The Ghost [Marvel | Steve Rogers]

Chapter 58

Vienna

Spring 2016

"Where are we," Nina piped up next to Barnes as she surveyed the nondescript warehouse facade they were approaching with wary curiosity. Nadine bit back a grin.

The building that housed her Workshop loomed before them in the steadily falling darkness, quiet and nearly ominous in its nondescript appearance, shadowed as it was by the quickly failing light. Especially surrounded as it was by equally silent and mostly abandoned and even derelict buildings. Buildings that looked nearly indistinguishable from one to the next from the exterior of Nadine's Workshop; as was intended. It would rather defeat the purpose, after all, if her building looked like it was the only occupied or well-maintained one in the immediate area.

And it certainly looked like it fit among its neighbours. Nadine had been very careful about that. Only about half of the warehouses and other buildings in the surrounding square kilometre were even properly occupied, anymore. And this time of the evening? What few of the surrounding warehouses were still in use were long since vacated in favour of homes, save for the odd nightguards.

Indeed, in their short walk from where Nadine had set the Quinjet down, they had seen a single car, and it had exited the lot of the building beyond Nadine's, turning to head in the opposite direction.

Nadine glanced to her daughter. Nina hovered near Barnes, still eying the warehouse exterior with undisguised consideration. Skeptical consideration. Nadine nearly smirked. Especially when she caught Steve's eye. Steve, who'd been here before and who had been equally uncertain until the moment she'd let him in the door.

Steve bit back a smile of his own, subtly readjusting Barnes' arm where it braced around his shoulders for stability. Something Barnes noticed, the wounded supersoldier darting a questioning look between Nadine and Steve. Readjusting Barnes' pack where it was slung over her shoulder, Nadine's lip twitched.

"A Safe Place," she answered simply. Nina's head snapped around to look at Nadine, eyes wide as she looked between Nadine and the exterior of her Workshop.

"A Safe—The Safe Place," Nina repeated, startled, "the place whose address you had me memorize when I was a kid? That Safe Place? This is it?" Nadine smiled with a faint swell of pride, pleased that Nina obviously remembered perfectly.

"Yes. That Safe Place."

It was then that she noticed Steve shooting her a questioning look. Catching her eye, he nodded unconsciously toward Nina.

"You told her about your Workshop?" Nadine offered a tense smile and half a shrug.

"Sort of. A last resort safe place to go, in case the worst happened," she explained, repeating what she'd impressed on Nina when she'd had her learn the address and her unique access codes by rote years before.

"Only if something happened to her or she told me to go," Nina added quietly, her face paling noticeably, even in the low light. Nadine's heart clenched painfully. Nina had just realized the true significance of what she had been encouraged to learn so many years before and the true reasons why, armed as she now was with everything she'd discovered about Nadine's past and her own since she'd last been in Vienna. It meant she suddenly had a much better grasp on why Nadine had insisted she know the address and codes by heart, yet had been reluctant to elaborate on the place itself or its purpose.

Inhaling a slow, bracing breath, Nadine waved them all forward. As unlikely as it was that they'd be spotted in the virtually abandoned industrial park—her diligence in ensuring any cameras on the neighbouring buildings weren't facing her building or were too far out of effective range to pick up anything substantial made sure of that—Nadine was still uneasy being out in the open. Especially given how, pale as their uniforms were, Nadine and Nina did rather stand out in the falling darkness in a way Steve and Barnes' darker coloured uniforms definitely did not. "C'mon. We need to get inside," she said firmly. But not without a reassuring glance to Nina. Though her features were still far more drawn and subdued than usual and her eyes were still full of questions, Nina nodded her understanding, following her mother's silent gesture to fall into step beside her, walking close enough that her leg hit the duffel Nadine carried. It was all Nadine could do not to let out a shaky sigh of relief that she'd done so. That she still wanted that proximity, even if only unconsciously.