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Entry tags:
Crossover fic: Green Light District, St. Trinian's/Marvel Movieverse, PG
Disclaimer: not mine
Fandoms: The Avengers (movieverse), St. Trinian's ('07-verse), slight bit of Excalibur (Ellis's 90's run, Marvel Comics) canon.
Characters: Kelly Jones, Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff)
Genre: action, gen, kinda femslashy
Spoilers: Not really.
Rating: PG, violence, some language.
Length: 2800+
Notes: I sincerely wanted short fic where Kelly and Natasha make out after fighting, but that is not what happened *throws hands up in the air in irritation*. Perhaps if there's a sequel? idk. (further note: this is the same universe as "Lecture Series" but set sometime afterwards--though LS was written yesterday afternoon, and this fic was written weeks ago)
Summary: For Kelly Jones, this is just another assignment.
Green Light District
by ALC Punk!
Kelly Jones has never bothered with things like preferences when it comes to having sex. She likes it, she likes making other people like it, and it doesn't really bother her what bits go where. Just as long as it's fun, and no one gets seriously hurt.
So it comes as a bit of a surprise when she realizes--in the midst of an information raid--that she might have just a slight preference for redheads.
She's not really one for the instant connection thing, either--and yet, she can't stop thinking about kissing her opponent. Which is sort of ridiculous since her opponent is trying to incapacitate her and get her in trouble with her employers.
Dodging a high-kick, Kelly plans her next three moves and comes back up swinging. Her opponent dodges, and Kelly appreciates the lithe movement even as she wishes she'd had that much training (St. Trinian's prepared you for many fights, but not against ex-Russian super-spies). "You're good," she says casually as she throws another combination punch-kick and then back-flips out of the way of the sweep that would have taken her down.
Her opponent doesn't smile. Compliments are probably something she hears a lot, so Kelly can't, like, blame her for not appreciating the adoration. But she does step to the side, feint to Kelly's left and then manage to slip past her guard with a closed fist.
The blow knocks Kelly backwards, and she tries to regain her balance and grapple with the sudden flurry of movement from the other woman.
Unfortunately, ex-Russian super-spies trump even MI-7 training, and Kelly goes down, the famed Black Widow pinning her quickly and easily. "You are not wearing enough body armor," the woman says quietly before her fingers find the usb drive Kelly had stored in a pocket.
"It's usually an excellent distraction," points out Kelly, before she twitches and throws the talcum powder from a wrist pouch up into the woman's face.
The Black Widow rears back and Kelly takes advantage, breaking free and then shoving her over. Now it's Kelly straddling the Black Widow, legs and arms pinning the other woman to the steel grating they'd been fighting on. For a moment, there might be a flicker of surprise in the redhead's eyes, but then it's gone and steel is in its place.
Staring down at her, Kelly has the wild urge to kiss her, but doesn't. Instead, she runs through her options. Both hands block Natasha Romanoff from using the gauntlets wrapped around her wrists, both legs and weight keep her pinned as long as Kelly stays balanced properly. Getting up isn't going to be easy. With a sigh, Kelly readies herself and then leans down, slamming her forehead into the other woman's nose before she rolls free of her and gets to her feet.
It's not enough to keep a good woman down, and Kelly is only half-balanced properly when the Black Widow's hand grabs her ankle and yanks.
There's a blur of too-fast reflexes as Kelly jumps and kicks out, and then Kelly is on all fours, scrambling away, wishing she'd accepted the back-up her handler had suggested--though only a St. Trinian's girl would have been useful. It's not arrogance--Kelly has seen other victims of the Black Widow, and has no intention of being one of them.
"Desperation--" Natasha grabs for her, arm sliding around her neck and pulling her head back.
Kelly rolls, slamming her elbow up and back, breaking the half-begun headlock and then getting her face slammed into the floor for her troubles. Shit.
"Does not make good strategy," continues her assailant, as the Black Widow yanks Kelly's arms behind her back, then zip-ties her wrists and backs away, her breathing a little uneven.
Turning onto her side, Kelly fishes out the tiny knife at her wrist and begins sawing at the plastic as she replies, "It was all I had." Making herself small and fearful doesn't come easy for a Trinian's girl, but Kelly manages it. She's had templates to watch for practice over the years. Girls who came in battered and broken, little silent shadows that turned into biting mice by the end of their first year. The plastic is tough, but her knife is sharp and she feels her wrists snap free within seconds, but keeps her arms behind her back.
Leaning back against the railing, Natasha has one hand pressing a cloth against her nose while she watches Kelly. If she guesses about the knife, she doesn't make a move. "Which government sent you?"
"That would be telling," Kelly replies, a little arrogance slipping back into her voice if not her posture.
The Black Widow gives a curt nod. "Loyalty is understandable, but your fighting style suggests one of the British Security Services. It doesn't really matter which."
Breaking into a SHIELD facility wasn't what Kelly had signed on to do, but when jobs were scarce, you took what you were given. Besides, she'd almost relished the opportunity (and the bragging rights at the next Trinian's gathering), and it wasn't as though stealing secrets from each other was a new game to the various agencies that were operating the world round.
Kelly shrugs, wincing as much for the effect as for the pain from places that will be bruising later. "You have intelligence, we gather it."
"The equation is quite simple," the Black Widow agrees, her gaze cool. She reaches up to touch the communicator in her ear and frowns when it doesn't work. There's another in belt, though and she clips it in place without losing her concentration on Kelly. "Agent Romanoff here. I've got the target."
Flexing her fingers, Kelly waits for an opening, knowing she'll have to time it delicately.
The Black Widow's frown deepens into puzzlement, and her voice echoes the look when she says, "Are you sure, sir?"
Kelly can't hear the reply, but its meaning is clear when Romanoff winces and looks away from her prisoner.
It's the best opening she'll get, and Kelly yanks her arms around. Her fingers close on the Black Widow's ankles, and she pulls them towards her, jumping to her feet as the other woman tries to stop her fall, hands grabbing for the rail.
Not waiting, Kelly takes off, swinging up onto the cat-walks running above them. She's halfway to another junction when she realizes that the Black Widow isn't behind her. A glance around shows no sign of her, and Kelly slows just a little.
From somewhere else in the complex she hears the sound of an explosion and stops completely, panting and listening.
Explosives hadn't been part of her agenda, and she crouches down to present less of a target while she tries to sort through the sounds beginning to reach her. Another explosion, the shouts and screams of others--soldiers or agents that she'd slipped past earlier. An alarm begins to wail, the siren almost defeaning Kelly before she slips ear plugs in, sacrificing sound for the moment.
Conclusion: someone else is attacking the complex.
Kelly feels her eyebrows raise. Quite a coincidence, and she will be having her contacts check channels for her to find out how the leak occured--if there had been one.
Indecisive for a moment, Kelly reviews her options: leave with the information she'd retrieved from Black Widow and perhaps never know who had decided to blow things up at a SHIELD complex, or get herself into possibly more trouble just to satisfy her curiosity.
Really, she is a St. Trinian's girl, and she knows the value of information.
Zipping the usb drive into a different interior pocket for safe-keeping and removing the plugs from her ears, Kelly begins stealthily creeping towards the sounds of gunfire and fighting. Up where she is, there don't seem to be any soldiers, but that could change in an instant.
A wall stops her and she looks down at the floor, debating, before taking the right turning and finding that the gigantic complex opens out even further. The room hadn't been detailed very well on the schematics, and she's of half a mind to recommend that MI-7 get better hackers involved in schematic retrieval before the scene below her starts to make sense.
In the far corner are two clots of soldiers in different uniforms fighting back and forth. Some hand-to-hand, others with weapons that don't seem to be doing much. To the right of one of the groups is a gigantic hole in the wall, singed at the edges.
Kelly gives the distant hole a professional look and decides amateurs were involved. Not the St. Trinian's kind, but possibly the small terrorist group kind.
A scuffle below her attracts her attention, and she smiles in surprise to see her erstwhile opponent lash out in the midst of three men. The odds aren't on their side, she notices a moment later. Two of them go down under a beautiful kick-punch combination, and the third shrieks as an electrical charge from the Black Widow's wrist-gauntlet fries his synapses.
Two more lunge out of the shadows, and Kelly doesn't even debate it as she swings down, both feet slamming into the second man's chest, sending him flying backwards into the computer equipment stacked there.
"Five more heading this way," she tosses at the Widow before pulling the knife from the small of her back and turning to defend herself against the oncoming commandos.
She gives Natasha Romanoff points for not questioning Kelly's apparent switched loyalties--there will be time for explanations later, when she's not dodging bullets and punching faces. If she sticks around to give them.
Another explosion rocks the entire building, and she dives into another soldier, knife leaving a cut along his wrist that will scar while she head-butts his nose and steals his pistol. Dropping the magazine, she wraps her fingers around the barrel and begins using it as a bludgeon.
Non-lethal force isn't a weakness, it's an advantage. Kelly consoles herself with the thought that Miss Fritton would never condone wanton murder even in the name of loyalty to a government.
The fight is brutal. Feints and punches, kicks and rolls, bullets and dodges, until Kelly has lost track of where she began. The only thing she recognizes is the uniform of the soldiers she's fighting, surplus army-navy crap bought cheap for an even more pointless cause. The SHIELD operatives are better-equipped, though no less eager to put a hole in her when she finds herself facing them.
Luckily, the Black Widow must have passed the word, as after the second one tries to shoot her and Kelly disarms him, she finds them not-shooting at her. So she leaves them alone.
It's a mutually-beneficial pact that will probably fall apart the instant the pitched battle is over.
"Down--" the warning is followed by someone slamming into her, dragging her to the floor.
Kelly opens her mouth to growl a complaint, but the sound is drowned out by the loudest explosion yet. The concussion leaves her ears ringing and the ground beneath them shaking. Metal is burning nearby, and Kelly wonders just how bad it was as Romanoff drags her back to her feet.
"What the hell?"
Amusement flickers in the redhead's eyes, and then she's bringing Kelly with her, away from the fire that's begun to rage. Kelly gives a look over her shoulder, and doesn't fight the Widow.
The last explosion took out half the building and started an electrical fire that is speeding across the remaining rubble. One of the catwalks overhead shrieks as it breaks free of its restraints and falls, barely missing them. There isn't much movement around them, but what there is seems to be mostly SHIELD operatives, heading to safety. One or two have prisoners or comrades slung over their shoulders.
Getting out through the initial hole blown in the wall, Kelly gulps in a welcome breath of fresh air before digging her heels in and breaking free of the Black Widow's hold.
Her extraction point is nowhere near a SHIELD holding facility, thank you very much.
"I'm afraid I can't simply release you," Romanoff says conversationally, as she keeps pace with Kelly. "I assume you have transport nearby."
Kelly shoots her an amused look, and shakes her head in the negative.
"You lie badly, for a spy."
That startles a laugh from Kelly, and she shrugs. "What would be the point in lying well, at the moment?" She puts on a sad expression, "After all, you've already retrieved the intelligence I had. What more is there for me to do?"
From the look in Romanoff's eyes, she doesn't believe Kelly any more than Kelly would believe her were the shoe (or information) on the other foot. But then her expression changes and she looks back at the still-burning building. The alarms in the distance have changed cadence. Emergency vehicles have been dispatched and will arrive soon.
"Why help?"
"A chance to fight alongside the famous Black Widow?" Kelly suggests. It's a fairly truthful answer, in and of itself.
The Black Widow's eyes narrow, but then she gives a sharp nod. "I might buy that."
You're too hot to let die? Kelly doesn't say that aloud, though the thought was certainly one of the ones which galvanised her into action. She grins crookedly. "Perhaps I just like a party."
Very true. She misses St. Trinian's parties, sometimes. It's not quite the same thing getting roaring drunk in The Crown and then passing out in her empty flat. She really ought to get a cat, one of these days, if only so there's someone to come home to.
They've reached the edge of the perimeter, where Kelly came in under the fence. Romanoff eyes the neat cuts Kelly made in the wire and purses her lips. "I'll have to tell Fury we need better gauge wire out here."
"Might help," Kelly agrees as she pats herself down one last time to make sure everything's in place.
Reaching out for the fence, she's almost touched it when the Black Widow slaps her hand down and away. "Don't. They've changed the voltage settings since you entered." At Kelly's raised eyebrow, she shrugs, "Standard protocol in the event of an assault is to increase the low-level voltage to something higher. Those gloves won't insulate you at this level."
Now that she's pointed it out, Kelly can hear it. A subliminal whine that makes her back teeth ache. She considers her options, then tilts her head. "Thanks."
The Black Widow's fingers twitch and she looks away, her face a smooth mask. When she looks back at Kelly, there's a resolution in her eyes. "Will you make it over the fence on your own?"
Kelly shakes her head. It's too tall without some sort of boost to get her over it.
"I thought not." The lines around the Widow's mouth deepen for a moment, then she points behind Kelly. "You'll need a running start for this."
Seeing her fingers lacing together, Kelly doesn't stop to ask her what she's doing. Not when this is a chance to escape. She backs until her mental calculations tell her she's a good distance and then starts forward.
The Black Widow's linked hands are the perfect stepping-off point, and Kelly springs upwards and flips over the top of the fence. For a frightening instant, she can see nothing but barbed wire below her, and then it's gone.
She lands hard, but not too badly. Catching her breath, she straightens from her crouch and turns back. "Why?"
"Would you believe me if I said there are still too few women in the game?" One of those delicate eyebrows is arched, though the eye below it shows nothing in the shadows of the night.
It's something Kelly's considered more than once, but she shakes her head.
"Then consider it repayment towards the debt of joining in the fight--however little you cared for which side won."
Possibly closer to the truth. Kelly raises her own eyebrows, "What will your report say?" After all, the woman had at least ferreted out that the security services had been involved. She wasn't looking forward to noting that down in her own report.
The Black Widow's teeth gleam for an instant. "I'll leave that to the more senior agents on-site."
"I see. Won't they wonder about me?"
"There was great confusion, I'm sure they are simply mistaken." The Widow waves a hand, impatient. "Unless I am wrong, you have little time to vacate the area before a search team reaches this quarter."
Kelly nods. "Thanks." She turns to go, then looks back. "If you're ever in London, give me a call."
"And how will I know the number?"
"Kelly Jones. Ask at the Crown." Kelly steps away from the fence, but she's listening behind her. It's a risk to offer her name up, but in a way, it seems only fair. She knew her opponent from her reputation.
"Ah," says the Widow behind her, voice amused. "Keeping low company there."
"So they tell me." The parting shot is lost in the sound of a jeep approaching, and Kelly quickens her pace, managing to make it ground before the patrol reaches her position.
They don't find her, and she lies there, thinking of all that had happened. She really hopes the Black Widow looks her up. There's always room in her life for redheads with excellent martial arts skills and kissable mouths. If she's interested, of course.
-f-
Fandoms: The Avengers (movieverse), St. Trinian's ('07-verse), slight bit of Excalibur (Ellis's 90's run, Marvel Comics) canon.
Characters: Kelly Jones, Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff)
Genre: action, gen, kinda femslashy
Spoilers: Not really.
Rating: PG, violence, some language.
Length: 2800+
Notes: I sincerely wanted short fic where Kelly and Natasha make out after fighting, but that is not what happened *throws hands up in the air in irritation*. Perhaps if there's a sequel? idk. (further note: this is the same universe as "Lecture Series" but set sometime afterwards--though LS was written yesterday afternoon, and this fic was written weeks ago)
Summary: For Kelly Jones, this is just another assignment.
Green Light District
by ALC Punk!
Kelly Jones has never bothered with things like preferences when it comes to having sex. She likes it, she likes making other people like it, and it doesn't really bother her what bits go where. Just as long as it's fun, and no one gets seriously hurt.
So it comes as a bit of a surprise when she realizes--in the midst of an information raid--that she might have just a slight preference for redheads.
She's not really one for the instant connection thing, either--and yet, she can't stop thinking about kissing her opponent. Which is sort of ridiculous since her opponent is trying to incapacitate her and get her in trouble with her employers.
Dodging a high-kick, Kelly plans her next three moves and comes back up swinging. Her opponent dodges, and Kelly appreciates the lithe movement even as she wishes she'd had that much training (St. Trinian's prepared you for many fights, but not against ex-Russian super-spies). "You're good," she says casually as she throws another combination punch-kick and then back-flips out of the way of the sweep that would have taken her down.
Her opponent doesn't smile. Compliments are probably something she hears a lot, so Kelly can't, like, blame her for not appreciating the adoration. But she does step to the side, feint to Kelly's left and then manage to slip past her guard with a closed fist.
The blow knocks Kelly backwards, and she tries to regain her balance and grapple with the sudden flurry of movement from the other woman.
Unfortunately, ex-Russian super-spies trump even MI-7 training, and Kelly goes down, the famed Black Widow pinning her quickly and easily. "You are not wearing enough body armor," the woman says quietly before her fingers find the usb drive Kelly had stored in a pocket.
"It's usually an excellent distraction," points out Kelly, before she twitches and throws the talcum powder from a wrist pouch up into the woman's face.
The Black Widow rears back and Kelly takes advantage, breaking free and then shoving her over. Now it's Kelly straddling the Black Widow, legs and arms pinning the other woman to the steel grating they'd been fighting on. For a moment, there might be a flicker of surprise in the redhead's eyes, but then it's gone and steel is in its place.
Staring down at her, Kelly has the wild urge to kiss her, but doesn't. Instead, she runs through her options. Both hands block Natasha Romanoff from using the gauntlets wrapped around her wrists, both legs and weight keep her pinned as long as Kelly stays balanced properly. Getting up isn't going to be easy. With a sigh, Kelly readies herself and then leans down, slamming her forehead into the other woman's nose before she rolls free of her and gets to her feet.
It's not enough to keep a good woman down, and Kelly is only half-balanced properly when the Black Widow's hand grabs her ankle and yanks.
There's a blur of too-fast reflexes as Kelly jumps and kicks out, and then Kelly is on all fours, scrambling away, wishing she'd accepted the back-up her handler had suggested--though only a St. Trinian's girl would have been useful. It's not arrogance--Kelly has seen other victims of the Black Widow, and has no intention of being one of them.
"Desperation--" Natasha grabs for her, arm sliding around her neck and pulling her head back.
Kelly rolls, slamming her elbow up and back, breaking the half-begun headlock and then getting her face slammed into the floor for her troubles. Shit.
"Does not make good strategy," continues her assailant, as the Black Widow yanks Kelly's arms behind her back, then zip-ties her wrists and backs away, her breathing a little uneven.
Turning onto her side, Kelly fishes out the tiny knife at her wrist and begins sawing at the plastic as she replies, "It was all I had." Making herself small and fearful doesn't come easy for a Trinian's girl, but Kelly manages it. She's had templates to watch for practice over the years. Girls who came in battered and broken, little silent shadows that turned into biting mice by the end of their first year. The plastic is tough, but her knife is sharp and she feels her wrists snap free within seconds, but keeps her arms behind her back.
Leaning back against the railing, Natasha has one hand pressing a cloth against her nose while she watches Kelly. If she guesses about the knife, she doesn't make a move. "Which government sent you?"
"That would be telling," Kelly replies, a little arrogance slipping back into her voice if not her posture.
The Black Widow gives a curt nod. "Loyalty is understandable, but your fighting style suggests one of the British Security Services. It doesn't really matter which."
Breaking into a SHIELD facility wasn't what Kelly had signed on to do, but when jobs were scarce, you took what you were given. Besides, she'd almost relished the opportunity (and the bragging rights at the next Trinian's gathering), and it wasn't as though stealing secrets from each other was a new game to the various agencies that were operating the world round.
Kelly shrugs, wincing as much for the effect as for the pain from places that will be bruising later. "You have intelligence, we gather it."
"The equation is quite simple," the Black Widow agrees, her gaze cool. She reaches up to touch the communicator in her ear and frowns when it doesn't work. There's another in belt, though and she clips it in place without losing her concentration on Kelly. "Agent Romanoff here. I've got the target."
Flexing her fingers, Kelly waits for an opening, knowing she'll have to time it delicately.
The Black Widow's frown deepens into puzzlement, and her voice echoes the look when she says, "Are you sure, sir?"
Kelly can't hear the reply, but its meaning is clear when Romanoff winces and looks away from her prisoner.
It's the best opening she'll get, and Kelly yanks her arms around. Her fingers close on the Black Widow's ankles, and she pulls them towards her, jumping to her feet as the other woman tries to stop her fall, hands grabbing for the rail.
Not waiting, Kelly takes off, swinging up onto the cat-walks running above them. She's halfway to another junction when she realizes that the Black Widow isn't behind her. A glance around shows no sign of her, and Kelly slows just a little.
From somewhere else in the complex she hears the sound of an explosion and stops completely, panting and listening.
Explosives hadn't been part of her agenda, and she crouches down to present less of a target while she tries to sort through the sounds beginning to reach her. Another explosion, the shouts and screams of others--soldiers or agents that she'd slipped past earlier. An alarm begins to wail, the siren almost defeaning Kelly before she slips ear plugs in, sacrificing sound for the moment.
Conclusion: someone else is attacking the complex.
Kelly feels her eyebrows raise. Quite a coincidence, and she will be having her contacts check channels for her to find out how the leak occured--if there had been one.
Indecisive for a moment, Kelly reviews her options: leave with the information she'd retrieved from Black Widow and perhaps never know who had decided to blow things up at a SHIELD complex, or get herself into possibly more trouble just to satisfy her curiosity.
Really, she is a St. Trinian's girl, and she knows the value of information.
Zipping the usb drive into a different interior pocket for safe-keeping and removing the plugs from her ears, Kelly begins stealthily creeping towards the sounds of gunfire and fighting. Up where she is, there don't seem to be any soldiers, but that could change in an instant.
A wall stops her and she looks down at the floor, debating, before taking the right turning and finding that the gigantic complex opens out even further. The room hadn't been detailed very well on the schematics, and she's of half a mind to recommend that MI-7 get better hackers involved in schematic retrieval before the scene below her starts to make sense.
In the far corner are two clots of soldiers in different uniforms fighting back and forth. Some hand-to-hand, others with weapons that don't seem to be doing much. To the right of one of the groups is a gigantic hole in the wall, singed at the edges.
Kelly gives the distant hole a professional look and decides amateurs were involved. Not the St. Trinian's kind, but possibly the small terrorist group kind.
A scuffle below her attracts her attention, and she smiles in surprise to see her erstwhile opponent lash out in the midst of three men. The odds aren't on their side, she notices a moment later. Two of them go down under a beautiful kick-punch combination, and the third shrieks as an electrical charge from the Black Widow's wrist-gauntlet fries his synapses.
Two more lunge out of the shadows, and Kelly doesn't even debate it as she swings down, both feet slamming into the second man's chest, sending him flying backwards into the computer equipment stacked there.
"Five more heading this way," she tosses at the Widow before pulling the knife from the small of her back and turning to defend herself against the oncoming commandos.
She gives Natasha Romanoff points for not questioning Kelly's apparent switched loyalties--there will be time for explanations later, when she's not dodging bullets and punching faces. If she sticks around to give them.
Another explosion rocks the entire building, and she dives into another soldier, knife leaving a cut along his wrist that will scar while she head-butts his nose and steals his pistol. Dropping the magazine, she wraps her fingers around the barrel and begins using it as a bludgeon.
Non-lethal force isn't a weakness, it's an advantage. Kelly consoles herself with the thought that Miss Fritton would never condone wanton murder even in the name of loyalty to a government.
The fight is brutal. Feints and punches, kicks and rolls, bullets and dodges, until Kelly has lost track of where she began. The only thing she recognizes is the uniform of the soldiers she's fighting, surplus army-navy crap bought cheap for an even more pointless cause. The SHIELD operatives are better-equipped, though no less eager to put a hole in her when she finds herself facing them.
Luckily, the Black Widow must have passed the word, as after the second one tries to shoot her and Kelly disarms him, she finds them not-shooting at her. So she leaves them alone.
It's a mutually-beneficial pact that will probably fall apart the instant the pitched battle is over.
"Down--" the warning is followed by someone slamming into her, dragging her to the floor.
Kelly opens her mouth to growl a complaint, but the sound is drowned out by the loudest explosion yet. The concussion leaves her ears ringing and the ground beneath them shaking. Metal is burning nearby, and Kelly wonders just how bad it was as Romanoff drags her back to her feet.
"What the hell?"
Amusement flickers in the redhead's eyes, and then she's bringing Kelly with her, away from the fire that's begun to rage. Kelly gives a look over her shoulder, and doesn't fight the Widow.
The last explosion took out half the building and started an electrical fire that is speeding across the remaining rubble. One of the catwalks overhead shrieks as it breaks free of its restraints and falls, barely missing them. There isn't much movement around them, but what there is seems to be mostly SHIELD operatives, heading to safety. One or two have prisoners or comrades slung over their shoulders.
Getting out through the initial hole blown in the wall, Kelly gulps in a welcome breath of fresh air before digging her heels in and breaking free of the Black Widow's hold.
Her extraction point is nowhere near a SHIELD holding facility, thank you very much.
"I'm afraid I can't simply release you," Romanoff says conversationally, as she keeps pace with Kelly. "I assume you have transport nearby."
Kelly shoots her an amused look, and shakes her head in the negative.
"You lie badly, for a spy."
That startles a laugh from Kelly, and she shrugs. "What would be the point in lying well, at the moment?" She puts on a sad expression, "After all, you've already retrieved the intelligence I had. What more is there for me to do?"
From the look in Romanoff's eyes, she doesn't believe Kelly any more than Kelly would believe her were the shoe (or information) on the other foot. But then her expression changes and she looks back at the still-burning building. The alarms in the distance have changed cadence. Emergency vehicles have been dispatched and will arrive soon.
"Why help?"
"A chance to fight alongside the famous Black Widow?" Kelly suggests. It's a fairly truthful answer, in and of itself.
The Black Widow's eyes narrow, but then she gives a sharp nod. "I might buy that."
You're too hot to let die? Kelly doesn't say that aloud, though the thought was certainly one of the ones which galvanised her into action. She grins crookedly. "Perhaps I just like a party."
Very true. She misses St. Trinian's parties, sometimes. It's not quite the same thing getting roaring drunk in The Crown and then passing out in her empty flat. She really ought to get a cat, one of these days, if only so there's someone to come home to.
They've reached the edge of the perimeter, where Kelly came in under the fence. Romanoff eyes the neat cuts Kelly made in the wire and purses her lips. "I'll have to tell Fury we need better gauge wire out here."
"Might help," Kelly agrees as she pats herself down one last time to make sure everything's in place.
Reaching out for the fence, she's almost touched it when the Black Widow slaps her hand down and away. "Don't. They've changed the voltage settings since you entered." At Kelly's raised eyebrow, she shrugs, "Standard protocol in the event of an assault is to increase the low-level voltage to something higher. Those gloves won't insulate you at this level."
Now that she's pointed it out, Kelly can hear it. A subliminal whine that makes her back teeth ache. She considers her options, then tilts her head. "Thanks."
The Black Widow's fingers twitch and she looks away, her face a smooth mask. When she looks back at Kelly, there's a resolution in her eyes. "Will you make it over the fence on your own?"
Kelly shakes her head. It's too tall without some sort of boost to get her over it.
"I thought not." The lines around the Widow's mouth deepen for a moment, then she points behind Kelly. "You'll need a running start for this."
Seeing her fingers lacing together, Kelly doesn't stop to ask her what she's doing. Not when this is a chance to escape. She backs until her mental calculations tell her she's a good distance and then starts forward.
The Black Widow's linked hands are the perfect stepping-off point, and Kelly springs upwards and flips over the top of the fence. For a frightening instant, she can see nothing but barbed wire below her, and then it's gone.
She lands hard, but not too badly. Catching her breath, she straightens from her crouch and turns back. "Why?"
"Would you believe me if I said there are still too few women in the game?" One of those delicate eyebrows is arched, though the eye below it shows nothing in the shadows of the night.
It's something Kelly's considered more than once, but she shakes her head.
"Then consider it repayment towards the debt of joining in the fight--however little you cared for which side won."
Possibly closer to the truth. Kelly raises her own eyebrows, "What will your report say?" After all, the woman had at least ferreted out that the security services had been involved. She wasn't looking forward to noting that down in her own report.
The Black Widow's teeth gleam for an instant. "I'll leave that to the more senior agents on-site."
"I see. Won't they wonder about me?"
"There was great confusion, I'm sure they are simply mistaken." The Widow waves a hand, impatient. "Unless I am wrong, you have little time to vacate the area before a search team reaches this quarter."
Kelly nods. "Thanks." She turns to go, then looks back. "If you're ever in London, give me a call."
"And how will I know the number?"
"Kelly Jones. Ask at the Crown." Kelly steps away from the fence, but she's listening behind her. It's a risk to offer her name up, but in a way, it seems only fair. She knew her opponent from her reputation.
"Ah," says the Widow behind her, voice amused. "Keeping low company there."
"So they tell me." The parting shot is lost in the sound of a jeep approaching, and Kelly quickens her pace, managing to make it ground before the patrol reaches her position.
They don't find her, and she lies there, thinking of all that had happened. She really hopes the Black Widow looks her up. There's always room in her life for redheads with excellent martial arts skills and kissable mouths. If she's interested, of course.
-f-
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