Are We Ourselves? - Missing In Action, Pt. III

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Clint misses his check-in, so Natasha calls Coulson to apprise him of the situation... but instead of initiating evac protocols, she decides to use the backup plan she and Clint agreed on while SHIELD scrambles a response team.


Natasha stared off into space after ending her call with Coulson. She actually missed the man and the familiarity of SHIELD, much the same way she'd missed working with Clint. She shook her head. Coulson had been briefed on the situation. Now for evac protocols. She snorted. Sort of. She turned back to the remaining people still in their little cabin. "Okay, our contact at SHIELD has been notified. He's drawing together resources to come up here and put an end to this quickly. As for us..." She strode to her laptop, fingers flying over the keys as she pulled up the private server she shared with Clint and their hastily retooled tracking system. They'd still been deciding on improved trackers, but when Coulson had roped them into this, they weren't going in without that failsafe reset.

"As for us?" Topaz prompted, raising an eyebrow. She was officially out of her element and not enjoying it. Everything had been fine when she'd just been here for research, but now? She had no idea what to do.

"Barton and I have one last failsafe to tap before we consider evac," Natasha said. The signal here was absolute crap, and it took longer than she liked for her to access the server. She wasn't pleased with what she saw. Last known location of the tracker was listed but it wasn't broadcasting a live signal anymore. They'd forgone remote activation protocols this time. Too much hassle for a setup what would only be temporary. "I have Barton's last location. We're going to check it out before we evac. SHIELD's still hours away."

Pulling on a hat, Molly nodded. "Well then," she said, having a serious look on her face that might have been unusual for those who knew her, showing how the years had given her experience. "We should totally make those hours count, shouldn't we? Where was he last?"

Natasha was slightly impressed by Molly's attitude. The invulnerability probably helped with that. "Looks like the last location was on the outskirts of town, to the east." She mentally reviewed a map of the area as she pulled on her coat and stuffed her pea pod and a small, handheld computer into the inner pockets. She also clipped on her gunbelt and holstered her guns. She caught the gaze of each of the girls. "Grab anything you even think might come in handy. There's no telling what we'll encounter out there."

Topaz made a face at that. "There's nothin' out there besides the airport. Somehow I doubt Barton decided to abandon us for somewhere warmer. What's he doing there?"

Grabbing her own pea pod, Molly put it in a purple backpack cause it was easier to run with. "Maybe somebody's tryin' to make sure no one else leaves and he got in their way? We're kinda cut off around here," Molly suggested helpfully then frowned at the idea of it. "He's like... a secret agent, though. So he'll be okay. We just gotta y'know... help him out, right?" She thoughtfully eyed the stuff on the table. "I totally don't know what to bring. I kinda... mostly just use my fists..." She suddenly jabbed her finger up in the air as a figurative lightbulb went off. "Oh! Tools!" She grabbed the tiny tool kit and crammed it inside her pea pod. Never knew when they might need to do some rewiring.

Natasha logged out of the server and executed a series of commands that would render tracing her keystrokes and the last sites she visited untraceable. She shut the laptop then eyed her backpack. She could make do without it and it'd hinder her movements if she took it. She had her essentials and she wasn't working solo. She could jerry-rig something from the other girls supplies if it came down to it. "Yes, basically. The number of times I've had to save his ass because of something silly..." Her definition of silly was vastly different from the norm. "Let's get going."

Topaz hooked her bag over her shoulder, face trained to reveal nothing - or as little as she could manage, at least. "Ready to go."

Zipping up her backpack, Molly effortlessly threw it over her shoulders, even though it contained enough heavy tools to give someone else a bit of strain when picking it up. "I hope I get to punch something!" she grinned. "That never gets old."



Having arrived at Clint's last known location, the women set about planning how to infiltrate Barrow's airport.


They were crouched behind some conveniently placed shipping containers on the perimeter of the airport. Natasha surveilled the various buildings and hangars. There weren't many. Enough to provide a functional airport that was the main access route in and out of the area. The fact they were this close with no posted security was strange. Even in the middle of nowhere. The hangar, however, was a different story. Patrols walked a steady route in and out of view. She even spotted a few patrols in the upper levels of the main building. Certainly atypical for what was mostly a civilian operation. "Looks like the hangar is where we're headed. Gemstone, what're your powers telling you?"

Topaz looked around, stretching her mind out as far as it could go as she tried to figure out what exactly she was feeling. "It's... strange," she said slowly, eyes tracking around the airport. "It's like everyone is just kind of... blank. There's this sort of desire and stress, but other than that... not much. That's not normal." Emotions could be primary, but they were also never singular. The happiest person in the world would always have an undercurrent something else. Same with the angriest, the saddest, and so on. It was nearly impossible for a person to feel one emotion. And downright odd for them to feel almost nothing at all, especially if Topaz hadn't had go at them.

Molly frowned. "That's not good," she said. She was quiet a moment, thoughtful, a touch apprehensive. "Could... could a telepath do something like that? Like... make everyone emotionless?" She knew they could wipe memories. Could they do it with emotions too?

"No," Topaz replied quietly. "Telepaths don't do emotions. Maybe a powerful empath could? I don't know though, taking emotions away is hard. Manipulating them is more in an empath's wheelhouse. I couldn't do anything like this unless magic was involved... there's no one else like me, though." At least as far as she and Amanda knew. She supposed there was a very real chance there was another empathic magic user but... what were the odds of running into them in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska?

Natasha made a soft hmm sound. They weren't tangling with the normal plotting to take over the world types that SHIELD typically encountered. Coulson had been right to call them in. SHIELD likely had the firepower to overwhelm whoever was holding the airport, but it'd raise too high a profile. She slipped on a pair of what appeared to be sunglasses but were in truth disguised binoculars and an infrared scanner. But the heavy metal doors would be a problem. "Princess Exuberance, can you get us through the door?"

After giving Natasha a confused look at the codename error, Molly bit her lip to hide a grin. She eyed the building and nodded. "Probably. If you can disable the alarm system and the circuit connecting the alarm to the door, then I should be able to pick the lock," she said. Wademan had taught her how for fun. She never really had to use it, cause she could just pull the door off, but now they had to be quiet.

Natasha kept her features neutral. It was a good thing that no one aside from the in-house spies had an inkling about her former profession. But right now it irked her. "That won't be a problem. Not at all." She'd loop the video feed, if there was one. Once inside, she'd reassess the need to keep their movements hidden. "Gemstone, any possibility you can throw up a Jedi mindtrick-esque 'this is not the door you want?'"

The look Topaz gave Natasha in return was totally and wholly unamused. She'd been forced to watch those godawful movies and had regretted it every day since. "As long as you promise to never call it a Jedi mindtrick again, sure."



Using Topaz's magic, Natasha's hacking prowess, and Molly's lockpicking skills, the women infiltrate the airport's main hangar.


Topaz wasn't actually, totally confident in her ability to make this spell work. It wasn't something she had ever attempted before, and trial by fire wasn't her favorite thing.

She didn't say anything, though. She just took a deep breath, gathering her magic and casting the spell, trying to mix it with empathy and cast an air of 'do not care about what's here' around them. She really hoped it worked. "Okay. Good to go."

Natasha quickly covered the ground between the container and the doorway, trusting to Topaz's spell. If it didn't work, then she had bigger problems to contend with than the lack of cover. She pulled the tablet from the inside of her jacket and waved it over the panel. She snorted at the readouts she was getting. Shoddy security. A beginning hacker with even a modicum of talent would be able to crack this in under five minutes. Natasha was neither, and she'd bypassed the security system's firewalls within thirty seconds. Another few keystrokes and the door alarm was disabled while appearing to still be armed on the main interface. Then a quick modification of an executable, and the door was isolated electronically from the rest of the system. "System's been deactivated."

It'd been a long, long time since Molly had seen Topaz use her powers. And even then it was still a little freaky to see people getting controlled. So she decided to keep herself busy by getting her tools out of her backpack. Crouching down, Molly put a small bent piece of metal, called a tension wrench, into the bottom of keyhole, then started fiddling with the little mechanisms inside of the lock until she found the right combination. After a moment, she stuck in the actual lock 'pick' at the top of the lock and moved it around in a circular motion a few times until there was a click.

Molly's eyebrows rose, and she smiled, then pulled out the tools so she could open the door. "Tada," she said quietly.

But as they entered the hallway, Molly heard the sound of footsteps making their way through a stairwell up ahead. The trio of women weren't walking away from it, but rather toward it... Natasha seemed to notice, too. She gave them a wave to keep going toward the noise. Blinking a little curiously, Molly shrugged and followed.

Going toward the noise seemed a little counter-productive, Topaz thought, but that was the way Natasha led them so she took a deep breath and reinforced the spell the best she could, pushing on. She was going to hate herself later, she could tell.

All these security measures and no actual patrols to reinforce it? Either they didn't have an idea of how to actually secure a location or it wouldn't matter if anyone broke through the first layer. The real security was being reserved for the real assets. If it was to protect the assest from themselves or from outside sources that wasn't clear. Case in point, the stairwell door was propped open with a large rock. So they weren't worried about escape or intrusion. The easy option wasn't going to be likely.

She paused to the side of the doorway to listen for any other signs of a security presence. Nothing but the whoosh of the ventilation system could be heard. She glanced back at Molly and Topaz. They'd come this far with her. She expected they'd follow her through the rest. That eerie calm she now knew came from her mutation had descended on her. When there was nothing from the other side of the doorway for a few more moments, Natasha walked through it. She'd deal with whatever was on the other side.