Anticipation

Two hours passed. Natasha made her way to the lounge area of the hotel, searching for some sort of snack. She looked around for a nearby vending machine, as usually all decent hotels had one. There were few people in the lounge, one reading a book, another quietly talking on the phone, and the other walking about someplace, probably leaving to go to another spot. So far, so good.

She finally found it in a corner, as if just hiding away from her. Once she got up to it, she began thinking of what to get. There was nothing but junk food, obviously. Chips and candy bars. Natasha didn't want anything too salty, or just too over the top. So she stuck with a bag of Ruffles. It was simple enough. She put her dollar in the machine, and the chips dropped down in the open compartment. Natasha grabbed the bag and headed back to their room.

On her way, she noticed a worker in their signature uniform walking by. But as she noticed him, Natasha picked up a strange vibe from him. Something about him seemed off. She didn't know what it was, but her intuition told her that he wasn't right. Anyways, she kept on back to the room.

Natasha pulled out her card and unlocked the door to the room, immediately noticing Peter in nearly the same position as she did when she left. He sat on his bed with his eyes glued on the television. The news was on. They were covering the incident just a while ago with the ambush. Most footage was that of the burning car that had exploded from the grenade. Shattered glass was also seen surrounding the area as well, including the busted windows of the building behind.

"You can't ever seem to miss anything around here," Natasha commented, as she opened the bag of Ruffles, to which she then held out to Peter, offering some. He said no thanks. She proceeded to eat one.

"What's crazier is that they have no clue it's all thanks to a group of evil secret spies," said Peter. Natasha forced a little sarcastic laugh.

"If that's what you want to call them," said Natasha.

"That's what they are, right?"

"Well yeah, but I never thought of them that way. It's kind of funny." Natasha sat on her bed. "I guess now I know what Americans thought of the KGB years ago."

Some time went by and the two were eventually watching other stuff that was irrelevant to current events. They needed something to take their minds off of it, even though the plan is to attract HYDRA towards them. Natasha finished her bag of Ruffles and threw it in the trashcan, which was in the bathroom.

"I never understood why they put trashcans in the bath-

Three knocks sounded from the door. Both of their heads immediately jerked towards it. Peter's senses were wired up and on full alert. They both exchanged looks for a moment, and then Natasha slowly approached the door. She looked through the peephole with anticipation of some sort of danger and instead saw what seemed sort of anticlimactic. It was the hotel worker she saw before. Natasha was expecting a full-on HYRDA agent wearing black all over with a gun in their hand, but that would be ridiculous, especially in public. However, Natasha remembered something weird about the worker before. She didn't know, but there was something about him. Perhaps he looked too stern. Usually hotel workers don't look that stern, or at least not any she's seen. He seemed rather suspicious.

"Room service," he called from the other side of the door. Natasha cocked a brow.

She looked at Peter. "You didn't happen to order room service in the few minutes that I was gone, did you?"

". . . No," he answered, his heart suddenly escalating.

Natasha turned her attention back to the peephole.

"We didn't order any room service. There must've been a mistake," she called back.

"Are you sure? I could've sworn . . .

Natasha kind of empathized with the guy for some reason now. She didn't know why, but she went with it. The guy didn't have a lot. She didn't want to further waste his time.

"You know, it's okay. You can just leave it by the door when we're ready for it."

Just as she said that, Natasha started walking back towards her bed, barely missing the bullet that just pierced through the door. She immediately dropped down and crouched behind the dresser the TV sat on. Peter too jumped off the bed and hid beside the dresser being protected from the shots coming from the door, as they were both on opposite ends of the room.

The door was kicked open, and in came the same guy, except this time with a loaded Glock. Since he saw Natasha first, his first instinct was obviously to aim at her, but Natasha wasn't going to allow for that so easily. She moved quicker than him, managing to rush towards him, take hold of his arm, knock the gun out his hands, and elbow him in the stomach. The thing Natasha didn't know was that he brought friends. It was three more of them. And one of them came in about to shoot Natasha. Peter shot his web at the gun, sending it out of the guy's hand and sticking to the wall beside him. Peter came racing over from behind the dresser in an attempt to aid Natasha. Then the other came in and tried shooting at him, but Peter too used his web to also take that one out from their hands. He jumped and kicked one of them against the wall, following with a grunt of immense pain from the force of his kick.

Natasha found herself in a chokehold by the so-called hotel worker from before, but she quickly escaped this by flipping her legs up and locking them around his neck. She then proceeded to twist, flipping the guy over, all without injuring herself. He didn't get back up. Peter punched the other guy against a wall, but the agent he kicked before pulled out some sort of device, aiming it directly at Peter's face. Emitting from the device was an extremely bright flash, stunning Peter. His hands covered his eyes, and he stumbled backwards, hitting the dresser behind him. Before the agent could do the same to Natasha, the spy pulled out an electric disk and threw it directly at his neck, following with violent jerks from the volts of electricity.

The last one standing grabbed hold of Peter and roughly threw him against the wall next to him. Peter was only slowly gaining his vision back. However, he partially used his senses to land a kick on the guy, sending him stumbling back, almost tripping. That's when he pulled out a pocket knife. He saw Natasha coming for him. He was obviously very skilled with the knife, as his strikes weren't amateur by any means, but Natasha dodged all of them with much ease, though he did manage to swipe her hair. Once he made the wrong move, she grabbed his wrist and twisted it, causing him pain. She then redirected the knife onto him, thrusting the knife through his chest. Natasha knocked him down by sending her elbow into his face.

Peter stretched his eyes out as he readjusted to gradually gaining his vision again. He wiped his eyes persistently, looking around. Natasha walked over to close the door, which did no good since it was kicked open.

"We need to leave now," she said.

"Yeah, I can tell," Peter replied, still rubbing his eyes.

Thankfully their room came with a window. Outside would be a two-story drop, but where they would land was obvious and out in the open.

"We're taking him," Natasha said, as she made her way towards the first guy dressed in the hotel uniform, making sure she really didn't kill him. She didn't think she did, or she would felt his neck snap when she flipped him over.

"So your plan worked," said Peter.

"It's a start," she replied modestly. "Carry him for me?"

Peter walked over the unconscious HYRDA agent and hoisted him over his shoulder effortlessly while Natasha opened the window. The guy still felt like he was a heavy dude. The only reason Peter was managing to carry him was because of his enhanced strength. She looked down and saw that getting out wouldn't be a problem. But perhaps down wasn't where they needed to go. Natasha lifted her head up at the buildings.

"I think we need to get up on one of those buildings," Natasha said.

Peter looked and saw exactly where she was pointing.

"You wanna go up?" he asked.

"Any other place looks obvious," said Natasha. She was right.


The man's eyes slowly opened, trying to fight the bright light protruding through. After a few moments, he was fully awake and aware of his surroundings. He was lying down against what felt like a generator. Looking behind him, he saw that it was. He sat on firm concrete, and all he could see ahead were skyscrapers, except he felt higher with them. That's when he realized he was atop one himself.

"We don't have a lot of time, so if you cooperate, it'll both you and I much better," said Natasha sternly. Peter stood next to her. The agent knew what this was about.

"You expect me to talk?" he said.

"Yes, I do," said Natasha. "For your own good, it would do you right to do so."

The man smiled a little, just a little. "You can kill me. It won't matter. I won't matter. Because him . . .

The agent shifted his eyes towards Peter. "He's just the first in line for what more's to come."

Natasha's face remained the same. "I'm aware there were bigger men on your hit list that you like to call Project Insight, in which HYDRA unfortunately missed the opportunity to kill. But with the whole operation terminated, how exactly would you guys still manage to accomplish such a mission?"

"HYDRA has no limitations on trial and error. We keep fighting the war. We persevere."

"Cut off one head and another shall take its place," Natasha subtly mocked. "You know there doesn't have to be this war to fight if you all would stop trying."

"There's always a war, Agent Romanoff. There always is. Humanity isn't safe with the likes of you two roaming the planet."

"Look who's talking," Peter remarked.

"Like I said before, kill me now, but it won't mean anything. We'll never stop, especially not until this one's dead."

The agent was obviously trying to scare Peter, which he was half-succeeding at.

"And maybe then we can finally make arrangements for May Parker."

Peter tried to maintain calm up until this point. His face steamed red, and his fists clenched harder than ever before. The mere thought of it infuriated him. Rage replaced all fear. Without hesitation, Peter stepped over to the agent and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him off the ground and bringing him face to face with him. Natasha didn't stop him, but she never saw this side of him before. It was as though he transformed into a different person just then.

"Neither one of you better lay a hand on her," he snapped with pure anger. "Neither one of you!"

Small tears crept out of Peter's eyes as he desperately tried to fight them back. Despite Peter's absolute hatred towards him right now, the agent didn't seem intimidated whatsoever. Though, intimidation was the last thing he would have to worry about. Natasha watched all of this, suddenly changing her expression from emotionless to empathetic. She slowly took a few more steps forward, stopping behind Peter and looking at the agent.

"Where are the other agents hiding?" asked Natasha.

The agent said nothing. With that, Peter threw him off the side of the skyscraper. This caught Natasha off guard, and pure shock drew over her face. At this point, the man was screaming for his life, obviously not ready to die after all, as most of them aren't. Then Peter did something he really didn't want to. He shot a string of web at the agent falling to his death, catching him. Natasha ran to the edge and looked over. She turned her head to look at Peter, who was completely red with anger. Peter pulled him back up, but only enough to where he left him hanging upside down.

"She asked you a question?" said Peter.

Now panicked, the agent quickly responded. "I don't have a specific location! We're all over the place!"

"What about a transmitter of some sort?" Natasha asked. "Every agent has that."

"I . . . it's with my earpiece!"

"That'll work for now," said Natasha.

She then turned her attention to Peter, who looked like he was about ready to drop the guy back down.

"Peter, bring him back up."

He hesitated, still heated up from what he said.

"Peter," Natasha said, sterner this time. "He's not worth it. Okay? We won."

He looked at her, with teary eyes of worry and panic.

The agent found himself back on top of the roof of the skyscraper unharmed. Natasha then bent down and pulled out his earpiece he did his best to keep hidden.

"Thank you," she said, just before knocking him out with a kick across his face.

She looked at the small silver earpiece resting in her palm.

"Now that we have this, we can possibly track the others," she said.

"Good," Peter replied. He then walked off toward the edge, looking off into the distance.

His abrasive side at first alarmed Natasha, but the longer she saw it, it began to actually screw with her a bit. For some reason she couldn't help but feel some ounce of responsibility for all of this. But she had to reassure herself that she's on his side. She's on his side, and that's all that matters. Even if he still doesn't trust her, she's on his side.