Disclaimer: Don't own Avengers, just the fic's plotline.
Hello fellow Avenger Geeks and Geekettes! It's been a while since I last wrote an Avenger fanfiction, and I must say, I have personally improved much more than I had thought.
This fic is Natasha-centric, but it has team bonding. Just to warn you, the rest of the team doesn't come in till later though. I don't have any plans of making it have a set pairing, mainly because my shipping for Natasha has been fluxuating dangerously lately. But feel free to read into it as much as you'd like.
Keep in mind it's multichaptered. I'm aiming for five right now, but you never know with me. Could be more, could be less. Ignore spelling errors, etc. I didn't have time to proofread, and my stupid computer doesn't have spellcheck.
Otherwise, Enjoy!
It was a simple mission, really. Get in, mark her hit, get out. Nothing she couldn't handle. Nothing she hadn't done before. It really was simple. Except for one irritating, frustrating, completely worrying factor. That morning, right before her briefing, she had recieved the news from Hill.
The Captain was missing.
Natasha could've slapped him for how damn good of a target he was. He may have been a supersoldier, but it was a well-known fact that he was still human. Since New York there had been three assassination attempts, and two kidnapping plots on his head. She, as well as the other Avengers, had thought he was well enough protected from the threats, but this morning's events proved otherwise.
She forcibly shoved away all thoughts of Rogers. Her mission was her main concern at the moment. It had to be. A twinge of anger ignited in her. She wasn't supposed to be affected by stuff like this. She wasn't supposed to care. Natasha had thought her walls were stronger than that.
A string of curses flew through her head as Natasha slipped into the eerie building complex before her. She currently was placed in Tokyo, her mission to slip in incognito and interfere with the Russian organization (it was always Russian) that was supposedly planning an attack on America. The details of this plan were still unknown, but that's why she was here, wasn't it?
Her target was Stanislav, which according to SHIELD's intel, was the leader of the system. She had read the files, and she hadn't necessarily liked what she had seen.
He was fifty-two, and incredibly powerful. He practically had the Russian government in the palm of his hand, and his resources were seemingly endless. If these rumors of threats were true, America, as well as all other countries, could be in danger of a full blown world war, an ultimate dictatorship, or possibly both. But that was only if he succeeded. Natasha wasn't ready to give up that easily. She had also read up on his personal ties. Apparently, the man had an ego to match his prowess. When he had taken hold of the terrorist organization, he had had his name changed from Konstantin, meaning 'steadfast' in Russian, to Stanislav, meaning 'glorious government.' Obviously, the guy had a priority for image.
Natasha made her way through the hallways, alert for any obstacles. From memory, she recalled the blueprint of the building she had studied during her briefing. Stanislav's main headquarters was predictably buried deep within the maze of halls and rooms. That's where she would find his plans, and undoubtedly the wannabe-dictator himself.
Footsteps sounded from down the corridor, and Natasha quickly stepped inside an empty room to her right, leaving a crack in the door. She held still and watched as a man dressed in a muddy brown lab coat walked by. As soon as his back was to her, the Widow made her move. In seconds, the man was unconscious and stripped of his uniform.
Natasha shoved the man into the room and shut the door. She briefly inspected the ID card and found he was a scientist adopted into Stanislav's establishment. Her brow furrowed. Why on earth would he need a scientist? Perhaps for a bomb? Some sort of new military weapon? Whatever the reason was, the redhead intended to find out. She slipped the card into the pocket of the ugly brown coat and hurriedly made her way towards the HQ, all the while composing her facade.
Nobody questioned her disguise as she passed countless guards and other scientists. That was, until she finally made it to the center of the building. Four guards were posted at the entrance, all heavily armed and intimidating. A camera was focused on her from the ceiling, and the door required a card scan, and a fingerprint identification. They obviously weren't taking any chances. She kept her face neutral and approached the guards.
One stepped in front of her, blocking off the door, and the others stiffened to attention.
"Who are you? Do you have permission to enter?" The guard questioned in harsh Russian.
Here goes. Time to begin.
Natasha twisted her face into an expression of impatience and replied in perfect Russian tongue. "Of course I have permission. The Master summoned me himself."
The guard regarded her with detached eyes. "The Master is not present at the moment, and we have been given orders that no one is to enter without his presence."
Feigning outrage, the red head put a hand to her hip. "Are you a complete imbecile? I'm here to inspect and perfect the plans while he is absent. That is my whole purpose."
"I cannot let you in."
Natasha lifted her chin and turned away, throwing one last sentence over her shoulder. "Well when he questions why his plans have not been inspected, then you may answer to the Master."
She could hear the guard shift uneasily as she strutted away. A fellow soldier leaned in, whispering doubtedly to the first guard. "Perhaps we should let her in. You know how he can get when he is not obeyed."
There was a second of silence before the first guard gave in to his fear. "Wait!" His Russian command stopped the assassin in her tracks, and she smirked mentally. "If you are summoned by him, then open the door and you may be permitted inside."
Natasha drew a breath and turned back around. She racked her mind of a plan. If she scanned the real scientist's card, while she was obviously not male, suspicion would be aroused. And she could not scan her finger without being found out. There was only one solution out of this. Lie.
Rolling her eyes, she motioned to the scanner. "Do I look like I've been here long enough to be in posession of an ID card, or be entered into the security system? I am a temporary scientist. It's impossible for me to open it."
The guard narrowed his eyes. She gestured with her hands in a shooing manner. "Well? Go on, open it. I, nor the Master, will wait forever!"
After only a second of hesitation, the guard slid out his card, scanned it, and then removed his glove to plant his thumb on the scanner. The door opened with a hiss. Natasha smiled patronizingly at the guards as she walked in. "Spasiba."
The room inside was quiet and empty. As soon as the doors shut behind her, she made her way to the huge table in the center of all the technology and equipment. Her nerves were jittery despite her professional experience with missions. On the table was a layout of dozens of papers and files. She shuffled through, skimming over notes and blueprints. There were tons of numbers and inventories of weapons, soldiers, and safehouses, but she didn't see any knew information or invasion plans.
A bead of sweat trickled down her brow. "C'mon, c'mon."
Page after page she inspected, but couldn't find anything of importance. Surely this mission wasn't for nothing? And right before she was about to give up, her eye snagged on something familiar. Something crucial.
Printed in slanted handwriting on a manilla folder, was the name of someone she knew quite well. Steve Rogers.
Her heart stopped. With shaking hands, she opened the folder. Inside was papers of information on the supersoldier. His parents, closest friends, school attendances, military records, all of it was in there. Including the experiment conducted on him all those years ago that had changed his life.
What in the world? Why would Stanislav need all this crap on the Captain? Could this be linked to his disappearance? She rifled through more of the papers until she reached the last section.
Her eyes widened.
In the very back, there were more papers. Papers recording several of Stanislav's top soldiers. Papers full of half finished scientific formulas. Formulas for the Super Soldier Serum.
Stanislav was building an army of supersoldiers, and he had taken the Captain to complete his formula. He had taken the Captain here.
Natasha steeled herself. She needed to abort the mission for now. This was beyond what SHIELD had hypothesized. And now, it was personal.
The second she was out of that suffocating HQ, she strode past the guards and to the other wing of the building. Natasha locked herself in an empty lab and turned on her SHIELD comm that she had previously shut off for the mission. Agent Hill picked up.
"What is it, Romanoff? The mission couldn't have gone that fast."
Natasha steadied her breathing. "It's the Captain. That's their weapon."
"I'm connecting Fury now." There was a pause before the commander himself was online.
"Elaborate, Romanoff."
"Stanislav is the one that took Rogers. He has everything on the Cap. All the information on his past, on his experiment, on the serum. He has half of the formula for the serum already, but he needed the Captain to find the missing half, that's why he kidnapped him. Once he has that full serum, he's going to create a whole army of supersoldiers, all trained exactly for the-"
"-Russian organization." Hill finished, horror dawning on her. "Shit..."
"Do you have his whereabouts?" Fury questioned, sounding calm over the comm.
"With all the scientists crawling around, I'm willing to bet he's somewhere in this complex. Do you think you can hack the security cameras and find exactly where he is? If he's here, I need to break in and extract him as soon-"
"You can't." Fury interrupted. Natasha blanched.
"What do you mean I can't? Rogers is here! If they get that formula, then all of our efforts to stop Stani-"
"Are you questioning my judgement, Agent Romanoff?" The redhead bit her cheek in frustration, but answered with a negative. He continued. "Don't be stupid. Even you, the Black Widow, can't take on a whole building of Russian soldiers on your own. And even if you did manage to make it outside, Stanislav would just send more after you, not to mention there's absolutely no place for you to hide."
"Cap and I can hold our own. And when we make it out, we can just-"
"There's no guarantee Rogers is even in any condition to stand let alone fight a legion of armed men." Natasha tasted blood as she bit through her cheek. She was getting seriously tired of being interrupted. "Our best bet is to stay undercover and find out as much information as you can on Rogers location as well as the progress of the scientists. We can send in backup, but the earliest they'll arrive is six hours. Stall until then. We'll alert you about the backup as soon as it's within the vicinity. In the mean time, follow your orders, Agent Romanoff. Am I clear?"
She swallowed a sarcastic retort. "Crystal."
"Good." The connection broke. Natasha switched the bug in her ear to standby. With a deep breath and a brush of her robe, she was ready.
First things first, she needed to find the Captain. And to do that, she needed a new disguise. Applying the same tactic she had on the poor scientist from before, the Black Widow borrowed the uniform of a patrolling guard. She hid the body and adjusted the huge jacket and trousers so that it fit her more feminine and petite form better. Natasha searched the guard's pockets, stripping him of all his weapons. She strapped two knives to her thighs, a handgun at her hip, a throwing knife in her sleeve, and the M16 secured in her grip. Not to mention her trademark Widow's Bite bracelets hidden on her wrists. She pulled her red locks back and stuffed them into the military barret, pulling it down slightly to cover her face a little more. And then she was on the move.
Despite how much she denied it, Natasha couldn't avoid the worry nagging at her for Steve. She knew firsthand what kind of hellish torture a Russian commander could inflict on a person when they were set on a goal. But then, she had to remind herself that she was Natasha Romanov, that she was the Black Widow, that she wasn't supposed to worry about people. Attachments, affections, feelings were a liability, especially in her field. And yet, she found herself growing more and more anxious with every minute she was left wondering.
Natasha Romanoff was a professional. She was built without emotions, without feelings. So why was she panicking?
A while passed as she wandered the halls, trying to decide where to start. She wasn't sure how much time had gone by. Down the hall at an intersection of corridors, some guards were jogging past. One stopped when he caught sight of her and called out in a deep Russian voice. "You! Guard! Hurry up! All elites are needed in the laboratory!"
Natasha sped her pace up. "What for?"
The guard continued down the hall, the Black Widow right behind him. "The subject almost got loose. Master Stanislav called for extra reinforcement in order to ensure the scientific study being conducted is successful."
Natasha followed at a fast pace, keeping track of every turn, every door, and every step, creating a mental map of an escape route. So Rogers had managed to make them nervous? She was impressed, and even more frustrated. On one hand, he had inadvertently just showed her the way to the lab, but otherwise, he had also made it infinitely more difficult for her to bust him out. Fury and his logic be damned. If Stanislav was able to complete that formula, this mission would be blown. And Rogers would be in danger.
She saw a doorway, identical to the HQ ones, and dozens of guards filing in. She shoved her way past and scanned her surroundings. Guards were lined up all around the room, guns drawn, loaded, and trained at the spectacle in the center of all the chaos. Natasha looked on emotionlessly at Rogers who was strapped to a lab table. A man in a pristine coat stood beside him. The redhead assumed he was the head scientist. And overlooking everything, standing tall in a deep green uniform was a middle aged man with a white mustache and graying hair. Her eyes narrowed. Stanislav.
She imitated the other guards and aimed the barrel of her M16 on her comrade. Confusion quickly surfaced in her mind. The Cap's restraints were thin metal, so flimsy that she knew he could snap it without any effort. So, why wasn't he escaping? Natasha squinted her eyes, trying to observe as much as she could from this distance. His grey-blue eyes were halflidded, and he wasn't saying, not even protests. Her heart jolted in realization. They had drugged him. He wasn't breaking the restraints because he literally couldn't.
She saw Stanislav approach the table, pinching the barely aware Captain's chin. "Now, American," he spoke in heavily accented English. "Are you ready?"
Incredibly, he was conscious enough to slur out a reply. "Somehow I don't think my answer would affect your decision."
The Russian man chuckled. "Of course not, but what am I if not hospitable?" He leaned closer, hovering above the supersoldier. "Do not worry, American, by aiding us in our cause, you are helping in the improvement of the world! Is not that noble enough a cause?"
Natasha watched in slight admiration as well as intense scorn when Rogers turned his head and spit at the commander's face.
"Men like you don't know the meaning of a noble cause. Only a selfish ambition."
Surprise flitted through her when the Russian leader viciously backhanded the incapacitated man, but she did not flinch. Rogers' head flew to the side from impact, but to his credit, he didn't show any signs of pain. Maybe it was the drugs.
With a malicious smile, Stanislav wiped the spit off of his face and then the blood from his hand. "I must say, I am impressed with your courage, however stupid it may be. Perhaps this will be a more entertaining experience than I had previously thought. It will be fun to break you, Captain." He stepped back and motioned once with his hand. "Begin the extraction."
The scientist stepped forward, picking up the largest needle Natasha had ever seen from among his tray of medical supplies. There had to be at least fifteen different injections displayed there. She tried not to panic. This was not good. It would be a good three and a half hours before backup arrived. By then, the serum would be complete, or at least on its way to completion. She ran through her options, but none were even possible with how many guards were in the room. Dammit, this wasn't how the mission was supposed to go. She was in way over her head.
She watched as the needle was injected into Rogers arm. Blood filled the tube and traveled along a plastic pipe to a blood bag. Before she could prepare herself, the scientist had seized a small pair of scissors and begun cutting away at his shirt. Her eyes widened. His chest was covered in bruises and cuts. Obviously his guards had gotten a little too excited with the supersoldier in custody. Unbidden rage filled her heart. It took all the strength she had not to begin raining shots down at the guards around her and Stanislav himself.
She tried not to feel sick when the scientist created a seven-inch incision in his side with a scalpel. Natasha was used to blood. Her hands were covered in it. She was immune to knives. She had slit the throats of too many men for her to count, but this was different. This wasn't a quick slash, it wasn't an almost painless slip of a blade. It was a slow, deliberate, and torturing slide of metal through flesh, and it made her skin crawl with memories of her own torture sessions.
The scientist used an even larger needle to push into the incision, and Natasha had to shut her eyes to avoid puking. She almost dropped her gun when the Cap's grunts of pain turned into desperate shouts. She didn't want to look, she didn't want to hear, she just wanted it to end. This wasn't like the times in her dark past when she tortured men, this was in completely uncharted territory. This was her comrade, her friend, and this time, she cared.
But as soon as the screams began, they stopped. The scientist set aside his tools, slipped the needle out of his arm, and briefly inspected the chunk of muscle he had taken from the incision. With a simple nod from Stanislav, he disappeared into another secluded lab, a quarter of the guards following him and securing the entrance.
Stanislav once again leaned over the Captain who was gasping for air, the drugs apparently starting to wear off. He smiled. "It's been a pleasure to be in service with you, dear American. Unfortunately, I do not think it is wise to let you go, but feel free to make yourself comfortable."
Then, he was walking out the door, the guards following him out.
Author's Note: Kind of left on a cliffy... Sorry bout that. I already have the second chapter typed out, but the speed of my updating also depends on the level of feedback I get from y'all. (Did I really just say 'y'all'?) So review, ladies and gents.
If my Russian is wrong, feel free to correct me, because I'm actually Asian and just used Google. Seriously. I think 'Spasiba' means thank you, but for all I know, it probably really means something totally weird like potato or hippopotamus. Thanks, Google translate.
Anyways, review, favorite, follow, whatever. Just don't leave me hanging. I live off your guys' responses, you know.
With Love,
MI3