"Tasha. Tasha wake up."
Natasha pinched her eyes shut then let them flicker open to take in the cellar, now illuminated by dusty columns of sunlight. She rolled her head along Clint's shoulder and he stopped shaking her arm when she met his eyes. "What is it?" she asked, though she could tell by his tired face it was not good news.
Clint held up a small electronic screen. "They're here. The apartment door has just been breached."
Natasha pulled herself up. "What time is it?"
"7:26. The S&R team is still half an hour out."
"Wonderful." She pulled out a set of ear radios and handed one to Clint. "Here we go again." Natasha lifted one of the assault rifles from its case. "What's the plan?"
Clint picked up the other, and slipped one of the spare handguns behind his back. "We get to higher ground. Then it's Szabo's move."
He bent down and slid the black S.H.I.E.L.D. case hiding the TPE's nuclear material beside the dusty shelving unit and then stacked the matching cases in a pyramid around it. Clint searched his pockets and came up empty. "We really don't have much to work with, do we?"
"What do you need?"
"Anything that blows up."
Natasha reached into one of the pouches on her utility belt and held a small metal disk between two fingers. "I have plenty of smoke bombs, and a couple of these."
"Keep the rest; this should do." Clint took the little explosive and pried off the housing. With a half-used spool of fishing line, he wove a little web around the cases and ended back at the bomb, tying all the components together. "It's crude, but it should work. If anyone disturbs the cases, it'll go off, but it's only large enough to stop one person, two at best."
"Is that safe?" said Natasha. "I mean, you're not going to set off the nukes of right?"
"I figure, if whatever's in that case was primed to explode, the TPE would have just detonated ushours ago."
"Fair point, I just -" Natasha stopped. "Did you hear that?" She held up a hand to stop Clint from moving and listened to the unmistakeable boom of an explosion. The remnants of the pressure wave radiating out from the blast washed over them a second later, leaving a slight ring in their ears.
Clint checked the screen of his motion sensor device. All the information had gone blank. "Auntie Em, Auntie Em."
Natasha shook her head. "Move." She grabbed the gun tighter and tried not to picture the apartment up in smoke, the glass blown out of the windows and raining down in the alley, the makeshift dance floor stripped down to the support beams, the glossy book pages displaying the works of Sargent and Degas and Klimt just bits of ash wafting up with the column of smoke rising from the apartment.
Clint ran forward and kicked down the basement door. "Where do we go from here?" Clint asked as they ran up the stairs.
"You're the strategist," Natasha replied. "I just follow orders."
"No, I mean -" he opened the door to the first floor and nodded after scanning the room that appeared to be offices and a small reception area "- the two of us. 'Us.' Assuming we make it out of this, what happens then?"
Natasha paused as they ran to the second floor. Clint heard her footsteps drop off and stopped a few stairs higher.
"Really?" said Natasha. "You want to talk about this now?"
"I want to know what I have to look forward to back on the Helicarrier. You still gonna want me once Fury chews my head off?"
"Don't worry we're going to match." She checked the second floor, just empty cubicles. "Clear."
Clint grabbed her arm. "Tasha, we might not get another chance for this."
She turned to face him. "I've never been one to worry about the future. Either it will come or it won't. Who knows what could happen between now and then. What we could lose. Who we could lose."
Clint struck the wall beside him, leaving a light dent in the sheetrock. "I hate this."
"You can feel it slipping away, can't you? Sebastian and Charlotte's lives collapsing around us."
"This whole crazy night, that's what's been on my mind. You know, besides you, and not dying, and the fate of the world. It feels like I've been fighting for . . . this. Whatever it is we've managed to find here. And now . . ." Clint shook his head. "Never mind."
Natasha grabbed his hand. "You still are. You're still fighting for you, and me, and all of the craziness that comes with us. Just . . . just be there, ok, when all the smoke clears. Make it through. I need you too."
He stepped down to the stair above hers. "Likewise." He kissed her, and then turned and jogged up a few steps.
Natasha called after him. "And Clint?" He looked back over his shoulder. She took a quick glance at the tiles and forced the words out of her mouth. "I love you."
He smiled. "I love you too."
They hurried to the third floor, and Clint peeked cautiously through the door. "Clear." He went to swing it shut when Natasha's hand flew out to stop the him. Clint followed her into the room. "What is it?"
They wove over the short-napped blue carpet and through the neat grid of cubicles. The empty azure walls cast a calming blue glow over the office space.
"Damn," said Natasha as they neared front wall. She pulled open one of the windows and sharp squealing giggles and shouts and the dull thump of feet on wood chips drifted in from across the street. "There are children on the playground."
"At 7:30 on a Sunday morning?"
"Judging by the lights there are more in the building. Maybe some kind of event is going on at the school, who knows. We have to get them out of here before -"
Natasha stopped. A hissing whistle cut through the still morning air. Most of the children on the playground paused too, stopping their games to look down the street. A second later, a dull pop echoed around the slight bow in the street, in the direction of the destroyed apartment.
"What was that? I don't have a visual."
The whistle came again, followed by the smash of glass and the thudding boom of a blast. Whistle, smash, boom. Whistle, smash, boom.
The children on the playground began to cry, screaming and running back into the school. Several parents appeared, scooping up the littlest ones and herding the rest inside.
Smoke began to billow from the neighboring buildings. Not the charred blackish smoke still rising from the apartment building, but the uniform light gray smoke of a -
"Smoke bomb," said Clint. "They're trying to smoke us out!"
Whistle, smash, boom. Whistle, smash, boom. Whistle, smash, boom. The columns of smoke came in quick succession, cascading from one side of the street to the other. What seemed like seconds after they had started, the building next door billowed hazy white smoke from all its windows.
Clint and Natasha's eyes met. "Run!"
They sprinted away from the window to the sound of screams and coughs as smoke bombs rained through the finger paint covered windows of the school. The sharp shatter of glass rang out from the first floor of their office building, then the second. "Hit the deck!" Clint screamed as the windows behind them shattered. Two diamond-shaped white canisters sailed through the window and clattered onto the floor. Clint and Natasha skidded onto the rough carpet as the shells exploded around them. Acrid white smoke filled the air. It stung at their eyes, making them water even as they clamped their eyelids shut. It burned their noses and lungs. Every breath stung like shrapnel pouring into their airways. They coughed uncontrollably, trying to expel the smoke from their bodies, but each coughing fit only made them inhale again.
Clint found Natasha's hand and pulled her forward. They stayed as low to the ground as possible and army crawled blindly for the door. When they found it, Clint groped for the doorknob and threw it open. They hurried into the stairwell and slammed the door behind them. Natasha opened her eyes. The smoke was thinner here, but still seeping in from under the doors. She squinted, blinking furiously at the stinging smoke. Grabbing Clint by the collar, she hauled him up the stairs. When they made it to the final landing, Natasha threw a kick at the door, breaking the bolt free from the door frame. As more smoke gathered in the stairwell, Clint and Natasha burst out onto the roof and collapsed on the gravel.
They coughed and spat and tried to blink the smoke from their puffy red eyes. Clint rolled over onto his back, sucking in gulps of fresh air and coughing most of them out again. For a minute he was coughing so hard he thought he might vomit. Natasha rose up on her knees, letting her tears drip onto the gravel.
Clint pushed his tinted purple glasses up onto his forehead and closed his watering eyes. As his body worked to clear the smoke, he turned his attention to his ears. For the moment the bombing had stopped. Hideous shrieks tore through the street carrying unmistakable anguish through smoky, still air. From that sound of it, at least one child in the school hadn't made it through the smoke. "Damn. If András thinks we're hiding out in there, they'll attack the school."
"What do we do?"
"We let them know where we are." Clint held up the rifle and flipped the glare-free glasses back over his eyes. "Politely, of course."
The gravel lining the roof crunched as they crawled up to the low parapet ringing the roof. Clint rose up on his knees and tipped the barrel of the gun down toward the street. "Six men in the back of a rusty old pick-up. Two with what look like rocket launchers sitting on their shoulders, the other four just lobbing the smoke shells by hand. The truck is surrounded by a ring of maybe ten men, all heavily armed. No sign of Szabo or Varga, but they can't be far behind."
"Do you have a shot?" asked Natasha.
"I always have a shot." Clint waived a finger, signaling Natasha to brace her rifle on the parapet too. "Aim for the tires, we don't need that truck going any farther. I'll get the bombers. Then, take whoever you can get. Of course, this would be easier with proper sniper rifles, but we'll do what we can. Ready?"
Down on the ground, the guards ringing the truck fanned out, scanning the street for any sign of the fugitives. Buckles clicked and heavy boots clomped on the asphalt as they moved. A new man joined them from down the street, his long stringy body less heavily armed but his weapons clearly superior to those of his comrades.
"Why did you stop?" Zoltán Varga demanded of the driver.
"We had some activity inside this school building, but no sign of the targets."
"Blow it anyway." He turned and barked at the six men in the truck bed. "Got any real shells in those buckets of smoke?"
"Yes Sir," a younger man holding one of the rocket launchers replied.
"Use them."
The man with the launcher lowered it between his knees and dug through the buckets of conical white shells that lined the center of the truck bed behind him. He grabbed a larger, clay-colored shell tucked carefully at the bottom of the bucket.
No one saw the first flash. The young man with the rocket launcher toppled over. The man beside him grabbed his shoulder and turned him over, revealing the blank look on his face and the trickle of blood down his forehead. "They're here!" he cried. "Everyone look out, they're -" He slumped down over the bucket of smoke shells beside his teammate.
Bullets whizzed around the street. Soon all six of the men in the truck lay dead, and air hissed from the punctured tires. The other guards whipped their heads arounds, searching for the source of gunfire.
"There!" Varga shouted and he caught the instantaneous glimmer of a gun barrel. " On the roof!"
The remaining guards scrambled for cover, crouching behind light poles and street signs. Varga slung himself behind the truck. "Return fire!" he ordered, then pressed on the translucent white earwig curling down from his ear. "Boss, we've got them."
"Good work," András's voice crackled in his ear. "Slow them down until I arrive."
"With pleasure."
Bullets now rained along the street from both sides. The rapid bursts and bright orange flashes of the TPE's submachine guns rolled like a thunder and lightning storm up and down along the block.
Varga braced his foot on the rear tire and pushed himself up into the bed of the truck. Staying as flat as possible, he shimmied into the corner of the bed where the first man had fallen. As bullets pinged on the metal sides around him, he ripped the rocket launcher from the guard's shoulder and inserted the clay-brown shell into the cylinder. A crooked smile spread across Varga's face. "Down you go," he snickered, rose up on his knees and pulled the trigger. His whole body jerked and rattled as the shell exploded out of the tube. It spiraled up toward the corner of the office building, leaving a swirling trail of smoke as it went.
"Shit!" Clint shouted as the entire truck bed flashed yellow with the explosion of the rocket launcher. He barely had time to finger an arrow before the shell exploded into the side of the building. The entire structure shuttered and a ball of smoke and flames shot up from the corner. Plaster and concrete groaned and crumbled as the top right quadrant of the building's facade toppled onto the sidewalk.
Hairline cracks spread out from the impact site, forming a spiderweb of lines beneath Natasha, who sat crouched closer to the edge of the building. She scrambled backward but it wasn't enough. The roof gave way beneath her and she tumbled toward the ground. Clint dove for her but the cracks reached him a second later. They both plummeted down in a shower of debris.
Clint reached out and locked onto Natasha's arm. With his free hand, he jabbed the arrow into the side of the building. Their bodies jerked violently as they swung to a halt at the second story. The ground below seemed to bungee down and back again and they caught their breath. Natasha could feel the tremors in Clint's arm as adrenaline coursed through his veins. Her own heart pounded into her throat as the last bits of dust and debris rained down around them. Clint looked at the hole beside them. The entire face of the front corner of the building had been torn away. A massive jagged hole left the height of the third floor and part of the second exposed to the street.
"You're surrounded!" Varga shouted up to them. Clint and Natasha looked back over their shoulders. Every guard left standing formed a ring at the base of the building, weapons trained on their defenseless forms. Emerging from around the bend in the street, a fresh wave of guards took their places at the base of the building, adding a second and third ring to the circle of weapons. Striding up behind it all came András Szabo.
"Bring them here."
"Tasha grab onto my legs." Natasha obeyed and Clint used his newly free hand to unclip the bow and quiver from his back and fling them through the gaping hole in the building to the third floor, hoping they would land on solid ground.
Several guards scrambled up the rubble pile at the base of the building. With crude rope lassos they latched on to Clint and Natasha's ankles and yanked them down. One strong-armed guard caught Clint as he fell, then immediately tossed him gracelessly onto the sidewalk. Natasha's did the same, and she tumbled to a stop in the gritty debris beside Clint. One hand after another clawed at their scratched and bloodied bodies. The hands hauled them up and dropped them side by side on their knees. Clint and Natasha looked up to see the bulky bodies attached to all those hands. Broken, bloody faces glared back beneath bruises and bandages. Hatred burned in every single pair of eyes. Split, blood-crusted lips shouted for revenge. Clint jerked his shoulder and more hands piled on it, keeping him still. The hands bracing their arms lifted away as the rope lassos were wound around their wrists.
András Szabo stepped forward. His eyes twitched with rage. "I've had about enough of this. Congratulations. You've made it personal. I hope you use your last few seconds to sorely regret that decision."
"Don't you want to know where your case is?" Clint asked.
"I'll find it, don't you worry. I'll level this whole neighborhood if I have to, but I'll find it. Now, you two have caused me more trouble, more pain -. Finish them."
"How should we do it?" asked Varga. He smiled wickedly and glared at Clint. "Execution style?"
Two eager guards raised their weapons and touched the barrels to the back of Clint and Natasha's skulls, but András raised a hand. "No." He leaned in to Clint, bracing his hands around Clint's neck. His meaty thumbs pressed down on Clint's windpipe, threatening to choke him out. The edges of his vision blurred as Szabo spoke. "I'm not the kind of man who jumps out from behind like a coward. I look my prey in the eyes when I pull the trigger."
He released Clint's neck and Clint gasped in air. When he looked up, his eyes crossed on the barrel of András's pistol held inches from his forehead.
András undid the safety with a tiny clink. "Point blank."