IT COULD EASILY BE SAID THAT BARTON AND ROMANOFF WERE A PACKAGE DEAL. Very rarely did one go without the other, the two often being paired on no-extraction-plan missions as they worked seamlessly together, the best in the business; of course, the two could easily work well without the other, as they had done for many years in the past, but why force them apart when there was no reason to?

That was why Natasha had been rather surprised to be called to Director Fury's office and not find Clint already seated there. Of course, he could still be on his way, but considering Fury's body language, it was clear that he was not going to be called.

"You're surprised to be working without Barton?" Fury asked, though there was no need to place it as a question, and Natasha shrugged, taking a seat across from him.

"Hardly," she replied, "There are certain missions that we have to work alone, and I'm more than capable of doing exactly that, as I've proved on more than one occasion."

Fury held up his hands. "You don't have to convince me of anything. And despite what most think, you have worked lots of solo missions, but as you know we keep them under the radar. This is one of them."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really? So this should be fun."

Fury splayed out his palms and shrugged. "Depends on what you think is fun."

He pushed a file across his desk towards her and she leaned over and picked it up, letting herself relax slightly, opening the file and starting to read, continuing to detach herself as she prepared to be bombarded with a list of terrible things and pictures to match.

What truly got to her, however, was the target's name.

She sat up bolt right, her back stiffening and goosebumps prickling her arms, breaking out into a cold sweat as she stared at the name in shock and horror.

"Niko Constantin," Fury said, hiding his surprise at Natasha's reaction, "Believed to be the only male trainee of the failed Wolf Spider Ops Program. Not much is known about the program other than it was meant to be the equivalent of what you had gone through, and based in the same location."

"There were more of them, but there had been complications and they had been compromised, the ones that didn't die due to the serum were killed trying to escape. Constantin was the only one who survived, he's the only successful male trainee," she whispered, unable to raise her voice any more as she stared at a picture of him, her stomach churning.

"That's where you're wrong," Fury said, and she snapped her head up to stare at him in shock, "I've just received word that a few had managed to escape, though you would be right that most did wind up dying, as the serum did end up killing them. All but the one they had managed to stabilize."

She shook her head. "That's not possible, there was no way to stabilize the effect of the serum, that was where they had gone wrong in the first place, they hadn't altered it enough to fit the genetic make-up, how could they have-"

"They're mutants, Romanoff, I don't know how," Fury interrupted, sliding over another file, "All we know is that they had managed to stabilize one, and you are going to be working with him. Before I tell you anything more, we need to get this guy to work with us. Again."

Natasha opened the new file on top of the other one, feeling safe, as if it was shielding her. She raised an eyebrow at a young looking man, then over to his date of birth, understanding immediately; the serum injected within her had altered her genetics, as it had all the others, making her age differently, giving her an extended youth, which was how she managed to claim she was much younger than she truly was.

"Again?" she parroted, scanning over everything they had on file of this man, "He worked with Barton?"

Fury nodded. "You're aware of who Tensley Ellis is, correct?"

"Yeah, Clint brought him in and he worked with us for a bit, but now he only comes by if we call him," she mumbled absentmindedly, staring in awe at the files extracted from Hank McCoy, detailing the stabilization of the serum that should have killed this man.

"He's done the exact same thing," Fury explained, "We've kept tabs on him since he immigrated here, and while he pays his taxes and is a respectable member of society, he does have something that we tend to hang over him. He's got this apartment complex full of people, human experiments and runaway mutants and, recently, Inhumans. They're all well hidden, but we know where they are, and we swore to leave them alone and keep them safe if he agreed to help us out when necessary."

"Why not recruit him if he's so vital?" she asked, scrutinizing the photo of him.

"Because he refused," Fury said, "And he's not all that vital. He worked with Barton right before he brought you to us, and we never needed him since. But it would make sense to bring him on now, what with his background."

"And you want me to work with him," Natasha finished, sighing softly as she closed the file, "What's the mission?"

He smirked then. "I'll let you know when he gets on board."

º º º

Terran loved sleeping in. After working non-stop for most of the week, he loved to sleep in until almost noon on the weekends. Most everyone was in the complex during that time, of course, since they all mostly worked during the weekday, but most also loved to sleep in as well, so Saturday mornings at the complex were generally quiet.

Which meant that there had been quite a fuss when there was a knock at the door.

"Dad, what's going on?" someone called out as Terran stumbled out of his room, tugging on a button up, still half asleep, still adjusting his jeans.

"Go back to bed, it's okay," he called out, catching Janelle's eye, "Keep everyone inside, everything'll be okay."

"Is someone after us?" a voice cried, and more voices chimed in with fear, and he shook his head, shouting for everyone to stay calm and go back to their rooms and not come out until he gave a clear.

Running a hand through his hair, he finished adjusting his jeans and threw himself over the railing, feeling as though he was falling towards a fan, slowly drifting down, giving him enough time to correctly button up his shirt and prepare to confront whomever was at the door; there were only a few people who knew where the complex was and saw past its facade, and unless it was Clint Barton just popping by to visit, he wasn't going to be smiling much.

The moment his feet were firmly on the ground, he crossed the room, nearing the door, and it was as if he was in a dream, his heart pounding and vision going slightly blurry as his arm reached out and pulled the door open.

He found himself staring at S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Fury and a redhead who could barely reach his chest standing at his doorstep.

He took a deep breath and sighed. "I'm guessing it's too much to hope you two are here to freeload our food."

Fury raised an eyebrow. "I mean, if you're offering."

Terran scoffed, but motioned for them to come inside, Fury closing the doors behind them as he turned around, heading towards the dining room, pausing when he saw Janelle softly making her way down the stairs, handing him his phone and squeezing his arm, casting a glance over to the guests before looking back at him, nodding when he gave her a short shake of his head.

The redheaded woman motioned towards Janelle, watching her go. "Is she a telepath?"

Terran glanced back to Janelle who made a face, smirking before schooling his features and turning back to the woman, shaking his head. "She's my platonic partner."

He said that as a way to gain some leverage, throw her off, because if she had come with Fury, that meant she most likely knew all there was they thought they had to know about him, but saying that would remind her that he was a person-as much as he could be-and the files didn't tell her everything.

However, she simply nodded in complete understanding, and he was thrown for a loop himself; that made him more upset.

He made his way to the fridge and pulled out two water bottles, throwing them over to the two guests, pulling out the rest of the pie and grabbing three plates and forks. He stayed completely silent, avoiding eye contact to keep the two quiet for as long as possible.

He sighed as he took a seat at his usual spot at the head of the table, Fury on his right and the woman on his left. He looked at them for a moment before shrugging, digging into his pie, Fury glancing at it for a moment before eating as well, the woman just watching him, her narrowed eyes calculating.

He lifted his head and glanced towards her, making a motion towards the pie. "It's not poisoned."

"I figured," she said, motioning towards her own lip and Terran wiped away the piece of pie on the corner of his mouth.

He looked at her for a moment, intrigued by the way her lips were raised. It was a small smile, and if he were anyone else, he would assume she found him entertaining in some regard, and maybe she did, but the smile wasn't real. He could tell, if she was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, she had to know how to keep things under wraps, but if she was willing to give him a smile, there would at least be a flicker in her eyes. He stared at her eyes for a moment and saw nothing but scrutiny and an almost smug satisfaction.

"You don't have to smile, we don't have cameras here," he said before turning back towards his pie, glancing over to Fury, "Are you gonna tell me why you're here?"

Fury looked up from where he was eating his pie, raising his eyebrows. "Oh, I thought we were gonna eat, then talk later."

Terran snorted. "Yeah, no, we're not doing this, you caused everyone in this place more stress than any of us need or deserve, so you better start talking."

"Or what?" the woman asked, and it was almost curious, as if she couldn't believe he was threatening them.

He turned to look at her, completely serious. "You have no idea what we're capable of."

"Oh, I have an idea," she said, "But you wouldn't ever hurt us. All of you, you've sworn off fighting in any capacity and refuse to use weapons, yet the military contacted you behind the scenes for some weapon designs."

"Not weapons, tech," he corrected, "And, yes, we have sworn off fighting, but only in the offensive. If we're being attacked, we're not going down without a fight, and help the heroes, we aren't them. So why are you here, because I know you have enough safe houses to hide in."

Fury set down his water bottle, wiping his mouth. "Whatever your morals or mission statement, we have a deal."

Terran sighed, dropping his head, hands folding on the table. "I thought I cashed that in when Clint and I practically saved the world. I'm the psuedo-prince consort of Norway and Clint kind of owns two-thirds of Turkey, I think that's enough."

"What?" Natasha scoffed.

"Many things happened during that mission, but all you need to know is Clint and I used to look exactly alike way back in the day, though I hear he looks like such an old man right now, and he's still pretty young, which is tragic, because he and I looked so good together," Terran said quickly, shaking his head with pity as he remembered seeing a picture of Clint that had been recently taken, shellshocked at how old he looked now.

"He did age pretty quick," Natasha commented, looking over to Fury who was staring at Terran with concern.

"I'm going to ignore everything that was said and just remind you that there was no limit to your agreement," Fury said, taking another bite of his pie as Terran groaned loudly.

"Come on," he pleaded, "I'm a second grade teacher, it's not as if I can just up and leave anymore. Because it's not the summer break, and I have work."

"You have that stand in, the other blond that came with Rogers," Fury pointed out, and Terran raised a finger.

"One, he did not come with Captain America, he came before Captain America and was the backup plan in the event the super soldier serum didn't guarantee a win for the Allied Powers. Two, he's still working on his teaching credentials, so I don't even-Three, I'm allowed to say no, aren't I?"

"Yeah, but will you?" the woman asked, catching his attention.

He opened and closed his mouth before sighing. "I'm not going to say no if there's a good reason for me to work the mission. If you're calling me because I'll make it easier, then no. But if you're calling me because I'll raise the chances of getting people out alive and lowering collateral damage, then, yes, I'll help. It's a small difference, but it means a lot."

"I can't tell either of you anything until I know you're both fully committed," Fury said, calling both of them to attention, "But I will tell you one thing. The target is Niko Constantin."

Terran abruptly stood up. "Yeah, no, I'm out. Goodbye, get out of my home, don't ever come back."

"Sweets," Fury called out, standing up, but Terran was already climbing up the stairs, taking four at a time, ignoring the man shouting after him.

Fury sighed as he watched Terran leave, glancing over to Natasha who was watching as well, a calculating expression etched onto her features. "You have a plan to get him to agree?"

She shrugged. "That depends. Do we actually need him?"

Fury nodded. "I wouldn't have pushed this if we didn't."

She nodded, then motioned back towards the table. "I'll talk to him, but let's give him some time. I actually want to try the pie."

º º º

Natasha finished her pie and climbed up the stairs, looking around to see which room Terran could possibly be in. She had watched him climb up to the third level of the building, which had narrowed down her options significantly, but didn't give her much else.

She prowled for a while, pressing her ear against the various doors, listening to the sounds of people listening to music, talking on the phone, or simply no sound at all. She could also tell that most of the doors were locked. She had to wonder what these people were hiding.

She neared the door farthest from the stairs, catching the sound of two voices talking softly, but with distress. She neared it slowly, carefully pressing her ear against the wood, glad for the over perfect hearing the experimentation had given her.

"...I can't go back, I can't do it, I don't want to, I've worked way too hard for this..."

She nodded to herself; he was in there. She looked at the doorknob for a moment, wondering if she should knock or just enter. She figured that, since he was talking, there was no harm in testing the door, just to see if it was unlocked. She paused, however, just as she was about to test the door.

If it was locked, they would know she tried to barge in, and he would block her out. If it was unlocked, and she walked in, he would be affronted at her treating the place like she belonged there, when it was clear he didn't want her there in the first place.

So she knocked. It was a tactical decision, and she could only hope that it was the correct one.

The voices came to an abrupt stop once she knocked, but she remained at the door, knowing that they would have to give in eventually.

After nearly a minute and a half of waiting, she heard footsteps near the door right before the lock clicked open and the knob turned, the wooden door pulling back to reveal the same woman Natasha had seen earlier.

"You have to understand," she said softly, "He's not like you."

Natasha nodded, trying to convince the other woman that she understood, because, to some extent, she did. "I'll be careful."

With that, Janelle left the room with one last look towards Terran, letting Natasha slide past her, entering the room and closing the door softly behind her. She just stared for a moment, trying to register what she was looking at and how to proceed.

The man, who was easily 6'5" and had the physical capability to lift a truck and only look partly strained, was curled up on the bed under the covers, his face buried in a pillow, another clutched tightly to his chest, his blond hair sticking out in all directions, like someone had been running their hair through it.

"I don't want to do this," he said, his voice muffled by the pillow, "You have a lot of agents, ask them. Ask Clint."

"For some reason, Fury needs you," she said, stepping closer towards the bed, still standing to assert some form of dominance, not like she actually needed to work that hard, "You know as well as I do what Constantin is capable of."

Terran laughed bitterly. "You have no idea what I've been through."

She walked to where he was and crouched down, eye level to him, forcing him to look at her. "The Wolf Spider Program came after the Black Widows. Whatever you've been through was nothing to what I had to. Because at least I completed my training."

He took a deep breath and sighed. "But you don't know Constantin."

"That's why we need you," she reasoned, figuring that she could play into his statement of only accepting the job if they truly needed him, "No one else has the personal connection."

"That's exactly why I can't help you," he countered, still lying down, eyes following her as she stood and walked back to the center of the room, "I'm sorry."

"No, you're not," she said, crossing her arms.

He shrugged. "Yeah, I'm not. Because I have a responsibility here, if not to my school, to these people. None of us had anywhere to go, this is a safe place. I need to protect them."

"They'll be fine without you," Natasha said, "We have them all on file, we know what they're capable of."

In a flash, Terran was on his feet, and Natasha was jumping back, already in the defensive, but he just stared at her with wide, incredulous eyes that held the anger and threat she had expected to see from him when she read his file.

"What do you mean you have them on file?" he demanded lowly, stepping forward, stopping when he saw her tense.

She lifted her chin, crossing her arms once more, standing equal to him despite his towering height. "We have them all on file, we make sure that they're not a threat, and potentially an asset."

"An asset?" he parroted, his voice filling the room, nearly causing her to flinch, "They aren't assets, they're people! They're people who have been treated like nothing but something for people like you to use and manipulate and take advantage of, they won't be doing any fighting, you know that!"

"What if you were attacked?" she countered, her voice still calm and even, unlike Terran's own, the man now breathing heavily as her words sunk in.

"We fight as a collective, or you take me," he said immediately, "You do not get to have them on file and pick and choose from the lot whenever you feel like it, I agreed to work with you for their immunity."

"You agreed to work with us so we would keep your secret and aid in your protection," she explained, reciting from what she had learned not long before, raising an eyebrow.

He took a steadying breath, pausing from where he had been furiously pacing to look at her with narrowed eyes. "Are you always like this?"

"As emotionless as you feel, yes," she replied, not missing a beat, and she couldn't help but feel a twitch in her lips at the way he reacted, shouting in frustration and running her hands through her hair, "I'm not always like this, Sweets, maybe you'll find out when you agree."

He scoffed, shaking his head. "I can't agree to this. This is ridiculous."

Before Natasha could speak, Terran heard a voice of another telepath in the complex, a small fearful voice that said the words that made his blood run cold. "Dad, the scary eye-patch man is talking to Patty, what do we do?"

Pushing past the woman whose name Terran still didn't know, he threw himself over the railing again, immediately sprinting to the dining room the second his feet barely touched the ground, finding that Fury was, in fact, talking to one of the strongest members of the complex, the two chatting happily.

Patty was the one who had set up the protective illusions around the complex in the first place. It had been her who had made it so, when people looked at the building, they saw a decrepit, run down building and felt a strong urge to stay away, even if they had a desire to explore, and was exactly the kind of person S.H.I.E.L.D. could potentially exploit.

"I'll do it, but on one condition," he said, his words punched out of him the moment he saw Patty smiling at the man.

The two looked up at him and he immediately motioned for her to go back to her room, which she did, jumping to her feet; she was about the same age as Janelle, and while it would mean she was the same age as what he claimed to be, he was, in the end, still older.

"What's the condition?" Fury asked, looking up at him casually, as if they were discussing the weather and not Terran's agreement to what was essentially exploitation.

"Immunity for everyone here," he said, stepping forward, towering right above him, "If I agree to work with you, you can keep them on file, but you're not allowed to ever use those as a means to track them down and cause them any harm or ask them to aid you in any of your plans or failsafes, they don't need that, not after what they've been through, if you need help, you come to me and me alone."

Fury thought for a moment before nodding, rising to his feet and sticking out his hand. "You have a deal. Thank you for making the right decision."

Terran's jaw clenched as he grasped Fury's hand far too tightly. "Don't you dare thank me, you ass."

"Thank you," the woman from before said, standing in the entry way of the dining table, "For agreeing to help."

He looked at her for a moment before asking. "Can I know your name?"

She nodded, stepping forward. "Natasha Romanoff. Black Widow."

He sighed, meeting her halfway. "Terran Sweets. Wolf Spider."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

( 05.25.18 )

So, you know, in my mind I always thought Nat was like in her 20's, but she was part of the Black Widow Ops, who were originally a part of the Soviet Union which fell in 1991, so she has to be in her thirties at this point, but the serum injected within the girls actually decelerates their aging rate, so I can get away with her and Terran saying that they're still in their 20's, because they actually really look the part, but in reality are not (Terran actually lied to Nicky about his age, which is how we're gonna explain away how I said he was 24 when he first met Nicky, when he was a tad older than that, not a lot, but still)

I don't really think there's anything else I have to explain, so thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!