Notes: Thank you to everyone for the amazing support. I do still work on this story from time to time, so it means a lot that people like it :)
JubileeKnight (I love your name, btw): Sadly, this is sort of a one-off, as I love the comics universe more than the movies for Clint ever since Age of Ultron came out (you can literally tell the moment that movie killed my enthusiasm because this story slowed down so fast lol), but I still write plenty of Marvel ;)
dragonwriter: Yeah, there's a lot more Fraction influence in the later chapters because, as I told JubileeKnight, you can literally tell when Age of Ultron came out and I gave a mighty "heck no" to that nonsense and decided to go the way I WISH the movies had gone... ;)
Anyway, here, have some Clintasha...
Mission Nine: Are You Flirting With Me Or Not?
It had been shockingly easy to fall into an easy working partnership with Natasha. Mostly because she didn't seem to think it was necessary to check in on him all the time like the regular SHIELD agents did. Once they'd come up with a plan, she believed him when he said he'd do his part, and that was that. No double-checking, nothing but the job.
It occurred to Clint that he was probably supposed to be the one doing all that double-checking and mother-henning, but he didn't think he had to. Trust was a two-way street, after all.
And besides, if he was an international super spy—which, he supposed, he sort of was—then he wouldn't blow an infiltration by not giving the very first assignment his all. He'd wait until he was better trusted before he pulled anything.
Which, he knew, was pretty much exactly what it looked like he'd done when he brought Natasha in, but that wasn't really important.
The jungle setting that they'd been given for this particular exercise made it harder for Clint to stay in one place and simply wait for the expected trucks. The trees blocked too much of his view, and even if he climbed up one or found a cave in the mountain a mile out, he still ran the risk of missing something.
They didn't have much in the way of tech, either, beyond the comms they had to communicate with each other. Which meant that they had no choice but to rely on each other, or they'd never be able to cover enough ground to spot the convoy when it arrived.
Of course, even a constant patrol was sure to miss something, and there was every possibility that Fury would send the trucks in the dead of night—that's what most bad guys did anyway, so they might as well practice that possibility in a training run.
So, Clint and Natasha had spent most of the time once they arrived setting up various alert systems and roadblocks. A fallen tree here, a rigged vine there—basically, the trucks would have no choice but to take the path Clint and Natasha laid out for them, one way or another. Or, if they deviated from that path, they'd hit a ditch, fell a tree—something that would alert the unlikely duo of semi-SHIELD agents to their position.
But Fury wasn't going to send rookie agents to this assignment, Clint was sure. Not to test out a trained assassin. So he and Natasha wouldn't leave well enough alone and do something as stupid as assuming the agents with the trucks wouldn't find a way around the roadblocks. Which meant that the two of them were in constant motion checking the roadblocks as well as the path that they meant to force the trucks to take.
They had even worked out a good schedule for catching some sleep—eight hours a day. No reason for either of them to go without when Fury hadn't said when the trucks would arrive. And since it had already been five days, Clint was glad he wasn't running on low sleep, or the trees would have all started to look the same by that point.
Still, that meant that the only time he and Natasha really saw each other was when they would switch off in the little hidey hole they had found for resting—close enough to their guided path to hear it if the convoy came close but far enough from the path that they couldn't be surprised while they were sleeping either.
Natasha came to find him to shake him awake—but this time, instead of the usual tradeoff, she held a finger up to her lips. Incoming, she signed to him.
That was another thing he appreciated about working with Natasha. She knew sign language. American Sign Language, even. He hadn't really asked her where she had picked it up, but it wasn't hard to extrapolate. After all, she was a spy. She probably knew a million languages and codes and signs.
But discovering the ASL itself had been a fluke thing, an unconscious little movement when she woke him up on one of the first days out on the mission and he'd flicked out a thank you when he was too tired to manage speech yet.
And when she paused and asked him if he knew more than that…
Well, now it was nice to have a way to talk to each other without breaking their long pattern of silence, nice to have something that not everyone could pick up on, nice to be able to communicate without giving away their position—as long as they were within line of sight of each other. Or even as long as one could see the other.
Coulson would probably never believe it, but Clint appreciated the fact that he could work with Natasha in silence.
Yeah, sure, the entirely of SHIELD would probably laugh at him for saying anything like that, but the truth was, it was nice not to feel like he was performing. And it was nice to be able to sit back and do his job.
Which, in this case, was also to keep an eye on his partner and gauge whether she could hack it in SHIELD. And that didn't have to mean chatting her up—not during a mission anyway.
Contrary to popular belief, he could be serious when he needed to be, and he could keep his focus on the mission, and he could also just be making up reasons for why he was incredibly quiet around Natasha that didn't include the fact that she was a very nice sight to wake up to.
Nope, that definitely wasn't it. Had to be something else. Something more professional that wouldn't end up sounding like he was being creepy. And he wasn't trying to be. It was just hard not to notice that several days in the jungle later, she still looked like a model…
He hadn't noticed it when she was the Russian agent he had brought back like a weird sort of stray. Please, Coulson, can I keep the KGB agent?
Well, he had noticed how she looked. How could he not? He just hadn't looked.
He really shouldn't looking now, actually.
Clint shook his head to himself as he pushed himself up on his elbows to look around the area. How close? he signed to Natasha, forcing his focus back to the task at hand. He didn't ask it out loud, figuring there had to be a reason she was signing rather than speaking.
She tipped her head in an indication that he should follow her, and he did, silently, feeling a little bit like he was the junior agent in this situation instead of the other way around.
But then he spotted it before she even slowed down: the telltale bend in the trees further out that meant something big was moving through them.
You disable; I will destroy. She signed it to him quickly as he nodded along, though he did feel obligated to make sure she knew—
Non-lethal.
She turned to give him such a dry look that he couldn't possibly misunderstand it. I know.
He held up both hands in a peaceful gesture. Required reminder.
She rolled her eyes at him. I am not new at this.
I know, he signed back to her. And before she could ream him out anymore, he simply jerked his head toward the trees to indicate that he was ready to go, and to further get out of any kind of argument, he went ahead and dashed off, his back to her so he couldn't see if she signed anything anyway.
Was it childish? Sure, maybe a little bit. But was is effective? Yep.
But he wasn't exactly going to focus on that anyway when they had a job to do. Instead, he focused on keeping himself hidden in the trees as he approached where the trees were parting. The traps and obstacles that he and Natasha had laid down kept the trucks moving slowly—and the undergrowth that made it hard for them to spot the trucks until they were practically on top of the camp also made it easy for Clint to hide himself higher up.
He wondered briefly if Fury had briefed his agents on the fact that Clint liked to hide higher up, since people didn't naturally look up. People instinctively looked around and behind themselves, but up? That wasn't something that they were programmed for, really.
Clint had used it to his advantage plenty of times before, but that also meant that Fury knew that—and since they were putting a highly-trained Russian spy to the test, Clint wasn't going to take anything for granted.
Which was a good thing, since as he got closer to the truck at the back of the convoy, he saw that the soldiers guarding their bounty were scanning the tops of the trees as well as their surroundings.
Well, that just meant he'd have to take his shots from further out. No big deal.
Effortlessly, silently, Clint slid his bow out and nocked an arrow, taking careful aim before each shot.
One. Right rear tire.
Two. Left rear tire.
Three. An arrow right in the middle of an agent's gun that unfurled a message: "Bang, you're dead."
The agent read the message and let out a derisive sort of noise that would have been a laugh if he hadn't been so clearly in disbelief at getting tagged out so early. And at the noise, Clint couldn't help but grin to himself. So, Fury had sent a few agents that needed their egos taken down a peg or three.
Perfect.
Noiselessly, Clint pressed his way through the jungle, letting the natural camouflage work in his favor as he kept up with the slow-moving caravan of trucks. These guys had to deal with the roadblocks often enough that they simply weren't making headway fast enough to avoid it as Clint slowly, meticulously, took out one soldier at a time.
That was the nice part about working with a bow and not a gun—he was almost completely silent. And that meant that the rest of the caravan didn't know what hit them—they didn't even know they were under attack until their buddies started to fall around them.
Clint had just disabled another truck when he heard a surprised sort of gasp and looked up just in time to see Natasha putting one of the agents in a sleeper hold before she climbed into the back of the truck. She was going along behind him, taking advantage of the lack of guards to clean out the transports one at a time.
It was an excellent, efficient partnership, if Clint were to say so himself.
Clint smirked as he kept moving, though his moment of distraction had cost him, and he realized with a frown that a few of the agents were converging on his position. He wasn't sure what had given him away, but that didn't matter. Instead, he quickly fitted his arrows to deliver his "bang, you're dead" messages.
He hadn't been expecting one of them to fire a net at him.
He pressed himself flat against the ground to avoid the net as it fired over his head, and he couldn't help but spit out a quiet "what" as he glanced over his shoulder to see the net snagging in the branches. Clearly, the orders had been given to capture the two of them, and they'd come prepared.
Still, Clint could work with this. It wasn't like he and Natasha hadn't had plenty of time to prepare for all sorts of contingency plans, and they had expected that a few agents might actually get up the gumption to get off the path of the caravan of trucks to go after one of them.
Right, then. Time to lead them on the merry chase.
Clint got to his feet with a crooked grin and shot the agents a two-fingered salute before he slipped off into the trees, grinning even wider when he heard one of the agents shout to his friends to go after Clint.
"Let's see how that works out for you guys," he muttered to himself, easily jumping the trip wire that he and Natasha had laid down as he ran.
Of course, the agents had been so focused on catching up to Clint that they hadn't seen the wire—which was the whole point. And Clint couldn't help grinning to himself as he heard the cacophony of surprised shouts all the way down as the agents found themselves at the bottom of a pit.
Clint stuck his head out over the edge of the ledge of the pit and waved at them, crooked smile firmly in place. "Don't worry!" he sang out. "We'll come back for you! Eventually!"
The agents didn't look nearly as amused as Clint was, but then, it had been his experience that the kinds of agents that Fury sent his way to get attitude adjustments just had no sense of humor.
Which was their loss, really, because Clint thought he was downright hilarious.
By the time he got back to where Natasha was working, he somehow wasn't surprised to see that she had been incredibly… efficient. Agents were unconscious or at least stunned, and the few that were on their feet looked almost paranoid.
Clint chuckled to himself as he finally spotted Natasha sliding out of the back of one of the trucks and rushed to catch up to her. "Have fun?"
She glanced up at him in surprise, though Clint knew he couldn't possible have snuck up on her… so she must have been surprised that he was willing to give away his position by talking aloud.
He laughed and shrugged, gesturing at the soldiers and agents around them. "What, you don't think we're busted?"
"We are not busted," she said, though he could see the smirk at the corner of her mouth.
"Well, at the very least, I'm pretty sure they know we're here, Tasha."
At that, she let out a breath like a laugh and shook her head at him. "Professionalism, Hawkeye. Can't you control yourself until the mission is over?"
"What if I can't?"
"You will."
"Yeah, but what are you gonna do about it?" he asked with a crooked grin. It was nice to have this kind of back and forth, especially because, he was pleased to see, she didn't slow down in the mission in the least, already climbing in the back of the next truck as he covered her with his bow at the ready. It was nice to have a partner who knew how to do that—how to keep up the banter and still get the job done. Most people either ignored him (like Hill or even Coulson) or got too distracted, and then Clint had to keep his mouth shut for their sake.
Natasha? Well, he was pretty sure she even liked his sense of humor, enough to more than put up with it on missions but to give it back.
He was pretty sure he liked that about her. A lot.
Which was unprofessional—exactly the kind of attitude she'd been getting onto him for having. He didn't think he could stop it, though, and seeing as the whole point of the mission was to see if she could work with others, then it stood to reason that at the very least, he'd done what he was supposed to do.
He had worked so hard to get to a point in his SHIELD career that he could be trusted to do things on his own, and here he was considering taking on a partner? A year ago, he would have laughed that idea right out of the room.
But, right, he should probably focus on the mission.
He slipped into the back of the truck where Natasha was hard at work getting the intel they were supposed to gather, and Clint couldn't help but smirk when he saw the lock on one of the boxes.
Very funny, Phil, he thought to himself. It was pretty much exactly the same kind of lock that Clint had busted wide open the first time he met Coulson, a set of tumblers that Coulson and his team had thought would be hard to break into.
"Here, I got it," Clint said as he crouched down next to Natasha, and she simply raised an eyebrow at him before she scooted over to let him get to work.
Judging by the look of interest on her face, Clint was starting to think that there was more to this mission than just learning what she could do. More than likely, SHIELD was just as concerned that Natasha learn what he was capable of. Which made sense if they were thinking about teaming them up; they should both be aware of each other's strengths and weaknesses.
Still, he wasn't quite sure what to do with the look Natasha gave him as the two of them grabbed the papers and intel they were supposed to get and then radioed that they were ready for pickup. So, he kept his commentary mostly to himself, waiting for the growing smirk at the corner of Natasha's mouth to turn into actual words so he could figure out what that look was supposed to mean.
Finally, as they arrived at the rendezvous point, she turned to him with that same smirk. "It seems I'm not the only one that SHIELD has recruited from a questionable past."
"What?" Clint blinked at her, surprised. Not at the topic, but at the fact that she was so blunt and amused by it at the same time. He wasn't sure what he had expected, really; everyone in SHIELD had a different reaction to finding out that he used to be a criminal before he was recruited. But even for as long as he had been an agent, he still managed to be surprised when people reacted to the news.
You'd think he would have learned by now.
"I doubt that SHIELD trained you as an infiltration expert," Natasha said, still with that same smirk. "Not when your talents lend themselves so well to assassination."
"I can be sneaky when I want to be," he defended.
"That's not what I said."
"Good." He bit his lip as he considered her, not sure how to broach this particular topic. What was he supposed to say, exactly? That he was one of Coulson's projects too? That Coulson had brought him home to SHIELD like a stray puppy the same way he had brought her back to SHIELD?
That sounded dumb; he didn't want to say that.
But she was still watching him, clearly expecting an explanation, so he took in all his breath and let it out in a sigh. "Yeah, okay, so I didn't exactly start out as stellar SHIELD material," he said. When she simply held his gaze, waiting for the rest of it, he shrugged both shoulders. "What can I say? I was a thief—and a good one."
"I see that," Natasha said. Her eyes were dancing with amusement, and suddenly, the fact that her smirk was still hiding at the corner of her mouth, the fact that she never let it take over her entire expression . . . . His gaze was drawn there, to that point of her lips that met in a crease that was the only giveaway of her amusement.
And he was trying not to come across as creepy or one of those agents who thought being the lead agent meant you got favors. So he didn't act on the impulse to kiss her until the smirk reached the rest of her lips and bled into his own. But it was there just the same.
Thankfully, if Natasha knew what he was thinking, she didn't say anything about it. (Or maybe not so thankfully—he wasn't sure if she'd even be interested, but if she was… no, he needed to stay focused.) Instead, she seemed to hold his gaze for as long as he could stand it, and then, when he blinked, she leaned forward. Which really wasn't helping the desire to lean in and kiss her, if he was honest.
But it was clear her focus wasn't on romance from the intense sort of look she had on. "I wouldn't be surprised," she said at last—finally, mercifully, giving him something to focus on that wasn't the corner of her mouth—"if Fury specifically sent you after me knowing your… unorthodox background."
"Fury?" Clint shrugged. "Yeah, if you can think of an underhanded scheme or a mission with a dual objective or anything that has layers and layers to it beyond what even onions think is reasonable… that's him."
"Then I'm sure of it," Natasha said, leaning back. He could hear a little better with the distance—his heart wasn't quite so loud in his throat. "You're the face of SHIELD he wants me to see. The rehabilitated cases. The projects."
"Hey now."
"It's not a mark against you," Natasha assured him, and Clint could see the laugh just there. It was in her eyes and in the slight divot of her cheek as her lips pulled back and how was he supposed to pay attention to her when she could do that?
"It's not?" he managed to ask. Which was good—he was still participating in the conversation like a normal person and not an idiot.
Natasha shook her head. "It's been my experience that most organizations classify people either as projects, assets, or liabilities. And projects are meant to become assets."
"That's… one way of looking at the world," Clint said, shaking his head at her.
"It's one way of looking at SHIELD," she said. The smile wasn't as present anymore, and Clint could think a little more because of it, but he wanted to get it back, somehow.
"So, does that mean you're not in favor of this teamup?" he asked slowly.
"What?"
"Well, if you think the whole thing was orchestrated so that Fury could just... show you what he wants you to see…"
Natasha smirked. "Like you said, there are dual purposes to everything he does. I think this genuinely was an exercise in seeing how well we worked together."
"And?" The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. Sure, he thought that things had been going swimmingly between him and Natasha, but that was before she had turned all analytical on him and had made this about Fury and his games.
This time, Natasha gave him a full smile, not just the promise of one, and it was so unexpected that Clint almost didn't hear a word she said. He caught the gist of it—that she thought she could work with him—but he didn't get the full explanation until he realized that she had finished speaking and quickly nodded.
"Yeah, well, good," he said, cursing himself for not paying better attention. He made a name for himself on being able to give his attention to the smallest details! Why couldn't he keep it together?
"Then you aren't opposed to a partnership arranged by Nick Fury?" Natasha asked, still smiling and with a hint of trouble that just wasn't fair.
Clint wondered if she could tell that he was having trouble paying attention to anything but her mouth and how hard he was trying not to do something stupid like ask if he could kiss her. "Yeah, I mean—no, not opposed." He dragged his gaze up to her eyes. "I mean, I thought we made a pretty good team back there, didn't we?"
"Is that your personal opinion on your official assessment to SHIELD?" she asked.
Clint blinked. "Was… was that a little joke?"
"Hawkeye, I'm surprised. With your reputation, I thought you would know a sense of humor when you saw one," Natasha said, back to smiling again.
"I'm just trying to wrap my head around the mysterious super spy being capable of relaxing enough to make a joke."
"You're a spy, too," Natasha pointed out.
"I'm an assassin and a sniper. Different story," Clint said, waving his hand.
Natasha smiled again. "That may be why we work well together. Enemy spies don't trust as easily."
"Well, it would probably help if, once you decide to work for the other team, you didn't refer to the players as 'enemy spies'," Clint pointed out.
"That's how they still view me," Natasha pointed out. "I haven't proven my worth yet, and I haven't shown much reason for anyone in SHIELD to trust me."
"Outside of a few of us who've gotten to know you," Clint argued. "You and Coulson pretty much warmed right up to each other, didn't you?"
"He's easy to fall into conversation with," Natasha said, shaking her head. "There is a difference between being comfortable enough to chat with someone and trusting them."
"Trusted us enough to let us send someone to poke around in your head."
"Hawkeye." Natasha met his gaze and then slowly shook her head. "The issue at question is not whether I trust SHIELD."
"Okay, fair," he said. "But from where I stand, trust has to be a two-way street. Easier to trust someone who trusts you back, you know?"
"Also a fair point," Natasha allowed. She paused and then smiled his way. "But then, you wouldn't make it long at all with my old employers. You're too trusting."
"Coulson would disagree with you there. Took him ages to recruit me," Clint said, shaking his head. He didn't know why, but he didn't want Natasha to think he wasn't up to standard… or something. "I just… I know people. I know when they're worth the time."
"I'm not entirely sure I agree with you," Natasha said.
"That's because you think you're untrustworthy," Clint said. "But the joke's on you—you found the one person in all of SHIELD who's sharp enough to see past that."
"Oh, is that why you took the name 'Hawkeye'?" Natasha asked, one perfect eyebrow arched.
"Maybe it was!" He threw both hands up. "Point is, you're not going to fool me with your super spy wiles."
"My wiles?" It seemed like Natasha couldn't help the light sort of laugh that she let out that had Clint grinning like an idiot. It wasn't a breath like a laugh but an actual laugh, with voice to it, and it was hard to think about anything but that until he realized that Natasha was still expecting him to carry on the rest of the conversation.
"Yeah," he said. Which was very eloquent.
"I'm not using my wiles on you, Hawkeye. I guarantee you would know if I was," Natasha said.
"I don't know; by your measuring stick, I don't know anything about your world," Clint said, waving her comment off.
Natasha tipped her head to the side as she considered him before a slow sort of smile crept over her expression. But this one didn't seem natural and didn't have much humor to it, and he wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to make of it as she slid over to sit next to him and rested a hand lightly on his arm. "If I were using my 'wiles' as you call it," she said, her voice suddenly softer, "I wouldn't argue so much with you. I'd let you think you were saving me, helping me to see the light." She leaned forward, the smile widening. "That's what drives you, isn't it? You want to help people—to save them."
Clint felt his mouth go dry the closer Natasha came. "I… it really isn't fair that you make that sound like it's stupid."
"I'm not trying to downplay your heart, Hawkeye," she said, still without raising her voice beyond the whisper that was raising goosebumps where her fingers trailed on his skin. "I'm just telling you—that's where I would start. You want to be a hero. If I wanted to fool you, I'd let you be mine."
"But you're not trying to fool me," Clint said. For some reason, he'd dropped his voice to the same whisper Natasha was using, though he wasn't entirely sure why. He just felt weird talking at a normal tone when she was that close and that quiet.
"Not today, no," Natasha said, and finally, her expression shifted back into one he was more familiar with—a sort of smirk at the corner of her mouth before she leaned back and away from him again. "After all, hero—you did save me."
"Okay, but now—you can't—you can't do thinks like that," Clint said, shaking his head. "I don't even know what to do with that!"
"I thought you appreciated my sense of humor," she teased, the smirk widening. "Or have you been trying to get me to laugh to feed your own ego? There's no shame in admitting that either, you know."
"That is just—that's not fair!"
"We're treading in a world of spies and saboteurs, Hawkeye; at what point did you decide that the world would ever be fair to you?"
But Clint shook his head at that. "No, see—that's not how I see it," he said. "Yeah, the world isn't fair. People suck. They do. And there's nothing that I can do to change that. But I've got a little policy of trying to be fair to the people in my life, and I'd like to think I can expect them to return the favor, you know?"
"Then you want me to stop teasing you?" Natasha asked with one eyebrow raised.
"Yes—no!" Clint shook his head, both hands up. "No, that's not—look, humor is one thing, but then you started talking about spies and the general fairness of the world and the conversation got a whole lot bigger and now it's back down to just you and me? Give me a little warning before the philosophical discussion turns back into me trying to figure out whether or not you're flirting with me, because one of those things is a lot more important than the other."
Natasha tipped her head slightly, her eyes sparkling with barely contained laughter. "And which is it?'
"What?"
"Which is more important to you—philosophy or flirtation?"
Clint blinked at her for a second before he had to grin and lean forward slightly. "Hey, no one ever accused me of being deep. Grade school dropout, all that."
"Then that answers that question," Natasha said with a smirk, leaning forward to match him until their faces were almost—but not quite—touching. He could feel her breath on his mouth, but by the time he had gotten up the nerve to move forward for a kiss, she had switched into a smirk and pulled back.
"Our ride is here," she said, tipping her head toward the sky, where Clint could see the helicopter now.
Phil, your timing is the worst, Clint thought, though he nodded and at least tried to put on a more professional look as he got to his feet and offered Natasha a hand up as well. "Guess that's our cue," he agreed.
Maybe next time, he thought to himself as the helicopter landed and Natasha climbed on ahead of him, though since she didn't even look back at him, he had to wonder if he was just reading into things.
She was an enemy agent, after all.