Parting Ways…

It was a busy time in Las Vegas after Leviathan dropped the EMP warhead in Las Vegas, they have been facing a hard time since then. They called it the Black-Out day, the day the bombs started to drop. Ten months have passed since Leviathan decided to test out his EMP warhead in Las Vegas.

Since then, they have improved a lot. The government obviously helped, from the front Las Vegas might not look like much except all the lights, parties, and the casinos but a lot of things going on in the background. The government likes the huge amounts of taxes they get from Las Vegas. That is the reason the President decided to fix Vegas at first.

A lot of things have changed since the Black-Out day, a lot of jobs have opened up. It might have been 10 months since the calamity hit them but they were still a long way from completely recovering. Most of the businesses and casinos have opened up after the basic fixes were done, but all of them lacked the state-of-the-art security they boasted before the Black-Out day so they had to hire guards.

That was the reason a lot of people could be seen on the road and for some months this time was the busiest time in the day. While the roads were filled with people going on the jobs a violet portal appeared on the roof of a fifteen-story building and a pale-skinned woman with crimson hair and glowing blue eyes walked out.

The woman carefully looked at the building right across the street. It didn't even take her a minute to find what she was looking for. Her eyes landed on a room and a small smile appeared on her face.

[POV Natasha]

Ah… I have to say, Clint, SHIELD gave you a nice cover. I noticed everything inside Clint's room, I might sound and my actions might seem to be like a perverted creep but these things go hand in hand with being a spy.

Clint was talking with someone on his phone, could be his wife or his boss in SHIELD. For now, I decided to patiently wait and watch until he leaves the room… Clint might be overseeing the Project General Ross is working on, but Clint always liked to watch from distance. That was his specialty…

So, when Coulson was pulled out, Clint was asked to get the job done. Ross knew about Clint and he had offered Clint a barrack in his facility but Clint denied it. There could be some additional reasons why he did that but I am not privy to all of them or Fury might have ordered him to do so… who knows what goes on inside Fury's paranoid head?

Clint finally dropped the call and he spent a couple of minutes checking his gear. He had his arrow stuffed inside a suitcase, after all, he can't carry that damn thing through the streets. He was also sporting a side-arm, when he was finally satisfied with the checks he left the room.

A small smile appeared on my face and I made another portal and walked right into it. I walked out and found myself in the parking lot of Clint's apartment building. I decided to wait beside a pillar near Clint's car… he didn't disappoint me and arrived in the parking lot after a couple of minutes.

With my mental powers, it was easy to keep an eye on him even when I wasn't looking at him. For a moment Clint thought something was wrong and looked around but when he saw nothing, he decided that it must have been his imagination and resumed to approach his car. I was slightly disappointed with his action but there was nothing I could do… my powers give me a gigantic edge against him.

"My my… you should trust your instincts some more" I said and walked out of my cover. As soon as he heard my voice he turned around with his gun pointed in my direction.

Clint's eyes grew wide as soon as he noticed me and his mouth hung open but he didn't lower his gun. Good but if a fight breaks out between him and me then that gun won't do him any good even if he puts a bullet in my head. I have found that I can also regrow my memories but it takes some time to do that…

"What? No Hi or Hello? You aren't even going to greet your old friend?" I asked him in a teasing tone but didn't make any movements. I wanted this meeting to be friendly… no matter how much action I craved nowadays.

"I would say that it is quite surprising to see that you are alive… the Forensics said that there was no way you would have survived with how much blood you had lost in the Kelly house. So, forgive me if I didn't greet you" Clint said in a serious tone, the expression on his face was completely stoney.

"I also have no idea if I could call you a friend any longer or not" Clint said and kept staring at me intently.

A small giggle escaped from my mouth "Sorry, that was exactly what I had been expecting to hear from you and technically I am no longer a SHIELD Agent so I am no longer your friend, right?" I knew it was a rhetoric question but I still asked.

"Yes, you are no longer a friend" Clint agreed but didn't do anything other than that. "You look very different from the last time I have seen you" Clint asked in a much gentler tone than his previous one but I knew what he was doing. He was trying to gain information from me… I wasn't bothered by it because I had expected this too.

"Ah… yes, that came as a surprise for me too. You see getting stabbed made me really desperate and when I was about to blackout due to loss of blood, my X-Genes acted out and saved me. I knew that since I failed the mission, SHIELD would try to get rid of me so I had to get away from there and I did" I said and shrugged like it was a matter of fact.

He is a fool if he thinks that I would give him any useful information. Not that it was a complete lie, I left aside the fact that my X-Genes were kick-started by the essence of the first meta-human, En Sabah Nur. SHIELD doesn't need all that information…

"So, why show up now? You have been missing for 11 months" Clint spoke out in a friendly tone. Yes, obviously seeing that he is getting some information he will become friendlier.

"I was too busy" I said and shrugged. Clint was completely speechless after hearing that.

"So, do you want to return to SHIELD, I can talk with Director Fury if you want?" Clint spoke in a gentle and caring tone while lowering his gun.

"Sorry, no need. I am happy where I am. I just came to thank you… I owe you a lot Clint, I am only alive because of you. So I decided to thank you face to face… I wanted to do this before we find ourselves on the opposite sides" I said in a sincere tone but hearing that I wouldn't come back, Clint was back to pointing his gun at me.

"You know I can't allow you to walk away after you said that you won't be coming back to SHIELD" Clint spoke with a hardened tone. His face was completely indifferent now, all of his gentle and caring expressions were gone.

I giggled once again, I have learned doing this from Nemuri, giggling in front of your enemy will irk them. When Nemuri giggled in front of me while I was still working for SHIELD, it irked me too. "I would like to see you try" I said and used my mental power to make him think that I disappeared into thin air.

Clint looked at where I had been standing "Shit!!" and shouted in frustration of losing me. Well, he never had me since the beginning, I only came here to clear out the things between us… I owed him and thanked him… I know that we will be enemies but since I owed him I won't attack his family nor I will allow someone to do that.

I moved to the side to watch what Clint was going to do. He faced around a few times then pulled out a mobile from his pocket. It was a really old model from what I used now. "Agent Barton reporting, code yellow, secure the line" Clint said and waited for a few seconds.

"Connect the line to Director Fury, I have something urgent to report" Clint said and waited for a few seconds more.

"Sir, I have found that Natasha Romanoff is still alive, she came to meet me and told me how she survived. She said that her X-Genes were activated after she was stabbed" Clint said but it was quite hard to pick up what Fury was saying even with my enhanced senses but I got the gist. Fury wanted to know if he had captured me or not.

"No, sir. She disappeared into thin air, I think she teleported" Clint said and waited for Fury's reply. 'She is our enemy then. Even though she was a low-level Agent while she was in SHIELD, she knows how we work so I am putting her name on the priority list' Fury said, this time it was much clearer because I had moved closer to Clint.

"Yes, sir" Clint said, I rolled my eyes, like you could have said anything else. 'Now, get back to your job! If she is in Elysium, she is already out of our hands' Fury said and disconnected the call. "Yes, sir" Clint whispered and entered his car and drove off.

After his car left the building, a violet portal appeared beside me and I walked into it arriving inside my spy room. The meeting was quite productive… now, let's see what changes Fury is making for a little old spy like me…