(Seconds before the encounter with Ivan)
As soon as Loki sensed an evil presence ahead of him, he ducked down behind the tree line with Natalia. He then astral projected both of their figures out into the open. He was losing energy fast, but he saw no other way since Ivan was coming in their direction. He still didn't have the energy to get them both out of there with his powers since he was so unpracticed, but this plan was working.
He watched as Ivan offered him escape. He checked on Natalia and thought of what to do next. Ivan was in their way and they needed to get past him. Natalia needed rest and the constant barrage of wounds and emotions were taking its toll. Then he remembered the second syringe of adrenaline in his pocket. It might be able to help Natalia but he debated on whether or not to use it yet since she was slowly recovering. They were not out of danger yet and needed to keep moving, he would think more about it later.
(Present)
Natalia watched as Loki left her to distract Ivan. The feeling was coming back into her body after being tased and she could feel it all now. It hurt like hell but to get past it all she thought about was what she planned on doing to Ivan.
Her recovering body had warmed up and the snow that landed on her skin and wet clothes had started to melt. She watched in fascination as it ran off of her body and mixed with the wet snow around her. Just a drop of blood seemed to expand in the slush and pretty soon it looked like a sea of blood. She couldn't believe that it had all come from her but there was no one else around.
Her mind started to wander as she thought about her past victims. Waves of regret washed over her and she wanted to feel the pain that she had made them endure. She thought it made her feel happy when she completed a mission for Ivan, but did it really? She couldn't remember ever feeling truly happy. Maybe for just a few moments in the frames of time with Loki.
Loki. He had come into her life so unexpectedly and saved her from her own misery. All she ever did to pay him back was to drag him back to Earth to possibly be killed by Ivan's henchmen. She was the reason James left, she was the reason most of the world leaders were afraid to shut their eyes at night, she was the reason Ksenia was in so much danger. The world would be so much better off without her, but first, Ivan needed to pay. Loki and Ksenia wouldn't be in any more danger when she and Ivan were gone. She only hoped that Loki would look after her.
Tears sprang to her eyes as she stood up to stumble away. Ivan was no longer in the clearing and that meant Loki would be back soon. She looked at the sea of washed off blood all over the ground and couldn't help but see the bodies of the comrades she had killed. Ivan was going to pay and he was going to pay now.
XXXXXX
As soon as Loki had left Natalia, he snuck around to the left side of the clearing where he watched the exchange between Ivan and their astral selves. He then looked around for something to pull Ivan away but all he saw was white and gray. Cursing himself, he dug into the freezing snow but quickly found that it really didn't bother him, it was just the thought of digging around in the wet mush. The blood from Natalia on his hands mixed in with the snow and turned it a sickly shade of crimson.
His knuckle scraped against something rough and he grabbed at it; it was a large stone.
"Great, I'm a feared Asgardian warrior with a mighty rock. Oh how Thor would mock me," he mumbled.
His head whipped up when he heard the gunshot. Ivan had tried shooting who he thought was Loki through the heart. Loki made his astral self smile at the mad man and it infuriated as well as confused Ivan. Ivan fired a few more shots and then stared in wonder when the spell broke and the projections of Loki and Natalia disappeared.
Loki panicked when his spell broke. Ivan would continue forward and find the real Natalia at any moment. Ivan was spinning around trying to figure out where they had went while Loki tried to figure out what to do. He then thought of the stone in his hand and prepared to throw it, hoping Ivan would hear it through the wind. Thinking he wouldn't, he hurled it at the dead bush beside him. It made a loud crashing sound and he then crawled back a few paces and hid behind a cluster of trees.
The plan worked though as Ivan charged towards the sound. Loki saw the man smile when he saw the blood that had washed from his hands when he found the rock in the snow. Ivan was sure it belonged to Natalia and he headed straight, away from Loki. Sighing in relief, Loki turned and made his way back to where he left Natalia.
The strong scent of blood hit his nose when he made it to the spot where he left her. There was a large amount of blood mixed with the snow. He could only think that someone had gotten to Natalia since she was nowhere in sight. As a million horrifying things ran through his head, he didn't hear the footsteps behind him.
"I'm sorry," a sweet voice whispered behind him before he felt something hard hit the back of his head. He fell into the bloody snow and was immediately knocked out.
XXXXXX
Natalia felt horrible for knocking Loki out but he would have followed her and gotten hurt. She kneeled beside him and planted a kiss to his forehead. Feeling something in his coat pocket, she reached in and pulled out the syringe. It looked different from what she could remember before when Dr. Andrei somewhat explained it to her. This one was red, she could have sworn that the other one was blue. Her mind was probably playing tricks on her. Natalia smiled to herself anyways as she tucked it into her waistband and left.
Following the direction she thought Ivan went in, she guessed he was headed back towards the compound. She hadn't been in this part of the forest before but she knew how to navigate, even though the blinding snow. She guessed that they had overshot the compound and were approaching it from the opposite side.
Her guess proved correct when she finally made it. There were almost no guards from what she could see. They were probably all out looking for her and the baby. A longing pain went through her chest as she thought about Ksenia. The stony grey compound looked almost ghostly as it stood out in the night. The courtyard was barren and the caravan of trucks were no longer parked in their spots. The five story building looked small but what the average person didn't know was that it went stories underground and expanded underneath.
Ivan proved to be nowhere in sight as she snuck up a tree next the fence. Her whole body trembled as she grabbed each branch to hoist herself up. When she made it high enough, she jumped from her perch and sailed over the compound fence. No even bothering to land gracefully, she let her legs buckle underneath her and layed in the snow for a few moments.
"Get up," a voice said. There was no one around but she could have sworn she heard it.
"Get up." Natalia sat up quickly and cringed when the movement hurt her head. She definitely heard something. She looked around and to her amazement, she saw people.
"Get up," the people said in unison. Natalia looked harder and saw that they were not ordinary people, they were her fallen comrades that she was forced to kill.
Tears sprang to her eyes as the ghostly figures urged her to get up and avenge them. She took comfort in the thought that they forgave her, and that it was all Ivan's fault.
Shakily standing up, she tucked her hand into her pocket and pulled out the syringe stolen from Loki. Without a second thought, she plunged it straight into her chest, right into her heart. The effects from the injection were almost immediate. The ghostly figures blew away with the snow and the pain in her body left with them.
She felt so much adrenaline that her body didn't know what to do with itself. She let herself stretch and then took off in a full run towards the door to the compound. Upon finding it locked, she kicked the handle off and let herself into the torch lit hallway. The storm must have knocked the lights out.
Wet footprints led the way down the hall and she knew it was Ivan who had left them. Ivan was a smart man; he must have known he was being followed since he was never that sloppy. He knew she was here and she hoped he was afraid.
Hearing every sound and vibration as she hurried through the halls down to the lower levels, she pinpointed Ivan to be in the training room. When she reached the room, she found it open and lit with torches. It looked very medieval, especially with a figure standing in the middle of the room casting an eerie shadow through the doorway.
No words were exchanged as she entered and closed the door behind her. He knew she was there to kill him, and she knew he wouldn't make it easy.
As each body looked for a weakness, it was a creak in the floors that distracted Ivan. Natalia took this distraction as her advantage and lunged forward, slamming her foot into his knee and forcing it the wrong way. Ivan fell to the ground with an angry yell as he clutched his broken knee.
"Never lose focus," Natalia taunted just as he had that day in the training room with James when she got kicked in the stomach.
Ivan looked angry. He grabbed his knee, popped it back in the right spot, and stood up with no problem. It was due to the adrenaline that she heard the sound of skin, bone, and tissues repairing at an inhuman rate. The confused look on her face prompted Ivan to answer.
"They called the serum an 0-8-4, or, an object of unknown origin."
"What are you talking about?" Natalia countered.
"The super serum." They started to circle each other as Ivan continued. "It was given to me by a friend who owed me a favor. He said it was the only one in existence and after I was injected, I could do amazing things."
As he ended on that word, he struck forward and knocked Natalia off her feet and into the wall several yards behind her. The impact made the wall crack and pissed Natalia off. She felt healed after that last injection and it packed a punch. She shot back and faked a kick to the head, instead using her leg to sweep him off of his feet. He landed with a thud but quickly recovered.
"If it was the only one in existence, how did you inject me with it?" she asked.
"Dr. Andrei is a very smart man my child..."
"Was a smart man," she interrupted.
"Was? He is supposed to have the baby with him. Is that why you tracked me here? To see where he had taken her?"
The word 'baby' shot fury through her body and she attacked Ivan once more. She used all of her strength to hit him in the head. He blocked most of the blows but the sheer force broke his wrist and arm. Before he could recover from the shock she struck a blow to his sternum, hearing it crack. It wasn't enough to kill him, but she bet it hurt like hell.
"He doesn't have her, she is gone and will never walk this earth. Now answer my question."
The confusion was enough to make him stutter. "But what...?"
"The question, Ivan." She said through gritted teeth.
"My blood. Dr. Andrei isolated the serum I was injected with to make a new one. Unfortunately, it has worn off on me over the years. I'm very old you see, I lost track around 114. And I assume you took the adrenaline shots since you looked half dead earlier. They were made from your blood and enhanced in case you were injured too badly in the field."
"How many more are there!"
"There is no more serum, only the adrenaline compounds. There are four trucks with two syringes each so that makes four. The other paired syringes are enhancers incase the first one failed. If you took both, then that leaves 3 compounds with 3 enhancers. Now, what happened to my child!?"
He hit Natalia in the chest as she was thinking about what he said. She caught her balance but another kick sent her into the door, breaking the glass in its window. Her hand gripped a large shard and she shot up like a bullet and caught Ivan on the wrist with the glass.
Blood poured from his veins but he didn't let that slow him down. He caught her hand as it came towards him again and used the leverage against her, making her stab herself in the stomach.
"I've lost too much blood today, you will never take any more of it!" She wrenched the shard out and caught him across the cheek. She dodged a fist to her face and then rolled to the side as she sent a spin kick. She popped up and caught him in a headlock, prepared to end his life.
"She is not your child, she's mine," she said through gritted teeth.
Through all of the fighting, the rest of the dried blood on her body became heated and runny again. It made the grip on Ivan's neck slip and he took advantage of it and wrenched his body away from her, grabbed onto her arm, and pulled her to the ground. He wrenched her arm behind her back and placed his boot right on her spine. She couldn't move as she lay on the ground.
It was then that she felt the familiar cold of a gun press into the side of her head.
"Say goodnight, little spider."