Moscow 

In a darkened room that officially does not exist on any floor plan of any building anywhere, a single shaft of light fell upon a lovely young blond woman in a neck-to-toe black jumpsuit. 

“You completed your mission in Libya…” a voice emanated from the darkness. 

“Yes, and I even…” the woman began. 

“I was not finished,” the voice said flatly. “You completed your mission, but it was not exactly a success.” 

A crease formed in the woman’s forehead. “What do you mean? I destroyed the base, brought you the plans, and even the plutonium they were using…” 

“Interrupt me again, Yelena Bolova, and your family will be shot,” the voice injected quickly. 

Yelena closed her mouth tightly, her lips a thin line of anger. 

The voice continued. “You did all those things you mentioned, but you were also witnessed by several dozen soldiers and workers. The only reason you didn’t cause an international incident is because of the illegal activities they were performing at that base. We did not spend billions of the people’s money and years of our time training you as a spy in order for you to capture headlines. We did it for you to work in secret. Romanoff would never have been so clumsy.” 

Yelena’s fists clenched at the last statement, but remained silent. 

A second voice spoke from the darkness. “Ah, this angers you. Perhaps we should try to bring the infamous Black Widow back into our fold. Perhaps she could show you the proper way to perform.” 

“My scores were higher than hers,” Yelena spoke, ignoring the prior warning. “I deserve the title of Black Widow, not that traitor!” 

There was a pause, and then the first voice spoke again. 

“Then prove it to us.” 

The light turned off, and Yelena was left in darkness. 

Natasha had been horrified when she had heard that the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin had been destroyed by Doctor Doom weeks ago* by the same weapon that Natasha had been unable to keep from destroying the city in Symkaria**. She felt as responsible for the many lives lost on American soil as she had for the lives lost in Symkaria, and she felt the need to visit the ruins of Milwaukee. She wasn’t sure what she could do there, but she just knew she needed to see the carnage for herself. 

(*M2K’s Fantastic Four #41 and **Black Widow #7. ~Jason) 

About 10 miles east of the destroyed city, Natasha came upon a SHIELD roadblock. She knew she could probably pass through with her Avengers identification or SHIELD ties, but her last contact with the security organization had not been pleasant*. She turned Alfa Romeo Spider around and went back about a mile. She hid her car off the road, and changed into her signature outfit. She then trekked back toward the roadblock. 

Once she arrived, she hid behind a nearby tree and surveyed the situation. There were only four SHIELD agents within sight, a row of sawhorses blocking the road, and a van that was probably a mobile communication station for the agents. Natasha immediately thought of six ways she could get past undetected. She decided that the simplest way was the best option. 

She rotated her widow’s bite bracelet and took aim at a grove of bushes a couple dozen yards away on the other side of the gathered agents. She fired her weapon three times and several ball bearings went whizzing through the air. They hit the bushes with rustles and the cracks of branches breaking. 

The agents’ heads all whipped toward the noise. Three of the agents took off toward the distraction while the fourth watched on. With silent ease, Natasha snuck past the guard and quickly sprinted beyond their site toward the ruins of Milwaukee. 

The gargantuan form dressed all in green swept his thick fingers along the ground and then squeezed the ash through them. 

“DUST!” Mister Hyde screamed. “You brought us here for nothing more than DUST!!” 

The Cobra cringed a bit. If he hadn’t needed Hyde’s strength in tunneling underground past the SHIELD cordon, he never would have involved his former partner. 

“Patience, Hyde,” the Cobra said, reassurance not exactly present in his voice. “There must be safes that survived the destruction of Milwaukee. Bank vaults, perhaps. We…we just have to locate them in all this desolation.” 

Hyde’s reaction was to turn and, with a growl of frustration, knock down a crumbling wall that must have once been a building of some sort. Cobra knew he’d better find something of value soon, for his own health. 

He looked around him. A short distance away, the hole he and Hyde had emerged from was barely distinguishable from the complete destruction the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin had suffered. Burnt out husks of building were leaning this way and that, the ones that had survived being atomized by the weapon of Doctor Doom. Piles of molten slag that must have once been cars and trucks dotted the landscape. Craters from gas main explosions and who knows what else was everywhere. For all the leader of the Serpent Society could tell, he could be standing right next to a former bank and never even know. 

Mister Hyde continued to vent his frustration by scooping up mounds of ash and rubble and knocking down more walls. 

Cobra was sitting on a small mound of rubble, and he was about ready to admit this idea was a bust. He knew Hyde would be furious (as if Hyde knew any other state!), and even with the insurance the Cobra had brought, he still feared the rage of his partner. 

The serpentine criminal opened his mouth to admit failure to Hyde when he rolled forward from a kick to the back of his head. Hovering above him stood the solemn form of the Black Widow. 

Before Natasha even had the chance to check if she had indeed knocked the sprawled villain out, the ground began shaking the already decimated ground. She looked up to see the mammoth form of Mister Hyde tromping towards her. 

With a guttural growl, Hyde swung his tree trunk of an arm at the athletic heroine. Natasha nimbly cart wheeled to the side, though the wind of Hyde’s punch nearly knocked her off her feet as it was. The Widow landed on her feet, and in a fluid motion she turned her bracelet to its ‘widow’s bite setting, aimed, and fired at Hyde. 

The blast struck him squarely in the chest, shredding his green jacket and white shirt. Hyde looked at the smoke rising from the flesh on his chest, then looked up at Natasha and smiled. 

“Heh,” he chuckled, which sounded like the crunching of rocks, “Is that the best you have, you little cu—GACK!!” 

Natasha had lunged forward and thrust her fingers into his throat. She flipped several times backward as Hyde choked. She knew her best bet to beat Hyde was hit-and-run tactics and try to use his rage against him. The angrier he got, she knew, the more sloppy and prone to mistakes he’d get. 

Still gasping for air, Hyde grabbed a nearby chunk of debris and threw it at The Widow. She easily sidestepped it and once again aimed then fired her widow’s bite. Long hours of training paid off, and she hit the clasp of Hyde’s pants dead on. Hyde’s pants fell down around his ankles. 

Natasha allowed herself a brief smirk. “No wonder you’re so angry,” she said as she looked at his midsection. 

Hyde’s face contorted into pure rage. He lifted his arms high and quickly brought them down on the ground. The ground in the immediate vicinity shook violently, and Natasha was knocked off her feet. 

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she chided herself in her thoughts. “I’ve done enough battle scenarios with The Hulk; I should have anticipated Hyde could do that, too!” 

In that moment, Hyde had ripped off his pants and once again descended on Natasha. From a prone position, the Avenger rolled backwards as Hyde reached for her. 

“I’LL KILL YOU!” Hyde yelled, his voice still raspy from the earlier shot to the throat. “THEN I’LL KILL COBRA, FOR BRINGING ME ON THIS FOOLISH OUTING! I’LL KILL EVERYONE WHO GETS IN MY WAY!!” He raised his head to the sky and let out a bellow of rage that was heard for miles. 

Black Widow took those moments Hyde ranted to take refuge behind a burnt husk of a wall. She needed to catch her breath and assess the situation. However, when she got behind the wall, she found a surprise. She quickly raised her widow’s bite again, ready to fire. 

“Whoa, whoa!” the Cobra quietly said, raising his hands. “Didn’t you hear him? He intends to kill me, too. That puts us on the same side, lady.” 

Natasha rubbed some of the grime and her hair out of her eyes as she deliberated. She lowered her widow’s bite. “Yes…for now. But once Hyde is subdued, I shall bring you in for all this.” 

“Whatever you gotta do, you gotta do,” Cobra said. “I have a way to put Hyde down, but I need an unobstructed shot at his open mouth. That’s your job.” 

“Why me?” Natasha asked. 

The Cobra smiled. “Because otherwise, at the first opportunity, I’ll just slither away and hide.” 

“How do I not know that you will do that anyway?” Natasha asked. 

“Because Hyde needs to be taken down a peg or three,” Cobra responded. “And I want to be the one to do it, after all these years of his threatening me.” 

Natasha nodded. “Very well, I shall lure the beast into the proper pos—“ 

Just then, the wall exploded as Hyde found them. The creature could be frighteningly quiet when he tried, and he had honed in on the two while they conversed. Cobra slithered to one side while Natasha leaped up, and over, Hyde’s shoulders. She landed behind him and smacked him on his exposed rear end as hard as she could in order to stir his attention toward her. 

It worked, and Hyde whirled around with a growl that came from deep inside his chest. Natasha was now standing about 10 yards away to his left. She was crouching, holding her ankle as if she had hurt it. Hyde tromped toward her, a sickening smile spreading across his face. 

Natasha tried to get up and run, but fell again the moment she stepped on the ankle she had been holding. She looked up as Hyde towered over her, a look of fear on her face. Hyde reached down and picked her up by one hand, his fingertips nearly touching around her small frame. 

“You mocked me before!” Hyde said to Natasha, hot spittle flying out of his mouth. “And see what comes of it? Perhaps I should not kill you, but rather show you how much of a ‘man’ I can be.” Natasha appeared full of fear. “Or perhaps,” and Hyde drew his face close to Natasha’s, “I shall show you how inhuman I can be.” He stuck his tongue out toward her, and the Russian could smell the stink of his breath. 

“No thank you,” she said, and quickly grabbed Hyde’s tongue with her left hand. As Hyde’s eyes widened in confusion, Natasha drew her right hand up, and placed her bracelet on the under side of his hot, sticky tongue. She fired her ‘widow’s line’ through his tongue, and the line shot up and wrapped around a half-melted lamp post she had feigned her injury under. 

Hyde, surprised by the sudden shock and pain, dropped Natasha. She held onto the line speared through the monster’s tongue, and yanked on it, causing Hyde to yell in pain. 

“NOW, COBRA!” She called out. 

Cobra stepped out from a nearby wreck, and lifted his arm carefully. Out of a small launcher mounted in his wrist, a small oval-shaped cylinder shot forth and found its way into Hyde’s gaping maw of a mouth. Natasha let go of the line, and Hyde’s mouth clamped shut, crunching down on the container in his mouth. 

As Black Widow drew back, Hyde’s hands went toward his throat, as if he were choking. Almost faster than her eyes could follow, Hyde’s form began to change. His body began to visibly shrink, and his contorted facial features began to resemble something more human, with dark hair and a beard. Within seconds, Mister Hyde had resumed the form of his alter ego. 

“Doctor Calvin Zabo, I assume, “Natasha said as she walked up and stood over the mostly naked man in front of her. “I guess Cobra had swiped some of the formula that transforms you back and forth into Hyde, in case of a situation like this. Wait, Cobra!” 

She spun around, but the Cobra had taken this opportunity to slither away and hide. She knew she had the more dangerous of the two, and that the serpentine criminal would show up again someday. She turned her attention back to Zabo, who was now sitting up, and gingerly touching his tongue, trying to decide how to get the nylon cord out. 

“Geth…geth ith outh! It hurth!” he whimpered. 

Natasha bent down. “As you wish, doctor.” 

Before his horrified eyes, The Black Widow grabbed the line and yanked hard, pulling the line and splitting the tip of Zabo’s tongue in two.” 

Natasha held the line in one hand as Zabo’s hands clamped over his mouth, blood beginning to stream forth. 

“Feel lucky that is all I do to you, doctor. Now, let us go to the SHIELD agents!” 

She grabbed Zabo by the shoulder, lifted him up, and shoved him forward. 

Meanwhile, many thousands of miles away, a ticket agent handed a ticket to a lovely young woman. 

“<Well, your passport appears to be in order>,” the overly cheerful ticket agent said in Russian. “<Here is your ticket, and your flight leaves in one hour. I hope you enjoy your vacation in America, Miss Bolova.” 

The blonde woman smiled. “<Thank you, but this trip is both business…and pleasure.” 

Next Issue: Natasha finds herself in Las Vegas! And as the saying goes, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!” Does that include…murder?! Plus, Yelena Bolova arrives in the Unites States on a mission to strip Natasha of the title of Black Widow!