It is surprising how many stores are willing to open hours after closing when enough cash is involved or the right name is mentioned and given Lucie's shattered cover story, it was something that Natasha was all too happy to exploit. They were used to shopping in the twilight hours, especially when they were in Europe where it seemed as if Natasha was owed a personal favour from every fashionista.
Late night shopping trips were not unusual for Natasha and Lucie, it was easier to shop with no other customers in the store and a far safer option. When it came to the high-end stores, they would usually be persuaded to open for a couple of hours if the price was right. The wardrobe of a spy was broad by necessity. One day you may be neck-deep in the mud of the Bijou, the next you may be waltzing around a Budapest ballroom; every occasion needed to be catered to.
"You've lost weight."
It was a simple observation judged entirely on the fact the fit of Lucie's everyday thigh holster. She had been pulling and tugging at it through her clothes all evening as if it was uncomfortable. When she stood in a mini skirt before the mirror, Natasha eyed the buckle, seeing the telltale sign of two parallel wear lines, one in the centre of the buckle and the other just below. It had been cinched and was still too big for her. Something that Lucie either hadn't noticed or was trying to ignore.
"I have not!" Lucie half shrieked, making a conscious effort not to touch her thigh again which naturally began to itch and burn the second it was forbidden.
Natasha raised an eyebrow, knowing that she was right and took a sip of the champagne they had been gifted by the store. It didn't take long for muscle to lose tone and she was certain that Lucie hadn't been following her usual training schedule. It was such a tiny detail but Lucie's loss of control in her single most powerful weapon was obvious. Her own body.
"Really? That's the one you're running with? That I've maybe lost a couple of pounds?" she added, grabbing the nearest three options from the rack and stepping behind the curtain out of sight.
A few moments later, Lucie stepped out in a knee-length flapper dress that would have looked stunning if not for the numerous areas of her body that were caked in bruises or buried under bandages.
"I was thinking about going to the carnival in Venice," Natasha offered, waiting for Lucie to take the bait to a new subject of conversation. Pushing for answers would do no good.
"You hate Venice."
"It's a historic city."
"The last time we were in Venice we had to jump in the canal and ended up getting shot. No thank you."
Steering the conversation back to the store, Lucie turned on the spot and gestured to the dress as if to say "well?"
Natasha immediately dismissed it, already seeing it as a logistical nightmare. "Unless you have three hours to prep before getting into it, absolutely not."
"It's not that bad," Lucie laughed, trying to pull the dress around so that the strap avoided her bandaged shoulder blade.
"You have three different sets of tan lines, you can't conceal a paperclip in there never mind a switchblade, it will fall apart in the second you make contact and it's white."
"Fair. 1920's style is cliche anyway." Lucie shrugged, already on her way back into the changing room.
Every criticism was valid. The wardrobe of an agent was meant to make a mission easier, not create more problems. It was a piece of equipment, carefully chosen for a specific purpose.
When her cell phone vibrated in the pocket of her jacket, Natasha didn't think much of it, her phone went off all the time. There were always tips or job offers coming through. When she looked at the screen, the most recent message wasn't from anyone she expected.
"We have to go," Natasha announced her tone deep and measured as she rose to her feet.
Already stood in her underwear in the changing room, she scrambled to pull her own dress over her head, ignoring the burning in her arm as she contorted it to try and get dressed. Under a minute later and she was following Natasha out of the store, boots and frock coat slung over one arm and fully loaded weapons harness gripped tightly in her hand.
The coded message from Maria told the pair to get to the hospital immediately. It gave no details as to why. There was no need, reports were already beginning to filter through about what happened. The attempted assassination of the Director of SHIELD wasn't something that could be kept quiet for long, especially one that had been partially successful so far.
Natasha had abandoned her car outside of the hospital's main entrance with the keys still in the ignition, not caring a lick about it blocking traffic or even bothering to lock it. The drivers behind them honked their horns in frustration but neither women paid them any attention, not when there were more important things happening.
The two women stalked through the emergency room and up to the surgical floor without a single person daring to stop them. One resident even stood back, holding the door open when he crossed their path. Nobody questioned them. They didn't anything more than stare in either fear and curiosity as Natasha took the lead and Lucie fastened the two silver clasps on the front of her navy frock coat to hide the harness she had shrugged back on when leaving the dress store.
Maria and Steve were already watching surgeons through the window overlooking the operating theatre when they arrived, pushing by the agents who had stood guard at the door.
"Is he going to make it?" Natasha asked.
Beside her, Lucie had planted her hands against the window ledge, eyes flickering between the techniques the surgeons employed and the machine by Fury's head that displayed everything from his pulse to his oxygen saturation. None of them looked optimistic.
It took a couple of seconds but eventually, Maria confirmed what Lucie had already figured out. "We don't know."
Maria was significantly calmer than anyone else in the room, making sure to stand back and away from the glass and out of the eye-line of the fellow agents in the room.
"Tell me about the shooter," Natasha said, forcing herself to remove any and all emotions that could distract her.
"He was fast, had a metal arm," Steve listed, still trying to make sense of what he had seen. Trying to understand how the man he had come face to face with had managed to not only stop the shield but also to wield it with a terrifying level of accuracy.
"Ballistics?" Natasha asked.
"Three slugs, no rifling. Completely untraceable."
"Soviet-made." This wasn't so much a question as it was a statement. Part of Natasha's thought process escaping.
Lucie shook her head, glancing over towards Natasha before returning her attention to the monitors on the other side of the glass.
"None of the Russian cells we know about could pull something off on this scale," Lucie chipped in, her eyes still fixed to the monitors.
Then Fury took a turn for the worse.
"He's in V-tach."
"Shit. Come on Nick," Lucie murmured under her breath, tapping her foot in an attempt to relieve some of the building tension in her body.
"Crash cart coming in."
"Don't do this to me, Nick."
Lucie reached out for Natasha's hand, unsure of whether or not the woman would accept the gesture and breathing a sigh of relief when she didn't pull away.
It was well known within SHIELD that it was Fury that had recruited Natasha, offering her a place to call home away from the KGB that was hunting her. Lucie always suspected there was more to it. She knew that SHIELD had put a hit out on her, it was something that Natasha and Clint would occasionally joke about but never go into any detail. Lucie didn't like to push. Still, she wondered. Of all the agents that Fury could have assigned to take out the Black Widow, he chose Clint Barton; a newly minted agent with a tendency for bending the rules and a weak spot for collecting strays. If Lucie's theory was correct, Fury never had any intention of allowing Clint to eliminate Natasha, instead, he was sent as an unwitting ambassador offering a chance at life. Another debt in her ledger.
"Time of death: 1.03 am."
Steve bowed his head.
The medic in her knew that there was nothing more to be done. He had been maxed out on every treatment available, the blood loss alone had been substantial. The truth was that his injuries were just too severe, the odds had been stacked against him.
A viewing gallery had been set up not long after Fury's time of death had been announced. He lay on the metal gurney covered in a white sheet. Natasha stood over him, silently saying her goodbyes.
Steve and Lucie stood with their backs to the wall, standing guard over Natasha's moment of grief, neither speaking. When Lucie took her hand from the pocket of her woolen frock coat, she instantly reached out for his hand, Steve didn't pull away, instead, he gave her a reassuring squeeze and pulled her in closer beside him. They stood together for what only felt like a moment, clinging on to the last tiny fragment of calm before the storm hit.
"I need to take him," Maria reported, aiming her statement at Lucie and Steve rather than Natasha.
It was Steve who moved first, reluctantly letting go of Lucie's hand and walking to Natasha's side while keeping a careful, respectful distance.
"Natasha," he said.
Natasha wiped her imminent tears away and then immediately turned for the door that Maria had just entered through. She had allowed herself a moment and it had passed. There was work to be done.
Steve looked towards Lucie who just nodded with a sad smile.
"You need to be careful. The next day or so… it's going to get worse before it gets better," Lucie warned before pushing herself off the wall and quietly following Natasha out into the corridor that was already filled with a few dozen agents.
"Why was Fury in your apartment?" Natasha asked, already having locked away her grief in the well-used box that also housed her guilt.
She already knew the questions that they would ask Steve, his interrogation, or questioning as they would call it. They were questions that she would need answers to if she was investigating the Director's assassination.
"I don't know," he lied with a too-casual shrug of his shoulders. A little too much thought to be authentic.
Natasha eyed the deception immediately and smirked.
Lucie eyed the agents around them, most of the faces she recognised as STRIKE, Rumlow close by his squad. Someone else was already in charge if they had ordered and that someone had decided not to give orders to the two of them. It didn't look promising. Still, she said nothing, not even to Natasha.
"Cap, they want you back at SHIELD," Rumlow called from down the hall.
"Yeah, in a second." Steve turned back to Natasha
"They want you now," he pushed in frustration.
"Okay," Steve relented, making it obvious that he didn't understand the rush.
"You're a terrible liar," Natasha said, making sure to keep her expression hidden from everyone but Steve.
Natasha didn't handle lies like regular people so when she caught Steve in one, she didn't take it personally. Instead, she looked at it like a puzzle or another assignment with no intel or backup plan.
By the time that Steve had passed Rumlow in the corridor, Rumlow had additional orders.
"STRIKE, move it out. Stark, Pierce wants a word," he called.
"I'll follow you to HQ," she answered, turning back to Natasha.
"Get in the truck, Stark," he spat.
Beside her, she swore that she heard Natasha laugh but her face didn't betray anything.
"Be careful," Natasha warned, well aware that things were about to get ugly.
"See you on the other side."
Lucie turned to face Rumlow and growled in response, refusing to be spoken to like a child. "Let's not forget who the senior officer is here."
This time, when he phrased his order, he let sarcasm drip from each and every syllable. "Please, get in the truck…ma'am."
Before being allowed inside the armoured truck; she was relieved on her coat and boots that were thrown haphazardly onto the empty seat next to the driver.
"Careful, that coat is vintage," she forewarned.
As well as her coat and boots, her weapons were also taken, two agents removing them and another making a verbal and written inventory.
"One standard issue, Baretta pistol. Three magazines of additional ammo. One butterfly knife. Fourteen, five-inch Astrea throwing knives."
The list went on for a while, each weapon placed in a black duffle bag and secured in the driver's compartment out of her reach along with the rest of her possessions.
Not a single agent would meet her eye as she took her seat in silence. It should have been a cue to run, to get away by whatever means necessary to make sure that she was not going to be framed for Fury's murder.
When a black cotton bag was put over her head and her wrists bound with cable ties, she didn't scoff at their attempts to restrain her. Until that point, they had done rather well at restraining her, and then they had to ruin it at the last minute with hardware store-bought cable ties.
Nor did she correct the mistake the agent had made when the cable tie had snagged against her watch. She did not resist. She did not run. She did not give any indication that she had knowingly stepped into a trap.
She waited. Biding her time. Collecting intel.
It was unintentionally flattering that there were 13 agents inside the armoured truck. As highly as STRIKE were praised; they weren't as good as she was. True, they were highly trained but not in the same way that Lucie had been. STRIKE had been drilled in the movements of the martial arts and conditioned to work as parts of an engine, to consider the team at all times. All individuality and independent thought bled out of them.
Lucie had been taught how to win; to use her mind to figure out a way to complete the mission when things didn't go to plan. She knew her body, its strengths, its limitations but none of that was as important as the way that her enemy perceived her. Most already doubted her ability based on the fact that she was a woman; as if a woman had the inability to be as brutal or as victorious as her male counterpart. Then there was her name. Surely as a Stark, she had bought her position rather than earned it? The stories had to be exaggerated if not completely false. The chink in the armour of every man, bar one, she had ever faced, their own ego.
There was no need to pay attention to the sounds outside the vehicle, no need to try and figure out where STRIKE were taking her. With Fury gone, the power vacuum had already formed, politicians would already be out for his job and the generous budget that came with it. In the wrong hands, SHIELD was a private army. With Fury gone, they would do everything that they could to secure their place, the first call of business was the remove Fury's most loyal, tarnishing any and all credibility. Lucie would be a scapegoat, the face of a changing regime.
Rumlow didn't ride with her or the rest of his team. Lucie had noted his absence before they had placed the hood over her head. The door had shut without him and rather than him giving the order to move, there was a knock on the roof instead. Nobody spoke and Lucie had to suppress the urge to hum the song that had been stuck in her head since she had been in the car with Steve that morning. Had that only been a few hours ago, it seemed like days ago.
The truck halted with enough force her forward in her seat, there were footsteps on the asphalt outside and the sound of half a dozen firearms being loaded brought the total to twenty agents, including the driver. Twenty agents for an escort to what was no doubt a SHIELD holding cell. An agent took tight hold of her upper arm, a second mirroring his movements and she tested the confidence of his grip by flexing the muscles in her biceps and rolling her shoulders.
"Is this necessary?" she asked, rolling her eyes beneath the hood. No need to school her face when it was hidden from view.
No answer came. Instead, he pushed her forward and she took the hint to walk. He led through what she assumed was the loading bay and then down into the depths of SHIELD to the holding cells. No need to make a scene in front of the rest of SHIELD. The optics alone would send SHIELD spinning even further into a web of paranoid conspiracy. Lucifer had a lot of friends in the organisation, a lot of agents who owed her a debt that she was certain to call in when the tide turned.
Unlike above ground, the detention centre had been constructed entirely from steel and concrete. It was smart, it made escapes less likely and attacks on the facility useless. The concrete even acted as soundproofing, anything could be happening behind the doors of the various cells and nobody would be any the wiser. All supposedly in the name of freedom.
A cell was already waiting for her, no need to be booked or officially arrested and charged. The cell door was sealed behind her with a heavy thud and locked in four separate ways to secure her inside. She held her breath for a few moments, checking for any indication that someone else was in the room with her. No other breathing, no rustle of clothing from minute movements. She was alone, at least physically. Slowly, she removed her hood and threw it into the corner of the room.
The first thing she did was scrutinise the cell. It was empty, with no bed or chair, as if it wasn't intended for long term use but rather as a stop on a long journey. Three solid concrete walls, the fourth with a reinforced steel door and a single six by four-inch air vent. The ceiling was made entirely of lighting tiles, likely screwed into the concrete so that there would be no escape. Four surveillance cameras sat in the upper corners of the room, covering every inch of the space and making sure that she was constantly in frame. An escape attempt would be pointless. Even if she did manage to get out of the cell there were still dozens of corridors to navigate and several levels before she managed to get back to ground level.
The cable ties began to cut into her skin, the cheap plastic nipping at every movement. With a grunt, she clenched her hands together and drove them towards her groin, following through with enough force so that the restraint snapped under the pressure. She flexed her wrists and checked the skin for marks.
She took a seat on the floor facing the door with her back to the cold concrete wall, waiting for her interrogator to make an appearance. She checked her watch. An hour had passed with no sign of an interrogator.
Out of sheer boredom, she stared at the cameras on either side of the door.
"Eenie, meenie, miney, mo," she sang, flicking her finger between the two cameras. "Left it is."
Wiping any trace of sweat from the palms onto her dress, she walked the corner. Using the angle to brace herself, she walked up the wall so that the camera was an inch away from her face. There were no wires for her to pull at so instead she settled for breaking the glass lens that allowed them to watch her. If they were going to make her wait then she was sure she was going to push them into a reaction. She gave it exactly fifteen minutes before starting the same method on another camera.
In any other situation, with any other prisoner, sit was likely to be one of SHIELD's interrogators, someone trained in every form of information extraction. But for Lucie, she was certain that they would bring in the big guns, knowing that the usual tricks wouldn't work on her. They would bring in someone who knew her.
The door stood ajar as someone slid inside, attempting not to be seen by whoever was on the outside of the door.
"Rumlow?"
"We have to get you out of here," he warned, beckoning her towards the door.
Lucie stood fast, contorting her face into a look of confusion and distrust. The distrust was legitimate, knowing that she couldn't trust Rumlow. Still, he might be her ticket to freedom.
"Lucia, we have to go. They're trying to pin all of this on you." He sounded sincere as if he actually believed the things he was saying. As if he forced enough worry lines onto his forehead or made his eyes soften in such a way that she would buy his rouse.
It was quite possibly one of the most ridiculous things that she had ever heard, but for the sake of finding out the truth, she played along with the charade when Rumlow was under the belief that he was mining her for information. As if that wasn't her specialty when it came to interrogation. As if the damsel in dress wasn't the most used character in her repertoire.
"Brock, I didn't." It was so simple, the oldest trick in the book, using first names to create a level of intimacy and trust. He bought it, willing to take anything she was willing to sell him. Hook, line and sinker.
"I'm getting you out of here, somewhere safe," he promised, holding out a hand with a kind smile that didn't sit right on his face.
Reluctantly, she took his hand and allowed him to lead her through the corridors and out of the detention center, careful to avoid security cameras and guards on duty.
"I want to help you but I need you to tell me the truth. The brass thinks that you were selling intel under Fury's orders."
Light poured through a window a few floors above them, a chance of escape and a signal that time was running out, all she had to do was give him something to think that the questioning was working.
So the usurpers knew about Fury's orders to collect information from the Lumerian Star, what they didn't seem to know was that it wasn't her mission. It had been Natasha's, not that she was willing to share that information with the enemy.
"The Lumerian Star," she whispered.
"Where's the drive?" he asked, a slight hint of desperation in his voice as he continued ushering her up the stairs, service weapon in front of him in case of any hostiles. Or in case Lucie didn't give him the answers he wanted.
This was an interrogation. No mistaking it.
"I don't know," she answered. It was true. She hadn't laid eyes on it since she stood on the bridge with Natasha and Steve, moments before Batroc started firing at them.
"I need something to clear your name."
There was the bait, his proverbial cards on the table.
Lucie was both a better player and had a better hand.
"Why would you do that for me?"
"You know I have feelings for you."
Lucie scoffed, not only breaking but shattering her character completely. The exit was in sight, the little green light handing from the ceiling in case of an emergency. All she needed to do was run a couple more floors and she would be able to get off the grid.
"I'm sorry, I can't," she laughed.
Rumlow stared at her in fury.
"I can't. Christ, you're awful at the knight in shining armour thing."
Mocking him did exactly what she hoped for. The final straw to break the camel's back, she was not only saying no to him but she was laughing at him. The thought that he wasn't good enough for her after spending his entire career in the shadow of her and her team. He lunged for her, trying to grab her arm.
Lucie tutted, planting herself on the landing where her footing was more sure. A handful of steps higher, Rumlow had the advantage, towering over her as she was literally on the back foot while carefully keeping herself from his grasp. He lunged again, this time getting dangerously close as she used his own momentum against him, flinging him into the concrete wall beside her, twisting herself out of his reach at the last possible moment. She hopped halfway up the staircase, waiting for him to make an attack.
Throwing all honour out of the window, he aimed for her legs in an attempt to knock her off balance. He failed and instead she landed a powerful kicked his shoulder, sending him tumbling back down the stairs.
She ran, slamming herself through the door and pulling the fire alarm beside it to cause maximum panic. Far less chance of being seen if other SHIELD agents were evacuating the building. Easier to escape in the chaos.