Unexpected

II

Nina, Natasha and Steve were flying above the Indian Ocean with a bunch of other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

"The target is a mobile satellite launch platform: The Lemurian Star," agent Rumlow explained. "They were sending up their last payload when pirates took them, ninety-three minutes ago."

"Any demands?" Steve asked him.

"A billion and a half."

"Why so steep?" Nina asked. That was indeed a lot of money.

"Because it's S.H.I.E.L.D.'s."

"So it's not off course," Steve told them. "It's trespassing."

"I'm sure they have a good reason," Natasha said.

"You know," started Steve. "I'm getting tired of being Fury's janitor."

"Relax," said Nina. "It's really not that complicated." Actually, the whole situation was very complicated. Way more than she could even tell Steve. Fury had told her how Hydra was everywhere, and how he was scared they might be infiltrating Hydra. Steve's mission was indeed getting the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents out of there, but Nina's was something else. Her mission was not to let Steve find out about Natasha's, which was to retrieve S.H.I.E.L.D. information from their systems. Fury didn't want to tell Steve yet, not until he was a hundred percent sure if what was going on.

"How many pirates?" Steve asked, tearing Nina away from her messy thoughts.

"Twenty-five, top mercs, led by this guy. Georges Batroc," Rumlow told him, showing the three of them a picture of the guy. He was definetly French. At least his name was. "Ex-DGSE, Action Division. He's at the top of Interpol's Red Notice. Before the French demobilized him, he had thirty-six kill missions. This guy's got a rep for maximum casualties."

"Hostages?" Steve asked. Natasha and Nina shared a look. Good, he was going to get the hostages without being asked to. It would definetly look less suspicious if Steve have the orders himself.

"Uh... mostly techs," Rumlow answered. "One officer, Jasper Sitwell." He showed them the picture of the officer. Nina had to make an effort not to react; that was one of the agents Fury had told her about. She had to tell Natasha, but not now. She couldn't just tell her in front of Steve and the other agents, they couldn't know about Fury's plan. She could tell her in Russian, but how bad would it look to speak another language in front of them? "They're in the galley," Rumlow added.

"What's Sitwell doing on a launch ship?" Steve wondered out loud. "Alright, I'm gonna sweep the deck and find Batroc. Nat, you'll kill the engines and wait for instructions. Nina, you sweep aft, find the hostages, get them to the life-pods, get 'em out. Let's move." The two agreed and got ready to dive off the jet into the ocean.

"Secure channel seven," Steve spoke into his wrist communicator.

"Securing channel seven," said Natasha.

"Seven secure," finished Nina.

"Did you do anything fun Saturday night?" Natasha asked Steve. She had been trying to find Steve a girlfriend for some time already, but he seamed to back off every single time.

"Well, all the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead, so... No, not really," Steve said as a joke. Damn, he had millenial humour and didn't even know.

"Coming up the dead zone, guys," said the pilot, alerting them they should jump off now.

"You know," Nina said, joining the conversation. "If you ask Kristen out, from Statistics, she'd probably say yes," she told him.

"That's why I don't ask," Steve said. Nina thought it was good enough as an answer and simply jumped from the jet into the water.

"Too shy or too scared?" Nat asked.

"Too busy," he answered and jumped after Nina.

"Were they wearing a parachute?" Nat heard an agent ask.

"No. No, they weren't," Rumlow answered just before Nat jumped in after them.

As they resurfaced and climbed on the ship, Nina and Steve started fighting and knocking out every so how man on deck. As Nina was busy with the one last pirate on her side, Steve put his hands up as another one pointed his gun at his head.

"Bouge pas! Bouge pas!" The pirate screamed in French. He was suddenly shot dead by Rumlow as he parachutes down onto the deck behind Steve.

"Thanks," Steve said as Nina knocked out the last pirate on deck.

"Yeah, you seemed pretty helpless without me," Rumlow joked.