Clint hung up the phone right as he got to his quarters. The door still had the biometric lock on it, though it was keyed to both him and Natasha now. He placed his hand on it and swung the door open. The first thing his senses detected was the smell of...chocolate? He stepped in and heard Nat quietly swearing from the kitchen, so he headed that direction.

"I'm back!" he called loud enough to carry. He had already learned the hard way how bad of an idea it was to sneak up on Natasha. She tended to hit people when she was startled, and his lower lip had paid the price last time. When he got to the kitchen he was surprised to see Nat standing near the oven wearing an apron.

"Did I miss the transition into your Suzy Homemaker phase?" he quipped when he saw her.

"No." she replied flatly, "You're back earlier than I expected."

"Whatcha doing?"

"Baking." Nat answered him. He had already figured as much, but had been hoping for some kind of explanation as to why she was baking, or at least what. He didn't even know she knew how, since she had admitted on Christmas that she couldn't cook.

"Baking what?" Clint asked.

"Your birthday cake." Nat said with a sigh and shot him an unreadable look, "I was trying to surprise you. Surprise, I guess?"

"Is it safe to eat?" he asked, not entirely joking.

"Should be." Nat responded, "Laura helped. She just left about ten minutes ago."

"What possessed you to bake me a cake?" Clint inquired curiously.

"I just wanted to do something nice for your birthday, okay?" she snapped a little, and Clint wondered what had her so on edge. His question was answered when Nat's face fell and she looked at him a little sheepishly, "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. I know how to kill someone seven different ways with a pencil, but I am completely hopeless at regular every day life shit. I asked Laura to help me because I have no idea what I'm doing with this stuff and I didn't want to screw it up."

"How did you know my favorite cake?" Clint wondered, "I don't remember ever mentioning it."

"You didn't." Nat replied, "I asked Coulson."

"Okay, then." Clint said, "That's going to have to cool before you frost it, so I can update you on what I just heard from him while you wait."

"We get our first mission?" Nat asked him, all business.

"Yeah." he confirmed, "We're going to be flying into Prague and heading into Sokovia from there. There's a lot of unrest there right now and an arms dealer decided to set up shop and take advantage of it. There have been reports of Stark tech filtering into the country, and Fury wants to know where they're getting it."

Clint clocked the sharp inhale when he told Nat where they were going. He knew Nat was worried about the Red Room finding her and trying to reclaim her, and Prague was where they had last seen her. It was just dumb luck that their first mission would be taking them there. It was only because Sokovia didn't have an airport of it's own, so you had to fly into the Czech Republic or Slovakia and drive across the border.

"What's the primary objective?" Nat asked him, focusing intently. Her sheepish awkwardness about not knowing much about regular life things was forgotten. This came naturally to her, and it made Clint incredibly sad. She was only eighteen years old and had more experience with espionage and assassination than some agents with decade long service records. Hell, Clint did have a decade long record, plus another seven years before that killing people so Duquesne could get paid. And he was pretty damn sure she had killed more people than he had.

"Capture the ringleader and find out where he's getting Stark's weapons from." he informed her.

"We have a name?" she continued her questioning.

"Yep." Clint responded, "Ulysses Klaue. He's been a small time player for a few years now, and not a priority. Looks like he decided to step up into the big leagues and got himself on our radar. I know you speak like thirty languages, is Czech one of them?"

Nat rolled her eyes at his exaggeration, "It's seventeen, and I'm only fluent in eight. But yes, Czech is one of them. Conveniently, Sokovian started as a dialect of Czech. They're almost the same language."

"Good." he said, "You're going to be our face then. We need to try and pass for natives if possible. There's a lot of anti-American sentiment in Sokovia right now, so we won't be very welcome. We need to get in quietly."

"I have a better idea, actually." Nat offered, "My Czech is with a Russian accent, so I couldn't pass as a native convincingly. We could pose as tourists on a skiing trip instead. Given how small Sokovia is, it's plausible that we could have wandered across the border and not realized it. None of us can be American, but it doesn't really matter where we pretend to be from that way. If we're foreigners no one will question the fact that we don't all speak the language if we're stopped. Are you fluent enough in anything to pull off being from there?"

"I could probably pass as Italian pretty convincingly." Clint told her in Italian with a smirk , "Coulson is fluent in it too. We use it if we have to talk about a mission in public and don't want to be overheard. Works everywhere but Italy."

"Okay, if you and Coulson pose as Italian, and May poses as a Chinese national, I could just be the Russian I actually am and it would pass." Natasha mused in Italian herself with a tiny smile playing on her lips.

"That's not bad." he admitted, "If we're caught somewhere we shouldn't be, we can play dumb and act like we got lost and they might buy it. You wanna run it by Coulson and see what he thinks?"

"I thought maybe you could do that." Nat said, suddenly sounding a little apprehensive. She didn't want to overstep on her first mission for SHIELD.

"Nope." Clint dismissed the idea immediately, "It's your plan and you're part of this team, so you have equal say in things. You're telling him. Coulson is technically in charge, but he gives me free reign most of the time and I don't expect this assignment to be any different."

Nat still looked a little unsure. She wasn't used to people listening to her ideas and taking them seriously.

"You need to get used to it." he told her bluntly, "You weren't recruited just because you're good at killing people. You're smart, capable, and experienced, and no one that matters is going to dismiss that. If you have a better way of doing something in mind, speak up. Coulson will listen."

Natasha still looked a little dubious. Making decisions for herself was still relatively new, so effectively making decisions for other people probably felt completely alien to her.

"Seriously, Nat." Clint insisted, "You've got this. Don't second guess yourself so much."

"Well thanks for believing in me when I don't, I guess." she replied, "I hope I don't fuck this up."

"You won't." he reassured her, "You're gonna kill it."

"You think the cake is cooled enough?" Nat asked suddenly, not being very subtle about her deflection. She was anxious about the upcoming mission and didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Did you make the frosting already?" Clint asked her back, shooting her a look that told her he knew what she was doing.

"Didn't have time." she responded, holding up a tub of Betty Crocker German chocolate frosting with a wry smile.

Three days later Clint and Natasha, along with Coulson and May, were leaving the Vaclav Havel airport in Prague and heading southeast towards Sokovia in a rented car. There was a safehouse near the border they had sent their equipment ahead to so they could fly commercial to maintain their cover. In keeping with Clint and Coulson's cover as Italians they had flown into Prague from Rome.

It was miserable being in this part of the world in January, and Coulson had made a point of ensuring the rental car was equipped with 4 wheel drive to be ready for the possibility of snow. They got to the safehouse in a few hours and spent some time gearing up. Clint had sent one of his collapsible bows ahead for this mission along with three knives in the style he preferred. The collapsible bow didn't have the same power as his preferred recurves, but it would work and it was far more concealable. Natasha opted for a pair of Glock 26s in a double shoulder rig and a collection of knives. Clint knew she had at least seven on her, though he didn't know where four of them even were. She didn't really like shoulder rigs because they got in the way in a fight, but keeping them hidden was more important than comfort. Coulson brought his usual Glock 18 and an MP5, though he also had loaded a long box into the back of the car and didn't tell them what was in it. May had a Berretta 92 and requisitioned a Steyr STG77 bullpup rifle. She had also brought a sword with her, a ninja-to with a shorter than normal hilt. Clint raised an eyebrow at that before he remembered that May was the closest thing to an actual ninja he'd ever met. SHIELD tended to equip all its agents with as many firearms that shared ammunition as possible, which gave them a decent amount of freedom to carry whatever they were most comfortable with. The only gun they had with them that didn't take the 9x19 9mm Parabellum cartridge was May's Steyr.

Sokovia was small enough it only had one major population center, much like Latveria and Lichtenstein. The city bore the same name as the country and was nestled in a valley in the Carpathian mountains. It had been formed at the same time as Czechoslovakia in 1918, but didn't gain full independence until the country split in two back in in 1992. Sokovia had been mired in political unrest and upheaval for its entire sovereign existence, with tensions frequently flaring up into brief open warfare. It was a perfect location for an arms dealer to set up shop, as there would be no shortage of customers.

Coulson had briefed them on the country's history during their flight over, phrasing it as though they were traveling there on business. They were, just not the business anyone overhearing would be led to believe. He had shared with them the fact that Sokovia had been on the verge of collapse for the last several years, even though it had only been a sovereign nation for a decade. It just didn't have the infrastructure to maintain its independent status indefinitely and had no real exports to boost the economy. The upheaval stemmed from the fact that several different militant groups had very different ideas about Sokovia's future, and skirmishes between the groups was a common occurrence. It was a war zone in which war had never been formally declared.

When they reached the city Clint could clearly see evidence of what Coulson had briefed them on. Most of the buildings they passed had some sort of damage visible, and the people were nervous and suspicious about foreigners. A lot of the fighting was done by mercenaries, so anyone new in town was a potential threat. Hill had secured a safehouse for them in the city. She had called in a favor from the leader of the only pro-American group in the country to obtain it. They had cooperated because the Stark weapons that had come into Sokovia had tipped the balance of power towards the more fascist elements and they wanted to put a stop to that.

As they passed an elegant church in the center of town Clint's attention was drawn to a nearby park. He saw a young girl, maybe 13 years old, sitting under a tree reading a book. Or trying to at least. There was a boy the same age who was up in the tree pelting her with twigs. He saw her squeal and stand up to yell at him when he dropped a larger stick directly on top of her head. He didn't speak the language but he caught enough of what she was saying to deduce that the boy's name was Pietro, and he was likely her brother based on how mad she was at him. He didn't know why, but he took a liking to the girl. She was spunky, and hearing her cuss her brother out made him smile a little even if he couldn't understand her.

Nat noticed his distraction and nudged him with her elbow, "What is it?"

"Just a girl yelling at her brother for being a dick." he chuckled, "Nothing important."

Natasha paid attention to the girl's yelling for a second and smiled when the boy yelled something back.

"What did he say?" Clint asked her.

"He said he's twelve minutes older so she can't boss him around." Nat told him with a grin, "They're twins. Oh, and her name is Wanda."

The plan was to head to the southeast part of town where their intel said the target was holed up. They had a general area, but they needed to find the exact location. Coulson parked the car several blocks away and they walked the rest of the way. As they walked Clint noticed the tension in the air around here was palpable. The air was practically buzzing with it. People in the street shied away from the strangers in their midst and watched them suspiciously.

"I'm not feeling particularly welcome." Clint muttered under his breath to May, who happened to be closest to him.

"They're on edge." she replied at the same volume, "There's been a lot of fighting in this area lately."

They continued walking towards the neighborhood their target was located in. Clint scanned all the buildings in his field of vision before his attention focused on one at the end of the block. He had caught a flash of movement in a window and looked closer. There was a man standing in it and Clint spotted the assault rifle he was trying to conceal.

He nudged May with his elbow and indicated the building with a tilt of his head, "Armed sentry, third floor window."

When Clint spotted five more sentries in similar positions he alerted Coulson as well. That was almost certainly where their target was holed up. The team started working their way back to the car casually. They had their location, now they needed to come up with a plan and come back later tonight.

None of them noticed the dark haired man with a goatee that was watching them, particularly Natasha, with interest.

Back at the safehouse they were gearing up and Coulson was going over their tentative plan.

"Okay, we're going to need to hit them fast." he said, "Klaue isn't a major player yet, but he's cagey. Most likely has an escape route already set up and he'll head for it fast. I've pulled up satellite imaging of the building. It's an open floor warehouse with office space around the sides. Barton, it looks like you'll be able to get up into the rafters and keep the whole floor in sight. You're going to be our eyes in the sky and coordinate. Call out locations and numbers. Romanoff, you're going in through the side entrance. There's a loading dock there, should be able to get in pretty easily. May, you and I are going in through the front door."

"How are we going to get in that way, Coulson?" May asked him.

Coulson just smiled and opened the box he put in the car earlier. He pulled out a grenade launcher with a drum magazine and held it up, "I thought I might knock."

After they went over a few more details Coulson dismissed them for the time being. They had several hours to kill before the op, and they each prepared themselves in their own way. Coulson went over schematics obsessively, trying to ensure that he knew every possible facet of what they had ahead of them. May spent time doing katas and meditating. Clint didn't really have a pre-mission ritual so he mostly just wandered around poking into the nooks and crannies of the safehouse. It occurred to him after a couple hours that he hadn't seen Nat for a while and he decided to go look for her. It was her first time in the field with a team and he wanted to make sure she wasn't having second thoughts. He found her up on the roof looking out over the city at the mountains in the distance. He deliberately scuffed his boots on the roof as he approached her so she would know he was there. Startling her was bad for your health, she tended to hit before she looked.

"Penny for your thoughts." Clint said as he sidled up next to her and sat down.

Nat shook her head with a small smile, "Just thinking about how much everything has changed."

"Nervous?" he asked her.

"A little." she admitted, "I know I can do the job, I'm not worried about that. But I'm not used to working with a team. I don't want to screw up and let you guys down."

"Yeah, that's normal." Clint told her, "I've been doing this for almost nine years now and I still get pre-mission jitters. I get restless and wander around like I was just doing. For what it's worth, I can't think of a better team to be in the field with. I've only worked with May a couple times, but she's good. Damn good. And Coulson has had my back for almost a decade and never once let me down. You'll be fine."

"I don't think May trusts me very much." Nat said, a little dejected.

Clint snorted, "May doesn't really trust anyone except Coulson, I wouldn't take it personally. She's not fond of me, but she puts it aside for the sake of the mission."

"Why isn't she fond of you?" his partner asked curiously.

"She thinks I'm a loose cannon." he answered with a shrug, "To be fair, she's not wrong. I don't always follow protocol. Coulson accepts it and adapted to it. May prefers to know what her teammates are going to do and doesn't like it when I go off script."

"You sticking to the plan tonight?"

"Depends on how things go." Clint said noncommittally. "If things go according to plan I will. If they go sideways I'll adjust like I always do."

"Is that what happened when you were sent after me?" Natasha inquired.

"More or less." he said, "C'mon, we should probably go back inside. The locals are twitchy enough without two assassins watching them from the roof."

After it got dark and they were ready to go they went over the plan again, and Coulson briefly ran them through 3 different backup plans in case things went south on them. He was wearing tactical gear and Clint found it a little odd to see him in something other than a suit. Finally, they were ready and split up to approach the building from different angles.

Clint had to make his way to the roof, which would be easy enough with his grappling arrow. When he got up there he was surprised to find it empty. He definitely would have stationed someone up there if it was his operation, but he wasn't going to argue with his good fortune. He could see Natasha working her way toward the side entrance and monitored her progress. He wasn't worried about her, but watched her back from a distance anyway just in case. Clint saw Coulson and May down the street and started climbing in through a window to take up his position in the rafters. He was a little surprised that he didn't meet any resistance, but dismissed it and found a spot where he could see the majority of the warehouse floor.

There were boxes and crates everywhere in the warehouse, many of them stamped with the Stark Industries logo. Clearly this is where the Stark weapons were coming from. A desk had been set up against the far wall and a man sat in a chair behind it with his feet up.

"I'm in position." Clint said over the comms, "There are sixteen men on the main floor, another eight stationed around the perimeter, plus Klaue. I can see the loading dock from here, the overhead door is open about a foot and there's no one near it. Should be easy enough to get in."

"Copy that." Coulson replied, "Wait for my signal."

Roughly thirty seconds passed before Clint heard the signal. There was an explosion from the front of the building and the front door blew off the hinges. One man was unfortunate enough to be in its path and caught the corner of the door in his head. Three more grenades followed in rapid succession in a spread pattern. Coulson wasn't trying to hit anything in particular, he was just keeping their heads down so May could get inside with her Steyr and cover his own entry.

Klaue's men weren't very disciplined and briefly panicked before someone started shouting orders and they took up positions facing the front entrance Coulson had just blown open. The plan was to feign a frontal assault and draw the defenders there while Natasha worked her way around the side to capture Klaue. So far it was working.

Clint watched Nat roll under the loading dock door and melt into the shadows nearby. One of the men had spotted her and started heading in that direction before Clint put an arrow in his back. It seemed he had taken the guy out before he could alert anyone else to her presence. Since his bow was silent, no one had spotted him yet.

May had found cover and started shooting at the mercenaries arrayed in front of her. She wasn't really trying that hard, since her job was to keep them occupied, but she still took out four of them. Coulson had switched from the grenade launcher to the MP5 he had brought with him for this op and joined May in keeping them busy. They had to wrap this up quickly, it wouldn't take long for them to figure out there were only a few people attacking.

Clint took out a few men from his position while keeping an eye on Nat's progress slinking through the shadows on the other side of the building. The cover the mercenaries had taken was effective at defending them from Coulson and May, not so much from Clint. One of the guys happened to glance back right as Natasha moved from shadow to shadow and shouted a warning when he caught the flicker of movement.

Four men advanced on her position and Clint readied himself to back Natasha up. The men had decided to engage in hand to hand for some reason, maybe trying to take her prisoner. Clint knew that wasn't going to go well for them. She had engaged three of the four at once and was using her speed and agility to keep them getting in each other's way. The fourth guy had tried to slip around behind her and Clint took him out before he could bring the large hammer he was wielding to bear. After thirty seconds or so the three men were all down and Nat was running toward the back wall keeping to cover wherever possible.

The firefight up front was starting to die down and Clint focused his attention in that direction. He saw that there were only a few men left shooting at his teammates, and shot them one by one. One of them looked up and spotted him. As he opened fire Clint let himself fall backwards off the beam he'd been crouched on and used the repel line he'd set up to drop to the ground.

As they had anticipated, Klaue ran as soon as the fight started to go badly for his men. Natasha was right behind him until he tossed a flashbang over his shoulder at her. She saw it in time to avert her eyes, but it still gave Klaue enough time to gain some ground away from her. Klaue was either smart or a coward, maybe both. He wasn't underestimating the petite redhead at all and ran from her. He'd been watching her fight with the three men and wanted no part of it.

Clint briefly paused to reclaim a couple of his arrows before following Natasha in Klaue's wake, he was running low. Their target had ducked down a tunnel and Nat fired a few shots into the mouth of it to ensure he wasn't setting an ambush before following. Clint made it to the tunnel soon after and started down it as well. Natasha had already disappeared down the dark passage and was out of sight. Fortunately, other than a few turns the tunnel was a straight shot with no side passages, so it wouldn't be difficult to follow them.

When Clint emerged from the tunnel he found himself in a small building with a half open door swinging in the breeze. He ran outside and was frustrated to see that neither his partner or her quarry were anywhere in sight. He continued running to the end of the alley and swore under his breath when he still didn't see them.

"Nat, where'd you go?" he called over the comms, "What's your status?"

There was no answer.

He tried it again a few more times and got nothing each time. Coulson jumped on the comms and tried as well. He got no response either.

In the less than two minutes it had taken Clint to reach the end of the tunnel, Natasha had disappeared.