Prague, Czech Republic
Spring 2015
It wasn't the ideal place to be taking her shot from—usually she preferred to be firing from much farther away—but given what she'd been put together about Romanoff's anticipated movements, it was the best of a bad situation. So Nadine sat on a balcony, tucked down behind the solid yet decorative stone railing, peering through the pillars to the street below as her rifle was held ready in her lap.
Hiding in plain sight. It was what she did, what she was good at.
No one ever saw her coming.
She didn't know precisely what Romanoff's mission was and she didn't care. It had taken the entirely of her drive here to Prague to somehow detach herself from what she was preparing to do but she had managed it anyway. From there she had gone on to figuring out how to complete her mission, her years of lessons in the Red Room and subsequent years of practical experience proving their worth yet again.
After the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D. nearly a year before and the spilling of its secrets all over the internet, there was now a glut of intelligence out there for Nadine to take advantage of. And as all of her early preparation told her when she'd first been handed this mission, Natalia had more than earned the 'Black Widow' designation. A little part of Nadine was jealous; it was something every girl in the Red Room had aspired to, and for a short time, it was Nadya who had seemed poised to earn it. But that was a long time ago. Now Nadine was different. She wasn't Nadya anymore, with aspirations to a name that designated her as one of the best assassins in the world. Now she was The Ghost. Now she arguably was the best assassin in the world.
She was the assassin they sent after assassins.
She was enough of a match for Black Widow.
...at least in theory.
It was still early, the street still mostly empty, though people were beginning to appear, heading for breakfast or work. There was a faint breeze in the air, stirring the fine strands from Nadine's high ponytail to cling to her cheek and lashes. With an absent gesture she freed the blonde strands, brushing them back before checking her surroundings...again.
But then something in the air seemed to shift, her skin suddenly prickling in anticipation. Instinctively, Nadine knew the critical moments were approaching. Slowly shifting the rifle, her movements slow and precise, Nadine readied herself, one boot bracing against one of the stone columns of the railing as she leaned forward to peer through the scope.
There was a hint of movement around the building across the street. The building itself was, for all appearances' sake, just another, run-of-the-mill business headquarters, one of several that lined this particular street. But it could easily be anything else, which was why Nadine'd had her contacts keeping it under observation.
Considering the determined way Natalia and her companions had been striking off HYDRA locations linked with records, research and data storage, it was a logical conclusion to draw that eventually they would hit this one; hence Nadine's surveillance of this particular building over the others on the list provide within the original target docket.
The beefed-up building materials the building boasted had cemented that conclusion for Nadine when she'd made her recon visit weeks earlier; the windows weren't just paned with your average glass and the doors and window frames were heavily reinforced. And considering the other sorts of materials on the shipping manifests and invoicing from the building's renovations not long ago, she was also willing to bet the walls themselves had been further fortified from within once HYDRA had set up shop in the building. Hell, it was possible that they'd built it in the first place; she hadn't quite looked that far into it since doing so hadn't been necessary, but the age and style alone suggestedas much; she was thorough, but not that thorough. Yes, it easily stood to reason that this building hid one such location. The electricity usage that the building was responsible for certainly indicated something more than simple commerce was happening inside.
Not that it mattered either way to Nadine. HYDRA might be ultimately responsible, though indirectly, for making her what she was, but she held no bias nor allegiance for them. Save the odd contract that was sent specifically to her as this one was, she chose the rare missions she took based on the particulars of the mission, not the politics or the motivations behind it. She'd gone after marks set by HYDRA, S.H.I.E.L.D. and others with no allegiance whatsoever.
So long as her marks met her criteria, she would take the mission.
And on paper, Natasha Romanoff fit that criteria.
Distantly she could hear the sounds that, to her trained ear, Nadine recognized as the sounds of a fight. She'd been correct. The movement she'd spotted skulking around the building had been Romanoff and her colleagues and they'd taken the fight inside.
Now it was a matter of waiting for the shot, the right moment.
Through the windows on the third floor a level below her, she could see bodies clashing and others flying while the distinctive flash of gunfire lit up the interior. There was definitely a fight going on in there. Across the street Nadine could just barely hear the sound of it wafting through the morning air; the building was holding the sound surprisingly well, reinforcing her conclusions about its building materials. But it didn't faze Nadine. Her rifle was customized to pack a powerful punch and her specially produced ammunition was more than capable of penetrating the strengthened glass if need be.
The only thing that concerned her was the apparent presence of multiple Avengers inside. Natalia hadn't come alone, bringing a few of her new friends with her. Nadine had been afraid of that. So far, judging from the flash of metal soaring around the room across from and below her, Nadine suspected Captain America was present and she believed for a brief moment that she spied Hawkeye and his bow running around as well. But there was little evidence that Iron Man had joined them, same with the Hulk or Thor. That didn't mean they weren't here, just that she hadn't seen them.
But then, it wasn't like this was a HYDRA stronghold. Given the power requirements, it was likely a server farm or data stop, given the location and minimal personnel that Nadine had catalogued as she scoped out the location earlier. It would have been overkill if they'd brought along the big guns for a reconnaissance mission.
Across the street the sounds of gunfire had trailed off, and as things began to look comparatively calm inside, Nadine readied herself. She still hadn't seen Romanoff and she knew her window was closing. If she had to move? If she had to trail Romanoff, the chances of her being able to pull off the mission cleanly decreased significantly. She exhaled slowly, her finger shifting from guarding the trigger to laying across it. She might only have a glimpse, but she needed to be ready to take it.
And she was.
But then Natasha looked right at her, and in that split-second Nadine hesitated, her carefully measured breath hitching.
Her shot reverberated through the street and the glass between her and her mark shattered, falling in a cascade of glimmering shards to the street below.
And Natasha went down.
As one, her companions spun to pin down her location. Normally, Nadine needed only to wait, and she was able to slip away unnoticed. But she should have anticipated that wouldn't be the case. Not only was she far closer to her target than she normally would have been, but Natasha's companions were Avengers; one the world's greatest soldier, the other purportedly the world's greatest marksman.
Both Hawkeye and Captain America's gazes locked on her location almost immediately.
In an instant Nadine was on her feet and rolling out of the way as a black-shafted arrow ricocheted off the pale stone wall where her head had been a heartbeat earlier. She didn't even have time to process that she'd actually been spotted before she was catapulting herself over the railing just as a second arrow exploded, shattering part of the façade she'd been braced against and sending chunks of the stone railing tumbling past her to the street below.
Twisting as she fell, she managed to land nimbly on the wide railing of the balcony below. Immediately she was whirling around, her rifle once again snug to her shoulder as she flicked it off the single shot setting and opened fire herself on the two Avengers.
The slugs deflected with blinding flashes and high-pitched rings off Captain America's shield even as Hawkeye dove for cover. She took the split-second opportunity to leap down another floor and then the last to the ground, tucking around her rifle to roll off her initial momentum.
But she had barely regained her footing before a hard, fast flash of metal was barreling toward her. With a gasp, she was barely able to dive forward and roll and out of its path, but the motion was too fast and she stumbling as she reached her feet again. Recovering quickly she was able to duck back again as the red and blue shield swung out toward her, this time attached to an arm.
And then it was simply a matter of falling back on her training. She lunged in low, driving the butt of her rifle hard into his solar-plexus, causing the Captain to grunt in pain. It was all she needed, winding up and swinging the gun like a bat to strike him across the face, forcing him to stumble back this time.
Before he could recover the gun had fallen from her hands as Nadine launched herself at him. Her knee reconnected with the undoubtedly bruised spot in the centre of his chest before her elbow drove into his temple and she wrenched his head down toward her knee, sending him reeling, all in the space of a heartbeat.
But he wasn't called a supersoldier for nothing. Regaining his balance, he re-engaged, his hands and fists flying, one swing managing to catch her in the ribs even as she wove around and turned away others, sending her own kicks and strikes toward him, the soldier barely able to deflect many of them. She could see in his face that she was faster than he anticipated. She nearly smiled.
As he continued to come at her, no longer holding back, she dove around him as his arm flashed out to nearly catch her about the waist. Using her own weight as leverage to twist his arm as she bent away from his grip, she leapt onto his back, further using her momentum and his to swing herself across his front and around his body, hooking her left leg below his chin and wrenching his head back over her right as it clamped behind his neck. It was a move that she'd seen snap a man's neck when used with enough speed and force, but the Captain wasn't an ordinary man.
With a surprised grunt he reacted by throwing himself backward and to the side, using his shoulder and his own weight to slam her hard into the pavement, crushing a breathless cry from her. A blazing surge of fire bloomed in her side, and absently she wondered if he'd cracked one of her ribs. In her shock, her legs loosened their grip, allowing Captain Rogers to pull himself free.
But she couldn't afford to let him beat her. She needed to confirm her kill and get the hell out of there. Still barely able to pull a steady breath into her lungs, she forced herself to move, flipping herself to her feet.
But then the edge of the shield slammed into first her middle, then up into her chin, snapping her head back. With an outraged cry she spun as Captain America went to smash the face of his shield into her, ducking beneath it and around him to wrap an arm around his neck in a partial chokehold. But he reached up before she could secure her grip, a hand clamping around the back of her head and neck as he dropped forward, pitching her over his head to slam into a nearby car.
This time she physically couldn't draw breath, the hit had been so hard. But even as she gasped she managed to pull herself to her feet, only for a blinding jolt of electricity to surge through her body the instant a blow with the force just shy of a bullet's slammed into her shoulder.
And everything went dark.
A/N: Thanks for reading!
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