“Let me ask you a hypothetical question.”

Coulson turns in surprise at the sound of Barton’s voice. It’s 5am on Wednesday and the archer’s sitting in semi-darkness in the rec room with an open file on his lap.

“Barton, have you been here all night?”

“Hypothetically,” Barton says, ignoring him, “you’re trapped in a warehouse full of leaking oil barrels--”

“Why are there oil barrels?

“It’s a warehouse.”

“Why are they leaking?”

“Because they’ve been sabotaged, Coulson,” Barton says impatiently. “Look, you’re in the warehouse, you’ve been ambushed and knocked out. You come to and you’ve been tied to a pallet of leaking barrels. You target’s tied up, still out cold and out of reach, and tied to him is some kind of incendiary device with a timer, which is counting down and currently reads two minutes. What do you do?”

“Barton, wh--”

“C’mon, what do you do?”

Coulson sighs. “Well, I guess I’d have to free myself first--”

“Can’t. Not in time.”

“Ah... I would call in backup--”

“Don’t have any.”

Coulson raises an eyebrow. “If I didn’t have any backup, I wouldn’t have gone into the warehouse in the first place, Barton.”

“Let’s pretend you decided to live a little. No backup. And your only weapon within reach is,” he consults the file, “some kind of taser thing.”

“Ok... well... I can’t use my weapon without sparking the oil--”

“Very true--”

“And I can’t free myself?”

“No.”

There’s a pause while Coulson thinks.

“Well, as the target will also be killed in the blast, I guess I would be honoured to die in the service of my country.”

Another pause.

“Wow.”

“Fine, Barton. What would you do?”

“We’ll never know. But if I were the Black Widow, I would use my famous thighs to drag myself within reach of the target and disarm the bomb with my feet. Then I’d free myself, kill the target and set fire to the warehouse as I leave, destroying the evidence. All within five minutes.”

Coulson’s eyebrows are dangerously close to his hairline.

“I know. And there’s pages of stuff like that,” says Barton, flipping through the file, picking out passages at random. “She’s pushed out of a plane over an unspecified body of water, somehow survives the fall, swims to shore and makes it back to base a week later with a broken leg... She’s caught trying to cross a ‘redacted’ border at ‘redacted’ checkpoint, takes out five soldiers and escapes... She cosies up to the dictator of Redactedsville, then sparks a riot and brings down his regime so a new one can be installed...”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “If only half the stuff in here is true... The woman’s got nerve, I’ll give her that.”

***

On Thursday, Coulson’s back in the rec room looking for lunch. He’s barely surprised to see Barton sitting at the table as he walks in.

“Afternoon Barton. Those my pre-mission briefs you’re working on there? Weapons inventory?”

Barton glances up before turning back to the file.

“Yeah, yeah. Listen to this: she once took out 27 heavily-armed assault troops in Kazakhstan, using only a nail file.”

When his handler doesn’t respond, Barton looks up to check he’s listening. “Twenty-seven heavily-armed troops, Coulson. A nail file.”

Coulson pours himself a coffee. “OK, well, be sure and ask what brand she uses. I’ll add a few to the next requisition order.”

“You’ve gotta admit that’s impressive.”

Coulson takes a sip of coffee and looks over at the archer, who’s now leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, looking at the file with something like admiration.

“She’s a highly trained assassin, Barton. That’s her job. Do I look impressed when you take out a bunch of guys with one arrow?”

“Doesn’t mean you’re not impressed though, right?”

“Barton--”

“And even I never managed 27 people with a nail file.”

Coulson lets out a long-suffering sigh, picks up his tray and leaves the room without another word.

“Fine,” Barton calls after him. “I’m just saying it’s, y’know... above average.”

***

Edited 2012-07-31 01:02 pm (UTC)