STRIKE Team Delta: 26 missions

Almost the second they stepped out of the jet, a blast of warm wind hit Natasha in the face, and she sighed. Dubai was hot even in winter, and it was so nice to be warm for once.

“I love it when we get to go somewhere with nice weather. Too often, it’s like Russia, or Helsinki - Dubai is, it’s nice,” Natasha explained, leaning her head on Clint’s shoulder as they marvelled at the view. “And we get to fly in a Quin, which is always better than commercial. Look - look at this. Where else am I going to get a view like this?”

The sea was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen, and Natasha found herself wishing Maria were there to see it with her. Clint put an arm around her shoulders, and sighed.

“I do love the view, but we have a job to do, Anansi. C’mon. Let’s get checked in, and then we can start sending over the intel.” He was right, but Natasha huffed and turned away, the brim of her floppy hat whacking him in the face.

They had been reserved a suite in the Burj Al Arab, which was almost certainly Fury pulling some favours because that could not be cheap. There was already a team onsite - Bobbi and Mack, and some SAS guy they’d picked up - and Natasha and Clint were there to send over the intel, be backup if Bobbi needed it, and extract them at the end of the op. The suite was booked for a week, and Natasha was determined to make the most of that week. Unless Bobbi specifically requested backup, she was going to sunbathe. And swim. And enjoy the gorgeous view.

Clint checked them in, and they decided to bring their meager luggage up to the suite themselves. Natasha had packed all of the holiday wear she owned, which was not much, and had largely been bought in Iowa - which meant that they were going shopping at the first opportunity. Clint had brought all the holiday he owned, which was even less than her, and he didn’t even have a hat - it had been lost in Freetown.

As soon as they got up to the room, Natasha shucked off her boots and raced Clint to call dibs on the bed she wanted - closest to the window, of course - without even pausing to marvel at the fact that their suite had stairs, and a tiny room underneath them. Once Natasha had claimed her bed and dumped the contents of her suitcase - not pink plastic this time, and never again - into her side of the wardrobe, she bounced downstairs to find out all the cool things their suite had.

There were remote control curtains. Natasha spent about five minutes opening and closing them without getting up from the sofa, while Clint watched in rapt awe. Clint was the one who discovered that there were remote controlled lights and music, too, and so they naturally made plans to have a disco after dinner.

Fury and Phil had told them that it was a very important mission, and of course that was totally true, but Bobbi and her team were doing most of the hard lifting, which meant that there was no reason for Natasha not to gleefully tell Clint to order room service for dinner and to start making plans for their days at the beach.

The room service was delicious. There was this fancy pasta with red wine that Natasha absolutely adored, and Clint ordered about five portions of burgers from the kids’ menu and seemed very happy.

“Does it-” he paused to wipe his face, “Does it really compare to the Wendy’s Baconator, though?”

Natasha whacked him with her hat.

“Okay! I get it. Seven star quality versus fast food restaurant, we all know who would win in a fight.” He smacked his lips and laid his unused cutlery on his plate, taking a sip of Natasha’s wine with his pinky stuck in the air. “De-licious.”

They both broke down into giggles, pushing the dinner tray back to the door and wondering what to do next. Clint grabbed the remote and jumped onto the sofa, his socked feet slipping a little on the velvet. “Disco time, Arachne!” he crowed, closing the curtains and turning off some of the lights.

Once Natasha joined him on the sofa, he put the music on, and she started laughing. She had no idea which playlist Clint had selected, but it started with ‘Never gonna give you up’, which really didn’t bode well for the rest of the songs. She sang along anyway, knowing she had to counter Clint’s terrible yelling somehow.

About halfway through their impromptu disco, Clint stopped in the middle of Toxic, a pensive look on his face. Natasha jumped off the sofa, tilting her head to stare at him.

“What’s up, birdbrain?” He laughed a little, and picked her up, spinning her around.

“Just wondering how Bob’s doing.”

Bobbi wiped her forehead, panting hard. Mack and Hunter had gone on ahead while she stayed behind to fight off the armed guards, and she was bleeding heavily from a GSW in her side. She was down to her last magazine, but there was only one last hostile from her original count.

“Mack, get the shipment and get out of there,” she growled into her comms, flipping her hair and preparing to take down the last man standing.

“Bob, shouldn’t you call for backup?” Mack’s voice crackled into her earpiece and she cracked her neck, running at the man.

“A little busy here, Mack!” Her voice was strained as she wrapped her arms around the hostile’s neck, clinging to him. “And no! I’m fine on my own!”

She was shaken off his back, and she leaped back up, flipping over him to squeeze his neck with her thighs. He choked, trying to prise her off him, but he sank to the floor, letting her release him, grab his gun and stand up, shaking herself off, her bullet wound twinging. “No reason to call for back-up.”

As she was leaving, she spotted another group of guards heading for the airfield, and sighed. “More men coming your way. I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Natasha shrugged, “she’d call if not, right?”

Clint sighed, nodding slowly. “Probably. But, we have a bet going on, and she might really not want to pay for bacon burgers next time we go out.”

Natasha looked at him, as if wondering how he could be that flippant and borderline idiotic, before remembering he grew up in a circus.

That tended to explain things.

The next day, they both woke up at about midday, completely hungover. Natasha groaned and grabbed her hat from where she’d left it on the nightstand, covering her face with it to block out the light.

“Clint. The curtain remote. Did we leave it downstairs?”

Clint let out an identical groan and rolled over, making his duvet into even more of a mess.
“Aw, curtains, no,” he moaned, blinking blearily. “I barely remember past the arm-wrestling competition. Did we.. did we play hide and seek?”

Natasha flushed, heat rushing to her cheeks. “You didn’t find me in the cupboard under the stairs for about an hour. Clint, we need to get up! We’re wasting the day! We should go swimming. Not the beach first, I don’t want to get my toes sandy before I have a chance to buy flip flops, but if we go shopping quickly-”

Clint rolled over again and rolled out of bed, still tangled up in his duvet, a very put-out look on his face.

“Natty. Coffee first.”

Once they had downed a glass of orange juice each and Clint had finished the coffee pot, they went shopping to grab sarongs, flip flops, sun cream and two large diet cokes. After the contest to see who could sip their drink most obnoxiously loud, they went back to the hotel and changed into their swimming costumes, making sure to lather each other with suncream. Natasha made a point of loudly proclaiming that she was ‘too pretty for melanoma’.

Swimming was heaven. They could sun themselves for hours, just lying lazily on their towels, and once Clint decided to get in the water they had a full-out water fight, even roping some giggling kids into helping them.

A few hours later, when Natasha could no longer stand ignoring Clint saying he was hungry, they made the trip back up to the hotel to change, check to see if Bobbi had left a message - she hadn’t - and get their things together to go out for dinner.

They wandered Jumeirah for a bit, making note of the layout of the residential streets and the empty plots, when they came across a mall they decided to eat in.

Clint had decided they were going to eat there when he saw the flyer and Natasha couldn’t refuse him when she saw his face. So they went up to the food court in Mercato Mall - Natasha was hoping for a little Arabian restaurant, but she was in no way surprised when she saw that her options were a Chinese restaurant, a Hardee’s, a McDonalds or a kebab place.

They chose the Chinese. Natasha shook her head at Clint when they sat down with their styrofoam plates, but she enjoyed the meal - she liked eating out with her friends. It was nice whenever they all got together - she could try and improve Clint’s taste, and appreciate that Maria and Phil both enjoyed fancy food.

Once he had eaten his way through his meal, Clint sighed and leaned back on the metal chair, checking the flip phone almost obsessively.

“She’s probably fine, Clint,” Natasha rebuked gently. “Stop worrying.”

“I can’t help but worry. What if something’s gone wrong?”

Bobbi fell on top of Hunter, pushing them both onto the bed, and kissed him with a ferocity she usually kept for battle. He made a gesture at the door, and Bobbi kicked it closed before jumping properly onto the bed, propping herself up above him.

“Bob - aren’t we supposed to be handling the shipment?” Hunter protested weakly, unable to stop his smile.

“Aw, Hunter, c’mon. Mack’s out handling that.” He rolled them over, pinning Bobbi down with a light touch, and when she flipped them over again she knocked the flip phone onto the floor, accidentally hitting the call button - but she didn’t notice that.

“It’s just you and me.”

Clint picked up the call, and immediately held the phone away from his ear, looking genuinely offended.

“Yeah, okay. They’re perfectly fine.”