Chapter Text
Natasha stalked back to her flat, running the last two miles even in her boots. By the time she got to her front door, her restless energy had dimmed somewhat, and she pulled sweaty hair off the back of her neck using the motion as an excuse to survey her surroundings before unlocking her door. Once inside, she locked it behind her in a decidedly more advanced fashion than the outside betrayed, and marched to the shower.
Tasha liked the shower. One way in, one way out. Tactically speaking, it was ideal.
What she didn’t like were delivery services, but seeing as she hadn’t been here for the last two weeks the fridge was empty. This was where staying at the tower had its benefits, but not tonight. Tonight she needed the yellow light of her own space and the tchotckes that littered the bookshelf, once just set dressing but she’d come to like them.
Settling for one of the pressed fruit-and-grain bars she usually carried on missions she promised herself a proper breakfast, assuming the world didn’t dissolve into chaos before then. Crawling into bed, she bypassed the book she sometimes read, the one tucked under the spare pillow, and turned out the light. It had been a long day.
*****
Clint wasn’t a fan of calling people. Calling was intrusive, loud, obnoxious, and for people who lived on the edge it was one more thing that demanded attention in a sea of obligations and responsibilities. It was hard to ignore a call, impossible even, when the fate of an op, a life, of lives could ride on you answering it.
It was why Clint tended to text when he needed something personally; a favor or a thing that could be classified as a want rather than a must have. Texting allowed the option to ignore. It was nice to have that luxury, sometimes, that illusion of normalcy.
Yet call he did, at 3am no less, because right now there was no room for illusion. Not when Clint was rubbing his own sleep from his eyes and staring at the folder that had been delivered no less than four and a half minutes ago.
Life went on, after all, no matter what time of the morning.
It was why the first buzz of the vibration of her phone on the bare bedside table woke her. Natasha's fingers moved unerringly beneath the shaded lamp beside it without looking at the screen, her attentions on defense should she need it. Only a handful of people had this number, and most of them knew better than to wake her for something trivial.
“Yes?”
“We’re heading out at 05:00.” It wasn’t the best of greetings but it was the honest one, and whether he was happy about it or not didn’t matter. It was what it was. “Good news, though, you ain’t gonna have to pay tariff on that Stoli Elit for a while. For the next three weeks, in fact.”
Four hours of sleep wasn’t great, but she’d had worse. And as far as news went, it wasn’t horrible. The sense of immediacy was fairly low — it was rare Natasha was allowed the luxury of hours to get where she needed to be — and even better, she knew the terrain, so to speak.
Not to mention the fact that alcohol tax wasn’t cheap.
The mission would be a little harder on Clint. He wasn’t a fan of the cold. It locked up his fingers and froze his nose and generally made life miserable without the advantage of mobility. Layers made it hard to pull the trigger. Even so, he rose and moved to pull out his uniform, eyeing the winter jacket hanging at the far end of the minimal closet.
“Packets are waitin’ on the plane. Hangar F-4.” There was a pause after that, before a grin tugged on Clint’s lips. “I’ll tell you what I’m wearin’ if you tell me what you are.”
Her answer was a fond curse in Russian that he knew Clint knew all too well.
“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.”
Sleep did nothing to impair her sense of sarcasm, or the amused curve of her lips in the dark, and she reached gamely for her boots. F-4 meant that she could swing by her quarters on the way. She’d only need her winter tactical suit; if S.H.I.E.L.D. was calling her in, they knew which weapons she’d want, and they’d already be in place on the Quin. Propping the tiny phone against her shoulder, she tightened the drawstring that slung low on her hips.
She refrained from asking who the handler was.
It should be Sitwell in command — but if Clint was taking the time to phone her, then it was just them, and if it was just them, then she knew who would rather be riding shotgun.
Professionally speaking, preferences could hurt her. Preferences led to habits, habits led to predictability that could be used against you. And so, on the rare occasions that preferences occurred, she kept them to herself. Even with Clint.
“Twenty says I’m in that hangar before you are.”
She was keyed up now, laser-focused; he was likely still in his boxers. It was an easy $20 from where she sat.
The quirk of his lips graduated to a full blown grin at that. Tasha was Tasha, no matter the time of day or condition of mind, and if there was one thing Clint could appreciate the most about her it was the ability to quip back with a speed and intensity few possessed. She was the perfect woman, in more ways than one and in more instances than should ever be necessary.
“Now why would I go and take your money like that?” Even if he did move faster now, unzipping and zipping. If she was betting she was already ahead of him. Then again, that wasn’t necessarily an unusual arrangement. “Too easy, Tasha, I’d feel bad.”
Yet he was taking it anyway. Go figure.
“See youat the hangar.” With that he hung up, tucking his phone into a pocket with the intents of being on it when he was waiting at the hangar.
Naturally, he was the one finally stepping onto carefully marked pavement, the cause of his tardiness perched on his head. She was already waiting, of course, just like he already had twenty in hand which he handed over silently.
Off her look he shrugged. “You got lucky. This once.” Though they both knew that it wasn’t the first, nor would it be the last, bill to change hands.
She took it with a single eyebrow that barely arched, a look that seemed to say 'What did you think I was wearing?' Two precise fingers tucked the bill down the front of her basic black crewneck, the same thing she’d slept in every night since she’d left the Red Room.
“I don’t believe in luck,” is what she actually said, more truth than backtalk, and with that the playfulness passed, leading them directly into go mode.
She ducked into the jet, triple checking that her weapons of choice were present and accounted for, as well as ample ammunition rounds. Shrugging, she clipped on her S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued earpiece, meeting nothing but radio silence for now.
Even as he brushed past her, his eyes glanced toward the seats. Back to business. “So what’s so important that Fury’s got us up at the ass crack of dawn?”
“You read the same dossier I did.” Fluidly, she traded her sweatpants for her Widow suit without blinking an eye — the hangar was empty save Clint, and he’d seen it all before. She wasn’t a modest woman; and he knew that her body told the least of her secrets. If she was a different person, she might’ve said she loved him for that. As it was, she had a complicated view of that subject, and was just thankful for the ease of understanding between them.
Straightening the leg seams before reaching to draw up the back zipper in a way that should have been impossible, she nodded at the packet of coordinates in the passenger seat. “Russia. Strictly intel gather only, but by any covert means necessary.”
Covert meant that brute force was a last resort, and another nod of her head gestured toward some of their favourite disguises, each marked and hung in its own garment bag. Covert wasn’t a problem; undercover was very nearly what they did best, albeit she better than him sometimes.
There hadn't even been a bat of an eye spared for her from Clint's end as she changed, and instead he had moved to grab the dossier from the seat, sighing as he flipped through the papers. They weren’t any more elaborate than the ones he’d stumbled through already; he’d read it more in-depth once they got started.
“Three weeks to get what we can on this Department X.” She met his eyes then. They were good at this, and more specifically good together. This wasn’t aliens, or Council politics. This was something they could handle, and handle well.
“Department X, huh? Almost sounds mutant.” But that was really as far as that conjecture could go until they were knees deep in the op. “You ever wonder why it’s always X? Would think Y and Z are gettin’ pretty jealous at all the attention.”
“They named it that to spare you the big words.” It wasn’t cruel, but a familiar tease between them. Her fingers danced in a short sequence over the keypad, muscle memory tapping in the code to open the hangar, and they were flooded with the flare of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s external lighting, brighter for the surrounding darkness.
Because it was Clint, she didn’t try to hide the upward tilt of her lips. He glanced over to meet her eyes and wasn’t shy about the amused grin at the curves of his mouth. Undercover was Tasha’s thing in the way long distance sniping was his. Fortunately, he’d been learning from said best for a while now.
There wasn’t a better team for this, and S.H.I.E.L.D. knew it.
“Get in. I’m driving.”
“Fine, but I’m back-seating the entire way,” he countered. Annoying was his specialty after all, even if the threat was just that in this case, a threat. He needed time to go through the papers he’d only skimmed.
“I’ll give you backseating,” she purred darkly. Maybe she was sleep deprived, maybe she was thankful for the company, and maybe she was the tiniest bit giddy at having something on her plate that she was made for.
Clint seemed to share the mindset. With a last glance at his weapons - three quivers and enough ammo to make any party fun - he moved to secure the bay doors. Suit up and roll out, the Strike Team Delta way of life. He barely glanced over his shoulder as he punched in the lock codes.
“Been a while since Kamyshin. Think they still remember us?”
Natasha's jaw set as the Quin’s thrusters fired up, her attentions on the myriad of controls in front of her, speaking more to the dash than to him.
“I’ll be disappointed if they don’t.”
Professionally speaking, bloodlust was not a prized trait amongst operatives. But she had her grudges, and Russia was home to half of them. This was a covert mission, but there would be one day when that was not the case.
The smooth force of takeoff pressed her back into the moulded seat, and she went through programming settings with textbook precision, her mind switched completely to the mission. In this moment, competency had everything to do with how she could make it possible for them to be at their best: by making sure coordinates were stored so that they could trade sleep shifts.
It was the tone of Tasha’s voice that had him looking up, but the sight was a welcome, momentary distraction. The Quinjet controls were enough to make Clint’s heart beat just a bit faster. The sheer power in the yoke and the language of dials and meters was something that did what few other things could do: give Clint a solid foundation for belief in his own intelligence. Flying had been a staying force for him when he’d first joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and his license to fly (limited as it may be) would be something he’d be eternally grateful to the organization for.
Seeing Natasha at the controls, though? It was watching two things that had shaped and formed the wet clay of Clint’s younger self into the thing it was today. Both were beautiful and instrumental in ways that made his stomach twist just a bit. And both, together, were a lethal force of efficiency and competency.
“They’d be stupid to forget you,” he said, and while he knew the statement could be said for the both of them it was really Natasha who cut the more memorable figure of them both. For good reason. After all, Clint had never forgotten, had he?
Grudgingly he turned back to the papers and sighed. It was hard to concentrate on reading, of all things, before a mission like this. Before a venture into the heart of darkness where in lie the secrets of Natalia Romanoff. The bloodlust of earlier was contagious in the form of a restless spirit.
“Might as well grab the sleeping quarters while you can. I’m climbing up in five hours, whether you’re out of there or not.”
There was a fleeting temptation to wad up the paper he’d flipped to and throw it at the back of that familiar mess of red hair. But he needed it for now and there would be time later to return the tease.
But Clint was a consummate professional, or could be when he needed to, and right now the mission parameters required that focus. Still, he couldn’t help shooting a smirk at the back of Tasha’s head. “Could put her on autopilot and join me now.”
The things that rolled off Clint’s tongue sometimes. She suspected he didn’t always think before he spoke with her, which would have been irritating if it were Stark, or anyone else, even. But she knew too well what a luxury it was to be able to disable that filter with someone, to speak your mind. Flattered wasn’t the word… aware, maybe. It was a compliment, so she let him off easy, with a Look and a slim middle finger over her shoulder.
The look had him grinning, turning and throwing up his hands in mock retreat. “Fine, fine, be that way. See if I ever share the blankets again.”
He knew he would though. He always would. He’d always share with both members of his team.
*****
When he rejoined her, Tasha had her knees tucked to her chest, autopilot engaged after a smooth climb in altitude. She looked unintentionally smaller that way, her red hair spilling loose over her shoulders as she pored over the briefing packet for the second time. She was pretty sure there were official suspicions that hadn’t been officially stated in the parameters; half a lifetime of reading between S.H.I.E.L.D.’s lines told her as much. Still, she’d know as much as anyone before they came back, so she wasn’t over worried about it.
“Caught up on my beauty sleep, your turn.” A teasing lilt crept into Clint's voice. “Pretty sure you could use it, what with that hair of yours out of place.”
“Doesn’t seem to have helped you,” she grumbled. Four hours of sleep was catching up with her, but she was more than sure that her strands hadn’t suffered. “Controls are all yours.”
She sighed, stretching like a cat in the sun before she stood, dropping the heavy folder into the empty passenger seat. “She’s on auto, cloaking set to engage…” She looked at the dash. “…in eleven minutes.” As soon as they crossed into international airspace. From there it was only another four hours to Vyborg, their rendezvous point on the Finnish border. After that, it would be ground travel southeast to the outer slums of Saint Petersburg.
She passed him in the cabin without touching, giving him his space just as she liked hers.
* * *
The quiet was as warm as the seat left behind and it was a comfort in some ways from the chaotic state of mind New York had been giving him. Things were simpler on missions in the sense that purpose was spelled out on paper. Components of the goal boiled down to just a few elements, and two of them Clint was very, very familiar with. It was nice to know where the extent of his control lay and exactly how, in theory, it was going to be applied.
Sometimes the simplicity in that was enough to settle the unease in himself.
It was that settling that allowed him to doze, carried away by the hum of engines and the solid knowledge of back up less than fifty feet away. The calm before the storm in a way, and it was those familiar feelings that made it so that, when Natasha came back, Clint was awake and alert. Ready for duty.
The flight computer had been pinging softly into his headset and though Tasha’s sudden tip-taps on the flooring caused a slight jump he was already focused back on the controls in front of him.
“Going down?” Her lips twisted in a wry smile; the nap had improved her mood, for sure. Her tactical suit was hidden beneath slacks and a turtleneck, tall boots laced up her shins; they had two blades and a firearm tucked into them. And since she knew Clint was the better pilot, not that she’d ever tell him as much unprompted, she melted into the passenger seat, reseating the near-invisible comm in her ear.
His eyes flicked sideways to take note of the new dress. He’d put on field slacks and a dark purple shirt moments before, though the thick winter jacket still lay crumpled in the plastic. Clint would need it shortly, but they still needed to hit their landing spot. It was a short window to trade off with their operative. Plane for car was a poor trade in Clint’s opinion, but poor was boon rather than a hindrance in this part of the world, particularly for the first part of this operation.
“Hitting rubber in ten. On final descent,” he said simply, glancing at the altimeter. “Repacked a few things, we should be set. Karoff’s waiting with the car, no incidences. Need to check in on frequency 334 in about two minutes, confirmation code is Sierra-Tango-Delta-Two.” It was missing a number but Clint said nothing about it.
“Got a ten minute window once we hit the ground then we’re on our way to the great and powerful Department X.” A pause followed it, then Clint smiled a smile that didn’t need to be seen to be heard. “Hope they don’t mind combat boots because I left my ruby slippers at home.”
Glancing sideways, there was a brief fracture of the shell of agent. A momentary pull away from the narrowed mindset that they both fell to and a re-emergence of the persona that was there when work wasn’t or hadn’t or was in the middle of calling away.
“Ready?”
The simple word wasn't a question of skill or competency or actual preparedness or even professionalism. It was a question that was acknowledging the fact that should this all go sideways, the knowledge that there was something more than what they are now once existed.
Though she missed the depth of his question, brief as the window was, his consideration was one of the very few that didn’t stifle her, and she nodded, fingers fiddling at her ear to find the channel.
“Ready.”
She usually was.