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Apologizing for any spelling/grammar mistakes beforehand.
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Song Inspirations
"She's Not Gone Yet But She's Leaving" - The Fratellis.
Chapter 23
The flat gray fabric of a car ceiling greeted Natasha when she blinked awake.
Her consciousness sluggish and half-thawed, immediate alarm didn't register. Goosebumps rigged the skin on her arms and flared when she rubbed them with her frozen fingers. She shivered despite the heavy blanket thrown over her and clamped her teeth together so they wouldn't clatter.
A blast of ice shards thudded into her memory's doorsteps like a delayed UPS delivery. Tumbling out of the package came the slip of her feet, the falling sensation met by frigid, burning water, and Sofia's returning figure shooting the ice Natasha clung onto until she finally went under. Natasha sealed that memory box before she would tempt herself to unfold more details.
She lifted herself to rest her back against the side of the car and stretched her legs over the backseat, grimacing at her stiff knees. Her breaths came in choked, jittery sips that lurched in her lungs. She was alright. Just barely.
The view outside the car window across her stood still as a postcard, and not a very attractive one at that. This was no Sochi. This wasn't a big city at all. A crumbling brick wall returned her stare and dried stubs of grass struggled from the cracked pavement.
Natasha pushed her blanket off and winced at the S.H.I.E.L.D logo on a corner, sewn on with stiff black thread against the tan fabric. She turned to the face reflected on the rear-view mirror, frowning.
"Agent Sitwell?" She asked.
Sitwell poked his head behind the driver's seat. "How do you feel?"
"Fine."
"Oh, that's good to hear. I thought I went deaf when the medical team told me you were with cardiac dysrhythmia. You were submerged for more than twenty minutes before we got there. The fact that you had a heartbeat at all, God, you should've seen everyone's faces."
Must be Sheerin's work on her. She had every reason to die after submersion in a two degrees Celsius pool for that length of time.
Sofia's last words came back with a chilling intensity. "The envelope," she told Sitwell, assuming he had searched every crevice of the hockey stadium like protocol demanded in case of more detonations. "Did you find an envelope?"
"Yes," Sitwell replied. "But it's not for you to handle."
"It was intended for me."
He wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Look, agent Sitwell. The person who got me into this mess, she left me that envelope. It can very well contain information for me to retrace the cargo and resume this mission. You've got to let me have it."
"Your assignment has concluded. The envelope is S.H.I.E.L.D property."
"Just let me see it," Natasha demanded. What did Sofia put in it? She searched for a knife, a gun, poison gas, anything on her body to threaten Sitwell with, but S.H.I.E.L.D had stripped her of weapons and left her in nothing but a loose cotton shirt and pants. She spotted a water canteen in the car's cup holder in front of her and thought about reaching for it when Sitwell spoke again.
"Don't make this messier than it already is, Romanoff. You sit back there and stay quiet. I called a bird to pick you up in an hour."
"They're smuggling a bomb and you want me to sit here with you?"
"That envelope won't help you with anything. I can't have you handling the enemy's items."
"It was specified for me. How many times do I have to repeat myself?" Natasha managed a shout. Her patience trickling away, she reconsidered the canteen within reach.
"And why was it specified for you?" Sitwell raised his voice. "Do you understand the place that puts you? Coulson and I are trying to let it pass without commotion, so help us, and help yourself. We've cropped all security footage of you on cameras after you disconnected in Moscow. Now we take you back to P.E.G.A.S.U.S, spin some lies on your debrief, and deem what happened in Sochi nonexistent."
Sitwell's plan made perfect sense. If the Council knew what had happened, they'd force Fury to hunt her down at first opportunity. She had screwed over a stable alliance with S.H.I.E.L.D and hung onto their tolerance by only a thread. Now that Sitwell offered her a chance to repair the damage, reason told her to accept, but despite the pros Natasha found herself rejecting his efforts.
Sitwell reassured her, knowing well himself that she would toss out his reassurance without a backward glance, then spoke no more.
To attack a senior agent was the worst possible move she could make.
Natasha swiped the stainless steel canteen and whacked him on the head.
Sitwell's body slumped against the car window. She moved the computer on his lap to hers and opened a list of its most recent activities, where she scrolled to find a series of files that he had sent to Coulson a few hours ago, no doubt being the envelope's contents. The first file was an invitation pamphlet to Pavel Klementiev's party, hosted tonight on his yacht in Sochi. The second file was a copy of a ticket to board the yacht.
Someone who's going to be on that yacht carried Fjodorov's StarkTech. That was what Sofia tried to tell her. But why should Natasha trust her when she was on the enemy's side, and to make it personal, had almost killed her in the Olympic Park less than half a day ago? What traps did Sofa have planned if Natasha followed the clues she laid? No, she couldn't step into another snare with open eyes. But how could she face S.H.I.E.L.D if she returned now? With the Jericho bomb still out there and plus, she had already knocked out Sitwell...
Memorizing the name and location of the yacht, she closed Sitwell's laptop and searched him for weapons and cash.
She left to look for the closest clothing store and came upon one a quarter-mile away. The town she was in, which she discovered through the store clerk, was but a thirty minute drive from Sochi. After buying a more practical getup with Sitwell's money, she ditched the baggy white clothes S.H.I.E.L.D dressed her in and changed. The generous clerk offered Natasha her own car, seeing the rush she was in, but she declined. The chances of her returning the vehicle was next to none.
Time was running out, yet something prevailed her to ask the woman for a phone, into which she dialed Coulson's number. She listened to the beeps of the phone and waited for him to pick up.
"Agent Coulson, with S.H.I.E.L.D. How may I help you?"
"Look, you can help me by not freak-"
"Romanoff?"
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Yes."
"Where's Sitwell?"
"Chillin' in his car."
"Damn it, did you knock him out? Did you really?"
"Look, I'm sorry for disappearing like that. But I'm one step from finishing this assignment and I'm gonna see it through."
"You're detained from this mission, for God's sake. Didn't Sitwell tell you?"
"They're selling a bomb. Tonight. I've got to stop it."
"I'll send in fresh agents for that."
"Tonight, Coulson. I'm speaking less than five hours away. Who do you have in mind to send in? Every eligible agent within range is either with Phase Two or on their regular missions."
Silence on his end, then an exasperated "Do you know how hard it is to help you? You repel support."
"I repel unnecessary support," Natasha rebutted, but she did need his help. Without Coulson cleaning after her she'd be in ten times the trouble she was already in.
He gave in. "Fine. Make it quick and clean."
She arrived at the yacht by commuter train as the sun began to dip. People covered the dock in guarded clusters that occasionally broke loose to introductions and handshakes. The wind tossed cigarette and cigar smoke into the air along with sea salt and tension; tension inside Natasha, among the guests, and tension over the business tonight onboard.
The yacht stretched long and white and so immense that the water below roused in it not a single bounce, unmoving as if it was planted on solid ground. A queue of guests in party dresses and suits stood in front of a nearby booth on land where a man exchanged their boarding tickets for necklaces with bronze tags. The guests, once they received their necklaces, dangled them around their necks and presented them to the security crowding around the carpeted walkway to the yacht.
A woman in pink didn't immediately board after trading her ticket, but instead retraced the way she came, talking into her cell phone with urgency and looking around. The woman zoomed along the row of buildings across from the dock. Natasha followed and listened.
"What do you mean you lost your ticket?" The woman said. "Well, I'm still going. Have fun by yourself tonight, then. I'm not keeping you company."
Natasha tackled her to the ground behind a thick clump of bushes, clamping the woman's mouth from screams and bracing her legs against her thrashing, and jabbed a tranquilizer dart she got from Sitwell into the woman's neck. Her struggling subsided, and she fell unconscious.
Natasha looped the necklace around her own neck, patted her clothes from leaves and dirt, dragged the woman under thick foliage and left.
She got past security without problem and endured Klementiev's droning welcoming speech to his guests while she pondered on a plan to locate the bomb. Sofia had told her that Fjodorov carried parts of it, but gave no hints on its size. For all she knew the piece could be small enough to tuck into a briefcase or large enough to fill a closet, and the space limit depended on its carrier.
She was hanging around the stifling bar, still considering her tactics when someone hopped onto a bar stool near her own. Starodoub—Fjorodov's business partner, who she'd seen in the Muscovite nightclub—approached Klementiev, who was gulping down his fifth glass of wine. Starodoub whispered to him with a hand over his cheek. Klementiev nodded. The two headed to an obsolete corner of the room, all the while murmuring to each other.
Klementiev was as good as any other as the buyer.
Natasha wedged her way through the hoards of people and squeezed out into the corridor. She could now begin her search. The population decreased as she walked away from the main entertainment rooms and she glanced into the windows on each door she passed for deserted rooms. Without Coulson or technology to help her pinpoint, she took to tunneling as many suspect nooks and niches as needed to reach her target.
A sign over a particular door seized her attention. It was a warning for party guests to keep away and conversely an invitation for Natasha to trespass. She peeked into the dim hallway beyond the door. Another hall, lit, intersected at around five paces from where she stood. Two elongated shadows flickered on the floor.
She turned the doorknob without a sound and slunk into the hall, glimpsed around the corner to see two uniformed men pacing the area. Klementiev couldn't be more obvious at revealing his tracks. Natasha only had to follow his trail of guards.
She jumped from her hiding place and threw herself onto the back of the nearest man. Her weight shifted to his front as she slammed her knee into he back of his neck. her unexpected weight toppled him to the floor. Thud. His head snapped to the side.
The other guard pounced for her. Natasha grabbed the arm meant to catch her and twisted her body, using the limb to lever the man over her shoulder. He knocked into the protruding wall corner behind her.
She felt over their limp bodies for something useful, came away with a set of keys, looked for a place to hide the two, and dragged them into a half-filled utility closet.
The keys opened a door into another corridor. An alarm overhead screeched as she crossed and red lights flashed on and off the walls. A distant scuffling of feet grew louder from the direction she ran in. She cursed and moved faster through the halls.
Natasha skirted out of view, behind an intersection as a new crop of men materialized from ahead. Judging from the thick plod of footsteps, she estimated around four to six people. She accounted her choice of weaponry: from Sitwell she had pilfered half a dozen darts, his gun, pepper spray, and a taser flashlight; with his money she bought from a grocery store a couple of pocket knives and a coil of thin rope. She took the rope from where she had stuffed it in the waistline of her jeans and tied a lasso knot on one end.
When the footsteps of the leading guard came close, Natasha jumped from her hiding place, threw the lasso around his neck and jerked. The loop tightened. He toppled and fell. Two more guards tried to block her. She slid out from the space between them, slipping the length of rope in her hand between the legs of one and elbowing the back of the other's knee. The latter fell. The first one turned to reach for her again, but when she tightened the cord around his leg, he too fell backwards.
A fourth one stood apart, cautious and wielding a metal baton. Natasha strode towards him, the men-entangled rope in her hand taut. The guard struck with his baton. She ducked, and fanned out her leg to sweep his foot off the ground; wrapped the rope around an ankle before he could get up.
Two more men still stood. Natasha's length of rope had reduced to an arm's length at her disposal. The alarms persisted their screaming. The flashing red lights brightened, or maybe it was the wild rush in her eyes. Her knotted string of men began to stir. She would prefer to incapacitate them fully to rid herself of future troubles, but time was running out, and an undetermined distance awaited her to the StarkTech.
Natasha leapt at the closest of the two guards before he could react and threw her legs over him, tightened her thighs around his neck and swung her hips down. Five finished, one to go. The remaining guard held his hands out in front of him and backed away. Coward. She yanked the man's shirt collar to her and drove her knee into his crotch. The bastard whimpered and tried to knead her arm off of his shirt. Natasha threw a blow to the side of his head, and he plopped to the ground.
She snatched the baton from the last guard she knocked out and whacked it on heads of the stirring bodies, constraining them to the floor again to give her another trickle of time. Then she sprinted in the way the guards had came from. They had to come from somewhere. A big group of patrol wouldn't wander just anywhere in a ship stowing illegal explosives.
She ran into additional groups of guards, their appearances more frequent as she went along, a good sign of progress. These men she didn't bother knocking out but merely disarrayed them to allow her passage. In under two minutes she had spanned the yacht from bow to stern and whipped through some thirty guards.
Nestled into a dead-end was an unadorned door. Natasha unhooked the key chain from her belt and tried each card swipe on the key-reader until the door clicked. She pushed the door open and held her gun in front of herself.
The room was bare save a suitcase waiting on top of a glass table. By dumb luck the case was unlocked and she simply unclasped the top. A vein in her neck throbbed when she saw the contents.
A microchip.
She's had enough microchips in her life.
Into her jeans' pocket it went, and she turned to leave.
The loping band of guards was closer than her ears had predicted at less than seven yards away. She shot the first wave of men through their chests and wrestled past the remaining ten or so, breaking and bruising bones, snapping necks and slamming skulls to the ground. It was as if an alcoholic had slipped into the vacant control room in her head and maneuvered the joystick with drunken craze. Somehow her deranged moves concocted into total destruction and she emerged panting, limbs heaving, leaving behind her some twenty men in various stages of disability, and searched for the closest opening to escape the yacht.
Breaking into and through a few empty storage rooms, Natasha leaped onto the promenade deck of the ship. The narrow walkway fringed the yacht's side and white railings restrained its treacherous edge. She leaned against the railing for a moment to collect herself, trying to calm her breaths and the red and white spots scattered over her vision.
From what deep vaults had that savageness shot from when she dealt with Klementiev's guards?
Sofia. Was she close?
Probably.
Natasha squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on the boom of music somewhere to her left, in the partying rooms. Deep breaths, clear her head, then she'd jump overboard before anyone found her. The yacht hadn't left shore that long ago and she could swim back with ease; the evening had began to dim the ocean and would hide her from pursuers. Once she reached shore she'd dry off, contact Coulson and get herself out of Sochi. She would obey Coulson's instructions. If she had a place left in S.H.I.E.L.D at all she would heed their protocol like a survival manual. She'd ask them to extract her Collar, and if they refuse, then she'd find some other way to get the damn thing off.
Standing still was a bad idea. She couldn't stop thinking.
Natasha swung one leg over the railing, then the other, and stared into the smoky gray water swinging below her, alive and tipsy. Splotches of white foam sprawled as the waves tumbled like drunkards bubbling at the mouth, stumbling into each other in the weak light of a ramshackle tavern. She remembered. She would strut over broken glass and spilled whiskey, in the spotlight or complete anonymity, signing or executing contracts, Natalia's red hair a rose, a scrawled signature, a warning light that blinded and maimed if stared into for too long.
How cold, how hostile would the water be when she dove in?
Thanks for reading!