AN: WOW! This is it! The final chapter of what has been a three year ride. I started this when I was in a pretty bad place, over the years I've had my ups and downs my less than stella update schedule and people have stuck with it. I am immensely grateful for all of the feedback and great comments. Hope you enjoy the finale!

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-SHIELD-

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Clint groaned as he opened his eyes, the world spun around him. Screwing his eyes closed again, he took in some shallow breaths trying to get the tilt-o-whirl to stop. Once he was sure he could open his eyes without throwing up he did so. Slowly he pushed himself up into a sitting position. His whole body protesting the movements. He couldn't tell what hurt more, his previous broken wrist, the broken ribs or his head.

An explosion nearby made him look up and take note of where he was. He was surrounded by grapevines, with a parachute that was shredded, laying around him. In the distance was a large burning building. In an instant it all came back, the helicopter, the fight, Nat.

"Nat!"

Ignoring the pain, Clint stood up shakily and started towards the rubble. He stumbled a couple of times thanks to the parachute lines wrapped around his legs, but finally he was up and almost running but mainly stumbling towards the wreckage. His knee sending shooting pains up through his leg, towards his hip.

"Nat!" he screamed as he entered the clearing. The heat from the fire was scorching. "Nat!" Turning around he looked through the darkness, the panic growing. "Damn it! Nat!"

"You couldn't wait for me to light the fuse, you had to drop a burning helicopter on the place," scoffed Nat as she walked out of the vines and towards Clint.

"Thank god," sighed Clint as he stepped forward and embraced Nat into a hug.

"God had nothing to do with anything. Let go Barton," said Nat becoming more uncomfortable with the physical contact. The younger man stepped back still holding onto her upper arms as he looked her over. She knew what he'd see. Blood, dirt and torn clothing. Nothing serious.

"I…"

Nat felt Barton sway, his grip on her arms tightening slightly as she watched him close his eyes and take a deeper intake of breath. She was interrupted in her assessment of him when the engine of a plane was heard, the sound getting closer.

Clint snapped his head up to look as well, only it proved too much as he swayed into Nat, his legs collapsing beneath him. Nat grabbed onto Clint's arms as she helped to ease him down to the floor. Lying him on his back, Nat started looking him over. Blood was covering the whole of the right side of his face, coming from a deep gash on his forehead. His left arm was also covered in blood from a stab wound on his left upper arm. Then there was the blood covering his left side, coming from between the Kevlar panels.

"Clint! Open your eyes," she ordered as she grabbed either side of his head. "You hear that? That's SHIELD. You've got stay awake until they get here."

"No… dint tell em…" slurred Barton.

"I did, you hear me. I told SHIELD. Matilda gave them our location. They're coming for you."

"No… I…" Clint gasped, his eyes closing briefly before he looked back at Nat. "Theydontcare."

"Don't be an idiot! They care, that agent, what's his name?" Nat asked, even though she knew his name, she needed Barton to keep talking.

"Coulson."

"Yeah, him," she smiled. "He cares Clint."

"Go…with you…"

Nat smiled, "You come with me and Coulson would never stop looking for you. He'd ruin all our fun."

The jet was getting really close now, whipping up the dust around them. Nat kept her head down and looking directly at Clint, making sure he kept looking at her. "Clint, I've got to go."

She felt his hand grasp weakly at her wrist as she glanced quickly at the plane that was in the process of doing a vertical landing. There would be agents on the ground soon and she needed to go before they got to close. "Stay alive Clint." She kissed his forehead before letting him go and getting to her feet and dashing into the shadow of the vines. She didn't look back and she didn't slow down. She just kept running.

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-SHIELD—

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"Barton, I don't care if you think you're ready. Medical hasn't signed you off so you're not getting that cast off and you're certainly not going back on rotation," sighed Coulson as he walked down the corridor of SHIELD.

"Oh come on, medical-"

Coulson stopped walking and turned round to face Barton, the sudden change in momentum had Barton back peddling slightly so he wouldn't crash into the older agent. "Barton, you're still classed as underweight. I know for a fact that you're not sleeping enough and that cast is staying on for the full eight weeks and not a day less.

"If you're bored, go eat something. Go instruct the new recruits, go do something that will not end up with you back in medical with new injuries."

"That doesn't really leave a lot of options," mused Barton. "And I am eating, and I'm sleeping just as much as before this whole shit-storm started."

Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose, the past seven weeks since they'd retrieved Barton from Italy and prevented him from bleeding out had been a challenge the moment he could move around independently again.

The weeks before Italy, Barton had been withdrawn and reclusive and angry at everybody. After Italy it was like those previous months hadn't happened. Even psyche had told him that Barton's switch in attitude was concerning, yet he was being more compliant than ever when it came to answering their questions than he had ever been before so they had no choice but to sign him off. Now though, it was like having a bored puppy bouncing around.

"Barton, four hours a night is not sufficient. We've had this talk before and so have medical. It's especially not good enough when you're healing from multiple broken bones and stab wounds." Coulson turned around and entered his office, dropping the file he'd been holding onto his desk. Sitting down in his chair he looked up to see Barton standing in front of his desk. Sighing, Coulson opened his desk's bottom drawer and pulled out a paperback novel and threw it at the younger man.

"What's this?" asked Barton catching it easily with one hand.

"A book. Go entertain yourself."

"I can see that," huffed Barton as he started reading the blurb. "Pretty sure they proved that the science in this is all wrong."

"It's called fiction, as in, not real. It doesn't need to be accurate."

"Yeah, but-"

"No buts, take the book, go read it someplace that is not here or I'll have Agent Delancey lock you in solitary confinement for the rest of your medical leave."

"You wouldn't?" said Barton, not sure if Coulson was actually joking or not.

"Try me," said Coulson raising his eyebrow, as his desk phone starting to ring.

Barton shrugged as he opened the first page of the book and started walking out of the office and for once closing the door behind him.

"Agent Coulson," said Coulson picking up the phone. "I'll be right there."

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-SHIELD-

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"You got something for me?" asked Coulson, as he entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"Yes, I do," grinned Phelps as he leaned back in his chair and pointed to the wall where a variety of files were projected. "This here, is everything Matilda gave us that the Sicarri had on file about Barton." He tapped some more keys. "There are photos in here dating back to when Barton was a teenager. They'd been watching him for over a decade. They knew exactly where he was and who he was working for the whole time. For whatever reason, they decided that they needed him this year, even though it would have been easier to grab him before he joined SHIELD."

Coulson didn't say anything as he looked at the photos that were scrolling on the wall. All surveillance shots, all with a long lens, all with Barton having no idea he was being watched.

"What was even more interesting was this," Phelps said as he clicked a few more keys, isolating a dozen photos all of Barton standing with a woman.

"Is that-"

"The same woman that we saw leaving the vineyard, I think so."

"Any photos that show us her face?" asked Coulson looking back at Phelps.

"That's the weird part, looking at the sequences of the photos, several are missing. I'm presuming that those would show the woman's face."

"You think Matilda removed them?"

"That's my best guess," shrugged Phelps. "I've gone through the written files as well and there is no mention of a name. A mean, they don't refer to Barton by his name either, just an asset number."

"Is there an asset number for her?"

"None that I could find. There's not even a file specifically for her. Which is weird as whoever she is Barton has known her a long time, longer than he's known you and they had a file on you. Her though, nothing. She's a ghost.

"Plus, I think you've met her."

"I have?" asked Coulson looking back at the photos, trying to place the woman. Phelps pulled up a grainy image of Coulson standing on a rooftop, facing someone. "The mystery woman from Mexico?"

"Yeah, when I started seeing a pattern I went back though our files to see if I could get anything from that night. Best image I could find, but I ran it through one of my programs that looks for specific body indexes, height, weight, skin tone etc.

"The fact that we know your height and Barton's this appears to be the same woman. The hair changes a lot and so do the clothes but the body dimensions appear to be the same."

"Can you make an ID from that?"

Phelps laughed slightly, "The program is in early days. The more information we get on suspects or targets the more I can enter, but right now I've got half a dozen matches to who this woman could be."

Coulson nodded, "Anything else?"

"Just this," said Phelps, clicking one last key, bringing up a final photo, with a date underneath. It showed Barton in his SHIELD uniform, a huge grin on his face as he was back to back with the mystery woman, her red hair covering her face. The both of them had their guns out and surrounded by hostiles.

"Budapest," groaned Coulson.

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-SHIELD-

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AN: And that's a wrap! Thoughts always appreciated.

The mention of Budapest is from my first one-shot Before They Were Agents: Budapest just a little self promotion of previous works if you fancy it :-D

I currently have nothing else in the works that is worthy of public consumption, so if you fancy giving me an idea or suggestions that would be awesome.