Demons and Spiders

The world was safe again.

Thor had taken the tesseract and Loki back to Asgard and the Avengers had dispersed.

Banner was god knows where.

Iron man was back in Los Angeles.

Captain America was doing some sort of S.H.I.E.L.D. publicity campain around the world.

Leaving only Natasha and her parter Clint to their mundane lives. Their mundane being boring old assassinations, no men with super powers, no alien races, no evil gods or big green monsters. Just plain human targets who had gotten on S.H.I.E.L.D's bad side.

Natasha had been worried that Clint had been far too compromised to ever return to his old job but he had been coming along quite nicely. After all their targets were wanted dead for the good of public safety.

She had tried to help him through it. After all who would know better? She too had been brainwashed and forced into killing innocents. The only difference was Clint was an adult and she'd been less than ten years old. If she could recover, then so could he.

"Nat," Clint peered from around the corner and found Natasha spinning a throwing knife in each hand. "Bored much?"

Natasha threw the one in her left hand at him and it sunk three inches into the wall behind him, less than an inch from Clint's ear. She smirked at him, "How could you tell?"

"Just a hunch," He grasped the looped handle and tried to yank it from the wall. "Jesus, woman."

"Try not to hurt yourself," She laughed, jumping onto her feet she yanked the blade from the wall and resheathed it to her thigh. "Why are you here? Do we have an assignment or something?"

Clint nodded, "Yeah, Fury's setting us up on an S-ranked mission, Agent Hill is going to brief us in the conference room."

"Sounds good, just need to suit up," Natasha left the common area and went to her room. All agents had their own apartments away from S.H.I.E.L.D. but they also each had their own rooms on base too. Because the Avengers got so much publicity, Natasha and Clint had been staying on base to avoid the limelight.

She reached her room and entered her password into the keypad on her door. The door slid open and she went straight to her dresser, adding onto the arsenal of weapons she already kept on her. Including her Widow Bite shock bracelets and another four guns plus a few throwing stars. Clint would make fun of her for overpacking just like any other girl but halfway through the mission he'd be asking to borrow a gun or some ammo.

She ran to the conference room as fast as she could and found Agent Hill and Clint waiting for her.

"Black Widow, nice of you to join us." Agent Hill nodded, Natasha liked the woman but thought she acted more important than she was. After all, she was just Fury's assisstant.

"You're welcome, I'm sorry about being late, I know Fury only lets you off your leash for so long."

Clint snickered and at Agent Hill's glare he masked it with a cough.

"Better a canine than an insect," Hill crossed her arms.

Natasha blinked, face blank, "Spiders aren't insects, they're arachnids, from a whole separate subphylum and class."

Clint laughed, "She's got you there, Hill."

"Damn, you knew what I meant," Hill's exhaled deeply, the only sign of irritation the stoic agent showed.

"Ladies, ladies if you're going to fight, I insist you do it in a pool of jello preferably topless, words can hurt you know, jello is nice and squishy," Clint chimed in.

"Shut up," They both snapped.

"Is this the level of professionalism that you three should be demonstrating?" They all turned to see Fury walk in. He glared at Hill. "I leave you in charge for an hour, ask you to do one briefing and you take the oppurtunity to pick a fight with my best agent."

Natasha gave just a hint of a smile at that.

Fury nodded at Hill and she left the room.

"What about me?" Clint whispered under his breath, in a mock sad voice. He pouted at Fury.

Fury gave Clint his mouth scathing glare and rolled his eyes, "Back to normal I see."

"Getting there," Clint nodded. "What's the mission?"

"Well, an old friend needs your help. To be honest, I was hesitant to send you but you were specifically requested." Fury sighed, he turned on the clear screens in the room and pulled up the mission details. Natasha scanned it briefly.

"You're sending us to Asgard?"

"Yes, as you read Thor's father, the king of their realm, a fella named Odin, wants to discuss relations with Earth and with S.H.I.E.L.D. and you two are the only people capable." Fury sighed, he didn't seem to thrilled. "For obvious reasons, we can't send Tony Stark or Bruce Banner."

"What about El Capitano?" Clint asked, as if reading Natasha's thoughts.

Fury rose an eyebrow, "You mean Mr. Naive-Nice-Guy from the 1950's? Yeah, he's the cut throat negotiator I need."

"Alright we'll do it," Natasha sighed. "You can count on us."

The door slid open behind them with a shick.

"Great!" They turned to see Thor. "Dear friends, it's great to see you again!"

The gigantic god pulled Natasha and Clint into a bone crushing hug.

"Hey big guy, how did you arrive so quickly?" Fury asked with an edge of suspicion in his voice. What kind of master spy would be be if he wasn't paranoid 24/7?

"My father has let me borrow the tesseract, do not worry commander he has used magic to shield others from sensing it's presence, what did you call it? It's gamma signature?" Thor smiled, "Now where is Jane?"

The door opened again, this time with Agent Hill and Jane Foster walking through the door. If Natasha had thought the hug she and Clint had received from the god was bone crushing, she had been wrong. Thor pulled tiny Jane into a hug that could only be described as skeleton decimating.

The petite brunette smiled weakly at Thor, "It's great to see you again."

"How goes your research Jane?" Thor stared at Jane with enraptured eyes. The rest of the people in room looked at eachother awkwardly, feeling as if they were invading an intimate moment with the god and astrophysicist.

Jane answered and Natasha tuned her out to scan the rest of the mission briefing packet.

If she was going to be honest with herself, she was a tad apprehensive to go into a godly realm. After all, her, Clint and Jane would be the only humans in the entire dimension. And it was different, Jane would be going as Thor's sweetheart, the citizens of Asgard might even think of her as their future queen. Clint and Natasha on the other hand, they were dangerous spies masking as ambassadors to her. What had Thor been thinking asking for them two to be representatives of Earth?

"Well are you guys ready to go?" Thor turned to them, a handsome smile on his face. "You two will love my realm!"

"Ready as I'll ever be," Clint gave Thor a sheepish grin. Thor turned to look at Natasha and she nodded at him.