Black Widow: Red Vengeance (A Marvel YA Novel)

by Margaret Stohl

  That’s when I called you, Dad. Because I’m still pretty freaked out and I think I might need a ride—

  Dante stopped talking and waited. “Hello? Dad? You still there?”

  There was no answer. He looked down at his garbage cell phone, the one that had already been his father’s, and then his mother’s. He knew he was lucky he was the oldest of his brothers and sisters, or it would have been even worse.

  How much worse could it get?

  His cell was completely dead, and he hadn’t even known. He’d just kept talking, spilling his guts out to his police-captain father, who like usual, probably didn’t even have time to talk. Or had one eye on his paperwork the whole time. Or the game—

  “Crap,” Dante said.

  When did the phone cut out? How much did my dad even hear?

  He hung up the phone, slipping it back into his pocket, and sat back down on the curb. He was completely freaked out, freezing his butt off, and only three blocks from the subway station. The trains were off-line. A cab home was going to put him back more babysitting hours than he could even stand to think about.

  Should he go back and wait at the subway stop? The one where he’d just seen something totally insane happen, if not completely impossible?

  At least I wouldn’t freeze to death in there.

  Then he heard her voice—

  “Dante. You okay? What are you doing?”

  He knew it was Ava. He just didn’t know what he had seen, aside from nothing that he’d ever seen before. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest.

  He turned slowly around to face her. Sana was right behind her. “What was that back there?”

  Ava walked toward him. “Don’t overreact.”

  Sana caught up with them on the street corner. “I can see why he’s losing it—what kind of sport was that?”

  “Yeah,” Dante said, looking at Ava suspiciously. “And how do we know you put the Jedi weapons away?”

  Ava sighed, yanking open her jacket to show the handles of her blades shoved back inside her waistband. Then she held up her empty hands. “There. See? It’s all good. No big thing.”

  “You’ve got Day-Glo power blades and you might be a ninja and I’m pretty sure you just mugged a mugger during a mugging. It’s a big thing,” Dante said.

  “That wasn’t a mugging, it was a drug deal,” Ava said.

  Dante looked at her. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

  Ava tried again. “Look, think of it as fencing. We’ve all seen each other at a tournament before. I’ve seen you, you’ve seen me. Try not to see me as anything different from that.”

  Sana laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “Not different?” Dante was practically shouting. “Fencing happens in a gym. On a strip. With Kevlar protective gear. And both people have blades, by the way.”

  “I know, I know,” Ava said. “In retrospect, there was probably a better example.”

  “You think?” He snorted.

  Sana just shook her head. “How did I not know this about you, Mysh?”

  “I wasn’t always like this. Something happened in Istanbul,” Ava said. “Something sort of complicated.”

  “You mean, that Istanbul?” Where my best friend died?

  “There’s kind of a lot more to that story,” Ava said. She looked at Sana pleadingly. “I wanted to tell you, San, I swear. And not like this. I mean, I know this all seems a little weird—”

  “A little weird?” Dante could feel himself starting to really lose it.

  Sana tried to step between them. “Calm down, Kid Cop. Think about it. This probably isn’t the wackest thing that’s happened in a New York subway.”

  “I’m pretty sure it is, actually.” He could feel his face going red. “And anyways—now you’re going to take her side?”

  Sana shrugged. “Probably not the wackest thing I’ve ever seen, either.”

  Ava took her friend by the hand with a smile. “Like I said, I would have told you if I could have. It’s just, well…”

  “What?” Dante wasn’t buying it. “That every word coming out of your mouth is a lie?”

  “No. That’s not true,” Ava said. She had gone pale, though, so Dante figured it probably was at least a little true. “Not every word.”

  He shook his head. “Are you really in school right now? Did you even know my best friend? Did you actually love him?”

  There.

  He’d finally said it. He’d only been thinking it for, what? A year now?

  Ava looked crushed. Then mad. Like, crazy mad.

  “You know what? You think my whole life is a lie? You want to see what the military school I go to looks like? Come on, then. Let’s go. Let’s do this.”

  “Now?” Dante wasn’t so sure about that.

  Ava nodded, holding up a hand as a cab pulled magically over to the side of the curb. “Right now. I have to get back there. I have something important that the others need to see. We need to hurry.”

  Sana waved to the cabdriver, pulling open the front passenger door. Dante wondered why she was riding in the front when she didn’t have to, but then, he also barely ever went in cabs enough to know or care.

  “Your teachers?” Dante asked.

  “Sure,” Ava said, sounding tired. “Something like that.” Then she looked at him. “Can I borrow your phone?”

  S.H.I.E.L.D. EYES ONLY

  CLEARANCE LEVEL X

  SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES & INDIVIDUALS (SCI) INVESTIGATION

  AGENT IN COMMAND (AIC): PHILLIP COULSON

  RE: AGENT NATASHA ROMANOFF A.K.A. BLACK WIDOW

  A.K.A. NATASHA ROMANOVA

  AAA HEARING TRANSCRIPT

  CC: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, SCI INQUIRY

  COULSON: So you were looking for Ava. She was looking for you. The Triskelion was under attack.

  ROMANOFF: And all our secure phones are hacked.

  COULSON: This was the first time you knew Faith could kill?

  ROMANOFF: You mean, apart from how any street drug could? Yes. Poor Barry.

  COULSON: Data scientist James J. Berrimore. Newly transferred from the CIA’s new DDI, Directorate of Digital Innovation.

  ROMANOFF: He was just a kid—he couldn’t have been much older than Alexei.

  COULSON: Seventeen months.

  ROMANOFF: What?

  COULSON: James Berrimore was a year and five months older than your brother.

  ROMANOFF: Phil—

  COULSON: I had the same thought. I looked up his file.

  ROMANOFF: Of course. That was the point. To make me remember, as if I could forget.

  COULSON: Another message. Like the way he died.

  ROMANOFF: Bleeding from the nose and mouth, I’d seen it before. I knew there were toxins and poisons and even venoms that could cause those symptoms. Our military had experimented with all of them.

  COULSON: You mean, you knew from your previous employment?

  ROMANOFF: It’s not a spoiler. You can say the words. I know what I was.

  COULSON: When you were a Red Room operative?

  ROMANOFF: When I was a Russian spy.

  BLACK WIDOW’S APARTMENT,

  LITTLE ODESSA, BROOKLYN

  Natasha tore through her apartment but it was no use. She couldn’t find anything that would lead her to Ava. The dirty pile of clothes in the bathroom hamper revealed nothing. Aside from the laundry and the used towel, there was no sign that she’d been there at all.

  Meow—

  The cat—she didn’t really think of it as her cat—wandered in through the open window by the fire escape. It leaped to the top of the counter, crossed the outer ledge of the sink, padded across the dish drain, and stuck its head into the trash can.

  “Do you smell something?” Natasha picked up the cat and dropped it to the floor. She reached into the can and pulled out a used paper coffee cup.

  Rude Brews? That’s where you were? But is that where you are?

  She was frustrated. She’d been trying the s
uper’s phone, down on the first floor, but Ava wasn’t picking up.

  Or something’s wrong—

  She shook off the memory of Barry’s bloody face resting against his computer screen. Whoever was after her had just demonstrated the ability to reach into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Triskelion and take whatever life they wanted. Not even the wonks on the tenth floor were safe anymore. The threat wasn’t just a hack on a secure line. It wasn’t even a magnesium charge.

  It was a life, her life, and Ava’s, and the stakes had suddenly risen exponentially.

  Natasha stared at the coffee cup in her hand.

  Where are you, sestra?

  For the first time in a long while, instead of cursing her Quantum connection to Ava, Natasha actually wanted to use it.

  It was always Ava who could reach her. She wasn’t so certain it even worked the other way. How does she do it? Natasha closed her eyes.

  Where are you, Ava? Talk to me. How can I find you?

  She focused harder. Her breathing slowed. She pushed past her own conscious thoughts, letting her mind go blank….

  Ava Anatalya Orlova—

  A knock at the door startled her, and her eyes flew open. She pulled the Glock from the back of her waistband and pressed herself against the wall nearest to the door. “Yes?”

  “You got a phone call, honey.”

  Natasha frowned and pulled open the door to see her building supervisor, the ten-thousand-year-old and four-foot-tall Mrs. Smalley, in a housecoat, holding out her phone.

  “Make it snappy, I’m waiting for a call from the furnace repairman. And the next time you give out my number, it better be to that Iron Man guy.”

  The cat ran past Mrs. Smalley’s legs with a hiss. The old lady hissed back, then looked at Natasha. “Take it.”

  Natasha eyed the phone like it could detonate at any second (possible, given the day, but also how she viewed all phones) and kept her distance. “Did they say who it is?”

  “Your sister.”

  Natasha looked relieved and took the phone.

  “Ava?”

  There was no one on the line. All she could hear now was a dial tone, followed by a strange clicking sound—

  “Get down!” She clutched Mrs. Smalley and dove down the stairwell as the apartment exploded into an angry ball of fire and smoke and flying debris behind them.

  S.H.I.E.L.D. EYES ONLY

  CLEARANCE LEVEL X

  CONFIDENTIAL: PHILLIP COULSON

  CLASSIFIED / FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY (FOUO) / CRITICAL PROGRAM INFORMATION (CPI) / LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE (LES) / TOP SECRET / SUITE AB ENCRYPTION / SIPRNET DISTRIBUTION ONLY (SIPDIS) / JCOS / S.H.I.E.L.D.

  ** FILE COPY OF INCOMING TRANSMISSION ** FROM THE PENTAGON **

  Phil,

  Just got word of the attack on S.H.I.E.L.D. Losing good people was the hardest part of every tour of duty I ever pulled. Losing a kid from a secure facility on American soil is even harder.

  Assume you guys are doing a floor-to-ceiling wipe? Let me know if there is anything we can do at JCOS to assist.

  Also: just saw the cable re the attempted Romanoff hit. As you can imagine, the Oval was not happy. He hears the word S.H.I.E.L.D. and thinks Sokovia or Ultron or that hammer guy.

  Me to you, Phil: if you’ve gotten yourselves into some messed-up situation somehow, give me a heads-up. I’ll run interference as long as I can.

  And buffalo wings soon.

  ARTIE

  OFFICE OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

  9999 JOINT STAFF PENTAGON

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  S.H.I.E.L.D. NEW YORK TRISKELION,

  EAST RIVER

  THE GREAT CITY OF NEW YORK

  The first clue came from her fingertips, where the blue sparks flew in a shower to the industrial carpet covering the floor of Maria Hill’s office.

  Ava was already getting the lecture of a lifetime by the time she felt the explosion. It almost rocked her off her feet; her eyes went blank and bright, and for a moment she thought she was going to pass out.

  Then came the searing pain.

  Natasha.

  “You were out of line, Cadet.” Coulson sat on the edge of Maria’s desk, glaring at Ava. “And as soon as Agent Romanoff gets back, she’s going to have a few things of her own to add—”

  “I know, sir,” Ava stammered, though she could barely manage to get the words out. Her head hurt so badly she could barely stay on her feet.

  Natasha—are you okay?

  Maria shook her head, pacing behind him. “Now isn’t the time for S.H.I.E.L.D. playdates—”

  Ava stopped listening. Instead, she reached out in her mind, past the edges of her mind, of the base, of the East River. She pulled herself, one block at a time, closer and closer to Little Odessa, where Natasha’s apartment stood.

  Closer. I need to get closer—

  She couldn’t see her fingers turning blue with light, but she could feel the warmth moving up her arms, encircling her entire body.

  She clenched her fists, and the electricity burned brighter—and she could feel her mind moving with increased speed and clarity.

  There we go—

  Maria was still talking. “We’ve just lost a good kid—and a valuable analyst—to some kind of unknown chemical agent, well inside our own base—”

  What’s happening? Talk to me—

  Something’s wrong, sestra.

  Ava balled up her toes as the energy shot through them. Now she could feel the tiny pinpricks of blue light piercing each of her pupils.

  “Not when people are getting killed for no apparent reason other than a glass vial full of black—”

  Ava looked up. “Sand?” she asked.

  Maria looked at her strangely.

  Ava pulled something out of her pocket and held it out toward her. “Like this?” It was another small glass vial, this one half-full of the gleaming black sand.

  “Where did you get that?” Coulson asked as Maria stared at the vial.

  “From the hands of a man who had just jumped in front of a train,” Ava said. Now the pain was so strong she had to bite the inside of her own cheek to try to focus on what the agents were saying to her.

  Sestra—

  “What? Why?” Coulson asked.

  “Why did he jump? Because the guy holding this stuff told him to—” Ava pressed the vial into Maria’s hand. “Which is even worse news than you realize, because this is the same stuff we found at the Amazonas encampment.”

  “How is that possible?” Coulson took the vial from Maria’s hand to examine it more closely.

  Ava shook her head. Sunspots were flashing behind her eyes, almost like lens flare, which made no sense because she was inside. Der’mo. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have believed it, either, if I hadn’t seen it. Ask the others. They’re waiting in the hall.”

  “The others?” Maria asked. “Other…children?”

  “This hall?” Coulson asked. “You mean, here?”

  This secure hall? This classified military base? He didn’t have to say it. Ava didn’t care; she had bigger problems than Coulson. The entire room was spinning now, and she hurried to force the words out. “Sana and Dante. I brought them with me. Go ahead, I know. You’re going to flip out.” She shook her head. “But I can’t talk about it now. I have to go.”

  She made it only as far as the door.

  The moment her hand touched the sleek, steel handle, her eyes closed involuntarily as her mind was suddenly flooded with images of fire and smoke, of screaming and sirens. Then Ava heard a voice, very small, as if from very far away.

  Ava—I can feel you but I can’t hear you—

  If you’re safe, stay where you are—they’re here.

  Ava’s eyes flew open. She opened her mouth and a flood of blue light poured out. She flung her arms wide and the blue streams pulsed out from her fingertips, spreading and crackling across the floor beneath her and the ceiling above her like the roots and branches of a tree, or maybe the dendrite
s of a neuron.

  The sparks went scattering as she formed two words, with great difficulty.

  “Natasha—

  “Now.”

  Then her eyes rolled upward and the room went black.

  When Ava awoke again she was lying on one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s infamous aluminum-and-canvas “body bag” cots (as in, you’d sleep better in one) in the infirmary.

  Her head ached at the base of her skull, like someone had been drilling. She turned her head to one side—away from the ache—

  Alexei was sitting in the chair next to her bed, his head in his hands.

  She tried to say his name, but only a groan came out.

  Alexei looked up, a nearly palpable expression of relief on his face. “Oh, thank God. You had me worried, Mysh. Don’t ever do that again.”

  She smiled and moved her fingers toward him, dangling off the edge of her bed. “You left me,” she murmured. “You just disappeared.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.” A shadow crossed his face. “I couldn’t handle it. I got jealous, watching you talk to my own friend. How stupid is that?”

  “You can’t just leave a person behind like that,” she said, quietly. “Not unless you promise to come back.”

  “I’m here now, aren’t I?” Alexei climbed out of the chair and squatted next to the bed. Now her eyes were level with his. “I’ll never leave you, Ava Anatalya Orlova. I swear it on my—death.”

  Another voice interrupted, this time from the other side of the room.

  “I’m right here, Ava. I didn’t disappear. I came back. You’re just confused. Can you hear me?”

  Natasha.

  Ava heard a beeping sound, and a whisper. “I think she’s hallucinating. Can someone send in the doctor?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Ava said, rolling back over. She was relieved to see that the Widow looked unhurt, sitting upright on the edge of the next cot, still holding a mustard-colored plastic cup with a bent straw. “And so are you, I see.”

  “Cranberry juice,” Natasha said, handing it to her. “Why do S.H.I.E.L.D. nurses always want to give everyone cranberry juice?”

  Ava sat up, taking the cup. “Thanks.”