Clintasha- The beginning

Swimming

A/N: SO SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT PEEPS! I had to make plans for moving this past months and for enlisting to uni but now you can expect more frequent updates! This chapter is a bit longer I hope you enjoy;)

Once the elevator begins to move again I turn to Barton.  “That was Fitzsimmons?”
“Yeah Fitz is an engineer and she is biochem. They work in a lab together. Brilliant people, really, but not made for field operations. I think they both just turned nineteen or something.” He replies
“Just Kids”
“Basically yes but they are the best lab-team shield has at the moment. I always ask them to do my weapon upgrades after some other engineers fucked my stuff up. That's our stop.” He gestures to the door.
We walk silently through some more seemingly endless corridors until the air gets moister and we reach a door marked “water training centre”. The door is locked but my companion has a key from... somewhere??
He steps inside first and turns on the light before I follow him. The room is big and contains a large swimming pool at the far side. There are cabins to shower and change on both sides. The only thing that is different to a regular swimming pool are the weapon lockers in a corner and the multiple ropes, boxes and nets spread across the surface. There is still enough room to swim but it creates a bizarre picture.
The archer waits until I have fully observed the room before pointing towards the cabins on the right “You can change there.”, and turns to find one for himself.
After a moment I decide for the plain black bikini instead of the swimsuit and change.  On the outside, Barton awaits me in (dark purple??!) Swim trunks by the pool. 
“We are lucky! They did tropical waters training in here so the water is still warm.” He said and lowers himself into the pool. I can see the way he supports his side by carrying most of the weight with his arms. His side must still hurt pretty badly no matter what he said earlier.  I wonder why he still wanted to go swimming. His wound would heal faster if he didn't do sports all the time. On the other hand I would have done the same. You don't show weakness in our line of work or it will come back to you.
“you comin'?” Barton asks and peeks over the edge of the pool. “It's really warm.”
“How did you even get the key?” I get into the water next to him.
“I know the guy who has the keys to every training room. Like the caretaker or something”
“Let me guess he owes you a favor?”
“Yeah well kind of. He collects antiques. We made a trade.”
“A trade?” I ask raising my eyebrow.
“An Egyptian hieroglyph fresco for all the keys.” Barton slowly begins to swim towards the other end.
“A fresco?” where would he get a fresco from?
“From some museum in Egypt.” he says dismissively.  “Had to go to Cairo for a mission a year back. Mike asked me if I could take him a picture of the fresco for his studies. I happened to get the opportunity to take it with me.”
“You stole it?”
He looked at her with an exasperated shock: „Please Nat, I would just say I borrowed for a good friend. Besides they also stole it from where it had been originally so where is the point?” with that, the young archer ducked under the surface and began to dive away from the edge. Probably straining his injury again. I shook my head “No Nicknames!” and took a deep breath to follow him.
Now under water, I was able to see the whole layout of the pool. It was way deeper than I anticipated, at least 15 meters, and had artificial caves and tubes covering the post part of the under Water space. Now she knew why the engineer, Fitz, had not known of the pool. It’s only purpose must be marine training for the seal teams or unexperienced agents. Not a place a scientist would likely be found.
After I spotted Barton a few meters away, I swam towards him and surfaced right next to him, my wet hair clinging to my head. This moment I could swear he jumped slightly in the water as if I caught him unprepared.
Though the impression faded after the fraction of a second, it left a wondering voice in my head, which asked why he didn’t notice the sound of the water.
“Come on I want to show you something” Clint said pointing under him. “How good are your free diving skills?” His eyes blinked a few water drops away that ran down his face and focused on mine.
“Better than yours.” I challenged him with a smirk, fully knowing that his ego would want him to prove me wrong. Men.
A single eyebrow was raised in my direction like before but instead of saying something sassy, he just inhaled and was gone.
I followed him suit, while he dove around the pipes and thick ropes under water. Finally he entered a cave-like structure in one corner of the pool. Since Barton didn’t come out again I followed him into the dark only to be surprised by an air bubble in the small cave. In the complete darkness I could hear him rummaging at the wall until he switched on a torchlight that was mounted to the wall.
The room was big enough to contain five people with full diving gear and as I looked around I could see ropes and signal torches in compartments at the ceiling.
“They use it for cave and submarine training but hardly anyone ever bothers to put it on the training plan because we have another facility for seals training so this is kinda just for the occasional mission prep.” The archer explained and took a granola bar from his swim trunks (really?).
“How much financial resources does SHIELD have actually?” I ask while thinking about an organisation that built those kind of pools to never use it just because they could.
Between some bites he shrugged “They gave me a black AmEx for a mission once as a cover. I tried that thing out and it was real.”
“You tried it out?” I deadpanned. How do you ‘try out’ a banking card with unlimited cash on it. I was not entirely sure if I really wanted to know.
He answered nevertheless. “Bought a plane, two helicopters and a house.” Still chewing calmly on his granola bar.
“And they didn’t fire you?” the chuckle escaped me before I could stop it.
“Nah” Barton put the plastic of his treat in one of the storage compartments “They have a new save house in Delhi with a perfect cover story and a new civilian plane with a clean account and two brand new Apache helicopters. I just had to convince Coulson and he convinced the RnD Department that they need them.”
“You work with Coulson a lot right?” I asked curiously. It was one of the top topics of my mental note list with things to find out in the next days.
“He is my Handler so I actually almost only work with Coulson alone or with some support but as a solo Operative it does not occur that often.” His answer was filled with more casualty than I would have expected since I was asking for his connections to other agents. This kind of information could be easily sold to the enemy.
Carefully I tried to push further “So you are a team?”
“Yes and No” he smiled “We work as a team but not like a squad or partners. I am the one who is physically doing the job most of the time and he is ‘Overwatch’ from Mission control. Sometimes he does go in the field though. Mostly to save my sorry ass from somewhere.”
The expression on his face went soft and I realized, that he held his guard down purposefully. Probably to show me that he indeed trusted me as he sweard to the Director a few days back. As if Barton read my thoughts, he let his face return to the all-professional-no-emotions blank space.
He scratched the back of his head “Well, um let’s get back up?” and turned towards the cave entrance. “Sure” My skin began to get cold anyway from the freezing air in the artificial cave. Might as well return to the surface and get a nice shower.
On the way back up, I dove through some of the pipes and found that I actually liked it. Maybe I could manage to come here more often to train my agility and fighting skills under water.
Couldn't hurt right?
My companion was already some meters away and slowly swam to the edge. I thought about how he reacted strangely before and grabbed a little floating canister next to me in the water. “Barton?” I asked, my voice no more than a whisper but he should be able to pick it up in the otherwise still room.
No reaction. His back was still turned to me and he continued to swim away, probably thinking I would automatically follow him.
Strange.
Now I steadied my position in the water and raised the small box to throw it. I hit him full in the back of the head.
The archer spun around looking accusingly at me when he realized that I was still the only other person here. His eyes narrowed before he covered the remaining two meters of the pool with a powerful stroke and sat himself on the edge of the pool.
I waited where I was unsure whether he took it personally. I really didn’t want to hit him. He should have been able to duck or catch easily. After a while he gestured next to him on the concrete floor what I found to be an invitation to accompany him.

“Why did you throw that box?” Barton asked his steel blue eyes fixed on me while he waited for my reply. “You shrieked away before when I surfaced next to you and did not respond to me while under the shower. I wanted to know why.”
He sighed deeply “Because I can’t hear you. Not just you but everything else, too.”
My forehead automatically wrinkled “Why?”

He began to laugh. But it was not the sort of joyful laugh entirely. A hint of bitterness swinged with it as if he thought I was mocking him. “Because” he said stressing the word “I am 80 percent deaf on both ears since I was maybe four. I got high tech hearing aids you usually cannot see from SHIELD but they are not water proof and the ones that are include a comm unit and are bulky as hell.” Clint continued took look at me with a measuring look. Taking in my reaction and surveying it in his head.

That explains a lot.
Still how is he able to be a solo operative if Fury knows about his disability? What if he loses his hearing aids?

“I don’t need to hear to fight I have trained it a long time. There are only few people that know it at all; Fury, Fitz because he makes my hearingaids, Coulson and now you. I lose them all the time but I can read lips in about 12 Languages and still I am not 100% deaf. I do hear the important things;” he chuckled “explosions, gunfire.”
And again my roommate managed to answer my question without me dropping my guard or saying anything. I nodded.
“Thank you for telling me.” I smiled, causing him to drop the stare and relax as well.

“Well you needed to know since I requested you as my partner for a two-person strike team. Fury agreed under the condition that you finish general training and I do some annoying jobs for him in the next two months so please don’t screw it up.” Barton laughed and offered me his hand. “Hello partner, my name is Clint and I can hit a fly from a few hundred yards away with a bow.” A grin spread across his face as he saw my confused look.
I sighed “Hello Clint, my name is Natasha and I once punched out a Siberian Tiger because I liked him and didn’t want to kill him.” Now we both grinned, shook hands and made our way towards the locker rooms.
Maybe the Lunatic wasn’t so bad. At least he respected me and did not look at my body like all the other men I met in my profession. Though the ‘team’ thing could be difficult. I hate teams, they slow me down. But we will see.

My former good mood was destroyed when I could not find my clothes or my towel anywhere. “Barton! I swear to god if you took my stuff…” I started.
“Those fuckers!” he cut in “A prank from your fellow trainee friends. An old SHIELD tradition. The others prank the new guy.”

“Great” I was still dripping wet. “How far is it to your bunk room?”
“Too far to not get noticed. Here they actually left my stuff. Let me just dry my face then you can have it.”
“You sure?” I asked looking at him doubtfully.
“Yeah. They all think I am a freak already. Running around in swim shorts won’t do much harm to my reputation.”
After a moment he handed me his towel and the grey shirt with cargo pants he wore before. When I came out of the changing room, he had tied his boots together and motioned me to follow him.

Now that we were back in the enlighted hallway I could see how many scars littered his body. A lifetime worth of fighting and surviving. I also have a few on my own but they healed well or were treated by the red room doctors so it would not harm my outward appearance.
Some smaller light dots marked possible cigarette burns and other wounds likely caused by torture.
I did not know why this disturbed me so much. How could I think to be the only one with a violent and painful background?
My thoughts began to wander as long as we were alone in the empty corridors of the base floor but as we reached the elevator and the doors swung open we were greeted by some younger agents coming from the shooting range a level below.
They looked bewildered when they saw me in Barton’s oversized clothes and him standing there still wet and half naked, but none of them had the courage to say something what made the ride extremely awkward.
Once at our floor, about the half of my training group and other members of the same age waiting for us in the hallway to see their work with their own eyes. 
The surprise on their faces when I showed up fully dressed with a still somehow dripping Senior Agent next to me was priceless.

“Kids” My ‘partner’ mockingly greeted them before marching right through them towards out bunk room.
‘I am so getting a screenshot of that security footage from Coulson tomorrow’ I decided before following him more slowly watching each of them with a fierce glint in my eyes.

No one dared to say a thing.