September 30th 12:05pm
LOCATION: Spencer Memorial Hospital – Roof
Nikolai had been keeping his distance- he didn't want to get too close to the Black Widow who he had been watching since he finally tracked her and the other U.B.C.S survivors down in the hospital.
The red head relentlessly attempted to get a signal through on her comms to her outside source,
Nikolai followed at what he considered a safe distance, because despite the fact that she was clearly heavily pre-occupied the Black Widow was a lethal opponent, and he didn't fancy his chances in a fair fight.
Black Widow moved out onto the hospital roof, it felt like it had been forever since she last saw daylight,
The cool Autumn air felt refreshing on her warm stained skin
"Bla-Tch* W-ow" Natasha went about manually bypassing the security fire walls in the S.H.I.E.L.D comms satellite unaware of the presence that hid in the shadows.
Nikolai kept as concealed as possible, but also kept the Avenger within his visuals-
Romanoff and Oliveira had interrupted him after he'd killed Bard-
He didn't have time to search the whole lab and Bard had refused to talk when he demanded the location of the vaccine he'd developed.
Unfortunately for him- Bard had apparently left the Black Widow a recorded message and with that they had been able to find the vaccine sample and administer it to the infected Ms Valentine.
He'd been keeping a detailed log of events since the moment he'd started his mission in Raccoon City, recorded hours, and hours of combat data for his superiors- and yet all the data collected was nothing compared to the Black Widow.
He recalled Sergie Vladimir once telling him about the Black Widow 'whom most Russian's including himself had once assumed was merely cold war propaganda' one of the most formidable assassins to have ever lived and from what combat data he'd recorded of her fighting the B.O.W's he believed that information.
However, of course any respect that he would have once had for the Black Widow was quickly replaced with anger and spite-
The Black Widow turned out to have a conscience and Nikolai knew that having a heart would be her undoing,
If he could study her some more- the most skilled and deadly combatant fighting Umbrella's Bioweapons would fetch millions to organisations that considered the Avenger as their enemy.
He speculated if he could induce some more interesting encounters between the Avenger and the B.O.W's, he looked forward to seeing who he could market the Combat Data to.
"Director Hill, do you read me?" Natasha spoke into her Stingers, there was a tense moment of silence before a audible response came through
"Jesus fucking Christ, Romanoff!" Maria Hill yelled through her ear piece, but damn it felt good to hear an old friends voice,
Natasha smiled 'at last' she thought to herself as she pulled up a virtual screen on her Stingers (engineered by Stark)
The holographic displayed a very anxious and stressed looking Director Maria Hill - Who had taken over as Director after Nick Fury had retired
"Thank God, I knew you'd still be alive!" Director Hill exclaimed, her voice was now transmitted through the screen on her Stingers,
Nikolai listened intently, it wasn't good news for him that the Black Widow had regained contact with S.H.I.E.L.D- his employers had been very adamant that the intelligence agency not get Umbrella in their cross-hairs.
"Just barely" Natasha sighed with a relieved smile, it felt like it had been far too long since she'd spoken with Hill far too much had happened.
"Listen, Hill shits completely fucked" Maria nodded her head, she'd seen the news footage
"Is it as bad as the media are saying?" she asked, the media outlets had already dubbed it 'The Zombie Apocalypse' and she'd spent the last 60 hours trying to speak with military and government officials, but so far she been stonewalled at every turn.
The only person that she'd been able to remain in constant contact in with was Secretary Ross which was just as pleasant as sticking your head in the oven-
"Probably worse Maria, but you have to hear me, it's all true. Everything gathered in the reports was correct, the pharmaceutical company Umbrella engineered this Virus, it's called the T-Virus, it's what's responsible for the monsters all over the city" Natasha had so much to say and very little time to relay everything that had happened.
Maria had a million questions, but decided to keep to the most pressing matter-
"If it's a virus can it be cured?" she'd spent the last few hours on the phone with Secretary Ross trying to persuade him to stop the military from destroying the city,
However they were all adamant that the destruction could not be contained in Raccoon City for much longer- As director of S.H.I.E.L.D she had to sadly agree, but was also hopeful that by some sort of miracle that the monster making virus could be stopped.
"Yes, there was an Umbrella Scientist who created a vaccine, -but I had to use the sample, but he kept more in an underground Umbrella Facility"
Hill clearly wasn't pleased that the Black Widow no longer had the vaccine sample, but she supposed Natasha had her good reasons for using it
"Was an Umbrella Scientist?" she asked,
Natasha rolled her eyes "Yeah he was murdered by a rogue U.B.C.S mercenary" Nikolai smirked from his concealed position, of course she knew that it was him that killed Bard.
He knew that his assassination of Dr Bard would have pissed off the relentless redhead, he wondered if he could use her fiery temperament to his advantage- after all an opponent blinded by anger was an easy target to manipulate.
Hill rubbed her tired eyes, she didn't envy the mess that Romanoff had found herself in, but if there was anyone capable of untangling this bullshit- it was the Black Widow.
"So- I assume your mission isn't over?" as much as Director Hill wanted the Black Widow to return with the vaccine for this monster making virus, she also wanted her friend to come back safe-
"I'm still working on things my end. Have you been able to make contact with the Avengers?"
The Avengers had been Maria's first point of call, but as it turns out the people of Wakanda weren't big fans of S.H.I.E.L.D transmissions going in and out of their country, and with everything that happened with Hydra she couldn't really blame them.
Besides the Avengers she'd purposefully kept the information of Natasha being in Raccoon City away from Clint Barton who would just too quickly run in to the city and get himself killed trying to find her,
"No, I'm afraid not. We've attempted to send in several strike teams to the city, but we were met with heavy resistance at the borders. The US Military have completely quarantined the city, no one else is allowed in, no exceptions" it all puzzled Maria- S.H.I.E.L.D wanted to get in there and start saving everyone they could- but they were informed that any team that crossed into the city would be arrested.
Natasha on the other hand wasn't surprised by this news- if the evidence she'd collected from Dr Bard's terminal was anything to go by, then there were some high ranking officials that were complicit with the creation of the T-Virus-
Of course they wouldn't want S.H.I.E.L.D charging in and taking over, and Maria Hill wasn't exactly the type to start a conflict between the reformed S.H.I.E.L.D and the United States Military
"Maria, the T-Virus is a biological Weapon that was being engineered FOR the US Military"
Maria froze, at first Natasha thought that her holographic monitor had crapped out on her, but the woman angrily hit the desk she was sitting at
"Fuck!" she yelled
"You think the Zombies are the worst of it, but the Bio-Organic Weapons are by far the 'shits fucked' of this whole situation"
Her mind briefly wondered to the B.O.W that had been pursuing Jill- she knew that it was guilty for the massacre in the Subway and likely responsible for infecting Jill, but she hadn't seen any signs of it around recently,
She supposed it was wishful thinking to hope that it was dead.
"I don't have time to explain everything, but my reports will be very thorough"
Director Hill had no doubt, she trusted Natasha and when the red head was concerned, she was beyond a doubt terrified
"What can I do to help?" Natasha wasn't sure that there was anything the Director could do anymore, with the countdown for the destruction of Raccoon City already begun.
"See if you can get us in contact with someone who has the authorisation to stop the missiles there's still civilians alive in this city" she immediately noticed Hill's expression drop
"Who?" Natasha immediately asked
"Your old friend Secretary of State Ross" Natasha rolled her eyes,
Ross didn't get on well with any of the Avengers- after he attempted to constrict their actions with the Sokovia accords - However, this never made it past the United Nations.
Ross seemed to have an unwarranted vendetta against her in particular, especially after she dumped all of S.H.I.E.L.D's files on the internet in her part in exposing Hydra-
"Send me the details" she sighed, she was more than capable of swallowing her pride,
Hill typed away on her monitor despite his dislike for Romanoff he respected her professionally,
Hill hoped that might be enough to persuade him
"You can contact Ross on that frequency, hopefully you can talk some sense into him. Once he knows you're on the trail of a cure he'll have to stop the countdown"
Natasha was sure that he would hold off, but the question was for how long?
The Black Widow knew that the entrance to the underground Umbrella Facility had to be under the hospital, why else would the go to so much trouble to set Dr Bard up here.
Hill suddenly started talking to someone else off screen,
Natasha couldn't hear the conversation, but for a change it looked like the news was good
"What's that?" Natasha asked as a satellite picture is transmitted to her screen
"It's a satellite overview of the area, look what we found" the view suddenly zoomed into a helipad with an abandoned helicopter waiting for take-off
"Hill I could kiss you, where is the helicopters location?"
Nikolai knew that he needed to be careful how he continued from here on out-
The missile strike would destroy NEST and all the evidence down there, but he needed to get down there, extract the vital information and get to the vaccine before the Black Widow.
However the Avenger had unknowingly provided him with essential information that he could use to evacuate before the city was destroyed.
Nikolai smirked as he attempted to move position to get a better view of the redhead,
A big mistake as the Black Widow's head immediately whipped around-
He held his breath, he realised that she couldn't see him, but that didn't mean that she couldn't hear him.
"Romanoff?" Maria asked the red head who seemed distracted.
Natasha had a feeling that she was being followed-
Of course she was the naturally 'paranoid type' as Sam liked to refer to her as, but sometimes being paranoid was like having a sixth sense- and sometimes it saved her life.
"It's fine, the location Director Hill?" Maria shrugged she wasn't too worried and was sure that Romanoff could handle it
"The helipad is on top of a warehouse registered to Umbrella, we can't find an entry point, best guess the entrance is underground" Natasha nodded, she could imagine it had come to extract some Umbrella higher ups and that had clearly not gone to plan-
"Is there anything else you need?" Maria asked.
Although Natasha was wary that she was on a tight deadline there was one more thing that could prove useful-
"Yes actually, I need all files on two names, anything and everything that S.H.I.E.L.D has" Maria's eyes widened in surprise, it seemed like an odd request giving the pressing issue
"Huh I thought you'd memorised the entire S.H.I.E.L.D database" Hill smirked as the Black Widow had made such outrageous claims before
"Refresh my memory" Director Hill inputted her clearance code so that she could transmit the information
"Names?" she asked
"Colonel Sergie Vladimir and a Nikolai Zinoviev, Original Russian spelling on both names"
From his concealed spot in the shadows Nikolai angrily shook his head- he despised the ex assassin and wished that the Umbrella scientist that programmed the Nemesis to hunt down the remaining members of S.T.A.R.S had also programmed it to hunt her,
Obviously no one had foreseen the interference of an Avenger,
He would have to note that oversight, but right now that wasn't his biggest concern.
The Black Widow was coming after him and if the stories about her along the espionage community were even slightly true then he was in trouble.
"Friends of yours Natasha?" Maria sarcastically asked,
Natasha laughed but didn't want to divulge any more until she was sure
"Thanks Maria, you won't be able to contact me when I head underground- but thanks" for everything she wanted to add, but she wasn't that sentimental
"Don't you dare even think about fucking dying on us". Maria's last words on the transmission was her way of telling her to come back alive.
Nikolai watched the red head Avenger go back inside where she would most likely regroup with the others downstairs,
He was intrigued to know if the Vaccine had really worked on Ms Valentine,
His other missions in the city had been a success and now he had one more job to do before he could leave the city and if he played it right then he doubted that Valentine or Romanoff would be any trouble- now he needed to figure out how he was going to lure the Nemesis to the hospital.