The Budapest Objective

Two

Natasha woke with a bad headache. She groaned as she sat up, her head spinning. She got out of bed, and leaned against the wall to steady herself. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was,

“7:00!?” She exclaimed. “Oh, I must have forgotten to set my alarm clock again! Wonderful…”

She hurriedly dressed in her SHIELD uniform and grabbed her suitcase. She was almost to the jet when she remembered that she hadn't packed any weapons. She sighed in exasperation and ran back through the Helicarrier, grabbed four pistols and 100 rounds of ammo, snatched three knives off of her dresser, and stuffed all of it into her suitcase. This was extremely unlike her; she was usually so prepared. She ran as fast as she could back through the Helicarrier. She rounded a corner and slammed into something solid. Clint grabbed her shoulders to steady her.

“Are you alright?” he asked, his anxiety evident from his voice.

“I'm fine,” Natasha said, regaining her balance and pulling away from him.

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Not exactly.”

“It's 7:15. I've been waiting for you by that jet for an hour and fifteen minutes. What happened?”

Natasha's head was pounding worse now, and she really didn't need a speech. “Nothing, I just forgot to set my alarm last night.”

“What happened to your body clock?” Barton asked, referring to her ability to wake up exactly when she needed to.

“It ran out of batteries.” Clint could tell from Natasha's voice that she didn't want to talk about it.

“Natasha, are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes, I'm fine. And don't sound so worried.”

She pushed past him and made her way to the SHIELD jet that they would be taking. She threw her suitcase aside, and sat down in the copilot seat. Her head was killing her. Clint came in moments later, and sat down in the pilot seat, started the jet, and took off. He noticed Natasha was massaging her temples like she always did when she had a bad headache or she was trying to solve something.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked, glancing sideways at her.

“Talk about what?” she questioned irritably. Yep, she definitely had a headache.

“How late were you up last night?”

“What's that got to do with anything?”

“You have... I was just wondering.” Clint had been on the verge of saying ‘You have a really bad headache, don't you?’, but she hated when anyone saw that she was in pain. He kept it to himself.

“How late were you up last night?” Natasha asked.

“I lost count at 3:45,” he replied truthfully.

“Why the heck were you up so late?”

” wasn't tired.”

“Clint Barton, don't lie to me. Don't ever think that you are capable of that,” Natasha warned. “Why were you up so late?”

He couldn't exactly say ‘I was up late thinking about you and trying to figure out what all of these obnoxious feelings mean.’ She’d kill him. So he told her a half truth. “I was thinking about the mission.”

“And?”

“And all of these freak accidents that keep happening to us. Notice how they never happen to either of us when we do solo missions?”