3

MOROCCO

The sun rose over the city as a young woman with blond hair, dressed all in black, kept a tight grip on a sniper rifle from a rooftop.

“Eyes on target, waiting for the package,”she said into her comms.

Across the way, through her weapon’s site, she saw a woman with dark hair pass by a window.

“I have sights on Collateral One,”said another woman in black. She sat on a different rooftop, her sniper rifle on a tripod. Through her site, she saw a man carrying a small black case with a green light, in the same window as the woman with the dark hair.

But before the women could open fire and take out their target, the woman with the dark hair looked out through the window, right at one of the would-be snipers.

“She made us,”the first sniper said, as she watched a cloud of gray expand in the window.“Target deployed smoke. She’s on foot with the package. Stay high. I’m going to ground.”

Leaving her rifle behind, the sniper with the blond hair picked up a rope and rappelled down the side of the building, quite literally running down the wall to the street.

She raced through another building, and as if almost sensing her prey, thrust open a door.

Hearing a woman grunt, the sniper with the blond hair entered an almost deserted street. Crouched down on the stone path was the woman from inside the window. She was now separated from the black case with the green light.

The woman on the street recovered surprisingly fast, and dashed for the case. So did the sniper, but the woman grabbed it first. Then she struck the sniper with her left hand.

This hardly staggered the sniper, who reached for a short combat knife, and began to slash at her target. She caught the woman on the leg.

The woman attempted to stagger away with the black case, but the sniper caught her.

With her last bit of strength and leverage, the woman took the sniper by the hand and forced her to drop the knife. Unfortunately, the knife fell into the other hand of the sniper, and she stabbed at the woman with the black case, twisting the knife into her belly. A final slash would end the matter entirely.

Or so the sniper with the blond hair thought.

The woman collapsed on the hard street, gurgling.

And as the sniper rolled the woman over to finish the job, she was caught off guard by the sudden spray of a red gas that caught her in the face. It was the work of the woman on the ground, who had opened a vial of some unknown substance.

The mist seemed to almost cling to the sniper’s face, and then dispersed quickly.

The sniper found herself shaking her head, rubbing at her eyes. It felt as if she had been asleep for who knows how long, and was only just now waking up.

She gazed at the knife in her hand, and at the dying woman on the ground.

Dropping the knife, the sniper said,“Oksana? Oh no . . . what did I do?”

Kneeling next to the woman, the sniper attempted to help her. Instead, the woman placed a metal vial in her hand.

“Free the others,”Oksana gasped.

And then she was dead.

Confused, even frightened, the sniper with the blond hair looked at Oksana and at the open case on the ground. Inside were a series of metal vials, identical to the one that Oksana had put in her hand. The vial in her hand was empty—the one Oksana had already used. The rest of the vials in the case were all filled with a red substance.

The sniper tossed the empty vial into the case and closed it.

“Yelena,”a voice said over the comms.“We need a status report.”

Yelena, the sniper with the blond hair, picked up her combat knife, and without hesitation, thrust it into her right thigh.

“Yelena, we need a status report!”the voice said over the comms, more urgently.

Digging her fingers into the open wound on her leg, Yelena pulled out a tracking device and threw it to the ground.

As she stood up, taking the black case with her, Yelena took one last look at Oksana.

“Converge on team leader,”the voice from the comms said.

But the others would not find Yelena, not today. All they found was her tracking device.

“General Dreykov,”the voice said through the monitor.“We have a deserter.”

The general looked up from behind his desk at the virtual screen, staring at a picture of Yelena. The words“Lost Signal”appeared beneath her picture.

From his dimly lit office, the general betrayed no emotion.

“Permission to activate Taskmaster Protocol,”the voice said.

If the general felt anything in this moment, he didn’t show it.

Inside the training room, a lone figure stood in silence, watching an enormous wall screen showing footage of combat between Clint Barton and T’Challa, taken from security cameras at the airport in Berlin—the site of the“civil war”between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers.

The guarded doors to the training room opened, and a woman in black entered. The lone figure who had been watching the combat footage sat down, and the woman pulled back the figure’s hood.

She inserted a device into the back of the lone figure’s helmet.

NORWAY

A light rain fell as Natasha walked out of a convenience store with a plastic bag of supplies. She opened the door of a nondescript car and tossed the bag in the back seat. She drove away from the small town, and into the rural area nearby.

“After the Sokovia Accords, the hunt is on for the remaining Avengers,”a voice said over the car radio.“Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff are currently on the run.”

Pulling over, Natasha listened to the news report as she took a sip of cold coffee from a disposable cup.

In the distance, through an overgrown field, she saw the trailer home.

Leaving her car, Natasha drew a sidearm and approached with caution. Silently opening the door, she stepped inside the trailer home, looking for any sign of danger.

It was still, and the interior certainly looked inviting enough after hours and hours of being on the run. But she couldn’t rest until she was sure there would be no trouble.

Then she heard the snoring.

A smile crossed her face and Natasha let the pistol drop to her side. She pushed open a door, and saw a man sleeping on a bed.

The man was named Mason, and had been an associate of Natasha’s for some time.

With a grin, she smacked the bottom of Mason’s boot, causing him to stir.

“You’re in my bed,”Natasha joked.

“I’m not even under the covers,”the man said, groggily, trying to wake up.

“Did you get everything on my list?”Natasha asked.

As Mason rose from the bed and walked into the hall, he said,“I got passports, entry visas, a couple of local driver’s licenses.”

He handed a stack of papers to Natasha.

“Mix and match, you should be able to stretch it to twenty or so identities,”Mason continued.

Natasha took a look through the papers, and then glared at the man.

“‘Fanny Longbottom’?”she said, reading in disbelief.

“What?”Mason asked.

“What are you, twelve?”Natasha said.

“That is a legitimate name,”Mason laughed. Moving on, he said,“We got a generator outside. That’s petrol powered. The septic tank will need a flush in a couple of weeks, but you know, I’ve got a guy coming for that. You’ll have to haul your rubbish into town. It’s just a twenty-minute drive. I’ve got your basic hardware kit stashed under the stairs.”

“Nice,”Natasha said.

“Are you okay?”the man asked, picking up on something.

But Natasha wasn’t letting anyone in.“Why wouldn’t I be?”was all she said, with a forced smile.

“I hear things,”Mason said.“Something about the Avengers getting divorced.”

“Ahhhh,”Natasha said dismissively.“It’s fine. I’m actually better on my own.”

“Are you sure?”Mason inquired.“Because you could tell me, you know. That’s the way the whole ‘friends’ thing works.”

“I know,”Natasha said.“I have friends.”

“People who have friends don’t call me,”the man said.

An uncomfortable silence followed, broken only when Natasha said,“And I don’t pay you to worry.”

Mason could tell that the conversation was over, and he turned to leave the trailer home.

From the front door, Natasha watched him go. She noticed a box full of letters and parcels.

“Hey,”she said.“What’s all this junk?”

“Oh, just some mail and personals from the Budapest safe house,”Mason said.

“Budapesht?”Natasha repeated, using the Hungarian pronunciation.

“Yeah,”Mason said.“Budapest.”

“No, it’s Budapesht,”Natasha corrected.

“Budapest,”Mason said, still not getting it right.“Budapest.”

“Budapesht,”Natasha said quietly.

“Whatever,”Mason said, changing the subject.“I knew you weren’t going back there, so I got someone else in the flat now.”

“Sorry you went to the trouble,”Natasha said, staring at the box.“I would have told you to chuck it.”

“Well, if you don’t want it, throw it in the rubbish,”Mason said, as he turned to walk away.

Some time later, Natasha exited the trailer home carrying the box full of parcels and letters from the Budapest safe house. Inside the cardboard box was a black case.

As evening came, Natasha contemplated a box of blond hair dye, reading the instructions. Setting it down, she chose to unwind by watching a James Bond movie on a laptop. It was one of the Roger Moore Bonds, Moonraker , and it was clear by the way she said each line of dialogue along with the actors that she had seen this movie countless times.

It was just getting to one of the best parts when the lights and power inside the trailer home winked out.

The movie continued playing on the battery-powered laptop as Natasha rose from her seat and went outside.

She pulled the starter on the generator, trying to get it going again. But the generator wouldn’t have it. Opening it up, she saw that one of the spark plugs was fried.

Not only that, but picking up the gas can next to the generator, Natasha saw that there was almost no fuel left.

Taking the nearly empty gas can, she went to her car and drove off.

As Natasha made the drive from her trailer home back into town, she passed along a large lake. Rows and rows of great pine trees dotted the landscape, and for a moment, Natasha could almost forget that she was a fugitive on the run.

She came to an intersection and made a left turn to go over a bridge.

But as she did, from out of nowhere, her car was blasted from the opposite direction. There was an explosion and flames as the car rolled across the bridge on its side, sending Natasha tumbling. The car only stopped when it collided with a guardrail, smashing through. The vehicle now hung off the bridge, with Natasha still belted inside.

The rear wheels of the car weren’t touching the bridge, and another vehicle slowly approached from behind.

Natasha was in a daze, but willed herself out of it. She saw a hooded figure step out of the car. Whoever it was, they wore a hood, and a frightening, almost skull-like mask disguising their features.

With great effort, Natasha unbuckled her seat belt. The action caused the entire car to lurch forward, and the windshield shattered completely. The gas can that was in the back seat hurtled through the now-empty window, falling down and into the lake below.

The hooded figure was coming closer and closer, and Natasha began to panic. She finally managed to reach into the back seat, grabbing a sidearm.

“I’m pretty sure Ross has no jurisdiction here,”Natasha shouted at the oncoming figure.“And you should know I’m a better shot when I’m pissed off.”

Taking aim from the car, Natasha got off a couple of rounds. But the hooded figure, moving with inhuman speed, deflected the shots with . . . a shield.

Undeterred, Natasha was about to fire again when the hooded figure hurled the shield at her. She moved back, just as the shield struck the car, lodging itself in the door.

The entire action reminded her of none other than Steve Rogers, and his own shield-slinging abilities.

Scrambling out the back window, Natasha landed on the bridge and took aim at the oncoming enemy. But there was no one there.

The figure was gone.

Slowly, she turned around, looking over her left shoulder.

Then, leaping from one side of the car, the hooded figure twirled in the air above her. She fired, but the figure blocked the shots with their shield.

Natasha kept her sidearm trained on her foe, but the hooded figure kicked the pistol out of her hand.

Switching to hand-to-hand combat, Natasha flipped around the hooded figure, attempting to wrap her legs around their head to squeeze and cut off their oxygen supply. But to Natasha’s stunned surprise, the hooded figure executed the exact same maneuver, wrapping their legs around Natasha instead! Then the figure threw Natasha to the ground.

The two enemies stared at one another for a moment, and Natasha could have sworn that the hooded figure was . . . analyzing her, somehow. The way that they somehow copied her move, and using a weapon just like Captain America’s . . .

What had she stumbled into?

After the brief respite, Natasha flipped back to her feet.

The hooded figure did the same.

Natasha crouched down, one hand touching the pavement.

And the hooded figure copied the move.

It was like looking into a mirror.

For what seemed like an eternity, Natasha stared into the hooded figure’s red visor, seeing her own face reflected back.

Then the hooded figure turned, looking back at Natasha’s wrecked car, which dangled over the side of the bridge.

Without a word, they stood up, walking away from Natasha, and headed for the car.

“You’re not here for me,”Natasha whispered to herself.

Then she reached for the combat knife she had secreted on her person, and dashed at the hooded figure.

Despite her best efforts, Natasha was unable to touch the hooded figure. For every move she made, her opponent had a counter move. They avoided every slash and thrust of the blade.

There appeared to be a stalemate, but at last, the hooded figure struck Natasha. She was knocked back with incredible force, landing on the pavement.

The hooded figure turned back to the car trunk when Natasha struggled to her feet.

Before she could act, her nemesis kicked her back down.

This gave Natasha all the time she needed to reach the grappling hook. She fired it, and the thin rope wrapped itself around the hooded figure’s leg, seemingly unnoticed. Then Natasha fired the other end at a support beam on the bridge.

A second later, her opponent was whisked away by one leg, up into the air.

Natasha knew she had only bought herself seconds. Even as she raced for the car, she could hear the hooded figure withdraw some kind of weapon, slicing away the rope.

On the ground, by the back of the dangling car, Natasha saw a black case. She picked it up, just as the hooded figure leaped down, nearly striking her with a sword.

Natasha had also managed to snatch the hooded figure’s shield, and used it to block several sword strikes.

But her opponent was so eerily skilled that they managed to grab hold of the black case and kick Natasha off the bridge.

She landed in the freezing-cold water with an audible splash.

The hooded figure placed the sword in their backpack and opened the black case.

But there was no prize waiting inside.

The vials were gone.

And when the hooded figure looked over the side of the bridge, they could see no sign of Natasha in the dark waters below.

The current had carried Natasha away. And when she was certain that she had put enough distance between her and her mysterious opponent, Natasha made her way out of the frigid water. She climbed up a grassy bank and collapsed on a large, smooth rock.

In her hands, she held a bundle of vials containing a glowing red substance.

And what were placed amongst the vials were two photographs from a photo strip.

The girl with blue hair and her little sister.