Chapter Text
Eastern Carpathian Mountains, northwest of Odessa, Ukraine, August 2009
The plan had been for a quick in-and-out extraction, nothing else. Go in, pick up the asset from Tehran, get out, put him on a SHIELD plane to Paris. She had done missions like this before, so many that she felt confident in manning this one all by herself. What could possibly go wrong?
“I don’t see anything,” the asset beside her gasped, eyes wide and white behind his horned-rimmed glasses, his head pivoting every which way, scanning the cliffs and drops around them, searching. It didn’t mean there was nothing there, only that their pursuer was more difficult to spot…perhaps even smarter.
The idea that whatever was chasing them through the mountains was smarter than her left the blood in Natasha Romanoff’s veins flowing cold, ice crawling up her spine, even as she gripped the wheel of their vehicle tighter. “He’s out there.”
“Are you sure?”
She wasn’t and that not knowing was what was frightening her, what had left them on their back feet this entire mission. She had known, since Tehran at the very least. That sixth sense she had pricked at her, the knowledge that they were being watched, that a predator was nearby, waiting to strike, had followed her nearly from the moment she had connected with the asset. He was a nuclear engineer, Abdullah Pasdar, highly respected, a well-educated, decent sort of man. Unfortunately for him, good men with high ideals didn’t make it long in authoritarian regimes, especially not when their morals and sense of right and righteousness conflicted with their job managing the nuclear programs for a country that repeatedly denied they were weaponizing it.
“Get down,” she barked, reaching up to press the engineer down in his seat by the top of his balding head. He complied, sliding down the upholstery, his knees cramping under the dash. She could feel the terror humming under his olive skin, turned ashen under her palm. For several long moments he stayed this way, his breathing short and labored, scared. Natasha knew how he felt.
“Do you think it is the government,” he finally whispered above the hum of the car’s engine.
“At least it is someone they contracted,” she hedged. “You knew this was a possibility. This was why you wanted out.”
He gulped, nodding shakily. Still, it was one thing to be cognizant that the government you served was out to get you, and another to actually have to flee in terror. “Azadeh and the children…”
“Are safe in Paris,” she reminded him, tone sharp, needing him to focus. “SHIELD has them under protection. Now we just need to get you to them, okay?”
He’d had enough forethought to send his family out of the country, before they could be used against him. It had been wise in the long run, as their presence in this would have only made this all exponentially worse. Natasha had her orders, and if it had been a choice between the asset or his family…
“They’ll be fine,” she reiterated, her eyes glued to the winding road through the mountains. “We will get you out of here, you’ll see them again, get to watch your kids grow up.”
Natasha wanted to believe that, wanted to believe that something she did could prove to be heroic, could save a life rather than take it.
Perhaps Pasdar was more realistic than she was. With trembling fingers, he pulled at his jacket, and a leather journal tucked away inside his breast pocket. “If I don’t make it out of this…”
She ruthlessly cut him off. “You will!”
“But if I don’t,” he insisted, his voice shaking despite the fortitude he tried to put behind it, “will you get this safe to Azadeh? I want it for her, for my children.”
She tore her gaze away from the road long enough to meet his wide, dark eyes, fervid and pleading. “Yes,” she returned, simply.
A ghost of a smile trembled to life on his lips. “Thank you!”
One small good deed, one small bit of grace, before all hell broke loose.
The back passenger’s side tire blew first, jerking the wheel in Natasha’s hand, causing the back end of the car to fishtail wildly as they closed in on a hairpin turn. It was by sheer force of will and luck that they didn’t go careening backwards over a cliff, but she righted the car, as Pasdar screamed in fear. Without stopping, she jerked the car back onto the road, but no sooner than she had, the back driver’s side went as well. Without anything behind them to propel them, she had nothing to help them make the next turn in the winding road.
“Hang on,” she yelled, as the car tipped, nose first, over the side of a gently sloping grade, overlooking the rolling foothills beyond. It would be almost pretty, she thought in terror, if it still wasn’t just as dangerous as any other cliff edge in these mountains. The car skidded down the side, the heavy engine dragging it down towards a stand of old, evergreen trees, tough and rugged, a thicket that caught their downward trajectory like a net, crunching the front end and sending glass flying towards their faces as metal crunched and screamed and the airbags deployed, blinding Natasha briefly as they cushioned their impact.
In the passenger’s seat next to her, Pasdar yelped and coughed, pushing his way out of his quickly deflating airbag, as Natasha did the same. Her breath had been knocked out of her in the impact, but she was alive, safe for the most part, ignoring the bruising she knew was going to form on her chest and face. Groaning, she gasped for air, undoing her seatbelt quickly, reaching for her handgun strapped to her thigh. “Are you all right?”
Pasdar gasped, shoving his glasses back on his face before nodding, shakily. “Yeah, I am all right.”
If she had breath to spare, she’d sigh in relief. “Can you get out?”
He glanced at his side of the car, open against the slope of the mountain, blocked only partially by the thicket of trees. “I think so.”
“Good!” Natasha looked out of her own side. Beyond the shattered glass, it was much the same, sloping hill and rock, the grove the only thing keeping them from rolling down the side further. “What I want you to do is carefully climb out. Stay down, out of sight. Wait for me to come to you. Do exactly as I say here, all right?”
Pasdar panted, nodding, fear and adrenaline making him tremble.
Natasha gritted her teeth, wrapping her left hand around the door handle. “All right, let’s go.”
The sedan itself wasn’t old, but the doors still groaned as they opened them, metal shrieking and protesting. Natasha pushed herself free, despite the crushing ache in her chest, as she tumbled out, landing on her knees, weapon at the ready. Slowly, she scrabbled upwards along the sandy, rocky soil, around the back end of the car, pausing to study the back tires briefly. Judging from what remained of the mangled, aluminum rims, a precise shot, taken at both. From where? How? Heart in throat and pissed as hell, she made her way to the other side, where Pasdar crouched, holding her free hand out to him. “Come on! Stay behind me.”
Pasdar’s expression was grim as he took her hand, waiting for her to dig her booted feet into the unsteady soil before pulling himself up. He did as she asked, staying behind her as best as he could, as they both slowly made their way back up the side of the hill. There were few places to hide here where cover was sparse. Rocks were many, but trees fewer, and none of them led to any path to safety, save for the road above, and whoever was hunting them down could be waiting there. They didn’t have much of a choice but to climb back up to the road above them. Slowly, with slipping steps and scrabbling hands, they made it near the top, where the black asphalt lay on top of the path cut along the side of the mountain. For a moment, Natasha allowed herself a brief feeling of triumph, huffing a small hint of relieved laughter as they neared the top, daring to hope…
But a shadow fell across them, as above her a figure stood impassively, blocking their way to the top. On instinct, Natasha put herself in front of Pasdar’s crouch form, still scrambling behind her. He stilled, however, as she stopped, gasping in the stillness on the side of the mountain. Natasha raised her weapon in front of her, jaw set, aim firm. “Khto ty? Shcho ty khochesh?”
Whether or not they understood Ukrainian, the figure, a man, didn’t answer. He was tall, big enough that Natasha knew he would tower over her side-by-side, broad shouldered and lethal, his stance at once elegant, like a dancer, and as menacing as a monster. He was dressed in dark clothes, a leather utility jacket and trousers, and she could see knives tucked neatly in pockets and at the top of his boots. In his hands rested a sniper rifle, Russian make, likely the one that had taken out their tires. His right arm cradled the butt of the weapon comfortably, an extension of himself. His left hand, however, held the muzzle gently, ready to swing it up fluidly, without a moment’s hesitation. Curled fingers led up to an arm covered in gleaming metal, glittering like a knife blade under the sun. The segmented joints of it whirled unnaturally as he shifted, and emblazoned on the shoulder was a scarlet star, the color of fresh blood.
Natasha was far too practical for superstition and had never believed in ghosts, but at this moment she certainly believed in this one. Fear left a sour tang in her mouth as she gripped her weapon tighter. She stared up into his face, covered by a mask and goggles, impenetrable and expressionless, unfathomable, terrifying in its emptiness. Only his long, dark hair moved in the breeze.
As natural as breathing, her finger pulled, her weapon kicking back in her palm, her feet digging into the shifting soil. The sound rang in the stillness as the figure turned, slightly, twisting his torso to allow his metal arm to take the brunt of her precise shots. She could hear the pinging of bullets on metal, which flashed and sparked with the impact, but did not break.
The hell was this?
She couldn’t pause to contemplate this any further, as in a movement so fluid and graceful that it rivaled even her, the figure stood again, rifle against his right shoulder, muzzle balanced delicately in his metal left hand.
“Get down,” she managed to shout at the petrified man behind her before the shot rang out, hoping against hope Pasdar would do as she said and hit the ground, foil his aim as she stood guard over him, the only protection between the engineer and the assassin who had dogged their steps since Tehran. For a moment, a half-of-a breath, she thought she had succeeded. It was only as her lower left abdomen exploded in white, hot pain, piercing her through, that she realized how utterly ridiculous she had been to believe she could prove to be any sort of shield against what was coming. What air was in her lungs was stolen as her knees buckled of their own volition, sending her crashing to the sandy soil, almost against her will. She blinked, stunned, as her weapon fell numbly out of her fingers. Uncomprehending, she clutched the neat hole near her hip bone, red blood smearing her fingertips. Behind her she could feel more than see Pasdar slump, soundlessly, to the ground with the sort of heavy finality that told her that her mission had failed.
Above her the figure stood tall again, letting his weapon fall to his side. He neither spoke nor made a move towards them. He simply watched as Natasha felt herself crumple to her side, unable to hold herself sitting up any further as her core muscles seized and collapsed. Blinding, tearing pain left her without speech, as tears seeped out of eyes, scalding her cheeks with agony. She could do nothing but lay there, cheek pressing into the sun-warmed soil, watching the figure turn on his heels and walk away, without a single look back at either of his victims lying away from the road on the side of the mountain.
Natasha lay there, under the blue expanse of Ukrainian sky , knowing she was bleeding out, knowing she was all alone in the middle of nowhere, and no one knew where she was. This was going to be how she was going to die, she realized, with the sort of clarity that comes when you finally accept the harsh truth of your situation. She was going to die alone up here having failed her mission.
Clint was going to kill her for this.