Stranded- A Romanogers Fanfiction

Nick Fury

November, 2005.

"You knew your orders, you take her down. You take her down-- Barton, you hear me? You were supposed to take her down, not bring her HERE." Nick Fury remembered himself sitting behind his wide, sturdy desk at the 20th floor of the Triskellion building, yelling aplopetically at Clint Barton and six other agents who stood before him with their tails between their legs, scared of demotion due to their recent ineptitude.

Only Barton held his chin high and stood upright like a champion, smiling smugly for whatever victory he saw today as.

"Something funny, Hawkeye?"

The archer looked down and chuckled, "No, sir. Just happy we saved a soul today."

And that soul, turned out to be a highly skilled, highly valuable operative who Nick Fury grew to cherish like a daughter he never had.

Clint Barton begged him to give her a chance-- convinced Nick that Romanoff, who was barely 21 at the time and already responsible for more than six dozen kills, deserved a second chance. "She's a walking, breathing, killer machine. What do you expect would happen?" Nick challenged right after he told the other operatives to leave the room aside from Clint. The archer pouted and shrugged. "You picked me up from the streets, Nick. I was a punk, just like she is. Gimme eight months and I'll whip her to shape."

"And if you fail?"

Clint fixed his stance, his jaw clenched tight. "Then I'll gun her myself."

Nick remained skeptical, but six months later Natasha Romanoff showed up to his office, spilled all intel she had about the Red Room and begged her way for a single badge as a SHIELD agent. Nick didn't give her what she wanted until a year later, when he was fully convinced that she had no ulterior motives behind her actions.

Barton, however, remained beside her every step of the way: sparred with her during their downtime while everybody avoided her like a plague, defended her when other agents slandered her for her troubled past. He introduced her to his family and Nick even heard word that Clint took her around the city, showed her how to use a bow and arrow, and even taught her how to fix up a car. Soon Nick's fears and suspicion dwindled down and he watched with his own eyes when the young redhead tried so hard to hold down an excited smile when he finally gave her his approval.

As of now, Nick slowly walked over towards Natasha, who was standing at the back of the trawler boat by the gunwale. It's been 12 years since the first time he saw her yet she still looked the same. She looked small, standing like that; vulnerable, fragile. She had her back to him, and she'd been standing there this past hour with her heavily bloodstained uniform. He could still smell the blood as he drew closer.

"How's your jaw?" She turned around and asked him before he was even an arm reach away from her. There was a faint trace of dried blood on her cheek, and her hands were covered in deep red. Steve's blood. Her voice sounded thin and wary, not at all like the person he knew her to be.

Nick forced himself to smile, though the side of his face felt a painful stung from doing so; he'd do anything to cheer her up. By now he was sporting a nasty bruise and he'd lost two mollars; long story short it took quite a while to stop the bleeding. She helped stitch him up, with shaking lips and face pale as snow. She'd done some damage and now she hates herself for it, he's sure.