"I still think you're cheating, Nat" Clint complained after she put him on his ass for the fourth time in as many minutes.
"Not my fault you're too slow to keep up with me." she taunted. She wasn't even breathing hard, he noticed.
"I swear they did something to your reflexes." Clint griped, "I'm pretty sure reacting to things almost before I do them isn't normal."
"Nope." she shot back a little defensively, "All natural homo sapiens here."
Clint couldn't help but notice the slight hesitance in Nat's voice when she said that. She wasn't entirely confident that she was telling the truth. She didn't like to think about the possibility that they may have altered her physically as well as mentally, and Clint was irritated with himself for bringing it up. He hadn't meant to say that out loud. He had suspected that there was something slightly enhanced about Natasha for a while now. On the day they met, she should not have been able to move as well as she did with a gunshot wound in her leg like that. It had also healed at least a few weeks sooner than it should have. Between that and the reflexes that seemed hard-wired into her, Clint was almost certain something had been done to her without her knowledge.
While he was woolgathering Natasha hadn't stopped moving. Clint saw her telegraph the leap into her signature takedown and readied himself for it. She had gotten him with it three times now, but the third time he noticed something that he could maybe use to his advantage. There was a split second during the move where she was vulnerable. If he could get the timing right he thought he might be able to counter it.
There. When Nat's legs landed on his shoulders, instead of fighting the roll she was trying to lever him into he threw his arms up to wrap around her waist from below and let his knees buckle underneath him. Nat let out a surprised yelp as her support fell out from underneath her. Her yelp turned into a pained grunt as Clint countered her move into something that looked a lot like a professional wrestling powerbomb and slammed her onto the mat. Nat laid there for a few seconds gasping for the breath that had been knocked out of her and staring at him in shock. It was the first time he'd ever gotten the better of her in hand to hand, and he'd done it by doing something that wasn't taught in any martial art she was familiar with.
"What the hell, Clint?" she demanded when she could breathe again, "How did you counter that?"
"You've tried it too many times." he told her, "I noticed the last time you did it that right before you go into the flip your legs flex and there's a split second I can change your direction if I time it right. I gotta ask though, why did you telegraph it like that?"
"Because I want you to know how to stop me if you have to." Nat said unexpectedly, "If you can counter me, you can keep me from killing anyone if I'm ever compromised."
"What happens if I'm compromised someday?" Clint wondered, "I know a lot of things that could be used against you if that ever happens."
"I'll take that chance," she answered, "I trust you to know those things. If they're ever used against me I know it won't be your fault."
"You aren't worried that I could tell someone how to mess with your head?" he pressed.
"Maybe a little." Nat admitted with a shrug, "But it's too late to change that, so there's no point in dwelling on it."
Just then they heard the sound of a the door closing from the other side of the room and looked over. A petite Asian woman was walking towards them with a gym bag over her shoulder.
"May!" Clint called and walked over to meet her, "I didn't know you were back."
"Just got back a little over an hour ago." May told him, "Fury debriefed me and told me I'm being reassigned."
"To what?" Clint asked her curiously.
"He didn't say, but he did tell me Coulson would have more information." she told him, "He's on his way now, should be here in about twenty minutes."
"May, this is Natasha Romanoff." he introduced the redhead, "Natasha, Agent Melinda May."
Nat regarded her with interest, "Is she the one everyone keeps saying I need to fight?"
"Yep." Clint confirmed, "If anyone can keep up with you, she can."
"Keep up with her?" May repeated, "She's that good? She looks a little young for that."
"Trust me, she's that good." he told her, "I just got a win for the first time a few minutes ago, and we've been training together for weeks."
"Really." May said somewhat skeptically. She knew how skilled Clint was, and that made her look appraisingly at Natasha, "You up for a match?"
"Sure." Nat answered with a casual shrug and stepped onto the mat.
May set down her gym bag and removed her shoes before joining Natasha on the mat. She looked the young assassin over for a moment before dropping into a fighting stance and extending a hand in a "bring it" gesture. Natasha gave her a quick grin before blurring into motion.
Clint watched with rapt attention as the two of them went back and forth. May actually was fast enough to keep up with Nat, and he noted Nat's surprise at that fact. She was used to having a speed advantage over just about everyone she sparred with, but May was keeping pace with her and actually pressing her a bit. They went on for around ten minutes, then he saw Nat overextend herself into a punch and winced. Usually she could get away with it because she was so much quicker than her opponents, but May made her pay for it by grabbing her wrist and pulling her into a hip toss. When Nat hit the mat she looked a little shocked for a second before jumping up.
"You're good!" she exclaimed, dropping back into her stance.
"So are you." May replied, "Could stand to clean up your form a little, but you're better than most around here."
"Think anyone else can match her?" Clint asked seriously.
"Masters, maybe?" May considered, "But no one's heard from him since he was sent to Bolivia last year."
"Yeah, that tracks." he admitted, "That photographic reflexes thing he's got going on would probably give him an edge."
"Photographic reflexes?" Nat asked, "What are you talking about?"
"Tony Masters has a weird quirk." Clint explained, "He can copy any fighting move he sees perfectly as long as he's physically capable of doing it. It's a little like photographic memory, but physical movements are the only thing it seems to apply to. As far as we can tell he was never actually trained, he just learned by watching people. It's not just hand to hand either, he's almost as good with a bow as I am. He just watched me practice one day and mastered it in minutes. Said he never used a bow in his life, and I've seen him learn things on the fly before so I don't doubt it."
"He was one of the instructors for a while." May put in, "But he was sent on a deep cover assignment about fourteen months ago and dropped off our radar. SHIELD tried to find him, but he basically vanished. He could be a problem if someone manages to turn him."
"He's in Vienna." Coulson's voice interrupted them, "Or at least he was a few weeks ago. SHIELD never lost him, he's just in deep cover. He had his memory partially wiped so it would be more convincing. His assignment is to locate the training facilities of different terrorist groups so we can shut them down. He's found three of them so far. When the strike teams are sent in, he always manages to 'escape' and move on to the next job. So far none of them have connected the freelance trainer they hired with SHIELD, and we're trying to keep it that way. He calls himself Taskmaster, as a trainer for hire. He's one of ours, but his mission means that if you run into him you need to treat him like the enemy. There's a code phrase that will break his memory block if absolutely necessary, but he's more valuable where he is right now."
"He was wiped?" Nat asked suspiciously. She clearly didn't like the sound of that. Which wasn't surprising, given her history.
"Voluntarily." Coulson clarified, "It was his own idea, actually. He figured that no one could blow his cover if he doesn't remember it is a cover. SHIELD would never force that on anyone, Natasha."
"Do we have security clearance to know that, Phil?" May asked him curiously.
"You do now." Coulson stated, "Fury authorized all three of you to know certain things that are necessary to perform our mission. That means you all now have Level 5 security clearance. Natasha, normally you would not be given clearance that high with your history, but Fury wants you on this team so he's making an exception. Don't make us regret it."
Nat looked a little stunned for a second before she recovered and gave Coulson a serious nod. She knew how much of a risk Fury was taking in giving her that level of clearance.
"And our mission is...?" Clint wondered.
"Classified." Coulson answered tersely, "Barton, you and Romanoff work together better than any other two agents I've seen in a long time, even though you haven't been in the field together yet. And May, you are currently the overall best agent SHIELD has. One or two people might do better at specific tasks, but you're near the top in every category. As such, Director Fury has decided the three of you and myself will be formed into a strike team to handle covert missions outside SHIELD's normal purview."
"Are you going to be our handler on this, Coulson?" Clint asked him.
"I'll be your handler and I'll be joining you in the field when necessary." he answered, "We won't have access to backup very often, so we'll all need to pull our weight."
"When is this assignment going to be starting?" May inquired.
"I'm not certain as of right now." Coulson said, "But the way Director Fury was talking, I'd expect it to happen after the first of the year. You're all going to be given some downtime until then, because it is very likely you won't be getting any more for quite a while. Romanoff and May, I recommend you use that time to train together and get to know each other a little. You haven't worked together yet, and it is imperative that we all have absolute trust in one another."
"Anything else we need to know?" Clint asked him.
"Yes, but we're not going to discuss it in an unsecured area." Coulson replied, "Meet me in my office in two hours and I'll brief you on the rest."
They said their goodbyes and Coulson left to head back to the Triskelion. Clint offered to drive there, which Natasha accepted. May declined, citing an unwillingness to fold herself into the back seat of a muscle car.
"Well that was unexpected." Clint said to Nat as they walked back to their quarters to clean up, "I figured you'd be put in the field pretty fast, but I didn't expect Fury to give you clearance that high for quite a while, if ever. He must trust you an awful lot, which is rare for him. He has more trust issues than you do, and that's saying something."
"I don't understand that at all." Nat replied, "I'm the least trustworthy person in this building, and he's giving me security clearance that gives me access to classified information? If it wasn't for the fact that everyone seems to have faith in his judgment I'd seriously question the wisdom of that decision."
"It's not so much faith." Clint explained, "It's more that Fury has been right about people often enough that he's earned the benefit of the doubt. We definitely question things, but anyone who's been around a while tends to wait and see how it plays out before they start criticizing. I suspect that he's thinking you're perfectly suited for some of the things we'll be asked to do, and doesn't want to send you in without being cleared to know what's going on. One person on a team being out of the loop can cause problems."
"That makes sense." Nat agreed, "It still seems risky though. I'm not even sure how much I trust myself, so having that much placed in me by someone else makes me a little nervous. If something gets triggered when you're counting on me that could be very bad."
"I trust you to watch my back." Clint assured her with a shrug, "And there aren't that many people I can say that about."
"Still not sure that's a good idea." she told him with a wry expression, "But I appreciate the vote of confidence."
Two hours later they were standing outside Coulson's office door waiting for May to join them so they could hear the details of their assignment. She arrived after a few minutes and they went inside. Coulson was waiting for them at his desk, and to their surprise Fury was there as well.
"First off, welcome to Strike Team Delta." Fury began, "Agent May, this will be a temporary assignment for you, six months at most. Just until Agent Romanoff gets her feet under her. Romanoff and Barton will be assigned indefinitely."
"So May is babysitting me?" Nat asked scornfully.
"I wouldn't phrase it like that, but essentially." Fury told her, "It's just a precaution. If something in your head got missed and it's triggered while you're on a mission, Barton or May should be able to handle it while the other continues the mission. We're giving you all the same security clearance, but I'm sure you're aware that not many people around here trust you all that much. Having backup is the only way you could be cleared for duty this soon."
"That makes sense, actually." Nat admitted, mollified, "I don't really trust me either, if I'm being honest. So it's good to know you're putting precautions in place to cover the possibility that I could be turned against you."
"Our mission parameters will be as follows." Coulson put in, "We will be given the tasks that SHIELD can't be seen doing. Full deniability. That means that once we're sent in, we'll be on our own most of the time."
"That will be your primary mission." Fury added, "You'll have a concurrent secondary mission as well. It has come to my attention that there are individuals out there with more than human abilities. You will be sent in to identify and catalog these individuals. Recruitment is an option if they seem amenable to it. But even if they aren't interested, we need to know who they are and what they can do, as well as how to deal with them if they become a threat."
"You were just discussing one of said individuals a couple hours ago." Coulson interjected, "The ability Agent Masters possesses can't be explained by conventional science and it is unique to him as far as we are aware."
"So when does this assignment begin?" Clint asked.
"January 7th." Fury answered.
"Really?" Clint shot back, "Did you set the start date on my birthday on purpose?"
"Of course not." was the reply he got. The slight smirk on Fury's face said otherwise.
"Your birthday is January 7th?" Natasha asked, "I didn't know that."
"You never asked." Clint pointed out with a shrug, "I would have told you if you had."
"That's all for now." Fury said, "There's a few weeks until Christmas. I suggest the three of you train together and learn each other's strengths and weaknesses."
As they were leaving Clint turned to May and asked her if she'd like to go out to dinner with them. Nat did a slight double take at that, since she hadn't known that was the plan.
"No thanks." May told him, "I'll pass this time. I think I'm just going to unwind a little and give my husband a call to set something up for the weekend when I can get away."
"You're married?!" Clint blurted out, "I had no idea. You never wear a ring."
"You mean I got something past the all-seeing Hawkeye?" May snarked at him, "I keep my professional and personal lives separate."
"Fair enough." Clint replied after he considered it for a second, "Training tomorrow then?"
"Sure." the older agent responded, "I'll see you then. See if we can't teach the new kid a thing or two."
She said it jokingly, but Natasha narrowed her eyes at her anyway. The 'new kid' jokes were starting to get on her nerves. She stopped glaring when Clint nudged her with his elbow and gave her a look.
"C'mon, let's go." Clint said to his new partner, "I haven't showed you D.C.'s best kept secret yet."
"What secret is that?" Nat asked curiously.
"Billy's Place." was his sage reply, "It's a dive bar with a full kitchen. Best burgers in the city."
"Will I be allowed in?" the 18-year-old inquired, "I'm not old enough to legally drink yet."
She emphasized the word 'legally' slightly and smirked when she said it.
"Yeah, you'll be fine." Clint told her, "The kitchen is open until ten and you don't have to be 21 to eat there."
"Okay, good." Nat said, "I'd hate to have to wait in the car while you give yourself a heart attack. A good burger by your standards means it's dripping with grease."
Clint didn't argue with her because she wasn't wrong at all. His eating habits weren't the best and he rarely ate anything that was actually good for him. He knew he'd have to start watching his diet eventually, but that could wait until he turned 30.
When they got to Billy's Place it took a few minutes for Clint to find a place to park. He was reluctant to leave the Challenger somewhere he couldn't keep half an eye on it. It was an eye catching car and it was all original so it wasn't difficult to hotwire. He'd done it himself once when he lost his keys and didn't have time to look for them.
When they walked inside Natasha wrinkled her nose at the odor. It smelled like any other dive bar, stale beer and a faint hint of cleaning products. Clint noticed her expression and gave her an apologetic half-shrug.
"I don't come here for the atmosphere." he explained, "I come here for the awesome food."
Natasha gave him a highly skeptical look but said nothing.
"Whatever you order, get the fries with it." Clint advised, "They have vegetables, but I wouldn't eat them if I were you. No one ever orders them, so there's no telling how fresh they are."
When they found a seat their waitress, a pretty girl in her 20s with dyed black hair and many visible tattoos and piercings, came and took their order. Clint ordered his usual; a double bacon cheeseburger with jalapenos. Natasha ordered a chicken sandwich with the fries Clint recommended.
"Really?" Clint said sarcastically, "I take you to the best burger place in the city and you order chicken?"
Nat just shrugged, "I don't eat a lot of red meat. And you like greasy food, which doesn't always sit well in my stomach. I'm trying to avoid spending the rest of the night in the bathroom."
"Valid point." Clint acknowledged. He felt a little dumb for bringing her here. He had completely failed to notice that she didn't eat red meat very often. If he'd realized that he would have picked a place that had more variety on the menu. She didn't seem upset with him though, so he didn't say anything about it.
They lingered over their meal for a while speculating about the possible missions they could end up on. In code, of course, it wouldn't do for the other bar patrons to realize they were in the espionage business. As it got closer to ten the bar started filling up with people and Natasha started to look a little uneasy about all the drunks milling around near her, so Clint decided that it was a good time to leave. When they were walking back to the car they caught the distinct sound of an argument coming from the alley that ran between the bar and the printing shop next door.
"Leave me alone, Trent!" came a woman's voice, "We broke up six months ago and I'm at work."
"Aww, C'mon, Lucy!" replied a male voice that sounded a little drunk, "Give me another chance."
"No, asshole!" Lucy snapped back, "You got drunk and beat the shit out of me! I never want to see you again! You're violating your restraining order and if you don't leave in 30 seconds I'm calling the cops!"
Nat shot a questioning look to Clint when she heard the words 'restraining order'. She'd never heard the term before and didn't know what it meant.
"It means he did something bad enough that he legally can't come near her." he explained quickly, "He can be arrested just for coming too close."
Nat nodded her understanding and started heading in the direction of the alley. Clint trailed behind a little bit. He wasn't going to stop her from intervening, and he was honestly a little curious about how strong her moral compass was. It's not something that had come up in any of their conversations. As they walked in that general direction it sounded like the argument had escalated.
"You and your dickhead friends need to stop bothering me at work." Lucy said heatedly, "I can't even take the fucking trash out without worrying about you four showing up to make my life hell."
He hadn't placed the voice at first, but now Clint recognized it as belonging to their waitress with all the tattoos. She'd been working there a while and was always nice to him when he came in for a burger. Dammit, now he was invested. He groaned at how their night was turning out and hurried to catch up with Natasha.
Before they reached the alley the distinct sound of flesh hitting flesh reached their ears, accompanied by a pained yelp. Clint grabbed Natasha's shoulder to give her a quick reminder before they got involved, "Don't kill them."
Nat gave him a withering look that said he didn't need to remind her and shrugged his hand off. When they rounded the corner into the alley they spotted the altercation immediately. Four men had Lucy cornered near the dumpster and didn't seem inclined to let her go anywhere. Lucy was holding a hand up to the side of her face where she'd been struck and Clint could clearly see the tears in her eyes she was fighting to hold back. She was angry at her ex-boyfriend for harassing her, but it seemed she was a little afraid of him too. Which would explain the restraining order, he realized. It would probably be another ten minutes or so before anyone inside realized she hadn't come back, and four men could do a lot of damage to a petite woman in that time.
Natasha strode forward confidently and called out to the four men cornering the girl, "I think the lady said she wants you to leave. All of you."
Four sets of eyes turned at the sound of another feminine voice and Clint heard a scoff from one of them.
"Maybe you'd like to party with us instead, sweetheart." the man closest to Lucy said. Clint pegged him as being Trent, mostly because of the look of hatred the girl was fixing him with now that he wasn't looking at her.
"I'll pass." Nat responded flatly, "If I wanted to party with anyone I'd pick someone with some class that doesn't beat on the girls they're with. Now, are you going to leave, or does this have to get painful?"
"Pretty little thing like you?" Trent said snidely, "What are you gonna do, scratch my eyes out?"
"Oh, I was so hoping you'd say something like that." Nat said in an overly sweet tone, "This is going to be fun."
One of the guys happened to notice Clint hanging back a little bit.
"Hey, put a muzzle on your bitch!" he said, "She's gonna get herself hurt."
"First off, not my bitch." Clint informed him calmly, "Second, I seriously doubt she's going to be the one getting hurt here. Third, you call her that again and I won't stop her from castrating you."
Natasha had kept up her unhurried pace towards the four men and Clint noticed what they never could have. She was subtly limbering up for a fight while she walked. The way she took too long of a stride and flexed her hips back and forth to stretch her legs was a dead giveaway. The shoulder roll and neck crack came next.
"Last chance, boys." she said conversationally, "Leave her alone or your night is about to get a whole lot worse."
The guy closest to Natasha took the initiative and tried to grab her, operative word 'tried'. He was flat on his back before he knew what hit him. It was fast enough even Clint didn't quite catch what she did and he had been expecting it. She casually stomped on his testicles as she stepped past him and left him writhing in pain.
"Next?" she drawled in a bored voice. Clint just leaned against the alley wall with his arms crossed, watching the show. He'd help her if she needed it, but he wasn't expecting four drunk idiots to be more than she could easily handle.
Trent snarled in rage and backhanded Lucy hard enough to knock her to the ground before moving toward Natasha. Clint spotted the blood flowing from the corner of Lucy's mouth and started to move forward until Nat fixed him with a cold glare that had him leaning back against the wall. Okay, she didn't want his help this time. He figured it out a few seconds later. Nat saw the poetic justice in these guys getting their asses kicked by a girl for harassing another girl.
When Trent rushed her, Nat waited for the first swing and jabbed him in the throat with her fingertips when he overextended. He gagged and staggered backwards, only for her to pull the same move she had used on Riley and kicked him in the thigh. Unlike that fight, she contented herself with an elbow strike to the jaw that laid Trent out in a puddle of garbage water leaking from the dumpster. He didn't look like he was getting up anytime soon. The other two decided to charge in together and Nat used their lack of coordination against them. She sidestepped one guy and kicked him so he stumbled into the other, then took advantage of the second guy's distraction to kick him in the side of the knee.
There was only one opponent left standing now. Unfortunately. For him. Now that she didn't have to worry about other opponents she could take her time and make this painful. Clint noted that the last one was the guy who had told him to muzzle her. He winced when he thought about how much that had to have pissed her off.
His guess was confirmed when she stalked towards the hapless idiot.
"What was that about muzzling me?" Nat asked in a silky smooth, dangerous tone. The guy she was addressing looked around at the three other guys who she had taken out in less than 30 seconds and audibly gulped. Then Nat did something completely unexpected. She actually tackled the guy and started pummeling his face like a street brawler. She kept it up for quite a while, her right fist slamming into his mouth and nose over and over with her left hand on his throat to hold him down. It was quite a sight, for all that it was completely unlike her. There was clearly something about what he had said that inspired some genuine rage in her, and he was a little taken aback by it. She was actually growling a little with each punch. Clint could tell her conditioning had nothing to do with it this time, this was all Nat. After a minute or so Clint finally decided to step in before she beat the guy to death, because it didn't look like she was planning on stopping anytime soon.
"Nat!" he called as he moved towards her to pull her off the guy, "Nat! He's done! You knocked him out like ten punches ago. Stop!"
She was completely ignoring him so he had to risk it and grab her.
"Hey!" he said with his arms around her, "What the hell was that? Why did you beat the shit out of him like that?"
She stood there in his grasp for a few seconds quivering with fury before she took a few deep breaths and calmed herself down a little.
"I'll tell you later." she told him, "Not here. He reminded me of something I haven't thought about in a long time and it pissed me off. I may have gotten a little carried away."
"Ya think?!" Clint exclaimed incredulously, "You beat that guy's face into hamburger, Nat!"
Right about then Trent started to stir. Natasha was on him in a flash and dropped her knee into his sternum before grabbing his shirt to lift him towards her. He let out a grunt as all the air was forced from his lungs and stared at her gasping for breath.
"Now that I have your attention, you abusive piece of shit." she bit out in a harsh tone, "If you ever bother her again, I will find out about it and I will find you. There is nowhere you can run to that will be safe from me and If I have to track you down I will make you fucking vanish. Have I made myself clear? No confusion? You understand what I'm telling you?"
Trent nodded like his head was going to fall off.
"Use your words, sweetheart." she said sarcastically, throwing the term he'd used back at him and pulling his face a little closer to hers to stare at him.
"Y..y..es!" Trent stammered, "She'll never see me again! I swear!"
"Good." was all Nat dignified that with, "Clint? Give Lucy your number, since I still don't have a phone yet. Lucy? If this piece of gutter trash ever bothers you again call Clint and he'll tell me, okay?"
Lucy just nodded numbly, in utter shock from what had just happened. She looked at Natasha with awe, respect, and a little bit of fear. This young, petite girl had just destroyed the guy who had been tormenting her for months, along with his friends, in less than a minute if you didn't count the time she had spent excessively beating the last guy.
Lucy promised to call if she ever had a problem with Trent again and told them they were eating for free the next time they came to Billy's. They left with her still thanking them profusely and walked back to where Clint had parked the Challenger. When they got in Clint held onto the keys and turned a level gaze to Natasha.
"You said you'd tell me what that was all about when we were somewhere else." he said matter-of-factly, "Spill."
Natasha let her head thump into the headrest and gave him a side-eyed measuring look, "You're not letting me get out of it, are you?"
"Nope."
"Fine." she sighed, "When he talked about muzzling me it brought a memory to the surface. When I was very young, right after I'd been brought to the Red Room, they put a muzzle on me and the other new girls every night so we couldn't talk to each other. When he said that I remembered how that felt and I lost it."
Clint didn't say anything for a moment. He had stopped being surprised by the horrible shit that had been done to Natasha months ago, but it still didn't make it any easier to hear.
"I'm sorry." he finally said, knowing full well how inadequate it was.
Nat shrugged, "Not your fault, you didn't put it on me."
"Still, you had a shit life and I'm sorry you had to deal with all that." Clint told her, "It is better now, right?"
"Yes, Clint." she said with the ghost of a smile, "It is so much better now, you really have no idea. I haven't told you everything. It was so much worse than you know."
Nat stayed quiet for a few moments before turning to Clint with a devious smile, "You just gave a pretty girl your phone number, so I know you're capable of it. Tell me...why does Laura not have it yet, exactly?"
"Oh, shut up." Clint groused, "Fine. If I ask her out will you quit meddling in my love life?"
Nat just smirked at him, "Probably not."
Clint groaned and started the car to drive back to the compound.
A/N: Yeah, Nat has some anger issues. Things are going to keep cropping up for her unexpectedly. I'm trying to show her gradual growth into the confident and competent Natasha we saw starting in Iron Man 2. Hope I'm doing a good job of it.
If things seem a little inconsistent and contradictory, keep this in mind: The vast majority of this story is being told from Clint's POV. He's pretty good at reading her, but he's not perfect. There are things Nat is keeping from him and a lot of the narrative is what Clint believes is happening, not necessarily what she's actually doing or thinking.
Anyway, I've established that the Index is going to be something I cover. So, if there are any obscure characters who would have been active in 2002 that you want to see them interact with, either PM me or drop it in a review and I'll try to fit it in if I can make it work. It doesn't necessarily have to be a Marvel character either. I'm planning at least one that isn't. I won't do characters from any other comic company though, sorry DC fans.
