𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀 | While the Winter Soldier was a ghost story, Nadine Ryker is a ghost. She's The Ghost. Her past is a mystery, her identity even more so.
Few knew her as Nadya Ivanovna Rykova, the lost recruit of the Red Room, never spoken of aft...
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Prague, Czech Republic
Spring 2015
It wasn't the ideal place to be taking her shot from—usually she preferred to be firing from much farther away—but given what she'd been put together about Romanoff's anticipated movements, it was the best of a bad situation. So Nadine sat on a balcony, tucked down behind the solid yet decorative stone railing, peering through the pillars to the street below as her rifle was held ready in her lap.
Hiding in plain sight. It was what she did, what she was good at.
No one ever saw her coming.
She didn't know precisely what Romanoff's mission was and she didn't care. It had taken the entirely of her drive here to Prague to somehow detach herself from what she was preparing to do but she had managed it anyway. From there she had gone on to figuring out how to complete her mission, her years of lessons in the Red Room and subsequent years of practical experience proving their worth yet again.
After the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D. nearly a year before and the spilling of its secrets all over the internet, there was now a glut of intelligence out there for Nadine to take advantage of. And as all of her early preparation told her when she'd first been handed this mission, Natalia had more than earned the 'Black Widow' designation. A little part of Nadine was jealous; it was something every girl in the Red Room had aspired to, and for a short time, it was Nadya who had seemed poised to earn it. But that was a long time ago. Now Nadine was different. She wasn't Nadya anymore, with aspirations to a name that designated her as one of the best assassins in the world. Now she was The Ghost. Now she arguably was the best assassin in the world.
She was the assassin they sent after assassins.
She was enough of a match for Black Widow.
...at least in theory.
It was still early, the street still mostly empty, though people were beginning to appear, heading for breakfast or work. There was a faint breeze in the air, stirring the fine strands from Nadine's high ponytail to cling to her cheek and lashes. With an absent gesture she freed the blonde strands, brushing them back before checking her surroundings...again.
