Natasha stared at her oldest friend. “How can you speak to me about trust?”
Yelena gave a harsh laugh. “Please. Don’t try to play the wounded doe with me, Natalia. I know you too well.”
“And I never knew you at all. What’s going on here, Yelena? Why are you working with S.H.I.E.L.D.? Does it have something to do with the Vibranium mines?” Natasha softened her tone. “Of course, it’s not safe to leave those kinds of resources lying around, unguarded. If someone doesn’t mine it, then sooner or later some terrorist group will take advantage. There are so many tribes and factions in the Savage Land.” She paused. “And if the officials who are supposed to be in charge are too blind to see what must be done, a real patriot finds a way to get around them.”
“Exactly,” said Yelena. “Some of the local clans were already trying to work the mines. If we hadn’t moved in when we did, you would have savages armed with a metal that can withstand all kinds of ordnance.”
“So you put them to work mining the Vibranium for you, instead.”
A nerve beside Yelena’s left eye twitched. “I see what you’re doing.”
“I’m just trying to understand. You always said that we have an obligation to protect the most vulnerable in any society. Surely the Savage Landers are the vulnerable ones here.”
“We don’t have time for this.” Yelena averted her head, breaking eye contact with Natasha. “Guard, take her to the holding cell.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The guard moved so that his gun was against Natasha’s back.
The sat phone at Yelena’s waist flared to life, and she picked it up. “Yes? What? I gave you my orders. I don’t care who he is, I told you to eliminate them.” Yelena dropped her gaze, and Natasha thought, Clint and the others. They’ve found them.
Natasha threw back her head. “Tony,” she yelled at the top of her voice. “Get to the mines! They’re going to kill Cap and the others!”
Yelena’s eyes widened. “You shouldn’t have done that, Natalia.” Her eyes glittered with some fierce emotion. “Guard?”
The boyish guard snapped to attention.
“Shoot her.”
The guard smiled as if he had been given a compliment and aimed his gun. In the sky behind him, Natasha saw a red-and-gold blur racing toward her. In the next moment, Natasha felt a tug as she was yanked up by the armpits and lifted into the air.
“That went well,” said Tony, adjusting his grip on Natasha so he was supporting her by his left arm.
Tony’s helmeted head turned. “Uh, Jessica? You’re not holding on to me!”
“What? No! Aaagh!” Jessica pretended to flail for a moment, like a cartoon character accidentally walking off a cliff. “Just kidding,” she said, giving Tony a broad grin. “Yeah, I can fly again.”
“Think you could have mentioned this earlier, when we were figuring out who to send where?”
“Sorry,” said Jessica, not sounding it.
“And while we’re on the subject of bad judgment calls,” said Tony, “you were right, Natasha. Your black jumpsuit had them completely fooled.”
Natasha took a deep breath, fighting the rush of adrenaline. Her hands still felt like ice, but at least she had her full range of vision back. “I still say it makes no sense to wear costumes that draw attention to you.”
“Covert is so yesterday. These days, it’s all about branding.” Tony adjusted his grip, pulling Natasha closer into his side. A bullet pinged, and then another; he was shielding her, she realized.
“So what’s the story with you and that blonde?” Jessica had to shout to be heard over the wind rushing past them. “Know her long?”
“Just for twenty years or so.” Which, it turned out, meant not at all. Natasha wondered whether this was an occupational hazard of her profession, or whether it was simply impossible to know anyone well enough to detect the signs of betrayal.
“So you guys went to sexy-assassin school together? How many more of you are…hang on,” said Tony. “What’s going on, armor?”
“Incoming, mortar bomb detected,” said the armor as a blast of heat scorched a trail toward them. “K-6 fin-stabilized—minimum range 660 feet, maximum range 23,750 feet.”
“TMI.” A sudden rush of air pushed at them. Tony angled his body, changing course. There was a lightning crack of sound, followed by a blast that sent them tumbling backward. Natasha felt the scorching heat of the exploded bomb on her face, followed by a disorienting roll and tumble as Tony fought to right himself.
“Sorry about that,” said Tony. “Everyone okay?”
“Well, I’m still here,” said Jessica. “But that felt like a quick trip on the world’s worst amusement-park ride.”
“I think we’re out of range now.” They were flying much higher than before—the towering trees and volcanic mountains taking on the aspect of a small diorama, a herd of enormous Apatosaurus resembling perfect little toy replicas.
“I think I like the Savage Land better from up here,” said Natasha. The left half of her face felt badly sunburned. Maybe there was a reason for wearing masks into battle.
“Agreed,” said Tony. “So what exactly are we flying into here?”
“I thought you didn’t want too much information,” said the armor.
“I was talking to Natasha, armor. Tasha, what did you overhear at the compound?”
A wave of dizziness swept over Natasha, followed by a surge of nausea. “I think some of the S.H.I.E.L.D. troops were questioning the order to kill Captain America…and the others.”
“Jessica, grab on to me,” said Tony. “Armor, put on some speed here.”
“Yes, Mr. Stark. By the way, the Raft analysis is now complete.”
“Not now! Just get us to the mines.”
There was a tremble in the armor gripping Natasha’s waist, and then a rush of wind in her ears as the suit accelerated. Below them, the jungle passed in a blur of brilliant green.
Just when she thought her eardrums would pop, Tony put on the brakes. They hovered in midair, looking down at the tableau below them.
“Oh, my God,” said Jessica. Sauron’s lifeless body lay sprawled on the ground, his great wingspan making him appear even larger in repose. Around the green-skinned reptile corpse, a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. troops held Clint, Captain America, Luke and Spider-Man at gunpoint. Clint had an arrow nocked and ready to fire while Steve stood just in front of Luke and Peter, shield held low in his right hand.
“Need a little assistance?” Tony lowered himself until he was hovering directly over his teammates’ heads.
“Need a little armor,” yelled Peter.
“Got a few spare million in your bank account?” Tony lifted his helmeted head. “Uh-oh. We’ve got company.”
A fraction of a second later, Natasha heard it, too: the distinctive whup-whup sound of a helicopter’s rotor blades beating the air, accompanied by the rapid rat-a-tat-tat sound of a machine gun.
Yelena.
“Hell,” said Jessica, “they’re firing on us.” She and Tony swooped around, changing direction to avoid the gunfire. Natasha, who never got motion sickness, felt her stomach flip with the jerky, unpredictable shifts in motion.
Down on the ground, Clint wiped a trickle of blood from his face before aiming his arrow up at their attackers. The minute he lets that arrow fly, thought Natasha, the troops down on the ground will begin shooting.
“They need backup.”
“I know,” said Tony, circling round. “I just need to set you down somewhere safe.”
“There’s no time. I have to jump.” She was forty feet or so off the ground. That was survivable, if she did it right. “Neither of you can fight effectively while carrying me.”
“But you’ll break your neck,” said Jessica.
“In the Red Room training facility, we used to do this twice a day before lunch.”
Natasha launched herself off Tony’s arm, pointed her toes and tucked, trying to recall her gymnastics training. I nee
d to execute two and a half somersaults and land on my feet with knees bent before rolling. If she timed it right—and that was a big if—there was a slim chance she might not break anything crucial, like her neck. As an added bonus, she might not get shot if she was rolled up in a tight ball.
It sounded like a reasonable plan, but like most battle plans, it fell apart almost instantly. Natasha had barely completed her first somersault when a bullet winged her back and she hurtled downwards, out of control. Before she had time to blink, she found herself caught in two strong arms: a woman’s arms.
“I’m beginning to like you a bit better,” she told Jessica as they landed.
“Just evening the score,” said Jessica, setting Natasha on her feet. Then one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. ground soldiers fired the first shot, and there was no more time for talk.
N I N E T E E N
PETER flicked his wrists and sent a jet of his most powerful webbing at the two soldiers to his left, covering their faces. Above him, Jessica and Tony zipped around, firing off blasts at the helicopter, forcing it to land.
I didn’t know Jess could fly, he thought, feeling a twinge of envy. Wish I’d gotten her radioactive spider instead of mine.
Off to Peter’s left, he could hear the crack of gunfire. Natasha had managed to liberate one of the rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agents’ guns and was using Luke’s bulletproof body as a buffer while she picked off their opponents. The fighting had kicked up a lot of dust, offering Peter random glimpses of the battle: a grimacing face here, a falling body there, an explosion that split an enormous tree right in half.
Peter whirled, his spider-sense tingling, to find a soldier coming at him, teeth bared, wielding his gun like a club. Peter vaulted over him, netting him with webbing, and then swung him into a knot of three other soldiers. Four in one blow, he thought. Not bad for a city boy.
Peter looked around and saw that Clint was standing, grim-faced, with blood dripping from a cut above one eye, aiming an arrow at the helicopter’s rotor blades. The arrow whistled through the air; to Peter’s astonishment, it sheared off an entire propeller blade.
Vibranium. It had to be. The chopper went into a violent spin, and Peter spotted two soldiers bailing out just before the helicopter turned into a massive fireball. One was a woman, a blonde, her hair streaming behind her until her parachute opened.
The dust billowed up into a thick cloud, making it difficult to see or breathe. The rapid gunfire died down to just one or two shots, and Peter heard someone cough.
“Yelena,” shouted Natasha, followed by a stream of Russian.
Someone shouted back in the same language, and Peter watched as Natasha aimed her gun. He could just make out the shape of a woman, detaching the deployed parachute from her back. That was the woman from the helicopter, Peter realized, as Natasha zeroed in on her target. Dear God, thought Peter, she’s aiming for the woman’s head. Before he had time to react, Captain America’s shield came spinning across his field of vision, knocking the weapon out of Natasha’s hands as it discharged.
Natasha turned on Steve, furious. “Are you insane?”
“We don’t shoot to kill,” he shouted back.
There were shouts and curses from the rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers and a brief volley of return gunfire. Iron Man flew forward and knocked over two of the shooters while Luke moved in, using his body as a human shield so Clint could reload.
“Cap, I’m out of arrows,” said Clint.
“On the bright side, the people firing at us are happily reloading,” said Natasha, giving Steve a dirty look.
Peter decided not to mention that his reserves of web fluid were also running low. “Where are the terror chickens when you need them?”
Jessica flew overhead, firing her venom blasts. “So what’s the plan, Cap?”
Steve wiped the dirty sweat from his forehead. He looked at each of them in turn, silently taking each team member’s measure. Peter felt Steve looking past the Spider-Man mask, with its exaggerated white eyes, and peering into the mess of roiling thoughts racing through his brain. As Steve nodded to him, Peter felt himself go still and calm. Whatever Cap’s voodoo was, he could work it without words.
“The plan,” Steve said at last, “is to fight them until we win.”
Natasha gave a snort of derision. “Don’t you mean fight them until we die? If they’re shooting to kill us, and we’re fighting back to capture them, there’s only one way for this to end.”
Tony dropped down to stand in front of the other Avengers. “Did someone call for a coffee break? I can’t do this on my own, you know. I mean, I probably could, but then you guys would feel even more inferior.”
“Not to pander to your ego,” Steve said, “but I don’t suppose you’ve got any more tricks up your sleeve?”
“Wow, things must be bad, if you’re asking me for help.” Tony flipped up his visor. “Armor?”
“Online, Mr. Stark.”
“Project twenty-foot radius polar magnetic field.”
“I’m afraid there’s an insufficient power-cell charge.”
Tony sighed. “And what do we do when we don’t have enough power?”
“Charging.”
The dust had begun to clear. They didn’t have much time, thought Peter. “Um, Tony? How long do you think this is going to take?”
Tony spat dust out of his mouth. “Armor, status report.”
“Power cells six-point-five percent, Mr. Stark.”
Come on, thought Peter, charge up already. Now that the dust cloud had settled, he could see the faces of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents again—some two dozen soldiers, heavily armed. Someone coughed. This was going to be bad, thought Peter.
The blonde, Yelena, stepped forward, looking almost bored, as if she were about to perform a ritual that held no personal meaning for her. “Avengers. Do you surrender?”
Steve stepped forward. “Lady, you are in complete defiance of S.H.I.E.L.D. protocols. I demand that you stand down.”
Yelena’s smile did not reach her eyes. “You are showing your age, Captain. I am not a lady. You may address me as Lieutenant Commander, or ma’am.”
“Sorry, lady, but I do not recognize your authority here.”
A bullet pinged against Steve’s shield; he had raised it just in time. Yelena turned to her left. “Who did that? There will be no shooting until I give the command!”
“She was never good at handling positions of authority,” murmured Natasha. “Too strident. Too quick to anger.”
“All right,” said Yelena. “Since you refuse to surrender, Captain, you leave me no choice but to give the order.”
Peter thought about Mary Jane and wondered what she was doing. He couldn’t remember what day it was, so he pictured her sitting in her kitchen, drinking coffee, making a to-do list. Buy milk. Pay the credit-card bill. Go to the gym. He pictured the sun shining on her hair, bringing out the lovely dark reds. She would be wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts, braless, her feet bare, her toenails unpainted.
He wondered how she would take the news of his death, if he wound up dying here. Probably have a good cry with her girlfriends, and then buck herself up with the comforting thought that at least she hadn’t married him. I always knew he was going to wind up getting himself killed, she would say. She would meet someone new and get married and get pregnant, and her children would grow up and never even know who he was.
“Team Red,” said Yelena in a loud voice. “Eyes on target. Ready to fire. Open fi—”
“Wait!” Natasha stepped past Steve and stood directly in front of Yelena, in the line of fire. “Before you do this, Yelena, I need to ask you a question. Surely you owe me one question before I die?”
Yelena shook her head. “I am disappointed, Natalia. I wouldn’t have expected you to be such a coward. Is it really worth it, just to live a few more minutes?”
“I just need to know one thing: Who is in charge of this operation—you, or someone at S.H.I.E.L.D.?”
Yelena gave a
contemptuous laugh and said something in Russian.
“She’s buying us time,” said Clint. “Tony, how’re we doing?”
“Come on, armor,” muttered Tony. “What have you got?”
“Six point six…six point seven…”
“Divert all other power. How about now?”
“Eight point nine.”
“Here,” said Jessica. “Try this.” She aimed a blast of electricity at the arc reactor in Tony’s chest. Tony stumbled back, and then caught himself.
“How about now?” His voice was raspy.
“Eleven.”
“I’ll take it. Raise the field! But keep the level low. I don’t want to pull out anyone’s fillings.”
“You didn’t have to yell,” said the armor primly. “Field activated, level low.”
“I don’t see anything,” said Luke. “What kind of a force field did you put up?”
The answer came in a sudden barrage of guns, dog tags, sat phones, glasses, rings and watches, which all flew toward the Avengers as if the pied piper were calling them home. For a moment, all the weapons hung suspended in the air, and then Tony said, “deactivate,” and they rained down at the team’s feet.
“Sweet Christmas,” said Luke.
“And a very happy Chanukah,” added Peter.
He watched the shock on their enemies’ faces as they realized they had just lost the battle. Take that, Mary Jane. I’m not dying here, after all.
T W E N T Y
THERE was a moment of stunned silence, and then Natasha said, “All right, Yelena. Who organized this operation?” She was dimly aware of Peter, Luke and Jessica moving around her to secure the other troops, but most of her attention was focused on Yelena.
Yelena gave a tight smile. “Oh, here it comes: Natalia Romanova’s big scene. Do your friends know why our teachers called you Romanova? Tell me they understand that you are not actually related to the former imperial family.” Projecting her voice to reach Steve and the others, she said, “We called your friend here the grand duchess, because she always had to be the center of attention. She didn’t have a last name, you see. No mother or father listed.”
New Avengers: Breakout Prose Novel Page 17