Siblings In Everything But Blood

Chapter 6: In Which Natasha Moves Into Bunker 5

September 2012

Natasha's P.O.V.

She knocked on the door to Percy's apartment. Unfortunately, her house had been demolished two weeks ago in the Battle of New York. So now, she needed a place to stay. Percy opened the door, slightly surprised to see her.

"Hey, Tash! Come on in!" he said, ushering her through the door. She walked through, and dropped the backpack she was carrying on the couch, collapsing next to it.

"So, what brings you here? I haven't seen you since the Chitauri Invasion." Percy commented.

"My house was destroyed during the invasion, but I was hanging out with Clint at his place, so I didn't notice until now. I was wondering whether I could crash here for a while." she replied. Percy grinned.

"I've got a better place. Let's go!" He held a hand out to her, and she took it, grabbing her backpack just before they dissolved into mist. They reformed in a place with tons of weapons.

"Welcome to Bunker 5, Ares's base. Nobody knows about this place except for me. I've got a room in Bunker 3, Poseidon's base. I located all 12 Olympian bases in the months after Stark's party, barring Bunker 9, which the demigods already know about. This place be all yours until I let the demigods know about it. I found my tac suit in Bunker 3, and my katar in this bunker. Maybe you can find something for yourself as well." Percy explained. He handed her a map of the surrounding forest.

"The different bunkers are shown on this map. I've only fully explored Bunker 3, and I've taken a look at Bunker 5 and 6, but I haven't really searched the other bunkers. If you go to Bunker 6, you can access that database I gave you." he continued. Natasha blinked. Percy continued to surprise her. She had been expecting to crash in a guest room or couch, and ended up with her own bunker, with weapons literally lining the walls. She started walking around the bunker. Natasha felt a cold draft, and looked for the source. Her search led her to what seemed to be a blank wall. She brought out her spider robot, which she had decided to name Zvezda, a word for spider in Russian. Natasha set Zvezda on the floor, and directed her to search the wall for any way to open it. Zvezda whirred happily, and skittered up the cement, scanning it thoroughly. After a couple of minutes, Zvezda mentally sent her a picture of a small, square shaped crack in the wall. Natasha went over to the crack. She pushed it, causing a keypad to pop up. Percy watched her as she pulled out her SHIELD phone, and opened up an app that would allow her to check which buttons were pressed most often.

"I'll need to get Leo to build those monster proof phones." he muttered to himself. Her phone pinged, displaying the number 0512. She pushed the keys, and stepped back as a section of the wall lifted up. Walking through, she noticed a box labeled Project: Rebirth. Her breath caught. She opened the box carefully, finding notes on how the super serum was made, how it worked, and all of the demigods' research on attempts to recreate it. Three names caught her eye: Natasha Alianovna Romanoff, Robert Bruce Banner, and James Buchanan Barnes. She narrowed her eyes. Natasha had no idea that she had been enhanced. Sure, she healed faster than most people even before becoming a demigod, but she hadn't ever noticed anything strange otherwise that she couldn't put down to her training. Unless, of course, the training was only effective due to the serum. She decided to think on that later.

The next name, Banner's, hadn't surprised her. She was already aware of that, as it was in Bruce's files, but she hadn't known everything about the incident. According to the demigods' notes, he had been saving a teenager named Rick Jones who had wandered into the area when he was experimenting. Apparently, he had never meant to test it on himself, but had gotten caught in the explosion that had occured when he had abandoned his experiments to help Rick. She found some interesting information, though. The serum had been perfect. Bruce had gotten it right. The problem was that, in the words of Dr. Erskine, the serum amplifies everything that is inside, so good becomes great; bad becomes worse. That meant...