Chapter 4
As one of the world's most infamous spies and assassins - you try to keep some room at the top of the list for your own modesty - you know it's possible to completely drop out of sight. It's harder in this day and age of information data, the internet, and technology but it is possible.
Usually it requires a country with a low tech and economic base, but it can be done in others.
It's all about tradecraft. And that's also how to counter it.
But there should be absolutely no way to lose... A body. The Assistant Director of SHIELD.
Maria Hill.
The East Division had immediately mobilized and sent out Search and Rescue teams for the train and any survivors. They'd found a single near-empty, damaged railway car and one wounded survivor. The half-dead agent had set off her emergency transmitter after she'd been wounded, pulling herself up onto the roof of the freight car before it had been emptied but for the bodies of her teammates and left behind on a railway branch.
It was no wonder they'd abandoned it, with the shape it was in. SHIELD was still examining the remnants for clues to it's contents, but what was left of the structure plainly told the investigative team that the Agent Hill's group had put up quite the fight.
Their bodies were all accounted for but for Maria.
So Natasha decided to do her own disappearing act without waiting for orders. Granted, it was harder to vanish in LA, but still possible. Twenty-five hours of travel later she was in Europe, hunting down whomever she could to find a hint of Hill or the people that killed her team… and possibly her.
Natasha rotated her jaw and let her lips twitch minutely. It was the only sign that she allowed that showed her annoyance at her current situation - a facial tic that she broadcasted intentionally. The man in front of her was doing his best to try her patience - without even trying to.
She'd gone all out. Little black dress, strappy heels... Heck, she'd even did the deep shade of red lipstick that General Georgi Luchkov before her was known to like on his mistresses - he bought them enough of it at least.
A tip that he was going to show at a local restaurant with his most recent paramour and a nice hefty - and very public and in plain view of the closest bodyguard - tip to the maitre d' and she'd been seated at the table next to his.
A few words in english during a very staged phone call and she knew she'd been made - all intentional of course - and one of Luchkov's bodyguards had knocked her unconscious when she was in the ladies room.
Granted, the headache was annoying but a small price to pay to get the General and two of goons alone and in a warehouse with her. She'd had more pain from hangovers than what these sorry excuses for Russians were doing to her.
Following the weapons had been part of her plan when she'd disappeared from Los Angeles and SHIELD's oversight.
Not like eastern europe had a lack of sources for illicit black marketeers, she thought wryly as one of the General's minions threw another punch to her jaw. Russia, Chechnya, the Ukraine... Both European and Asian continents were a black marketer's gift shop.
Another blow rocked her head to the side.
Even Clint hits harder than this. He hits like a child.
She wiped her tongue over the small cut on her lip and suppressed a smile. Luchkov was an imbecile, she decided. Show a little leg and the magic of the Little Black Dress and poof… like magic he thought Natasha was a better lamb to feast on than the entrée at the restaurant.
Tease him with a little of the right information and he thought she was a courier from a rival associate. Talk about guns - especially the high tech guns the sole survivor of the attack had said the attackers had used - and he drooled more than he had over his mistress' choice of low cut dress.
Unfortunately, he wasn't giving her information she actually needed to find Maria. Nothing.
Natasha blinked in surprise as her burner phone rang and did her best not to sigh. It was obvious who the caller had to be. Clint knew better and knew that she'd contact him when she could.
Which meant the "interrogation interruptus" could only be from SHIELD.
Of course.
She'd left one or two clues behind in the weeks that she'd scoured several european cities and their intelligence networks for a sign of the missing - not dead... no... missing - Maria Hill. It had been a fruitless search so far but she'd left information she'd found that was still useful to SHIELD in various dead drops.
Fruitless, because almost all of the information that had lead the original SHIELD team to the single railway car and the weapon shipment had disappeared. There was no trail to follow because there were no records of there ever having been a train to begin with.
Even the SHIELD files from the East Division reports on the incident had been corrupted. Not completely, and not even just those particular files, but a virus had been transferred into the Ops system - one of the most advanced and secured computers in the world - and had wormed its way through several rooms of hard drives before being stopped. It had ruined the files of numerous projects - including Maria's original op files.
Someone obviously didn't like them investigating and a full internal and external hunt was happening now as well.
Natasha still had access - Fury wasn't that pissed at her apparently - and had kept track of the recovery process; the search and rescue reports, and the After Action Reports from the the sole surviving agent before all of the files and evidence had disappeared from the mainframes.
It had been enough to give Natasha a place to start, but lead after lead had led to bare whispers only and no concrete evidence or further leads. So she'd gone as far underground as she could, making her way across the continent infiltrating weapon research facilities, calling in numerous markers, and interrogating black market contacts.
Like General Luchkov, a man who couldn't even tell that he was the one being interrogated and not his supposed prisoner.
Tucking the phone under her chin when he agreed to let her speak to whomever was on the other side - amatuer - she greeted her caller.
"We need you to come in."
Coulson... figures. He's lucky she liked the man. Maybe the next time she saw him she'd take his precious trading card set of Captain America hostage. That'd show him.
"Are you kidding? I'm working!" she argued.
"This takes precedence."
"Not to me it... no. I'm in the middle of an interrogation and this moron is talking like he's trying to impress a girl in high school."
"I don't talk," Luchkov muttered in disagreement.
She let an eyebrow rise up out in a look of disbelief at the man. Really, what kind of interrogation techniques did they teach in Russia nowadays?
"Fury needs you in on this. Barton's been compromised."
Her breath stilled for a moment in true surprise.
The man who brought her into SHIELD instead of killing her as he'd been ordered. The brother who treated her like an actual human being instead of a weapon to point at a target... she'd met his wife... his kids... Who was the only one who really knew about how she felt about... Maria… Maria would understand. Maria... Clint...
"Let me put you on hold," the redhead said and then gestured with a nod for her captors to take the phone back.
Bruce Banner had seemed such the mild, mannered scientist… even when he yelled at her in an attempt to see how she would react to him bellowing and lunging for her. She'd pulled her gun out from under the table and was more than ready to pull the trigger - even though she knew it wouldn't end well for her or the men outside… or the city - but that was far different situation than having the monster inside the man destroying everything in it's path with only you as it's target.
Natasha tried to think of something, anything else but the color green that filled her mind's eye.
Green - the color of anger.
She'd never before seen such monstrous fury, as if the Hulk was the very emotion of anger made flesh. If he'd had his way - and if she'd been any slower or less agile - she'd had been a smear on the steel walls and pipes of the helicarrier after one blow.
That was power.
But it wasn't the fact that she believed that she had been about to die that was causing her to freeze up currently. Nor was it solely because of the overpowering fear that could only come from being hunted by an giant, gamma, green rage monster could be. No, it wasn't just that - although a small portion of her mind staring dully at the wall across from her had to admit that that fear was a part of it. No, it was also another emotion that was freezing her in place after she had escaped the Hulk.
This battle of gods, magic, and super humans was beyond what she knew. And while she had used her wits and wiles to trick the plan from the god Loki, there was nothing in her arsenal that could save her from gods and magic.
She tried to settle herself, the sounds of battle and the Hulk's roars echoing down the passageway but the adrenaline kept pouring into her. Sweat trickled down her temples and forehead, the smell of her own fear acrid in her nostrils.
Instead of moving, she was immersed in a memory loop; both of a time before when she had come closest to death and the flight of desperation she had just experienced. Both so alike and yet so different.
It was regret that mixed with her fear; a life built by the Red Room with nothing… no one really of her own to show for it. First it had been a life of using her particular set of skills in the service of Mother Russia and the Red Room. Then to the highest bidder after she'd left their chokehold. And then currently utilizing them in the service of SHIELD, under Fury's direction.
Years of assassination, treachery, theft of secrets, and many other jobs had made her a target. Natasha had accepted the danger, it was part of the consequences of who she was. But it wasn't until after she'd joined SHIELD that she'd come as close to death as she did today.
It was a supposedly simple extraction and protection mission of a defecting Iranian scientist that had almost killed her. Two shots had rang out and destroyed her tires sending them them over a cliff. Years and years of training and skill had saved them both, but then in the next moment the pain had hit as she hovered over the scientist to cover him. They'd gotten out, only to be shot by a silver armed man that she'd only heard of as being a myth. Natasha had lain over the now dead Iranian man, a bullet through her back and out the front of her midsection, and she knew death was coming to collect her.
As her breath labored and her body slowly bled out, only one thing had gone through her mind back then. Not survival; not on the rarely travelled mountain road where it had been improbable for a rescue. Not the fear of death - she was Russian after all, death was inevitable. No, what she regretted back then was that she was going to die alone, that only one or two people might miss her. Clint and maybe Director Fury.
But it was that same regret and distress that threatened to swallow her whole as she currently sat huddled in the guts of the SHIELD helicarrier. Though there were more names to add to that list now; also more regret to wallow in along with the panic that gripped her.
"It's Barton. He took out our systems. He's headed for the detention level. Does anybody copy?" From her earbud the voice of Fury cut into her thoughts like a lifeline.
Clint… One of the few on her list of regrets, whose very mind had been stolen by a thief of a god. Clint… brother and friend.
Natasha gathered herself in an instant and then reached up to her ear comm to reply.
"This is Agent Romanoff. I copy."
She may not be able to go toe to toe with a green, almost god-like creature or even an actual Asgardian one, but she knew Hawkeye.
The Black Widow had a mission - had focus. Fear and regret faded to determination.
Aliens. It just had to be murderous, nasty looking - in need of some serious dental work - aliens with a penchant for world domination and destruction.
Thank God for Thor and those lovely arms of his, or she'd swear all aliens were a Level 1 menace. Granted he was also a menace, along with his "Warriors Four" buddies, but at least he was rather charming. Natasha might be slighted tempted - if you bribed her - to admit that Lady Sif was rather pleasant as well the one or two times they'd met.
At least Thor's loud and boisterous self made him far more enjoyable and fun to be around than Tony. The god could almost drink as well as a Russian… almost.
But Loki's chitauri buddies were absolutely not fun to be around.
Natasha was beyond exhausted. Flying a chitauri craft - hey she steered it, that counted as flying which is more than Clint had done - after battling alongside the entire Avengers' team on the ground. How was she supposed to keep up with enhanced men, a god, and a man in a robot suit?
But she'd done it and now she was waiting for the final order to close the portal.
Avengers. Fury really needs to think up better names for things. It's like he pulls these things out of a hat.
Natasha waited, the scepter already through the forcefield that protected the Tesseract. Doctor Selvig had assured her it would work, that the Scepter touching the Tesseract itself would shut down the space portal.
And she believed him… she had to believe him, otherwise it was all for nothing.
The Scepter seemed to tremble in her hands as if it too was waiting… or fighting her. She could sense the difference between the staff in her hands and the Tesseract before her. One felt… Vast, as if the entire universe lay within it. The one in her hands she disliked immediately. Besides the knowledge that Loki had used it to impale Coulson, it reminded her of the Red Room and how they controlled her; brainwashed her… made her mind theirs. Natasha could almost feel it's tendrils reaching for her thoughts, willing her to submit.
Submit.
It was such a small thing to submit to such overwhelming power. There was no way she could fight gods and magic, so how could Natasha believe that she stood a chance against the power of the Scepter?
Surely it could give her whatever she most desired; together they could do great things. And as a reward… Blue eyes flashed in her mind's eye. Eyes so familiar. So unlike the blue glow… Stormy blue…
"Come on, Stark," Natasha whispered over the comms like a prayer; refusing to yield despite the yearning to.
Submit.
"Close it." Rogers commanded but she could hear the faint reluctance in his voice.
Wrenching her focus back, the Black Widow clenched her teeth and pressed the tip of the Scepter against the Tesseract bringing down the pulse of energy and beginning the closure of the portal.
It was only later after the entire team - including Stark the lucky devil - had gathered in the half-demolished ruin of a Lebanese restaurant and she'd eaten her shawarma, that she felt she could finally take a breather. Hitching a ride back to the helicarrier and her quarters, she was ready for a hot shower and some sleep.
It was then, alone in her cabin with her thoughts, that the loneliness came rushing back.
Sure, they'd rescued Clint - she'd be thinking about that recalibration move whenever he annoyed her - and she thanked God that the man she considered brother was safe and himself, but at that moment she wished she had something more. Right now he was probably on a secure line talking to his wife and at that thought jealousy surged within her. Not at Laura - never at Laura or the kids - but at what they had… What she wished she had. What she always seemed to be denied.
What the Tesseract had offered to her, if only she would capitulate to it. Closing her eyes to rest she thought of what she had been tempted with.
Maria with her beautiful dark hair, strong jaw, and stormy blue eyes.
