Seven Devils // Natasha Romanoff

Part 16 - She Gets Revenge

Upon my words, the last brake gives way and the elevator comes barreling down the shaft.  "Vallonia!" Natasha shouts.

"Incoming!" I warn, swiftly swinging my legs back into the open shaft to gain momentum. I swing forward, aiming right for Natasha.

Luckily, her agile reactions immediately respond to what I'm doing as she reaches for my midsection. My hands release the metal ledge I'm holding onto and immediately wrap around Natasha as she falls backwards, dragging both of us into the hallway outside the elevator.

Just as we impact the ground, I hear the screeching of the elevator flying by in the elevator shaft behind us, closely followed by the bang of it hitting the bottom of the shaft.

I exhale in relief as I rest my head against Natasha's shoulder, releasing my death grip on her. We lay in the hallway for a solid 15 seconds, breathing heavily as we compose ourselves from that ordeal. Not a word is uttered between us, but we can both tell what the other is thinking: thank god, that was a close one.

I sigh as I pull myself off of Natasha, offering her a hand to help her up. She firmly grasps my hand as I pull her up, sending me a smile as she releases my hand. "Where now?" she asks breathlessly.

I tilt my head to the right. "Medical wing is that way. The airstrip is right outside the medical wing."

She nods as she turns toward the medical wing, and we take off running. We make quick work of leaping over the heaps of debris, and soon I'm shoving open the doors as we run out onto the airstrip.

"Melina, where are you?" I ask into my earpiece.

Her voice comes back slightly staticky: "We are on airstrip with rest of Widows, including Antonia who you two forgot to tell me about," she replies, sounding upset about our forgetting to tell her that we freed Antonia. "Where the hell are you?

"We're on the airstrip, where the hell are you?"

There's a defeated sigh on the other end. "Please don't tell me you girls are on the airstrip outside medical wing."

It suddenly dawns on me that Melina told us to go to the first-floor airstrip, which is on the opposite side of the Red Room. "Oh shit," I mutter.

"Not to worry," Melina sighs. "Give me 5-10 minutes and I will get you."

Suddenly, an aircraft in the distance catches my eye. It's sitting only 40 feet away, purely serendipitous. "Dreykov's plane," I mutter.

"What?" both Natasha and Melina ask.

"That's Dreykov's plane," I state. "If it's still here, that means Dreykov is still here. He must've gone to the medical wing before leaving, so he's taking off right now."

"Vallonia, honey, I can't hear you," Melina speaks up.

I quickly bring my hand to my earpiece. "We've got eyes on Dreykov," I reply. "We're going in."

"Woah, girls, if you go in and the plane takes off, our chances of finding you go down very low-"

"Don't worry about us," I cut her off. "We'll handle ourselves. You guys get out of here."

She sighs begrudgingly, making her reluctance to allow us to go on our own clear. "Vallonia..."

"We'll be fine Melina. Love you."

"Love you too. Be careful."

"We're going for it?" Natasha asks as she motions to Dreykov's plane.

I send her an affirming nod. "You bet your ass."