A Spider's Web ll Natasha Romanoff

The Beautiful Redhead

"Gentlemen. Lady." He addressed, walking towards us. I watched the captain walk to the side of the director, before handing him crumpled green paper. Is he giving him... money? What did I miss?

"Doctor, thank you for coming." Fury said, extending his hand to shake Banner's.

"Thanks for asking nicely." He retorted with a bit of sarcasm. Not on the best of terms it seems.

"So how long am I staying?" He asked.

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the wind." Was Fury's reply.

"Where are you with that?" Fury pointed off to the side and over to a familiar face. Agent Coulson. The man who originally recruited me.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

"That's still not gonna find them in time." A sultry voice interjected. I whipped my head around to eye the redhead who was crouched down by a computer screen.

"You have to narrow your field." Banner said, drawing the attention back to him. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?" What the hell are spectrometers? Is that even English?

"How many are there?" Fury asked, crossing his arms.

"Call every lab you know. Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

"Agent Romanoff, could you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please?" The director asked.

I frowned at his words. But I wanted to look at her some more.

"You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys." She says walking right by me, without even looking. Ouch.

I nodded my head, feeling slightly awkward just standing there.

"Miss Desantos. Nice of you to join us. I didn't expect you to agree to join." Fury said, walking over to me, with Mr. Rogers next to him.

"I wasn't given much choice." I replied bluntly.

"No, you weren't, but it is better than the alternative." He said. "This is Captain Steve Rogers. Captain, this is Margot Desantos. I expect Miss Desantos to play nice."

I rolled my eyes at Fury's statement. I was known for not working well with others. It was one of the reasons I worked solo.

I turned to Captain Rogers and nodded in acknowledgment. "Captain."

"Nice to meet you ma'am." He said, sticking out his hand. My face scrunched up at the nickname.

"Just Margot, please." I said, shaking his hand, holding back a nasty remark.

"You and the Captain will be working closely with one another, so it would be best to get to know each other." Fury says and walks away.

"I don't mean to be rude or pry, but I've read your file. There wasn't much to go off of." Rogers starts off, trailing at the end. Of course S.H.I.E.L.D didn't have much information on me other than the obvious information.

"And I'd like it to stay that way." I cut him off before he could continue any further. My past was something I didn't boast about and it wasn't something I just gave out to anyone.

"Understood. May I ask why they call you Phantom?" He asked.

"Because no one has seen me in action and lived to tell the tale."

No witnesses. It was the code I lived by.

Before much else could be said, Agent Coulson came over to us and, thankfully, drew Steve's attention away from me.

He had started talking about his collection of Captain America trading cards and asked Steve if he could sign them.

"I mean, if it's not too much trouble."

"No, no. It's fine." Steve responded. He was way too nice for my taste.

"It's a vintage set." Coulson added, making the conversation even weirder. I wish I could have just shrunk into the wall at that moment to avoid the awkwardness that I felt. "It took me a couple of years to collect them all." Cute.

He nodded a few times, extremely proud of himself. "Near mint. Slight foxing around the edges, but..."

"We got a hit. A 67% match."

"Thank gosh" I whispered under my breath, uncrossing my arms from my chest.

"Wait. Cross match, 79%."

"Location?" Coulson asked, walking up the agent's screen.

"Stuttgart, Germany. 28 Konigstrasse."

"He's not exactly hiding." Just makes the job easier.

"Captain, Phantom, you're up."

"Let the fun begin." I muttered, following Steve to get ready for the mission.

I was led to a room that held my duffel bag, which I had been instructed to leave on the plane. Peeling the bag open, I grabbed my usual dark uniform that was perfect for hiding me in the shadows.

Once I got it on and secured my pythons in their holsters at my thigh, I tied my hair up into a messy bun out of my face and pulled a cloth over my nose and mouth to keep my whole face from showing.

As I exited my room and back to the command center, I heard light footsteps coming up behind very quickly. Almost too quickly. I whipped my fist around, aiming for the person's head, yet they blocked my fist with their arm.

My eyes met those of the beautiful redhead I had been admiring ever since I saw her file. I lowered my arm back to my side as I stared her down, surveying every inch of her face.

"You missed."

"I wasn't aiming to maim. Merely scare. You haven't seen my moves." Yet.

"So you're the Phantom." She stated. It was a blank statement. No surprise? No disgust? Nothing. I couldn't read her. I furrowed my eyebrows. I get she was a trained assassin, but I was very good at knowing how people were feeling.

"And you're the Black Widow." I stated back in the same tone.

She nodded. "Natasha Romanoff."

"Margot Desantos." I Introduced.

"Probably best if we hurried. It's a long way to Germany." She said, walking beside me, taking the lead without hesitation.

"You're going as well?" I asked.

"You need a pilot and I happen to be a good one." She responded, glancing at me then back in front of her.

Well this mission just got a whole lot better.