Trust the Dark // Clintasha

Chapter 6 • First Class

A ray of sunshine came through the plane window and sparkled off of a diamond ring. Natasha stared at the blindingly sparkly ring on her finger.

"I picked out a nice one, didn't I?" Clint smirked, leaning across and swiping Natasha's knee with his hand.

She leaned back in the seat. "You didn't pick this out; someone at SHIELD did."

He shrugged in response. "Ok, ok." Clint stared out the window at the passing clouds for a moment before turning back to Natasha. "We're almost there right?"

"We have 3 hours left."

"Ughh!" Clint groaned, dragging his fingers down his face.

Natasha smiled at his silly expression. "Relax, you baby. You should be glad Stark let us use one of his private jets so we wouldn't have to ride coach."

Clint stuck his tongue out in disgust. "Ugh coach. That's what poor people use," he said in an overly-snobby voice.

Natasha gave him a flat look. "You really need to work on your cover. Actually," she started to pull a folder out of her bag despite Clint's protests, "let's go over the cover again."

"Nat, we've already been through the stupid cover folder a thousand times," he whined.

They went through it again anyways.

Since SHIELD was essentially dismantled now, the resources they had on missions were not as plenty as before. They were provided with all the essentials: cover passports and IDs. That was basically it. Natasha and Clint had to create a backstory for their cover and plan how to carry out the mission on their own.

This time, they were fiances Lotte North and Martin Mahoney. Natasha created a backstory for Lotte North: she was the wealthy heir of a multi-billion dollar business from Italy. She was vacationing with her fiance in Hawaii for a week.

Clint on the other hand had more fun with his backstory. Martin Mahoney was an American that came to study abroad in Italy and fell in love with Ms. Lotte North. He was the son of an affluent winery owner from California. Clint liked to think he was "charming" and "charismatic". Natasha told Clint she thought Martin Mahoney was "dopey."

Clint added more silly details that Natasha told him he'd end up forgetting. So clearly, Clint was determined to prove that he could remember all the details he made up.

The target for the mission was a high-ranking Hydra official. All they knew was that he or she would be attending a conference for wealthy corporate men and investors in a hotel in Hawaii. Natasha and Clint's job was to find out who the Hydra official was. Afterwards, they could do whatever they wished: assassinate him, expose him as Hydra, or spy on him and gather more information.

The two partners had trouble figuring out what to do at the end, so when they got to that part of the plan, Clint just said, "We'll wing it."

After going through their covers and mission plan, Clint sat back in his chair and slid his sunglasses down. "I'm going to try and get some sleep."

"I'll wake you up when we have an hour left. We still need to dress and prepare," Natasha told him.

Clint nodded absently and closed his eyes.

Natasha looked out the window. She tried to look down at the ground, but they were too high up. It was as though they were traveling in an infinite vacuum of space. She heard Clint's breathing become even and she glanced over at him.

Her eyes ran over his face first, his eyes obscured by his mirrored sunglasses. She saw herself staring back at herself in the sunglasses and snapped her eyes away for a split second. They eventually drifted back to his face. She observed his angled nose and his sharp jaw, now clean of stubble. She watched his neck muscles move slightly as he breathed, his chest slowly moving up and down. The rhythm of his breathing seemed entrancing, like the movement of the tides. Natasha was unaware of how her breathing started to match his.