Logan opened the door and stopped. Four pairs of eyes were looking up at him with a sort of wary interest.
Natasha Romanova.
Elektra Natchios.
Silver Sablinova.
And Tora Logan.
He gulped.
"Err… I'll…just go? Yeah?"
"Da."
"Naí."
"Daiya."
"Oui."
The four had spoke in unison, in four different languages. The universal tone made it quite clear that this was a meeting he was not welcome to. He quietly closed the door. Those were four women it never paid to get on the wrong side of.
Inside the room, Tora leant back slightly.
"You all received the message I sent and it must have piqued your interest, otherwise you wouldn't be here."
Silver Sable leant forward.
"You said you had a business proposition."
Tora's fingers steepled together under her chin.
"The three of you are all the top of your game. Whether espionage-" she inclined her head at Black Widow, "martial arts-" Elektra graciously nodded, "or bounty hunter." Sable smiled briefly.
"You're all acknowledged as the best –beating all the others, men and women, who want your place at the top. Our areas of interest overlap, but largely we remain apart. I was interested in setting up an information share. Private, not to be shared with others unless the source is kept hidden. And talent, as well-"
"You have not said what you bring to the table."
Tora paused, looking at Elektra. Black Widow cleared her throat.
"We're talking to Weapon X-ii. She hacked the Pentagon's computers at six. She was disarming bombs before she was able to read. She's possible as good as all of us, she's just being polite and telling us how wonderful we all are. She was planned to be a cross between myself and Wolverine. I'd say they were a little more successful than anticipated."
Tora had gone bright red. She spoke in Russian, chiding Natalia for embarrassing her in front of the others. Natasha laughed back and responded in kind, informing Tora that she really had to accept her talents and skills as a vital component of herself, no matter how she learnt them. After all, she embraced her place as a spy and assassin, did she not? Tora winced and switched back to English. Russian was close enough to Silver's native Symerkarian for her to understand but Elektra looked a little left out.
"I have a scar for every skill I learnt. I prefer not to remember them."
She saw their gaze flit across her face. She shook her head and slid up her sleeve, showing one of the smaller scars across her upper arm. It had been where she'd dug out the tracker chip, but they didn't have to know that. Most her scars were mental anyway. And it was easier than explaining away the brand or the criss-crossing X that still twinged when the humidity was right and she'd been moving in that way, the twist that she relied on for a number of dodges and darts. It was almost always guaranteed to rip the scars if she did it too often. She'd never told the others. Just more one thing to get pity for. She could control pain. She made pain work for her.
"She is more than capable of acting as our central node in this…endeavour."
"Yes, thank you, Natalia. I took the liberty of preparing these."
She handed out small hard drives.
"On it is the beginnings of my own data gathering. The more you enter into the shared database, the more will be revealed to you from the others'. We rely on integrity and honesty in this endeavour."
Elektra looked confused.
"We are not fighting together?"
Tora frowned, the idea obviously not having occurred to her. Black Widow looked cheerful.
"You can code in a request to meet, can't you? Alert us to something that needs all of us to help?"
"I could…"
"Then do it! We're starting our own secret team!"
Tora discreetly glanced at the vodka on the table. It was still half-filled. Silver Sable leant back.
"So, what are we calling ourselves?"
"We don't need to give ourselves a name!"
"Yes, Tora, we do."
"How much vodka have you had, Natalia?"
"Not enough. Can't have Avengers, can't have Defenders, anyone suggest Champions I will shoot them, can't call ourselves Super Ninja Spy Mercenary Hackers. You got any ideas, Elektra?"
"The Furies from Greek Mythology? Erinyes?"
"Weren't they the Dirae?"
"That was the Romans."
"Won't work, there were only three of them."
"Also, I've met the Furies. They wouldn't appreciate us using their name."
"How about an acronym?"
"What can we make out of S, B, T and E, though? And if anyone suggests 'Best', I will stab them."
"No one was going to suggest Best, Tora. We're not that bad."
"How about we ditch the code names and use our real ones. That way we can get NEST out of it."
"Why Nest?"
Silver looked confused then brightened.
"A safe haven. We create a safe haven."
Tora groaned but Elektra shrugged.
"Gets my vote. Send me the updated program through the channel you got to reach me in the first place."
Tora stood.
"Just so we understand, this doesn't leave us four. We can't tell anyone. We do silent missions, okay?"
The other three nodded then left one by one. When Black Widow finished her vodka and vanished, Tora let the smirk reach the unparalysed side of her face.
"Mission accomplished."
"The manipulative…"
"Bear in mind, NEST dealt with a great deal of threats before they ever got to a major level. Statisically, they saved close to ten thousand lives simply by taking down potential world domination schemes before they ever got off the ground. Something the Avengers always sucked at."
"So this was way back?"
"Tora was a mother, had not yet joined with Dragon. Shall we return to the 'present'?"
"There isn't a present right now."
"Shall we return to where we left off before you so rudely interrupted me?"
"Sure. Oooh, show her visit to Kurt!"
"You are a demanding guest, you know that, Jean?"
A.N. Apologies for the huge delay. But life decided to get in the way. But I've hopefully got a lot of free time now, so I can update more often. S-99