I'm back! I moved and left my tablet charger! It's been a loooong few weeks guys!
Chapter 7: Furniture, Spies, and Extortion
Natasha knew she made a royal mistake assaulting those agents. She couldn't control the anger and emotion that spawned from their words. Maybe SHIELD was causing her to lose her touch. She had no reason to 'play pretend' nearly as many times as she had to living on the run or on her countless espionage missions the Red Room assigned her to. And so she thoughtlessly reacted when those agents pushed the right buttons. And now where did she find herself? Being led to an interrogation room by the second in command of SHIELD. Natasha really hated herself right now.
As soon as Coulson mentioned Barton she realized the degree to which she screwed up. She was Barton's responsibility, if she messed up the Council would hang him first. She knew she had grown attached to the archer, he was every bit as messed up as Natasha was but masked the pain with his sarcastic, sometimes goofy, but usually positive attitude. At first it had irked her, an assassin with a hopeful look, all he'd do was get himself shot one day. But soon her attitude changed, his skill matched his reputation and his wit kept him alive. But his empathy (Something Natasha debated with him on whether she had that quality or not) made him, definitively, one of 'good guys'.
Then she went and assaulted three coworkers for joking about her, ahem, sexual behaviors.
As long as she was in SHIELD's care, Barton took the hardest fall. However, if she was gone before he arrived to negotiate her punishment, she would be betraying and excusing herself from SHIELD's jurisdiction, she'd no longer be their problem. She'd go off radar, not cause any problems. She could live off her 'blood' money from her year as a freelancer that she had once vowed never to touch.
"I'll say goodbye to it all," she thought, "because Barton was right. I am empathetic, I can feel the pain of what he'd go through if I remained." She had to leave, it was the right thing to do.
Natasha took the first train she could from Washington D.C. to New York City. Using a rendition of an alias she created the year before SHIELD as a cover in between jobs. She was now Naomi Anna Richards, a 24 year old writer from the wealthy suburbs outside of Indianapolis, Indiana. Naomi lived with parents until their death when she was 19. The then opted for the inspiration of city life so she could create her "starving artist" outlook with the help of her parents' endless inherited fortunes. She first lived in Chicago, but then felt a southern wave hit her so she moved to New Orleans then Atlanta. Every few months she coincidentally needed to fuel her unpublished work by residing somewhere new.
By the time she was 24 she lived in Austin, San Diego, Cheyenne, Wyoming, Toronto, and now New York. Naomi had an unrealistically positive view of the world and surrounded herself by the finest of everything. She mourned her parents' death, then dramatized it as the only person who had suffered great loss. Anyone who met her saw her as whiny, privileged, and ignorant. She didn't make a lot of friends which was exactly what Natasha needed in an alias.
She entered her off record safe house, an apartment overlooking Central Park, it was modest for Naomi's paygrade. After all, she still needed new Boca do Lobo furniture in each apartment. The kitchen was designed in all deep purple, black, and stainless steel however Naomi never spent more than an hour in her kitchen for the entire year she has "resided" here. Today, though, she headed straight for the kitchen ignoring her luxurious burgundy and blush living room.
She had no possessions, just the clothes on her back. Natasha left SHIELD through the freight exit of the Triskelion after being excused to the restroom by Maria Hill. As an official agent of SHIELD she blended in, and raised no suspicions. It wasn't a clean break but she'd could erase her entire existence in a few minutes if she wanted with a few clicks of the keyboard. Before cleaning her slate she needed to make more distance between Clint, she had already put a few detours in her route to throw him off in case he was foolish enough to pursue her. Natasha wanted him safe, she wanted to repay Clint. He didn't yet know that the best way to keep him safe and thank him for his generosity was to stay as far away from him as possible.
In the kitchen, she maneuvered her way to the kitchen sink, and squatted down to open the cabinet underneath. With seamless movements she unscrews the tailpiece piece pipe below the drain. It pops off with any resistance. She grabs ahold of the gasket just above where the tailpiece had been, she tugs on the piece with much force. She pulls and groans, and pulls harder until a click is heard and the bottom of the sink drops about a foot from where it was. She sighs heavily and stands up, leaning over the sink. She takes hold of the false stainless steel surface and pulls it up. Setting aside the shallow shell of the sink she reveals a safe that has miraculously appeared from between the false bottom of sink and the draining system.
Naomi runs a hand through her crimson hair and spins a code to open the safe. Bundles and bundles of hundred dollars bills. She nods approvingly and hurries the bedroom to find a duffel bag. The bedroom was nothing less than stylish Parisian couture blended with classic Italian spirit. Yes, Naomi had inherited pretty tasteful eye. She opens her warobe to reveal all designer items (what would one expect) she dives in and pulls out a decent sized black bag she goes into the bathroom and hence, the bathtub and repeats a similar process as she did to the kitchen sink. This time she finds her advanced arsenal. A trace of a smile passes her lips as she looks down at the arrangement. She wishes she could take the machete or bazooka with her but that's unreasonable. She opts for pistols, bullets, and knives. After packing her basics she can't help the gleaming sparkle in her sniper rifle. The sniper broke smaller pieces, it would fit, yes, it would. She couldn't leave behind her baby. Heading back to the kitchen to fill her bag with cash, she peers out the city window listening to the sounds of the commute. Car horns, music, and sirens all to add to the ambiance of the legendary city. As soon as she has located all her necessities she places everything back into perfect order and leaves as if she never was.
Clint pinches his nose, "What did you say to her? Why would she should just run?"
Maria held up a hand in defense. "Fury only repeated protocols to her and said that we'd have to contact you. I barely spoke."
"Coulson?" Clint redirects his question.
"I asked her what she was thinking, and I told her I didn't know what would happen to her. I don't think she ran off because of a reprimanding, Clint."
Silence falls over the interrogation room, Coulson sits properly on the chair while Clint sit casually on the table. Fury and Maria lean on opposite walls. Clint hops to his feet, "Coulson, what exactly did you say when you said that you don't know what may happen to her?" Clint is pacing and Coulson straightens up.
"I said that the Council may decide to terminate her for this but I don't know what they'll decide."
Clint hums thoughtfully. "Fury, did you say something similar when you went over protocol with her?"
"I said something exactly like that," Fury says as if he's picking up where Clint is going with this, "You really think she thinks that SHIELD's going to kill her?"
"English isn't even her first language." Clint defends.
"According to her file she mastered it by the time she seven," Maria chirps.
"Nevertheless, if you use the word termination to someone that's been an assassin since she was a little girl, the word subconsciously takes on a default meaning."
"Why would someone assume that the company they have been working at for a year would kill them for one mistake?"
Clint smirks, "Let's not pretend like a few months back the Council assigned her purposely to a suicide mission. Let's also not pretend that SHIELD is known for having a high moral compass and upholds decency in every matter."
No one disagrees. Clint continues, "She didn't run because you frightened her, she running because she knows she is good enough to not get caught, and die."
There is a knock at the door and two SHIELD security guards enter. One speaks, "We track her going to the nearest subway and we think we may have seen her at a terminal in Philadelphia, two hours later but we can't confirm that. If that was her, she has access to trains going to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, and New York all of them making multiple stops each. Romanoff could be anywhere, sir. We can out an alert in the system and report back if anyone spots her, but we can't do much until then."
"Don't send put that alert, she'll kill anyone she thinks will blow her cover." Clint pauses, and thinks. "Cover…" he whispers.
"Barton?" Hill gives him a confused look.
Clint makes for the door, "I'll find her."
"How?" Coulson yells to his Clint's fleeting figure.
"I'll figure that out after I find her!" Clint calls back.
A trio of raggedy files are plopped onto Coulson's desk, "Clint, why is this mess here?" Phil doesn't look up.
"It's not a mess, its Natasha. Or at the very least, who Nat is pretending to be."
Coulson looks up, more intrigued than before. He inspects each file. He then looks up at Clint, "This was your original Black Widow assassination mission files."
"Right," Barton smiles hovering over his desk, "I had to observe her for a few days before I was due to kill her. She was living in New York under the name Naomi Richards. Now, remember how security tracked her in Philadelphia a couple hours ago? Well guess who hacked into the Amtrak system to see that a certain woman of the same name purchased a business class ticket to New York just under an hour ago?"
Coulson stands, buttoning his suit. "Alright, assuming this is our agent, don't you think she'd be wiser than to go to her old living area to hide from SHIELD?"
"Well there's the dilemma. You see, when I did recon on her, I suspected that the apartment she was staying at doubled as a very important safehouse. She would risk stopping at the apartment constantly in between dangerous missions, I don't think this is any different. And if am right, her train should be arriving in New York in the next half hour. She'll probably be quick, just grabbing whatever necessities and leaving, presumably out of the country. If we can't stop her from leaving New York, we may lose her forever."
"What are you suggesting we do, she won't hesitate to kill anyone we send after her, besides you or me? Even still, by the time we got to the city, if she's left her apartment already, she'd be anywhere."
Clint scratches the back of his neck, "I have an idea. It's kind of drastic, might be stupid but it would work quickly and it might be the only way to retrieve her."
Coulson hesitates, "Don't tell me yet. Go and hack into the security feed of whatever terminal she's supposed to be arriving in and confirm your hunch. Then we'll decide."
Clint claps his hands together, "That's all I needed to hear, sir."
Clint rushes to his laptop, when he passes the lunchroom and sees two familiar agents. He detours.
"Demorie, Sanden! How's it going newbies?" The two rookie agents exchanged worried glances to each and dropped their silverware. The infamous Hawkeye doesn't to talk to people like them, no one talks to them except each other, really. Legendary agents especially don't talk to rookie agents that were responsible for nearly blowing up their partner a few months ago.
Demorie pulls himself together enough to respond, "Hey, Barton, were good. Going on lots of missions and stuff, we haven't blown anyone up yet though," his attempt at a lightheartedness is immediately recognized as poor wording. Both agents' eyes go wide, Barton does every self-control technique not to scare them back to their mother's houses.
"Sounds good, heard you guys just came back from a mission in New York?"
They both nod, although Demorie still seems dazed by his comment. Sanden chimes in, "Mostly classified stuff, know you how it is, saving the world from the next global threat," he jokes. There is an awkward pause.
"We didn't mean to almost kill your partner!" Demorie shouts suddenly. The cafeteria grows quiet and people glance, baffled, in Demorie direction. Conversations resume, but Demorie's checks remain red. Clint once again, swallows the urge to embarrass them even further, he smiles instead.
"No, no, that's way in the past guys. I'm sure Natasha can't even remember the accident," Clint smirks as the boys share a look of horror, "Listen, I actually need your help with Nat, meet me in Coulson's office in ten minutes."
They nod and Clint makes a brisk exit. Clint goes straight to his dorm where he's already set up the security feed to New York Penn Station to the proper rail line that Natasha should be getting off at in five minutes.
There she was, although grainy dressed the same pair of jeans, ankle boots, tank top, and jacket (which was now tied around her waist). Sunglasses over her eyes and beanie on her head, she was dressed for the warm early autumn night she was headed for. Clint squinted at his screen, even on the grainy screen he could spot evidence of pink imprints on right wrist. Oh yes, that was Natasha. He snaps the computer shut and all but sprints down to Coulson's office.
He enters without knocking. "I've got her! I was right!" Coulson, accustomed to Barton doesn't flinch.
"Great, what's the plan?"
Clint sobers up, "You're not going like it."
Coulson stands and smirks, "Try me, Barton."
Clint smiles. A nervous knock at the door interrupts them, Demorie and Sanden appear. Clint's grin turns mischievous.