5th February 2009-

About 3 and a half weeks had passed since the shopping trip, and Nat and Eleanor were only growing closer again. Most of the time outside of work, the two were snuggled up in bed with a movie in the background, sometimes just in silence enjoying the calm that they brought each other. When in their own little bubble in one of their rooms was when the pair was at their happiest.

The last week had been quite quiet, mostly desk duty work, but a new development had occurred in one of Nat's cases. A dangerous arms dealer had met up with a terrorist organisation and struck a deal, so, she and some other Agents would need to detain him before the meeting could happen. She was told that she could choose who she wanted to bring, so she of course chose Eleanor and Clint as she didn't really have much faith in the other Agents around.

They of course agreed to help Nat and instantly jumped into action. The trio sat in a meeting room that had been reserved for them to carry out their task of tracking him down. There was a lot of equipment set up on the tables ready to be used when needed, SHIELD grade laptops, communications equipment, and military-grade tracking devices.

"Porter Valya, extremely dangerous individual, him and his lackeys sell some pretty brutal weapons, but it recently became a top priority when he reached out to Andrew Catterall and his goons, as you probably know he is not a nice man. A different team are dealing with them. It is our job to track and detain Valya before 10 pm, which is when he is going to be personally transporting this batch of weapons", Nat explained to the other two whilst pointing at different images and files laid out on the table.

The two nodded in understanding before Eleanor spoke, "Do we have any location we can currently pinpoint him to or is it completely from scratch?". Hopefully, it wouldn't be completely from scratch, that would be a shit tonne of work that none of them wanted to do. Manhunts were not as fun as shown on TV.

Nat pulled up a map on the board, "He's currently thought to be in this district, a pretty big one but still, not totally from scratch". Once again the others nod, awaiting instructions as Nat is the primary on this case as she knows more about the target, though Clint and Eleanor were relieved to hear that there was a known range that he was in, makes things easier for them... slightly.

"Barton, I want you out there actively looking for him, no drawing attention to yourself, I'm going to be going through a series of bank statements and online transactions to see if any of them might be his aliases, Eleanor, I need you on every camera in the area, and the surrounding areas to be safe, and get the face trace set up". Nat assigned these tasks because Clint had a very good eye for spotting things so if anyone had a chance of seeing a face in a crowd, it was him, and Eleanor had a knack at fine-tuning the face trace system; achieving accuracy that many Agents struggled with. As for Nat, she was the best at spotting hidden patterns.

They all immediately started on their jobs, Clint hastily left the room, Nat was scouring through online documents trying to find any patterns or unusual activity, and Eleanor started programming the face trace system to be tailored to their current needs and getting access to various cameras and security systems.

They were all very efficient and competent so it was no surprise when it only took about 20 minutes for Nat to find a few shops he had been in recently, narrowing the area radius that they needed to be looking in - which Clint was happy about. It only took a further half an hour before Eleanor's system found a complete match through a tiny window in an apartment block where he had briefly peeked his head out of the closed blinds.

"We got a match, let's go", Eleanor said whilst pinging Nat and Clint's phones with the location. Nat walked past, not without giving her a quick peck on the cheek first and muttering a swift "Good job". They then sped walked down to the garage to get them a car, the younger woman following closely behind. It only took a few minutes to get there as they were practically jogging there by the end. It was automatically assumed that Nat would be driving, she was a good driver, always in control, but she liked driving fast. Eleanor could speed if she had to, but it made her a bit more nervous, whereas it was a regular thing for Nat.

Nat hightailed it through the streets ignoring most traffic laws, they were on a time crunch after all, but still, Eleanor was clinging onto her seat.

When they had arrived they saw Clint hanging around outside of the apartment waiting for the two women. Before heading to the location he had gone to the car park to collect his car and parked outside.

"Barton and I will go up, Eleanor you stay here it's likely he'll make a run for it and his window faces the road, so he can't jump it", Nat ordered. The younger felt a bit benched, but followed the order regardless. She knew what Valya looked like and so kept a close eye on the door. She wasn't being benched at all, she was the fastest runner out of the three of them, so Nat strategically placed her there knowing that if he bolted Eleanor was their best chance.

---

Nat and Clint sprinted up to the correct floor, the sixth, and reached Valya's door. They both looked at each other and nodded, both a bit out of breath. Clint kicked the door down and the two entered, guns pointing around the room.

Once they had made sure that the main room was clear, Clint walked towards the bedroom and looked around, he was about to say "clear", but someone grabbed him from behind and threw him to the floor, before picking him up by the jaw, lifting him, and throwing him harshly into the kitchen counter.

Seeing this, Nat ran forward, he was a lot bigger muscle-wise in person than the two had been expecting. She threw many kicks and punches that were all painfully blocked and countered, Clint got up and tried to help again but he just got booted in the chest sending him flying backwards, gasping for air. He was going for Clint again, which Nat couldn't allow, so she shouted at him to get his attention. Maybe wasn't the best plan for her personally, but it got him away from Barton.

Valya turned to face Nat again, taking the bait, she was walking backwards a few strides trying to calculate her next move. She wouldn't be able to overpower his strength, so decided to take advantage of her smaller, more agile stature, and so went to do the infamous black widow move. Running forward again, she managed to wrap her legs around his neck ready to try and flip him, but he was unphased and just threw her into the door frame, where she received a large blow to the back of her head.

Then he bolted. The two Agents were out of breath, trying to stand and compose themselves. She sat panting momentarily, trying to get her breath back, before remembering that Eleanor was outside and she had given her orders to go after him. Nat and Clint were easily overpowered when together, she didn't want to think about how Eleanor would get out of this if left alone. She immediately got up and grabbed Clint by the arm, then dragged him to the stairwell, "El will be going after him". This was enough motivation for the two to forget about the pain they were in and they sprinted after him.

---

It had been about 5 minutes since she was left to watch, and so Eleanor was expecting him to have been arrested by now, but alas, she was wrong. He slammed the door open and started sprinting down the street, so she of course followed. He was bloody fast, but she was able to keep up with him. She had to dodge out of the way of a few people, them shouting at her to watch where she was going, but that was honestly the least of her worries at this point in time. Luckily he hadn't turned down any other streets, so she was hopeful that Nat and Clint would be able to catch up and find them somehow.

When she had almost fully caught up to him, a couple of arms lengths away, he heard her behind him and so ducked into an alley. When she rounded the corner he immediately threw his fist at her head, launching her into the wall. This man was ridiculously strong.

She groaned but got up and into a fighting stance before running at him. She managed to get a few blows to his chest and face, but once again he was unphased. She really needed Nat or Clint to make a surprise entrance, immediately.

Unfortunately, no surprise entrance was made, and he retaliated to her successful hits by grabbing her throat and shoving her into the wall, lifting her up so that her feet were no longer touching the floor, and started squeezing. She was clawing at his hands desperately, oxygen was running out. Her face was going red, her eyes watering, and her body was starting to go limp. This was probably the most terrified she had ever been, she fully expected to not make it out of this, and there was no sign of the others being able to find her.

Nat and Clint had no clue where the two had gone, Nat's heart was hammering in her chest with worry. They had been running down the street for about three minutes now and there was still no sign of them. Nat stopped in her tracks and started desperately looking around in circles trying to see where they could have gone.

Clint stopped when he didn't see Nat and turned to try and get her attention back by calling her name, when she made eye contact with him he gestured with his head to keep running, so she did.

As they continued down the street they heard a man laughing, it had come from that same alley, so by looking at each other to confirm that they were going in, they continued. When they rounded the corner Nat's heart dropped at the sight, seeing the life leaving Eleanor's eyes.

No. Eleanor wasn't dying, she wasn't going to let her.

Just as Eleanor thought she was going to draw her last breath, the man was knocked to the floor, Nat had sprinted and rammed Valya with her shoulder sending both of them toppling. Eleanor was dropped to the floor, gasping for air on her knees causing Clint to run over to her and make sure she was okay. She wasn't okay, her lungs were burning, and she felt like she couldn't move without her muscles screaming out, but she was alive.

Nat on the other hand was driven by a new kind of adrenaline rush, she felt unstoppable. She lifted Valya by the collar of his jacket and rammed him into the wall multiple times, causing lots of hits to the head. Once he had lost all stamina and was too out of it to try and fight back, Nat said through gritted teeth, "Don't you dare touch my girlfriend", before slamming him into the wall for a final time.

At hearing this, Eleanor's head snapped up, they hadn't discussed this title yet. Nat began putting the specialised cuffs on Valya, when Eleanor breathlessly whispered, "Girlfriend?". She wasn't complaining about the title. At all. She just wasn't expecting Nat to make that leap first, especially not right now.

Nat turned and smirked before starting to lead Valya to them. Clint scoffed and shook his head, "Time and place guys, time and place". Nat passed Valya over to Clint, and he briskly threw him in the car that he arrived in, before nodding at the other two and driving back to HQ.

She turned and saw Eleanor still out of action, kneeling on the floor with laboured breaths, still trying to regain control of her breathing with her lungs screaming at her.

Nat immediately crouched on the floor to get to Eleanor's level and inspected her throat. Her heart broke at seeing the already deep purple bruising that had appeared on her neck.

Eleanor grasped at Nat's jacket, breathing was painful with her lungs, plus the bruising, and her voice was very gravelly. "Nat", she groaned.

"Hey, shh shh, you're okay, you're okay", she said to reassure both of them before pulling her in for a very tight hug, one hand rubbing her back and the other pushing Eleanor's head into her body. They needed this, Eleanor needed to know that she was safe, and Nat needed to make sure that she felt safe, so the latter clung on to her as if her life depended on it.

They sat like that for a few minutes before Eleanor pulled away and tried to stand, which Nat was having none of. When the two were both standing, she grabbed the back of Eleanor's thighs and lifted her up, the other woman having to quickly wrap her arms around Nat's neck to stop her from falling from the swift movement.

The younger woman giggled at the action, causing Nat to smile back at her, then started the walk to the car, placing her in the passenger seat.

Nat got into the driver's seat, and more carefully drove back to HQ, holding hands the entire way back. Eleanor was blushing at how attentive Nat was being, which she noticed when she glanced over to the passenger side occasionally, causing the classic Romanoff smirk to make an appearance.

---

It wasn't their job to interrogate Valya, they only had to bring him in, and so when they got back Nat took Eleanor to the infirmary to make sure that there wasn't any major damage that they couldn't see. Eleanor complied easily as she was in a lot of pain. Luckily it was just very badly bruised but would ease up in a few days. So Eleanor would have to be a woman of very few words until the pain eased up. It would be a tricky few days, she liked to chat.

The two women were now sitting on Eleanor's bed after checking each other for cuts and scrapes and cleaning them, they got into some comfy clothes and were about to start their nightly routine of snuggling and movie watching. However, before they lay down Eleanor sat up cross-legged in front of Nat which confused her.

"Girlfriend?", She once again painfully said. She wanted to know if it was part of the adrenaline rush moment or if Natasha had really meant it and wanted to take that next step.

"Uh, yeah, I hope that's okay?", Nat replied sheepishly now that the situation was less 'Life and Deathy'. Eleanor just quickly nodded up and down, before leaning forward and catching Nat in a kiss, one that was once again full of raw emotion, before pulling away. Eleanor was of course more than happy with this development.

"No movie tonight, yeah?", Nat said whilst moving to lie down on her back. Eleanor just tilted her head in confusion before Nat pulled her on top of her, one arm around her waist and the other playing with her hair, so Eleanor snuggled into her, her face in the crook of Nat's neck.

It was comfortably silent for a few minutes before Nat whispered, "That was scary today", and the two just squeezed each other tighter, wanting to live in this moment forever.