Sorry for the wait everyone. Holiday traveling and everything. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!
I OWN NOTHING BUT THE PLOT
I'm bad luck, you know
Follows me around everywhere I go,
I don't need your sympathy,
I need a fuckin' miracle,
Red wine, teeth stain
It's been a long day
SHIELD hover carrier – 13:30 Argentina (Coordinate Universal Time)
Clint and Natasha left the brig at a run, knocking into various other agents who were all too busy to stop and talk to them. The other men were hastily pulling on their armor as they ran, tugging their guns forward and clicking off the safety. The alarms on the walls were flashing bright red, accompanied by the shrill of sirens. Agent Hill's voice no longer sounded over the intercom. Finally, Clint grabbed the collar of one of the soldiers and slammed him into the wall.
"What's going on, soldier?" Clint demanded.
The man took a second before he recognized Hawkeye, and lifted the visor of his helmet to reply. "Unknown aircraft are attacking the ship, sir! A larger carrier has been spotted approaching starboard! We believe that they are going to attempt to board the ship!"
Clint let go of the man, who ran off in the direction of the anticipated attack. He looked at his partner with an alarmed expression. Natasha's face was grim.
"Time to suit up." She said as she pulled out her guns.
With a wordless nod, the two agents followed in the direction that the soldier had disappeared to. They stumbled several times as the ship shuddered through the attacks from outside, the distant sounds of bombs and explosions echoing down the metal hallways.
A giant shudder ran through the hull of the ship, knocking both of them off their feet and slamming them into the walls as the world tilted and the wall somehow became the floor for a terrifying moment. Then gravity took over, and the ship righted itself, the entire hull was now tilted somehow.
"The hell was that?!" Clint swore as he got to his feet, rubbing his bruised side.
Natasha's eyes were wide when they met his gaze. "I think someone took out one of the rotors."
"Shit!" Clint cursed.
"The enemy has boarded the ship!" Agent Hill's voice suddenly rang through the damaged intercom, her voice periodically interrupted by static. "Reinforcements to the bridge! I repeat – reinforcements to th –"
They hear Agent Hill curse as she is somehow separated from the intercom and the sound of a firefight echoes over the comm.
"Let's go!" Clint yells, Natasha on his tail as they change direction and head to the bridge.
Upon arriving, the entire room is in chaos. The control room has been taken over by a firefight between SHIELD agents and armed men in unidentified uniforms. Clint and Natasha pause behind the doorway, glancing over the room.
A small carrier ship of a strange design seemed to have penetrated the outer defenses of the helicarrier and managed to crash through the windows of the bridge, allowing soldiers to board straight into the control room. The floor of the control room was littered with the bodies of those agents that had been manning the ship during the attack, engineers and pilots that were supposed to be non-combative but caught in the crossfire.
It was obvious that the SHIELD agents had arrived too late, as it looked like most of the personnel that were regularly stationed in the room were dead. The SHIELD reinforcements were on the defensive, hiding behind overturned desks and behind doorways, popping out to shoot at the attackers before taking cover. The two sides seemed to be at a standstill, the attackers having total control of the bridge, but having trouble pushing through SHIELD agents to go any further into the ship.
"Time to stop playing it safe." Natasha growled beside Clint, annoyed that the enemies had managed to make it this far. Those men should not be this hard to take out!
"Cover me?" She asked as she readied herself.
"Of course." Clint answered just as the Russian shot out of their cover and ran towards the opposition with her pistols blazing.
At first the attackers were caught off guard, Natasha downing three men before they managed a response. In a familiar pattern, Clint began picking off the men who were taking aim at Natasha, while the Widow was jumping all over the place, using her acrobatics to dodge bullets while shooting the men closest to her.
Seeing the Black Widow in action, the other SHIELD agents emerged from their hiding spots and joined the fight. Now they had a chance.
The two sides were evenly matched now, firing back and forth. But for every man that SHIELD agents took out, the attackers would return the favor. Even Natasha had been forced to back off from the offensive, taking refuge among the other SHIELD soldiers as the opposition increased the ferocity of their attacks.
"At this rate, we're all gonna die." Natasha griped as she retreated to stand next to Clint, eyes still focused on the fight, and occasionally taking a shot. She paused to wipe her forehead with her arm. "It pains me to say this, but these bastards are good."
Clint nodded in agreement. The enemy soldiers were wearing good armor, so unless he managed to spot a weak point, his arrows were useless.
"Kevlar and porcelain plating." Clint growled. "I need a rifle…"
"Too late for that." Natasha hissed just as a something rolled across the floor.
"Grenade!" Someone yelled, and the two agents threw themselves backwards just as an explosion rocked the control room. It had been a smoke bomb, filling the air with an opaque gas that made both sides pause in their fighting.
And then a lithe figure darted into the fray.
No one could tell what side the person was one, due to the smoke, only that there was suddenly movement, quickly followed by the sound of bodies hitting the floor.
"It's the target!" An unfamiliar voice yelled across the room.
Natasha and Clint squint through the smoke, which is steadily clearing as wind drafts through the broken windows. The shadow is attacking their enemies, leaping from a desk to tackle one of the soldiers before popping back up and hurtling towards another enemy.
"It's the girl!" Natasha hisses beside him in shock.
Clint sees it now – a petite figure in an ill-fitting SHIELD uniform that she must have stripped from a dead agent, dodging bullets with unbelievable speed.
The girl – One-seventeen – grabbed the barrel of a gun, ripping it out of the man's hands and smashing the butt of the gun into his forehead when he was yanked forward. Several other soldiers began to shoot, but she spun around the body and held it up like a shield, shooting back at them from over the dead man's shoulder. She ducked down beneath a desk and must have shot at their legs, because suddenly the enemies closest to her were collapsing with pained yells. The girl leaps over a desk and slams down onto one of the men, shooting him point-blank in the face, before jumping up and dodging as another soldier tried to body slam her. She stepped to the side, just enough so that the man did not touch her, and then rammed her elbow into the back of his helmet, knocking him into the ground and shooting the back of his neck. Three more men attack her, but she's in the air, springing off of a chair and landing on his shoulders, shooting down into his head and pushing off of his body to dodge more bullets. She lands on another desk, and then to the floor, where she lands in a roll, coming back up to shoot another man in the groin. He falls with a scream, and she shoots his forehead. The last man is shooting at her relentlessly, but she's moving so fast that she's a blur, spinning and dodging – and then she's somehow behind him, and she shoots the back of his knees.
The man gasps and falls to his knees, the girl kicks the gun out of his hands and knocks his helmet off of his head, grabbing his hair and yanking him backwards. His hands immediately come up in an attempt to stop her, but she shoots both of his shoulders, right into the sockets, no doubt shattering his joints. His arms fall uselessly to the side.
"Shit…" Clint whistles, impressed.
The girl drops her gun and pulls out a knife, holding it against the shell of the soldier's ear. "Who sent you?" She growls.
"We need to stop her." Natasha says as she begins to walk towards the center of the room, now littered with bodies. "If she gets the information she wants, she'll kill him before we can interrogate him."
"Answer me!" The Widow hisses as she slices off the man's ear. He screams and tries to jerk away from her, but she has a firm grasp of the back of his neck, nails digging into the skin.
"Put it down, One-seventeen!" Natasha orders, aiming her gun at the girl. "Let us take him into custody."
Clint stood beside her, arrow drawn and aimed at the hand which holds her knife. But the girl does not even glance up at their voice, but continues to hold the man, moving her knife to just below his eye.
"If they take you," She murmurs in the man's ear, "They will be much nicer about interrogation than I am. So answer my questions, and maybe I'll let them take care of you. They might even put you back together, sweet little Americans as they are."
She emphasizes her point by leaning her elbow into his wounded shoulder and putting enough pressure on the injury to make him whimper.
"Stand down, One-seventeen!" Natasha snaps.
"I d-don't know a-anything!" The man gasps through the pain. "They only t-tell us what the t-target is!"
"Which would be me…" One-seventeen growled, ignoring another warning from the SHIELD agents. "Did you see who your captain received orders from?"
"I swear I didn't!" The man trembled.
The girl snarled in disgust and, glancing at the SHIELD agents, kicked the man towards them. With four injured limbs, the man sprawled forward onto the floor.
"You can have him." She snapped, dropping the knife and holding her hands up in surrender.
Clint hurried forward to check on the man, while Natasha kept her gun trained on the girl.
"On your knees." She ordered the One-seventeen, who wordlessly complied. Natasha stepped behind her and handcuffed the girl.
"How did you even get out of the cell?" Natasha muttered under her breath. The cuffs they had used on the girl had been industrial strength, required an electronic key and could not be picked. The young Widow just smirked.
SHIELD hover carrier – 18:17 Argentina (Coordinate Universal Time)
"HOW THE HELL DID THOSE GUYS FIND US?!" Fury's voice shook the windows of the viewing bay of his office, which overlooked the now-destroyed control room.
Agents Hill, Barton, and Romanov were with him, discussing the events of the ambush. After the fire squad that attempted to seize the ship had been dispatched, the attacking jets that had accompanied them had then turned around and retreated. Now the helicarrier was slowly limping back to base, slowly making its way back north to the United States for repairs. But besides the damaged rotor and the attack on the control room, most of the ship had gotten away without a scratch.
"The man in custody has said nothing." Clint said, crossing his arms.
"They seemed to be targeting the prisoner." Natasha added. "While they were attacking, they called her the target."
"'They' being who, exactly?" Agent Maria Hill spoke up. "There were no identifying symbols on anything. Uniforms, jets – nothing. We have no idea who they are."
"Speaking of the girl," Fury interrupted, "Why was she in the bridge in the first place? I thought she was locked up."
"She escaped, obviously." Clint shrugged, earning himself a dirty look from their director.
"One-seventeen was just as surprised at the attack as we were." Natasha pointed out, leaning against the wall.
Fury looked at Natasha with a confused expression. "One-seventeen?"
"It's her only name." Natasha told him with a distasteful curl of her lip.
The director snorted. "How unfortunate."
"I think we need to question her again." Clint suggested. "She was rather angry at the man that she was interrogating. I got the feeling that she was not surprised that she was the one being targeted."
Natasha's eyes widened at his words. "Not surprised that they attacked, just that they attacked her while she was here." She realized out loud.
"That doesn't solve our problem!" Fury grouched. "These bastards somehow tracked down an untraceable ship and got past all of our defenses! I wanna know who these fuckers are and where they got their technology! That was some military-grade shit!"
Clint and Natasha straightened from their positions and made for the door.
"We'll be sure to ask her." Clint replied dryly as they walked out.
Fury's voice followed them out the door. "Cut the sass Barton!"
They found One-seventeen back at the medical bay, once again chained to the bed while a doctor re-wrapped her wounded thigh, admonishing her for fighting while injured, as the wound had re-opened during the skirmish. The prisoner just rolled eyes, leaning back into the bed with her arms resting on the bed's armrests with a bored expression.
"Doctor." Clint greeted as he and Natasha stepped into the room.
"Hello agents." The doctor looked up at them, securing the bandage around the girl's thigh before straightening up. "I suppose it's time for me to leave now?"
They nodded at that, and the doctor dipped his head as he slipped out of the room. One-seventeen regarded them with a guarded look, unconsciously crossing her arms defensively.
"I won't mince words this time." Natasha immediately began speaking. "Who were those men?"
The girl squinted her eyes, a vague expression of displeasure crossing her face. Anyone else would have missed it, except Clint was well-versed in reading the generally pokerfaced Widows.
"I can't tell you for sure." She murmured, looking away with the corners of her lips turning down in a faint frown.
"But you have an idea who it was." Natasha pressed.
"Widows have many enemies," One-seventeen said, "But with that sort of money and technology – it narrows it down a bit."
"Names." Natasha demanded.
"Mohammed Al-Kassar, a Saudi arms dealer." One-seventeen began. "He and his brother, Adan, had built an illegal empire of weapons and mercs. Eventually the brothers began to fight over who would have complete control of the business. With my assistance, Adan emerged victorious. Mohammed vowed vengeance – those Middle Eastern men are obsessed with such silly notions."
"Francois Devereux, a French spymaster." She continued. "He has his fingers in every government imaginable. Governments go to him to get dirt on their enemies and their peers alike. I worked for him for a time – but when I decided to leave, he was rather… irate. He is a powerful but rather secluded man. But he'll emerge from his hiding hole when presented with a bottle of 1907 Diamant Bleu cuvee."
"Fucking French…" Clint rolled his eyes.
"Last but not least, there's a reclusive organization known as... Tule? Thule?" One-seventeen waved her hand carelessly. "They don't approach outsiders very often, usually relying on their own men to get things done. I was asked to help them out with a few missions, and they paid quite nicely. They did not give me any names or explanation of their goals, so don't ask."
"I've never heard of such an organization…" Natasha glanced at Clint with a frown.
One-seventeen nodded. "That's what makes them so intimidating. They've got power and wealth and a lot of weaponry – and yet no one knows who they are, save for a few moles in the underground. I didn't even know them myself before they approached me."
"And why would they be after you?" Natasha asked her.
"I don't usually go around telling people that I'm a Widow. It draws the wrong attention." One-seventeen replied evenly. "More than one organization found out that I was a Widow after I had finished my business with them, and were very unhappy that I was not willing to sell my loyalty to them. Then they try to send men after me, only for me to send them back a bunch of heads in a sack." She smirked. "Can't make a Widow do anything she doesn't wanna do, you know."
"So if there are other organizations that want to capture you, what makes these guys so special?" Clint asked.
The girl paused to think. "Well, they were a lot creepier than your average hired-gun-pillage-rape-and-plunder kinda guy. They were fanatical – except it wasn't religion that they followed. They followed a philosophy of order."
Clint raised his brows at Natasha, wordlessly asking if she knew of any such organization, but she shook her head. Neither of them had heard of such a movement.
"It's worth mentioning to Fury." She nodded.
The girl leaned back and regarded them carefully. "So, what now?"
The two agents stared at her for a long moment.
"That's up to Fury to decide." Clint told her, glancing at Natasha pointedly, knowing she might say something that their director would disapprove of. Thankfully Natasha remained silent.
"So you're just gonna let me sit here while you go play politics?" One-seventeen gave them an annoyed look.
Both Natasha and Clint shrugged.
"Can't do more that, kid." He said over his shoulder as he and his partner walked out of the room.
"Pozvonite mne, malysh snova , i ya budu sokratit' yazyk." One-seventeen muttered under her breath.
In the hallway, Clint glanced over at Natasha as the redhead began to chortle.
"What did she say?" He asked, having not heard the girl's words.
Natasha smirked at him. "Call me 'kid' again, and I'll cut out your tongue."
"Such a nice girl." Clint drawled.