Su Yi stared at the bullet casings scattered at his feet, then back at the crimson-haired operative.
"Tony," Su Yi said, shaking his head. "I told you she was interesting. And you, Natasha, you actually dared to fire a full magazine. I told you I'm a vengeful person. How are you going to make this up to me?"
Natasha, her previous aggressive posture melting into professional composure, calmly retrieved her empty pistol.
"Before you spontaneously decided to teleport us across the state, I fired only one shot to verify your defensive capabilities. The rest was involuntary. I aim accurately, Mr. Yi. What compensation do you require?"
"I haven't decided," Su Yi replied with a smirk, but his smile faded as a realization struck him. "Natasha, did you come to my villa alone, or did you have a team on standby?"
"Of course, I had a team," she admitted. "S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't typically send a single operative to interrogate a mysterious new power."
"Damn it." Su Yi knew they would be crawling all over his villa, leaving behind listening devices even after he was gone. "Tony, I need you to contact Agent Coulson immediately."
Stark, immensely entertained by the entire exchange, casually picked up his phone. "Sure, why not. Who needs a boring life, anyway?"
Coulson, currently directing a frantic search party at Su Yi's now-empty villa, answered on the first ring.
"Hello, Stark. Did you manage to find any humor in this chaos?"
Su Yi took the phone. "This is Su Yi. Natasha and I are currently at Tony's villa."
Coulson immediately grasped the terrifying implication: Su Yi had forcibly transported his top agent.
"Tell your boss, Nick Fury, that we have some vital information to discuss. Natasha will relay the details once she returns. But here is the immediate demand: Pull every one of your agents out of my villa immediately, and remove every listening device and camera. Do not leave a single piece of S.H.I.E.L.D. technology behind. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind paying a personal visit to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and leaving some interesting surprises there. Understood?"
Coulson's voice was instantly sober. "Understood, Mr. Yi. I will relay the message to the Director."
Within minutes, Coulson called back, confirming Fury's acquiescence. "The Director agrees. The assets are being withdrawn immediately. We will maintain normal, non-intrusive surveillance only. Agent Romanoff will debrief us upon her return."
Su Yi relaxed, handing the phone back to Tony. "Tony, I need your help to ensure those bastards don't leave anything behind in my house. A full electronic sweep."
"Done," Stark agreed instantly. "But the price for my genius labor is this: you owe me an explanation. A good one. No more games."
"Agreed. I will tell you something that concerns both of you," Su Yi confirmed, his expression becoming deadly serious. He looked at Stark, then at the unnerved Natasha.
"The information S.H.I.E.L.D. gave you about your mother's killer, the Winter Soldier, is true. But the bigger truth is that the Winter Soldier is an asset of HYDRA."
"And that Winter Soldier," Su Yi continued, staring at a skeptical Tony, "is actually your father's old friend, James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes."
Stark's face went slack with shock. "Bucky? But... he fell off a train sixty years ago! He would be ancient!"
"And he was captured by HYDRA," Su Yi explained. "They brainwashed him, cybernetically enhanced him, and froze him between missions. He only comes out when HYDRA requires an assassination. Your parents were one of his assignments."
Natasha, always the pragmatist, spoke up, her voice tightly controlled. "This is a fascinating story, but you expect us to believe that an enemy organization—one we believed defunct—is capable of fielding a ghost assassin and maintaining cryo-technology for half a century?"
"Oh, it gets better," Su Yi said, meeting her disbelief with calm certainty. "HYDRA has not been defeated. HYDRA is inside S.H.I.E.L.D."
Natasha scoffed. "Impossible. Our protocols—"
"You recruited their scientists after the war," Su Yi interrupted, cutting her off cleanly. "They've been burrowing from the inside for decades, implementing something called Project Insight. They've completely infiltrated your agency, your command structure, and your security council."
He pointed at Tony. "If you want to truly avenge your parents, and if you, Natasha, want to stop fighting ghosts, you have to realize that you cannot trust your own organization."
"There are very few people you can trust right now," Su Yi listed. "Director Fury, Agent Coulson, you, and Hawkeye—Clint Barton."
Natasha's composure finally shattered. The name Clint Barton unlocked a secret she had shared with no one.
"This is all a ploy to destabilize S.H.I.E.L.D.!" she shot back.
Su Yi grinned, delivering the ultimate, crippling blow. "I don't need to destabilize S.H.I.E.L.D.; HYDRA is doing that fine on their own. I need you to realize that I'm not the enemy."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, aimed directly at Natasha's deepest guilt. "You think you killed General Dreykov in Budapest, don't you? You and Barton? You thought you finally destroyed the Red Room and freed yourselves."
Natasha froze, her eyes widening in horror. "How do you know that?"
"Because you didn't kill him. Dreykov is alive, and he still runs the Red Room. He still controls the Black Widows, including your sister, Yelena Belova."
The revelation of Dreykov's survival—a fact known only to her and Clint—destroyed her last shred of professional skepticism. She took a step back, breathing raggedly.
"Impossible. We saw the destruction..."
"You saw what you wanted to see," Su Yi countered. "You only targeted him after his daughter appeared. The Black Widow program is still active. Yelena is still being controlled."
Natasha was visibly shaken. "How? Who are you?"
"I am someone who understands the complexity of this universe. What you see now is just the surface. This world is far more dangerous than you can imagine." He swept his hand around the lab.
"Your director, Nick Fury, has already fought aliens. There is a hidden order of sorcerers who defend the planet from magical threats. The figures from mythology—gods—are about to descend upon this world. All of this is coming, and your S.H.I.E.L.D. is currently a Trojan Horse."
Stark, despite his skepticism, felt a chilling tremor of recognition. "Magic? Mythology? I only believe in science, pal."
"I don't believe in magic either," Natasha whispered, but the doubt was palpable.
"Believe what you want," Su Yi concluded. "But time is short. You can verify the HYDRA and Winter Soldier information. Tony will verify the new element formula soon enough. As for you, Natasha: Yelena is in danger. The Red Room needs to be destroyed completely."
"Do you know where the Red Room is?" she demanded, her voice tight with maternal urgency.
"I don't know the exact coordinates. But the base is airborne, and I know who does: Melina Vostokoff. Find her. She's your path to Yelena."
"If you want to destroy the Red Room completely," Su Yi said, offering his final deal, "I can help. But that will require my immediate, sustained effort, and for that, you will need to prepare the appropriate compensation and the service fee."
Natasha stared at the man who knew every secret that could break the world. She needed him.
"I am an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.; I don't carry large amounts of cash," she stated, her eyes locking onto his. "However, I think I have a suitable form of down payment."
With a sudden, decisive motion, Natasha closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around Su Yi's neck and crushing her lips against his in a forceful, non-negotiable kiss—a clear declaration of immediate, personal commitment to his cause.
The kiss between Su Yi and the Black Widow marks a massive, high-stakes development in the narrative.