Ernst's Quarters
Ernst tore his shirt, inspecting the knife wound.
It was shallow, already clotting thanks to his enhanced metabolism.
"Azazel," he projected mentally. Now.
A puff of red smoke filled the room.
Azazel appeared, looking frantic.
"Doctor! Who did this?"
"No time," Ernst snapped.
"We need a scene. Break the table. Scorch the wall. Make it look like a war zone."
Azazel understood instantly.
He smashed the heavy oak desk with one blow and fired a plasma bolt into the ceiling.
Ernst overturned the bed.
"Go," Ernst ordered.
"Sound the alarm."
Ten minutes later, the base was screaming.
Sirens wailed. Searchlights swept the perimeter.
But it was too late.
A stealth extraction plane had already lifted Natalia, and the stolen Serum, into the night sky.
Schmidt stormed into the ruined room, stepping over shattered furniture.
His red skull was flushed a darker crimson with rage.
"Dr. Ernst!" Schmidt roared.
"Explain this! Your woman was a spy? She steals my Serum, she compromises my base, and you, the genius, did not see it?"
Ernst sat on the edge of the bed, clutching a bloody bandage to his shoulder.
He didn't cower. He glared back with equal fury.
"Explain?" Ernst stood up, wincing theatrically.
"I should ask you for an explanation, General! Who vetted her? You! Who gave her to me as a 'gift'? You!"
Ernst ripped the bandage away, revealing the ugly, blackened wound (he had allowed the toxin to discolor the skin before neutralizing it).
"She tried to kill me, Schmidt! She drugged me, stabbed me, and while Azazel fought her off, she escaped. If my bodyguard hadn't dragged me into the safe room and sucked the poison out, I would be dead. And you would have no scientist to fix your broken body."
Schmidt opened his mouth, then closed it.
The evidence was damning. He had given Natalia to Ernst.
The failure was his.
"I..." Schmidt faltered, his anger deflating into embarrassment.
"I did not know."
"Clearly," Ernst spat.
"Now, if you are done shouting at the victim, get me a medic. I have been stabbed with a neurotoxin."
Schmidt nodded stiffly.
"My apologies, Doctor. It will not happen again."
Ernst was moved to the high-security medical wing.
The doctors cleaned the wound, marveling at his resilience.
Ernst played the part of the exhausted victim, but his mind was sharp.
The next morning, Dr. Zola visited.
"Dr. Ernst!" Zola chirped, sitting by the bed.
"A tragedy, truly. But the Valkyrie engines! I have had a breakthrough with the phase-shifters..."
Zola rambled on about physics, oblivious to Ernst's distraction.
Ernst wasn't listening. He was focusing on the beacon he had placed on Natalia.
Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.
The signal was stationary.
But the emotional resonance coming from it was screaming.
Pain. Clinical detachment.
She is in a hospital, Ernst realized. A Soviet medical black site.
Then he felt it. A second, tiny heartbeat.
Fading.
Ernst's eyes snapped open.
"Dr. Zola," Ernst interrupted.
"I am tired. Please."
"Oh! Of course, of course," Zola bowed out, leaving the room.
Ernst turned to Azazel, who was guarding the door.
"Lock it," Ernst ordered.
He stood up, shedding the hospital gown and pulling on the tactical suit Azazel retrieved from his pocket dimension.
"She is terminating the pregnancy," Ernst said, his voice ice-cold.
"We are going. Now."
Azazel grabbed his arm.
BAMF.
Red Room Medical Facility - Minsk
The air displaced with a crack of thunder.
They appeared in a sterile, white operating theater.
Three doctors and two nurses froze, staring at the sudden intruders.
On the table lay Natalia, unconscious under anesthesia.
"Clear the room," Ernst ordered.
Azazel moved like a blur. Thud. Thud. Thud.
In two seconds, the medical staff were unconscious on the floor.
Ernst rushed to the table.
He was seconds away from being too late.
The procedure had begun.
He reached into the surgical field with telekinetic precision, pushing aside the instruments.
There it was.
A fetus, barely the size of a fist.
Its heart was fluttering, weak, fading into the dark.
"No you don't," Ernst whispered.
He placed his hand over the tiny form.
He didn't use medical tools; he used the Reality Stone's residue energy within his own cells.
Stabilize.
He willed the cells to hold.
He willed the heart to beat.
He encased the fetus in a protective bubble of localized stasis, a womb made of pure energy.
Ernst lifted the glowing sphere. Inside, his child floated, suspended in time.
"Azazel," Ernst said, his voice trembling with suppressed rage.
"Stasis pod. Now."
Azazel produced a high-tech containment cylinder from the void.
Ernst gently lowered the energy sphere into it and sealed the lid.
The readout turned green. Life signs stable.
Ernst handed the pod to Azazel.
"Guard this with your life."
Then, he turned to Natalia.
She lay there, peaceful, aware that she had almost killed his legacy.
Aware that she chose the mission over her own flesh and blood.
Ernst reached out. He could snap her neck.
It would be easy. She had betrayed him. She had tried to kill their child.
But he stopped.
'If I kill her, the Red Room investigates. If she disappears, they look for her.'
She must remain the Black Widow.
Ernst placed his hand on her forehead.
Mind Wipe.
He dove into her psyche.
He found the memories of the pregnancy, the morning sickness, the decision to abort.
He burned them.
He replaced them with false memories: A routine mission debriefing.
A scheduled sterilization procedure ordered by the Red Room.
No pregnancy. No child.
He then turned to the unconscious doctors.
He rewrote their minds too. Routine sterilization. Successful. Patient stable.
"It is done," Ernst whispered, pulling his hand back.
"Dr. Ernst," Azazel asked softly.
"What about the files?"
"Thorough as always," Ernst nodded.
He grabbed Azazel's shoulder.
BAMF.
The Director's Office
They appeared in the office of Madame B, the head of the Red Room.
The stoic woman looked up from her desk, reaching for her pistol.
Ernst didn't even blink.
He froze her motor functions with a telepathic blast.
He walked to the filing cabinet, pulled Natalia's medical file, and incinerated the pages referencing the pregnancy.
He forged a new entry: Subject sterilized per protocol. No complications.
He turned to Madame B, planting a subtle suggestion in her mind: Everything went according to plan.
"Let's go," Ernst said.
-------------
Authors Note:
Do you want to read 25+ Chapters ahead right now?
Stop waiting. Come over to the dark side. We have cookies, advanced chapters, and very, very detailed 'plot.'
patreon.com/
Dark_sym