This chapter's a little shorter than usual, because I had to break up the Winter Soldier section or it would have been gigantic.

Mission Seventeen: Sleeping With the ... Enemy?

"Little heads up would have been nice, Nat," Clint muttered under his breath.

He'd been back in SHIELD all of maybe five minutes before everything had turned upside down—and it was all thanks to Natasha and her current partner. Those two go up to the kinds of trouble Clint wanted in on. Would have been nice if Fury had let him in on what they were up to instead of sticking him with spying on the guy who was already wary of SHIELD in the first place.

Clint wished he could say that he hadn't seen any of this coming, that he'd been dealing with the side of SHIELD on the up-and-up, but the truth was: he'd been seeing the seedy characters in SHIELD for a long time now. Heck, that was the entire reason he hung out in the training areas to razz the new recruits. A lot of them came in with big ideas of how they were going to make the world see how amazing they were. Some of them were all ego, but some of them. . . .

Well, some of them were the reason Coulson didn't care when Clint got in trouble for screwing with even the agents who made it past the initial screening. Because some of them were on a serious power trip.

Clint didn't yet know how deeply into SHIELD these people went or even how organized they were—or what name they had if they were organized—but he did know it was maddening standing there fresh off his briefing with Coulson hearing that Fury was dead and that Natasha and Steve Rogers were considered to be fugitives.

Clint didn't know what kind of crap had already been peddled before he got out of his briefing that would make anybody think that those two were enemies of SHIELD, but he knew without even hearing it that it was crap. For one thing, that was the actual, honest-to-goodness, truth-justice-and-the-American-way-but-with-a-potty-mouth Captain America out there with his partner, and he'd only known the guy for a little while, but he knew he lived up to a lot of the hype. He made the people around him feel like they had to step up to the plate. There weren't many people left in the world who made Clint feel like he could be better, too.

And then there was Natasha.

Look, it wasn't like Clint didn't think Natasha would openly rebel against SHIELD. That was absolutely something Natasha would do—if she thought SHIELD was on the wrong path. She was determined not to be used be any organization that would cloak itself in secrecy and bathe itself in evil (her words, not his), so yeah, if the creeps calling for both Natasha and Steve's heads were anything to go by, she'd probably done the right thing.

The thing that Clint couldn't believe was that she'd done it without him.

Okay, so, yeah, he'd been on a mission, and there was no way she could have known that his mission had run short and that he was back already. The last time they'd spoken—or, well, texted—things were fine. And then, suddenly, they weren't. And he hadn't heard from her yet at all.

And she knew how he felt about turning his life around. She knew how he felt about SHIELD. For something this big, he thought she would have reached out to him, right?

Unless she was worried that their phones were compromised.

Yeah, that had to be it. And if that was the case, he'd figure out a way to get her a message—or she would get one to him. In the meantime, he had to watch out for her the best way he could, which meant sticking around inside SHIELD and making sure they didn't get too close to her.

And break her out if they, by some combination of dumb luck and sheer numbers, managed to actually catch her, too.

"Surprised to see you here, Barton," said a new voice, and Clint spun around to see Jasper Sitwell just coming in from what looked like a briefing on Natasha and Steve's latest location.

"Mission went short," Clint said with an easy shrug. "What, you miss me that bad?"

"Just surprised to see you here when your partner is on the lamb," Sitwell replied. "But then again, she's not really your partner anymore, is she?"

Clint could hear every single implied dig in Sitwell's statement but let it pass for the sake of not getting in trouble himself when he needed to be looking out for Natasha on this end of SHIELD. "Temporary reassignment," he said with a shrug. "And what about you? Didn't peg you to be the kind of guy to go after an Avenger."

"You heard the general alert," Sitwell replied coolly.

"Yeah, and I've worked with both of them. So I gotta ask: are you sure you have the right intel on this? Because everything I know about both of them tells me they're on the side of the angels."

Sitwell gave him one of his patented dry looks that worked much better on rookie agents than it did on agents who had been in the field with him often enough to know how to get around his dry looks—especially agents like Clint who answered to Coulson and Fury and didn't have to care about Sitwell, even if the rest of SHIELD thought both Coulson and Fury were dead. "You can't really be that naïve, Barton. You found one of them because you were sent to kill her."

"Yeah, which is kind of my point, isn't it?" Clint said, keeping his tone as even and reasonable as possible, even though they were sitting there discussing the woman he was in love with like she was anything but wonderful. "I'd know from experience. People who convert are in it for the long haul. Or don't you think I'd know that?"

"Barton—"

"Sitwell," Clint said, matching his tone and his posture, complete with his arms crossed and a disapproving, dry look on his own face.

Sitwell let out a breath and shook his head. "Just tell me you can pull through in the clutch when your ex-partner proves you wrong and you have to take her down like you were supposed to in the first place."

"Only if you buy me donuts when she proves me right and is the hero I keep telling everyone she is," Clint shot back without missing a beat.

"This is serious, Barton."

"So was I."

Sitwell let out a noise of frustration before he turned on his heel to leave. "Consider yourself on probation during this push. No one trusts you to actually turn on your partner. Especially not when we know you've been fraternizing."

"Oh, is that what they're calling it these days?" Clint called after Sitwell, just to rile the guy. He usually got along well with him, but Sitwell seemed to be trying to hit all of his nerves at once. Which was a good way to get stuck with a putty arrow, in Clint's opinion.

In fact, he was willing to bet if he'd still had Beth from R&D, he could have sweet-talked his way into some new kind of putty. Maybe something that would leave words behind. Four-letter ones.

Clint was smirking to himself as he found himself headed for R&D just to rile up the scientists there with the request, even if no one around would follow through on it. Especially not when everyone was still on high alert. Which, again, felt like such an overreaction to Clint. Natasha knew what she was doing, and the fact that the entirety of SHIELD had lost their minds and thought she was anything but capable and loyal was testament to the fact that Fury had been letting way too many idiots with something to prove into SHIELD lately.

In fact, Clint still didn't think he was worthy of Fury's promotion to the Avengers team, but he was gladder for it every second, because the truth of the matter was that SHIELD was getting harder and harder to back. With Coulson officially dead and with Fury now missing—Clint highly doubted he was actually dead; this was Nick Fury they were talking about—no one but Hill had any sense. And idiots like Sitwell and Rumlow wouldn't listen to Hill. She was a girl.

(Clint had never understood that mindset. But then, he'd stopped trusting men when he was three years old and realized that a drunk dad didn't care how old you were if you got between him and his wife. Maybe it was his personal bias talking, but he'd rather have someone like Nat running things than idiots like Rumlow any day. Regardless of what was between their legs.)

He shouldered into the R&D department—and nearly split his face grinning when he saw that Beth was there. "Hey, did you transfer back and not tell me?"

Beth looked surprised to see Clint but then broke into a smile of her own. "Actually, I was just here for a quick collaboration with some of the scientists here when the news broke about your new partner. What happened?"

Clint shrugged openly, both palms outturned. "Got me. I was on a different mission and came back to everyone losing their minds."

"You were split up?"

"Yeah, Fury thought she could handle Rogers better than others. I mean, speaking from experience, that was probably the right call. You should've seen him and Stark trying to play king of the hill…"

Beth made a face. "No thank you. I get enough testosterone just working for SHIELD."

"You can say that again. I though Sitwell was going to try to throw down with me when I talked back to him about how Nat can't possibly be in as much trouble as he thinks she is, but I couldn't find it in my heart to embarrass the man that badly when everyone's already on high alert, you know?"

"I don't know," Beth said cautiously. "A lot of what the reports are saying…"

"Screw the reports, Beth," Clint said, waving his hand dismissively. "Seriously, screw them. I know my partner. And you know me. Trust me when I tell you Natasha wouldn't have anything to do with double-crossing Fury in particular." He didn't add that she wouldn't cross Coulson or him, not because it wasn't true but because Beth didn't have the clearance to know about Coulson and because he already had about five thousand rumors flying about why he was defending Natasha. And while he was in love with her, that wasn't why he was sticking up for her, either.

Beth's mouth pressed into a line, and Clint realized very quickly that the rumors had reached her, too. "Your judgement on this… I mean, no offense, but…"

"But what?" Clint asked, meeting her gaze. "You think I only think with what's below the belt? Come on, Beth. I didn't know your opinion of me was that low."

"No, that's not what I meant," Beth said, blushing pink.

"That's what you were saying. Maybe not in so many words, but that was the gist of it," Clint countered.

Beth shook her head, though her blush had turned into a frown. "It's just that she's very pretty, Clint—"

The pieces finally clicked for Clint, and he let out a disbelieving laugh. "Beth, are you jealous?"

Beth turned a shade of purple that would have matched his old circus outfit. "No."

"Of her looks or her taste in men?" Clint asked, not buying it for a minute and honestly surprised that he hadn't picked up on her crush sooner if that really was the case. He was usually pretty good at that kind of thing—just apparently not for his own dating life. "Because I gotta say, Beth, you could do way better than me."

"Clint, stop talking," Beth said, still purple, though the color was starting to fade. "Please."

"I'm serious, though," he said. "You really could do better. I'm an idiot."

"You really are."

Clint grinned and leaned against one of the lab tables. "Seriously, though, I promise this isn't just about sleeping arrangements that may or may not exist between me and my partner. I helped her slog through intense brainwashing and watched a telepath triple-check to make sure it was all gone. Nobody's going to pull her strings and make her dance in hellfire like they used to."

"Pretty words."

"They're hers."

"I could tell."

"Yeah, I don't do poetry that well, do I?" Clint asked with a sideways smile that Beth didn't quite return.

She let her shoulders drop along with the sigh she breathed out, then crossed the lab to get something before she finally stopped in front of Clint. "Just promise me this, because I'll believe it from you: Promise me you and your partner would never go against SHIELD like everyone's saying she did."

"Can't promise you that, actually," Clint said, knowing Beth had been a recruit for SHIELD straight out of high school and that it wouldn't help her trust him any better than she did now—but he also wasn't going to give anyone he thought of as a friend an empty promise. That was just as bad as lying to her face. "My loyalty is to people, not organizations. I can read people. Acronyms? I can't read. And big committees don't always look out for the right people."

"No, they really don't," Beth said, smirking to herself. "It's actually kind of nice to hear that you're not blindly following SHIELD like a lost puppy."

"Oh, is that the scuttlebutt following me around? That's not a name I want sticking to me, Beth," Clint said, encouraged by her smirk. This whole thing with Natasha was leaving weird vibes all over SHIELD, and Clint couldn't quite place what was happening, but he didn't like it. Something else, something bigger than Natasha and Rogers, was underpinning the whole mess. He just couldn't put his finger on it when he'd been thrown into the middle of it and was still finding his footing—not to mention dealing with a jealous friend that he didn't want to throw away his friendship with just because he hadn't seen her crush.

"It was when Coulson was around," Beth said. "I won a lot of money betting that you'd stick around even if he wasn't here."

"Aww, you bet on me, Beth?"

She smirked easily. "Hey, I actually know you. It was easy money."

"Glad to help," Clint said.

Beth smiled and took a step closer to rest her hand on his arm—which was when Clint felt the telltale prick of some kind of needle that she'd concealed in her hand. "It really is a shame you're so attached to your partner," Beth said, and Clint would have believed she meant it if he'd been listening to her tone instead of sinking to his knees. "But hey, Hail Hydra."

…

"So, you're worried."

Natasha looked up at Steve. They were headed to his friend Sam's place—which she still wasn't convinced was a good idea, since Steve had only recently met the guy—and had been traveling in relative silence, too tired to try for the pleasantries that usually accompanied conversation. So she must really have been showing her emotions for Steve to say anything. "There's plenty going on. You look worse than me," she said.

"I do not," Steve said easily.

"You do."

Steve smirked and shook his head but didn't let the subject fall. "You've checked your phone five times."

Natasha took a deep breath and let it out. Before that day, she wouldn't have even tried to give Steve an explanation. He didn't deserve any personal details about her life. But now, with so few people she could trust, she realized she couldn't afford to shut him out. "I took a risk," she admitted. "But I had to know that Hawkeye was alright. He's still in SHIELD. He's on a mission, but that doesn't mean SHIELD can't reach him."

"Ah." Steve didn't say anything more than that, but he didn't have to. He didn't have much of a poker face.

"He has a personal line. One that I know and SHIELD doesn't. But it forwards to his SHIELD phone," Natasha explained, her voice even and emotionless—as much as possible, anyway.

"And?"

Natasha appreciated that Steve wasn't pushing for details, even though she could see that he wanted to. She had specifically avoided talking about her personal life outside of a few teasing moments with Steve when he would ask about who she was texting, but even around those she knew and trusted, she hadn't allowed her relationship with Clint to be the focus of any conversation. She wasn't sure why she did that; it could have been an instinct to protect him or a reluctance to admit that she was more attached than she'd meant to be. Whatever the case, Steve Rogers hadn't been top of her list for a discussion of her romantic entanglements.

But… well… he had already risked so much with and for her.

She let out a long breath. "No answer," she said simply. "He might be on his mission. Or…"

"Or he might be in trouble," Steve finished for her.

"Exactly." She fell silent as they got closer to the suburbs where Sam lived. "But we don't have time to look into it. And if he's alright, I don't want to draw attention to him. No one knows we're anything more than partners—"

"Natasha, no offense, but that's crap," Steve said, and she actually stopped to fully turn his way. "You know the team knows, don't you? We might have only just met when Fury assembled us, but we could all see you were more worried about getting Barton back than dealing with us and the team. You were focused enough to save him from Loki. I was there, remember?"

"That's different," Natasha said.

"It was on the helicarrier," Steve said, leaning toward her with a more intense expression than he'd just been wearing.

Natasha bit her lip, going back over that day in her mind's eye. She had been focused on getting to Clint, yes, but she had hoped that could have been easily explained away. He was highly trained, knew Fury's plans for the Avengers, and was one of the few people who knew her well enough to take her down. He was a powerful enemy, let alone a powerful ally.

But…

Steve had stopped with her, patiently not saying anything, which she appreciated. When she did meet his gaze, he gave her an apologetic smile. "Yeah," was all he said.

"We don't have time to find him right now," Natasha said.

"If you say the word," Steve started to say, but Natasha was already shaking her head.

"That's very noble," she said, the barest of smirks tugging at her expression. "You're living up to your name, Rogers. That rep must have been for a reason."

"Really, Romanoff?"

"What was it that museum tour guide was saying about truth, justice, and the American way?" Natasha replied without breaking form.

Steve rolled his eyes and shook his head before he resumed their quiet jog toward Sam Wilson's place.

Natasha and Steve had been working together long enough now that Natasha wasn't naïve enough to think that Steve had let her sidetrack him from their conversation so easily. But the truth was: he'd gotten his point across well enough that they didn't have to pick up the threat of their conversation. Natasha knew what he was getting at. The formation of the Avengers had also exposed the attachment she had to her partner, and with SHIELD itself compromised, she could no longer safely assume that their relationship was secret.

It had been recklessly hopeful of her to assume such a thing in the first place, which was completely unlike her. SHIELD had changed her more than she'd realized. And so, she was starting to see, had the Avengers. All of them—including Clint.

Considering the person she had been before Clint found her, she was withholding judgment as to whether or not she liked the person she was becoming. She certainly liked feeling she was playing for the right team—a feeling she now found she could only grasp when she was with Clint or Steve, all things considered.

And with Clint not answering his phone, Steve was the only constant she had at the moment.

As much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't take the chance that Clint was either compromised or part of the larger conspiracy within SHIELD. She didn't think he was, but she couldn't explain why she felt that way to Steve without relying on the same gut feeling Clint must have had when he decided not to kill her. And for as much as she appreciated Steve's gesture, his offer to detour from their much-needed regrouping stop at Wilson's place, she knew trust only went so far. She wasn't sure how much he trusted her. And she didn't blame him.

"Let's find Wilson," she said.

Steve nodded, though she could see him watching her out of the corner of his gaze. "And if we have time—"

"He'll contact us before we have time to worry about it," Natasha said with more confidence than she actually felt. "If we have time to spare, we aren't doing our jobs right."

"Can always make time."

"Steve—"

"Hey," Steve said, "if we can't fight for our friends, what's the point of this fight, huh?"

"Stopping a powerful enemy from using the agency that Nick Fury poured everything he had into molding into something good?" Natasha pointed out.

Steve waved his hand. "There's always a fight like that. The important ones are the ones that matter. I thought you knew that by now."

Natasha felt herself smiling despite her attempt at a poker face. "Your way of seeing the world is definitely enticing. I see why Fury put so much trust in your leadership. You can be inspiring when you want to be. Even to me."

Steve smirked. "Is that a compliment?"

"Don't let it go to your head or it won't happen again," Natasha said, matching his smirk. And by that time, they were close enough to Wilson's place that her compliment had successfully distracted Steve from pushing the topic of Clint again.

For now.