[right] August ████
Madripoor [/right]

It will be a bloodbath. There are nearly two dozen guests intending to bid on the Kremlin’s secrets. Every man and woman that purchases a dossier, a photograph, a weapon, a corpse, will meet her wrath. She will string them up one by one, legs kicking, lungs screaming, and make an example of them. She will bleed them out, and when her target knows that their deaths are on [i]his[/i] hands, she will sink her fangs into his fat, soft throat.

It is not her plan. It is someone else’s vision, a letter they have crafted. She is simply the messenger, writing words with every broken bone and spray of red. 

If it were her plan, she thinks that she would simply track down the buyers and poison them in their plush beds. She likes her deaths clean, likes the comfort of shadows, likes it when they never see her coming.

But it is not her plan. It is not her letter. This is not her body. She can only watch as she rewires security systems, preparing doors to lock on her command, to trap her prey in her web. Their guards will turn and try to shoot, but they will stumble, falling victim to the venom she’s timed so meticulously, and they will crumble one by one. She wonders why she’s calculated doses that will not kill them, but she cannot find the answer.

She closes the access panel, slipping out of the security room, picking her way across arms and legs, barring the door behind her. They will not wake until long after her work is done. She scales walls, disappearing into vents, every bit the spider they have made her.

It is starting. They are gathered in the ballroom below as she slips out, balancing on the massive lights illuminating a stage. The room glitters in gold and crystal, with no lavish expense spared, her prey sitting at opulent tables.

Her target is on a stage, whispering to the man who will guide the bidding, all expertly tailored suit and traitorous, beady eyes. Kostya’s death will not be quick. It will not be painless.

They begin bidding. She thumbs the switch. All around the room, doors lock. The pen is made, and the slaughter will begin soon. She is hidden in shadows, coils of wire readied, every inch of her dark suit loaded with tools of slaughter. 

She can only watch as she tracks the winners, memorizes their faces, as she coils her body and waits for the auction to conclude and her work to begin.

Natalia only ever gets to watch.

[hr]

[right]Lisbon, Portugal[/right]

As much as Natasha hated to admit it, Clint was right. Goons were such a waste. Shouldn’t their enemies have learned by now that quality was so much more valuable than [i]quantity[/i]? What she wouldn’t give for a real fight, to have to dig deep into all her skills and wits, for a victory that mattered.

The last body crumpled to the dirt road, eyes empty and blood pooling around them. Natasha rose to her feet, looking up to assess the situation.

Clint bolted. Natasha followed, close on his heels.

He’d reach the car first, she realised, and that was unacceptable. She changed plans, adjusted her course. With a burst of adrenaline, she pounced, tackling Clint, dragging him with her to the dirt.

[i]Wire around throat, tighten, snap neck, watch the light leave his eyes—[/i] something whispered in the back of her skull, old instincts, but this was [i]her[/i] body, [i]her[/i] plan, and she simply shifted her weight to complete a pin.

Natasha’s grin was positively feline, eyes gleaming with the thrill of competition, even one as trivial as a pointless race. 

[color=#cc0000] “Are you even trying, Barton?”[/color] There was a laugh in Natasha’s voice, something almost light about her features, before she was moving to exploit her foul play and gain the precious distance the would assure her victory.