I survived finals everyone. For a moment there, I didn't think I would make it…
My brain hurts. I can't adult anymore.
Don't do college, kids.
P.S. Remember that this story is rated T for violence. There are some bloody scenes in this chapter.
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but the storyline
I'm sinking like a stone
Never felt something like this before
And we're drowning
We need saving
This ended long ago
I've met someone like you before
And we're drowning
We need saving
SHIELD Central Base – 08:00 hours
He was dead. Oh god, he was so dead.
When Phil had begun the mission report to their director, it had been almost mundane and ordinary. His handler started with a quick run-down of how they had set up for the mission, how they had scouted the area in two weeks leading up to its accumulation, the steps that they took to ensure that their target would be in the right place at the right time, capturing and replacing Mr. Stevenson, so on and so forth. Fury seemed to almost zone out during Phil's speech, although it was always hard to tell due to the unchanging expression on his face, arms crossed as he leaned lazily against his desk.
And then Phil mentioned the Widow.
Fury immediately snapped to attention, his eye(s?) zeroing in on Phil with the piercing glare that he was so infamous for, proverbial hackles raised.
"What."
Phil quickly paused in his report, his mouth snapping shut as Fury slowly pushed off of his desk to stand straight and tall.
"W-We encountered an unknown entity," Phil quickly collected himself, "Who attempted to make off with the package. Agent Barton went in pursuit, tracked her down and fought her. After making contact with the unknown enemy, Agent Barton claimed that he recognized her fighting style as that utilized by Agent Romanov –"
Fury's eye immediately swept over to Clint and locked on him with the intensity of a sniper rifle. Clint resisted the urge to shift nervously, but carefully avoided making eye contact with his director by fixing his gaze on a spot just above the man's shoulder.
"And where is this Widow exactly?" Fury asked in a dangerously calm tone, "And why am I only hearing about this now?"
Clint couldn't help the slight cringe that stole across his face.
Phil coughed delicately before continuing. "We captured her briefly, but it seems that she had allies in the area and we… lost her… sir."
So fucking screwed. Clint thought.
For a moment, Fury just stared at them.
"Are you telling me," Their director said lowly in a tight voice that rose in volume with every word, "That there is another Black Widow running around out there, and now we have no idea where she is?!"
Now both Phil and Barton were wincing.
"Yes, sir." They both chorused glumly like chastised children.
Fury leaned against his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out a loud sigh. "Motherfucker." He muttered, before leaning over his desk and tapping his landline.
"Agent Hill." A female voice sounded from the intercom. "What can I do for you, sir?"
"Send up Agent Romanov. Tell her it's urgent." Fury ordered Agent Hill. Then he turned to glance at Phil. "That is all I need from you for now, Agent Coulson. You are dismissed."
Phil nodded professionally, and turned to walk out of the director's office. He caught Clint's eye and gave him a sympathetic look before the door closed behind him.
Not five minutes later, Natasha arrived in all of her Russian redheaded glory, striding into Fury's office in that quiet, predatory manner of hers, all the while looking as if she belonged on a catwalk. Clint eyed the way she moved, the silence of her footsteps, how her eyes seemed to study the entire room in one look, that calculating gaze that always seemed to be measuring everything and everyone as a potential threat.
That girl had been the same way, too. Clint thought, thinking about the way the girl had studied him, studied the other agents, even Phil, sizing them up and determining their weaknesses with just a glance.
"You called, director?" Natasha asked as she came to stand next to Clint. Unconsciously, Clint's body relaxed at her proximity, seamlessly falling into the familiarity of their partnership.
Fury seemed lost in thought for a moment, before his gaze turned to study the two agents. "We have a unique situation on our hands."
That's an understatement.
"You're gonna love this." Fury said to Natasha, who raised her brows at their director. "On their last mission, Agent Phil and Agent Barton ran into a rather… unique enemy operative."
Natasha sent a questioning glance towards her partner, but Clint gave a small shake of his head, knowing that she would ask him questions later.
"Romanov." Fury stared intently at Natasha. "According to Agent Barton, this operative showed evidence of being trained as a Black Widow."
It was a testament to how shocked Natasha was, as her stoic façade dropped and her expression clearly showed her surprise. Eyes wide, she glanced between Fury and Clint, as if unsure which one to interrogate first.
"W-What?" She exclaimed in a low voice, near breathless.
Fury sent Clint an expectant look, silently demanding him to explain. The archer turned to face his partner.
"She fought like you." He began, "That's what first tipped me off. Not many can keep up with you or me in hand-to-hand combat, but she did. So I tested her with that one move that you always counter with the 'roundabout' –"
Natasha wrinkled her nose at his awful nickname.
" –and she countered it perfectly. If my eyes had been closed, I could imagine that it was you." Clint rubbed his bruised chin. "When you're angry, anyway."
The redhead snorted but otherwise said nothing, allowing her partner to continue.
"She was about 5'4 or 5'5 –"
"In European terms, Clint."
He smirked at Natasha. "I mean, she was about 162 to 165 centimeters. Short but quick on her feet, and surprisingly strong for a girl, judging by the bruises on my body."
"Shouldn't you know better than to underestimate a woman by now?" Natasha quirked an eyebrow at him, chastising him in a teasing manner.
Instead of returning her jest, Clint became somber. "That's the thing, Tash. I thought she was older at first, but when we were sitting in the van… she was young, Tasha. Early twenties, if I had to guess."
His partner frowned.
"I thought the Black Widow program had been scrapped after you left?" Fury finally cut in, staring at Natasha with a narrowed eye. It had been assumed that the Black Widow program had been cancelled thirty years ago, but for the girl to be only twenty years old... Clearly, they had been wrong.
"It was!" Natasha protested defensively. She crossed her arms, cupping her chin with a hand. "As far as I know, anyway. I only heard about the end of the program through my contacts." She sent Clint a wry glance. "The Soviets and I were not on the best of terms after I defected."
Clint snorted at the understatement. The Soviets had been pissed about losing their best operative and the last surviving Black Widow agent. They sought revenge against Natasha herself, and Clint, who had been the reason she betrayed them. He couldn't even begin to count how many men the USSR had thrown at them in an attempt to kill them. After Natasha left, the rumors said that the Soviets had given up on the Black Widow program.
"So say this girl is a Black Widow." Fury glared at the two of them in his frustration. "Why is this the first time we are hearing about this? And if there are, how recent could they have been? Was there more than one generation of Black Widows? How many are out there now?"
"Probably not as many as you think." Natasha replied grimly. "We were sent on suicide missions, most of the time. Most of us did not live to the age of 20. There were twenty-eight girls in my generation, and I am the only surviving member."
"What if this next generation is larger?" Fury asked, frowning at the implications. "One Black Widow was a pain in the ass," –Natasha smirked– "But twenty? Or thirty? We would lose over half of our forces attempting to track them down and stop them."
Fury began to pace, which was a very bad sign. "Can you imagine the chaos they could cause in the international community? The best assassins ever created… Russia could control politics around the world from the shadows, like some fucked up puppet master."
"I wonder how many they have already taken out, under our very noses." Clint muttered.
Fury paused in his pacing to glare at the archer. "Thank you, Barton."
Oh, he's pissed. Clint grimaced.
Their director sighed for the umpteenth time. "Okay then." He stated finally, straightening his shoulders as he began to plan. "We need to find this girl and bring her in. And you two are the only agents in the world that are capable of doing that."
Clint nodded; he had expected as much. "But where do we start, sir? The mission was a week ago; she could be anywhere by now. We have no leads, no name, not even a face!"
Fury opened his mouth to answer him, but it was Natasha who answered Clint.
"Really now, Clint." She chided. "Why do you think I am here? If anyone can track down a Widow, it's another Widow."
Buenos Aires, Argentina – 18:32
One month later…
It took them a month – a month! – to track the elusive girl down, but finally Natasha found a lead. Clint had no idea how she had been able to do it, and to be honest he probably didn't want to know, because despite how she had 'reformed' for SHIELD, there were still dark bits of her that would always be the assassin that she had been raised to be. She never mentioned it, and Clint carefully paid it no mind.
They were in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, a city that was both modern and rugged. Its European similarities made Clint nostalgic for cities such as Madrid or Vienna, but then there would be something distinctly Latin – salsa music drifting up from the square, the smell of South American beer, asado and tapas drifting up from a restaurant below them – that would remind him of his true location. It really was a gorgeous city, not too posh like Paris, and not too gritty like Mexico City, and not too cold and rainy like London, decorated with bright graffiti and modern art, the people speaking in the rolling tongues and lilting tones of American Spanish. He made a mental note to come back one day, when Fury would finally let him take a vacation (not that he ever would).
For once, I get to be in South America without having to trudge through tropical forests or to worry about drug cartels and arms dealers. Clint thought with some dry humor. Hey, he might even have time to grab a souvenir this time!
"Pay attention, Clint." Natasha's voice rang in his ear. He glanced down from his perch on the rooftops, quickly spotting the head of bright ginger hair that was his partner as she blended into the crowds of people walking the streets below.
"How do you do that?" Clint whined good-naturedly as he readjusted his scope and zeroed in on her location. "You can't even see me."
She snorted into her comm. "Because I know you."
It was late November, which was spring/early summer for the southern hemisphere, the afternoon pleasantly warm as a crisp ocean breeze blew in from the bay. The streets were filled with vendors displaying their wares for the new season, live bands on ever other corner playing those upbeat Spanish rhythms, the crowd heavy with excitement as the Argentinian independence holiday neared, evidenced by the large amount of national flags hanging from in possible space.
They were nowhere near the city center, which was no doubt much more crowded than their current location, yet even from their position in the suburbs, the city-scape was impressive. The sheer amount of tall buildings, pressed tightly together, fire escapes and a web of telephone lines, was practically a playground for Clint and Natasha. He loved the feeling of flying he got as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop, leaping off of telephone poles and sliding down the lines.
"Someone's having fun." Natasha commented as she rounded another corner, pretending to idly walk the streets as she scanned for some sort of evidence of their quarry.
"I am." Clint replied smugly.
"As long as you aren't distracted from the mission."
"You know I never would." Clint sniffed, offended at the insinuation. He was a professional! "You're just jealous that I get the fun job while you walk around aimlessly until something pops up."
Her lack of an answer reinforced his statement, making the archer snicker. To her credit, they had been at this all day. They were lucky to get a lead on the girl, but that did not mean that the mission would be easy from then on out. As far as covert information goes, knowing what city she would be in narrowed their search down considerably.
However Buenos Aires was no small town, and looking for one girl in a city of three million was like looking for a needle in a haystack. They knew that her target was the leader of a South American crime syndicate – again, Natasha's intel that he dared not to question – but they did not even know where her target was located either. Clint wasn't just jumping around because he was energetic, he was nervous. Going in blind was one of the worst-case scenarios for a spy, and 8 out of 10 times such a mission ended in blood.
At about seven in the afternoon local time, the distant sound of sirens drew their attention. Without any other clue to their quarry's whereabouts, they decided to follow the sound.
"Let's get there before the cops do." Natasha said quickly, ducking into an alley and breaking into a run and leaping onto a fire escape. She scaled it swiftly, leaping onto the rooftops in time to see Clint running ahead of her. She followed after him, jumping over alleyways and swinging across telephone lines.
They glanced at each other, grinning with adrenaline. Clint let out a huff of laughter. "Told you it was more fun up here."
She snorted, but couldn't suppress her smirk.
They arrived at the building that appeared to be the target of the sirens. There was already a crowd of people surrounding the ground entrance, a couple families hovering by the doorway, huddled together and crying as smoke rose from the windows of the building.
It was a four-story structure, likely an apartment complex. The top floor was leaking smoke, not black enough to be a fire, but something of definitely burning. The sirens rounded the corner at the end of the street.
"We need to do this quickly." Clint muttered, jumping onto the rooftop under the cover of the smoke, Natasha following behind him.
They landed with a grunt and a roll, coming to their feet and launching themselves towards the door. They had five minutes – ten at most – before the authorities reached the top floor. Clint used his pistol to shoot the lock on the roof door, the sound of the shot muffled by a silencer. A split second later, he was kicking the door down, and he and his partner practically flew down the stairs to the fourth floor.
When they arrived in top corridor, it looked like a war zone. There were three bodies in the main hallway alone, and every door had been kicked down, the people within shot dead as well. Most were clean kills – a shot to the head, two to the chest. Cold war tactics.
Clint and Natasha glanced at each other, communicating wordlessly. They split up, Clint studying the bodies while Natasha investigated the rooms.
"All of these people have gang tattoos." Clint said into his earpiece, picking up a woman's arm and turning it over to read it. In the world of crime, tattoos were like dogtags – they could tell one's affiliation, rank, even specialty. "No civilians, thankfully."
He quickly scanned each of the rooms, noting that the smoke they had seen from outside was coming from burning piles of paper. File compartments and book shelves had been cleaned out, their contents dumped into the middle of the room and lit aflame. Someone was destroying information. But for what?
"I found the target." Natasha replied through the comm. Clint dropped the arm and followed her into the room at the end of the hall. Upon entering the room, he winced.
Okay… this girl is scary.
Red covered the floor and the walls.
The man had clearly been tortured, tied to a chair and filleted like a piece of meat. A couple fingers littered the ground, his ear had been cut off and lay in his lap, and finally, he had been shot in the head, spraying an explosion of blood and brain matter across the wall behind him.
Clint gagged slightly, rubbing his nose at the smell. It wasn't his first time seeing a gory mess such as this, it wasn't even the worst that he had ever seen really, but he never got used to it like his partner. Natasha was appeared unaffected, as usual.
Calmly, she strode forward and grabbed the dead man by his hair, pulling his head up form where it had been resting on his chest. She studied the man's face for a moment, frozen in a look of shock and pain, eyes glazed over and dull.
"She would have started with the fingers." Natasha narrated in a voice devoid of emotion. She dropped the head and bent down to pick up a finger.
It would not have been the first time Clint saw Natasha handle dead bodies so carelessly, and he always commended her nerve, but it still made chills run down his spine. He, personally, disliked picking up discarded limbs.
"Nails first," Natasha said distractedly, as if she was imagining how the situation might have gone. The finger was indeed missing a nail, as were the others, when Clint glanced down at them. "Then when all of his nails were gone, she would start on the toenails."
Clint glanced down and noticed that the body was missing his shoes, and the toes were indeed missing their nails, and a few toes too, which he noticed had joined the fingers on the bloodied carpet.
"After removing the nails, she begins cutting off fingers," A glance at Natasha's face showed that she was no longer attentive to the situation. Her eyes were unfocused, engrossed in a faraway memory, perhaps.
Sometimes I forget that this is what she was capable of, at one time. Clint thought to himself, glancing over the body again, and then amended, And perhaps, what she is still capable of.
"After the fingers, we start cutting off the toes," Her voice was faraway, soft, hand clenching the finger in her hand. Clint made a mental note to offer her hand sanitizer later.
Wait –'we'? He was no longer studying the body, but his partner. Natasha's face was expressionless, but there was a darkness in her gaze that reminded him of the woman she had been when they had first met.
Natasha's eyes traveled down the body. "But not all of the toes are gone," She glanced at the ear laying on the man's lap. "She got hasty – something scared her off, or she was in a hurry. She cut off his ear, hoping it would quicken the process. From the look of things, it worked."
She dropped the finger and picked up the ear. "And when we get the information we are looking for, we cut the loose ends." Natasha's eyes lingered on the hole in the man's forehead.
Clint placed a calming hand on her shoulder, and turned his partner away from the body. He looked into her eyes, past the walls that kept her emotions at bay, and saw the inner turmoil that she hid from the world. As much as Clint had learned to read his partner over the years, he still had trouble deciphering her feelings most times… Such as now. He couldn't tell if she was angry or frustrated, or maybe even afraid. The sight of Black Widow torture techniques had shaken her; that much he was sure of.
He wondered whether she was shaken due to the brutal technique, or if she was remembering a similar scenario in her own past. Had she once tortured a man so ruthlessly, without any sympathy? He dared not think of the answer.
But these thoughts were useless. They had a mission to complete, and their target was now within their grasp.
Next chapter will be up soon, and we finally get to see the infamous Black Widow girl! But in the meantime, click that Review button for me, please! Reviews fuel my inspirations!
A big 'THANK YOU' to everyone that has reviewed so far. I know that 13 reviews doesn't seem like much, but honestly it is so much more than I expected this early in the story. So thank you, thank you, thank you!
~Lilithia