A mystery aircraft flies over the North Pole and enters
Oregon. Nick Fury vouches for the plane which carries Natasha Romanova, the
retired Black Widow, and Lyudmila Kudrin. Fury takes Nat to the hospital where
Phil Dexter is on life support, having barely survived being shot with
explosive bullets. There was no sign of Sally Anne Carter. The chief suspect is
the North Institute, former NSA agents who now work for private businesses. Fury
departs and Natasha wonders why she never hurts the irritating Fury; Kudrin
reveals that the Soviets did not trust the Black Widow program so there was a
pheromone created that men could wear that would prevent the Widows from
injuring—or even disobeying—them. Naturally Nick Fury stole it from the
Russians and uses it himself when needed; it was instrumental in engineering
her defection….
Later, in the hospital room, Natasha receives a call from
Nick Fury covertly telling her where she can find the North Institute agents….
At a Sante Fe motel, Natasha captures Kestrel and her
girlfriend, threatening to shoot the girl if Kestrel doesn’t tell her where
Sally Anne Carter is, who they are working for, and who shot Phil Dexter.
Kestrel talks….
Natasha leaves the motel and spots Max Hunter in his car,
waiting to pick up his partner. Nat shoots him in both legs, then tosses a
grenade in his lap. Boom.
Aboard his yacht off the Miami coast, millionaire CEO Ian
McMasters again rebukes Vassily Ilyich Ulyanov for his failure to kill Natasha.
He reveals that his cosmetics firm Gynacon is purchasing chemicals from 2R to
distribute in the US and can’t afford to have anyone with those meds already in
her system alive. Ulyanov reveals he has set a trap for Natasha, inviting her
to step forward and fight. He is unarmed, she has a knife but he has also used
the pheromone which prevents her from harming him. She takes a beating until he
kicks her in the face, breaking her nose. Unable to smell anything, she is now
free to kill him. She takes a knife to McMasters who tells her that Ulyanov’s
men took Sally Carter away. With the two enemies dead, she goes after Sally….
Story continues in BLACK WIDOW:
THE THINGS THEY SAY ABOUT HER #1.