A.n. Finally an update ! It's been a month. Life happened.
Thx Gabriel Perseus Potter for pointing out my mistake. I've edited that part. Also thx for the encouraging review !
As always, I appreciate your reviews !
SHIELD HQ, New York. 34th Floor. 06.27 AM.
For whatever reason, Kanesha woke up rather soon from being knocked out into the closet. She was never hit that hard before; there was always something new to one's life, even for a 54 year old widow. After receiving a medical assessment, the doctor concluded that she was fine, and she was escorted to this room for questioning.
From the windows of the room where she was seated right now, the burst of sunlight shyly creeped. The once dark skylines of Manhattan slowly brightened up, revealing its colorful skyline; bricks and glasses towering, clawing up the sky, the sight of Hudson River with its scattered, reflected glimmers.
It was, by all accounts, a very bright morning which should be welcomed. The other fact was that she was seated on a prime and prestigious spot for having an office in Manhattan; a spot one has to pay astronomically high to have, but a boost to one's image of wealth. Of course, she was here not to do any job, but to be interrogated. Miguel was in another room, as he was to be questioned by none other than Steve Rogers, the Captain America. Kanesha had to be content to be questioned by Steve Rogers' team member, the red haired lady.
Knock, knock , knock, three knocks on the door.
The door creaked when it was opened, revealing to Kanesha the red haired lady; she was beautiful, Kanesha thought. The lady's red straight hair touched her shoulders, her figure slender and slim like a sand clock, equally with the lady's long, sharp nose. She wore a leather jacket, fittingly so to her tomboyish persona. In her hands were two cups of coffee.
The lady smiled at Kanesha, despite the apparent eye bags under her eyes. The lady was tired. Kanesha smiled back.
"Hi, good morning, you're Mrs. Kanesha Lee, right ?" The lady asked. Kanesha nodded. The lady then took a seat in front of Kanesha, and handed the cup from her right hand to Kanesha.
"Here's a hazelnut latte for you, I heard it is your favorite."
"Thank you. You don't need to do it, you know." Kanesha did really appreciate it though; the scent of coffee would do Kanesha good.
"Don't mention it. How's your head ? Feeling better ?" The lady asked.
"Still pounding, but I'll survive." Kanesha said.
"I'm Natasha Romanoff by the way, just call me Natasha. I'm working under SHIELD." The lady, Natasha, pulled a badge from her jacket and showed it to Kanesha.
"You know, I'd like to call SHIELD to check whether you're a phony agent or not. But I think being in the building already answers my question."
"It's always good to be careful, Mrs. Lee. Anyway….I'm sorry about what happened to Ralph, and I know it must be hard for you to process all of this right now. I hope you don't mind if I ask a few questions about him ?" Natasha asked Kanesha cautiously.
"I don't mind really. I just want to know what he is involved in. And please, just call me Kanesha." Kanesha answered, taking a sip of her coffee, trying to calm herself down. She, indeed , was worried; as the clock passed, her chance of finding his son again slipped slowly.
"Well, Kanesha, It's…. not too clear, to be honest. We don't have enough leads to know what and why. It's the real answer I can provide to you right now, but we promise we'll get to the bottom of this." Natasha said. For Natasha, it wasn't an empty promise. It was a promise.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. Let us start, okay ? First question : Ralph, or Rafael, is not your biological son, right ?" Natasha asked, pulling out her small notepad and readying her pen.
"Yes. I adopted him along with Miguel from an orphanage in the Bronx. A social worker named Fatima Abbas handled both Miguel and Ralph's case. You can ask her further later, I have her number. When I adopted him, he insisted on using his American name, Ralph.``
"Have you ever met Ralph's biological mother, Ludmilla Demetrescu ?"
"Never. Fatima told me that he was put into the orphanage because his only family member, his mother, passed away."
"How is his behaviour ? Anything peculiar, out of place ?"
"Well, apart from being too reserved, I never noticed anything weird about him. Miguel said Ralph was doing just fine at school, although he struggled to make friends. His homeroom teacher also said so. Given that he did not open too much to me until months after the adoption….I wasn't too surprised." Kanesha answered. Natasha scribbled on her notepad, then stopped for a while. Natasha's eyebrows knitted, wondering about her next question.
"Do you know if he was ever involved in something… unlawful ?" Natasha asked, a bit uncertain with her words.
"I'm pretty sure not… Not that I'm aware of ?" Kanesha answered. Natasha paused a bit, thinking about her next question, then continued
"Did he ever tell you anything about his family ? Or his time back in Sokovia ? It's really helpful if you can mention anything about it." Natasha asked. Kanesha's gaze wandered around the room, trying to remember the conversations she had with Ralph.
"Well… Let me try to remember it first. He told me he was a member of a family of four. Apart from Ludmilla… I think his father's name was Alexandru, with 'x' and not 'ks' and his brother's name was Damijan , with a 'j' between the 'i' and the second 'a'. He said that the family ran a butchery below the tenement back in Novigrad. He did tell me a few stories though… Oh I remember something." Kanesha answered, then taking a slurp of her coffee. Natasha looked at Kanesha expectantly.
"One time he opened up to me and Miguel about his escape from Sokovia. He said it started when his brother was declared dead during the Red December Movement, as his brother was missing under the rubble of a church. I think you already know what Sokovia's Red December Movement is, don't you ?" Kanesha asked.
"Yes. Please continue." Natasha answered.
"So the family, now three, decided to run out of the country. One night they ran out of the city, walking through the forest. On the way they met other refugees, and marched to the border with Hungary. In the end, only Ralph and Ludmilla made it, his father was shot during one of the encounters with the soldiers." Kanesha answered. Natasha took a note; a new information for Natasha.
"Did he provide any more details ?" Natasha asked again, trying to push the story further.
"Let me see.. I think no. I think…. At that time Miguel and I decided it wasn't wise to push Rafa - I mean Ralph, about the story. It really did a number on him, I could tell." Kanesha answered. Natasha gave Kanesha a small nod.
"Thank you. Now I want to ask a few questions about you, Kanesha, if you don't mind ?"
"Me ?" Kanesha wondered why.
"Yes. Your background is hardly suspicious, but you do have your controversial moments. I recall you still work with Jonah Jameson on the Daily Bugle ? And you once worked for the New York Journal ?"
"Yes, I do work at the Daily Bugle and yes, I did work for the New York Journal." Kanesha answered.
"We've found some articles and opinions you've written which are proven to be quite controversial. You certainly have strong opinions on certain topics." Kanesha nodded in understanding what Natasha meant to ask.
"I used to be an investigative journalist, Natasha. Now I write columns. Facts and opinions can be both controversial."
"That certainly calls for danger ?"
"Once, when I still had no kids. I resorted to writing columns once I adopted my sons, and tuned down my strong stance a bit."
"I want to know if you have ever received any forms of threats ?"
"Yes, I did. A lot in fact I kept all the threat letters in my drawer. Just in case. Heck, I even labelled the date I received them and what investigation I worked on that time."
"Thank you. I'll contact someone at the crime scene to fetch the letters. And…. I think that's all for now. I might come back here to question you further after gathering more evidence. For now I believe you need to rest." Natasha said, smiling.
"No problem. Just one last question : this seems to be a high-profile case, right ?" Kanesha asked.
"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Lee. A very high one. I hope you can understand." Natasha answered, giving Kanesha a quick blink. Keep your mouth shut, please, the hidden message interpreted by Kanesha.
"Sure, no problem."
"I'm glad you do."
"Wow, this woman got balls." Natasha wondered. On the table in front of her, scattered, were various threat letters. The letters were sorted based on the investigation Kanesha conducted.
"Big pharmas, venture capitals…. I wondered why she never won the Pulitzer Prize ?" Natasha muttered, then taking a sip of her matcha latte.
"After what Miguel told me about the accident this morning, I wasn't surprised, really. She jumped onto the back of an armed man. Mind you she was untrained." Steve Rogers added, eyes also scanning the various letters.
"A new explanation : Kanesha did piss off someone from her articles, and that someone decided to be a criminal by kidnapping her family member." Natasha said to Steve. Steve quickly added that to his personal list of possible explanations for the kidnapping, but he was a bit puzzled.
"That's…pretty overboard, right ? I don't see being exposed worth the risk of kidnapping someone."
"Yeah, but let's not discard that theory. Did Miguel add anything to Kanesha' explanation ?" Natasha asked Steve.
"Miguel said that Ralph never saw his brother's body. I assumed that the civil officers did not bother to check the bodies under the church as they were too busy with cleaning other messes in Novigrad. They probably just declared the missing people dead and moved on. Poor Ralph saw his father get shot dead though." Steve said.
"That's… bad. Although, how do you suggest this information adds up as an explanation ?" Natasha asked inquisitively.
"Hear me out : Rafael's document, with enough access, can be traced back to Sokovia, mainly through a refugee identification document by the UN. If, supposedly, Damijan is alive, it can be the case that someone kidnaps Rafael due to his blood connection with Damijan." Steve explained his theory to Natasha. Her eyebrows knitted.
"But that's pretty far-fetched, don't you think ? First, we have to assume that Damijan is alive. I've asked SHIELD informants in Sokovia about Damijan, and they said they never heard of the name, although they'll dig more. I'm sure the possibility is low, if not zero, that he's alive. Also is he that important ?" Natasha asked, taking another sip of her latter
"You know what ? The lack of information SHIELD has for this particular family is surprisingly, upsettingly, and frustratingly, scarce." Natasha added.
"I think he might be important somehow. I have this crazy theory, but I think this is pretty plausible. The butchery the family owned ? Sounds like a good spot to hide weapons inside the city. Or even to cut down bodies. Maybe they recently worked for the government or the rebels. Then, someone was pissed off by this family, seeking a sort of revenge, and decided to kidnap Ralph. Just a theory. We know too little, as you said." Steve explained his theory to Natasha.
"And how would you explain the kidnapper's presence in my missions ?" Natasha asked further.
"Unrelated. He's probably hired to do a lot of dirty biddings; this is just one of them. Although, for someone doing dirty jobs, this guy must be exceptionally skillful. Or the hirer has no common sense; kidnapping a kid is not as hard as assassinating a SHIELD operative. Why would you even hire one more guy ?" Steve answered.
"Good point. Steve, I have the urge to question everything about your theory, a bit too imaginative for my taste, but then… add that one to our possible scenarios. We might get something useful in that direction. Oh, and now it's 3-0, since I failed to capture that guy again. Hooray for me." Natasha said, mockingly so, her hands raised in mock celebration of her failure.
"Someone's keeping score." Steve said, smiling, while writing notes on his notepad even further.
One more guy, the words again rang in Natasha's brain. While she was too involved in thinking about the case of the first guy, she almost forgot about the other guy. While Steve was the one holding back the second guy back then during their encounter, she caught a good look at the guy. Oh, Lord, could she recognize that guy anywhere. Notably, the unnatural, metallic left arm. She shuddered a bit, remembering her unfortunate encounter with the said man five years ago.
"Steve, I need to talk to you. But not here." Natasha said, gesturing to Steve that they should go somewhere more private.
"Is your intercom already off, Steve ?" Natasha asked. Steve nodded.
They had found a small storage room on the top floor of the HQ. It was dark, and people were scarce on that floor; a perfect spot to talk about something secretly. Natasha and Steve already put their intercoms and phones inside a box and put it as far as they can from both of them.
"We don't know about the identity of the first guy. But I know a bit about the second one. You mentioned metal arms ?" Natasha asked. Steve nodded again.
"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists. The ones that do, me included, call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited for over two dozen high-profiled assassinations...in the last fifty years. Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried." Natasha said.
Silence. Natasha could feel the weight of her words sunk into Steve by Steve's loss of words. Steve just realized this case would just become more high-profile, and dangerous probably.
"We're chasing after ghosts, is that what you're saying ?" Steve asked. Natasha just nodded, albeit not surely.
"Patterns ?" Steve asked further.
"If any conclusion can be drawn, it is that both of them are always against SHIELD. The first guy ? You heard my briefing. The other guy ? He killed a scientist whom SHIELD tried to protect in Odessa. I was the escort. He shot the scientist through me."
"Through ?" Steve asked, curious. Natasha opened her jacket and pulled her shirt up, exposing the left part of her stomach to Steve. Amidst the darkness of the room, Steve could see a big mark of healed wound on the skin.
"Yuck. That looks… painful."
"Of course." Natasha answered, smirking, pulling her shirt down again.
"My point is, these guys are dangerous, and that's very rich coming from me. We need to be very careful and silent in our approach. Don't trigger the tiger, they say." Natasha said. Steve sighed.
"I'd love to not trigger the tiger, Romanoff. But consider this; the case is already public. `Oh hey, Captain America and Black Widow shooting bad guys this morning, wonder what they're up to ? Oh hey, someone's kidnapped, what happened ?`. That is going to be all over the news today. No point in hiding the case again. I'd rather have the public and all of SHIELD alerted that we're after two major fugitives right now."
"Steve, what did I tell you about my suspiciousness ? I thought you trust me, trust my instincts. You said you trust me." Natasha was a bit hurt by what Steve said, but she kept her face straight.
"I do, but Natasha, I don't feel it's helping right now. We're just dodging left and right, being too paranoid to even talk about the case below. We make things difficult by working alone. We cannot protect anyone in this way. You do remember that one of the two guys was seen near Alexander Pierce's house last night, right ? Doesn't that make you even a bit worried ?" Steve argued. Natasha was relieved; Steve still trusted her guts.
"But nothing happened to Pierce, right ? Pierce wasn't his target. Moreover, Fury had sent a few agents." Natasha argued.
"A few, but not a lot ! If we had talked about the case to someone other than Fury, we might have caught him near Pierce's residence. We might have caught him on his voyage to New York if we alerted the police, or the FBI, or anyone really. We might have prevented the kidnapping. Even now, telling someone might save us the trouble of chasing these fugitives down. We can deal with the mole later. We will." Steve argued.
"And how can you explain about him going to kidnap Ralph ? Can you predict that ? Can you predict where the guy will go next ? What is he going to do to Ralph ? Steve, Ralph was just a kid. Heck, no one in SHIELD probably knew him well before the kidnapping. We don't know even in the slightest amount of certainty why that guy kidnapped Ralph. We can't predict things if we don't know what his goal is." Natasha argued.
"And you cannot know his goal if he does not blurt it out of his mouth. We'll have to handcuff him first." Steve argued.
"It'll be much harder if he knows our moves. If there's a high-ranked mole inside SHIELD, we're playing a predetermined game, and we're on the losing side." Natasha argued. Steve wanted to reply, but he was quickly cut by Natasha.
"Please, Steve. I know you're worried these two guys are going to do more harm, worrying over a kid's life, but this way is the best shot we have on capturing both of them. We have come so close this morning. Please give time for us to do things this way. If this fails, then we'll try to do things your way, alright ? For now let people search for the kid. They don't need to worry about criminals." Natasha asked Steve. Steve reconsidered his position, trying to renegotiate Natasha's proposal.
"Fine. With one condition : More people are involved and we do things my way." Steve proposed.
"Fair enough. Now, enough talking and let's go downstairs, we might have missed some reports." Natasha said, Steve following up behind. Just before Natasha opened the storage room's door, Steve abruptly stopped.
"Natasha , do you know ?" Steve asked.
"What ?"
"Do you think you know his 'goal' ?"
"I don't. I told you."
"You look like you know everything."
"I only act like I do." Natasha replied, smirking, as she opened the door and soon light bathed her body.