Post by DiscipleofBob on Feb 9, 2016 18:45:31 GMT -5
Agents of SHIELD #14:
Don't Say A Word
Don't Say A Word
[Jersey City Docks]
The musclemen of the Maggia were in full hustle, unloading crates off the Italian freighter and inspecting the cargo. The head of the family himself, Count Luchino Nefaria, oversaw the operation. In less than three hours, the other families of the Maggia were scheduled to arrive. Which meant they would be arriving in less than two, and they had to be unloaded and ready in less than one.
Nefaria's men worked tirelessly, directly under his supervision. Normally he had foremen to micromanage these things, but today was too important. Every able pair of hands was needed to unload and inspect cargo. No matter how the transaction went down, Nefaria intended to come out of this day ahead. Fortunately, Nefaria's men were professionals, hand-picked and forged in trial by fire, unlike those fool heads of the other families.
As usual, the Count was dressed in his finest. The thick, Victorian cloak masked his physique well and convinced many that he was just a feeble old crime lord. His tailored Armani suit was of the finest silk, as Count Nefaria was a man who believed in always looking his best, especially on an event as important as tonight's. He wore his finest accessories. His favorite monocle adorned his right eye. His rings and bracelets over his left glove, but the other needed to remain unobstructed in case the glove needed to come off in a worst-case scenario.
Only one other person was permitted from not working, and she was walking up to him. "Is everything going well, Father?" the young woman asked, always eager to learn the family business. She did not share her father's old-fashioned tastes, but nonetheless dressed in the finest and latest that money could buy, though on nights when her father was working she preferred something practical. Well, as practical as she was allowed to own. The skintight dark blue uniform was efficient as well as elegant, though running in heels that high had taken several years of practice.
"Giuletta, please! Adorn your mask! The other families could be here any minute!" the Count scolded. His daughter sighed and reluctantly pulled out a golden, feminine mask. Acquiring it had cost Count Nefaria a small fortune, but it was worth every penny and then some to keep his daughter's identity safe from the other families, or HYDRA for that matter.
"Is there anything I can help with to ease your burden?" she asked politely.
"Your concern is touching, child. But tonight the best thing you can do for me is to remain hidden. I doubt this evening will end without violent rebuttal, and it will ease my ancient heart to know you are safe," Count Nefaria said as he stroked the metallic cheek as if it were his daughter's skin. "Where is the bodyguard I hired for you? It seems like I never see her by your side anymore, as a bodyguard should be."
"I... dismissed her. I thought she would be more useful as a lookout and that I could help you here. I am old enough not to need a babysitter."
Count Nefaria frowned. "My dear, it was not easy to find someone so suitable for the position of keeping you safe. She is being paid good money, far more than would befit a mere 'lookout.' She is not to be treated as a mere hindrance. Do you understand?"
Giuletta sighed. "Yes, Father."
"Good, now please go fetch her for me. I wish to brief her before tonight's events begin. Make sure there are no other miscommunications."
"Yes, Father. I'll go fetch her immediately."
She excused herself with polite reluctance. As soon as she was gone, Count Nefaria turned to find another man having suddenly appeared at the end of the catwalk, this one clad in a holocaust cloak with a familiar scythe-arm giving all the introduction Nefaria needed. "You! When did... where... how...?"
"Calm yourself, Count. You'll give yourself a heart attack. Actually, can you even get a heart attack in that body? Nevermind, I suppose that's not important," the Grim Reaper said nonchalantly. "HYDRA just sent me to make sure nothing goes wrong. After all, we went to great expense to provide you with this shipment."
"An expense I intend to compensate with interest," Count Nefaria replied, somewhat more recomposed. "Contingencies are in place for any response given by the other families. I have been preparing for this day for a long time. I will make certain all goes according to plan."
"See that it does. The support of the Maggia is of particular importance to 'you know who.' Still, my services if required for a complete transaction have already been paid in advance. If necessary, I'd be more than happy to cut out the competition," the Grim Reaper said as he flashed his blade.
"A tempting offer. But as indulgent as it would be to watch you decapitate those swine, they are, for the moment, necessary to keep alive. Unless they become too much trouble, in which case I will not object."
"Glad to see you're being pragmatic about the whole thing," the assassin replied. "By the way, that girl of yours looks like she has potential. With a bit of training and polish..."
"She stays out of these affairs! HYDRA is not to go near her! Such is a condition of my loyalty!" Count Nefaria exclaimed, suddenly forgetting who he was talking to.
"My are we suddenly demanding. Don't worry, HYDRA will honor your terms so long as you produce satisfactory results. I'll be sticking around in case things don't go necessarily as planned," the Grim Reaper said with a smirk as he stepped into the shadows and seemingly vanished.
He'd been observing since before the sun went down several hours ago. First as a vagrant on the streets, then off the roof of a nearby building. The best way to make sure an op went down without a hitch was to make sure every piece was in its proper place. No surprises. And while he sometimes liked the thrill of winging it and dealing with the occasional sucker punch, his objective was too important to screw this up. More importantly, he couldn't risk even knocking out a single guard or leaving a single trace of his infiltration. Anything that could possibly tip off the Maggia was off-limits.
The roof was the best access. Only two guards, easy to sneak in between their patrols. The cable he used to cross from the adjacent building retracted back to its source, leaving no trace for lookouts to find. Sticking to the side of the building using silent vacuum powered handholds made sure that even if the rooftop lookouts knew to look for fingertips hanging off the side of the building, they wouldn't find any. Any actual doors or official entrances in warehouses like these were a sure way to get caught, with usually only one official point of access between major areas. But there were plenty of secondary points of access: windows, skylights, ventilation shafts actually large enough to comfortably move in.
Cracking a higher window, he jumped into the rafters, above even the fluorescent lights illuminating the warehouse. Silently he leaped from rafter to rafter with acrobatic grace and precision, he sought out his target and waited until she was isolated.
Normally in the field, Bobbi would be in a standard issue SHIELD uniform, but for this deep cover assignment, she had to don the same uniform as the rest of the Maggia. At least she could get away with a blue pinstripe pantsuit and tying her blonde hair back in a bun, and even kept her white-rimmed, yellow-shaded glasses. She may have been the only woman under Count Nefaria's employ, but fortunately she didn't need to blend in. She'd already established her cover as Count Nefaria's right hand operative and his daughter's bodyguard.
Per orders, she was on her way to meet with her boss, when a gloved hand cupped her mouth and dragged her into the shadows. She almost violently reacted, but her captor was quick to reveal itself. "Hush! It's me, Clint! I'm here to extract you." Bobbi relaxed and stopped fighting back.
"What are you doing here? Fury didn't say anything about an extraction!" she complained in a whisper.
"He made the decision after your last communication, and we couldn't wait until your next one. The order is to get you out of here now so we can prepare for the final take down. We just need your intel before we finalize our attack strategy."
Bobbi nodded. "All right. Lead the way." As soon as Clint turned to check his route, there was a sharp pain at the base of his spine. He barely had time to grit his teeth before his entire body went numb and he blacked out. Bobbi's image shimmered as Giuletta, now in the guise of Madame Masque provided by her father, returned to her undisguised form. "Foolish agent of SHIELD." Knowing she couldn't drag the body herself, she found two Maggia enforcers, ones she knew she could trust to keep quiet.
"Help me take this man to my cabin. And whatever you do, do NOT tell my father. Tonight's too important for him to be bothered with such trifle," she ordered.
"Yes, Madame Masque."
When Clint awoke he was being tied to a chair by a voluptuous woman. "If I had a nickel for every time..." he muttered groggily. A quick slap to the face interrupted his thought process. His vision was starting to clear up. The only light in the room was coming from the doorway, highlighting the outline of Madame Masque as she finished securing Clint's bonds. In his peripheral vision, he saw Bobbi, the REAL Bobbi, or so he hoped, bound and gagged to a similar chair several feet away. "Hey, honey. How's it hanging?" The other captive rolled her eyes. Yeah, definitely the real Bobbi.
"Quiet!" Masque commanded as she searched Clint's ear for the earpiece, throwing it on the ground and crushing it beneath her heel. "No one will be able to hear you now."
"Really? Because my voice carries pretty far and you have the door just WIDE open-" A punch to the gut this time knocked the wind out of his chest.
"Do you know what my father would do to me if I handed him two live SHIELD agents?"
"Buy you a pony?"
"More like a millenium diamond necklace or a Ferrari, but more or less accurate," Masque answered, much to Clint's surprise.
"You know, I was not expecting to get that one right."
"You know what he would do to me if I handed him two dead SHIELD agents? The exact same thing. I would get a pat on the head and some pretty thing as a gift, but respect? Recognition for my deeds? My father would treat me the same as before and I would be no closer to advancement within the Maggia," she continued as she walked over to Bobbi's chair. "But if I use the powers of this masque, the same one my father gifted to me as another bauble of affection, then in the guise of an outsider I can accomplish far more than I ever could as the Count's daughter. How pathetic is that?" Clint took a breath to answer but had his chair kicked over instead. "THAT WAS RHETORICAL, IMBECILE! Do you know what my father would do to you if I turned you over to him?"
"Say 'good try old chaps' and send us on our merry way?" Clint guessed.
Madame Masque used her foot to pull the chair back upright, her golden metallic face moved to just inches from Clint's face. "He would suck the life out of you until you were nothing but a lifeless husk."
Clint smirked. Then he grinned. He tried stifling back until he just couldn't hold it anymore. "Too late, I already got married!" Although Bobbi couldn't speak, her death glare from across the room spoke for her. "Sorry, honey, I couldn't resist! She just lobbed that one right over the plate!" Clint laughed.
Masque sighed before turning to her other hostage. "Because you are otherwise occupied, if you wish I will strike him on your behalf." Bobbi nodded cordially. Masque reared her entire leg back and put her full force behind kneeing Clint in the groin with such force the chair lifted off the ground.
"Now, tell me how many more SHIELD agents you have!"
Clint wheezed, "All of them." For a second Madame Masque waited for a believable answer. "What? It's not like I ever took roll call."
"I MEAN HERE!" The daughter of the Maggia was quickly losing patience.
"You mean in this room?" Clint pretended to do a quick head count. "Just the two it seems. I don't know, it's kind of dark, I'm still a little woozy, and we've got some people who are REALLY good at staying hidden in shadows. I think Waldo was a SHIELD agent." A hook across the jaw. "Ow!" he spat indignantly. "You know it's really hard to spill SHIELD secrets when you keep hitting me in ways that make it difficult to talk!"
"The only one making things difficult is you!" she practically screamed before thrusting the gag in Clint's mouth. "Forget it! By now, my father will be looking for her. I'll figure out what to do with you later!" Her hand touched Bobbi's shoulder, and suddenly Madame Masque's form shimmered and changed to that of Bobbi. "I'll give you two some alone time for now," she said in Bobbi's voice as she stuffed a gag into Clint's mouth, "And I'll give your wife some relief."
Clint muttered something that was most likely perverted, but it was too muffled to make out. 'Bobbi' scowled and did her best to ignore him. As she left the room, she picked up Clint's bow and quiver. "I'll find a better place to stash this later. I may need it in case I need a male SHIELD agent as a disguise. Archery sounds like a fine hobby to take up." She left the bow by the door for the time being, locked it securely from the outside, and headed off to meet her unknowing father.
After about a minute of scuffling, Clint had not only tilted the chair back upright, but managed to work the gag out of his mouth using only his jaw muscles. "Hi, sweetie, how are the bad guys treating you?"
Bobbi had done the same with her gag, leaving her free to talk as well. "Don't you 'hi sweetie' me! What was that crack about our marriage sucking the life out of you?"
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! It's just... it was so easy."
"You're unbelievable. I guess I should just be glad you didn't turn that into an oral joke or something."
"You know it," Clint said before feeling Bobbi's death glare. "Oh you meant that in a bad way. So, how's captive life?"
Bobbi sighed. "She's green. Untrained. Keeps me locked in here unguarded. Thinks she's getting all sorts of top secret SHIELD info from me."
"What does she know?"
"A few names I cobbled together from interns, cover IDs, and other stuff that she thinks are high profile. She thinks the code to the armory is Agent Payne's gym locker combination. Meanwhile, girl has got serious daddy issues. More than half the time she comes in here just to vent, and let on way more intel than I would have ever gotten as just a bodyguard."
"So mission's going well?"
"More or less. Gets a bit cramped though."
"Well, mask-lady tipped us off that something was wrong last time she talked to Fury. I'm here for the extraction," Clint said smiling.
"Aw, that's sweet of you, but I'm not sure SHIELD can spare leaving the Maggia without someone on the inside. A lot's going down within the organization."
"Which is why we're taking down their leadership tonight," Clint smirked as he easily squirmed his way out of his restraints with the flourish of a stage magician, even ending with a standing bow. "You need any help?"
"No, I got it," Bobbi said with almost reluctance as she slipped out of her restraints as well. "It's just I normally didn't bother because it's a lot harder to get them convincingly back on myself."
"Been there more times than I care to admit," Clint said as he worked his jaw around. "Testing, anyone there?"
"She broke your earpiece, remember?"
"She broke the decoy earpiece in my actual ear. Not the one hidden in my earring, and thankfully she doesn't have the tech or foresight to scan for multiple transmitting devices. Saved one for you too, sweetie," Clint said as he worked one of his black stud earrings off and helped Bobbi get it into place with all the casualness of a couple going out on a date. "I missed you."
"Missed you too, sweetie," Bobbi said as she glanced at the unfamiliar technology. "Wow, I must've been gone a while. When did we get those?"
"Fitz is our tech guy. He's our own personal Q."
-"Did you hear that, Fitz? You're our Q! You've always wanted to be a Q!"- a far too perky British woman's voice congratulated.
-"Simmons! We're on a mission! Stop embarrassing me!"- a younger Scottish voice whined.
"Hawkeye and Mockingbird are in position and ready for action," Clint said as he strung his bow and quiver. "You know I wasn't actually expecting to get these back. Had a backup and everything ready."
-"Well keep your backup ready too. This could either be over in a flash or it could take all night. The other Maggia leaders about 30 minutes out by land. Get into position to observe. We strike when they're too focused on double-crossing each other."- came a deep, masculine American accent.
Bobbi looked incredulously at her husband. "You? On a team? Is HYDRA organizing air raids by pigs now?"
"I just wanted to see the look on your face when you meet the Captain," Clint smirked before adding over the intercom, "And don't anyone dare spoil the surprise."
-"Because that's what we need to worry about when ambushing the entire Maggia."- Bobbi could almost hear the eye roll in the woman over the comm's voice.
"Lighten up, Natasha," Clint replied, "It's just SHIELD taking down every branch of the largest Euro-American crime family at once. What could possibly go wrong?"
To Be Continued...