Chapter 13 – In Their End is Our New Beginning
The next day Barton, Stalingrad and Romanoff all filed through the Helicarrier's security. Without saying a word to one another they headed to the shared office. They entered the office to see Coulson leaning against Clinton's desk with the other members of the Order of the Eagle scattered around the office. Both Barton and Stalingrad raised an eyebrow.
"We need to talk." Coulson hissed. Those four words and the tone of his voice sent the three Agents into turmoil. Rose and Natasha moved further into the office allowing Clinton to close the door. With Rose sitting in her office chair, Natasha sitting on her desk and Clinton leaning against the door Coulson let out a sigh before loosening his tie. Coulson reached into his pocket and pulled out a small remote. He pressed a button and instantly the screen on the wall sprang into action. On the screen was the current news. At the moment the news was reporting on the recant vandalism outside the Osborn mansion. On the wall of the opposite building was a massive S.H.I.E.L.D. logo with The Eagle Will Rise Again around it.
"Which one of you did this?" he growled rubbing his forehead. The room stayed in silence as they watched the news report. The graffiti was being branded as a threat and a warrant for the arrest of the person/people was being issued by the police.
"Well?" Coulson growled, "Clinton?"
"Wasn't me, I didn't leave the flat…" Clinton muttered looking over to Rose his eye's narrowing. Rose glared back at him arms crossed.
"Rose?" Coulson hissed.
"What?" she muttered.
"Did you do this?"
"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't."
"Rose…"Coulson groaned rubbing his temple, "Why? Why didn't you say you were going to do this?"
"So what? Osborn's rattled, now's our time to strike!" Rose cried raising her voice slightly.
"You shouldn't have done something without telling us! Do you know how stupid that was?! You could have been captured!" Coulson argued.
"I can handle myself perfectly fine!" Rose cried. They all knew she could but to Coulson it was a different matter completely. When Rose first came to S.H.I.E.L.D., when she was sitting in an interrogation room cuffed after being brought in by Clinton, Fury had called the group down. He had asked them to take care of her no matter what. Why he felt so protective towards the girl they didn't ask and now the answer is lost forever.
"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ROSE! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED! THEN WE WOULD HAVE FAILED HIM! I CAN'T FAIL HIM AGAIN NOT ON THE THING HE CARED ABOUT THE MOST!" Coulson shouted, "DON'T YOU DARE DO SOMETHING STUPID LIKE THAT AGAIN!" This time Rose faltered. She shrunk back into her chair cowering under his gaze. Her walls had come crashing down and now she was venerable.
"I-I-I'm sorry…" she whimpered. Slowly she brought her legs up to her chest and put her hands around her head. It looked like she was expecting a beating. Natasha knew for a fact she was. You see in the Red Room, when you did a mission badly or just did something wrong you'd get the shit beaten out of you and you'd be left clinging onto deer life. Clinton ran over to Rose, knelt down in front of her, his hands on her shoulders whispering to her.
"Phil, it wasn't just Rose, all of us apart from Barton took part. We knew you'd both act like this so we didn't tell you. Trust me Phil, it's the right thing to do," Hill walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Coulson looked away before loosening his tie. He was just about to speak when the door flew open. Osborn came flying in, rage pretty much oozing out of him. They all froze as they looked up at their fuming boss. He looked at them all in turn his eyes landing on Natasha. They stayed on her longer than they should have but he looked away.
"WHICH ONE OF YOU FURY LOVING BITCHES DID THAT?!" Osborn bellowed pointing to the screen. Thankfully Rose had regained herself so Osborn wasn't drawn to the teenager.
"What are you on about Sir?" Jane asked raising an eyebrow. Osborn turned to face her.
"What am I on about? I want to know which one of you Fury lovers painted that outside of my house that's what you pathetic lab rat!" he hissed.
"Sir none of us would do that, you know that Sir. Our allegiance lies with you, we don't support Fury anymore," Betty spoke. Osborn glared at them all for a second. Each one of them expected him to call in a group of Agents to take them away and once he did, they'd be dead within hours. All of them.
"Who the fuck are you?!" he hissed pointing to Natasha. Natasha glared back at him, not faltering.
"I'm Agent Rushman Sir, I transferred from our base in Russia yesterday," she explained allowing some of her natural accent to slip through. Osborn stayed where he was for a moment debating wither her believed her or not.
"Get to work," he hissed before storming out slamming the door closed behind them. Once the door was closed they all slumped down breathing a sigh of relief. That was close, too close. One good thing came out of it though, Osborn's panicked and he's angry. They all new if they wanted to get rid of him now was the time to strike. If they didn't soon they may never get the chance again.
Later that day Natasha was walking from the gyms to the shared office. Agents hurried around her some throwing her looks. If it weren't for the different outfits then she would have believed she was in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier not the Oscorp Helicarrier. Nearly back at the office she heard someone shout on her, well her cover name.
"AGENT RUSHMAN! AGENT RUSHMAN!" someone cried. Natasha stopped mid-step before turning round. Behind her she saw Betty fighting her way through the crowd tripping constantly. Natasha had to fight a smile off her face.
"Yes?" she asked once Betty had finally reached her.
"That was Bruce on the phone," she dropped her voice leading her off to the side, "They've done it!"
"What?" she whispered. Done what? Natasha continued to watch the Agents walking past.
"They've figured out how to get you back to your dimension!" she smiled. Natasha's heart jumped into her throat. What? Oh my god! She can finally go home! No, not yet. She needs to help here, they're so close, painfully close.
"That's great!" she smiled. Betty almost reading her mind carried on.
"He said that they can take you home anytime," she smiled. Natasha smiled slumping against the wall. Thank god. She thought it only be a onetime thing that they could only open it once and that would have to be soon. Natasha was about to speak when sirens started screeching throughout the Helicarrier. Betty's hands flew over her ears momentarily shocked.
"What's going on!?" Natasha shouted over the whaling of the sirens. Around them Agents started to run in every direction frantically. The two were just about to move when Clinton and Rose came running up to them.
"We need to go, now!" Rose grabbed Betty's wrist and dragged her along the hall. Clinton grabbed Natasha's wrist and dragged her along the hall. In front of them Natasha watched as Betty tripped over her own feet calling for Rose to slow down but Rose's step never faltered. Not long after Natasha shouted to Clinton.
"What's going on!?" she demanded.
"They've found them!" Clinton explained as the screeched round the corner.
"What? Who's found who?" Natasha screeched.
"Oscorp's found our superheroes!" Clinton explained. Natasha's eyes widened. Well shit. No, not now. This is not what they needed.
"And they're going to blow up the mansion." Well fucking hell. Natasha suddenly felt fear in the bottom of her stomach, a feeling she hardly ever gets. No they can't blow it up! Not only would they lose their friends but her only way of getting back home.
They raced to the hanger where Hill, Coulson, Jane and Darcy were waiting in a Quinn Jet. By the looks of it they'd got wind of the find seconds before and had grabbed a jet. Hill and Coulson helped them into jet before closing the door. Once they were inside they quickly changed into their Order of the Eagle suits whilst Natasha put on her Black Widow catsuit. When they were attaching their weapons Coulson turned to them and explained.
"As soon as we heard that they've found them we sent word to them. They're safely out but the thing is Osborn's completely lost it," Coulson told them. They all raised an eyebrow. Completely lost it? How? When?
"He's outraged that heroes have been hiding right under his nose in 'his' city and the thing is he wants to make them pay. By them I mean not only the Order of the Eagle, our friends but the whole city. He wants to blow it up. If we don't act now then we're going millions of innocent deaths on our hands," Coulson explained. They all froze. He's lost it, he's really lost it. Natasha groaned and sunk down into her seat.
"Oh god not again," she groaned. Why New York? Always New York. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take.
"Not again? What'd ya mean not again?" Clinton asked. Natasha looked up to see them all staring at her. She laughed faintly as she ran a hand threw her hair.
"Let's just say I've been in a very similar situation more than once," she laughed. After a moments silence Hill spoke.
"So what's the plan?" she asked.
"Keep Agent's from killing civilians, setting bombs etc and stop any nukes," Clinton shrugged.
"Well that's a no brainer. There's one flaw in your plan though Hawk unlike your name suggests we can't fly so how the fuck are we meant to stop nukes?!" Hill cried. At that moment AC/DC engulfed the plane. Everyone look confused apart from Natasha who sat smiling to herself. Well it's safe to say Stark hasn't changed one little bit.
"You miss me?" Tony's voice spoke, "That Agent Hill is for Rescue and myself to tackle. Now get your sorry asses down her Oscorp Agents are on a killing spree."
They landed on the streets of New York with a thud. Once the cargo door was lowered they ran out. Natasha looked round shocked. Clearly these Agents had no remorse about what they're doing because this looks just like the Battle of Manhattan, well apart from the portal in the sky. They even had hover crafts! Natasha made a mental note to take one of them home and give it to Rosie for her birthday, she'd love that and it'd save her money!
They'd hardly been out the plane for two minutes when the rest of them landed in front of them. Iron Man dropped Cap as Rescue landed beside Iron Man and Hulk landed beside her. They all looked at each other before The Order of the Eagle members went to pull down their masks.
"No. Leave them; let Osborn see who's standing against him," Cap told them. They hesitated before slowly lowering their masks away from their faces.
"So Cap what's the- HOLY SHIT!" Rose cried. The others all span round to see where she was looking. Currently Rose was looking up the Oscorp Tower her mouth hanging because coming out of it was what they could describe as an alien weapon kind of like a gun. Surrounding it was a faint blue glow. They all watched the gun in awe as it aimed and fire at one of the surrounding buildings.
"Cap plan NOW!" Rose screamed.
"Right." Cap turned to them all, "Iron Man and Rescue keep the hover boards within an eight block radius, if they go out of that turn 'em to ash."
"You got it, let's go," Rescue nodded before the two flew off.
"Hawkeye I want you up high, take out as many hover boarders you can."
"Right, gonna need a lift though," Hawkeye nodded.
"Right, Hulk gave Hawkeye a lift then smash the big gun," Cap pointed to it. Hulk nodded and grabbed Hawkeye's top. Hawkeye started to protest but before he could say anything Hulk jumped and dumped him on the roof before jumping off to Oscorp tower.
"Foster, Lewis, Ross and Coulson get as many civilians as you can of off this island," Cap instructed.
"Yes Sir," Jane nodded before they ran off. Now he turned and looked Rose, Maria and Natasha in turn.
"Now you're with me, we're on ground patrol. Take out as many Agents as you can, show no remorse these bastards don't deserve it. They've betrayed their country and deserve to die," he growled. They all nodded before running off. Natasha could help but think about this Cap and her dimension Cap. Her Cap would never give the order to kill unless it was completely necessary he wouldn't give it in this situation. That was that Cap though and that one was this Cap and he gave the order to kill without a second thought. Maybe this was going to be easier than she initially thought.