Geez Louise! Fanfiction sure does make me feel like a goof. Here I thought I was mowing down tons of story when, in reality, I barely wrote much at all per chapter. At least, that's what it looks like! I guess that's what I get for writing in double space. Does anyone else thing the the font is a little small? ;-; No? Just me? Eehhhehehe.
Action certainly isn't my strong suit but I am not one to back down from a challenge. Reviews are always appreciated. Enjoy c: See you at the next update!
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing of Marvel's.
Chapter Two - Her Face Red with the Dust of Battle
Clint Barton dipped into his familiar kneel and swiftly scanned his surroundings, as was his apparent ritual. He searched the cloudless sky. There was no moon but the stars pricked the sky in the thousands. The rocky desert landscape was dark, for the most part, excepting a small cluster of shimmering lights below him. There Hawkeye saw the entrance to the secret Hydra compound that he had finally discovered stashed away in Libya– with the help of Natasha Romanov, of course – after three months. It was nestled at the bottom of a ravine which gave him the perfect vantage point. With a satisfied nod he loosely nocked an arrow.
"Kid, you're on. This one'll be a cinch just keep your eyes up." He murmured into his headset.
"You're saying that like it's my first time infiltrating a heavily guarded secret base." The reply crackled through his earpiece.
"No, what I'm saying is that now that Nat has done all the legwork you can go in and put a nice pretty bow on it." He retorted in a playful fashion.
"Oh my, Clinton! Legwork! Are you implying something about the Black Widow's...approach to espionage?" Came the sassy response.
"No, Amira, and if you're very lucky I won't tell her you said that." He huffed. "And do not call me Clinton." Amira's undignified snickers broadcast right into Clint's ear. He shook his head with a throaty laugh.
The woman herself was snug inside of a rock alcove very near the entrance of the compound. Her unpredictable coffee colored curls were subdued into a ponytail on her crown. Though the sun had set there was still a sticky heat permeating the desert and it made her olive tone skin glow with perspiration. Though she appeared innocuous with her small structure her gaze was calculating. When she was a girl she lamented her looks. She thought her slightly wide set eyes and round face made her look positively extra terrestrial (the other children on the schoolyard saw fit to remind her of this fact every so often) but as she grew into her own, she soon learned that her petulant look made people underestimate her, which – in her line of work – was very valuable, indeed.
"It's nearly midnight. If our intel is correct then the guard should be changing soon, that's where you make your move." She looked to the door as Clint's voice came across the airwaves.
"Roger that." And with that she rose to stand. Short though she was, there were few stealthier than Amira Mizrahi and her light frame enabled her to slip into tight spaces. She padded cautiously on the loose earth towards the great steel set of double doors that were closely watched by Hydra goons. The clock struck twelve and right on schedule two fresh henchmen exited the doors. The new guards exchanged some playful quips and jibes with one another before swapping for the night. Amira picked up her pace slightly as the relieved soldiers made their way through the doors. Clint held his breath.
She carefully fell in step behind the henchmen extracting his key card to gain entrance. Neither newly posted guard so much as blinked at her apparent presence. It was as if she were a ghost. Clint drew the arrow and trained his sights on the armed Hydra agents surrounding his partner, a bead of sweat trickled down his temple.
"Wait." One of the newly posted guards to her right breathlessly began. He held up the gloved hand that wasn't holding his automatic rifle. His eyes narrowed skeptically. Every muscle in Amira's body was a coiled spring; she embodied a marble pole-cat in stance and tenacity. She rapidly calculated every move she would have to make if things got sticky, there were very few scenarios – by her estimation – in which she escaped without a bullet wound. Meanwhile Clint readied himself to loose his arrow. Suddenly, the guard discharged a thunderous sneeze and in the beam of the spotlights she could make out the vaporized motes of spit spinning in the air. Every man had turned with wide eyes to look at their cohort.
"Agh, there it is. That is better. I just can not deal with the pollen this season, it's murder." The culprit complained.
"Just cover your mouth next time, you animal!" His partner sniped. "Honestly."
The retreating guards exchanged an eye roll. Amira let her tense body unwind for a moment, she couldn't spare the noise of sighing with relief. Clint lowered his bow and only then did he realize how forcefully he had been gritting his teeth. The key card reader chirped happily and Amira could hear several locks disengaging one after the other. She placed a searching hand on the satchel around her waist and said a silent prayer. The door creaked open and she slipped inside as close to the two unaware henchmen as a coupled train car. The door swung shut behind them and every lock clicked back into place. Clint set his bow down and opened a hard shell briefcase that sat next to him. The floor plan of the facility flickered before his eyes on the portable computer secreted inside.
Amira continued to follow the weary men through two more sets of doors until she found herself in a large underground warehouse. Littered here and there were various sealed wooden crates and mammoth sized mechanical marvels on dollies. Fluorescent lights dotted the ceiling which was dizzying in it's height. Hydra agents were walking along the lofty catwalks lining the walls past imposing Hydra banners and researchers flitted below them from place to place jotting down scribbles on their charts and keeping themselves very busy with their nefarious plans. She slowly traversed across the room dodging the mad scientists bumbling to and fro. None of them seemed to register her presence.
"Clint, I think I found where Indiana Jones hid the Arc of the Covenant!" Sh e whispered into her earpiece.
"You just entered the main warehouse. Did you remember the package?" Clint nagged. Amira rolled her eyes.
"Yes." She hissed as a maintenance worker pulling along a large vacuum nearly rammed into her. "Of course I did." She assured. Her hand snaked down to the satchel around her waist once more, it was heavy with and the numerous explosives softly clinked within.
"Directly ahead of you will be the entrance into the server room. You're gonna go through it but remember your way back." Clint ordered through her earpiece.
"Got it. What's next?" She affirmed as she slipped into the aforementioned room.
"Take a left in the corridor at the exit of the server room. There should be an elevator at the end of it. Take it to the bottom floor." Amira effortlessly shelved each direction into her mind. They would not need to be repeated. "At the end of the long hallway should be the office of one Rolf Holweck. He's the beating heart of Hydra operations in North Africa."
"And if Mr. Holweck is in?" Amira queried.
"Deal with him. The mobile device we sent you with has been pre-programmed with a script that will be able to decrypt his computer and dump all the information found into itself. This is the prime objective, Mizrahi. No mistakes."
"Understood. What's the exit strategy?" The elevator chimed with a ding and the doors slid open and Amira waltzed into the gleaming silver lift that was already occupied by one very confused looking Hydra grunt. As he saw it, the elevator stopped for no reason. When the doors shut he jovially returned to singing along with the muzac which was pretty awkward for Amira who simply crossed her arms and glowered at the clueless young man next to her.
"Why don't you throw them a little surprise party, kid?" Clint suggested. Amira smiled to herself and patted her satchel. It was going to be one hell of a party with the favors she brought.
Thankfully, the tuneful fellow exited the elevator soon after she entered. The rest of the way down was uneventful and at last the doors whooshed open. At the end of a long fluorescent lit hallway Amira saw her objective. The passage was dead silent. Her soft soled shoes could still be heard whispering across the floor. The door to Rolf Holweck's office was slightly ajar which was lucky for her. She could just make out Holweck in the dimly lit office. He was surrounded by loaded bookshelves and lingering cigar smoke.
She pushed the door open just enough to fit herself through as quietly and quickly as possible. He was mostly bald and reminded Amira of tortoise with his pursed lips, slight nose, and half-lidded eyes. Rolf looked up to see no one. He was able to determine that his door had just moved entirely of it's own accord. He stood up and waddled over to investigate but Amira was faster than he was and she wound up a mean jab that struck it's target – Rolf's face – with fierce accuracy. He crumpled to the floor with a satisfying thud. After tenderly squeezing the aching fingers of her right hand she proceeded to shut and lock his door. She wondered, momentarily, if she hit him too hard. He was kind of old. But then she remembered he was a Neo-Nazi and quickly dismissed any and all pity.
"Holweck's taken care of. I am proceeding to retrieve the objective." She informed Clint as she connected the device she fished from her satchel into the computer. The program made short work of his encrypted files and sooner than she was thought possible the task was finished with. She hastily unplugged the phone and packed it into a small pocket in her bag. She reached in and grabbed a handful of the oblong silver cartridges her bag was filled to the brim with.
"I got it. I'm getting the hell out of here." Amira informed Clint. "Is Aaron headed to the extraction point?"
"He said he's 15 minutes out, I hope you can work with that. Their security will pick up on the system decryption so get a move on." Amira pressed one of the silver cartridges onto Holweck's desk and ran a finger over the faint red light on the side of it. With surprising gusto, little prongs sprung out of the contraption and dug into the wood of the desk, adhering it. "Oh, and remember those explosives pack a punch so be mindful where you place them." He warned.
"Neat!" She marveled, inspecting the pincers buried in the desk.
"Did you hear what I said, Mizrahi?"
She did not respond because she was too busy decorating the hallway with her little silver baubles. She stowed one behind the hand railing in the elevator, four or so in the aisles of the server room, more than a dozen in the warehouse, and one primly attached to the guarded outer door. When she exited to the outside world both guards had been slain with precision by Hawkeye. Two arrows pierced them both symmetrically in the heart. As soon as she saw the coast was clear she broke out into a sprint, throwing soft sand in the air behind her heels with every stride.
"I'm headed to the extraction point now, Clint, are you going to meet me?" She anxiously asked between breaths.
"I'm already there, where are you?" Clint incredulously replied.
"I'm close. Just sit tight and inform me the minute Aaron arrives." She scaled the rock wall where it was easiest to free climb in and out of the ravine. The landscape was dark but with caution she began to pick her way up the rocky wall. Loose rocks were falling out left and right and she struggled to find a reliable hand hold at times but she finally reached the top. Rust colored dirt clung to wherever she was damp with sweat, which felt like everywhere. She resumed her sprint to make up for lost time and arrived at the meeting place only a few minutes late.
"Where the hell is Aaron?" She cried. Clint animatedly shrugged with mutual annoyance.
"No idea, but you can't detonate those before he gets here and at this rate, someone is going to figure out something is wrong." As if Hawkeye's words were a magic incantation, the alarm could be heard blaring in the distance just when the last words left his mouth. They both looked, wide-eyed, in the direction of the sound.
"Son of a-." Amira murmured.
"Blow it." Clint locked eyes with Amira. She scoffed in shock. He looked only more determined.
Well, She couldn't possibly defy the orders of a superior.
Now I know that technically Hydra isn't really affiliated with Nazi Germany in the 'present day'. They're more interested in a general world domination thing but I really wanted to maintain their Nazi heritage because what's more comic book-esque than indiscriminately punching Nazis and defeating them for AMERICA. I think it's a nice little homage.
