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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Novi Grad, Sokovia
Spring 2015
Nina was barely able to stand by the time they made it into the lowest levels of the Sokovian Fortress standing vigil high above Novi Grad.
Strucker's Base, Pietro had explained softly as they entered the abandoned facility, responding to her obvious anxiety when she'd spotted the evidence of a bitter fight everywhere she looked. The place where the Baron who had experimented on the Twins—and her—had been defeated by the Avengers.
Just ahead of them Ultron was gesturing widely to the cavern extending deep below the base. "We'll move out right away." At first, Nina thought her head must be going fuzzy or something. There was a huge creature hanging limply—or as limply as an airplane sized creature could hang—from the ceiling. And if that wasn't enough to make her think she was seeing things, all around it were dozens upon dozens of robots appearing hard at work throughout the colossal, dimly-lit chamber. Though, just what they were working on, she couldn't even begin to guess. "This is a start, but there's something we need to begin the real work," Ultron explained.
Nina wasn't quite sure if she was fascinated by Ultron or terrified. Perhaps it was an equal measure of both that had her unable to look away as he enticed them with the sight of his veritable robot army in the bowels of Strucker's fortress.
But then, her mind was still throbbing and fuzzy from fever, making it hard to think. But that didn't stop a shiver of trepidation from going through her...or maybe that was an effect of the fever too...it was so hard to tell.
Fuzzy head or not, there was something about Ultron that left Nina feeling particularly uneasy. And judging by the looks the Twins kept exchanging, there was something about him that bothered them too.
But his offer to let them help destroy the Avengers was evidently one that was too good for them to pass up.
Not that Nina could precisely understand why...she'd always thought the Avengers were good guys. They had saved the world from an alien invasion, for God's sake...including ones that, if her memory wasn't playing tricks on her, looked just like the one hanging from the cavern's ceiling from chains whose breadth dwarfed Ultron.
