The Budapest Objective

Thirteen

At about 6:00 that morning, Clint knocked on Natasha's door. She was already dressed in her SHILD suit, and had all her weapons ready. She'd spent the last two hours making sure everything was set and coming up with a plan in her head.

"Come in," she said, absentmindedly shuffling through papers.

Clint walked in, also dressed in his SHIELD uniform, holding a bow in his right hand. His quiver was slung over his back as always, the arrows at the ready.

"You ready?" Clint asked.

Natasha nodded. "Yeah, let's do this."

She got up from the chair she was sitting in, and made her way across the room. Natasha grabbed three guns, slipped one into her left boot, and the other two into her holsters. She clipped several rounds of ammo to her belt, and strapped a knife to her wrist.

She walked towards the door, but Clint stopped her before she reached it. He grabbed her arm. Natasha somewhat reluctantly looked at him.

"Natasha, if things get too bad out there... just be careful, OK?"

Natasha jerked her arm away and walked out the door. Barton sighed and followed. They walked side by side to the car, neither one saying a thing. They climbed in, and buckled up. Clint started the car.

"So, do we know where we're going?" Natasha asked.

"Well, I did some research last night before going back to the hotel-"

"When you were supposed to be dead, you mean?" Natasha couldn't help but say.

Clint continued like he hadn't heard her. "-and I found some files showing a building in the middle of the city. I think it's the largest tower in the city, actually. There's some sort of transmitter on the top of it. Now, if I read everything right, if we destroy the transmitter-"

"We kill Cross' control of the robots."

"Well, in theory, yes."

"That's ludicrous. No villain would make it that easy."

"You don't know Cross."

Natasha sighed. "Alright, do you know what time he'll activate that thing?"

"It's supposed to be active right now. I don't understand why we haven't been attacked-"

As if on cue, an explosion rocked the city. A large structure not far from them had been blown to bits. Fire and debris rained down on Budapest like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra. More buildings exploded.

"Barton, look!" Natasha said.

The building in the middle of Budapest was sending out strange, golden light from the top-most point of the tower.

"Remind me not to doubt you again," Natasha muttered.

"I will," Clint promised.

A huge crash stopped the car. Both Clint and Natasha lurched forward and hit their heads on the dashboard, causing Natasha to temporarily black out, and Clint to see stars. He shook his head violently, trying to get the sparkling spots out of his vision. He looked behind him and saw a huge statue broken into three large chunks in the back seat. Fire sprang up from under the statue.

Clint tried his best to unbuckle, but the strap wouldn't budge. He grabbed the knife from Natasha's limp wrist and slashed through the seatbelt, then cut through hers. He kicked the door open, hurriedly pulled her out and ran.

The car exploded with an ear-splitting BOOM! Clint shielded Natasha with his body, protecting her from shrapnel.

He held her, hoping she'd wake up soon. It wouldn't be good it she was out for longer than five minutes, because they needed to put a stop to this.