1

OHIO

1995

A girl with blue hair rode her bicycle down a quiet street, waving to some friends who were playing on a tire swing. It was a warm, sunny afternoon—perfect for a day outdoors.

After riding into her driveway, the girl walked around the house and whistled.

A second later, her whistle was returned.

In the backyard, the girl with the blue hair saw her little sister. She had leaned back into an arch, her hands and feet in the dirt, and was looking at the girl with the blue hair upside down.

The girl with the blue hair ran over and did the exact same thing.

“We’re both upside down,”the little sister said with a broad grin.

“And I bet you’re gonna fall down first,”the girl with the blue hair responded.

“No, you will!”She giggled.

They started to make faces and noises, each trying to get the other to collapse.

As the girl with the blue hair had predicted, her little sister fell first.

The girls began to chase one another around a swing set, until the little sister tripped and hit the dirt, knee first.

“Mommy!”the little sister yelled.

As she cried, the girl with the blue hair comforted her sister until Mom came over.

“You bumped your knee?”Mom asked. She kissed the girl’s knee.“Come on, little one. Get up. You’re okay. You’re a brave girl. Your pain only makes you stronger.”

They walked toward the house. Dinner was waiting.

The kids helped set the table and took things from the refrigerator.

“Dad’s home!”Mom announced.

Dad walked into the kitchen and looked over his glasses at the girl with the blue hair. A lanyard with an ID card that read“North Institute”hung from his neck.

“Hey, Dad,”the girl with the blue hair said.

“Hey, baby,”Dad replied, tousling her hair.

He grabbed a drink from the refrigerator before joining his family in the dining room, where dinner was already waiting.

But he didn’t sit down. Instead, he walked to the window and stared out into the early evening.

“Everything okay?”Mom asked.

Dad simply stared at her in response.

“How was everybody’s day?”he asked at last.

As the little sister started to talk about her knee injury, Mom got up from the table. She walked around the corner, where Dad met her.

“No,”Mom said.

Dad nodded solemnly.

“How long do we have?”she whispered.

“I don’t know. Like an hour . . . maybe.”He touched her face gently.

“I don’t want to go,”Mom admitted.

“Don’t say that,”Dad replied.

Then both parents rejoined their children at the dinner table.

“Girls,”Dad said, as he sat down.“You remember when I told you that one day, we’d have that big adventure?”

The girl with the blue hair looked at her father.

“Well, today’s the day,”Dad continued.

“Yay!”the little sister said.

But the girl with the blue hair said nothing. She stared at her dinner plate.

“All right,”Dad said, getting up from the table.“Let’s go.”

Mom looked at the older sister from across the table, and with sincerity in her voice, said,“I’m sorry.”

Then Mom left, leaving the girl with the blue hair all alone.

Dad hastily grabbed a rifle from a closet and a box of bullets. The box fell on the floor, and the bullets spilled out.

The little girl bent down and picked them up, handing them back to her father.

“I don’t have my shoes,”she said.

“That’s okay, you don’t need your shoes,”he answered.

“But I’m still hungry,”the little sister whined.

“Yeah? Guess what,”Dad said.“I’ve got Fruit Roll-Ups in the car.”

Then he left the house with the little sister, heading for the car in the garage.

Meanwhile, Mom reached above a cabinet, taking a pistol.

In the living room, the girl with the blue hair picked up a photo album with flowers and trees on the cover.

“No,”Mom said.“Leave it, leave it, leave it. Go wait in the car.”

The girl listened to her mother, joining her little sister in the garage.

“You have it?”Mom said as she met Dad.

He pulled out what looked like a computer disk.

“Yeah,”he said.

“Is it the only copy?”she asked.

“The only one not on fire,”he assured her.

A few seconds later, they joined their daughters in the car and pulled out of the garage into the twilight.

As the car drove by, other neighborhood kids were outside playing with flashlights. The sisters watched as their friends enjoyed the warm evening, unable to join them.

“Where are we going?”the little sister wondered aloud.

Mom simply said,“Home.”

“Mommy, you’re silly,”the little sister said.“We just left home.”

But the girl with the blue hair knew that Mom wasn’t being silly.

And when they heard the wail of sirens from ahead, Dad saw the police car blocking off one road. He glanced nervously before turning down another.

“I want my song,”the little sister said as the family drove out of town.

Dad didn’t say anything before pushing a cassette tape into the car stereo.

The opening refrain of Don McLean’s“American Pie”came over the speakers, and the little sister sang along.

As the girl with the blue hair stared out the window, anxiously, wistfully, Dad started to sing along with the little sister.

As the song continued to play, the car turned down a lonely dirt road with no streetlights. Soon, they arrived at a large, overgrown field dotted with plastic-draped greenhouses. The car pulled up to one greenhouse and Mom and Dad jumped out of the car as it came to a quick stop.

They ran around to the trunk as Dad picked up the rifle.

Inside the car, the girl with the blue hair grabbed a strip of photographs that was tucked into the visor: her and her little sister, taken at a photo booth.

“Hurry up, hurry up,”Mom urged.“We gotta go.”

While the sisters got out of the car, Dad pulled back the plastic from the front of the greenhouse nearest the car, revealing a small plane inside.

As the little sister ran into the greenhouse, removing the chocks that kept the wheels of the plane from rolling forward, the girl with the blue hair walked slowly toward the plane. She stared at the photo strip.

Dad ran up to her, holding the rifle.“Go with your mom,”he instructed.

“Coming!”the girl with the blue hair shouted. She joined her little sister on the plane.

Mom stepped inside the aircraft, making sure the girls put on their seat belts. Then she closed the door.

Outside, Dad looked around to make sure that the coast was clear.

Mom moved to the pilot’s seat and started the engine. The propeller began to spin and the lights turned on.

Mom could see that a huge, heavy piece of farm equipment was blocking the exit, but Dad was already on his way. With two hands and a loud grunt, he lifted the piece of equipment onto one end with ease, flipping it over and out of the way to clear a path for the plane.

But as Dad guided the plane out of the greenhouse, he heard sirens coming.

The plane started to taxi away while Dad unslung the rifle from his shoulder.

A car with flashing lights approached and Dad took a shot, hitting the vehicle. The car slammed into some tires, stopping momentarily.

Just as Dad turned and ran toward the plane, he saw the word“S.H.I.E.L.D.”emblazoned on the side of the car. The car started again and made a beeline for him.

As the plane continued down the makeshift runway, Dad kept pace with it. He turned around, aimed the rifle at the oncoming car, and fired.

The car swerved out of the way, but kept driving toward him, determined.

Ahead of him, the plane was starting to take off. Dad picked up his pace and leaped forward onto the plane’s right wing. He landed on his belly, his right hand still clutching the rifle.

The car picked up speed, too, and was now driving next to the plane, trading shots with Dad.

Bullets shattered one of the plane’s windows before another hit Mom in the shoulder. As the sisters screamed, Mom let go of the plane’s yoke, causing the aircraft to veer to one side, its right wing raised in the air.

Dad was thrown against the fuselage.

“I need you up here,”Mom said through the pain.

The girl with the blue hair immediately unbuckled her seat belt and joined her mother at the front of the plane in the copilot seat.

Mom instructed her to pull the yoke to the right, and the girl with the blue hair obeyed. As the plane went right, the right wing slammed down on top of the pursuing car and smashed the windshield.

Dad was now face-to-face with the driver of the vehicle, and he took the opportunity to kick the driver through the broken windshield.

On the plane, the little sister watched helplessly as her father tried to get away from the people who were chasing them.

In the cockpit, the girl with the blue hair gasped as she saw two more cars with flashing lights. The cars were blocking the plane’s path, heading right for them.

With the driver of the car under the wing finally knocked out, the vehicle dislodged from under the plane’s wing and slammed into one of the greenhouses along the makeshift runway.

Dad rolled over onto his stomach, rifle in hand, and took aim at the oncoming cars.

Inside the plane, Mom said,“Hit the accelerator there.”

The girl with the blue hair listened, and raised the accelerator.

Even as shots were being fired at the plane, the girl with the blue hair held the yoke steady.

Dad fired at the cars, blowing out the front tire on one. That car collided with the other, and the vehicles tumbled down the runway toward the plane.

There was no time left.“You can do it!”Mom’s voice was laced with desperation.

The girl with the blue hair pulled back on the yoke as hard as she could.

Though one of the plane’s wheels glanced off a car, the take-off was a success.

And through her window, the girl with the blue hair saw Dad pull himself toward the fuselage, and they smiled at one another.

Hours later, in the morning, the small plane touched down on a military landing strip in Cuba.

As the plane came to a rolling stop, Dad disembarked, holding Mom in his arms. Soldiers ran over to him bearing a stretcher, and he laid Mom down as gently as he could.

The two daughters left the plane and hurried along their mother’s side as the soldiers carried her away.

The soldiers set the stretcher down on the tarmac, and the little sister held Mom’s hand.

“Get up, Mommy,”the little sister said in tears.“Pain only makes you stronger. Remember?”

But Mom didn’t answer.

Dad was now holding a small black duffle bag as he approached a man with a mustache wearing dark sunglasses.

“The Red Guardian returns,”the man said.

“The Red Guardian returns triumphant ,”Dad corrected.

The man kissed Dad on either cheek.

“Please, I beg you, no more undercover work,”Dad implored.“I wanna back in the action. I want my suit back. I want to get back in. General Dreykov, it’s been over three years.”

The last words he spoke took on a distinctly Russian accent.

And as Dad begged, the girl with the blue hair spoke to her mother.

In Russian.

“Forgive me, Mom,”she said.“I’m scared.”

“Never let them take your heart,”Mom said in English.

Then a soldier pushed the daughter away.

“Did you get it?”General Dreykov asked.

Dad looked at the general, incredulous, as if to say, Don’t I always come through?

He took out the computer disk and handed it to General Dreykov.

“And the North Institute?”the general inquired.

“Ashes”was Dad’s only response.

As a medic placed an oxygen mask on Mom, the girl with the blue hair held her little sister tightly.

“She’s gonna be okay,”the girl with the blue hair said.

“How is Melina?”the general asked next.

“She’ll live,”Dad said.“She’s strong.”

The soldiers and medics loaded Melina onto a military vehicle. As they closed the back of the vehicle, leaving the girls behind, the little sister looked for her father and ran toward him.

“I’ll handle this,”Dad said to the general.

One of the soldiers grabbed the little girl, prompting the girl with the blue hair to scream,“Yelena! Get away from her!”

Then the girl with the blue hair kicked the soldier who had grasped Yelena, and took his sidearm.

“Don’t touch her!”the older sister ordered. Then, in Russian, she added,“I will shoot.”

Clutching Yelena to her side, the girl with the blue hair circled around, staring down the soldiers.

“Honey,”Dad said, as he approached slowly.“You need to hand me that gun.”

“I don’t want to go back there,”the older girl said.“I want to stay in Ohio. You can’t take her.”

With a sympathetic look on his face, Dad came closer, right hand outstretched.

“You can’t take her,”the older girl repeated.“She’s only six.”

“You were even younger,”Dad said, taking the pistol away.

Then he knelt down and said,“Come here. You’re gonna be all right.”

He kissed the top of Yelena’s head.

“Do you know why it’s gonna be all right?”Dad asked.“Because my girls . . . are the toughest girls in the world. You’re gonna take care of each other. Okay? And everything—everything’s gonna be fine.”

And as Dad talked with his“daughters,”some soldiers with hypodermic needles came forward.

Then Yelena and the girl with the blue hair were asleep.

Dad watched as the soldiers carried them away.

“That one,”General Dreykov said.“She has fire in her. What was her name?”

“Natasha,”Dad answered softly.