The Ghost [Marvel | Steve Rogers]

Chapter 74

Upstate New York, USA

Summer 2015

Strange as it was to think it, coming back to the Compound felt rather like...coming home. Especially after the trip she'd just come back from. It had been draining, to say the least, but it had been successful to some extent. And only partially as...final for some of the former HYDRA agents she'd gone to meet as Nadine had anticipated. She'd only had to cross off two of the nine she'd gone to meet with, and that was only out of an overabundance of precaution, really. The others had been satisfyingly oblivious. Besides, the names from this part of the list were one and all in prison and abandoned by the remnants of HYDRA anyway, so there was little harm in leaving those she left alive to rot for their crimes.

So overall, while time-consuming and mentally draining, it really had been a dull mission. She'd barely needed to dip into her repertoire of interrogation skills—subtle, manipulative or otherwise—to find out everything she'd needed to know to make her judgement calls. They'd one and all bought the line that she was one of them searching for The Ghost hook, line and sinker.

Hardly exciting.

Setting up a pair of hits inside two different prisons from the outside had been only marginally more interesting. As had the side trips to take care of the intelligence stashes she'd learned two of the former HYDRA heads had left behind. Not to mention the copies she'd taken had potential. For both her missions.

On another note, it was encouraging to confirm that at least a few of her work covers were still intact. She definitely would've been in a tight spot if the identity she'd used and its corresponding identification had been flagged. Not that she'd been truly concerned that it had been; she'd been thorough in checking to be sure 'Michelle Jacobs' was uncompromised before she'd even walked out the door of the Compound.

It was surprisingly good to be back at the Compound, though. Good to embrace her daughter again and hear her talk about the training and testing she'd gone through so far just as she'd used to tell Nadine all about her days at school. Good to see her sister. It was even good to see the Twins, even if her protective instincts were on a hair trigger thanks to the inescapable knowledge that the boy had feelings for her daughter that Nina more than reciprocated. It was good to see Rogers again too, even if part of her thought she was being silly for including him on that list. Either way, she wasn't about to admit that bit to anyone. Especially not Natasha...

They had all certainly been busy since she'd left, though. In the near week and a half since she'd been off on her own mission, Steve had apparently convinced his friend Sam to stick around for a bit as a genuine new Avenger recruit. Further, it seemed Stark's friend, Colonel Rhodes, had also been officially pulled in as a new member. Though, it seemed Rhodes was only going to be around on an as-needed basis rather than a full-time Avenger as Steve and Natasha were. Sam, she'd discovered, was undecided on that front. Though, in talking to him, Nadine suspected his mind was more made up than he realized; for one thing, even though he still had his place in DC, he had all but moved into the Compound. Rhodes, on the other hand, while given his own rooms as well, was obviously not going to be using them regularly, already treating his quarters as a place to stay over, rather than somewhere to live.

Natasha, meanwhile, had been hard at work getting Nina and the Twins—even Vision to a smaller extent—up to speed so they could begin training with the others. When Natasha had apprised Nadine of their progress, the redhead had been unashamedly proud of how they'd all been doing with the preliminary training she'd been putting them through. Even despite her own growing reservations when it came to Nina.

Despite not having quite the same practical experience the Twins had, Nina had been holding her own, the inadvertent spy training regimen Nadine had been putting her through since childhood proving its efficacy. But it seemed Natasha had begun to notice the same hesitation in Nina that Nadine had, suspecting for herself that Nina felt she should be wanting, even needing to train rather than out of any real desire to do so. But she was determined, and Nina was doing her best to rise to the challenges Natasha was putting to her despite her apparent uncertainties. And for that, Nadine was just as proud of her as Natasha.