The Soldier's Girl

Somethings Up

After landing safely on the deck I jump into action alongside Steve.

"What about a nice little house in the country? That might be a good place to settle down." Nat speaks up from behind me making me roll my eyes.

"Secure the engine, then give us ideas for our retirement plan." Steve told her.
"I'm multitasking." She replied before jumping
down to the lower deck.

Steve and I give each other a tired look before moving on. While on deck, just further up from where we landed I find the control room and pull Steve in with me to see if we could find the hostages.

Steve and I listen to one of the French pirates.
"Silence radio du SHIELD, Batroc."

"STRIKE in position." I hear Rumlow over coms, confirming to Steve and I that everyone was in position. Well all except Natasha.

"Natasha, what's your status?" I ask.
"Status, Natasha?" Steve follows up.
"Hang on!" She yells into it, with struggle making me realise there may have been more pirates down in the engine room than expected.

"Engine room secure." I hear her say, after a few seconds.
"On my mark. Three. Two. One." Steve says into coms.
Immediately, the STRIKE team start shooting at the pirates.

Inside the control room, I see one of Batroc's men try to get hold of the pirate below deck.
"Halo? Je pense que la ligne est morte.J'ai perdu le contact."
Before he can get a reply Steve smashes in through the window using his shield and I follow him in. I see Batroc trying to escape, so seeing Steve handle the other soldier I make a run for him.
"Hostages en route to extraction. Romanoff missed the rendezvous point, Cap, Smith. Hostiles are still in play." I hear Rumlow say over coms again.
I sigh frustratedly. What was Nat up to? She's been acting risky ever since we boarded the boat.
"Natasha, Batroc's on the move. Allison's on his tail. Circle back to Rumlow and protect the hostages." I then heard Steve command but there was no reply from Natasha.
"Natasha!" I yell, begging her to tell me she was on route.

I was seriously going to lay into Fury when we got back to SHIELD.
All of a sudden Batroc attacks me from behind. He jumps on to my back but I throw myself on the floor and forward roll so he flies over me and I still land upright on my feet. He rolls away from me, but is quick to stand back up.

We fight on the deck of the ship. He is quick and fast with his movements, but he doesn't really think giving me a lot of chances to hit him as he leaves majority of his soft body parts not guarded making easy blows.

"Je pensais que tu étais plus qu'un simple soldat." He spits at me.
"Oh je suis." I reply making him shocked I knew his language.

I picked up a few languages over the years. My best being Spanish, but I was also fluent in Russian and Romanian. I could hold a good conversation in French and German and knew tiny parts of Chinese and Italian.

"Allons-nous voir?" I ask him raising my eyebrows.

We immediately start fighting again. He came straight at me with a kick to the chest but I move back at the last second and miss him. He then swings a fist at me but I block it and lay a quick jab of my elbow to his chest making him wheeze upon impact.
I soon manage to knock him down again, by smashing through into one of the nearby rooms, using the door to my advantage. I see he is clearly knocked down but then I look up when hearing more noises in the room to reveal Natasha. She seems to be downloading something from the computer.

"Well, this is awkward." She stated.
"What are you doing?" I ask her seriously, while walking up to her.
I think she noticed how pissed off I am. But I have every right to be angry. My company was falling apart and I could feel it. I felt stupid because everyone around me probably thought I was dumb not to see what was happening. Little did they know I've been building it back up secretly.

The problem with SHEILD is how much it's grown. It's not a secret anymore, far from it. Too many people were involved, leaving easy places for snakes to crack through and steal information.

"Backing up the hard drive. It's a good habit to get into." Nat replied to me.
"Rumlow needed your help. What the hell are you doing here?" I ask her again.

I look over her shoulder to see what she was doing.
"You're saving SHIELD Intel. I'm guessing Fury gave you your own little mission." I sigh.
"Yep. Whatever I can get my hands on."
"Your main mission was to rescue hostages." I tell her.
"No. That's yours. And you've done it beautifully, if you wanna lay into anyone Ali you know it's not me."
She finished backing up and pulls the flash drive out. I nodded at her in understanding and took a deep breath calming down.

Nat was only following orders. I'd do the same. She was a good agent and we had it all figured out luckily.

"You still could have jeopardised this whole operation. You should have told me." I tell her before she leaves.
"I think that's overstating things." She weighs out.

All of a sudden Batroc rises and throws a grenade at the two of us before he runs off. I catch the grenade and deflect the bomb before grabbing Nat's hand and pulling her with me onto the counter tops before jumping through a window to a more secluded area where we were safe from the impact of the explosion.

"Okay. That one's on me." She spoke out of breath.
"You're damn right." I told her before standing up and going back after Batroc.

Batroc didn't get too far before he was back in my custody and cuffed. Just as I was securing his handcuffs Steve comes racing down the corner along with Rumlow and some of his men.

Steve looked terrified. His hair was sticking up and his arms were moving frantically. He sighed in relief upon seeing me.
"Are you two ok? We saw the explosion from upper deck." Rumlow asked.
"Yeah we're fine. We ran into a altercation." I reply looking over to Nat who looked down guilty.

Steve furrowed his eyebrows, I knew he sensed something was off too but I gave him a "I'll tell you later look", to which he nodded in agreement.
I hand Batroc over to one of Rumlow's men. Once we had ensure all the hostages were safe and onboard along with the pirates all cuffed and taken care of we set flight back to headquarters.

I walked over to Steve and brought him to one of the secluded corners of the jet where we could talk in private.
"Are you ok? What happened back there with Nat?" He asked me immediately.
"I'm fine don't worry about me. I found Batroc and we fought all the way into the main control room where Nat was backing up SHIELD data. She had been given her own mission by Fury himself and was sworn not to tell any of us." I tell him.

"But that could have jeopardised the whole mission." Steve's frustration was growing.
"I know that's what I said."
"Ali, you know I love and trust you but it's like I told you a few months ago. Watch your back. Somethings up." He lowers his voice and his tone is serious.
"I know. Don't worry, I have a huge bone to pick with Nick when we get back. I'm starting to think I'm being left out of the loop. I didn't even know about the Project Insight till a month ago and they've almost finished production!" I tell Steve warily.
"Somethings not right Ali. We need to be careful."
"I know. I feel like I'm just an old face to plaster on screen to represent SHIELD in a good way."
"They know how talented you are Ali and even though you've always been on their side, they have to consider you as a threat. No one is even close to your agent level."
"I know, I'll be careful I promise."
"I'll watch your back." He promises making me smile.
"When have you even not?"

He laughs lightly at me and pulls me in for a small hug before we get ready to land.