redintheledger | March, 2006: Tokyo, Clint

Natalie Rushman cycles towards the dormitory she's currently calling home, stinking of alcohol and drenched despite her raincoat. She makes it, too, which is something she hadn't been sure about. Not because of the traffic - after six months of living in Tokyo she's used to the streets - but because of something far more dangerous.

Far more galling.

She locks her bike up without incident, manages to get all the way to her room without incident. Her room-mate is there, but fortunately, the girl is wearing earphones, clearly writing an essay that was due yesterday. Natalie nods at her, grabs her towel, fresh clothes, hair-dryer, and stalks her way to the bathroom.

Again, fortunately, it's free, and she's able to lock the door without exchanging a word to anyone. What she wants to do is dump her things, jump straight into the shower; what she does is carefully place her things down on a counter, and start to remove her make-up.

Slowly, Natalie Rushman is wiped away while Natasha emerges, looking tired and angry around the edges. She braces herself against the counter, and sighs.

Natasha looks at her reflection and, because Natalie is American, says, “God fucking damnit.”

That had all been...mundanely humiliating.

Natasha lets herself indulge in precisely one minute of imagined violence as she lathers up her hair, picturing exactly what she would do to her former boss, her former co-workers, the customers who'd grab her ass, and every single sleazy photographer she could find before S.H.I.E.L.D. put a bullet in her head. By the time she's up to scrubbing the smell of her former place of employ out of her skin, she's moved onto just concentrating on the hot water, the feeling of the sponge on her body.

By the time she's twisting her hair and wringing the excess water out, she's already formulating her next move.

It is, objectively, a stupid move, and she can acknowledge that.

She's also the wrong side of pissed off to really care.

Natalie Rushman firmly back in place, she slips out of the bathroom and into the house itself. She'd hum on her way back to her room, but that would draw attention to herself. She is not, after all, pissed off enough to be careless.

“Natalie!” Valeria says, actually taking out her earphones and looking apologetic. “I'm sorry, I know you have work tomorrow, but I really need to finish this essay, so I'm probably going to be up all night...” The girl (and she is a girl, nineteen and sparkling new in a way that sometimes makes Natasha grit her teeth) is speaking Italian, as is their habit.

Natalie smiles, a little, and shrugs. “It's fine, Val,” she says, her Italian sliding smoothly off her tongue. “I don't have actually have work tomorrow, so I'll probably up all night drowning my sorrows on the internet.”

“Sorry to hear it. But I'm sure you'll find a job soon,” Valeria adds with a bright yet absent smile.

Natalie's smile very carefully doesn't widen at all. “I'm sure I will. Good luck.”

“You, too,” Valeria says, putting her earphones back on.

Natalie draws her laptop out of its bag, plugs it in, and gets comfortable on her bed. She's got a long night ahead of her; as the geekier Westerners would say, one simply does not walk into Mordor, and one does not easily hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.

Well.

Maybe they don't say that last bit.

– –

Twenty-one hours, five cups of coffee, two bowls of noodles, and one serving of the cheap sushi from down the road later, Natasha quickly jots down a phone number on a single sheet of paper and carefully exits S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database. Then she turns off her laptop and allows herself two minutes to lie face down on her bed in victory. Mission accomplished. Granting herself another full minute to contemplate when to use the number is pure indulgence, because she decided when to call within about fifteen seconds.

It's ten past one in the morning in San Diego, US, but Agent Clint(on Francis) Barton is a former military man, according to his records. He can survive.

Sitting up on her bed, Natasha leans over to grab Natalie's phone (it's pink, with some fake diamonds hanging off a cord; it's so very Natalie Rushman) and quickly dials.

If Barton is on a mission, she is going to kill him.

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"It's actually kind of cute," Clint says, tone reassuring. He turns as she unlocks the door, keeping an eye on the street.

Inside, it's a bit more modern than the exterior, but it's still a place where sixty odd people live.

It's loud, despite most of them being like Natalie - ex-pats looking for work, students and grad-students, those after temporary accommodation not a party. Clint is explained away with all of Natalie's smooth, slightly reserved charm; and there more than a few 'I knew it' expressions amongst those she passes on the way to her room.

Her room is in the middle of the row, right next to the inner stairs. Inside the room, it's small, neat, with one of the beds covered in printouts and books and other signs of academic desperation. The missing laptop, though, clues into the whereabouts of her roommate - Not Here.

Natasha's side of the room is...Spartan. Her clothes make it look more lived in that it really was, as the speed with which she packs attests.

Mostly, she doesn't need to pack at all - laptop into a backpack wrapped in clothes, jeans pulled on over her tights under her dress, shoe swapped for a pair of knee-high red boots. "Think we were followed?" she asks, quietly, straightening her jeans over the boots and locking her backpack. There is a suitcase that she merely checks the lock on - that she can leave behind, if she has to. She'd prefer not to, but it's only things.

Laptop, her things in her backpack - they are more valuable. Expendable, too, but more valuable.

Clint shakes his head.

"There was a guy outside, unarmed. Might've just thought you were hot, but not betting he wasn't eyes. You got a way onto the roof of this place?"

He'd feel a lot better if he could get a 360 of the scenario.

She pauses, arches her eyebrows.

"There's the stairs, they'd take us to the roof."

Beat.

"Gun, please?"

She can put it...in her backpack. Easy for her to grab, if she needs.

He takes the case out of his briefcase.

"Use it if you have to, but please make sure you have to. The paperwork for documenting spent rounds in Japan is--"

He makes a frustrated hand-gesture that comes from experience, and-- checking back to make sure she's about to follow, heads out the door.

(The hallway's clear.)

She gives him a look that is equal parts I have dealt with Russian government paperwork and this would be easier in my catsuit, which your buddies stole from me, but says nothing. Instead, she loads the gun, makes sure the safety is very firmly on, and sticks it in her jacket pocket (which she then zips, because she's not losing the only weapon she's been allowed in six months).

(She'd feel better with it in a holster, but she doesn't have any)

Then, Natasha locks the door behind them and leads the way up the stairs.

(Ladies first)

Once outside, she quickly moves out of the way of the doorway, scanning the surrounds. She's not a sniper, never will be, but you don't survive six odd years on the run from the KGB and Interpol and a few crime-syndicates without a keen sense of your surrounds.

(It was just that in the end, Barton was a better hunter.)

Ladies first, and also Romanoff's better at handling unexpected ground threats. If she does come in, he calls dibs on sparring practice.

(He can imagine Beamon's face. "You cannot call dibs on sparring with the assassin," she'd say. But he just did.)

The roof is empty; probably didn't want to draw attention. Clint waves Romanoff to stay near the center; last thing he needs is her red hair tipping any spotters off to where they are.

The layout's much what he would expect; there's no one overtly suspicious, but there are casual clusters of men who, positions put together, spell out track and ambush. They've left the south and west sides completely uncovered, but there are no exits through there. Not for the first time, Clint wishes Japan had exterior non-cloth fire escapes. But if there'd been an exterior fire escape, there would've been trouble on the roof.

"The front entrance is busier," he says, after a moment. "We might be able to lose them, or at least draw them out of the residential area."

The stores are quiet, by this time of night.

She follows the direction of his glances, sees the patterns herself, and nods. "I'd prefer to draw them out of this area," she agrees. "I think they might be a tiny bit pissed off at me."

Then she glances at him.

"How are you at hand-to-hand?"

Clint shrugs. "Depends on their skills, but three to five."

He's a distance fighter.

(But he's also had his share of experience in urban violence.)

"Well," she says, tone light and darkly amused all at once.

"This is going to get ugly. Shall we?"

He grins, sudden and sharp. "It would be my genuine pleasure." He tilts his head and hand to her in an after you.

She inclines her head at him graciously, and turns like she's taking a step in a ballroom dance before going back inside.

Backpack on (not that secure - if need be, she can slip out of it), wheels on her luggage (she can drop it, she can twist it and slam into someone's legs), and she's keeping the gun, Clint.

(she'll give it back once they reach the safehouse again.)

They pass a couple of her housemates, and she's turned on Natalie Rushman. Quietly reserved, but still bright-eyed and charming Natalie Rushman.

Natalie Rushman who is leaving, and she'll miss them.

Outside, it's quiet. Not silent, because this is still Tokyo, but the street is mostly empty. That's the important thing.

It makes it easier to see when her trackers start to move and follow them down the street.

Their entourage keeps their distance for awhile, but Clint's not a spy -- his body language projects pretty loudly that he's seen them. About half of them disappear into side streets, and he touches Romanoff's arm lightly, a silent request to speed up.

When they get by the shops, he spots a cab outside of a karaoke bar and hails it. He waves for the driver to stay in the car even though they've got luggage, and grabs Romanoff's suitcase to collapse it and carry it in with him.

March, 2006: Tokyo, Clint

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