Chapter 3 – Meet Black Widow
A/n – This is probably the fastest I've ever updated a multi-chapter story :) This contains two scenes as Scene 2 of the film is relatively short.
LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: Glad you liked :)
XxxBellaBellaxxX: I'm glad you liked the way I wrote the scene. Toni's character changes will be mostly in her own personal scenes and around Bruce because I couldn't write out her witty exchanges with Cap :D
Girly: Well here's your update, glad you're enjoying it so far.
Guest: Yes, that's going to be one of my favourite scenes to write I believe especially with one of the things I'm planning for the Iron Man 2 movie :)
MelodySnapePotter: Female Tony is always fun to read and she's just as fun to write.
General Question: Anyone want romance other than Toni/Piper in this story? I'm willing to throw in a secondary love interest for Toni or for someone else if you want it.
EDIT: I'm editing all of my stories before posting anything new :)
The scene changed to show the group making their way out of the building into the lower level, the briefcase now in the hands of Selvig. "I need these vehicles," Clint said pointing at the stationary cars.
Agent Hill seemed to be confused as to why the group were loading into the truck and asked, "Who's that?"
"At least she didn't just let you all go without question," Natasha said approvingly.
"They didn't tell me," Clint said matter-of-factly.
"Unfortunately when it comes to SHIELD that is actually a non-suspicious valid answer," Toni scoffed, "now you see why I'm forever hacking in to their systems."
As Hill turned away clearly accepting this explanation for now Fury's voice came through on her radio, "Hill!" The scene turned to show Fury sitting on the floor of the Tesseract room pulling the bullet out of his clearly bulletproof jacket, "do you copy? Barton has turned."
Clint who had overheard the conversation was ready for Hill turning back around and fired a shot at her which she dodged.
Clint had a feeling that this was just the beginning of the people who he would attempt to kill or would succeed in killing that would only add to the red in his ledger whether SHIELD counted them or not. Hill was one of the Agents that he worked with most often because she was high up in SHIELD hence he felt a lot guiltier for trying to kill her than he had about shooting at Fury.
Clint fired one more shot in her general direction before getting behind the wheel of the truck and hightailing it out of the area. Hill attempted to fire at the truck to stop it but it collided with the bodywork instead of any windows or people within.
Clint supposed this should make him feel better seeing as she had been prepared to kill him off as well but it didn't. He knew she was only following protocol for what should happen to rogue agents. Fury hadn't clearly told her that he had no control over his actions after all.
The screen showed the portal above Fury growing more and more every second it was still open. It pulled the metal equipment in the room up into it as Fury hurriedly exited telling Hill, "they have the Tesseract! Shut them down!"
Upon hearing the order Hill threw her radio into another one of the waiting cars and jumped into the driver's seat to chase the other vehicle. Other cars were also following the one Loki occupied as Agents shot at Loki through the windows as Clint steered the truck away from them as best he could.
The team could tell that none of them (especially Clint) would be at all comfortable watching this movie until at least this scene ended although they had no idea what would be shown next.
Loki used his advantage of having the sceptre to blow up one of the cars which flipped over as it lost control and skidded in front of the others forming a blockade. The magic of the portal was shown to be completely unstable as it twisted and turned within the chamber as Fury ran away from it as fast as he could whilst sporting an injury.
Outside the building the ground was shaking as boxes of equipment that Coulson was helping to move scattered across the ground. The soldiers reached down to retrieve it but Coulson stopped them with a quick, "okay, let's go. No, leave it. Go!"
"That's Phil all over," Toni said with a weak smile. He had been the only person at SHIELD other than Natasha that she had gotten along with before she had met Clint and she missed him.
Clint continued to drive his truck along the exit route when Agent Hill's car swung out in front of them as she pulled some risky manoeuvres and managed to get her car bumper to bumper with Clint's as he pushed her backwards. She took a shot at them through the windshield whilst Clint fired back through the open side window of the truck.
Coulson clambered into the back of another truck and radioed Fury, "we're clear upstairs, sir. You need to go!"
Fury made it out of the front door and clambered into the helicopter that had been waiting on him just as the helipad began to crack along with the rest of the ground.
"This is just another reason why you shouldn't mess with things when you don't know what they are capable of," Steve fumed.
"I'm impressed the helicopter pilot even stayed that long," Natasha commented.
The gun battle between Clint and Hill was interrupted as Clint ran out of bullets and went back to focusing on driving managing to jolt Hill off to the side once more. As Hill continued her pursuit the ground began to rise up as the portal contracted before exploding out the way and sending energy rushing through the SHIELD headquarters. It ripped apart the ground forming a ripple that travelled outwards at a rapid pace. The entire building began to sink into the ground as the truck Coulson was travelling in jolted after managing to clear the radius of the implosion. Fury watched in dismay from the helicopter as the last of the building sank into the dirt.
"Well, it's dramatic," Toni said nonchalantly trying not to betray how horrified she was by the image and not completely succeeding as her eyes betrayed her.
The road behind Hill was falling down too but she was just managing to stay ahead of it. Sparks from electrical debris were hitting the car and making it hard to stay driving in a straight line. Similarly the road behind Coulson collapsed in on itself as he watched. A line of debris fell in front of Hill and a similar line behind trapping her car and making sure she couldn't continue the chase as Clint raced through the exit doors only to see Fury's helicopter flying above.
Clint knew that Hill was alive having seen her since the Battle for New York but he still worried about how she was going to get out of a tricky situation. How far had the collapse continued? He knew that Coulson had died but everyone had refused to tell him how so it was possible that his truck had gotten trapped in the blast.
Clint turned the truck down a side road knowing that they had a better chance of avoiding the helicopter which was closing in if they deviated from the main route out of SHIELD headquarters. As he took to the grass Fury threw open the door of the helicopter and drew his gun on the truck. Several shots collided with the windshield and the glass splintered but didn't break. As they drew closer Loki used the sceptre to blast the helicopter and set it on fire.
"At least they were flying low enough that jumping from the helicopter was possible without killing themselves," Natasha interjected.
As the helicopter spun out due to loss of control Fury launched himself from the craft and hit the ground. The helicopter itself followed as its still operating blades sliced up the ground where it fell. Fury fired several more shots after the truck but it had reached another road and hurtled away with Loki still clinging onto the back.
Coulson's voice called over Fury's radio, "Director? Director Fury, do you copy?"
Clint breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that Coulson's truck had made it out of the implosion but until Coulson was actually shown dying Clint could not rest easy for it could still have been his fault.
"The Tesseract is with a hostile force," Fury replied, "I have men down. Hill?"
Hill was shown clambering from the crushed wreck of her car, "a lot of men still under," she replied, "I don't know how many survivors."
The Avengers had known this was coming but that did not mean they were immune to the news. If only SHIELD had left the Tesseract well enough alone and locked it up somewhere it couldn't do any harm. It was their interference with it that had caused the Battle for New York. Clint was obviously the most effective as that had been his fear the moment he had heard the evacuation time.
"Sound a general call," Fury said, "I want every living soul not working rescue looking for that briefcase."
"At least he set aside some people to look for survivors I guess," Bruce said softly. He knew how unlikely it was they would find any as the injuries obtained from being trapped under such a collapse would be too severe.
"Roger that," Hill replied.
Having given Hill her instructions Fury directed his next statement to Agent Coulson, "Coulson, get back to base. This is a Level Seven. As of right now we are at war."
"What do we do?" Coulson said clearly worried.
Fury lowered his lapel as the words 'Avengers Assemble' took over the screen.
"If that was the introduction, I do not wish to know what other parts of this movie will be like," Thor stated.
"You and me both, big guy, you and me both," Toni sighed.
The scene changed to show a freight train travelling past Russian signs. The interior of a building directly next to the tracks was slowly revealed where Natasha sat on a chair surrounded by men in black clothing.
"You may need subtitles for this scene," Natasha said matter-of-factly.
"JARVIS enable subtitles for all scenes not in English just to make things easier on people who aren't originally from those countries or who haven't learned the language," Toni stated to her AI. Personally she spoke a large amount of languages because they were one of the few things that didn't come naturally to her and learning them actually gave her brain a challenge. She was sure the next scene would be in Russian which was a language she had learned upon meeting Natasha.
"This is not how I wanted this evening to go," spoke one man who was clearly the leader of the group.
Thor, Steve and Bruce appeared to be worried about Natasha's capture seeing as they had never seen her do a proper interrogation. Toni and Clint did not share their concerns as they both knew Natasha well and were not prone to worrying about her over something as simple as this. Even if she had been genuinely captured a few ropes weren't going to stop her.
"I know how you wanted this evening to go. Believe me this is better," Natasha said darkly.
This elicited a chuckle from both Clint and Toni who were able to appreciate the humour of the situation. They were sure that Natasha's dry humour would have appealed to the others more if they weren't so stressed from seeing her captured right after the previous scene.
"Who are you working for?" the leader insisted trying to ignore her comment, "Lermentov, yes?" One of the thugs leaned over and pushed the chair Natasha was tied to back over the gap in the floor in manner that was supposed to be threatening. "Does he think we have to go through him to move our cargo?" the leader continued.
Natasha's expression looked totally innocent as she said, "I thought General Solohob is in charge of the export business."
"Solohob," he chuckled, "a bagman. A front. Your outdated information betrays you. The famous Black Widow and she turns out to be simply another pretty face."
"Lady Natasha, how does this man know who you are?" Thor exclaimed.
"I'm pretty famous in Russia Thor," Natasha replied simply.
"You really think I'm pretty?" Natasha asked innocently although a hint of danger was evident in her eyes.
One of the thugs stepped forward after an indication and pulled Natasha's mouth open as the leader continued, "Tell Lermentov we don't need him to move the tanks. Tell him he is out. Well…" he stopped to pick up a tool and reverted to English for his next statement, "you may have to write it down."
"He was going to pull out your tongue," Steve exclaimed horrified.
Even Toni wasn't entirely unaffected by the news. Her own experiences with torture made her prone to anger when it was threatened upon those she cared about. She knew Natasha was more than able to get out of there before it happened but still wanted to hunt down this moron and kick his ass.
Suddenly a cell phone began to ring in the background and one of the thugs took it out of his pocket and answered it, "it's for her," he stated in Russian. The leader threw down the tool and reached for the phone. "You listen carefully…" he began but Coulson's voice on the end of the line interrupted him, "you're at 1-14 Silensky Plaza, 3rd floor. We have an F-22 exactly eight miles out. Put the woman on the phone or I will blow up the block before you can make the lobby."
"And there goes Phil with his perfect timing," Toni said with a smile.
Obviously deciding that the threat was genuine the leader passed the phone to Natasha who held it between her cheek and her shoulder as Coulson resumed talking, "we need you to come in."
"Are you kidding? I'm working," Natasha replied.
This caused three sighs of relief to come from the Avengers who hadn't already realised this as they now knew that Natasha knew exactly what she was doing in this situation.
"This takes precedence," Coulson insisted.
"I'm in the middle of an interrogation. This moron is giving me everything," Natasha stated.
"I don't give everything," the leader stated but Natasha just threw him an incredulous look and went back to her conversation.
"So that's where Toni picked up that look from," Steve said only to be met with it in stereo as Natasha and Toni both gave it to him at once. He immediately fell silent and the two women went back to watching the movie.
"Look, you can't pull me out of this right now," Natasha said.
"Natasha…" Coulson said before visibly hesitating, "Barton's been compromised."
The expression on Natasha's face instantly changed and she changed her tune to, "let me put you on hold." As the man she had been interrogating reached out to take the phone from her two well-placed kicks took him down. She stood up whilst still attached to the chair and swung it around to take down a second man. Then rolling neatly across the floor to the third man she dropped the chair on his foot and flung her head backwards to hit him on the nose.
Whilst all this was going on Thor had begun to cheer Natasha on whilst the others simply rolled their eyes at him and continued to watch the carnage that was these incompetents attempting to battle someone with superior training.
One final sweep with the chair took his legs out from under him as Natasha moved on. Coulson was shown on the other end of the line listening passively to the shouts of the men. Back in the warehouse Natasha used one of the men as a launch pad to flip on top of another, the resulting impact shattered the chair leaving only the pieces attached to her arms. As she was grabbed from behind she used one of those to push his arm away before striking him several times which culminated in her kicking him in the chest. Using her momentum as she hit the floor to spring back to her feet she charged at the man who hadn't been expecting it. She got her legs around his neck and flipped him to the ground.
Finally, she grabbed a chain and wrapped it around the leg of the still conscious leader and flung him down the gap that they had been threatening her with earlier.
"That was effective," Toni joked with a shrug as the others seemed incapable of voicing their thoughts on the matter.
She retrieved the phone from its place on the ground as well as her high heels. "Where is Barton now?" she asked.
"We don't know," Coulson replied.
"But he's alive," Natasha continued.
"We think so," Coulson said as he watched footage of Clint and Natasha working side by side on his computer screen, "I'll brief you on everything when you get back. But first we need you to talk to the big one."
"Coulson, as much as I like Stark you know she trusts me about as far as she can throw me," Natasha stated.
"Wait what?" Steve asked bewildered.
"Just because we met before and liked each other doesn't indicate that we trusted each other. Back then I certainly couldn't trust Tasha because of what she pulled on me and she knew that. I had my reasons," Toni stated.
"Oh, I've got Stark. You get the big guy," Coulson clarified.
Natasha's steps faltered as she looked back at the carnage she had caused exclaiming in Russian.
"I had wondered why I got Phil at my door instead of you Tasha, guess I know now," Toni said simply.
A/n: So there you go, the first ever change to the film is in this chapter even if it is just a small one.