'21 years later.' Natasha washed her face in a bathroom sink, clearly having been crying, and watches security cam footage of Ross' men outside of a building.
A SWAT team makes their way inside.
"Wonder what this is all about." Clint muttered sarcastically. He remembered Lorraine saying that this actually took place after the whole Sokovia Accords and Leipzig catastrophe, so they must be trying to take Nat to where the rest of them were in that underwater prison. Good luck with that, he thought.
Ross says that Natasha Romanoff in in violation of the Sokovia Accords.
"There it is." Sam sighed.
Ross says that Natasha assaulted the King of Wakanda.
"I was trying to keep him from murdering an innocent man." Natasha corrected.
"I'm not sure many would consider the Winter Soldier to be an innocent man." Fury disputed.
"You know what I mean. He was innocent of that particular crime." Natasha emphasized.
Ross tells his team to make an example out of her.
"I'd like to see them try." Maria commented. If Natasha didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be. Simple as that.
Natasha calls Ross, and tells him not to come after her, because he's embarrassing himself and it looks desperate.
"He's wasting all his resources on a person he knows he can't bring in." Happy agreed. "It is absolutely desperate."
Ross says he thought she'd be calling to cut a deal.
"Now why would I ever do that?" Natasha asked. "I don't make deals with suits."
"You made a deal with Fury." Clint pointed out.
"Extenuating circumstances." Natasha deflected.
Ross says from his vantage point, the federal fugitive is the desperate one.
Natasha says he looks like he could use some bedrest and asks if he's had his second triple bypass.
"Yeah, he looks... frail; Like he belongs in a hospital bed not chasing down international war criminals." Bruce commented. "No offence." He added, as he remembered just who those supposed 'war criminals' were.
Ross says not to worry about him because they brought in Barton, Wilson, 'the incredible shrinking convict' and adds that Rogers is on the run so Natasha has no friends and asks where she's going to go.
"He's acting like those are my only options." Natasha said. Did Ross forget who she used to be before all this? It sure seemed like it, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered and would have just stuck to tracking down Steve or whatever else he feels he needs to do.
Natasha says she's lived a lot of lives before she met him and says he shouldn't have gone through the trouble and says she's done. She hangs up the phone.
"Done? What do you mean done?" Clint asked. "That better mean 'done with this conversation' and not... done with everything else." He added, although he couldn't really fault her for wanting to walk away from all this craziness, it's- apparently- what he'd tried to do, only it seemed like he just kept getting sucked back into it again.
A SWAT agent walks up to a bathroom. Natasha zips up her jacket and leaves through a different exit, not in the building Ross was searching.
Clint smirked. Ross was definitely an idiot of he thought he actually be able to bring Natasha in.
The SWAT agent finds her uniform with the tracker on the floor in the stall, then brings it to Ross.
Natasha is on a boat; she shoves her phone over the edge.
"And that's that..." Natasha sighed, feeling an odd weight settle onto her soldiers. Maybe it should've been concerning how easily she was able to walk away from all of that and leave it all behind her after everything. However, she couldn't really bring herself to care about that at the moment, maybe it was because she knew she'd be back anyway. She never could stay away from a fight for too long, and she definitely didn't give in that easily.
'Morocco' Yelena is stationed on the roof with a sniper rifle in her arms. She tells her partner that she has eyes on the target.
Natasha watched with squinted eyes. Something about the woman seemed vaguely familiar, almost as if she'd seen that face before, but that couldn't be right- she'd never met this person as far as she can tell. And why was she dressed like a widow, and talking like one too? She didn't think there were any active widows out there, not after she'd destroyed the Red Room. "They couldn't have rebuilt, could they?" She wondered, she wouldn't have put it past them try, but succeed? How'd they do it?
Yelena's partner says she has sights on collateral one. Yelena prepares to fire just as the school bell rings and the children exit.
"Tell me they're not going to shoot when there's children present." Bruce fretted.
Natasha chose not to respond, she didn't want to lie to him, and the truth wouldn't bring anyone any comfort. The silence was answer enough anyway, no need to say it out loud. As a Widow, the only thing that had mattered was the mission. Collateral was just that- collateral.
Yelena's target spots her and deploys a smoke bomb. Yelena leaves her position to go to the ground and tells her partner to stay where she is.
Yelena uses a rope to lower herself to the ground, as the target makes her way through the street.
Natasha watched with a critical eye, wondering what about this woman was so important to the Widows- and whoever it was they were now 'working' for. The target didn't look like much of a threat if she were being honest, but she knew there was always more than what meets the eye. She especially knew how one could use their seemingly harmless looks to their advantage.
Yelena manages to surprise the woman and knocks her down with a door to the face, causing her to get hit by a car.
Both of them rush for the fallen case, the target grabs it first.
"So, they're after the case then." Clint realized, wondering what could possibly be inside that was seemingly so important. A weapon of some sort? Information, maybe?
Yelena pulls out a knife and tries to get a hit in, managing to snick her leg. The target grabs Yelena's hand and twists it behind her back, holding her in place.
"She should have gone for the knife instead." Bucky couldn't help but criticize. The Widow still had a hand free, one quick move and a stab to the gut would be all it took for her to finish the mission.
Yelena drops the knife into her other hand and stabs the woman in the gut, twists it and tears it out, a fatal wound.
"Oh god, that was..." Rhodey started, not knowing how he should finish that sentence.
"Brutal." Sam finished.
The woman falls onto her front, Yelena stands and circles back around turning her over. The woman sprays her in the face with something, causing Yelena to make a complete 180 in terms of behavior as she checks the woman- Oksana's- wounds.
"What?" Natasha faltered, confused, trying to figure out what the hell was going on here and why those chemicals caused such a dramatic shift in the Widow's behavior. It was like she'd suddenly snapped out of a trance, but she doesn't remember any of the widow's being mind controlled. That was HYDRA's thing not the Red Room's; they preferred to break their victims the hard way. Although, she supposed, mind control was the most surefire way to ensure 'loyalty'.
"Mind control." Bucky mumbled forlornly. "Whoever she works for, they're using mind control."
Yelena asks what she did.
Oksana tells her to free the others.
"Others..." Natasha murmured, still reeling from the fact that there were apparently still active Widows (How many) out there, and these ones were acting under mind control. How could she not have known? Either someone continued the project after Dreykov died or- and this is what concerned her- Dreykov wasn't actually dead. It shouldn't be a possibility, and yet...
Yelena starts to panic as she packs up the rest of the vials, as her partner- who's left her position- asks for a status report, using her name as she does.
"No, no it can't be her- there's no way." Natasha vehemently denied, even though she didn't even believe the words coming out of her mouth. That Widow was Yelena, all grown up now, there was no doubt about it. And Natasha couldn't help but wonder if the Red Room was ever actually destroyed, because if Yelena was still there- still a Widow, then... Well let's just say it didn't fill her with any sort of hopeful feelings about the situation.
Yelena stabs herself in the leg and removes the tracker.
In Dreykov's office he looks at a computer- the AI notifies him of Yelena's desertion.
Natasha's mouth fell open in a mix of shock and absolute horror. "He's still alive." She practicallygrowled trying to keep her voice level, but it still shook with a mix of rage and... something she couldn't quite put a name to. How had he done it? Was he even there that day at all, or had it just been a trap?
"How the hell did that bastard survive? We blew that place to hell and back, there's no way he could've made it out." Clint spoke.
The AI asks for permission to activate the Taskmaster protocol.
"Who or what the hell is a Taskmaster?" Tony questioned.
"I don't know, but it doesn't sound friendly." Happy replied.
Taskmaster is in a room alone studying footage of the Avenger's in Leipzig- specifically Clint and T'Challa's fight.
T'Challa winced, remembering everything that went down in Leipzig- how lost he'd been in his quest for vengeance.
"I am Groot?" (Why're they watching this?) Groot wondered; his question went unanswered.
A widow walks in and insert something into the back of Taskmaster's helmet.
"An android?" Vision proposed.
"Cyborg, maybe?" Shuri guessed.
"Possibly." Bruce agreed, but he wasn't too sure.
"Well, whoever or whatever it is, he's sending them after Yelena." Peggy spoke.
"It's more likely that they're being sent for the vials, especially when you take into account what's in them." Natasha something.
She steps in front of Taskmaster's face, traces lines on their helmet and tells them to smile.
"Morbid." Peter shuddered.
'Norway' Natasha walks out of a corner store with a bag of groceries and gets into her car. She drives down an isolated road, listening to a news broadcast about the Accords and the Avengers, and her and Steve being labeled as fugitives.
"My how the mighty have fallen." Fury sighed with a grimace.
She arrives at a beaten down trailer in the middle of nowhere and walks in with a gun. She walks down the hall, catching a reflection in the window. She smiles and lowers her weapon when she realizes who it is.
"Mason." Natasha realized with a smile, the only person she could go to when he had no one else. He's provided her with safe houses, falsified documents and anything else she may need for a few years. And he never asked any questions, that's why she liked him.
She walks into the bedroom and wakes the sleeping man up, scolding him for being in her bed.
Mason says he isn't even under the covers.
"Doesn't mean you're not still in my bed." Natasha said.
"Who the hell is this guy?" Rhodey asked.
Natasha asks if he got everything on the list.
Mason runs through a checklist consisting of Passports, visas, local driver's licenses. He says she should be able to stretch it to twenty false identities.
"Really covered all your bases." Steve noted.
"I'm not exactly new to this." Natasha replied. However, she is new to having to do it indefinitely- even if her onscreen self doesn't know that it's not, yet.
Natasha reads the name on one of them. "Fanny Longbottom?"
"Any relation to Neville?" Tony asked with a chuckle.
Natasha asks him if he's twelve.
Mason protests saying it's a legitimate name.
"Who names their child fanny?" Natasha asked. "Not Frances. Not Francene. But Fanny? Come on."
"I had an Aunt Fanny once." Scott mentioned, offhanded. "Oh wait- no, her name was Francine. Carry on."
The man says there's a petrol-powered generator outside and the septic tank will need to be flushed in a couple of weeks, but he has a guy coming for that. He says she'll have to take her garbage into down which is a twenty-minute drive.
"Welcome to living off the grid, where everything becomes a chore." Clint advertised.
He tells her there's a hardware kit under the stairs, and finally asks if she's okay.
Natasha asks why she wouldn't be.
"Plenty of reasons." Coulson remarked. He'd list them, but he had a feeling that Natasha wouldn't appreciate that very much, so he decided against it.
The man says the Avengers got divorced.
"Yeah, Iron Man and Captain America broke up." Ned joked.
"They each took half the kids." Peter added.
Natasha says she's better on her own.
You're lying to yourself. Natasha thought but decided against speaking it aloud. She used to think that attachments would make her soft- weak even, used to believe that friends and family were nothing but trouble waiting to happen. Oh, how wrong she'd been; in the years she's been with SHIELD she'd come to realize that she's actually better when she's a part of something. Who would have thought that? Certainly not herself.
The man asks if she's sure and says she can tell him because that's how the friends thing works. Natasha says she knows because she has friends.
"Most of whom are in prison." Maria commented. My how the mighty have fallen, indeed.
"What does that say about me, that half of my friends are in prison?" Natasha asked jokingly.
The man says that people with friends don't call him.
Natasha pauses for a moment before telling him that she doesn't pay him to worry.
"If I wanted to talk, I'd hire a therapist." Natasha muttered, which she probably wouldn't do anyway, because she'd just end up having to pay the poor person double to deal with all her issues. No, thanks.
The man walks out the door, Natasha asks him about the box of mail. The man tells her it's from the Budapest safe house.
"Junks probably been collecting there for years." Clint commented.
Natasha 'corrects' the pronunciation, pronouncing it the Hungarian way. (Buda-pesht)
The man argues, pronouncing it the English way. (Buda-pest)
"It's Budapesh. No T." Coulson said, joining the argument.
"All three pronunciations are correct." Vision corrected, trying to settle the spat.
"Know it all." Clint muttered, with a roll of his eyes.
"He is an android, of course he knows it all." Thor stated.
"Synthezoid." Wanda corrected.
"Either way, he's part AI." Strange clarified, trying to settle all of the arising arguments,
The man says he knew Natasha wouldn't go back there and says someone else is in the 'flat' now.
"Who?" Bruce wondered.
Natasha says if she would have told him to toss it to save him the trouble.
The man tells her to throw it away if she doesn't want it.
"I think maybe you should see what it is first." Coulson said. "Whatever's in there might be important, you never know."
Natasha takes the box and sticks it in the trunk of her car. Inside is the case that holds the vials Oksana gave to Yelena.
"Yelena must've brought the vials to me, then." Natasha realized. As far as she knows the safe house in Budapest hasn't been used in years, so it seemed as good a place as any for Yelena to hide out for a while. But why would she send the vials to her? What did Yelena expect her to do with them?
Natasha opens a beer, glancing at a box of blond hair dye, then sits down and watches James Bond on her laptop quoting the movie as she watches.
"James Bond? Really?" Tony asked, he wasn't sure why but that didn't seem like something she'd be into. Guess he stands- or technically sits- corrected.
"They're fun movies." Natasha shrugged. She didn't really believe in 'guilty pleasures' but if she did, those movies would be it.
The power goes out. Natasha goes outside to try and restart the generator before realizing that it just needs fuel. She picks up the canister and realizes it's empty.
"Great." Natasha sighed. Of course, it was empty. She could count on Rick for a lot, but not everything.
She tosses the canister into the back of her car and makes her way into town. As she turns the corner over the bridge, something explodes.
"Ебать!" Natasha swore, not expecting the sudden explosion. This is what she gets for going out at night. As long as it wasn't one of Ross' goons, she'd probably be safe. She was willing to bet it wasn't one of his anyway, One- because Ross wouldn't try and kill her, he's not that much of an idiot. But also, because she was now the one with the vials, it was more likely to be another Widow- or something worse.
"What the hell!?" Sam shouted.
"Jesus Christ!" Scott yelled in shock.
The car flips and hangs over the edge. A smaller car pulls up a short distance away, Taskmaster is in the driver's seat.
"Okay." Natasha something. "This is fine. This is all perfectly okay, not a total disruption to my night at all."
Taskmaster exits the car while Natasha gets her bearings, the second she spots Taskmaster she tries to get out of the car, the sudden movements making it fall further and she loses the gas canister.
"Well, damn." Natasha sighed, even though getting fuel was probably the least of her worries. With her luck she wouldn't even be going back to that trailer any time soon.
Natasha grabs a gun and tries to get to the backseat of the car, saying Ross doesn't have any jurisdiction there.
"Must be why I chose Norway, then." Natasha mused.
Natasha says she's a better shot when she's pissed off.
"You'd think it would be the opposite." Clint muttered. "But no."
Natasha shoots, Taskmaster blocks the bullet with a shield, and throws it at her. It gets stuck in the window, narrowly missing her.
"Holy shit!" Ned gasped. That shield was inches from hitting her in the face!
Natasha gets out of the car; gun drawn, she looks behind her, Taskmaster surprises her by attacking from above.
Natasha shoots nine times more, Taskmaster blocking them with the shield before kicking the gun out of her hands.
"At this point, you're just wasting your bullets." Maria chided.
Natasha gets onto Taskmaster's shoulders trying to take them down that way, Taskmaster just pulls the same move on her, succeeding.
"What the hell?" Natasha muttered, confused. Taskmaster was mimicking her moves, but they also seemed to be able to predict them to an extent. She wondered if they were doing that naturally or if it was an algorithm of some sort. She was willing to bet it was an algorithm, but after everything they've seen, you could never be too sure.
From Taskmaster's HUD we see that they're studying Natasha's fighting pattern to evaluate defensive measures.
"Interesting..." Shuri commented.
'Okay, so it is technology.' Natasha realized, glad to have her questions answered.
They both flip onto their feet, landing in the same position.
"This is weird... right?"Rhodey asked.
"Definitely weird." Tony agreed.
Taskmaster looks behind them, HUD showing them where the case with the vials is, so they go to grab it.
Natasha realizes that Taskmaster's not there for her, pulls out a knife and goes to attack.
"At least now you've figured out that the vials are important, but how the hell are you going to get out of there with them?" Scott wondered. This Taskmaster fellow didn't seem like the type who was going to let up easily.
Natasha shrugged. She'll think of something. She always does.
Taskmaster turns around and they continue their fight. Taskmaster grabs Natasha by her hair and shoves her to the ground.
Natasha gets back into a crouched position, Taskmaster shoves her away and when she tries to get back up, kicks her in the face.
Natasha winced; this was starting to look like a fight she wouldn't be able to win. This Taskmaster person was good, and the fact that they could predict and mimic her every move wasn't helping her out.
Natasha shoots part of a grappling hook around their feet and the other part to the top of the bridge and goes for the case. Taskmaster cuts themself free and swings on the wire landing across from Natasha and tries to stab her with a sword.
"Where are all of these weapons coming from?" Peter wondered. He didn't remember seeing a sword anywhere earlier.
Natasha grabs the discarded shield, for defense. Taskmaster manages to grab the case and kick Natasha off the bridge.
"Nat!" Clint gasped.
"I'll be fine." Nat assured. Well, mostly fine anyway. "Just a couple of wounds."
Taskmaster opens the case, only to find it empty.
Natasha smirked, she may not have been able to win the fight, but she was able to outsmart Taskmaster and she'd definitely consider that a win.
Natasha finally makes her way out of the water and collapses onto the shoreline, exhausted. She pulls the vials out of her pocket, noticing the picture wrapped up with them was the one she'd swiped from the car and gave to Yelena when they were kids.
"I can't believe she still has it." Natasha murmured, wondering how Yelena had managed to hold onto it after all these years.
'Budapest' Natasha gets off a train and makes her way through the city to the safehouse.
"This is probably a bad idea." Natasha sighed, but what else is she supposed to do? What other options were there?
She opens a cabinet and grabs the gun and lock pick from inside.
She starts to pick the lock, but Yelena already knows she's there.
Natasha reaches for her gun saying that she knew that, before entering the apartment.
"Family reunion." Clint tried to joke, but it didn't quite land the way he'd expected it to. "Yay."
Yelena asks why she's skulking about like it's a minefield.
Natasha says she doesn't know if she can trust her.
Yelena says she was going to say the same.
"So then why did she give those vials to me?" Natasha wondered. What did Yelena expect her to do with them?
Natasha asks if they're going to talk like grown-ups. They finally spot each other, both with guns drawn, prepared to shoot.
"Guess not." Natasha said, answering her on screen self's question.
"This should be interesting." Maria commented.
Yelena asks if that's what they are.
"Um... yes?" Peter said, confused.
Natasha backs Yelena into the kitchen. Yelena tells her to put the gun down before she makes her.
Natasha tells Yelena to put hers down. They get closer as they get further into the kitchen, then they take each other's guns and point them again.
"Seriously, we're gonna play this game?" Clint asked.
"Guess so." Natasha confirmed.
They go to do it again, Yelena grabs Natasha and slams her into the wall twice.
"Damn!" Scott exclaimed.
Natasha grabs Yelena and shoves her into the cabinets and then onto the counter and tells her to stay down.
"She won't, you of all people should know." Coulson spoke.
"It doesn't hurt to try." Natasha replied.
Yelena screams and breaks a plate over Natasha's head and gets off the counter to attack again. Natasha wraps a dish towel around her neck.
"Jeez, try not to kill each other." Tony muttered.
'Probably easier said than done.' Natasha thought, watching, lips downturned in a grimace.
Yelena backs up against the counter, using the towel as leverage to launch Natasha across the room. They both get up off the floor. Yelena grabs a carving knife from the butcher block.
"Okay! You guys can talk this out, right? No need for the knife." Quill spoke.
Natasha backs away and grabs a 3-hole punch from the desk next to her. They start swinging at each other.
"Oh my god, you're actually going to kill each other." Tony groaned.
"No, they're not." Clint denied, uncertainly, with a shake of his head. "I'm pretty sure."
Natasha just grimaced, she honestly wasn't sure how far they were willing to go before they decided to call a truce. The only way this would logically end is in an incapacitation- likely- or a draw- less likely judging by the knife that got pulled out. Lunatic, she thought, rolling her eyes.
Yelena locks Natasha's arm behind her back. Natasha flips onto the ground and kicks Yelena's legs causing her to fall, then grabs her jaw. Yelena tries to pry her off as they get back to their feet. Yelena pushes her away and shoves her into the wall. Natasha grabs the curtain and tries to choke her with it.
"Oh my god." Pepper fretted.
Yelena grabs the rest of the curtain and wraps it around Natasha's throat and flips them both to the ground as they continue choking one another.
Eventually, Natasha calls for a truce.
"Finally." Carol muttered.
Natasha, in Russian, says Yelena's grown up.
"Well, it has been over twenty years, you couldn't have expected her to be the same little kid you grew up with." Gamora commented.
Natasha, in so many words, asks why she's in Budapest.
Yelena says she came there because she thought Natasha wouldn't, as she gets something out of the fridge.
"If she didn't want me to, she shouldn't have put those pictures in with the vials she gave me, that I still don't know what she expects me to do with." Natasha exasperated.
Yelena nods to the arrow marks in the wall and asks what bullet does that. Natasha tells her that arrows made those holes.
"Seriously?" Tony questioned. "What happened in Budapest?"
"Nothing." Clint answered, even though it was a flat out lie and everybody knew it. Besides, he has a feeling it'll get brought up soon enough anyway. What, with Dreykov somehow being alive and all.
"Those don't look like nothing." Sam pointed out, referencing the arrow marks in the walls; and honestly who else could have left those there?
Natasha puts the vials and the picture on the table and asks Yelena why she sent it.
"You were probably the only person she could think to send it to." Maria acknowledged.
"Probably." Natasha said in agreement. She could only imagine that the list of people Yelena trusts is even shorter than her own.
"You brought it back here!?" Yelena shouts and leaves the room.
Natasha says she's not trying to be her friend and says to tell her what it is.
"She couldn't have left a note with it when she sent it, or something like that?" Hope wondered. "That might've been helpful."
"Right?" Natasha agreed.
Yelena says it's a counteragent to chemical subjugation she says it immunizes the brains neuropathways from external manipulation, as she goes through some clothes.
"Translation: The gas stops the mind control." Shuri explained, for the non-science brained folks in the room.
Bruce, who had opened his mouth to speak, merely closed it again and nodded to Shuri. "What she said." He spoke.
"Now we're getting somewhere." Natasha muttered. She wishes they didn't have to nearly beat the life out of one another to do so, but you can't win them all.
Natasha tells her to speak English.
Yelena, in Russian, says it's an antidote to mind control.
"Very funny." Natasha said, barely hiding a fond smile. Yelena may have grown up but she's the same little nuisance she always was when they were kids.
Yelena asks why she didn't take it to one of her scientist friends like Tony Stark.
And just like that the humorous mood was gone, as Natasha and Tony remembered how their future counterparts ended things the last time that they saw each other. Well, the last time they saw each other before 2023.
Natasha says they're not talking.
Yelena makes a sarcastic comment about the timing.
"In situations like this, I really don't think it matters who you're talking to or not." Bruce commented.
"I'd still help you out, as a colleague even if we aren't exactly on speaking terms, Romanoff." Tony said. He should hope his future self wasn't so petty as to let their grievances get in the way of something important, like this. Although, judging by some of these films, he didn't think he could say that with one hundred percent certainty.
Yelena asks where an Avenger is when they need one.
"Imprisoned, retired, a fugitive." Rhodey listed, counting them off on his fingers. "Take your pick."
"There's an Avenger right next to you, so start there." Natasha pointed out.
Natasha says she doesn't want to be there because she's on the run and tells Yelena that she could've gotten her killed.
"Please, you're more careful than that." Clint muttered.
Yelena asks what she was supposed to do when Natasha's the only superhero person she knows, hesitating for a moment as Natasha changes shirts revealing the large bruises on her back from the fight with Taskmaster.
"Ouch." Clint commented. "Those look angry."
"I've had worse than some bruises, Clint." Natasha replied.
Yelena says she kept checking the news expecting to see Captain America bringing down the Red Room.
"Oh." Natasha realized. Yelena must think that she defected and just... forgot about the rest of them, just left them behind. But she didn't know. She didn't know.
Natasha pulls a shirt on and follows Yelena out of the room, asking what she's talking about saying that it's been gone for years and Dreykov's dead.
"Except he isn't, and I need to know how." Natasha something. So that I can finish this for good.She added, mentally.
Yelena goes into the weapons closet, grabbing a few things before asking Natasha if she really believes that, when she doesn't get a response, she realizes Natasha does believe that.
"Up until several minutes ago, I really did." Natasha admitted.
Natasha tells her that it took nearly destroying the entire city to get him.
Come to find out it was all for nothing. All those people... Antonia- and it was all for nothing. Natasha lamented.
Yelena tells Natasha to tell her exactly what happened if she's so sure.
Natasha says they rigged bombs.
"Who's we?" "Clint Barton."
"What did you guys do?" Steve asked, not accusing, but there was a note of something in his voice- that wasn't unlike criticism, but they couldn't quite put a name to it.
Natasha says killing Dreykov was the last step in her defection to SHIELD.
"Simple as that?"
Natasha says she wouldn't call bombing a five-story building and a shootout with Hungarian special forces simple.
"That's what happened in Budapest?" Bruce asked.
"That is the gist of what happened in Budapest." Natasha confirmed, voice light as she nearly become lost in the memories.
She says they were in hiding for ten days before they could get out of Budapest.
Yelena asks if they checked the body.
Natasha says there was nothing left to check.
"Such an idiot." Natasha whispered under her breath, berating herself.
"Don't beat yourself up over it." Clint said to her, voice pitched low in attempts to keep their conversation as private as it could be in a small room full of other people- and some nameless figure who was always listening.
Yelena says she's forgetting about Dreykov's daughter. Natasha freezes.
Loki was suddenly reminded of what he'd taunted Agent Romanov about on the SHIELD aircraft some time ago- well for him at least, for her it had only been mere days. Having been informed by Barton that it had been a particular regret of Natalia's, he'd chosen that specifically to try to taunt her with. It didn't really work out the way he'd hoped.
They hear footsteps from above and a Widow blows a hole in the ceiling, Yelena grabs the vials. Two widows break into the house as Natasha and Yelena duck behind the walls, Yelena stuffs the vials in her bag.
"Here we go again." Natasha grimaced. Those Widows were fast at tracking those vials.
Yelena runs into Natasha, who holds her against the wall. Yelena turns a dial and explosions start.
"What?" Tony asked.
"Safety precaution." Clint replied. "Came in pretty useful, I'd say."
They delay the two widows as they make their way outside where more Widows are waiting with guns.
"He really went all out." Sam said. "Guy must be really worried about those vials." It made sense, considering what Yelena said they were.
"Honestly, I hope it's just Widows." Clint replied, remembering Taskmaster.
Two Widows are in the stairwell, Yelena tosses a grenade as Natasha asks where they're going.
Yelena says she has a motorbike on the east side of the building.
'At least she's actually being helpful now' Natasha thought to herself.
One Widow, in Macedonian, tells another that the 'targets' going to the roof. And one of them starts chasing Natahsa and Yelena.
They jump onto a metal pipe and the Widow jumps after them, Natasha grabs her hand. The Widow pulls out a knife then falls to the ground.
"Shit" Natasha swore, hoping that the Widow hadn't died on impact. Not when they had the means to try and help her.
The pipe crashes into another building, Yelena goes through the window. Natasha tumbles down the fire escape, still managing to land on her feet.
"What are you, a cat?" Scott asked.
"Yes!" Clint blurted out before Natasha could say otherwise.
Natasha cautiously approaches the widow, saying that she's going to help her. The Widow fires up her gauntlet.
From his office, Dreykov presses a button on his desk that reads 'terminate.'
"No." Natasha whispered, mind clouded with worry, anger, disgust and confusion. This was way worse than she had previously thought. Dreykov could just... terminate them, whenever he pleased? The mere thought of it almost made her feel sick. He was going to pay for this- that was the only thing she was sure of at the moment.
The Widow says she doesn't want to do this but he's making her, she then shoots herself with the gauntlet.
"Oh god." May gasped, horrified by the situation and what Dreykov was doing to these women,
Yelena finally makes her way out of the building with a vial drawn, once she sees what happened she puts it back and asks Natasha if she believes her now.