Chapter Text
Nat’s contact is much less auspicious, because there are other Russian mobsters involved, and she knows two of them, and they know her.
The plan is for her to just be in the same marketplace at the same time as their target, and to slip a book of matches into her coat pocket. The matches have three phone numbers written on the flap, and when the spook calls them, she’ll get a longitude from one, a latitude from another, and a time from the third--their first face-to-face meeting with the three of them. Nat’s not even supposed to talk to the woman, much less get in her way enough that her companions take note of her.
Someone has lost control of a dog in the market. It’s not a stray: strays in Budapest are smarter and quieter and sneakier and besides, this one is far too fluffy and clean to not be someone’s pet. Some hundred yards north there is a commotion of high-pitched voices in panic and suddenly something is barrelling into Natalia’s knees, knocking her sideways and making her trip over the long hem of her skirt. Before she knows it, she is on her ass, practically sitting on the spook’s shoes, as the dog sprints away and her target fights to keep her own balance as Nat rolls into her ankles.
“< Shit! I am so very sorry! >” Nat exclaims, her Hungarian much more fluent than Clint’s had been. “< Please forgive--you are not hurt? I am so sorry! >”Friendly concern will get her close enough to drop the matches, despite her original plan.
The spook catches her waving hands and helps haul her up, but Nat is then seized from behind by the shoulders by someone much larger: she looks up, full into the face of one Grigory Yelchenko--still sporting the eyepatch she made necessary, and the scar across his chin, and the same sour, pig-sucking expression she remembers so sourly from her days behind the Curtain.
“< YOU__! >” He begins, but Nat kicks out, catching him awkwardly in the shin with the heel of her boot, and slams her forehead into his scarred chin (a nice reminder of how the scar got there in the first place), and while her own eyesight is bursting with stars she is spinning out of his grasp and making her escape. She palms the spook heavily, as though fumbling for balance, and at least manages to drop the matchbook where it’s supposed to go before Grigory is lashing out with a roar that brings...yes, that’s Luka, his little brother, overtopping Grigory by a good six inches and reaching out for her with ham-hock hands that Natalia remembers all too well.
It is a chase: the loose dog has begun the commotion but Natalia and her pursuers stir it into a rich frenzy, knocking aside kiosks and displays and stalls as she sprints in her inconvenient heels and skirt towards the alleys around the market. Grigory and Luka are only just far enough behind her to make it possible for her to go up--first a drainpipe, then along a gutter, then onto a balcony. She has barely hit the rooftop when the brothers Yelchenko round the corner. The last time she saw them, both Grigory and Luka were too stupid to look up when pursuing some unlucky bastard--but Grigory, at least, seems to have learned his lesson, because he catches sight of her pulling herself over the edge of the roof. Shouting, he lunges for the same drainpipe and shinnies up (why doesn’t the damned rusty thing pull out from the wall and dump his ass on the cobblestones? Nat wonders, and is sprinting for the other edge of the roof).
She is supposed to report back by 4 pm to their studio. This was supposed to be an easy contact drop. She doesn’t make it back until after 9, red-faced, shivering, still soaked below the knees from an unfortunate trip across someone’s backyard pond. Clint is furious.
“Sitrep,” he bites out, and it’s been, what, two years since he actually seriously pulled rank on her? But she is painfully aware (of a lot of things, most of them cuts and scrapes) that he’s the ranking agent on their team, that she answers to him, and that if he’s still pissed at her in a few minutes, that he can make life incredibly difficult for her after this mission.
Nat opts for honesty as the best policy. “I’m made,” she pants. “No, I wasn’t followed here--” the Yelchenko brothers won’t be following anyone ever again, and she’s mad enough at herself that she didn’t make that call six years ago-- “but she’s your spook now. She saw me get made by her bodyguards and saw them chase me out of there. You might have to pull a backup contact if she decides not to trust the matchbook drop.”
Clint visibly tamps down his temper--for which she’s grateful. It means he still cares enough about a good working relationship, at least, to cut her some slack. “Tell me what happened,” he says finally, pulling one of the chairs out from the tiny kitchen table for her. She drops into it gratefully, eager to get out of her soaked boots. The telling doesn’t take long: of the spook’s three guards, only the Yelchenkos pursued her out of the market square; a few blocks later, there was a train station under construction--and Luka would now forever be part of it’s new foundation. Grigory had been harder to shake, especially once she’d put the bullet between Luka’s eyebrows. Someone would find him, she knew, eventually: even though the Danube was sluggish with ice this time of year, Grigory Yelchenko would at some point come unmoored from beneath the bridge where she’d finally left him and would drift downstream. With any luck, she and Clint and the spook would be back stateside by then.
“She can ID me, face and height and everything, and I’m sure she’s told her other handlers by now.” Nat doesn’t dare look at Clint’s face. She cannot possibly feel more stupid than she does right now, but Clint knows her better than anyone else--he’s certainly got the ammo to try. “I am next to useless on this one. If I stay here, best I can do is make coffee and watch the phones for you. Or I can try to catch a ride back if that’s what you prefer.”
He is quiet for a minute and then, to her surprise, chooses to be kind. “No, I need you here,” he decides. “Fury knew it was a risk sending you back here, but he chose us for this mission anyway. You’re too knowledgeable and too valuable to send home right now. We’ll have to modify a little, but the mission is still our priority. Go get changed, and we’ll figure out our new plan.”