Hello Captain (Steve Rogers)

Mission: South America

Late July 2012 
Sarah's POV

I looked over the table to where Natasha was sitting with Clint. "So let me get this clear – for my cover, I have to pretend to be Clint's girlfriend." I wasn't really excited about this new cover and I could tell Clint wasn't either. "Why aren't you going on this one, Nat?"

"There's a good chance that I'll be recognized by some of the other players coming in for this sale and a couple of my previous covers will...clash...with this one. We've already thought all of this through and it's got to be either you or Maria and she said no."

"I would to have loved to hear that conversation," said Clint with a grin. "I can't really see Maria being able to stay in character for that long any more."

"You know as well as I do that she's not temperamentally suited to these kinds of covert ops since being stuck in management. Remember Peru?" Natasha sat back and crossed her arms. Clint nodded and groaned, so I assumed it wasn't good.

"What happened in Peru?" I asked curiously.

"A couple years back, some shithead decided that Maria needed to be his and wouldn't take no for an answer. Pissed her off so much she blew our covers, leading to a hot evac."

"Oh." I considered that for a moment and thought the plan through from the outside. After a minute or two I asked, "So I just have to be convincing enough that I adore him that these arms dealers won't question our relationship?"

"That's the gist of it," said Natasha, studying me. "You might need to be somewhat physically demonstrative with him, kissing, touching, sitting on his lap, sleeping with him..."

I shot her a look, folding my arms over my chest. "You know I'm still a virgin, right? I'm all right with a majority of that stuff, just not actual sex."

Clint flushed and gaped at me before turning to an amused Natasha. "Seriously! Can't she just be my sister or something?" Clint griped, clearly as ill at ease with this as I was.

"You want those dickwads to hit on her and watch her every move because there's no one with a solid claim on her? Because otherwise that's what's going to happen," said Natasha. "Plus, there's too much of an age difference for her to be your sister."

"There's too much of an age difference for her to be my girlfriend!" Clint folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, clearly not buying in on this mission.

"Not for these guys and you know it, so quit bitching. They like them young and hot, intelligence negligible. She's got the right coloring and looks like a model. She'll have to dumb down her speech, but that's about it. We need her tech skills there to give us a way in and they won't think she's a threat. They're off the grid enough that it'll take too long to try and get in from the outside - even if we could lock on your physical location."

"She's right, Clint." I said, crossing my arms and tucking my hair back out of my way again. "We've been looking for the Ten Rings' IP's and satlinks for the past month. Without being there, I won't be able to open the window for Shield or build in a back door for Skye. She can't find a way in either; if it could be done that way, we wouldn't be having this conversation now."

"Look, if you won't do it, Clint, I'll have to bring in another Agent to be her partner and get her on site. Someone who speaks colloquial Spanish and Portuguese, knows weapons like the back of his hand and looks like a mercenary. There are other options; you know as well as I do that the Ronin alias isn't tied to you specifically."

"Who's the other option?" I asked, mostly out of curiosity.

Natasha hesitated before finally giving us a name. "Brock Rumlow from Strike 1."