Chương 15: Budapest Operation -14
While Alex's mind and focus was on Pym and Vibranium, the rest of the world moved on without pause. One event taking place right now was a messy SHIELD mission, which would prove to be nothing but a failure, at least as long as no one else interfered.
[With Natalia Romanoff]
Natalia, or Natasha, as she went by, could hardly believe that this was happening. After so long, she would finally be free from the nightmares of the red room once and for all, and the rest of the world would also be free of it.
She would never forget what Clint had done for her, that he had gone against orders like that just for her. Giving her a new chance in life, a chance to do good for once. She really needed that, to do some good. Her whole life, she had been staining her hands red with blood. Now, it was finally time to clean them, to earn just a little redemption.
She was all too happy that the first step in that direction would be to bring down the red room and end the monster that is Dreykov. The only black spot about this situation was the fact that to confirm that Dreykov was inside the hospital, they needed to use the man's own daughter.
Natasha wasn't happy about having to condemn an innocent child to death over something her father had done, but there was no other way. It pained her heart as she stood there in the window, watching the girl enter the building that had been tagged with explosives over the past few days.
"Natasha, are we clear?" Clint's voice sounded from the radio. With one last look, she hardened her heart and lifted it to her own mouth. "We clear."
*Booom!*
Only moments after her signal did the air itself recoil from the explosion that shook the very building she was standing in, while the noise and flames followed right after. "Detonation successful, going to confirm the target's death," she said after a few moments of silence, which was quickly broken by screams and panic from the many civilians out on the streets.
It was pure chaos out there; Natasha slowly made her way through the fleeing crowd and burning fragments that had been dislodged from the building by the explosion. She knew roughly where the target's body should be, though getting to it wouldn't be easy.
Still, she had to confirm it, to be entirely sure that it was done, that little Antonia's death hadn't been for nothing. As she made her way through the burning ruins, she heard Clint call over the radio, "Be careful; you won't have much time before this incident brings someone down here." He reminded her.
She knew he was right; one simply doesn't blow up a building in the middle of a capital city and not draw attention; no doubt firefighters and police were on the way. Probably a good chance that some anti-terror special forces were also setting out.
Working as fast as she could, she entered the burning building and tried to find Dreykov's remains. Yet his office had utterly collapsed, so his body was buried under the floor above. Unable to see the body herself, she drew her gun and fired a few shots toward where she suspected him to be buried.
She heard someone coming up from behind and quickly spun around, ready to shoot, though seeing it was Clint, she lowered her gun. "Target's status?" He asked as he looked around. "Under all this, likely dead, and if not, the fire will take care of it before he can be saved." She answered after a moment.
"Alright, we can confirm him as dead then. Let's get out of here before someone shows up." He replied after a moment as they both heard sirens in the distance quickly getting louder. Natasha wasn't about to disagree with that. While she would have liked to get a proper confirmation about Dreykov's death, she was sure the mission was a success.
Upon leaving the building, they were spotted by a few police officers who had arrived quicker than expected. The officers, upon seeing armed people dressed in tactical gear leave the building, immediately grew alert and drew their own guns.
"Fegyvert le és feküdj le a földre!" they shouted while pointing their guns at the duo. Natasha didn't like this situation, and she was sure Clint felt the same. They might be on a mission, but she doubted that they would be able to return home for debriefing if they surrendered.
Yet things quickly went from bad to worse as more police arrived and called in the situation, no doubt prompting more people to be sent here quickly. They needed to get away from here right away, which sadly meant they would have to use force.
Ducking behind cover, she turned to Clint. "What now?" She asked, hopeful he had an answer for this situation. "We have no backup; we gotta get out of here on our own." His reply was disheartening but expected.
"Utolsó esély, jöjjön ki felemelt kezekkel, különben tüzet nyitunk!" Someone shouted from among the police as they got impatient. Others echoed that by shouting "Most!"
"Shit, we gotta break away from here, I don't like it, but we have to fight them." Clint cursed, and Natasha mirrored his mood. These people were just trying to do their job, yet now they had to pay for it. Still, while she didn't like it, she understood that this was a do-or-die situation; they were sounding far too tense to not shoot them on sight.
"Back through to the other side?" Natasha asked as the last way out to avoid bloodshed. Clint by her side gave it a thought before nodding his head and agreeed. Taking a deep breath, she targeted a large window on the adjacent building and shot it out.
The sound of glass breaking distracted the police enough that they took their attention off of their hiding spot for a moment. Allowing the two of them to run back into the remains of the burning building, and break line of sight with the police before they had a chance to shoot them.
Natasha and Clint quickly ran through the remains, vaulting and jumping over broken walls and through collapsed doorways. They expertly dodged the flames and falling debris as they made their way to the other side of the building while listening to the shouts of the Hungarian police behind them.
The police officers were clearly not quite as brave as the two agents and hesitated to enter the building. This gave the two of them enough time to escape their chase. Yet it seemed that luck truly was not on their side. After jumping out from a first-story window and down to the street, they appeared right in the path of some Hungarian special forces.
Seeing what was clearly two armed combatants, jump out of the building that had been attacked. The special forces were not in doubt that these two were responsible for the terrorist attack.
Natasha and Clint didn't even have the time to curse their luck before the special forces opened fire. The situation quickly escalated into a firefight, and a deadly one at that. The special forces, while skilled, didn't quite reach the level needed to dispatch the two elite agents that would one day be known as the Avengers Hawkeye and Black Widow.
They were, however, skilled enough that Clint and Natasha had to give it their all to escape the encirclement. On one side, the loss of life was truly regrettable, but on the other, Natasha happily threw herself into the action. It allowed her for a moment to forget about the death of Antonia.
Rolling, jumping and vaulting between cover with bullets and arrows flying swiftly through the air. Natasha and Clint both showed off the skills that would one day earn them a spot on the Avengers team.
They did their best to keep moving and to use every bullet and every arrow fired to open up a chance to disengage from the situation. While the two had never been on a mission together before this, they quickly developed their teamwork due to the intense situation.
The intensity, the adrenaline pumping through her body, allowed Natasha to forget her past actions and everything else, focusing solely on the skills drilled into her throughout her life as she fought with everything she had.
Moving and dashing hard behind the cover of a car, she sat side by side with Clint, slightly out of breath but with a smile on her usually grim face. "This is intense." Natasha gasped out between breaths. "A bit too intense for my liking." Clint responded.
"Cover me." Natasha didn't doubt that he would for even a moment; she left the cover and began an intense shootout with the special forces. Clint also didn't hesitate to offer assistance, as he used his arrows effectively.
Fighting their way out of the encirclement, they ran through the narrow streets and made their way towards more populated areas. As they reached the crowds, panic started setting in among the civilians. Yet the action also quickly lessened, as neither side was eager to shoot given the situation.
This allowed Clint and Natasha to run through the panic crowd and into a subway station, where they took advantage of the crowd, slowing down their pursuers. It wasn't the most noble or comfy hiding spot they found. Though they both felt that it was unlikely that they would be found, so now they just needed to wait.
And wait, they did, staying right where they were. Without moving, barely able to whisper to one another for two days. They then spent another eight days moving from hiding spot to hiding spot as they made their way out of the city.
Spending so much time together in this situation could have had two outcomes. One being that they would end up hating one another or becoming best friends. When they made their way back to debrief with Fury, he could immediately see that his agents had gotten a lot closer since the last time he had seen them.
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[With the Foundation]
every move Natasha and Clint made while in Budapest had been carefully watched and followed by other agents. The foundation had dispatched members of the mobile task force Tau 1. Their mission was to secure the red room. Captain Alberti, the leader of the task force, was somewhat impressed by the skills shown by Natasha, both in gun fighting and hand to hand.
He didn't have as many kind words for Clint Barton due to him using a bow as a weapon, of all things. Sure, he could admit that he was skilled at it, but he didn't think it compared to a high-caliber gun.
Captain Alberti knew every facet of his target's mission thanks to the informants within shield. Furthermore, he had been alerted to the very likely possibility of the shield mission being a failure. Since this was the case, he was prepared to dig out the target, one general Dreykov himself.
With the help of the nearest Foundation SITE and a suitable number of bribes. He and his men would be among the first allowed to enter the building across from him.
Not as a Foundation task force but as fire rescuers. With this disguise and some of his men also disguised as paramedics, they would be able to extract the general and his daughter without problems.
Since everything was already set up, the captain merely needed to wait for the right time to act. Which should be right around "now!" He shouted into his radio at which all of his men jumped into action.
With the police and special forces all drawn away by the retreating pair of shield agents, he could now move to secure his objective. His men moved with purpose and quickly achieved success. It was a little girl, she had been hurt by the explosion. Knocked unconscious and no doubt with a few broken bones, but otherwise in a decent enough state. He had no doubt that she would make a full recovery.
Recovering the primary target also proved simple enough. Having secured his objective, he quickly brought them into two ambulances and vacated the premises.
As he was sitting in the vehicle and making his way back to their temporary base, he couldn't help but feel somewhat disappointed in the mission he had witnessed. It had been loud, drawn a lot of attention, and unsuccessful.
Yet he still did agree that the so-called Black Widow had some skills and, with a bit of proper Foundation training, would be a great asset. Now, he just needed to wait until the general woke up, and then his interrogation could begin. Once that was done and he had all the information he needed, he could move on to phase two.
By the time Natasha and Clint reported their success to Nick Fury, they weren't even lying. Since at this time, general Dreykov was indeed dead, and the red room was dismantled, though not because of their actions, but instead because the red room had been assimilated into the Foundation.
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