Black Widow: Red Vengeance (A Marvel YA Novel)

by Margaret Stohl

  He smiled somberly and clapped his hand on Ava’s shoulder. “I don’t think we’re going anywhere, buddy.”

  She didn’t understand what he meant until it became clear that Natasha was never returning to the bridge—a fact that was underscored when the lone Sikorsky chopper lifted off from the deck without being cleared, and with a pilot whose identity was classified.

  Tony shrugged. “They’re just lucky she didn’t take an F-35.” He looked at Ava. “Sometimes I forget what a badass pilot she is.”

  “I don’t,” Ava said. She tapped her forefinger against her temple. “It’s all right here, if I push hard enough.”

  “Let’s get out of here.” Tony reached out and put his arm around Ava, letting her lean against him as they walked back to the plane.

  “We’ll work it out, kid. Don’t worry.”

  But I am worried.

  What are you doing, Natashskaya?

  Ava closed her eyes and let her mind roll outward—feeling her way out into the sky, toward the horizon and the person she had last seen disappear into it—but Natasha didn’t answer.

  It almost felt like she was actively keeping Ava out.

  Is that even possible?

  The deck was quiet.

  Nobody on the USS Kirby had given their missing chopper too much thought; they were all too busy watching the live feed from Guangdong, where a drone camera recorded the first images of the three enormous hits simultaneously taken by the reactor—which now burned in, as one pundit noted, “the shape of a single threatening kanji of violence, not unlike the Roman alphabet’s letter Y.”

  “I’ve never been threatened by kanji before,” Tony said as he ducked into the cockpit of the Stark Jet. “Or even the alphabet. But maybe that’s why N-Ro bailed on us.”

  “I guess. Wow.” Ava buckled herself into the copilot seat, to his right. “She’s really gone. I did not see that coming.”

  Tony glanced over at her. “Is this your first time in the big-kid seat?”

  Ava nodded. “I’m pretty sure you’re breaking about a thousand federal regulations by letting me sit up here.”

  “You should take a picture. You might not get into that chair again for a long, long time.” Tony flipped a row of unmarked switches, and Ava knew he was readying the plane for takeoff.

  “Good idea,” she said, sliding open the camera app.

  “Best selfie ever.” Tony grinned. “How would you top that, a moonwalk?” He thought about it. “Though I just took a good shot in front of the CERN Hadron Collider. Where, by the way, there is a whole lot of good research going on right now. Something you and N-Ro might want to think about, if she ever lands.”

  “I have a great one of myself getting photobombed by a monkey in Rio,” Ava said, not paying attention. “Wait, I’ll show you.”

  She scrolled through her phone. “You think a monkey will be all sweet and cute, but then you actually meet one and—”

  Her voice cut off.

  “That bad, eh?” Tony checked his radio, then saw her face and stopped. “What?”

  “These are my Rio pictures.” Ava was staring at her phone, frozen. “Why have I never looked at these?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe because you were busy taking out a hacker and a jungleful of smugglers-slash-drug-runners-slash-arms-dealers-slash-terrorists, while fighting off drug dealers in Brooklyn subways and chasing down a handful of stolen nukes?” He shrugged. “But that’s just a hunch.”

  Ava stared at one particular image—then dragged her fingers across it, to zoom in on the frame and make it as large as she could.

  “Tony—” But beyond that, she didn’t seem to be able to get the words out.

  It was the picture.

  She’d scrolled past it before, but she’d only looked at the two big faces that were the focus of it—her face and the monkey’s.

  But there were three faces in this photograph, and she could see that now.

  Down in the right-hand corner of the frame, there was a third blurry profile, hidden by shadows that she now slowly began to filter out.

  “I think the monkey wasn’t the only photobomber in this picture,” Ava said, still in shock. She held out the cell phone to Tony.

  There she was.

  The Girl in the Green Dress—accidentally captured on screen as she fled the monument—minutes before the Harley attack. The face was blurry, but it was nothing the facial recognition protocols at S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t deal with, she suspected.

  “Is that her?” He was incredulous.

  Ava nodded. “Just after the brush pass. I didn’t know I had it.”

  “Do you know what this means?” He studied the photo with a growing smile.

  Ava nodded. “Now we can run it through the database. We can get a name, maybe even a GPS for her.”

  “Hallelujah,” Tony said. “Finally a way around that crappy RFID tracker. We have to get this back to S.H.I.E.L.D.”

  He handed her the phone, and Ava immediately hit the number for Natasha. It went straight to voice mail.

  Tony slid on his aviators. “Times like this, my young friend, are why going ninety-two percent of the speed of sound just isn’t fast enough.”

  But as the Stark Jet ripped into the sky, Ava couldn’t help but wonder what exactly it was that they were speeding toward.

  Ava had fallen asleep sitting up in her seat; she didn’t wake up until the Statue of Liberty was in front of them. The Stark Jet flew straight to the East River base, and Tony seemed antsy the moment they left his plane for the Triskelion hangar. “You get that image to the lab. I have somewhere to be.”

  Ava looked at him curiously. “What’s the rush?”

  “I blew off an investors meeting for CERN.” He sighed. “Now Pepper is punishing me by making me show up for everything on my calendar.”

  “So?”

  “So I never show up for anything on my calendar. Do you know how full my calendar is? It’s sadistic. Who are all these people?”

  “Don’t ask me, I don’t have a calendar.” Ava smiled. “I’ll let you know if the database comes up with anything. Have fun at your—whatever.”

  “Parade,” Tony said, looking glum.

  “Of course.” She shook her head. “Other people have lunch plans. Only Tony Stark would have parade plans.”

  He looked miserable. “Honorary grandmaster. The first annual Stark Parade of Holiday Heroes.”

  “Ah, right.” She nodded. “There are posters for it in the subway.”

  “I’m the guy who throws candy at the screaming children.”

  “To the children, I think. Not at them,” Ava said.

  “I tried to get out of it, but you know these big monster-balloon parades,” Tony said.

  “Not really.”

  “They don’t wait for anyone. Once you inflate those suckers, they’re full of hot air and it’s go time. And the crowds are vicious. Did you ever try to get near that tree at Rockefeller Center during the month of December?”

  “No,” Ava said. “Is it December?”

  Tony grinned. “Spoken like an almost-Romanoff.”

  She looked at him strangely. “I’m the wrong person to ask. I always hated balloons. They had them at the Moscow Zoo, and I walked around with a finger in each ear, in case one popped.”

  “Well, these balloons are the size of houses, so I suggest you skip the parade. They don’t make a finger or an ear big enough for that.”

  “No problem.” Ava held up her phone. “I have a criminal mastermind to ID, remember?”

  “You have your fun, I’ll have—well, at least you’ll have your fun,” Tony said with a sigh. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  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

  TRANS
CRIPT: NEWSWIRE, EXCERPTED

  CC: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, SCI INQUIRY HEARINGS

  [BREAKING] NUCLEAR MISSILES STRIKE CHINESE REACTORS IN GUANGDONG; ROGUE WARHEADS AS YET UNCLAIMED (AP)

  (BEIJING) BREAKING: The latest report issued by the Central Military Commission of the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Republic of China has confirmed that three armed nuclear missiles have struck the coastal Chinese region known as Guangdong.

  Regional authorities prepared for the worst, evacuating all nonessential personnel and shutting down the area’s power grid in the minutes before the attack.

  Bordering the two key economic growth sectors of Macao and Hong Kong, Guangdong houses a defunct nuclear reactor that was considered the likely target for the strike, according to several unconfirmed sources in the U.S. Department of Defense.

  The president of China has made it clear that the author of these attacks would be apprehended and punished. “Let the missiles fall. China is a world superpower that will not be subdued—not by terrorist action, nor by Western governments hiding behind the pretense of rogue insurrection. We intend to demonstrate this resolve, and our military might, in the days to come.”

  NATO, the United Nations, the European Union, and the member states of the G7 have joined together in condemnation of the attacks. [Developing.]

  QUEENS WAREHOUSE, NEW YORK

  THE GREAT CITY OF NEW YORK

  While saving the world and fighting crime by intercepting drug dealers at midnight in Morningside Heights had sounded dramatic at first, Dante’s plan had a few obvious flaws. For one thing, he had an ironclad curfew. For another, he had a suspicious mother and a cop father, and it hadn’t been lost on either of them that Dante hadn’t left the house at night for a year now, since Alexei was gone.

  By the time Dante faked going to sleep, crawled out his window and over the garage overlook, rode his bike to the bus stop, got the NJ Transit in downtown Montclair, took the PATH from Newark Penn Station to New York Penn Station, not to mention the subway up to 116th—he was late.

  When he got to the bus stop where he’d met Army Jacket that afternoon, nobody was there.

  Great.

  He checked the time on his phone.

  Twelve fifteen. I’m late. But where’s Sana?

  She wasn’t answering her regular cell, and hadn’t since he’d gotten on the bus. And he couldn’t call her burner phone; that number was in his burner, which Army Jacket had taken.

  Crap.

  The only other people on the street were a group of girls laughing and clinging to each other in the cold as they crossed the street to Barnard College.

  What if they already came? What if Sana was here and something happened? How stupid, to think I could come on the scene and play hero—

  Maybe his father was right. Maybe he needed to get a new plan for his life, because it didn’t look like law enforcement was exactly his speed.

  Then Dante noticed a beat-up-looking white van on the side of Broadway, in front of a closed-up fruit stand. The motor was running, and white smoke blasted out into the cold. Is that the dealer? Why else would they be sitting there? None of the shops are open. What are they waiting for, if not me?

  He stared for a moment, then pulled up his hood and crossed the street toward the van. They might have seen something. They might know if she left with someone.

  The driver’s window was dark when Dante knocked on it. “Hey. Can I talk to you for a second? I just have a question—”

  When the window rolled down, the first thing he saw was Sana’s face, wide-eyed, bound and gagged, in the passenger seat. When he turned to see the driver, he got something that felt like a can of Mace in his eyes. It stung as badly as he imagined Mace did, but when he rubbed his eyes, it felt like granules of sand were inside.

  Dante didn’t have to be a genius or a scientist to know what it was.

  Faith. I’ve been exposed—

  Then he heard the crack of metal against bone—felt the flash of pain trigger across his body—saw Sana’s eyes widen as he pitched forward and landed in a pool of inky-black nothingness.

  It was the pain in Dante’s head that woke him up.

  Holy crap, does that hurt—

  It stabbed down from the crown of his skull, shooting all the way to the deep interior of his brain, Humpty-Dumpty-style—only the king’s horsemen seemed to be spooning out his soft-boiled brain for breakfast.

  Every pain receptor in my head is on fire.

  Every single one.

  Even the follicles of his hair hurt where they touched the top of his head. His skin burned and the nerves behind his eyes were bulging against his eyeballs. He wanted to stick a fork inside and pop them, to let the pressure out.

  I’m dying. This is what it feels like to be dying.

  It has to be.

  I can’t imagine feeling worse—

  Then it hurt too much to think, and he faded away.

  The world was still blurred, dark around the edges, lighter in the center, when Dante realized he was conscious again.

  He tried to see. He waited for a moment, but his eyes couldn’t focus the way eyes were supposed to. He was stuck in some kind of perpetual haze, half-awake, half-dreaming.

  Fight it off.

  His body was heavy and sluggish, and his mind just wanted to go back into the warm darkness he’d just emerged from.

  No.

  Don’t let it take you.

  You don’t even know how long you’ve already been out.

  Dante thought of the man on the subway tracks.

  Faith—

  Remember. That’s what this is. You won’t be able to resist forever, but you have to try—

  He closed his eyes.

  He tried to touch his throbbing eye, but found he could not move his hand. He was a motionless puppet, a stiff form. Probably some part of his brain was already messed up enough to be stalled out, waiting for more instructions. He still had his conscious mind, though, and that was something.

  Okay. So you can’t see? Don’t look, genius.

  You have other senses. Listen.

  What’s out there?

  Voices, echoing.

  A sharp, brief clanging sound.

  Something heavy, scraping against something hard.

  Is that concrete?

  Somewhere industrial.

  Not a place meant for people.

  Now he could make out the indistinct murmur of many voices, some at a distance, others much closer. All coming from above, high over his head.

  So I’m on the ground. They’re standing above me.

  The echo means the space is big. Maybe even huge.

  A warehouse.

  How many other voices did he hear? Hundreds? Thousands? He tried to tell one from the next, but they all began to blur together, and he found he lost count when he tried to define them.

  YOU ARE THE FAITHFUL—

  The voice came into the background of his mind, fuzzy with some kind of neural static, as if from an immense loudspeaker lodged in his skull.

  The Faithful—

  Dante tried to focus on other sounds, the ones not coming from his own mind. The ones coming from the space around him.

  Working.

  That’s the clanging noise, tools.

  Machinery.

  IN YOU WE WILL ACHIEVE GLORY—

  How did that voice get in my head?

  WITH YOU WE SHARE ALL—

  How can I get it to stop?

  OUR GLORIOUS RETURN TO POWER—

  I think I’m going to be sick.

  Dante opened one eye.

  He saw the blurry outline of trucks, tankers almost. A rectangle of sky behind them. A garage door, but bigger.

  A cargo door.

  Coming in from the street.

  The voice returned a third time.

  YOU WILL NOT STRAY—

  I will not stray, Dante thought.

  YOU WILL NOT BETRAY US—

  I will no
t betray you, Dante thought.

  WE SHARE ONE GREAT CAUSE—

  One cause, Dante thought.

  Wait—

  He tried to force himself to think about the words.

  Don’t listen—

  It was harder than it seemed.

  Stop-stop-stop-stop-stop—

  He tried to tune out anything coming into his mind.

  Dante strained to see with his peripheral vision. Out in the warehouse space, he saw massive teams of people, crawling all over the floor, working on something, though he couldn’t see well enough to know what it was.

  A giant puzzle?

  TODAY IS THE DAY WE ACT—

  Today is the—Today is the day—Today-bee-cee-dee-ee-ef-geeeeeeeeee—

  Come on. Just keep thinking anything but the words, Dante thought.

  THE DAY WE MAKE OURSELVES HEARD—

  The day—bee-cee-dee-ee-ef-geeeeeeeeee—

  He couldn’t take it anymore.

  Grunting, he rolled slowly to his side, sweating from the effort.

  He saw a blurry face, the only one he could make out in the watery distortion around him. He knew that it belonged to the girl lying next to him, out of focus as she was. Because he knew her—

  Sana, he tried to shout.

  His lips barely moved, and no sound came out.

  He summoned all his strength and flung one hand out, pitching and rolling himself toward her—and as he began to move, he saw something.

  There, a dark stain in an otherwise indistinct blur of grays, was an object lying next to her pocket.

  A phone.

  Her burner phone.

  She must have had it with her.

  He strained to reach, his fingers crawling across the rough concrete, a few centimeters at a time. Slowly, finally, his fingers reached the phone, tightening around it as he rolled onto his back.

  He pressed one random button, then another.

  “Hello?”

  In the distance, far over his head, a face came into view.

  “Is anyone there?”

  It was blurry, almost low resolution, but from where he lay, it had to be massive.

  “Sana? Dante? Is that you?”

  The face was eerie. It stared down at him as if from great heights, but Dante had lost all sense of time and space, so he didn’t know what he was actually seeing.