He knew he must be falling under the influence of the drug, though, because everything around him was becoming more and more unreal.
Even the face he was looking up at now.
Especially the face.
Impossible.
Could it be—? No—
I’m hallucinating.
It’s the Faith.
But he opened his eyes wide and looked a second time, just to be certain.
Is that—
Iron Man?
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
TRANSCRIPT: NEWSWIRE, EXCERPTED
CC: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, SCI INQUIRY HEARINGS
[BREAKING] WORLD LEADERS ASSEMBLE AT U.N.; MONREALE, CYPRUS, GUANGDONG REMAIN A MYSTERY (AP)
(NEW YORK) BREAKING: An emergency session of the United Nations convened in Manhattan today as global leaders attempted to reach a consensus response to the nuclear missile crisis of the past forty-eight hours.
While no one organization or government has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which saw five unaccounted-for nuclear missiles deployed directly over the populated land and water regions, or military assets, of the European Union, Russia, and China, some aspects of the crisis are indisputable, according to U.N. secretary-general Jean-Bertrand Allois:
“Nuclear missiles are not free, nor are they easy to acquire. No coalition on the planet would threaten a sovereign nation—let alone three in one day—without the assurance of some powerful allies. The world community will not rest until these alliances are brought to light, and the perpetrators are punished.”
Some military analysts have pointed to the lack of mass casualties as proof that the strikes were not the work of traditional terror groups, though a credible alternative scenario has yet to be offered, other than what Arthur Bailey, press liaison for the U.S. Office of the Joint Chiefs has called “the work of madmen.” [Developing]
NATO RAPID REACTION FORCE
TRAINING CAMP, ADAZI BASE
FIFTY KILOMETERS FROM RIGA, LATVIA
By the time Natasha touched down at NATO’s Adazi encampment, she had been in the air for nearly four hours. Most of that time had been occupied by reliving old missions, revisiting old failures. Seeing ghost after ghost of her past, sometimes even ghosts of herself.
She recognized them all.
The image of the fiery, burning Y was what had done it.
That was when she had known.
You—
Of course it’s you—
But it would have been impossible to forget, with or without the direct connection.
I’m no angel, she had said.
Neither am I, Natasha had answered.
That was the curse of the Black Widow: adrenaline memories, indelible, forever imprinted, no matter how layered the palimpsest grew. The more she wanted to forget, the harder it became not to remember. Not to see the face in the crowd. Not to feel the shadow falling over her shoulder.
Because some ghosts were always there, and always would be.
Ivan. Alexei. Clint, the way we used to be. Bruce, the way we might have been. Cap and Tony, back when the Avengers Initiative still brought out the best in all of us. Coulson and Maria and Fury, before Hydra.
One day Ava will be a ghost as well—just like I am.
Just like Green Dress Girl.
Just like—
She picked up the radio, restless.
I should have known.
She didn’t want to think about this now, not any more than she’d wanted to think about it ever. She wondered why it had taken her this long to put it together, if there was some small part of her that hadn’t wanted to know, wouldn’t allow herself to see it.
As if anything could keep the inevitable away.
Not this time.
“Mission Control, this is Natasha Romanoff. I am entering Latvian airspace under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Defense, from the USS Kirby. Someone from joint chiefs should have given you a heads-up. Do you copy?”
Static.
Honestly? Sometimes Natasha thought it was easier to fight aliens.
Too bad, guys.
I can’t get where I’m going in a U.S. military vehicle, and you’re the closest taxi stand in the neighborhood.
But when her radio crackled again, she knew she had nothing to worry about. “Good morning, Natasha! Welcome to Adazi base and NATO’s Operation Atlantic Resolve. We heard you might be stopping by. You are cleared to approach.”
She took a deep breath. Half an hour to get rid of the chopper, half an hour to grab the chartered flight from Riga airport. Ninety minutes after takeoff, Aeroflot flight 2103 would land at Sheremetyevo Airport, north of the city that was home to the one ghost she desperately needed to speak to, right now.
Moskva.
Moscow, city of red angels and iron ghosts.
Your city, Yelena. You made your point.
I’m coming. Are you happy?
Finally? Is this what you wanted?
Be careful what you wish for, dear Widow.
Four million tons of cargo. Four million opportunities to push Faith beyond the borders of the Rodina.
That’s why Natasha was here.
The Moscow offices of Veraport Global Shipping, a division of Luxport Holdings International, occupied a squat beige building in a nondescript business park on the east side of the city center. Veraport had been jammed beneath a freeway overpass and between two rings of the Moskva River.
Natasha sat inside the Kofemaniya across the street—eating bread and cheese and drinking strong, bitter coffee—while she ignored the women in fur collars around her and instead watched the building through the glass window.
She checked her Cuff. Veraport booked through Moscow but connected by rail through to Vladivostok, where the big commercial port on Golden Horn Bay stayed open all year round, despite the ice. Four million tons of cargo moved through Vladivostok each year, and who knew how many of those containers went unregulated by border patrol, for what? A few thousand in bribes, probably paid in euros, an easier currency to work with when taking your mistresses to Paris for the weekend?
How many of those shipping containers also carried Faith?
How long had it taken, to spread it from Eastern Europe to South and North America?
And where else is it now?
She looked back out the window and sighed. She knew she couldn’t wait any longer. It was time to face reality.
He’s not coming.
You’re going to have to do this alone.
Which is fine. You should be used to that by now.
You are.
She closed her eyes and drew a long breath. She didn’t have the mental capacity that Ava did. They didn’t connect to the Quantum link in the same way and never had. Just because Ava could experience some unexplained part of the quantum universe didn’t mean that Natasha could.
No matter what you wanted to call a spirit, or even a ghost—
No matter how much you miss—
“We aren’t doing this. Tell me we aren’t doing this.”
That voice. His voice.
When she opened her eyes, her brother, Alexei—whatever this was, that Ava saw of him—was sitting in the seat across from her. “Are you casing the joint? Is that what this is? Joint casing?”
His hair was rumpled. His skin was tanned. His eyes were sharp and bright. It was the Alexei she remembered—the Alexei she and Ava loved—the Alexei they walked the streets of Istanbul with, the one who walked into battle by their side.
Now he was dressed in S.H.I.E.L.D. workout clothes, as if he were a classmate of Ava’s. A person with a future, instead of only a past.
He looked down at himself. “Really?”
She found herself smiling back at
him, even in the oddness of the moment. “It’s good to see you. I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she said, pushing her coffee cup around in a circle. She stared down at the cup now, as if she couldn’t keep looking at him. She was too afraid, sitting here in Kofemaniya surrounded by fur hats, that she was going to come undone.
“Yeah, well, next time someone says ‘You pick the place for lunch,’ don’t say Moscow.”
She looked at him. “I don’t know exactly how Ava does it, when she sees you. But I thought there was a chance—since I’ve seen glimpses of you, when she talks to you—maybe I could see you myself.” She shrugged. “With or without Ava.”
“And?” Alexei said, raising an eyebrow. “What’s going on, Tasha?”
She frowned. “I can’t explain, but I think it’s all in that building over there. Everything. Answers. The Red Room, Ivan, all of it. What the whole thing has always been about. The one person yet to figure into the equation.”
She’ll be there. That’s what I’m afraid of. That’s why I need you, only I can’t say those words.
Not even to a dead person.
“Yelena Belova.” He looked out the window. “At Veraport? You really think she has something to do with all of this? More than just a connection to the Red Room?”
Her eyes were still fixed on the building across the way. All she could do was nod. She tried to speak, but her throat caught, and she cleared it. When she looked back at him, she composed herself; she composed herself by looking at him, which is why she needed him here, now.
“That’s what I’m going to find out. And I guess I just—I needed someone to watch my back,” she said.
“Except you know you don’t,” he said, looking at her. “Yelena or not. You never have. You watch your own back. But I’m here, if that makes you feel better.”
He looked almost disappointed, which was funny, Natasha thought, since he wasn’t even really there. Why would I imagine my own brother to come back from the grave disappointed? Not missing me? His only sister? What kind of broken head do I have?
“You’re not broken. You’re fine. It’s me. I really don’t get out much,” Alexei said. He leaned forward. “And of course I’ve missed you, Tash. Don’t be an idiot.”
Natasha smiled as she looked out the window to the building in front of them. “Good. We may have to blow a few things up.”
Alexei smiled. “Now you’re talking.”
Natasha snapped the handle off the wire-grid doors holding the Dumpsters in place. Other than smelling a little more like sour milk and old cabbage than midtown Manhattan, it was a pretty standard basement.
Parking, garbage, and a server room. Professional-looking elevators going up to the office levels. Service stairs leading down to the furnace and up to the roof.
Natasha scanned the brass-framed list by the elevators. There it is.
VERAPORT. Seventh floor.
Alexei stood next to her. “You got a plan, or is this your standard storm-the-room, take-out-the-bad-guys deal?”
She glanced at him sideways. “You know for once I actually don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know what she wants from me.”
Yelena. I know this is all coming from you. It has to be. There’s no other explanation.
What do you want?
“That can’t be good.” Alexei sighed.
“No.” She shook her head. “So how about we storm and secure, rather than storm and shoot? Just because, you know, talking.”
“Since when did Natasha Romanoff care about talking?”
“Well, interrogating.”
“Ah. Fine. You handle the talking, I’ll stick to the rocking.” He winked.
“You sound like Tony. That’s scary. At least you’ve been spared more whole years of Tony, now that you’ve—” She didn’t finish the sentence.
“Moved on?” He smiled. “That’s okay. It’s not like I don’t know what’s happened.” He raised an eyebrow. “Now that would be awkward.”
Then the elevator door opened suddenly, and they found themselves staring at the inside of an empty mirrored box.
“Did you push the button?” Alexei asked.
“I thought you did,” Natasha said, her eyes narrowing.
He held up his noncorporeal hands. “Sorry. No can do.”
She looked at him questioningly, and he shrugged. They stepped inside. A digital panel above the buttons still showed the elevator’s origin.
The seventh floor.
“I get the feeling this is the express,” Natasha said, taking her Glock from her waistband and checking the safety.
“Wish I could help more.” Alexei nodded. “But hey, at least you don’t have to worry about me getting hurt.” He looked at her, and she smiled sadly.
“For once,” she said.
Six floors later, the elevator chimed as it slowed to a stop.
The doors slid open, and the two heroes stepped out into the lobby of Veraport Global Shipping—
Or at least, what was left of it.
Weapon still drawn, Natasha cleared the space—though there didn’t seem to be anyone there. The place had been torched, floor to ceiling. Crumbling black ash was all that was left of the walls and floors. Most of the interior doorways were blown out. Only the windows remained intact. The space was empty, with the exception of debris and a few blackened chairs turned sideways.
She picked up a burned tin trash can and dropped it again. Then she smelled her fingers—even licked one.
Magnesium. You must really like the stuff. Pretty basic, but okay.
You had to use a whole lot of it to blow this place up, I’d say ten or twenty times more than you used on the Harley.
“Hey, Nat?” Alexei called to her from the next room. “I’m not sure who you thought you would find here, but looks to me like someone else found them first.”
“Maybe,” Natasha said, walking through the rubble to join him.
The next room was equally grim. She pulled a warped ceiling tile off of the remains of a file cabinet, tossing it to the floor. When she tugged on the handle of the top file drawer, though, it was still locked.
She frowned. “Does that seem weird to you? That this whole place is wrecked but there’s one piece of furniture still here—and it’s locked?”
Alexei shrugged. “Someone left in a hurry.”
“Or just left something behind,” Natasha said.
Alexei nodded. “And then sent us straight up here on the elevator to find it?” He frowned. “You think we’re being watched?”
She shrugged. “How many security cameras did you count in the lobby?”
“One by the elevators, two in the front lobby, one by the door we came through, four more, in the corners of the basement,” he fired off.
“Nice,” she said. “Eight security cameras and not a single car in the parking basement. What does that tell you?”
“Tells me we better get a move on opening up that file cabinet.”
She pointed her Glock with two hands at close range and fired two successive rounds.
“The old double tap.” Alexei sighed.
The file drawer slid open—and now she could see something was inside. A black notebook computer, also covered with ash.
“That thing has to be fried. It must have baked in there like in an oven,” Alexei said.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t in there. Not during the fire. There wouldn’t be ash—there isn’t any in the cabinet. It’s steel.”
She knelt and swept an arm’s worth of concrete floor clear of rubble. Then she placed the computer carefully in front of her, and opened it.
A prompt flashed in the middle of the screen.
CLICK ME.
She frowned, but slipped her finger across the touchpad until the cursor moved, and double-clicked on the words.
A window opened on screen.
“It’s some kind of uplink. Video chat or something,” she said.
“But not a video?” Alexei asked, squatting
in the rubble next to her.
“I think it’s live,” she said. “It must be her.”
“Yelena?” Alexei asked.
Then Natasha heard laughter—and a blond girl appeared in the window on the screen in front of her.
Natasha stared.
It wasn’t Yelena Belova.
“Are you talking to yourself? Is that the great Black Widow’s secret operational strategy? Insanity?”
Slavic bone structure, Natasha thought. Wide-set eyes, dark as coal. Broad features. A trace of the Urals—
It’s her—the Green Dress Girl.
The girl’s hair was cropped in a blond bob now, and Natasha realized the long, brunette hair had been a wig. She sat in front of a computer, and the room behind her looked like some kind of a lab, industrial, with corrugated metal walls, and heavy equipment surrounding her.
But—you? It’s not supposed to be you, Natasha thought. You’re not my ghost.
Not the right ghost, anyways.
And you’re so young. Too young.
Something’s wrong.
This is all wrong.
“Stop staring. It’s rude,” the girl said. “Manners, Natasha Romanoff? Were you raised by animals?”
“No,” Natasha said. “But you aren’t who I was expecting.”
“It’s no mistake. I’m much more than you were expecting,” the girl said, laughing again. “I’m also more than you’ll ever be. You or your sad little pseudo sestra. I don’t know what Uncle Ivan ever found at all interesting about either one of you, to be honest. But then, when has honesty ever helped anything, I ask you?”
“Ah. So you’re Red Room,” Natasha said. “Like Yelena. Like me.”
It was a statement of fact, not a question. It was a truth manifest in every word the girl spoke, in her every move. The confidence. The cruelty. The strategy.
Natasha could almost hear Ivan pontificating now. It’s a mental game, ptnets. Don’t play if you can’t win, and never, ever show less than a winning hand—
“Red Room? I’m much more than that, ptnets.” The girl smiled, raising an eyebrow and a challenge—as if the nickname amused her, as if Natasha’s whole childhood amused her—and she dared Natasha to say otherwise.
Ptnets. Baby bird. Ivan’s pet name for his pet Romanoff. The word set Natasha’s blood boiling; it always had.
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