Chapter 10
{Tension}
Natasha felt the warm trail of blood running down her cheek. It was a moment of impulse. Her fingers dug into firm muscle, clawing into the pulsing veins. Her stomach crunched as she gained enough momentum of strength and agility. She flipped onto the massive armed operative then rammed his skull into the cement floor. She quickly bounced onto the heels of her tactical boots, her unruly copper locks slashed her ashen skin and the sour taste of blood seeped over her full lips. She had managed to seize control of the extraction point.
It was the pure rush of adrenaline spreading through the guarded layers of her pounding heart that reminded her that she was alive.
Whipping a Widow Bite gauntlet over her bruised jaw, Natasha involuntarily shifted her keen teal eyes around the iron paneled room before removing her loaded pistol from a holster strapped to her thigh. There was a foreboding sense prickling in her veins. Undaunted, she advanced closer to the stairway, cautiously stepping over the laden bodies scattered on the floor. It was a simple and effective mission. No delays. She had everything under control.
Staring intently down at the lax features of her victims, Natasha felt her lips slant into a dark smirk when the pain in her right shoulder departed. A shard of glass had pierced through the layers of her stealth uniform, burying itself deep into her flesh. It took awhile for her mind to register that she was indeed bleeding, but she never claimed those sensations as weaknesses. Enduring the trials of the Red Room made her unrelenting body become immune to feeling the blood drain from wounds of succession. She brought her wrist close to her lips and spoke lowly into the COMM, "Lower level secure, Cap," she listened to the static buzzing in the device. She released a calm and even breath, keeping her composure firm despite the knots of dread twisting in her chest. "Steve, do you read me?"
"I'm kinda in the middle of something, Agent Romanoff," Steve responded evenly, keeping his voice low with a grated edge. He vaulted over the railing with perfect ease, and slowly approached his marked target. Within seconds, he stealthy engaged his direct assault; wrapping his forearm arm over the man's neck and squeezing at the wind pipe until the assailant toppled to the floor, unconscious. He then charged towards the stairs, his shoulder rammed into the wall, creating a dent in the wake of his broad shoulder colliding with plaster.
Keeping himself unseen, Steve slid on his boots, ducking into the shadows the moment guards holding came into view, carrying automatics and scouting the compromised area of the warehouse. The Captain waited momentarily, assessing the weak spots of their bodies. He unlatched his silver and blue ringed shield off his shoulder's straps and calculated the range within his view, before tossing the shield into the air. He watched as the men lost their balance as the alloy disk ricocheted off of their vests with each bonk of collision.
It was a distraction, keeping them unfocused as Steve edged closer in stealth mode. He grabbed the shield with a third-degree spin and bashed a skull with it upon disarming an operative. He sprinted towards ledge in rapid speed. He was unstoppable and full momentum. He took a sharp left, grabbing another guard with his hand and yanking his bulky frame into a pile of rubber tires. The shield was held up to Steve's chest, protecting his heart as bullets started to rain from the shadows. His azure eyes pinned onto a gunman loitering near another loading platform. "Don't these guys ever quit?" he breathed out, heavy and frustrated as he watched his moving target.
"Don't tell me you're calling it quits, old man," Natasha casually jabbed back, climbing up the stairs, focused and poised. Her teal eyes scanned the darker parts of the level. "Maybe after, you'll finally take that cute receptionist at Stark Industries out on a date. What was her name again?"
"Worry about clearing the exit points and then find me a date," Steve returned, forming his lips into a tense grimace. He latched his gloved hands along the metal bar and hoisted his massive body up with effortless proficiency and ease. As he distanced himself from the industrial lighting fixtures, he regained breath back in his lungs. He began planning his next formidable attack, while at the same time struggling to maintain his focus on the mission. "Fury said it wasn't going to be easy..." he grunted nonchalantly into his wrist comm. "...then again it's kinda hard to walk away from a fight without—"
"Sorry to step on your moment, Steve," Natasha interrupted with a crackle of spite in her voice, moving through the corridor. She detected movement above her. A rueful smirk played across her lips as she wiped blood off her chin. She pressed a button in her Widow Bite gauntlet, recharging up lethal sting of energy. She hungered, seized and unleashed her fury while hastening to the stairs. She didn't care if Steve didn't approve of her methods. This was the Black Widow's hunting ground.
The super-soldier didn't understand her. She had her own way of doing things on these missions which often times compelled her to refuse following his orders. She had demeaned herself a lifetime of being obedient to the KBG, allowing her matured body to become a purposeful and embodied weapon of desire that she used to acquire and steal valuable information. Information that had a heavy price written in spilled blood.
There was a murderous power beneath her cunning, transparent guise; something that she contained by grasping onto figures of humanity. She trusted Clint with her life, but Steve there was an unknown bond that kindled deeper without the variants of sizable compromise and doubt. And yet, Natasha wanted to prove to herself that the past couldn't define the real woman—the ballerina who ran away from home. Natalia Alivanovna Romanova still existed—she just needed to cut the knotting threads of shadow to find her reflection again. Shaking off those remnants of emotions, Natasha collected her equanimity and locked her dangerous eyes on the target. "Well, Cap, looks like I've got some dancing to do..."
Responding to the snark wavering in her voice, Steve sighed out a disapproving breath, "Play nice, Natasha," he spoke clearly, holding an authoritative edge in his affirming baritone. His nose crinkled towards the unpleasant stench of decaying flesh that swept through the upper level. It was clear to his enhanced senses that the body of the harbor master was being stored within one of the offices caught in his scrutiny. "It smells pretty foul in here," his lips curled in distaste with his eyes aimed downwards. He silently took a moment of reverence for the life that had been taken. "Check all levels for hostages...Clear them out...We've entered a wasps' nest of HYDRA. I'm guessing you already knew about it?"
"Well, it did cross my mind that HYDRA had been data mining offshore SHIELD intel," Natasha returned, grabbing a crow bar off a crate. She used blunt force with a deadly sway of her poised hand, and struck an marked HYDRA operative's shoulder with violent whack. She listened to the bones snap in the wake of the iron impacting his flesh. The operative croaked out in pain, coughing up blood. Natasha then pushed into the crate then aimed a high kicked into his face, watching him topple to the floor with a smirk of satisfaction. "Nothing is ever conclusive in this type of business, Rogers. You just got to roll with it."
Steve drew out a frustrated breath, setting his broad jaw into a sharp clench."People are getting hurt because Fury isn't playing fair. He's gambling with lives because he sees hostages as a distraction for his missions. Soldiers risk their lives to save people from danger; they don't turn their backs and walk away from somebody calling for help. It doesn't look like SHIELD cares about protecting lives, they only value information." He admonished, sounding sickened by the ideals encrusted in the eagle symbol planted on the ground floor of Fury's home base. "I joined SHIELD to protect lives, not to use them as a means to an end..."
"One life can risk the whole mission, Steve," Natasha simply radioed back in a pant of breath, feeling the urge to roll her eyes. She instead focused on the objective point of the exit lift blocked by another operative. She took a moment to decide her next counter attack—fast and efficient. She got into a crouching position, then leaned her back against a ladder. She curved her lacquered red lips into a lustrous smirk. When he turned around, she played the flirtatious seductress. "Hey big boy," she purred sultry, with a daring glint was in her eye, before she kicked his side, making him crash down. She then looped her wire attached to her small belt compartment around his neck, and yanked him back and forward into a railing.
As he yelped in pain, Natasha jumped up and rammed her boots into his torso before flipping into the air. She descended past the stair levels with her guns poised and her fingers locked on the triggers. Once she landed on the bottom platform, she spoke back into the wrist communicator, "Sometimes the game we play isn't fair, but in the end the world is secured and everyone gets to sleep easy. That's what Fury does in order to make our world a safer place with the exception of a few ordinary lives—it's collateral damage."
To rid the coppery tang in her mouth, Natasha pulled out a stick of minty flavored gum and slid it over her tongue; relishing the cool and refreshing taste that consumed the dryness in her throat. As she ambled down the last set of steps, trying to avoid Captain Rogers: the Alpha leader of the STRIKE team. Steve was overpowering her disciplined thoughts; making her feel unbalanced as her gloved fingers clutched over the sleek metal of the Soviet firearms. She confidently stalked through the dim lightened corridor, searching for her exit when she heard a faint childish voice resounding in the basement.
Gritting his teeth, Steve seized up, resettling his feverish blue eyes back onto the metal rails; his stomach lurched as his addled mind was suddenly plagued with vivid and shattering images of Bucky hanging on the edge of Zola's train. Bucky's icy blue eyes were watering against the violent lashing of snow squalls whacking into him as he struggled to clasp the loosening branding rod. Steve's gloved hand tried to reach for Bucky's marred bloodied left hand; everything frozen and his heart was ripped apart the moment he saw Bucky's brotherly and confident smile morph into an expression of utter pain—fear.
Steve had never had forgotten that diminishing look plastered on his best friend's face as he faded into the harsh walls of snow, until the cries became distant echoes against his splintered heart. Bucky's cries haunted him during the hours of night when he tried to shut out of the world and focus on reclaiming peace—while suffering in the utmost solace. The recurring nightmares never creased to blot out—he could never delete that gut-wrenching moment out of his mind. It was a constant reminder of his greatest failure. Maybe, he needed to borrow Tony's vinyl record collection to ease the pain into a comfortable numbness of electric guitar and slow dumb beats.
Releasing out a shaky breath, Steve regained clarity in his blurring vision. He willed his stiffened arm to thrust upward as he grasped the rail and writhed his bulky frame over the ledge. His boots smacked onto the cement. "Well, this soldier isn't going home until those few ordinary lives breathe easy tonight," he genuinely declared with a heartfelt pledge residing in his voice. He pulled a wired device from his wrist guard, holding it close to his scowling lips. "Tell Fury, that Captain America's handling a different mission—I'm going off book."
"Steve, you can't—"
Steve whipped the small device to the ground, crushing it defiantly with the sole of his boot. "Sorry, Natasha," he hollowed his sharp cheekbones as he whispered brokenly, listening to the transmission of her protesting voice fade into the crackles of static. "I can't follow Fury's orders. I'm a captain of my own war—" His voice fell away to the familiar disputation of blaring tempo of "Shoot to Thrill" echoing through the walls of the entire building. The remaining HYDRA operatives scrambled with their automatics. Steve pressed his back against a wall, waiting for the glass of the skylight above to rain over him.
Within seconds, the hot rod golden metallic armor of Iron Man shot through the glass as Tony made his dramatic entrance, ramming one fist into the cement as he landed in front of the unimpressed captain.
"Hey Ice Cap," the egotistical billionaire teased, easing himself into a defensive stance, his repulsors ready to unleash a few blasts at the group of operatives lined in front of the crates. "I must say that I'm hurt; you guys decide to crash a little HYDRA party and didn't even get an invite," he effortlessly fired at two agents. His blasts struck their armored vests and they went down, breathless and stunned. He turned, the face plate lifted, revealing the suave face hidden underneath it. He settled his dark hazel eyes on the super-soldier. "...You're lucky I had nowhere to go tonight, old man."
Looking affronted, Steve folded his arms over his pectorals. "I thought you weren't a team player, Mister Stark?" he chastised and leveled his firm and intrepid blue eyes, glaring with sharp edges on the billionaire genius. He assumed Tony did have good intentions even though he caught the wafting scent of booze. Sighing, he pointed his gloved finger at the alloy chassis of the Mark XLII. "Can J.A.R.V.I.S detect heat signatures, possibly a few hostages?"
"J.A.R.I.V.S," Tony ordered his (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System) sophisticated AI programmed butler. He aligned his metal gauntlet hand to the concrete flooring below them. He performed an internal scan over the area. "Give me the rundown on results of the scan. Chop, chop we haven't got all night," he demanded with a flippant tone.
"May I remind you, that last time we performed a rescue mission, you had to pay for the damage costs because you're never one hundred percent focused when working under pressure, sir."
Tony rolled his eyes under the shadow of his face plate, and let an irritable breath escape from his lips. He wasn't in the mood for hauling bodies out of the HYDRA infested warehouse. He was still fighting muscle strain from their previous battle somewhere off the coast of Spain. Everything was still foggy. "Just run the scan, J.A.R.I.V.S. And then we'll talk about your calculation after everyone is home safe..."
"I am picking up two heat signatures in the basement. Both female, one is definitely a child, sir," J.A.R.I.V.S clarified.
Steve dipped his head down, looking at the grated elevator lift. He flexed his jaw, "You stay here and wait for Natasha, I'll go down to the basement," he commanded firmly, defiance evident in his bellowing tone. He charged down the stairway, ramming whoever stood in his way into the wall. His stomach roiled, and blood accelerated in his veins as he continued his hurried descent, heading towards the elevator. Tony remained on the upper platform; leaning causally against the office door. He affixed his dark eyes on the unconscious bodies of HYDRA's guard dogs.
Once he reached the grated lift, Steve summoned up his eidetic memory, gathering reserves of information and donoting vivid images of the area that mentally guided him through the process of engaging his assault in the basement. He pressed the red button, and briskly stepped inside as the cables rolled back on the rusted pulley. When the grated walls of the elevator rattled to halt, he cautiously thundered down the hallway, the air was thick and damp.
Tasting the sourness of blood dripping over his full lips; Steve barred his teeth into a clench, seething monstrously and glaring at the dangling chains bolted into the seams of cement. A crack of a gunshot echoed in the sables of darkness and he was gaining momentum—spearheading and breaching the defensive lines and vaulting over oil drums positioned in front of rusted loading crates with his enhanced speed and agility. He wasn't stopping for anything.
His uniform was drenched with a feverish sweat and his muscles were burning. His leather boots created shock waves of relentless power as he spearheaded with his shield held by the extension of his right arm. He charged in, dodging the hailing bullets that dinged off of the indestructible virbrainum alloy. His face was aglow with feverish sweat, his azure eyes held an unyielding fire in that moment he locked his intimidating gaze on an armed guard standing near the doorway. It was surrounded by incapacitated men that seemed like a small army—spawns of the ominous murk engulfing the area.
Desaturated imposing shapes of lifeless corpses plagued his intense vision as the anchor chains swayed against the haze of white light.
Sucking in a deep breath, a growl tore from his lips as Steve spared a harried glance at a cage to his right—intently staring at a decaying heap of flesh. Daunted by the grisly sight, he wasn't able to process the extent of slaughter that had happened within the walls. He could only show a gleam of reverence in his eyes as he halted in front of the assailant blocking his path. "Now, I'm only going to ask once," he said, with firm intent surfacing in his strained voice, his jaw set rigid and shield lowered to his side. "Where is the kid?" he demanded, and there was grave utterance crawling up his throat. He lunged forward, grabbing the collared vest, and hoisting the unresponsive man close to his chest, his breath hot, "Lie to me, and I will throw him into that wall over there..."
Suddenly a bullet sliced through the man's skull. Steve dropped him like a sack of potatoes the second his senses caught the familiar vague scent of strawberry. He spun around and stared intently at Natasha...the merciless Black Widow holding a laden child in the cradle of her toned arms. The captain was visibly stunned and impressed by her heroics. His full lips upturned into a broadened tender smile. It was a rare sight for him, seeing the red haired reformed KBG assassin doing following a worthy cause without following an order. He stared down at the dark haired boy resting his head against her shoulder. "I owe you an apology, Natasha," he sighed with regret, losing all integrity as his voice faded away. He modestly leaned his Adonis build against the wall, "I acted out of line and didn't trust my partner."
"Don't get all sentimental on me, Rogers," Natasha drawled plainly, refusing to process his honest submission. A smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. She stared into his azure eyes that were boring into hers. "Sometimes I do play nice if there's a chance to go off protocol," she admitted, narrowing her teal orbs at the child secured against her chest. "I couldn't extract myself from the mission knowing that a life needed saving."
Satisfied with her truthful, unbidden answer, Steve proceeded forward, unexpectedly invading her space. His coils of breath deepened into heavy rasps; his heart felt wrenched in between his ribs. For a long set of unpredictable moments, he stared at her. Her copper locks became glowing embers in the darkness and he noticed a spark of humanity reflecting back at him; very brief, but real. She wasn't Peggy Carter, but there was a dangerous fire in her that only he could tame during the rare moment of succession.
He offered her a chance. "Just when I think I know you, Natasha, you never cease to amaze me," he eventfully replied with an appraising tone."Since we're on equal terms with trust issues, I think we can finally move ahead of our game. Besides, I'm not doing anything this Saturday night..." he swallowed thickly, all confidence fleeting, The little guy from Brooklyn was returning; his lips curled into a sheepish grin that made the chiseled lines of his face soften into a boyish expression."Do you wanna go dancing? I know a great place, not far from my neighborhood."
Natasha immediately twisted her lips into a half a smirk, "I'll go with you…" his blue eyes lit up at those words, "but on one condition."
"What?" he asked shakily, furrowing his eyebrows into a disquiet expression. Rigid tension locked in his chest; he was frozen in her perilous, alluring eyes. The admission was clear.
"You let me find you a dancing partner," she whispered darkly, holding his stern gaze. "No exceptions, Cap."
Steve chuckled mildly under his breath. Carefully he brought his hand to her cheek, his gloved fingers caressing the underside of her jaw. He unfastened the chin strap of his helmet, clutching it with his free hand. He bent head, and claimed her forehead with a hot swell of his tentative lips rolling against her skin, holding a kiss there," Deal," he murmured into her hair, closing his eyes and felt her breath ghosting over his squared jaw. She didn't fight back.