Prologue
"Now who do we have here?" Albatross kept his eyes closed and his back against the cold stone of the cell.
"The fuck you prattling on about?" the man in the cell across from his spat at the door.
"Please, good man, let's have some decorum, shall we? There are guests."
"How 'bout you take your decorum and shove it up your-" his voice cut out suddenly. There was a wet thwack and Albatross smiled.
"I do apologize," he kept his arms crossed and his feet propped up on the bed- let his ears tell him more than his sight ever could in this dark, dank prison, "he was here too long, forgot his manners."
There was a chuckle from the shadows, "And what about you, friend? Have you been here too long? Have you forgotten much?"
"Friend? Now there's an interesting title to bestow upon one such as myself," Albatross mused. "You cannot mean that we were friends, I've been here far too long for any but one of those to still walk this earth. Do you, therefore, intend for us to become friends? Ah, that's it I'll bet. You yourself must be quite the professional to break into this particular prison- the only way down here is to kill four armored guards stationed within sight of one another on the stairs, and a roaming and quite random troop is assigned to patrol that hallway every ten minutes. Assuming you killed the guards- a difficult task in its own- as soon as the last patrol came through, you only have around eight minutes and thirteen seconds in which to make your escape before the guards are found."
He continued on quickly, but calmly, "You are confident you have time enough to kill a vile-tongued prisoner with what I believe sounded like a long-handled scythe- hardly a weapon for a delicate man, but you are also confident enough to speak to me without beginning to break the lock on the door, which to any assassin would be a second impossible feat- after the guards that is."
"So therefore you are a dangerous man, capable of great feats as an assassin, yet you come looking for me of all people. You referred to me as a friend and asked if I had forgotten too much, so I believe you are testing my memory. True, I have been locked in this cell far longer than I'd care to admit, but my mind keeps going back to your tone when you said friend. I believe, then, you are trying to gauge my reaction to being reminded of the friend who had me locked in this horrible prison. Coincidentally, she is perhaps the only person left in this entire world a sneak and assassin of your caliber would have cause to fear enough to risk this place to find little old me."
Albatross stood up at last and crossed to the door. He smiled, "You now have five minutes and seventeen seconds. Lead me from this place, point me in her direction, and I will be happy to wipe Natalia Romanova off the face of the Earth."
A moment later Morris held the cell door open and Albatross stepped into the light, "Welcome, then, to The Cabal."
For those of you who are Marvel Comics fans- Morris' Cabal will feature some canon and some made-up villains, it's an homage to Thanos' but isn't meant to be the same.