Children of a Lesser God

Natasha Romanoff watched in silence as the landscape of South Africa passed by underneath the SHIELD Quinjet. When Nick Fury had called her and Clint in for a mission to Johannesburg, she figured it would be just another espionage mission; she was expecting to simply gather up some intelligence for Fury and then return to base. Instead, the pair was currently en route to rescue a potential Avengers team member from a genetic research lab.

Truth be told, the female wasn’t quite sure if she was more shocked about the nature of the mission or the fact that Fury was reactivating the Avengers Initiative. Even though the group had managed to defeat the Chitauri, they had ultimately cost New York City millions of dollars in repairs doing so; Natasha wondered just how the Director had convinced the Council to give him permission to reinstate the Initiative.

Or, just how desperate the situation was if it required the assistance of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”, as Stark would refer to the group as.

“Was it just me, or was Coulson acting a little…strange…when he told us to report to Fury?”
Clint Barton’s quiet voice pulled Natasha from her whirlwind of thoughts and she turned to her partner. The male wasn’t looking at her. Rather, he was gazing out the cockpit window as he steered the Quinjet toward the coordinates Fury had given them. Natasha turned her attention outside the window as well before replying.

“No, I noticed. There was definitely something off with him.”
“Maybe he’s not exactly thrilled about Fury’s decision to reinstate the Avengers Initiative?”
“You’ve got to be joking, Clint. The guy has a man crush on the Captain. If anything, he’d be ecstatic to see Steve again,” Natasha replied, turning her attention back toward the male.
Clint continued staring at the cockpit window for several seconds before finally bringing his attention to her.

“I can’t believe Fury is reactivating the Avengers Initiative. What do you think has him so worried that he feels the need to gather up the team again?”

Sensing the anxiety in her partner’s voice, Natasha reached over and rested her hand on his gently; before Loki had summoned the Chitauri to attack New York, the villain had managed to take control of Clint’s mind. While under the God of Mischief’s control, Clint had killed several innocent people and had helped attack the SHIELD Helicarrier.

Even though it technically wasn’t his fault, Natasha could tell that Clint was still haunted by those memories.

“We’d know if Loki was behind it, Clint,” the female commented quietly. “Thor would have been here by now.”
“If it’s not Loki, then who is it?” Clint asked, raising his voice. “I find it hard to imagine that Fury would feel the need to call in the Avengers for any other kind of threat.”
Natasha frowned a bit at Clint’s reaction; she wasn’t expecting him to snap. “I don’t know what’s going on, but…” she trailed off and turned her attention back outside the window, “…it looks like we’re going to find out soon.”

Sprawled out at the base of the mountains was a strange sight; the large brick building looked like a secret military installation, as it was surrounded by a fence that Natasha assumed was either barbed or electrified. The only entrance to the complex was guarded by a security checkpoint, and there were several guard towers etched along the perimeter of the fence.

“My question is this; are they trying to keep something in, or keep something out?”
Clint’s question caused Natasha to smile slightly, but she said nothing. Instead, she was focusing intently at the laboratory below them; the redhead was finding it increasingly difficult to shake a menacing chill in her spine as she realized the guard towers were vacant. She was expecting to face some resistance while attempting to rescue this girl, but instead she found herself staring at what appeared to be a ghost town.

Just going in and grabbing her seemed easy…too easy.

After flying around the perimeter and surveying the area, Clint landed the Quinjet in a barren located directly behind the lab; as the pair approached the imposing brick structure, Natasha didn’t need to ask to know that her partner was feeling the same sense of foreboding about this rescue mission.

“Something about this seems strange,” Clint observed, reading Natasha’s mind. “Where is everyone?”
The female nodded her head in agreement, reaching down and putting a hand on one of her guns. “This place is like a ghost town. It all seems too easy.”
“Way too easy.” Clint replied before shielding his eyes from the blazing sun so he could gaze over at the lab.
“This place is absolutely massive; searching for this girl is going to be like searching for a needle in a haystack.”

Natasha turned and gazed at Clint, smiling despite the situation when she noticed the male eying one of the abandoned guard towers.
“Would The Hawk feel more comfortable up in his nest?” she asked jokingly, causing Clint’s mouth to twitch into a smile.
“You know me too well.”
Natasha’s smile grew, and she followed Clint’s gaze to the guard tower before turning back to him.
“Well then, get on up there and stay on guard while I start searching inside the building,” she commented quietly, causing Clint to turn his attention to her.
“You sure, Nat?” he asked quietly.
“I’m sure,” Natasha replied. “I’ll be fine.”

Clint obviously wasn’t convinced, since he opened his mouth to argue with her; after a few seconds however, he decided against it and made his way over to the guard tower. Natasha watched after him for a few seconds before turning around to make her way over to the entrance of the building. Having Clint join her would have made things easier, but she knew that the male would be more comfortable up high.

The female’s sense of foreboding increased as she approached the building and realized the door was unlocked. Either someone was in a hurry to hightail it out of the place or someone learned that SHIELD was coming and had
Left a trap for her. She paused to remove her gun from its holster before quietly pushing open the door and stepping into the noiseless interior.

The first thing that Natasha noticed about the interior of the building was the ominous stench; she had been expecting for the air to be laced with the scents of chemicals. Rather, she was met with the unmistakable odor of decaying flesh. The smell was overwhelming, and caused a gagging Natasha to cover her nose with one hand and use the other one to push the door open so she could retreat outside.

Natasha stood outside the building for several seconds, gagging and trembling. The SHIELD agent had a bad feeling about this mission when she realized the place had been deserted, but she was expecting to walk into a trap. Or at least expecting to flirt with some clueless men to figure out where the girl was located before knocking them senseless, grabbing the girl and returning to base with Clint.

However, Natasha was starting to understand why the place had been abandoned in such a hurry. Horrible things had occurred at this lab; the scientists had been playing the role of God and living things had suffered and died at their hands. The agent felt a chill go down her spine as she wondered if they were possibly too late to save this girl.

After several minutes of trying to calm herself down, Natasha sucked in a deep breath before slowly pushing the door open and slipping back inside the building. Although she was more prepared for it this time, the spy still gagged slightly at the nauseating stench. She pressed her back against the door and gazed down the eastern wing, trying to gather up the courage to continue.

After several seconds of trying to regain her composure, the redhead cocked her gun and stealthily started creeping down the hallway. She quietly opened each door in hopes of finding the mysterious girl they had been tasked with finding, but every room was the same; completely empty except for the presence of motionless experiments locked in steel crates of varying sizes.

As Natasha continued through the corridor, she felt like she watching a train wreck. The sight of dead mice and various other, more disturbing “experiments” was horrible, but the agent found she couldn’t look away. At least she could find a bit of peace in the fact that the poor creatures were in a better place; their endless hours of pain and suffering were finally over.

As she reached the end of the corridor and climbed up the stairs to the second level, Natasha couldn’t get a line from a certain 30 Seconds to Mars song out of her head. Maybe the children of a lesser god, between heaven and hell. Despite the fact that she had been on countless missions and seen some horrifying scenes unfold, what she was witnessing now was by far the most chilling.

The second floor of the eastern wing was an exact replica of the lower floor, with more rooms filled with various experiments that were in a much better place. As she checked out the contents of every room, Natasha was again finding herself fearing that her and Clint were too late. The likelihood of finding the girl alive was dropping drastically with every empty room that the SHIELD agent passed by.

As Natasha passed into the western wing of the second level, the sudden sound of Clint’s voice in her ear piece made her jump slightly.
“How’s it going in there?”
After a few seconds of silence, Natasha took a deep breath before finally replying.
“It’s pretty bad, Clint. I’m starting to see why this place was abandoned. The scientists here, if you can even call them that, have committed horrendous deeds in here. What they were doing was obviously illegal, and they knew that. There are hundreds of quote unquote experiments that were simply abandoned and left for dead.”

Clint was silent for several seconds, and Natasha knew exactly what he was going to say.
“Nat, do you think we’re too late…?”
“I keep wanting to think that we aren’t, but truth be told, it’s looking grim right now,” Natasha said quietly.
There was another several seconds of silence. “Well, let’s just hope we aren’t too late.”

The conversation ended shortly after that comment, leaving Natasha to continue through the rest of the corridor in silence. She didn’t want to think about the possibility that this girl was just another casualty; it was obvious that Fury had been searching for her for a while now and Natasha didn’t want to imagine how upset he’d be if it turned out that they were, in fact, too late to save her.

Natasha continued downstairs and through the first floor corridor in silence, feeling less hopeful of the success of this mission as she passed by even more empty rooms. She was beginning to wonder if the scientists who had deserted the laboratory had taken the girl with them; maybe they knew that someone would come to the lab and decided it would be better to be safe rather than sorry in the case that curious agencies came looking.

As she was arriving at the end of the corridor, Natasha was about to tell Clint to start preparing the Quinjet when something in the closest room caught her eye; instead of being filled with steel crates, the room had a single sensory deprivation chamber in it. Without a second’s hesitation, Natasha held her gun in front of her and slowly crept into the room.

Like the other rooms in the lab, the room wasn’t terribly large; the one table that was present was covered in beakers, syringes and other laboratory equipment. The wall opposite the equipment was covered in papers that Natasha assumed were lab notes or test results. She couldn’t tell what they were, since Afrikaans was a language that the spy wasn’t familiar with.

After several minutes of quietly surveying the room, Natasha turned her attention to the isolation tank and started looking for a method to open it. It was the sole reason she had entered the room, although she wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to know what was in it. The female sucked in a deep breath as she pushed the lid off the tank, but it almost immediately released in a gasp when she saw what was inside.

“Natasha! Are you okay?” When she didn’t reply after a few seconds, Clint’s voice grew more urgent. “Natasha!”
Natasha rolled her eyes at her partner’s concern for her safety before finally replying to him, not taking her eyes off the isolation tank.
“Don’t worry, Clint. I’m fine. But, you may want to get in here.”