Written for the be_compromised 2017 Secret Santa exchange, for Crystal_Litanie, based on the following prompt: Mission in Central Europe. Throw in some architecture, art and politics and I'll be as happy as it gets. She also expressed a desire for "mission fic, banter and early S.H.I.E.L.D. days". Bonus (for me): Her request fitted perfectly with one the great fanfic-bait lines in The Winter Soldier: For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crises, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed. So, perfect prompt was perfect!
Inspired in part by the movie "Woman in Gold", with Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds, which if you haven't seen, you should. Many, many thanks to JRBarton for the emergency beta!
Ley Lines
By
Alpha Flyer
Vienna's reputation as a place on the ley lines of history is richly deserved. Its palaces echoed with the music of Mozart and Beethoven, its streets with the Internationale and shouts of 'Heil Hitler', and its cafés with the ideas of Marx, Lenin, and Freud. The politics of its rulers included calculated marriages and spectacular deaths in equal measure – usually with similar results for the ruled.
During the Cold War, spies from East and West danced around each other in Vienna like in one of its intricate balls; even today, it remains central to petro-politics and efforts to prevent nuclear war. The place is gorgeous and banal, frivolous and stuffy, gobsmackingly opinionated, deeply philosophical and a powder keg, all at the same time.
To Clint Barton, who's been to Vienna often enough to have soaked up some of what makes it tick - historically and otherwise - it's a place of contradictions, where you turn around and have no idea what's gonna hit you next. The only sure thing is that something will, and usually before you know it.
"This town kinda reminds me of you," he informs his partner, looking up from his map-cum-guidebook. "Vienna, I mean."
Natasha scans the foam-like apparition of Belvedere Palace in front of them and frowns, and utterly fails to follow his train of thought.
"Are you saying I'm baroque? And here I was aiming for 'contemporary sleek menace'."
Right. Clint is many things but stupid isn't one of them, and one lesson he's learned in the train wreck that is his life is that when you find yourself in a hole, you stop digging. (Unless there's artillery fire.)
"Never mind," he says. "Wasn't talking about architecture."
He spends a few moments just listening to the gravel crunching under his feet as they walk. It's actually kind of nice, for February: bright sunshine and the air is cool, but without that sharp, wintery edge. The smell of roasting chestnuts wafts in on the wind from somewhere.
But now's probably not the time to admit that he's actually enjoying himself, walking through a park in Middle Europe, with the Black Widow for company. There's work to be done, even on a bright sunny day, so it's best to get back into complaint mode.
"Still don't understand why we're walking up that whole goddamn hill, through this whole goddamn park, when we could've just taken a cab to the far end and gone straight to the museum. Could even have taken a tram - I'm not proud."
Natasha sighs.
"We're supposed to stop one of the potentially greatest art thefts of all time," she says. "So, it makes sense to have a look at the whole environment. Where the perps may come in from, where they might try to hide, where they might park their getaway cars…."
Clint waves her off.
"All that shit was in the briefing notes." He points at the green wall lining both sides of the park. "Like, that hedge? We already knew that was there. Perfect assembly spot for bad guys. All we gotta do is watch for rustling leaves when the time comes. Coulson said…"
Natasha buffs him on the arm with her flat hand, not particularly gently.
"Forget it. So I just wanted a nice walk on a beautiful sunny day, get some fresh air with nobody's shooting at us. Be in the moment, Barton. If you can."
No shit. Her too? Who knew Natasha Romanoff is willing and able to have fun? Clint decides to digest this new piece of intel at a later date.
At least he doesn't have to respond right now; they've reached the entry to the museum and it's time to get inside and get serious about that recce thing. Time to be professional.
"Shit. Got any Euros on you?"
…..
It's a Wednesday morning, but even so the line-up is substantial. On weekends it's been in the tens of thousands: the Viennese are coming to say goodbye to one of their favourite paintings. After a long legal battle, Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer is going back to the Jewish family from whom it had been stolen by the Nazis. It's about to head to the U.S., and people are in mourning. There's talk about opening the gallery 24/7 so people can pay their final respects.
Clint doesn't pretend to understand what the fuss is about – a painting is a painting. More to the point, stealing the thing from the gallery makes no sense operationally speaking, when people could just grab it on its way out of town; the most vulnerable moment for anything is in transit. But as Coulson had pointed out, Adele is not the only - or even the most famous - Klimt in the Belvedere. There's a lot more money to be made if you grab a whole bunch of them; economies of scale apply even to art heists.
Maybe that explains S.H.I.E.L.D.'s interest. Klimt's The Kiss in particular is an icon; once a painting is reproduced on mouse pads, scarves and fridge magnets, it becomes like the Crown jewels. Its sale could fund major terrorist campaigns. Dusty artefacts from some bombed-out museum in Iraq, the kind of thing Al Qaeda has been selling to feed its fighters, would be chicken shit by comparison.
But whatever Fury's reasons, here they are - Strike Team Delta, re-enacting some old Cary Grant movie. Or was that Thomas Crown? One had jewel thieves in it and the other art ones; Clint can't for the life of him remember which is which. But they both come with beautiful women, so there's that.
Once they're past the ticket office, Natasha informs Clint they should head straight for the Klimts. (Like he'd want to spend time looking at pictures by guys he's never heard of, in rooms packed with tourists and sobbing Viennese.) Finding them is easy: follow the crowds, use elbows as necessary.
The Kiss is bigger than you'd expect from the postcards; 1.8 x 1.8 meters according to the little label – in real measurements, that's 6' x 6', without the frame. It'd take a guy with pretty long arms to carry it, or else someone with a sharp knife to cut the canvas out of the frame, roll it up and run off pretending it's a poster from the shop.
By contrast, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer is quite a bit smaller, an easy carry. The crowd around the picture is even thicker; a few people are crying openly and for a moment Clint wonders how a painting could stir up so much passion in the usually pretty stuffy Viennese. But … there's something about the thing, something that sings of a different time and place, and for a moment he can almost see what they see.
The woman in the painting is pretty; she looks at him from under lidded eyes, her mouth half-open, like she's trying to tell him something, but it's not clear what. She's sensual and sexy, like Natasha …
Professional, Barton.
He whacks himself mentally over the head and tries to memorize the painting, to make sure he'll recognize it. If someone does get away with it, Fury will probably make them go looking for it and would be majorly pissed off if they came back with a missing Vermeer instead.
So here's the reason Klimt's stuff is so popular in the gift shops: All that gold…. People like shiny things, and the woman's pale face and hands float above a shimmering dress that somehow merges into a sea of golden light. The whole thing should be kitsch but isn't; instead, it's stunningly beautiful - almost blindingly so.
"Man, that's a lot of gold," Clint says to Natasha when she works her way back through the crowds from chatting up the security guard in the corner. "This thing must be worth a mint, even if you just scrape off the paint and sell it by the ounce."
"Philistine," huffs a bespectacled Viennese professor-type, trying to shove in between them to get a closer look at Adele. "Zis painting is magnificent. It is history. History of Vienna."
Sure is. Steal stuff from people you want to oppress, pretend it's yours, and cry foul when they want it back. Classic capitalism. Clint blocks the guy with his shoulder. Not done looking, bubba.
"Phil Stein?" he says conversationally. "Nice guess. Name's Clint, not Phil. And you better wait your turn, gramps, history or not."
He scans the security system around the paintings. Pretty standard stuff: thin threads that measure vibration, hooked up to an alarm system somewhere. Complete bullshit, always has been.
"All you need is someone who's willing to open the door from the inside, throw a switch, and you're home free. A five-percent cut from a hundred million bucks can buy a whole lotta loyalty," he says to his partner.
They're just standing there in each other's company, enjoying the view, when things take a sudden turn for the nasty.
Someone behind Clint starts to cough, then someone else, then a whole lot of people and the sobs from the old ladies in the crowd morph into a series of croaks. People are making choking noises; a scream is rendered ineffective by lack of air.
"Alternatively, you can release some kind of gas into the room in broad daylight," Natasha hisses. "Scenario Four Alpha, for which we appear to have lift-off."
Clint really hates it when relaxed recces unexpectedly turn operational, especially as it usually means he doesn't have his bow with him. Timing can be a bitch. But, as Coulson always says, luck favours the prepared, and they've come equipped with the basics to handle a number of scenarios on the spur of the moment. Including, as it happens, Four Alpha. Natasha's face is already masked.
Clint reaches into his jacket and pulls out the S.H.I.E.L.D. toxic gas special - slim rubberized face cover, complete with infrared goggles (in case of mustard gas) and top-of-the-line breath filter. It slides on quickly; the practiced right-handed flick to secure the strap leaves him time to grab his gun with his left.
He drops to the floor in what he hopes is a convincing convulsion, shielding his face with one arm to avoid someone spotting the mask too quickly. The hand with the gun he shoves under the skirt of the old lady, who's gone down like a ton of bricks, poor thing.
Natasha, it appears, has done the same, dropped but spun around to face in the opposite direction. Back-to-back, they have eyes on the entire room.
Through the fingers of his unarmed hand, Clint can see that the pushy Sigmund Freud wannabe is still standing, wearing a very similar version of his own mask. S.H.I.E.L.D., sharing a supplier with these guys? (Probably Stark Industries; they'll sell to anyone.)
He can see two other goons in the immediate vicinity, both holding things that looks like Nikon cameras but that are spewing acrid white gas into the room. Nice touristy camouflage to get their shit past security; Clint makes a mental note for the debrief.
The security guard on her chair has slumped over, her face oddly waxy; the pile of bodies on the floor is growing. The good news is that whatever is being pumped out of those quasi-cameras doesn't seem to be mustard or another blistering agent, because then they'd all be fucked. Masks only get you so far.
No, the gas seems to be some type of nerve incapacitant, like the stuff the Spetsnaz poured into that Moscow theatre during the Chechen hostage crisis, killing over two hundred civilians in the process. The Russians being Russians, and not interested in letting anyone look into their arsenal, hadn't let anyone near the theatre afterwards - not even medics, or people might actually have survived. Basically, the sooner all those art-loving civilians get taken out of here the better, if they're to stand a chance.
Of course, that entails clearing out all the hostiles in the area, with maximum prejudice to avoid problems. Natasha seems to have come to the same conclusion.
"Now," she shouts.
She flips herself upright in a single, smooth motion that Clint doesn't have the time to admire because he's doing pretty much the same thing. Still in the air he fires his Heckler & Koch at Mr. Professor, who's already reaching for Adele, the snout of his has mask making him look like some kind of alien gargoyle.
Intriguingly, nobody is going for The Kiss, which is worth a heck of a lot more, according to Coulson.
Natasha is taking out two goons by the entrance to the next room.
"Try not to hit any paintings," Natasha hollers over her shoulder as she heads for the door in the direction of the entrance, Clint hard on her heels.
"Gimme some credit," he huffs. "You think I'm a total barbarian?"
Sure enough, there are a couple gas-masked people standing in the corridor leading into the next gallery, cradling nasty-looking guns.
"Mine," Clint shouts. No point wasting bullets through duplication of effort; an op this size surely has more than five dudes, and they need to get them all if there's to be any chance of an evac.
He squeezes off the necessary two rounds, and the hunt is on.
The gunshots of course have alerted the various lookouts along the gallery, and things get ugly there for a while. One of the sculptures gets chipped by a bullet, but not by Clint, as he hastens to point out to his partner.
Thank goodness all the civilians are pretty much flat down on the floor, so chances of collateral damage by gun fire are slim.
Outside, the situation is a bit different. Half a dozen guys in black tac suits with submachine guns are holding the queue of tourists in check. Interestingly, some of those don't look as terrified as they should be, almost as if they'd been reassured that they'd be okay.
One of the gunmen shouts something in Austrian (okay, German if you want to be technical, but there's a difference that even Clint can tell – they all sound like the Terminator). Whatever the dude just said has a couple of people in the queue actually pumping their fist and cheering.
The fuck? Isn't Stockholm syndrome supposed to take at least a few days?
A small group of Japanese tourists obviously have no idea what's just been said, and don't look in the least reassured. In fact they look terrified, as do a bunch of students out for the day with their teachers. Selective reassurance?
Fuck this. Clint drops a couple of the guys with the Uzis; Natasha tosses her widow's bite at the other two who scream, drop and start twitching on the ground. A couple of them should definitely be allowed to survive, give S.H.I.E.L.D. someone to interview.
The remaining two, realizing that they're facing a greater threat than a bunch of tourists with cellphone cameras, turn and start firing – briefly. They go down with clean headshots, no ricochets. (Clint still misses his bow, though.) Now some of the tourists start screaming for real, and running away.
There's a screeching of tires as a white van marked "Stadt Wien" takes off from the circular driveway – presumably the getaway car, with space for the Klimt. Natasha takes aim but she has no shot at its tires; far too many civilians in the way now. There's the loud squeal of braking and sustained honking as the van hits traffic on the Rennweg, but it's gone and there's nothing either of them can do about it.
Shit.
Clint uses his remaining bullets to shoot out the windows of the gallery. There are way more people inside than he and Natasha could possibly carry out, and hopefully the good people in charge of the Belvedere Palace will understand that fresh air and civilian survival trumps architectural integrity.
The shattering of glass is accompanied by the shutters and clicks of several dozen cameras, but that can't be helped. Luckily, they're both still wearing those masks and like hell is Clint going to take his off now. He waves at a Japanese teenager who has recovered from her terror enough to be snapping away on her iPhone.
Natasha is already on the horn, directing Coulson to get as many ambulances as possible on the scene, with oxygen masks and naloxone kits. Atropine, too, just in case. Who knows what kind of poison these assholes pumped into the museum.
And then it's time to leave, before the cops get there. Turns out, those hedges come in handy after all.
…..
"So I wonder who these dudes were," Clint says to Natasha over an early dinner at Danieli's, her go-to Italian eatery in town. (Two distinct perks of being part of Strike Team Delta – his partner is good at demanding a few hours of downtime before pick-up, and pizza standards have gone way up.)
The media is reporting that the two survivors popped some kind of cyanide before they could be arrested, so no one has been talking, and motive remains unclear. But of course everyone is speculating - including Clint.
"Did you get what they were saying to those people outside? Maybe there's a clue there?"
Natasha takes a long sip of her wine. Renner Haideboden, it says on the label. Clint is on his second glass already.
"2002. A good year," she says, not exactly responding to his question. Maybe she doesn't like talking shop over dinner? Still.
"Speak for yourself," he grumbles. "Spent most of that one on a bug hunt in Afghanistan. Don't change the subject."
Surely Natasha has figured out by now that he never lets go of a question, especially not if it hasn't been answered. She sighs. Apparently, that's a yes.
"Something about keeping 'Adele in Austria, where she belongs'," she says, swirling her wine in the glass.
"Which doesn't make sense. If your motivation is to keep the painting in Austria, stealing it means it'll never get seen again. And if your idea is to give it back to a museum, the woman who won that lawsuit is still entitled to get it back. Most likely, it would go into some oligarch's private collection, and everybody loses."
"What I always thought art theft was all about," Clint agrees around a mouthful of pizza. As in, some rich dude who's bought everything you money can buy already, and wants something no one else can have. 'Get a Leonardo of your very own. Yours for a mere four hundred million bucks.'"
Natasha casts him a look from under her distractingly long lashes.
"You are full of surprises today, Phil Stein. I didn't know you knew anything about art."
Clint flashes a grin at her and eyes what has to be the best pizza in Vienna – a work of art in its own right - before picking up a slice with both hands.
"I read the papers," he says, and deeply inhales to savour the cheesy goodness.
"Still doesn't answer the question though. If this is going to a private buyer, why does SHIELD care?" he says before biting into the thing and catching a string of cheese with his tongue.
Natasha frowns, and seems to have lost interest in the conversation. She focuses instead on delicately twirling her spaghettini around her fork, her tongue briefly wetting her lips in anticipation. Who knew eating pasta could be sexy?
An hour, two servings of pannacotta and two espressos later, warm and full, they wander back through the Graben. In the shadow of St Stephen's Cathedral, the street echoes incongruously with strands of 'Great Balls of Fire' , thanks to a guy with a Jerry Lewis puppet that's bashing away on a little toy piano. They've been there for years; must be a worthwhile gig. The puppeteer makes Jerry's mechanical eyes bug out extra long when Clint's casually tossed coin hits the jar from about 20 feet away.
"Let's cut through the Hofburg," Natasha announces unexpectedly. "There may still be some people selling mulled wine."
Truth is, Clint is having a good time again, and he agrees even though the air is now biting with frost. Sure enough, at the towering entrance to the palace, there's a little wooden stand selling spicy, hot wine in pretty mugs. Winter in Vienna smells so much better than mid-August, when the whole inner city stinks of fermenting shit from those supposedly romantic horse carts.
The palace of the Habsburg emperors is an imposing thing - semi-circular, with columns and enormous windows. Horse carriages line the street in front and in the corner is an array of flags. The overall impression is one of stern, imposing grandeur, certainly not much in the way of warm and fuzzy.
"Nice place," Clint says. "Just right for starting World War One."
Natasha stops in her tracks and frowns.
"Damn," she says. And then, "Of course!"
Clint drains the last of his mulled wine – it's getting cold already, but still good – and casts her a questioning look.
"What'd I say?" he says.
"See that balcony?" She grabs him by the arm and points. "Look familiar?"
He's seen it before, of course, but she has a point to make and so he just shrugs. Emperor Franz Josef's Royal Wave spot?
"In 1938, Hitler declared Austria to be part of his Reich from right up there, cheered on by half a million people. A year later, the Viennese made Jews scrub cobblestones with their toothbrushes. You were right about the World War idea, you just had the wrong one."
She takes a deep breath.
"Today, the security guard at the Belvedere told me that 'a real government wouldn't let that painting leave the country. It's ours,' she said, 'not theirs'."
Clint doesn't see it.
"The family of the woman in that painting were all murdered or forced to escape, so where the hell does the patriotism bit fit in?"
Natasha looks at him indulgently.
"Logic and facts have nothing to do with it, Clint, and the Viennese are pros when it comes to ignoring the details. Stopping the painting from going to the U.S. would go a long way to stir up old hatreds - and they already have neo-fascists running for election. Fertile ground to sew division, sell some torches."
Politics. Clint hates politics. Especially when it makes no sense.
"And the good thing about that would be what, exactly? Especially if you risk civilians getting hurt in the process?"
Natasha shrugs.
"Money? Companies like Stark Industries thrive on conflict. The hundred million or so that the painting might fetch would just be an hors d'oeuvre, if you can start another one."
Clint contemplates his empty mug for a minute, then sticks it in his coat pocket. He's too lazy to take it back for the two-Euro deposit, it's too nice to throw away, and you can never have enough mugs.
"Well, if someone wanted to steal the picture just to stir up shit, that'd certainly explain why Fury cared," he says.
Natasha nods and hooks her arm into his.
"I can't think of a better powder keg than this place," she says. "Imagine, fascists celebrating the gang that stopped the sale, while everyone else mourns the civilians gassed in the process. Enough to turn people back to tribal politics. Remember the Balkan wars? You can drive there from here."
"Well, good thing we stopped that then," Clint says, automatically covering her hand on his arm with his. For a moment he wonders whether he should pull back, but she doesn't flinch so he just keeps it there. Keeping her hand warm, he tells himself. It's getting chillier by the minute.
"Wonder who'd do such a thing, though." He considers for a moment. "And man, I'm glad that back home in the U.S. we'd never fall for that kind of bullshit. United we stand, and all that jazz."
For a second Natasha places her hand on top of Clint's, making a nice warm stack. It's starting to snow a little.
"I could give you my view on empires falling, but not tonight. Let's just head back to the hotel and have another drink in the bar."
Clint does not need to be persuaded, and he lets her pull him towards the lights of the Ring Road, past the unmarked balcony.
If there's a moment to be in, all things considered, this one is pretty good.