Old Wounds

Chapter 3

17:20 24-AUG-09, SHIELD HELICARRIER

Director Nick Fury had never been the one to show much emotion. Whenever he was happy, sad or scared, he tended to keep a straight face. Unless someone provoked him, or there was a reason where it was impossible to stay poker-faced, he was known as the 'Deadpan Pirate'. His eye patch called for many jokes to be made behind his back, which, despite his loss of sight in one eye, he was still able to hear.

The paper that they gave him had caused Director Fury to lose his straight-face for the first time in front of his two best assassins. Clint almost got up to follow their boss, but Natasha pulled him back down shaking her head.

"If he left us," Natasha said, "then he wouldn't want to tell us about whatever was on that note... straight to our faces, at least."

Clint grinned. "Well, we'll have to find out ourselves."

"Damn it, Clint," Natasha hissed, rubbing her forehead, "watch where you put your boot."

"Sorry, Nat."

The two assassins were crawling through the narrow air vents of the SHIELD helicarrier. Starting in the one in Clint's room, they made their way to find Fury. They'd been crawling for a few minutes now, careful not to make any noises that might alert whoever was in the room they were passing.

Finally, they heard the familiar voice of their boss: "It's just the safety of my best female assassin that I'm worried about!"

Natasha and Clint looked at each other in the dim glow from the room below. Her forehead creasing, Natasha leaned closer to the vent's window, seeing Fury with his arms crossed, facing the large screens on the walls. There were four people on screen, their faces slightly shadowed by the lack of light on their side. They were staring down at Fury, their expressions unconcerned.

"As one of the best assassins known to us, I'm sure Miss Romanoff is able to take care of herself," one of the people on screen said.

"The threat that they are posing doesn't seem to be something that an army could deal with, much less herself," Fury shot back, his voice rising slightly.

"What do you want us to do?"

"I could gather-"

"No," another shadowed person snapped. "We are not going to start the Avengers initiative."

"The Avengers?" Clint whispered, his forehead creasing. "Have you heard of that?"

"Yeah," she said. "He mentioned it to me. Remember last year when Tony Stark revealed that he was Iron Man?"

"The guy who runs Stark Industries?"

"That's the one. And you've heard of Bruce Banner, a.k.a. the Hulk. They are people that Fury's considering to start the Avengers with. They're a group of super humans who would be practically unstoppable."

"Superheroes," Clint muttered.

They turned their attention back to Fury who was now pacing agitatedly back and forth in front of the monitors. He seemed to be thinking hard, not listening to what the people on screen were telling him.

"Director Fury," a man said. "There is nothing that we can do."

"Are you shitting with me?" Fury exclaimed. "As the World Security Council, I'd expect that you would take in consideration a threat such as this one. According to this paper," Fury waved the folded up sheet that Natasha had given him, "The Red Room is planning to send him to us. And they plan on sending more like him who are going to target the best of our agents, starting with Miss Romanoff."