CHAPTER ONE

"Aw, coffee, no!"

Clint Barton put his hands on his hips. His grey, baggy sweatpants were now soaked in black coffee and his white tank top felt damp as well. He jumped back, ripping the burning wet socks from his feet in an effort to save his skin while spitting more expletives.

He padded across the kitchen tile floor of his Manhattan apartment, muttering to himself. How was he supposed to catch the damn girl if he couldn't even make his morning pot of coffee. Flashes of images from Loki's control of his mind passed over him again. He grabbed the wall to steady himself. It only lasted a moment, but it was enough to throw him off his guard.

The sound of claws on the tile floor came crashing towards him. Clint sunk down in his coffee-soaked clothes and let the yellow lab nuzzle him. "You're a good boy, Lucky." He scratched the dog's head.

Sometimes Clint wondered how Lucky managed to do everything he did with just one eye. He certainly didn't seem to need two working eyes to act as an emotional support animal. That being said, he couldn't take Lucky where he was going.

Clint took his phone from his pocket and dialed the name "She-Devil". He smirked to himself as he looked at the Caller ID before putting it against his ear. He continued to massage Lucky's ears as they sat against the wall near the door to his apartment right off the kitchen.

"Hey, Barbara." He smirked as he talked into the phone. Then his smirk dropped. "No, no, don't hang up the phone!" He rolled his eyes. "Bobbi. Fine. It was a joke. I see your humor hasn't improved in recent times... Yes I have a reason for this call. I'm going on mission - don't interrupt me - I need someone to watch Lucky... I'm cleared enough. Fury wants the 084 brought in and my contacts say she's in D.C. I wanted to head down there today.... Nat's barely better than I am! I'm not going to just hand this mission to her..." He held the phone from his ear and rolled his eyes down at Lucky. "Listen, are you going to come watch the apartment, or not?" He sighed. "Thanks, Bob. I'll see you in an couple hours."

As he hung up the phone, he looked down at the now-sleeping Lucky in his lap. He looked at the clock on the microwave nearby. 8:15. Nat was coming over any minute. Then he sprung up in alarm. "Coffee!"

Lucky startled as Clint pushed himself up off the floor. He grabbed a roll of paper towels before cursing. There were only four sheets left. Laying those four sheets on the spilled pot of coffee, he dug around in his sparse apartment for more. Finally he found them. He stripped off his shirt and pants so he stood only in his boxers, throwing them into his bedroom, and scooped up the mess. He was spitting curses at his soaked socks when he heard the door open behind him.

"You look busy," Natasha commented as she entered, tight jeans and black coat looking very put together. "Do you always dress like this for breakfast?"

"I know this looks bad-"

"Clint, you're always a mess. I'm not concerned," Natasha assured him as she locked the door behind her and placed her Starbucks venti on the counter. She unbuttoned her jacket and hung it beside the door. "I'm not concerned more than usual, at least."

He disappeared back into his bedroom and slipped into his own pair of black worn jeans and purple under armor shirt. As he sat on his bed and pulled on new socks, he watched Natasha finish picking up the last bits of spilled coffee.

"How'd your meeting with Fury go?" he asked quickly, shutting the door to his room behind him as he went back inside.

Natasha shrugged, unpacking breakfast sandwiches from her takeout bag and placing them on plates. "He said what we figured he would say. He wants me to go with you."

Clint rolled his eyes. "Of course he does."

"Can you blame him?" pointed out Natasha as she handed him his plate. She sat down at the glass table near the wall of windows right beside the open kitchen.

"The bastard isn't in my head any more," Clint protested as he put a new pot of coffee on. Then he joined her. "I'm fine."

Natasha looked at him skeptically. "Fine is not the word I would use."

"Oh? What word would you use then?" he countered.

She put her sandwich down and stared at him. "Coping."

Clint didn't respond right away. He felt Lucky brush up against his leg, and released the tension he'd been building up. He shrugged. "Did he order you to go with me?"

"No," replied Natasha, taking another bite nonchalantly.

He nodded. Standing up, he walked back into the small kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. His hand shook briefly as he poured in liquid into the cup, remembering the consistency of the blood he'd spilled for Loki. He looked over at his partner. "I need to do this, Nat."

"I know."

"Bobbi's going to watch Lucky, so you don't need to be here," he told her, sitting down across from her again with his coffee. "She's getting here in an hour or so."

Natasha smirked. "You two going to be a thing again?"

"Myself and that crazy woman? No way," he muttered into his drink. He slurped it. "Rumor has it she's running with that Hunter guy again."

"The merc?" Natasha smirked behind her own coffee. "Really?"

Clint shrugged. "I don't keep tabs on the love life of the other Level Eights."

"Doesn't Coulson want her on his new secret team?" Natasha asked.

With a chuckle, he took a last bite of his sandwich. "Ah the secret team we know nothing about officially. Yes that's what I heard."

Natasha stood and took her plate back into the kitchen. She rinsed it in the sink before putting it in Clint's already full dishwasher. "Do you ever run this?"

"Yes!" The skeptical look Natasha flashed him spoke volumes to whether she believed him. But he merely shrugged. "I was going to run it today." Clint stood and pushed in his chair. Carrying his own plate over he squished it into the last available spot in the dishwasher before getting it started.

Natasha flopped herself gracefully down onto a purple arm chair and flipped the TV on. But Clint brought over a large bulletin board instead. Several photos from street cameras of various cities were posted on it, along with newspaper clippings from Chicago, Nashville, and a few other cities about similar crimes. All of them were petty thefts.

"You think you can bring her in?" Natasha asked after a minute of examining the board. "According to Fury, she's been hard to track."

"It's what I do, Nat," Clint pointed out. "I brought you in, didn't I?"

"How long are you giving yourself in DC?" She didn't dignify his bragging with a response.

He shrugged. "No more than three weeks, I hope. Fury has a furnished apartment near Agent 13's undercover operation."

"Well say hello to Steve for me," she told him, glancing more closely at the newspaper clippings. "Intel has her at what? Twenty years old?"

"Twenty-one is the latest guess. Her name is Paige Wilson, but she was in the foster system and that was a name they made up for her." Clint handed a photo from a file over to Natasha. "The person who found her as a baby said she was abandoned on the side of I-95 south of the Virginia border. That was 1991."

Natasha looked at it. The baby in the photo looked unremarkable. She slept peacefully, clothed in a Teletubby onesie. Her blonde hair curled on top her head. Natasha took the next photo. In this one, Paige seemed about eleven. Her golden blonde hair went down to her chest in small waves and her blue eyes looked sad. She had a black trash bag beside her.

"Do they still use trash bags in the foster system?" asked Natasha incredulously, glancing up at Clint who leaned against the arm of her chair sipping his coffee.

He nodded. "Yes." Clint handed over the last photo. "This was taken a year ago."

Natasha looked at it. Paige was twenty, and someone had taken her photo in a public park by accident. She nodded at Clint, watching him carefully. "You're prepared to deal with another individual with magic?"

Clint paused. "Like I said. I need to do this."

Natasha stood and nodded at him. It was time to leave. She got her coat from the hook near the door. "Good. Can't wait to meet her when you get back. Text me when you get down to D.C."

"Will do."

"Be careful, Barton." She nodded at him before closing the door behind herself.

"Always." He stood staring at the closed door. He felt Lucky brush up against his leg. With a smirk he glanced down at the lab. "What about pizza for lunch?"

Pizza always sounded good.