Chapter 15
Landing the plain Natasha doesn’t think she’s ever heard such silence when the whole team was together, especially not on missions. Then again this isn’t a normal mission. Don’t get her wrong the jet isn’t silent, the team are speaking amongst themselves but normally, mainly Stark or Sam, can’t sit quiet and right now part of her wishes they wouldn’t be, wishes they would speak up the way they normally would, but she understands why they aren’t. They need to get this right.
As much as Natasha wanted to barge in there and kill each person holding Peter one by one, she also knows that if she is the one to find Peter then she’s taking him out of that building without looking back, her hatred of those people was outweighed largely by her desire to make sure Peter is safe. Natasha also knows that Peter hates when they kill people, even when they deserve it, he’s seen enough death in his life he doesn’t ever want to add more, so when it comes down to it, she doesn’t care what happens to those people as long as Peter is no longer with them. There was only two men she wanted dead by the end, Osborn and Strucker, Osborn for dragging Peter into this hell and Strucker because well that’s obvious. He was the one to cut Peter open to ‘see what would happen’, that man she wants to kill and watch with her own eyes, to make sure he’s gone.
Did Peter hear them land?
Walking out of the jet, the team was greeted by a notice board. A notice board that held a message Natasha loathed, if only she had brought her lighter with her.
Welcome Avengers, it’s time to split up into two teams, (No you don’t get to pick your teams I’ve picked them for you) we’re watching your every move from every angle, I don’t think you would want Petey here to be hurt because you couldn’t just go into the groups that we’ve picked now do you? Unless of course you don’t care about him, not that I’d blame you.
You see we asked Petey here what his favourite game was as a child, he said it was Hide and Seek, did you know that? We were going to set this up as a whole game but well this game started before I even got my hands on him didn’t he, he was hiding and you were seeking, I guess we’re about to see if you’re any good at this game, I don’t have much faith with the fact that you’ve been losing so far, you have two days to find him here, we won’t move for 48 hours but once that’s over if you haven’t found us then we move again. The prize of the game is simple, whoever wins this game gets to keep Spidey.
So lets get to the teams. Team A will consist of Stark, Sam, Scott, Thor and Clint. Team B will consist of Natasha, Bucky, Wanda, Bruce and Steve. Ready? Go.
“Okay so, we may have said splitting up was a bad idea when we planned this, but you know groups of five is better than just two people and as much as I don’t want to listen to what this person has told us to do, but I don’t want Peter to get hurt even more and so I guess we’re Team A.” Stark rambled out.
“Splitting up into two different groups has its pros and cons. The group who finds him first activate your comms to connect to the other team straight away, there will probably be guards in every building so do what you need to do to get through them as fast as you can. No matter how.” Natasha, pointed out, “We have a time limit so no more chatting, split into your groups and lets go, you guys take the left and we’ll take the right.”
When she finished speaking Natasha didn’t wait for a response, her and Bucky began to walk straight away knowing their team would follow.
“Does anyone know how many buildings there actually are? Or which buildings have people in, and which don’t, you know so we don’t waste time going into the empty buildings?” Wanda questioned from behind them.
Natasha began to pull the scanning device Tony had given her from her pocket, “Tony made this, it will detect which buildings have heat signatures and which don’t, it might be a waste of time but if there’s even one person in a building we’re checking. They may have left Peter on his own somewhere, then again they may have him in a building with the most people, so we have to check all of them.” Scanning the building in front of them the former happened, the scanner picked up only one person, so Natasha nodded at James who kicked the door down and she walked in. There in the middle of the room was one of Hydra’s men.
“Where is he?” She demanded, pointing her gun at his head.
To which the man chuckled at them, “I’m not here to tell you, tik-tok Widow you’re on a timer.” The moment he finished speaking a gun shot rung out, Natasha watched as he slumped on the floor before lowering her gun back down, he was a waste of a bullet, but she also wasn’t willing to let anyone walk away if she could stop it.
This continued for around seven hours, some buildings holding no one, some holding very few and some holding a large number of them. They were tired that’s for sure, time was running out, they had taken small breaks but nothing for than ten minutes. It was weird, for once Hydra wasn’t coming out to fight them, they were waiting for them to come in to fight. They haven’t heard a word from the other team, that in itself wasn’t comforting, as much as Natasha wanted to be the one to find him, wanted to finally see him she also just wanted him out, if that meant she didn’t see him until she got back the jet then fine. Natasha just wanted to get him out of here.
That was when they walked upon a building, one that was much different to the ones they had already searched. It was smaller and a lot older, something you wouldn’t expect anyone to be inside, but the scanner picked up on many heat signatures in there, not the largest they’d seen today but enough.
Looking to James next to her she knew they were on the same page, something about this building seemed off, it felt like a building you normally see thinking nothing about it, a building which is typically ignored while it holds something inside. Natasha and Bucky had seen enough of them from their own time with Hydra, from the way Wanda stiffened behind her it seemed she did too. This building was hiding something but is it Peter or something else.
Before Bucky even had chance to kick the door down, Wanda’s eyes lit up red and she ripped the door off to which James just looked at her.
“You couldn’t have done that this entire time?”
“You looked like you were having fun, so I just left you to it.” Wanda responded before she walked through the gap left. Natasha following behind her.
Like in the buildings before, Natasha, Wanda and James took the upper floors while Steve and the Hulk, who was surprisingly following their instructions a lot better than any of them thought, once again showing how Peter affected the team in the best way, would take the lower floors.
Wanda focused on, well throwing people out of her way and getting rid of as many as she could on the left side of the upper floors while Natasha and Bucky focused on the right side. The two of them moved in sync with one another, years upon years of working together bleeding into this moment, there was no communication between the two of them, yet they already knew what the other was about to do before they even did it.
It was this which made them the perfect partners, made it so much easier to fight through the group of Hydra men trying to kill them. The thing is the two of them fought with all they had on a normal mission, so what made these men think they would win when Peter was at risk. Natasha heard James shoot the last man on his side while she electrocuted hers, using the knives Peter had created for her, she loved to remind Stark how much better they were than what he made her but right now was no time for jokes. They had removed all of the ones on their side, but Wanda’s lack of communication made it clear she wasn’t in the same position.
“Wanda how’s your side looking?” Natasha asked her through the comms, “Ours side is now clear.”
“I could use some help, there’s not too many men but I’ve used my powers more today than I have in a long time, I’m feeling a little drained.”
James looked at her before nodding, “I’ll make my way there.” He looked back at Natasha before leaving, “Go get our kid Natalia.”
Walking towards the door in front of her, her scanner picked up only two heat signatures and the door was already cracked open slightly, well at least she didn’t need to call James back to come kick it open.
The room was darker than the rest, not dark enough that you couldn’t see anything, but dark enough that the spotlight illuminating the table at the end of the room that much brighter. Making Strucker’s grin look much more sinister, the bloody knife in his hand glistening. Making Peter look that much paler.