The Pirate And His Sea

Chapter 3 : How Clint Met Him & Found Out

(This is not my chapter and the credit of the characters goes to their respective authors)

Clint wasn't big on rumors. He generally found them annoying (but some were entertaining) and tended to ignore them. But when he heard the gossip that was running wild on the helicarrier, he didn't know if he should laugh or stare.

Apparently Nick Fury was seeing someone. Which was both a ridiculous and frightening idea.

Ridiculous, because who would Nick Fury pair up with? He was sarcastic, critiquing, ruthless, pitiless and probably compassion-less. But it was for those same reasons it was frightening - what kind of person could put up with him?

Normally he'd go to Natasha and discuss the rationality of said rumor, but the female spy was away in Indonesia on some mission and he was left to stew alone.

At the moment he was crouched on the balcony railing of an abandoned building, peering rather moodily through a pair of binoculars at the man he'd been told to watch. Apparently he was the brother of some mafia-don S.H.I.E.L.D was trying to make friends with, and some other rivals gangs were underhanded enough to attack family not involved in the underworld. So, as a sign of good will, S.H.I.E.L.D put a shadow on him for protection. Clint got that, he totally understood. But why did it have to be him?

Grumbling under his breath, he watched as his target – no, not target, object of babysitting – messed with his phone as he walked, not paying attention to the shady alley's he was walking by or any of his surroundings really. Clint probably wouldn't have either, except for the fact that he'd been chewed out by Fury often enough about getting lazy on observation jobs, and that was the only reason he saw the dark form that shot out of the alley, snatched up the man and dragged him into the shadows, all in a split second.

If Clint hadn't been watching, he would have the man has just disappeared.

And of course seeing your mission objective vanish from the street and into a potentially – probably - hostile area banished all laziness Clint could have had and he leapt down the streets below, making a bee-line for the alley while contacting Fury.

"What is it, Barton?" It sounded like Fury was angry about being interrupted – he probably was in a meeting again – and was in no mood for jokes.

"Someone just apprehended the target – objective, sir," the archer said as he skidded around the corner to the alleyway, in time to see the man being dragged around into another back lane farther down. He hurried about him, checking that his bow was in working order as he went.

"Well get to it," Nick growled. "You were given this job for a reason, so do it right. Now, where are you?"

"Uh," Clint dashed after the struggling man and his captor, and jumped over a garbage can the kidnapper had knocked over to slow him down, "somewhere in the back lanes by Bourbon Avenue and Hudson Street. I should be fine. Talk to you later, Fury."

"Bourbon Avenue?" Fury sounded stumped. "Wait a moment, Barton -" But Clint had already ended the message and lunged at his objective and the man who was pinning him down. A quick punch to the solar plexus had him reeling and Clint managed to snatch his target away safely. A quick glance confirmed the fact that, yes, the man was fine, and no, because he was fine he wasn't allowed to do any major damage to the kidnapper.

With a sigh he cracked his knuckles and got ready to beat the man down a bit – nothing too serious – and was preparing to pounce when suddenly the back door of an establishment flew open and a man with black hair shocking green eyes glanced around the scene. He had a bin full of empty beer bottles, and the sounds of a bar were heard from the building inside. He was probably a bartender or something. All the man had time to do was blink then the kidnapper had scrambled towards him, pulling out a butterfly knife and pointing it at him.