Clint's POV
I wake up to blinding white lights and a ringing sound in my ear. Grimacing, I open my eyes as they adjust to the lights. Sitting up, I notice an IV in my arm. I rip it out and stand, but trip. Looking down, I notice my leg bound by bandages. Just then, Nat walks in.
" What are you doing?" She asks and push me back down onto the hospital bed. I groan. Just my luck. Of course I would bang into her before exiting.
" I need to get up, Nat!" I exclaim. " I'm bored and don't know what to do! At least I could use the shooting range in the training room before this!" She sighed and looked sad.
" Well, I got good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?" She asked.
" The good news. I can't be dealing with the bad news now. I've already got problems of my own to deal with now." I answered.
" Well, actually, there's two pieces of good news. For the first one, you've been given a month off. The second..." She trailed off.
" What? What about the second?" I asked.
" They got a sample of that supposed rouge assassin's blood." Tasha said. The blank look shut her face down again, but her eyes clearly showed that she was upset and confused.
" So now they can track her DNA?" I questioned. She nodded.
" What about the bad news?" I raised an eyebrow.
" The thing is, Clint, the Shield tracker, they can't trace her blood. It's as if she never existed." Nat said in a whisper and I fell into oblivion.
Natalie's POV
Okay, calm down. The police aren't going to check my car hopefully. Suddenly, a man dressed in a blue uniform came over to my car.
" Miss, may I have your driving license, please?" He asked politely. I froze but forced my face into a fake smile.
" Sure! Wait a second here..." I took out my wallet and pretended to search through it. " Um, I seem to have left it at home...perhaps this ID would satisfy your queries?" I asked with the smile still plastered on my face, flashing my fake ID that I had mercifully brought with me. He stuttered.
" Uh...that is...wait a second," he said and rushed over to another man, presumably their leader and asked him a question, waving my fake ID at him. The other police looked distracted, nodding a quick yes before going back to whatever he was doing before. The policeman jogged back over to ' my' car and gave me back the license.
" Have a nice day, Miss Rushman," he said and I drove off, heaving a sigh of relief. Okay, it was time to find a place to crash. Pulling over to the side of the road after I had driven a few meters away from the police incident, I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. Walking calmly over to my boot, I searched it thoroughly till I found a globe there. I spun it around, closed my eyes and placed my finger on a random spot on the globe, making it stop. Opening my eyes, I smiled. Goodbye, Brooklyn, hello New York.
---
Boarding the plane, I sat down into the seat that I had booked and relaxed, playing with my black wig. You can never be too careful. Suddenly, a girl sat down beside me. She had long blonde hair and brown eyes.
" Hi, I'm Tessie. Tessie Stark" She said. Wait, that surname sounds familiar...never mind. I looked surprised that anyone would want to talk to me.
" Hi..." I trailed off. " I'm Tasha Rushman." I said, using my fake alias.
" Tasha as in Natasha?" She asked. I shook my head.
" Just Tasha." I replied. She nodded politely. We started talking because I didn't bring a book to read and airplane flights are really boring.
" I'm quite good with tech, and all subjects, science in particular," Tessie explained. I smiled.
" I'm good at sports, that kind of thing." I said. She nodded. Soon, the announcement came over the PA.
" Dear passengers, we are landing in ten minutes. Until further notice, please do not unbuckle your seatbelt so or stand up. Thank you." Came the announcement.
" Well, it was nice meeting you, Tessie," I said. She smiled.
" Pleasure's all mine. Hey, where are you going, by the way?" She asked me and I froze. I had actually not thought of that and did not know what to tell Tessie.
" Um...I don't know," I answered, fumbling with my hands." I don't have a place to stay in." I told Tessie. She nodded.
" Well then, crash in my apartment until you can find somewhere to live." She said and I thanked my lucky stars that Tessie wasn't the type of person to question people.
When the flight landed, we both walked out of the airplane together. I kept my head down, hair covering my face as I walked. You could never be too careful. Walking out of immigration, we stopped a cab and got in, speeding to Tessie's apartment which was somewhere near the new Avengers' tower. It was owned by some crazy rich guy called...I don't know...Tony...Stank? Eh, screw it. Imma crash in Tessie's house for a night and then decide what to do.
As we were walking into the small two room flat, I looked forward to actually sleeping in a bed again. I hadn't done that since God knows when.
Once we were inside, Tessie locked the door and dropped her bags down to the floor. She suddenly swept her hand over her head, causing her wig-wait, wig?-to fall off, revealing brown hair.
" Hey, you're the daughter of Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff, aren't you?" She asked, quickly. A mask of no emotion swept over my face as my brain went into shut down mode. Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff? I hadn't heard those names in a long time.
" No," I lied. She scoffed.
" Puh-lease. I hacked into Shield's database and found out all about you. Apparently you're a ghost to Shield right? Like you never existed.
" What are you talking about? No!" I denied, hoping that if I kept up the act, she would stop pestering me.
" You don't have to pretend, Natalie Barton. I'm in the same boat as you. I'm Tony Stark's daughter." She winked. Oh, Stark! So that was why I found the name so familiar! Wait. Wasn't he that billionaire that owned that enormous skyscraper? Oh yeah! Stark not Stank! But wait! Why was the daughter of such a rich man staying on her own in a two room apartment by herself?
" Really?" I asked cautiously. She nodded, her brown hair bobbing up and down furiously.
" Then what are you doing here all by yourself in this  two room flat?" I asked. She looked sad and since the first time I'd seen her, her enthusiastic smile disappeared and the tips of her mouth drooped.
" He...doesn't know about me." She whispered sadly. I looked confused. How could parents not know about their own daughter? Wait. I suppose that's true. I don't think my parents know about me- that is, if they are even alive. That's highly unlikely since there was an explosion, and even if they did survive the explosion, they would have been shot down by those crazy men chasing them.
" How come your parents don't know about you?" I asked. Tessie looked at me cautiously, but she hid it well. I only knew because I was highly trained in body language. What? When you live on the streets, you have to observe people. It's become a habit over the years, and I know how to do it without people suspecting.
" My father and mother were brainwashed by Nick Fury. You know, that guy with that black eyepatch? Patchy the pirate...no?" I was doubled over in fits of laughter at her description of Shield's director. " Yeah. He brainwashed them, believing that it would ' affect their performance' or something like that. Yeah. They took me into protective custody, but I escaped. Managed to keep off the radar by hacking Shield. That's about it. You turn." I frown, not particularly wanting to share about my past.
" Well..." I hesitated.
" Go on!" Tessie urged.
" Well, I was with my parents till three, when people or thugs attacked my house. There was an explosion. My mother, she was blown back by it. Not really sure if she survived. My father, he told me to run. He went to find my mother. I grabbed things needed for survival but the men were already coming after me. To escape, I jumped out of the window of my room. After I was out, the house was rocked by another explosion. Not sure if my parents survived." Tessie looked shocked at my revealing of my backstory.
" But...if I'm not wrong, your parents are still alive. Wait, lemme get my computer and I'll hack into the Shield database. There has to be something about them!" She said.
" Is that how you knew about your parents too?" I asked her. She nodded, typing in loads of complicated codes I could only half understand.
After about an hour of typing, she said," Your parents are indeed alive."
A/N
Hi guys! Sorry if this is unsatisfactory or anything, but please show me some pity. I'm having a fever, flu, cough and phlegm. I could hardly type this out, but I did. However, feedback is always appreciated. Alright, let's get down to business. See that little star button little thingy over there? Click it to make a poor, sick little author feel better. Thank you, all you kind souls out there! You can have a cookie! 🍪 ( Seriously, I laugh at my own childishness sometimes.)
Stephanie signing off!