Compromised Series Part IV!

Just as a heads up, everything is AoU-compliant. That means the only difference from the movie is that Clint and Natasha are romantically involved (Laura Barton does not exist in this universe, and Bruce and Natasha are strictly friends.) So basically this series is now an AU series, but hey, what can you do. Hopefully y'all are still ok with that! This title is also taken from a line in Walt Whitman's poem, "To a Stranger."

I'm going to TRY to update once a week every Monday, so look out for potential updates then if you want to keep up with this story! Mad shoutout to the amazing Camille aka nathanielbarton on Tumblr for being my beta! Always kicking my ass into shape.

Song for the chapter: "Kids Aren't Alright" - Fall Out Boy

Let me know what you think! I hope you guys like the, ahem, creative license I have taken. Please, please, please let me know =)

Enjoy! =)

"And you're sure about this?" Natasha had asked. "You're sure about doing this? It's our last safe place in the world, Clint."

"I'm sure," he'd replied, his blue eyes clear and confident, his mind still in one piece, the one thing he had over Natasha in that moment. "We need somewhere to go…we need to lie low. I'm sure."

"Clint…"

"If you say no, I'll find somewhere else. I just need the word."

"No, Clint…no…let's just do it. You're right. We don't have anywhere else."

"And you're sure about this?"

"Count me in."

And so Clint had shown the Avengers the last safe place he and Natasha had been able to keep for themselves. He'd let them in and given them the last piece of himself he had to offer, the last piece Natasha had to offer. If she'd told him no, he would have listened. He would have given up some other safe house, but she'd said ok. Even in her not-quite-there state, she'd said ok, and he'd trusted her.

Natasha glanced up from her paperwork and looked over at Clint. "I know you're avoiding finishing those forms. They're not going to finish themselves."

"If I keep telling myself yeah, then they will," he retorted. Natasha suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, but she shrugged as she finished signing off on the form she was currently attacking. "Shouldn't you be off doing something else, anyway?"

"If by something else you mean helping train Wanda, then no." Natasha moved the finished form off to the side and started on the next one. "She's been doing well over the past few days. I thought she deserved a break."

"She doesn't like taking breaks," Clint pointed out.

She glanced up again, her green eyes finding his face immediately. "Who does that sound like?"

"Not fair."

"Completely fair. It's because of your workaholic attitude that Fury even sent us off to Italy after the Battle of New York."

"Workaholic? You're the one filling out your 900th form, and I'm the one who's a workaholic?" Clint leaned forward again, narrowing his eyes at her, even though the look on his face was playful and anything but confrontational. "Want to run that by me again, Romanoff?"

"No. I'm busy." She skimmed over the rest of the form and then lifted a hand to her forehead, rubbing just a little bit. Instantly, Clint noticed the motion, and he paused.

"Nat?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"You ok?"

"Yeah. Just a headache."

"You've had those a lot recently."

Natasha shrugged again and opened her eyes, a tiny frown playing across her mouth. "We've had a shitty past couple of days. Couple of weeks. Everything's just kind of been shitty."

"Understatement of the century."

"Try the millennium. Banner's gone, Pietro's dead, Stark's off doing God knows what. Thor…Thor's just always doing his own thing, and then there's the rest of the world that we just kind of destroyed in the process of trying to save it from an army of well-meaning but very childish, very petty tin men."

"Technically it was one very powerful tin man who put his brain in all the other tin men, but I know what you were getting at," Clint said as Natasha shot him a look. He twisted a bit in his swivel chair. "We should take a few days off."

"Yeah, and go where?" she countered. "The farm? That's the first place anyone would think to look for us now that they know where it is," Natasha replied. Clint opened his mouth to respond, guilt already starting to set in across his face, and she shook her head. "And I don't blame you for that. Not at all. We've had this conversation. I'm just saying that our safe house isn't quite as safe as it was. You know?"

"Then another safe house."

"Our safe house that was destroyed in D.C. after HYDRA fucked us over?" she asked steadily. "Our safe houses all over the world that were destroyed? We only have a handful left, Clint. It won't be long until someone finds those and destroys them, too. All that information's been leaked out there…just a matter of time."

"Your headaches don't look very good."

"Pain never feels good, Clint."

Clint sighed, knowing he lost the argument, and he lifted his hands up. "I can't win. Ever. I don't know why I'm even surprised anymore."

"Surprised by what?" Steve appeared in the doorway and crossed farther into the room towards the two former agents. "I miss anything exciting, or is this just another lovers' quarrel?"

"It's disgusting that you refer to us as lovers," Clint deadpanned, snorting a little as he rolled his eyes.

"Show me the lie, and I'll show you an apology," Steve drily remarked.

"How's everything going?" Natasha asked as she looked up from her form. Squinting her eyes against the bright fluorescents, she focused as best as she could on Steve's face.

"In general, with the team, or are you talking about something else entirely?" Steve asked. Natasha lifted her eyebrows and tilted her head to the side.

"Do I even need to clarify?"

"Everything's all right, Sam and Rhodey spent roughly seven minutes arguing over their individual engine power, and no one's seen or heard anything about Bucky. That answer your question?"

"And then some," Natasha replied. Her eyes flicked back towards the doorway. "Any word from Fury and Hill yet?"

"Not yet. Expecting anything from them?"

"Not really. They just haven't been around very much since we officially set up shop here."

"What do you mean?" Steve folded his arms over his chest and frowned a little at her.

"Nothing. They're just…not here. I'm curious. Aren't you curious? Don't you ever want to know what's going on beneath the surface? Or are Clint and I the only ones who want to know?" Natasha asked.

"Could just be our natural spy instincts," Clint added, his sharp eyes turning up towards Steve.

"Well." Steve shrugged with a dry smile. "There's a reason I keep you two around."

Natasha laughed and shook her head, genuinely appreciating the joke. "As if you can control us. Please, Rogers."

"We're all equals in this. Always." Steve leaned back against the side of one of the desks and looked back and forth between them. "So you're all…ok after everything that happened?"

"Are you asking me if I still have flashbacks to my horrific childhood?" Natasha asked, her voice just as dry as his. Clint shot her a questioning look, but if she saw it—she did—she didn't pay him any attention.

Steve shrugged a little as he looked at her with his own cool blue eyes. "Yes. I guess that's essentially what I'm asking."

"Then yes. I am ok. One hundred percent." Natasha pushed the paperwork away from her and fought the urge to rub her head again. The headache was back and dulling out her extra sharp senses, things she couldn't afford to go too long without. "What'd you even see, Rogers?"

Steve's mouth curved upwards into another smile, and he shook his head just once. "Funny, Romanoff. Funny."

Before anyone could reply, an agent stuck her head into the room. "Captain Rogers, you're needed downstairs for a quick consulting question. Hill's on the line."

Steve couldn't see Natasha as she flashed a look in Clint's direction, the both of them exchanging looks as they noticed the fact that Hill was calling in to Steve, not to either of them. She looked up at Steve and smiled as he nodded towards them as his way of saying good-bye. "Saved by the bell, right?"

"For now," she replied, and just like that, Steve was gone. Natasha went still for a few moments as she waited for him to get far enough away. Then she turned back to Clint with curiosity on her face. "What do you think?"

"I think Hill's probably up to no good. You know how she is. Doing secret spy stuff. Like always."

"No." Natasha scooted forward in her chair a little bit more. "Steve. What do you think he saw when Wanda fucked with his head?"

"Think that's really something we should talk about?" Clint asked, his face careful as he looked back at her. "Whatever he saw…it was horrible, right? You said you saw your childhood…you saw the Red Room. Whatever Wanda showed him…"

Natasha shifted her jaw to the side, and she nodded. "You don't want to know?"

He lifted his hands and looked away, as if trying to hide from her a little bit. "Nat, that ain't my business."

She shrugged a little bit, knowing he was right but not wanting to admit it. "Well. I guess I don't want everyone knowing my deep, dark secrets, either. So I don't blame him for not wanting to share with the rest of the class."

"To be fair, you didn't really tell him what you saw, either," Clint said, nodding towards the doorway Steve had just walked out a few moments ago. "All you said was that it was something to do with your childhood in the Red Room. Nothing more, nothing less."

"We see our deepest fears," Natasha murmured. Her face grew a little distant, and then she looked at Clint. "The other day Wanda said that that was what she showed us. Our deepest fears. Mine was the Red Room."

"That doesn't surprise me," Clint replied, his voice and his face soft as he looked at her. She frowned at that and pressed her lips slightly together, but she didn't respond. At her silence, he leaned forward. "Nat?"

"I should be over it by now, you know? The Red Room? I shouldn't still be scared of it. I'm an adult now. What happened in the Red Room is a part of the past. And even though I've struggled with what I did…the things I did as part of the job…I guess that that's never really gone away." Natasha shook some of her red hair out of her face, and she folded her arms over her chest as if to protect what small pieces of herself she could find left.

"I didn't need Wanda to get in my head to remind me of my worst fear," Clint said with an expressionless face. "But I can see how that'd shake you up. I totally understand it."

"What would she have shown you?" Natasha asked.

Clint smiled and shook his head, his expression still as unreadable and blank as before. "You know, Nat."

"Do I?"

"You always have."

And even though Natasha didn't know, she had a feeling he was right.

A suit of armor around the world.

Around the world.

Natasha had never fully believed that that could be done. Even when she'd been a brand new agent at SHIELD, eager to prove herself and show that she was worthy, deserving of her rank, she hadn't ever truly believed that that could be possible. Of course, she hadn't known that this is what would eventually happen—that Tony Stark would ultimately create that shield of armor and wind up nearly blowing the world to bits because of it.

Back when she'd first joined SHIELD, Stark had still been CEO of Stark Industries. He'd still been a strong believer in weapons and the idea that with enough weapons, he could save the world from destroying itself. He'd still had his own bones forming his sternum, and Afghanistan was just a future concept waiting to happen but never foreseen. Back when she'd first joined SHIELD, she never would have believed that a man in a suit of armor could even exist, let alone a suit of armor around the world.

She didn't hate Tony's sentiment, nor could she blame him for it. If she thought she could have done anything to possibly protect the innocent people on this planet, she knew she would have been the first in line to sign up for it. But she was realistic. She knew she couldn't give the world that kind of protection. No matter how many suits of armor, how many new uniform upgrades, how many fancy gadgets and billions of dollars spent on making her battle staves light up at exactly the right moment, she knew she couldn't give the world the protection she so wished she could.

But where she differed so much from the rest of the Avengers was that she maintained her realism. She knew her limits, and she accepted them. But people like Stark, Banner, and even Thor from time to time didn't always know them. If she had to guess, Steve's willingness to accept what he couldn't change was one of the reasons why they got along so well. He accepted what he couldn't change, but he didn't let that acceptance take away his motivation or ruin whatever it was that made him an Avenger. He knew he couldn't change the world, but he still continued to try. She knew she couldn't change the world, either, but she was damn well going to keep trying. If not for the rest of the people who stood a chance of dying, for the people she'd let die and had even killed with her own hands in the past.

At this point, however, she would have just been happy with a suit of armor around her home. And whether that home was Clint or her now compromised farmhouse with him, she didn't know. She just knew that if she could keep at least one thing safe, she would desperately try to. And if the only thing she could keep safe was Clint, she'd do it.

"Natasha."

Natasha hid the shock she felt, and she turned over her shoulder to look at Steve. He must have entered the room when she wasn't paying attention, but now that she saw him, she wondered how she ever could have missed his entrance.

"Hey," she greeted. "Anything going on?"

"I could ask you the same," he returned, nodding in her direction. "Been copying those papers for a long time."

She glanced down at the machine and saw far too many copies of the blank accident report form she'd only needed three of, but she just shrugged it off, refusing to let him know he'd caught her in an off moment. "Never hurts to have too many. Seems like we'll be filling them out a lot more these days, anyway. What with all the accidents SHIELD's causing left and right."

"Are we even really SHIELD anymore?" Steve asked, lifting his eyebrows in that way only he had of smirking.

"Good question," she conceded. "Whatever we are, though, it looks like the rest of the world is getting pissed at us, and they're pinning it on SHIELD. SHIELD and the Avengers seem to kind of go hand in hand in this current day and age."

"You sure we need that many copies?" Steve's blue eyes flicked down to the growing stack of papers that were coming out of the copier, and even though Natasha was inwardly groaning at her own mistake, she just smiled.

"Yes. We'll be needing many more of these to come."

"You sound sure of it."

"Look at what we just came through, Steve." She lifted her hand and gestured vaguely towards the giant glass window on the opposite side of the room. Outside the window was a peaceful view of a bunch of peaceful trees. Peaceful trees and peaceful grass and the peaceful clear day they'd been lucky enough to get. A poor consolation for the past week they'd had, but if a clear day was one of the few good—yet strangely ironic—things currently going on in Natasha's life, she was more than willing to take it. "Everything that happened out there? Everything we did out there? Ultron? Wakanda? Sokovia? Those weren't just accidents. Whether we're SHIELD or the Avengers, we created a whole bunch of accidents."

"Is that what they were?" Steve asked, his mouth doing that smirk thing again. Natasha returned the glance and shook her head.

"No. And I think you know that, too."

Reluctantly, he nodded, and his face slipped back into seriousness. "Unfortunately, I do."

Natasha nodded to show she'd heard him, and she glanced back down at the papers, wondering how many she'd managed to print out now but still unwilling to hit Cancel on the copier. If she canceled the order, Steve would know she'd made a mistake, and with Clint already on her about her headaches, she didn't want Steve on her, either.

"How's Barton doing with the whole Maximoff thing?" Steve asked, his voice quieter as he stepped in closer. Natasha looked back up at him and paused while she tried to think of the best way to answer. How was Clint after one of the young people he'd somewhat taken under his wing died? How was he doing? She didn't quite know how to answer that question without betraying any part of Clint's confidence but also without lying.

"He's handling it as best he can," she answered. She purposefully left out mentions of how he hadn't slept at all that first night after Ultron had officially been defeated. She purposefully left out any descriptions of how he'd started getting twitchy in his sleep again, something he only did whenever he was distressed. She purposefully left out as many details as she could get away with.

"So not well," Steve finished for her.

"Not the worst he's ever been but certainly not the greatest." She held his gaze and tilted her head to the side. "He's never been great at handling deaths."

"That one of the reasons why he didn't kill you?" Steve asked, his tone cautious but also genuine. Natasha smiled and tutted her tongue at him as she shook her head.

"Whoa, Captain. Someone's being awfully presumptuous."

"No harm meant. Just curious." Steve folded his arms over his chest, and his face became less serious and more carefree. "I don't even know that much about you and Barton. I mean, I know all the facts. Everything that was released when you dumped SHIELD's info on the net to expose HYDRA, but I don't know the stuff that matters."

"Are you asking for a love story, Rogers?" she asked, bringing back that same dry tone she'd used with him earlier.

"Maybe."

"Then you'll have to keep waiting because you're not getting it."

"You're no fun."

"Said Captain America."

Steve rolled his eyes and smirked a little. "Ok. Fair enough. Anyway, after all this, I actually came here on official business."

"Official Avengers business?" She watched the copier shoot out paper after paper after paper, and she tried not to think about how many trees had been killed for her little fuck up and overflow of pride.

"No."

Now she looked up, curious. He had her full attention, and he knew he did by the way his gaze turned less official, less Captain America, and became more like Steve Rogers, the man who'd taken down HYDRA. Steve Rogers, the man she trusted. Steve Rogers, her friend.

"I have a lead on Bucky."

She didn't bother hiding her surprised expression. "You do?"

"Yeah. Not an official guarantee but enough of one to make me want to sniff it out."

"And you're here because…"

"I want you and Sam to come with me." His eyes trailed over to the copier, and he nodded. "If you're not too busy with the copier."

Finally, she hit Cancel on the copier, and she turned and faced him head on. "How long do I have to gear up?"

"Four hours."

"Count me in."