Chapter 4
A twenty four hour mission was a long mission. No sleep, questionable food and water, dropping into enemy territory and then having to get to a rendezvous point. It was an impossible task for a larger group to do in a short time frame, which was why they were using her, but a nearly impossible task for even a group of two. If, before, she and Clint had received this mission, they’d have questioned every aspect of it and gone back to Ops and Logistics, complaining, a hundred times. They may not have taken it, even if they’d be punished with a bunch of lesser mission for a time period. They had done it before. Sometimes it was worth back to back missions in Siberia to stand up to the powers that be and say you didn’t intend on dying on a mission.
Then, the mission in Brussels had been particularly easy and Clint had still almost died. Stabbed nearly to death in an alley, by someone they still didn’t know.
Missions went wrong. Which was exactly why Natasha acquired coffee and a pile of granola bars and sat herself in the Ops room. Coulson walked in, did a double take, and barely contained a smile. He stood next to where she sat herself cross-legged on the floor and said, watching the screen, “He’ll be fine.”
“I’m here for the group,” she corrected him.
“He has no idea how lucky he is, you know. That you love him after all this time,” said Coulson, still not looking at her.
Natasha’s throat felt thick. She swallowed. “I’m here for the group. Important that we see where we’re going too.”
“Alright,” he said softly, and let her off the hook. Gratitude felt like a cold shower on a hot day. She slumped against the wall. He moved forward and took a comm. unit from the wall, turned the channel to Clint and Raines, and the mission began a few minutes before they entered enemy airspace.
Natasha drank her coffee quickly and sat next to Coulson at his desk. Over his shoulder, she watched as Clint and Raines successfully landed in the jungle, largely undetected, and made their way three clicks north to the compound. Clint swore when they encountered a tree full of vipers, not exactly suitable for him to sit in with a scope, and Raines nearly tripped a booby trap, but they found their way largely without problems. Natasha’s eyes moved from the computer screen showing their vital signs, to the computer showing the camera off Clint’s scope, to the one transcribing their mikes which only Coulson could hear. The transcription wasn’t perfect. It struggled with Clint’s excessive cursing and his Midwestern accent that came out when he was stressed.
Raines got the closest, getting onto the wall to take photographs and to use his binoculars and camera to snap photos of entry ways, people, guard houses, and the weapons carried and used. Natasha bit her lip and thought about how much easier it would be if she had gone. Some parts of the world were in fact easier if you were a woman. She twisted her hair around her finger, watching carefully. She needed to know the layout. They were doing this for her, so she could jump everyone wherever they needed to be, in order to accomplish a hundred things they couldn’t have done before SHIELD knew about her gift. They had been suspicious, then thrilled. Natasha had done the reverse: at first, relieved they knew her last secret. Then, suspicious as they began to use it.
Coulson took off the comm. headset. “Want to run to the cafeteria and grab me some food?”
“Sure,” Natasha agreed. “It’s Taco Tuesday.”
“Everything but that shredded cabbage. It makes me sick.” He smiled at her.
“It’s cabbage. It can’t make you sick. That’s the point of cabbage,” she replied flatly.
“It does. Thanks, Natasha.”
She glanced at the screen over his shoulder. “Call me if anything happens.”
“It’s a ten minute break. Nothing will happen. Go get a taco for yourself and a taco for me.”
He was right. Nothing happened while she went (ran) to the cafeteria and acquired dinner for the two of them. It happened just as she, Amy, and Slider all walked back into the room, chatting through mouthfuls of the worst tacos they ever had. Coulson reached for his taco, and then stopped, his hand outstretched and his eyes far away as he listened intently. Natasha froze, watching him, and then Coulson said with a snap, “Why did he do that? Where is he?”
Her heart stopped. Coulson looked at his screen and said, “Barton, what’s going on?”
“Coulson,” Natasha said as calmly as she could muster. The six other ops happening out of this room were going better because heads turned toward Coulson as he sent the imagery to the big screens and took off his headset. The mikes turned loud.
“—took out his ear piece. They took him into the compound. Shit, I can’t see him. They went in this entrance. Fuck, Phil, I’m going in.” Clint, sounding tired but hyped up on adrenaline.
“Stand down, Barton, we don’t know what’s going on.”
“They’re going to kill him, that’s what’s going to happen.”
“He’s a canary, Barton. Don’t be a dumb miner.” It was one of Coulson’s favorite analogies. Miners got hurt when they rushed to save each other in an accident without assessing the situation. Natasha didn’t really understand all of it, but it didn’t matter. She put down the tacos. Coulson glanced at her once and then said, “I have to clear this up top.”
He said it to Clint but Natasha nodded too. She watched on the screen while Clint’s scope remained trained on an arched doorway through which Raines disappeared. She could see the blurred outlines of people running around, frantically. It was a testament to Clint’s skill that he hadn’t been sighted at this point.
She touched the mike while Phil was on the phone. “Hi, Clint.”
She heard his exhale, and Phil hissing her name behind her. “Not now, Natasha.”
“Did you see them turn left or right?”
“Right.”
She studied the images. She knew the layout of the compound from the maps she studied when she couldn’t sleep. “It’s two hundred meters to the right to Palo’s office.”
“You think they took him in there?”
She began to braid her hair. “I could check.”
“Oh fuck no,” said Phil and Clint together.
She shook her head. “I can jump in and out before they even see me. Unless he’s there, and then I can grab him.”
“This is a bad idea, Coulson. Is this your idea? Do you know what happens to her if they catch her? This is a terrible idea. This is too imprecise.”
“Shut up, Barton,” said Phil. “It’s not happening.”
Natasha scowled. “I can get him out of there.”
“So can Barton.”
“You realize if this goes South, you’re going to be sending me into get two men out, right? In potentially different areas of the compound. That’s more compromising to the longer mission than sending me now.”
“You’re not going. How many jumps can you do like this in a week?”
Natasha looked at the screen, but it was Clint who answered. “Seven, if she pushes herself.”
She frowned. “You’ve never seen me do that. How’d you know?”
“I read your file.”
There was silence in the op room and then Clint said, “Martin’s back. I’ve got a positive ID on Martin.”
Coulson rubbed his face. Fifty percent of the mission was achieved. But now he had had a man inside the compound probably being interrogated and tortured. He looked sideways at Natasha. “Barton, can you stand by where you are? Abort rendezvous. Natasha’s going to jump in, grab Raines if she can, and then jump to you, and then jump home.”
“You’re nuts,” said Barton flatly. “We’ll get to the rendezvous. Don’t waste two jumps on me.”
“They aren’t wasted.” Natasha said quietly. “I have four jumps to do this weekend. I’ll be okay. I’ll have recovery time.”
“That gives you basically no wiggle room for things to go wrong.”
“That’s not your call, Barton,” said Coulson sharply. “Stand by.” He turned down the mike over Barton’s protests. He looked at Natasha. “I agree that of those rooms, Raines is probably in the office. You get one try. If he’s not there, just get you and Barton out of there. You hear me?”
Natasha nodded. “Can you pull up the room schematics for me one more time?”
She studied them as she tied her shoes tightly and shed her jacket. It wasn’t going to be anything but cumbersome there. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and jumped.