Ego Operor Quis Volo
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
21st July, 2012
La Belle Rouge Casino, Paris, France
2000 hrs.
Once, when he was a still green, only just field-rated agent, it had amazed him how quickly he could go from the briefing room to the middle of some far-flung, exotic location. Now, however, it didn't affect him at all, and he was far from green anymore.
The casino, built on the ruins of a former mansion overlooking the Champs Elysees, mimicked the decadence and opulence of the 18th Century, Dom Perignon flowing like water, slender flutes of it nestled in the hands of women dripping in jewels and satins while their men gambled at the tables.
Loki moved through the crowds silently, a ghost in an exquisitely cut tuxedo. Tonight he was blonde, his naturally dark hair lightened by dye. The golden hue browned his skin, made him appear less pale.
Tonight he was playing the part of a businessman, young, cocky and drunk on his own success. Just the type to gamble away a fortune in a casino and not worry about it until his bank manager called.
The assignment was simple. Meet the contact, exchange information, make payment, leave. Simple, quick and easy.
Loki was certain his alias would be allowed an anticipatory smirk at the thought of the night ahead.
Of course, if he just so happened to pick up a lovely companion for the night, so much the better.
With that view in mind, he made his way to the bar, eyes seemingly wandering aimlessly, but far from the truth. He took in every exit, every blind spot, the number of security guards, and then the not so overt security, the only sign of their presence the all-too telltale bulges under the armpit of their tuxedo jackets.
The bar was already packed but Loki sidled his way, pausing beside a glamorous red-head, curls restrained, slender legs displayed by the sheer black gown she wore, as she lit a cigarette impatiently, trying to catch the bartender's eye.
"Excuse me!" she snapped, her New York accent drawling over the syllables. "Who does a girl need to screw to get a drink around here?"
Loki grinned and raised his hand, catching the bartender's eye. "A Black Russian for the lady!"
"And a Bourbon for the gentleman," she added, with a sideways smirk at Loki. "You remembered."
"Always. Now about whom you need to screw…." He trailed off, as she shifted on her stool to face him, the cigarette dangling from her fingertips, lit but unsmoked. He lowered his voice as he took the stool next to her, leaning in so his lips grazed her ear. "No husband this time?"
"Hawkeye's in Antigua. I'm a widow again," she murmured, with a flick of a curl and a seductive smile. "Here on business or pleasure?"
"Oh, always both, my dearest Natasha," Loki grinned, a familiar note of lust seeping into his voice as he regarded the former Russian agent. Freed from a terrorist stronghold in Georgia at the age of ten, Natasha Romanoff had been working for FSB then the CIA as a freelance ever since. Loki had worked with her several times, enough to have become comfortable with one another in more ways than one.
Her operational partner, Clint Barton, call sign: Hawkeye, was another good friend and colleague. Often, the pair would pose as husband and wife when on assignment; hence Natasha's favourite joke being that she was widowed whenever he wasn't partnered with her.
Although both were far more experienced than he, Loki worked well with them, and vice versa. So he was grateful that he would have the infamous Black Widow at his back tonight, at least.
"Well, down boy. Business comes first," Natasha patted his shoulder, before downing her drink in one go. "Our friend? Is he here?"
"Five minutes," Loki replied, sobering slightly now his mind was back on the assignment. The Bourbon burned his throat, focusing his mind as he stood from his stool, offering his arm to Natasha gallantly. "Shall we?"
As they walked through the crowd, Loki glanced down at her dress, clinging, sheer from the top of her thighs down. "Did you actually manage to get a weapon in that dress? Or was there not enough fabric?" he asked, a touch sarcastically as she grinned.
"You know me, Loki. I prefer to get up close and personal," she breathed, pausing for a moment to press against him teasingly.
Loki just smiled and shook his head.
They paused at a balcony, looking down on the roulette and blackjack tables below, the golden chandeliers gilding everything below them, lending the proceedings below an almost unearthly glow, as if reflecting the greed and decadence of the games being lost and won in its aura.
"Table Seven," Loki murmured, eyes scanning the crowd, Natasha's narrowing in on their target.
"Grey jacket, red tie," she breathed. "Just bet on red. Tut, tut."
"So black is our lucky colour tonight?" he retorted, watching her.
"Always. Let's go," she muttered, leading him unobtrusively down the winding, ornate staircase, draped over him like any other opportunistic gold-digger there tonight.
Natasha took a place at the table, while Loki collected some chips, courtesy of Her Majesty's Treasury and the United States Federal Government. They placed one million on the black, and Natasha gave a loud shout of joy when it came up.
A tall, pale man with a heavy Ukrainian accent, resplendent in his grey suit and red tie, leaned in with a smirk. "Your luck is good tonight, friend."
"Ah, but that was only the first throw," Loki replied, giving the pass phrase, as the Ukrainian's eyes shone with relief. "Vassilov."
"Prince," he inclined his head, giving Loki's callsign, the only identification they gave to their contacts and double agents embedded in terrorist organisations. "Widow."
Natasha inclined her head just once, haughtily, before turning her attention back to the table, her eyes scanning the crowd for any suspicious activity.
"Laufey is here," Vassilov hissed, passing Loki a folded note. "He's expecting a big payment. Ten million, dropped on a blackjack table in one of the private rooms. 407."
Loki felt a thrill of anticipation ripple through his gut, but he held it back. He, personally, had been chasing the ex-KGB turned terrorist for five years, for the bombing of the British Embassy in Moscow, among other crimes but the ruthless former assassin and interrogator had been chased from country to country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990.
He was notoriously cunning and evasive, hence why no one had been able to catch him. Loki had come close on numerous occasions but always he slipped from his grasp, like a snake made of smoke. It was almost as if he was teasing Loki, taunting him to come out and play for a much longer, greater game. He had every intention of playing.
Something, however, niggled. "Laufey would never be so stupid as to come in the open," Loki murmured quietly, as Natasha nodded absentmindedly, listening in even as she kept watch. "It'll be an intermediary."
"No, no, I tell truth," Vassilov protested in a furious whisper, his grasp of English deteriorating as he grew distressed. "Laufey is here, he is here!"
"Either way, we can apprehend him," Natasha whispered, with a flirtatious smile in Loki's ear, leaning in slightly as she pointed to the game. "If it's an intermediary, we catch and interrogate him for more leads. If it's Laufey, we bring him in. We win, either way, it might take a little longer one way or the other."
"As the lady wishes," Loki smiled, before turning to the game and sliding a chip from his pocket, surreptitiously handing it to Vassilov. "Put it on the red. 10."
The game was fixed. One way of getting Vassilov's payment to him inconspicuously. Ten million, not a bad rate for a week's reconnaissance work.
"Come along, sweetheart," Loki turned away, Natasha on his arm, his hand drifting over her shapely bottom, ignoring her pinching the inside of his wrist.
"I'm definitely getting you back for that later," she muttered warningly, as he chuckled.
"I'm just in character, darling, no more, no less," he replied with a flash of a smile, and she rolled her eyes. A moment later, they heard a triumphant shout, and applause as the next game finished. Neither looked back.
Until the screaming started.
Loki spun, his eyes quickly flicking to where their contact lay sprawled out, dead, a single bullet wound bleeding out in-between his eyes. Natasha's eyes scanned the crowd, before fixing on a lone gunman, ignoring the screaming masses around him.
"Up there, behind the pillar, sixth from the staircase!" she hissed, and Loki moved, Natasha barely a step behind him as they pushed through the crowd.
Their assassin fled, but Loki dodged one last screaming employee, and jumped up, grabbing the edge of the balcony and pulling himself up and over.
"Move!" he shouted, as he sprinted after Vassilov's killer, Natasha pausing to throw away her heels and unhook the Beretta strapped to her thigh, Loki going for his own gun. "Out of the way! Move!"
The assassin smashed through an employee access door, and onto a fire escape, as Loki followed, Natasha catching up as they reached the bottom of the stairwell. They ducked backwards as a hail of gunfire met them, Natasha returning a few as Loki squinted through the smoke.
"He's getting away!" he snarled in frustration, before going for the coil of high-tensile wire hidden in his belt. Unclipping the belt buckle, he slipped it around both his and Natasha's waist, before gathering his strength and lassoing the buckle around one of the upper stair rails. The magnetic clamps kicked in immediately, holding on tightly to the metal railing. Natasha covered them as they ascended the stairwell, Loki catching hold of the railing, as they detached and hauled themselves over.
"You never cease to amaze me, Odinson," she hissed, as Loki chuckled.
"Always full of them, Romanoff," he replied, as they rushed after their assassin.
"Full of it, is one way of describing you," Natasha chuckled. "Is there anything else in that belt I should be worried about, or was it a one trick wonder?"
"Careful, you'll hurt Q Branch's feelings," he retorted, as they reached the top, to find the door jammed. With a gesture, he turned to Natasha. "Ladies first."
With a grin, Natasha spun and flicked her leg out, the deadly move with enough force to break someone's neck, smashing the door open, the sound reverberating through the stairwell.
"Remind me never to make you mad at me," Loki muttered quietly, before cocking his gun and leading the way out.
The Paris night was awash with sirens and shouting, as the cacophony inside the casino spilled out onto the street. The casino was surrounded by much larger buildings either side, and Loki just spotted the assailant, tall, pale and clad in a grey tuxedo, throw himself over the edge, grabbing hold of a fire escape on the closest building. Loki threw himself after him, Natasha always at his side, not bothering to waste bullets as the assassin paused every so often to throw some heat their way.
Amateur then. A professional wouldn't have wasted time taking potshots.
The alleyway below them was pitch-black but for the streetlamps at either end, one leading towards the main square, the other to a smaller one that led off into the many, labyrinthine streets of Paris.
"Which way?" Natasha hissed, as they jumped the last level to the street. Their assassin had disappeared, and Loki snarled under his breath.
Just then, they heard a gunshot, coming from the smaller square and they both sprinted towards it without thought, keeping their weapons fixed on all the potential exits and lines of fire.
The square was small, barely lit, surrounded by shops and cafes, long closed for the night. They both paused as they saw the figure lying on the ground, blood leaking from a bullet wound to the chest.
Loki checked the surrounding windows and rooftops, before cautiously edging out into the open, gun at the ready. But no shot came.
Sure enough, their assassin lay there, dead. Nondescript and plain, apart from the expensive tuxedo, Loki would never had looked twice at him in a crowd.
He also didn't recognise him from the list of Laufey's known associates and employees. Definitely an amateur then.
And from the look of it, he was merely bait too. Laufey was never at that casino, he was never going to that casino. It had all been bait, to ferret out the informant.
But why not kill him before? Why so publicly? A warning to other informants possibly lurking in his organisation's ranks?
Natasha interrupted Loki's reverie, as she bent down, carefully extracting a crumpled note, lying on the dead man's lapel.
Nice try, son. Better luck next time.
Loki growled once, before crumpling the note in his fist. With a jerk of the head he turned away. "Come on. Let's go."
As quickly and quietly as the shadows they lived in, they disappeared into the night.
"Well, that was a waste of time," Loki hissed, once they made his hotel room. Natasha unstrapped her Beretta, throwing it on the table with a sigh.
"The intel was sound. We had no indication Vassilov was compromised," she retorted. "So quit beating yourself up over it."
Loki snarled at that, yanking his curtains shut, before shedding his jacket and throwing his gun down beside Natasha's. "We're going to get hell for this," he rubbed his face, running a finger along his top lip. "What I don't understand is why. We know Laufey's usual MO for getting rid of informants, and this doesn't fit the bill. Why so publicly, in so risky a way? Even if his sniper hadn't got rid of the assassin, we could still have caught up with him."
"Which was exactly why there was a sniper," Natasha pointed out, removing her stockings and rubbing her sore, bloodied feet from their pursuit. "We both know I could have had him talking in minutes."
"You always do," Loki smirked, eying her appreciatively, as he sank into a large wingback in the living area. "Have you informed Fury yet?"
"I sent him a preliminary report," she replied lightly. "I'll brief him fully when I get back to Washington. You?"
"H is already snapping at my heels," Loki sighed. "He didn't even give me a chance to file a preliminary report. How the hell he knew, I don't know."
"He sees and knows all," Natasha joked, before straightening up with a coy smile. "Well, my flight isn't until midday tomorrow, so we have twelve hours to kill."
Loki's smile deepened, as lust rose again. After the failure of the night, he needed a way to work out his frustration, and he guessed, despite her easygoing attitude, so did Natasha. "What do you suggest, my dear Black Widow?" he asked huskily, enjoying the conscious shudder that ran down her lithe figure.
Her smile was every bit as seductive and knowing, as she shrugged and walked towards the bathroom. "I need a shower. Care to join me?"
Loki uncrossed his legs, and with a dark grin, followed her into the bathroom.
In a warehouse halfway across the world, a figure stood in the darkness, his face barely illuminated by the laptop screen open in front of him.
He was like a black hole in the echoing, cavernous room, sucking in all light so he was nothing, not even darkness within darkness, as the screen showed images of a tall, blonde haired man in an exquisitely fitted tuxedo, gun in hand, the infamous Black Widow at his side.
The blue light of the laptop screen showed only one thing; the slow, sly smile of anticipation spreading across his face.
At last. After thirty-one years, at last his vengeance was within his grasp.
His voice echoed, rough and accented, across the warehouse, to the lackeys waiting just within the shadows, like worshippers fearfully and reverently awaiting their god. "Make ready. We leave tonight."
"Where, Sir?"
"Why, England, of course. The game is just beginning."
A/N: So just a little update if you'd thought I had forgotten this one. I never will, I just have a lot on my plate.
So you've got action, intrigue, a little hint of BlackFrost (Don't panic. It's not the main pairing for this story), and hopefully you enjoyed it :)