"Well, this sucks," said Sam Wilson sourly.
Sam and his teammates were being detained in an improvised holding cell, with two Hulk soldiers standing on either side of the only door that led in or out of the barely furnished room. Sam and Maria were sitting side by side on a long wood bench, and Wanda was laying across the remainder of the bench at an awkward angle, keeping her broken arm elevated and using Sam's thigh as a pillow.
Sharon drew Natasha aside to the far side of the room. "Wanda's got a simple fracture on the radial head of her left elbow," she murmured close to Natasha's ear. "Obviously, we want to get her home and properly treated as soon as possible. But she's in no danger. The only immediate concern is her pain management."
The relief on Natasha's face was palpable. "Thank you, Sharon."
Sharon went over to the door to position herself as a sentry. The room in which they were being held had apparently been intended for use as an office, as the door was made of wood with a large pane window inset above the doorknob. Sharon could easily see both of the guards and a fair length of corridor while standing next to the door. Natasha walked back over to the bench and knelt down beside Wanda. She reached over and gently stroked the girl's tangled red hair. Wanda sighed and closed her eyes, trying to rest.
"What the hell is Thunderbolt Ross doing here, anyway?" Sam grumbled angrily.
"He's not alone," Maria said. "I caught a glimpse of several other men in military uniform as we were being led away. Looks like the DoD is here to purchase themselves some black market Hulk soldiers."
"Maybe," Natasha said thoughtfully. Something about that explanation didn't sit right. She had met Ross many times over the years, and while they seldom saw eye-to-eye on anything, she sensed that the man truly had the best interests of his country at heart. "Ross can be a jackass but he's not stupid. I don't think he'd ever throw in his lot with black market arms dealers, no matter how sweet the deal was."
"Why is he here, then?" Sam asked.
Natasha shook her head sadly, still stroking Wanda's hair. "I don't know."
"The really important question is, how are we going to get out of here," Maria said, keeping her voice low. There were no security cameras in the room, at least none they could see; but they had to assume they were being watched and their conversations monitored.
"Yeah, and how are we supposed to deal with a whole barracks full of Hulk soldiers," Sam added morosely.
"I'm not sure they're our problem," Maria pointed out. "We came down here to find Doctor Banner. It seems pretty obvious he's not here."
"No, I don't think so either, Maria," Natasha agreed, letting her hand rest gently on Wanda's cheek. The injured girl had relaxed enough to the point where she was starting to doze off. "And we'll need to know a lot more about this operation, before we can make a proper threat assessment."
"So, what, if the DoD have found themselves a black market Hulk army, we just walk away?" Sam asked incredulously.
"We don't know the whole story yet, Sam," Natasha said evenly. "Let's make sure we have the full picture with reliable intel. Then we can decide what really needs to be done here."
"Well, we're certainly not taking on a whole barracks full of Hulks by ourselves," Maria sighed. "Even if we had our Hulk, and Thor, and Iron Man here with us, I'm not sure we could stop these guys."
Before Natasha could reply, Sharon sang out, "We have company."
Natasha stood up, and motioned to Sam and Maria that they should remain seated. Sharon backed away from the door, and a few moments later, a young corporal entered the room, shadowed by a MP.
"Miss Romanoff? General Ross would like to meet with you privately in his office."
"He does?" Natasha was nonplussed. Ross had an office in this complex?
"Go," Sam almost whispered. "Might be your best chance to get some answers."
"We'll watch Wanda," Maria added.
Nodding numbly, Natasha allowed herself to be escorted from the room. After the door closed, Sharon stationed herself once again where she could watch the corridor. Natasha was quickly led away and disappeared with her escort. But then Sharon noticed something odd happening to one of the guards.
It was a subtle movement at first, and Sharon wasn't entirely sure what she thought she saw was real. It must have been a trick of the light. But then, it happened again - a large bulge appeared on the soldier's right scapula, something that looked almost like a pustule, except it formed immediately and seemed to be possessed of independent movement. It seethed, writhed and expanded by several centimeters in a matter of seconds, and the soldier winced noticeably with pain as this happened, although he remained at attention and at his post. Then the irritation subsided, shrank down and vanished, and the shoulder looked normal again - or as normal as a shoulder could look, with the skeleton and musculature four times the size of a normal human and the skin tinted a bright green.
Sharon swallowed hard, shocked and frightened by what she saw. "Oh, my God," she murmured in dismay. "The process isn't stable."
Natasha was led into a barely-furnished room containing nothing more than a table and two chairs, facing across from one another on either side of the table. Seated in one of the chairs at the far end of the room was General "Thunderbolt" Ross, staring down at the tabletop as if tranquillized. He looked up as Natasha was escorted in.
"Natasha Romanoff, as requested, sir," the corporal announced.
"Thank you, corporal. That will be all."
"Sir." The corporal turned on his heel and left the room.
Ross stared back down at the tabletop. He did not rise to greet his visitor.
"Hello, Natasha. It's been awhile." The old man's voice seemed utterly flat and lifeless.
Natasha continued to stand just inside the door, not entirely sure she wanted to take the seat that hadn't been offered. "Almost two years to the day," she answered.
"Only two years?" Ross looked up with a weary expression on his face. "Seems longer."
He looked back down at the tabletop again, absently rubbing his withered hands together. Just about the time Natasha had decided he wasn't going to speak without being prompted, he looked up abruptly.
"You have questions," he said. "And I have questions. And I thought you might be willing to trade answers for answers."
Natasha frowned, not in puzzlement, but with genuine worry. The man seated across from her was Thunderbolt Ross. And yet he was acting nothing like the man she remembered.
He seemed to divine what she was thinking, and managed a wan smile. He waved a scarred and grizzled hand towards the empty seat.
"Won't you please sit down."
After a moment's hesitation, Natasha sat.
"How did you know we'd be here?" he asked, once she had settled herself.
"We had no idea you'd be here," Natasha answered.
"Oh." Natasha's response seemed to puzzle Ross. "Then - if I may ask, why are you here?"
"We were looking for Bruce Banner."
"Ah." That seemed to resolve one mystery for the general. "That's an honest enough mistake to make, I suppose."
"Is he here?" Natasha asked hopefully.
"Who?"
"Bruce Banner."
"No. He's not here."
"Is he..." Natasha hesitated. "Do you know if he's still alive?"
"He's not here," the old man repeated, and he wasn't being evasive. The terms 'alive' and 'dead' apparently held no distinction for him any more. Natasha drew in a sharp breath. There was something horribly dead about Ross himself. Some fundamental part of his soul had been hollowed out and eaten away. She might as well have been talking to a mannequin.
This man has died, she thought lucidly. It's only his body that hasn't stopped breathing.
"Why are you here?" Natasha wasn't sure there would be any point to asking the question, but she ventured it anyway.
"You've seen the project. I would think it was obvious."
"The project? You mean, the soldiers outside. The men who are... are..." she hesitated to describe what she'd seen.
"The men who are like Banner was," Ross nodded solemnly. "Monsters."
"How could you do something like that?" Natasha's question was more of an accusation, and some of the sting seemed to cut through the gauze of Ross's mummified heart.
"Do what? Apart from trying to save the earth, you mean?" Finally, there was there some flicker of fire in those old, weary eyes. "Let me guess. You think some military brass, with ideas above their station, are out making shady deals with black market eugenics corporations to create the ultimate soldier. Does that sound about right?"
"That's close enough," Natasha admitted.
"Uh-huh." The old man's grunt was a mixture of disgust and sadness. "Nothing here is what you think it is. Every person working at this site has been vetted for work with all branches of the US military. And the men you see transformed are not lab rats. They're US marines. Every one of them, a volunteer. We are going to save the world."
"Save it from what?" Natasha asked, horrified.
Ross seemed surprised by the question. "Were you somehow not here, when half of all life on earth was extinguished?" he demanded.
"What?"
"It's a reasonable question. People like you seem to fly halfway around the galaxy the same way I would take a taxicab uptown."
"I was in Wakanda," Natasha answered, her eyes filling with tears.
"Ahh." The old man nodded gravely. "Then you can see why we need this."
"No. I certainly do not see."
Ross regarded Natasha impassively. "Half of all life," he repeated. "And I don't mean just half of all the world's people. We're talking everything - every domain, every kingdom, every phylum, every class, every order, family, genus, species and subspecies - everything from the largest whale to the smallest bacteria. Half of all life. Gone. And the entity responsible is still out there." The old man leaned forward in his seat. "Maybe that thought doesn't scare you. It sure as hell terrifies me."
He leaned back again, clearly sizing her up, trying to decide if she belonged in enemy combatant territory. Then he smiled, a thin, humorless smile with neither joy nor irony in it.
"The world doesn't belong to people like you and me any longer," he said at last. "Army generals and espionage agents. We belong only in history books. The fate of the world is now going to be decided by gods and monsters. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to prevent something like this from happening again. The next god that comes along could do exactly the same thing to us, out of a fit of pique, or simple boredom. And up to now, we've had no defense. And if we cannot be gods to defend ourselves, then we can certainly create the monsters who can."
Natasha's heart sank. What Ross proposed was not an arms race in any traditional sense, but it still had the same tragic trajectory.
"I suppose I could send you to one of our incarceration facilities," Ross mused. "Guantanamo, perhaps. But there would hardly be any point. To be an enemy of the state, you'd have to be a credible threat. And frankly, you're no threat to anyone, especially not to the soldiers at this facility. You and your colleagues are free to leave," he decided finally. "All except for the Maximoff girl. She stays."
Natasha's heart froze. "What do you want with Wanda?"
"She's an enhanced human. One of the few still known to exist. She is also one of the few who could give my soldiers an honest test in battle simulations. I saw what she did tonight. It was remarkable. Without any training at all, she held her own against an enhanced US marine for several minutes. Imagine what she could do with the proper training. Strucker's own documentation on creating enhanced humans was completely destroyed. Having direct access to his only surviving test subject could advance this program by decades almost overnight."
Natasha's mouth fell open in a horrified gasp. "You can't claim eminent domain here, Ross. Wanda's not a parcel of land. She's a young woman - a human being - one of the people you're supposed to be protecting!"
"Wanda Maximoff is not an American citizen, and until very recently, she was classified as an enemy of the state," Ross pointed out. "I am well within my legal and military rights to have her detained."
"So she can be used as a punching bag for your private Hulk army? It's out the question. You can't have her."
"If you truly had any care for protecting this world, you would welcome my decision."
"How can I even sanction it? Are you even listening to yourself when you speak? This is madness, Ross!"
General Ross stared at Natasha for a long moment. His expression was one of abject pity. She would never understand, he was simply doing what he had to do.
"I'm not mad," he said finally. "I'm frightened. As frightened as you should be. In time, you'll understand that my decision was the correct one. And you'll still be alive to thank me for it. Corporal!" he bellowed.
The corporal returned to the office doorway. "Sir."
"Miss Romanoff and her colleagues are to be escorted off the base immediately. If they refuse to leave, incarcerate them all, with charges to be filed later. The Maximoff girl is to remain here. Detain her, in isolation, under round the clock guard."
"Sir." The corporal clicked his heels together. "Miss Romanoff?"
Natasha stared incredulously at the old man for several moments, fighting back all the emotions roiling inside of her. But Ross had made up his mind. Any further discussion would be pointless. Natasha would have to act on the only option left to her. She got up to leave. She paused in the doorway and looked back. "General Ross."
"Yes?"
"Just so you know, the only reason that you and I were even alive tonight to have this discussion is because Wanda Maximoff and her brother actually did save the world - three years ago. Wanda's older brother Pietro gave his life in the fight against Ultron. And Wanda gave nearly everything else. And without the two of them, and the sacrifices they made, the world really would have ended. What you owe Wanda Maximoff is more than just your gratitude and respect. You are only breathing now, because of her. She's earned the right to be a free woman. Think about that, and think about it carefully, before you decide to enslave another living soul for your own twisted purposes."
Ross glared at Natasha for a long moment, and then angrily waved his hand at his corporal. "Get her out of my sight," he ordered.
Natasha was forcibly escorted from the office.
