Same disclaimers as Chapter 1.
A/N: Many heartfelt thank yous to all you that read my humble fanfiction, and a thousand heartfelt kisses to all of you that review. It means the world to me to know you guys enjoy my writing. I'd like to apologize for how long this chapter took and how long future chapters might take now that I'm back in school. My writing time has now been limited to mostly weekends, so please be patient and I'll deliver as soon as I can. Love you all.
Enjoy!
The Russian Triad mission would have been suicide to an inexperienced agent. Fortunately for me, even as a fledgling SHIELD agent, I wasn't without experience. And it certainly didn't hurt that I was working with Clint. But even so, it was the longest mission we'd ever taken on together, with the longest preparation by far. We planned on-location for more than three months, refining even the smallest details of our plans. There was no room for error. No guessing. No "if"s. And for this particular mission, I made sure there would be no "winging it," as Clint fondly called it. He was a fan of it. Said it added a "decent level of excitement." And normally, I wouldn't care and would let him play his games, but this time, I made sure we were meticulous. I had too much on the line. I'd have no mistakes.
It was really getting down to the wire when I received that fateful call from Fury only a week or so before our planned mission date. I'd expected he was calling for a status update. He wasn't. Much to my infinite amount of displeasure, he was calling to inform us all agents were needed back at base immediately.
"What do you mean 'all agents are needed back at base immediately'?" I said through gritted teeth into the standard issue agent cell phones.
"I mean what I said. So get Barton and get back here. I said immediately," I heard Fury growl on the other end of the line. I bit back a growl of my own.
"What the hell for?" I said, knowing even as I said it I was pushing it. Fury wasn't known for his patience.
"It should be enough to say 'Because I fucking said so,' but if it'll make you get here any faster, I'll have you know we are on the brink of bringing down Vengate. We found the base and it's bigger than we thought. We need everyone."
Vengate? Finally found? I was actually shocked. Vengate was by far the largest, most secretive, and most elusive arms supplier. Unfortunately, they didn't exactly choose to supply to the right people, and they became a huge national security issue. SHIELD had been after them for years before I even arrived. I sighed. There was no way I was wheedling out of this one.
"Send the nice jet," I grumbled before clicking End Call. My hand clenched around the phone. For good measure, I threw it against the concrete wall of the small hideout in Moscow Clint and I had been inhabiting. The phone fell to pieces. There was something satisfying about breaking things when in a rage.
"Barton!" I yelled out so that he could hear me from the room he'd chosen as his own down the tiny hall. I heard the distinct thud of him falling off his cot and groaning.
"Wha—?" he said as he stumbled out of his room, his hair a mess, clutching a pistol in one hand and his pillow in the other. I couldn't help grinning.
"Come on, soldier. We're going home," I said tonelessly as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His hand fell away from his face to reveal shock in his eyes.
"Home?"
Our return to base was actually quite short. We were only informed on the mission before being sent right off again to a desolate corner of Greenland where Vengate Corporation had decide to hide their bombs, missiles, and all sorts of other goodies. And I arrived in Greenland much the same way I had arrived at base: bitter and raging. Spending a sixteen-hour flight in a commercial plane jam-packed with basically everyone from SHIELD who disliked me did little to improve my mood.
"Will you relax?" Clint called out behind me as we stepped off onto the icy runway, hitting me squarely in the back of the head with one of the numerous bags of roasted peanuts he'd brought with him off the plane. I turned to glare at him, but he only grinned and dumped a whole bag into his mouth. I huffed, pulling up the white hood of the new parkas we'd all been given to fend off Greenland's icy bite. I pulled it tight around my face, stomping the snow off my boots. I hated being cold. Why was Greenland even icy? Shouldn't it be green? Fuck this mission. Fuck Greenland. Fuck Clint and his peanuts.
We were only given three days in a small cabin to review our plan: to infiltrate and take control. Clint somehow managed to spend the three days up in the rafters, simply listening and cutting in when he thought necessary before withdrawing back to his nest. I stuck to corners with my arms folded, fantasizing of gloriously kicking the asses of everyone who gave me dirty looks as if I might detonate any minute during those three days in that cramped cabin. And Clint thought it'd be funny to continue to throw peanuts from his abundant stash at me from the rafters. I locked my jaw whenever I felt the little shells plunking on my head or otherwise landing in my lap. Oh, I'd murder him!
On the fourth day, we all waited impatiently for night to fall. Everyone was a little skittish. Not scared, per se. Just all bubbling over with the pent-up energy stored before a mission. The fact two-hundred-and-fifty-something people were all pushed together in a small space made it more obvious. And somewhat claustrophobic. Finally, the senior agents, Clint included, gave the okay to head out. And there was an almost audible exhale of relief as we finally pushed our way toward fresh air.
We moved in several long lines through miles and miles of the surrounding forest, not a single twig snapping beneath our skilled feet. The familiar feeling of sharp sense acuteness returned, my eyes searching for even the slightest unnatural shift in the shadows, my ears straining for even the most hushed exhale to betray an enemy.
We arrived at the edge of the trees after what seemed to be an eternity and, after receiving a nod from our line leaders, proceeded to quickly shed off our white snow attire, our familiar black gear emerging. I looked up as I finished burying my white gear in the snow, catching the eyes of Clint from two lines away. He'd pulled for me to be in his group, but as chance would have it, we'd been separated. He was shadowy, but I'd know that profile anywhere, and his eyes glinted familiarly in the diffused light slanting through the trees from the Vengate watch towers.
He gave me a nod, our nod, the nod we always gave each other when we were about to split up on any mission. The nod was a silent goodbye and good luck wish, a silent "I'll see you soon," even as we acknowledged we might not see each other again. Our nod.
I returned it before turning away from him resolutely. I needed to focus. Being with this many people—particularly people I didn't even like very much—instead of just him felt strange and wrong. But I couldn't let that get to me. I needed to get on my game. I needed to make it through tonight so I could slit Clint's throat for all the fucking peanuts.
The far left groups began moving forward. We all stood quiet. After receiving a signal, our group leader nodded to the rest and we split in half, moving away from each other. And taking me away from Clint.
At the tree line I finally set eyes on the imposing concrete wall caging in the facility. Black shadows flitted at the top of the three watch towers on this side of the wall. When one of the shadows flashed a red light our way we knew they were one of ours. And they'd cleared the way for our entrance. A long rope ladder was thrown down to us. The climb seemed to take forever.
At the top of the tower we split into smaller groups, each going our own designated way. My group consisted of two girls who'd been part of my class in training and obviously didn't like me, Kya and Margaret, a guy only one class older who didn't talk much but whose name I believed was Luke, and a senior agent, Mathew, who also didn't seem very happy when I was split into his group.
We ran across the cold ground to where we knew there to be a hatch leading to the power control room. Our first job was to shut down the power and stop the production. The hatch was quite small, smaller than we'd expected, and we were forced to crawl. Thankfully, it was not very long, and before long, Mathew kicked out a vent into the control room. There were a few surprised cries from the people in the room as we rolled out, but all were silenced quickly and quietly, and before anyone could hit the intruder alert.
"Kya, Margaret, get the bodies out of the way. Luke, you and Romanoff get the power, you know what to do," Mathew commanded, and I was sure he'd deliberately called only me by my last name to exclude me. I also noticed how he didn't address me directly. And I told myself it was fine because he could kiss my great ass, but I still found my teeth clenching as I turned away.
Luke and I set straight to work on the computers, pushing the designated buttons and typing in the necessary codes. Sector after sector of the facility began to turn off on the screen above us, signaling the power being successfully cut. I was working on the last one, the production room, and pressed enter to shut off the power but was met only with a blaring alarm which I could hear echoing through the whole facility in its intermittent pauses.
"What happened!? What'd you do?" Mathew was upon me in nanoseconds. I jumped away from the dashboard of buttons and keyboards, feeling like a scolded child.
"I didn't do anything! I was shutting it down same as the others!" I said defiantly. Mathew cursed loudly in several languages.
"Do you how many lives are outside of this room right now that depend on us? On you!?" he yelled down at me. He was quite tall. I didn't like having to look up at him so I looked away.
"Of course I do. But I didn't do anything!" I repeated.
"She's right," Luke cut in quietly all of a sudden. Mathew and I turned toward him at the same time. His fingers were still typing away furiously, his eyes glued to a screen. "She didn't do anything wrong. The production room has an alarm against intruders because it can't be shut off. Production never stops. Smart, I guess. No one working here would ever shut it off. If anyone tried, they'd know there were intruders."
Mathew turned away from us, cursing some more, and omitting any apology in my direction, of course.
"But…" Luke said. Mathew swiveled back to him.
"'But'? What 'but'? Come on, Luke, give me a 'but'!" Mathew said, ignoring the snickering from Kya and Margaret who were obviously enjoying the double entendre like the stupid little fools they were.
"There's a manual override in the actual room," Luke continued, the alarm still piercing our ears.
"I'll go!" I said right away, more to get away from them than to redeem myself.
"I give the orders around here and I say we're all going," Mathew said coldly. I rolled my eyes.
We ran from the room after quickly studying a map to reach the production room. We moved swiftly through the halls, the alarm giving us a lot of speed as we didn't have to worry about being quiet. We made quick progress, leaving a trail of dead bodies in our wake.
We pushed through a set of huge double doors and found ourselves at the southern end of the enormous production room, red emergency lights flashing everywhere but the enormous machines continuing to rumble. We ran to the left, and I didn't know if it was just me, but it seemed everyone was intent on leaving me as far behind as possible. I pushed forward, falling into step between Margaret and Kya.
More guards erupted in front of us, but were discarded quickly. As we started running again, I was the only one to hear the grunt of pain behind me. I turned to see Kya falling to the ground with a hand clenched to her upper arm, a guard standing above her with a dripping knife. I fell back, quickly kicking him away from her and driving his own knife into his neck. Kya was up already, but blood was seeping through her fingers, staining her hand red.
"Oh. Shit. Hold still," I said, my eyes flicking between her and the rest of the group that had already ran a fair distance away without turning back. I pulled a long rolled up bandage from my back belt pocket and quickly wrapped her arm. She eyed me dubiously as I wound the bandage around her arm.
"There," I said quietly as I pinned the bandage to itself. She gave me an odd look before running off again to catch up with the group. I sighed to myself before following. These people would never change.
I caught up with the group to find them grouped together staring up at a wall. I followed their line of sight and was met with the sight of what must be the great red manual override lever. And it was a good thirty feet above the ground with not even a ladder to reach it.
"How the fuck are we supposed to get up there?" Margaret muttered, her eyes continuing to dart around to look for oncoming attacks. I scanned the wall, but there was nothing. Obviously workers weren't supposed to try to turn it off ever. My eyes ran to the right where the nearest thing was a sort of balcony that ran around the room. I ran over, climbing the ladder up.
"Romanoff, what are you doing!?" I heard Mathew yell below me. I didn't dignify him with an answer. I reached the thin metal scaffold and run full speed toward the edge. I jumped swiftly onto the edge of the metal bar caging it in and propelled myself upward to another metal bar protruding from the wall. I swung once, twice, three times, remembering vividly my training as a child on uneven bars. Finally, at the bottom of my fourth turn, I let go, thrusting myself forward. I flew through the air, my hands outstretched in front of me for the red lever. Forward, forward, and I was close, but I was losing altitude, and I wasn't going to make it, I realized I wasn't going to make it, I was going to fall, I was going to—my fingers clenched around the cold metal, swinging my body forward but pulling it down with my weight. All at once, the alarm ceased ringing, the machines ceased their grumbling, and all the lights in the room shut off, plunging us into darkness as I let go of the bar and landed lithely on the balls of my feet.
"Got it," I said in the sudden silence that almost seemed solid compared to the ruckus from before. My eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, meeting the sight of the rest of the group looking at each other with stupefied expressions.
Mathew seemed to be having an intense internal battle and I almost started to believe he might actually praise me or thank me or something when he finally cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "Yes, alright, uh, let's go."
Of course, not.
But as we all ran off for the exit again, Luke fell back with me and whispered "Nice work, Natasha," in his quiet way, before running to catch up again.
We resumed more quietly now that we were again plunged into silence and darkness, but we didn't meet many other guards. All seemed to have started to flee or were probably already dead. The halls were lonely and quiet. Or boots squeaking on the floor was the only noise to greet our ears when we took a sharp turn into a room Mathew had thought was an exit and came crashing into more people. We all took fighting stances, pulling our weapons immediately, not noticing they did the exact same until a familiar voice cut through the silence, "Stop—stop! It's us!"
I slackened immediately. Clint.
Mathew pulled a flashlight and its beam did indeed show us familiar faces and the even more familiar uniform we all shared. Clint stepped forward through the crowd, shielding his eyes as he pulled his own flashlight. He shone it into Mathew's face, and I saw the understanding flash across his eyes as he swung the beam first right, then left, until it settled on me, and relief swept over his face.
As if this had been some signal, everyone pulled flashlights and the room was suddenly alight with the eerie glow of fifteen or so beams of light.
"What are all of you doing here?" Mathew asked, eyeing with confusion the large group with Clint. Every leader was only supposed to take five people, and he had nine.
"Derek's dead. And a hostage has been taken," Clint said tonelessly, strictly business, as if we were talking about the weather.
"We're not sure. But we think the hostage is through that vent over there," Clint said, bringing Mathew over to the vent through which some light was shining through. Mathew peered in.
"Are those… are those chair legs?" Mathew asked. Clint nodded, also crouching down to look through.
"We were just starting to think someone should go through. We need someone small," he said, sticking his head in as if to show that not even his shoulders cleared the vent. Everyone looked around at each other, as if sizing each other up like students who'd just been told by the teacher to form a line from shortest to tallest. As Clint stood, almost all at once, everyone's eyes seemed to settle on me in the back of the room. I blinked as Clint's eyes met mine, the realization hitting me as it hit everyone else. I wasn't the shortest in the room, but I was the thinnest and leanest by far.
"Natasha?" Clint said quietly as I stepped forward. I didn't look at him as I crouched down to inspect the vent myself. I suddenly couldn't bear to meet his eyes. Through the vent I could see what looked like a white room at the far end of it through a grate. I could also make out what looked like chair legs and the black fabric of our uniforms. And I knew as I stuck my head in that I would fit just fine.
"I'll go," I said, pulling out to hand my flashlight to Clint, only looking up at him briefly to give him our nod. "You better not look in after me to look at my ass," I warned him quietly. His jaw was clenched but he smiled, however tightly, and returned our nod.
I fit myself into the vent, arms first. It was quite tight, but there was just enough room for me to pull myself with my arms and push with my thighs. Even so, the progress was slow, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I suddenly pulled up to the grate. I looked through to make sure the room was empty, which it was, except for the agent tied to the chair whose face was still out of my line of sight. I pushed at the grate, hearing a few surprised noises from the agent inside that sounded decidedly feminine. With a final slam with my head, the grate burst out and I withdrew from the vent, rubbing my head.
"Shit," I said as I stood, meeting the sight of none other than Demetra, the very same girl I'd once punched in the jaw, strapped to a rickety chair with what seemed to be miles of rope, her mouth covered with duct tape, and her eyes flicking frantically from me to the bomb strapped to her chest.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I said, running back to the open vent through which I could see Clint's poorly lit face.
"Get out," I yelled. "Get out, get everyone out. There's a bomb!"
"What!?" Clint's eyes widenened. "Who's with you?"
"It's Demetra. And she has a fucking bomb strapped to her chest. Get everyone out!"
"What about you?" Clint yelled to me, his voice betraying more worry than I'd ever heard.
"I'll get us out. You take everyone else. Just go!" I said, pulling away from the vent but hearing the sound of stomping feet through it. For once, he'd listened.
"Alright, okay, we're gonna get out of here, okay?" I said as I pulled the duct tape off her in one painful stroke.
"On the back, there's one on the back too!" she cried. I looked around her to find another, bigger, bomb on the back of the chair, reading less than three minutes.
"Alright, I'll get both," I said, kneeling in front of her to examine the first one on her chest. I licked my lips as I opened the contraption, pulling tiny wire cutters from my belt. The format looked familiar, and I suddenly thanked every God or spirit or almighty being that I hadn't ditched class the day we'd studied Vengate bombs. They'd been given their own class because their bombs were so common everywhere. I pulled carefully at the wires, Demetra's knees trembling beneath me.
"Hurry, hurry, Romanoff, please hurry," she said frantically, and I tried my hardest not to tell her to shut up. The clock on her chest ticked down menacingly as I overturned the contraption gently. I found the designated wire, snipped it, and the clock shut down. I sighed with relief, untying the ropes that held it to her chest and putting it down gently. She was still breathing heavily as I moved around to her back, her dark hair plastered to her face with sweat as she continued to chant "hurry, hurry, hurry," and I wondered if I might not put the tape back over her mouth.
"Alright, alright, I'm hurrying," I tried to say calmly, because I knew she probably thought she was going to die and I should try to be understanding, even though I secretly thought taking on this job meant she should be prepared for dying anyway.
"Please. Please, Natasha, please hurry," she whimpered as I started working the cover off the other bomb. I froze. She'd never addressed me by my first name. In fact, in school she'd hardly addressed me by name at all. I'd always been KGB. "Natasha, please. My baby. My son. I need to see my son again. Please."
I looked at her. "You have a son?" I asked as I uncovered the contraption and seeing, with a sinking feeling, that it was much more complicated that the previous one, wires criss-crossing everywhere.
"Jake. Mine and Mathew's boy. Our precious boy," she whispered, saying 'Jake' like it was the most beautiful, divine thing in her life. I'd never have guessed she'd had a child. I realized I still thought of her as her seventeen-year-old self from training. I'd never given much thought to the fact that we'd all grown plenty since then, and she would have had plenty of time to get pregnant and have a son in all that time I'd been away and hadn't seen her. But somehow, it still seemed impossible. It seemed ludicrous that she'd made a whole other life besides her job, that she'd had a baby being what she was.
"Natasha. Natasha, I have to see him. He's only two. I have to see my baby again," she cried desperately.
"You will, okay? I'm gonna get us out and you'll see Jake again," I reassured her, feeling strange as I did. I couldn't quite believe I was comforting someone I'd once punched in the jaw. Sweat trickled down my neck as I pulled delicately at wires, trying to remember the basics of bomb disarming all the while the timer ticked closer and closer to zero.
And I was trying desperately to remember if I was supposed to snip the red, blue, or yellow wire.
Fifteen…
And Demetra kept crying for her Jake.
Fourteen…
And more and more wires seemed to come out of nowhere just when I thought I'd finally figured it out.
Thirteen…
And I thought fleetingly of Clint and how I might not see his stupid smirk again.
Twelve…
Or hear him call me Tasha.
Eleven…
More wires.
Ten…
And more tears.
Nine…
And more Clint.
Eight…
Dammit, was it blue or yellow?
Seven…
Or red?
Six…
Sweat.
Five…
Blue or red.
Four…
Jake.
Three…
Blue or yellow.
Two…
Clint.
One…
My shaking hands took the yellow wire.
Zero…
"Can I have everyone's attention?"
I looked up from my glass of vodka on the rocks. We were at a bar in Seattle, only two days after our escape from Vengate, which was not blown to smithereens and was now under the safe control of SHIELD meanwhile it was being dismantled. Apparently it was tradition to come to this bar, which was run by undercover agents, after a successful mission. I hadn't known nor cared since I wasn't really ever included in traditions, but this time Clint had determinedly dragged me along since I was the hero.
"LISTEN UP!" Clint continued when his first attempt hadn't gotten very much attention besides mine. Quiet settled around the bar as face after face turned toward him.
"First of all, I'd like to congratulate all of us for a successful mission," he said, a bout of applause answering his words. "And a moment of silence for our seven fallen agents." And the bar again fell to silence as everyone bowed their heads. I bowed mine as well.
"Just one more thing now," Clint said, causing heads to snap back up to him. I looked at him as well, an eyebrow raised as his eyes suddenly locked onto mine. "A toast."
My eyes narrowed. He wouldn't. I shook my head infinitesimally, but Clint only looked away with a grin.
"A toast for Natasha Romanoff, who not only shut off the place and saved Demetra, but all of us from a blast that would have blown the surrounding six mile radius sky-high. To Natasha!" he said loudly, thrusting his drink into the air.
It was quiet. Uncomfortably quiet. I looked down at my drink.
"To Natasha," said a voice sitting at the bar. I looked up to see Demetra take one hand and raise her glass, the other holding onto the bouncing baby boy on her lap who must be Jake. He looked quite a lot like Mathew, but he had Demetra's sharp grey eyes. I stared at her, surprised, as Mathew himself, who was standing just beside her with a hand on her shoulder raised his own glass.
"To Natasha."
"To Natasha," called another voice from across the joint. Luke, raising his glass to glint in the neon lighting of the place.
Then all at once, glasses were raised everywhere with an echoing chorus of "To Natasha." I gulped, my eyes glued to Clint who still had his arm raised, his smirk still plastered on his face, the smirk I'd been afraid I'd never see again.
I raised my own glass in response, a bashful smile on my face that felt extremely foreign. And then, as if on cue, everyone broke into applause. And I couldn't exactly say why, but I couldn't look away from Clint.
Everyone returned to their chatter when I lowered my drink, gulping it down in one go. I'd managed to charm the bartender into letting me take the entire bottle of vodka to my lonely table in the corner, but I suddenly didn't really want to drink anymore. I was already feeling strangely buzzed, though not with alcohol. I walked quietly out of the place, returning shyly the smiles that were suddenly sent my way from everywhere in the bar, breathing the night air outside with a small sense of relief. Not exactly because it'd been uncomfortable inside. Just… different.
"So I guess you're off to Russia now, eh?" said a voice behind me. I hadn't even taken three steps away from the place. I turned to see Clint leaning on the brick wall, his face shadowy.
"I guess so," I replied. I actually hadn't given it much thought. In fact, I'd completely forgotten until now that I could go alone now. Leave whenever I pleased. My parole was over. And so was my stupid babysitting period.
"Be careful, alright?" he said quietly. "I want to see you again. Alive."
I nodded and the silence suddenly dragged between us. It was unusual. Clint usually didn't possess the ability to be quiet.
"Come with me," I said so suddenly I surprised myself almost as much as I did him.
"What?" he said, and I was violently reminded of the first night we'd met. We'd said the exact same words to each other, but the roles had been reversed.
"Come with me," I repeated, taking the few steps to close the gap between us. "We're partners, aren't we?"
He looked down at me, a grin spreading across his face so genuinely thrilled that I smiled too.
"Partners," he agreed, letting me link my arm through his as we walked off into the dark, my heels clicking on the pavement and his laugh resounding through the night.