Love Is For Children ~Hawkeye & Black Widow (Part One & Two)

Worse Situations

Pacing.

It’s such a subconscious movement triggered by the brain when we’re worried, angry, waiting or panicked.

For Clint Barton it was for all of those reasons.

After Fury claimed a tagging chip could lead them to Natasha’s whereabouts Clint had been fuelled on hope; he paced the board room, back to front and side to side till he’d at least walked two miles.

Agent Hill had resumed to her paperwork after getting him a cup of coffee and a muffin; which he turned his nose up at first, but managed to stomach after the pressing of Hill.

Another five minutes, one of the tech workers sighed; obviously Barton had begun to grind his gears with all his pestering and pacing.

Fury had rolled his good eye after watching him pace for the first ten solid minutes, before burying himself in assignment sheets. Another five minutes later and Clint was sure he’d spontaneously combust, but the popping ‘ding’ from the nearby monitor was like an electric shock; the anticipation of knowing if they could find her or not struck him like a lightning bolt.

“The chip is still active; we’re just waiting for the coordinates to follow” The tech worker smiled feebly, before entering a list of codes into the monitor.

Clint exhaled heavily, parts of his tension letting up. At least he knew there was a chance of finding her, but the devil on his shoulder made sure he knew that there was still a chance she was dead.

Dead.

Clint hadn’t given it that much thought; he’d tried to prevent his mind from going dark side, and did his best to prolong the actual thought of accepting her death.

If Natasha was dead, what would he do? He wouldn’t know how to function for a long, long time; heck, he’d probably even leave S.H.I.E.L.D and pursue a career in gardening, or some other mundane job.

He just had to think optimistically, and remember when Natasha told him to relax.

“We have the coordinates. She’s located somewhere on the outskirts of Hanover in Germany, but we can’t determine the exact location, it seems whoever has her captive has put a gridlock around the area”.

That’s all Clint needed; a place. It didn’t take him even five seconds before he began to head towards Fury.

“Right, we’ll set up a helicarrier to leave in approximately forty-five minutes” Fury began to start orders before pressing his ear piece. “All level four agents are to head to bay two in forty-five minutes; armed and prepared for search and rescue of Agent Romonoff”. Fury demanded through his ear piece.

Clint started to feel something. After being numb and just deflated for so long, he felt a feeling he felt so many times before; after each successful mission, after Natasha admitted to loving him back and after Loki was sent back to Asgard; he felt hope.

So at the forty five minute mark, Clint was already strapped in inside the helicarrier, bow in hand and leg furiously bouncing up and down; waiting and praying.

Meanwhile, Natasha was cautiously stalking through the halls of HYDRA's base; covered by a white examining gown, barefoot while clutching a scalpel. Although some would deem her situation to be barely escapable, Natasha had been in worse.

She was trapped inside the enemy base, almost naked with a weapon that could hardly be classed as deadly; but she kept telling herself she'd been in worse, she'd fought aliens and escaped a rampaging Hulk.

"In 4, 3, 2, 1" Natasha murmured just before the anticipated panic alarms started to blare throughout the dim building – and that's when the fun began.