Natasha sighed as she rode next to her newest mission. He was a nuclear engineer, someone who had a lot of ideas and SHIELD wanted them, so she’d been given the job of being the nanny. She pulled out her phone and shot Clint a text message, knowing that he had just gotten back from a mission and was either being debriefed or sitting at home watching Big Brother, an ironic guilty pleasure of his.
‘You sitting around watching BB with your hand down your pants, Hawkguy?’ she hit send.
‘Aren’t you not supposed to be texting?’ she got back a few moments later.
She smiled, ‘What can I say, I’m a rule breaker.’
‘Ooh, you rule breaker. And no my hand is not down my pants. Want it to be? ;)’
‘Please. Not while I’m half way around the world, Barton.’
‘Fine. I’ll wait til you get home.’
She was getting ready to write back when she heard gun fire. Her eyes widened as she instantly went on alert. She turned on her wrist spider bites and made sure her Glock 26s were loaded and ready to go. She turned to the engineer, “Stay behind me…don’t put yourself in danger and-,”
The car pitched to the right, the inside pressing into itself as it was hit on the side. She tried to keep her bearings as the car rolled and landed sideways. She groaned as she opened her eyes and cut off her seatbelt with a knife she had in her forearm band. She dropped to the side and managed to get out of the car, going back in and pulling the engineer out. She tucked him into an archway of an old stone house and held out her hand, “Stay here and stay hidden,” she nodded.
‘But you said-,’
“Yeah that was before I knew the car was going to get hit. Stay,” she pointed at the spot, her voice commanding like she was reprimanding a dog watching as he nodded and pressed himself up against the the stone.
She took off out of the archway, her Glocks raised as she sprinted to the car, and went around to the front. She pocketed one gun back in the holster and dragged out the driver and helped him into the same archway as the engineer, then she went back and grabbed the passenger, dragging him across the sand, knowing that something was terribly wrong. The man had an open wound on his head, and he was missing a leg. She set him down and touched his pulse, sighing when she found that the beat that was supposed to be there was stilled under her fingers. “You, call Nick and tell him what’s happened,” she said as she looked at the driver of the vehicle. The man nodded and went for his phone and held it up to his ear, but that was as far as it got. A shot rang out and Natasha flinched downward, pulling her mission with her. The driver’s face blanked as pink mist hit the air in front of the spy. “Shit,” she said through her teeth. “We’re going to have to run, okay? And don’t stop until I do.”
She gave him a half a second to nod in understanding before she was pushing him in front of her and she turned, looking at something to shoot at, someone to hit, but no one was there. Instead she took off after the engineer, glancing up at the rooftops when she heard someone running over them. She caught a glimpse of silver that caught the sunlight. She furrowed her brows as she continued to run, ignoring the burning in her lungs and the pain that shot through her leg every time there was pressure put on it.
A shot broke the air around them and whizzed past Natasha’s head as she flinched again and turned, pulling the other man with her. She ducked into an in cove between two stone apartment homes, and pressed herself against the wall, the engineer behind her. She held a finger up to her lips and nodded a bit as the man seemed to sweat, still breathing heavily and too loud in the small space. The spy grabbed for the man’s phone and sent an emergency text to Nick. After a few moments, the man was still breathing heavy, and Natasha was about to tell him to breathe through his nose but she felt a chill go up her spine. She turned and came face to face with a man in a mask that covered his lower half, and dark goggles over his eyes.
The Black Widow struck first, hitting the man in the chest and managing to push him backward. She ducked out of the way of the flash of silver, swinging at his chest once more, but was stopped when he gripped her wrists in his cold fist. Her heart rate doubled as she looked down at the mechanical arm, a bright red star on his shoulder. She leaned forward and collided her forehead with his, and then pushed herself backward, putting herself directly between the hulking man in front of her and the nuclear engineer. Her hand went to her Glock in an instant, and the world seemed to implode into one spot on her side, right next to her hip. There was no sound, she didn’t go barreling backward like in the movies.
Her eyes widened, her lips parted in a quiet gasp as she looked down at the blood that started to run out of the wound. She looked back up and the man was gone, almost like he’d never been there. Her eyes shut and her body crumpled to the ground, the world fading out.
.
The next time she woke up she was a hundred percent positive she was in a hospital bed, supine position and her top half elevated. The room smelled like disinfectant and hospital sheets, smells she’d become familiar with in this job and the ones before SHIELD. She groaned as her eyes burned, even with them closed, her body still not used to the harsh florescent lighting. When she managed to get her eyes open, she slowly turned her head and let out a breath, taking note of everything in the room even half unconscious. She focused her attention on Clint, who was crammed in a chair, arms folded across him, his chin on his chest, asleep. She went to reach for the plastic cup not too far from him and she groaned again, wincing at the tug in the IV.
The noise she made had her partner up in an instant, his head snapping upward as he looked at her, “Natasha,” he said quietly as he smiled relief evident on his face.
She gave him a small smile back, “I’m here…and both of your hands are in view..,”
He laughed quietly as he shook his head, “You can wait for that later,” he said as he reached for the cup and held it to her lips so she could sip the straw.
“How long have I been out?” she asked.
He shrugged, “Couple of days.”
“Wow…What happened?”
“You got shot,” he gestured to her hip.
“I guess I can say bye bye to bikinis,” she mumbled.
“I’ll stick an arrow in my foot if you stop wearing bikinis.”
“Oh no…wouldn’t want that…” she lifted an eyebrow. "Did they catch who it did? Who shot me?”
Clint shook his head, dragging the chair closer to her, putting his arms on her bed after he sat down, “Can’t find anything. The car was destroyed…you were the only one who made it.”
“Crap…Nick is going to have my head..”
“Nah, don’t even worry about it.”
“Did they find anything else?”
Again he shook his head side to side, “Nope. The bullets they got from the scene were fired from a Russian made rifle, no rifling. Nat…what did this guy look like?”
She swallowed thickly as she tried to think, shaking her head, “He…was tall…maybe six two…big, broad shoulders…he had a metal arm and dark hair..”
He frowned, “Doesn’t ring a bell on anyone we’ve ever come across to me..and I'd remember a guy with a metal arm even if I'm bad at remembering people.” He could see the determination in her eyes, “You aren’t going after him…not right now.”
“Obviously,” she rolled her eyes.
She turned her head and looked at her partner, his face creased with worry as he scowled at something while he stared at a spot on her blanket. She reached over, setting her hand on top of his, her thumb brushing over his knuckles. “What?”
He shook his head, “Nothing I just…I didn’t get a response from you and I didn’t think anything of it…then an hour went by…and then a day…and I guess I had a meltdown. I stormed into SHIELD and yelled at Fury until I was blue in the face demanding to know where you were and if you were okay…and he looked at me like I was an idiot or a little kid or something, I dunno…But he said I was too close.” She looked at him, her brows pushed together, “And I am…I’m…too close…I didn’t hear from you and I flew off the handle because of what I f-,”
“Stop. Don’t finish that,” she told him as she tightened her grip on his hand. If he finished that sentence, if he said that he lost it because of his feelings from her, then she wouldn’t be able to deny that there were any. She’d been okay with repressing what she felt for him, but whenever their missions took them to different areas, she worried, and she hated it, and she knew he felt the same. “We’re not supposed to feel things like that…and we’re definitely not supposed to talk about them..”
“So then what should I talk about?”
She shrugged, “I don’t care…but you don't have to go anywhere if you don't want to.”
He shook his head because he couldn't think of anywhere he's he'd want to go. He wanted to be here with her, he’d almost lost her and he’d almost gone insane at the thought of losing her, and he didn’t want to go anywhere without her again. At least not for a while, and he was going to make damn sure to tell his bosses that where the Black Widow went, Hawkeye would follow. They worked better as a team anyway.
“I can always put my hand in my pants..,” he shrugged one of his shoulders, giving her a cheeky smile which made her laugh a little and shake her head.