Natasha sighed as she watched her "captors" watch her. Georgi Luchkov, a Russian general, and two of his thugs were practically leering at her. The taller thug leaned back and smacked her on the cheek.
Natasha grimaced a little and rolled her head back towards the three men. Luchkov smiled at her, the grin slightly sinister.
He then told her in Russian, "This is not how I wanted the evening to go."
Natasha sighed and responded in the same language, her own mother tongue, "I know how you wanted this evening to go. Believe me, this is better."
He smiled at her again, before he said, "I'd like to know why they sent you to carry out a carrier, a stained glass and other random things."
As he said it one of his men tilted her chair back over the hole in the floor. Natasha managed to hide any and all fear from her face, well false fear, "I thought General Solohob handles all the exports."
The man scoffed angrily, "Solohob is just a bagman, a front. Your outdated information betrays you. It turns out the famous Black Widow is just another pretty face."
Natasha stiffened, raising one of her eyebrows. She softly asked, flirtatiously, "Do you really think I'm pretty?"
The man smirked and turned away towards a table with tools of interrogation on it as one of his men grabbed her face and forced her mouth open.
"We can move the tanks without Lermontov's permission. If he wants them, he'll need to meet our terms. Tell him, well. . ."
At that moment Luchkov switched to English as he picked up a wrench, "You may have to write it down."
Natasha huffed at that, refraining from rolling her eyes at the overdramatic travesty of the situation.
Moron, she thought.
Just then a cell phone rang. The other goon who was not holding her mouth opened frowned and answered it.
"Da," he said.
Then after listening for a moment he slowly turned to his boss, "It's for her."
Luchkov turned angrily toward his goon as he dropped the wrench.
He grabbed the phone and began to speak, "You listen closely. . ."
"You're at 114 Solenski Plaza, 3rd floor. We have an F-22 exactly 8 miles out. Put the woman on the phone or I will blow up the block before you can make the lobby," Natasha could hear from the phone.
Ah. Coulson.
Luchkov scowled and moved forward putting the phone up to Natasha's ear. Natasha tilted her head to hold it in place, keeping her eyes on him as he moved away from her.
Coulson spoke, "We need you to come in."
Natasha sighed in annoyance, "Are you kidding? I'm working!"
Coulson sighed on the other side, "This takes precedence."
Natasha rolled her eyes, "I'm in the middle of an interrogation here, and this moron is giving me everything."
Luchkov glanced at his men frowning, "I'm not giving her everything."
Natasha glanced at him in disgust, "Look, you can't pull me out of this right now."
Coulson then said gently, "Natasha. Barton's been compromised."
Natasha froze. Her eyes widened in shock as she shakily said after a brief pause, "Let me put you on hold."
She glanced up at him and nodded at Luchkov. As he moved his hand to get the phone, she slammed her head against his. She stood up then, still tied to the chair, and kickboxed the first thug in the face. She rolled over to the other thug, tripped him, and stomped on his foot when he tried to pin her, then she knocked him out with a headbutt.
She flipped, breaking the chair on second thugs' ribcage, and looked to the tall thug, standing up. She kicked him too, chocking him out cold. Natasha then wrapped Luchkov's legs with a chain as he started to get up and pushed him down the hole, he was threatening to drop her down. He hung there, in pain, groaning as he rocked back and forth.
Natasha grabbed her shoes and the phone that had been dropped during the brief fight and asked, "Where's Barton now? And what about Percy?"
Coulson sighed, "We don't know. And Agent Jackson was wounded during the attack, but he's recovered."
"Good," Natasha said. "But Barton's alive?"
"We think so. I'll brief you on everything when you get back. But first, we need you to talk to the big guy," Coulson said.
Natasha smiled at that and said, "Coulson, you know that Stark trusts me about as far as he can throw me."
Coulson sighed, "No, Agent Jackson has Stark. You get the big guy."
Natasha stopped and froze. They wanted her to get the Hulk.
"Bozhe moi."
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Natasha was waiting for the girl she had hired to bring Dr. Banner back for a talk. She watched, hiding as much as she could as the girl lead Banner into the house they had decided to use for this conversation.
She entered behind him as the girl slipped out the window and Dr. Banner said, "Should have gotten paid up front, Banner."
"You know, for a man who's trying to avoid stress, you picked a hell of a place to settle," she said causing him to nearly jump and turn around.
Dr. Banner remained tense as he responded, cautiously, "Avoiding stress isn't the secret."
"Then, what is it? Yoga?" Natasha asked, somewhat amused.
Dr. Banner looked around, "You brought me to the edge of the city. Smart. I uh. . . assume that the whole place is surrounded.
Natasha shook her head and sat down at the only table in the room, "Just you and me."
Dr. Banner frowned arms crossing, "And your actress buddy. . . Is she a spy too? Do they start that young?"
Natasha tensed at the memories filling her head, "I did."
"Who are you?"
"Natasha Romanoff," she responded.
"Are you here to kill me, Miss Romanoff? Because that's not gonna work out for everyone," he said carefully.
"No, no," she said. "I'm here on behalf of SHIELD."
Dr. Banner's tension returned, "SHIELD. How did they find me?"
"We never lost you, doctor," Natasha responded. "We've kept our distance, even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent."
"Why?" Dr Banner asked, eyes narrowing.
"Nick Fury seems to trust you," Natasha said with a light shrug. "But now I need you to come in."
"What if I say no?" Dr. Banner asked.
Natasha smiled at him, a little flirtatiously, "I'll persuade you."
"And what if the. . . the other guy says no?" Dr. Banner asked, staring at her.
Natasha hesitated for a moment before responding, leaning forward in her seat, "You've been more than a year without an incident. I don't think you wanna break that streak."
Dr. Banner turned away from her and gently pushed at a cradle that sat in the run-down building, "I don't always get what I want."
Natasha sighed, beginning to pull out her phone as she spoke, "Doctor, we're facing a potential global catastrophe."
"Well, those I actively try to avoid."
Natasha pushed her phone towards him, that had a picture of the Tesseract on it. Dr. Banner leaned closer as she spoke, "This is the Tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet."
"What does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?" Dr. Banner asked as he looked from the image to her.
"Well, he want you to find it," Natasha responded. "It's been taken. It emits a gamma signature that's too weak for us to trace. There's no one that knows gamma radiation like you do. If there was, that's where I'd be."
"So Fury isn't after the monster?" Dr. Banner asked as his eyes slowly narrowed a little.
"Not that he's told me."
"And he tells you everything?"
Natasha tensed a little at that, pausing for a moment before saying, "Talk to Fury. He needs you on this."
"He needs me in a cage?" Dr. Banner said coldly.
Natasha leaned towards him, reaching out with a hand to touch Dr. Banner's own hand, "No one's going to put you in a. . ."
Dr. Banner slammed his hands down on the table and shouted, "STOP LYING TO ME!"
Natasha lunged for the gun she had hidden under the table and pointed it at Dr. Banner. The man merely stares at her for a moment, amusement clear in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, that was mean," he said casually, holding up his hands. "I just wanted to see what you'd do. Why don't we do this the easy way and you don't us that, and the other guy doesn't make a mess? Okay? Natasha. . ."
Natasha was still a little tense after that, but slowly began to lower her gun.
Then she touched her earpiece and hissed into it, "Stand down. We're good here."
That makes Dr. Banner smile at her, and suddenly Natasha remembered what she had told him.
"Just you and me, huh?"