Yes, I am aware that it is past February 10th, and that Glass is still MIA. That's due to an idiotic mistake on my part. I got two chapters of the story done before realizing that I had completely forgotten about my idea to start it differently than I'd originally planned. So. I'm working on getting the actual first chapter finished, and as soon as it is, I'll be putting it up for all of you.

But, seeing as I have actually gotten some of the angry messages I told you it was alright to send after the 10th, I felt terrible and decided to give you this. So, welcome to Retrograde, a collection of pre-Avengers one-shots that will mostly deal with Clint and Natasha's exploits through SHIELD. This one's a bit on the short side, but I thought at least it was something vaguely funny that would make you all hate me a little less hopefully.

Now that this author's note has gotten far, far too long, I'll leave you to it, with the assurances that Glass will be up within at most a week. Not that any of you will believe me anymore.

As Always, I Own Nothing.

Clint tilted his head slightly to the side and gave a smirk as he walked into the SHIELD mess hall, intent on finding his partner. Coulson had them scheduled for a last-minute briefing before their mission in Tokyo, that Natasha had no way of knowing about, seeing as she hadn't joined them for their jog that morning. This was their last real mission before he got shipped off to the base in some yet-to-be-disclosed location to babysit a glowing cube and its related scientists. But no one was supposed to know about that.

The reason for his smirk lie in the sight that met him in the otherwise empty mess line, his eyes moving to Natasha of their own accord as they always did. Another man, tall, broad shouldered, and if Clint had to go by body language alone, arrogant, had stepped in front of Natasha in line, stopping her progress and very nearly encroaching on the Widow's personal space. Clearly, the poor guy had no idea who in the hell he was trying to hit on.

"Breakfast and a show." one of the agents seated at a table Clint was passing muttered to his buddies, eyes on the same encounter. Really, it was all anyone in the mess hall was watching.

"Think so?" Clint asked in the same tone, pausing beside the agent that had spoken, a man he recognized from one of the strike teams.

The dark haired man's eyes shot to him before giving a coughing chuckle.

"Breakfast and a damn five act play with you involved Barton." he corrected, and Clint shot him a wry smirk before continuing towards Natasha, who he could see was getting more and more aggravated by the second.

It was his civic duty to intervene before the poor guy lost something important. Of course, he knew why the agent was even more amused with his presence. The entirety of SHIELD was under the impression that he and Natasha were romantically involved. They were just too terrified to ever even broach the subject in the presence of either master assassin. They weren't – romantically involved, that is – but they both agreed it was hilariously funny sometimes to keep the other agents guessing. In fact, it was only Coulson that actually understood the way their partnership worked, and they didn't mind keeping it that way.

He stepped up to Natasha's side easily, effectively blocking the other agent's hand as it tried to unobtrusively slide around to Natasha's backside. That wouldn't have ended well at all.

"Enjoying yourself?" he asked lightly, looking down to meet Natasha's gaze, watching as the woman raised a clearly questioning eyebrow, that he read as asking permission to castrate the poor guy still in front of her that now looked rather peeved at the interruption. He gave her a smirk, but the smallest of headshakes, making the corner of her mouth lift up into a scowl for half a second before it was gone.

"Hey, buddy, do you mind?" the agent demanded, taking another step closer, this time to Clint who simply looked up to meet the man's gaze, completely not intimidated despite the agent's clear intentions.

"No, not really, can I help you with something?" he asked cheekily, surveying the man.

They looked to be about the same age, so Clint guessed he was just out of training. Which would make sense, since he obviously didn't know who he was talking to. Clint just loved putting new agents in their place, especially since none of them ever guessed that little old him could kick their asses in half a second.

"Yeah, why don't you let the big boys talk to the pretty women and crawl back into your little intelligence cave, or where ever it is pipsqueaks like you pretend to be important." the agent growled, glaring down at him condescendingly.

Clint watched as the entire mess of agents around them winced as one, but none of them made a sound. He, however, didn't so much as blink, raising an eyebrow and grinning.

"Pipsqueak? Really? I haven't heard that one since… Gosh, since I was eight. What are you, my playground bully?" Clint asked lightly, grin widening as twitters of laughter sounded from their audience. Truthfully, arrogant didn't even begin to define this idiot, and he would thoroughly enjoy putting him down a few pegs. Every class of agent at SHIELD had their job, and it was indispensable to the others. He wasn't going to let this guy belittle an intelligence agents' work, even if he wasn't one.

"Think you're funny, do you?" the agent sneered, stepping forward again and completely putting himself into Clint's bubble of personal space, which was about a bad idea as getting into Natasha's. The Widow herself gave a small, knowing sigh and took a step back.

Clint just looked the larger man up and down a few times, making the other man snort, but instead of backing down like he expected, the assassin just gave a wolfish grin. Making the other man's expression turn to one of disbelief.

"Friendly word of advice? Steroids don't look so good when they turn up on your drug test, Chuckles." he said dispassionately, making the other man snarl, and use one hand to give Clint a harsh shove backwards in the middle of his chest.

"Excuse me?" he demanded, following as Clint stepped backwards with the shove but didn't give so much as a hint of a stumble, the entirety of the mess hall now watching in bated breath.

Clint gave a dark chuckle, quickly calming himself so he didn't deck the other agent and break his jaw, and sidestepped him, turning to Natasha instead.

"Давайте убираться отсюда, пока Chuckles получает сам убил." (Let's get out of here before Chuckles gets himself killed.) he said matter of factly, and Natasha gave a snort of agreement. Before Clint could move to leave, however the agent stepped up behind him, grabbing him by the shoulder in what anyone else would call a painful hold and spinning him around.

"What did you say, you foreign freak?" he spat and Clint shot him an incredulous look as he again forcefully restrained himself.

"I'm from Iowa, dipshit." he said shortly, before jerking his head back to Natasha, whose eyes were just barely blazing with an unnoticeable fire. "She's the Russian. You do realize that this is an international agency, don't you?" the condescending tone to his voice had turned insulting in its own right. "But for the less cultural of us, I was telling her 'let's get out of here before Chuckles gets himself killed'."

Clint allowed his eyes to flash dangerously once before he turned away, hoping it set the man back on his heels long enough for Clint to get away without having to put him on the floor. He was already late, and Coulson was already going to kill him, especially if he got into a fight. Well, he couldn't even call it a fight, really. It was more him kicking this poor deluded rookie's ass.

He heard the fist coming easily. And he considered side-stepping it and continuing out of mess, he really did. But then his eyes caught the table where a grouping of intelligence agents sat, looking outraged and furious, and well… He knew they would never be able to do what he could to the huge, hulking bully behind him. So he sighed dramatically, ran his hand down his face, an action which everyone saw and made the entirety of the mess hall laugh outright , before he spun and caught the fist now inches from his face.

The agent stared at him, surprised and disbelieving as Clint held his fist calmly and firmly.

"What?" the archer drawled, expression darkening, becoming more predatory. "You probably thought a cheap-shot punch like that would lay out a little pipsqueak like me, didn'cha?"

With that, Clint ducked the second punch with ease, and twisted the arm he still held to the point of near-dislocation. As the agent snarled like an angry bear and scrabbled to get a hold on him, or rip his arm out of his grip, Clint just swiped a foot across the back of his knees, making his legs buckle. Then he aimed an admittedly rather light spinning kick to the agent's chest, graciously releasing his arm as it hit and sent him flying backwards.

As the agent rolled over onto his side to try to choke air into his forcefully emptied lungs, Clint stalked over and pinned one of the man's wrists beneath his foot while he caught the other arm again and twisted it behind the man, electing a groan from him that tapered off as the archer then crouched to rest his knee on his throat lightly, pushing him over so he was more or less on his back, even with his arm still held awkwardly behind him.

"Now here's where I want you to take a moment and realize how utterly stupid it is to bully and come at someone you don't know." Clint said, tone changed from light and amused to cold and hardened. "I also want you to realize that as easy as it would be for me to kill you or dislocate your shoulder right now, I really saved your ass. Because if you had touched her, she would have castrated you in the middle of the mess hall in front of pretty much every agent on this base. Understand?"

He felt the small, quick nod beneath his knee, the agent's eyes having widened in shock and a poorly hidden fear.

"Hawkeye, if you don't mind, I do need him and all his proper bodily functions." Clint glanced up when an older man stepped forward, eyes glittering with amusement and annoyance that wasn't directed at the archer, but the agent beneath him.

"Of course, Agent Nicholson." Clint said lightly, nodding to the other agent and fluidly standing and taking a step back to allow the slowly recovering agent room to stand. "So he's recon then?"

"Uh huh." the graying man said shortly, watching with hard eyes as the younger man stood, massaging his shoulder, and watching Clint warily.

"What's his name?" Clint continued, more than happy to pretend that the man wasn't even there.

"Calier."

"I don't want to see it anywhere near my mission files." the archer said matter of factly, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at the man whose eyes widened slightly before glancing up to Nicholson who just nodded.

"Of course not. He just got out of training anyway, he's nowhere near ready for anything of that caliber."

Clint smirked when Calier's jaw dropped for a moment with that statement, before he composed himself at turned to his team-leader.

"Sir?"

"Agent Calier, might I introduce you to Agent Barton, also known as Hawkeye, and Agent Romanoff, also known as the Black Widow. They make up the tippy top of the top tier of SHIELD's food chain. The best assassins this agency has ever seen." Nicholson said lightly, and Clint grinned.

"Aw, Nicholson, you flatter me." he said teasingly, before his eyes darkened as they turned back to Calier. "And I'm not done with you yet either. See, the thing is, I don't like bullies. And I would honestly, truthfully, like to see you try to do your job without the file that an intelligence team puts together for you. So unless you'd like to try that little one-man-show and get yourself killed, I suggest that you get off your high horse and realize your department doesn't give you the right to be a bad-ass and mouth off about the others."

Calier's jaw clenched before he gave a short nod of reluctant acceptance. "Yes, sir."

"I go from pipsqueak to sir. I love it." Clint muttered as he shook his head and turned to Natasha again, who was still glaring at Calier. "I came to find you because Coulson had a briefing for us… Ten minutes ago."

"I'm blaming you." she sniffed, even though she still didn't turn to move away, eyes flashing and very focused. Clint sighed and gently turned her away by the shoulder.

"Come on, Tasha. Kid already got his ass kicked. I highly doubt he's going to try to hit on you again." Clint said appeasingly, and she snorted, reluctantly going with him.

"He tried to grab my ass." she growled mutinously, but he just chuckled, paying no attention to the other agents.

"Breaking his hand won't help."

"I wasn't going to break his hand. I was going to break his neck." she spat, their voices fading as they edged through the doors.

"Well, in his defense, you do have a very nice ass, Tasha." Clint responded, before laughing as there was the resounding sound of impact as she undoubtedly hit him.

"Well, at least you gave everyone some entertainment for the morning, Calier." Nicholson sighed as everyone started to go back about their business; eating, getting up to leave, and talking about the event that had just occurred. "And you made an ass out of yourself and enemies in the forms of the two single most deadly people arguably on the planet. It has to be a record."

"But he… he can't just do that." Calier protested, following Nicholson back to their table, keeping his voice low as not to attract any more attention. "He attacked me, he almost killed me, he-,"

"Taught you a valuable lesson." Nicholson finished patiently, turning to look at the young agent with a raised eyebrow. "You've got the potential to do a lot for this agency, kid, but not with the attitude you've had. Hopefully the Hawk managed to knock you down a few pegs so you can see that. You are not God's single most important gift to SHIELD. We all have our jobs, they are all important, and none of us could get done what we needed to without the other."

Calier scowled slightly, and Nicholson gave a nod before looking up and smirking.

"Good morning, Agent Hill." he greeted, and Calier's eyes shot up as the deputy director walked past on her way to dump her tray, nodding to Nicholson before speaking.

"Hawkeye went easy on you agent. I've never seen anyone walk away from invading his personal space like that without some form of broken something. Director Fury would laugh in your face if you lodged a complaint, and so would I." Hill didn't so much as pause to look at him as she dumped her tray and walked back by, making Calier gape in shock. "You're also very lucky that he's the only person alive that can talk down an angry Black Widow."

"Then there's that." Nicholson agreed lightly as he speared a potato from his plate.

"So are they…?" Calier trailed off curiously, but the older agent just snorted shaking his head.

"Together? We've all been trying to figure out that one for years. Your best guess is to assume the answer is yes and leave them the hell alone."

So there's that, I hope you enjoyed. Feel free to tell me what you thought or shout out some ideas for future chapters in a review. Thanks for reading.
~Dogstar