Chapter 5
“Ughh…” Natasha groaned as her eyelids lifted. Every part of her body hurt, especially the deep gash in her arm. It wasn’t in a lethal spot, but it hadn’t been tended to in any way. Dry, crusty blood coated the cut. She moved her bruised jaw around, and felt a flash of pain. Her left arm had been brushed by a bullet, and apparently it was worse than she had originally thought, as it was throbbing painfully. Her head pounded, giving her the nasty feeling that she was going to be sick.
Her black leather jacket now had a large tear in one sleeve, and a bullet hole in the other, not to mention several dirt and blood stains, plus far too many smaller rips. She wrinkled her nose in annoyance. This was her favorite jacket! Her combat boots had a few holes in them, but that was all. Her jeans also had some tears and stains, but the jacket had definitely gotten the worst of it.
She quickly assessed her situation. She was in a small, foul smelling cell with steel walls, sitting in a rickety wooden chair. Her hands were tied behind her, and numb, as the blood flow had been cut off almost entirely. Her ankles were bound to the legs of the chair. Her red hair was still in a braid, sort of. At least half of the knots were loose.
She could get out of the chair, no problem. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before. But the cell was a different story. The door and walls had to be four inches wide of solid steel, which she could never get out of alone.
Her head snapped up as the door slid noisily open. She looked to one of the top corners, and sure enough, there was a small camera. At least, she thought dryly, they had given her the small mercy of letting her wake up on her own before barging in.
Thaddeus Ross himself, wearing a navy blue suit and tie, stepped importantly into the room, followed by two burly guards, both holding rifles. Natasha noted the pistols in their thigh holsters as they turned to close the door.
“Hey, Mr. Secretary,” Natasha said bluntly. “Fuck you.”
“Ms. Romanoff. Glad to see you are awake.”
“Me too. But I wish you hadn’t ruined my jacket.”
Ross simply nodded absentmindedly, and took to circling the room, his hands clasped behind his back. Natasha didn’t bother to waste her energy turning around as he walked behind her. His men stayed at the door, standing stock-still.
“So. After months of searching, I’ve finally caught you,” he said finally. Natasha heard a distinctive ring of triumph in his voice.
She harrumphed. “Hardly. I put myself there to save Spider-Man. You wouldn’t have got me if I hadn’t.”
Ross turned his sharp gaze on her, and she stared back unflinchingly. They were both still for a few long seconds, their eyes locked. Then, Natasha’s lips slowly curved upwards into a sweet smile.
“So, how have you been, Thaddeus?”
Ross scowled at the use of his first name. “Not so great, actually, Ms. Romanoff. You and your fellow Avengers have caused me a fair amount of trouble.”
“We seem to be getting quite good at that.”
Without warning, Ross backhanded her sharply across her cheek. Natasha bit back her gasp of pain, instead staring steadily back at him. Ross continued to pace.
“It seems that you have interacted with Spider-Man, Ms. Romanoff. The identity of this masked vigilante has become a bit of an issue for me.”
“In what way?” Natasha’s disinterest couldn’t have been more obvious.
“Well, mainly that he has not signed the Accords. And as we do not know who he really is, we can’t exactly convince him to. But you know who he is, don’t you?”
Natasha smirked. “I don’t know, do I?”
Ross turned around, and nodded shortly to one of his two bodyguards, taking the rifle from his hands. “Leave us.”
Ross walked towards the spy, leering nastily as his two men left the room and closed the door behind them.
“Natasha beamed. “Oh, fun. Thaddeus, have you ever done this before? ‘Cause, you know I only deal with experts.” Natasha asked.
Ross didn’t say anything. Then, he abruptly shoved the butt of his rifle into her stomach. The chair fell over, and Natasha landed on her back. She struggled to let air back into her lungs, but the wind had been knocked out of her. Ross calmly lifted the chair back up. She made a pouty face at him, and choked out, “C’mon, Thaddeus-”
“Quiet.”
Natasha closed her mouth, and shrugged. Whatever he wanted, but she felt he was being way too uptight about this.
Ross leaned forward, and grabbed Natasha’s right arm, right where the knife had cut into her. He squeezed it mercilessly, and pain shot through her body. She gritted her teeth, and swallowed a cry.
“Oh, that’s a cheap move,” Natasha managed through the pain. “You see, I’m a little tender there at the moment-”
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Ross asked gloatingly. “Who is the Spider-Man?”
“You’re being a bit aggressive, Thaddeus. That’s not how I work.”
Ross’s frown deepened, and he gripped her arm tighter. She winced, shaking her head. “No, you’re not going to break me with that.”
“Won’t I?” Ross sneered. Nevertheless, he let go, and Natasha breathed a sigh of relief, free from the agonizing pain. But he only slapped her hard across the cheek.
She forced herself to simply smile back at Ross in retaliation. He brought the rifle over his shoulder like a baseball bat, and it made a loud crack as it hit her face. She couldn’t stop the yelp that escaped her lips as her head whipped to the side, and she felt a tooth loosen as blood trickled from her mouth. Her head jerked violently as he hit her another time.
Natasha growled with the excruciating pain when he relented. Her jaw was black and blue, her lips a horror show of blood. Her grin was quite terrifying.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” she exclaimed.
Ross nodded firmly. “I should think so.”
Then he backhanded her once again, and she blacked out.
When she woke up, she was hanging by a rope attached firmly to the ceiling. Her ankles were free, and she was dangling just a few feet off the ground. She groaned. Blood dripped freely from her mouth and onto the floor.
She was facing Ross, who was holding some sort of small gadget in his hand. She became aware of something attached to her neck. A small pin, maybe. She put two and two together. An electric shock type thing. This was just brilliant.
Before she could say anything, Ross pressed a button on his device.
The pain was instant, surging through her body like lightning. She writhed and cried out, but it didn’t stop. She had never felt anything like it before, it was like she was on fire.
Then it stopped, and her last scream echoed in the dank room.
“Like that?” Ross asked.
“Can’t say I do, no,” Natasha replied weakly.
“It’s one of my new toys,” Ross explained, closely examining the tool. “I think it will be quite effective.”
Natasha didn’t reply.
“Ms. Romanoff, do you have any idea where one Steve Rogers is right now?”
“No, I don’t,” she said innocently.
Ross looked down at his fist. Then, without warning, punched her hard in the stomach. Natasha grunted as the breath was ripped from her lungs.
Ross hit her again. Natasha kept quiet, knowing could do nothing except wait for the punishment to end. She forced herself to keep her mouth shut, swaying as another blow crashed into her body. But with the fourth, she couldn’t stop herself from yelling as she felt a rib crack.
She immediately regretted making the noise, as even breathing sent red-hot swells of pain through her lungs. Ross wrapped his fingers around her neck.
“Personal space, much?” Natasha implored.
“Just tell me where Rogers is, and you get to live.”
Natasha tilted her head, her throat pulsing against Ross’s palm. “You know I’m hanging from this rope, right? Like, you’re not even lifting me. I really don’t think it’s as intimidating as you think it is.”
Ross stepped back, scowling, then pressed the shock device. Waves of electricity swept through her, and she longed for the sweet release of unconsciousness, away from the torturous pain. She was yelling uncontrollably, which made her ribs ache, but she couldn’t stop it.
When it finally halted, she barely had time to sigh in relief before Ross’s quick of punch caught her in the face, and everything went dark.
She opened her eyes as a huge bucket of ice-cold water was dumped over her head. Her mouth was full of blood, and her cheeks speckled with it. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, and she recoiled as Ross struck her once more, right in the abdomen.
“Where is Steve Rogers?” the tall secretary asked dangerously.
Natasha spat blood in his face, and Ross grimaced as flecks of it landed on his cheeks.
“That’s disgusting, Romanoff.”
“One, fuck off, you’re being really annoying and I don’t like it. Two, I don’t know where Rogers is, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did,” she said hoarsely.
Ross pummeled her face again with his fists, and a sharp blow to the jaw knocked her unconscious once more.
Natasha was swinging when she awoke to another freezing cold splash of water.
“Careful, Thaddeus,” she rasped. “You keep on like this, you’re going to kill me before I tell you anything.”
Ross clicked the shock device again. Natasha squeezed her eyes shut, doing her very best to keep the scream down in her throat. The pain was excruciating, consuming her every fiber.
And finally, Ross stopped it, and she sighed in relief.
“Where is Captain Rogers?”
“Bold of you to assume I even-” Natasha was interrupted with a hacking cough that sprang suddenly from her burning chest. Ross turned away as she wheezed and gasped for breath.
“You aren’t in much place to bargain, Romanoff. Tell us, and we’ll give you a nice warm cell in the Raft, and leave you alone for the rest of your miserable life.”
Natasha didn’t respond, feeling too woozy to form words.
Ross stepped forward again, taking a rough grip on her chin, and forcing her to meet his gaze. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes. If you want to talk, we can talk. If you don’t, we continue this. Do you understand me?”
Natasha clamped her mouth shut, refusing to move or say anything.
Ross’s brow furrowed in anger. He raised his voice. “I said, do you understand me?”
Natasha managed an eye roll, and Ross backhanded her across the face one more time. Finally, she said stiffly, “Yeah, fine, whatever. I’m fucking done playing with you.”
“Good.” Ross stepped back, releasing her chin, and Natasha spat blood on the ground at his feet.
Ross glared at her. “You’ll pay for that, Romanoff,” he growled viciously. Then he turned on his heel and left the room. The heavy metal door clanged shut behind him.
Natasha hung from the ceiling, her eyes half closed, breath shallow. It was ironic, she thought to herself, that Ross was asking her where Steve was, when that was the reason she had come here in the first place. Unfortunately, that plan had been put aside for the time being.
She hoped Peter found the tracker that she had carefully placed on her shirt. She wondered what he would do if he did. She hadn’t had a clear plan for that, either. Did she want him to tell Tony? No, not really. But did she want Peter, a 16 year old kid dressed in spandex, to try to save her? Nope. That would put him in far too much danger than a kid his age should ever be, and it probably wouldn’t work either.
Well, maybe she was underestimating him a little bit, she thought. He might be able to pull it off. Maybe. She wouldn’t count on it. Though, he had taken out Ross’s thugs with much more ease than she would have expected…
No. No, she couldn’t allow herself to believe that the kid who she had met less than 48 hours previously would come save her, an alleged criminal. Sure, he had seemed nice, but he was Tony’s… kid… intern… prodigy…?
She shrugged to the empty room, then winced at the pain in her shoulders. Tony had never made it clear where the hell he had found a random high schooler with a secret alter-ego as a onesie-wearing crime fighter. And how he had managed to bring this onesie-wearing crime fighter to Germany, of all places, to fight Captain America with less than two days’ notice.
Whatever. There was absolutely no way that Peter would come and save her, and she should stop getting her hopes up. She was stuck here.
Several minutes later, Natasha stiffened as the door opened, and Ross walked in once more. “Nice to see you again, Romanoff,” he announced, closing the door behind him. “Ready to talk?”
“Y’know, it’s really funny, actually, because I don’t fucking know where Steve is.” Natasha grinned at him, displaying the shining blood on her lips and teeth.
“Tell me who Spider-Man is, then.”
“Um, let’s see… He was just a normal guy, but then he was like, probed by aliens. Yeah. He told me all about it, they sucked him up into their UFO, and then did experiments, and then dropped him down to Earth. And now he has special powers! And the most interesting part is that the aliens told him to tell me to tell you, Mr. Thaddeus Ross, the biggest douchebag in the entire world, their words, not mine, but also kind of mine, to go fuck himself. So…”
Ross didn’t say anything, and Natasha shrugged at him. “That’s not true, actually,” she went on. “Spider-Man is actually the long-lost brother of David Bowie. Yeah, I didn’t believe it at first either, but when you look closely you can really see the resemblance-”
Suddenly, red lights flashed from the security camera in the high corner of the room, and an alarm from the outside rang faintly. Natasha stopped rambling, and looked around. Ross walked swiftly towards the door, saying, “That’s a fascinating story, I’ll make sure to look into it. Now, give me a moment to deal with this, and I’ll be back.” He promptly left the room, slamming the door behind him.
The alarms rang in Natasha’s ears and the red lights flashed in her eyes as she grinned to the empty room.
30 minutes earlier - 11:05 PM
“Okay, so here’s the deal. I find that door thing, use my little spider-bro guy to open it, you hack the whole system, unlock Natasha’s door, and we cause a mass panic,” Peter summarized.
“Sounds about right,” Ned agreed. “Let’s get to it.”
They were both in Peter’s room, Ned sitting in front of an assortment of monitors and computers, and Peter standing behind him in his Spider-Man suit. He pulled his mask over his head, and bounced back and forth on his toes.
Ned leaned closer to his monitor, typing furiously. “I’ll be in the system soon. Ross is good, but I’m better. You should probably leave now, though.”
“Yep. Got your earpiece?”
Ned held up a small radio, then put it in his ear. Peter nodded. “‘Kay, I’ll tell you when I get there. Don’t, like, hack it before I get there, because they’ll probably notice quickly and I want to get in before they go into defense mode or whatever.”
Ned snorted. “Obviously. Peter, you’re talking as if we’ve never done this before. I got this.”
“Yeah, I know, I know.” Peter wrung his hands anxiously. “But I want to make sure we don’t mess up. It’s Natasha’s life on the line here.”
“C’mon. We never mess up.” Ned spun around in his chair to look Peter in the eye. “We’ll be fine.”
“I know.” Peter nodded. “We got this, we got this, we got this,” he muttered to himself.
“Glad to hear it. Now go be Spider-Man.”
“That’s so cringe. See ya.”
“You know we can still talk to each other,” Ned pointed out.
“Oh, we should check that. Once sec.” Peter sprang suddenly through his window, and crawled along the side of the building. He put his finger to his ear. “Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” Ned’s voice crackled back.
“Awesome. I’ll tell you when I get to the entrance.”
“Great. Don’t die.”
“That’s the goal.”
Peter leapt off the wall, and shot a web. It stuck to the side of another building, and his used his momentum to swing, down and then up again. Shoot another web, swing, turn the corner.
He swung rapidly through the streets of New York. It was dark outside, but the lights of the city kept it bright enough for him. Cars sped through the roads, honking and screeching. The voices and laughter of pedestrians echoed through the streets. Peter always enjoyed the city at night. “Hey, Ned,” he said quickly. “I think I’m going to mute, I’m gonna talk to Karen. Tell me if anything important happens.”
“You got it,” Ned replied.
“Hey Karen?”
“Yes, Peter?” The AI asked.
“Mute me from Ned’s call.”
“You are now muted.”
“Great, thanks. So where exactly am I headed?” Peter looped sharply around a corner.
“Shall I give you a map?”
“Please.”
A holographic map showed up in front of Peter’s face, with a pulsing light with the location of the entrance to Ross’s base. “Thanks, Karen.”
“No problem. Have you got everything planned out?”
“I think so. It’s not too complicated.”
“Okay. Tell me if you need anything.”
“Always. Can you unmute me for Ned?” he requested.
“Of course. You are now unmuted.”
“‘Sup, Ned. How’s it going?”
“I’ve basically hacked the system,” Ned said proudly. “I’ll wait for you to get inside before I make it obvious, though.”
“Awesome. I should be there any minute. Karen gave me a map.”
“Cool.”
Four minutes later, Peter ran upside-down along the ceiling of the Subway. The sounds of the buses echoed around him as one sped by right under him. He kept going, and inside his mask asmall, circular entrance was outlined in green.
As he got closer, Peter said quietly, “Karen, deploy spider-bro.”
The small, electronic spider popped from Peter’s chest, and buzzed over to the wall. “Okay Ned, I’m almost in,” he whispered.
“Ready when you are,” Ned said in his ear.
Sparks flew as the little robot worked at the entrance. But after a few moments, it stopped, and turned back to Peter. Karen’s voice filled his mask. “Peter, you will need more than just spider-bro to unlock this, Ned will need to hack it.”
“You hear that, Ned?”
“On it. Let me just locate it…”
“Tell me when you got it.”
“It’ll open when I got it.”
In just a few moments, the door swung open, revealing a small, dark tunnel. Peter couldn’t see farther than a few feet.
“Okay, I’m in. I think it opened into the vents,” Peter relayed to Ned.
“Yeah, I can see that. Once I hack more important systems and cause a commotion, the vents will be locked down. You need to leave them before I can do anything.”
“Okay.” Peter crawled through the opening, and closed the door behind him. “Karen, is there any way for you to make it so that I can see better?”
“I can turn on a headlamp,” Karen replied.
“Great, do that. But turn it off as soon as it gets lighter, or if there’s some way somebody might see it.”
“Alright.”
A beam of light shone brightly from Peter’s eyeholes, and he could see much better. “Thanks, Karen. Hey Ned, is there anything you can do without setting off any major alarms?”
“Well, I’ve located Natasha’s cell. Taking action will obviously set off alarms, so I can’t do it yet. I know how to hack the PA system, so I can disable that soon. I dunno, I can do a lot of stuff, but I’m just waiting for you.”
“Okay, okay. I’m going, don’t worry.”
Peter crept as fast and as quietly as he could through the dark, and, he noted, somewhat slimy vents. “Ugh, this place is disgusting,” he muttered.
“I swear to god Peter, if you get caught because you’re talking to yourself I will murder you.”
“Why do you sound a lot like Natasha right now?”
“I was just trying to sound intimidating.”
“Inspirational. Is May over your shoulder?”
“Of course not. Now be quiet, I can see where you are, you’re right behind the wall of a hallway.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ew-” Peter looked at his hand, which he had just stuck in a large pile of goo. He shook the sticky substance off, and kept going. “I’m just looking for a place to get into the actual hallways.”
“I’m looking for a good place for you to enter, just keep going forward, you’re kind of at the height of the ground, so you’ll need to head up, and then above the hallway, and there’s a grate in the ceiling. I don’t see any heat signatures in there, so you should be good.”
“Yeah, I see where it goes up. I’m almost there.”
“I know, I can see you.”
“Oh crap, there’s someone walking into the hallway.”
“I’ll web them up into the vents,” Peter whispered even more quietly than before, in order to stay hidden.
“Hopefully you can do that quietly.”
“Of course I can. I’m headed up.”
“I know.”
“Okay, do I turn left or right?”
“Right, then right again.”
“They just had to make it complicated.”
“Those are, like, the least complicated instructions ever.”
“Aha!” Peter said triumphantly. “I found the grate.”
“I found it for you and told you where to find it.”
“When did you get so sassy?”
“Okay, just open the grate, quietly, then web the guy up, he’s a few feet to your left, no one else around, and we’ll go from there.”
“Okay… here we go.” Peter slowly lifted the grate. He winced as it creaked slightly, but the guard below didn’t seem to notice.
“Careful,” came Ned’s voice in his ear.
“I am being careful,” he hissed back. The grate finally lifted all the way, and Peter positioned himself so that he had a good angle on the guard. Then he shot his webs from both hands, and yanked the guard up through the hole and into the slimy chute.
The guard grunted, but Peter knocked him out with a quick punch, and webbed him up like a fly in a spider’s web. Satisfied, Peter rolled him to the side, out of sight from anyone in the hallway.
“Can I drop in now?”
“Looks good,” Ned responded.
Peter crawled along the ceiling of the corridor. “Am I anywhere near Natasha’s cell?”
“Not really. That’s like, the highest-security cell, on the lowest floor. You’re on the highest floor. You won’t be able to get close before I breach the defenses and alert everyone that something’s up.”
“Alright. Wanna do it now?”
“Are you ready?”
“Born ready.”
“Okay, give me a few seconds.”
Peter waited, then heard, “Alright, I’ve breached the last firewall.”
With that, red lights flashed all around Peter, and the alarms blared in his ears. “Here we go,” he said grimly.