A/N: Hey everybody! I am SO sorry it's been so long! Here you go:

Clint ran through the dim gallery basement until he came to the nearest stairway. As he touched the handle, he stopped. Footsteps echoed through the stairwell, growing louder as someone approached. Clint ducked away behind some cobweb-covered crates. As he crouched there, the door swung open, casting a beam of light across the floor. Four men entered the basement, guards that Clint recognized from András' inner circle. One with a long ponytail, the leader, barked orders Clint couldn't understand. Two men branched off deeper into the basement, and the others headed to Varga's makeshift interrogation room. Time to get out of there.

Clint crept out from his hiding spot and carefully slipped through the closing door. As he raced up the staircase, shouts rose from the basement. The door opened again, and slammed shut as three furious pairs of boots joined him on the stairs. Clint called up the building blueprints in his mind, searching for a room that would fit the video Varga had showed him. István held Natasha in a high-ceilinged room that clearly wasn't part of the gallery displays. Only two rooms met that description, and Clint decided to start with the closer one, on the second floor.

He exited the stairwell and moved carefully through the darkened gallery. He wove around pedestals holding Roman busts and abstract sculptures until he came to the storage room door. Clint looked carefully through the narrow reenforced window set into the door. Natasha hung from the shelves inside, sparkling in her fiery dress, and István stood in front of her. If he burst in now, Szabo would still have the upper hand. He needed a distraction.

Clint grabbed the radio he had taken from Zoltán and hoped it was still on Varga and Szabo's private channel. "Good afternoon ladies and gentleman," he said into the radio. "We are experiencing some minor turbulence, so please fasten your seat belts and remain seated until further instruction."

"What the hell?" Szabo shouted as he ripped his own radio from his waist. "Varga! Varga come in!"

"He's not available. Can I take a message?"

István looked around frantically, expecting to see Clint somewhere in the room.

Natasha shook her head. "At least give him some credit, István. He's smarter than that."

István lowered the radio and moved in even closer to Natasha, grabbing a clump of her hair. His breath stank as he glared into her eyes. Natasha curled her lips into a half-smile. She placed her bare feet on the metal shelving, lifting enough weight from her shoulders that she could reposition her arms.

With the strain no longer on her shoulders, Natasha hoisted herself up with her forearms. Before Szabo could move, Natasha had her long slender legs wrapped around his neck. She spun him around and slid her calf along his throat, then tucked her foot beneath her opposite kneecap and clamped down. Szabo quickly crumpled to the floor.

"Wow," Clint said as he hurried into the room and over to her. "That's not exactly what I had in mind."

"It worked didn't it? Now come on, cut me loose."

Clint searched István's unconscious body until he found Natasha's confiscated knife. He cut the rope around her wrists and she dropped down to the ground. Natasha grimaced as she rubbed her shoulder muscles. "How about that dance now?" he said as he helped her rub out her shoulders.

"Very funny," she replied and brushed his hands away. "We have to get to the atrium right away Follow me." She took István's gun and radio and hurried out the door, scanning the area before she crept out into the museum proper. "There's a balcony that looks over the gala. This way."

"Tasha, what did you find out from Szabo?"

"I'll explain as we go."

Twenty minutes earlier:

"Now," said István, twirling the knife in his fingers. "Let's try this again." He ran the flat part of the blade against her jawbone. The cool metal slipped past her cheek as she turned her head away, cowering ever so slightly from him. "That's better. Now let's start with something simple. You're name."

Natasha didn't reply. She turned her head away as far as she could, trying to hide from Szabo. István took the flat knife and jerked her face back toward him.

"I wouldn't if I were you," said Szabo. "Natasha, Natasha," he muttered to himself. "You know, my dear, just before you came we had a visitor. He went by the name Vincent Abano, but you and I both know that's not quite right. We never did learn his real name; the sneaky little rat got away. I do know, however, where he scurried off to. Natasha darling, have you ever heard of S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Natasha didn't flinch. "Yes, yes I know all about it. An "international peace-keeping organization" they call themselves. All they bring is war."

"And you don't?" said Natasha.

"My brothers and I, of blood or ideology, only bring peace, peace from the plague of government overrunning this country. Soon our people will be free from the tyranny, free from the pain of war! Do excuse me. You see, the address you so carefully edited for me is not the only speech I've made this evening. But enough about me. Based on Mr. Abano's visit and the timing of your arrival, I can only assume that you and your partner slithered out of the same rat's nest. I have to wonder, then, if you might be the infamous Black Widow." Natasha didn't meet his gaze. Szabo smiled. "Then let me ask you this, Agent Romanoff: don't you bring war as as well?"

Natasha stopped fighting, let her body hang limp. She let Szabo see hints of her fear.

"Not so much fun without a mask to hide behind, is it?" István stroked her cheek. "I must say, though, your beauty does live up to the legend."

"What do you want from me?"

"It's simple really," said István. "What do you know?"

"I don't know anything," Natasha replied, and Szabo's hand came down hard on her face.

"I thought you'd be smarter than that, Agent Romanoff." He shook his head. "I do wish you were going to be around to see me get what I want. I want you to see the columns of smoke obscuring the sky, the panic in the streets. I wish I could let you live with the guilt of knowing you were so close to stopping us. At least that's what you'd tell yourself. This operation is far to delicate to allow to the two of you to stop it. That's the price you pay I suppose. I'll be okay knowing the rest of the city will live with the same guilt."

"Why are you doing this?"

"The world is sick, Agent Romanoff. Sick with violence, sick with blood."

"How do you and your little group plan to make it any better?"

"A little something I learned when my father died: the sickness is also the cure." István checked his watch. "How inconsiderate of me; I've been doing all the talking. Unfortunately I'm late for an appointment, so we're going to have to speed things up."

Szabo pulled down hard on Natasha's shoulder and she gritted her teeth in pain.

"Now tell me again -" he began, but the crackle of the radio cut him off.

"István, are you there?"

"I'm in the middle of something Varga," Szabo replied hastily.

"So am I. It seems our two little lovebirds are, well just that."

István raised an eyebrow at Natasha. "It that so?"

"Anything you'd like to say?" Varga asked and Clint's voice crackled.

"Hey, Tasha, how you doin?"

"Never better Honeybear," she replied tensely as her own weight ripped at her shoulders.

"Sorry Tasha, I'm going to need your help decoding that one," Clint whispered when she'd finished relaying the highlights of her interrogation with Szabo.

"It means we were missing a piece of the puzzle," Natasha replied as they crept slowly along the walls of the dark second floor display rooms. "Szabo said 'columns of smoke,' plural, which means they're building more than one bomb. He also used the phrase 'the sickness is also the cure' and related it to his fight against violence, but also to his father's death."

Clint snapped his fingers and the sound reverberated throughout the room. Natasha shushed him, but he kept talking. "That makes so much more sense. This whole scheme has been bugging me. I know we said that the Szabo boys should be able to come up with something a little more creative, but also, a nuclear attack didn't make sense. Warheads are used by states. Their function is intimidation as much as destruction. If the TPE came out as said they had a warhead, they would either have to use it and lose their leverage, or they'd have to stall and we, or the Hungarian government, would find and dismantle it. They can set off smaller bombs one by one until their demands are met. But the use of radioactive material really only leave one possibility."

Natasha nodded solemnly. "Dirty bombs. The blast of the conventional explosives will take more lives, but the radiation the bomb disperses will cause the real panic, what he called the 'panic in the streets.' I don't remember Szabo's father's cause of death, but I'd bet you it was cancer."

"Of course," said Clint. "Radiation is both a cause and a treatment for cancer. A string of dirty bombs certainly will cause a panic. Not to mention distract government resources with containment and cleanup."

Natasha turned a corner and waited for Clint to follow. She had led them to the doorway leading out to the balcony which overlooked the atrium and the gala floor. Music blared up from the band, and she cleaned in close to whisper. "Clint, there's more. Szabo said the whole city will have to live with the guilt of not stoping the attacks, which means the TPE will make a public treat, and what better venue than the gala."

They leaned out the doorway to see two of András' guards posted along the railing. All of a sudden, the lights went out with a thunk. The band stopped playing and a nervous quiet fell over the crowd.

So that is why those thugs who chased me left one of their men in the basement, Clint though, to access the power relays. He grabbed onto Natasha's shoulder in the darkness and said,"I guess they're making their public statement right now."