NIGHTMARE ▹ Natasha Romanoff

twelve.

The gun belonged to a man she wanted to forget.

As if it wasn't hard enough hearing his name, there was picture too. And, god, Svetlana hated that picture. Hated that name. Hated that man.

"You ever heard of him?" Fury turned to her. Svetlana snorted.

"Dima Ivanov? Heard of him? He was my mentor." She replied, keeping her eyes fixed on the image of the older blond man on the screen.

Of all the people in her past to show up in this nightmare, it had to have been Ivanov.

"Mentor?" Natasha looked at her. "Really?" Svetlana nodded.

"I would never forget that face. Sadly."

"What's so special about Dima Ivanov? Why was he at the scene after he bombing. How?"

Svetlana sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She was really not in the mood to chat about her shitty past. But it wasn't like Fury was giving her an option anyway.

"Ivanov was one of the best. He was a veteran, a hero, and he mentored me for four years. Before he went rogue." She took a deep breath. "He got involved with the Morosov Cartel a while after I got my badge. That was only the beginning. From there he went deeper and deeper into the Russian criminal underground, until he went MIA. Then, after a year or so, classified intel that only he once had access to had been leaked."

"So why was he at the bomb site? What has he got to do with any of this." Barton asked.

"Ivanov's a traitor and a murderer. I'm not surprised he's upped his game to mass killings." She said bitterly. Now that the old wounds were opened, the anger flowed out again. "He's also a ghost. Some people say he's dead. Some think he's running most of the cartels now. No one knows for sure. What we do know is; he's untraceable. I'd know, I've been trying for a while."

"So what now? How does this help us?"

Svetlana mused for a second. And old name came to mind. "I have a contact. If Ivanov's made his presence known anywhere in the underworld, he'll know." She said, turning to Fury. "I've heard he's living in the States, too."

Fury watched the screen a moment more. "Fine. Romanoff, go with her. Let's see if we can track down this ghost."