Text me when you're back in town. We're getting day drunk and watching Mulan.
Natasha smiled as she checked her phone for a final time before her plane took off. More often than not, hanging out with Bobbi included varying amounts of drinking and, on one occasion, karaoke.
The timing of the text made sense as Bobbi was also gearing up to go on an op too. Every spy, every assassin, every field agent working anywhere in the world has routines, rituals. Things they do that they feel will get them to the next mission. Bobbi, for example, always made plans with somebody; with Natasha, with Clint, with her partner, Bobbi needed something to come home to, someone to come home for.
Natasha got weirdly meticulous about her weapons. She took every single one of them apart and put them back together, made sure everything she took was in perfect working condition. Working with her hands, and the familiarity of the weapons in her hands eased any stray doubts about the job.
Clint left projects half-finished. He'd start working on a set of arrows, an improvement to his tactical, fixing some broken piece of furniture or appliance knowing he wouldn't be able to complete the task before he left. It was the same reason Bobbi made plans, he needed to feel like he had something to do when he got home, he had something he started that needed finishing so he would have to get home.
Her job was an odd one though. It wasn't the target that was unusual, but rather the client that had thrown her for a loop. Natasha was currently jetsetting off to Bogota, Colombia, not to carry out an assassination, but to stop one. She'd done the same thing a few times before, but her employer had never been the Vatican before.
Isaiah had found out why the money was so good a few hours after they had parted ways and, while Natasha thought she might be being lured into a trap or a ruse of some sort, it turns out the employer was just obscenely wealthy. With an estimated annual spending of $170 billion dollars, the Catholic Church could afford to throw her a little extra money for the job after all.
Six and a half hours later, Natasha landed at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota. Now, if you weren't an internationally-known, world-renowned super spy and master assassin, getting through customs and out the door is a breeze. However, collecting a diplomatically protected bag containing several knives, her tactical suit, widow's bites, and pair of glock 26's, now that'll raise a few questions.
She spent close to two hours in customs answering a series of questions largely with "it's classified" or some variation thereof, which didn't make her a whole lot of friends with the local authorities, but it wasn't exactly a lie so they couldn't do anything about it. It was more annoying than anything, but soon she was comfortably settled in a run-down apartment in a dodgy neighborhood.
The one thing Natasha found most frustrating about working in the United States was how renting frustratingly difficult it was to find private accommodations anywhere. Hotels are pretty much the worst when it comes to privacy, they're crawling with staff and guests. Motels are a good option, but still too many people with access to the key to your room. But, apartments, now they were perfect. Nobody ever came and bothered you, except maybe a curious fellow resident, but if you chose wisely enough, you'd find the residents who didn't give a damn. That often left you in the more colorful neighborhoods, but it's not like Natasha couldn't handle herself.
The only downside is you have to rent, which, these days, is almost always handled by a third party, but it's still her money being spent. Pretty much anywhere in the entire world, except the US, you can rent an apartment for a very short amount of time. A few weeks, sometimes even only a week, but not in America, no, if you were moving in, you had to be there to stay, or at least be willing to drop 3-6 months of rent on a place you'll only be in for a few days. It was a minor problem, and she knew that, but that didn't make it any less irritating.
Suffice to say, Natasha's expense account these days showed a lot of red.
"How was the flight?" Natasha had Isaiah on speakerphone and was spreading out the file folder of papers around herself on the floor. Every job had a story, it was the thing she loved most about this job, the interconnectedness of it all, it kept things interesting.
"I briefly thought about breaking a kid's leg when he wouldn't stop kicking my seat, but I managed to restrain myself." She replied somewhat distantly as she began to piece together her newest project.
"I'm very proud." Natasha couldn't help but smirk at the lawyer's dry response. "Did you meet with your contact?"
"Yes, and it was illuminating."
"How so?"
"On the flight here, I asked myself 'who would want to kill a bishop?'. Now, other than a gay, black, jewish, pro-choice-er, I didn't have any idea. I'm a little behind on my Colombian politics. Turns out, none other than, Alvaro Uribe wants his holy ass behind the pearly gates."
"The president?"
"Yeah, apparently Archbishop Rubiano Sáenz is not only not supporting his re-election campaign, but plans to publically oppose it." She flipped through a series of documents her Colombian contact had given her.
"So the president is hiring an independent contractor to take out the mouthpiece opposition." Isaiah finished the thought.
"Exactly. And they've got the perfect fall guy." If Natasha hadn't gotten involved, Uribe would've had a fucking field day with this one.
"Who?"
"Well, Sáenz has been planning to resign the Archbishop-ship, I don't know the correct word for that."
"Archbishopsy?" Isaiah offered.
"I don't think that's right either. Whatever, it doesn't matter. But he plans on resigning so he can be promoted, or whatever they call it, to a Cardinal. He's in good with the Pope, I guess. Since the church knows all of this, names are getting thrown around for his successor and the most popular choice by far, right now, is Rubén Salazar Gómez."
"They'll make the poor guy look like an ambitious profiteer who couldn't wait for Sáenz to quit."
"Exactly. And, since it's the church, everybody will probably buy it."
"How did they get all this information."
"They didn't disclose that but you know I wouldn't be surprised if the church had more spies than SHIELD, it's a big organization they're running."
"So how do you stop an attack when you don't know who the attacker is? Or where they'll be. Or when it is."
"That's why I'm here and not you, it's not hard. Closed door meeting tomorrow of the Colombian Bishops Conference and guess who's the chair member?"
"Sáenz."
"Show the man his prize. Now, if I had to pick a time and place to kill a guy for show, I'd pick a nice friendly meeting with a lot of influential witnesses where I'd know exactly what seat my target would be occupying."
"Sometimes I forget how terrifying your mind can be."
"People don't often hire me for my gentler qualities. Now, I've got to go buy sniper rifle. I'll call you when the job's done."
"Godspeed, Natasha." The line disconnected and Natasha sat in silence for a few long minutes thinking through the rest of her day. It was just past three in the afternoon; she had a meeting with a local arms dealer with a decent rep in about an hour. From there she'd do recon on the building where the meeting would be held tomorrow. Evidently, contrary to popular belief (including her own) church meetings weren't really held in a church, they often took place in executive suites in the city's office centers, and this meeting was no exception.
The buy with the dealer went relatively smoothly, a reputation like Natasha's was as good as a perfect credit score in this market. There was a slight hitch considering she'd busted up an international gun-running crew a few years back, coincidentally that was her first mission with Clint, and there were a few hard feelings in the community as a result of that. But Natasha was a smooth talker and, after all, it's not like it was personal or anything; Natasha was a criminal for hire, not unlike the rest of them.
Recon was easy enough, she was given the suite number inside the building where the meeting would be held. On the downside, the entire back wall was an outward facing window. On the upside, there was only one building across the street that provided any decent vantage points to take a shot from.
She thought of the possibility of a more close encounter attack, but dismissed it pretty soon after. Her contact had been forced to change both the day and the time of the meeting when Natasha postponed leaving and only the bishops themselves and their guarded escorts knew the new details. Now, it was possible that someone there could be dirty, but considering the information she knew, it wasn't likely. Unless the assassin was going to wait around in the lobby all day for the party to get started, they'd have to do their waiting on the rooftop.
It's what Natasha would do.
One guard on each elevator, she noted the next morning. They'd ride the elevator until the meeting was over, ensuring nobody would get off on the 14th floor, the guard was put on high alert today. Dressed in hastily stolen uniform and pushing a cleaning cart ahead of her, she stepped onto the elevator as the door was closing.
"A guard with no gun, interesting choice." She drawled in spanish, the guard immediately tensed. He was taken aback when she spoke to him, as he geared for a fight, Natasha promptly kneed him in the groin and, before the guy even had a chance to register what was happening, grabbed him by the neck, slamming his head into the metal walls of the elevator.
Before his body even hit the floor, Natasha went into high gear. She hit the button for the 14th floor and stripped out of the borrowed uniform, grabbing her tactical from where she stowed it in the cart as she went. By the time the elevator reached the 14th floor, Natasha was fully geared up and ready to rock. She carried a pair of glock 26's in her holsters, and a knife in each boot out of habit, but it was non-lethal force only on the guards so she was hoping she wouldn't have to use them. Natasha felt a thrill as the electric current ran through her forearms as her widow's bites powered up, her self-designed weapon never failed to get the results she wanted.
The last thing she grabbed was a mission specific item, because sometimes special jobs required special tech. She slung a black backpack (a nearly indestructible thing she'd nicked from SHIELD some years ago) over she shoulders, buckling across both her chest and her waist. By the time the elevator door eased open, the guard just outside had leveled his weapon tentatively in her direction, she saw his curiosity turn into hostility as she coolly stepped off and the doors closed behind her.
"Don't speak." She ordered as he opened his mouth, if she could convince the guard to stand down, her job would be so much easier.
But no such luck today.
She saw the resolve to shoot long before he had a chance to pull the trigger, it took less than a flinch to give it away. Grabbing the top of the gun, Natasha forced the slide back, popping the round in the chamber. She flexed her grip on the barrel when he tried to pull back away from her, her fingers deftly moving to release the magazine, catching the heavy cartridge with her left hand as it fell. She released the weapon as he tried again to pull back, stumbling at the sudden lack of tension, and Natasha cracked the butt of the magazine against his temple not quite at full force, but enough to send him to the ground nonetheless.
The whole interaction took maybe thirty seconds.
Natasha favored handguns, including the beretta 92 these guards were packing (a standard of the Colombian military), to any sort of larger hardware. And it's not just because they were smaller and easier to conceal, but they're easier to take apart and that little detail comes in very handy in close quarters combat.
She moved quickly and quietly, stepping lightly on the balls of her feet, down the hall. Around the corner to the left then all the way back was where the meeting was being held; six guards lined the hall, two more stood behind the door on the other side.
Luckily for her, these weren't the most attentive guards. Natasha peeked out from around the corner and saw two guards standing about ten feet from her talking to each other. The remaining four guards stood at the door.
Natasha removed a small vial of a potent neurotoxin and slid it into her widow's bites; she'd recently redesigned them with the help of SHIELD's R&D department to be not only more versatile, but more deadly. With a slight movement of her wrist, she shot a tiny, poison-laden dart at the guard facing her. The dart found home in the man's thigh and he flinched as it bit into his skin, but brushed it off without a second thought, the clear dart falling to the ground when he ran his hand across his leg.
"Everything okay?" The guard whose back was to Natasha asked.
"Yeah, I think I got bit by something." He replied with a shrug. They both resumed their conversation without another thought, well, until, about a minute and half later, the guard hit the floor. Natasha listened closely as the beginnings of panic stirred in the remaining guards.
One guard at the door was instructed to move up, while the guard whose back was still to Natasha was instructed to go check the other hall where Natasha was standing, they all drew their weapons. Natasha listened intently as the heavy booted footfalls drew closer, she knew he wouldn't actually see her until he turned the corner, but she'd have to ask fast when he did.
These guys were military, or ex-military, professionals just like herself. The guard turned the corner with his weapon drawn, but Natasha was ready for him. Grabbing the barrel of the gun she pulled him forward, bringing a hand to his neck and the electrodes of her widow's bite bit into the skin of his neck, sending an electric current that could drop a bear through the average-sized man. She caught him as his unconscious body fell into her and lowered his body quietly to the floor. While the third guard was checking the pulse of the poisoned guard, Natasha shot another dart out, letting it find home in the man's neck. He collapsed before he took two steps towards where Natasha was still taking refuge around the corner.
The remaining three guards were now on full alert and in formation ready to take on their attacker, they stood their ground. Which, coincidentally made Natasha's job easier. She removed a small metal disk from her belt, a tiny but power flashbang grenade developed for more discretionary type work and a personal favorite of Natasha's. Crouching, she primed the bomb just as the guard she was assuming was the leader called for her to show herself. She did, but only enough to send the disk sliding down the hallway, coming to a foot in front of the guard standing point. With the door behind them they had nowhere to run, even if they knew they should be.
The sound of the explosion was loud, even to Natasha's ears 60 feet away but she wasted no time, rounding the corner and sprinting down the hall the second after it went off. The noise would alert the room behind them of her presence, putting the other two guards on edge if they weren't already. None of the three had any time to recover before Natasha was on them, they didn't really stand a chance.
She pressed her ear to the door and heard the two guards arguing about whether or not they should see what's going on. However they remained at their post, as they were ordered not to leave the room under any circumstances.
Natasha surveyed the set of double doors, grateful they opened inward. Using all her force she kicked the left door in sending the guard standing on the other side sprawling on the floor and the other one, less experienced by the look and sound of it, off his guard. She breached the room without hesitation, wrenching the larger automatic weapon away she wrestled him into a chokehold. She felt his strength wane then go out completely and she let his body drop unceremoniously to the floor, the older guard, having collected himself, grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arms around her chest and pinning hers to her sides.
She threw her head back, hearing the sound of his nose crunching when their heads collided. His grip slackened and Natasha broke free of his grip, sharply elbowing him in the temple and finishing him for the moment with a fast roundhouse kick to the head. He dropped next to his younger comrade and Natasha was confident that none of them were going to be getting up anytime soon.
The whole time this was going on, this conclave of bishops was freaking out, and that was an understatement. Natasha had arranged to have to room rearranged, putting the archbishop in the only spot in the room where there wasn't a decent shot, but that was about to change.
"Take it easy fellas, I'm not here to kill anyone." She said, shrugging off her backpack and setting it on the table. "Well, not any of you at least. Put this on." She ordered, tossing Sáenz a kevlar vest as she pulled it out of the bag.
"Why should we trust you? You come in here, attack out guards…"
"Look, I'm running on kind of a tight schedule here. Now, I'm here to save your life whether you want me to or not so you can either put that vest on yourself or I can put it on for you and that, my friend, will be a far less pleasant experience." She snapped as she took out the pieces of the rifle she bought the day before and put it together.
The curtains in the room were drawn, as she'd requested and Sáenz had grudgingly put the vest on. She tuned out the rest of the excited conversations and remarks buzzing throughout the rest of the council, her job didn't include any of them.
"C'mon, out you go big guy." Natasha said, pushing the archbishop out in front of the curtained windows, right where a sniper on the building opposite would see him.
"Are you insane!" He shouted, but offered little resistance to her demands. "You're going to get me killed."
"I don't have any reason to get you dead, on the other hand, I'm very motivated to keep you alive. If you die, there's no way I'm getting paid for this." She replied dryly as she stood back away from him, weapon in hand. "Now just wait."
They didn't have to wait long, about a minute later a single shot sounded off, shattered the glass of the window, and buried itself into the kevlar vest knocking the old man to the ground with a cry of pain.
"You'll live." She said, forcing him back down onto the floor when he tried to get up. "Stay down." The archbishop followed her orders as she crouched down and made her way over to the window, propping the rifle on the now exposed sill. She looked into the scope and saw her target, another woman on the building just opposite, right where Natasha had predicted. Taking a deep breath, Natasha fired on the exhale.
"Fuck." She muttered, the shot didn't miss, but didn't kill. The woman had turned as Natasha had fired, and the bullet ripped through the back of her right shoulder. She knew she wouldn't get another shot as the black-haired woman fled so she abandoned the rifle and climbed up onto the sill. Pulling out a belay, she attached the clip to her holsters while reaching to secure the mechanism on the window of the floor above her and quickly programming into in the height of her fall, about 140 ft.
Taking yet another deep breath she stepped out the window, feeling her stomach drop as she skyrocket to the pavement below her, much the the shock of several pedestrians below. The stop was a sudden as the start at the mechanism locked off when the was about three feet from the ground and Natasha wasted no time unclipping and set off running. There were only one way off that building without going into in, and the assassin would likely be dumped into the alley out in the back.
Again she was right, rounding the corner she came face to face with her target. She was young, Natasha would guess anywhere from 17-22, with women it was hard to tell, with jet black hair and cold, narrow eyes.
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you Black Widow." The girl drawled in Russian, taking Natasha by surprise.
"Wish I could say the same." She drew her weapon tentatively as she replied in her mother tongue, but didn't act fast enough. In her distractedness she didn't notice the car turning down the alleyway until the woman in front of jumped out of the way of it. Not having time to move to the side, Natasha opted to jump onto the hood of the black sedan to minimize the impact, though not by much, it still hurt like hell. She ended up on the roof, but promptly rolled back off onto the ground when shots were fired up through the metal top.
Natasha managed to shoot out one of the back tires as the car made a hasty exit, the black-haired assassin inside, but she was in no condition to pursue the vehicle and had to let it go.
She was shaken, more by her new Russian friend than from being hit by the car, though she'd have a few injuries to tend to when she got back to her temporary apartment.
At least you kept the guy alive, she told herself as she limped back to her temporary base, she'd stay in the allies and it wasn't too far from here so it wouldn't be a problem. The thought didn't bring her much comfort.
"I'm going to be home a few days late, I've got something I've got to take care of first." Natasha told Isaiah after booking a flight to Moscow using a fake identity.
"Are you hurt?"
"Nothing major, I got hit by fucking car." Isaiah shook his head, that woman was going to give him a heart attack.
"That doesn't sound like 'nothing major'." He pointed out.
"Nothing broken, just bruised and battered. I'll be sore for a few days, but I'll live." She said, putting some neosporin on her leg where her skin had split open. "I'll see you soon."
"See you soon, text me when you're home, yeah?"
"Yeah, will do. Take it easy, Isaiah." She hung up before he had the opportunity to respond. Her contact called about an hour later as Natasha was packing to commend her on a job well done and assure her that the payment for her services had been made in full. There was an unceremonious goodbye to him and to the rest of Bogota as she boarded a flight only a few hours later, she had a few questions that needed answering.
Nat, you've had some pretty stupid ideas in the past, but this one takes the damn cake, she told herself as she stood nervously outside this seedy bar on the outskirts of the city. She was either going to get answers, or going to get killed here and the odds of either were pretty much 50/50.
Fuck it, she said pushing the door open and walked, head held high, right the the back booth of a bar. Of course he was here.
"Well, well, well. Of all the gin joints in all the towns…" The man smiled as he finished his drink, the glass clinking loudly against the wood as he set it back down on the table. His light brown hair was longer than when she'd last seen him, and he'd shaved his beard too, but his blue-green eyes were still the same as she'd remembered, though he was sporting a new scar just below his left eye on his cheek these days. The beginnings of wrinkles began to crease his face, pinching in at the corners of his eyes and his mouth, the lines forming on his forehead were no doubt from his signature scowl. That hadn't changed either.
"You look different, Alexei." She said curtly, sliding into the booth opposite him.
"You don't." And he was right, Natasha had this way about her, it's like time didn't touch her the way it did the rest of the world.
"What are you going to do about me?" She needed to know now what and who she was dealing with. It had been a long time since they'd seen each other, she wasn't the same woman and there was no counting on him being the same man.
"I won't take you in if that's what you're asking." He seemed almost offended that she'd think he would. "What are you going to do about me?" Likewise, Natasha needed to know if he was a target now or not, she took orders from very different masters these days.
"I'm just looking for some information." She placed both her hands, palm down, on the table to show her intent, or lack thereof, to do any harm here.
"You're allies here are running thin." It wasn't a question, if Natasha was here, she needed Red Room intel and she wasn't exactly anyone's best friend in that department.
"And I'm looking to keep this quiet." There was an edge in her voice, he'd heard it before, she was threatening him.
"I swore to keep you secrets once before, I think it still applies. I am still your husband after all."