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Unbeta-ed, so all mistakes are mine ^^"
Enjoy!
STRAYS
*Chapter 1*
8 years later...
"It's kinda shady in here. All the spiders and crawling stu –ew! I think I stepped on a roach!"
Had Natasha Romanoff aka the Black Widow been facing her partner, she would have rolled her eyes in exasperation. But Milla Jovova, aka the great Mercenary Alice, was not easily ignored. Especially given her exasperating habit of reporting everything she saw.
"Hey Widow, copy me?"
"I am currently infiltrating the headquarters of a very creepy factory to copy and destroy a world-threatening computer program; while all you have to do is wait for my signal to blow up the basement. I'd like to concentrate." She replied dryly –and quietly. While the said factory was almost deserted due to an upcoming transfer, the ex-Russian spy did not want to be caught by the few guards there. The air vents were large and high enough to go by unnoticed so far, but it didn't make it a walk in the park either. The lack of surveillance was odd though.
At first, she shouldn't have been there; a team from SHIELD had been sent in a few days before, but they had gone MIA. After a first attempt of infiltration, the security should have been upgraded. Perhaps the main intel had been moved already, so they didn't feel threatened. That would be bad, Natasha thought again. She spared a quick prayer that Oliver's virus would be strong enough to restore recently deleted data so they wouldn't need a to make a third infiltration or attempt cyber-attack, because Jesus, that man could hack into any computer for fun, but when given a special assignment he just wouldn't stop bitchin-
"All business; you're no fun Red." Alice's voice brought her back to present and Natasha focused on the task at hand; trying to remember which vent led to the third floor and which led to the lunch room.
"You're distracting me. Keep going on and I'll ask Hill to be assigned to the detonator next time."
"You wouldn't!" Alice gasped in indignation –both women knew how much the Ukrainian mercenary hated infiltration and both knew only Maria Hill had enough authority to make Alice obey. She was their supervisor after all.
"I would and will if you don't shut up." And before she could interrupt and protest, Natasha added: "I'll cash in all the favors she owes me if needed."
"Fine" came he grumbling answer. "I'll be quiet. How long till you get there?"
"Give me half an hour."
It took her exactly twenty seven minutes to access the control room, two to put the few monitoring people there out of order, three to hack into the system and copy the information she had been after. While the files were downloading, Natasha took a quick tour around the office, checking out the paperwork and any handwritten paper if anything would come in handy. Her eyes set on a large plan of the building on which annotations and scribbling had been added recently. She couldn't decipher half of them –not her fault, the handwriting was just so bad- but she managed to understand a couple of words, like cell and lab and tests and subjects, next to a room she didn't recognize. She had been given a map of the building for infiltration, had memorized it, yet she couldn't place that particular place.
The hacking took a couple of minutes longer than she expected, but no-one came to bother her so she swept through the surveillance cameras to tried to catch a glimpse of that room. Moments later, nothing appeared and an odd feeling came to nag her. She activated her communicator.
"Alice?"
"Hey killjoy. So, can I unleash my babies now?"
"Soon; I'm going to ask you to snoop around first."
Pause. Natasha smirked as she pictured the puzzlement on her partner's face.
"Snoop around?"
"Yeah, I found an odd room in the basement on a different map of the building. I can't find any video feed but I have a bad feeling about it. You're positioned not far from there; I think you should check it out first before exploding everything."
"I'm not the best in wild exploration Red." Alice replied with an annoyed tone. The mercenary hated to be unprepared.
"No need to be subtle; that part isn't under strict surveillance. Just avoid the few guards, peek in and if it's no good just drill it."
"Now you speak English." The redhead could see the pleased and devilish grin on her partner's face. Alice's eagerness to make quote 'everything go boom' end quote was sometimes frightening.
"I'm sending you the coordinates. If the entrance if not obvious check for a hidden door or passage, I want to make sure we aren't leaving anything behind. And call me if you find something."
"Will do Red. Stay out of troubles yourself."
The files had done downloading. She slipped the electronic device on which the data was recorded now in her pocket, made sure the ones left on the computer were destroyed, and exited the room. Natasha was halfway out of the building when Alice contacted her again.
"Hey Widow?" she had Natasha's full attention the moment she used her codename. "I think some poor guys owe you big right now."
"What do you mean?"
"That little side-room you sent me to, to snoop around? Well guess that mechanical weapons weren't the only thing those fuckers were working on."
"Again, what do you mean?" Natasha asked again, feeling she would not like the answer; Alice's tone was deeply serious in extreme cases only.
"You know the guys from SHIELD? The team that got MIA? The ones we were sent to clean up after? Methinks they've been experimented on. Bring your ass down here; you'll get the big picture."
Two days later, there was a huge commotion on the Helicarrier, rumors spread about a team that had been captured and tortured by a madman to the point where they couldn't recognize their friends and allies. Whoever started that rumor wasn't far from the truth.
"I can't believe he tried to kill me" the blonde woman whispered, staring at her the large screens. The cameras they were linked to all showed different angles of a sandy-haired man in the corner of the infirmary room. His body was tensed, crouched, ready to attack anything that came too close to him. Anything and anyone, for the matter, which was why Bobbi Morse stood halfway beaten up, covered with stitches and bruises her ex-husband had inflicted on her.
"Agent Barton is under the influence of a heavy drug" Nick Fury, the Director of SHIELD and Barton's boss, stated. "Doctors thought a familiar figure would be enough to lower his guard."
"But again, how did that happen!" Bobbi shrieked, fists tight and resting over her hips. "An OP turned wrong, I get it; but someone explain me why Clint is acting like this! And why is he still alive when the rest of his team…"
"Barton was injected last and not fully. The agent who found them managed to neutralize the scientist before he ended his procedure." Maria Hill's voice interrupted them. The Deputy Director was carrying a report with the latest results of their lab and a syringe. "We have the antidote sir."
At least, they had managed to place Barton in a high-surveillance room where the cameras were well protected. Even though they couldn't get close to him, they could watch him. They all knew that even weaponless, their best SHIELD agent could still do great damage with his bare hands.
"He won't let anyone approach within ten feet. Past that limit, he'll attack." Morse mumbled. "What are we going to do?"
"I don't think we have much choice" Fury grunted, crossing his arms. "Not many people can overpower him and the few who do aren't on board. We have to wait until the drug wears off."
"And by that time, Agent Barton will be dead of exhaustion, starvation or dehydration or all the above. His mind will ignore his body's urges till he's out." Hill snapped. Fury raised a severe eyebrow at her but let the comment pass; he knew his deputy and Barton were close friends. She pulled her cell phone from her belt and dialed a number. "All we need is someone to come close enough to Barton to drug him, right?"
"That's the idea." Fury approved. "What are you doing?"
"Calling a STRAYS."
Both tensed.
"Is it really necessary?" Morse asked warily.
"One of them is on board to give her report on the late mission. And I don't think we have much of a choice, do we?" she retorted dryly, using Fury's words against him.
The STRAYS team was composed with turned rogues, extremely skilled at their job and was only used as backup for emergencies. Still, Fury didn't like resorting to them because he thought them unreliable and unpredictable; or maybe because he had no control over them. For some reason, only Hill had.
Granted, Hill had been the one to initiate such an insane project and dealt a lot with those agents. But he had no idea if the reason they listened to her was due to the fact she was their supervisor, or if they genuinely respected her. Even Fury had very little say in STRAYS business –Hill was particularly protective of 'her team'-and he would rather leave it that way. Although he'd never admit it, but that super underground group put him ill-at-ease. The agents he monitored and sent on the field were the bests but in comparison, each STRAYS was a masterpiece –or a monstrous weapon, depending on the point of view.
Brief clipped words were exchanged over the phone in Russian –Fury only recognized the word 'hurry'- before Hill snapped her mobile shut and stared intensely at the screen. Another thing that put him on edge; half of the team were foreigners and had given Hill a certain fever for language, or rather had indirectly forced her into learning them. While he knew bits and pieces of French and Russian, Fury knew squat about Japanese and German (except the obvious military words); and when his second-in-command started dialoging in a foreign language with those people…to make it short, he didn't like being left out.
Soon after, the door slid open and a beautiful redhead entered. She walked in self-confidently, a backpack nonchalantly hanging over her shoulder. She was wearing black tight trousers, a red shirt molding her womanly curves and a pale brownish jacket. Her short hair was loose over her shoulders and her face unreadable, aside from that little side smirk over her pouty lips that made her look more like a model than a soldier. It made Fury uncomfortable; she had the self-confidence of a woman who could wipe them out without breaking a sweat, and who knew that they knew it. The short heels of her shoes echoed in the small room as she stepped closer. A couple of technicians working nearby turned on her passing and followed her till their head couldn't twist anymore. Hill waited until she had reached them to speak:
"He needs an injection of this." The Lieutenant held out a needle and a tube containing a liquid. "The poison is messing with his head; he can't make the distinction between friend and foe."
"Roger that." The woman replied with a rich, seductive voice. "Any specific warning?"
"He can't make distinction between friend and foe." Hill repeated more intensely. "And Hawkeye is one of our bests."
Something changed in the newcomer's posture; her shoulders tensed so slightly untrained eyes would have missed it, and her hand momentarily froze when she raised it to take the needle and potion. The redhead's gaze lingered over Hill, eyes clouded with uncertainty. She asked a quick question in Russian, to which the lieutenant replied with a tight smile.
"Time is running out. I do with what I have."
The woman considered her answer, and eventually took the serum and needle and slipped it in a small bag tied to her belt.
"Roger that."
The tone was no longer playful but strained and concentrated. She seemed to hesitate a second before kicking off her heels and slipping out of her bag perfect black combat boots. Fury thought they were worn off and heavy, but knew they'd offer much more stability during a fight at close range. The redhead also got rid of her jacket and handed it to Hill. The deputy director took it without thinking twice and set in on the table. She finished the dressing up by tying her hair back and walked towards the entrance.
"Who is she?" Bobbi asked with a hint of anger and anxiety the moment the door closed behind. Hill ignored her tone and crossed her arms, eyes not leaving Natasha's figure as the redhead appeared on screen. "Who is she, Hill?"
"One of the STRAYS. As for her identity, it's none of your business."
"My ex-husband is trapped down there and he didn't even recognize me! He will attack that woman without second thought and she went in there without a gun!"
"This agent's best weapon is her body, Morse." Hill replied without even looking at her.
"He is dangerous right now" Fury added, frowning at her. He knew Hill was more than capable of making calls on her own, but he knew exactly who she had sent in and did not like it. "I don't want him to be executed by…"
"My Agent will not kill him." Hill snapped dryly. The use of 'my' didn't go unnoticed. "She is competent and skilled and I will not allow you to doubt my choices. Now Agent Morse, and you sir, with all due respect will you shut up and let her do her job?"
Both Fury and Bobbi gaped at the Deputy Director; never, ever had they heard the woman speak like this –especially in front of her boss. Hill ignored their wary looks, crossed her arms and stared at the screen. She tried not to let the worry show on her face; Barton was a close friend and she better than anyone knew the history between him and the redhead. She just hoped that, by sending Natasha Romanoff to neutralize Barton, she had made the right call.