Budapest

Chapter 27

A/N: So sorry that I haven't updated in a while, I just had a lot of things going on but here is chapter 27 (finally!!)
-Dedicated to my good friend Jordan, fly high buddy, cancer no longer has its hold over you, I long await the day I'll see you again-

Natasha Romanoff
Well that's it. If I wasn't already insane, I definitely am now. I sneak a side-long glance at Clint. Even if I'm pretty stupid to even think about breaking into KGB, I still have the satisfaction that he is stupider than me. I mean, he's the one following me willingly.
I watch as he shifts his bow a little so it sits better on his shoulder. His eyebrows crease together slightly, with his eyes staying trained on the ground as he walks. Just as I'm trying to decipher what he's thinking, I almost walk straight into a tree.
I cuss loudly as I hear Barton smirking.
"I thought I had finally found someone who wasn't mystified by my dashing looks." He says, one eyebrow raised cheekily.
"Guess you're going to have to do something about that Clint, if this partnership is to continue. Can't have myself getting distracted now can we?" I quip back, with mock seriousness.
He stumbles over his words, his eyes widening a tad.
"Ahem." He clears his throat awkwardly.
I shake my head and continue walking east. We've been walking for about three hours after destroying our camp and all traces of our presence there. I look to the sky, seeing the sun behind us.
"Twenty more minutes and we'll come to a road." I say, remembering glimpses of my childhood: flashes of blond curls, snow freezing my fingers, the glint of a knife, and finally the corpse that lay on a frozen road, with a crying Russian girl being dragged away by her hair.
"Okay so yes I am getting used to the amazing random facts you remember, but how do you know of some random road?" I look back towards Clint. To his right is a far length of forest, the trees seeming to get closer and closer together. A bird flies over his head.
"I've trained here before." I look down at the grass, the lack of snow seems weird at this time of year.
"It was colder though." Regarding my earlier memories.
"Was it when you trained with Ivan?"
"When he was still working with the KGB, yes. They had sent me out here for...a detention camp of sorts."
"Detention camp? What did you do to get sent out here?" He smirks.
I bite the inside my cheek to stop myself from laughing.
"Now you've got to remember the fact that I was a young girl surrounded with other girls at this time and we had little to enjoy in life..." I trail off.
"Okay you're starting to make me think that you blew something up."
I look down awkwardly. I see Clint stop through my peripheral vision.
His laugh sends shivers down my spine.
"You blew something up!?"
"Only the sleeping quarters of the director."
"I have got to hear this story." Clint says eagerly.
"Firstly, I can't take all the credit. One of the younger girls set up the explosives as I distracted him."
"How did you distract him?"
I feel a wave of nausea come over me as I suddenly hear a loud ringing in my ears. Blacks spots appear in my vision, sending the images swirling as if I fell into some kind of vortex. I find myself back in my younger self as a nine year-old, standing at attention as a cane is brought down on my palms.