Mr. and Mrs. Barton

Clint:

It may not have been his best idea to take a known operative into SHIELD headquarters, but none of his ideas have hardly ever sounded or looked good at the beginning. They just ended up being wonderful near the end of them. Look at him marrying Nat? It didn’t look like the best thing in the world, but look at how that turned out!

Maybe not his best example, but it was his most recent one.

There was also him buying the apartment building. Though that did have the Tracksuit Mafia guys coming after him.

Well, there was him saving Katy-Kate. That’s a good one that hasn’t bit him. She’s even his mentee now! See? A good plan.

Speaking of Katy-Kate, she’s right there…with a very angry look on her face. Okay, so maybe he might have been thinking positive a bit too…

His face it stinging and arms are already surrounding him in a hug and he wraps his non-sling bound arm around her. “Hey, what’s wrong, Katy-Kate?” He looks up to see Nat holding a gun on her and he does a quick shake of his head. He really didn’t want his wife to kill his mentee. Really REALLY bad for his image. Not that he had that big of one to hold up.

“You idiot!” Clint thinks he prefers it when she was crying, because Katy-Kate yelling at him was not an improvement. “Why didn’t you call me? You were shot?!” It seemed she just noticed because she hit again in the chest. She must have been training with Agent May again.

Now he would be okay with Nat coming to his defense, but after putting the gun away she looked somewhat amused at the interaction. ‘Save me.’ He mouthed at her, but she just shook her head with a large smile covering her face.

Katy-Kate eventually stops reprimanding him when Agent Coulson came up to the three of them. “Director Fury wishes to speak to Agent Barton and Mrs. Barton immediately.”

Even Clint is surprised at how Kate turned on the older agent in complete fury. Haha, furious at Fury.

“He has been shot!” Kate’s voice raises a couple of octaves and decibel levels. “You can tell Fury to go shove it. Clint is not going on another mission with a bullet in his arm!” It was kind of sweet at how protective she was being, but he can’t let her fight his battles.

Or get in trouble for him.

He reaches for her arm, and he keeps his voice serious. “I’m fine, Katy-Kate. You know Coulson won’t let me do anything I’m not ready for.” She doesn’t look like she believes him, but he’s already following Coulson with Nat at his side.

It’s a few moments before Nat gives her opinion. They’re right outside of the door, so that might be the reason. “I like her.”

Clint rolls his eyes at that. “She’s my mentee. You can’t have her.” The look in Nat’s eyes makes him think that she would be happy training Kate Bishop.

“Married couple.” Nat smiles his way, a bit like that of a shark that just found a prey ready to sink its teeth in. “What’s yours is also mine.”

He hadn’t thought of that…

Coulson opens the door, apparently oblivious to the bickering couple behind him. Great, just great. Time for Fury to sink his claws into him.

Clint bets the director is still not over the coffee thing.

Natasha:

Natasha pulled the gun without thinking, automatically going to her husband’s defense. When he didn’t fight back but just started asking his attacker questions, she knew that he was fine. The glare he sent her way also pushed her to put the gun up. No reason to draw attention by pulling a weapon on a potential agent SHIELD’s headquarters.

Anyway, she’s going to need as many allies as possible in this new world.

The younger woman yelling at Clint…she likes the fire in her. Really, it takes guts to be able to yell at a man that has had the training, and paid, to kill. When the woman, Katy-Kate? turns on Coulson to yell at him as well, that just set the woman squarely in her like zone. Maybe Kate is a bit foolish in yelling at these men, maybe.

Also, this was showing her that SHIELD wasn’t the same as the Red Room. In the Red Room, she would have been severely punished, or even permanently dismissed (killed) for such. It was refreshing.

Still she follows Coulson as he leads them away from her, and she gives Clint her opinion. “I like her.” It really would be a great thing to be able to train her. Or at least spend some time with someone that knows Clint so well.

“She’s my mentee.” Natasha can hear the emphasis, and smiles at that. The more she learns about this side of Clint, the more she can see that the people around him genuinely care for the fool. “You can’t have her.”

Maybe someday she’ll have something like that, especially if Clint has his way. “Married couple.” She reminds him, ready to see if the director will order her execution, release, or any number of things. “What’s yours is also mine.”

By his look, he didn’t think of that. Too bad she didn’t have time to soak in his shock, because they are already moving forward into an office that she both dreaded entering, and yet anticipated. Clint believed that this was a place to get a new start, to wipe free some of the red in her ledger.

“Agent Coulson, Agent Barton, Mrs. Barton.” The man behind the large desk, one eye looking at them while the other is covered in an eye patch; the spy of the spies, Director Nick Fury. “You three have caused quite a bit of damage these past few days.”

Clint interrupts, because of course its Clint who has a death wish. “Mostly me, sir.” His salute is haphazard, as though not caring about appearances.

Director Fury ignores him. “However, each of you have skills that can still be utilized by this institution.” His one eye goes to each one of them, before staying on Natasha. “Depending upon Mrs. Barton’s choice.” He passes her a file, and she knows this isn’t possible.

It’s a file with her name, and what looks to be a completed application inside of it.

“I put it under your maiden name.” Director Fury spoke, as though he wasn’t giving her a gift that she didn’t think she would get to see. “So you won’t have any negative connections to the buffoon you married.”

“Hey!” Clint sounds offended, but she knows that he isn’t really. The tone was too bright for him if his emotions had truly been hurt.

It took just a moment, but her decision had already been made when she held the gun to his head and couldn’t pull the trigger. “Yes.”

Director Fury took that as an invitation to move on to the next business, because he was already passing out more files. “After your training and oath,” he explained after each of them held a new file in their hands that looked similar to what the other two were holding, “you will join Agents Coulson and Barton in being Strike Team Delta. Classes start on Monday. Dismissed.”

Coulson is already outside, moving nearly as silently as she could. Clint is bounding ahead, a lot more annoying than usual.

“And Barton?” Clint stopped on his journey to the door, and let Nat move on ahead of him. “The next time you put shaving cream in my coffee, I’ll take your range.”

“It wasn’t meant for you!!” Clint yells and is already pushing past her and doing some kind of dance thing in the hallway. How someone as energetic as him could also double as a super sniper she’ll never know, but she does love him.

Because the best lies are built on truth, she can admit the truth at least to herself.

She’ll give her life for him, and she knows that he’ll do the same for her.

Partners in every way.

3-4 years later

New Recruit: Probate Agent Darcy Lewis

Darcy was recruited because she tazed Agent Phil Coulson when she thought he was attacking her friend. He wasn’t, but that’s not what she cared about at that moment. She didn’t know he was an Agent of SHIELD then, but she did find out when he came to offer her a job not long afterwards. He claimed she had spunk and would be good for the agency.

She’s not so sure about that.

In class with all of the new recruits, she learned about Strike Team Delta. It was a bit of required reading for the new students, and a bit of bragging rights from the older students and teachers that had stories about them. The stories made the three members that made up the team seem to be larger than life, especially the agents Hawkeye and Black Widow, aka Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff respectively.

Which is why when she saw Black Widow heading her way, Darcy automatically ducked into the side room and pretended that she had been training the entire time. (Instead of avoiding Agent Donovan and the class dealing with clean up.) She watches as the older woman takes some kind of powder out of her pocket and sprinkles it over someone’s training outfit. Darcy hasn’t been there long enough to be able to quite figure out whose suit it was.

A few hours later, during basic hand-to-hand combat. Agent May kept twitching during the entire lesson, finally breaking down when there were only a couple of students left in the room. “Barton! Get your ass out of those vents now!!!”

There was a muffled crash and a body is landing not far from where class had been. “Hey, May. What’s the matter?” A door shut from the back and when Darcy turned, she saw Agent Romanoff enter as well. The two legendary agents were both in the training area.

“You put itching powder in my suit again.” Agent May looked ready to kill someone, and by the way she was looking at Agent Barton, it was going to be him.

Romanoff’s smile was pure teeth, and Barton’s glare was straight at the Black Widow, before turning back to the training agent with smile that butter wouldn’t melt from. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Before taking off at a run and leaping back into the vents.

Agent May stalked off to the showers, grumbling the entire time. Which just seemed to break the tension in the room and the other students took off as well.

Agent Romanoff, aka Black Widow, left after all of the students. Darcy knew what she saw, but didn’t know who or even if she should tell anyone.

A bland voice behind her had Darcy turning in shock. “This is going to be a long three months.” It was Agent Coulson, the very agent that had brought her here.

“Sir?” This was the first time he had approached her since giving her a job here. He looked the same as he did the last time she saw him, not a piece of his suit out of place.

“Agent Romanoff just started a prank war with Agent Barton.” Coulson explained, his voice not changing inflection. He looked straight at her, a knowing look in his eye. “It is best to stay out of the way of the Barton’s at this time, Darcy Lewis. You don’t want to be in their line of fire.”

Darcy watches as the bland agent she tazed a few months ago walk on out of the training area. It took a moment for everything to connect in her mind.

Barton’s? Prank war?

The legendary agents of SHIELD, the ones that were whispered about in either fear or awe depending on the person, were having a prank war. And the two of them were together.

Darcy wanted to run and tell her best friend Jane all about it, but Coulson’s warning jumped to mind. Yeah, she really didn’t want to be in the sight lines of either agent. She liked not having itching powder in her clothes.

Or shaving cream in her coffee, if the yelling she’s hearing right now is any indication. Director Fury does not like anyone messing with his coffee.