Title: Worlds Collide: Chapter Three
Author: sugar_fey
A Gift For: enediyne
Rating: PG-13 for this section, eventual NC-17
Warnings: Canon typical violence
Pairings: Clint/Natasha
Summary/Prompt Used: Prompt: "Do you know what it's like to be a lover? To be half of a whole?"
They have always been two halves of a whole, colliding, falling apart and coming back together again.



Four months and two weeks after Agent Barton pointed an arrow at her throat and offered her a deal, Natasha is cleared to go out in the field.

She is unsurprised when Barton is revealed to be her partner, and she has little doubt that he has been ordered to terminate her if she tries to run, no second chances this time. Still, he's grinning when he tells her the news.

“We've got our first mission,” he says, handing her a file. “S.H.I.E.L.D got word that H.Y.D.R.A is after missile plans being kept in the home of Mr Edward Cole in Los Angeles. Officially Cole is on a business trip in Dubai, but he's been missing for three days.”

“Kidnapped or dead?”

“Most likely kidnapped. We've got another team on that. Our job is to steal the plans from his house safe and replace them with fake ones without letting H.Y.D.R.A know we're on to them.”

“And we don't blow the cover of the agents infiltrating H.Y.D.R.A.” Natasha fills in the blanks, and she cannot help feeling disappointed. This is her first outing in months and she will become rusty at this rate. “That's all?”

Barton shrugs apologetically. “I expect they wanted to give you something small to start off.”

“Or maybe they're punishing you.”

“Maybe they are.” If Barton is bothered by this, it doesn't show on his face. He may be more soldier than spy, but he has been well taught. “Debrief is in five.”

+++++

Clint lets out a low whistle when Natasha appears in the foyer in her new skin-tight S.H.I.E.L.D uniform that flatters every curve.

“Looking good, Romanoff.”

“Eyes front and centre, Hawkeye,” she scoffs, but Clint could swear there is a trace of humour in her voice.

Clint reaches into the pocket of his tac vest. “We're flying commercial to L.A,” he says, pulling out the tickets booked under their aliases and two fake passports. “Say hello to Brian and Rebecca.”

“Married?”

“Business partners. Married is awful dull.”

Natasha ignores him and takes the tickets from his hand. “I take it you're driving to the airport, Barton?”

“Fury wouldn't have it any other way.”

++++++
The hotel room in L.A has thick windows and a heavy door, and Natasha sets up her new laptop on one of the beds while Barton searches for bugs. “We're clear,” he grunts from under his bed, and emerges with his hair sticking in all directions.

“I've got the outlines for Cole's security system,” Natasha says. “It's tough, but I can crack it. Cole's house has three security guards during the day, two at night. Shift changes at five a.m. If I can take out the guards and give the cameras a fake feed and that should leave you enough time to grab whatever's in the safe before the shift changes. I can keep a data card and wipe the copies.”

Barton stretches out next to her on the bed, his shirt riding up to expose his stomach and the shadows fall over the muscles working as he rolls over onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow. “Okay. Once I'm in, you keep watch on the area while I crack the safe.”

“Can you crack the lock without tools?” Natasha does not hide her suspicion. Safes are not her thing.

“Topic experts. Anything comes my way, let me know.”

“You trust me watch your back, Barton?”

He looks at her hard. “I trust you to do your job.”

+++++

They make their way to Cole's house at midnight.

“You go in and take the system down,” Barton whispers beside her as they crouch by the surrounding wall. “Keep in contact, I'll watch you over the scope.”

“Fine.”

“Okay.” Barton stoops to give her a boost up the wall. “Good luck, Widow.”

Natasha frowns at him, unsure how to respond, before jumping up and climbing over the wall.

It takes her no time at all to locate the first guard, knock him out with a strategically placed syringe and zip-tie him. When he wakes S.H.I.E.L.D will offer him a considerable sum of money to change careers and never speak of this. According to their information he is a middle-aged single father with crappy health insurance. He will take the money.

One guard down.

The second guard in the guard house takes a little more time. A light sleeping gas placed in the air vents has him drifting off while Natasha waits. He will think he fell asleep on the job.

The security system turns out to be ridiculously easy to crack for a man housing missile plans. In no time the cameras and alarms are down. Now she just needs to break the separate alarms in the corridor leading to the study where the safe is kept.

Moving through the house to an upstairs corridor, Natasha pulls down her goggles. Thin red lines criss-cross her vision.

Lasers. How Hollywood.

This is what the Black Widow was designed for. Edging around the corner, she lifts one foot over the first laser and ducks under the second, twisting and weaving her way through the red maze.

She bends over, arching her back, sliding her legs along the ground and then raising up fast, just missing the next beam. Natasha ducks under it, tensing her body, ready to drop beneath one and over another. The forest of red is thinning out.

“Well, hell,” she hears Barton say. “Didn't think bodies could move like that.”

“Are you going to offer commentary the entire time?” Natasha replies through gritted teeth as she moves.

“Nah. Just taking some notes.”

Duck, weave, bend, twist.

She is through.

She has just finished disengaging the lasers from the control panel when Barton's voice crackles over her earpiece. “Talk to me, Widow.”

“Systems are down,” she tells Barton. “Stand by.”

She slips out of the house and takes advantage of the darkness to climb back over the wall and onto a nearby roof, setting up her scope so she can keep an eye on Barton and the surrounding area. After a moment, his face turns up behind a front window.

“The safe is in the study. Up the stairs, make a left.”

He moves through the house like a ghost, following her directions and saying little. When he reaches the study he makes straight for the safe.

Natasha watches as Barton pulls on a pair of gloves and takes a ream of graph paper and a pencil from his bag. Setting them aside, he places his hand on the lock and rests his head against the door. Carefully, he begins to turn the dial.

It seems like forever, her watching him over the scope as his fingers move and he notes down the numbers between each turn. His hands a large and rough, yet dexterous and steady as the man himself.

The minutes on her watch click over and Natasha itches at her lack of control. “Hurry up, Hawkeye,” she hisses, and over in the study Barton doesn't even move.

“Shh,” he breathes, his cheek resting against the metal beside the lock. “I've got this.” He looks calm, focused, eyes half closed like he has all the time in the world. Natasha could kick him.

Another minute passes; she's on the verge of speaking again when the edge of Barton's lips curl upwards in satisfaction and suddenly, the safe door is open and Barton is calmly removing the contents. With only minutes left until the new guards come on shift, he replaces the files with fakes with agonising slowness before turning to the window, his hand raised in a two-fingered salute.

“See you later, Widow.”

Packing up the scope, Natasha slides down from her perch and pushes off the roof, preparing for the impact. She lands on the dumpster by the wall as she planned, rolling off and launching straight into a run down the side street.

Her rubber-soled boots make little noise as she cuts through a darkened car park and hauls herself up the wall of an abandoned building, climbing towards the floor where she and Barton are to meet. She feels the familiar burn in her shoulders from the climb and she has missed this, the chase and the satisfaction of doing what so few people can.

She pulls herself over the edge of a bare window and slides into the shadows to wait for Barton. He cannot be far behind.

He's not. He comes rushing into the abandoned building a few minutes later, his face gleaming with sweat. “Hey, Nat,” he says happily, his face lit up like Christmas morning. Natasha knows an adrenaline rush when she sees one. “Extraction should be along in ten. Here.”

He tosses a USB drive in her direction which Natasha catches in mid-air. “Anything else?” she asks, pulling out her laptop.

Barton pulls a bundle of papers and two external hard drives out of his backpack. “That's all. Cole's laptop was left in his hotel room when he went missing. Fucking amateurs.”

She sets about copying the files onto her computer while Barton crushes the hard drives under his boot and sets a match to the papers. When the files are done he holds out his hand wordlessly and she throws him the USB to add to the pile. It should be troubling, really, how easily they have fallen into place, but Natasha is surprised by how natural it feels. Barton is efficient and professional and she cannot help but admire his skill. Hawkeye had a reputation for good reason.

“C'mon,” he tells her, shrugging on his backpack. “We're meeting the chopper on the roof.”

++++++

The flight back to New York is mostly silent. Clint glances over at Natasha from time to time, and once catches her watching him like he's some sort of specimen she can't categorise. It should be creepy, but he respects it. Evaluating the variables.

“We did good today,” Clint says after their debriefing, pulling a sweatshirt out of his duffle bag and swapping it for his S.H.I.E.L.D jacket. “Want to grab something to eat?”

Natasha's eyebrow arches. “Are you asking me out?” she retorts, disbelief palpable.

Clint shrugs. “You have to eat sometime, Nat.”

Natasha takes a long look at him that he can't even begin to read. “Okay,” she says finally, like she has come to a decision about more than just a dinner. “I'll change and meet you at the exit. Clint.”

Clint tries not to smile too much.