[center][h2][b][color=9e0b0f]B L A C K  ⧗  W I D O W [/color][/b][/h2][/center]

	Jet lag is not a problem for Natasha Romanov. The woman had a unique skill to fall asleep and wake up on command. Sun up, sun down, bed or no bed, background noise or none. Right now she was in one of her typical black suits, arms crossed, head dipped down, sleeping while strapped into a chair. Her red hair was tied up into a bun, with one loose strand hanging infront of her face like it always seemed to do. She was in one of twenty one chairs in the small steel corrider. All of them were filled, the men and women almost shoulder to shoulder. There was a nearly silent rumbling, and the entire place was lit with comfortable white-blue lighting. 

	Nineteen of the other people inside the craft were heavily armed shield agents. Most of them had their helmets off and their face masks down. They were wearing light-weight but effective blue plating over black shirts tucked into cargo pants. The SHIELD soldiers chatted idly or kept to themselves, reading books or watching downloaded videos on their smart phones. 

	The twentieth person on this craft was a man by the name of John Walker, AKA US Agent. Unlike Natasha, who only appeared to be in her late twenties, Walker actually was. If the two of them had something in common, it was that both of them were failed attempts of recreating the super soldier serum that Abraham Erskine had perfected almost a century ago. That didn't mean, however, that the two of them didn't have their own value. Walker was dressed in dark red and blacks, with the stripes of the United States emblazoned on his chest. He was a strong, square shouldered man with a sharp, stubbled chin, his bald head tucked tightly into a skull-hugging helm. He was flipping through the pages of a miniature bible, occasionally casting envious in the resting Widow's direction.

	As if an internal switch had been flicked, Natasha's large green eyes opened and she glanced around.

	"No way." Walker protested, noticing this. His voice was loud and authoritive by default, his Standard American accent making every syllable clear. 

	[color=9e0b0f]"What?"[/color] Natasha asked with furrowed brow, feigning ignorance. Her quiet, lightly Russian accented voice somehow seemed to carry even more weight.

	"No way did you wake up right before we touch down." Walker glanced around at the other soldiers before looking back at Nat.

	[color=9e0b0f]"You're probably right."[/color] Natasha admitted with a shrug and a smirk. 

	"ETA ten minutes till touch down. Repeat, ETA ten minutes till touch down." A voice crackled over an intercom, the pilot informing her passengers of their destination.

	[color=9e0b0f]"Hm,"[/color] Natasha adjusted herself in her seat. [color=9e0b0f]"Guess I'm just lucky."[/color] She concluded smugly. This earned a few smiles from soldiers who were paying attention. Walker chuckled and shook his head, leaning over and slipping his bible underneath his chair. 

	"Tch. It's what those commie bastards did to you. You're a machine, lady." US Agent looked up at the countdown timer that had appeared over the exit ramp. Not too long ago, Black Widow wouldn't have taken to that comment lightly. Some soldiers, having heard of her reputation, seemed to tense up or lean in, waiting for her to bite the head off of the male. But instead she shrugged again, smirking. The tension was relieved, Walker having stepped on a dud landmine instead of a live one. 

	"Touch down, touch down, prepare for touch down." The pilot said again. Everyone could feel the plane, the Quinjet, rather, cease it's forward movement and began to hover in mid air.

	That was her queue. Black Widow produced a black balaclava and slipped it over her head, covering everything except her perceptive eyes. It was warm, comfortable, breathable, surprisingly protective, and filtered out chemicals. Black Widow detatched herself from her seat and stood. She walked calmly over to the ascended exit ramp and looped her hand through a circle of fabric to hold herself in place. Everyone was paying attention.

	Natasha dropped her Russian accent as she spoke. [color=9e0b0f]"All right, everyone. Like always, stick together. Stay behind me and US Agent. We will take point. Remember to use ICER rounds only, we want them alive. Be sure to double tap if you have the chance, sometimes the Dendrotoxin needs a little help in order to take effect. We're going to be rushing to the server room as fast as possible to gain access to sensitive data before they can delete it and remove their connection to HIVE. They probably have some suspicion we are coming. We think they're in the process of packing up and converting this facility into something less sinister and important, so we're going in without as much preparation as I would have liked. Still, this should be no problem as long as you remember your training."[/color] Black Widow spoke clearly, reassuring her comrades of their mission.

	Extending a hand out, a young woman handed her Widow's preferred CQC primary weapon, a submachinegun of little recoil and high rate of fire. So much so that with her peak human strength, she could wield it with a single arm if she so wished. Besides that, she had two custom made Glock 26's marked with her symbol, placed in holsters on each of her legs. On her back she carried her collapsable batons. Finally, on each forearm was a gauntlet/glove implement known as her Widow's Bites. Versatile implements with a variety of uses. From taser shots, enhanced strikes, grappling hooks and explosives, all heavily modifiable for any situation. Natasha was a one woman arsenal but was hardly weighed down at all.

	With a thud, the Quinjet came to a stop. Walker stood from his seat and took his place to Widow's left. The nineteen soldiers rose from their seats, weapons in hand, and made two rows behind the pair of heroes. The squad had a variety of weapons, from heavy shields to assault rifles.

	The plane's back end opened up, the ramp shifting downwards. Outside was a cool crisp Austrian morning. The sky was clear and snow sparkled on the sharp decline only fifty feet to their left. Mountains curled up and tumbled over each other into the distance. The sun watched everything, casting little shadow.

	Black Widow and her crew strode off the Quinjet, their boots clanking against the steel. As they exited, Widow turned around to observe the craft's advanced stealth technology. The interior of the Quinjet seemed to be isolated, floating in it's own space, for the hull of the Quinjet was almost completely invisible. As the ramp raised and shut completely, the only indication of the Quinjet's existence was the snow being kicked up by it's proximity to the ground. That too, vanished, as the Quinjet went into stealth mode.

	"Remember where we parked," Quipped Walker. He looked around at the others for approval.

	[color=9e0b0f]"Funnier every time." [/color] Mumbled Widow, checking her gun to see if there was a round in the chamber.[color=9e0b0f] "You all should know the co-ordinates. Follow me."[/color] Widow ordered, her and Walker leading the advance. Their boots crunched on gravel and clacked on stone. They rounded a corner and the leading female raised her hand and then flattened her palm, signalling for everyone to lay low. Around the bend of a hill was an ascent. At the very tip of this mountain there was a pair of steel doors, unmarked.

	[color=9e0b0f]"Gruber,"[/color] Natasha said, [color=9e0b0f]"You have the breach charges?"[/color]

	"Yes ma'am," The agent replied, tapping the satchel at his hip.[color=9e0b0f] "Excellent. Let's go."[/color]
	
	[color=9e0b0f]"All right. Walker, you're with me."[/color] "Copy." The two were preparing for someone to fire from hidden windows. Finally, the squad made their advance. About halfway up the hill, there was a mechanical whirring, followed by a series of clicks and chunks. The last sound was a series of squeaks and digitized beeps that together almost sounded like snide, childish laughter. Over the top of the steel doors erupted a dark green turret. It had a large, singular cannon and a boxy square base, almost cartoonish in it's rattling proportions. It's form shuddered with a nefarious giggle and began to thump massive anti-personnel rounds their way. Everyone hit the deck, including Black Widow.

	Interposing himself between his squad and the turret, US Agent stepped up to the plate. From his forearm emerged a large blue disc, four feet in diameter. The disc was made of hard-light, semi-transparent material, a protective hologram shield. "Emblazoned" onto it's front was the form of an Eagle erupted triumphantly from a SHIELD. The cannon rounds slammed into it but deflected off, ending up zooming over the entire squads head. The turret seemed to hesitate, almost, after the first seven rounds. But before it could change targets, Black Widow raised her forearm and aimed her Widows Bite directly at the turret. A small missile whizzed out and clanked anti-climactically into the turrets base. The turret considered this, chuckled at it's ineffeciency, and then promptly exploded. Natasha could thank Stark for that pretty little number.

	[color=9e0b0f]"Move up! Gruber, plant those charges!" [/color] Widow commanded. The soldiers moved up and lined up on each side of the wall. Gruber planted the charges. "Breach!" With a fizzy explosion, the steel exploded inwards. Immediately a hail of gunfire burst through the door as HIVE operatives on the other side suppressed the doorway. Two soldiers unclipped flash grenades and tossed them inwards. As they popped, Walker strode in, shield raised with one hand, a heavy duty handgun in the other. Natasha followed behind, practically sticking to him, her SMG raised. Two more pairs of shield and SMG combos followed afterwards, their shields made of steel rather than hard light.

	Entering the lobby of the secret base, several HIVE soldiers dressed in generic military garb rattled off bullets in their direction. All of them either missed, or bounced off the steel and hardlight wall that SHIELD had forced into their compound. Her troopers supporting her, Black Widow's SMG snapped from target to target, pulling off several headshots in a row. Her muzzle flash was bright blue, the Dendrotoxin of the ICER rounds exploding and driving into the skin of her targets, rendering them unconscious instantly.

	"It's SHIELD!" An operative shouted in a panic, right before Walker put a high impact ICER round in his chest, sending him spiralling to the floor. Widow tapped Walker's shoulder, signalling him to advance down the left hallway. A quarter of her squad followed the two heroes, the other three quarters peeled off to clear the rest of the facility. 

	The lights were on but red alarms rotated form their locations in the ceilings and walls. They travelled down steel corridors, Walker and Widow leading the way. They cleared room after room. Most were empty. Some had unarmed scientists that immediately surrendered or were subdued with non-lethal assault rifles. Others were filled with HIVE security. A vast majority of them were empty though. Black Widow was looking for the server room. Eventually she signalled Walker with a few taps of the shoulder that she would be doing some advanced scouting, cutting deep into the heart of the complex to find what they were looking for.

	Black Widow's SMG was simply discarded, dropped to be picked up later. Now she drew one of her two pistols and silently sprinted down the corridors, looking for signage that would lead her to the server room. One of the doors she passed by was slightly ajar. There was a HIVE agent on the inside who assumed they would be able to hear who was coming, but Black Widow's sprint was completely silent to normal human ears, and the sound of distant, echoing gunfire didn't help either. The HIVE security peered out to shoot Black Widow in the back. Only she was no longer in the hallway. Confused, the guard looked around before his head was stomped to the ground by two boots, Natasha having silently suspended herself from the ceiling with her grappling hook. Already unconscious, she put an ICER round in him to make sure he stayed that way.

	There were no more security in the facility. The HIVE based was supposed to be hidden, after all. There were probably fifteen HIVE security on base that day. All of them were taken alive thanks to the ICER rounds, though many had serious bruising or trauma. Still, better than being dead. However, Widow's work was not done yet.

	Finally, she had reached the back rooms. The HIVE base wasn't that large, she could still catch glimpses of her allies flashlights or forms in the distance as they moved between intersecting corridors and cleared room after room. However, she would still be entirely isolated if she entered a room. That was indeed what happened as she entered the server room. Large boxes of downloadable information. Some if it would have to be stored on the hardrives. If she could just...

	One by one, they began to fizzle out, the blinking lights snuffing infront of her eyes. Quickly, she rushed to a USB port to try and stick her own executable program into the databanks to stop the deletion or take as much information as she could. 

	[i]"Guh-huh-huhuh!"[/i] An impish mechanical voice, barely intelligible, chuckled. Widow turned around to see a six foot tall robot unfurl from a box in the corner. It looked at her with two big, bulbous glass eyes. [i]"Guh-huh-huhuh!"[/i] It repeated with a shudder. The laughing sounded like it wasn't even meant to be happening, as if it was just a byproduct of the robot's design. 

	It raised an arm, and Black Widow rolled out of the way as one of it's pincer like hands fired out from itself on the end of a steel cable, shattering the server Widow had tried to hack. Shit. The information on that one could still be salvaged as long as she could interrupt the remote deletion process. Destruction was less effective than deletion, but deletion took more time. 

	It fired another one of it's hands and Widow had to dodge that one, too. It retracted it's pincers and stomped forward. Widow actually lunged forward to meet it, reaching for it's neck as she front flipped over the robot. Out of her Widow's Bite hand gauntlet came an electric shocker that sent the machine twitching. [i]"Guh--!"[/i] It seemed to exclaim. Now she withdrew the batons from her back.

	Having landed on her feet, surged forward again and slammed her batons into the armored right arm of the robot. The metal dented inward and the pincer failed to retract completely. The damn thing chuckled again. It span around and swung it's other arm towards Widow, but she was ready for it, ducking underneath and slamming it under it's armpit, breaking it's "ribs". She felt the shell crumble and the fragile parts on the inside fall loose. She struck it across the face, shattering the glass eyes and causing it to stumble backwards, raising its arms to defend itself. Time to finish it. Widow flicked a switch on her batons and they buzzed to life with electricty. Reaching out she jammed the weapons into the robot and left them there until the bot was fried. It's head drooped backwards and fell down with a heavy crash. Her batons were deactivated and re-sheathed in a matter of seconds.

	Black Widow, ever the professional, rushed back over to the destroyed server. Her USB was no where to be found. Instead she went to the far side of the room where there was an open laptop. A lab assistant was already laying prone with her hands on her head. Cracking open the laptop she began to try and prevent the deletion manually. Natasha was an accomplished hacker, having kept up with cutting edge technology despite her octogenarian status. Unfortunately she only managed to save a few files before everything was deleted. Her screen flashed green. A cartoon monkey face with green goggles showed up and stuck out it's tongue at her. "Suck snot, crud-muncher!" It taunted before the last of the files were deleted. Natasha frowned.

	 [color=9e0b0f]"O...K..."[/color] She murmered, disappointed but intrigued. It seemed there was a new supervillain to look out for. Exhaling, she closed the lid of the laptop and looked down and the terrified lab assistant.

	[color=9e0b0f]"You."[/color] Black Widow began in German.

	"I don't know anything! I want to speak to my lawyer!" She exclaimed into the tile.

	[color=9e0b0f]"Right. Do you people have detainment cells?"[/color] Natasha asked politely. "I don't know! I want to speak-" The woman cut herself off as she heard the Avenger scoot her chair closer.

	"D-down two doors on the right! You c-can't miss 'em!" She stammered. 

	[color=9e0b0f][i]"Danke, Fräulein,"[/i][/color] Widow smiled underneath her mask. Reaching up for the woman's hands she produced a pair of ziptie handcuffs and tied them behind her back. Standing up from her chair the lab assistant, looked away from the floor to find she was once again entirely alone. The shadowy figure that had dismantled the intimidating robot in a matter of seconds had vanished as quickly as she arrived.

	Widow travelled silently to the back room where she found the detainment center. There behind thick glass, was a little boy with his legs tucked up against his chest. He couldn't have been older than eight. The sight of it, sickeningly familiar in some ways, made her stomach churn. Whoever was reponsible for him, the lead of this facility, wasn't here. They had probably escaped days ago, HIVE having been cautious of SHIELD's encroachment on this facility by their counter intelligence. Not enough to risk destrying the base, but enough to warrant keeping higher level personnel away. Widow would capture them next time. Catch them with their pants truly down. For now, though, she was just happy to have shut this operation down. HIVE was experimenting on this child, for reasons SHIELD could only theorize. Current intelligence suggests attempts at replicating the powers artificially, or manipulating the children into become involuntary soldiers. Either way, they had stopped them from doing it to at least one child.

	Widow quickly hacked the glass cage open and walked carefully inside. The boy cowered away from her. Natasha removed her mask and kneeled down, giving him a small, reassuring smile. [color=9e0b0f]"It's okay, kid. We're going to get you home."[/color]  

	
[hr]

	[color=9e0b0f]"What's the situation?"[/color] Natasha asked, entering a briefing room in Geneva's United Nations/ SHIELD headquarters. Agent Phil Coulson, a friendly looking man with a receding hairline and a sharp suit snapped off his sunglasses and smiled at the Avenger.

	"Nothin' too serious." He responded sliding a vanilla folder across the table. Natasha sat in a comfortable office chair and began reading over it. 

	[color=9e0b0f]"Wakanda?"[/color] Natasha read it aloud.  

	"Tchuh," Walker responded, who was also there seemingly couldn't let people forget that fact for a small period of time, "Lemme guess, some warlord's acting up." He siad dismissively.

	"No, Walker. The King of Wakanda, T'Challa, is attempting to make contact with the UN. Wakanda has had very isolationist policies for all of recorded history, so this is a big step, and the UN wants to make a good first impression."  Coulson explained. Walker frowned and peered over Natasha's shoulder, also now reading the information document.

	[color=9e0b0f]"So, diplomacy. Why me?" [/color]Natasha asked.

	"Well, the UN needs security. You're one of our top agents, and you're famous. It'll look good for everyone to see an Avenger there. Plus, you've been working really hard recently on this HIVE thing and we wanted to give you something a bit...I dunno, fun? Meet a king, shake some hands." Coulson, keeping his hand on the table, casually approached the pair. "And, they've got a lot of vibranium over there, or so our sources say. And by sources, I mean people who heard about the massive war that just happened there this year." Coulson flipped a few pages to the picture of the South African private military contractor. 

	"Ulysses Klau. Real charmer. Arms dealer. Professional scumbag. He's always had a particular interest in vibranium." The mention of the element seemed to stiffen Walker's back. "And he's convinced the Wakandans have an unprecedented amount of it. He invaded the entire country to get it, but apparently lost an arm for his trouble. We suspect Wakanda is looking to make sure SHIELD can intervene in the future if something like that happens again. We know he was gunning after an alleged huge natural reserve here--" He pointed to a satellite image of the country's tallest mountain, "Under Mount Bashenga." 

	[color=9e0b0f]"A huge natural reserve of vibranium? If that were true-"[/color] Natasha started. Coulson finished her thought with a nod. 

	"-Then Wakanda would be one of the richest countries in the world. Which is why we were so dubious of the claims, given the countries poverty rate. Either they don't know what they have, the king is hoarding all of it, or, and this is the funnest one..." Coulson smiled wryly. "They've got a big secret."

	[color=9e0b0f]"I like secrets."[/color] Natasha wobbled her head, looking impressed. 

	"I know. That's why I want you to go. Be friendly and do some digging. Protect our ambassador and T'Challa. See what you can find out." Coulson gestured at her. 

	[color=9e0b0f]"Okay, I will. So that's why you want me to go. Why do you want to bring Walker?"[/color] Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow.

	"Because Captain America wasn't available." Coulson responded with a smirk, knocking down the pins that Natasha had set up. 

	"Hey!" Walker protested.

	Natasha smirked. [color=9e0b0f]"When are we leaving?"[/color] 

	"They're sending a plane to us, actually. Should be here in a few hours. Good luck, Romanov."

	[color=9e0b0f]"Good. I want to try one of those fancy Meitschibei pastries before we go."[/color]