Chapter 4 - America Bound

*Clint's point of view*

It's been two weeks since I found Natasha running through those woods. She has come out of her shell quite a lot but I feel there is more to her that she isn't telling me, I don't blame her, she probably doesn't know many people and I am probably just some man who found her in the woods, it's literally one of them horror stories you read in the newspaper! I think she has been locked away, I'm not sure where but I think she has been through some shit that no teenager should even know about, that is why she has no clue on a lot of things that everyday people know about. She only seems to know about how to attack people, speak about 50 different languages and lots of other skills and techniques for self-defence. She also seems to be hiding a lot of her, she refuses to take her jumper off because I think she's scared. I think she has a lot of scars, I'm not overly surprised due to her skill set, it's going to take a toll on her at some point within her training, but I do feel sympathetic of her. She shouldn't have to even be training!

For the last two weeks, we have mainly sparred. She attacks me from behind, I then attack her as revenge. I have won a few sparring matches but not as many as I do with Sam, or Bucky. She's so light that she literally just glides over to you and then she uses her 'move' and can easily knock you out, cold. Although, when she does that move on me, she falls with me when she can easily let me fall straight to the floor, I think she's starting to care about me?

The morning After she said she would like to come work for SHIELD, I went out the back door and called up Director Fury. "Barton! I thought you were on your leave? Why are you calling? How have you even got signal in the middle of Russia?!" He said, his deep voice almost yelling through the phone. "How did you know I was Russia? Wait, I know. You have eyes and ears everywhere." I remembered. "Why are you calling?""I have an idea that I think you may like. While out training, I found a girl. She's extremely talented when it comes to self-defence and attacking. Her name is Natasha. I'm not overly sure of her past and, to be honest, I'm scared to ask her so I'll leave that to you. I'll bring her back with me when I come back so you can meet her. I think you'll like her, sir, she's exactly what we need at SHIELD." "This girl better not be another one of your feisty girlfriends otherwise your going on look out duty for a month. She seems to sound like a good asset but we will need to speak to her properly, we don't know where she's from exactly and we don't know how or why she's trained like she is. She good be a KGB spy. Be careful, agent."  "I don't think she is but I'll be careful, sir, thank you."

With that, I hung up the phone.

She hasn't shown any signs of being an enemy. She is literally a softie trapped in the body of an assassin.

I woke her up this morning and we both prepared to leave the cabin. As we drove down the forest surrounded road, Natasha was staring aimlessly out the tinted window, her emerald eyes gazing into the khaki tree leaves. "Thank you." Her voice was so delicate and quiet, I almost didn't hear her. "For what?" I said, furrowing my eyebrows."For all of this. You didn't have to help me. You've gone above and beyond, you've helped me and given me the possibility of a hopeful future." She squeaked, still staring out into the tree covered distance. "Don't worry about it, I think you'll do amazing at SHIELD." I said, smiling. "Where are we going?" She said, turning to face me, placing her feet on the dashboard. "Vnukovo." I said, causing her brown eyebrows to furrow. "Vnukovo?" Her accent seeped into her voice as she spoke the Russian place."Vnukovo International Airport. SHIELD sent a plane to pick us up. Benefits of working with the government, I suppose." I smirked, I saw her smirk like crazy while she directed her gaze back to the passing trees.

The number of trees started to decrease and the desolate roads were gaining more and more cars. Soon, the road was flooded with multicolored cars and the singular lane there was before, had now turned into 3 lanes. There were junctions every 5 minutes and each junction, a few cars peeled from the pack as more cars joined up ahead. Signs and street lamps blocked the view of any trees that were in the area. I managed to decipher the words "Vnukovo international airport next junction" so I swerved the jet black car into the correct lane, and peeled from the pack as the road leading down towards the airport appeared.

When we came to a set of traffic lights, I pressed my foot on the breaks and turned to see Natasha, who looked mesmerized and intrigued about the surroundings."You okay there?" I asked, smiling as she stared at the cars flying passed in front of us. "I've never seen this many cars before, I've never seen this many people before." Her mouth was left wide open, shocked and probably overwhelmed. "Have you never been on a motorway or a freeway?" I asked, tilting my head slightly for effect."No, when we went out back where I used to stay, we were in the back of vans with zero windows until we reached where we needed to go..." her voice began to trail off, probably reliving the memory."Okay, well," the light changed from red to green and I pressed my foot on the accelerator, sending us into the heart of airport departures. "Welcome to airport departures. We will not be going in there, probably for the best. People who fly places on commercial airlines are often stressy and yell a lot at there family, it's a stressful environment to be in so we will be heading directly into the airport." I drove around departures, seeing families dragging heavy suitcases as kids run a long behind. Once out of the departure area, we went into arrivals which was basically the same picture, just people going the opposite direction.

A small turning was situated at the end of the road, that's the way in to the runway and all of the plane garages. I took the turning and stopped at the gate, guarded by two hefty men in uniform. I handed over my card and they glanced over it before opening the gates, leading to the planes. Natasha looked astounded by the amount of planes and the height of them. We drove around the garages, each housing one or two planes that we under repair. I turned the wheel, leading us into a big silver garage that housed a small plane, the sort of plane that either presidents or celebrities use for transport.

I pulled up to one of the bays and opened my door. Natasha followed my lead, picking up her backpack and sliding it on her shoulders as she stepped out the car. The glossy grey flooring led straight to the white plane, small rectangular windows were placed across each side. The wing hung over the flooring causing a shadow to form on the grey. The sound of an engine firing up seeped into my ears, a set of stairs began to fall steadily from the side of the plane, just in front of the wing. A man in a pilot's uniform stood in the doorway when the stairs were touching the floor.

I turned to Natasha and raised an eyebrow, symbolizing the benefits of working with SHIELD. She just laughed and circled around the car to meet me. We both walked up to the stairway and greeted the Pilot. "Good Morning, Agent Barton. Is this the new potential recruit we may be taking on? Good Morning, Madam." He spoke with pure confidence in his voice as we stepped on to the plane. "Good Morning, Greg. Yes, it is. Greg, this is Natasha. Natasha, this is Greg." I said, formally introducing them. "Hi." She smiled, I can tell she was trying to get away, she looked so uncomfortable. I don't think she likes talking to or meeting new people."Hello!" He said brightly as he pressed the button and the stairs started to elevate, forming part of the plane's wall. He strolled back to the cockpit while we sat down in two of the cream seats opposite eachother, using the spare seat beside us to hold our bags.

"Where we heading, Boss?" Greg yelled from the cockpit, now with his headgear and microphone on. "JFK New York. We're meeting Hill at the airport." I shouted back.

Natasha sat with her knees up to her chest, staring out of the window. I didn't want to disturb her, she seemed to be mesmerized by the whole idea of Airports and Planes and flocks of people, rushing to get to their own destination. I thought I'd leave her to her thoughts and let her enjoy the thrill of being on a plane, and, of course, the excitement of going to the Big Apple. New York City.

End of America Bound