The next Monday a new week started.

"Get your ass into gear James Viktor Romanoff or you won't have dessert for dinner tonight!" Natasha yelled from the kitchen as she packed her son's lunch. The kids had a trip to the local national wild park. Peggy Carter and Laura Barton were two of the teachers that accompanied the children. Although Natasha didn't like Sharon one bit, she found Peggy really nice and respectable. Maria Hill, a good friend of Natasha because she had been SHIELD's second in command years ago, was currently the school's director and had told Natasha about the trip in detail over coffee the other day. She just knew that Natasha liked to know where her son was because she did have some trust issues. Especially with things such as school that relied too much on administration and on a government that was composed of people with their own agendas. Fury had his own agenda too, but Natasha could keep an eye on him, something she couldn't do with the government.

Things were unusually made in a rush that morning. Because he was so excited, James didn't attach the buttons on his shirt correctly and Natasha had to undo and redo them. Liho made a fuss about her dry food, not wanting to eat a bit of it and Natasha ended up kicking her out. She left the bowls of water and food on the terrace. The first music students would be arriving later, at eight it was still too early for them and Natasha only allowed her locals to be used between 10 am and 4 pm. Before heading out of the apartment, Natasha checked her gun, grabbed her purse and looked at the calendar next to the front door. All the students that had booked her locals were written on the calendar. Today there was a local band for the morning but the afternoon there were three different groups of students up to 4 pm. Sometimes she was there to give them the keys for the locals, sometimes she wasn't and that Monday was one of those days where she spent the entire day at work. She left the key under the mattress on the second floor. She trusted the people that rented her place and never had problems. But if anything happened, she could always track them. Besides, they paid in advance for the rental, so she didn't complain.

At eight fifteen, they were finally in the car and Natasha attached James to his seat in the back. She checked his belts three times to be sure she hadn't missed a thing. That Monday was also a day where she drove very fast to get him to school in time. They made it, but barely. Natasha ignored the other cars that started to honk at her. She didn't do anything wrong: they were just too slow and she was just too much in a hurry to worry about the heavy and loud roaring of her black Corvette Stingray. She pulled in front of the school yard, all brakes screaming. Perfect stop, she realized with a smile as she checked the distance between her car and the two she had stopped between.

"Come on James. Give me a kiss and off you go!" Natasha said as James undid his belts and hopped from his seat. He planted a wet big kiss on his mother's cheek and she kissed his forehead before he got out of the car and ran to his friends, his backpack halfway falling off his shoulders as usual. Natasha noticed Laura in the crowd of children gathered in the schoolyard. Clint's wife waved at her and Natasha waived back before smiling and putting her sunglasses on. Then she drove to work.

Things were busy at SHIELD when she arrived some good half hour after nine. It wasn't busy all the time, but some agents (that's what they were called in the agency) started working early and stayed late. Most of the communication people for instance or direction. SHIELD was actually composed of different kind of people. The direction was on top and included Fury and Coulson among others. People from direction usually dealt with the government if something went wrong during an important mission, they were also in charge of the approval of new recruits and financial resources. Then came the bodyguards or agents of which Natasha was part with a lot of others. They were all a part of operations. Then there was the communication community that received all the job offers, treated them, negotiated and assessed threat levels. They also put agents on jobs according to what was needed and who was available. Then there were the janitors who didn't have much to do more than in any normal company because, apart from the occasional parties and meetings, most of the work happened outside of SHIELD's premises. Where they had to actually protect people and escort them.

Natasha entered SHIELD headquarters and headed for the elevator at the end of the great hall. She nodded to the lady at the front desk. Communication. She walked next to a guy in a dark blue uniform. Janitor. When she was nearly at the elevator, she was greeted by two guys in black. Operations. A lady in a suit walked out of the elevator and didn't acknowledge anybody's presence. Direction.

As Natasha was getting closer to the elevator, a small jingle could be heard. It was the beginning of the soundtrack of some show, something called Marv-something, Natasha didn't really know or care. She sighed. Only one person at SHIELD would use that jingle before announcing something and Natasha could already tell it wasn't going to be bright or pleasant.

"Hello everybody, this is Agent Johnson speaking. All of the agents that reported for duty this morning and don't have an assignment yet should head for the meeting room 23 on the second floor. And Romanoff, you better move your ass because I know you're late!"

Natasha didn't blush: she was used to that kind of talk. She didn't tell Agent Johnson to stop for two reasons. First, because she liked her sassy behavior and her stupid jokes, besides no one else could pull that off with as much style as her. Second, because she didn't want to hurt her. Agent Johnson was very capable in defending herself, she was almost as good as Natasha herself, but she was often reckless and distracted. Natasha sighed again as she entered the elevator and rode it to the second floor. Agent Johnson was the only one that would and could keep an eye on all the cameras at SHIELD. No wonder she had called her out especially.

Natasha arrived in the meeting room 23 at the same time as Agent Morse. The tall blond greeted her with a smile but didn't say anything else because she knew that Romanoff wasn't very talkative in the morning, especially not after the trick Johnson had pulled. Natasha knew Barbara 'Bobbi' Morse quite well because the woman had been married to Clint for three years. Now Clint was married to Laura and Bobbi was married to Hunter, although it was already her second marriage to Hunter. They were constantly breaking up and putting themselves back and so Natasha wondered why bother marry in the first place if all they intended to do was fight.

Brock Rumlow and Melinda May were already in the room, chatting. Natasha greeted them with a dry nod of the head, just like she had done to the lady at the reception desk. Melinda answered the same way. Natasha was very close to May without having to bother talking to her. They were often thinking the same, had similar fighting styles and weren't very talkative, their body language telling everything there was to know. They also had a lot in common, both being from other countries than America (Natasha was Russian and Melinda was Chinese), both preferred close range combat and both would always do what needs to be done.

Agents Alphonse Mackenzie and Antoine Triplet followed and started talking to Bobbi until Agent Johnson arrived. Daisy Johnson was no more than twenty-five years old and yet she possessed one of the most vital positions at SHIELD: communication leader. All assignments were approved by her; she even took care of the most complicated herself, often having to make the difficult choice of choosing between two excellent agents for the most dangerous missions. She also was head of security and had eyes and ears everywhere. Nothing happened at HQ without her knowing. And she often embarrassed people publicly using the main announcement system like earlier. She also used it for birthdays and congratulations on different stuff, so she wasn't that bad.

She had been practically raised by Philip Coulson who had recruited her a few years back. She was a very capable agent but because of her recklessness and the fact that she was the best at communication and hacking (that's actually how Coulson had noticed her), she wasn't always in the field. Usually she had one mission as bodyguard per month.

She closed the door behind her and approached the white board on which she projected images from her tablet. Her short brown hair reached her shoulders and a small headset with a mike rested in her ear. A badge with "Agent D. 'Skye' Johnson" was pinned to her leather jacket. The word 'Skye' had been added with a pink felt pen. She wore leather jackets since May had finished training her some year ago. Coulson, May and Johnson shared a very strong link, almost like a family. They were always there to look out for each other just like Morse and Hunter were always bickering. Just a normal day at SHIELD.

Daisy held her tablet tighter and looked at the agents in the room. "Agent Hunter is going to be late but I forgive him. He's on coffee duty." At that, Natasha wondered if Steve was currently sitting in that coffee shop she had told him about, playing the whole new bohemian artist thing she was certain he would do. "So, let's go over the assignments for this week." Johnson was efficient that way: she always planned ahead and took into account the agents' availability. Like the fact that Natasha wanted the Sunday off to be with James or didn't mind working hard for three days straight if that meant she could have the next three days free.

"Let's start with today. We have Mack, May, Trip and Romanoff." Everyone at SHIELD was called by their last name, sometimes adding the 'Agent' before, although Daisy always gave nicknames, some more respectful than others. Natasha liked it that way, it stayed professional. "Mack, the mayor of New York is going for a trip to England, so you'll be going with him for the next four days." The imposing and tall Mack nodded and folded his dark arms on his broad chest. "Trip, you'll handle the extraction of the two reporters that went to Syria. They got into trouble like two hours ago and will be waiting for you in the JFK Airport in three hours. The specs will be in the files as always but you'll basically have to escort them to Chicago where their HQ is."

She swiped a few times on her tablet and some of the specs of the mission appeared for everyone to see. But Daisy never revealed the full operation. That's why she created files with limited access, so that only the agent doing the job would have the full details. SHIELD wasn't an intelligence agency, but they took themselves seriously.

"May and Romanoff, you take Stark." May sighed at that and brought her hand to cover her face, hiding her displeasure. "I know you don't like him. But Romanoff has experience with him and it's a two men op. You'll figure it out." Anthony Stark's face appeared on the screen along with texts about the mission and pictures of the itinerary and detail about transportation.

"That's it for today. The others are on paperwork duty and surveillance." Morse nodded. Surveillance meant two things in Daisy Johnson's book: looking at the camera and doing the dumb job of looking at it again for the next couple of hours. Or it meant taking care of certain calls. Most of the calls that SHIELD received were transmitted to the communication department where the communication community negotiated and prepared the missions (and preparation also meant looking stuff up, like the best route, the most adapted transportation and such). So most calls to communication were actually coming back and forth between SHIELD and the contractor until an agreement was reached.

The other calls were about recruitment, new tech and resources, practical stuff and usually the stuff they used on missions. Since they didn't have any scientists or engineers on board, even though some agents had a few skills in those domains like Mack who loved tinkering with engines, they signed contracts with labs and factories to buy all they needed for missions. So since a lot of bodyguards didn't work every day, they took care of surveillance, especially those that possessed a few skills, that way they knew what they were talking about when signing. Of course, every signature came from direction but all the work beforehand was done in surveillance. So it could be counted as a small group in between communication and operations. Most people at SHIELD believed it was Daisy who introduced all those intelligence terms because she was a huge geek. Natasha didn't care: it was practical and simple, that's all that mattered.

Natasha listened to the planning for the rest of the week. She had another assignment on Tuesday and Thursday, but these were small fishes. Stark was the real deal and she could already picture him tiring her. But she had more patience with the billionaire than May. Once every assignment for the week was delivered, Daisy gave everyone access to their own files. Natasha took one of the tablets from the meeting table and saw that she could only access the three missions she had for the week. But she was also capable of accessing all of SHIELD's database if she wanted to. When she had arrived at SHIELD five years ago, she had tried a lot of different specializations before setting for espionage and covers. Hacking had somehow been engraved in her brain and she often wondered if she could override Daisy's programs. She had never tried to find an exploit, but hey, you never knew.

May was specialized in driving and flying, she was a true master behind the wheel. She was also very good at covers and fighting in general, but all agents were supposed to be good at fighting and weapons shooting. Morse had a preference for technologies and Mack for mechanics. Rumlow would rather stick with weaponry, especially heavy weaponry. Campbell was really good at medical and was the one that negotiated all new drugs during surveillance. Hunter and Trip didn't really have a specialty. Clint had been a specialist in long range not guns weapons. He was weird that way but give him a bow and he would shoot you in the eye from a hundred yards blindfolded. These were the agents Natasha spent most time with usually.

When everyone had grabbed a tablet to study the assignments somewhere calm, Hunter barged in, panting and almost spilling all the coffees on himself. "Gott'em!" he yelled and handed everyone their cup. A small piece of paper coming from his hoodie pocket (yes, hoodie, when it came to operations and communication, SHIELD wasn't picky on the outfits) told Natasha he had written everyone's favorite flavor in order not to forget. He was left with two cups, his own and someone else's.

"Wait, where's Pikachu?" Hunter called Agent Lincoln Campbell that since the day the latter was forced to wear a Pikachu hoodie to work because he lost a bet against Daisy.

Daisy blushed but took Lincoln's cup. "Sparky stayed at home. Has the flu." Daisy always called the other agents by her last names when they were working. But when it came to gossip and small talk, she always found the weirdest nicknames (Mack helped) and Lincoln was often first in line. For as long as Natasha could remember, Daisy had nicknamed Lincoln Sparky, Sparkplug, Pikachu, my sweet Pichu when she wanted something, Raichu when she was pissed or when she thought he was being obnoxious, Mr. the doctor, Linky (he hated that one), toaster, microwave, bulb head and smarty pants. She had a bunch of nicknames for everybody and used them on different occasions. For Natasha she had Nat, Tasha (the two most common), Black Widow (thanks to her NYPD days), leather devil, succubus (don't ask), Lara Croft, Charizard, Tzarina (more as a joke although Daisy was still looking at a link between Natasha and the Russian Tzar family), velvet and Scarlett. And thigh swinger because of her signature move.

When everyone was gone, Natasha stayed in the room and studied the assignment specs with May. They were supposed to meet Stark at his company Stark Industries and escort him from New York to Washington during the afternoon. His CEO Pepper Potts and head of security Happy Hogan were also coming, that's why it was a two men job. Also, Stark had recently been the target of an unknown group causing trouble and ruckus along the East coast. And Stark had personally asked for Romanoff because she had already done a couple of jobs with him a few years back.

"Don't worry, I'll keep him busy," Natasha said to May once they finished looking through the files and had agreed to meet at the entrance of HQ one hour before the beginning of the mission.

"You better, otherwise I'll smash his head in the windshield," May responded with a slight smile.