In this chapter; Evie is two and Natasha is five months pregnant
Natasha stood in the line in the bank, not quite sure why it was so busy on a Saturday morning. Clint joined her, holding Evie in her pink ballet leotard and repeating to her how well she'd done in her lesson earlier;
"You're just like your mommy" Clint smiled at his daughter as he kissed Natasha on the cheek, wrapping his free arm around her and placing his hand on her stomach. At that exact moment one of the babies kicked forcefully at his hand. He beamed at her, it was only recently he'd been able to feel them kicking, Natasha had been feeling them for weeks.
Just then there was a loud bang behind them, followed by shooting and screaming. Evie covered her ears with her hands and Clint had moved instinctively into a protective stance in front of Natasha while cradling his daughter. Neither of them had to look to see the noise had been gun fire.
The security guard lay dead on the floor, while five armed men scanned the room. One disappeared to drag the manager from her office, another busied himself with ripping down the security cameras.
Clint looked briefly around the other people in the bank; there were 11 hostages, including themselves; a young boy, about 7 and his grandmother, a teenage couple, an older man in a business suit, a woman wearing gym clothing, a bank clerk and the manager.
"Clint, we can't let them know who we are" Natasha whispered as she leaned into his side, feigning fear.
He nodded, turning to whisper to his daughter; "Eve, remember what we said about code names?" she nodded shyly, whispering in return that she was to pretend her name was Irina (her middle name). Clint smiled at her in acknowledgment before turning to whisper to Nat that the fake ID in his wallet named him as 'Thomas Bristow'. She had a matching one in her bag adorned with the name 'Sophie Bristow'.
The five men all wore masks, and waved their guns round in a way that told Clint they didn't really know what they were doing, all but one man who quietly observed from the back, holding his gun tightly and stood in a military stance; he was the one they needed to watch. The men planned on waiting for the scheduled delivery truck to arrive with a fresh lot of money, guessing they'd get more that way than simply taking what was already in the safe.
They rounded the hostages in the waiting area and forced them all to sit on the floor. Two men kept watch over them while the other three monitored the front.
"I need a distraction, I can take them down" Clint said, tensing his fists in anger. He looked expectantly at Natasha.
"I don't think so; I'm not being the distraction, not this time"
"Come on, it'd be easy for you; pretend you're going into labour. You look further along than you are, no one will question it"
"Thats not my concern, if I'm playing distraction and you're off playing the hero then there's no one to look out for Eve" she elbowed him subtly too for his comment, she was carrying twins; of course she was going to look bigger!
Clint looked down to his daughter curled up in his lap, Natasha was right, he needed a new plan.
The delivery truck was late and that made the men anxious. They paced up and down, occasionally pausing to speak to their hostages. They'd taken a particular dislike to the man in the business suit and hit him forcefully in the face with the butt of the gun. They mocked the woman in the sweat pants and spoke openly to the young boy. Natasha had caught the eye of the leader, who liked to caress her cheek or brush the hair from her face every time he passed, He stared at her incessantly, which made talking to Clint increasingly difficult.
Clint's blood began to boil as he made his way over once more, knelling down next to her and asking her name;
"It's none of your business!" Clint growled, losing control of his temper slightly.
The man scowled at him, but looking at what they'd done to the other man, it could have been worse.
This time he turned his attention to Evie;
"And what about you princess, what's your name?"
She looked uneasily to her mother who nodded slightly
"I-Irina"
"Well that's a pretty name, just like you, and your mommy..." he turned back to leer at Natasha just as the bank phone began to ring.
He darted to his feet and quickly answered it, ignoring the protests of the man stood in the back; it was the police. Natasha could hear negotiations weren't going well, and the masked man was using her and Evie as his main leverage, when he slammed the phone down angrily he turned to the hostages and gave them the once over.
Scribbling a note of some sort onto a piece of paper he thrust it at the old woman and told her to leave, reluctant to leave her grandson she tried to persuade them men to let him go instead, but at their insistence she walked from the building, towards a crowd of armed officers. Before she'd left, Natasha had managed to slide her ID card to the elderly lady, who seemed to understand it had some importance.
Steve got the call from Hill while he was at the gym. He met Tony at the tower, suited up and arrived outside the bank within 15 minutes of receiving the call.
"What are you guys doing here?" one of the officers asked with disdain
"We have a vested interest in the outcome"
He looked at them with raised eyebrows before shrugging his disinterest.
"Sergeant, what's the situation?"
"Five armed robbers, 10 hostages. They did have 11 but they sent one out with a list of demands and an ID card, guessing the ID is why you're here?"
"Yeah, we need that information kept from the press"
"No problem Captain. How do you want to play this?"
"I don't know about you guys but I just want to go and kick some ass!" Tony said angrily as the police sergeant passed Natasha fake ID over to him.
"We can't Tony, tell me about the hostages?"
"Two bank workers, a elderly gentleman; he's injured, hit in the face with a gun, two teenagers, a pregnant woman, her husband and their young daughter, another woman, slightly older and a young boy, the lad is the freed hostage's grandson. The pregnant woman; Sophie Bristow, is the one who had her ID snuck out, so I'm guessing she's why you're here?"
Steve ignored the direct question and replied with another of his own;
"What demands did they make?"
"They asked for $5 million and an escape vehicle that's all. They don't seem too experienced; they didn't ask for non sequential notes, no tracker devices, nothing, they even let the old lady go without us asking..."
Suddenly there was a sound of three shots. Steve stared at the building in a slight panic.
"Have we got eyes in there?"
"No, they disabled the security footage"
Tony watched as two uniformed officers edged closer to the front of the building, trying to get a read on the situation inside. Several shots were fired at them and they quickly retreated behind the barrier of police vehicles.
Sergeant Davis dialed the bank once more and was surprised when someone actually answered, however it was a different man than before;
"What's going on in there?"
"Where's our money?"
"We're working on it; but $5 million is going to take a while to get together. Tell me; why were shots fired?"
"Me and the boss had a slight disagreement. Now I'm the boss. We want $10 million and we want it within the hour or we start shooting hostages"
"We're trying but that's a lot of cash, send out the children and the women? Show some compassion and it might help speed things up"
Without a reply he hung up the phone.
"Damn, the leader is dead, they've increased their demands; they're starting to get desperate. We need the hostages out now"
"Sir" shouted one of the officers, gesturing towards the bank.
He looked up to see a dark haired boy and a young blond girl exiting the building. The boy ran straight up to his grandmother while the girl sprinted towards Captain America and Iron Man
"Uncle Steve! Uncle Tony!" she cried, tears spilling down her face as Steve lifted her up and held her tightly.
"Evie, are you okay?"
She nodded sadly looking back towards the bank where her parents remained.
There were just three armed men left now, two had been shot in the disagreement. This gave Clint even better odds.
"Will you act as a distraction now?" Clint whispered to Natasha
"Fine, just give me a minute" she said, shifting uncomfortably on the cold, hard floor. Rubbing her stomach in a soothing motion as the babies kicked and wriggled, she pulled her face at the discomfort and started thinking how best to play this.
Saving her the trouble, the elder man in the business suit clutched at his chest, groaning in pain. Clearly he was suffering a heart attack, the woman crawled over to him and helped lower his head slowly to the ground.
"What're you doing old man? Sit back up!" one of the armed men yelled, strolling over and kicking at the old man.
In that moment Clint reached up, grabbing the gun from his hand, he turned quickly and used the man's own weight against him, throwing him to the ground. He stamped on the mans shoulder and wrenched his wrist higher, snapping the bones in his arms and causing him to scream out in pain.
Seemingly simultaneously Steve and Tony breached the entrance, one man was instantly taken down by Tony's repulsor beam while the other flew back with the force of Steve's shield. The rounded the corner to the grateful looks on the other hostages faces.
"We totally had this" Clint told them, helping Natasha to her feet.