It was the insistent, jangling warble of the cell phone that woke Natasha Romanoff from a sound sleep. Slowly raising her head, she squinted irritably at the device through sleep-swollen eyes. The caller ID displayed the name, 'Erik Selvig'. Pushing herself up on one elbow with a soft grunt, Natasha glanced at the bedside clock on her nightstand. The time was 4:10 AM. She picked up the phone to accept the call.
"Hello?"
Natasha's voice, normally husky at the best of times, was reduced to a sleep-softened rasp.
"Natasha? Oh, thank God. Something terrible has happened." The voice on the other end of the line belonged to Dr. Erik Selvig, his soft Norwegian tenor curiously pitched by fear and alarm. "It's Jane. She and Darcy have been taken."
"Taken?" With an effort, Natasha pushed herself upright into a sitting position, trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind. "What do you mean, taken?"
"The portal - it just opened. Jane and Darcy were monitoring the event horizon, and something just... grabbed them and pulled them away. Tasha, it was just like the portal opened by the Tesseract. It's one of those damn stones again. It must be."
"Erik, slow down," Natasha pleaded. "What portal? Where are you?"
"Sorry, sorry," Selvig apologized, and Natasha could almost hear the old man's brain grinding to shift gears. "We're in Geneva - a few kilometers away from the CERN facility."
"CERN? What are you doing there?"
"There's an astrophysical research laboratory nearby. Jane has been using their equipment to help map and monitor potential sites that might have a stable Einstein-Rosen bridge."
Natasha was trying desperately to kick-start her own brain into gear. Jane Foster was one of the world's leading astrophysicists, a brilliant scientist with an impressive track record of making ground-breaking discoveries. She was also, probably not coincidentally, the lover of the Asgardian God of Thunder, Thor - one of Natasha's closest colleagues.
"You're looking for wormholes," Natasha sought to clarify.
"Yes, exactly. And we were monitoring a particular site, when this... well, this portal opened up right in front of us - inside the laboratory itself. It was just like the Tesseract portal, I swear it was."
"Stable wormholes? Are those even possible?" Natasha grimaced in irritation at herself; her question was completely irrelevant. "Sorry. Go on. What happened then?"
"Well, nothing - for a few moments. We were too surprised to react very quickly," Selvig admitted. "I started to calibrate the monitoring equipment, and Jane and Darcy were placing cameras and sensor probes a few feet away from the event horizon. And then - I don't know. It was almost like tendrils of smoke. Something dark, nebulous. It came out of the portal, just - just looped itself around them like ropes, and the next minute, they were gone. The portal collapsed, like it had never been there. I have no idea what to do."
Selvig's voice was pitching again, bordering on panic.
"When did this happen?"
"Five, ten minutes ago."
"Are you still at the laboratory now?"
"Yes."
"Is the equipment still on?"
"The power blew when the portal closed. I'm still trying to get everything back online."
"Any chance some of those cameras might have recorded the incident?"
"Maybe," Selvig answered uncertainly. "Natasha, I'm so sorry. I had no idea who else to call."
"It's okay, Erik," she assured him. She glanced at her bedside clock again. "Give me an hour," she calculated. "I'll make some calls. Can I reach you at this number?"
"Yes, it's my cell phone. I always carry it on my person."
"Great. Even if you can get the power restored, do not restart any of the equipment. Just collect any notes Dr. Foster might have kept, and see if you can get anything from those cameras and probes. Do whatever you can to secure the site. Keep everyone out. Padlock the doors if you have to. I'll let you know as soon as I can be there."
"Natasha - thank you."
"Talk to you soon." Natasha ended the call, sighed heavily, and with great reluctance, threw back the bedcovers and swung her feet out over the floor. Her whole body protested at the sudden movement - stiff and aching and cold.
I'm too young to be this damn old, Natasha thought irritably to herself, then pushed herself up off the bed with an effort. She shrugged herself into her favorite bathrobe, shoved her feet into a pair of down-at-heel house slippers, and slowly made her way into the kitchen. She pressed the light switch and the overhead panels blinked awake, flooding the space with warm, diffuse light.
From more muscle memory than sight, Natasha pulled down a bag of coffee grounds from one of the kitchen cabinets, and carefully poured a measured amount into the percolator. After adding water, she turned on the brewer and took down a pair of mugs from another shelf. Never begin any mission without at least two cups of coffee was one of her unwritten rules, and, no matter what the crisis, she stood by it.
Natasha's penthouse apartment in midtown was, for all practical purposes, a sprawling great room of perhaps two thousand square feet, with two small bedrooms recessed in the far corners. The main living space had the kitchen at the close end, separated from the living room by a long bar counter. The living room made up most of the space in the apartment, with its two exterior walls made entirely out of glass. The view outside was a breathtaking view of the Manhattan skyline - although at this hour, Natasha could only see a few lighted windows from the closest neighboring buildings, and her own ghostly image reflected in the glass.
A soft moan could be heard from the long, low-lying couch, and a young woman's head peeked out over the back, blinking in the sudden light like a sleepy owl.
"What's going on?" the girl mumbled. "Who were you talking to?"
Natasha couldn't help grinning. The face and voice belonged to her roommate, Wanda Maximoff. Wanda was a Sokovian refugee who, in happier times, had worked alongside Natasha in the response team known as the Avengers. Wanda was ten years younger than Natasha, and during the relatively short time they'd known each other, they had developed a genuine big sister / little sister relationship between them. Three months ago, after returning to New York - returning to Earth? Returning to reality? Natasha barely knew how to make such distinctions any longer - the two women had moved in together. Wanda hadn't asked, and Natasha hadn't protested. After all that had happened, they simply felt an instinctual need to be physically close to one another. Although New York and its boroughs were technically still home to several million people, with over half its residents abruptly and horrifically snuffed out of existence, the city felt unnaturally quiet and empty. There had been many nights in the last few weeks where the two women had simply sat together in silence on the couch, staring out at the skyline, trying to make sense of what had happened to the world - and to themselves.
"Wanda, did you fall asleep on the couch again?" Natasha asked in exasperation.
"Yeah, I did, so?"
"So, you have a bedroom of your own, you know."
"I couldn't sleep," Wanda protested, trying to smooth back her tousled, dark red hair, which was sticking up everywhere like an unkempt lion's mane.
"Well, you seem to have no trouble sleeping out here."
"Who were you talking to?" Wanda repeated her question.
"That was Erik Selvig. There's been... an incident."
"What kind of incident?" Wanda asked with trepidation, pushing herself up off the couch, her blouse and slacks as hopelessly rumpled as her hair.
"Jane Foster is missing. And from what Erik described, she may have been abducted."
"You mean kidnapped? Can't the police handle that sort of thing?"
"Abducted by an unknown alien force that manifested itself through an artificially generated wormhole."
"Oh." Wanda's face fell. She stumbled into the kitchen area, still half asleep, and settled herself on one of the barstools. Natasha poured out a cup of coffee and passed it over to Wanda. The younger woman took the mug gratefully. After a long sip, she seemed to be more awake.
"What can we do about it?"
"I don't know," Natasha admitted with a heavy sigh.
Wanda gave her friend a knowing grin. "I mean, what are we going to do about it."
"Wanda, there's no need for you to get involved in this."
"Don't be stupid. Wherever you're going, I'm going with you. You know that."
Natasha gave Wanda a grateful smile before taking another long sip from her own coffee cup.
"In that case, do me a favor. Give Sam Wilson a call. His number's still in my Rolodex."
"What should I tell him?"
"Ask him if he's up for a search and rescue mission."
"He's still in D.C.?"
"As far as I know, he is."
"What are you going to do?"
"Pay Pepper Stark a visit."
"What, right now? It's the middle of the night."
"Yes, right now. If Dr. Foster really has been abducted, then every minute counts," Natasha pointed out. "Besides, Pepper's used to being rolled out of bed at all sorts of hours for emergencies. She'll forgive me. I hope."
She glanced up at the kitchen clock, unused to having to make note of time. 4:20 AM. "I need to go," she sighed, putting down her coffee mug. "I'll meet you back here in..." She did another quick calculation. "Forty minutes."
Wanda nodded. "Is there anyone else you want me to call?"
Natasha snorted with derision, albeit sadly. "Is there anyone else left to call?" She immediately regretted the retort, it seemed far meaner and harsher than she intended. "Just be ready to head out when I get back."
Wanda bobbed her head solemnly, and Natasha retreated to her own room to throw on some clothes. She entered her bathroom and stared in disgust at her own reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were still puffy with sleep, and her own red hair, while shorter and lighter in shade than Wanda's, still managed to be just as unruly - it was sticking up everywhere, in the most unflattering of ways.
"I look like I stuck my finger in a damn light socket," Natasha grumbled to herself, brushing irritably at her recalcitrant tresses, and after a moment, giving up in despair. There was barely time to pass a hot wash towel across her face, let alone attend to any other aspect of her toilet. She'd have a spectacular case of helmet hair in half an hour, anyway.
As she ran water in the sink until it heated, she stared sullenly at her reflection, barely recognizing the woman staring back at her. Is this all on me now? she wondered sadly. Natasha made a quick mental inventory, the same exhausting one she'd made every day for longer than she could remember. Tony Stark was still alive, but that was all that could be said of him. Thor Odinson and Bruce Banner were missing and presumed dead. Steve Rogers, King T'Challa and Clint Barton were - Natasha could still barely acknowledge this - nothing but memories. Anyone else who had worked with the Avengers, as far as Natasha knew, was gone. Not just dead. Blinked out of existence, as if they'd never been. Natasha shuddered involuntarily. What a terrible way to cease to be. She had seldom felt so utterly alone, or so wholly inadequate to the task of the saving anyone, let alone the world. She'd tried once before, and failed - and that was when she had all the help in the universe at her beck and call. She could call Nick Fury, she realized belatedly. He wouldn't be able to help her, but she would call him, anyway.
By the time Natasha made it to the parking garage - hastily dressed in boots, dark slacks, t-shirt and leather jacket, motorcycle helmet under one arm - it was just after 4:35 AM. As she roared out onto the empty, deserted street, it was almost exactly one hour before the sunrise.