Red Room

RR47 Mercenary

The shock of discovering the empty grave was huge. This revelation in combination with the fact that a photo existed of a girl with the same violet colored eyes gave Natasha hope that Ksenia was out there. They all made a promise to Sif that they would fill her in on everything that would transpire since she had to leave for Asgard. After she left in the portal, the team started to make their way back to the compound.

After talking more with Dove about his old mentor, Natasha discovered that the child in the photo also had red hair strikingly similar to hers. Their next step was to try and contact the man who had taught Dove everything he knew and get ahold of any information they could in regards to the mysterious Lazarus Project.

"You know," Darcy said as they walked back to the compound to escape the weather, "lazarus refers to being raised from the dead, so this could mean good news right? The only thing is though, is it even possible?"

"What do you mean 'is it possible.'" Bobbi said as she caught up to her. "My team just started dealing with the impossible, 084's, inhumans... and look at the Avengers! Thor and Sif are gods, Captain America and his abilities, the existence of aliens...do you really have to ask if it's possible?"

"Alright fine, you win," Darcy said with a sigh, "but I guess what I'm really asking is how someone found out about her being there in the first place. Loki and Lady Sif were the only ones who knew about the grave, right? And if Lady Sif hasn't ever been back to it until now...that leaves Loki."

"It wasn't him," Natasha said from the front of the group. "Loki can be a lot of things but I don't think it was him."

Thor joined her at the front as they continued on. "How can you know?" he asked.

Natasha stopped, halting the group for a moment before the climb up a snowy covered hill. "I mean that Loki had to of been followed, it's the only other explanation. Think about it, Ksenia was...dead. Project Lazarus had to of been about the person who found her and brought her back to life, if that's even what happened at all."

Everything started making sense but there were still more questions than answers.

As they started the climb, Bobbi panted as she dragged behind and lagged with Dove. "Your being awfully quiet again, something on your mind?"

Dove shot the SHIELD agent a glare and ignored her. He still wasn't over the confrontation from earlier as well as the stories he had heard about one of the greatest HYDRA infiltrations that she was solely apart of. The things that she had to do to climb the ranks and stay undercover was everything he was against.

"Oh I see, the silent treatment. I get it, I made you mad. Would it help if I said I was sorry?" She said it with slight exaggeration, though she didn't really mean to. The long trek they went through today was taking a lot out of her. Though her injuries were healing, a little slower now, she was still not feeling like herself yet. She was over exerting herself but kept pushing her body, wanting it to return to her usual fit self.

Dove continued to ignore her as they walked and sped up so he didn't have to listen to her halfhearted apologies. When she started lagging further behind though he started to get a little concerned.

They only had about a mile or two to go before they got back to the compound and everyone was lost in their own little theories of what had happened to Ksenia. It made Natasha smile, everyone wanted to help her figure out the mystery and she didn't even have to ask. It sucked trying to be strong for herself, but now she had others who would give their lives to help her.

Thor caught up to her and they began discussing where to go from there. It was decided that he would draw too much attention to their little group so he would be returning back to the tower. Natasha threatened him to not talk about anything that had happened at all. She wanted it to be as if Thor had never met up with her, and he was in Asgard the entire time. Darcy joined in their conversation so that left Dove and Bobbi alone.