BW:F Chapter 7

“Hydra?” That’s Happy and Spider-Man in unison.

“Sure looks like it,” Nat replies, squaring herself as the woman in black gives her sword a little twirl.

“OK, we got a bogey coming in,” Happy says, suddenly worried. “Heads up, Kid. We got company.”

“Oh boy. Oh jeez,” Spider-Man’s voice sounds a little high-pitched.

Nat wants to ask for a more specific descriptor than ‘bogey’, but this isn’t the time. A moment later, she hears the distant thudding of rotors. It’s a helicopter.

“Friends of yours? Your ride home?” she asks.

Before the ninja can answer, a closet door behind Nat bangs open and a woman in white explodes into the hallway, scrambling for the stairs in panic. The ninja capitalizes on the distraction and darts in.

Nat gets her left wrist up in time to deflect a throwing knife, then pulls her pistol to block the sword slicing at her throat. She expertly disarms the Hydra ninja and slams her to the wall in an arm bar with a grunt, but the ninja isn’t content with that. She kicks out with both legs, sending them stumbling wildly toward the landing. The wooden banister shatters and they crash to the stairs, rolling down in a tangle to smash through the next railing, then the sideboard in the foyer.

Coughing on dust and prickly with splinters, Nat rolls onto her back.

“Grab that soul mate,” she groans.

“What?” Happy sounds faint in her ear, which is ringing.

“Soul mate,” she repeats, rolling over and pushing to her hands and knees. “Grab her before they do.”

The ninja is picking herself up as well. Nat’s Glock has landed beside the ninja, and the sword gleams on the floor beside Nat. She snatches it up as the ninja does the same with the gun. Nat knocks the pistol away and lunges, but her body is a fine-tuned instrument. Even a small change has consequences, and what has happened to her is not a small change. The ninja parries with a throwing knife and grapples with her, striking with her knee.

Nat shifts to redirect the ****, only to take the blow directly between her legs. She’s not prepared for what that feels like.

“Oh, Jesus,” she wheezes, crumpling to the floor.

BLACK WIDOW

“Uh, Happy!”

Happy sees the helicopter from the cockpit of the Quinjet; it’s hovering twenty feet off the ground, throwing up a stinging gale. The door opens, revealing gunmen. They’re going to open fire, and the jet is an easy target.

“Walters! Take out that chopper!” he orders.

“Huh?” Jen sounds baffled. “Take it out how?”

“You’re a hulk! Throw something?”

“Like what? A goat?”

Happy realizes that he’s in trouble when he sees the RPGs on the screen.

“Shit,” he mutters, leaping out of his chair and hustling down the ramp as the gunmen fire. He throws himself flat as the jet explodes in flames, flaming bits of metal and wreckage raining down around him.

[ I hope to start working on new FF1 chapters this weekend. Maybe we can switch back to FF1 sometime next week. There should be new Sapphic Sorority and Batgirl this weekend. There will be a Halloween Special this year that will take the place of whatever dailies would be posted around the 31st. I'll post details when we get closer. The pairing was picked by an SSS winner. I think that's all the important stuff. Have a good weekend everybody. This story will continue either Monday or the next time FF1 pauses for a vote. ]