Black Widow: Forever Red Read online

  © 2015 Marvel

  Cover illustration by Alessandro Taini

  Logo design and web illustration by Russ Gray

  Cover design by Tyler Nevins

  Designed by Tanya Ross-Hughes/Hotfoot Studio

  All rights reserved. Published by Marvel Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Marvel Press, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201.

  ISBN 978-1-4847-3002-7

  Visit www.hyperionteens.com

  www.marvel.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Act One Eight Years Ago, Somewhere in Ukraine

  Chapter 1: Natasha

  Chapter 2: Natasha

  Chapter 3: Natasha

  Eight Years After Odessa, Somewhere in America

  S.H.I.E.L.D.—Case 121A415

  Chapter 4: Alex

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 1

  Chapter 5: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 2

  Chapter 6: Alex

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 3

  Chapter 7: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 4

  Chapter 8: Alex

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 5

  Chapter 9: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 6

  Chapter 10: Alex

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 7

  Chapter 11: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 8

  Chapter 12: Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 9

  Chapter 13: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 10

  Chapter 14: Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 11

  Chapter 15: Alex

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 12

  Chapter 16: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 13

  Chapter 17: Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 14

  Act Two Chapter 18: Alex

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 15

  Chapter 19: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 16

  Chapter 20: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 17

  Chapter 21: Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 18

  Chapter 22: Alex

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 19

  Chapter 23: Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 20

  Chapter 24: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 21

  Chapter 25: Alex

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 22

  Chapter 26: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 23

  Act Three Chapter 27: Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 24

  Chapter 28: Ava and Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 25

  Chapter 29: Alex

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 26

  Chapter 30: Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 27

  Chapter 31: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 28

  Chapter 32: Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 29

  Chapter 33: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 30

  Chapter 34: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 31

  Chapter 35: Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 32

  Chapter 36: Ava

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 33

  Eleven Months Later

  Chapter 37: Natasha

  S.H.I.E.L.D. Eyes Only 34

  Private Archives: Blank Slate, Highly Classified

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  THIS ONE IS FOR KATE HAILEY PETERSON KICKER OF BUTTS BUILDER OF WORLDS ROMANOFF IN SPIRIT

  ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF ODESSA,

  UKRAINE

  NEAR THE BLACK SEA

  Natasha Romanoff hated pierogies—but more than that, she hated lies.

  Lying she was fine with. Lying was a necessity, a tool of her tradecraft. It was being lied to that she hated, even if it was how she had been raised.

  Everything Ivan used to say was a lie.

  Ivan Somodorov, Ivan the Strange. She hadn’t thought about him in a long time, not until tonight.

  Years.

  And right now, as Natasha clung to the side of a rusting Ukrainian warehouse on the edge of a waterlogged industrial dock, even the moon looked like just another one of Ivan’s lies.

  Welcome home, Natashka.

  It was the dumpling moon that brought it all back now.

  She climbed higher as she remembered the words, but even Natasha Romanoff, newly minted agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., former daughter of Mother Russia, couldn’t escape Ivan Somodorov. Not any more than she could escape the snipers positioned on every neighboring rooftop or the barbed wire on the perimeter fence.

  “See that moon?” Ivan had said when she was younger. “See that pale pierogi, hanging so low and heavy in the sky it wants to fall back into the boiling pot of salted water on your baba’s stove?” Natasha had nodded, though as an orphan of the war she remembered little about her baba—or for that matter, even her parents. “With a moon like that, your targets can see you as easily as you see them. Not a good night for hunting, or a clean kill. Not a good night for disappearing.”

  It was Ivan she remembered.

  Ivan who had taught her how to shoot a Russian sniper rifle and to never use anything but a German pistol, preferably an HK or a Glock—no matter how you felt about the Germans. How to change out the barrel and action of an assault weapon in seconds and to modify her trigger so it broke like glass. How to cover her tracks, how to hide from the SVR and the FSB and the FSO—all the legitimate organizations that the KGB had become when it was the KGB no more. Those were her bosses’ bosses, the groups they worked for but never with. The groups they vowed to follow, but who disavowed them. The groups with the names that could be mentioned in the headlines of the Gazeta, unlike her own.

  Unlike the Red Room. Unlike Ivan’s crew and, in particular, his favorites, Devushki Ivana. Ivan’s girls.

  Natasha took a breath and swung, springing through the moonlit night from side to side, making her way farther up the corrugated wall of the decaying warehouse. The rough metal siding bit into her palms. It was a miracle that she was still hanging on.

  A miracle and years of training.

  Natasha closed her eyes and tightened her grip. Truthfully, she didn’t need her adhesive suit.

  Even if I wanted to let go, I haven’t been trained for that.

  “I will teach you more than how to kill,” Ivan had said. “I will make you into the weapon itself. You will become as automatic and unfeeling as a Kalashnikov, but twice as dangerous. Only then will I teach you how to take a life—how and when and where.”

  “And why?” Natasha had asked.

  She had been young, then, or she would have known better. Child Natasha had been all eyes and shadows and angles. Alone and defenseless, half the time she felt like a thrashing rabbit caught in a winter trap.

  He had laughed outright. “Not why, my Natashka. Never why. Why is for guitar players and Americans.” Then he’d smiled. “We all have a time to die, and when it’s mine, when they send you to sink a bullet into my head, just make sure not to do it on a pierogi moon.” She’d nodded, but she couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. “That’s all I ask. A clean kill. A soldier’s death. Do not shame me.”

  It was his favorite line. He’d said it maybe a thousand times.

  And now, as Natasha stared up at the boiled-dumpling moon, she decided it was the one she’d repeat back to him tonight. When she finally kill
ed him, just as he’d predicted she would.

  He’s not a martyr, she reminded herself. We aren’t saints. When we die, nobody mourns. That’s the only way this ends, for all of us.

  Even if there were a hundred fat moons in the sky tonight, Natasha refused to feel any shame or any sorrow for Ivan Somodorov. She didn’t want to feel anything at all, not for anyone, but least of all for him.

  Because he felt nothing for you.

  Natasha kicked her legs up, balancing on an air duct on the side of the warehouse. Now she had a full view of the building, which only made her shake her head. She had seen abandoned FSB doghouses in better conditions.

  No. Outhouses.

  She reached higher, grabbing another light fixture like a handle, hauling her body upward—until it came off in her hand, clattering to the rotting dock beneath her.

  She froze.

  Der’mo.

  “Vy slyshite-to?” Beneath her, a fat dock guard moved toward the sound, his weapon still slung across his back. Two more guards followed.

  Untrained. Not Ivan’s guys. Unless he’s really getting sloppy.

  Natasha cursed to herself, flattening her hanging body against the side of the rusted wall beneath the shadowy eaves of the tin roof. Flashlight beams now swept across the warehouse, only centimeters beneath her. She held her breath.

  You didn’t hear anything, mudak. Just your old outhouse falling apart.

  The guards moved on.

  Natasha breathed, then flipped herself over the eaves, rolling toward a dirty skylight. The moves were instinct now, as automatic as breathing or blinking or the beat of her own heart. Slowly she eased her face above the cracked glass—taking in the view for the few seconds she could risk exposure. The world below was murky, and only two figures moved through the shadows in the central space between the shipping containers.

  Two figures. One big, one small.

  She could see a kid. A girl. Red haired. Dark eyed. From the looks of it, she was maybe eight or ten years old. They all looked the same to Natasha. Aside from her fellow strays in the Program, the only child she’d ever known had been herself—and she hadn’t even really liked that one.

  The girl turned her face away from Ivan, who stood between her and the window, and Natasha could now see she was crying. Holding on to a ballerina doll. The kind with a ceramic head, Natasha thought. The kind they sell in the streets outside the Bolshoi Theatre. She’d had one of her own, a few lifetimes ago.

  Was that how I used to look at you, Ivan?

  Because now, shoving the girl and the doll aside as he stepped into the moonlight, there was her old commander—and new target.

  Ivan Somodorov.

  The closest thing I had to a father.

  Natasha hung farther over the skylight to get a better look. What was he doing? Putting something on the girl’s head. Electrodes maybe? Definitely. On her temples. More wires on her arms, hands, even her chubby little legs. On the other end of the wires was a squat metal box the size of a phone booth, bolted to the concrete floor, patched and soldered on the surface, apparently kluged together from many lesser machines. It sprouted a mess of thickly bundled wire umbilical cords, curving and sparking in every direction. The wiring led to more boxes and then more wiring, as if it were a fundamental anatomical part of a much larger organism—one with no visible end.

  An experiment. So the reports were true.

  She’s one of Ivan’s little projects. Another Devushka Ivana.

  Natasha stared. She didn’t wince, and she didn’t look away. The scene was all too familiar—though she’d been chained to a radiator not strapped in a chair, and Ivan hadn’t been into electrodes back then. All the same, it didn’t matter. Enough was enough.

  Natasha took in the scene in front of her, then rolled onto her back, raising her wrist to her mouth.

  “Target is confirmed. Tell MI6 their tracking beacon worked. Intel is good.”

  “I’ll send the Queen a fruit basket. God, you’ve got eyes on Ivan the Strange? London calls him Frankenstein.” Coulson’s voice crackled over the comm in her ear. “Human test subjects, that’s really his thing now?”

  She glanced at the skylight. “Looks that way.”

  “It’s alive,” Coulson said in his best mad scientist impression.

  Natasha stared up at the dumpling moon. The view was even better here, from flat on her back on the top of the warehouse.

  “Not for long. I’m going in.”

  ODESSA SHIPYARD WAREHOUSE,

  UKRAINE

  NEAR THE BLACK SEA

  The moment Natasha Romanoff anchored her carabiner to the steel frame of the open skylight, her mind went into overdrive. Battle mode. The adrenaline kicked it up, and she rode the surge the way she did everything—fast and hard, with no apology and no regret. She hadn’t felt it when she was unbolting the warehouse skylight’s glass panels or when she was silently dislodging them from the metal frame that held them in place. She only felt it now that she was going in.

  As she loosened her belay clip and rappelled silently down into the warehouse, her mind first ran through Ivan’s obvious moves, then his logical moves, then his less logical ones; she knew them all. It was a one-woman game of speed battle chess—and when it was over, Natasha almost always won.

  Like a Kalashnikov, she thought. Like a Romanoff.

  This is who I am. This is what I do.

  Her eyes flickered across the interior of the warehouse as she read the room. So you’ve got five thugs at the perimeter trying not to look like they’re waiting for me. Where did you find these idiots, Ivan?

  Natasha dropped three feet farther, for a better look at her target.

  I know you heard me rolling the last few feet of roof to the skylight. You taught me that move. What are you up to?

  Natasha swung 180 degrees until she could see the little girl’s face. What about the kid? Looks genuinely scared. Kid. Vulnerability. Check.

  Natasha spun farther, counting heads as she turned. Thick cabling coming through the walls, with a heavy smell of ozone and a scary amount of electricity. Check. Let’s try not to blow the place up.

  It was time to do the real battle math.

  Thug One is sticking close to Ivan at one o’clock, but just out of the light. Looks like he’s the only grunt with a sidearm.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  Carrying Mexican style? Don’t they ever worry about blowing their balls off? Which means they’ve been told to grab me, not shoot me. She rolled her eyes in spite of the darkness.

  Good luck with that.

  Thug One won’t be the first to charge. He’ll be hoping to get in a cheap shot from behind—if he needs to—while I take out Two and Three. They’ll be coming from seven and nine o’clock as soon as I hit the floor.

  Four looks like he’ll be the fastest.

  Her eyes picked out the last of the soldiers in the shadows.

  Five looks lazy—he’ll have a weapon—maybe a knife. Definitely a knife.

  Once Thug One watches the other four go down, he’ll realize it’s over, panic, and go for his gun—look at him, he’s already sweating—so I’ll take him out somewhere in the middle. No need to get shot at if I don’t have to.

  She glanced back up at the ceiling above her. The snipers are just insurance. They would have already engaged me. Ivan clearly wants to chat.

  Natasha loosened her grip on the cable and continued to rappel down toward the target. She was getting close now. She could see the bald sheen on the top of Ivan’s head. He used to razor it every day to keep it shiny. She could see he still he still did. She wondered why he was sweating.

  Because he knows I’m about to get the drop on him?

  With that, Natasha Romanoff relaxed her hands and slid to the warehouse floor as quietly as a spider—but not quietly enough for Ivan Somodorov.

  “Little Natashka,” Ivan said, not looking up from the girl. “It’s a dumpling moon. If you’re going to be so obvious, next time just
ring the doorbell.” A tattoo of barbed wire circled its way around his neck, the sign of a stint in a Russian prison. He turned to look at her. “You shame me.”

  Natasha took in the rest of what she could see of him: a cheap leather jacket and chains, which, along with the dirty V-neck shirt, just made him look like a Russian mobster.

  She sighed. “Knock-knock, Ivan. Who’s there? S.H.I.E.L.D.”

  He looked at her blankly. “I don’t get it.”

  Natasha punched him in the face as hard as she could. As he went flying back, she rubbed her fist. “Sorry. It’s more punch than line.”

  The little girl began to scream—but Natasha couldn’t hear a thing above her own heart pounding in her ears. She wasn’t thinking now. This wasn’t the time to think. This was pure movement and reflex. Action and reaction. Adrenaline. Muscle memory. And Natasha Romanoff’s muscles had a nearly perfect memory.

  Thugs Two through Five fell exactly as she had planned, except that Thug Five pulled out nunchakus—with a ninja flourish—instead of a knife.

  “Are you kidding me?” She looked almost impressed. “But I appreciate the creativity.” As she spoke, she dispatched her widow’s cuff and sent the ninja flying with a bolt of electricity—and not in a very ninja way.

  Thug One got off his shot, but not before Natasha shattered his arm with her left boot. The bullet went wide, and the shooter went down.

  There was no one better at battle math than Natasha Romanoff.

  Ivan Somodorov threw himself into the waiting chair next to the girl and attached the electrodes to his own head. The machine sparked between them. He grinned at his old protégée, his hand on the machine’s lever. “Took you long enough. I’ve been waiting for weeks now. My Natashka.”

  Natasha stared at him, trying to figure out if he was lying, and what it meant if he wasn’t. The thugs were a distraction. The real game is just starting.

  Ivan snorted. “You come for me on a pierogi moon? And you don’t bother to take out the security cameras first? Did I teach you nothing?”

  “I wish.” Natasha stepped in front of him, brushing an unruly curl of red hair out of her face.

  “And how you’ve grown since the days when I schooled you in the Red Room.” The look in his eye would make any girl shiver, but Natasha didn’t flinch. “You looked like a lost little ptenets then, fallen right out of the nest.”