Natasha was feeling cold and miserable. Cold due to the temperature that had dropped to below freezing since the sun had gone down. Her costume was insulated, but she had not put it on since before she had left Russia. Only a fur coat protected her from the cold, and even that didn’t cover her exposed lower legs. She was miserable because of how she had spoken to William. Here he was, working his hardest and making their business a success, and she tried to make him feel guilty about it.

“Perhaps he is right,” she thought. “Perhaps I just need to get back into the swing of things here. Forget the past few months. After all, I should be proud of how good our little enterprise is doing.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s not too late. I think I’ll drop by William’s apartment and apologize by offering to take him out to dinner.”

Natasha, filled with a veneer of hope, turned and hurried off in the direction of William Peak’s apartment building.

A short time later, Natasha stood outside the apartment door of William Peak. She had knocked several times and waited a minute for a response. Nothing. So she knocked again, this time harder. Perhaps William was in the lavoratory. Still nothing. Her shoulders slumped a bit and she prepared to leave when she noticed a faint tap-tap-tapping coming from inside William’s apartment. She put her ear to the door. Sure enough, there it was. A rhythmic tapping.

“William?” she called through the door. “Are you in there?” No answer.

She was just about to give up, disregarding the tapping as a dripping faucet, or something equally as banal, when suddenly it struck her.

Tap…tap…tap…taptaptap…tap…tap…tap…taptaptap…tap…tap…tap…

That was morse code! S.O.S! Someone was calling for help in William’s apartment!

Natasha quickly looked around to see that no one was around. She bent down and examined the lock and deadbolt on the door. She quickly reached into her purse and pulled out a small tool. She placed it first in one lock, wiggled it a bit, and heard a ‘click’ as the tumblers fell into place and the lock opened. She then did the same for the deadbolt and opened the door.

She cautiously entered the small apartment. The tapping sound, still spelling out S.O.S., was coming from the back bedroom. She stealthily crept up to the door, and gripped the doorknob. She didn’t know whether to hope that someone was actually in need of assistance, or whether or not the rhythm of the tapping was just coincidence, and William was just…entertaining, as it were. Well, if it were nothing, she would slip out without him ever being the wiser.

The Black Widow opened the door to the bedroom just a hair, and a sight that she never expected greeted her. Handcuffed to a bed, a gag in his mouth, was William Peak. But this was not the clean-shaven, proper English gentleman she had just seen a few hours earlier. He was quite unshaven; at least a couple months worth of facial hair adorned his face.

The Widow threw open the door, and William’s face lit up. He began thrashing about and shouting, though his voice was muffled by the gag. She rushed over to him and pulled the gag out of his mouth.

“N-Natasha…is it really you?” he said, his voice somewhat manic. “I’d been hitting my head on this headboard for hours hoping someone would hear. Tell me this isn’t a hallucination.”

“Yes, Mister Peak,” she began, using her lock pick to get his hands out of his handcuffs. “What’s going on here? I just saw you earlier today!”

William sat up and began rubbing his wrists. “That wasn’t me! It was—“

“I’m afraid that would have been me.”

Black Widow whirled around to see the William Peak she had spoken with earlier in the day in the doorway, a gun in his hand. “William, old chap…would you look at the pickle you’ve put us in now.”

The bedraggled Mister Peak explained to Natasha. “Whoever he is, he’s held me hostage since just after you left for Symkaria! He’s come by every night to bring me food and water, let me bathe myself, and jog on the treadmill.”

“That’s right,” the fake Peak said. “I would bring you meals from the finest restaurants in Manhattan, and allow you to stay clean and healthy. After all, I may have needed you out of the way, but that didn’t mean I had to be a savage about it.”

“Who ARE you?!” Natasha asked, her hands balling into fists. “And why have you done this?”

“Ah, yes. Now is the time for the villain to reveal all, eh? Well, just hold on a moment, would you?” The fake Mister Peak used his free hand to pull out a cellular phone, pushed a button, and put it to his ear. “I’ve been discovered, but I trust I’ve proved my worth? Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. Right-o. Tah.” He then placed the phone back in his pocket.

As the imposter was on the phone, Natasha had been assessing the situation. Unfortunately, she did not have her Widow’s Bite bracelet handy. She was fairly sure she couldn’t reach the gunman before he could get off a shot. She decided to wait until she had a better opening before taking any action.

“Well, it appears that everything is roses, luv,” the man resumed. “I’ve gotten the okay to reveal some things…’to rub your nose in it’, they said.”

“Who are ‘they’?” The Widow asked.

“Oh, you know…one of those secret underground thinktanks dedicated to taking over the world blah blah blah. You see, once I ran the world’s foremost assassination ring. But in recent years, I fell on a bit of hard times. Driven out of my own company, I had to go underground myself for a while. When I decided to make a comeback, I found most of my former clients were a bit hesitant about my abilities. So the aforementioned secret underground think tank gave me a task…”

“To take Mister Peak’s place,” The Widow said coldly.

“Well, not really,” the imposter stated. “To prove I still had the physical abilities of disguise and to prove I still had the ability to run an operation successfully, I had to impersonate a big cheese in a failing business, and without anyone knowing it was me, turn the business around.”

“But…why Widow’s Peak?” the real William inquired.

“Well, I’d like to say that I was intrigued by your little enterprise, as it was somewhat related to what I used to do. But I’d be lying. To tell the truth, I merely tossed a dart at a list of hurting businesses, and you were the winner. Though,” and with this, the man wiggled his eyebrows at Natasha, “I was intrigued by getting close to such an…exotic woman. You remind me a bit of my ex-wife.”

“So what now?” Natasha asked. She hated the fact that she was stalling for time, but she knew that the longer she could keep this stranger talking, the more likely he would let slip a vital piece of information, or give her an opening to attack him. She knew that she probably couldn’t depend on William for help, since his long internment had probably left him weak.

The man rubbed his chin. “Hmmm, that’s a good question. I hate to just abandon this little business I’ve worked so hard to make successful.” Natasha winced almost imperceptibly at this comment. “And I doubt I could just convince you two to sign it over to me all legal-like. Wait! I’ve got it! I’ll make it look like a murder/suicide. A crime of passion! The aging British secret agent who advances on his famous and beautiful business partner and is rejected most harshly! In a fit of rage, he catches her unawares and does what many a super ne’er-do-well couldn’t. He kills her! Without a reason to live, he puts himself out of the picture as well. I smell movie of the week here. I wonder if I could get me to play you, William?”

William stood up. “This all bloody daft! Secret organizations, doppelgangers, everything you’ve done. None of it makes sense!”

“I know,” the impostor chuckled, “It’s the randomness of it all that’s been the most fun. Ah, well. To all things, and all that—“

The imposter oriented the gun on Natasha, and pulled the trigger. In what appeared to be slow motion, the real William Peak leaped in front of Natasha. The bullet struck him in the chest. As he fell to the ground, the Black Widow leapt over William at the impostor. Before he could reorient the gun, it was kicked out of his hand by a swift flying kick. Natasha landed in a crouch, and attempted to sweep the impostor’s feet out from under him, but he nimbly leaped over her sweeping leg. She then tried, still practically lying on the ground, to thrust her leg through his chin. He caught her leg, however, and twisted it harshly, attempting to harm her. The Widow used the twist to her advantage. She twisted with it, and used the momentum to regain her footing. Without missing a beat, she attempted a chop to his neck, but he deftly blocked the move with a block from his right forearm. The impostor threw a punch with his left arm at her chest, but Natasha used his forearm that still blocked her outstretched arm to roll to his side, avoiding the blow.

The two traded a flurry of blows, neither being able to connect solidly against the other, for over a minute before the imposter gained some space when he avoided an uppercut by a flailing Black Widow by doing a back hand-flip. “Now, luv, I can dance with you like this all night, but,” and with this he pointed at the crumpled, bleeding form of William Peak, “I don’t think our friend there will wait that long for help.”

Natasha stood for a moment, panting from the exertion, her anger at the impostor blinding her to the help that the real Peak obviously needed.

“Tell you what,” the fake Peak said, turning toward the door to the apartment slowly. “I’m going to walk out that door and go on my way. You can either come after me and we can continue our rather…invigorating behavior, or…” and he lifted a single eyebrow toward William. He then turned his back to the Widow, and began walking toward the door.

Natasha made the barest of moves toward him, then stopped and rushed to William. She turned him over, and was promptly squirted with a stream of hot blood. William was deathly ashen as she ripped off her coat and pressed it against his sucking chest wound. There was already a large puddle of blood where William had been lying, and Natasha feared the worst. “Come on, Will…don’t you dare die on me!”

William Peak opened his eyes and oriented on Natasha briefly. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but whatever he wanted to say was interrupted as he choked up some blood. His eyes glazed over as he shut them again.

“Damn you…NO!”

“Miss Romanoff?”

Natasha withdrew her gaze from the cold cup of coffee that she had been staring into for hours as the doctor spoke her name.

“William?” she inquired, fearing the answer.

The doctor took off his green surgical cap before beginning. “Mister Peak suffered a collapsed lung and severe blood loss from the bullet, Miss Romanoff. We extracted the slug and staunched the blood loss but he lost a lot of blood, and it’s still a bit too early to tell how much damage was truly done. He’s currently in a coma and we have no idea if or when he’ll come out of it, or even if he’ll survive. I’m sorry I don’t have better news…”

Natasha stood stoically for a moment, and then said flatly, “Thank you, doctor.” She threw her coffee into the waste bin and walked out of the waiting room toward the elevators. The doctor watched her walk off, as another doctor approached him.

“How’d she take it?” the second doctor asked, nodding in Natasha’s direction.

The first doctor turned to the second. “You know these super-heroes. They see this kind of stuff all the time. It doesn’t bother them a bit. C’mon, let’s go get some dinner.”