Chapter: 26

Natasha didn't even think twice before bolting towards the building. In the back of her head she knew that someone was watching. Either Petrovich himself or one of his minions was behind that camera. Either way, if she thought that Petrovich was angry before then he would be furious after this display. Another thought came to her mind as she reached a set of stairs inside the building. She thought about the memory she had and how the girl, she couldn't recall her name, had been killed as soon as they had exited the building. That meant that they would have to be on guard after she found Clint. Needless to say, the situation was not ideal.

"Barton!" Natasha yelled as she reached the first floor. She knew that time was limited so she continued up the stairs when she didn't hear anything. She stopped on the second floor and yelled for him again. There was no response so she continued. She hoped that there would better results on the third floor. If she didn't hear anything from him then the next step was to start breaking down doors and hope that she got lucky. "Clint!" She yelled.

"Natasha!"

"Keep yelling!"

"Natasha get out! I think it's going to blow!" She heard her partner yell at her through the wall. Natasha rolled her eyes at his dumb self-sacrificing self. She followed her ears and burst through the door of the room that she could hear his voice coming from.

"I'm not going to turn around after all this work." She said before he could protest any further.

"Fifteen minutes left." Clint offered in reply as Natasha pulled out a hairpin, that she always kept with her, then got to work freeing his left arm. "How many men?"

"None that I could see. Probably some after we get out of here." She replied "this is a test from Petrovich. He used the same one when he was training us."

"And I thought Calculus was murder," Clint joked. Natasha didn't bother a response to that. The lock came open and she moved on to the right hand. "Nat!"

Behind her, three men appeared at the door. Natasha rolled her eyes again because of course Ivan would make the test more difficult. She had managed to do this when she was a child.

"Drop your weapons on the floor and get up!" Natasha sighed and placed both of her guns down beside of her.

"Natasha don't," she shot Barton a look and he went quiet.

"Get up!" She could hear the slight nervous tone in the man's voice as he yelled. Any untrained ear wouldn't have heard it but Natasha did and couldn't help but smirk at him. She did as the man commanded but sent a quick message to her partner first. Using her hands she signed for him to "duck on three". Natasha then raised her hands up to either side of her head and got to her feet slowly. "Turn around!" In her head she counted to three then attacked.

Clint dropped to the side as bullets started flying. The men were quickly dispatched and he was uninjured. Natasha wasted no time in getting back to work. She started working to get his other hand free as he nervously watched the clock.

"Nine minutes left," he reported. "Can't you just shoot them?"

"Your limbs?" She asked, not breaking from her work.

"The chains," Clint said with a roll of his eyes.

"No, I know these." Natasha replied. She got the lock free then handed Clint another hairpin so that he could work on his left foot while she worked on his right. "Petrovich made sure when they were testing prototypes that you couldn't just shoot them."

"Wish he wasn't so thorough," Clint commented and Natasha nodded in agreement. When he was finally free Clint jumped to his feet and looked to Natasha. "Do you know how to get out of here?" Natasha nodded and led the way down the stairs. As they ran she explained what had happened to the girl she had rescued when she was a child.

The plan was to reach the front door and scope out the area. They would be ready if there was anyone there trying to shoot them. Natasha explained that the area was surrounded by trees and that it would be harder to see someone. It made things difficult but they couldn't stay in the building and wait for it to explode. They had just reached the last set of stars when they felt the building shake.

"I thought we still had…" Clint was cut off as things started collapsing around them. Natasha practically pushed him down the stairs. He caught his footing halfway down and started to run towards the front door. He didn't see the part of the floor that was falling towards him but Natasha did and she pulled him back at the last moment. Seeing that they weren't going to be getting out of the door before the entire thing fell down on them, Natasha pulled Barton under the stairs and threw herself on top of him before he could even think. The whole thing lasted seconds.

Fury watched as Coulson barked orders at the other agents. He had cleared them to go after Barton and Romanoff. He could tell that Coulson was very eager to get going with the extraction. He would not sit still for a second. He questioned the pilot who was just trying to do all of the necessary checks before take-off, he yelled at the agents to get ready faster, and was overall trying to be everywhere at once. Fury knew that, with Barton going missing and his earlier exchange with Romanoff, that Coulson was stressed. However, he also knew that if Coulson was to be of any help to them then he needed to be calmer.

"Coulson," Fury called and, while he didn't looked pleased about it, Coulson went over to him.

"Yes sir?"

"I need to know that you can keep a cool head on this one." He gave Coulson a look to let him know how serious he was. "People can make some bad mistakes when they get too emotional."

"Forgive me sir but I've already made that mistake today. I'm not planning to let it happen again." He replied as coolly as he could. Fury examined him for just a moment then nodded his approval.

"There is a medical team that will be on stand-by should you need them. They will only be minutes behind you."

"Thank you sir," Coulson replied.

"Go get them."

"Yes sir."