Tasha’s hand clutches the railing as she stumbles, fast as she can, carrying her baby brother down the cellar steps. The puppy scampers after them. Her mother calls frantically for her father in the distance. Tasha covers her ears while shrapnel explodes through the old stone dacha.
Ava plays on the rug with her new china doll, Karolina, sent in the mail from her father, who works abroad. Her mother, surrounded by the endless stacks of her work papers, watches, with tired eyes.
Natasha holds her baby brother in her lap next to a flag-draped coffin lying in the snow at their parents’ memorial service. The brown dog curls under their chair. Dark eyed and solemn, she refuses to let anyone else hold her brother. You still have me, Alexei. You will always have me.
Ava practices her ballet positions, holding on to the back of her mother’s chair in the windowless office of her Odessa lab.
An older Natasha sobs in secret in a Moscow Red Room dormitory, her face buried beneath the pillow of a low iron cot. Alexei. He needs me.
Ava practices a dance routine in an old Odessa ballet studio, twirling in circles across a mosaic floor. A number sixty-two is painted inside a yellow sun in the center of the tile. As Ava dances across the mosaic, she sings to her doll. Karolina, Karolina, Karolina—learn the steps, the steps are key, keep you safe and you keep me—one two three, one two three, one two three—
Natasha assembles and disassembles an assault rifle over and over again beneath Ivan’s watchful eye. You shame me. Slow as a fat American. What are you going to do in the field? Stop and ask for more time? Natasha’s finger curls around the trigger.
Ava pirouettes in the ballet studio, pointing her toes as she hits the tiled number six over and over and over again—but with only her left foot, and only on the downbeats of the rhythm.
Natasha faces Ivan, wearing only a tank top. He pulls a hunting knife from a sheath at his waist. Before she can say anything, the blade flashes and blood streaks across her upper arm. He laughs. I attack, ptenets. You defend. If you don’t want your shirt cut to shreds, I suggest you move quickly. Otherwise, I clip your wings. She takes a step back, but he’s too quick, and he cuts her arm again, still laughing.
Ava twirls, hitting the number two—and only with her right foot—far fewer times. Her mind is filled with left sixes and right twos. Her mother looks up from her papers nearby. Learn the dance, Ava—your recital is very soon, as soon as your father comes back.
From the city with the Blue Mosque, mama?
The very one, Ava.
Natasha stands over the toilet, vomiting. Now she tries to wash the blood from her shaking hands, but it won’t come off, and the whole sink turns red with her efforts. Ivan laughs behind her. Your first Red Room kill, ptenets, and there you stand, wild-eyed and weeping. For what, a deer? What will you do when Moscow sends you hunting for me? You really should be an American.
Ava walks with her mother into a military office but refuses to go inside. Her mother panics, slapping her. Ava is stunned. General Somodorov is a powerful man, Ava. You need to do what he says, for your father’s sake.
Natasha practices her pliés at the barre, one slim black leotard in a company of fifty others, stretching her graceful arms toward the rafters of the theater while avoiding the concealed pistol strapped to her upper thigh, concealed by her ballet skirt.
Ava sits on the floor against the wall of an institutional-looking bathroom. The tiles are green. She picks at the grout as she tries not to pull the chain holding her to the pipe beneath the sink. It hurts her wrist.
Natasha tears apart an assault rifle in seconds. Her face is stone. Ivan watches as he smokes a Belomorkanal, saying nothing.
Ava sits on a chair in the Odessa lab, one of a dozen children lined in a row. She has wires wrapped around her wrists and forehead. Ivan’s voice counts down—“Tri, dva, odin”—and Ava winces as a loud crackling noise echoes through the room. A Red Room experiment. She glances at her mother, behind a glass wall, only to see that she is crying.
Natasha stares into a rusting mirror over a Red Room bathroom sink. She examines the scar on her upper arm, wincing. It is an X, almost like an hourglass. But her whole body is bruised and battered. She splashes water on her face, looking back into the mirror. One day I will kill you with my own hands, Ivan Somodorov.
Ava lies in a cot, staring at Karolina, her doll. Her wrists are bandaged. Her eyes are red from crying. She hums the song from the ballet studio even now. Tchaikovsky. I will escape you, Ivan Somodorov. One day, I will get as far from here as my father did. You will not own me, the way you own my mother—
And with that, the memories gave way to darkness and then, finally, light.
“She’s waking up,” Alex said. At least Ava thought it was Alex. His voice was faraway.
Ava opened her eyes. She was lying on the bed now. Alex was sitting next to her, his hand on her back. “Thank God. You’re back. You made it.” He kissed her on the cheek.
Natasha was pacing in the room. “I could see it all, Ava. Everything. I’ve never experienced anything like that. It was—”
“Quantum?” Alex suggested.
“That song,” Ava murmured. “That was my mother’s song.”
“From your dance? Swan Lake.” Natasha nodded. “You know what Swan Lake was, of course?”
“A lake? With swans?” Alex asked, reaching for Ava’s hand.
“She sang it to me every night,” Ava said. The corners of her eyes began to tear up.
“A ballet. Very famous, and very Russian.” Natasha’s eyes were flashing. “Generally regarded as an opus. Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky’s opus, in fact. At the Bolshoi.”
“An opus?” Ava stared.
“What can that mean?” Alex asked.
Natasha sat down on the bed next to Ava.
“It means I don’t think Ava’s dance was just a dance at all.”
“You don’t?” Ava sat up.
“No matter what else your mother did, she made certain that you would know one thing, regardless of just how deeply it was buried inside your mind. Dr. Orlova’s own swan song—the last thing she ever worked on.”
“You mean the dance?” Ava put it together. “‘Learn the steps, the steps are key.’ That’s what my mother told me. At least that’s how I remember it.”
“Exactly. Literally. A key. I’m thinking some kind of key code. Possibly even for the very project she was working on. The one Ivan was testing on her child.” She looked at Ava meaningfully.
Ava grabbed Natasha’s arm. “You think I’ve carried it inside me all this time? A message from my mother? Since Odessa?”
“What?” Alex stared. “You think some dance has something to do with the O.P.U.S.? How is that possible?”
“Basically, I think it’s some kind of genetic code rewritten as a mathematical sequence. I’m guessing based on Ava’s own DNA…” Natasha shook her head, looking at Ava. “And that probably wasn’t a ballet studio you’re remembering. There were no other dancers in your memories, right? It might have been some kind of lab.”
“On the floor of the warehouse lab,” Ava said slowly. “We were just there. I saw it. There was some kind of faded pattern all over it, beneath the dust.”
Natasha slid her laptop out of her pack, opening it on the bed in front of them. “I think your mother painted that number on the floor, and I think she devised a numerical sequence that you could memorize. And yes. I think that sequence might even act as some kind of key code to set off the O.P.U.S.”
“Which might mean we could use it to shut it off?” Alex asked. “That’s insane.
“We could at least try to control it,” Natasha said. She was punching numbers on the keyboard as fast as she could. “I don’t want to forget the code.” She smiled at Ava. “Your mother must have been brilliant.”
“And my father,” Ava said slowly. “He worked for Somodorov too. That’s what my mother said. In the city with the Blue Mosque.”
“Istanbul,” Natasha said. �
��Ivan must have another lab.” She looked up from the keyboard. “Which means…”
“There it is. That’s the answer. That’s where Ivan has to be staging his big comeback from,” Alex said.
“Seeing as we know he’s not in Odessa,” Ava added.
Natasha nodded. “If I can program the code into some kind of delivery device—something that we can use to override the circuitry of the O.P.U.S.—”
“How are you going to do that? This isn’t exactly the S.H.I.E.L.D. Brain Trust,” Alex said. He looked around at the shady setting. “I’m not even sure what this place is, but I know it’s not that.”
“Maybe we don’t need S.H.I.E.L.D. Or not more S.H.I.E.L.D. than we already have.” Natasha pulled her black leather jacket off the chair and rummaged through the pockets. She pulled out a small black drive. “This ought to do it. A little gift from Coulson. A high-yield microdrive, straight from the Brain Trust itself.”
“And you think we can use that thing to jam the O.P.U.S. with Dr. Orlova’s code?” Alex took the device from his sister’s hand.
“I think we should try,” Natasha said. “Ava’s mother worked pretty hard to get her daughter that message. Let’s make sure it doesn’t go to waste.”
“My mother didn’t give up. She was trying to help me get free of Ivan the only way she knew how. Swan Lake.” Ava looked at Natasha, overwhelmed. “I would never have known.”
Natasha shrugged.
“Thank you, sestra.” Ava reached for her suddenly, kissing first Natasha’s left cheek, then her right. Russian style. “Strong like an ox and sharp like a razor, that’s what my mother would say about you.”
Natasha pulled away from the hug, looking embarrassed.
“Good job, Tash.” Alex clapped his hand on his sister’s shoulder.
Her mouth twisted into a smile at the name. “You’re right, by the way. You did call me Tasha, once you were old enough to talk. I remembered when Ava and I were linked.”
“You did?” Alex looked surprised.
She nodded. “And Brat? The puppy was mine. I told you to keep an eye on him for me when I was sent to the Krasnaya Komnata.” She looked at him sternly. “Thief.”
“Wait. Really?” He stared at her. “You did?”
She leaned against the wall for support. “You were crying. You didn’t want me to go away with the soldiers. You hated soldiers because of what had happened to our parents.”
Alex sank down to the bed. “I have nightmares sometimes. Bombs are going off. In the snow. There’s lots of snow.” He glanced up at Natasha. “So much I get buried.”
“We hid in the cellar, in the winter. When our house was shelled, the snow fell right into the nursery. We were the only ones to survive.”
“And Brat,” Alex said slowly.
“And Brat. Only his name was Boris until I turned twelve and was sent to the Red Room.”
“Boris?” Alex didn’t look at her. He couldn’t.
Natasha leaned her head back against the wall, looking up at the stained ceiling. Composing herself. “The day the soldiers came for me, I told you that you had to stop crying or you’d scare Boris. Because Boris was your responsibility now, and your little brother. You had to take care of him the way I took care of you—”
“And love him the way that I loved you,” Alex said softly. Ava reached to take his hand.
Natasha didn’t answer.
Alex wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “So I called him Brat. I let him sleep in my bed. I fed him my potatoes, right off my plate.” He spoke in Russian. Ava never let go of his hand. “I remember that. Trying to not make noise. Trying not to cry, with the dog beneath my blankets.”
Natasha looked back at him now. “You wrote letters about that dog for years. Until you stopped.”
“Why did I stop?” He frowned, trying to think.
“Because you turned twelve and then the soldiers came for you,” she said quietly. “And Ivan’s Red Room was no place for even a dog.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I remember.” Ava squeezed Alex’s hand. “To Ivan Somodorov, we were the animals.”
Late that night, Ava and Alex curled together on the bed. Ava could hear Natasha out in the hall, on the phone with Tony Stark, who was checking and cross-checking every name on Ivan’s list of Entangled test cases.
Aside from Ava Orlova and Alex Romanoff.
At least Natasha trusted him enough to talk to him. She didn’t trust anyone else at S.H.I.E.L.D. and didn’t want to risk another Quantum connection.
We can’t gamble on losing Ivan now. Not when we’re so close.
Ava focused on the conversation. Natasha seemed to be arguing with Tony about how to neutralize the now eighty-seven confirmed Entangled assets on Ivan’s list and whether or not to alert the 115 global intelligence networks potentially compromised by them.
Ivan’s Entangled army.
If S.H.I.E.L.D. discovers it, they’ll discover us.
Alex and me.
We’re in those files too.
In the eyes of S.H.I.E.L.D., we’re as dangerous as any of Ivan’s zombies, aren’t we?
If they find out—if anything happens—I’ll never escape 7B.
Or worse, I’ll have electrodes strapped to my head for the rest of my life.
She couldn’t stand to think about it, and she suspected Natasha was outside in the hall, instead of in the room with them, because she was concerned about the same thing.
What will happen to us?
Ava lay in silence, listening to Alex’s heart pound. Alex hadn’t shown any signs of being compromised, but they couldn’t rule it out. He must be as anxious as she was.
“Alex?” Ava raised her head off his chest in the darkness. “Do you think Natasha’s right about my mother? That she was trying to save me?”
He slid his arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
Ava lay her cheek back on his chest. “I hope it’s true.”
I’m still worried that it’s not.
That we can’t get out of this trouble, not even with Natasha Romanoff on our side.
That we don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into.
Alex pulled his arm even more tightly around her. “Don’t worry. Tash will figure out how to shut down Ivan’s whole brainwashing machine, and everything will go back to normal again,” he said. “You’ll see.”
“Everything?” Ava lay her hand against his cheek. “What if I don’t want everything to go back to normal?” she asked. “What if I like some things the way they are now?”
“What things?” She could hear the smile in his voice.
She pulled her face up next to his and kissed him along his jawline. “I can think of a few.” He wrapped his arms around her and rolled over with her held close to him.
After that, there really wasn’t much thinking.
S.H.I.E.L.D. EYES ONLY
CLEARANCE LEVEL X
LINE-OF-DUTY DEATH [LODD] INVESTIGATION
REF: S.H.I.E.L.D. CASE 121A415
AGENT IN COMMAND [AIC]: PHILLIP COULSON
RE: AGENT NATASHA ROMANOFF A.K.A. BLACK WIDOW, A.K.A. NATASHA ROMANOVA
TRANSCRIPT: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, LODD INQUIRY HEARINGS.
DOD: Are you saying the minor asset had a weaponized memory?
ROMANOFF: One memory in particular. Yes, sir.
DOD: And a biological trigger was hidden inside a child’s mind in the form of a ballet dance?
ROMANOFF: I believe so, sir.
DOD: Does this sound remotely plausible to you now, in the light of day?
ROMANOFF: As plausible as unicorns, sir.
DOD: And you believed it was some sort of security code for O.P.U.S.?
ROMANOFF: I believed that if Dr. Orlova was smart enough to build the program, she was smart enough to take it down, sir. And I think she believed that she had made her daughter strong enough to do it.
DOD: So you took your Red Room witch hunt to Istanbul, all becaus
e of some ballerina ghost story about her dead mommy from when she was a kid?
ROMANOFF: That, because if the QE bond was that strong for Ava and me, I didn’t want to think about what the other ninety-nine Entangled test cases could be doing.
S.H.I.E.L.D. JET
SOMEWHERE OVER THE BLACK SEA
The flight was a straight shot, ninety minutes south over the Black Sea. Istanbul was on the horizon, and Natasha was at the controls.
Seeing as there were no trains and no buses that could connect Odessa to Istanbul in the current political climate, they had resorted to Natasha’s commandeered S.H.I.E.L.D. jet. She had ditched it in the empty stockyard of an abandoned steel mill in a barren stretch of land east of Odessa; it had been difficult to even get a city taxi to venture that far out.
Alex could only wonder what their driver had thought on his way back to the city when the plane had ripped through the sky almost on top of the road.
“This isn’t exactly the stealth approach I had in mind,” Natasha said. “But on short order, it’s the best we can do. I’ll put her down at a base outside of the city. It’ll work out.” She frowned. She was all operative now. She had stopped using unnecessary language when she’d strapped on her second semi-automatic.
“This all has to work out,” Ava said, from the copilot’s seat. “There isn’t a plan B.”
“Actually, there is,” Natasha said.
“What? It’s not like we can call in S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Alex said.
“And I’m not going back to 7B,” Ava repeated fiercely.
“Nobody’s going to make you go back, Ava. And I’m not feeling all that charitable toward S.H.I.E.L.D. at the moment myself,” Natasha said. “Seeing as I don’t exactly love the idea of someone wiping my brain.”
“So what’s plan B?” Alex asked.
“We do what we have to do,” Natasha said, keeping her eyes fixed on her radar screen.
It took a moment for the words to sink in.
Ava frowned. “We’re not going to let anyone neutralize eighty-seven people like me, or for all we know even Alex. Eighty-seven more people who never had a choice about what Ivan did to them.”
Black Widow: Forever Red Page 23