A/N: Thanks for reviewing! (Well, Natalia, I leave you with cliffies because it gives me a reason to laugh maniacally. Which is very important. Though hopefully this one is leaves you hanging a little less)

No pressing stop, erase, rewind, that chain of thought that followed me

Natasha merely relayed their location, not what had happened, to Yelena, and then the two of them settled down to wait for her to arrive. Both were tired and sank into companionable silence, agreeing nonverbally that their discussion would benefit from having all parties present. Anna was staring at the floor, deep in thought, and Natasha looked her way occasionally to check her status.

"It's been a while since anyone tried to kill you, I take it?" she asked lightly after a while.

Startled, Anna glanced up at her sharply, then smiled slowly. "I must be getting rusty," she agreed.

"Must be nice," Natasha offered.

"Hmm," Anna responded, clearly back where ever she had been before being interrupted.

Natasha couldn't remember her friend often being lost in thought; it wasn't something the Red Room had encouraged, or really accepted. A spy had to be hyperaware, even when somewhere supposedly safe. But maybe Anna had learned not to be like that all the time, which would be impressive.

"Hey, what's up?"

Only marginally less startled this time, Anna shook her head briefly to clear it. "I was just… marveling. At you. You found me. Yelena. The Soldier. Who else is coming to the reunion?"

Her reaction must have been too obvious on her face, because Anna's teasing expression fell into one much more serious.

"What is it?"

"The others… None of the other Widows survived," Natasha responded haltingly.

Anna gave a slow blink, then frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean someone's after us, and they've been pretty damn successful so far."

"Oh."

Natasha sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I was with Yelena when she was attacked, and one of the thugs said they were after the Widows. So I've been trying to track everyone down, and you were the only one they hadn't gotten to yet."

After nodding hesitantly, Anna's expression melted into a business-like mask. "And then you saved my life like the superhero you are."

"I wouldn't say I saved your life. I just happened to move you from where they thought you would be; hardly intentional," Natasha replied.

"What are we going to do?"

"Find who did this and make them pay."

The knock at the door was distinctive, and Natasha went to open it, smiling in relief when she saw Yelena in the doorway, none the worse for wear.

"You made it."

Yelena looked her up and down, then glanced back at Anna. "Yeah. You look like you've been through hell," she said as she slipped into the room and bolted the door behind her.

"We look fine; you should have seen us two hours ago," Natasha retorted, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, Yelena gave a short laugh. "I'm sure it's a vast improvement," she agreed. "So, tell me, what did I miss?"

"Well, I went to visit Anna here, and someone decided to redecorate her office while we were next door. We missed most of the blast, and we got out of there quickly," Natasha told her nonchalantly.

Yelena raised an eyebrow, then turned to the other woman. "How you holding up?"

"Just fine. Natasha was telling me how rusty I've gotten about this kind of thing," Anna told her with an almost-shy smile. "It's nice to see you."

"You too," Yelena replied with a similar expression. "It's been a long time."

"How is, um, hunting bounties?"

"It was going quite well until this one came to visit," Yelena motioned toward Natasha, who looked offended. "But I'm sure you understand what that's like."

Anna laughed out loud. "You're right, I was just minding my own business, which is growing, by the way, when she shows up and now my office is in pieces."

Both women ignored Natasha's noises of protest, and Yelena nodded, commiserating. "I hear you. I was looking for this guy at a party, Nat shows up, and suddenly we're fighting off a bunch of armed goons! I think we found our common thread in this mystery," she added, giving Natasha a dark look.

"Maybe I should have just left you with the goons," Natasha threatened.

"Don't lie, girl, you always were a softie. You'd never hurt one of us," Yelena responded with a shrug.

Natasha shook her head. "Always? You mean when we were kids, being trained to seduce and kill people?"

"I think that's overstating," Anna put in. "We learned many valuable skills."

The other two laughed, and she grinned. "That's true, look how diverse we are now: a security expert, a bounty hunter, a superhero," Yelena said, motioning to each of them in turn.

"Hey, you both chose those professions. I'm just a spy," Natasha insisted.

"Always Madame's best student," Anna intoned, causing Yelena to laugh out loud, breaking character.

"She was, wasn't she? Setting the standards so high, making life difficult for the rest of us," Yelena said, shaking her head when she finished laughing.

Natasha snorted. "That wasn't my intention," she began.

"No, and you were pretty humble about it, all things considered," Anna interrupted. "Now, we can tease Natalia's character faults to our hearts' content once we've dealt with our impending assassinations," she added, looking at each of them intently.

Natasha smiled, remembering that Anna had been one of the first recruits in the Red Room and had shown them around for years when they were young. "Well, I was sent to check out Gynacon CEO Ian McMasters, who was at a party where Yelena had been lured with a seemingly bad tip. And one of the other execs, Vassily Ilyich Ulyanov, whose past is shrouded in mystery, canceled his meeting with Helen here today, and she narrowly avoided being blown up. Seems like we have a pretty good lead," Natasha said, leaning back against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.

"I've met Ulyanov before. I did get an odd read on him," Anna offered. "Though shifty behavior is pretty normal in my clients."

Yelena offered her a sympathetic look. "Well, while you two were off having adventures, I looked into all the companies represented at that party, including Gynacon, which was definitely the most suspicious. If I remember correctly, they haven't done anything too shady, but have been investing more and more in recent biotechnology breakthroughs. After some digging, I found that they started out after acquiring some land outside of Volgograd that I'm sure all of us would find familiar."

"What do you mean?" Anna wanted to know, looking at Natasha then back at Yelena.

"It's where we 'graduated,'" Natasha guessed, voice dripping with disdain for the term.

Yelena nodded. "I guess Ulyanov got his hands on some of the tech they used on us and roped McMasters into bankrolling it. With McMasters' other investments, they were able to keep their experiments mostly off the books, just showing their results. Gynacon isn't squeaky clean, but hasn't been of interest to any authorities."

"Until recently," Natasha put in. "Fury sent me to investigate them for HYDRA affiliations," she explained to Anna.

"So, it looks like I need to reschedule with Ulyanov as soon as possible," the latter said with a grim smile.

The other two mimicked the expression. "Let's get to work," Natasha suggested.