting tomorrow. If he proved stubborn she'd just kill him and wait until after the meeting to let Nutian's men find the body. No need to make everyone suspicious before she'd even started her real job here. They needed to find out where Nutian kept his goods so they could destroy them along with him. If you took down a King but left the Empire a new King would simply take over. Destroy an Empire and then the King and there would be nothing left to salvage. In theory it sounded pretty legit so she figured it was worth a shot.
But blondie wasn't in a chatty mood and it had already been about two hours since they dragged him from the elevator to the penthouse suite Clint had checked into for the duration of his mission. At least it meant they wouldn't have any nosy neighbors trying to figure out why the guests were making so much noise. They had privacy up here and, she had to admit, a pretty fantastic view. Their guest seemed to be struggling with the beauty of it though with his head hanging out the window. Personally, she didn't understand why he was terrified. It wasn't like she was about to drop him. Yet. He was still somewhat useful even if he refused to talk. They now knew that Nutian was looking for Clint and he wasn't about to just let him get away. Hopefully his focus would remain on Clint for the duration of this mission. Things would go smoother and quicker if Nutian was distracted with trying to kill Clint while she slipped into his stash and destroyed it all before putting a bullet in his head.
"I don't think this is working, Tasha," Clint said at last with a sigh, pulling the blonde man back into the hotel rom. Natasha sighed, she hated to admit he was right but he was. This guy was refusing to crack and so far nothing they did was working to even make a dent in his outer shell. She'd dealt with tougher opponents and made them crack but she'd had more time then. Time to really find their weaknesses, time she did not have right now.
She turned from the man, walking across the hotel room and grabbing a bottle of wine from the small fridge in the kitchenette. She poured herself a glass, did not offer any to Clint, and took a sip. They needed to figure this out and fast or she would have to go into that meeting tomorrow blind. She didn't like going in blind and Clint wasn't usually keen on letting her. She turned her attention to their prisoner who hadn't even given his name yet, "If you give me your name and the number of guards to expect tomorrow, I'll let you go. My partner won't even shoot you first, promise. So, tell me?"
The coy flirty play had worked a few times before but more often than not their prisoner would scoff and shrug her off when they were tough like this one. They knew a ploy when they saw one and they knew a lie when they heard one. This man was no different, "You lie. I know your faces; you will never let me go alive. I will tell you this: you are going to die here. My employer always gets even and right now you're at the top of his list."
Natasha smiled and bent down so they were eye to eye, "Your boss doesn't even know who I am yet. And you're not going to get a chance to tell him."
The man narrowed his eyes but said nothing else. Natasha didn't know if she felt some kind of respect for this man for being so steady and unbending or if she thought it was pathetic how attached he was to his master. Like a dog and its owner, really. She decided more than likely she felt like he was almost a reflection of what she used to be. The Red Room had complete control over her and she would have died to keep their secrets when she was younger. Now, not so much unless it was Clint she was protecting. Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D if she was feeling like the deserved her protection or needed it really. It kind of depended on her mood.
She glanced at Clint, "Can you handle him while I go to the meeting tomorrow? I can't have him running in and blowing my cover in the middle of the meeting. It wouldn't end well. For them at least. And the mission would be a failure."
Clint gave her a look that said did you really just ask me that? and gave a curt nod, "I can handle him."
The man didn't give them any information the whole night and after three rolled around Natasha put herself to bed. She didn't need bags under her eyes on top of the stress she would have to be hiding during this meeting. Her looks helped things go smoothly and that was about the only thing still working toward her advantage right now. Everything else had gone terribly wrong and she was a little peeved about how shitty things were right off the bat. It wasn't like Clint to completely tear things up like this so fast. He was usually the cautious one, the one who didn't cause unneeded trouble for her or any other agents who might be on mission with them. That was one of the reasons she loved having him as a partner.
She was changing into yet another very close-fitting dress at eleven the next morning after some much needed sleep and recovery time and Clint was busy keeping an eye on their guest. She fluffed her hair with the dryer before running a flat iron through it. Straightened out like this it reached well below her shoulder blades and shimmered in the lights from the ceiling. She pinned it into an elegant chignon against her right ear, tweaking the bangs a bit as she did until they rested just above her right eye. It was one of her more subdued looks she only used when going into meetings like this. Playing an heiress meant actually looking like you had money. The dress was probably worth a few hundred dollars and the shoes were more than likely close to the same price. She didn't ever look at the bills from these missions, S.H.I.E.L.D would cover the expenses and she knew they wouldn't say anything to her. She relied on her looks for more than a few of her missions before resorting to her…other skills.
Tonight's dress was black and hugged her body. Her shoulders were bare, the straps of the dress resting on her upper arms and creating a solid line across her chest just above her breasts. It was a simple little thing but still held that certain appeal most men couldn't seem to resist. She supposed it could be called sexual appeal since it left little to the imagination. The way the fabric settled on her body was almost embarrassing really. She might as well have been walking around in her underwear or nothing at all with how tight this dress was.
"Are you sure you want to go to this thing when we've practically been blown already? I can't go in with you as backup," Clint was leaning against the door frame to her room, looking worried about this whole situation. She didn't know why he was so worried. She'd gone in alone on more than one occasion and everything worked out fine, today would be no different.
She smiled at him in the mirror, putting on a pair of dangling diamond earrings, "I can handle it, Clint. I've done it before. What's the matter? You don't usually worry this much. Relax, you'll be on the roof of the parking garage across the street, right? If anything happens I have faith you can cover me until I'm clear."
He shook his head with a ruthless little grin and pushed off the frame, moving toward her as she stood and stepped into her heels, "You have a lot of faith in me, Tasha."
Natasha smiled a little more and winked at him, "It's well placed."
Clint's smile dampened a bit at her words as he zipped up the back of her dress, "How do you know? How do you know you can place that much faith in me?"
She turned with a small frown in her eyes and on her face. She placed a hand on his shoulder gently, "What's wrong, Clint?"
He sighed and stepped away from her, a strained smile on his face now, "It's nothing. Come on, you don't want Nutian to start getting suspicious of you because you show up late to your first meeting."
Natasha sighed, shook her head, but dropped the subject as she grabbed the small clutch off the dresser. She took one last look in the mirror, brushing a hand down the dress to keep it smooth, "Okay, let's go."
Clint gave a swift nod, "I'll be right behind you."
Natasha smiled and left the room. She looked completely unarmed to the untrained eye but the pins in her hair could double as weapons should the need arise, that or lock picks, and she had a dagger pressed flat to the skin of her thigh. Her clutch wasn't quite big enough to hold any weapons but she could manage with the dagger if things went bad. Clint had his arrows and a birds; eye view if things went south and no, the pun was not intended. She would be fine but that still wouldn't make the foreboding feeling go away. She felt that things were going bad but she wasn't entirely sure why, and that made her more nervous than anything else right now. She never got these bad feelings unless there was some warranted reason. Maybe it was just because she arrived to a very drunk Clint who already had a tail and he didn't even realize it. It was a lot different than any of their other missions.
She glanced over her shoulder at Clint, her finger pushing the down arrow for the elevator, "Are you sure you're okay?"
Clint's frown deepened and his brows knit together, "I'm fine. Why do you keep asking me that?"
She sighed, gave a little shrug and shook her head, "Nothing."
She put a crimson smile on her face and stepped into the open elevator doors. She turned and the last thing she saw before the doors slid shut was Clint's cocky grin sliding into place.