The Traitor, The Avenger, And The Killer

Clint, Natasha - This Is Not A Date

While Tony had been 'reprogramming' Noh to keep him out of the Kree's hands, Natasha and Clint had been relaying what they'd learned from K working on Sinta (and, occasionally, from Natasha helping enthusiastically) to Nick Fury. The Kree simply had too many tactical targets for the Avengers and X-Men to defend at once — and with the size of the fleet they were facing, they were going to need all the help they could get.

After they got done relaying the information to Fury, Clint wanted to be sure to check in with the Avengers back at the tower, and Natasha had to smirk at him. She knew he was mostly worried about the younger members of their team, and the fact that he opened up the communications by asking Kamala how she was holding up certainly confirmed her suspicions.

"We're fine — Thor just took Billy and Teddy to do some aerial fighting," Kamala reported. "Just about anybody who can fly is headed toward the sky," she added, sounding a little bit starstruck. "If you look outside the windows, you can actually see it. It's kinda freaky."

"Typical alien invasion stuff then," Clint said with a shrug. "You guys get into any trouble, you call us, got it?"

"Yeah, Dad," Miles broke in over Kamala's shoulder, and Clint rolled his eyes at him.

"I'm serious, kiddo — these invasion things tend to suck," Clint said, and the fact that there wasn't any teasing in his tone got both of the younger Avengers to be a bit quieter and quickly agree to call him if there were any problems.

"You really are such an overbearing father," Natasha teased lightly, bumping his shoulder with hers. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you had adopted them both."

"Like they need me for a parent," Clint replied, shaking his head, and Natasha laughed at him.

The two of them had just finished making sure that Sinta was well secured and couldn't go anywhere — not that he had much energy to try at the moment — when they met up with Noh and the others headed over to meet up with the other heroes. They shared quick nods between them before they made it to where the rest of Earth's protectors were already moving out, under the direction of both Steve and Scott.

With the addition of the intel from Sinta, both team leaders made quick assignments — strategic targets that needed protecting — before they split off, in a hurry to run with their new intelligence.

Neither Clint nor Natasha was surprised when Steve sent them off together to a location Fury had suggested to him — apparently, some things never changed, and there were still secret bases to be guarded. Or secret prisons, as the case might be.

They were both familiar with the concept of the Cube — a prison that was supposed to be for extraterrestrial terrorists and criminals, even if that had not been the case leading up to the last big alien invasion of Earth. But seeing as Fury had put Hill in there at Noh's request, the thing was back up and running the way it was supposed to, more or less — and the last thing anybody wanted was for the Kree to be able to get to a prison full of possibly sympathetic alien prisoners.

Not everybody in the Cube was Kree, of course, but there were enough of them that it was a strategic target, especially considering the Kree creed that each and every one of their citizens would be protected and avenged if wronged.

"Almost want to pay the old assistant director a visit when we're done here," Clint said as he set the Quinjet down at the hangar and a few SHIELD personnel came to greet them and update them on the situation — not that they needed it spelled out, when they could actually see the Kree ships headed their way.

"If you're feeling sentimental, we can even try to kill Tony later," Natasha replied with a little smirk that had Clint laughing outright.

"I'm sure Tony would appreciate the joke," Clint said, still laughing.