Chapter Four

Natasha kicked in the door, slightly disappointed when she found nothing. She turned to see Juliette return from checking the last door and shook her head. Nothing.

"It's been used," Juliette said for no reason, they could both see that. She was trying to sound cheerful. Natasha couldn't understand why, she wasn't upset.

"Recently," she agreed. Juliette did deflate slightly, looking around at the dirty warehouse. There was nothing there except the leftovers of what looked to be a soup kitchen and some clean, ex-medical labs on the upper floors. Half homeless shelter half hospital.

"Five years, judging by the rats."

"Since when are you an expert in abandoned buildings?" Natasha asked as she poked the empty crates piled up. A rat jumped out at her before scurrying away.

"I Googled it." Juliette sat down on the crates. "They're not here."

"No." Natasha sat next to her, ignoring the rats. "Juliette-"

"It's our only lead, Tasha, and they're not here. We've been looking for these people for years now."

"We don't have a lead on Jupiter either, don't let it crush you." Natasha didn't get why Juliette had to be so invested in finding these people. Juliette gave her a strange look for half a moment.

"You and Clint did so much, I've been given one little thing to do with Phil's dream and I can't muck it up. I'm not an Avenger, so I have to find them." Natasha sighed, sometimes their pseudo family was less of an advantage.

"Finding them isn't going to change anything."

"I mucked the last two up, I just want to find these people and go back to slitting throats." Natasha smirked at that.

"We're going back, there's nothing here. We'll start again." She pulled Juliette up, the two of them standing there for a moment. "But first we're going back to base and you're beating a dummy up."

"Tea first," Juliette countered. "Then dummy." Natasha let herself smirk a bit more at that, in her experience hitting things was remarkably satisfying and tea, apparently, made everything slightly better.

They walked back to the airfield and Juliette fired the plane's engines up as they went through pre-flight.

"Mede, Romanoff," Hill's voice cut through their checks. "Change course, you're going to Chicago. A situation has arisen. Your cover set-up will be waiting for you there."

"What about Agent Coulson and Agent Barton?" Natasha asked immediately, she hated it when someone else gave them orders. It was too much like when Phil had been, dead for want of a better term.

"They are remaining in Ontario to look for Hornet. You have clearance to fly from Holguin to Chicago. Hill out." Natasha punched in the new course. They were used to being told to change direction but she had thought for a moment they would stay on the same case all the way through.

"Looks like that training dummy is going to have to wait," Natasha said quietly as they took off. Juliette would have gotten over her frustration as soon as there was something else to think about. She wouldn't forget or move on, she just wouldn't mention it until they were back in New York.

"Has the brief come through?" asked Juliette immediately, Cuba pushed aside. Natasha nodded, reading out from the computer screen.

"Sudden illness sweeping the city, homeless shelters are facing dozens of ill and dying people, hospitals haven't recorded anything yet because the affected are too poor to even bother going to hospital. I'm a volunteer shelter worker, you're a vagrant. We're to see what's going on. Our doctors have had a look at a patient and it's not swine or any known disease. It's also not infectious in any way they can determine. There's wardrobe for you at the safe-house."

"Does it list the symptoms?"

"Severe seizures, loss of control over limbs and muscles, followed by a coma then death. So far, four people have died in hospital with those symptoms after being admitted less than twenty four hours beforehand. Another seventeen are in earlier stages, each hospital and doctor is giving a different diagnosis. The estimates here are that another fifty are in shelters or on the streets ill, and probably at least ten have died. The first case was two days ago."

"There's leeway in the figures, for people who died alone before reaching hospital, on the streets, in shelters or outside Chicago." Natasha heard Juliette sigh and their eyes met.

"It doesn't say," Natasha answered the silent question. "They don't know." The symptoms weren't recorded as contagious and SHIELD didn't have any idea.

"And the majority of the people who are ill, what do they have in common?"

"Eighty per cent are homeless." Juliette was about to take the cover of a homeless girl, one of the people who were apparently being targeted. SHIELD didn't investigate swine flu outbreaks. "The other twenty per cent don't have anything in common. The maths is estimated." Natasha shook her head, they weren't even in Chicago and already they had the risk of Juliette getting infected as well.

"Remind me to speak American when we get there, I don't think I can be bothered to come up with some explanation about my accent." Juliette changed subject quickly as they flew over Tennessee.

"Don't base it on my intonation; you've learnt that that doesn't work." Natasha got a half smile for that.

"Is this any better?" Phil's voice asked, almost perfectly.

"You listen to him talk too much."

"Phil talks too much when he's got nothing else to do," Juliette countered only for them both to immediately fall silent. Phil had spent weeks talking to no one but Juliette, when everyone else thought he was dead.

"Water?" Natasha offered quietly, pulling two bottles out. Juliette took it readily. They stayed quiet for most of the flight, until Juliette began to bring them down to land.

"They filmed-" In half a second Natasha did a run-down of what Juliette could possibly say next.

"Supernatural." Green eyes went wide next to her. "What else do you watch that's filmed in the States?" They had landed before Juliette could come up with an answer.

"Star Trek."