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Jul. 29th, 2013 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hisonegoodeyeAgent Romanoff takes an absurdly long time to emerge from her hotel room in Sochi: it's almost, Coulson muses idly, as if she's in no hurry to risk life, limb and self-respect taking down a homicidal wetworks expert of unknown providence.
At his elbow, Lin is almost vibrating with the need to be doing something, anything more than waiting for their rogue agent to appear: in the end, he's almost losing patience with the kid's seemingly-unstoppable stream of observations, so sends him off to see if Starodoub's lackeys have put in an appearance yet. Isaacs goes too, on a counter-clockwise pattern to Lin's clockwise patrol, just to make sure nothing's been missed: with any luck, they might even get to the goons before the goons get to Romanoff.
It's an interesting locale: either Romanoff or Sofia is getting very James Bond-ish in their old age, but then it's hardly their fault if the Russian government is going out of its way to assist with that in the run-up to the Winter Olympics. He has plenty of time to study the place, waiting for either a report or an appearance from his missing agent... An appearance that, it dawns on him, after far too long a vigil, might not be about to happen so conveniently as he'd hoped.
And he's certainly not missing her again, not after the screw-up in Voronezh, so eventually he packs up their mobile set-up and heads off into the complex to look for her himself, just in case they've missed something.
~*~
The nosy tourist schtick is the oldest cover in the book for a very good reason, but it's not the kind of cover that allows for quick movements... Frustrating, but also probably the reason he's taking his time enough that he finds Isaacs huddled in a very dark corner with half her leg blown off.
Shit.
She's triaging herself with the remains of her skirt, but she's taken a bullet to the right abdomen as well and she's lost a hell of a lot of blood: he can see it in the papery sheen to her face, the painfully slow shaky movements - and, of course, the fact that she's missing most of a limb.
"Here," he says, because swearing is not helpful in these situations, and yanks a medkit out from the top of his pack. "Let me."
"I've got it, sir." Isaacs teeth are gritted and she's quite clearly lying like hell, but her voice is remarkably firm. "Find the kid. I think..."
She doesn't have to finish the sentence: alarm bells are screaming like air-raid sirens in his head. If she was watching Lin's back, then...
He hits the emergency tracer - he'll just have to find Romanoff before the SHIELD medsquad can arrive - and passes it to Isaacs. "When they arrive, don't send them after me," he tells her. "Good luck."
"Hell of a mess," she remarks, allowing him to help force her hands to apply pressure to her side. "What is it with these Europeans and litter?"
He doesn't answer that, and doesn't need to ask where Lin should be: he knows their routes inside out, because he mapped them for them.
The kid is curled up in a corner much as Isaacs was, but his head is not even close to being at a survivable angle.
This time, Coulson doesn't even think 'fuck'. It is an inadequate word.
He closes Lin's eyes for him, and he moves on.
~*~
He has to find Natasha: so help him, he will not allow Sofia to be three-for-three on his agents, and he doesn't currently much care what he has to do to ensure that.
The trajectory suggested by Isaacs and Lin's locations only has one natural endpoint - it's the main rink, and the only pause he makes on the way is to incapacitate with extreme prejudice a gun-for-hire he remembers seeing in Moscow, and again in Voronezh.
That means there's no-one stopping him from taking one of the back entrances into the bleachers: he stays low and (hopefully) inconspicuous, grateful that even though he's playing tourist he's playing one with a taste for sombre clothing, gun still in his hand as it has been since he found Lin's body.
He can see Romanoff and the woman who has to be Sofia, and he winces when Romanoff steps onto the ice - no no no, bad idea, no advantage - carefully moving closer to try to catch their conversation and
He flattens himself to the ground with slightly embarrassing ease, and tastes blood where the jolt to his jaw makes him bite his lip.
Not <i>quite</i> the elite secret agent he'd have liked to think he is, then.
He breaks cover just in time to see the ice explode and Natasha disappear with it, into what by all logic must be freezing water.
In summer gear.
He doesn't think, as such - he registers Sofia's exit, but only incidentally; it doesn't alter his trajectory, which is straight for his third and final agent, not even when Sofia tries to shoot him again.
He's slow on the ice, desperately slow, but he has to be: so slow that long before he reaches through the water he thinks he's lost her, must have lost her, won't have lost her; come on Natasha you're Russian for hell's sakes don't do this to me come on Natasha, come on --
Gotcha.
At his elbow, Lin is almost vibrating with the need to be doing something, anything more than waiting for their rogue agent to appear: in the end, he's almost losing patience with the kid's seemingly-unstoppable stream of observations, so sends him off to see if Starodoub's lackeys have put in an appearance yet. Isaacs goes too, on a counter-clockwise pattern to Lin's clockwise patrol, just to make sure nothing's been missed: with any luck, they might even get to the goons before the goons get to Romanoff.
It's an interesting locale: either Romanoff or Sofia is getting very James Bond-ish in their old age, but then it's hardly their fault if the Russian government is going out of its way to assist with that in the run-up to the Winter Olympics. He has plenty of time to study the place, waiting for either a report or an appearance from his missing agent... An appearance that, it dawns on him, after far too long a vigil, might not be about to happen so conveniently as he'd hoped.
And he's certainly not missing her again, not after the screw-up in Voronezh, so eventually he packs up their mobile set-up and heads off into the complex to look for her himself, just in case they've missed something.
The nosy tourist schtick is the oldest cover in the book for a very good reason, but it's not the kind of cover that allows for quick movements... Frustrating, but also probably the reason he's taking his time enough that he finds Isaacs huddled in a very dark corner with half her leg blown off.
Shit.
She's triaging herself with the remains of her skirt, but she's taken a bullet to the right abdomen as well and she's lost a hell of a lot of blood: he can see it in the papery sheen to her face, the painfully slow shaky movements - and, of course, the fact that she's missing most of a limb.
"Here," he says, because swearing is not helpful in these situations, and yanks a medkit out from the top of his pack. "Let me."
"I've got it, sir." Isaacs teeth are gritted and she's quite clearly lying like hell, but her voice is remarkably firm. "Find the kid. I think..."
She doesn't have to finish the sentence: alarm bells are screaming like air-raid sirens in his head. If she was watching Lin's back, then...
He hits the emergency tracer - he'll just have to find Romanoff before the SHIELD medsquad can arrive - and passes it to Isaacs. "When they arrive, don't send them after me," he tells her. "Good luck."
"Hell of a mess," she remarks, allowing him to help force her hands to apply pressure to her side. "What is it with these Europeans and litter?"
He doesn't answer that, and doesn't need to ask where Lin should be: he knows their routes inside out, because he mapped them for them.
The kid is curled up in a corner much as Isaacs was, but his head is not even close to being at a survivable angle.
This time, Coulson doesn't even think 'fuck'. It is an inadequate word.
He closes Lin's eyes for him, and he moves on.
He has to find Natasha: so help him, he will not allow Sofia to be three-for-three on his agents, and he doesn't currently much care what he has to do to ensure that.
The trajectory suggested by Isaacs and Lin's locations only has one natural endpoint - it's the main rink, and the only pause he makes on the way is to incapacitate with extreme prejudice a gun-for-hire he remembers seeing in Moscow, and again in Voronezh.
That means there's no-one stopping him from taking one of the back entrances into the bleachers: he stays low and (hopefully) inconspicuous, grateful that even though he's playing tourist he's playing one with a taste for sombre clothing, gun still in his hand as it has been since he found Lin's body.
He can see Romanoff and the woman who has to be Sofia, and he winces when Romanoff steps onto the ice - no no no, bad idea, no advantage - carefully moving closer to try to catch their conversation and
- bang
He flattens himself to the ground with slightly embarrassing ease, and tastes blood where the jolt to his jaw makes him bite his lip.
Not <i>quite</i> the elite secret agent he'd have liked to think he is, then.
He breaks cover just in time to see the ice explode and Natasha disappear with it, into what by all logic must be freezing water.
In summer gear.
He doesn't think, as such - he registers Sofia's exit, but only incidentally; it doesn't alter his trajectory, which is straight for his third and final agent, not even when Sofia tries to shoot him again.
He's slow on the ice, desperately slow, but he has to be: so slow that long before he reaches through the water he thinks he's lost her, must have lost her, won't have lost her; come on Natasha you're Russian for hell's sakes don't do this to me come on Natasha, come on --
-- and finds her wrist, and grabs it tight.
Gotcha.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-30 12:18 am (UTC)Kick her way back to the surface, breathe, breathe, even a gulp of air if Sofia is still there, but her hand hits the ice instead of air and she needs to breathe, needs to breathe, needs to breathe air and her lungs are burning and this is such a stupid fucking way to die and a hand grabs hers.
She tightens her grip and the hand yanks her sideways, then up.
Up means air, and her rescuer helps haul her out onto the unbroken ice. There's air, she can breathe, once she stops throwing up water, she can breathe.
Breathe, and cry.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-30 12:38 am (UTC)(Which is kind of a magnificently stupid thing to think, and he's done immersion training before, but it still comes as a shock, every damn time.)
And speaking of shocks...
He yanks his jacket off, wraps it around her; normally he'd be a lot more careful about touching without permission, but this is really not the time.
"Stay with me, Nat," he says, voice steadier than his pulse is right now. (For a whole minute, he thought he'd lost her.) "We need to get you off the ice."
no subject
Date: 2013-07-30 12:52 am (UTC)"Oke," is what comes out, her brain aiming for English and ending up somewhere between it and Russian.
Phil. Phil is good. Phil is safe and can support her weight, and she clings to him as they make their careful way to the side of the rink.
"Phil. You okay?" Sofia had shot at someone before Natasha fell under the ice, must have been him, logically. Logic would be nice if it would decide to come back.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-30 01:30 am (UTC)The problem is that she also needs to be a) mobile, because the staff are going to be arriving en masse any second now, and b) horizontal. So, he compromises, and carefully scoops her up in his arms.
(Hopefully she won't kill him just yet. Fury won't be impressed if he doesn't finish a mission, and anyway he has that 100% track record he's always been so proud of.)
"What kind of question is that to ask an old friend?"
He sounds gently ironic, but of course he's all right. (Probably.) He's always all right.
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Date: 2013-07-30 01:46 am (UTC)And god, but she'd like to be warm again, to have her lungs and throat stop feeling like she'd poured liquid fire down them. To have her legs feel like they could support her weight would also be damn nice.
"What's our story?" she asks, and almost sounds like she's back to normal.
(The way she clings to him, even as he sets her down on the closest bench, makes her voice a complete lie.)
no subject
Date: 2013-07-30 12:58 pm (UTC)"Yeah, well." His jaw tightens, but he doesn't take his arms from round her. "I had Lin and Isaacs shadow General Stardoub's muscle down here, hoping they'd find you first."
He rubs her arms to restore circulation. "Isaacs'll maybe live."
He wouldn't bet the farm on it, but Isaacs has proven before that she's a stubborn brat and the SHIELD medsquad is pretty hot; either way, there's no chance he's going to guilt-trip Nat about it, especially not right now.
"Let's keep it simple," he tells her, when she asks about cover: now is no time to extemporise, and the mid-life-crisis/trophy girlfriend act is one that's saved them plenty of times before. "Follow my lead, mm?
no subject
Date: 2013-07-30 01:32 pm (UTC)Isaacs.
Damn Sofia.
"Following. Signed in my hotel as Nina." Normally Nina is a gunrunner, but it was the only other ID she had on her.
Unfortunately, a professional drive and a desire to get even don't always translate to quick physical recovery, and Natasha remains slumped against him.
She can follow leads, she can force herself to pay enough attention to back him up. She can do that much - it's just going to be chancey if he asks for much more until her hands have stopped shaking.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-03 10:27 pm (UTC)By the time the first three members of staff inevitably arrive, the pair of them are quite obviously a tourist having a mid-life crisis and his new trophy girlfriend, and the great thing about looking like a very rich tourist having a mid-life crisis is how few questions people are prepared to ask you.
He coughs; they stare wide eyed.
(Two men, mid-twenties, fit, one early-stage liver damage, the other with a newly-recovered collarbone break; one woman, early twenties, fit, unsuitable high heels she's not confident in.)
"Uh. Sorry, guys. I guess we got a little... enthusiastic."
Smug, overlaid by contrition that's clearly fake.
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Date: 2013-08-03 10:56 pm (UTC)The other great thing about pretending to be a very rich American tourist with his trophy Russian girlfriend is that - once Natasha's had medical attention, and been on the oxygen mask long enough - as soon as it's medically safe to do so, they're free to go. Under protest from the EMTs who had shown up not long after the staff, sure, but they can leave.
"Just let me get changed," Natasha says, once they are back at her hotel room (having accepted an offer from the female staff-member, Dasha, to drive them). "And then I suggest we find somewhere else. Need to stay in Sochi, though."
She hates the way her voice still sounds out of breath, but she's got hours of elevated breathing to look forward to.
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Date: 2013-08-04 12:35 am (UTC)"Although, actually I was thinking we could go to a party."
Guess where it's being held, Natasha?
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Date: 2013-08-04 12:47 am (UTC)"Klementiev's yacht? Good thing I've got a cocktail dress."
Natasha turns around. "Do you have access? I was thinking of pulling in my debt with Markov."
She dislikes Gennady Markov, currently undercover in Klementiev's posse. The dislike is perfectly mutual, but connections are connections. Still, she trusts Phil to have her back.
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Date: 2013-08-04 12:56 am (UTC)"Well, I don't have a cocktail dress."
At least, not with him.
"But do you think this will do?"
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Date: 2013-08-04 01:12 am (UTC)She smiles.
"It might. So, you're back-up?"
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Date: 2013-08-04 01:25 am (UTC)"You know how tetchy the boss gets if I waste airfare."
One eyebrow lifts slightly. "How're you feeling?"
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Date: 2013-08-04 01:29 am (UTC)Natasha sits down on the bed, and her mouth curls wryly.
"I take it easy until tonight, and I'll be fine. And I promise I won't go AWOL again."
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Date: 2013-08-04 01:47 am (UTC)"You promise?"
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Date: 2013-08-04 01:54 am (UTC)Still, she smiles back. The time to go over all of that is later; for now, she needs to concentrate on the mission, to at least make sure Lin didn't die for nothing.
"Pinkie-swear."