(Avengers/White Collar) Recovering the Satellites for daymarket
Title: Recovering the Satellites
Author: auctorial
Fandoms: Avengers, White Collar
Characters Natasha Romanoff, Phil Coulson; Neal Caffrey
Pairings: n/a
Rating: PG
Word count: 2044
Spoilers: Pre-canon for both shows, no spoilers for anything
Warnings: Natasha being an assassin
Disclaimer: Avengers and White Collar belong to their respective creators
A/N: Title stolen from the Counting Crows song of the same name. Thanks to pikasafire for the beta!
Summary: SHIELD doesn't usually take notice of art thieves, but this time Nell Caffrey took something well outside of her purview. It's up to Natasha Romanoff to get it back.
Early in their partnership, Coulson looks over his desk at Natasha and hands her a file. "Nice and easy," he says. "No weapons."
"What's the fun in that?" Natasha deadpans, just to see if she can get a rise out of him. Coulson's mouth quirks, one of the many tiny reactions that proclaim his humanity, despite Barton's protests to the contrary.
Natasha flips the folder open and skims the first two pages. Then she looks back up at Coulson, eyes narrowed. "Are you kidding me?"
Coulson's not a robot, but he's damn near unreadable when he wants to be. It's the reason why Natasha doesn't trust him, even though it's been six months, even though SHIELD is everything he promised it to be. In this instance, he just gives her a bland look that either means "keep reading" or "I know what Barton did to Alpha Five the other day". Natasha hopes he doesn't know about that particular prank, and won't find out until Barton's back to take the heat, so she's going to go with the former.
She keeps reading, more carefully this time. There's easy, but this seems offensively so, like baby's first mission, the kind they give to kids straight out of field training. The kind she got when she was seven, right before they told her to point a gun at a man and pull the trigger for the first time. "What's the catch?"
Coulson gives her another inscrutable look. She could one up him on that, except then they'd be playing this game all day, and Natasha has better things to do with her time. Besides, Coulson always works better with someone to play off of; she noticed that about him and Barton almost straight off the bat, it just took her a few moments to get past Barton's mouthiness first.
So she says, "Come one, there's always a catch."
It pays off. "Then stolen item may have been an alien artefact from Area 51."
"Of course it is."
Coulson definitely looks amused now. "It's Interrogation 101, Romanoff. Caffrey's holding the item hostage, and I can guarantee you it's still in the city. Just get to it before she comes to an agreement with her associates and it disappears into some private collection, or it'll be a much bigger problem."
Natasha rolls her eyes at that, because as good as Coulson is, even he falls into the trap of stating the obvious during mission briefings. Then again, he's used to Barton.
"She's a sucker for a pretty face," Coulson says, his voice as even and bland as ever. "So if you could just flirt a little - "
"Got it. I'm not Barton," Natasha actually says this time, because Coulson definitely sounds like he needs a reminder.
"Yeah? Then what are you still doing in my office?"
Natasha ducks her head a little to hide her smile, and goes.
*
Natasha is Natalie Rushman, a young professional stopping by a bar that she walks past often on her way to and back from work, but has never been in before. Tonight, however, she deserves a drink. Natalie is wearing a serious grey pencil skirt and a solid but brightly-coloured top that clashes with her hair, because she is not yet noticeable enough for anyone to have pulled her aside for fashion advice. She's smart and ambitious, but she's not half as poised as she pretends to be, and there are some things that she's painfully naive about. She makes a beeline for the bar and downs a shot of tequila in one go.
She's already drawn the attention of Nell Caffrey, who is watching her from across the room, pool cue in hand and money on the table. Unlike the surveillance photos, Caffrey is dressed in a well-cut, vintage-style suit that she makes look flamboyant. It must be the hat, Natasha decides. Three turns later, and Caffrey's won, scooping up the bills and tipping her hat at the men she beat as she heads to the bar. One of the men is scowling, but none of them look suspicious; Caffrey won the game fair and square, this time.
"Well played," Natasha says, when Caffrey appears by her shoulder.
"Thanks," Caffrey says brightly. When Natasha turns to face her straight on, Caffrey's smile is blinding. "Let me buy you a drink. I'm Nikki Holden."
"Natalie." Natasha drops her gaze for a moment, pretends to be a little shy, a little taken aback at the directness of Caffrey's approach. "Natalie Rushman."
"Natalie," Caffrey muses. Her expression flickers, turning thoughtful then so focused that she's almost staring through Natasha, caught up in something both like and entirely unlike the lust that Natasha was used to seeing on men's faces in these types of situations. Caffrey shakes herself out of it a moment later. "Sorry. It's been awhile since I wanted to paint someone just for the hell of it."
Natasha blushes, but leans in, almost unconsciously, like she's fascinated. "Oh, so you're an artist, then?"
Caffrey just laughs. "Sometimes. So, Natalie, what do you like to do for fun?"
*
An hour later, they've moved to a booth in the back of the bar, and Natasha is starting to see the fun in this after all. There's something relaxing about playing this sort of cat and mouse game when no one's life is on the line, and it's especially entertaining when the mouse doesn't know it's a mouse. Not that Natasha is relaxed, precisely. Caffrey is sharp - not Red Room good, but Natasha can barely glimpse the outline of the real Nell Caffrey beneath Nikki Holden, when most people wear their aliases like a cracked-open shell.
In their rambling conversation, they've circled back to art, Caffrey describing paintings that Natasha is both intimately familiar with and doesn't remember actually viewing. It's useful for an assassin to be able to converse at length with sophisticated people before she kills them, was what Natasha was never told but basically inferred. She could have debated the merits of Caravaggio versus Cortona, but Natalie studied economics, not art, so she keeps quiet even when Caffrey says something preposterous about Gauguin.
Still, as carefully as Natasha thinks she's watching Caffrey, she isn't watching herself enough, because Caffrey's next words are, "Dammit, and I thought I'd get a reaction out of that."
"What?" Natasha says, playing confused, even as she scrambles to contain her shock. "Why would I - "
Caffrey shrugs, touches the brim of her hat. "Hardest mark is another con," she says. Natasha never thought of herself as a con before, and maybe that is her mistake. But her job isn't so much to be believable, but to get results. The dance is coming to an end. "Come on," and Caffrey is grinning. "I bet you're dying to school me after some of the things I said."
"Actually, I have no interest in art whatsoever," Natasha says - Natasha, not Natalie. Caffrey's drunk, but not slow. Her eyes widen impossibly, then narrow, bright blue shuttered by dark lashes. "My employer is more interested in that other thing you stole."
"You're government," Caffrey says, her voice heavy with disbelief. All of her muscles are tensed, ready to flee. It's always the best ones who think they'll never be caught. It's always the smartest who retire before they do. By those standards, Natasha is neither the best or very smart, but she's good at her job, good at maneuvering through the shades of grey between the black and white, chasing something she'll never find, but working for it anyway. Caffrey wouldn't understand Natasha's life, as painted red as it is, but Natasha understands Caffrey's very well.
"Do I look like I have a pair of cuffs waiting for you?" Natasha says.
"Not that kind of kinky, then," Caffrey muttered. "Well, this has been fun. Got to go."
Natasha lets her.
It doesn't count as losing her when she's been wearing an audio-enabled tracker since the first time she leaned into Natasha, so Natasha takes her time following Caffrey through the city, trying to predict where she'd go next and then being pleasantly surprised. Then she hurries, because someone catches up to Caffrey first.
Ten minutes of hearing Caffrey spit defiance at her former partners-in-crime, and then Natasha is at the warehouse door. It's ajar, so she slips in and finds her way through the storage units towards the sound of voices echoing off the concrete walls and floor.
" - walk away with your life if you're lucky," Reade growls. He has Caffrey backed into a corner, his two goons standing point. Caffrey's lost her hat, her lip is bleeding, and she looks terrified beneath her dauntless facade. More importantly, Reade has a gun, and at least one of the other guys has a knife.
"There's always a catch," Natasha mutters to herself, because it's only no weapons if all parties agree not to bring any. There was nothing in that file about Reade carrying a gun - like Caffrey, he's only been implicated in unarmed theft, which was presumably one of the reasons why they were working together. Time to create a diversion. Natasha bangs the door of one of the storage units, the sound loud and staccato sharp.
"What is that?" Reade says, his voice betraying his nervousness. "Go check it out, G."
Natasha draws him far enough away from the others, banging on the storage units as she goes, and then ambushes him. She steals his knife and draws it fast across his throat, before he can make a sound. He might not deserve that, but Reade has a gun, and nervous men make mistakes, like being goaded into killing the person they're holding at gunpoint before they obtain the relevant information.
No one's talking now. Natasha pauses to tear her skirt enough to have unrestricted movement, then throws the knife hard against the floor. Someone comes running. She climbs one of the storage units and heads back to Caffrey, jumping the gap between the rows twice. Reade has turned, looking in the direction both his men have gone, and Caffrey is taking the opportunity to reach into her jacket. Natasha just prays that Caffrey isn't quick on the draw, and jumps again, this time landing squarely on Reade's head. He goes down hard and the gun goes off, bullet skittering off the floor and embedding itself into a side of a storage unit. Natasha has landed on her feet, crouched over him, and she slams him in the jaw just once. He slumps unconsciously, and Natasha takes the gun off of him.
The sound of footsteps is receding - the other guy found his colleague's body and isn't coming back. Natasha turns to Caffrey, who is breathing hard, wild look in her eye, her own gun partially extended.
"Whatever those men said to you, whatever they threatened you with, I'll do worse." Natasha says. "Unless you tell me where it is."
Caffrey's hand shakes. Her resolve falters. She tells Natasha.
Then she says, "I could have. You know." Her eyes flicker to Reade, still lying on the floor. "I could have taken care of myself." Caffrey can probably take care of herself, in most situations, but that isn't what she means.
"No," Natasha says. She takes the four steps to close the distance between them, and Caffrey flinches. Natasha takes the gun out of her hand. "Don't carry a gun if you're not prepared to use it. A word of advice? Don't put yourself in a position where you'd have to be prepared."
"Who are you?" Caffrey bursts out.
Natasha smiles then, knife sharp. "Hope you never find out," she suggests, then turns and walks away. Caffrey doesn't follow. Outside the warehouse, Natasha informs Coulson she has the location, and she'll be back in two hours, barring any further difficulties. Coulson sighs and restrains himself from asking what the preceding difficulties were. Suddenly, Natasha is looking forward to the debriefing. She shakes the last of Natalie Rushman from beneath her skin and maps out the quickest route to the package in her head, eager to get out of these clothes, and more importantly, eager to go home.
-END-
Prompt: always-opposite-gender fic
Author: auctorial
Fandoms: Avengers, White Collar
Characters Natasha Romanoff, Phil Coulson; Neal Caffrey
Pairings: n/a
Rating: PG
Word count: 2044
Spoilers: Pre-canon for both shows, no spoilers for anything
Warnings: Natasha being an assassin
Disclaimer: Avengers and White Collar belong to their respective creators
A/N: Title stolen from the Counting Crows song of the same name. Thanks to pikasafire for the beta!
Summary: SHIELD doesn't usually take notice of art thieves, but this time Nell Caffrey took something well outside of her purview. It's up to Natasha Romanoff to get it back.
Early in their partnership, Coulson looks over his desk at Natasha and hands her a file. "Nice and easy," he says. "No weapons."
"What's the fun in that?" Natasha deadpans, just to see if she can get a rise out of him. Coulson's mouth quirks, one of the many tiny reactions that proclaim his humanity, despite Barton's protests to the contrary.
Natasha flips the folder open and skims the first two pages. Then she looks back up at Coulson, eyes narrowed. "Are you kidding me?"
Coulson's not a robot, but he's damn near unreadable when he wants to be. It's the reason why Natasha doesn't trust him, even though it's been six months, even though SHIELD is everything he promised it to be. In this instance, he just gives her a bland look that either means "keep reading" or "I know what Barton did to Alpha Five the other day". Natasha hopes he doesn't know about that particular prank, and won't find out until Barton's back to take the heat, so she's going to go with the former.
She keeps reading, more carefully this time. There's easy, but this seems offensively so, like baby's first mission, the kind they give to kids straight out of field training. The kind she got when she was seven, right before they told her to point a gun at a man and pull the trigger for the first time. "What's the catch?"
Coulson gives her another inscrutable look. She could one up him on that, except then they'd be playing this game all day, and Natasha has better things to do with her time. Besides, Coulson always works better with someone to play off of; she noticed that about him and Barton almost straight off the bat, it just took her a few moments to get past Barton's mouthiness first.
So she says, "Come one, there's always a catch."
It pays off. "Then stolen item may have been an alien artefact from Area 51."
"Of course it is."
Coulson definitely looks amused now. "It's Interrogation 101, Romanoff. Caffrey's holding the item hostage, and I can guarantee you it's still in the city. Just get to it before she comes to an agreement with her associates and it disappears into some private collection, or it'll be a much bigger problem."
Natasha rolls her eyes at that, because as good as Coulson is, even he falls into the trap of stating the obvious during mission briefings. Then again, he's used to Barton.
"She's a sucker for a pretty face," Coulson says, his voice as even and bland as ever. "So if you could just flirt a little - "
"Got it. I'm not Barton," Natasha actually says this time, because Coulson definitely sounds like he needs a reminder.
"Yeah? Then what are you still doing in my office?"
Natasha ducks her head a little to hide her smile, and goes.
*
Natasha is Natalie Rushman, a young professional stopping by a bar that she walks past often on her way to and back from work, but has never been in before. Tonight, however, she deserves a drink. Natalie is wearing a serious grey pencil skirt and a solid but brightly-coloured top that clashes with her hair, because she is not yet noticeable enough for anyone to have pulled her aside for fashion advice. She's smart and ambitious, but she's not half as poised as she pretends to be, and there are some things that she's painfully naive about. She makes a beeline for the bar and downs a shot of tequila in one go.
She's already drawn the attention of Nell Caffrey, who is watching her from across the room, pool cue in hand and money on the table. Unlike the surveillance photos, Caffrey is dressed in a well-cut, vintage-style suit that she makes look flamboyant. It must be the hat, Natasha decides. Three turns later, and Caffrey's won, scooping up the bills and tipping her hat at the men she beat as she heads to the bar. One of the men is scowling, but none of them look suspicious; Caffrey won the game fair and square, this time.
"Well played," Natasha says, when Caffrey appears by her shoulder.
"Thanks," Caffrey says brightly. When Natasha turns to face her straight on, Caffrey's smile is blinding. "Let me buy you a drink. I'm Nikki Holden."
"Natalie." Natasha drops her gaze for a moment, pretends to be a little shy, a little taken aback at the directness of Caffrey's approach. "Natalie Rushman."
"Natalie," Caffrey muses. Her expression flickers, turning thoughtful then so focused that she's almost staring through Natasha, caught up in something both like and entirely unlike the lust that Natasha was used to seeing on men's faces in these types of situations. Caffrey shakes herself out of it a moment later. "Sorry. It's been awhile since I wanted to paint someone just for the hell of it."
Natasha blushes, but leans in, almost unconsciously, like she's fascinated. "Oh, so you're an artist, then?"
Caffrey just laughs. "Sometimes. So, Natalie, what do you like to do for fun?"
*
An hour later, they've moved to a booth in the back of the bar, and Natasha is starting to see the fun in this after all. There's something relaxing about playing this sort of cat and mouse game when no one's life is on the line, and it's especially entertaining when the mouse doesn't know it's a mouse. Not that Natasha is relaxed, precisely. Caffrey is sharp - not Red Room good, but Natasha can barely glimpse the outline of the real Nell Caffrey beneath Nikki Holden, when most people wear their aliases like a cracked-open shell.
In their rambling conversation, they've circled back to art, Caffrey describing paintings that Natasha is both intimately familiar with and doesn't remember actually viewing. It's useful for an assassin to be able to converse at length with sophisticated people before she kills them, was what Natasha was never told but basically inferred. She could have debated the merits of Caravaggio versus Cortona, but Natalie studied economics, not art, so she keeps quiet even when Caffrey says something preposterous about Gauguin.
Still, as carefully as Natasha thinks she's watching Caffrey, she isn't watching herself enough, because Caffrey's next words are, "Dammit, and I thought I'd get a reaction out of that."
"What?" Natasha says, playing confused, even as she scrambles to contain her shock. "Why would I - "
Caffrey shrugs, touches the brim of her hat. "Hardest mark is another con," she says. Natasha never thought of herself as a con before, and maybe that is her mistake. But her job isn't so much to be believable, but to get results. The dance is coming to an end. "Come on," and Caffrey is grinning. "I bet you're dying to school me after some of the things I said."
"Actually, I have no interest in art whatsoever," Natasha says - Natasha, not Natalie. Caffrey's drunk, but not slow. Her eyes widen impossibly, then narrow, bright blue shuttered by dark lashes. "My employer is more interested in that other thing you stole."
"You're government," Caffrey says, her voice heavy with disbelief. All of her muscles are tensed, ready to flee. It's always the best ones who think they'll never be caught. It's always the smartest who retire before they do. By those standards, Natasha is neither the best or very smart, but she's good at her job, good at maneuvering through the shades of grey between the black and white, chasing something she'll never find, but working for it anyway. Caffrey wouldn't understand Natasha's life, as painted red as it is, but Natasha understands Caffrey's very well.
"Do I look like I have a pair of cuffs waiting for you?" Natasha says.
"Not that kind of kinky, then," Caffrey muttered. "Well, this has been fun. Got to go."
Natasha lets her.
It doesn't count as losing her when she's been wearing an audio-enabled tracker since the first time she leaned into Natasha, so Natasha takes her time following Caffrey through the city, trying to predict where she'd go next and then being pleasantly surprised. Then she hurries, because someone catches up to Caffrey first.
Ten minutes of hearing Caffrey spit defiance at her former partners-in-crime, and then Natasha is at the warehouse door. It's ajar, so she slips in and finds her way through the storage units towards the sound of voices echoing off the concrete walls and floor.
" - walk away with your life if you're lucky," Reade growls. He has Caffrey backed into a corner, his two goons standing point. Caffrey's lost her hat, her lip is bleeding, and she looks terrified beneath her dauntless facade. More importantly, Reade has a gun, and at least one of the other guys has a knife.
"There's always a catch," Natasha mutters to herself, because it's only no weapons if all parties agree not to bring any. There was nothing in that file about Reade carrying a gun - like Caffrey, he's only been implicated in unarmed theft, which was presumably one of the reasons why they were working together. Time to create a diversion. Natasha bangs the door of one of the storage units, the sound loud and staccato sharp.
"What is that?" Reade says, his voice betraying his nervousness. "Go check it out, G."
Natasha draws him far enough away from the others, banging on the storage units as she goes, and then ambushes him. She steals his knife and draws it fast across his throat, before he can make a sound. He might not deserve that, but Reade has a gun, and nervous men make mistakes, like being goaded into killing the person they're holding at gunpoint before they obtain the relevant information.
No one's talking now. Natasha pauses to tear her skirt enough to have unrestricted movement, then throws the knife hard against the floor. Someone comes running. She climbs one of the storage units and heads back to Caffrey, jumping the gap between the rows twice. Reade has turned, looking in the direction both his men have gone, and Caffrey is taking the opportunity to reach into her jacket. Natasha just prays that Caffrey isn't quick on the draw, and jumps again, this time landing squarely on Reade's head. He goes down hard and the gun goes off, bullet skittering off the floor and embedding itself into a side of a storage unit. Natasha has landed on her feet, crouched over him, and she slams him in the jaw just once. He slumps unconsciously, and Natasha takes the gun off of him.
The sound of footsteps is receding - the other guy found his colleague's body and isn't coming back. Natasha turns to Caffrey, who is breathing hard, wild look in her eye, her own gun partially extended.
"Whatever those men said to you, whatever they threatened you with, I'll do worse." Natasha says. "Unless you tell me where it is."
Caffrey's hand shakes. Her resolve falters. She tells Natasha.
Then she says, "I could have. You know." Her eyes flicker to Reade, still lying on the floor. "I could have taken care of myself." Caffrey can probably take care of herself, in most situations, but that isn't what she means.
"No," Natasha says. She takes the four steps to close the distance between them, and Caffrey flinches. Natasha takes the gun out of her hand. "Don't carry a gun if you're not prepared to use it. A word of advice? Don't put yourself in a position where you'd have to be prepared."
"Who are you?" Caffrey bursts out.
Natasha smiles then, knife sharp. "Hope you never find out," she suggests, then turns and walks away. Caffrey doesn't follow. Outside the warehouse, Natasha informs Coulson she has the location, and she'll be back in two hours, barring any further difficulties. Coulson sighs and restrains himself from asking what the preceding difficulties were. Suddenly, Natasha is looking forward to the debriefing. She shakes the last of Natalie Rushman from beneath her skin and maps out the quickest route to the package in her head, eager to get out of these clothes, and more importantly, eager to go home.
-END-
Prompt: always-opposite-gender fic