A/N: So I went to go see Thor 2 twice last week. It was amazing. Anyway, this chapter is a little shorter because last week was busy with school and life. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel. It's for the best.
Only Two Options
Natasha didn't know what she was heading into. This was not the first time she'd gone blind into a mission or dangerous region. This time there was more on the line than precious intel or her own life. Not just the team, but the lives of countless civilians and innocents if Doom were to succeed in his master plan weighed on them succeeding in stopping Anna- there was always a larger plan hidden in the finer details.
"Nat?" Clint was crouched down near the side of the building. She'd set the grips on the ledge, feet planted firmly against the side of the building, not so far yet that she couldn't hear him.
Nor could she pretend she was deaf. "What?" She'd meant to put more bite into her response, because Clint had bad timing and a heart-to-heart wasn't exactly up their alley anyways. Having a 'talk' while she was walking down the side of a very tall building wasn't recommended by SHIELD or themselves.
Clint kept it short. "Be careful." The wind almost carried the words away, and even if they had, Natasha always knew what Clint wanted to say, sometimes before he did. She had spent enough time looking into his eyes to know every variation, every command, every silent tell.
Natasha nodded, curt, eyes tight. "Like you have to tell me twice." She let some slack off, dropping smoothly a few feet before tapering off the line and planting her feet down again. She began taking measured leaps; the cord rubbing against leather-clad hands the only sound apart from drifting car honks and New York night life below.
Clint stood, watching her propel down until she hit Stark's landing pad used to disassemble the Iron Man suit. "Sometimes I do." He kept his eyes on her and she unharnessed, the glow from the penthouse illuminating only one side of her, the rest in contrasted moonlight. She kept her body flush against the glass, and when the door didn't open, Clint crouched again.
He saw clearly her moment of confusion, and her body tense up.
There were shadows working their way across the pad, long and menacing before dropping off into the air, lost in the lights of the streets reaching up to meet them.
Whatever had walked across the penthouse, Clint knew it was nothing good.
He knew a lot about his partner, and as soon as he saw the determination set in her shoulders and the way her hand curled around the guns she'd slowly drawn, he sighed.
Natasha Romanoff always had two approaches to a situation; she would pick one and stick with it no matter what. She didn't believe in luck or chance, or odds.
"One, know you're getting out. Two, know you're not, and don't bother with hope, just take everyone you can with you so others can succeed." Clint could hear those clearer than bells like she'd just said them. They'd been winding down after a mission, sparring to let off a little steam. It had been only the second time they'd worked together after Clint spared her life, gone against his orders. He didn't know much about her at the time and honestly was afraid to. Once he'd heard that, he knew she'd be a good partner. She never second guessed, always took any opportunity to turn things around- but never despaired knowing that sometimes things didn't work out. She never lingered on possibilities, only using what knowledge was available to her.
A baleful wind blew past him, centering him in the present. Clint watched the door open, but he stepped back shortly afterwards. He kept his eyes on the skies, on lookout for other doombots he had a chance of shooting down before they made contact.
They'd decided he was to stay on the roof- the jet was their only escape plan, and if doombots did appear, he was the better marksman. Knowing this, Clint drew an explosive arrow, knocking it against his bow, taking sights on anything that moved along the skyline.
Clint pretended the sudden echo of gunfire booming overtop the city was worlds away, and not the familiar shots of two Glock 26's from the woman who'd walked in there expecting not to walk out.
It was the second round of gunfire that caught Clint's attention, these were not warning shots. He paused and for a few second hearing nothing other than his steady heartbeat. The silence was so encompassing that when the gunfire stopped, and a bright light surrounded the edges of the rooftop, Clint thought they were doombots dropping unexpected from straight above him.
Glass blowing apart, piercing the eerie white silence after the burst of light, spurred him to the edge in time to see the girl, Anna, falling and falling. He spotted her hitting the pavement, but before his sigh of relief reached his throat, she got up and was running.
"Shit,"
Clint grabbed a hold on the rope after securing his bow to its quiver on his back, secured it to his waist and jumped. Glass still fell towards the ground, but the archer was more concerned with the lack of movement inside the penthouse.
"Natasha!"
The door wouldn't budge. Natasha laid a hand against the panel at the side and pushed in slightly in a last attempt to get the panel to slide open and accept her security code. Still nothing.
The penthouse lights were up, the room looking per usual for that time of night. There was an empty scotch glass left on the bar, and down the steps a pair of heels tucked neatly beside the wall where Stark's spare Iron Man suit could be deployed in case of emergency. The fireplace was burning, low but bright, casting flickers of light over the stone floor.
A pair of Bruce's glasses was on the coffee table, a mug of what Natasha assumed had been coffee beside it.
The one thing that shouldn't have been there was the body, shirtless and shaking beside the hole in the wall that the elevator doors used to occupy. They'd been ripped from their hinges, cast away to the sides to lie in dust.
From in the elevator shaft…
Natasha squared her shoulders upon laying eyes on Anna, clothed in sleepwear and barefoot climbing up from the elevator, spread like a spider on the floor before gracefully standing. The woman was more than a little bruised, and Natasha couldn't help the grin on her face that Thor had obviously been at her.
They let her go?
Anna saw Natasha's cold smile and drawn guns, walking over towards the door to the landing pad. There was no prideful gait, nor anything to show she'd killed the rest of the team. Anna was curious, emotionless eyes locked on the Black Widow as she made her approach.
With a series of numbers imputed into the lock pad on the inside, Anna stepped quickly back when Natasha opened the door.
Black Widow didn't wait; she opened fire, stalking Anna towards the lift.
Passing, she spared a glance to Bruce, who gave a low moan at the sudden noise of gunfire, still not moving.
Anna calmly took the bullets, back to the dark elevator shaft, seemingly not caring that with one swift kick she would plummet forty stories. The mischievous glint in her eyes made Widow stop her assault, her two handguns her only barrier between them.
"What did you do?"
It seemed to robot was open to talk, and Natasha would be a poor host if she didn't oblige her guest.
"What needed to be done, Agent. Your team is alive." There was a catch in that sentence, Natasha knew, but deigned not to let Anna know it.
"And Dr. Banner?" She flicked her gun over to him on the floor where he was slowly becoming more alert; his whisper of Natasha's name at least told her he was coherent enough to know she was there saving his ass.
"Be thankful he is merciful, or else I would have killed the beast."
If banner is the beast, who is the guy she mentioned?
Natasha knew she stood no chance against Anna, which made her next move easier considering she didn't expect to get out alive. With an inward step, Natasha caught Anna around the neck with her crooked elbow, other hand coming up to the robots temple.
In seconds, Natasha was emptying the gun clip into the things head while it screeched, instinctively hands cold and strong as metal clamped around Natasha's throat even as it was being pelted with rounds, the knock of bullets rattling against its metal head.
Blinding white light burst from a point on Anna's body Natasha couldn't see. The light was too bright coming through her closed eyes, thrown back by a surge of energy that blast the windows out in a crash of glass.
Natasha hit the edge of the fireplace, rolling into the side of the leather couch in time before shards of glass embedded themselves into her body. The wind knocked out of her, frozen from shock and the electricity surging through her veins, Natasha saw Anna give a second glance to her and Bruce before springing away and into the night air, illuminated for a few seconds by the city lights before plummeting down.
In a daze Natasha realized she began crawling towards Bruce, still confused enough not even the Other Guy made an appearance to save Bruce from shards of enforced glass. Pieces embedded into the scientist's back and left arm, Natasha began tugging them out, tossing the bloody shards aside. She turned Bruce over gently, huffing at the exertion it took, dully noticing the growing headache and her arms losing feeling, lead heavy.
Through the echoes and screams in the streets below from civilians that just scrambled in shock from a woman falling from Stark tower, Natasha heard Clint's voice yelling to her from somewhere she couldn't see.
"Banner?" She put a hand to his throat; he was alive, eyes semi-open and staring at the ceiling through pupils one larger than the other.
"Nat!?" Clint's voice was closer, stronger than she remembered. Everything was beating against her heartbeat, the buzz of lights and her breath competing for attention. Trying to shake it off, she sat up, black suit covered in specks of glass looking like small diamonds. She felt them rubbing together in her hair, and a huge pressure building in her head.
A drop of blood fell onto her leg, fingers coming up on their own and feeling the warm blood dripping from her nose and ears. Her hands ran frantically over herself, noticing they weren't just her hands any longer.
"Clint." Her voice was weaker than she liked. The lights brighter, her heartbeat slowing. "Clint, Banner needs,"
His face was close. "Bruce is fine." As if his words were prophecy, Bruce slowly sat up behind them, head bowed but breathing. "Where'd… where is Anna?"
Clint's hard voice matched his eyes, "She ran away."
Natasha heard the hazed tremor of helicopter beats from somewhere in the distance. The feelings in her arms slowly came back to her, and her light push on Clint's shoulder effectively had the archer standing. She nodded at him, and with that small assurance she was alright, he took the stairwell exit to search for the rest of their team.
Bruce halted him by saying, "Start with medical level twenty-one… last place I know they were." The doctor winced, going unnoticed by Natasha occupied staring at the blood still dripping slowly from her nose in plops.
Bruce threw her an appreciative look. "Natasha-"
"Don't mention it." It came too quick, like she had already been thinking about how close a call that had been.
He pressed, "You just shot through a robots skull, while in close range. So thank you," If it had been anyone other than a teammate giving her that kind of look, she would have used the rest of her waning strength to punch them. This is Bruce, whose glasses had been lost out the window and coffee mug broken in white porcelain pieces. "Anyti-"
Even the inclosing helicopter blades whirring in the air so close to landing on the roof couldn't block out what came through her earpiece, no longer just white noise. A long beep so loud she had to remove it, tossing it to Bruce.
Firing off her gun so close to her ears had done damage enough it hurt too much to listen to the comm link.
It was news. From what Natasha gathered by Bruce's hardened expression it wasn't good. He relayed it in flat words, staring out the glass-less windows at two more helicopters appearing silhouetted against the weak sunrise. "Tony and Thor are alive. Steve is severely injured."
Steve could survive basically anything. He was encased in ice for nearly seventy years, what could injure a super-soldier? "How bad?"
Bruce's expression changed from one of tight worry to confused relief.
"SHIELD is here." It ended like a question. Natasha suspected he was wondering why they'd taken so long, and would recount Doom's attack on SHIELD once they were together with their team.
The easing of helicopter blades left a bland silence in the wake of a fast fight, sucking all of Natasha's leftover adrenaline out of her to leave behind a question her pounding head was only letting her contemplate then.
Why did Anna let us live?
A/N: I know its super short for what I usually post, so sorry. Next chapter will be longer, and with more Loki.
For those of you following Culprits of Action, there will be an update either tonight or tomorrow.
Have a lovely day/evening/night!