Blackmail - 10
Warnings /
Author Notes / Hiya. I should probably explain where I've been for the last couple of weeks. First off, the whole computer thing happened (See rant at the start of chapter 9) and then this. My mum has had cancer for about 3 years (It's not aggressive or anything) the last couple of weeks she has been in and out of the hospital with fevers, and, as a 15-year-old, I've been living alone. I don't want pity or anything because there are some people who have it so much worse but that's my explanation for being absent. I'm sorry. I have started getting used to being alone so I'll be able to write a lot more.
So if anyone has any tips on living by yourself at my age - feel free to review to PM me
MillyWidow
~Last Time~
"You're up widow," he said and the door opened.
She stepped out into the fresh air and she waited for her eyes to adjust to the sudden lights.
Once her vision cleared she searched the area. She looked up and read the nearest sign.
Welcome to Russia.
"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." - Oscar Wilde
She didn't have any memories of Russia from before the red room.
But the smell of Russia was different from the smell of America.
A smell she smelt for the first time when she was 14.
The red room facility where she was trained was an underground base that was under a ballet studio in the middle of rural Russia.
When she was 14 and her training was complete she was sold to the KGB and for the first time, since she was 3, she saw outside.
But now, she had no clue where in Russia she was, but she could see a train station just to the left of where she was standing.
After further investigation, she realised she was outside Toblo Airport.
Her targets were Michael and Ranek Lebedev who were currently living in a small town called Sumkino.
She managed to hitchhike a ride to the outskirts of town - she would walk the rest of the way.
This was a relatively easy mission, for her, but the inner battle she was having had the risk of compromising her.
She thanked the driver and tipped him handsomely and started out her brisk walk to house number 4.
It wasn't hard to find and she was surprised that Ex-KGB agents could live so freely without prosecution from their old employers.
Natasha Romanoff still had no idea what she was going to do when she knocked on the door.
Some scuffling from the inside but no answer.
Finally, the door opened and a man who looked about 5 years older than her pointed a gun at her.
As a reflex, she pulled her gun up as-well but he signalled behind her. She looked into the reflection of the window to see another man, similar to the one infant of him, pointing a gun at her.
"Hello boys," she said in her sultry tone.
"Drop your weapon подонок (scum/bastard)"
"I'm not KGB," she said and put down her weapon in a sign of good faith.
"Then who are you?"
"No-one of importance"
"What are you doing here"
"To be honest I have no idea"
The man she was facing signalled to the man behind her and he came up and checked her for weapons before going inside.
Once she was in the house she finally had a good look at the other man. The only photos in their file were from when they were 16 so they looked different but she could still tell who they were.
Suddenly footsteps sounded around the house and Natasha reached for her gun but remembered it was gone.
A small child probably around 11 or 12 ran out. Both fathers tried to shush him away but it was too late Natasha had seen him.
She looked back at the men and raised an eyebrow.
"While we were still with the KGB, we were assigned to kill this man who left the KGB to go have a family with his son" he signalled to the little boy when he said son.
Words went unspoken, but Natasha understood what had happened.
They had killed the father and possibly even the mother but they couldn't kill the son so they raised him.
The man who was originally standing behind her was also seeing her for the first time and was giving her a strange look which quickly changed.
"I know who you are, You're the Black Widow!"
Both men pulled up their weapons immediately.
"What does SHIELD want with us, we done nothin' "
"I'm not here with SHIELD"
"What. do. you. want." He growled.
"You're in danger here, I've been sent to kill you," she said, "Don't worry I'm not going too"
"I thought you said SHIELD didn't send you"
"They…didn't"
"So you're a double agent"
"NOO I am loyal to SHIELD. I just owe someone"
"Right well what does that someone want with us"
"You remember a man named Kostas Kozlov"
Both men shared a look at that name, a sheer look of panic spread upon their faces.
"How do you know that name"
"His son, Adrian wants you dead"
"Listen we were young and just followin' orders"
"I know, trust me I do, that's why I'm helping you. I have a safe house out west, I'll deliver you safely there and make sure you have everything you need"
"Why are you helping us"
"Because I know what it's like to be young and naive" she sighed and hesitated before continuing "I did worse things than you, and I got the chance at another life, you deserve one too"
They seemed to take this as a good reason and lowered their weapons.
"How do we know you're not leading us into an ambush"
"You don't, but if you stay here it's not going to end well"
She didn't know how they would react whether they were going to go or not but they asked her how long the journey was going to take and she knew she had them hooked.
An hour later they were packed and in a car heading for her safe house.
It would take them about 5 days to drive all the way to the west side of Russia but Natasha wasn't worried about the drive, more the time it would take.
By the time she would have got there and sorted out her affairs, she would have been gone for six days.
Six days with no contact with Clint or anyone else.
She didn't know what they were doing, either Clint had alerted Fury that she was missing. Or had he taken the bait, and thought she was in a mission.
One thing she knew for sure was that she would have a lot of explaining to do when she got back.
Clint had a bad feeling in his stomach, for some reason he didn't think Natasha was on a SHIELD mission.
He cursed himself every time he had thought about mistrusting Nat.
Their very partnership was built on trust, trust with each other and trust the system.
It had been 3 days since Nat had gone on her 'mission' and whilst the rest of the team and seemed to take this excuse and moved on, Clint didn't.
Something was going on with Natasha and it wasn't good. He had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that Natasha was lying to him, about a LOT of things.
She was lying about the phone calls, her mysterious disappearances, her injuries and who the enigmatic man Adrian Kozlov was.
He had followed her one day. And saw her, it probably meant nothing, but he knew what he saw. What it meant though, he had no clue.
He had followed her to a warehouse and watched a man hand her an envelope.
What was in the envelope? He wondered.
What if she was lying about her loyalty to shield…NO he almost yelled. He has never had a reason to doubt her before but even as he said it he knew it was a pathetic excuse because Natasha was amazing at her job. She could lie her way through anything.
Except for him, usually at least. After she started trusting him and Coulson, they had promised that in their world of lies and deceit they would remain truthful to each other.
Clint had avoided SHIELD at all costs because then, he thought, he might find the final piece of proof he needed to know for certain that his theory was correct.
He was happy living in his world of oblivion, thank you very much.
But he knew he would have to talk to Nick eventually but he wanted to hear what she had to say for herself first.
But she wouldn't get the chance to because Maria called him hours later.
"Barton, Natasha and you have a mission, both be here in an hour."
Damn, he cursed, what was he meant to do know. He couldn't tell Maria because she would tell Fury and who knows what would happen then. But at the same time Maria would be able to help him.
"Maria. Natasha's not here"
"Well, where is she?"
He hesitated.
"Are you in your office"
"Yes?"
"I'll be there in 10"
Clint left stark tower two minutes later and drove to the New York base.
Maria was in her office like usual, still confused about what Clint meant by 'She's not here'
She wouldn't have to wait long because like promised Clint arrived almost exactly 10 minutes later.
"Where's Nat?" she said getting straight to the point.
"I don't know," he said sitting down and holding his head in his arms. He swore and tugged at his hair. Maria stood up and offered him a drink, he took It gladly and took a swig before starting an explanation.
"She left a couple of days ago, said she was going on a mission"
Maria looked confused and began typing on her computer.
"No, Romanoff's not on assignment"
Even though he basically knew it already it didn't make it hurt less. He felt the same pent up anger rumble inside him.
"What does this mean" he managed, balling up his fists so hard they turned white.
"Well I'll have to talk to Fury
"Maria no, he'll kick her out of SHIELD," he said stunned. No matter how annoyed he was with Natasha he couldn't do that to her.
"Clint I have to. He won't do anything straight away, just talk to her. He's not going to do something rash, she's like a daughter to him" she reasoned with the frustrated agent in front of her.
"Yes but SHIELD is his baby,"
"Don't get angry at me, but if Natasha is-"
"Don't say it"
"Clint it's a possibility, we have to accept that"
"I know." He sighed again and returned his head to its position on his hands. "I thought she was happy here, happy with SHIELD"
"So did I" she admitted the true weight of everything suddenly hitting the brunette.
"And I mean she made such a big deal about wiping the red out of her ledger and then she goes and does…this"
"I'll talk to Nick, he'll know what to do"
"Let's hope so" he muttered and left the office.
She had been gone for 6 days now. The drive to the safe house had taken longer than expected - because she hadn't taken into consideration Anton, the little boy they had adopted.
She wasn't being soft she told herself, the Black Widow was not soft. She was doing this because she didn't want to do what Adrian told her to, and she would not make Anton an orphan for the second time.
Every time she thought about this little family she thought back directly to Clint and their family - The Avengers.
Her first family.
I mean she was in a kind of family with Clint, Melinda, Fury, Maria and Coulson. But she only ever was close to Coulson and Clint.
She thought Maria was great at her job as their handler, but not nearly as good as Coulson.
Coulson had basically adopted Natasha when she came in and Clint way before that.
She could never have a real family, the red room made sure of that, but maybe she and Clint could adopt?
But she quickly got that idea out of her head because that was way too dangerous. Just being close to Clint had put her into this situation.
They unloaded out of the car and into the small country house. They didn't have much, probably because of years being on the run. Anton had a teddy bear that through the 6 days Natasha had known him, he had never let go of.
Natalia had a teddy bear once. It was her only belonging she had been allowed to keep when she was taken by the red room. She loved that teddy bear.
But the red room taught her to never love, so one day she was called upon by one of the leaders and when she arrived he was holding her bear. He made her pull its head off and when she refused she was bashed until she did.
She was happy this kid had a better upbringing then she did.
Maria was still in her office when a junior agent came to inform her that Director Fury wanted to speak to her.
Clint had left her over two hours ago and was probably safely back at the tower by now.
She trusted Nat, as a friend, as a colleague, and as a SHIELD agent.
She knew she had to tell Fury why Strike Team Delta turned down a mission.
She kept telling herself that what she said to Clint was true, that Fury wouldn't do anything rash until he got proof.
Proof that she still believed didn't exist.
She had seen Natasha almost die for SHIELD, she could not believe that her loyalty was in question.
There are two ways this could go, Maria thought.
1 - Fury could get angry at her for even thinking about and then not do anything about it.
2 - He could react impulsively and take immediate action. Any risk like that was a risk to the whole of SHIELD.
If an agent and any kind of question against his or her loyalty there was a whole inquiry.
Surely if it came to that, Natasha would go through it all and come out the other side better and all question to her loyalty rejected.
Maria wandered out of her office and walked a couple of metres into the Director's office.
She knocked twice before entering, he nodded to her to acknowledge her presence but continued to work.
Maria sat on the chair opposite him for almost 10 minutes before he put aside his paper and pulled his laptop over.
"Your report states that 'Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff declined said mission. The mission later fell to Agent Reece and Agent Parker'. Why did they turn the mission down, I've never known Romanoff to turn down a mission," he said then closed his laptop and looked up at her for the first time.
"Uhm" she stuttered not knowing what to say. Fury examined his agent, he had never heard her stutter before.
Maria started to retell everything that Clint had told her making sure to pause every so often to scan Fury's features.
Maria was to busy studying his features that she wasn't focusing on what she was saying. Her frazzled brain was the one now talking instead of Agt. Maria Hill.
She knew the moment she let that word slip there was going to be consequences, but the word traitor exited her lips.
The instant she said it Agent Hill was back and she quickly stopped talking and tried to reword her sentence but it was too late.
"TRAITOR?!" Fury hollered but kept his voice quiet.
"Sir that's not what I meant"
"Who are you to question her loyalty"
"Sir with all due respect even Barton is questioning it. We have to be sensible about this"
"We! That girl is more obsessed with work than I am. Natasha is not a traitor."
"She might be"
"How dare you" he snapped his eyes bearing into hers. "You might be the person I trust most in this world but you cannot… I repeat cannot go and throw around accusations like this"
Despite the situation, Maria couldn't help but be filled with pride that Fury trusted her the most. Yes, she was his second in command but hearing those words grace his lips was like candy to a child.
"It might not be true but we have to be careful about this"
He death stared her even more before pulling out his shield phone and dialled.
Moments later Victoria Hand walked in.
"Sir. Ma'am" she walked in and nodded towards him and Maria. "I got your message"
"I want all your trusted agents on this. Agent Romanoff is missing. I want all scouts out there looking for her. Any intel we can get to prove her innocence get it. This is a level 8 only"
Victoria gave him a weird look but nodded and left immediately.
"I'm going to prove your wrong Agent Hill," he said looking directly at her as if she was filth.
She was hopeful for a second that maybe she was just overreacting and everything would be okay.
If only life was that easy.